Rose and Rose

by E. V. Lucas

It was odd that an ugly one should appeal to her more than a perfect one; but odder that any injured creature had such an immediate claim on her sympathy. Many children are afraid of animals that are maimed and in pain: or at any rate they avoid them. But Rose collected them. Birds with broken wings, mangy puppies, kittens that had been scalded or lamed—her infirmary always contained one or more specimens of these, and we all had to help in nursing them back to vigour.

Such was Rose in those early days when we were still neighbours. And then came one of the crises in the life of both of us.

I had been on a long day’s round and returned tired out, after eight in the evening, with the doctor’s dread in my mind that another call would be waiting. There was indeed a telegram, but it was not of the kind that I had feared, but a worse. It was from the British Consul at Marseilles stating that Theodore Allinson had died of typhoid fever two days before, and that his effects were being forwarded home.

Allinson’s household consisted at that time of Rose’s nurse and several servants under a cook, and I went over after dinner to break the news. It was, however, broken. We had so few telegrams in those days that their contents always became public, and I found the staff in tears. Rose, however, I was glad to find, had not been told.

The next thing was to inform the relatives, chief of whom was Mrs. Stratton, Theodore’s sister, older by a few years, whose husband was something in the city; and a telegram, despatched to her the next morning, brought herself and Mr. Stratton quickly on the scene.

Mrs. Stratton was as different from her brother as two members of the same family can be—and often are. Where he was gay and insouciant, she was grave and anxious. He was full of fun and banter; but to her life was real, life was earnest. Where he let things slide she was all for management and control. She was a big woman too, with a suggestion always of having her square-sails set and bearing down on you before the wind.

As for George Stratton, he was the nice quiet somewhat invertebrate husband that such women capture.

No sooner was Mrs. Stratton in the house than she got to work and explored every room systematically, sniffing a good deal as she inspected the canvases in the studio. Drawings were turned out, documents read, and Rose was sent off to Lowcester to be properly fitted out with black. I offered to take the child into my house until the memorial service was over, but Mrs. Stratton declined; and on this rebuff I disappeared from the scene and was not again in evidence until the ceremony in the church, which most of the neighbours and various relations, near and distant, attended.

I was however called out to a case a few miles away, and was therefore not present at the luncheon that followed; but I returned in time to take my place, at the lawyer’s invitation, in the studio to hear the reading of the will, in which, the lawyer informed me, to my great surprise, I was mentioned.

“As,” he announced, “Mr. Allinson died abroad too far away for any of his relatives or friends to attend the funeral, it has been thought well that now, when they are convened together in his house, they may like to hear what his wishes were with regard to the disposition of his estate and the settlement of his affairs. It was fortunate that he was able to put these wishes in order before his illness had made that impossible; the document is properly signed and attested and bears every indication of cool judgment. With your permission I will now read it.”