"Bless me!" said Mr. Van Astrachan; "why, you"re not at all up to snuff! Why, Polly, you and I used to stick it out till daylight!
didn"t we?"
"Well, you see, Mr. Van Astrachan, I hadn"t anybody like you to stick it out with," said Rose. "Perhaps that made the difference."
"Oh, well, now, I am sure there"s our Harry! I am sure a girl must be difficult, if he doesn"t suit her for a beau," said the good gentleman.
"Oh, Mr. Endicott is all well enough!" said Rose; "only, you observe, not precisely to me what you were to the lady you call Polly,--that"s all."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Van Astrachan. "Well, to be sure, that does make a difference; but Harry"s a nice fellow, nice fellow, Miss Rose: not many fellows like him, as I think."
"Yes, indeed," chimed in Mrs. Van Astrachan. "I haven"t a son in the world that I think more of than I do of Harry; he has such a good heart."
Now, the fact was, this eulogistic strain that the worthy couple were very p.r.o.ne to fall into in speaking of Harry to Rose was this morning most especially annoying to her; and she turned the subject at once, by chattering so fluently, and with such minute details of description, about the arrangements of the rooms and the flowers and the lamps and the fountains and the cascades, and all the fairy-land wonders of the Follingsbee party, that the good pair found themselves constrained to be listeners during the rest of the time devoted to the morning meal.
It will be found that good young ladies, while of course they have all the innocence of the dove, do display upon emergencies a considerable share of the wisdom of the serpent. And on this same mother wit and wisdom, Rose called internally, when that day, about eleven o"clock, she was summoned to the library, to give Harry his audience.
Truth to say, she was in a state of excited womanhood vastly becoming to her general appearance, and entered the library with flushed cheeks and head erect, like one prepared to stand for herself and for her s.e.x.
Harry, however, wore a mortified, semi-penitential air, that, on the first glance, rather mollified her. Still, however, she was not sufficiently clement to give him the least a.s.sistance in opening the conversation, by the suggestions of any of those nice little oily nothings with which ladies, when in a gracious mood, can smooth the path for a difficult confession.
She sat very quietly, with her hands before her, while Harry walked tumultuously up and down the room.
"Miss Ferguson," he said at last, abruptly, "I know you are thinking ill of me."
Miss Ferguson did not reply.
"I had hoped," he said, "that there had been a little something more than mere acquaintance between us. I had hoped you looked upon me as a friend."
"I did, Mr. Endicott," said Rose.
"And you do not now?"
"I cannot say that," she said, after a pause; "but, Mr. Endicott, if we are friends, you must give me the liberty to speak plainly."
"That"s exactly what I want you to do!" he said impetuously; "that is just what I wish."
"Allow me to ask, then, if you are an early friend and family connection of Mrs. John Seymour?"
"I was an early friend, and am somewhat of a family connection."
"That is, I understand there has been a ground in your past history for you to be on a footing of a certain family intimacy with Mrs.
Seymour; in that case, Mr. Endicott, I think you ought to have considered yourself the guardian of her honor and reputation, and not allowed her to be compromised on your account."
The blood flushed into Harry"s face; and he stood abashed and silent.
Rose went on,--
"I was shocked, I was astonished, last night, because I could not help overhearing the most disagreeable, the most painful remarks on you and her,--remarks most unjust, I am quite sure, but for which I fear you have given too much reason!"
"Miss Ferguson," said Harry, stopping as he walked up and down, "I confess I have been wrong and done wrong; but, if you knew all, you might see how I have been led into it. That woman has been the evil fate of my life. Years ago, when we were both young, I loved her as honestly as man could love a woman; and she professed to love me in return. But I was poor; and she would not marry me. She sent me off, yet she would not let me forget her. She would always write to me just enough to keep up hope and interest; and she knew for years that all my object in striving for fortune was to win her. At last, when a lucky stroke made me suddenly rich, and I came home to seek her, I found her married,--married, as she owns, without love,--married for wealth and ambition. I don"t justify myself,--I don"t pretend to; but when she met me with her old smiles and her old charms, and told me she loved me still, it roused the very devil in me. I wanted revenge.
I wanted to humble her, and make her suffer all she had made me; and I didn"t care what came of it."
Harry spoke, trembling with emotion; and Rose felt almost terrified with the storm she had raised.
"O Mr. Endicott!" she said, "was this worthy of you? was there nothing better, higher, more manly than this poor revenge? You men are stronger than we: you have the world in your hands; you have a thousand resources where we have only one. And you ought to be stronger and n.o.bler according to your advantages; you ought to rise superior to the temptations that beset a poor, weak, ill-educated woman, whom everybody has been flattering from her cradle, and whom you, I dare say, have helped to flatter, turning her head with compliments, like all the rest of them. Come, now, is not there something in that?"
"Well, I suppose," said Harry, "that when Lillie and I were girl and boy together, I did flatter her, sincerely that is. Her beauty made a fool of me; and I helped make a fool of her."
"And I dare say," said Rose, "you told her that all she was made for was to be charming, and encouraged her to live the life of a b.u.t.terfly or canary-bird. Did you ever try to strengthen her principles, to educate her mind, to make her strong? On the contrary, haven"t you been bowing down and adoring her for being weak? It seems to me that Lillie is exactly the kind of woman that you men educate, by the way you look on women, and the way you treat them."
Harry sat in silence, ruminating.
"Now," said Rose, "it seems to me it"s the most cowardly and unmanly thing in the world for men, with every advantage in their hands, with all the strength that their kind of education gives them, with all their opportunities,--a thousand to our one,--to hunt down these poor little silly women, whom society keeps stunted and dwarfed for their special amus.e.m.e.nt."
"Miss Ferguson, you are very severe," said Harry, his face flushing.
"Well," said Rose, "you have this advantage, Mr. Endicott: you know, if I am, the world will not be. Everybody will take your part; everybody will smile on you, and condemn her. That is generous, is it not? I think, after all, Noah Claypole isn"t so very uncommon a picture of the way that your lordly s.e.x turn round and cast all the blame on ours. You will never make me believe in a protracted flirtation between a gentleman and lady, where at least half the blame does not lie on his lordship"s side. I always said that a woman had no need to have offers made her by a man she could not love, if she conducted herself properly; and I think the same is true in regard to men. But then, as I said before, you have the world on your side; nine persons out of ten see no possible harm in a man"s taking every advantage of a woman, if she will let him."
"But I care more for the opinion of the tenth person than of the nine," said Harry; "I care more for what you think than any of them.
Your words are severe; but I think they are just."
"O Mr. Endicott!" said Rose, "live for something higher than for what I think,--than for what any one thinks. Think how many glorious chances there are for a n.o.ble career for a young man with your fortune, with your leisure, with your influence! is it for you to waste life in this unworthy way? If I had your chances, I would try to do something worth doing."
Rose"s face kindled with enthusiasm; and Harry looked at her with admiration.
"Tell me what I ought to do!" he said.
"I cannot tell you," said Rose; "but where there is a will there is a way: and, if you have the will, you will find the way. But, first, you must try and repair the mischief you have done to Lillie. By your own account of the matter, you have been encouraging and keeping up a sort of silly, romantic excitement in her. It is worse than silly; it is sinful. It is trifling with her best interests in this life and the life to come. And I think you must know that, if you had treated her like an honest, plain-spoken brother or cousin, without any trumpery of gallantry or sentiment, things would have never got to be as they are. You could have prevented all this; and you can put an end to it now."
"Honestly, I will try," said Harry. "I will begin, by confessing my faults like a good boy, and take the blame on myself where it belongs, and try to make Lillie see things like a good girl. But she is in bad surroundings; and, if I were her husband, I wouldn"t let her stay there another day. There are no morals in that circle; it"s all a perfect crush of decaying garbage."
"I think," said Rose, "that, if this thing goes no farther, it will gradually die out even in that circle; and, in the better circles of New York, I trust it will not be heard of. Mrs. Van Astrachan and I will appear publicly with Lillie; and if she is seen with us, and at this house, it will be sufficient to contradict a dozen slanders. She has the n.o.blest, kindest husband,--one of the best men and truest gentlemen I ever knew."
"I pity him then," said Harry.
"He is to be pitied," said Rose; "but his work is before him. This woman, such as she is, with all her faults, he has taken for better or for worse; and all true friends and good people, both his and hers, should help both sides to make the best of it."
"I should say," said Harry, "that there is in this no best side."
"I think you do Lillie injustice," said Rose. "There is, and must be, good in every one; and gradually the good in him will overcome the evil in her."
"Let us hope so," said Harry. "And now, Miss Ferguson, may I hope that you won"t quite cross my name out of your good book? You"ll be friends with me, won"t you?"
"Oh, certainly!" said Rose, with a frank smile.
"Well, let"s shake hands on that," said Harry, rising to go.
Rose gave him her hand, and the two parted in all amity.