The quest for the rose of Sharon

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, 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 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.

“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; 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 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.