CHAPTER II.ROSE AND ANNIE.
Rose Mather’s home was a beautiful place, containing everything which love could devise, or money purchase, and Rose was very happy there, dancing like a sunbeam through the handsomerooms of which she was the mistress, and singing as gaily as her pet canary in its gilded cage by the door. No shadow of sorrow or care had ever crossed her pathway, and the eighteen summers of her short life had come and gone like so many pleasant memories, bringing with them one successive round of joys, leaving no blight behind, and bearing with them, alas, no thanks for the good bestowed, for Rose was far too thoughtless to think that the Providence which shielded her so tenderly, might have dealt more harshly with her. But the shadow was creeping on apace, and Rose was conscious that the war meeting had awakened within her a new and uncomfortable train of thought. Like many others, she had a habit of believing that nothing very bad could happen to her, and so, let what might occur, she was sure her husband would be spared. Still, in spite of her gaiety, an undefined something haunted her all the way from the church, and even when alone with her husband in her tasteful sitting-room, with the bright gas-light falling cheerily around her, and adding a fresh lustre to the elegant furniture, she could not shake it off, nor guess what it was that ailed her. At last, however, it came to her, suggested by the sight of her husband’s evening paper, and laying her curly head upon his knee, she gave vent to her restlessness in the expression:
“I wish there wouldn’t be any war. What is it all for? Tell me, please.”
It was the first interest she had evinced in the matter. And glad to talk with any one upon the subject which was beginning to occupy so much of his own thoughts, Mr. Mather drew her into his lap, and endeavored, as far as possible, to explain to her what it all was for. Much of what he said, however, was Greek to Rose, who only gained a vague idea that the North was contending for abit of cloth, such as she had often seen floating over the dome of the old State House in Boston, and with the remark, that men’s lives were far more valuable than all the Stars and Stripes in the world, she fell away to sleep leaving her husband in the midst of an argument not quite clear to himself, for, like his wife, he could not then seeexactly what the war was for. Still, inasmuch as there was war, he would not play the coward’s part, nor shrink from the post of duty if his country should need his services. But this Rose did not know, and secure in the belief that whatever might happen, Will would never go, she soon resumed her wonted cheerfulness, and if she said anything of the war, was sure to startle her hearers with some remark quite unworthy of a New England daughter. She did wish they would stop having so many meetings, she said, or if they must have them, she wished they’d get Brother Tom to come and set them right. He had lived in Charleston. He could tell them how kind the people were to Mary, his sick wife, and were it not that ’twas beneath him to lecture, she’d surely write for him to come. Rose Mather was growing unpopular by her foolish speeches, and when at last she was asked to join with other ladies of the town in making articles of clothing for the volunteers, she added the last drop to the brimming bucket, by tossing back her chestnut tresses, and “guessing she shouldn’t blister her hands over that coarse stuff. She couldn’t sew much any way, and as for making bandages and lint, the very idea was sickening. She’d give them fifty cents if they wanted, but she positively couldn’t do more than that, for she must have a new pair of lavender kids. She had worn the old ones three or four times, and Will preached economy every day.”
With a frown of impatience, the matron who had beendeputed to ask help from Rose, took the fifty cents, and with feelings anything but complimentary to the silly little lady, went back to the hall where scores of women were busily employed in behalf of the company, some of whom would never return to tell how much good even the homely housewife, with its pins and needles, and thread, had done them when far away where no mother or sister hand could reach them, nor yet how the thought that perhaps a dear one’s fingers had torn the soft linen band, or scraped the tender lint applied to some gaping wound, had helped to ease the pain, and cheer the homesick heart. It was surely a work of mercy in which our noble women were then engaged, and if from the group collected in Rockland Hall, there was much loud murmuring at Rose Mather’s want of sense or heart, it arose not so much from ill-nature, as from astonishment that she could be so callous and indifferent to an object of so much importance.
“Wait till her husband goes, and she won’t mince along so daintily, taking all that pains to show her Balmoral, when it isn’t one bit muddy,” muttered the Widow Simms, pointing out, to those near the window, the lady in question, tripping down the street in quest of lavender kids, perhaps, or more likely, bound for her husband’s office, where, now that everybody worked all day long at the Hall, she spent much of her time, it was so lonely at home, with nobody to call. “I hope he’ll be drafted and have to go, upon my word!” continued the widow, whose heart was very sore with thinking of the three seats at her fireside, so soon to be vacated by her darling boys, Eli, John, and Isaac. “Yes, I do hope he’ll be drafted, don’t you, Mrs. Graham?” and she turned toward Annie, who was rolling up bandages of linen, and weaving in with every coil a prayer that the poor soldier, whose lot it shouldbe to need that band, might return again to the loved ones at home, or else be fitted for that better home, where war is unknown.
Annie shook her head, but made no answer. There was no bitterness now in her heart against Rose Mather. She had prayed that all away, and only hoped the anguish which had come to her, making her brain giddy, and her heart faint, might never be borne by another, if that could be. George had volunteered—was to be second lieutenant, and Annie, oh, who shall tell of the gloom which had fallen so darkly around the cottage she had called hers for one brief year. It was a neat, cozy dwelling, and to Annie it never seemed so cheerful as on that memorable night of the war meeting, when she had lighted the lamp, and sat down with George upon the chintz-covered lounge he had helped her make when first she was a bride. It is true the carpet was not of velvet, like that Rose Mather trod upon; neither was there in all the house one inch of rosewood or of marble, but there was domestic love, pure and deep as any Rose ever experienced, and there was something better far than that, a patient, trusting faith in One who can shed light upon the dreariest home, and make the heaviest trial seem like nought. It was this trusting faith which made Annie Graham the sweet, gentle being she was, shedding its influence over her whole life, and softening down a disposition which otherwise might have been haughty and resentful. Annie was naturally high-spirited and proud, and Rose’s remarks concerning volunteers in general, and George in particular, had stung her to the quick, but with the indignant mood there came another impulse, and ere the cottage had been reached, the bitter feeling had gone, leaving nothing but sorrow that it had ever been there. Like Rose, she wished there would beno war, but wishing was of no avail, and long after George Graham was asleep and dreaming, it may be, of glories won on battle-fields, Annie lay awake, questioning within herself, whether she ought, by word or deed, to prevent her husband’s going, if he felt as he seemed to feel, that it was as much his duty as that of others to join in his country’s defence. Annie was no great reasoner, logically; all her decisions were made to turn upon the simple question of right and wrong, and on this occasion she found it hard to tell, so evenly the balance seemed adjusted. More than once she stole from her pillow, and going out into the fresh night air, knelt in the moonlight, and asked for guidance to choose the right, even though that right should take her husband from her.
“If I knew he would not die, it would not be so hard to give him up,” she murmured, as sickening visions of fields strewn with the dead, and hospitals filled with the dying, came over her, and for an instant her brain reeled with the thought of George dying thus, and leaving her no hope of meeting him again, for George’s faith was not like hers.
Anon, however, something whispered to her that the God she loved was on the field of carnage, and in the camp and in the hospital, and everywhere as much as there in Rockland, that prayers innumerable would follow the brave volunteers, and that the evil she so much feared might be the means of working the great good she so desired. And thus it was that Annie came to a decision. Stealing back to her husband’s side, she bent above him as he lay sleeping, and with a heart which throbbed to its very core, though the lip uttered no sound, she gave him to his country asking, if it could be, that he might come back again, but if it were ordered otherwise—“God’s will be done.”There was no shrinking after that sacrifice was made, though when the morning came, the death-white face and the dark circle beneath the eyes, told of a weary vigil, such as many and many a woman kept both North and South, during the dark hours of the Rebellion. But save the death-white face, and heavy eyes, there was no token of the inner struggle, as with a desperate effort at self-command, Annie wound her arms around her husband’s neck, and whispered to him, “You may go,—I give my free consent,” and George, who cared far more to go than he had dared express, kissed the lips which tried so hard to smile, little dreaming what it cost his brave young wife to tell him what she had. To one of his temperament, there was no danger to be feared for himself. The bullet which might strike down a brother at his side would be turned away from him. Others would, of course, be killed, but he should escape unharmed. In the language of one speaker, whose eloquent appeal had done much to fire his youthful enthusiasm, “He was not going to beshot, but toshootsomebody!”
This was his idea, and ere the clinging arms had unclasped themselves from his neck, his imagination had leaped forward to the future, and in fancy George Graham wore, if not a Colonel’s, at least a Captain’s uniform, and the cottage on the hill, which Annie so much admired, and for the purchase of which a few hundreds were already saved, was his,—bought with the money he would earn. The deed should be drawn in her name, too, he said, and he pictured her to himself coming down the walk to meet him, with the rose-blush on her cheek, just as she looked the first time he ever saw her. Something of this he told her,—and Annie tried to smile, and think it all might be. But her heart that morning wasfar too heavy to be lightened by a picture of what seemed so improbable. Still, George’s hopeful confidence did much to reassure her, and when, a few days after, she started for the Hall, she purposely took a longer walk for the sake of passing the cottage on the hill, thinking, as she leaned over the low iron fence, how she would arrange the flower-beds more tastefully than they were now arranged, and teach the drooping vines to twine more gracefully around the slender columns supporting the piazza in front. She would have seats, too,—willow-twisted chairs beneath the trees, where she and George could sit at twilight, and watch the shadows creeping across the hollow where theoldcottage was, and up the opposite hill, where the cupola of Rose Mather’s home was plainly visible, blazing in the April sunshine. It was a very pleasant castle which Annie built, and for a time the load of pain which, since George volunteered, had lain so heavy at her heart, was gone; but it returned again when, as she passed a turn in the road, her eye wandered down to the hollow, and that other cottage standing there so brown and small, and looking already so desolate, because she knew that ere many days were over, she should wait in vain for the loved footsteps coming down the road,—should miss the pleasant, cheery laugh, the teasing joke and words of love which made the world all sunshine. The cottage on the hill became a worthless thing as poor Annie forced back her tears, and with quickened steps hurried on to join the group of ladies busy at the Hall.
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-heartedwoman 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’syourAnnie, 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 calledforth, 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’ ’tisdemocrats,—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 asneak!It makes mesomad!” and the big shears again clicked savagely, as Widow Simms resumed her work, after having thus delivered her opinion of theblack 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 shehad 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; Iamso 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?”
“Youmade 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 allthe 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, “Youwon’tbe 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 behindthe 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.