Twice Told Tales

  EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD.

  There is hardly a more difficult exercise of fancy than, while gazingat a figure of melancholy age, to recreate its youth, and withoutentirely obliterating the identity of form and features to restorethose graces which Time has snatched away. Some old people--especiallywomen--so age-worn and woeful are they, seem never to have been youngand gay. It is easier to conceive that such gloomy phantoms were sentinto the world as withered and decrepit as we behold them now, withsympathies only for pain and grief, to watch at death-beds and weep atfunerals. Even the sable garments of their widowhood appear essentialto their existence; all their attributes combine to render themdarksome shadows creeping strangely amid the sunshine of human life.Yet it is no unprofitable task to take one of these doleful creaturesand set Fancy resolutely at work to brighten the dim eye, and darkenthe silvery locks, and paint the ashen cheek with rose-color, andrepair the shrunken and crazy form, till a dewy maiden shall be seenin the old matron's elbow-chair. The miracle being wrought, then letthe years roll back again, each sadder than the last, and the wholeweight of age and sorrow settle down upon the youthful figure.Wrinkles and furrows, the handwriting of Time, may thus be decipheredand found to contain deep lessons of thought and feeling.

  Such profit might be derived by a skilful observer from mymuch-respected friend the Widow Toothaker, a nurse of great repute whohas breathed the atmosphere of sick-chambers and dying-breaths theseforty years. See! she sits cowering over her lonesome hearth with hergown and upper petticoat drawn upward, gathering thriftily into herperson the whole warmth of the fire which now at nightfall begins todissipate the autumnal chill of her chamber. The blaze quiverscapriciously in front, alternately glimmering into the deepest chasmsof her wrinkled visage, and then permitting a ghostly dimness to marthe outlines of her venerable figure. And Nurse Toothaker holds ateaspoon in her right hand with which to stir up the contents of atumbler in her left, whence steams a vapory fragrance abhorred oftemperance societies. Now she sips, now stirs, now sips again. Her sadold heart has need to be revived by the rich infusion of Geneva whichis mixed half and half with hot water in the tumbler. All day long shehas been sitting by a death-pillow, and quitted it for her home onlywhen the spirit of her patient left the clay and went homeward too.But now are her melancholy meditations cheered and her torpid bloodwarmed and her shoulders lightened of at least twenty ponderous yearsby a draught from the true fountain of youth in a case-bottle. It isstrange that men should deem that fount a fable, when its liquor fillsmore bottles than the Congress-water.--Sip it again, good nurse, andsee whether a second draught will not take off another score of years,and perhaps ten more, and show us in your high-backed chair theblooming damsel who plighted troths with Edward Fane.--Get you gone,Age and Widowhood!--Come back, unwedded Youth!--But, alas! the charmwill not work. In spite of Fancy's most potent spell, I can see onlyan old dame cowering over the fire, a picture of decay and desolation,while the November blast roars at her in the chimney and fitfulshowers rush suddenly against the window.

  Yet there was a time when Rose Grafton--such was the prettymaiden-name of Nurse Toothaker--possessed beauty that would havegladdened this dim and dismal chamber as with sunshine. It won for herthe heart of Edward Fane, who has since made so great a figure in theworld and is now a grand old gentleman with powdered hair and as goutyas a lord. These early lovers thought to have walked hand in handthrough life. They had wept together for Edward's little sister Mary,whom Rose tended in her sickness--partly because she was the sweetestchild that ever lived or died, but more for love of him. She was butthree years old. Being such an infant, Death could not embody histerrors in her little corpse; nor did Rose fear to touch the deadchild's brow, though chill, as she curled the silken hair around it,nor to take her tiny hand and clasp a flower within its fingers.Afterward, when she looked through the pane of glass in the coffin-lidand beheld Mary's face, it seemed not so much like death or life aslike a wax-work wrought into the perfect image of a child asleep anddreaming of its mother's smile. Rose thought her too fair a thing tobe hidden in the grave, and wondered that an angel did not snatch uplittle Mary's coffin and bear the slumbering babe to heaven and bidher wake immortal. But when the sods were laid on little Mary, theheart of Rose was troubled. She shuddered at the fantasy that ingrasping the child's cold fingers her virgin hand had exchanged afirst greeting with mortality and could never lose the earthy taint.How many a greeting since! But as yet she was a fair young girl withthe dewdrops of fresh feeling in her bosom, and, instead of"Rose"--which seemed too mature a name for her half-opened beauty--herlover called her "Rosebud."

  The rosebud was destined never to bloom for Edward Fane. His motherwas a rich and haughty dame with all the aristocratic prejudices ofcolonial times. She scorned Rose Grafton's humble parentage and causedher son to break his faith, though, had she let him choose, he wouldhave prized his Rosebud above the richest diamond. The lovers parted,and have seldom met again. Both may have visited the same mansions,but not at the same time, for one was bidden to the festal hall andthe other to the sick-chamber; he was the guest of Pleasure andProsperity, and she of Anguish. Rose, after their separation, was longsecluded within the dwelling of Mr. Toothaker, whom she married withthe revengeful hope of breaking her false lover's heart. She went toher bridegroom's arms with bitterer tears, they say, than young girlsought to shed at the threshold of the bridal-chamber. Yet, though herhusband's head was getting gray and his heart had been chilled with anautumnal frost, Rose soon began to love him, and wondered at her ownconjugal affection. He was all she had to love; there were nochildren.

  In a year or two poor Mr. Toothaker was visited with a wearisomeinfirmity which settled in his joints and made him weaker than achild. He crept forth about his business, and came home at dinner-timeand eventide, not with the manly tread that gladdens a wife's heart,but slowly, feebly, jotting down each dull footstep with a melancholydub of his staff. We must pardon his pretty wife if she sometimesblushed to own him. Her visitors, when they heard him coming, lookedfor the appearance of some old, old man, but he dragged his nervelesslimbs into the parlor--and there was Mr. Toothaker! The diseaseincreasing, he never went into the sunshine save with a staff in hisright hand and his left on his wife's shoulder, bearing heavilydownward like a dead man's hand. Thus, a slender woman still lookingmaiden-like, she supported his tall, broad-chested frame along thepathway of their little garden, and plucked the roses for hergray-haired husband, and spoke soothingly as to an infant. His mindwas palsied with his body; its utmost energy was peevishness. In a fewmonths more she helped him up the staircase with a pause at everystep, and a longer one upon the landing-place, and a heavy glancebehind as he crossed the threshold of his chamber. He knew, poor man!that the precincts of those four walls would thenceforth be hisworld--his world, his home, his tomb, at once a dwelling-and aburial-place--till he were borne to a darker and a narrower one. ButRose was with him in the tomb. He leaned upon her in his daily passagefrom the bed to the chair by the fireside, and back again from theweary chair to the joyless bed--his bed and hers, theirmarriage-bed--till even this short journey ceased and his head lay allday upon the pillow and hers all night beside it. How long poor Mr.Toothaker was kept in misery! Death seemed to draw near the door, andoften to lift the latch, and sometimes to thrust his ugly skull intothe chamber, nodding to Rose and pointing at her husband, but stilldelayed to enter. "This bedridden wretch cannot escape me," quothDeath. "I will go forth and run a race with the swift and fight abattle with the strong, and come back for Toothaker at my leisure."Oh, when the deliverer came so near, in the dull anguish of herworn-out sympathies did she never long to cry, "Death, come in"?

  But no; we have no right to ascribe such a wish to our friend Rose.She never failed in a wife's duty to her poor sick husband. Shemurmured not though a glimpse of the sunny sky was as strange to heras him, nor answered peevishly though his complaining accents rousedher from sweetest dream only to share his wretchedness. He knew herfaith, yet nou
rished a cankered jealousy; and when the slow diseasehad chilled all his heart save one lukewarm spot which Death's frozenfingers were searching for, his last words were, "What would my Rosehave done for her first love, if she has been so true and kind to asick old man like me?" And then his poor soul crept away and left thebody lifeless, though hardly more so than for years before, and Rose awidow, though in truth it was the wedding-night that widowed her. Shefelt glad, it must be owned, when Mr. Toothaker was buried, becausehis corpse had retained such a likeness to the man half alive that shehearkened for the sad murmur of his voice bidding her shift hispillow. But all through the next winter, though the grave had held himmany a month, she fancied him calling from that cold bed, "Rose, Rose!Come put a blanket on my feet!"

  So now the Rosebud was the widow Toothaker. Her troubles had comeearly, and, tedious as they seemed, had passed before all her bloomwas fled. She was still fair enough to captivate a bachelor, or with awidow's cheerful gravity she might have won a widower, stealing intohis heart in the very guise of his dead wife. But the widow Toothakerhad no such projects. By her watchings and continual cares her hearthad become knit to her first husband with a constancy which changedits very nature and made her love him for his infirmities, andinfirmity for his sake. When the palsied old man was gone, even herearly lover could not have supplied his place. She had dwelt in asick-chamber and been the companion of a half-dead wretch till shecould scarcely breathe in a free air and felt ill at ease with thehealthy and the happy. She missed the fragrance of the doctor's stuff.She walked the chamber with a noiseless footfall. If visitors came in,she spoke in soft and soothing accents, and was startled and shockedby their loud voices. Often in the lonesome evening she lookedtimorously from the fireside to the bed, with almost a hope ofrecognizing a ghastly face upon the pillow. Then went her thoughtssadly to her husband's grave. If one impatient throb had wronged himin his lifetime, if she had secretly repined because her buoyant youthwas imprisoned with his torpid age, if ever while slumbering besidehim a treacherous dream had admitted another into her heart,--yet thesick man had been preparing a revenge which the dead now claimed. Onhis painful pillow he had cast a spell around her; his groans andmisery had proved more captivating charms than gayety and youthfulgrace; in his semblance Disease itself had won the Rosebud for abride, nor could his death dissolve the nuptials. By that indissolublebond she had gained a home in every sick-chamber, and nowhere else;there were her brethren and sisters; thither her husband summoned herwith that voice which had seemed to issue from the grave of Toothaker.At length she recognized her destiny.

  We have beheld her as the maid, the wife, the widow; now we see her ina separate and insulated character: she was in all her attributesNurse Toothaker. And Nurse Toothaker alone, with her own shrivelledlips, could make known her experience in that capacity. What a historymight she record of the great sicknesses in which she has gone hand inhand with the exterminating angel! She remembers when the small-poxhoisted a red banner on almost every house along the street. She haswitnessed when the typhus fever swept off a whole household, young andold, all but a lonely mother, who vainly shrieked to follow her lastloved one. Where would be Death's triumph if none lived to weep? Shecan speak of strange maladies that have broken out as ifspontaneously, but were found to have been imported from foreign landswith rich silks and other merchandise, the costliest portion of thecargo. And once, she recollects, the people died of what wasconsidered a new pestilence, till the doctors traced it to the ancientgrave of a young girl who thus caused many deaths a hundred yearsafter her own burial. Strange that such black mischief should lurk ina maiden's grave! She loves to tell how strong men fight with fieryfevers, utterly refusing to give up their breath, and how consumptivevirgins fade out of the world, scarcely reluctant, as if their loverswere wooing them to a far country.--Tell us, thou fearful woman; tellus the death-secrets. Fain would I search out the meaning of wordsfaintly gasped with intermingled sobs and broken sentenceshalf-audibly spoken between earth and the judgment-seat.

  An awful woman! She is the patron-saint of young physicians and thebosom-friend of old ones. In the mansions where she enters the inmatesprovide themselves black garments; the coffin-maker follows her, andthe bell tolls as she comes away from the threshold. Death himself hasmet her at so many a bedside that he puts forth his bony hand to greetNurse Toothaker. She is an awful woman. And oh, is it conceivable thatthis handmaid of human infirmity and affliction--so darkly stained, sothoroughly imbued with all that is saddest in the doom of mortals--canever again be bright and gladsome even though bathed in the sunshineof eternity? By her long communion with woe has she not forfeited herinheritance of immortal joy? Does any germ of bliss survive withinher?

  Hark! an eager knocking st Nurse Toothaker's door. She starts from herdrowsy reverie, sets aside the empty tumbler and teaspoon, and lightsa lamp at the dim embers of the fire. "Rap, rap, rap!" again, and shehurries adown the staircase, wondering which of her friends can be atdeath's door now, since there is such an earnest messenger at NurseToothaker's. Again the peal resounds just as her hand is on the lock."Be quick, Nurse Toothaker!" cries a man on the doorstep. "Old GeneralFane is taken with the gout in his stomach and has sent for you towatch by his death-bed. Make haste, for there is no time tolose."--"Fane! Edward Fane! And has he sent for me at last? I amready. I will get on my cloak and begone. So," adds the sable-gowned,ashen-visaged, funereal old figure, "Edward Fane remembers hisRosebud."

  Our question is answered. There is a germ of bliss within her. Herlong-hoarded constancy, her memory of the bliss that was remainingamid the gloom of her after-life like a sweet-smelling flower in acoffin, is a symbol that all may be renewed. In some happier clime theRosebud may revive again with all the dewdrops in its bosom.