"A stiff breeze, captain; we shall soon be in New Orleans at this rate.
Talk about yellow fever; it can not be worse than sea-sickness. If a
good appetite does not come to my rescue, on reaching land I shall pass
for a live skeleton.
"But, captain, who is this pretty stewardess you have on board? and you
a family-man, too; eh, captain? And what child is that she has the care
of? And what the deuce ails her?--so young and so sedate, so pretty and
so uncome-atable! I don't understand it."
"I don't know that it is necessary you should," said the old captain,
dryly.
"That's true enough; and if she were homely, she might sigh her soul out
before my curiosity would be piqued; but a pretty woman in trouble is
another thing, you know. I feel an immense desire to raise a smile on
that pretty face, though it could hardly look more enchanting under any
circumstances."
"Look here, Fritz," said the captain; "while that young creature is
aboard my ship, she is under my protection. Understand? Not that any of
your coxcombical nonsense could make any impression on her, for her
heart is heavy with sorrow of some kind, but I won't have her annoyed or
insulted. I don't know her history myself, nor shall I ask to know; her
post as stewardess is a mere sinecure, though she does not know it.
"She came to me with that child in her arms, in great distress to get to
New Orleans, and proposed herself as stewardess. I saw she was in
trouble, somehow--young, beautiful, and unprotected; I have daughters
just her age; I imagined them in a similar position. Her dignified
modesty was a sufficient recommendation and guaranty. I knew she would
be hurt at the offer of a _free_ passage, so I told her that I needed a
second stewardess. That is all I know about her; and, as I said before,
while she is aboard my ship, I will protect her as if she were my own
child;" and the old man stowed away a tobacco-quid, and walked fore and
aft the cabin, with a determined step.
"Certainly," said the foiled Fritz; "your sentiments do you honor,
captain. But I have not seen her for two or three days; is she sick?"
"No; but the boy is, and I told her to let every thing go by the board,
and attend to him till he was better. Beautiful child he is too; I have
never seen a finer one. Doctor Perry thinks he will soon right him."
"Doctor Perry!" exclaimed Fritz, with a spasm of jealousy; "it is my
opinion he will make a long job curing that boy."
"The doctor is not one of _your_ sort," said the captain; "her very
defenselessness would be to him her surest shield. The doctor is a fine
man, Mr. Fritz."
"Yes, and young and unmarried," answered Fritz, with a prolonged
whistle. "We shall see," said he, taking the captain's spy-glass to look
at a vessel that was looming up in the distance.
"Charley appears brighter to-day," said Rose to Doctor Perry. "Captain
Lucas is very kind to me; but I am very anxious to get about to fulfill
my engagements. Don't you think my boy will be well soon?"
"There is every prospect of it," said Doctor Perry. "He is improving
fast. I will stay by him, if you will allow me," said he, more anxious
to give Rose a reprieve from the confined air of the cabin than
solicitous for the "fulfillment of her engagements."
"Thank you," replied Rose, in her usual grave tone, without raising her
eyes; "but I would not like to trouble you."
"Nothing _you_ could ask would trouble me," replied the doctor, "unless
you asked me to leave your presence."
Rose drew her girlish form up to its full height as she answered: "I
did not think you would take advantage of my position to insult me,
sir."
"Nor have I, nor do I," replied the doctor, with a flushed brow. "I love
you--I love you honorably; I would make you my wife; I am incapable of
insulting any woman."
Tears sprang to Rose's eyes as she answered, "Forgive me; I can not
explain to you _why_ I am so sensitive to a fancied insult."
"Nor need you," replied the doctor, as an expression of acute pain
passed over his fine features; "Rose, let me stand between you and harm;
be my wife--my own, dear, honored wife."
"Oh no, no, no!" gasped Rose, retreating as he approached her; "you do
not know--or you would not. Sir!" and the color receded from her lip and
cheek--"that boy!--God knows I believed myself an honored wife."
"Rose," again repeated the doctor, without heeding her confession, "will
you be my wife?"
"I can not," said Rose, moved to tears by his generous confidence,
"_that_ would be sin--I have no heart to give you. Though all is
mystery, though I never more may see him, I love the father of my boy."
The doctor rose, and walked the little cabin.
"Is this your final answer?" asked he, returning to the side of Rose.
"I can give no other, much as I thank you for this proof of your--" and
here her voice again failed her.
"Rose," exclaimed the doctor, passionately seizing her hand, "I will not
ask you to love _me_. I will be satisfied if you will allow me to love
_you_."
Poor Rose, none knew better than herself how eloquently the heart may
plead; and _because_ she knew this, because only to the voice of the
loved one would the chords of _her_ heart vibrate, did she turn away
from that pleading voice and those brimming eyes.
For a long time Rose sat with her face buried in her hands after the
doctor left her. It was hard so to repay such trust. Could he only be
her brother--her counselor--but no--her path in life must be solitary.
Would the cloud never roll away?
Must it always be so?
Would Vincent never come to claim her?
Would a life of purest rectitude _never_ meet its reward?
Would the world's scornful "Magdalena" be her earth-baptism?
Would the sweet fount of her boy's life be turned to bitterness?
Would he grow up to blush at his mother's name?
Would his hand be raised in deadly fray to avenge the undeserved taunt
which yet he knew not how to repel?
O, Vincent!
Rose's refusal of Doctor Perry but added fuel to the flame; it is the
unattainable we seek, the unattainable only that we fancy can satisfy;
the unattainable that at any cost we must have.
How could he give her up? How think of her in the great, busy, wicked
city, to which she was going, unfriended and penniless? Was there no way
he could be of service to her? No way in which, without offending her
sensitiveness, he could shield her from suffering and insult. Who was
the father of her child? She "still loved him," believed him true to
her--looked forward to the time when his honor should be vindicated on
her behalf.
The doctor knew more of the world. The film would fall from her eyes by
and by; he would wait patiently for that moment: then, perhaps, she
would not turn away from him. She was too noble to cherish the memory of
one she believed to be base. What alliance could purity have with
pollution? Poor, trusting, wronged Rose! How immeasurably superior was
she even now, and scorned thus, to the pharisaical of her own sex who,
intrenched outwardly in purity, and pointing the finger of scorn at the
suspected of their own sex, yet hold out the ready hand of welcome to
him who comes into their presence, foul from the pollution of
promiscuous harlotry.
Beautiful consistency! Pure Christianity! From the decision of such an
incompetent tribunal, thank God! Rose could appeal to a Higher Court.
Rose was a daily marvel to the conceited Fritz. Accustomed in his
grosser moments to those debasing _liaisons_ which so infallibly unfit a
man for the society of the pure in heart, he could not comprehend the
reserve--even _hauteur_--with which the pretty Rose repelled every
advance to an acquaintance.
At first, his surprised vanity whispered that it was only a cunning
little _ruse_, to enhance the value of surrender, but this astute
conclusion was doomed to be quenched by Rose's determinate and continued
persistency. Then Fritz had fallen into the common error of fancying
that to know _one_ woman was to know the whole sex; not dreaming that it
is necessary to begin with a different alphabet, in order to read
understandingly _each_ new female acquaintance;--a little fact which
most men blunder through life without finding out.
In vain he displayed his white hands. In vain he donned successively his
black suit, his gray suit, and his drab suit (which last he never
resorted to except in very obstinate cases); in vain he tied his cravats
in all sorts of fanciful forms; in vain he played "sick" in his crimson
silk dressing-gown, or languished on deck in his Jersey overcoat. In
vain he, who detested children, made advances through Charley, who was
now convalescent; in vain he remarked in Rose's hearing that "his gloves
needed mending," and that "the buttons were off his linen." Rose might
as well have been deaf, dumb, and blind, for all the notice she took of
him.
It was unaccountable. Fritz was piqued--in fact he did not like it, and
consulted his never-failing solace, the looking-glass, to see what was
the matter. There was still Fritz enough left (such was the verdict of
the looking-glass), spite of sea-sickness, to satisfy any reasonable
woman.
"Pooh! Rose was a stupid little thing; that was the amount of it; there
was no use wasting his time on her;" and this last, by the way, was the
only sensible reflection he had yet arrived at. He could fancy very well
why she had not liked Doctor Perry (the doctor's distrait manner of late
had attracted his notice). "Perry was well enough, but"--and Fritz
finished the sentence by affectionately caressing his adolescent
mustache.
"Yes, Rose was a stupid little automaton--she had no soul." Fritz had so
much soul himself, that he considered that article a _sine quâ non_ in
any woman he honored with his notice.
Meanwhile the gallant vessel plowed her plashing way through the
pathless waters. Over the mermaids, if there were any, over the coral
reefs, over the wondrously beautiful sea-weeds, over the sheeted dead in
their monumentless sepulchers; dashing--plunging--creaking--soaring and
sinking--defying winds and storms--scattering the dolphins--startling
the sea-birds--hailing cheerily the homeward and outward
bound--careering as gayly over the treacherous waves, as if the
shivering of a mast, a little water in the hold, or the leaden lids of
the pilot, might not land the passengers with their joys, sorrows, and
embryo plans on that measureless shore whence there is no return boat.