Rose Mather: A tale

Rose had fretted herself into a headache, and as Mrs. Carleton could not think of meeting her returning prodigal in the presence of strangers, there was no one to go up to meet him unless Annie should consent to do so! But greatly to Rose’s disappointment Annie obstinately refused, while Mrs. Carleton, too, said it would not be proper for Mrs. Graham to go alone and meet a stranger whom she had never seen.

“Couldn’t she tell him she was Annie, my adopted sister?” Rose said, half poutingly. “What will he think when he finds nobody there but Jake, who, I verily believe, looks upon him as half a savage for having joined the Southern army? I heard him, myself, tell Bridget that Ben Arnold was coming to-day, meaning that horrid traitor that gave up Yorktown, or something,” and having thus betrayed her ignorance of Revolutionary history, Rose bathed her aching head in eau-de-cologne, and lay back upon her pillows, wondering what Jimmie would say, and how he would manage to brave the gaping people who were sure to stare at him as if he were some monster. She hoped there would not be many there, and of course there wouldn’t, for who knew or cared for Jimmie’s coming?

More cared for Jimmie’s coming than Rose suspected, and the streets were full of men and boys of a certain class, hastening to the depot to see the Rebel, as they persisted in calling him, in spite of Billy Baker’s repeated suggestions that they soften it down somewhat by prefixing the word “reformed.” Bill was very busy, very important, very consequential that day, and quite inclined to be very patronizing, and do the agreeable to the man he had captured at Manassas. “Folks or’to overlook him,” he said, “and treat him half way decent, for the best was apt to stumble, and there should neither be hootin’ nor hissin’, if he could help it.”

Indeed, so impressed was Bill with the idea that the responsibility of Jimmie’s reception was pending upon himself, that he deliberately knocked down two of the ringleaders, who announced their intention to hoot and to hiss as much as they pleased. Bill’s warlike propensities were pretty generally understood in Rockland, and this energetic demonstration had the effect of quelling, to a certain extent, the Babel which would otherwise have reigned, when at last the train stopped before the depot, and the expected lion appeared upon the platform, his identity proven by Bill, who whispered, “That’s him, with the rowdy hat,—that’s the chap;” then, with a proud air of self-assurance, he stepped forward and offered his hand to the embarrassed stranger, who was looking this way and that, in quest of a familiar face.

“Halloo, Corporal!” he called out with the utmost sang froid, “you re-cog-nize me, I s’pose. I’m the critter that took you in the Virginny woods. I’ve gin all them contrabands to your sister, Miss Marthers. She and I has got to be considerable intimate. I think a sight on her,” he continued, as Jimmie showed no signs of reciprocating the coarse familiarity other than by rather haughtily offering his hand.

But Bill was not to be put down, for “wasn’t he as good as Corporal Carleton? hadn’t they sustained to each other the relation of captor and captive, and if there were any preference, wasn’t it in his favor?” He thought so, and nothing abashed by Jimmie’s evident disgust, he was about announcing to him that a carriage was in waiting, when Jake made his way through the crowd to the spot where Jimmie stood. The sight of him suggested a new idea to Bill, and bowing first to one and then to the other, he said, “Ah, Mr. Jacob Sullivan, allow me to introduce you to my friend, Corporal Carleton, late of the Confederate army, supposed to be fitin’ for just such goods and chattels as you.”

The African’s teeth were plainly visible at this novel introduction, while the good-humored smile which broke over the hitherto cold, haughty features of the stranger, changed into a general laugh the muttered groans and imprecations which the words “Confederate Army,” had provoked. It was strange what a difference that smile made in the looks of Jimmie’s handsome face, removing its haughty, sarcastic expression, and softening to a great extent the feelings of the crowd, many of whom instinctively dropped the brick-bats, stones, and bits of frozen mud, with which they were prepared to pelt the Rebel’s carriage so soon as they should be in the rear. Still they must have some fun, even if it were at Bill’s expense, and just as the latter was button-holing the persecuted Jimmie, and escorting him to the carriage, one, more daring than the others, proposed “three groans and a tiger for the deserter.”

Instantly, hats, caps, and fists were flourished aloft, and the air resounded with the most direful sounds imaginable, as groan after groan came heaving up from the leathern lungs of the crowd. With a fierce gesture of impatience Jimmie turned upon them, his black eyes flashing fire at what he deemed an insult offered to himself. Whatever his faults had been, desertion was not among the number, and he was about to say so, when Bill, with imperturbable gravity, whispered to him, “They don’t mean you now, Corporal. It’s me they’re hittin’ a dig. You see, I did leave Washington in a hurry. Don’t mind ’em an atom; they’re the off-scourin’s of the town,” and having piloted Jimmie safely to the carriage door, Bill took off his own cap, and swinging it around his head, shouted aloud, “Three cheers for Corporal Carleton!”

For an instant there was a silence, the crowd a little uncertain as to how far their loyalty might be impeached by cheering for a Rebel; but when the dark, handsome face, with its winning smile, was again turned toward them, and they saw in it a strong resemblance to the patriotic little lady whom even the lowest of them had learned to regard with respect, their doubts were given to the winds, and the ringleader, who carried in his pocket a quantity of questionable eggs, designed for use as the occasion might require, led off the cheers, making the depot ring with the loud huzzas, interlarded here and there by a groan or hiss from those not yet won over to the popular party.

Lifting his hat gracefully, Jimmie bowed an acknowledgment, and his lips moved as if about to speak, while cries of “Hear, hear!” “Give us a speech!” “Let’s have your politics!” ran through the excited throng. Standing close to Jimmie, who would fain have dispensed with his suggestive presence, Bill whispered in his ear, “Let ’er slide, Cop’ral. Go in strong for Uncle Sam if you don’t want this new coat of yourn sp’ilt. There ain’t a rotten hen’s nest in town but what was robbed this mornin’ on your account, and if they once git fairly to work, it’ll take mor’n me and Mr. Sullivan to stop em! Pitch in, then, to your sarmon.”

Jimmie’s natural disposition prompted him to brave the purloined contents of Rockland’s hen’s nests, but he would not endanger his sister’s carriage, and besides that, he felt that submission to people so infinitely beneath him was a part of his merited punishment; so, forcing down his pride, he in a few well-chosen words, told his breathless audience that though he had once proved faithless to his country, none regretted it more than himself, or was now a firmer friend to the Stars and Stripes, the brief speech ending with the proposal of three cheers for the Star Spangled Banner.

In a trice the whole crowd responded with might and main, prolonging their yells with the cries of “Carleton! Carleton forever!” and promises to make him police justice in the spring, should he want to run for that very agreeable office!

“Couldn’t of done much better myself,” said the delighted Bill, hovering about the window of the carriage in which Jimmie had now taken his seat.

Thoroughly tired of the scene, Jimmie intimated to Jake his wish to go home, and the iron greys sprang quickly forward, but not until Jimmie had caught Bill’s parting words, “Call round and see a feller, won’t you? I’ll show you the old gal. You know you asked me about her in the Virginny woods.”

It seemed like a new world to Jimmie when, after they had left the noisy crowd, they turned into the pleasant, quiet street which wound up the hill to where the handsome Mather mansion stood, every blind thrown back and wreaths of smoke curling gracefully from every chimney, for Rose, wishing to do something in honor of her brother’s return, had ordered the whole house to be opened as if for a holiday, while every flower which could possibly be spared from her conservatory, had been broken from its stem, and fashioned into bouquets by Annie’s tasteful hands.

“Wouldn’t it be splendid,” Rose said, as she lay watching Annie at her task, “wouldn’t it be splendid to hang the Stars and Stripes in festoons across the hall, where Jimmie will pass under them?”

Annie did not think it would. In her opinion Jimmie was not deserving of such honor, and she said so, as delicately as possible, adding that “were it Tom it would be a very different thing.”

Rose knew that Annie was right, and so the Stars and Stripes were not brought out to welcome the young man now rapidly approaching. Annie was the first to catch the sound of the carriage wheels, and when Rose turned to ask if she really supposed Jimmie was there, she found herself alone.

“She’s gone to meet him, of course,” she said, “but I most wish she had staid here, for I wanted to introduce her myself. I hope she won’t dislike him.”

Meantime in the parlor below, Mrs. Carleton sat waiting for her boy,—not as Spartan mothers were wont to wait for their sons returning from the war, but with a yearning tenderness for the loved prodigal, blended with loyal indignation for his sin. He was not coming to her as a hero who had done what he could for his country, but with a traitor’s stain upon his fair name, which she would gladly have wiped out. She heard the carriage as it stopped, and heard the step on the piazza, not rapid and bounding as it used to be, but slow and heavy, as if uncertain which way to turn.

“I must go out to meet him,” she said, but all her strength forsook her, and sinking upon the sofa, she could only call out faintly, “Jimmie, my boy.”

He heard her, and almost before the words had left her lips her Jimmie boy was kneeling at her feet, with his face buried for an instant in her lap; then, with one burning kiss upon her forehead, the proud James Carleton, who in his early boyhood was scarcely ever known to acknowledge that he was wrong, asked to be forgiven and restored again to the confidence and love he had forfeited, and with her hand upon his bowed head, the mother forgave her boy, bidding him look up, that she might see again the face she had once thought so handsome. It was tear-stained now, and worn, and Mrs. Carleton sighed as she detected upon it unmistakable marks of reckless dissipation. Still it was Jimmie’s face, and it grew each moment more natural as the flush of excitement deepened on the cheeks, and lent an added brightness to the saucy, laughing eyes. The lines upon the forehead and about the mouth would wear away in time, Mrs. Carleton hoped, and parting the soft, black curls clustering around the broad, white brow, she told him why Rose was not there to meet him, and asked if he would go up then to see her.

Rose heard them coming, and at the sound of the familiar voice calling her name, the tears flowed in torrents, and with her face buried in her pillows she received her brother’s first embrace. Very gently he lifted up her head, and taking in his the little hot hands, kissed again and again her childish face, and wiping her tears away, asked, half seriously, half playfully, “if they met in peace or war?”

“Oh, in peace, in peace!” Rose answered, and winding her arms around his neck, she hugged and cried over him, asking why he had been so naughty, when he knew how badly they would feel, and why he had not interfered to save poor Tom from a prisoner’s fate.

He explained to her how that was impossible, but for his treachery he had no excuse; he could only answer that he was sorry, and ask again to be forgiven.

“I do not now believe the South all wrong,” he said. “Many of them sincerely think they are fighting for their firesides; others hardly know what they are fighting for; while others again are impressed into the army and cannot help themselves. As for me, I would gladly blot out the past, for which I have no apology; but as that cannot be, I would rather talk as little of it as possible. Try, Rose, to forget that you ever had a rebel brother. Will you?”

Rose’s kisses were a sufficient answer. She was too happy just then to remember aught save that he had always been the dearest brother imaginable; besides that Annie taught that we must forgive as we would be forgiven. Annie bore no ill will toward the South. She prayed for them as well as for the North, and cried most as hard over the sick, suffering soldiers captured by our army as over our own prisoners, and if she could forgive, Rose surely ought to do so too.

“You have not seen Annie yet,” she said; “she ran away the moment she knew you had come. I thought she might be going to meet you, but it seems she did not. You must love her a heap, and I know you will. She’s so beautiful in her mourning, and bears her trouble so sweetly. I wish everybody was as good as Annie Graham. She has never been heard to say one bitter thing against the South. She only pities and prays and says they are misguided.”

“And pray, who is this paragon of excellence that I must love a heap?” Jimmie asked, when Rose had exhausted the list of Annie’s virtues, and paused for a little breath.

“Who was she? Hadn’t he heard of Annie? Had Will failed to tell him of her adopted sister?” Rose asked in some astonishment.

Will had proved remiss in that one particular duty, and never, until this moment, had Jimmie heard that Rose had an adopted sister; and if Rose, why not himself? Wasn’t he Rose’s brother?

“Certainly you are,” Rose replied; “but I’m not sure Annie will let you call her sister, because you’re,—you’re,—well, you see, Annie is real good, and, as I told you, prays, just as hard for Southern soldiers as for ours, that is, prays that they may be Christians, and that their sick and wounded may be kindly cared for, but of course she wants us to beat, and knows we shall, but I guess she does not think of you just as she does of Tom, though she never saw either. She would not go up to the depot to meet you, and I wanted her to so much. She said, too, it was not good taste, or something like that, to hang out our banner on a Rebel’s account, and she acts so funny generally about your coming home that I hope you’ll do your best to be agreeable, and make her like you. Will you Jimmie?” and Rose looked up at her brother in such a comical, serious way, that he laughed aloud, promising to do his best to remove all prejudice from Miss Graham’s mind, and asking who she was and where she came from.

“I’m sure I don’t know where she came from,” Rose replied, a little uncertain how to grapple with the Carleton pride, which existed in Jimmie as well as the rest of them. “She’s a lady, as any one can see, and possessed of as much refinement as we often find in Boston. She can’t help it, Jimmie, if she is poor. It don’t hurt her one bit, and I’m getting over those foolish notions cherished by our set at home. Will says she came of a good family and might have married a millionnaire, old enough to be her father, but she wouldn’t. She preferred a mechanic, George Graham, the most splendid looking man you ever saw. He’s dead now, poor fellow. Will took care of him, and brought him home; that’s why Annie lives with me.”

Rose’s explanations were not the plainest that could have been given, but Jimmie extracted from the medley of facts a very prominent one. It was not a Miss but a Mrs., to whom he was to be agreeable. It had not seemed a very unpleasant duty to change a beautiful young girl’s opinion of himself, but a Mrs. was a very different affair, and for the first time since his arrival his old, merry, half-sarcastic laugh rang through the room, as with a mocking whistle, he said,

“A widow, hey! How many children does she boast?”

“Not a single bit of a one,” Rose answered, feeling that Jimmie had said something very bad of Annie.

He saw it in her countenance, and hastened to make amends by asking numberless questions about Annie, whose history from the time of Rose’s first acquaintance with her up to the present hour, he managed at last to get, the result being that he was not as much interested in the Widow Graham, as he mischievously called her, as he might have been in Miss Annie. The easily disheartened Rose gave him up as incorrigible, and mentally hoping Tom would not prove as refractory as Jimmie had done, she turned the conversation upon Will, whose goodness she extolled until the supper bell rang and Jimmie arose to leave her for a time, as she was not prepared to go down that night and do the honors of the table.

The gas was lighted in the dining-room, and the heavy damask curtains were dropped before the long French windows. A cheerful coal fire was blazing on the marble hearth, while the table, with its snowy linen, its china, silver and cut glass, presented a most inviting appearance, making Jimmie feel more at home than he had through all the long years of his voluntary exile from the parental roof.

“This is nice,” he said, with a pleasant feeling of satisfaction not unmingled with a certain degree of self-reproach, which whispered that after what had passed he was hardly worthy to be the recipient of so much luxury.

Thoughts like these were about shaping themselves into words, when he caught sight of a figure he had not before observed, and became aware that he was not alone with his mother, as he at first supposed. It was a delicate little figure, not as petite as his sister’s but quite as graceful, with its sloping shoulders and rounded waist, almost too small to suit the theorems of a Water Cure, but looking vastly well to Jimmie, whose first thought was that he could span it with his hands. Around the well shaped head the heavy bands of pale brown hair were coiled, forming a large square knot which, falling low upon the neck, gave to the figure a more girlish appearance than Jimmie had expected to find in his sister’s protégée, the Widow Graham. He knew it was Annie, by the mourning robe fitting so closely around the slender throat, and for an instant he wished she were not there as he preferred being alone with his mother. But one glance at the sweet face turned toward him as Mrs. Carleton repeated his name, dispelled all such desires, and with a strange sensation, which he attributed to pleasant disappointment, he took the soft, white hand which Annie extended toward him. It was a very small, a very pretty hand, and trembled perceptibly as it lay in Jimmie’s broader, warmer one, while on the pale cheek there was a deep, rich bloom, which Mrs. Carleton herself had never observed before.

“I have heard of Mrs. Graham from my sister,” Jimmie said, bowing to her with his usual gallantry, while Annie tried to stammer out some reply, making a miserable failure, and leaving on Jimmie’s mind the impression that she was prejudiced against him, and so would not welcome him home.

A dozen times in the course of the supper Jimmie assured himself that he did not care what was the opinion held of him by such as Annie Graham, while he as often changed his mind and knew that he did care, wondering what it was about her face which puzzled him so much. She looked a little like Tom’s wife, Mary, he thought, that is, as Mary had looked just before her departure for Charleston, when she bade him good-bye, whispering to him timidly of a world where she hoped to meet again the friends she loved so well. And as, whenever he thought of Mary, he felt that her angel presence was around him still, he now felt that another angel spirit looked out at him from the soft eyes of blue raised to his so seldom, and when raised withdrawn so quickly. What did she think of him? He would have given something to have known, but he was far from suspecting the truth or guessing what Annie felt, as she saw upon his face the lines of dissipation, and thought of the debasing scenes through which he must have passed since the days of auld lang syne, when, with the little Pequot of New London, he sat upon the rocks and watched the tide come in, telling her how, on the morrow night, his own fanciful little boat, named for her should bear them across the placid waters of the bay to where the green hill lay sleeping in the summer moonlight. The Pequot’s reply had been that the morrow was the Sabbath, and not even the pleasure of a sail with him could tempt her to steal God’s time, and appropriate it to such a purpose. He had called her a little Puritan then, asking where she learned so strict a creed, and adding, “but I half believe you’re right, and if I’d known you sooner I should have been a better boy;” then kissing her blushing cheek, he had led her from the rocks over which the waves were breaking now, and that was the last the Pequot ever saw of him. There was no sail upon the bay, no more watching for the ebb and flow of the evening tide, no walks on the long piazza, or strolls upon the beach, nothing but news one night that the handsome, saucy-eyed boy was gone to his home in Boston, leaving no message or word of explanation for her, the little Pequot, whose step was slower for a few days, and whose headache was not feigned, as the harsh aunt said it was, when she refused to join the revellers in the parlor, and dance with the grey-haired man, four times her age, who sought her for his partner. They had not met since then till now, and Annie struggled hard to keep back the tears as she remembered all that had come to her since that summer at New London—remembered the childish fancy which died out so fast, and the later love which crowned her early girlhood, finding its full fruition at the marriage altar, and twining itself so closely around the fibres of her heart, that when it was torn away, it left them sore and bleeding with pain at every pore.

Surely, with this sad experience, Annie, young and beautiful though she was, could feel for Jimmie Carleton naught save the deference she would have felt for any stranger who came to her as the brother of her patroness. And still she was conscious of a deeper interest in him than if he had been a perfect stranger, and his presence awoke within her an uncomfortable feeling, making her wish more and more that she was away where she would not be obliged to come in daily contact with him. Under these circumstances it is not strange the conversation flagged, until for Rose’s sake Annie felt compelled to make an effort. Suddenly remembering Isaac Simms, she asked if anything was ever heard at Washington of the Richmond prisoners?

“Yes,” Jimmie replied; and eager to show his own willingness to talk of the war and the Federal Army, he told how only the day before he left for Rockland, news had come from Tom, saying he was well as could be expected, considering his fare, but the boy captured with him would surely die if not soon restored to purer air and better care than those tobacco prisons afforded.

“Oh,—it will kill Mrs. Simms if they should bring him back to her dead,” and the hot tears gushed from Annie’s eyes as she heard in fancy the muffled drum beating its funeral marches to the grave of another Rockland volunteer.

The tears once started could not be repressed, and Mrs. Carleton and Jimmie finished their supper alone, for Annie excused herself, and hastening to her room, poured out her grief in tears and prayers for the poor sick boy, pining in his dreary prison home, while mingled with her tears was a note of thanksgiving that to her had been given the comfort of knowing that the death pillow of her darling was smoothed with friendly hands, and that no harsh, discordant sounds of prison riot or discipline had disturbed his peaceful dying.

Meantime Jimmie had returned to his sister, whose first question was for Annie. “What did he think of her? Wasn’t she sweet, and hadn’t she the prettiest blue eyes he ever saw?”

“I hardly saw them, for she is evidently coy of her glances at a Rebel,” Jimmie answered, half playfully, half bitterly, for Annie’s manner of quiet reserve had piqued him more than he cared to confess.

“She’s bashful,” Rose replied; “and then, Jimmie, you can’t expect her to forgive you as readily as your own sister, for you know she never saw you till to-night, and she’s a true patriot; but say, did you ever see so sweet a face—one that made you think so much of an angel?”

“Rather too pale to suit my taste. I like high color better,” and Jimmie pinched Rose’s glowing cheek until she screamed for him to stop.

“It’s all going wrong, I know,” Rose began, poutingly. “You don’t like Annie a bit, and she’s so good, too. You can’t begin to guess how good. And there’s nothing blue about her, either. Why, she’s a heap more cheerful than I could be if Will were dead, as George is. I’d die too,—I know I should; but Annie’s a real Christian, and that does make a difference. It seems to be all through her, and she lives it every minute. I honestly believe I’m better than before she came. She has actually persuaded me not to get up big dinners on Sunday, as I used to do, but to let all the servants go to church, and every night she goes for half an hour into the kitchen and teaches old black Phillis how to read the Bible. She’s so truthful, too. Why, she said she presumed that little Pequot girl would not have liked you any way after she heard that Dick Lee was not your name.”

“The Pequot girl! How came Mrs. Graham to hear of her?” Jimmie asked, his face flushing crimson.

“Oh, I happened to ask mother something about her one day, right before Annie, and so, of course, explained a little. It would not have been polite if I hadn’t,” Rose replied, adding, as she saw her brother’s evident chagrin, “you need not mind one bit, for Annie never tells anything.”

It was not the fearing she would tell which affected Jimmie unpleasantly; it was the feeling that he would rather Annie Graham should not know of all his delinquencies, and so despise him accordingly. How unfortunate it was that she was there, and yet he would not have sent her away if he could, though he did wish she were not so well posted with regard to his affairs, both past and present. What made Rose tell her of the Pequot, and why had the Pequot haunted him ever since he came into that house? Something had brought her to his mind, and as the servant just then came in, bringing her mistress’s supper, he left his seat by Rose, and walking to the window looked out upon the starry sky, wondering within himself where she was now, the little girl who had sat with him upon the rocks, and told him it was wicked to break God’s fourth command. The scene which Annie saw at the supper table was present with him now, remembered, for the first time, since the battle at Bull Run. Then, as he lay waiting for the foe, he had in fancy heard again a sweet, girlish voice, bidding him keep holy the Sabbath day, and the tear which dropped upon his gun was prompted by the thought of all he had passed through since the happy school-boy days when the Pequot preached to him her gentle sermons.

In the hall there was a rapid footstep, and Rose called out:

“Annie, Annie, come here. Why, where are you going to-night?” she continued, in much surprise, as Annie looked in, hooded and shawled as for some expedition.

“Going to see Mrs. Simms. It is not far, you know,” was Annie’s answer, and the door closed after her in time to prevent her hearing Rose’s reply.

“It’s dark as pitch, and slippery too. Jimmie, do please see her to the gate, but don’t go in, for the widow is awful against Rebels!”

The next moment Jimmie was half way down the stairs, calling to Annie, who held the door-knob in her hand.

“Mrs. Graham, allow me to be your escort,—Rose is not willing you should go out alone.”

“Thank you, I am not at all afraid, and prefer going alone, as Mrs. Simms might not care to meet a stranger,” Annie replied, with an air of so much quiet dignity, that Jimmie knew there was no alternative for him save to return to his sister’s chamber, which he did, feeling far more crestfallen than he had supposed it possible for him to feel, just because a widow had refused his escort.

It was wholly owing to the taint of Rebeldom clinging to him, he knew, for he was not accustomed to having his attentions thus slighted by the ladies to whom they were offered, and all unconsciously the manner of reserve which Annie assumed toward him was punishing him for his sin quite as much as anything which had yet occurred, making him feel keenly that by his traitorous act he had, for a time at least, built a gulf between himself and those whose good opinion was worth the having.

“Why haven’t you gone?” Rose asked, as he came into the room. “She wouldn’t let you? I don’t believe you asked her just as you should. Dear, dear, it’s all going wrong between you two, and if Tom don’t act any better when he comes home, what shall I do?”

“Send Mrs. Graham away,” trembled on Jimmie’s lips, but knowing, from what he had seen, that so far as Rose was concerned, Annie’s tenure at the Mather mansion was stronger than his own, he wisely kept silent, and sitting down by the open grate, he went off into a fit of abstraction, mingled with sad regrets for the past and occasional thoughts of the little white-faced Annie, now essaying to comfort the Widow Simms, who had extorted from her the intelligence brought by Jimmie of her boy, and who, with her hard hands covering her face, was weeping bitterly, and sobbing amid her tears,

“My poor, poor boy! It’s the same to me now as if he was dead. I’ll never see him any more. Oh, Isaac, my darling!”