Stella Rosevelt

“Star, my dear child, what does this mean?” Mr. Rosevelt ejaculated, in a tone of wonder, as his niece concluded.

“It is unnecessary to ask her whether I have spoken the truth or not; her very looks and manner betray that she is guilty of what I have told you,” Mrs. Richards said, scornfully. “I did not suppose, however, with her innocent face and apparently quiet, modest manner, that she could be quite so shameless. But it is always so; such cat-like natures always work in the dark.”

Star’s proud little head came up with a haughty air at this taunting speech, while her blue eyes grew dark and ominous.

“You are accusing me ignorantly and most unjustly,” she said, in a hard tone, but with pained and quivering lips.

“How so? Do you presume to deny that you met Lord Carrol in the grounds to-night?” demanded Mrs. Richards, severely.

“No.”

“You did meet him?”

“Yes.”

“And denounced him as a traitor?”

“Yes. I believe him to be a traitor to truth and honor, and—a coward!”

They were hard, cruel words to be said of Archibald Sherbrooke, whom she had loved so dearly and believed to be so noble and true, and her heart thrilled with keenest pain as she uttered them, but she believed he had basely deceived her.

“Explain yourself,” commanded Mrs. Richards, bridling.

“I shall explain nothing,” Star answered, coldly, yet firmly. “What I said to Lord Carrol to-night was intended for him alone. If he has chosen to betray me, the responsibility rests upon himself, and you can go to him for explanations if you choose.”

“Where did you meet him first—how did you make his acquaintance?” asked Mrs. Richards, longing to get Star’s version of the story.

“I decline to answer any questions upon the subject,” she returned, quietly.

“I command you to tell me.”

“And I still decline,” Star said, with an air that surprised both of her listeners.

She was as colorless now as a block of marble, but so beautiful in her proud sorrow, her agonized scorn, that they could but regard her with wonder.

“You have no right to refuse what I ask of you. I am your guardian, and I demand a truthful confession of this whole scandalous affair,” Mrs. Richards reiterated, sharply.

“You have already had it, you say, from Lord Carrol’s own lips; it will therefore be unnecessary for me to repeat or enlarge upon it,” the young girl returned, with calm scorn, while her delicate nostrils dilated, and her sweet lips curled with supreme contempt.

“I cannot understand—there must be some mistake in all this,” ejaculated Mr. Rosevelt, his face a perfect blank. “I thought, Saturday, Star, that you——”

A slight motion from her checked him in what he was going to say.

“No, there is no mistake; and this much I will explain to you. I did meet Lord Carrol to-night, as Mrs. Richards has told you,” she said. “I did believe myself his betrothed wife, and him to be a man of honor, until he came here last night as Miss Richards’ acknowledged suitor, and when I saw him this evening I did denounce him as a traitor. It seems that he has volunteered explanations to suit himself to Mr. and Mrs. Richards, and I decline to go further into particulars with them. I have no desire to blight Miss Josephine’s prospects in life, and I wish her all joy with her high-born and honorable lover.”

Pen cannot portray the scorn which pervaded those last words, ringing out so clearly, so scathingly that Mrs. Richards’ cheeks burned and her ears tingled; for this was the man—if he really had been the traitor which she wished to make him appear—whom she was using all her arts to secure for Josephine’s husband.

“I am amazed—I cannot understand!” Mr. Rosevelt repeated, with a troubled face.

He believed Star to be as pure-minded and as innocent of wrong as a little child.

He had been convinced from what had transpired on the previous Saturday that she loved Archibald Sherbrooke, and not knowing that he was also Lord Carrol, he, of course, was completely puzzled over the mystery.

“I do not see how you dare look any respectable person in the face, and confess what you just have, without seeking to clear yourself,” retorted Mrs. Richards, sternly. “You are compromising your character in the most wretched manner. What can I believe of you—what can any one believe of you, if you own to having been upon such intimate terms with a man of such standing as Lord Carrol, while he is here as the acknowledged suitor of my daughter?”

“The very worst that you can believe, madam,” Star returned, calmly, and meeting the woman’s eye fearlessly, but with a look which made her quail in spite of herself, “can only serve to compromise the man, whose favor and title you appear so anxious to secure, more than it possibly can me. Notwithstanding whatever claim I may have supposed myself to have heretofore possessed upon him, I now most cheerfully resign it in favor of Miss Richards.”

Were ever words so cutting? Was there ever so barbed a sentence so calmly uttered before?

Mrs. Richards ground her teeth with rage over the feet that the man whom poor, despised Star Gladstone thus spurned, believing him to be the very soul of dishonor, she knew Josephine was using all her arts to win, while of course she could not undeceive her because it would spoil her plot.

“You are an insolent, overbearing girl,” she said, in a low, hissing tone, “and I wonder how I have tolerated you in my house as long as I have. I wonder how you dare face me, and use such insulting language to me after your shameless conduct.”

“I am neither insolent nor overbearing, Mrs. Richards. Ever since I came into your house I have striven to do as nearly right as I knew how, and to make as little trouble as possible. It is you who have been overbearing, who have wounded me by insulting the memory of my parents, and have tried to crush and trample upon me. In no way have I rebelled against your authority, except in the determination not to become a common servant and to pursue my education. This I did in justice to myself, and because I had promised my father I would do it. If you have ‘tolerated me in your house,’ believe me, there has been as much toleration exercised upon my part, for in no sense of the word has it been a home to me; instead, it has been merely a place of shelter, a spot to exist in until I could complete my education. I can bear it no longer. I shall consider your house no longer my home,” Star concluded, with a decision which rather startled Mrs. Richards.

But she retorted, derisively:

“Your independent spirit ill becomes you. Where could you go? Who would take you, a penniless beggar, and give you the advantages which you have been enjoying during the past year? But it is folly for me to give heed to your idle words. I command you to return directly to your room, and hold no intercourse with any one, and to-morrow I will decide what course to pursue with reference to your future.”

She had been planning to pack her off to Brooklyn with one of the servants until Lord Carrol’s visit should be ended, and thus avoid all possibility of an interview and its attendant explanations.

But Star did not move. She remained standing quietly by Mr. Rosevelt’s chair, as if she had not heard her command.

“Did you hear what I said?” she demanded, sharply.

“Yes, madam.”

“Well, do you intend to obey me?”

“No, madam.”

“What!”

“I refuse to recognize your authority over me from this moment. I refuse to obey any longer one who, from the first, has been governed only by feelings of personal spite in all her dealings with me,” Star returned, firmly.

Mrs. Richards could scarcely credit her ears.

She had not imagined that the usually quiet girl possessed a tithe of this spirit.

“Well, Uncle Jacob, what do you think of your little pattern of excellence now?” demanded the astonished woman, turning with an injured air to her uncle, who was nearly as much amazed himself.

“I think the child has been severely tried,” he returned, quietly, whereupon Mrs. Richards flew into another rage.

“I must say, Uncle Jacob, that I consider it very bad taste in you to take sides with her against me; and let me warn you, that you have both got yourselves into trouble by the doings of this night.”

The arrogant dame did not wait for any reply, but turned abruptly and left the room, retiring, however, with a sense of defeat which it was not pleasant to contemplate.

The moment that the door closed after her, Star dropped again upon the floor by Mr. Rosevelt’s side, heart-broken. He saw that she was utterly unnerved by what had just transpired, and for awhile he left her to herself. At length, when she became more calm, he said, sorrowfully, yet gently:

“My child, tell me what Ellen means. What cause has she for coming here to accuse you of such dreadful things? Who is this Lord Carrol, and what has he been to you?”

Star lifted her white, pained face to him.

“You do not believe what she has told you—you do not believe I would be guilty of anything so shameless as she would try to make me appear?” she questioned, brokenly.

“No, no; I think there is some terrible misunderstanding. I do not believe you would do anything which you knew to be wrong; and yet your own words have mystified me. I cannot comprehend them.”

“I will tell you all about it. I would not explain anything to her—I could not after she had told me what he said,” Star answered, but her face flushed with shame at the thought of confessing a tale of love and devotion on her part, of deception and treachery on the part of the man whom she had so trusted.

It seemed to her like a lack of dignity and of strength of character that she should have been so easily duped.

Then she told him all the story of her love for Archibald Sherbrooke, beginning with that day when they had exchanged souvenirs on the steamer, and which, she felt, had been the commencement of their love. She told him how he had prevented her from leaping on the cars when they were in motion, and how every day after that he had contrived to meet her, luring her heart from her day by day, until the previous Saturday he had declared his love for her, and won her promise to be his wife as soon as she should have graduated.

“Oh, Uncle Jacob,” Star concluded, hiding her face on the arm of his chair again, “I believed him so true, so honorable, so worthy of my love, and now to find him so unprincipled and treacherous, it crushes me!”

Mr. Rosevelt looked very grave, almost stern.

“This is just as I supposed—as I was led to believe from your appearance last Saturday. I knew well enough, when we returned home from Coney Island, that you had promised to be Sherbrooke’s wife. But I don’t understand his treachery, as you call it, nor what connection all this has with the young lord who has come to ask for Josephine’s hand,” he said, coldly.

Star looked up again, at the unfamiliar tone.

“Oh!” she said, wearily; “I am so miserable that I have not made it plain to you—I have not told you; but Lord Carrol is only another name for the man who called himself Archibald Sherbrooke. Under the latter he cheated me into loving him, and he has ruined my life; under the former, which is his real name, I suppose, he has been trying to win the heiress.”

Mr. Rosevelt was speechless from amazement at this revelation, and for a full minute could only look down into those piteous, uplifted eyes in mute dismay.

“Impossible!” he cried, at length. “I cannot believe it; I cannot think that young Sherbrooke would be guilty of anything so dastardly. There must be some mistake.”

“There is no mistake,” Star returned, with despair in her tones. “I was sitting at the window of my room when he arrived, and, of course, I recognized him at once. His form, his bearing, his handsome face, the tones of his voice—everything was identical with the Archie Sherbrooke from whom we parted last Saturday evening. At first I was crushed by the blow; then I thought perhaps Lord Carrol had disappointed them, and Archie had come to me as he had promised to do Monday or Tuesday; but this hope fled when I heard them address him as Lord Carrol, and he replied at once to the name. It has broken my heart, Uncle Jacob,” Star wailed, pouring out all her sorrow to him. “I do not know how I ever lived last night through; I do not believe I was conscious half the time; while to-day I have been too weak, and ill, and wretched to care what became of me.”

“Poor child! poor child!” he murmured, softly.

“To-night,” she went on, “I felt as if I must get out into the air. I must see a friendly face and hear a kindly voice, so I came to you, although I did not mean to tell you anything of my trouble. I meant to bear it alone, and never let any one know how cruelly I had been deceived, or how readily I had given my foolish heart away.”

The old gentleman laid his hand on her shining head, smoothing her hair with a tender touch. He was nearly weeping himself to see this beautiful young girl so crushed.

“On my way down here,” she pursued, “I felt faint; my strength all left me, and I stopped and leaned against a tree to recover myself, and while I stood there he stole up behind me, laid his hand on my shoulder, and asked me in surprise how I came to be there. I gave him the street and number where we lived last Saturday, but I suppose when Mr. Richards and Josephine went to meet him at the station and brought him here, he did not once think it was the same place, for I have never told him their names. He believed me to be a poor girl, and never would have thought of finding me in a place like this; that was why he was so overcome with surprise when he saw me to-night. But when I charged him with personating two characters—having two names—he could not deny it; he owned that he was Lord Carrol, but tried to make me let him explain. I would not; there could be nothing to explain. He had deceived me, and it was enough; I could never trust him after that. I called him a traitor and a coward, and then I ran away and came to you, who are the only friend I have in this wide, weary world.”

“You did right, dear, to come to me; but were you not a trifle hasty and rash? I think you should have listened to young Sherbrooke’s—or whoever he may be—defense,” Mr. Rosevelt said, gently.

“What possible defense could he have had to offer?” Star cried, in a voice of scorn. “He has pretended to be Archibald Sherbrooke, a simple artist, to me, while everybody else knows him as Lord Carrol, of Carrolton.”

“But he may have been traveling incognito under the former name,” suggested Mr. Rosevelt.

“Then why did he not keep it to the end? Why did he go to a fashionable watering-place and flourish as a titled Englishman, and devote himself to Josephine? Why did he resume the former name upon meeting me again, and lead me to love him, believing him to be a poor artist? No; there can be nothing said in defense of such double-dealing as this. He has cheated and fooled me. I have found him out, and compelled him to own it. It is enough to make me scorn him; but it has been a bitter lesson, and has taught me never to trust a man again,” Star concluded, with vehement bitterness.

“Never, Star? Surely that acrimonious resolve does not include me,” said Mr. Rosevelt, with gentle reproach.

“No; I know that you are kind and true, and you are the only one in the world who cares for me,” the suffering girl said, in husky tones.

“Indeed, my child, you have become very dear to me, and my life would be very forlorn without you.”

Star bent down and touched his hand with her lips. In her wretchedness it comforted her greatly to know that she had contributed to his happiness.

“But I cannot get over what you have told me. I never was so deceived in my life before; and if this young sprig of English nobility is the villain you represent him, he is not fit to live,” Mr. Rosevelt said, sternly, after a few moments of thoughtful silence.

Star shivered with pain. Much as she believed she scorned him, she could not endure that another should speak disparagingly of him.

“Never mind him, Uncle Jacob,” she said. “I have put him out of my life forever; and now I want to talk to you about something else. You say that I have made your life happier since you came here, and that you would be very lonely without me. I am going to tell you a little secret, and then I want you to promise to go away from here with me. I am not going to remain here another day,” she concluded decidedly.

“Is that your secret, Star?”

“Part of it,” she answered, with a sad smile. “I have a little money, as you know—a hundred pounds—which, at Mr. Richards’ suggestion, I put at interest last year. Now, I want to take this money and make a cozy little home for you and me somewhere, until I get through school—there will be enough to last till then, I think—and after that I shall be able to take care of us both in fine style, by teaching and giving music lessons.”

He smiled skeptically as she planned so hopefully what her poor hundred pounds would do, while a tear started to his eye at her thought for him.

She saw that he did not think she could do all that she told him, and flushed.

“You do not believe that I shall be able to take care of us both,” she said, eagerly, “but I know that I can, for I have not yet told you all. Listen.”

She bent nearer to him, and putting her lips close to his ear, told him something which even you and I must not know just yet, my patient reader.

He was nearly as much surprised as he had been to learn of Archibald Sherbrooke’s treachery.

“My dear,” he said, while his face lighted with pride and joy, “you shall have your way, and I will do just as you wish, and I——”

He checked himself suddenly, dropped his head in thought for a moment, then resumed:

“I am not happy here any more than yourself, and have been thinking for some time that I must go away; but I could not bear the thought of parting from you. Now we will go together, as you wish, unless——”

“Unless what, Uncle Jacob?” Star asked, anxiously.

“Unless you will let me see this young scamp of a lord, and take him to task for his faithlessness to you.”

“Never!” Star replied, proudly. “What good would it do to——”

“There may be some mistake; he might be able to explain everything satisfactorily,” interrupted Mr. Rosevelt.

Star’s beautiful lips curled.

“What would his explanations amount to? He is here as a suitor for Josephine’s hand—they all confess it; and did you ever listen to a more monstrous story than Mrs. Richards repeated here to-night? To think that he could say anything so basely false of me is almost enough to drive me wild,” Star cried, excitedly. “No, Uncle Jacob; although he has been guilty of the most cruel treachery, I will not contend with him. If he is such a craven that he would try to win a young girl’s heart for the amusement of breaking it, and then seek to blight her fair fame by charging her with what he has imputed to me to-night, he is too far beneath me to be worthy of anything save my supreme contempt, and I never wish to meet him again. I only want to get away from them all, and never see their faces more.”

Her voice broke with such a wail of despair in it that the old man could not find it in his heart to refuse her anything.

“Very well; we will go away to-morrow,” he said, sorrowfully.

“Oh, thank you, Uncle Jacob!” the unhappy girl said, eagerly; “and will you go without letting them know? They would never consent, and I do not wish them even to know where I go.”

“Yes; we will go without saying anything to any one. We can leave a note telling them why we go, and it shall be the object of the little time that remains to me to care for you and try to make your young life a little brighter than it has been,” he returned, thoughtfully.

“How early can you be ready?” he asked, after a moment.

“By daylight; the earlier the better,” she returned, earnestly. “Every moment here is full of pain for me.”

“Very well; there is a six o’clock train—the workingmen’s train—into New York; we will take it, and find a home for ourselves somewhere in the city. But how about your school, Star? They will seek for you there.”

“I will go to Professor Roberts and tell him that circumstances compel me to leave, and ask him for a recommendation to some other institute. There are others in the city where they would never dream of looking for me, and where I can graduate next year, as I have planned to do.”

“It shall be just as you wish, my dear; I feel that I am doing you no wrong in gratifying you. You shall be like a young daughter to me, and I—I promise I will be no burden to you, notwithstanding that I am old and feeble,” Mr. Rosevelt answered, with a sad smile.

“A burden!” Star repeated, with quivering lips. “Oh, please do not imagine such a thing! It is you who are to take care of me and shield me until I graduate, for without you to help me bear the responsibility, I should not dare to take such a step.”

Mr. Rosevelt smiled again.

“You try to make the obligation appear all your own; but I share it, nevertheless; and I think you and I will be far happier away from the unpleasant influences which have surrounded us during the past year. I am quite anticipating the change, I assure you. Now you must go to rest. You look more like a ghost than a star just now; and my heart has been deeply pained to-night for the suffering that you have had to endure; but I believe it will yet be made up to you in some way,” he concluded, with grave thoughtfulness.

He sat regarding her earnestly for a few moments. Then he said, while his eyes were fixed questioningly on her face:

“This is a different kind of a storm, child, from the one which you and I passed through at sea. Your faith was strong then; you were not afraid to die; how is it now? Do you believe your God rules this kind of a storm also?”

There was a skeptical smile on the old man’s lips, and a bitterness in his tone as he asked this, which filled the young girl’s heart with remorse.

She looked up at him with a startled glance, while her pained face almost instantly relaxed into an expression of trustfulness and peace.

“Uncle Jacob,” she said, with a solemn sweetness which impressed him deeply, “you could not have said anything for which I should thank you more—you have recalled me to myself. I should not have forgotten for a moment that God rules everywhere and over everything. Yes, I believe He knows best, even though I cannot understand why I must suffer this bitter trial.”

The old man sighed deeply, and his face was very grave.

“Good-night!” he said, abruptly, and rising, led her to the door.

When he reached it, he bent suddenly down and touched her forehead with his lips; and Star, with a low-spoken “good-night,” went away with a sorely aching heart, indeed, but greatly comforted by his sympathy, while a spirit of submission had succeeded to the bitterness and rebellion of the previous hour.

Jacob Rosevelt locked the door after her, and went back to the table where he had been sitting when she came to him.

Opening the drawer, he took out a package of papers and letters, which he carefully looked over.

When he had read them all, he selected a portion, tore them into atoms, and throwing them into the grate where there was a slow fire, watched them until they had burned to ashes, with a white, stern face. Then he sat down again, and wrote far into the night.

The next morning when Mrs. Blunt went up to see how Star was feeling, and if she had any appetite for her breakfast, she found her room empty.

“Goodness gracious! the child has got up and gone to school, and without a mouthful to stay her stomach, or I’m much mistaken,” she said, in a voice of dismay.

Then, as her eye fell upon the open drawers of the bureau and the empty closet, a sudden fear oppressed her.

A little note lying upon the bed now attracted her attention, and she eagerly pounced upon it.

It was directed to her, and with trembling fingers she opened it, and read:

“Dear Mrs. Blunt:—Something has occurred which makes it impossible for me to remain here any longer, and I am going away to take care of myself. You have always been very kind to me, and I thank you very much for it, and shall never forget it. Sometime I hope to see you again, and I trust you will always think kindly of

The good woman sat down and wept bitter tears over this brief note, for she had learned to love the bright, kind-hearted girl who always had a cheery word for her. She knew the house would never seem the same again without her.

Then she went down to tell the news to her master. She met John Mellen in the hall, who had come with the intelligence that Mr. Rosevelt left the lodge early that morning, taking all that belonged to him—“which was not much, yer honor,” he volunteered, and he handed Mr. Richards a note which the old gentleman had left for him.