HER ROMANTIC HEART

Evening Star, Issue 19800, 25 February 1928, Page 21

HER ROMANTIC HEART

A SHORT STORY [Written by Olive Mbhoeb, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] Rosemary Wentworth was incurably romantic. Loft without a mother at th. ago of ten, Rosemary had been brought up in the gay, irresponsible atmosphere created by her artist father, the two settling down for a month or so in an/ one place only until the most notable bits of scenery had.been transferred to canvas, then moving on to some other happy camping ground, this cure-free, out-of-doors existence ill preparing Rosemary for understanding the stereotyped life of any ordinary girl, equipping her but poorly for settling do„n into the practical, ordered existence of family life.

Rosemary was a slight, vividly auve, elfin little thing, with deep violet eyes mged with long lashes, a “ cream and roses ” complexion, and wavy brown ho,ir with glints of gold rioting through it. Her happy laugh was born of the sheer joy of living, and through the unconventionality of her life—of meeting so many different people and wandering in so many different places—she h • 1 acquired a charm of manner that made her very lovable and attractive. _To her the world was a forest of_ delight in which she and her father daily went exploring, an endless pursuit of beauty and the sweet fragrances of life. Cut cut for poetry was the heart jf Rosemary, and steeped in enchantment was th- interesting, beauty-chasing, gipsy life which she and her father followed. It was when she was eighteen, after her father’s sudden death _ in Ireland and when she was living with an aunt in the grey atmosphere of Edinburgh, that Rosemary met Robert Ellworthy and felt that once again the gates of romance had opened for her and she was on the horizon of now delights. The first look into Robert’s dark capturing eyes had sent a warm thrilling rush of life through her being, and his caressing voice ijjade her certain that the very perfect knight her father had told her would one day find her and claim her had come at last. Here indeed was the Prince Charming of whom she had dreamed—a heart that would worship her for ever, a man who would call her the queen of his life and the light of his eyes, and to whom she would remain forever the flower of his first affection.

Never did Rosemary dream that she was weaving a tapestry out of her own soul’s beauty, and was adorning this man with the colored texture of her own sweet dreams. What she saw was certainly not Robert —selfish, scheming, egotistical. . . . She saw but the picture her love _ had so ardently .painted, and kneeling before it in the dear abandonment of budding womanhood. she called it “Beautiful” and “ Beloved,” and hugged it to her heart. The brief days of courtship were almost over when Robert Ellworthy was brought face to face with a devastating piece of news. Brought up to regard himself as the sole heir of nis bachelor uncle, and expecting to receive a large fortune without in any way working for it, he was little prepared to face the new adjustment to life necessary when he learned that his uncle had been secretly married for some time to his housekeeper, and that a •4h and heir had just been born to him. In the letter acquainting him with this news, a gift of two hundred pounds was enclosed, his uncle feeling sorry for the blow bo knew he was inflicting on the young man, and hoping this would cushion the immediate future until the lad found work. After two days of desperate anger and savage cursing, Robert sought out Rosemary and laid his disappointment on her heart. In his first overwhelming bitterness he had thought of giving her up and seeking to marry a girl with money, that he might retrieve his position in the eyes of the world, but with the wedding only a fortnight off it had not seemed possible, “ We’ll co out to New Zealand.” It was a sudden idea, this, and he wondered how Rosemary would take it. “ Arc you game? They say it’s a wonderful country, full of big openings. ‘ God’s own country,’ they call it. There ought to be some good positions available there. Here in the Old Country there are no prospects whatever.: at least nothing one could take up. Will vou come with me to this new country? I’ll see about passages to-day if you’ll only say the word. Otherwise ” —it was a sudden thought, perhaps, of breaking with her easily—" otherwise I shall have to go alone. And of course that would mean ” Did his eyes hint of unspeakable things, such as going away from her and perhaps staying away for ever? But Rosemary did not need this threat of separation to make her come to a quick decision. Her romantic heart was enchanted with the prospect of a new country with new scenery and new people. It would be like the old days with father—days of sunshine and adventure, laughter and song. Yes, oi course shes would go! She was only too glad to get away from the deadly: monotony of the life she was compelled to live with her aunt.

They hurried up the wedding to catch the next steamer bound for New Zealand, Rosemary full of wild, exuberant ideas of the old happy, care-free days coming again, her eyes sparkling with the excitement of taking out their passages, receiving and packing up them many presents, and saying good-bye to their largo circle of friends. But the long voyage in such close proximity to her husband's small range of ideas and interest was quick in bringing to Rosemary the terrible realisation that here was not the wonderful Prince Charming she had thought she had found, here was not the comrade and friend and lover that was to be hers through the years. . . . Robert was only a man, she soon found, interested in his own needs to the exclusion of everyone else’s, caring only that his own personal demands on life’s bank should bo satisfied. The little fragrant, awakened petals of her heart began soon to close again, softly, shinkingly, one by one. . . . Rosemary, who had thought to dance with jewelled heels over life’s polished surfaces forever. . . . Rosemary, who had

hoped to pluck all through her life the never-fading flowers of poetry and romance. Far from romantic were those first days in New Zealand. From town to town they journeyed after landing in Auckland, Robert always on the lookout for congenial work, but never finding just that particular position he felt he merited. He did not definitely know what it was ho wanted to do, but had a hazy kind of idea that it would turn up some time, and then he would know. With this idea he turned down everything that he felt was the least bit unsuitable, for always this expectation lured him on.

After 1 months of wandering and this half-hearted kind of searching they at last found themselves in Dunedin, and Rosemary, sick and miserable and disillusioned, told him desperately that they must stay here and settle down—told him at last the news she had not been sure of till now. ... Hurt beyond words was she at the way Robert received her tidings. Instead of entering ■vyith enthusiasm and interest into the adventure of the little life that was on its way to them, he openly showed his annoyance, openly blamed Rosemary for not taking care to prevent such a contingency, arrogantly informing her that she was pushing him towards w’ork that was utterly repugnant to his nature and wholly beneath him. Secretly he was glad to have a peg-on which to hang his nmny. grievr

ances against fate, and he now made Rosemary’s condition the excuse for accepting a position that was totally inadequate in the face of the great ability everyone knew he possessed. Always he could cast it up lo her, it pleased him to think, that because of her be had had to swallow his pride and take the first thing that offered. After this satisfactory calculation he found work'as a storeman, and they rented a four-roomed cottage in a back street in South Dunedin, where they found that rents were cheapest. And Rosemary, who had been taught to look for sunlight glinting on the pale green of willows, for cloud shadows on waving corn, for purple distances in the silver twilight, found it almost beyond her strength to meet the appalling greyness of the days, to cope with the stark cruelty of ugliness and continual sickness and tiredness. She had. not known such things were part of life! She had not known that she could weep such bitter scalding tears! Yet in spite of the acute suffering of the days, Rosemary’s heart still held a little secret corner dedicated to the reality of beauty. The little on© . . .

her little one. . . . Ah, how wonderful it would be when she had the tiny, frail thing beside her, when she would be able to see it and caress it and sing it to sleep! The baby would grow up to be an artist—a writer or poet, perhaps—one who was a seeker after beauty, as her own dear father had been. So the heart of llosemiry dreamed on in spite of hardship and long days and nignts of loneliness and waiting. Marguerite would not be weak Tike hex mother, hiding her dreams, taking the line Of least resistance. She would have the strength to stand up for the beautiful and true, the strength not td be trampled underfoot by the cruel marching feet of destiny. How uplifted was Rosemary as she drew picture after picture of the wonderful future of her child! With wailing cries the baby came into the world one very early morning, and Robert, annoyed at having to go for nurse and doctor at such an outrageous hour, vented his spleen on the little mother who looked up at him with such soft, imploring eyes. “Marguerite!” he barked when Rosemary told him the lovely name she had thought of for the baby, baby. “What utter rot! She’ll be christened Maggie if she’s christened at all, for as far as I can see in this damned country there’ll be no place for her unless she goes out as a servant. Marguerite, indeed!” There was a harshness about his laugh and a finality about his decision that Rosemary had not the strength to question. And it was the same with the others who came afterwards. Never was Rosemary allowed to have her way. Pauline Rosella was christened Jane. The first boy, “Ivan Elliston,” was_ labelled Toni, while the next one was just plain John instead of Eric Nelson. But by that time Rosemary had grown accustomed to tne shadows of life, and wept no longer because everything was grey instead of gold, and thorns grew so unexpectedly on the stalks of life instead of roses.

Except for a move into a bigger cottage and some better furniture, life went on much the same for Rosemary until Maggie was seventeen. Then one morning a volcano suddenly erupted in the family circle, and all of them were swept into new adjustments by the influences hurled like molten Java in their midst. It was a Saturday morning in early summer, and the children were hurrying through breakfast to get away to a picnic, when the voice of John, as he reached across the table as far as he could, but without success, hurriedly demanded. “Pass the butter, Mag. 1” It is sometimes just such trivial incidents as these that 'carry away the debris of the years and serve to make a new, unrestricted course for the life to flow along. It was just this trivial demand, thrown like a stone into the machinery of their combined life, that swerved it round and impelled it into unexpected and untraversed paths. A crimson tide of anger had rushed over Maggie's face at the boy’s rudeness, almost immediately to he superseded by a white set look of dteemination. She got up from the table and drew herself together, attaining a poise, none of them had ever known she possessed. '

“I’ll give you notice, all of you—you, too, father and mother—that from this hour 1 refuse to answer to the name of Maggie. I hate it, and always have hated it. From now on you are all to call me Marguerite, nothing else. If you refuse to drop the Maggie, I shall find some means of making you take heed to me. Please don’t forget! From now on I am Marguerite!” Catching up her hat and wraps in the narrow hall, she had disappeared outside the gate before anyone had had time to say a word. She did not return till bed-time; then w r cnt straight upstairs'to the tiny room where she slept alone. Her mother, as soon as she felt the girl was undressed and in bed, went softly upstairs and into the room. “Marguerite!” she whispered tenderly, feeling her way in the darkness.

“Oh, mother 1 You don’t think me a fool, do you?” The girl’s voice was eager, and she drew her mother towards her with warm affection. “I don’t know what got me this morning, but that name has been a positive torture to me for years, and I just felt I could not put up with it any longer. Oh, mother, why did you put such a tag on to me? Surely you know that when I grew up I’d want something beautiful for my name?” “ I did know it, dear. I wanted you called Marguerite. I have always called you that in my heart, never Maggie.” “Oh, mother, how glad I am!” The girl put her arms round the thin form and gave kisses and a hug that Rosemary had often secretly dreamed of receiving, but had never really hoped; • • > “Mother, dear! What do you think? I’ve got a box full of stories and poems that I’m simply dying to read to you. I just can’t bear to go into that office' father has selected. See here, mumsie, if I can get a story accepted and published in one of the Christmas supplements, will you stand up for me and help me? Oh, Ido so long to be what I want to be, mother, not what dad insists I shall be. Will you help me, mumsie, dear? And will you read the stories and advise me what to do?”

That night Rosemary was awake nearly all night from the very joy in her heart. She had thought her life barren of result, and had felt herself shut out from her children’s love and interest, yet here was little Marguerite, her oldest baby, turning to her with appreciation and asking her advice and help, choosing the name her mother had so longed to give her, following after the same bright ribbon of dreams. In a rush of grateful, happy tears Rosemary’s foolish romantic _ heart again went a-soaring as she pictured the secret dreams she had nourished while waiting for. the coming of each one of her children. A glad throb of hope shook her as she whispered softly to herself, "Perhaps—the others—too.”