Rose Clark

The gay, prancing horses, with their flowing tails and manes, the silver-mounted harness, and the bright buttons of the liveried coachman, sent a brighter sparkle to the baby's eyes, and a richer glow to his cheeks. He crowed, and laughed, and clapped his little hands, till wearied with pleasure, and lulled by the rapid motion of the carriage, his little limbs relaxed, and he fell asleep.

What is so lovely as a sleeping babe?

The evening star gemming the edge of a sunset cloud? the bent lily too heavy with dew to chime its silver bells to the night wind? the closed rose-bud whose fragrant heart waits for the warm sun-ray to kiss open its loveliness?

Unable to account for the powerful magnetism by which she was drawn to the beautiful child, the old lady sat, without speaking, passing her fingers over his ivory arm, and gazing upon the rich glow of his cheek, the perfect outline of his limbs, and the shining curls of his clustering hair.

"Is this baby's mother a widow, Chloe?" she asked, at length.

"I think so, missis – I don't know – I ax no questions."

"Is she wealthy?"

"Lor', bless you, no, missis; her clothes all mended berry carful."

"I wish I had this baby," said the old lady, half musingly, as she again looked at Charley.

"Oh, Lor', missis, she lub him like her life – 't ain't no use, I tink."

The old lady seemed scarcely to hear Chloe's answer, but sat looking at Charley.

"It would be a great comfort to me," she continued. "Where does his mother live, Chloe?"

"In – street," answered the negress.

"That is close by, I will drive you to the door, and you must ask leave to bring him to see me, Chloe;" and impressing a kiss on the face of the sleeping child, she resigned him to his nurse.

Rose sat rocking to and fro in her small parlor, in a loose muslin wrapper, and little lace cap, languid from the excitement of the previous day, thinking of Gertrude, and wishing she had but a tithe of that indomitable energy to which obstacles only served as stimulants; and then Gertrude was talented, what had she but her pretty face? and that, alas! had brought her only misery!

"Come in," said Rose, in answer to a slight tap on the door.

"Ah, sit down, Gertrude. Chloe has just carried Charley away, and I am quite alone."

"I must make a sketch of that ebony Venus, some day," said Gertrude.

"I confess," said she, as she seated herself in Rose's little rocking-chair, "to a strong penchant for the African. His welling sympathies, his rollicksome nature, and his punctilious observance of etiquette in his intercourse with his fellows, both amuse and interest me.

"Your genuine African has dancing in his heels, cooking at his fingers' ends, music on his lips, and a trust in Providence for the supply of his future wants equaled only by the birds of the air.

"He dances and prays with a will, nor thinks the two inconsistent, as they are not. You should have gone with me, Rose, to an African church not long since. I had grown weary of fine churches, and superfine ministers, and congregations so polished that they had the coldness as well as the smoothness of marble. I wearied of tasseled prayer-books, with gilt clasps, and all the mummeries which modern religionists seem to have substituted for true worship.

"So I wandered out into the by-streets and poor places to find nature, rough and uncultivated though it might be. A tumble-down looking church, set among some old tenement-houses, caught my eye. Bareheaded children were hanging round the door, scarcely kept in abeyance by a venerable-looking negro sexton in the porch, with grizzled locks and white neckerchief, whose admonitory shakes of the head habit had evidently made second nature, as he bestowed them promiscuously, right and left, till service was closed.

"I entered and took my seat among the audience. No surly pew occupant placed a forbidding hand on the pew door. Seats, hymn-books, crickets, and fans were at my disposal. The hymn was found for me. I found myself (minus 'a voice') joining in the hearty chorus. Who could help it? 'God save the King' and the Marseillaise were tame in comparison. Every body sang. It was infectious. The bent old negress, with her cracked voice, her broad shouldered, muscular son, her sweet-voiced mulatto daughter, and her chubby little grandchild, with swelling chest, to whom Sunday was neither a bugbear nor a bore. And such hearty singing! – sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow, but to my ear music, because it was soul, not cold science.

"It was communion-Sabbath, and so I went up to the chancel and knelt side by side with my dusky friends. The clergyman was a white man, and it was millennial to see his loving hand of blessing laid on those dusky brows. This is as it should be, said I – this is worship; and as we retired to make room for other communicants, the clergyman himself stepped forward to assist to the chancel a gray old negress, of fourscore years, whose tottering steps were even then at the grave's brink. I went home happy, for I had not fed on husks.

"Ah! visitors? Then I must run," said Gertrude, springing up at a rap on the door.

"It is Chloe, I fancy," said Rose.

"Well, good-by," said she, stooping to kiss Charley, whom she passed on the threshhold, "I must back to my easel. Ah! it is the locket you want, not me, you rogue," said she to Charley, as she disengaged a chain from her neck, and threw it over the child's, "mercenary, like the rest of your sex."

Chloe marched in with Charley, who, now wide awake, sat perched upon her shoulder, looking as imperial as young Napoleon.

"This yere boy has got to go, missis," said Chloe, still marching round the room, as if treading all objections under foot. "Whar's his frocks and pinafores? My ole missis. Vincent, see him, and take him to ride in her fine carriage, and cry over him, cause she say he so berry like her poor murdered boy."

"De Lor'! missis," exclaimed Chloe, "how white you look! Whar's your salts?"

"Open the window," said Rose, faintly, "the room is too close, Chloe."

"Thar – will you hab some water, missis? you ain't nowise strong yet," said Chloe. "Hadn't you better lie down, missis?"

"No, thank you. What were you saying, Chloe, about Charley?"

"Well, you see, my ole missis. Vincent, she gib me my freedom, you know; good missis, but hab berry bad son; berry handsome, but berry bad; bad for wine, and bad for women; gambled, and ebery ting; broke his ole fadder's heart clean in two, and den got killed hisself by some bad woman.

"Ole missis berry rich now, but her money ain't no comfort, cause she hab to lib all alone. To-day she met me wid Massa Charley here. De Lor', how she did take on! She say he look jess like young Massa Vincent, when he was little piccaninny, and she kiss him, and hold him, and hab such a time ober him, and noting would do but he must go ride in de carriage, and she bring us way home to de door.

"She wants you, missis, to let her hab Charley. I told her you wouldn't, certain," said Chloe, with a scrutinizing glance at Rose, for in truth, Chloe secretly wished, in that African heart of hers, that the matter might be brought about, and that she might be installed nurse for the handsome boy.

"No, of course, you wouldn't, missis; but wouldn't it be a fine thing for you, Massa Charley?" said she, perching him on the edge of her knee, "to ride all de blessed time in dat fine carriage, and one day hab it all yourself, and de house, and de silver, and de money, for missis hab no relations now, no chick, nor child, and you're just handsome enough to do it," said Chloe, with another sly glance at Rose's face. "You're jess born for dat same – dat's a fac – so ole Chloe tinks, yah, yah – jess as well to laff about it, missis," said the cunning Chloe, "no harm in dat, you know; but he took to the ole lady jess as nat'ral, and set up in her lap, just as if he belonged dere in dat carriage; it made ole Chloe laff – yah, yah. Massa Charley, he make his way in de world wid dat handsome face of his'n. Ole Chloe is always stumbling on good luck," said the old negress, laughing, "all for dis," said she, exhibiting an old metal "charm" attached to a string inside her dress. "Good-by – we shall see. I come for you agin, Massa Charley, for my ole missis berry childish, when she wants a ting she will hab it, and de debbel hisself can't help it – yah, yah."

As the door closed on old Chloe's weird figure, Rose almost felt as if her words were prophecies. What if the law of nature should set aside all other law and bring in a verdict for Charley? Should she, regardless of her strong maternal feelings, yield him up? Away from her he would escape the taunt of his birth, and yet how could she school her heart to such a parting. What was wealth and position compared to high moral principle and a pure life? If Vincent's mother knew not how to instill these into her own son, might she not wreck Charley on the same fatal rock? But what wild dream was her brain weaving? She could not, would not deceive Madam Vincent, and then would there not be a revulsion of feeling when the proud old lady knew the truth? for how could Rose mention the great wrong she had suffered, and not wound the doting mother's heart? or how could she yield up Charley to one who would ignore his mother? No, no. She would think no more of it; and yet that Vincent's mother should have petted and fondled, even unconsciously, Vincent's boy – there was comfort in that thought.

"Are you well enough to receive a visitor this morning," asked Doctor Perry, as he entered the room.

"Physicians do not consider it necessary to ask that question," said Rose, with some little embarrassment in her manner. "I have much to thank you for, doctor, and am none the less grateful for your kind attentions, that I was unconscious of them. But how happened it?" asked she, with surprise. "I thought you had left town with Captain Lucas. How did you find us?"

"No," said the doctor, "I was unexpectedly detained by business. The morning of the day you were taken ill, happening to pass, I saw you accidentally at the window, and resolved to call that very evening. It happened quite opportunely, you see."

"Yes – thank you; I think I had become overpowered with the heat and fatigue."

"I was apprehensive of brain fever," said the doctor; "you talked so incoherently."

Rose's face instantly became suffused, and the doctor added kindly:

"Whatever I may have heard, is of course, safe with me, Rose."

"No one else heard?" she asked.

"No one. Your landlady is too deaf, and Chloe seemed absorbed in taking care of Charley, and preparing your medicines."

"Rose," said the doctor, "if my possession of your secret distresses you, suppose I give you one in exchange: I had, and have, no business in New Orleans, save to watch over you and yours. Every weary footstep of yours, my eye has tracked; nay, do not be angry with me, for how could love like mine abandon your helplessness in this great strange city? I am not about to weary you by a repetition of what you have already heard, or distress you by alluding to what you unconsciously revealed. I know that your heart is cold and benumbed; but Rose, it is not dead. You say you are grateful to me for what, after all, was mere selfishness on my part, for my greatest happiness was, though unseen, to be near you. I will be satisfied with that gratitude. Will you not accept for life, my services on those terms?" and the doctor drew his chair nearer to Rose, and took her hand in his own.

"You know not what you ask," mournfully replied Rose. "You are deceiving yourself. You think that in time, gratitude will ripen into a warmer feeling. I feel that this can never be. My heart has lost its spring; it is capable only of a calm, sisterly feeling, and the intensity of your love for me would lead you after awhile to weary of, and reject this; you would be a prey to chagrin and disappointment. How can I bring such a misery on the heart to whose kindness I owe so much?"

"Rose, you do not know me," said the doctor, passionately. "Do not judge me by other men. As far as my own happiness is concerned, I fearlessly encounter the risk."

"Then," said Rose, thoughtfully, "there would be dark days when even your society would be irksome to me, when solitude alone could restore the tension of my mind."

"I should respect those days," replied her lover; "I would never intrude upon their sacredness; I would never love you the less for their recurrence."

"Then," said the ingenuous Rose, blushing as she spoke, "the sin which the world wrongly imputes to me will never be forgiven of earth. As your wife I must appear in society; how would you bear the whisper of malice? the sneer of envy? – no, no!" said Rose, while tears stole down her face; "I must meet this alone."

"Rose, you shall not choose!" said the doctor, passionately. "I must stand between you and all this; I declare to you that I will never leave you. If you refuse me the right to protect you legally, I will still watch over you at a distance; – but oh Rose, dear Rose, do not deny me. I have no relations whose averted faces you need fear; my parents are dead. I had a sister once; but whether living or dead I know not. There are none to interfere between us; let us be all the world to each other.

"Charley! plead for me," said the doctor, as he raised the beautiful child in his arms; "who shall pilot your little bark safely? This little hand is all too fragile," and he took that of Rose tenderly in his own – "Nay, do not answer me now; I am selfish so to distress you," said he, as Rose made an ineffectual attempt to speak; – "think of it, dear Rose, and let your answer be kindly; oh, trust me, Rose."

As he stooped to place Charley on the floor, the locket which the child had around his neck became separated from the chain to which it was attached, and, striking upon the floor, touched a spring which opened the lid; under it was a miniature. The doctor gazed at it as if spell-bound.

"Where did you get this, Rose? Surely it can not be yours," and a deadly paleness overspread his face.

"It belongs to a lady who boards here," said Rose, "and who transferred it from her neck to Charley's this morning. Has it any interest for you?"

"What is her name? let me see her!" said the doctor, still looking at the picture.

"Her name? Gertrude Dean," said Rose.

"Dean?" repeated the doctor, looking disappointed, "Dean? Rose, that is a picture of my own father."

While they were speaking, Gertrude tapped on the door. "My locket, dear Rose; I hope 'tis not lost."

Turning suddenly, her eye fell upon the doctor. With a wild cry of joy she flew into his arms, exclaiming, "My brother! my own long-lost Walter!"

CHAPTER XLII

"Good morning, missis," and Chloe's turbaned head followed the salutation. "Didn't I tell you dat Massa Charley be born wid a silver spoon in his mouf? His dish right side up when it rains, for certain.

"See here, missis," and she handed Rose a small package, containing a pair of coral and gold sleeve-ties for Charley's dimpled shoulders. "Didn't I tell you dat missis couldn't lose sight of him? and she sent me here for him to come ride in de carriage wid her again to-day, and eat dinner at de big house, and all dat," and Chloe rubbed her hands together, and looked the very incarnation of delight.

"Well," said Rose, "Charley has nothing fine to wear; only a simple white frock, Chloe."

"All de same, missis; he handsome enuff widout any ting. Missis must take powerful liking to give him dese; dey are Massa Vincent's gold sleeve-ties he wore when he little piccaninny like Charley dare."

Rose took them in her hand, and was lost in thought.

"Jess as good, for all dat, missis," said Chloe, thinking Rose objected to them because they were secondhand. "Missis wouldn't gib dem away to every body, but she say Charley so like young Massa Vincent, dat she couldn't talk of nuffing else de whole bressed time. Hope you won't tink of sending them back, missis," said Chloe, apologetically; "she is old and childish, you know."

"No," said Rose, sadly; "Charley may wear them;" and she looped them up over his little white shoulders, with a prayer that his manhood might better fulfill the promise of his youth.

"Ki!" exclaimed Chloe, as she held him off at arm's length. "Won't ole missis' servants – Betty, and Nancy, and Dolly, and John, and de coachman, and all dat white trash, tink dey nebber see de like of dis before? And won't Massa Charley make 'em all step round, one of dese days, wid dem big black eyes of his?"

Chloe's soliloquies were very suggestive, and Rose sat a long while after her departure analyzing Charley's disposition, and wondering if the seeds of such a spirit lay dormant in her child, waiting only the sun of prosperity to quicken them into life. How many mothers, as they rocked their babes, have pondered these things in their hearts; and how many more, alas! have reaped the bitter harvest of those who take no thought for the soul's morrow!

CHAPTER XLIII

"And so you will not give me the poor satisfaction of punishing and exposing the scoundrel who has treated you so basely?" said John to his sister, as they sat in her little studio.

"No," said Gertrude; "he has taken that trouble off your hands – he has punished himself. He has traveled all over the Union in search of employment, and succeeded in nothing he has undertaken. He has met with losses and disappointments in every shape, and occupies, at present, a most inferior business position, I am told. Now that I have become famous, and it is out of his power to injure me, he quails at the mention of my name in public, and dreads nothing so much as recognition by those who are acquainted with his baseness. He sneaks through life, with the consciousness that he has played the part of a scoundrel – what could even you add to this?"

"But the idea of such a miserable apology for a man getting a divorce from a sister of mine," said John, striding impatiently across the room. "Why did you not anticipate him, Gertrude? and with right on your side, too."

"Had I been pecuniarily able to do so," replied Gertrude, "I had not the slightest wish to oppose a divorce, especially as I knew it could be obtained on no grounds that would compromise me. For months after Stahle left me, and, indeed, before, he and his spies had been on my track. Had there been a shadow of a charge they could have preferred against my good name, then would have been their hour of triumph! I have a copy of the divorce papers in my possession, and the only allegation there preferred is, that I did not accept Stahle's invitation to join him when he wrote me, in the manner I have related to you."

"But the world, Gertrude, the world," said the irritated John, "will not understand this."

"My dear John," said Gertrude, "they who desire to believe a lie, will do so in the face of the clearest evidence to the contrary. But I have found out that though a person (a woman especially) may suffer much from the bitter persecution of such persons, from the general undeserved suspicion of wrong, and from the pusillanimity of those who should be her defenders, yet even in such a position, a woman can never be injured essentially, save by her own acts, for God is just, and truth and innocence will triumph. I am righted before the world; my untiring industry and uprightness of life are the refutal of his calumnies. Leave him to his kennel obscurity, my dear John. I do not now need the blow that I am sure you would not have been slow to strike for me had you known how your sister was oppressed."

"I don't know but you are right, Gertrude, and yet – if he ever should cross my path, my opinion might undergo a sudden revulsion. Does he still keep up the show of piety?"

"So I have heard," said Gertrude. "The first thing he does, when he goes into a new place is to connect himself with some church. What a pity, John, such men should bring religion into disrepute."

"You think so, do you? And yet you refuse to expose it. It is just because of this that so many hypocrites go unmasked. Sift them out, I say – if there is not a communicant left in the church. I do not believe in throwing a wide mantle over such whited sepulchers."

"Do you suppose," said Gertrude, "that they whose houses are built on such a sandy foundation will quietly see them undermined? Such a hue and cry as they will raise (all for the honor of the cause, of course!) about your 'speaking lightly of religion and its professors!'"

"Very true," said John, "it is speaking lightly of its professors but not of its possessors. They might as well tell you to keep dumb about a gang of counterfeiters, lest it should do injury to the money-market; bah! Gertrude, I have no patience with such tampering; but to dismiss an unpleasant topic, you have plenty of employment, I see;" and John glanced round the room at Gertrude's pictures. "I am proud of you, Gertrude; I honor you for your self-reliance; but what is your fancy, with your artistic reputation, for living such a nun's life?"

"Well," said Gertrude, "in the first place, my time is too valuable to me to be thrown away on bores and idlers, and the Paul Pry family, in all its various ramifications. Autograph hunters I have found not without their use, as I never answer their communications, and they find me in letter stamps. But entre nous, John, I have no very exalted opinion of the sex to which you belong.

"Men are so gross and unspiritual, John, so wedded to making money and promiscuous love, so selfish and unchivalric; of course there are occasionally glorious exceptions, but who would be foolish enough to wade through leagues of brambles, and briars, to find perchance one flower? Female friends, of course, are out of the question, always excepting Rose, whose title is no misnomer. And as to general society, it is so seldom one finds a congenial circle that, having resources of my own, I feel disinclined to encounter the risk."

"This isolation is unnatural; Gertrude, you can not be happy."

"Who is?" asked Gertrude. "Are you? Is Rose? Where is the feast at which there is no skeleton? I make no complaint. I enjoyed more happiness in the five years of my first wedded life than falls to the lot of most mortals in a life-time. I know that such an experience can not be repeated, so I live on the past. You say I am not happy; I am negatively happy. If I gather no honey, I at least escape the sting."

"I wish for my sake, Gertrude, you would go into society. I can not but think you would form new ties that would brighten life. As a woman, you can not be insensible to your attractive power."

"I have no desire to exert it," replied Gertrude; "there are undoubtedly men in want of housekeepers, and plenty of widowers in want of nurses for their children. My desires do not point that way."

"You are incorrigible, Gertrude. Do you suppose there is no man who has sense enough to love you for yourself alone?"

"What if I do not want to be loved?" asked his sister.

"But you do," persisted John; "so long as there is any vitality in a women, she likes to be loved."

"Well, then, granting your proposition for the sake of the argument, please give me credit for a most martyr-like and persistent self-denial," said Gertrude, laughing.

"I will give you credit for nothing, till your heart gets thawed out a little; and I think I know a friend of mine who can do it."

"Forewarned forearmed," said his sister.

CHAPTER XLIV

"Rose, you are not looking well, this morning. Confess, now, that you did not sleep a wink last night. I heard the pattering of your little feet over my head long after midnight."

"Very likely, for I was unaccountably restless. I will tell you what troubled me. I was trying to think of some way to support myself; I wish I had a tithe of your energy, Gertrude."

"Well you have not, you are just made to be loved and petted. You are too delicate a bit of porcelain to be knocked and hustled round amid the delf of the world. Your gift is decidedly wife-wise, and the sooner you let my good brother John make you one, the better for all of us."

"What do you think of my turning authoress?" asked Rose, adroitly turning the subject.