When he complained of fatigue and bade the two women good night, she started and lighted his wax candle and gave it to him. The next day she was on hand to help him on with his great coat, and to hand him his gloves and hat, and he thanked her with a smile.
So went on life at Rockhold all the week.
On Sat.u.r.day evening Mr. Clarence came home with his father and greeted Rose Stillwater with the kindly courtesy that was habitual with him.
There were four at the dinner table. And Rose, having so excellent a coadjutor in the younger Rockharrt, was even gayer and more chatty than ever, making the meal a lively and cheerful one even for moody Aaron Rockharrt and sorrowful Cora Rothsay.
After dinner, when the party had gone into the drawing room, Mrs.
Stillwater said:
"Here are just four of us. Just enough for a game at whist. Shall we have a rubber, Mr. Rockharrt?"
"Yes, my child! Certainly, with all my heart! I thank you for the suggestion! I have not had a game of whist since we left the city. Ah, my child, we have had very stupid evenings here at home until you came and brought some life into the house. Clarence, draw out the card table.
Cora, go and find the cards."
"Let me! Let me! Please let me!" exclaimed Rose, starting up with childish eagerness. "Where are the cards, Cora, dear?"
"They are in the drawer of the card table. You need not stir to find them, thank you, Mrs. Stillwater."
"No; here they are all ready," said Mr. Clarence, who had drawn the table up before the fire and taken the pack of cards from the drawer.
The party of four sat down for the game.
"We must cut for partners," said Mr. Rockharrt, shuffling the cards and then handing them to Mrs. Stillwater for the first cut.
"The highest and the two lowest to be partners?" inquired Rose, as she lifted half the pack.
"Of course, that is the rule."
Each person cut in turn, and fortune favored Mrs. Stillwater to Mr.
Clarence, and Cora to Mr. Rockharrt. Then they cut for deal, and fortune favored Mr. Rockharrt.
The cards were dealt around.
Rose Stillwater had an excellent hand, and she knew by the pleased looks of her partner, Mr. Clarence, that he also had a good one; and by the annoyed expression of Mr. Rockharrt"s face that he had a bad one. Cora"s countenance was as the sphnix"s; she was too sadly preoccupied to care for this game.
However, Rose determined that she would play into the hand of her antagonist and not into that of her partner.
Pursuing this policy, she watched Mr. Rockharrt"s play, always returned his lead, and when her attention was called to the error, she would flush, exhibit a lovely childlike embarra.s.sment, declare that she was no whist player at all, and beg to be forgiven; and the very next moment she would trump her partner"s trick, or purposely commit some other blunder that would be sure to give the trick to Mr. Rockharrt.
Mr. Clarence was the soul of good humor, but it was provoking to have his own "splendid" hand so ruined by the bad play of his partner that their antagonists, with such very poor hands, actually won the odd trick.
In the next deal Rose got a "miserable" hand; so did her partner, as she discovered by his looks, while Mr. Rockharrt must have had a magnificent hand, to judge from his triumphant expression of countenance.
Rose could, therefore, now afford to redeem her place in the esteem of her partner by playing her very best, without the slightest danger of taking a single trick.
To be brief, through Rose"s management Mr. Rockharrt and Cora won the rubber, and the Iron King rose from the card table exultant, for what old whist player is not pleased with winning the rubber?
"My child," he said to Rose Stillwater, "this is altogether the pleasantest evening that we have pa.s.sed since we left the city, and all through you bringing life and activity among us! I do not think we can ever afford to let you go."
"Oh, sir! you are too good. Would to heaven that I might find some place in your household akin to that which I once filled during the happiest years of my life, when I lived here as your dear granddaughter"s governess," said Rose Stillwater, with a sigh and a smile.
"You shall never leave us again with my consent. Ah, we have had a very pleasant evening. What do you think, Clarence?"
"Very pleasant for the winners, sir," replied the young man, with a good humored laugh, as he lighted his bed room candle and bade them all good night.
Soon after the little party separated and retired for the night.
As time pa.s.sed, Rose Stillwater continued to make herself more and more useful to her host and benefactor. She enlivened his table and his evenings at home by her cheerful conversation, her music and her games.
She waited on him hand and foot, helped him on and off with his wraps when he went out or came in; warmed his slippers, filled his pipe, dried his newspapers, served him in innumerable little ways with a childlike eagerness and delight that was as the incense of frankincense and myrrh to the nostrils of the egotist.
And he praised her and held her up as a model to his granddaughter.
Rose Stillwater was a proper young woman, a model young woman, all indeed that a woman should be. He had never seen one to approach her status in all his long life. She was certainly the most excellent of her s.e.x. He did not know what in this gloomy house they could ever do without her.
Such was the burden of his talk to Cora.
Mrs. Rothsay gave but cold a.s.sent to all this. She had too much reverence for the fifth commandment to tell her grandfather what she thought of the situation--that Rose Stillwater was making a notable fool of him, either for the sake of keeping a comfortable home, or gaining a place in his will, or of something greater still which would include all the rest.
She tried to treat the woman with cold civility. But how could she persevere in such a course of conduct toward a beautiful blue eyed angel who was always eager to please, anxious to serve?
Cora felt that this woman was a fraud, yet when she met her lovely, candid, heaven blue eyes she could not believe in her own intuitions.
Cora, like some few unenvious women, was often affected by other women"s beauty. The childlike loveliness of her quondam teacher really touched her heart. So she could not at all times maintain the dignified reserve that she wished toward Rose Stillwater.
Meantime the day approached when it was decided that they should all go to West Point to the commencement, at which Cadet Sylvan Haught was expected to graduate.
Mr. Rockharrt had invited Mrs. Stillwater to be of their party, and insisted upon her accompanying them.
Rose demurred. She even ventured to hint that Mrs. Rothsay might not like her to go with them; whereupon the Iron King gathered his brow so darkly and fearfully, and said so sternly:
"She had better not dislike it," that Rose hastened to say that it was only her own secret misgiving, and that no part of Mrs. Rothsay"s demeanor had led her to such a supposition.
And she resolved never again to drop a hint of her hostess" too evident suspicion of herself to the family autocrat, for it was the last mistake that Mrs. Stillwater could possibly wish to make--to kindle anger between grandfather and granddaughter. Her policy was to forbear, to be patient, to conciliate, and to bide her time.
"Cora," said the Iron King, abruptly, to his granddaughter, at the breakfast table, on the morning after this conversation, and in the presence of their guest, "do you object to Mrs. Stillwater joining our traveling party to West Point?"
"Certainly not, sir. What right have I to object to any one whom you might please to invite?"
"No right whatever. And I am glad that you understand that," replied Mr.
Rockharrt.
Rose was trembling for fear that her benefactor would betray her as the suggester of the question, but he did not.
Cora had received no letter from her Uncle Fabian in answer to hers announcing the fact of Mrs. Stillwater"s presence at Rockhold.
Mr. Fabian wrote no letters, except business ones to the firm, and these were opened at the office of the works, and never brought to Rockhold.
If Cora should ever inquire of her grandfather whether he had heard from Mr. and Mrs. Fabian Rockharrt, his answer would be brief--