Rose Mather: A tale

by Mary Jane Holmes

“Oh, I wish I had a dozen children, if that would keep you!” cried Rose, the insane idea flashing upon her that she would at once adopt a score or more of those she had seen playing in the muddy Hollow that afternoon.

Mr. Mather smiled, and continued:

“Suppose you try and accustom yourself to the idea of living a while without me. I shall not die until my appointed time, and shall undoubtedly come back again. Don’t you see?”

No, Rose didn’t. Her heart was too full of pain to see how going to war was just as sure a method of prolonging one’s life as staying at home, and she sobbed passionately, one moment accusing her husband of not loving her as he used to, and the next begging of him to abandon his wild project.

Mr. Mather was a man of firm decision, and long before he broached the subject to his wife, his mind had been made up that his country called for him,—not for somebody else,—but for him personally; that if the rebellion were to be crushed out, men of wealth and influence must help to crush it, not alone by remaining at home and urging others on, though this were an important part, but by actually joining in the combat, and by their presence cheering and inspiring others. And Mr. Mather was going, too,—had, in fact, already made arrangements to that effect, and neither the tears nor entreaties of his young wife could avail to change his purpose. But he did not tell her so that night; he would rather come to it gradually, taking a different course from that which George Graham had pursued, for where George had left the decision wholly to his wife, Mr. Mather had taken it wholly upon himself, making it first and telling Rose afterwards. It was better so, he thought, and having said all to her that he wished to say on that occasion, he tried to divert her mind into another channel. But Rose was not to be diverted. It had come upon her like a thunderbolt,—the thing she so much dreaded,—and she wept bitterly, seeing in the future, which only a few hours before looked so bright and joyous, nothing but impenetrable gloom, for she could read her husband tolerably well, and she intuitively felt that she had lost him,—that he was going from her, never to come back, she knew. She should be a widow before she was nineteen, and the host of summer dresses she meant to buy when she went back to Boston, changed into a widow’s sombre weeds, as Rose saw herself arrayed in the habiliments of mourning. What a fright she looked to herself in the widow’s cap, with which her vivid imagination disfigured her chestnut hair, and she shuddered afresh as she thought how hideous she was in black.

Poor, simple little Rose! And yet we say again Rose was not a fool, nor yet an unnatural character. There are many, many like her, some who will recognize themselves in this story and more who will not. Gay, impulsive, pleasure-seeking creatures, whom fashionable education and too indulgent parents have done their utmost to spoil, but who still possess many traits of excellence, needing only adverse circumstances to mould and hammer them into the genuine coin of true-hearted womanhood. Such an one was Rose. Reared by a fond mother, petted by an older brother, and teased by a younger, flattered by friend and foe, and latterly caressed and worshiped by a husband, Rose had come to think far too much of her own importance as Mrs. Rose Mather,—née Miss Rose Carleton, of Boston, an acknowledged belle, and leader of the ton.

There was a wide difference between Rose and Annie Graham, for while the latter, in her sweet unselfishness, thought only of her husband’s welfare, both here and hereafter, Rose’s first impulse was a dread shrinking from being alone, and her second a terror lest the years of her youth, now spread out so invitingly before her, should be passed in secluded widowhood, with nothing from the gay world without wherewith to feed her vanity and love for admiration. Still, beneath Rose’s light exterior there was hidden a mine of tenderness and love, a heart which, when roused to action, was capable of greater, more heroic deeds, than would at first seem possible. And that heart was rousing, too,—was gradually waking into life; but not all at once, and the tears which Rose shed the whole night through were wrung out more from selfishness, perhaps, than from any higher feeling. It would be so stupid living there alone in Rockland. If she could only go to Washington with Will it would not be half so bad, but she could not, for she waked Will up from a sound sleep to ask him if she might, and he had answered “No,” falling away again to sleep, and leaving Rose to wakefulness and tears, unmingled with any prayer that the cloud gathering so fast around her might sometime break in blessings on her head.

It was scarcely light next morning when Rose, determining to prevail, redoubled her entreaties for her husband to abandon the decision be now candidly acknowledged, but she could not. He was going to the war, and going as a private. Rose almost fainted when he told her this, and for a time refused to be comforted. She might learn to bear it, she said, if he were an officer, but to go as a common soldier, like those she worked for at the Hall, was more than she could bear.

It was in vain that Mr. Mather told her how only a few could be officers, and that he was content to serve his country in any capacity, leaving the more lucrative situations to those who needed them more. He did not tell her he had declined a post of honor, for the sake of one who seemed to him more worthy of it. He would rather this should reach her from some other source, and ere the day was over it did, for in a small town like Rockland it did not take long for every other one to know that William Mather had enlisted as a private soldier, when he might have been Colonel of a regiment, had he not given place to another because that other had depending on him a bed-ridden mother, a crazy wife, and six little helpless children.

How fast William Mather rose in the estimation of those who, never having known him intimately, had looked upon him as a cold, haughty man, whose loyalty was somewhat doubtful, and how proud Rose felt, even in the midst of her tears, as she heard on every side her husband’s praise. Even the Widow Simms ventured to the Mather mansion, telling her how glad she was, and offering to do what she could for the volunteer, while Annie, unable to do anything for herself, could only pray that God would bring Mr. Mather back safely to the child-wife, who was so bowed down with grief. How Annie longed to see her,—and, if possible, impart to her some portion of the hopeful trust which kept her own soul from fainting beneath its burden of anxious uncertainty. But the days passed on, and Rose came no more to the cottage in the Hollow. Love for her husband had triumphed over every other feeling, and rousing from her state of inertness, she busied herself in doing, or rather trying to do, a thousand little things which she fancied might add to Willie’s comfort. She called him Willie now, as if that name were dearer, tenderer than Will, and the strong man, every time he heard it, felt a sore pang,—there was something so plaintive in the tone, as if she were speaking of the dead.