Catching the Rose Read online

  Catching the Rose

  Belinda Kroll

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  PUBLISHED BY: Belinda Kroll on Smashwords

  Catching the Rose

  Copyright © 2002 Binaebi Akah

  Cover art © Andrey Kiselev - Fotolia.com

  Cover design © 2010 Binaebi Akah

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  * * * * *

  Foreword

  “When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will.”

  Abraham Lincoln

  Though my novel is Civil War based, my goal was not to write about slavery, or stress the coincidental love story. I wanted to write a story about a girl who grew up when everything from fashion to politics changed. Because this is my senior thesis, I have citations throughout, which hopefully will not impose on your reading pleasure. I am glad to put my name as Catching the Rose’s author, and I hope you enjoy.

  Belinda Kroll

  * * * * *

  PART ONE: April, 1861

  As the morning sun ascended slumbering Richmond, a small bird crooned. Its song echoed in the winding, empty streets and alleys to land in the ears of a dog who sleepily snarled. Waiting for employment, the horse whickered at the dog, which yipped in reply. The horse shook his head from a persisting fly, which sailed from the threat and chanced upon an appealing rose.

  It was on this solitary morning that a rose petal fell. It is not known whether the petal happened to be dropped by a hand, or whether it fell by the properties of gravity. But it is safe to say it began this story.

  As the town began the morning regimen, windows awoke to the new day. The sun glided across a brown brick house, highlighting wear and tear. “Mrs. Beaumont’s,” the gold-plated plaque beside the large door read. The house was tall and wide, a mixture of town house and country mansion. The bay window, situated in what one might assume belonged to the parlor, energetically flung open its curtains.

  Within the building, the resident slave opened the drapes, letting a breeze waft through the tepid, stagnant air. Though it was morning, the day already boasted an uncomfortable humidity. The slave shuffled to the kitchen to make a light breakfast for her mistress. It was lucky that she happened to be her mistress’s nurse from birth: their relationship was not one of stereotypes. Wincing as pots slammed together, the slave heard an odd sound from the back lot, and left the kitchen sighing.

  * * * * *

  Sighing, a young woman in a blue bonnet was yet again distracted from her book. The train was full of rowdy, chattering young men and women, all orbiting around the same tired subject: war. It was all anyone spoke of: war between the states, war between households; war between brothers. This war had chased her south. Squinting against the dimmed glare of the morning sun, the blue bonnet wished the train would move more quickly—she tired of this talk.

  She slid the novel into her traveling valise. The air was hot and sticky, for windows did not open thanks to the soot spewed from the smokestack. Wondering what she could do to occupy her mind, the blue bonnet fingered the pressed petal her cousin had dropped into her hand the day of her departure. As the noise rose and abruptly dropped, the blue bonnet, hoping the returning trip would not be as worrisome, rolled her eyes and stared out the soot-stained window.

  * * * * *

  Rolling her eyes in dismay, the slave pulled her mistress’ white hat from its box, and readied it for wear. The dirt acquired through train travel would destroy such a pure white. She handed the hat over and watched her mistress place it on her head. Obviously, the woman was excited about reaching Richmond—it was all she talked of since boarding the train.

  Fastening her hat, the young woman gazed at her slave with gentle reserve: an unusual occurrence in her heritage. She nodded to a woman who stumbled to the back of the train for a cup of water. How glad she was, that she could watch the scenery alone with her slave, rather than with an unwanted husband! This talk of marriage had chased her north.

  At seventeen, she wanted nothing to do with marriage—especially to a man so impossibly unattractive to her taste. Always claiming he must “protect his southern women,” as though she could not protect herself. The white hat on her head bobbed with definite purpose. So long as she was not in presence of her ex-fiancé, she was delighted in a manner considered quite improper by society.

  She leaned to pick up the dried rosebud her mother gave her two years ago, stroking the dry petals with a disturbing reverence. She watched a petal fall into her lap.

  * * * * *

  As the slave left the Richmond house to inspect the yard, a yawning cat lazily watched a petal land beside him. He pawed at it to make sure it was dead, and therefore did not pose a threat. Not accustomed to waking at such an hour, he sulked, watching the woman search the lot.

  He was scrawny, needing food and much loving. His mud-caked fur bristled, and his sadly mangled tail drooped. He blinked, wanting to steal inside the house where he depended on a warm pillow. As the woman gave up, shuffling back into the kitchen, the cat followed.

  ‘Odd,’ he thought, ‘that there is no one here to feed me. Where are the servants?’ He glanced from side to side, and hid behind the leg of a nearby chair. The last month he visited, the house had been crawling with slaves. ‘If the masters had all those, why keep the decrepit one?’

  Irritated by the lack of attention, he raced up the staircase into the main hall. Nosing open a door, he climbed atop the bedside table and loudly meowed. When this gained no notice, his desperation got the better of him and he daringly licked the mistress’s nose.

  She murmured in her sleep, and in irritation hit the cat away. The cat meowed in earnest, nosing against her pillow-buried face. She opened one gray eye to the assailant. Shrieking in alarm, she grabbed her sheets to her chest, brushed back her hair, and shooed the cat away.

  As he ran from the room, he turned to receive her ominous index finger. “You never come back!” she cried as the cat scurried to the streets, thinking how completely typical.

  Sighing, the southern lady stepped out of bed, resigned to the fact that yes, she must get out of bed, and yes, she must prepare the rooms for new tenants. She held a respectable house, one where propriety was never a question. With the war officially beginning, nothing was the same. Mrs. Beaumont had not had a steady boarder for two months, and she was forced to sell all of her slaves but one: Maum Jo. Frowning at her list of tasks, she stomped to her bureau and pulled out her hoopskirt.

  Mrs. Beaumont pulled on the hoopskirt, loosely lacing her corset. A ti
ght corset would not do, if one wanted to do heavy work. After buttoning her brown gingham dress, she pulled her hair into the current fashion, and snatched her shawl. Hurrying down the staircase, she met her slave in the kitchen. “Maum Jo, I’m going out to the market for supplies.”

  Maum Jo turned, the wrinkles of her face highlighted with surprise. “But missus, I made you breakfast, ain’t you gonna eat it? And anyway, I went to the market last week.”

  Feeling the relationship between slave and master should once again be established, what with the new boarders coming, Mrs. Beaumont glared. “Last week, there was only the three of us to feed. Mister Beaumont, as you may remember, don't take to eating much. He likes his whiskey fine. With the two new tenants, we’ll have enough money to pay for all this food I’m buyin’ today. I want you to stay here, and continue cleanin’ whatever rooms we have missed. I don’t want my tenants comin’ to a dirty home, you know,” she said, leading Maum Jo to the front door with an authoritative whisk of her skirts.

  Maum Jo opened the door and stood on the doorstep. The morning was bright and heavy, for the air was laden with the smells of horses and people, cooking kitchens and dirty beggars. Maum Jo knew Mrs. Beaumont preferred the quiet cleanliness of her home, and could not understand her determination to step out. Wiping her hands against her calico apron, Maum Jo waited for her mistress to speak; for it was evident she meant to talk.

  “You see to it that this place shines by the time I get home,” Mrs. Beaumont lamely cautioned, reluctantly stepping from her house. She pulled her bonnet down, hiding her face behind its large brim. How she wished all contact with her former social group didn’t result in such tumult! Hearing Maum Jo shut the door behind her, Mrs. Beaumont’s walk, generally large and overbearing, became hunched and unsure. The length from her house to her gate seemed extremely long this morning, and she dreaded being recognized in such a practically plain frock.

  “Hello, Mrs. Beaumont!” a woman cried out, waving from across the street.

  “Why, hello, Mrs. Swift,” she replied with a concealed frown. Reaching the edge of her property, Mrs. Beaumont opened her iron gate to meet Mrs. Swift on the sidewalk. “And how are you today?”

  “Oh, you know I’m fine, dear. How’s your husband?” Mrs. Swift smiled, her face and manner all bored curiosity. There had been a time when talking to a Beaumont meant rising in the social scale. Now it was simply a way of getting gossip. “I heard he has become ill. We all wished to see your faces at the party last week,” she continued. “And that dress you had! Why you know I just couldn’t take my eyes off it one bit…and to hear you weren’t goin’ to come! Why, you practically ruined my night.”

  It did not matter what Mrs. Beaumont said in reply, for regardless, it would be fodder for Richmond gossips. Ruination of Mrs. Swift’s night…what a joke. No doubt the night was spent gossiping over the fall of the Beaumonts, and how glad Mrs. Swift was that Mrs. Beaumont did not arrive in a nicer dress. Mrs. Beaumont’s anger grew behind her stiff smile. “My husband has taken a chill, and so hasn’t been out for a while. I’m sorry about missin’ your party.”

  Mrs. Swift nodded in counterfeit compassion, the strings of her handbag strangling her fingers. How she wished someone more important and interesting would arrive! “We would not wish it upon you to have a sick husband and yet go partyin’. Have you gotten a doctor?”

  “I haven’t had a tenant for quite a while now.” Mrs. Beaumont winced, for it hurt that she should have to think such things. There had been a time when she could afford everything but the outrageous.

  “Well, I hope you-all get better soon.” The silence weighed in, and Mrs. Swift wished Mrs. Beaumont would either feign sickness and return to her house, or speak of an engagement and leave. Hearing her name called from down the street, Mrs. Swift eagerly yoo-hooed in reply. “Sorry to leave so soon, but I’m missin’ an engagement,” she breathed, leaving without giving Mrs. Beaumont a proper chance to say her farewells.

  As Mrs. Beaumont followed, careful to stay on the opposite side of the street to more fully avoid her former friends, she resentfully thought how she hated these outings. It made no sense to leave the house anymore: her mere presence caused a scandal, nowadays.

  “Isn’t that Mrs. Beaumont?” a woman named Mrs. Kennedy murmured behind her hand as the aforementioned walked by. It was always a pleasure to see a woman once was considered so posh now part of the working class Mrs. Kennedy had recently married herself from.

  Nodding, Mrs. Swift replied, “Remember when she came from the Deep South?”

  Mrs. Johnson entered the conversation with an eager cry: “She came here after her father lost their fortune in a game of chance. You’ll never hear it from her, but as soon as her father realized what he had done, he hanged himself from the bedroom chandelier.”

  Mrs. Kennedy, new to such a thing as idle gossip, gasped. Quite stricken, she stared at Mrs. Beaumont from across the street, frowning as carriages, horses, and people obstructed her view. “She came here with that sort of past? How could she have hoped to integrate into the public eye again?” she asked of Mrs. Johnson, who was the leader of the group and therefore knew the answers to all social questions.

  “It did not matter, they were considered posh anyway, because her husband was debonair and handsome. All the ladies loved him. And all the men loved Mrs. Beaumont’s willfulness to laugh. Even after bearin’ children, she kept her figure—she looks half as old as she really is.” Mrs. Johnson lowered her voice. “The house she lives in now used to be her winter home. I hear her old plantation home is quite grand.”

  “Who acquired her plantation home, then?” Mrs. Kennedy merrily asked.

  “The Stratford family. You know, the one whose son is engaged to Adorabella Vernon’s daughter? Remember her daughter? —oh, what was her name?” Mrs. Johnson frowned, puzzled she should forget. She pulled her handkerchief from her handbag, knowing that if she did so, the others would follow suit. As the three pondered the name of Adorabella’s daughter, she waved her handkerchief at her face to create a pathetic breeze.

  After a predictable time lapse, all three handkerchiefs resembled the flitting of flies in the torpid air as Mrs. Swift suddenly exclaimed, “You mean that darlin’ Veronica? Why, she’s so sweet I could eat her up!”

  Mrs. Kennedy fiddled with her handbag. “If Veronica were to board at Cordelia’s, wouldn’t her household rise to our status?” The other women suspiciously looked at her. They hadn’t called Mrs. Beaumont ‘Cordelia’ since she had fallen from their level.

  “Well, yes, I suppose so, but the chances of that happenin’ are unsound. I mean, really—do you think Bella would let her daughter consort with a woman of Mrs. Beaumont’s level?” Mrs. Johnson laughed.

  “But I heard that a Miss Vernon was comin’ and that she was goin’ to be boardin’ at Cordelia’s!” Mrs. Kennedy stressed behind her gloved hand. “I also heard Bella and Cordelia were the best of friends, and upon Cordelia’s sinkin’ of level, they have become ever better! I am sure she will rise to our level soon.” She eyed Mrs. Beaumont, who walked in the direction of the market, and casually wondered if Mrs. Beaumont could hear that they so insolently spoke of her.

  “Please, Mrs. Kennedy. You are over-reactin’ to somethin’ a beggar told ya,” Mrs. Johnson snapped, always aggravated to hear Mr. Kennedy’s wife speak. If not for Mrs. Beaumont, she would have married Mr. Kennedy, instead of this upstart. “Not to worry, Mrs. Kennedy, I have issued a formal invitation, and hope to receive an answer any day now. If Veronica were to come, she would come to my house alone.”

  Mrs. Beaumont was thankful the market was a place her former peers never dared venture. It was deemed a place for the lower class, though Bella Vernon was not against going herself if her strength permitted. How aggravating, to be so close to a woman the Richmond women forever used as an example of proper behavior, and yet not benefit from such a relationship!

  Once her shopping was done, Mrs. Beaumont took another
route home, fearful she would chance upon those same women. And really, what did they expect? She needed Maum Jo to give the house a rub down, and she had not the stamina to do it, being a lady and all.

  “Maum Jo, I’m home, where are you?” she called, walking into the kitchen to find Maum Jo wiping the floor. Her slave stared at her mud-clad feet. Mrs. Beaumont sat on a chair, immediately deciding she would walk barefoot while cleaning the house. This would take another ten minutes to clean, and they simply did not have the time.

  Additionally, Mrs. Beaumont did not kindly take to the disapproving gaze Maum Jo threw. Just because Maum Jo was twenty-five years older did not give her the right to be superior in any way. “Sorry,” Mrs. Beaumont said, placing the market basket on the table. She apologetically smiled as Maum Jo pulled off her shoes. Running up the main stair, Mrs. Beaumont jumped into her old calico print to further clean the house.

  She and Maum Jo had already pushed all the furniture to the sides of the rooms, and laid fresh straw to be hidden by rugs. Straining under the weight, Mrs. Beaumont carried the rugs from the back veranda, and placed them in the centers of the bedrooms. Knowing the tenant traveling from up north would appreciate the simple layout, she filled a pail with sudsy water. With energy previously unknown, she dissipated spider’s webs, dusted the headboards and rubbed the metal feet so they newly shined.

  While dusting the vanity, Mrs. Beaumont gazed at herself in the mirror. She was neither ugly, nor extremely beautiful. Her children were fine, healthy men and women now, married and spread out thin across the country like jam on bread. Except for this recent lapse of social popularity, the only thing Mrs. Beaumont could really complain about was her husband. Her gray eyes narrowed as she remembered him after the Mexican War, finding him ruined and attached to an alcohol bottle.