Project Gutenberg Australia


Title: A Box of Dead Roses
Author: Ethel Mills
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0606861.txt
Language: English
Date first posted: September 2006
Date most recently updated: September 2006

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A Box of Dead Roses
Ethel Mills


THE old lady was a most amusing creature, and she had a past which was
a record amongst pasts. Only that she was rich enough to buy the whole
district, its "society" would have "cut" her long ago; as it was,
people only talked about her with meaning looks and whispered
condemnation. At least, the generation to which she belonged did that;
the younger one only looked and wondered. Bent with rheumatism, bushy-
browed., fierce-eyed and hard--featured--there remained no trace of
the beauty and charm which (so report said) had sent more than one
good man to the devil.

On sunny days she would have her chair moved on to the wide, vine-
sheltered verandah. She liked to see what was going on; and she said
that in Australia most things happened on verandahs. This particular
one had been planned and built in early pioneering days, and had, no
doubt, seen many ups and downs of varied incident.

One could listen to her by the hour when she was in the vein for
remembering pages from her own life or from other lawless lives of
early days, when all country west of the station was unknown
Australia. Like most old people, she was given to repetition, but she
told me a story once which neither I nor anyone else could ever induce
her to tell again.

It was about a young wife--the most innocent of brides, who thought
the world of her husband, and had no wish or look for other men. Yet
the house was full of other men in those days, and they all gave
thoughts or looks, more or less, to the prettiest woman in the
district. Every evening she used to stand at her bedroom door, looking
along the verandah, until she saw her husband returning from his work;
and every evening he brought her a rose from the big bush by the
steps. That was during the first months of her marriage. Next year,
the rose-bush bore as abundantly as ever, but the man often forgot to
pick a flower for her; and, after a time, he forgot altogether.

The young wife was painfully ideal and long-suffering, and never gave
him a word of reproach; she was still so much in love with him that
she was shy, and blushed like a girl when he came near her
unexpectedly. "Fancy: after two years of married life!"

And the old lady smiled wickedly, and continued:

"She was tired one night, and went to bed early, leaving her husband
smoking and reading in the dining-room; but it was so hot that she
presently got up, threw on a gown, and strolled along the verandah in
the shadow for a breath of cool air. The sultriness of the air brought
out the strongest scent of the moonflowers. Just there, at the corner
near the rose-bush, she saw her husband with his arms round a woman,
kissing her lips over and over again--they were full, very red lips,
such as men like to kiss.

"The woman was one of the housemaids--the soft-voiced, self-contained,
velvet-footed one who usually brought in the tray for supper, and
whose eyes never left the floor as she did so--a girl who seemed to
have no thought beyond her duties.

"The wife heard enough to show her that the woman had thoughts for
many things besides--enough to tell her that those kisses were not the
first by any means; that the man's life had been a long lie, except,
perhaps, during the very early days of marriage. She liked to think
that he was all hers then. A delusion also, possibly; but a harmless
one.

"As it was, she stole off to bed without saying a word. I call that a
'verandah tragedy,' my dear; because her whole nature changed in a few
moments. Not that there was much to notice one way or the other at
first--except that she said she could not bear the scent of the
moonflowers, and had the creeper taken up at the roots. She did not
even send away the housemaid. Why should she? But things were a great
deal more pleasant for the 'other men' afterwards--a great deal, my
dear! She used to sing and play to them, and dance with them, and
flirt with them, and fill the house with visitors, and so on--in fact,
she was a beauty, and had only just awakened to a knowledge of her
power. You see, the station and money belonged to her; so she was
freer than most wives.

"There was the baby, of course--a lovely, soft-faced little thing that
used to take its mid-day sleep in a string hammock, swung up there by
the trellis. She was fond of the child; yet, when it died and was
buried by the lagoon in the garden, she used to sit dry-eyed, looking
at the hammock that swung loosely in every breeze without its
accustomed burden. She even said she was not sorry; because the boy
might have grown up to break some woman's heart, and the world was
well rid of the breed. Perhaps it was best so; though--looking at the
other side of the question--he might have lived to blush for his
mother.

"One day her husband was brought in, dead-kicked by the horse he was
trying to catch in the yard. They carried him straight up the verandah
to the big spare-room, and the blood was dripping, dripping all the
way.

"She was a tidy, methodical woman always, and she sent for the
housemaid--the velvet-footed one--and bade her wash the boards. The
girl had a wonderful power of self-command usually, yet, at sight of
that blood, she shivered and trembled like one with the palsy.
Sentimental people said the wife was perfectly inhuman to think of the
state of her verandah at such a time--and, of course, a kind friend
told her. She laughed as she said, 'No! I am not heart-broken. I went
through that experience two years ago.'

"Well, my dear" (and the old lady's voice sounded a little tired),
"she lived a long, long life, and rather a varied and interesting one,
from an outsider's point of view, at any rate. I often sit and think
of her and of many things that happened on this old verandah, but of
late years I forget a great deal. I like best to remember the days
when the young wife used to stand listening, listening for the
husband's step--the sweetest music in the world to her.

"No doubt she was an arrant little fool and bored him to death. I
think, now, that he was no worse than the majority of men: a clever,
interesting woman could have managed him. She became all that
afterwards--for other men; but, as I said before, she was a totally
different woman. Live every inch of your life, my dear!" finished the
old lady, impressively. "One life, one love!--the idea is perfectly
absurd."

Two years later I saw the old lady again--feebler, worn in body and
mind. She still sat in sunny weather on the verandah, but now she
always had a little cardboard box on her lap, caressing it with her
withered fingers.

"Look, my dear!" she said; "this box is full of dead rose-leaves--they
all came off that bush by the corner, years ago. Young people are so
careless and forgetful. I may die at any moment, and unless I had it
with me they would never remember to bury it in my grave. They are the
dearest things I possess; the reason why they are so dear I shall
carry a secret to my grave also."

The old lady had forgotten that she had ever told me a story with
roses in it.



THE END


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