Rose of Dutcher's Coolly Part 43

"There, now, my dear! don't let that trouble you. Any simple little gown will do."

"It's out of the question, Mrs. Harvey, until I can buy my own dresses.

I can't ask my father to buy anything more than is strictly necessary."

There was a note in her voice which seemed to settle the matter.

Isabel said, "Perhaps you have something made up that will do. Won't you let me see what you have? Certainly the dress you wore at the concert became you well."

"If you have anything that could be altered," Mrs. Harvey said, "I have a dressmaker in the house now. She could easily do what you need. She's looking over my wardrobe."

Rose shook her head, and the tears came to her eyes.

"You're very, very kind, but it wouldn't do any good. Suppose I got a dress suitable for this afternoon, it wouldn't help much. It's impossible. I'd better keep in the background where I belong."

She stubbornly held to this position and Mrs. Harvey reluctantly gave up her plans to do something for her socially.

Rose had come to see how impossible it was for her to take part in the society world, which Isabel and Mrs. Harvey made possible to her. The winter was thickening with b.a.l.l.s and parties; the society columns of the Sunday papers were full of "events past," and "events to come."

Sometimes she wished she might see that life, at other times she cared little. One day, when calling upon Isabel, she said suddenly:

"Do you know how my father earned the money which I spend for board? He gets up in the morning, before any one else, to feed the cattle and work in the garden and take care of the horses. He wears old, faded clothes, and his hands are hard and crooked, and tremble when he raises his tea----"

She stopped and broke into a moan--"O, it makes my heart ache to think of him alone up there! If you can help me to earn a living I will bless you. What can I do? I thought I was right, but Mr. Mason made me feel all wrong. I'm discouraged now; why was I born?"

Isabel waited until her storm of emotion pa.s.sed, then she said:

"Don't be discouraged yet, and don't be in haste to succeed. You are only beginning to think about your place in the economy of things. You are costing your father but little now, and he does not grudge it; besides, all this is a part of your education. Wait a year and then we will see what you had better do to earn a living."

They were in her library and Rose sat with her hat on ready to go back to her boarding house. Isabel went on, after a time spent in thought:

"Now the social question is not so hopeless as you think. There are plenty of select fine places for you to go without a swagger gown. Of course, there is a very small circle here in Chicago which tries to be ultra-fas.h.i.+onable, but it's rather difficult because Chicago men have something else to do and won't be dragooned into studying Ward McAllister. You'll find the people here mostly good, sensible people, like the Harveys, who'll enjoy you in any nice, quiet dress. You can meet them informally at dinner or at their little Sunday evening in. So don't you take any more trouble about it," she ended, "and you needn't pay me for the lecture either."

Rose answered her with smiles:

"I wish I could feel--I wish I didn't care a cent about it, but I do. I don't like to feel shut out of any place. I feel the equal of any one; I was brought up that way, and I don't like to be on the outside of anything. That's a dreadful thing to say, I suppose, but that's the way I feel."

"I'm not going to quarrel with you about the depth of your depravity; but I a.s.sure you there is no circle in Chicago worth knowing which will shut you out because you are a poor girl. Thank heaven, we have not reached to that point yet. And now about your writing. I believe in you.

I liked those verses, though I may not be an acute critic--Mr. Mason says I'm a conservative, and he's probably right. He says you should write as you talk. He told me you had remarkable power in suggesting images to the mind, but in your verse the images were all second-hand.

He believes you'll come to your own themes and style soon."

"I hope so." Her answer was rather spiritless in tone.

"There's another thing, Rose. You're going to have suitors here in Chicago, and fine ones too. May I talk with you about that?"

Rose flushed deeply and her eyes fell; she was a little incoherent.

"Why, yes--I don't see any reason--there isn't any need of secrecy."

Isabel studied her from a little distance.

"Rose, tell me: how is it that you didn't marry young, as so many poor girls do?"

Rose considered a moment:

"I hardly know myself."

"You had lovers, always?"

"Yes, always."

"And you had fancies, too?"

"O yes, as all girls do, I suppose."

"Why didn't you marry one of these?"

"Well, for one reason, they didn't please me well enough--I mean _long_ enough. They grew tiresome after awhile; and then I was ambitious, I wanted to get out into the world. I couldn't marry some one who would bind me down to the cook-stove all my life, and then I had my ideals of what a man should be--and, some way, the boys didn't interest me after awhile."

"I think I understand that. You're going to marry some time, of course."

Rose looked down: "Why, yes, I suppose so--most girls do."

"Don't think I'm impertinent, will you, but is there any--are you bound to any one?"

Rose lifted her face.

"No, I am as free as any woman."

"I'm glad of that, Rose. I was afraid you might be half-engaged to some one in the college or back in the valley. It makes it very fine and simple if you can enter your wider life here, free. You are sure to marry, and you ought to marry well."

Rose replied a little disgustedly:

"I hate to think of marrying for a home, and I hate to think of marrying as a profession. Writers accuse us of thinking of nothing else, and I get sick and tired of the whole thing. I wish I was just a plain animal or had no s.e.x at all. Sometimes I think it is a curse to be a woman."

She ended fierce and sullen.

Isabel shrank a little:

"O don't be too hard on me, Rose! I didn't mean to anger you."

"I'm not angry; the things I want to say I can't seem to say. It isn't your fault or mine. It's just fate. I hate to think of 'marrying well'--"

"I think I understand," Isabel said, a little appalled at the storm she had raised. "I haven't been troubled by that question because I have a profession, and have something to think about besides marriage, and still we must think about it enough to prepare for it. The world must have its wives and mothers. You are to be a wife and mother, you are fitted for it by nature. Men see that--that is the reason you are never without suitors. All I was going to say, dear, was this: you are worthy the finest and truest man, for you have a great career, I feel sure of it--and so--but no, I'll not lecture you another minute. You're a stronger woman than I ever was, and I feel you can take care of yourself."

"That's just it. I don't feel sure of that yet. I feel dependent upon my father and I ought not to be; I'm out of school, I'm twenty-three years of age, and I want to do something. I must do something--and I don't want to marry as a--as a--because I am a failure."

"n.o.body wants you to do that, Rose. But you didn't mean that exactly.

You mean you didn't want to come to any man dependent. I don't think you will; you'll find out your best holt, as the men say, and you'll succeed."

Rose looked at her in silence a moment: