Nobody's Rose

CHAPTER I
HOW POSEY CAME ADRIFT

Out in the open country the day was dull and grey, with low-hanging clouds and occasional drops of slow-falling rain, but in the city the clouds of smoke hung still lower than those of the sky, and the dropping soot-flakes made black the moisture gathered on the roofs of the houses, the leaves of the trees, and the sidewalks trodden by many feet.

It was on a city street, one where the smoke-clouds from the tall chimneys trailed low and the soot fell in its largest flakes, that ever and again a sound asserted itself above the beat of hurrying feet. The sound was not loud, only a little girl sobbing softly to herself as she shrank with her head on her arm at one side of an open stairway; and the words that she repeated over and over to herself, “What shall I do? Where shall I go?” were less in the nature of questions than a lamentation. But children tearful, loudly, even vociferously tearful, were in that vicinity so frequent that people passed and repassed the child without giving to her thought or heed.

For the street was one more populous than select, and while the tall red brick houses that bordered it had once aspired to something of the aristocratic, they were now hopelessly sunken to the tenement stage; while the neighboring region leading through the sandy open square of the Haymarket, where loads of hay always stood awaiting purchasers, down the long steep hill to the river, with its crowded shipping and its border of great lumber yards, shops, and factories, had never made pretense to anything except poverty of the most open and unattractive kind. In summer the whole region fairly swarmed with the overflowing inmates of the overcrowded houses. Children were everywhere, in large part barefooted, ragged, and so dirty that they might easily have been taken for an outgrowth of the sandheaps in which they burrowed and buried themselves when tired of the delights of the street. To see them there, in utter indifference to the constant passing of heavily loaded teams sometimes prompted the inquiry as to how many were daily killed? But though, on occasion, they were dragged from under the very horses’ hoofs by the untidy women whose shrill voices were so often heard sounding from open doors and windows, few were the accidents to either life or limb.

The not distant city market house increased the crowds, especially at certain hours of the day, as also the street venders and itinerants who contributed their full share to the noise and confusion. Hook-nosed old men, with bags over their shoulders, and shrill cries of “P-a-p-e-r r-a-g-s” abounded; the organ-grinder with his monkey was a frequent figure, with the invariable crowd of youngsters at his heels; the maimed and the blind, wearing placards appealing to the public sympathy and extending tin cups for contributions, were to be found on the corners; the scissors-grinder’s bell was a common sound, as were the sonorous offers of “Glassputin.” Here was a man loudly and monotonously appealing to the credulity of the public, and soliciting patronage for his wonderful fortune-telling birds, a little company of dingy and forlorn-looking canaries, who by the selection of sundry envelopes were supposed to reveal the past, present, and future. There, another man exhibited a row of plates with heavy weights attached, and extolled the wonderful merits of his cement for mending crockery, while the sellers of small wares, combs, pocketbooks, letter-paper, cheap jewelry, and the like, added their calls to the rest.

A few of the houses still retained a dingy scrap of yard, where thin and trampled grass blades made an effort to grow, but the most part had been built out to the street and converted into cheap restaurants, cheap clothing shops, cheap furniture shops, and the class of establishments that are cheap indeed, especially as regards the character of their wares.

In such a confusion of people and sounds it is not strange that a small girl crying to herself would attract so little attention that even the big, fat policeman on that beat passed her a number of times before he noticed her, and then did not stop, as he saw that she was well dressed. At last, as she still remained crouched down in a dejected little heap, he stopped, moved as much by the thought of a little girl in his own home as from a sense of duty, with the inquiry, “Here, Sis, what’s the matter with you?”

She started up at the brusque but not unkindly tone, and lifting from her sheltering arm a round and dimpled face, with wide grey eyes, now swollen and disfigured with tears, answered brokenly and in a half-frightened voice, for the policeman stood to her as the terror rather than the guardian of the law, “Oh, I don’t know what to do! I don’t know where to go!”

“You don’t, eh? Well, it seems to me you are a pretty big girl to get lost; where do you live?”

“I don’t live anywhere,” with a fresh sob.

“That’s rather queer, not to live anywhere,” and he looked at her a trifle more sternly. “What’s your name, if you have any?”

“Posey Sharpe.”

“Oh, indeed,” and he glanced at the stairway before him, where a small black sign with gilt lettering on the step just above her head read,

“Madam Atheldena Sharpe,
“CLAIRVOYANT.”

“So that was your mother, was it, who raised all that row here last night?”

“No, she wasn’t my mother, but I lived with her.”

“If she wasn’t, how comes it your name is the same?”

“It isn’t, really, only I’ve lived with her so long that people called me that. She said I was her niece, but I wasn’t any relation at all.”

He looked at the sign again, “Madam Sharpe. Well,” with a chuckle at his own witticism, “she wasn’t sharp enough to keep from being exposed. And you were the spirit child, I suppose?”

Posey nodded, a very dejected-looking spirit she seemed at that moment.

“Well, when she took herself off so suddenly why didn’t you go with her?”

“I ran up under the roof and hid, and I didn’t know till this morning that she had gone.”

“I see; and was she so good to you, and did you think so much of her that you are taking on this way?”

Posey hesitated a moment. “She might have been better, and she might have been worse,” she answered with a candor of simplicity. “But I haven’t anybody else to live with, and I didn’t think she’d use me so.”

“I see; it was rather rough.” There was sympathy in his tone, and even in the way he tapped his knee with his polished club.

“And,” continued Posey, “this morning the man who owns the place came and he was awfully mad and cross. He said Madam Sharpe owed him for rent, and that she had hurt the reputation of the building, and he told me to put my things in my trunk, and he shoved it out into the hall and told me to clear out, and he locked the door so I couldn’t go in again. And I haven’t had any dinner, nor I haven’t a cent of money, nor anywhere to go, and I don’t know what’ll become of me,” and she wrung her hands with another burst of tears.

Here was the cause of her misery—the semblance of home, care, and protection, poor though it was, had been suddenly stricken away, leaving her a helpless, solitary estray, a bit of flotsam at the mercy of the world’s buffeting currents. Nor was her misery softened by even the dubious bliss of ignorance that most children enjoy as to the sterner realities of life, for already in her eleven years she had learned only too well what poverty implies, and how sad a thing it is to be friendless and homeless.

Poor little Posey, with her soft eyes, dimpled mouth, and rosy face, she seemed made for sunshine and caresses. Scant indeed, however, had been her measure of either. Her earliest remembrance had been of a home of two rooms in a tenement, a poor place, from which her father was often absent, and sometimes returned with an unsteady step; but a home which held the greatest earthly gift, a loving, tender mother. She was a pale, sweet, sad-faced young mother, who shed many tears, and lavished on her little daughter all the wealth of love the heart can bestow on its one treasure. But as time went by she grew thinner and paler, the flush on her cheek deeper, and her cough sharper, more frequent, till even Posey, with a child’s apprehension, would throw her little arms around her neck, with a vague fear of what she could not have told herself. Then came a time when her mother could not rise from her bed; and at last, when Posey was six years old, the thread of life that had been so long failing suddenly snapped.

When the mother realized that the end was at hand she called her child to her and kissed her again and again. “Darling,” she said, holding her to her as though mother-love would prove itself stronger than even death, “Mamma is going away, going to leave you.”

“Where are you going to, Mamma?”

“God wants me to come to Him, to heaven.”

“Oh, don’t go!” and Posey clung to her, frightened both by her look and tone. “Don’t leave me, take me with you if you go.”

“Mamma cannot, dear, though she would, oh, so gladly. But I want you to listen now, and though you are only a little girl, never, never forget what I am saying. Be good, wherever you are try to be good, always tell the truth, always be honest, and every night say the prayer I have taught you; remember that mamma has gone to heaven and will wait for you; and above all remember, remember always, that God loves you and will take care of you.”

“Do you know where my husband is?” she asked a little later of the neighboring woman who was caring for her.

“No, but I can try and find him.” In her own mind she thought it would be no difficult task.

“It’s no matter,” was the weary answer of the wife, who had sadly learned long before that her husband’s presence was slight cause for happiness. “Tell him good-by for me, and to send a letter he will find in my workbox to my mother; so she will know that I asked her forgiveness before I died. And I want her, as I know she will for my sake, to take my child.”

Her voice that had been growing weaker and weaker failed as she whispered the last word. A slight coughing-fit followed, there were a few fluttering breaths, and the nurse who had been holding her hand laid it softly down.

“Oh, what is the matter with my mamma?” cried Posey in a frightened tone. “What makes her look so white; and lie so still? Mamma, Mamma, speak to me, do!”

But the ear that had always listened to her slightest call, would hear her no more. And the woman lifting kindly in her arms the now motherless child, terror-stricken and sobbing, though too young to understand the great loss and sorrow that had come to her, carried her gently from the room.

When the absent husband at last came home and was told his wife’s last message he listened to it moodily. “I don’t know any great reason she had to ask her mother’s forgiveness, just because she married me,” he said. “I’m not the worst man in the world, by a long way, if her mother did make such a fuss about it. And as for letting her have Posey to bring up and set against me, I’ll do nothing of the kind. I can take care of my own child, and I shall do it.”

A natural and praiseworthy sentiment, this last, had he been a sober, industrious man, but unfortunately for himself and all connected with him he was neither. As a consequence, in the days that followed his little girl suffered much from neglect, and often from privation. Sometimes he feasted her on candy and sweetmeats till she was almost sick, and again, and more often, he left her to fare as best she might, and go hungry unless some neighbor fed her, while many were the nights she lay awake trembling in the darkness in her little bed, afraid of the dark, and almost more afraid of hearing the unsteady steps that would announce a drunken father.

But when her mother had been dead less than a year, there was a disturbance one evening in a near-by saloon. Revolvers were used, and one man, present but not involved in the quarrel, was fatally wounded. Posey never saw her father again. Taken to a hospital, public charity cared for him in his last hours and laid him in his grave. When they came to tell his child of his death they found her playing merrily with a doll she had made for herself of a rolled-up apron and a little shoulder-shawl.

It was hardly to be expected that she would comprehend her loss. For that matter, she hardly knew that she had met with one, and Mrs. Malone, across the hall, was decidedly of the opinion that she had not. For her mother she had grieved long and passionately; that her father was gone made but slight impression. She had received from him so little of affection that she did not miss its absence, and as to kindness and care, she had as much from the neighbors.

For a time she was passed from one to another of these, sharing the proverbial charity of the poor, minding babies, running errands, and doing such little tasks as her years and strength permitted. There was a kind-hearted reluctance among these humble friends to handing her over to public charity. A remembrance of her mother’s wish for her still lingered, and Mrs. Malone even tried to find the letter she had spoken of, but no doubt her husband had destroyed it. There was occasional talk of an effort to find this grandmother, but Posey knew nothing of her whereabouts, every one else was equally ignorant, and it never went beyond the talk.

It was at this time that Posey came under the notice of Madam Atheldena Sharpe, a lady who was making her wits provide her support, and who was quick to see how a pretty and easily taught child might be a help towards that end. To her taking possession of Posey there was no one to object. None of the few people she knew felt able to assume the burden of her support. To most of them the clairvoyant with her showy manners and fine-sounding phrases seemed a very imposing person, and Posey was counted a fortunate child to have found such a protector.

So Posey entered on the second phase of her life, bearing with her pitifully few mementos of her vanished home—a china dog her father had bought her in an unwontedly generous mood, a book of children’s poems, out of which her mother had read to her and taught her to read, a locket that had belonged to her mother, and her pocket Bible.

It was but a short time till new attractions were added to “Madam’s” séances—mysterious bells rang, an equally mysterious tambourine was tinkled; and presently out of a cabinet, that now made part of the furnishing of the room, appeared what was understood to be a spirit materialized, an ethereal-looking little figure in the dim light, with long golden hair and floating white draperies.

As to the question of right or wrong in all this the child gave little thought. At first she had been too young and the various details had been but so many tasks; then as she grew older and began to realize the humbug behind that needed such constant and careful guarding from discovery, she was inclined to laugh at people for being so easily duped. But in the main it was to her simply a means of living, the way in which their bread and butter came.

For the ignorance of most children as to the value of money, or its need in daily life had with Posey been early and sadly dispelled. Better than many an older person she understood not only its necessity but how to make the most of it. From behind some door or curtain she would watch the people as they came to consult the clairvoyant, or gathered for a séance, as eagerly as the “Madam” herself; she knew exactly what each would add to the family purse, and so could tell pretty well in advance if the next day’s dinner would be scanty or plenty, and whether the medium would be pleasant or the contrary. For though not destitute of kindly impulses her mood was apt to vary in large measure with her success.

In their changing life Posey was soon far from the city where she had lived, and finding her of even more value than she had expected Madam Sharpe gave to the child her own name, and took all possible pains to efface all remembrance of her earlier life, at the same time impressing on her the fact of her homeless and friendless condition, and that but for her kindness she would be a little beggar on the street; so that, as was her intention, Posey grew into the belief that Madam Atheldena Sharpe was all that stood between her and absolute distress, and with that picture constantly before her she yielded the more readily to that lady’s frequent exactions and petulance.

That she might become still more valuable, she was sent to school whenever their stay in a place permitted, though seldom was that long enough for the forming of friendships. Indeed Madam Sharpe did not encourage such, for though singularly trusty, still she was always afraid that to other children Posey might be tempted to betray some jealously guarded secrets. For this reason, fortunately for her, Posey was never allowed the freedom of the streets, or the acquaintance of the children among whom she was thrown.

As soon as she grew old enough the “Madam” made her useful in domestic matters. She was taught to sweep and dust the rooms, to go to market, to prepare their simple meals, and to attend to most of the “light housekeeping” which best suited Madam Sharpe’s finances and business. In the evenings if people enough came to form a “circle” she had her part to take in the “manifestations,” which was to her only another of her daily tasks, and when ended she was quickly and gladly in bed and asleep.

So Posey’s life was by no means an idle one. She had enough to do to fill the most of her time, and for the rest, though often she was lonely and longed for companionship, still she had been accustomed from a little child to amusing herself and so had acquired numberless resources to that end. Perhaps the most important result of this way of life was the distinctness in which it kept her mother’s memory, which might have faded had existence for her been happier or less monotonous. Facts and events grew blurred and indistinct, but her mother remained as vivid as a living presence.

No doubt with time imagination added its share till the remembrance grew into her ideal of all that was true and pure and lovely, as it was her greatest solace and comfort. Her words, except those last ones fixed by the solemnity of death, she did not so much remember, but the tenor of her mother’s teachings, her influence, her personality, were indelibly stamped on her mind. In every grief her first impulsive thought was, “Oh, my mamma!” as though even that mute appeal was a consolation; while the reflection, “Would Mamma like to have me?” influenced her actions more than the actual presence of many a living mother. Never a night did she omit to kneel and repeat the prayer she had learned at her knee. Though she had long known them all by heart, she never grew tired of the book of child’s poems out of which her mother had read to her. Often of an evening sitting alone and lonely, out of her vague and fragmentary memories she would try to recall the songs she had sung and the stories she had told her; and many a night when the day had been hard in her small world did she cry herself to sleep with the yearning plaint on her lips, “I do so want to see my mamma!” All this had the effect of keeping her strangely pure, and through the atmosphere of sordid deceit, if not worse, that surrounded her she walked as if guided and led by the mother-hand so long still and folded.