The Wind in the Rose-Bush | Page 5

for
Rebecca. She smiled placidly, her pink, double-chinned face widened
and dimpled, but her blue eyes were wary and calculating. She
extended her hand as Rebecca climbed the steps.
"This is Miss Flint, I suppose," said she.
"Yes, ma'am," replied Rebecca, noticing with bewilderment a curious
expression compounded of fear and defiance on the other's face.
"Your letter only arrived this morning," said Mrs. Dent, in a steady
voice. Her great face was a uniform pink, and her china- blue eyes were
at once aggressive and veiled with secrecy.
"Yes, I hardly thought you'd get my letter," replied Rebecca. "I felt as if
I could not wait to hear from you before I came. I supposed you would
be so situated that you could have me a little while without putting you
out too much, from what John used to write me about his circumstances,
and when I had that money so unexpected I felt as if I must come for
Agnes. I suppose you will be willing to give her up. You know she's
my own blood, and of course she's no relation to you, though you must
have got attached to her. I know from her picture what a sweet girl she
must be, and John always said she looked like her own mother, and
Grace was a beautiful woman, if she was my sister."
Rebecca stopped and stared at the other woman in amazement and
alarm. The great handsome blonde creature stood speechless, livid,
gasping, with her hand to her heart, her lips parted in a horrible
caricature of a smile.
"Are you sick!" cried Rebecca, drawing near. "Don't you want me to
get you some water!"
Then Mrs. Dent recovered herself with a great effort. "It is nothing,"
she said. "I am subject to--spells. I am over it now. Won't you come in,
Miss Flint?"

As she spoke, the beautiful deep-rose colour suffused her face, her blue
eyes met her visitor's with the opaqueness of turquoise--with a
revelation of blue, but a concealment of all behind.
Rebecca followed her hostess in, and the boy, who had waited
quiescently, climbed the steps with the trunk. But before they entered
the door a strange thing happened. On the upper terrace close to the
piazza-post, grew a great rose-bush, and on it, late in the season though
it was, one small red, perfect rose.
Rebecca looked at it, and the other woman extended her hand with a
quick gesture. "Don't you pick that rose!" she brusquely cried.
Rebecca drew herself up with stiff dignity.
"I ain't in the habit of picking other folks' roses without leave," said
she.
As Rebecca spoke she started violently, and lost sight of her resentment,
for something singular happened. Suddenly the rose- bush was agitated
violently as if by a gust of wind, yet it was a remarkably still day. Not a
leaf of the hydrangea standing on the terrace close to the rose trembled.
"What on earth--" began Rebecca, then she stopped with a gasp at the
sight of the other woman's face. Although a face, it gave somehow the
impression of a desperately clutched hand of secrecy.
"Come in!" said she in a harsh voice, which seemed to come forth from
her chest with no intervention of the organs of speech. "Come into the
house. I'm getting cold out here."
"What makes that rose-bush blow so when their isn't any wind?" asked
Rebecca, trembling with vague horror, yet resolute.
"I don't see as it is blowing," returned the woman calmly. And as she
spoke, indeed, the bush was quiet.
"It was blowing," declared Rebecca.

"It isn't now," said Mrs. Dent. "I can't try to account for everything that
blows out-of-doors. I have too much to do."
She spoke scornfully and confidently, with defiant, unflinching eyes,
first on the bush, then on Rebecca, and led the way into the house.
"It looked queer," persisted Rebecca, but she followed, and also the boy
with the trunk.
Rebecca entered an interior, prosperous, even elegant, according to her
simple ideas. There were Brussels carpets, lace curtains, and plenty of
brilliant upholstery and polished wood.
"You're real nicely situated," remarked Rebecca, after she had become
a little accustomed to her new surroundings and the two women were
seated at the tea-table.
Mrs. Dent stared with a hard complacency from behind her silver-
plated service. "Yes, I be," said she.
"You got all the things new?" said Rebecca hesitatingly, with a jealous
memory of her dead sister's bridal furnishings.
"Yes," said Mrs. Dent; "I was never one to want dead folks' things, and
I had money enough of my own, so I wasn't beholden to John. I had the
old duds put up at auction. They didn't bring much."
"I suppose you saved some for Agnes. She'll want some of