Rose Mather: A tale

by Mary Jane Holmes

Annie’s heart beat almost audibly, and her cheeks were very red, as she replied,

“My father was Dr. Howard, and I was Annie Louise Howard. Excuse me, Mrs. Carleton, if I cannot talk much of my girl-life after my parents died. It was not a happy one. I was wholly dependent upon my aunt, who, while giving me every advantage in the way of education, kept before me so constantly the fact that I was an object of charity that it embittered every moment of my life, and when George offered me his love I accepted it gladly, finding in him the only real friend I had known since the day I was an orphan.”

Annie was crying now, and excusing herself she left the parlor and repaired to her own room, where her excitement spent itself in tears and sobs as she recalled all the dreadful years when she was subject to the caprices of the most capricious of women, who had attempted to force her into a marriage with a millionnaire of sixty, and had driven her to accept the love which George Graham had offered her. George had not been her equal in an intellectual point of view, and none knew this fact better than Annie herself. But he was the kindest, tenderest of husbands, and she had loved him devotedly for the manly virtues which made him the noble, unselfish man he was. Capt. Carleton and Jimmie both could sympathize with her tastes and inclinations far better than George had done; but never once during her brief married life had she allowed herself to wonder what her lot might have been had it been cast with people like the Carletons. And since her husband’s death anything which looked away from that grave by the churchyard gate seemed so terrible to her that now, as she recalled Mrs. Carleton’s questionings, and guessed what had prompted them, every nerve quivered with pain, which could only be soothed by a visit to George’s grave. There, on the turf which covered him, she had wept out many a grief, and she started for it now, the villagers watching her as she passed their doors, and curiously speculating, as people will, upon the time to come when the long black dress and graceful, girlish form would not be so often seen among the Rockland dead.

Already the gossips of the town were coupling her name with the Carletons, the majority giving her to Tom, the elder, and more worthy of the two. A whisper of this gossip had been borne to Mrs. Carleton, who, while pretending to ignore it, had felt troubled as she recalled all the incidents of Jimmie’s visit at home. Then, when the suspicion came to her that the woman whom Rose had taken into her household was possibly identical with the girl of New London, whose name she could not remember, she felt for a moment greatly disturbed. There was a fierce struggle with her pride, a close reasoning with herself, and then her better nature triumphed, and her heart went out very kindly toward poor Annie, at that moment standing by her husband’s grave, and wondering why her thoughts would keep straying away to the wayward young man who had been a traitor to his country, but was trying to atone by voluntarily bearing the hardships of a private’s life when a better was offered him. He had asked if she would think he did right, and the question had shown that he cared for her good opinion. Yes, she did think he was right, and she resolved to send him a message to that effect when Rose wrote to him next. There was no wrong to the dead in the thought, and her tears dropped just as fast upon the marble as she stooped to kiss the name cut upon it and then left the silent graveyard.

Meantime Rose had visited her sick woman in the Hollow,—had fed the hungry children, and dropped upon the floor the six weeks baby which she tried to hold, then, gathering her shawl about her and holding up her skirts, just as she always did when in the homes of the poor, she re-entered her carriage and bade Jake drive her next to Widow Simms’.

Everything there was neat and clean as soap and sand and the widow’s two hands could make it, while Susan made a very pretty picture, in her dark stuff gown with the scarlet velvet ribbon in her black hair. There was a saucer of English violets on the round deal table, and their sweet perfume filled the room into which Rose came dancing, her eyes shining like stars, and her cheeks so brilliant a color that the widow began directly to wonder “if there wasn’t some paint there.”

The widow was not in her best mood, for she was very tired, having done a heavy washing in the morning before Rose Mather had thought of opening her bright eyes; then, after the coarser, larger pieces were dried and ironed, she had tried to spin, a work to which she clung as tenaciously as if on every stream in New England there were not a cotton or woolen factory capable of doing the work so much easier and better than herself. The widow was fond of spinning, and she had turned the wheel with a right good will, until Isaac had complained that the continuous humming hurt his head, and made him think of the wind as it howled so dismally around the dreary prison in Richmond. Libby, they called it now, and Isaac always shuddered when he heard the name and thought of what he suffered there.

Isaac was very weak and pale, and his face looked like that of some young girl as he lay among his pillows, in the pretty dressing-gown which Rose had bought and Annie had made for him. He was sleeping when Rose came in, and the widow’s “Hsh-sh,” came warningly as a greeting, but came too late, for Rose’s blithesome voice had roused him, and his glad, welcoming smile more than counterbalanced the frown which settled on the widow’s face when she saw her boy disturbed. Rose was accustomed to the widow’s ways, and throwing off her shawl and untying her hat, she sat down on the foot of Isaac’s bed, and drawing Jimmie’s letter from her pocket began:

“I’ve got such splendid news for you, Mrs. Simms,—at least, I think I have. Yes, I know it’s sure to come true. Eli is going to be a lieutenant, with twelve hundred dollars a year. Such a heap of money for him; and it’s all Jimmie’s doings, too. He would not have the office because he did not think he deserved it. Listen to what he says.”

Both the Widow and Susan were close to Rose now, the frown all gone from the widow’s brow, and the pucker from her mouth; but both came back in a trice, as blundering Rose read on about “Hophni,” and “Phineas,” and “Eli,” till she came to the “crabbed,” which she called “crab-apple,” and then stopped short, her face a perfect blaze, as she tried to apologize.