The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 02, December, 1857

But, dear as the Button-Rose is to my memory, I should hardly think of obtruding it on the notice of others, were it not for a little tale of human interest connected with it. While I yet stood motionless in the ecstasy of my first wonder, a young man and woman entered the garden, chatting and laughing in a very lively manner. The lady was my Aunt Caroline, then in the fresh bloom of seventeen; the young man I had never seen before. Seeing me standing alone in the walk, my aunt called me; but as I shrunk away shy and blushing at sight of the stranger, she came forward and took hold of my hand.

"This is our little Katy, Cousin Harry," said she, leading me towards him.

"Our little Katy's most obedient!" replied he, taking off his broad-brimmed straw hat, and making a flourishing bow nearly to the ground.

"Don't be afraid of him, Katy dear; he's nobody," said my aunt, laughing.

At these encouraging words I glanced up at the merry pair, and thought them almost as pretty as the rose and hummingbird. My Aunt Caroline's beauty was of a somewhat peculiar character,—if beauty that can be called which was rather spirit, brilliancy, geniality of expression, than symmetrical mould of features. The large, full eye was of the deepest violet hue; the finely arched forehead, a little too boldly cast for feminine beauty, was shaded by masses of rich chestnut hair; the mouth,—but who could describe that mouth? Even in repose, some arch thought seemed ever at play among its changeful curves; and when she spoke or laughed, its wonderful mobility and sweetness of expression threw a perfect witchery over her face. She was quite short, and, if the truth must be told, a little too stout in figure; but this was in a great measure redeemed by a beautifully moulded neck, on which her head turned with the quickness and grace of a wild pigeon. Every motion was rapid and decided, and her whole aspect beamed with genius, gayety, and a cordial friendliness, which took the heart at first sight. And then, her voice, her laugh!—not so low as Shakspeare commends in woman, but clear, musical, true-hearted, making one glad like the song of the lark at sunrise.

Cousin Harry was a very tall, very pale, very black-haired and black-eyed young gentleman, with a high, open brow, and a very fascinating smile.

The remainder of the garden scene was to me but little more than dumb show. Perhaps it was more vividly remembered for that very reason. I recollect being busy filling a little basket with strawberries, while I watched with a pleased, childish curiosity the two young people, as they passed many times up and down the gravelled walk between the rows of flowers. I was not far from the Button-Rose, and I had nearly filled my basket, when my aunt came to the spot and stooped over the little plant. Her face was towards me, and I saw several large tears fall from her eyes upon the leaves. She broke off the most beautiful blossom, and tying it up with some sprigs of mignonette, presented it to Cousin Harry. They then left the garden.

The next day I heard it said that Cousin Harry was gone away. The little rose was brought into the house and installed in the bow-window of my aunt's room, where it was watched and tended by us both with the greatest care.

Some time after this, the news came that Cousin Harry was married. The next morning I missed my little favorite from the window. My aunt was reading when I waked.

"Oh, Aunty!" I cried, "where is our little rose?"

"It was too much trouble, Katy," said she, quietly; "I have put it into the garden."

"But isn't it going to stand in our window any more?"

"No, dear, I am tired of it."

"Oh, do bring it back! I will take the whole care of it," said I, beginning to cry.

"Katy," said my aunt, taking me into her lap, and looking steadily, but kindly, into my face, "listen to me. I do not wish to have that rose in my room any more; and if you love me, you will never mention it again."

Something in her manner prevented my uttering a word more in behalf of the poor little exile. As soon as I was dressed, I ran down into the garden to visit it. It looked very lonely, I thought; I could hardly bear to leave it. The day following, it disappeared from the garden, and old Nanny, the housemaid, told me that my aunt had given it away. I never saw it again.

Thus ended my personal acquaintance with the little Button-Rose. But that first strong impression on my fancy was indelible. The flower still lived in my memory, surrounded by associations which gave it a mystic charm. By degrees I ceased to miss it from the window; but that strange garden scene grew more and more vivid, and became a cabinet picture in one of the little inner chambers of memory, where I often pondered it with a delicious sense of mystery. The rose and humming-bird seemed to me the chief actors in the magic pantomime, and they were some way connected with my dear Aunt Linny and the black-eyed young man; but what it all meant was the great puzzle of my busy little brain. It has sometimes been a matter of curious speculation to me, what share that diminutive flower had in the development of my mind and character. With it, so it seems to me, began the first dawn of a conscious inner life. I can still recollect with wonderful distinctness what I have thought and felt since that date, while all the preceding years are vague and shadowy as an ill-remembered dream. From them I can only conjure up, as it were, my outward form,—a happy animal existence, with which scarce a feeling of self is connected; but from the time when I bore a part in this little fragment of a romance the current of identity flows on unbroken. From that light waking touch, perchance, the whole subsequent development took form and tone.—But, gentle reader, your pardon! This is nothing to my story.

CHAPTER II

Ten years had slipped away, and I was now in my sixteenth year. Of course, my little cabinet picture had been joined by many others. It was now but one in an extensive gallery; and the modest little gem, dimmed with dust, and hidden by larger pieces, had not been thought of for many a day.

External circumstances had remained much the same with us; only one great change, the death of my dear grandmother, having occurred in the family. My aunt presided over her father's household, and the admirable order and good taste which pervaded every department bore witness how well she understood combining the elements of a home.

Aunt Linny, now twenty-seven years of age, had lost nothing of her former attractiveness. The brilliant, impulsive girl had but ripened into the still more lovely woman. Her cheek was not faded nor her eye dimmed. There was the same frankness, the same heart in her glance, her smile, the warm pressure of her hand, but tempered by experience, reflection, and self-control. One felt that she could be loved and trusted with the whole heart and judgment. Her personal attractions, and yet more the charm of her sensible, genial, and racy conversation, brought to our house many pleasant visitors, and made her the sparkling centre of every circle into which she could be drawn. But it was rarely that she could be beguiled from home; for, since her mother's death, she had devoted herself heart and soul to her widowed father.

The relation between myself and my aunt was somewhat peculiar. Neither of us having associates of our own age in the family, I had become her companion, and even friend, to a degree which would have been impossible in other circumstances. She had scarcely outgrown the freshness and simplicity of childhood when I first came to live with her, and my mind and feelings had expanded rapidly under the constant stimulus of a nature so full of rich life; so that at the date I now speak of, we lived together more as sisters than as aunt and niece. An inexpressible charm rests on those days, when we read, wrote, rambled together, shared the same room, and had every pleasure, every trouble in common. All show of authority over me had gradually melted away; but her influence with me was still unbounded, for I loved her with the passionate earnestness of a first, full-hearted friendship.—But to proceed with my story.

One sweet afternoon in early summer, we two were sitting alone. The windows towards the garden were open, and the breath of lilacs and roses stole in. I had been reading to her some verses of my own, celebrating the praise of first love as an imperishable sentiment. My fancy had just been crazed with the poetry of L.E.L., who was then shining as the "bright particular star" in the literary heavens.

"The lines are very pretty," said my aunt, "but I trust it's only poetizing, Kate; I should be sorry indeed to have you join the school of romantic misses who think first love such a killing matter."

"But, Aunty," I cried, "what a horribly prosy, matter-of-fact affair life would be in any other view! I believe poetry itself would become extinct."

"So, then, if a woman is disappointed in first love, she is bound to die for the benefit of poetry!"

"But just think, Aunt Linny—if Ophelia, instead of going mad so prettily, and dying in a way to break everybody's heart, had soberly set herself to consider that there were as fine fish yet in the sea as ever were caught, and that it was best, therefore, to cheer up and wait for better times! Frightful!"

"Never trouble your little head, Kate, with fear that there will not be Ophelias enough, as long as the world stands. But I wouldn't be one, if I were you, unless I could bespeak a Shakspeare to do me into poetry. That would be an inducement, I allow. How would you fancy being a Sukey Fay, Kate?"

"Oh, the poor old wretch, with her rags and dirt and gin-bottle! Has she a story?"

"Just as romantic a one as Ophelia, only she lacks a poet. But, in sober truth, Katy, why is there not as true poetry in battling with feeling as in yielding to it? To me there seems something far more lofty and beautiful in bearing to live, under certain circumstances, than in daring to die."

"If you only spoke experimentally, dear Aunty! Oh that Plato, or John Milton, or Sir Philip Sydney would reappear, and lay all his genius and glory at your feet! I wonder if you'd be of the same mind then!"

"And then, of course, this sublime suitor must die, or desert me, to show how I would behave under the trial.—Katy," continued my aunt, after a little pause, with a smile and slight blush, "I have half a mind to tell you a little romance of my early days, when I was just your age. It may be useful to you at this point of your life."

"Is it possible?" cried I,—"a romance of your early days! Quick, let me hear!"

"I shouldn't have called it a romance, Katy; for as a story, it is just nothing. It has no interest except as marking the beginning of my education,—the education, I mean, of real life."

"But let me hear; there's some spice of poetry in it, I know."

"Well, then, it's like many another story of early fancy. In my childhood I had a playmate. Our fathers' houses stood but a few rods apart, and the families lived in habits of the closest intimacy. From my earliest remembrance, the brave little boy, four years older than I, was my sworn friend and protector; and as we increased in years, an affection warm and frank as that of brother and sister grew up between us. A love of nature and of poetry, and a certain earnestness and enthusiasm of character, which separated us both from other children, drew us closely together. At fifteen he left us to fit for college at a distant school, and thenceforward he was at home only for brief visits, till he was graduated with distinguished honor at the age of twenty-one. During those six years of separation our relation to each other had suffered no change. We had corresponded with tolerable regularity, and I had felt a sister's pride in his talents and literary honors. When, therefore, he returned home to recruit his health, which had been seriously impaired by study and confinement, I welcomed him with great joy, and with all the frankness of former times.

"Again we read, chatted, and rambled together. I found him unchanged in character, but improved, cultivated, to a degree which delighted, almost awed me. When he read our favorite authors with his rich, musical voice, and descanted on their beauties with discriminating taste and fervent poetic feeling, a new light fell on the page. Through his eyes I learned to behold in nature a richness, a grace, a harmony, a meaning, only vaguely felt before. It was as if I had just received the key to a mysterious cipher, unlocking deep and beautiful truths in earth and sea and sky, by which they were invested with a life and splendor till now unseen. But it was his noble sentiments, his generous human sympathies, his ardent aspirations after honorable distinction to be won by toil and self-denial, which woke my heart as by an electric touch. My own unshaped, half-conscious aims and aspirations, stirred with life, took wing and soared with his into the pure upper air. Ah! it was a bright, beautiful dream, Kate, the life of those few months. I never once thought of love, nor of the possibility of separation. All flowed so naturally from our life-long intimacy, that I had not the slightest suspicion of the change which had come over me. But the hour of waking was at hand. We had looked forward to the settled summer weather for a marked improvement in his health. But June had come and he still seemed very delicate. His physician prescribed travelling and change of climate; and though his high spirits had deceived me as to his real danger, I urged him to go. He left us to visit an elder brother residing in one of the Middle States. Ten years this very month!" added Aunt Linny, with an absent air.

"Ten years ago this very month," I exclaimed, "did my distinguished self arrive at this venerable mansion. What a singular conjunction of events! No doubt our horoscopes would reveal some strange entanglement of destinies at this point. Perchance I, even I, was 'the star malign' whose rising disturbed the harmonious movement of the spheres!"

"No doubt of it; the birth of a mouse once caused an earthquake, you know."

"But could I have seen him? Did I arrive before he had left?"

"Oh, yes, very likely; but of course you can have no recollection of him, such a chit as you were then."

"What was his name?" I cried, eagerly. A long-silent chord of memory began to give forth a vague, uncertain murmur.

"Oh, no matter, Kate. I would a little rather you shouldn't know. It doesn't affect the moral of the story, which was all I had in view in relating it."

"A plague take the moral, Aunty! The romance is what I want; and what's that without 'the magic of a name'?"

"Excuse me."

"Tell me his Christian name, then,—just for a peg to hang my ideas on; that is, if it's meat for romance. If it is Isaac or Jonathan, you needn't mention it."

"Well, then, you tease,—I called him Cousin Harry."

"Cousin Harry!" I screamed, starting forward, and staring at her with eyes wide open.

"Yes; but what ails you, child? You glare upon me like a maniac."

"Hush! hush! don't speak!" said I.

As I sunk back, in a sort of dream, into the rocking-chair in which I had been idling, the garden caught my eye through the open window. The gate overarched with honeysuckle, the long alley with its fragrant flowering border, the grape arbor, the steep green hill behind, lay before me in the still, rich beauty of June. In a twinkling, memory had swept the dust from my little cabinet picture, and let in upon it a sudden light. The ten intervening years vanished like a dream, and that long-forgotten garden scene started up, vivid as in the hour when it actually passed before my eyes. The clue to that mystery which had so spellbound my childish fancy was at length found. I sat for a time in silence, lost in a delicious, confused reverie.

"The Button-Rose was a gift from him, then?" were my first words.

"What, Kate?" said Aunt Linny, now opening her large blue eyes with a strange look.

"Did you give away the flower-pot too? That was so pretty! Whom did you give it to?"

"Incredible!" she exclaimed, coloring, and with the strongest expression of surprise. "Truly, little pitchers have not been slandered!"

"But the wonderful humming-bird, Aunty! What had that to do with it?"

"Kate," said my aunt, "you talk like one in sleep. Wake up, and let me know what all this means."

"I see it all now!" I rattled on, more to myself than her. "First young love,—parting gift,—Cousin Harry proves fickle,—Aunt Linny banishes the Button-Rose from her window,—takes to books, and educating naughty nieces, and doing good to everybody,—'bearing to live,' as more heroic than 'daring to die,'—in ten years gets so that she can speak of it with composure, as a lesson to romantic girls. So?"

"Even so, Katy!" she replied, quietly; "and to that early disappointment I owe more than to anything that ever befell me."

She said this with a smile; but her voice trembled a little, and I perceived that a soft dew had gathered over her eyes. By an irresistible impulse I rose, and stealing softly behind her, clasped my arms round her neck, and kissing her forehead whispered, "Forgive me, sweet Aunty!"

"Not a bit of harm, Katy," she replied, drawing me down for a warm kiss. "But what a gypsy you must be," she added, in her usually lively tone, "to have trudged along so many years with this precious little bundle, and said never a word to anybody!"

"I've not thought of it myself, these ever so many years," said I, "and it seems like witchwork that it should all have come to me at this moment."

I then related to her my childish reminiscences and speculations, which amused her not a little. Her hearty, mirthful zest showed that the theme was not a disquieting one. I now begged her to proceed with her story.

"But stay a moment," said I; "let me fetch our garden bonnets, that we may enjoy it in the very scene of the romance."

"Ah, Kate, you are bent on making a heroine of me!" was the reply, as she took her seat in the grape arbor; "but there are really no materials. I shall finish in fifteen minutes by my watch, and you'll drop me as an Ophelia, I venture to say. Cousin Harry had left us, as I told you, to visit his brother. For some months his letters were very frequent, and as the time approached for his return they grew increasingly cheerful, and—Katy, I cannot but excuse myself in part, when I recall the magic charm of those letters. But no matter; all of a sudden they ceased, and for several weeks not a word was heard from him by his own family. At length, when my anxiety had become wellnigh intolerable, there came a brief letter to his father, announcing his marriage with the sister of his brother's wife, and his decision to enter into business with his brother."

"Did you know anything of the young lady?"

"He had once or twice mentioned her in his letters as a beautiful, amiable creature, whose education had been shamefully neglected. Her kindness to him in his illness and loneliness, added to her natural charms, won his heart, no doubt many a wise man has been caught in that snare."

"But what base conduct towards you!"

"Not at all, my dear! My dream had suffused his words with its own coloring,—that was all. As soon as reason could make her voice heard, I acquitted him of all blame. His feelings towards me had been those of a brother,—no more."

"But why, then, did he cease to write? why not share his new happiness with so dear a friend?"

"That was not unnatural, after what he had said of the young lady's deficiencies. Probably the awkwardness of the thing led him to defer writing from time to time, till he had become so absorbed in his domestic relations and his business, that he had ceased to think of it. Life's early dewdrops often exhale in that way, Kate!"

"Then life is a hateful stupidity!"

"Yes; if it could be morning all day, and childhood could outlast our whole lives, it would be very charming. But life has jewels that don't exhale, Kate, but sparkle brightest in the hottest sun. These lie deep in the earth, and to dig them out requires more than a child's strength of heart and arm. One must be well inured to toil and weather before he can win these treasures; but when once he wears these in his bosom he doesn't sigh for dewdrops."

"Well, let me hear how you were inured."

"The news of this marriage revealed to me, as by a flash of lightning, my whole inner world of feeling. When I knew that he was forever lost, I first knew what he had become to me. The pangs of disappointment, of self-humiliation,—I hardly know which were the stronger,—were like poisoned arrows in my heart. It was my first trouble, and I had to bear it in silence and alone. Not for worlds would I have had it guessed that I had cherished an unreturned affection, and it would have killed me to hear him blamed. Towards him I had, in my most secret heart, no emotion of resentment or reproach. A feeling of dreary loss, of a long, weary life from which all the flowers had vanished, a sort of tender self-pity, filled my heart. It is not worth while to detail the whole process by which I gradually forced myself out of this miserable state. One thing helped me much. As soon as the first bitterness of my heart was passed, I saw clearly that the indulgence of such a sentiment towards one who was now the husband of another could not be innocent. It must not be merely concealed; it must be torn up, root and branch. With this steadily before my mind as the central point of my efforts, I worked my way step by step. First came the removal of the numerous little mementos of those happy days in dreamland, the sight of which softened my heart into weakness and vain regret. Next I threw aside my favorite works of imagination and feeling, and for two years read scarcely a book which did not severely task my mind. I devoted myself more to my mother, and interested myself in the poor and sick. Last, not least, I resolved on taking the whole charge of your education, Katy; and of my various specifics, I think I would recommend the training of such an elf as the 'sovereignest remedy' for first love. The luxuriant growth of your character interested, stimulated, kept me perpetually on the alert. I soon began to work con amore at this task; my spirits caught at times the contagious gayety of yours; my poor heart was refreshed by your warm childish love. In short, I began to live again. But, ah! dear Kate, it was a long, stern conflict. Many, many months, yes, years, passed by, ere those troubled waters became clear and still. But I held firmly on my way, and the full reward came at last. By degrees I had created within and around me a new world of interest and activity, in which this little whirlpool of morbid feeling became an insignificant point. I was conscious of the birth of new energies, of a bolder and steadier sweep of thought, of fuller sympathies, of that settled quiet and harmony of soul which are to be gained only in the school of self-discipline. That dream of my youth now lies like a soft cloud far off in the horizon, beautiful with the morning tints of memory, but casting no shadow."

She paused; then added, in a lively tone: "Well, Kate, the fifteen minutes are not out, and yet my story is done. Think you now it would really have been better to go a-swinging on a willow-tree over a pond, and so have made a good poetical end?"

"Oh, I am so glad you were not such a goose as to make a swan of yourself, like poor Ophelia!" said I, throwing my arms around her, and giving her half a dozen kisses. "But tell me truly, was I indeed such a blessing to you, 'the very cherubim that did preserve thee'? To think of the repentance I have wasted over my childish naughtiness, when it was all inspired by your good angel! I shall take heed to this hint."

"Do so, Kate, and your good angel will doubtless inspire in me a suitable response."

"But tell me now, Aunt Linny, who the living man was. Was he a real cousin?"

"I may as well tell you, Kate, or you will get it from your 'familiar.' You have heard of our rich cousin in Cuba, Henry Morrison?"

"Oh, yes; I have heard grandfather speak of him. So, then, he was Cousin Harry! I should like one chance at his hair, for all his goodness. Did you ever meet again?"

"Never. His father's family soon removed to a distant place, so that there was no necessity for visiting the old home. But I have always heard him spoken of as an upright merchant and a cultivated and generous man. He has resided several years in Cuba. A year or two since, he went to Europe for his wife's health, and there she died. Rumor now reports him as about to become the husband of an Englishwoman of high connections. I should be very glad to see him once more.—But come now, Kate, let's have a decennial celebration of our two anniversaries. Lay the tea-table in the grape arbor, and then invite grandpapa to a feast of strawberries and cream."