Rose Mather: A tale

by Mary Jane Holmes

She spoke gently, kindly, now, for she pitied the young man whose sincerity she did not doubt, but whose love she could not return. He was not her equal, either physically or mentally, and the man who won Maude De Vere must be one to whom she could look up to as a superior. Such an one she would make very happy, but she would lead Arthur a wretched, miserable life, and she knew it, and would save him from herself, even though there were many kindly, tender feelings in her heart for the young lieutenant.

She saw that he was angry with her, and as further conversation was useless, she left him and repaired to her room, the windows of which overlooked Hetty’s cabin.

And there until daylight the noble girl sat watching lest their unwelcome visitors of the previous night, failing to find their victim, should return and insist upon another search. As Maude De Vere said, she had held a loaded pistol at the head of both Federal and Confederate, when her uncle was sick, and the house was beset one week by one of the belligerent parties and the following week by the other. She was afraid of nothing, and Tom Carleton, so long as she stood his sentinel, had little to fear from his pursuers. But she could not ward off the fever which for many days had been lurking in his veins, and which was increasing so fast that when the morning came he was too sick to rise, and lay moaning with the pain in his eyes and complaining of the heat, which, in that dark corner of the close cabin, and on that sultry summer morning, was intolerable.

“Mighty poorly, with face as red as them flowers in yer ha’r, and the veins in his forehead as big as my leg,” was the word which Hetty brought up to Maude De Vere the next morning, and half an hour later Maude, in her pale buff cambric wrapper, with her black hair shining like satin, went down to Hetty’s cabin and stood beside Tom Carleton.

He was sleeping for a few moments, and the drops of perspiration were standing on his forehead and about his lips. He was not worn and emaciated, like the most of the prisoners and refugees whom Maude had seen. His complexion, though bronzed from exposure, had not that peculiar greyish appearance common to so many of the returned prisoners, while his forehead was very white, and his rich brown hair, damp with the perspiration, clung about it in the soft, round curls so natural to it.

There was nothing in his personal appearance to awaken sympathy on the score of ill-treatment, and yet Maude felt herself strangely drawn toward him, guessing with a woman’s quick perception that he was somewhat above many whom it had been her privilege to befriend. And Maude, being human, did not like him less for that. On the contrary, she the more readily brushed away the flies which were alighting upon his face, and with her own handkerchief, wiped the moisture from his brow, and then felt his rapid pulse.

“He ought not to stay in this place,” she said, and she was revolving the propriety of boldly asking Squire Tunbridge if he might be removed to the house, when Tom awoke and turned wonderingly toward her.

He knew it was Maude De Vere, and something in her face riveted his attention, making him wonder where he had seen somebody very like her.

“You are sick,” she said to him kindly, as he attempted to rise on his elbow, and fell back again upon the squalid bed. “I am afraid you are very sick, but you are safe here,—that is,—yes,—I know you are safe. None but fiends would betray a sick man.”

She spoke rapidly, and Tom saw the bright color deepen in her cheek, and her eyes flash with excitement. She was very beautiful, and Tom felt the influence of her beauty, and tried to draw the ragged quilt over him so as to hide the coarse, grey shirt Hetty had given him, and which was as unlike the immaculate linen Tom Carleton was accustomed to wear as it was possible to be.