Very Rare Vintage Books. The quest for the rose of Sharon.1909

Chapter I

Grandaunt Nelson

Grandaunt always was eccentric. Indeed, I was sometimes tempted to call her a much harsher name in the dark days when the clouds hung so heavy above us that I often doubted if there really was a sun behind them. But, as Mr. Whittier says, “Death softens all resentments, and the consciousness of a common inheritance of frailty and weakness modifies the severity of judgment;” and, looking back through the mist of years which blurs the sharp outlines of those days of trial, I can judge grandaunt more leniently than it was then possible for me to do. So I will let the adjective stand as I have written it.

I remember our first meeting as distinctly as though it had happened yesterday.

I had wandered down the shining path of slate to our front gate, one morning. It had rained the night before, which accounted for the path shining so in the sun’s rays; and the air was soft and warm, 

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and the world altogether beautiful—but not to me, for I was oppressed by a great sorrow which I could not in the least understand. So I stood for a long time, clutching the slats of the gate, and gazing disconsolately out at the great, unknown world beyond.

Solitary pilgrimages into that world had always been forbidden me, and I had never questioned the wisdom or justice of the edict; being well content, indeed, with the place God had given me to live in, and desiring nothing better than to stay in my own little Paradise behind the shelter of the gate, with the Angel of Peace and Contentment guarding it, and watch the world sweep by. But that morning a hot rebellion shook me. Things were not as they had been in my Paradise,—all the joy had gone out of it; the sun seemed to shine no longer in the garden; the Angel had flown away. Why I scarcely knew, but with sudden resolution I reached for the latch.

And just then a tall figure loomed over me, and I found myself staring up into a pair of terrifically-glittering spectacles.

“What’s your name, little girl?” asked the stranger.

“Cecil Truman, ma’am,” I stammered, awed 

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by the severity of her face and a certain magisterial manner which reminded me of the Queen of Hearts—as though she might at any moment cry, “Off with her head!”—and far more effectively than the foolish Queen of Hearts ever did.

“Cecil Truman, ma’am,” I repeated, for she said nothing for a moment, only stood looking down at me in the queerest manner, and I thought she had not understood.

“Cecil!” she said, at last, with a derisive sniff. “Why, that’s a boy’s name! Yet it’s like him, too; yes, I recognize him in that! Nothing sensible about him!”

I hadn’t the least idea what she meant, but dug desperately at the path with my toe, certain that I had committed some hideous offence.

“Is that the only name you’ve got?” she demanded, suddenly.

“Dick calls me ‘Biffkins,’ ma’am,” I said, hesitatingly. “Perhaps you’ll like that better.”

But she only sniffed again, as she leaned over the gate and raised the latch.

“I’m your Grandaunt Nelson,” she announced, and started up the path to the house. Then she stopped, looking back. “Aren’t you coming?” she demanded.

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“No, ma’am,” I answered, for it did not seem probable to me that Grandaunt Nelson was calculated to bring the sunlight back into my Paradise. “I’m going away.”

“Going away!” she repeated sharply. “What’s the child thinking of? Going away where?”

For answer, I made a sort of wide gesture toward the world outside the gate, and reached again for the latch.

But she had me by the arm in an instant, and with no gentle grasp.

“You’ll come with me,” she said grimly, and hustled me beside her up the path, so rapidly that my feet touched it only occasionally.

I do not remember the details of my mother’s reception of grandaunt; but I do remember that I was handed over to her by my formidable relative with the warning that I needed a spanking. And presently mother took me up to her room to find out what it was all about; and when I had told her, as well as I could, she kissed me and cried over me, murmuring that she, also, would love to run away, if she only could; for the beautiful Prince had vanished from her fairy kingdom, too, and was never, never coming back. But, after all, she said, it was only cowards who ran away; 

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brave people did not run away, but faced their trials and made the best of them.

“And oh, Cecil,” she added, smiling at me, though the smile was a little tremulous, “We will be brave, won’t we, and never, never run away?”

I promised, with my head against her shoulder, but I must confess that, at the moment, I felt anything but brave.

There was soon, no doubt, another reason why she should wish to run away, and why she needed all her courage and forbearance to keep from doing so; for not only was her Prince vanished, but she was a queen dethroned.

From the moment of her arrival, grandaunt assumed charge of things; the house and everything therein contained were completely under her iron sway, and we bowed to her as humbly as did the serfs of the Middle Ages to their feudal lord, who held the right of justice high and low.

Dick and I were both too young, of course, to understand fully the great blow which had befallen us in father’s death. Dick was eight and I was six, and we had both grown up from babyhood with that blind reliance upon a benevolent and protecting Providence, characteristic of birds 

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and children. We had no thought of danger—no knowledge of it. Now that the bolt had fallen, we were absorbed in a sense of personal loss; we knew that we should no longer find father in that long room under the eaves, with its great north light, and its queer costumes hanging against the walls, and its tall easel and its pleasant, pungent smell of paint. Once or twice we had tiptoed up the stairs in the hope that, after all, he might be there—but he never was—only mother, sitting in the old, armless chair before the easel, the tears streaming down her cheeks, as she gazed at the half-finished painting upon it. I shall never forget how she caught us up and strained us to her—but there. The Prince had left his Kingdom, and the place was fairyland no longer—only a bleak and lonely attic which gave one the shivers to enter. Its dear spirit had fled, and its sweetness.


I have only to close my eyes to see Grandaunt Nelson sitting at the table-head, with mother at the foot, and Dick and me opposite each other midway on either side. Mother had been crushed by the suddenness of her loss, and drooped for a time like a blighted flower; but grandaunt was erect and virile—uncrushable, I verily believe, 

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by any bolt which Fate could hurl against her. Her face was dark and very wrinkled, crowned by an aureole of white hair—a sort of three-arched aureole, one arch over each ear, and one above her forehead. Her lips were thin and firmly set in a straight line, moving no more than was absolutely necessary to give form to her words, so that sometimes her speech had an uncanny ventriloquial effect very startling. Her eyes were ambushed behind her glasses, which I never saw her without, and was sure she wore to bed with her. Her figure was tall and angular, and was clothed habitually in black, cut in the most uncompromising fashion. I must concede grandaunt the virtue—if it be a virtue in woman—that she never made the slightest effort to disguise her angles or to soften them.

These external characteristics were evident enough, even to my childish eyes; of her internal ones, a few made an indelible impression upon me. I saw that she pursued a policy of stern repression toward herself, and toward all who came in contact with her. If she had emotions, she never betrayed them, and she was intolerant of those who did. She thought it weakness. If she had affections, she mercilessly stifled them. Duty 

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was her watchword. Again, one of the great aims of her existence seemed to be to keep the sunlight and fresh air out of the house—I believe she thought them vulgar—just as her mother and grandmother and greatgrandmother, I suppose, had done before her.

She converted our bright and sunny parlour into a gloomy, penitential place, that sent a chill down my back every time I peeped into it, which was not often. The only thing in the world she seemed afraid of was night air, and this she dreaded with a mighty dread, believing it laden with some insidious and deadly poison. To breathe night air was to commit suicide—though I have never been quite clear as to what other kind of air one can breathe at night.

Yes—one other fear she had. I remembered it afterwards, and understood, though at the time I simply thought it queer. Mother tucked me in bed one evening, and kissed me and bade me good-night. I heard her step die away down the hall and then I suppose I fell asleep. But I soon awakened, possessed by a burning thirst, a cruel and insistent thirst which was not to be denied. The moon was shining brightly, and I looked across at mother’s bed, but saw she was not there. 

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There was nothing for it but to go after a drink myself, so I clambered out of my cot and started along the hall. Just about midway, I heard someone coming up the stairs and saw grandaunt’s gray head and gaunt figure rising before me. I shrank back into the shadow of a door, for I did not wish her to see me; but she did see me, and gave a shriek so shrill and piercing that it seemed to stab me.

“What is it?” cried mother’s voice, and she came running up the stair.

Grandaunt, who was clutching the stair-rail convulsively, did not answer, only pointed a shaking finger in my direction.

Mother hurried forward, and an instant later was bending over me—a little white crouching figure in the semi-darkness.

“Why, it’s Cecil!” she said. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“I—I wanted a drink,” I sobbed, my face hidden in mother’s bosom. “I was so thirsty.”

“There, there,” and she patted me gently. “Don’t cry. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m sure Aunt Nelson will say so too.”

But grandaunt had stalked stiffly away to her room.

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The incident did not serve to raise me in her esteem; and no doubt I quite unconsciously did many other things to annoy her—which is, in itself, an annoyance. It was not her fault, of course; she had never been used to children and did not understand them. I think she regarded them much as she did dogs and cats—nuisances, to be permitted in the house as little as possible, and then only in the kitchen. Her pet abhorrence, the annoyance which she could endure least of all, seemed to be the clatter of Dick’s shoes and mine over the floor and up the stairs. More than once I thought of the front gate and liberty; but I no longer dared make a dash for freedom, for I knew that I could never succeed in hiding from the piercing gaze of those glittering glasses. She would have me back in a trice and then, “Off with her head!”

Grandaunt devoted a day or two to studying us, much as she might have studied a rare and curious species of insect; turning us this way and that, with no thought that we could object, or caring if we did. Then, having made up her mind, she called a family council, and formally announced her intentions with regard to us.

“Now, Clara,” she said to mother, “you know 

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I never did approve of your marriage, though I did give you half a dozen hem-stitched tablecloths. I hate gossip, and so I had to give you something. For you’re my niece—sister Jennie’s only child. Though Jennie and I never did get along together, and I must say you’re like her. But after all, blood’s thicker’n water, and I’m goin’ to do what’s right by you. It’s my duty.”

Mother shivered a little. She never liked that word, duty—neither did I. If people did only their duty, what a dreary, dreary world this would be!

“But first,” continued grandaunt, inexorably, “we’ve got to talk things over, and find out what we’ve got t’ go on. What did your husband leave you?”

Mother raised a protesting hand, but grandaunt waved it aside impatiently.

“Now, see here, Clara,” she cried, “you’ve got t’ look things in the face, and the sooner you begin, the sooner you’ll get used to it. Did he leave any money?”

“No,” answered mother, faintly, her face very white. “That is, not much—about a hundred dollars.”

“I always said a man couldn’t earn a livin’ by 

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paintin’ picters,” observed grandaunt. “Who wants to pay out good money for foolishness like that? Did he have his life insured?”

“Yes,” answered mother, her face whiter still; “but I—I—think he allowed the policy to lapse—”

“Of course,” nodded grandaunt fiercely. “Jest like him. But this house is yours, ain’t it?”

“Oh, yes; the house is mine.”

“It’s worth about three thousand—not more’n that,” said grandaunt, judicially. “And it’ll be hard to sell, for it’s built the craziest I ever saw—all twisted around from the way a sensible house ought to be.”

“We thought it very beautiful,” said mother meekly.

“Everyone to his taste. Mebbe we’ll find some fool ready to buy it. But even three thousand ain’t a great deal to raise two children on,” she added grimly, as she surveyed us through her glasses. “And mighty hearty children, too—big eaters and awful hard on their clothes.”

“Food is cheaper than medicine,” retorted mother, with some faint revival of her old self; but she collapsed again under grandaunt’s severe gaze.

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“Some food is,” snapped grandaunt, “and some food ain’t,” and she directed her gaze toward a plate of oranges which stood on the sideboard. “And clothes,” she added, surveying our garments with disapproval. “But we’ll change all that. As I said, I’ll look out for you. But I’ve got to work out a plan. It’s a good thing you’re my only relatives, and there ain’t nobody else to think about.”

With that she dismissed us, and we went our several ways—Dick and I to the nursery, where we selected a little white-haired doll, dressed it in black, and solemnly hanged it on a gallows of Dick’s improvising. Mother came in and caught us at it; and laughed a little and cried a little, and then sat down with us on the floor and drew us to her and told us gently that we must not mind grandaunt’s abrupt ways; that she was sure she had a kind heart beating under all her roughness, and that we should grow to love her when we came to know her better. But I, at least, was not convinced.

Just at first, I think, mother was rather glad to have someone to cling to, someone to tyrannize over her and order her steps for her. She was like a ship without a rudder—grateful for any 

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means of guidance. But as the days passed, the yoke began to gall. Grandaunt, accustomed practically all her life to having her own way, exacted an instant and complete obedience. She disdained to draw any glove over the mailed fist—that would have seemed to her an unworthy subterfuge. And at last, she announced the plan which she had formulated, whereby to work out our salvation.

“Of course you can’t stay here,” she began, when she had us assembled before her. “I’ll try to sell the house.”

“Yes,” agreed mother, with a sigh, “I suppose that is best.”

“Best!” echoed grandaunt. “There ain’t no best about it. It’s the only thing you can do. Besides, I can’t stay idlin’ around here any longer. I want to get back to my own house at Plumfield, where I expect to pass the rest of my days; I hope in peace,” she added, though by the way she looked at us, it was evident she had grave doubts as to whether the hope would be realized. “I’ve been away too long already,” she continued. “I dare say, Abner and Jane are lettin’ the place run to rack and ruin—I’ve never been away from it for this long in forty year. You, Clara, and the 

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girl—we’ll try to find a sensible name for her—I’ve been thinkin’ about Martha or Susan—”

“Oh, no,” I broke out passionately; “I won’t be—” But grandaunt silenced me with one flash of her glasses.

“You two,” she continued, “will go home with me. But I can’t have any boy rampagin’ around my house—the girl’s bad enough!” and she stopped to glare at Dick, to whom she had taken an unaccountable dislike. “So I’ll place him at a school I know of—a place where he’ll be given the right kind of trainin’, and get some of the foolishness took out of him—”

“But we can’t be separated, Aunt Nelson!” cried mother. “It would break my heart and—look at him!—I know it would break his.”

Indeed Dick was turning a very white and frightened face from one to the other, with his hands clutching at his chair; but he choked back the sob that rose in his throat and pressed his lips tight together with that pluck I always admired in him. Old Dick!

“Tut-tut!” cried grandaunt. “Break, indeed! who ever heard of a heart breaking outside of silly novels? Nonsense!”

“Indeed it isn’t nonsense!” and mother looked 

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at grandaunt with such a fire in her eye as I had never seen there. “I tell you plainly, Aunt Nelson, that I will never consent to any such plan.”

There was a tone in her voice which could not be mistaken. Grandaunt glared at her a moment in astonishment, as at a sheep turned lion; then she hopped from her chair as though it had suddenly become red-hot.

“You’ve made up your mind?” she demanded. “Is that your last word?”

“Yes,” said mother, resolutely. “If you will help us on no other terms, then we must get along as best we can without your help.”

Grandaunt’s lips tightened until her mouth was the merest line across her face.

“Very well, Clara,” she said, in a voice like thin ice. “You’ll go your road, then, and I’ll go mine! I’ll always have the comfort of knowin’ that I offered to do my duty by you. I hope your children’ll thank you for this day.”

“They will!” cried mother, her head erect, her eyes blazing. “They will!”

“The more fools they!” snapped grandaunt, in return, and with that she sailed out of the room, leaving a somewhat awed and frightened family behind her.