It did not simplify the situation to have Mite Shapley come in during the evening and run upstairs, uninvited, to sit on the toot of her bed and chatter.
Rose had closed her blinds and lay in the dark, pleading a headache.
Mite was in high feather. She had met Claude Merrill going to the station that afternoon. He was much too early for the train, which the station agent reported to be behind time, so he had asked her to take a drive. She didn’t know how it happened, for he looked at his watch every now and then; but, anyway, they got to laughing and “carrying on,” and when they came back to the station the train had gone. Wasn’t that the greatest joke of the season? What did Rose suppose they did next?
Rose didn’t know and didn’t care; her head ached too badly.
Well, they had driven to Wareham, and Claude had hired a livery team there, and had been taken into Portland with his trunk, and she had brought Mrs. Brooks’s horse back to Edgewood. Wasn’t that ridiculous? And hadn’t she cut out Rose where she least expected?
Rose was distinctly apathetic, and Mite Shapley departed after a very brief call, leaving behind her an entirely new train of thought.
If Claude Merrill were so love-blighted that he could only by the greatest self-control keep from flinging himself into the river, how could he conceal his sufferings so completely from Mite Shapley,—little shallow-pated, scheming coquette?
“So that pretty Merrill feller has gone, has he, mother?” inquired Old Kennebec that night, as he took off his wet shoes and warmed his feet at the kitchen oven. “Well, it ain’t a mite too soon. I allers distrust that pink-an’-white, rosy-posy kind of a man. One of the most turrible things that ever happened in Gard’ner was brought about by jest sech a feller. Mothers hedn’t hardly ought to name their boy babies Claude without they expect ’em to play the dickens with the girls. I don’ know nothin’ ’bout the fust Claude, there ain’t none of ’em in the Bible, air they, but whoever he was, I bate ye he hed a deceivin’ tongue. If it hedn’t be’n for me, that Claude in Gard’ner would ’a’ run away with my brother’s fust wife; an’ I’ll tell ye jest how I contrived to put a spoke in his wheel.”
But Mrs. Wiley, being already somewhat familiar with the circumstances, had taken her candle and retired to her virtuous couch.
ROSE SEES THE WORLD
Was this the world, after all? Rose asked herself; and, if so, what was amiss with it, and where was the charm, the bewilderment, the intoxication, the glamour?
She had been glad to come to Boston, for the last two weeks in Edgewood had proved intolerable. She had always been a favorite heretofore, from the days when the boys fought for the privilege of dragging her sled up the hills, and filling her tiny mitten with peppermints, down to the year when she came home from the Wareham Female Seminary, an acknowledged belle and beauty. Suddenly she had felt her popularity dwindling. There was no real change in the demeanor of her acquaintances, but there was a certain subtle difference of atmosphere. Everybody sympathized tacitly with Stephen, and she did not wonder, for there were times when she secretly took his part against herself. Only a few candid friends had referred to the rupture openly in conversation, but these had been blunt in their disapproval.
It seemed part of her ill fortune that just at this time Rufus should be threatened with partial blindness, and that Stephen’s heart, already sore, should be torn with new anxieties. She could hardly bear to see the doctor’s carriage drive by day after day, and hear night after night that Rufus was unresigned, melancholy, half mad; while Stephen, as the doctor said, was brother, mother, and father in one, as gentle as a woman, as firm as Gibraltar.
These foes to her peace of mind all came from within; but without was the hourly reproach of her grandmother, whose scorching tongue touched every sensitive spot in the girl’s nature and burned it like fire.
Finally a way of escape opened. Mrs. Wealthy Brooks, who had always been rheumatic, grew suddenly worse. She had heard of a “magnetic” physician in Boston, also of one who used electricity with wonderful effect, and she announced her intention of taking both treatments impartially and alternately. The neighbors were quite willing that Wealthy Ann Brooks should spend the deceased Ezra’s money in any way she pleased,—she had earned it, goodness knows, by living with him for twenty-five years,—but before the day for her departure arrived her right arm and knee became so much more painful that it was impossible for her to travel alone.
At this juncture Rose was called upon to act as nurse and companion in a friendly way. She seized the opportunity hungrily as a way out of her present trouble; but, knowing what Mrs. Brooks’s temper was in time of health, she could see clearly what it was likely to prove when pain and anguish wrung the brow.
Rose had been in Boston now for some weeks, and she was sitting in the Joy Street boarding-house,—Joy Street, forsooth! It was nearly bedtime, and she was looking out upon a huddle of roofs and back yards, upon a landscape filled with clothes-lines, ash-barrels, and ill-fed cats. There were no sleek country tabbies, with the memory in their eyes of tasted cream, nothing but city-born, city-bred, thin, despairing cats of the pavement, cats no more forlorn than Rose herself.
She had “seen Boston,” for she had accompanied Mrs. Brooks in the horse-cars daily to the two different temples of healing where that lady worshipped and offered sacrifices. She had also gone with Maude Arthurlena to Claude Merrill’s store to buy pair of gloves, and had overheard Miss Dix (the fashionable “lady-assistant” before mentioned) say to Miss Brackett of the ribbon department, that she thought Mr. Merrill must have worn his blinders that time he stayed so long in Edgewood. This bit of polished irony was unintelligible to Rose at first, but she mastered it after an hour’s reflection. She wasn’t looking her best that day, she knew; the cotton dresses that seemed so pretty at home were common and countrified here, and her best black cashmere looked cheap and shapeless beside Miss Dix’s brilliantine. Miss Dix’s figure was her strong point, and her dressmaker was particularly skillful in the arts of suggestion, concealment, and revelation. Beauty has its chosen backgrounds. Rose in white dimity, standing knee deep in her blossoming brier bushes, the river running at her feet, dark pine trees behind her graceful head, sounded depths and touched heights of harmony forever beyond the reach of the modish Miss Dix, but she was out of her element and suffered accordingly.
Rose had gone to walk with Claude one evening when she first arrived. He had shown her the State House and the Park Street Church, and sat with her on one of the benches in the Common until nearly ten. She knew that Mrs. Brooks had told her nephew of the broken engagement, but he made no reference to the matter, save to congratulate her that she was rid of a man who was so clumsy, so dull and behind the times, as Stephen Waterman, saying that he had always marveled she could engage herself to anybody who could insult her by offering her a turquoise ring.
Claude was very interesting that evening, Rose thought, but rather gloomy and unlike his former self. He referred to his grave responsibilities, to the frail health of Maude Arthurlena, and to the vicissitudes of business. He vaguely intimated that his daily life in the store was not so pleasant as it had been formerly; that there were “those” (he would speak no more plainly) who embarrassed him with undesired attentions, “those” who, without the smallest shadow of right, vexed him with petty jealousies.
Rose dared not ask questions on so delicate a topic, but she remembered in a flash Miss Dix’s heavy eyebrows, snapping eyes, and high color. Claude seemed very happy that Rose had come to Boston, though he was surprised, knowing what a trial his aunt must be, now that she was so helpless. It was unfortunate, also, that Rose could not go on excursions without leaving his aunt alone, or he should have been glad to offer his escort. He pressed her hand when he left her at her door, telling her she could never realize what a comfort her friendship was to him; could never imagine how thankful he was that she had courageously freed herself from ties that in time would have made her wretched. His heart was full, he said, of feelings he dared not utter; but in the near future, when certain clouds had rolled by, he would unlock its treasures, and then—but no more to-night: he could not trust himself.