Nobody's Rose

The Fifields were the oldest family in Farmdale, and lived in the most pretentious house. Rose had greatly admired the old home with its high-pillared porch set behind tall hedges of prim cedar, and a view of the interior only increased the feeling. To her eyes the claw-footed tables and tall bedsteads with canopy tops were most imposing; and the dimly lighted, seldom used parlor with its real lace curtains, its carpet laid in great wreaths of roses, its gilt-framed mirror, and its damask upholstered, mahogany furniture, was a really magnificent apartment, including as it did the family portraits, and Miss Eudora’s girlish efforts at painting on velvet.

Rose’s position in the family had been the subject of some discussion, for Eudora Fifield had all her life sighed for a maid arrayed in a white cap and apron, and it had been one of her numerous grievances that of the array of independent spirited help who had filed in and out of the Fifield kitchen one and all had flatly refused to conform to such usage.

“But Rose,” she argued, “has been brought up in a city, where the manners of the lower classes are so different. Why, when I visited Aunt Morgan in Albany, her servants treated me with a deference you never see here. Her parlor-maid always brought in the callers’ cards and the letters on a salver; perhaps she would be willing to do that.”

Jane Fifield gave a snort, “As long as Nathan brings your letters in his coat pocket and hands them to you, and we haven’t a caller once a month, I think you won’t have much use for a salver. Besides the Blossoms make her one of the family, and Mrs. Blossom particularly said that she should never consent to her going to any place where she would not be taken an interest in, but simply thought of as a little drudge.”

Miss Eudora drew a little sigh at the vanishing of the cap and salver, but quickly caught herself as she remembered the dish-washing. “Well,” she admitted, “I suppose it’s better to concede some points than not have her come at all.”

“I wonder,” suddenly spoke Silence Blossom as she sat basting the facing on a skirt the day after Rose left, “how Rose is getting on at the Fifields’, and if she has heard anything yet about Eudora’s visit to Albany? I don’t believe I’ve seen her any time since that she hasn’t made some reference to it. I have often wondered what she would have done if she hadn’t made that visit.”

“But you know,” urged Mrs. Patience, “she and Jane both live such monotonous lives, with hardly an interest outside themselves, how can they help but go over the same thing again and again?”

“I can tell one thing that would have happened if Eudora had not made that Albany visit,” remarked Mrs. Blossom, who from an adjoining room had overheard the conversation, “she would have been a happier woman to-day. She came back from that taste of city life completely out of tune with everything and everybody in Farmdale, and she has never got in tune since.”

“I am afraid,” observed Grandmother Sweet placidly, “that thee is sitting in judgment on thy neighbors.”

“La, Grandmother,” and Miss Silence’s brisk, heartsome laugh rippled out, “a body can’t help having opinions, though I don’t always express mine outside the family. And you know what we said of Jane and Eudora was true.”

“I know,” admitted Grandmother Sweet with a sigh, “though we ought to look even at truth with the eyes of charity. But I have a hope that the coming of a fresh young life, like Rose’s, into the Fifield home, if only for a season, will bring a fresh interest and brightness with it.”

As for Rose, she had been but a little while with the Fifields till she began to realize the difference between that and the Blossoms. Especially was she quick to notice the petty friction, the note of jarring discord, that made up the atmosphere at the Fifields’. What one wanted another was sure to object to, what one said was immediately disputed; the sisters nagged Mr. Nathan, and he in turn nagged his sisters. No doubt at heart they loved each other, but the delicate consideration for each other’s wishes, and the gentle courtesy of affection, that so brightened the Blossom home was wholly absent here.

Another thing she could not but see was the prevailing tone of discontent. Though the lives of Miss Fifield and Miss Eudora were much easier than those of Miss Silence and Mrs. Patience, the one was always complaining of the dullness of Farmdale, and the other making bitter reflections on life in general. Had Rose come directly from Mrs. Hagood’s all this might have escaped her notice, but her stay in the white cottage with its sweet-spirited inmates had given her a glimpse of a different life, an ideal that would always linger with her.

As the two houses were not the length of the green apart Rose was a frequent visitor at the Blossoms’. “Did your plants freeze last night?” she asked as she came in one afternoon. “Miss Eudora lost some of her very prettiest ones. She says it was because Mr. Nathan didn’t fix the fire right, and he says it was because she didn’t put the window down tight. They were quarreling over it when I came away, and yesterday they disputed all day whether the meat bill came in Tuesday or Wednesday.”

“There, there, Rose,” interrupted Mrs. Blossom, “you are a member of the Fifield family now, and have no right to repeat or we to listen to anything you may see or hear there.”

Grandmother Sweet laid down her knitting, “As thee goes through life, Rose, thee will find many people whose lives seem not to be ordered by the law of love; at such times always remember that silence is not only the part of prudence but of true charity. At the same time thee can learn to avoid the mistakes thee sees others make.”

“Well,” Rose spoke with emphasis, “I will try to avoid the mistake of squabbling all the time over trifles—I’m not saying that any one does so, you know, and when I get to be an old lady I’m going to be as gentle and lovely as Grandmother Sweet,” and she gave her a hug and a kiss.

On her part Rose had gone to the Fifields’ with the firm resolve to do her very best. On her first coming to the Blossoms’, while her nerves were still keyed up in a tension of excitement, little had been said to her in regard to the manner of her leaving Mrs. Hagood. But after she had calmed down to her normal self Mrs. Blossom had talked to her very seriously of the danger of yielding to passion and impulse, and had shown her that in spite of all she had to endure what trouble she might easily have brought on herself, and how much worse off she might have been because of her hasty action. So that Rose instead of thinking it a very fine, brave act to have run away, as she was at first inclined, began to feel that it was something to regret, and be ashamed of, and because of which she must do exceedingly well indeed, to win and hold a high opinion.

As Rose was neat and deft, and above all anxious to please, she soon became quite a favorite with the two middle-aged Fifield sisters, and Miss Eudora inclined to make a confidante of her.

“So you have lived in cities most of your life?” she said one morning as Rose was dusting her room.

“Yes, but I like the country better.”

“You do?” exclaimed Miss Eudora, pausing with a curl half brushed, for, unlike her sister, she affected the willowy, the languishing; she liked garments that flowed, ribbons that fluttered, and still framed her little wrinkled face in the curls that had been the pride of her girlhood.

“Now, I think it is perfectly delightful to live in a city. I spent a winter in Albany, with my Aunt Morgan some years ago. What a winter that was—” and she clasped her hands, “one round of gayety and amusement. Aunt made a large party for me, I shall have to show you a piece of the dress I wore. Aunt said she was proud of me that night, and I’m sure,” with a little simper, “I had compliments enough. I suppose,” and she gave her grey curls a toss, “it’s my own fault that I’m not living in Albany to-day.”

“If you liked it so well why didn’t you stay?” asked Rose.

“When a young girl has the admiration I had, she doesn’t always know what she does want. But I can tell you I made quite an impression on Some One that evening.”

“How did you look then?” Rose was trying to imagine Miss Eudora as a young girl.

“Oh, just as I do now,” with a complacent glance in her mirror. “I haven’t changed as some people do. Not long ago I met a friend—well, an old admirer, and he said he would like to know what I did to keep myself so young; that I didn’t look any older than I did when he first knew me. I think my hair may have something to do with that; curls do have a youthful effect. That’s the reason, I believe, Jane is always wanting me to put mine back.

“Jane,” and she sank her voice to a whisper, “was always plain, and never received the admiration, or was the favorite with gentlemen I was, and it has always made her jealous of me. But I’m fond of my curls,” giving them a shake. “Why, I even had a poem written on them once, and I sha’n’t put them up, at least not till I begin to grow old.”

Rose listened in amazement. She was sure Miss Silence was younger than Miss Eudora, her hair was not grey, nor her face marked with such little fine lines, and neither she nor Mrs. Patience ever talked like that. It was all very queer, and most of all that Miss Eudora could fancy that she looked young.

“You were a long time doing the chamberwork,” Miss Fifield remarked when Rose went downstairs. Miss Fifield was in the kitchen baking, her scant house dress clinging to her angular figure, and her grey hair drawn back with painful tightness.

Rose noted the contrast between the two sisters as she answered, “Miss Eudora was talking to me.”

“What about?” a trifle sharply.

Rose hesitated slightly. “Several things; her visit to the city for one.”

“I’ll warrant. Perhaps you found it interesting, but when you have heard the same story twenty-seven years, as I have, twenty-seven years this winter, it will get to be a weariness of the flesh; that and her lovers.” She shot a keen glance at Rose, who could not help a giggle.

Miss Jane Fifield shook the flour from her hands with energy. “I used to hope that Eudora would grow sensible sometime, but I’ve about given it up. One thing I am thankful for, that there is something inside of my head, and not all put on the outside!” and she shut the oven door with a force that threatened danger to the lightness of the pound cake she was baking.