Stella Rosevelt — Background and Themes

oves not ’mid the moving heavens alone, A smile among dark frowns—a gentle tone Among rude voices, a beloved light, A solitude, a refuge, a delight.”—SHELLEY.

A noble steamer was laboriously plowing the turbulent waters of the great Atlantic, heaving, and struggling, and creaking with every revolution of her gigantic screw, for the waves were rolling high—“mountain high”—in very truth. The huge dark masses of water would swell and rise up like a great black wall, reaching, it seemed, almost to the angry, leaden sky above, then sweeping down with mighty force, thunder upon the decks of that great vessel, making it shudder to its very center, sending it down, down into the yawning depths, as if eager, in venomous spite, to blot it out of existence.

There were very few first cabin passengers on board the —— as she thus labored on her weary way between Liverpool and New York, for it was late in the year, and the rush of travel was over for that season.

Fifteen were all they numbered, while there were about twice as many in the steerage; and well it was that there were no more to share the horrors of that dreadful voyage.

It had been a very gloomy passage, a severe storm arising the second day out, which had increased in violence until now—the fifth day—it appeared as if all the elements had conspired to work destruction upon the stanch ship which was faithfully battling with the cruel waves and toiling to bear its precious freight of human souls safely into port.

It was a forlorn little company that sat shivering and trembling in the close saloon—only five, all out of the fifteen who had not succumbed to the seasickness—and these five had the appearance, with their pale, pinched faces, their heavy eyes and disordered attire, of feeling anything but comfortable or well.

An old man of perhaps sixty years, his hair and beard white as snow, his face sallow and wrinkled, his eyes anxious and sunken, sat upon the floor—indeed, it was impossible to sit anywhere else—braced against a stationary seat, and clinging to one of the iron posts which supported the roof of the saloon. He was wrapped in a heavy shawl and two elegant rugs; his soft hat was drawn down over his forehead, and he seemed entirely oblivious of everything about him.

Two spinsters, companions and sisters, lay upon cushions flat upon the floor, and, also wrapped in their rugs, looked not unlike two huge bags of wool rolling from side to side with every motion of the boat.

Another man had crept into a corner, where he tried to keep himself from pitching about by clinging to a rope which he had fastened to an immovable table.

The only other occupant of the place was a little fair-haired maiden of perhaps fifteen or sixteen years.

She was small and delicate, and was sitting, or trying to sit, upon the floor, not far from the old gentleman before mentioned.

She was wrapped in a thick woolen shawl, and her head was covered with a crimson hood, so that not much could be seen of her, save the fair, pale face, with its sad, appealing blue eyes, which looked out from beneath masses of shining golden ringlets that had strayed from her hood and lay upon her white forehead. She had a sensitive mouth, a pretty, rounded chin, a small, straight nose, and altogether, had she possessed something of color and less of sadness in her face, would have been considered wondrously fair to look upon.

This little waif, with her child-like countenance, her pathetic eyes, and her patient, uncomplaining spirit, was traveling alone.

There was not a soul on board that vessel whom she had ever seen before the day of sailing.

An orphan—her father, and the only relative on whom she could depend, had died just three months previous—she was going to the United States, to some distant connections who had consented to take her until she was of age and teach her to earn her own living.

She had been put in the care of the captain by the people with whom she had been staying since her father’s death, and he was to deliver her to the strangers to whom she was going.

Some strange magnetism had attracted her toward the old gentleman with the white hair and beard of whom we have spoken, and near to whom she was now sitting.

She had hovered about him ever since the first day of the voyage, not in an obtrusive way, but as if she liked to be near him—as if there were something trustworthy and protective about him.