Rosemary

Summary

Tempests—meteoric, filial, erotic—converge around Dorothy Cruickshank, a merchant-captain’s daughter whose heart already sails under another flag: the as-yet-unfaced Captain Westwood. Parental charts plot one course; clandestine vows plot another. A public spat between her bluff, tar-scented father and the fastidious navigation theorist Professor Jogram flings rhetorical grapeshot through a seaside town, yet the true squall gathers when Dorothy and her clandestine lover bolt into a night riven by thunder and axle-snapping ruts. Their overturned chaise dumps them, sodden and trembling, at the Palladian doorstep of Sir Jasper Thorndyke—epicure, ironist, collector of porcelain souls—who houses both the vilified professor and his own unruffled amusement. While Dorothy’s parents, careening in hot pursuit, suffer a parallel smash-up and are likewise absorbed into the manor’s candle-lit civility, destinies begin to slide like well-greased pulleys. Sir Jasper, half bored, half enchanted, discovers in the fugitive girl an unstudied grace; a sprig of rosemary, snapped from his garden, becomes both love-token and time-bomb. Consent is coaxed, a London marriage beckons, but at a coaching-inn inferno Sir Jasper’s body is seared while rescuing the bride he can never claim. A torn diary page—raw, mortifying—passes from Dorothy’s fingers to his, confessing tenderness she dare not voice. Conscience, wearing Jogram’s spectacles, intervenes; the incriminating leaf is walled up with its herbaceous twin, the inn purchased as hush-money, and Sir Jasper vanishes into self-exile. Years later, graying and solitary, he returns to the scene of his renunciation, finds rosemary brittle yet aromatic, ink faded yet indelible, and listens to memory’s whisper: “Rosemary, that’s for remembrance.”

Synopsis

Dorothy Cruickshank is secretly in love with Captain Westwood, whom her parents have never seen, and they plan to elope. Her father, an old sea captain, has quarreled with a Professor Jogram, following a public denunciation of a book Jogram has written on navigation. Professor Jogram lives with Sir Jasper Thorndyke, who sympathizes with him about the criticism but secretly considers the matter lightly. Dorothy and Captain Westwood elope during a storm, but their chaise is overturned near the home of Sir Jasper, where they apply for shelter and are taken in. Dorothy's parents pursue her, but they, too, meet with an accident and bring up at Sir Jasper's home. Dorothy and Captain Westwood are in their rooms when the girl's parents arrive. Sir Jasper and Cruickshank sit up late, Cruickshank drinking heavily, and his host, learning who he is, as a joke, puts him to bed with Professor Jogram. The next morning Dorothy arises early, and while gathering flowers in the garden, encounters Sir Jasper. Sir Jasper falls in love with her, and gives her a bunch of rosemary which she pins to her gown. At breakfast all are present, save Dorothy, and Sir Jasper takes this opportunity to gain her parents' consent to her marriage with Captain Westwood. A journey to London with a happy wedding is planned. At an inn in London Dorothy goes to the stable to give some sugar to Sir Jasper's favorite mare. The stable catches fire and Dorothy is trapped in the loft. Sir Jasper, who has been showing her much attention, rushes through the flames and rescues her. He is badly burned, and during the days that follow Dorothy insists on attending him. One day Westwood demands to see a page Dorothy has just written in her diary. She refuses, tears out the page and gives it to Sir Jasper. It is an artless confession of her high regard for Sir Jasper and he is elated. He is on the point of confessing his love for her when Professor Jogram stops him. Jogram tells him he is about to ruin the lives of two people he had never seen until a few days before. Realizing the truth of this Sir Jasper places the diary page in a broken panel in the wall, buys the inn and goes away to leave the lovers in happiness. Many years later, while Dorothy and Westwood are happy with their family, Sir Jasper makes a pilgrimage to the inn. He finds the page, together with the rosemary, and muses over them as he remembers Dorothy's little speech when she gave it to him. "Rosemary, that's for remembrance."