CHAPTER VI.
THE FRAGRANCE OF TEA-ROSES.
It was a source of self and mutual congratulation to Frau Anna Rolf and Karl Metzerott, that Louis’ grief for Freddy’s death seemed to draw him nearer to Annie. When he was not at Dr. Richards’s, after work hours, he was quite sure to be taking long walks with her; and it really seemed as if their darling scheme were on the eve of accomplishment.
“As for that little chit of Randolph’s, he’s quite forgotten her,” said Karl Metzerott; “I haven’t heard her name out of his mouth since she came home;” which, Karl’s own nature might have warned him, is not invariably a token of forgetfulness.
“It goes to my heart to see the boy looking so sad and worn,” said Frau Anna; “but my Aenchen will comfort him; and I could not wish her a better husband.”
The shoemaker smiled proudly. “There’s no fault to be found with Louis,” he said, “except that he lets this man Clare lead him about by the nose; and the same may be said of your Fritz, Frau Anna.”
“Fritz will fight when the time comes,” replied the other, her thin face and wild, dark eyes glowing with repressed enthusiasm. “He is all for peace now, but when the signal is given he will remember that he has a wife and child to defend, and a father’s death to avenge.”
“He has more,” murmured George below his breath. No one heard him, and if his heavy features looked a shade more sullen, nobody was sufficiently at leisure to observe it; indeed, as we know, George had never been troubled with overmuch observation. Of a reserved, sullen temperament, too sluggish for mischief, but immovably obstinate if crossed or contradicted, and subject to occasional fits of almost delirious rage, his education had consisted almost solely of that judicious letting alone, a little of which is considered so advantageous. “Let sleeping dogs lie,” was the established rule for treating him; yet, even half understood as he was, it should have seemed a dangerous experiment thus to train and drill him into the thought of revenge.
In spite of his apparent slowness of thought, he had in some matters the quick scent of a bloodhound, and knew far more about the story of his brother’s marriage than any one imagined. A question or two to Denny the porter, a half-glimpse of a box of trinkets which Fritz was putting up to return to the donor, a look upon Gretchen’s face when Frank Randolph’s name was casually mentioned,—these were enough, perhaps more than enough, for George; for it is quite certain his suspicions were not, at least, less than the truth.
Not a hint of all this crossed his lips. Fritz had married her, and taken the burden of her escapade upon his own shoulders; in which last respect, if he were willing to take her at all after all that had happened, George considered him quite right. In his quiet, sullen way, George would have died for Fritz, whose good-nature had warded off many a collision with the other’s sullen temper; while his bright, ready wit had shielded and protected his younger brother from many an attack, and backed him up in many a quarrel. Therefore, George had mentally inscribed upon the cryptogram which, like Madame Lafarge, he was always knitting, the name of Francis Randolph, accompanied with signs denoting vengeance upon him, his house, and his posterity, to the fourth generation and beyond. But for the present he bided his time; Gretchen’s name must not be made a subject of gossip.
At the very moment of the conversation above recorded, Louis and Annie were wandering along the river-bank in very lover-like fashion, it must be admitted; for she was leaning on his arm, and looking into his face with soft, attentive eyes; while he was talking earnestly, opening the very depths of his heart, talking as he could only talk to Annie Rolf.
“I don’t think I deceive myself about her, Aenchen,” he said; “I seem to see all her faults, and yet love her the better for them.”
“I cannot quite understand that, Louis,” said the girl, smiling; “for me, I could not love without respect; I must look up and see, at any rate, few faults, and none that I could despise.”
“Then you should love one like Mr. Clare,” said Louis; “I don’t know any one else who would suit you.”
Annie smiled and shook her head, but did not reply further, and Louis went on,—
“What I love in her, I suppose, is my ideal,—what she might be, or, as Mr. Clare would say, what she will be when all that is evil is purged away from her nature. O Annie! how lovely she will be then!”
“Yes, indeed,” said Annie heartily; though, if her true opinion had been given, it would have been that, when vanity and sauciness should be purged out of Miss Rosalie Randolph, there would be not enough of her left to swear by.
“I often think,” pursued Louis, whose natural turn for speculative philosophy had been decidedly fostered by intercourse with Ernest Clare,—“I often think, Aenchen, when people talk about being disappointed and deceived in their friends, that it is not really so. One may be deceived by a person one loves, not in him. For what gives and attracts love is the real self, independent of all accidents; and, sin being not a part of that self, it follows that when we meet in that happy world the false friend of earth, we shall recognize the self we really loved, and feel that the deceit was in our bad opinion of him, not in our good one.”
“That is very beautiful,” murmured Annie. And while he was smiling at her in all the pleasure of sympathy and comprehension, and she gazing into his face with eyes that half betrayed her wonder what Louis’ real self could be, since his present and apparent self was so bright and beautiful,—at this moment there passed them alight, open buggy, wherein sat Edgar Harrison and a small figure in black, whose brown eyes took in the full significance of the sight presented to them.
“Your friend, the handsome young shoemaker, and his sweetheart,” said Edgar Harrison. “I suppose they are awfully happy; don’t you?”
“Really, I don’t know; I can’t pretend to understand the feelings of that sort of people,” said Miss Randolph haughtily.
Edgar watched her with quiet amusement. He was not at all afraid of Louis as a rival, though admitting that in a higher station of life he might have been dangerous. “Well, they look pretty happy,” he said.
Pinkie shrugged her shoulders, a gesture she had learned in Paris, without reply; but her first act, upon reaching her own room, was to throw aside her crape-trimmed hat, and study her own pretty face reflected in the glass, as attentively as if it had been the Rosetta stone or a Babylonian cylinder. Then the red lips curved into a triumphant smile.
“I’ll settle him,” said Pinkie, with a toss of her head.
The next afternoon was what she herself called “hideously warm;” and therefore her prettiest white dress, a marvel of lace and embroidery, was evidently just the thing to wear. There was not a touch of black about it; and the creamy softness brought out every tint of the rich brunette coloring, and softened the vivacious girlish beauty into something infinitely charming. She fastened a knot of fragrant tea-rosebuds in her belt, and then, taking her wide-brimmed Leghorn hat in her hand, announced to the housekeeper her intention of walking round to take tea with her aunt, Mrs. Richards.
“It is too hot for dinner, and so you may tell papa and Frank when they come home,” said Pinkie audaciously; “but you might order a freezer of cream to be sent around to Dr. Richards’s; harlequin, mind, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and orange ice. Don’t forget.”
“From Prices’?” asked the housekeeper. “Your papa won’t like your being away at dinner, Miss Pinkie.”
“Then he can do the other thing,” returned the girl carelessly. “‘Prices’? no, certainly not. Our own confectioner.”
“Because I thought,” returned the housekeeper, “as it is late in the afternoon, and every one busy, if you wouldn’t mind, as you have to pass our confectioner’s door”—
“I mean to pass his door,” said the girl. “Do you suppose I’m going in? Nasty hot place, smelling of cake and bread!”
“Very well, miss. I’ll send John to the drug store to telephone. And oh! Miss Pinkie, that poor woman who has been cleaning the house—Tina Kellar, you know—would like to have more work to do, and there are some of the small rooms that need papering”—
“But she’s not a paper-hanger.”
“She’s as good as one, miss; for she papered her own house from top to bottom, and it’s as pretty a job as ever I see. Besides, she wouldn’t charge near as much as a regular paper-hanger.”
“Humbug!” said Pinkie. “Give her what you’d give a man, if she does the work at all.”
“Well, you’re a kind-hearted young lady,” said the housekeeper, “and I’ll do it gladly, miss; though the poor creature is hardly strong enough to do such hard work.”
“Then, don’t give it to her,” said Pinkie; “I don’t believe in oppressing people.”
“But she must work, you know, miss, to support her children.”
“Then, what are you talking about? Give her the work if she wants it, and pay her well. If she’s not strong enough, she can let it alone. I hope you see she has good meals whenever she is here!”
“Law, yes, miss; only she’s got so little appetite. She don’t eat enough for a baby. I believe all that keeps her up, anyhow, is determination. She looks like she could just lie down and die any minute.”
“Well, make her some beef-tea,” said Pinkie; “that will do her good. It is wrong for people to work beyond their strength, wrong and foolish too. I don’t see why they do it.”
“No, I suppose you don’t, when all the wish you’ve got is that you had something to wish for,” murmured the housekeeper, looking after her; while Pinkie, as she tripped along, thought complacently, “People talk about the difficulty of dealing with the laboring classes; but I don’t see any trouble in it at all, if you only know how!”
Arrived at her aunt’s, she found the doctor confined to his room by an access of rheumatism, and quite unable to see any one; so Pinkie, in spite of her Parisian toilette, bustled around to help the boy from “Prices” lay the cloth in the parlor, where meals were now usually taken, and made herself so sweet and charming during the tête-à-tête tea with her aunt that Alice’s sad face brightened perceptibly.
“You’re a good little thing, Pinkie,” she said tenderly. “I wish I had you always.”
“I’ll come and stay with you whenever you like,” said Pinkie, laying her cheek against her aunt’s shoulder; “but now run away to Uncle Fred, dearest; I know he wants you. I’ll just sit here and wait till some one comes for me.”
“I’m afraid—that is, I think Louis will be in by and by,” said Alice. “Let me know when he comes. Unfortunately, Edgar is out of town to-night, or I would call him to talk to you.”
“The solemn Edgar! I’m glad he is,” replied Pinkie.
Louis was late that night. In reality, he was detained by an extra job at which he worked out of hours, but Pinkie had had ample time to picture to herself another river-side ramble, and to feel genuinely forsaken and miserable, before he entered softly and unannounced.
The white figure in the arm-chair by the window, dimly visible by the moonlight, he supposed to be Mrs. Richards, and approached gently; but, as he bent to give her his usual kiss of greeting, he sprang back, startled. Pinkie, in tears and alone, arrayed in a vesture, as it seemed, of hoar-frost and moonbeams, with fragrant rosebuds in her bosom, and soft white fingers that clung to his confidingly, as she said,—
“It’s nobody but me. Did you expect to find Aunt Alice? She is with Uncle Fred. He is so much worse, and I have been so sad and lonely.”
“She had been.” Louis’ fair cheek flushed deeply; he drew a hard breath between his set teeth. The radiance of the full September moon was all about her, the fragrance of the pale rosebuds filled the air; and it was no haughty money-princess who spoke, but his own Pinkie, whose lips he had kissed, and who had thrown herself, weeping, into his arms. Louis felt that he had need of all his manhood, if he would not be doubly scorned when this changing mood should have passed away.
And yet—
“I suppose you were thinking of Freddy,” he said very gently, but coldly; “it is natural you should feel sad.”
“I was thinking of myself,” said Pinkie honestly enough. “Oh, Louis, just think how lonely I am all day, in that great house, with only the servants to talk to! I wish I were Aunt Alice’s daughter! I should like to be poor and work for her.”
“No, no, that you certainly would not,” replied Louis, smiling in spite of himself.
“But I should,” she persisted. “Why not? she is the only creature on earth that cares a straw for me; why should I not work for her?”
“What are you trying to make me say?” asked Louis, very pale, but still smiling; “something that you can laugh at me for afterwards? That is not worthy of you, Pinkie.”
“I don’t see what right you have to call me that!” cried the girl, springing to her feet in sudden anger at the calm superiority of his tone.
“You seemed, some way, to give me the right,” said the young man simply; “but I beg your pardon; I will be more careful. And now I have something to say to you, Miss Randolph. Ever since you returned, your manner to me has been as if I were some presumptuous upstart whom you were obliged to keep in his place. And I want to tell you that I know my place quite well; I am a shoemaker and an employé of ‘Prices’; so you may spare yourself any further trouble in the matter.”
“But you were that when I went away,” murmured Pinkie, lifting her eyes to his for just a moment.
He took one step towards her, then checked himself. “That was before you had learned your place,” he said.
Pinkie’s eyes filled with tears; for as yet her love for Louis was the most real part of her character, and when she yielded to it for a moment, as at present, it made her, for the time being, as real as itself.
“My place!” she said, looking at him with the bright drops gemming her lashes; “my place? Oh, Louis, what place have I in the world? I am only a trouble to my father: he thinks himself bound to give me what he calls social advantages, but it’s an awful nuisance to him; he was much more comfortable when I was at school. Frank certainly doesn’t want me or care for me very much. Freddy”—her voice was choked with sobs.
“Yes,” said Louis hoarsely, “Freddy loved you, Pinkie.”
“But he is dead,” cried the girl passionately, “and now you, Louis—you, whom I thought my—my friend, you turn against me!”
She crossed her arms upon the back of the tall chair against which she had been leaning, and, bowing her head upon them, sobbed unrestrainedly. Louis came close to her, so close that his breath stirred her hair as he bent over her, but he did not touch her.
“After all,” he said, “I believe your best chance for becoming the woman God meant you to be, would be for me to take you in my arms now, this moment, and carry you off where no one could ever find you again.”
Pinkie listened with beating heart and thrilling from head to foot, while, amid her tears, a dainty smile stole out to play unseen about her rosy lips. Of course she had not the very slightest intention of allowing him to do anything of the sort, but it was delicious to hear him talk so.
“For I believe you love me, mein Röslein roth,” continued the voice above her bent head. “I believe you love me; yet I know that you will never marry me. You are not noble enough, yet, to understand the nobility of labor.”
“I certainly don’t understand the nobility of shoemaking,” cried Pinkie, roused to defend herself; “though, of course, it’s a very necessary trade, and one that some people must always follow; but why should you be one of them, Louis?” She laid her hand on his arm and looked beseechingly into his face. “It makes one’s hands black, and the leather smells so horribly,” she urged.
Louis turned away abruptly; he had not foreseen this turn of affairs.
“And you could be any thing, you know,” continued the temptress. “A doctor, for instance; that’s a noble profession, if you like, Louis; and even if you didn’t get very rich it wouldn’t matter, because,”—she blushed and hung her head.
Louis regarded her steadfastly, though his face was bloodless, and his eyes as sad as death.
“What would be the good?” he said gently. “If you will not marry the shoemaker, dear, you could never bring yourself to marry the shoemaker’s son.”
“I—I—don’t know,” said the girl softly.
He laid one hand—it was very cold—gently on hers. “I do,” he said. “I know you, darling, better than you know yourself; even if you were willing,—as you will not be, once this mood has passed—I would not condemn you to a life you are not strong enough to live. Why, the woman who cleans your house, Pinkie, is my friend, the sister-in-law of the man who works beside me, in my father’s shop. Could you welcome her to your house, or visit her in hers? or, rather, would you do it?”
“I’ll tell you who would, and could, too,” said Pinkie, with sparkling eyes. “That Rolf girl you were walking with yesterday.”
Louis made no reply. He looked inquiringly at the pretty, angry face, and waited for further information, which was not long in coming.
“I heard you were engaged to her,” said Pinkie, “and I think it is a very good thing; both in the same station of life, and all that; no wonder you won’t give up ‘Prices’ while she’s there.”
“There is only one woman in the world for me, Rosalie,” said Louis sternly. “Don’t pretend to think anything else.” He was worn with resisting temptation, and stunned by this sudden veering about of the wind, and his patience was almost gone. But for his thorough knowledge that a marriage between them was an utter impossibility, he would have caught her in his arms, and kissed her into a knowledge of her own mind, he told himself; but no, her kisses were the unclaimed property of some good man, he hoped, or tried to hope; and Louis would rob no one.
Pinkie looked in his face for a moment, then began again to sob broken-heartedly. He tried to leave her, he even walked as far as the door; then, turning, came swiftly back to her side.
“Darling,” he said, “will you marry me now? as I am? I will make things as easy for you as I can, trust me for that; you need not live at ‘Prices;’ I could take care of you even now, and, once these hard times are over, we could be very comfortable. Will you marry me now, Pinkie?”
Over the girl’s heart swept a swift revulsion of feeling, a sudden recoil from the bare ugliness of the life which Louis called comfortable. She had not been prepared for this when she set herself “to lure this tassel gentle back again;” this shoemaker who treated her so consistently as his inferior. For a moment, Pinkie felt that she quite hated him.
“Will you, darling?” he said again, and Pinkie raised her head, looked him full in the eyes, and answered,—
“Marry a shoemaker! No, certainly not.”
He turned away, he walked steadily to the door and down the stairs; she ran to the window, and watched him down the moonlit street, but he never looked back: and when the last echo of his footsteps had died away, the poor, lonely, spoiled child flung herself face downwards on the floor, and cried in good earnest.