Rose Mather: A tale

by Mary Jane Holmes

He explained to her why he was there, and that she must stay all night, and with a shudder as she thought of what might befall her uncle, Maude acquiesced in the decree, feeling glad that Charlie was with them, a hindrance and preventive to the utterance of words she must not hear. A hindrance he was, it is true, but not a total preventive, for by and by the tired boy’s eyes began to droop as drowsiness stole over him, and when Tom made him a bed with Lois’s dress and shawl, and bade him lie down and sleep, he did so at once, after first offering the impromptu couch to Maude.

Seen by the dim candle-light, Maude’s face was very white, and her eyes shone like burning coals as she watched Captain Carleton, and guessed his motive. Had there been no Arthur in the way, she would not have shrunk from Captain Carleton; but with that haunting memory she could have shrieked aloud when she saw the weary lids droop over Charlie’s eyes, and knew by his regular breathing that he was asleep.

Tom knew it as soon as she did, but for a time he kept silence; then he came close to her, and sitting down by her side, said, softly:

“Maude, you and I have been very strangely thrown together, and as I once said to you, there is a meaning in it, if we will but find it. Shall I try and solve it for you, or do you know yourself what is in my mind?”

She did know, but she could not answer; and her face drooped over her brother, whose head she had pillowed upon her lap.

“Perhaps this is not the fitting place for me to speak,” Tom continued, “but if the morning finds me in safety, I must be gone, and no one can guess when we may meet again. Let me tell you, Maude, of my early life before ever I saw or dreamed of you.”

Surely she might hear this, and the bowed head lifted itself a little, while Captain Carleton told first of his home in Boston, of beautiful little Rose, and saucy, dark-eyed Jimmie, and then of the pale, proud Mary, his early manhood’s love, who at the last had lost the pride and hauteur inherited from her race, and had died so gentle and lowly, and gone where her husband one day hoped to meet her. Then there came a pause, and Tom was thinking of a night when poor Jimmie sat by his side before the lonely tent fire, and talked with him of Annie Graham. Should he tell Maude of that? Yes, he would; and by the even beating of his heart, as he made that resolve, and thought of Annie, he knew he had outlived his fancy for one of whom he spoke unhesitatingly, praising her girlish beauty, telling how pure and good she was, and how once a hope had stirred his heart that he, perhaps, might win her.

“But I gave her up to Jimmie. Annie will be my sister, and I know now why it was so appointed. God had in store for me a gem as beautiful as Annie Graham, and better adapted to me. I mean you, Maude. God intends you for my wife. Do you accede willingly? Have you any love for the poor Yankee soldier who has been so long dependent upon you?”

He had her head now on his arm, and with his hand was smoothing her bands of satin hair, while he waited for her to speak. He had dealt honestly with her. She would be equally truthful with him, and she answered at last:

“Oh, Mr. Carleton, you don’t know how much it pains me to tell you what I must. I might have loved you once, but now it is too late. I promised Arthur, if he would be kind to the poor prisoners and help the escaped ones to get away, and,—oh, I don’t know what, but I am to be his wife when the dreadful war is over. Pity me, Mr. Carleton, but don’t love me. No, no, don’t make me more wretched by telling me of a love I cannot return.”