Old Aaron Rockharrt and his family returned to their town house.
The next morning Mr. Clarence went back to North End to look after the works. Cadet Haught left for West Point.
Mr. Rockharrt and Mrs. Rothsay were alone in their city home.
Old Aaron Rockharrt continued to give dinners and suppers to noted politicians until the end of the session and the adjournment of the legislature.
The family returned to Rockhold in May. Here they lived a very monotonous life, whose dullness and gloom pressed very heavily upon the young widow.
Mr. Rockharrt and Mr. Clarence rode out every day to the works and returned late in the afternoon.
Cora occupied herself in completing the biography of her late husband, which had been interrupted by the season in the city.
Mr. Clarence often spent twenty-four hours at North End looking after the interests of the firm, and eating and sleeping at the hotel.
Mr. Rockharrt came home every evening to dinner, but after dinner invariably shut himself up in his office and remained there until bedtime.
Cora"s evenings were as solitary as her mornings. But a change was at hand.
One evening, on his return home, Mr. Rockharrt brought his own mail from the post office at North End.
After dinner, instead of retiring to his office as usual, he came into the drawing room and found Cora.
Dropping himself down in a large arm chair beside the round table, and drawing the moderator lamp nearer to him, he drew a letter from his breast pocket and said:
"My dear, I have a very interesting communication here from Mrs.
Stillwater--Miss Rose Flowers that was, you know."
"I know," said Cora, coldly, and wondering what was coming next.
"Poor child! She is a widow, thrown dest.i.tute upon the cold charities of the world again," he continued.
Cora said nothing. She was marveling to hear this harsh, cruel, relentless man speaking with so much pity, tenderness, and consideration for this adventuress.
"But I will read the letter to you," he said, "and then I will tell you what I mean to do."
"Very well, sir," she replied, with much misgiving.
He opened the letter and began to read as follows:
WIRT HOUSE, BALTIMORE, MD., May 15, 18--
MY MOST HONORED BENEFACTOR: I should not presume to recall myself to your recollection had you not, in the large bounty of your heart, once taken pity on the forlorn creature that I am, and made me promise that if ever I should find myself homeless, friendless, dest.i.tute, and desolate, I should write and inform you.
My most revered friend, such is my sad, hopeless, pitiable condition now.
My poor husband died of yellow fever in the West Indies about a year ago, and his income and my support died with him.
For the last twelve months I have lived on the sale of my few jewels, plate, and other personal property, which has gradually melted away in the furnace of my misfortunes, while I have been trying with all my might to obtain employment at my sometime trade as teacher. But, oh, sir! the requirements of modern education are far above my poor capabilities.
Now, at length, when my resources are well nigh exhausted--now, when I can pay my board here only for a few weeks longer, and at the end of that time must go forth--Heaven only knows where!--I venture, in accordance with your own gracious permission, to make this appeal to you! Not for pecuniary aid, which you will pardon me if I say I could not receive from any one, but for such advice and a.s.sistance as your wisdom and benevolence could afford me, in finding me some honest way of earning my bread. Feeling a.s.sured that your great goodness will not cast this poor note aside unnoticed, I shall wait and hope to hear from you, and, in the meanwhile, remain,
Your humble and obedient servant, ROSE STILLWATER.
"That is what I call a very pathetic appeal, Cora. She is a widow, poor child! Not such a widow as you are, Cora Rothsay, with wealth, friends, and position! She is a widow, indeed! Homeless, friendless, penniless--about to be cast forth into the streets! My dear, I got this letter this morning. I answered it within an hour after its reception! I invited her to come here as our guest, immediately, and to remain as long as she should feel inclined to stay--certainly until we could settle upon some plan of life for her future. I sent a check to pay her traveling expenses to North End, where I shall send the carriage to meet her. You will, therefore, Cora, have a comfortable room prepared for Mrs. Stillwater. I think she may be with us as early as to-morrow evening," said the Iron King.
And he arose and strode out of the parlor, leaving his granddaughter confounded.
Rose Stillwater the widow of a year"s standing! Rose Stillwater coming to Rockhold as the guest of her aged and widowed grandfather! What a condition of things! What would be the outcome of this event? Cora shrank from conjecturing.
She felt that there had been two factors in bringing about the situation: first, the death of her grandmother; second, the marriage of her Uncle Fabian. The field was thus left open for the operations of this scheming adventuress and siren.
Cora had been so dismayed at the communication of her grandfather that she had scarcely answered him with a word. But he had been too deeply absorbed in his own thoughts and plans to notice her silence and reserve.
He had expressed his wishes, given his orders, and gone out. That was all.
What could Cora do?
Nothing at all. Too well she knew the unbending nature of the Iron King to delude herself for a moment with the idea that any opposition, argument, or expostulation from her would have so much as a feather"s weight with the despotic old man.
If he had asked Mrs. Stillwater to Rockhold under present circ.u.mstances, Mrs. Stillwater would come, and he would have her there just as long as he pleased.
Cora was at her wits" end. She resolved to write at once to her Uncle Fabian. Surely he must know the true character of this woman, and he must have broken off his very questionable acquaintance with her before marrying Violet Wood. Surely he would not allow his father to be so dangerously deceived in the person he had invited to his house--to the society of his granddaughter. He would unmask her, even though in doing so he should expose himself.
She would also write to Sylvan, who from the very first had disliked and distrusted "the rose that all admire." And she thanked Heaven that Cadet Haught would graduate at the next exhibition at West Point and come home on leave for the midsummer holidays.
While waiting answers from the two absent men she would consult her Uncle Clarence. Truth to tell, she had but little hope of help in this affair from her younger uncle. Mr. Clarence was so far from thinking evil of any one. He was so loath to give pain or have any disturbance in the domestic circle. He would be sure to feel compa.s.sion for Rose Stillwater. He would be sure to recall her pretty, helpful, pleasant ways, and the comfort both his father and his mother used to take in her playful manners and affectionate ministration. Mr. Clarence was much too benevolent to wish to interfere with any arrangement that was likely to make the house pleasant and cheerful to his aged father, and give a comfortable home and support to a desolate young widow. And that the Iron King should ever be seriously taken in by the beautiful and bewitching creature he would never believe. Yet Cora knew from all past experience that Rose Stillwater was more esteemed by old Aaron Rockharrt and had more influence over him than any living creature. Strange that a man so hard headed as the Iron King, and so clear brained on all occasions when not blinded by his egotism, should allow himself to be so deceived in any one as he was in Rose Stillwater.
But, then, she knew how to flatter this egotism. She was beautiful and attractive in person, meek and submissive in manner, complimentary and caressing in words and tones.
Cora asked herself whether it would be right, proper, or expedient for her to give information of that secret interview between Mr. Fabian and Mrs. Stillwater, to which she herself had been an accidental and most unwilling witness, on that warm night in September, in the hotel parlor at Baltimore.
She could not refer to it in her intended letter to her Uncle Fabian. To do so would be useless and humiliating, if not very offensive. Her Uncle Fabian knew much more about that interview than she could tell him, and would be very much mortified and very indignant to learn that she knew anything of it. He might accuse her of being a spy and an eavesdropper, or he might deny and discredit her story altogether.
No. No good could come of referring to that interview in her letter to her Uncle Fabian. She would merely mention to him the fact that Mrs.
Stillwater had written to Mr. Rockharrt an appealing letter declaring herself to be widowed and dest.i.tute, and asking for advice and a.s.sistance in procuring employment; and that he had replied by inviting her to Rockhold for an indefinite period, and sent her a check to pay her traveling expenses. She would tell Mr. Fabian this as a mere item of news, expressing no opinion and taking no responsibility, but leaving her uncle to act as he might think proper.
She could not tell her brother Sylvan of that secret interview, for she was sure that he would act with haste and indiscretion. Nor could she tell her Uncle Clarence, who would only find himself distressed and incapable under the emergency. Least of all could she tell her grandfather, and make an everlasting breach between himself and his son Fabian.
No. She could tell no one of that secret interview to which she had been a chance witness--a shocked witness--but which she only half understood, and which, perhaps, did not mean all that she had feared and suspected.
On that subject she must hold her peace, and only let the absent members of the family know of Mrs. Stillwater"s intended visit as an item of domestic news, and leave any or all of them to act upon their own responsibility unbiased by any word from her.
Cora"s position was a very delicate and embarra.s.sing one. She did not believe that this former nursery governess of hers was or ever had been a proper companion for her. She herself--Cora Rothsay--was now a widow with an independent income, and was at liberty to choose her own companions and make her home wherever she might choose.
But how could she leave her aged and widowed grandfather, who had no other daughter or granddaughter, or any other woman relative to keep house for him? And yet how could she a.s.sociate daily with a woman whose presence she felt to be a degradation?
As we have seen, she knew and felt that it would be vain to oppose her grandfather"s wish to have Mrs. Stillwater in the house, especially as he had already invited her and sent her the money to come--unless she should tell him of that secret interview she had witnessed between Mr.
Fabian and Mrs. Stillwater. That, indeed, might banish Rose from Rockhold, but it would also bring down a domestic cataclysm that must break up the household and separate its members.