Rosebud

“ Rosebud's guardian was a Mr. Grewgious, an [Pg 442] arid, sandy man who looked as if he might be put in a grinding-mill and turned out first-class snuff. He had scanty hair like a yellow fur tippet, and deep notches in his forehead, and was very near-sighted. He seemed to have been born old, so that when he came to London to call on Rosebud amid all the school-girls he used to say he felt like a bear with the cramp. Grewgious, however, under his oddity had a very tender heart, particularly for Rosebud, whose mother he had been secretly in love with before she married. ”

“ One day, Rosebud called Snowdrop into the garden, and sitting under a large almond-tree, she said: “Look over this book of prints with me, while we talk softly, for the duenna must not hear every thing.”
[Pg 214] Snowdrop rested her golden tresses upon her sister’s arm, and, turning over the leaves of the book, they talked together.
“Sister dear,” said Rosebud, “we lead a very dull life here. All young girls are gay and happy. What is the use of being beautiful, with no one to see us but servants and old women?” ”

“ Do you fear the night?”
“No, pretty Bertha,” said Rosebud. “For me the night is often more beautiful than the day. I walked behind my granny, last night, a long way in the moonlight, and was not afraid.”
And Rosebud then related to Bertha what had happened, and how she had followed the old woman.
“Ah, I see that you have courage!” said Bertha; “you will not fail me. But why do you say ‘pretty Bertha’? I can see you, little Rosebud, for there are holes pierced in the rock to let in the light of day, and through one of these I see your face, and a charming face it is ”

“ And in accordance with the trust, the lawyer charged Drood if anything should be amiss or if anything happened between him and Rosebud, to bring back the ring.
Mr. Grewgious gave him this keepsake with such wise and friendly advice on the seriousness of marriage that all the way to Cloisterham with the ring in his pocket, Edwin Drood was very thoughtful. He asked himself whether he really loved Rosebud as a man should love his wife, whether he had not drifted into this betrothal rather as a result of their parents' wish and wills than from any deeper feeling. ”

“ It might be Edwin Drood returned from abroad or from disguise. Edwin Drood making love to Helena Landless. In chapter viii. he was ‘already enough impressed by Helena to feel indignant that Helena’s brother should dispose of him (Edwin) so coolly’ to Rosebud.
Or could it be Tartar proposing to Rosebud? But Tartar had no moustache either as himself or as Datchery, and the girl’s figure has a suggestion of lithe dignity which I don’t associate with the ‘little beauty’ Rosebud. ”

“ And as Little Rosebud hadn't no money, she said yes, and the villain called a cab and they started for Brooklyn, him laughing to himself all the time, thinking how easily she was going to tumble into the trap he was getting fixed for her."
"Hot air!" murmured Phœbe.
"But while they were rattling over the Brooklyn Bridge, another man was following them in another cab—a Wall-street broker with barrels of cash. He was Raymond Leslie, and a real good man. He'd seen Rosebud get into the cab with Paul Howard, who he knew for a villain for fair. ”

“ I have heard—mind, this is only hearsay—that there are a handful or so down on the Rosebud Reservation. I wouldn’t vouch for it. You can hear most anything in this day and generation. The few I have met seem mild enough. They appear to be rather afraid of me. Their chief occupations seem to be dog-eating and divorce-getting, so you can see for yourself how highly modern and civilized they are becoming. I am sure you will have no trouble.”
Louise had not altogether believed this rollicking letter, but it had helped her to her decision.
Wind City and still no Indians ”

“ By the side of the garden-flowers,—of Spring's curled darlings, the hyacinths, of rosebuds, dear to sketching maidens, of flower-de-luces and morning-glories,—nay, oftener than these, and more tenderly caressed by the colored brush that rendered them,—were those common growths that fling themselves to be crushed under our feet and our wheels, making themselves so cheap in this perpetual martyrdom that we forget each of them is a ray of the Divine beauty. ”

“ Who now so happy as Rosamund? She had oft-times heard Allan speak with great tenderness of his sister—she was now rambling, arm in arm, with that very sister, the "vaunted sister" of her friend, her beloved Clare.
Not a tree, not a bush, scarce a wild flower in their path, but revived in Rosamund some tender recollection, a conversation perhaps, or some chaste endearment. Life, and a new scene of things, were now opening before her—she was got into a fairy land of uncertain existence. ”

“ You!—really, Rosamund, your words are a little too bold to be always agreeable.”
“Please forgive me, Cousin Geoffrey. I just came here to-day to ask you for a little help—just a trifle out of all your wealth, and I don’t want you to think to think.”
“That you have come prying round like the other relatives? Why, child, your eyes have got tears in them. They look soft now—they were fierce enough a few moments ago. I don’t think anything bad of you, Rosamund; you are a brave girl. You shall come and see me again.”
“I will, with pleasure, when I come to London, to study art.” ”

“ Roseborough is full of them already. Another of those is an outrage!”
“My—dear—child! What is an outrage?”
“That another oldish man is coming to Roseborough! I want a fairy prince—or a beggar—or a tramp—if only he is young! He can come to the back door in bare feet and fustian, or in rags and patches. I shan’t mind what he wears or how empty his pockets are, if only he is young—young—and can laugh out loud and say ‘Good-morning, Rosamond!’”
“My—dear! You go so fast; and tears and laughter71 follow each other so rapidly that I am all in a whirl. But if you think my Jack....” ”

“ Rosamund longed to ask a thousand questions about them. They were so much more interesting than the girls who were staying at Sunnyside; they were so fresh, and their dress so out of the common.
A somewhat prim and very neatly dressed governess followed the six girls up the aisle and took her place at the end of the pew. But Rosamund could still see from where she sat the heads with the six green hats and the wealth of fair hair hanging below. She was full of interest, and altogether her thoughts were occupied first by the Professor and then with her neighbors. ”

“ He had made himself equally free of the house and grounds of Villa Rose. Though, before others, his manner to the Villa’s lady was formal, he expressed, in private, the intimate affection of a brother. Her widowhood appealed to his chivalry; and her black ribbons, he said, put out the sun for him; how had the anomaly of grief entered Roseborough and how had it attached itself to her?
“In me you have always a brother, a friend, a protector,” he would say. “What privilege of manhood is more to be envied than the right to shelter women?” ”

“ Anyhow, I respect Rosamund, and I dare say I'd have had to spend the night in her room, or perhaps even have had to come home, but something most welcome happened. Thank goodness, Rosamund isn't a prig! She's awfully passionate, and has plenty of strong feelings. She's not a bit a goody-goody; I'd just hate her like anything if she were. But that Lucy—you know that prim thing, the daughter of the Professor and Mrs. Merriman? Well, she came into the room, and I was under the bed in a twinkling. She argued with Rosamund and found fault with her, and got dear old Rose into a towering passion. ”

“ Vaguely conscious of the unfamiliar and uncomfortable chair in which he sat, the young man looked out upon Rosemary, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, with an all-embracing, all-understanding love. It came to her with a sense of surprise that father was only a little older than she was; he had paused, and she, receiving the gift of life from him, had gone on. And the little mother, brave in her white satin, with her long veil trailing down from her wreath of orange blossoms; she too, loved Rosemary; indeed, with a holy deepening of her soul, she loved the whole world. ”

“ Tush, desire hath no respect of persons: Cupid is blind and shooteth at random, as soon hitting a rag as a robe, and piercing as soon the bosom of a captive as the breast of a libertine. Thou speakest it, poor Rosalynde, by experience; for being every way distressed, surcharged with cares, and overgrown with sorrows, yet amidst the heap of all these mishaps, love hath lodged in thy heart the perfection of young Rosader, a man every way absolute as well for his inward life, as for his outward lineaments, able to content the eye with beauty, and the ear with the report of his virtue. ”

“ Witherby so that dear Mrs. Lee can continue to believe in the beneficent spirit of Roseborough. Roseborough will open its arms to her Jack Falcon instead of tearing off his hair—that is, if he still has hair. B’r’r’r, but I am a-weary of old men!”
She gathered up her breakfast dishes, and took them into the kitchen. The kitchen closet yielded a blue-checked all-over apron of Amanda’s. Rosamond literally dropped herself into it at the neck. ”

“ Old head and young head pondered in silence.
“If they could come together in some wholly unexpected way, without personalities, and not as Roseborough and Jack Falcon, who shook the dust of Roseborough from his feet sixteen years ago! If only they could meet under other identities and, having no memories, each immediately find the other’s true self!”
“Like a fairy prince and a fairy kingdom. Oh, yes, that would be lovely. But,” the gay, mocking light danced within her eyes again, “even if life is ‘beautifully arranged,’ it is not so beautifully arranged as all that!” ”

“ Since Roseborough would have it that she was not a Mearely, nor a legitimate child of Roseborough, she would let them all experience the encounter they sought with little Rosamond Cort, the farmer’s daughter, of Poplars Vale, who could fill her two hands with earth and declare “this is my earth—the earth I sprang from!” ”

“ Lee,’ she said to me, ‘when Jenny Hackensee sews a bow on even a child’s hat, or a bone button on the band of a genteel woman’s flannel petticoat, my conscience is satisfied that it will never come off!’ Poor Miss Jenny. She fears that the Roseborough ladies may forget her worth and run after follies. My dear husband used to say that that trait was one of the charms of Roseborough—namely, the loving regard each person in the community has for the general morale. ”

“ First from Herr Ruggle, of the telegraph, when together we reach for our milk pails on the back of the porch. Then from Dr. Wells. Finally from everybody! I have heard how this beautiful Rosamond, of Roseborough, has been suspected, maligned; her reputation slandered, ruined—criticized—criticized”—he hissed out the word with uncontrollable fury—“by you—and you—and you,” snapping his fingers right and left. “Yes, criticized! and why? why?” Glaring, he paused for emphasis. “Because a gentleman calls upon her, at his convenience! What is more natural?” ”

“ Lord Bereford was an ardent admirer of Lady Rosamond—"a true Bereford,"—the counterpart of her mother, Maria Bereford, whose beauty had been the theme of unusual admiration. For hours could he gaze upon his sister's child and recall the past, when a beautiful girl wandered through the old familiar spots and looked to him for brotherly sympathy when any annoyance rose before her. When the young girl grew to womanhood and gave her affection to his boyhood friend, Sir Thomas Seymour, he bestowed his blessing. ”

“ Rosamund, true to her promise, had breathed no word of her new friend; and Mrs. Bates, the woman who came in to do the housework and attend to Charlotte, had perhaps been bribed to secrecy: at any rate she said nothing. But as Charlotte grew better Rosamund’s long absences began to worry her. She asked herself “What is it the child runs after all day? Is she, too, going to leave off loving me?” And she sighed, and crept down to the beach to look for the child.
Far along the beach she saw Rosamund’s red fisher-cap—a bright spot of colour. ”

“ Rosamond vowed inwardly. An inspiration came to her, from the springs of her naturally impulsive generosity, which went far to restore her to her former position in the hearts of Roseborough’s spinsters.
“Wait, wait,” she called. “I’ll give you some bottles of Amanda’s parsnip wine. That will be better than Dollop’s syrup. And a basket full of glasses and some ginger cookies, and you can picnic down by the tower in that little nook of the slough.”
Not delaying for more than the first “hooray,” she caught up her flower basket from the porch and ran into the kitchen. ”

“ It was to him wholly natural that Rosamond Mearely—being, for all her beauty and wealth, only a woman after all and therefore an inferior—should have decided to entrain him; because, forsooth, he was a man. He did not see how she could have chosen better in all Roseborough. ”

“ But it is hard to live here, so close to earth, without love. Roseborough was made for love. That is what ails us all—Palametta, and The Kilties and the Pelham-Hews and—and—Rosamond Mearely! Well, I hope the old bald thing will marry Anabeth and then she’ll stop that crying every time a man is mentioned. ”

“ When vagabond and constable entered Villa Rose, Peter was even then rapping on the doctor’s chamber door and saying the name of “Mearely.”
Rosamond scurried hither and thither producing soft linen and lotions, safety pins and needle and thread, cotton batting and smelling salts, until the end of the big table looked like a peep into a hospital. To all protests she answered:
“Don’t talk! Don’t talk! Save your strength.” ”