After she had been a little longer in town, Rose saw more clearly the
workings of that ambition which had undermined her cousin's happiness.
She saw where the canker ate and withered, but she did not know how it
could be eradicated. Something which women understand, prevented her
laying open the secrets of the house to Edward; and yet she desired
counsel. Possessing much observation as to the workings of the human
heart, she had but little knowledge as to how those feelings might be
moulded for the best; and she naturally turned for advice, and with
the faith of a Christian spirit, to the pastor who had instructed
her youth. He had loved them both, and she longed for his counsel, in
the--alas! vain--hope that she, a right-minded but simple girl--simple
as regards the ambition of life's drama--might be able to turn her
cousin from the unsatisfied, unsatisfying longings after place and
station. The difference in their opinions was simply this--Rose
thought that Helen possessed everything that Helen could desire, while
Helen thought that Helen wanted all things.
It was morning--not the morning that Rose had described to her lover,
but not more than seven o'clock--when Rose, who had been up late the
previous night, was awoke by her cousin's maid. On entering Helen's
dressing-room she found her already dressed, but so pale and
distressed in her appearance, that she could hardly recognise the
brilliant lawgiver of the evening's festivities in the pale, languid,
feverish beauty that was seated at her desk.
"Dear Helen, you are weary; ill, perhaps," exclaimed her gentle
cousin. "You have entered too soon into gay society, and you suffer
for the public restraint in private."
Her cousin looked steadily in her face, and then smiled one of those
bitter disdainful smiles which it is always painful to see upon a
woman's lip.
"Sit down, Rose," she said; "sit down, and copy this letter. I
have been writing all night, and yet cannot get a sufficient number
finished in time, without your assistance."
Rose did as she was desired, and, to her astonishment, found that
the letters were to the inhabitants of a borough, which Mr. Ivers
had expressed his desire to represent. Rose wrote and wrote; but the
longest task must have a termination. About one, the gentleman himself
came into the room, and, as Rose thought, somewhat indifferently,
expressed his surprise, that what he came to commence, was already
finished. Still he chid his fair wife for an exertion which he feared
might injure her health, and evinced the strongest desire to succeed
in rescuing the people of L---- from the power of a party to which he
was opposed; hinting, at the same time, that the contest would drain
his purse and many of his resources.
"And let it," exclaimed Helen, when he left the room, "let it. I
care not for _that_, but I will overturn every thing that interposes
between me and the desire I have to humble the wife of the present
representative. Look, I would hold this hand in the fire, ay, and
suffer it to smoulder into ashes, to punish the woman who called me
a proud _parvenue_! She did so before I had been a week in London.
Her cold calm face has been a curse to me ever since. She has stood,
the destroying angel, at the gate of my paradise, poisoning every
enjoyment. Let me but humble _her_," she continued, rising proudly
from the sofa upon which she had been resting; "let me but humble
_her_, and I shall feel a triumphant woman! For that I have watched
and waited; _anxiety for that caused me the loss of my child_; but if
Ivers succeeds, I shall be repaid."
Rose shuddered. Was it really true, that having achieved the wealth,
the distinction she panted for, she was still anxious to mount higher?
Was it possible that wealth, station, general admiration, and the
devoted affection of a tender husband did not satisfy the humbly-born
beauty of an obscure English village? Again Helen spoke; she told how
she had at last succeeded in rousing her husband to exertion--how,
with an art worthy a better cause, she had persuaded him that his
country demanded his assistance--how he had been led almost to believe
that the safety of England was in the hands of the freeholders of
L----; and then she pictured her own triumph, as the wife of the
successful candidate, over the woman who had called her a _parvenue_.
"And, after all," murmured poor Rose, "and after all, dear Helen, you
are really unhappy."
"Miserable!" was the reply--"no creature was ever so perfectly
miserable as I am! The one drop of poison has poisoned the whole cup.
What to me was all this grandeur, when I felt that _that_ woman looked
down upon me, and induced others to do the same; that though I was
with them, I was not of them; and all through her means. Ivers could
not understand my feeling; and, besides, I dare not let him know
what had been said by one of his own clique, lest _he should become
inoculated by the same feeling_."
"Another fruit," thought Rose Dillon, "of the evil which attends
unequal marriages."
"But _my_ triumph will come!" she repeated; "Ivers must carry all
before him; and _who knows what may follow_?"
"Still unsatisfied!" thought Rose, as she wandered through the
splendid rooms and inhaled the perfume of the most expensive exotics,
and gazed upon beautiful pictures, and listened to the roll of
carriages, and heard the kind fond voice of Helen's devoted husband
urging the physician, who made his daily calls, to pay his wife the
greatest attention. "Still unsatisfied!" she repeated; and then she
thought of one of Edward's homely but wise proverbs--"All is not
gold that glitters;" and she thought how quite as beautiful, and
more varied by the rich variety of nature, was the prospect from
the parlour-window of the farm-house, that was to be her own. "And
woodbine, roses, and mignonette breathe as sweet odours as exotics,
and belong of right to the cottages of England. Ah!" continued the
right-minded girl, "better is a little and content therewith, than all
the riches of wealth and art without it. If her ambition had even a
_great_ object I could forgive her; but all this for the littleness
of society." This train of thought led her back to the days of
their girlhood, and she remembered how the same desire to outshine
manifested itself in Helen's childhood. If Mr. Stokes had been there
he could have told her of the pink gingham, with her grandmother's
injudicious remark thereupon--"Be content with the pink gingham _now_,
Helen--_the time will come when you shall have a better_;" instead
of--"Be always content, Helen, with what befits your sphere of life."
That day was an eventful one to Rose. In the evening she was seated
opposite the window, observing the lamplighter flying along with his
ladder and his link through the increasing fog, and wondering why the
dinner was delayed so much beyond the usual hour--when the little old
cranky gentleman, whose keen and clever observations had given Rose a
very good idea of his _head_, and a very bad one of his heart, stood
beside her. In a few brief words he explained, that seeing she was
different to London ladies, he had come to the determination of making
her his wife. He did not seem to apprehend any objection on her part
to this arrangement; but having concluded the business in as few words
as possible, stood, with his hands behind him, very much as if he
expected the lady he addressed to express her gratitude, and suffer
him to name the day. Firmly and respectfully Rose declined the honour,
declaring "she had no heart to give," and adding a few civil words of
thanks to the old gentleman, who would have evinced more sense had he
proposed to adopt, not marry her. Without a reply, the old gentleman
left the room; but presently her cousin entered, and in terms of
bitter scorn, inquired if she were mad enough to refuse such an
offer--one that would immediately take her out of her humble sphere,
and place her where she might be happy. Rose replied, with more than
usual firmness, that she had learned, since she had been with her,
the total insufficiency of rank and power to produce happiness. "I am
convinced," she continued, "that it is the most likely to dwell where
there are the fewest cares, and that the straining after distinction
is at variance with its existence. To be useful, and fulfil well
the duties of our native sphere, is the surest way to be happy. Oh!
Helen, you do not know what it is; you look too much to the future to
enjoy the present; and I have observed it ever since you threw away
the handful of jessamine we had gathered at the grey fountain of
Abbeyweld, because you could not have moss roses like the squire's
daughter."
"Foolish girl!" she answered, "has not perseverance in the desire
obtained the moss roses?"
"Yes," said her cousin, sadly, "but now you desire exotics. I should
despise myself if it were possible that I could forget the affection
of my heart in what appears to me the unsubstantial vanities of life.
Dear Helen, in sickness or sorrow let me ever be your friend; but I
must be free to keep on in my own humble sphere."
It seemed as if poor Rose was doomed to undergo all trials. Helen was
not one to yield to circumstances; and though her physician prescribed
rest, she lived almost without it, avoiding repose, laying herself
under the most painful obligations to obtain her end, and enduring the
greatest mental anxiety. Not only this; she taunted poor Rose with her
increased anxieties, affirming, that if she had not rendered the old
gentleman her foe by the ill-timed refusal, he would have assisted,
not thwarted, her cherished object; that his influence was great,
and was now exerted against them. "If," she added, "you had only the
common tact of any other girl, you might have played him a little
until the election was over, and then acted as you pleased."
This seemed very shocking to Rose, and she would have gone to
Abbeyweld immediately, but that she thought it cruel to leave her
cousin while she felt she was useful to her. "Ah, Rose!" she said,
when poor Rose hinted that in a short time she must return, "how can
you think of it?--how can you leave me in an _enemy's country_? I dare
not give even my husband my entire confidence, for he might fancy my
sensitiveness a low-born feeling. I can trust you, and none other."
Surrounded, according to the phrase, "with troops of friends," and
yet able to _trust_ "none other" than the simple companion of her
childhood! "And yet," murmured the thoughtful Rose, "amongst so many,
the blame cannot be all with the crowd; Helen herself is as incapable
of warm, disinterested friendship as those of whom she complains."
Rose Dillon's constancy was subjected to a still greater trial.
Amongst the "troops of friends" who crowded more than ever round Mr.
Ivers while his election was pending, was a young man as superior to
the rest in mind as in fortune, and Rose Dillon's ready appreciation
of the good and beautiful led her to respect and admire him.
"Is it true, Miss Dillon," he said to her one morning, after a lagging
conversation of some twenty minutes' duration--"is it true, Miss
Dillon, that you have discarded altogether the attentions of Mr.
----?" and he named the old gentleman whose offer had been so painful
to Rose, and who was now made painfully aware that the subject had
been publicly talked of. This confused her. "Nay," he continued, "I
think you ought to be very proud of the fact, for he is worth two
hundred thousand pounds."
"If he were worth ten hundred thousand, it would make no difference to
me," was the reply.
"Then, you admit the fact."
Rose could not tell a falsehood, though she confessed her pain that
it should be known. "I intend," she added, "to remain in my own quiet
sphere of life; I am suited for no other."
The gentleman made no direct reply, but from that hour he observed
Rose narrowly. The day of the election came, with its bribery and its
bustle. Suffice it, that the Honourable Mr. Ivers was declared duly
elected--that the splendour of the late member's wife's entertainments
and beauty, were perfectly eclipsed by the entertainments and beauty
of the wife of the successful candidate--that every house, _except_
one, in the town was splendidly illuminated--and that the people
broke every pane of glass in the windows of that house, to prove their
attachment to the great principle of freedom of election. "God bless
you, cousin!" said Rose; "God bless you--your object is attained. I
hope you will sleep well to-night."
"Sleep!" she exclaimed; "how can I sleep? Did you not hear the wife
of a mere city baronet inquire if late hours did not injure a country
constitution; and see the air with which she said it?"
"And why did you not answer that a country constitution gave you
strength to sustain them? In the name of all that is right, dearest
Helen, why do you not assert your dignity as a woman, instead of
standing upon your rank? Why not, as a woman, boldly and bravely
revert to your former position, and at the same time prove your
determination to support your present? You were as far from shame
as Helen Marsh of Abbeyweld, as you are as the wife of an honourable
member. Be yourself. Be simply, firmly yourself, my own Helen, and you
will at once, from being the scorned, become the scorner."
"This from you, who love a lowly state?"
"I love my own birthright, lowly though it be. No one will attempt to
pull me down. I shall have no heartaches--suffer no affronts?"
"Oh!" said Helen, "if I had but been born to what I possess."
"Mr. Stokes said if you had been born an honourable, you would have
grasped at a coronet."
"And I _may_ have it yet," replied the discontented beauty, with
a weary smile; "I _may_ have it yet; my husband's brother is still
childless. If I could be but certain that the grave would receive him
a childless man, how proudly I would take precedence of such a woman
as Lady G----"
Rose looked at her as she spoke. In the glorious meridian of her
beauty--a creature so splendid--of such a fair outside--with energy,
and grace, and power--married by a weak ambition--an ambition achieved
by the accident of birth--an ambition having neither honour, nor
virtue, nor patriotism, nor any one laudable aim, for its object. And
she sorrowed in her inmost soul for her cousin Helen.