Volume I Part 12 (2/2)

Alas! Rose was but a poor dressmaker, barely eighteen, an age when to the young woman clings a good deal of the romantic folly of the girl. She was the pride of an indulgent mother who never restrained her little whims, and whose scanty means afforded but little relief to the dull monotony of her daily life. Rose, of course, was in her seventh heaven.

Her hour of triumph and reward had arrived. Here was the prince who had come to marry the beggar's daughter; the gallant knight who was to lead her out of the prison house of poverty, to reveal to her all the glories of a world which, after all, looks best at a distance.

There is a tide in the affairs of women as well as men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, and Rose believed that the tide was now in her favour. Here was the chance for which she had been dreaming, for which she had been prepared by a due course of silly novel-reading.

'A tall, dark gentleman is in love with you,' said the gipsy whom Rose had last consulted on the subject. 'He will come to you when you least expect it. He is immensely rich, and will make you handsome presents.

He will take you to London, where he will marry you, and you shall have horses and carriages, and servants, and music, and wine, and b.a.l.l.s, and will live happy ever after.'

The tall, dark gentleman had come, and he had fallen in love with her.

It amused him in that dull town to have an affair of this kind on hand.

It gave a new zest to his _blase_ life; the only things he cared for were pretty faces, and he had spent his life ever since leaving Oxford in search of them. Now that he had come to the family estate and t.i.tle; now that he was Sir Watkin Strahan, of Elm Court, it is not to be presumed that there was any diminution of zeal in his search; on the contrary, he pushed it with more zest than ever. In the language of his friends, he was a devil of a fellow for women, and it was clear to him that this young rustic beauty would soon fall an easy prey.

The chances were all in favour of the execution of his wicked design, for he was a cruel man, in spite of his youth and handsome face and figure, a polished gentleman, yet venomous and dangerous as a cobra or a wolf. He was now given up to one pursuit, the ruin of this fair young girl, on whom, in an evil moment, he had cast a longing eye; and poor Rose thought him a model gentleman! He had no scruples of conscience when his fancy was aroused. All he cared for, all he thought of, was himself. Pleasure was to be had, regardless of the cost to himself, of the misery to others. In a rich and old community like ours the number of such men is immense, and the mischief they do no tongue can tell. In our streets by night we see the ruin they have wrought.

'I am mad after that girl,' said Sir Watkin to a friend one day. 'I have made her presents of all kinds; I have followed up every chance; I have promised even to marry her, and yet she keeps me at arm's length. She is a regular Penelope. It seems years since I first saw her.'

'Nonsense!' said his friend-an old rake of the Regency, to whom all women were mere childish toys-'she can't resist you. You are bound to win her.

She is only a little more artful than others of her cla.s.s.'

'I wish it were so. I almost despair; and that makes me the more determined she shall be mine. I was never disappointed yet.'

'Courage, mon ami,' was the reply. 'Such a little beauty is not to be caught in a day. Take the advice of an old soldier. You are too cautious. You must carry her by a grand _coup de main_.'

Alas! an opportunity soon occurred. There was to be a grand horse-race a few miles off. Rose had never seen one, and wished to go. She had let herself be taken there by the Baronet. She was very sorry she had agreed to the arrangement, but it was too late to draw back, and she made an excuse to her mother for her temporary absence. After the race there was a grand dinner, followed by a ball. The poor girl had hardly the heart to refuse, and, indeed, she was too far from home to go back alone, though the agreement was that she was to be taken back immediately the race was over. This part of the programme the Baronet never intended to put in execution, and he made some excuse or other for its non-fulfilment, which she was obliged to accept. Off her guard with excitement and wine yet not without misgivings of heart, she was persuaded to accompany the party back to London. In her sober moments she would never have done such a thing, but she was surrounded by men and women who laughed at her scruples and overcame her objections. Hardly knowing what she was about, she-a dove, innocent and unprotected-was borne by the vultures to town.

For the first time she had tasted of the charmed cup, and she found it pleasant. She felt sorry for her mother, to whom she wrote a hasty note, but without giving her any address, telling her not to be alarmed at her absence, stating that she was staying with some kind friends, and that she would soon let her know further particulars, which she felt sure would please her. She was to stay at the house of a real lady, who was to take her to see all the grand sights of the town. Her spirits rose to the occasion, and, dressed magnificently in the latest fas.h.i.+ons, she found some kind of enjoyment in the gay company she kept, in riding in a brougham, in going to the theatre and the opera, in finding herself in a new world, where she was received with a favour never extended to her in the tamer circles of Sloville. She felt that she had made a wonderful start in the world, and how wrong were they who spoke of its pleasures as transitory and of little worth.

'That was the world for her,' said the Baronet, whose demeanour was at times most kind and considerate, and who treated her with the respect due from a gentleman to a lady, though occasionally he a.s.sumed a boldness which brought the hot blood to her cheek and filled her with alarm.

Once upon a time, it is said, an old Scotch beadle, with the astute utterance of his cla.s.s, went a-courting. 'Jeannie,' said he, as he took the object of his affection into the parochial cemetery, and pointed to some graves in a remote corner, 'that's whaur my people lie. Would ye like to lie with them?' Jeannie answered in the affirmative, and the happy pair soon became man and wife. In the same way the Baronet threw open to the dazzled eyes of this fatherless country girl all the usual resorts of the gay world in all their pomp and glory, and she was delighted, as she had not the experience to tell her how much was tinsel, how little of it was real, how much of it was selfishness, and nothing more. Her heart warmed towards her benefactor. Confident in her beauty and his goodness of heart, she feared no harm. In the circle in which she moved she achieved a complete success. The women were very envious, and the men were as foolish as most men are where a pretty woman is concerned.

Young people think little of what is felt for them by their fathers and mothers. The cynic may say, 'Why should they? I did not bring myself into existence; and what has life done for me but to make me toil for labour that profiteth not, to clothe me with a carcase that shall soon be dissolved in death, to give me a mind that utterly, after all its endeavour, fails to understand even what pa.s.ses under my very nose, to say nothing of the mysteries which lie around.' But most of us feel, nevertheless, that our fathers and mothers have claims on us that we can never sufficiently repay them for-the care and love which rocked us in the cradle, which gave joy and happiness to our early homes, which guarded us in youth, which helped to plant us out in the world-a love the memory of which lasts as long as life. The worst of it is that frequently we do not feel this till it is too late, till we can make no ear that it would rejoice to listen to such with rapture is stilled by the cold hand of death. I can never forget a picture of a girl weeping at her mother's grave. It was an ill.u.s.tration to one of Jane Taylor's simple poems, as follows:

'Oh, if she would but come again, I think I'd vex her so no more.'

In her new circle Rose had that natural feeling. It was hard for her to live without her mother. That mother might be ill; that mother she knew to be lonely and poor, and in need of her society and aid. It was her duty, she felt, to be by that mother's side. She intended to return, if not to-day, at any rate to-morrow; to tell her mother all, how, notwithstanding appearances, she was innocent as when she slept under that mother's roof. But the difficulty was to go back. Her mother would believe her story, but n.o.body else would; and all her little world would look at her in scorn. She could not face that little world that seems to us so big. What was she to do? Like too many of us in emergencies, she did nothing, and was overcome by the circ.u.mstances in which she had weakly allowed herself to be placed.

Yet Rose was not happy in her heart of hearts, and all the while an inner sense of fear, of something sad and sorrowful to come, restrained her natural light-heartedness. Scandal had been busy with her name in her native town. She could not ask, as she had done in her early days, the blessing of G.o.d on her life. But she had burnt her boats, and for her there was no return. She was clever, and was determined to cultivate her powers. All her mornings were spent in hard study. She had masters who made up for the defects of early education. The Baronet, who had left London for a while on a shooting tour in North America, was to return, and, of course, would marry her in due time; and then her fair fame would be vindicated, and her mother's heart would beat for joy. She was a born actress, and her chief delight was to be found in the study of the leading actors and actresses on the stage. Her musical talent was of a high order, and she had a knack of picking up foreign languages that made her the wonder of the extremely bad set in which she lived. She was always busy, always in a whirl of excitement, and had little time to think of what she was and whither she was going. She shrank from being brought face to face with her real self. Whenever she did so she found she really had gained but little, after all. It is true she was not vicious, but, then, she had grown hard and worldly, and that is little better in the Court of Conscience. Often she longed for her early home, her mother's side, her life of daily drudgery, the G.o.d of her early youth.

Very suddenly a change came. Sir Watkin Strahan had left England, not for a shooting tour in North America, as it had been understood, but on account of pecuniary embarra.s.sments, brought on by his extravagant habits. It was hinted that he was about to marry a fortune, 'but that matters little,' said the informant to poor Rose; 'he loves you and you love him. The hard necessities of his situation will compel him to go through the form of matrimony with another, but that is no reason why you two should not be virtually man and wife.' The Baronet said as much in the impa.s.sioned letters which he sent to Rose. He had lost, he regretted to say, heavily on the turf and at play. He had made some unfortunate speculations on the Stock Exchange. He had travelled to repair his losses at Homburg, and Baden, and Spa, and there he had made matters worse. His friends had insisted on his getting married, promising pecuniary a.s.sistance if he did. They did more. They found out for him a fitting heiress. A rich merchant had an only daughter whom he was willing to part with for a consideration-that she should be called my lady. As the lady was anxious for a t.i.tle, and the gentleman was equally anxious to finger her cash, there was little reason for delay. Indeed, it was felt on all sides that the sooner the business was settled the better. The lady and gentleman had met, and been mutually satisfied with one another. The Baronet, so proud of his t.i.tle, had sold himself for a mess of pottage. That was a very shabby thing to do; but he did something still shabbier, he implied that to Rose it would make no difference-that she would still be the dearest object to his heart. Poor girl! she felt the insult bitterly.

'It was the way of the world,' said her new friends. 'It was only what she need expect. She must have been a fool to think that it would be otherwise.' So said her London friends to her. Well, she owned she had been a fool. She had never meant to be a rich man's mistress. The Baronet had overwhelmed her with his wealth and magnificence. He had treated her with such consideration that she never expected anything from him other than what was right and honourable, and she had been prepared to give him all she could in return-her heart. Further than that she could never go. She would never be what he wished her to be for all his wealth. Her dream was over, and she woke to find herself helpless, friendless, poor, and alone. It was a bitter awakening for her. It would have broken her heart, and ruined her life, had it not been for her youthful pluck, and spirit, and pride. The man of the world who believes woman to be as bad as himself, who quotes Pope and tells us that every woman is at heart a rake, will tell me I have drawn an unreal girl. I tell him there are thousands of such in the homes of the poor, and it is because there are such that England is still a nation great and grand.

But to return to our heroine.

When the dishonourable proposal was made to her-a proposal which she could not at first understand, veiled as it was in artful language-all her pride was in arms, her anger was aroused, and her love was turned to hate. In her wrath she left the house, leaving behind her letters, books, jewellery, dresses, everything that had been given her, and, dressed in the simple style of her former life, she went out into the world shedding bitter tears, and not knowing where to go. Sad and mad, she walked the streets of London alone-streets in which it is more dangerous for a pretty girl to walk along, and at night, than it would be among Kaffir or Hottentots. She had given no one any intimation of her going, or as to what her intentions were. She had escaped from the destroyer, that was enough for her. A stranger to London, she wandered wearily about, till she came to a street with a blaze of light streaming from the shop windows on every side, crowded with cabs and carriages, whilst the pavement was so filled up as to render locomotion almost impossible.

What she saw struck her with astonishment and horror. She had never heard of such a thing, and did not believe it possible. It was night, and yet the place was as busy as if it were day. There were women in full dress from the adjacent theatres, other in couples or hanging on the arms of men, who might have been officers in the army and navy or members of the swell mob. There were similar parties in hansoms and broughams.

Intermixed with them were beggars, and pickpockets, and swindlers, and outcasts, and all the riffraff of a London street. Rose watched the broughams, and saw them setting down their inmates at a building which bore to her a name of no meaning. She watched awhile, and then, advancing to the door and paying her s.h.i.+lling, found herself in a dancing casino of a rather superior character. The walls were lined with seats on which men and women were seated. There was a bar at one end at which a good deal of chaffing and smoking and drinking were going on. Up in the gallery was a German band, and, as they played, some danced, while others looked on. Poor Rose was frightened beyond description at the appearance of all around her. The air was full of oaths and laughter, and all were gay, gay as wine could make them, from Lord Tom Noddy drinking himself into _del. trem._, to the last ticket-of-leave from Her Majesty's jails. Rose had never seen so many vagabonds collected together under a roof before, and they were all gay-the painted harlots, the City men, the Jew money-lenders, the clerk who had come to spend the proceeds of his latest embezzlement, the scheming M.P., the jockey from Newmarket, the prize-fighter from Whitechapel, the greenhorn from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Pulling her veil over her face, Rose stood in a corner by herself, trembling and alone, afraid to remain, yet afraid to go away, fearing she might be stopped. Already she found herself remarked on and pointed at; already she had seen in the crowded and heated room more than one of the boon companions of her quondam lover. What was she to do? She had never dreamt of such awful degradation as she saw there. She had never believed in its existence.

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