Rosaleen

“ It was Miss Waters and Rosaleen. Miss Waters beckoned mysteriously to Miss Mell, and they vanished into the back room.
“Have you got your third person for the studio yet?” Miss Waters enquired, anxiously.
Miss Mell shook her head.
“Then you can have Rosaleen!” cried Miss Waters, with triumph. “I’m so glad, for your sake, and for her sake. It’s an ideal arrangement!”
And, seeing that Miss Mell looked only polite and not enthusiastic, she went on:
“You will just love that child! She has the disposition of an angel. Never a cross or disagreeable word. And after all she’s been through!” ”

“ She flagrantly neglected her work. Leaning back against the wall, arms clasped behind her head, she gossiped with Miss Waters. And Miss Waters, stifling a feeling of guilt at thus not earning her money, gave herself without restraint to this illicit, this joyful chatter. For Rosaleen was joyful, in spite of her great anxiety, her dread of losing her Nicholas. Even if she lost him now, she would have the happiness of knowing that one man at least had looked upon her with tenderness and delight. ”

“ Sedately, arm in arm, they walked along Tenth{53} Street and turned up Fifth Avenue, Miss Waters leaning heavily upon Rosaleen and chattering with youthful exuberance, roguishly aware of the glances that followed her. And her hat did blow off, and bowled along ahead of them, like a dusty, terrified little animal, until a man stopped it with his foot and with disdain and in silence returned it to the dishevelled artist. ”

“ Rosaleen too was working, but neither contentedly nor successfully. The more she saw of the others, the less she thought of herself. They worked with such industry, hour after hour. They didn’t seem to have the slightest trace of her fatal desire for distraction. After she had been drawing for an hour or so, she always became intolerably restless, so that even washing dishes was a relief.... By the side of Enid Bainbridge she felt as some poor little clergyman, struggling incessantly to feed and clothe his family, sick with cares and worries of this world, might feel by the side of Saint Paul. ”

“ He was always ready to wait for a woman, to defer to her, to serve her; he believed it to be his duty as a gentleman; and yet so fierce and haughty was his spirit that he was never without an inward resentment.
He was waiting for her now in the corridor of the Fifth Avenue library. It was a wet October afternoon; he sat on a stone bench with his coat collar still turned up, the brim of his hat still turned down, just as he had come in from the street. He hadn’t even taken off his tan gloves, soaked black by the rain; he didn’t care how he looked, and he knew Rosaleen wouldn’t care either. ”

“ There was only one whom she knew at all; Miss Mell, a stout girl in spectacles, who had been Miss Waters’ first pupil, years ago. She came with commendable regularity to visit her old teacher every two or three weeks, and Rosaleen had more than once seen her in the studio, sitting quite still and listening to Miss Waters’ talking, a kindly and amused smile on her face. Then there was a desperately lively girl who ran a tea room, and two agreeable young English women, and a disagreeable, sneering old gentleman with a goatee, whose name she never learned, nor whose business there. ”

“ We’re the best of friends?”
“Oh, yes!” said Rosaleen, brightly, and in her mind added:
“If only I can get away from you and never, never set eyes on you again ...!”
A desolating weariness was upon her; her limbs were like lead as she climbed the stairs. Her chief desire was not to wake Mell and Bainbridge; the idea of having to talk to them, to open her lips even to answer them, was intolerable. She had had her fill of talking that night.{163}
For the sake of ventilation the girls always slept with the curtains between the rooms drawn back and the studio windows open; and so it was now. ”

“ No one sent a present, except Miss Waters; no one came to call upon Rosaleen.
Lawrence had been just emerging from Bohemianism to the respectability of success. He had lived with order and comfort; he had been invited about, flattered, more or less “lionized.” But he was not yet really established; he had no solid footing in that upper world, that “society” he so worshipped. He had no prestige to give Rosaleen, even if he had wished to do so. As a matter of fact, he carefully concealed the fact of his marriage from all these people.
The first invitation he got after the wedding was to a tea. ”

“ In the meantime Rosaleen had hurried to knock at the door of Mr. Humbert’s room.
“Mr. Morton!” she murmured. “Here’s a young man—a—a friend of Miss Waters.... Would you like to come out and see him?”
“Presently,” the dignified voice replied, and Rosaleen hastened back.
“He’ll be in presently,” she repeated to Nick, as she returned. He had risen when she entered, and once more he took her hand. Her nervousness, her distress, filled him with pity.
“Isn’t there anyone else? Do you live all alone with your uncle?”
“Oh, no! There’s ... there’s—a—cousin.... But she’s out.... Won’t you sit down?” ”

“ Perhaps his love for Rosaleen had given Nick a more understanding heart, or perhaps it was that he was well-disposed toward everyone associated with the beloved woman, but from whatever cause, he saw Miss Waters that day in a new light. He saw her not as a comic old maid, but as a quite admirable human being. She was a plucky old girl, struggling along with art lessons, and a wonderful friend. ”

“ Rosaleen swept and dusted and cleaned, took down curtains, beat rugs and sofa cushions, and baked a cake, all according to custom. And Sunday, too, passed as it always did. They all went to church in the morning, and spent the afternoon in dignified drowsiness. Even Rosaleen was affected; she sat in the front room with them, reading a book, but near the window, so that from time{63} to time, when there was an interesting sound of footsteps or voices, she could look out into the street. So many couples going by, arm in arm....
On Monday she was quite ready to go to Miss Waters’ again. ”

“ She had to stop for a moment, to choke down the words on the tip of her tongue, terms of contempt for Rosaleen which common sense told her had not yet been deserved. Then she went on:
“I shan’t try to prevent you from seeing—young men. It’s none of my business. But I won’t have any deceit about it. Anyone who’s interested in you has a right to know who you are and what you are.”
With a mighty effort Rosaleen concealed every trace of emotion. She looked up with an impatient sigh.
“But, Miss Amy, I can’t be telling all about myself to everyone I meet. I don’t expect to see him—that man—again. ”

“ He was still fairly nice to Rosaleen in those days, although he was beginning to grow exasperated with her. She insisted upon being always his servant; never his friend, his comrade. She was always constrained; she never talked freely about what interested her; instead she was forever anxious to hearten and encourage Lawrence, to “draw him out” ”

“ Then Miss Julie gave her picture books to look at, things insultingly beneath her intelligence. This good lady didn’t realise that Rosaleen had for a long time been treated as an adult; that she sat with her mother and her mother’s friends, listening with profound interest to long tales of illnesses, births, deaths, of bad husbands and good ones, of tragedies beyond the knowledge of this household. Babies scalded in wash tubs, women maltreated by their men, girls who disappeared, lingering illnesses in bleak poverty. ”

“ Every evening after dinner Enid would put on a dance record and Miss Mell, pinning up her skirt so that her feet could the better be observed, would steer Rosaleen through the steps of fox-trot, one-step and waltz. Enid would criticise. But even she admitted that Rosaleen had a gift.
“It’s Irishness,” she said. “They’re all nice dancers, I notice; all those downtrodden, suffering nations, Poles and Irish, and so on. Queer, isn’t it?” ”

“ With utter earnestness, sincerity, with justice and compassion for Lawrence, Rosaleen tried to give Landry the story of her marriage. She had only one motive—that this man should not think her worse than she was. She felt that if he could be brought to see why she had done this and that, he would no longer blame her. She wished to make him see how inevitable it had all been.
She began with the day that Lawrence had come to her room to kill himself. She and Miss Waters had tended him with frightened assiduity all the afternoon, but in vain. ”

“ Very well; that is Enid. Now this sweet child, Rosaleen, is promising. She is innocent, naïve. She sees what is, because she is rather too stupid to imagine what is not. I am going to teach her.”
“To see what is not, I suppose,” said Enid. “Go ahead, then. Of course you’ll spoil her. She was useful before. She used to cook the meals and go to market and sweep and mend our clothes. Now she’ll want to draw.”
“So she shall draw! She shall be my Galatea. I shall create an artist with my own breath.”
He sat down beside the alarmed and confused Rosaleen and began to instruct her. ”

“ Rosaleen came home from Miss Waters’ that afternoon terribly dispirited. He hadn’t come!
The afternoons were growing very short now. The flat was altogether dark when she let herself in, and she went from room to room, to light the gas jets and turn them very low. First in the long hall, then in Mr. Humbert’s room, with its flat top desk covered with papers and its severe orderliness, then in Miss Amy’s room, where, in the mirror over the bureau, she caught a glimpse of herself, still in her hat and jacket, looking oddly blurred and misty in the dim light. Somehow that image frightened her ”

“ She was a woman of natural ferocity and violence, but controlled and dominated by a passionate desire to be good. So well did she rule herself that she very rarely spoke a sharp word, and though she had a deep-rooted and unshakable dislike for Rosaleen, she treated her with generosity. ”

“ Nick had given up, long ago. And now, he had almost come to believe that her way, if not the right way, was certainly one of the right ways of living, and that Rosaleen divorced would not have been quite Rosaleen. Sometimes, when he grew intolerably lonely for her, or when the sight of her in her white apron flying about waiting on other men incensed and distressed him more than usual, he would rail at her “obstinate, petty conventionality.” ”

“ Miss Mell intervened.
“See here, Enid, my child, this won’t do! You mustn’t offend Rosaleen. Don’t be too much of a genius!”
“There’s no reason for her to be offended. She’s not personally responsible for Miss Waters. I’ve simply put my foot down about the old imbecile——”
“But the studio belongs to all three of us,” said Miss Mell. “And Rosaleen and I want Miss Waters. It’s two against one.”
Miss Bainbridge had got up and was looking at them with an ugly, narrowed glance. But Miss Mell continued her unpacking, and Rosaleen, instead of quailing, met her look quite calmly. ”

“ He wouldn’t have had anything changed, from her sturdy little boots to her plain dark hat.
He rose and came toward her, hat in hand, and for a moment they looked at each other, speechlessly.
“Suppose we have tea?” he said, at last. “There’s a nice place near here where they have very good waffles.”
“I’m not a bit hungry,” said Rosaleen.{82}
Nick was. He had gone without lunch in order to have enough money for tea.
“You ought to be, at your age,” he said.
“It isn’t age that makes you hungry,” said Rosaleen. “It’s what you’ve had for lunch.” ”

“ That’s the way those good little boys get themselves out of an awkward situation.”
“No!” said Rosaleen. “I—wanted him to go.”
“But it wasn’t very hard to get rid of him, was it?”
“Yes! Yes! It was!” she cried.
“Then why did you do it, may I ask? His money was extremely useful.”
“Lawrence!” she cried, in a sort of despair. “Don’t you realise that all people aren’t—like that? Don’t you know that there are some good people?”
“You mean yourself, I take it. You want me to realise how much better you are than me? Is that the idea?”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t mean myself. I meant him ... Mr. Landry. ”

“ He knew almost every artist of reputation, but casually. He had been engrossed in his desire to enter society, and he hadn’t troubled much with his colleagues. His chief{225} object in “entering society” had been to find a rich wife; and although he knew that any such thing would now have been impossible, still he blamed Rosaleen in his heart. ”

“ To know that Rosaleen was living in comfort somewhere in God’s world was quite enough. She hadn’t a trace of sentimentality. An excess, even very slight, of whiskey or even of strong boiled tea, could cause Mrs. Monahan to shed tears and to shake her head with delicious melancholy over life and its pains, and she professed to look upon death as a blessed release. But all this in no way affected her actions. She resigned her lovely child to this erratic and sentimental spinster because she saw very clearly the benefits which might be obtained. ”

“ And suddenly came to the conclusion that it must have been Rosaleen. She “just felt” that it was. And it worried her beyond measure. She knew that Rosaleen was quite alone in her studio now, for Mell and Bainbridge had gone to Provincetown for the month of July, and she felt sure that something was wrong. Rosaleen wouldn’t have called her out for nothing. She peered into the studio; the meek{179} pupil was still drawing a “study” of empty boxes; then she hurried out of the flat and back to Tony’s fruit store. ”