Rosamund

“ Rosamund, speak first. Nay, not all the truth—a maid’s thoughts are her own—but just the cream of it, that which rises to the top and should be skimmed.”
Rosamund sighed. “I? I was thinking of the East, where the sun shines ever and the seas are blue as my girdle stones, and men are full of strange learning—”
“And women are men’s slaves!” interrupted Wulf. “Still, it is natural that you should think of the East who have that blood in your veins, and high blood, if all tales be true. ”

“ Rosamund Gray, my soul is exceeding sorrowful for thee—I loathe to tell the hateful circumstances of thy wrongs. Night and silence were the only witnesses of this young maid's disgrace—Matravis fled.
Rosamund, polluted and disgraced, wandered, an abandoned thing, about the fields and meadows till daybreak. Not caring to return to the cottage, she sat herself down before the gate of Miss Clare's house—in a stupor of grief. ”

“ A maid’s heart is her own, and her future lies in the hand of God and His saints, where let it bide, say I. Now we have done with all this business. Rosamund, dismiss your knights, and be you all three brothers and sister once more till this time two years, when those who live will find an answer to the riddle.”
So Rosamund came forward, and without a word gave her right hand to Godwin and her left to Wulf, and suffered that they should press their lips upon them. ”

“ Rosamund had an incurable objection to hills. At the foot of a hill she generally made certain curious rumblings in her inside, and then all power of movement seemed to die away, and Rosamund was content to form a stationary object of the landscape.
Henry was toiling up the hill with her in a state of moist heat when he saw a girlish figure in white descending it. It looked like Gladys Philips in the distance. A familiar panic overcame him. Few tortures were more painful to him than meeting girls he knew on a long and solitary road. At what point exactly should he smile and raise his hat? ”

“ Therefore I sheathe not my sword.”
“Take no heed of him,” said one; and Heraclius, standing back in the aisle, addressed Rosamund:
“Daughter,” he cried, “with bitter grief we are come to ask of you a sacrifice, that you should give yourself for the people, as our Master gave Himself for the people. Saladin demands you as a fugitive of his blood, and until you are delivered to him he will not treat with us for the saving of the city. Come forth, then, we pray you.”
Now Rosamund rose and faced them, with her hand resting upon the altar. ”

“ Some, I know, will think these things trifles—and they are so—but if these minutiæ make my reader better acquainted with Rosamund, I am content to abide the imputation.
These promises of character, hints, and early indications of a sweet nature, are to me more dear, and choice in the selection, than any of those pretty wild flowers, which this young maid, this virtuous Rosamund, has ever gathered in a fine May morning, to make a posy to place in the bosom of her old blind friend. ”

“ Rosamund is absolutely devoid of it. If you had any spark of the Divine Fire in you, my dear boy, you could not have helped recognizing it in little Frances, even though she can hardly play a note. But, after all, one doesn’t expect much perception from youth. ”

“ Give them their lives and let them go free, and win thereby the gratitude of mankind and the forgiveness of God above.”
So Rosamund spoke, and stretching out her arms towards him, was silent.
“These things I offered to them, and they were refused,” answered Saladin. “Why should I grant them now that they are conquered?”
“My lord, Strong-to-Aid,” said Rosamund, “do you, who are so brave, blame yonder knights and soldiers because they fought on against desperate odds? ”

“ By his side, his elbows resting on the altar rails, his eyes fixed upon the beaming armour that he would wear in battle, knelt Wulf, his brother—a mighty man, a knight of knights, fearless, noble, open-hearted; such a one as any woman might well love. And he also loved Rosamund. Of this Godwin was sure. And, oh! did not Rosamund love Wulf? Bitter jealousy seized upon his vitals. Yes; even then and there, black envy got hold of Godwin, and rent him so sore that, cold as was the place, the sweat poured from his brow and body. ”

“ Lady Ursula was alone in the drawing-room when I entered.
“How do you do, Rosamund?” she said. “You did not expect me to find you out here: but of course Rupert and Tom told me all about you. Sit down there, where I can take a good look at you. Rosamund, what a remarkably wicked young woman you are.”
“I don’t understand you, Lady Ursula.”
“Please call me Ursula. We shall be cousins when I am Rupert Valentine’s wife. Do you know, Rosamund, that I have taken an immense fancy to you!”
“What! you have taken a fancy to a wicked young woman!” ”

“ Schubert never meant that 'Rosamund' should interfere with anybody's business."
"And—when did you first encounter the malice in 'Rosamund,' Captain Selwyn?" she asked with perfect self-possession.
He did not answer immediately; his smile had died out. Then: "The first time I really understood 'Rosamund' was when I heard Rosamund during a very delightful dinner."
She said: "If a woman keeps at a man long enough she'll extract compliments or yawns." ”

“ Now will you pass me your word—for being of the blood of Salah-ed-din and D’Arcy, you, too, cannot lie—that neither now nor afterwards you will attempt to harm yourself? If not, I must bind you, which I am loth to do—it is a sacrilege to which I pray you will not force me.”
“Promise, Rosamund,” said the hollow voice of her father, “and go to fulfil your fate. Self-murder is a crime, and the man is right; it is decreed. I bid you promise.”
“I obey and promise,” said Rosamund. “It is your hour, my lord Hassan.” ”

“ Those dreary years of exile in Africa, the day by day tension of his precarious life, were absolutely forgotten. His heart was calling all the time for an unknown boon. He felt himself immeshed in a world of cobwebs, of weakness more potent than all his boasted strength. Then he suddenly felt that the madness which he had begun to fear had really come. It was the thing for which he longed yet dreaded most—the faint click, the soft withdrawal of the panel, actually pushed back by a pair of white hands. Rosamund herself was there. ”

“ An hour later he sent his card in to Rosamund Fane; and Rosamund came down, presently, mystified, flattered, yet shrewdly alert and prepared for anything since the miracle of his coming justified such preparation.
"Why in the world," she said with a flushed gaiety perfectly genuine, "did you ever come to see me? Will you please sit here, rather near me?—or I shall not dare believe that you are that same Captain Selwyn who once was so deliciously rude to me at the Minster's dance." ”

“ This was Rosamund's first quick summing up. As there was nothing else to look at, she proceeded to examine the two new arrivals very closely as they entered the hotel and came down the lounge.
The woman was notably attractive, but not notably young. Her clothes and her manners were the last word in modernity; her garments were so elegant and uncommon that she would have been conspicuous anywhere as a woman of taste, money, and some daring.
Rosamund, who liked most people, did not like her—no, not at all. ”

“ Little Robin bore at present no resemblance to the Hermes, or indeed—despite the nurse’s statements—to any one else except another baby; but already it was beginning mysteriously to be possible to foresee the great advance—long clothes to short clothes, short clothes to knickerbockers, knickerbockers to trousers. Robin would be a boy, a youth, a man, and what Rosamund was might make all the difference in that Trinity. The mystic who enters into religion dedicated her life to God. Rosamund dedicated hers to her boy. ”

“ For some days after this, although he was always watching her, Lozelle approached Rosamund but seldom, and whenever he did so he found Hassan at her side, or rather standing behind her like a guard.
At length, as it chanced, the prince was taken with a sickness from drinking bad water which held him to his bed for some days, and then Lozelle found his opportunity. Rosamund strove to keep her cabin to avoid him, but the heat of the summer sun in the Mediterranean drove her out of it to a place beneath an awning on the poop, where she sat with the woman Marie. ”

“ Your mother told me once that she rather wondered if the whole thing would end in Rosamund’s becoming a Roman Catholic, too. She made friends with a woman at Francie’s convent.... But it won’t. Rosamund hasn’t the religious temperament, for one thing. All she needed was to find herself. A modern phrase, isn’t it—and one that I rather avoid, as a rule, but it’s expressive enough. The child had to learn proportion—and it was taught her through the strongest thing she knew—her love for Frances. Reality is the only medium for reality, after all. ”

“ Great things, I think, for you and Wulf and me. Remember, I am half an Eastern, and we children of the East can feel the shadow of the future before it lays its hands upon us and becomes the present. I fear it, Godwin—I tell you that I fear it.”
“Fear it not, Rosamund. Why should you fear? On God’s knees lies the scroll of our lives, and of His purposes. The words we see and the words we guess may be terrible, but He who wrote it knows the end of the scroll, and that it is good. ”

“ Then, as Rosamund fled to the cabin, the fray began, a hideous fray. On came the Assassins with sword and dagger, striving to storm the deck. Again and again they were beaten back, till the waist seemed full of their corpses, as man by man they fell beneath the curved scimitars, and again and again they charged these men who, when their master ordered, knew neither fear nor pity. But more boatloads came from the shore, and the Saracens were but few, worn also with storm and sickness, so at last Rosamund, peeping beneath her hand, saw that the poop was gained. ”

“ Bertha straightened herself slowly, and faced him.
“No,” she replied, deliberately, but very decisively. “The love of a place is a great thing—and I’m Cornish through and through, as you know—but, after all, other things matter more. Little Rosamund, for instance. Oh, it’s not only that she wanted me—wanted me to mother and shield and comfort her, as only a child that’s bought its own wilful experience can want one, but there’s the need of giving in her, too. You know that. I rather fancy that you, too, understand Rosamund.” ”

“ Rosamund's mind was pensive and reflective, rather than what passes usually for clever or acute. From a child she was remarkably shy and thoughtful—this was taken for stupidity and want of feeling; and the child has been sometimes whipt for being a stubborn thing, when her little heart was almost bursting with affection.
Even now her grandmother would often reprove her, when she found her too grave or melancholy; give her sprightly lectures about good humour and rational mirth; and not unfrequently fall a crying herself, to the great discredit of her lecture. ”

“ Me, not my darkling wraith, my changeling foe,
My thief of love, our traitress. This I bid thee,
Forget thy fear and shame to have wronged me: night
Breeds treacherous dreams that can but poison day
If thought be found so base a fool as dares
Fear. Did I doubt thy love of me, I durst not
Live or look back upon thee.
ALMACHILDES.
Wilt thou then
Fly?
HILDEGARD.
Dost thou know what flight means—thou?
It means
Fear. And is fear a new-born friend of thine?
ALMACHILDES.
God help us! if he live, and hate not man—
If Satan be not God. We will not fly.
Enter Albovine and Rosamund. ”

“ Rosamund did not understand, either. She did not try to understand; she was only aware that life had suddenly become more interesting than she had ever supposed it would be. You might not think that it was very exciting to play the part of a substitute, even to such a splendid person as Sir Tony Langton, but then Rosamund had never hoped to be even a substitute. ”

“ An answer came into the heart of Godwin, at the very thought of which he turned pale and trembled. His brother was also sworn to Rosamund, and she in her soul must be sworn to one of them. Was it not to Wulf, Wulf who was handsomer and more strong than he, to Wulf, the conqueror of Lozelle? Had Rosamund told Masouda this? Nay, surely not.
Yet women can read each other’s hearts, piercing veils through which no man may see, and perchance Masouda had read the heart of Rosamund. She stood behind her during the dreadful duel at the gate, and watched her face when Wulf’s death seemed sure ”

“ It was manifestly impossible that Rosamund could go up to the farm and reveal herself to Mrs. Lockett, the one person she must not meet.
Rosamund did not feel so aware of fear now as she did of being aggravated, on edge, utterly uncomfortable, and at a loss. She wanted to put a cushion behind Edward's head, but she was afraid to touch him, he was shaken so; she was afraid that if she touched him he might break. Why had n't he told her that he had attacks like these? Surely there was something he could take? Was n't there always something that people could take? ”

“ So near to the abyss now that no more clutching at thoughts and memories can save her, Rosamund prays:
[316] “Let her die. Let it all be over for her. Oh God, if there is mercy and pity in You let Frances die now. She has made the sacrifice—she was willing to give up everything for You—let that be enough—let her die now. Don’t let her come back to it all. If she dies now, it will be all over. She will be with You in Heaven perhaps, or else it will just be nothing—all over. That would be best—oh, that would be best. Never to know or feel anything any more—to be at rest. ”