Rose Mather: A tale

CHAPTER II. ROSE AND ANNIE.-2

Taking her seat by the window, she commenced the light work imposed on her, that of tearing and winding bandages for those who might be wounded.

“Maybe there’ll never be no fight, but it’s well enough to be prepared,” was the soothing remark of the kind-hearted woman who gave the work to Annie, noting, as she did so, how the lip quivered and the cheek paled at the very idea.

“What if George should need them?” kept suggesting itself to her as she worked industriously on, hoping that if he did, some one of the rolls she was winding might come to him, or better yet, if he could only have the bit of soft linen she had brought herself,—a piece of her own clothing, and bearing on it her maiden name, Annie Howard. He would be sure to know it, she said, it was written so plainly with indelible ink, and it would make him feel so glad. But there might be other Annie Howards, it was not an uncommon name, was suggested next to her, as she tore the linen in strips, and quick as thought, her hand sought the pocket of her dress for the pencil which she knew was there. Glancing around to see that no one observed her, she touched the pencil to her lips and wrote after the name, “It’s your Annie, George. Try to believe I’m there. Rockland, April, 1861.”

There were big tear-drops on that bit of linen, but Annie brushed them away, and went on with her rolling, just as Widow Simms called her attention to Rose Mather, as mentioned several pages back.

Annie could not account for it to herself, but ever since Rose’s arrival at Rockland, she had felt a strange inexplicable interest in the fashionable belle; an interest prompted by something more than mere curiosity, and now that there was an opportunity of seeing her without being herself seen, she straightened up and smoothing the soft braids of her pale brown hair, waited for the entrance of the little lady, who, with her pink hat set jauntily on her chestnut curls, and her rich fur collar buttoned gracefully over her handsome cloth cloak, tripped into the room, doing much by her sunny smile and pleasant manner to disarm the ladies of their recent prejudice against her. She was nothing but a child, they reflected; a spoiled, petted child; she would improve as she grow older, and came more in contact with the sharp corners of the world, so those who had the honor of her acquaintance, received her with the familiar deference, if we may be allowed the expression, which had always marked their manner toward William Mather’s bride. Rose was too much accustomed to society to be at all disconcerted by the hundred pair of eyes turned scrutinizingly toward her. Indeed, she rather enjoyed being looked at, and she tossed the coarse garments about with a pretty playfulness, saying that “since the ladies had called upon her she had thought better of it, and made up her mind to martyr herself one afternoon at least, and benefit the soldiers. To be sure there wasn’t much she could do. She might hold yarn for somebody to wind, she supposed, but she couldn’t knit, and she didn’t want to sew on such ugly, scratchy stuff as those flannel shirts, but if somebody would thread her needle, and fix it all right, she’d try what she could do on a pair of drawers.”

For a time no one seemed inclined to volunteer her services, and Widow Simms’s shears clicked spitefully loud as they cut through the cotton flannel. At last, however, Mrs. Baker, who had more than once officiated as washerwoman at the Mather mansion, came forward and arranged some work for Rose, who, untying the strings of her pink hat, and adjusting her tiny gold thimble, labored on until she had succeeded in sewing up and joining together a long leg with one some inches shorter, which had happened to be lying near. Loud was the shout which a discovery of this mistake called forth, nor was it at all abated when Rose demurely asked if it would not answer for some soldier who should chance to have a limb shot off just below the knee.

“The little simpleton!” muttered the widow, while Mrs. Baker pointed out to the discomfited lady that one division of the drawers was right side out and the other wrong!

There was no alternative save to rip the entire thing, and with glowing cheeks, Rose began the task of undoing what she had done, incidentally letting out, as she worked, that Will might have known better than to send her there,—she shouldn’t have come at all if he had not insisted, telling her people would call her a secessionist unless she did something to benefit the soldiers. She didn’t care what they called her; she knew she was a democrat, or used to be before she was married; but now that Will was a republican, she hardly knew what she was; any way, she was not a secessionist, and she wasn’t particularly interested in the war either; why should she be?—Will was not going, nor Brother Tom, nor any of her friends.

“But somebody’s friends are going,—somebody’s Will, somebody’s Tom; as dear to them as yours are to you,” came in a rebuking tone from a straight-forward, outspoken woman, who knew from sad experience that “somebody’s Tom was going.”

“Yes, I know,” said Rose, a shadow for an instant crossing her bright face, “and it’s dreadful, too. Will says everything will be so much higher, and it will be so dull at Saratoga and Newport next summer, without the Southern people. One might as well stay at home. The war might have been avoided, too, by a little mutual forbearance from both parties, until matters could be amicably adjusted, for Brother Tom said so in his letter last night, and a heap more which I can’t remember.”

Here Rose paused quite exhausted, with the effort she had made to repeat the opinion of Brother Tom. She had read all his last letter, fully indorsing as much of it as she understood, and after a little she went on:

“Wasn’t it horrid, though, their firing into the Massachusetts boys?—and they were from right ’round Boston, too. Tom saw them when they started. They were fine looking men, he says, and Will thinks I ought to be proud that I’m a Bay State girl, and so I am, but it isn’t as if my friends had gone. Tom is a democrat, I know, but it’s quite another kind that join the army.”

Widow Simms could keep silent no longer, and brandishing her polished shears by way of adding emphasis to what she said, she began:

“And s’posin’ ’tis folks as poor as poverty struck, haint they feelin’s, I’d like to know? Haint they got bodies and souls, and mothers, and wives, and sisters? And s’posin’ ’tis democrats,—more shame for t’other side that helped get up the muss. Where be they now, them chaps that wore the big black capes, and did so much toward puttin’ Lincoln in that chair? Why don’t they help to keep him settin’ there, and not stand back with their hands tucked in their trouses’ pockets? Both my boys, Eli and John, voted t’other ticket, and Isaac would, but he wasn’t twenty-one. They’ve all jined, and I won’t say I’m sorry, for if there’s anything I hate, it’s a sneak! It makes me so mad!” and the big shears again clicked savagely, as Widow Simms resumed her work, after having thus delivered her opinion of the black republicans, besides having, in her own words, given “that puckerin Miss Mathers a piece of her mind.”

Obtuse as Rose was on many points, she saw there was some homely truth in what the widow had said, but this did not impress her so much as the fact that she had evidently given offence, and she was about trying to extricate herself from the dilemma when George Graham appeared, ostensibly to bring some trivial message to the President of the Society, but really to see if his wife were there, and speak to her some kind word of encouragement. Rose recognized him as the young man she had seen at the war meeting, and the moment he left the hall, she broke out impetuously,

“Isn’t he handsome?—so tall, so broad-shouldered, and such a splendid mark for a bullet,—I most know he will be shot?”

“Hush-sh!” came warningly from several individuals, but came too late. The mischief was done. Ere Rose could collect her thoughts a group of frightened women had gathered around poor Annie, who had fainted.

“What’s the matter? do tell!” cried Rose, standing on tiptoe and clutching at the dress of Widow Simms, who angrily retorted,

“I should s’pose you’d ask. It’s enough to make the poor critter faint clean away to hear a body talk about her husband’s being a fust rate mark for a bullet!”

With all her thoughtlessness, Rose had the kindest heart in the world; and forcing her way through the crowd, she knelt by the white-faced-Annie, and taking the drooping head in her lap, pushed back the thick braids of hair, noticing, with her quick eye for the beautiful, how soft and luxuriant they were, how pure was the complexion, how perfect were the features, how small and delicate the fingers, and how graceful was the slender neck.

“I’m so sorry! I wish I’d staid at home; I am so sorry,” she kept repeating; and when at last Annie returned to consciousness, Rose Mather’s was the first voice she heard, Rose’s the first face she saw.

With an involuntary shudder she closed her eyes wearily, while Rose anxiously asked of those about her how they should get her home. “Oh, Jake,” she suddenly exclaimed, as, towering above the female heads, she saw her colored coachman looking for her, and remembered that her husband was to call and take her out to ride, “oh, Jake, lift this lady up, careful as you can, and put her in our carriage. Is Will there? Well, no matter, he’ll just have to get out. Stand back, won’t you, and let Jake come,” she continued, authoritatively to the group of ladies who, half-amused and half-surprised at this new phase in Rose Mather’s character, made way for burly Jake, who lifted Annie’s light form as if it had been a feather’s weight, and bore it down the stairs, followed by Rose, who, with one breath, told Annie not to be a bit afraid, for Jake certainly would not drop her, and with the next asked Jake if he were positive and sure he was strong enough not to let her fall.

Lazily reclining upon the cushions of his carriage, William Mather was smoking his Havana, and admiring the sleek coat of his iron greys, when Rose appeared, and seizing him by the arm, peremptorily ordered him to alight, and help Jake lift the lady in.

“I don’t know who ’tis, but it’s somebody I made faint away with my silly talk,” she replied in answer to Mr. Mather’s question, “Who have you there?”

“You made faint away!” he repeated, as he found himself rather unceremoniously landed upon the flagging stones, his Havana rolling at his feet, and his wife preparing to follow Annie, whom Jake had placed inside.

“Yes; I talked about her husband’s being a splendid mark for a bullet, and all that, without ever thinking she was his wife. He looked so tall, and big, and nice, that I couldn’t help thinking his head would come above all the rest in a fight, but I don’t believe it will. There Jake, we are ready now, drive on,” said Rose, while poor Annie groaned afresh at this doubtful consolation.

“Drive whar?” asked Jake. “I dun know whar they lives.”

“To be sure, nor I either,” returned Rose, turning inquiringly to her husband, who gave the information, adding, as he glanced down the street,

“Mr. Graham himself is coming, I see. I think, Rose, you had best give your place to him.”

Rose, who was fond of adventures, wanted sadly to go with Annie, but George, when he came up, seemed so concerned, and asked so many questions, that she deemed it best to leave it for his wife to make the necessary explanations, merely saying, as she stepped upon the walk,

“I am so sorry, Mr. Graham; I really did not mean anything wrong in saying I knew you’d be shot, for you are so——”

“Rose, your dress is rubbing the wheel,” interrupted Mr. Mather, by way of diverting Rose from repeating the act for which she was expressing sorrow.

“No, it ain’t rubbing the wheel, either. It isn’t any where near it,” said Rose, wondering what Will could mean; while George, taking a seat by Annie, smiled at what he saw to be a ruse.

Bent upon reconciliation, Rose pressed up to the carriage, and said to Annie, “You won’t be angry at me always, will you? I shouldn’t have thought of it, only he does look so——”

“Go on, Jake,” Mr. Mather called out, cutting short Rose’s speech, and the next moment Annie was driving down the street in Rose Mather’s carriage, and behind the iron greys, an honor she had never dreamed in store for her when she saw the stylish turnout passing the door of her cottage in the Hollow.