The River Rose

by Gilbert, Morris

  "Yes, sir, thank you, sir," she replied politely. She picked up her bucket and started toward the bathroom.

  "I'm glad to hear it," he said, and Jeanne stopped, put her bucket down, and turned to face him. When a guest wished to converse with you, you stopped what you were doing until they were finished with you. He went on, "I came into town particularly for the Christmas Regale. I was wondering if you were planning on attending?"

  This year, for the first time, the City of Memphis was sponsoring a public Christmas fair. The playbills posted all over the city promised a lavish party at Court Square on Christmas Eve.

  "Yes, sir, I do plan to attend," Jeanne said with pleasure. "It sounds like it's going to be quite a fête."

  One of his smooth eyebrows arched. "Yes, a fête. How do you know—er, pardon me. Perhaps I may see you there, Jeanne?"

  "Perhaps, sir," she said evenly, and waited.

  He looked as if he wanted to say more, but finally he went to the armoire and pulled out a heavy, dark blue double-breasted topcoat and a fine beaver top hat. "If you'll excuse me, I have people waiting for me. There is an envelope on the mantel, it's for you. I hope you have a good day. I'll see you in the morning, Jeanne."

  She curtsied as he went out the door, and then hurried to open the envelope. He had left her two dollars. She smiled a little. He never handed her a tip; he always left it for her. Jeanne marveled at his delicacy. Most of the guests—who were males, of course—made a show of tipping her, with the obvious expectation of gratitude, and sometimes more. George Masters had always shown her unusual respect.

  When she finished with George Masters' room she returned to Cunningham's. He was shaved and clothed, to her relief. He gave her a dollar tip, and then tried to envelope her in a hug. But Jeanne was not going to give anyone a hug for a dollar, or even for a lot of dollars, and she slipped away from him.

  Each floor of the hotel had fifty rooms, and normally all one hundred and fifty rooms were occupied. This close to Christmas, however, the hotel had only eighty occupied rooms, and many of them were checking out today. Twenty-two rooms had to be cleaned on the third floor, and Jeanne had two other maids working with her. They interrupted her several times so that she could let them into a room when the guest wasn't there. As far as she knew, she was the only person that Mrs. Weidemann ever gave a master key to. She did her seven rooms, and the extra. She then checked all the other girls' rooms to make certain they were thoroughly cleaned. It was about five o'clock, and close to full dark, when she left the Gayoso.

  She carried her newspapers, her soaps, her pillow slips, and eight dollars and forty cents in cash. It usually took her over seventeen days of work to earn that much money. Thank you, Lord! she exulted to the bitter east wind. Thank You for taking such good care of us!

  Because of the Christmas season, the shops along Main Street were staying open late, and the streets were still busy. Men in heavy wool topcoats and tall beaver hats, arm-in-arm with fur-clad women, mingled with the rivermen, the clerks, the charwomen, the coal scuttlers, the woodcutters, the couriers, the tradesmen, and all of the different kinds and shapes of people that made up a relatively cosmopolitan city such as Memphis. Jeanne was charmed by Main Street at Christmastime. Every shop window was framed with holly and evergreens, and the lanterns cast an angelic golden glow over the boardwalk. She would have liked to linger and look at some of the shops that she could never go into, like Madame Chasseur's Cosmetics and Perfumery, but she was in a hurry to get home to Marvel. And it was still harshly cold, though the wind had died down.

  Quickly she made her way down Main to Anderton's Grocery and Butchery. The store was busy, with women crowding around the fresh vegetables that Mr. Anderton had just gotten in that very day. Jeanne looked at the bins with a jaundiced eye. She disliked the most common winter vegetables—beets, collard greens, turnips, and particularly brussels sprouts. Her long mouth twisted as she looked at the little, round green balls and thought how very good they would be for Marvel, but she had never been able to bring herself to buy them, she loathed them so. She didn't think she could take a bite of a brussels sprout, not even for Marvel. The kale did look freshly green, and cabbage cooked with a ham hock would be very good. Picking through the bundles of kale carefully, she finally chose one that seemed full and without blemish and went up to the long counter, where Mr. and Mrs. Anderton were busy waiting on customers. Mrs. Anderton finally looked up at her with a flushed plump face and said, "Oh, Mrs. Bettencourt, I see you found the nice kale we got in today. Did you see the brussels sprouts?"

  "Yes, ma'am, they look very—green," Jeanne said politely. "May I please have a quart of milk, and would you happen to have any ham hocks at a good price this evening?"

  Mrs. Overton frowned. "Hmm, I'll check for you, Mrs. Bettencourt. We did this afternoon, but we've been this busy all the day long . . ." She bustled off toward the butchered meats in the back. Jeanne leaned over to look behind the counter, for there were two large bins of the plumpest, reddest apples she had ever seen. Her mouth watered. Mrs. Overton returned, still a-bustling, holding a ham hock in brown paper and a glass quart of milk. "This is the smallest ham hock we have, Mrs. Bettencourt, but it still has some good meat and fat to it. That would be seven cents a pound, and this is about two pounds."

  "That's fine, Mrs. Overton, I'll take it. Those apples, they are very fresh, aren't they?"

  "Oh, yes, fresh-picked in Pennsylvania, I understand, and shipped downriver. We just got them today. I apologize, but we had to put them back here, people were stealing them, and they're a nickel apiece. Would you like to come around and look at them?"

  "No, thank you, ma'am, if you would—"

  But suddenly the kind, warm Mrs. Overton turned into a termagant. She leaned over to look behind Jeanne, her face red with outrage. "Here, you! D'ye think I'm blind? Plain as plain, I saw you poking holes in that there cabbage! Y'ain't gittin' no deals, neither! Plain as plain!" She turned back to Jeanne with a polite smile. "You were saying, Mrs. Bettencourt?"

  "I'd like for you to choose two of the best apples, please, Mrs. Overton. And I'd like a half-pound bag of black tea," Jeanne said with amusement. The Overtons, like most of her guests at the Gayoso, treated her with respect, in spite of her lowly status. Jeanne knew it was because of her upbringing, which had been unorthodox, but her mother had been a gentlewoman and had taught her well. J. B. Cunningham had been right about one thing, at least. She really wasn't like a chambermaid.

  Mrs. Overton obligingly put all of Jeanne's purchases, along with her newspapers and pillow slips and soaps, into a roomy canvas bag. "I'll return it tomorrow," Jeanne promised.

  "Yes, I know," she said, beaming. "And a very Merry Christmas to you and your little one, Mrs. Bettencourt!"

  "Merry Christmas to you and yours, ma'am," Jeanne said. As she neared the door she saw a boy with his face pressed close up to the glass, staring wistfully at the fresh vegetable display. Jeanne felt a deep pang, as she always did when she saw Roberty. But she smiled as he held the door open for her. "Hello, Roberty. I was hoping I'd see you tonight."

  His thin, dirty face brightened. "You was? How come was that?"

  "It so happens that my stock of matches is very low. I desperately need some kindling, and also I was hoping that you might do me a very great favor," Jeanne said, slowing her step to match his. He was a boy of about ten, she thought, small and thin and hungry-looking. There were dozens, maybe even hundreds, of boys like him in Memphis.

  "I got matches, Mrs. Bettencourt," he said eagerly. "And I kept back a good bundle of wood for you, in case. I hid it 'round the corner when I saw you going into Anderton's." He trotted down one of the dank little alleys and came back with an armload of sticks and small branches. "I'll do you a favor, ma'am. Anything, you just ask."

  "Well, you know the little Christmas tree you found for me," she said, "we've decorated it some, but I think I'd very much like to have some pine cones to use for decorations. Do you think you could f
ind any?"

  "Oh, yes, ma'am! There's a big stand of pines over on Mud Island, and every morning they drop loads of cones. I'll be there first thing of the morning, afore the other wood monkeys get there, and get you the prettiest ones." The boys who scavenged the scarce wood around the city had come to be called wood monkeys. They practically knew where every tree in Memphis was located, and no branch or pine cone hit the ground in winter and stayed there for long. Each day the wood monkeys ranged up and down the waterfront, picking up every splinter lost from the endless line of carts hauling wood to the hungry riverboats.

  "I got a surprise for you, too, Mrs. Bettencourt," he said proudly. "I got you some pretty good little sticks of rich pine."

  "How wonderful!" Jeanne said. "One can never seem to buy rich pine. And as it happens, today I have a little extra money, and I'd love to have every splinter of rich pine you have. You—you didn't steal it, did you?"

  "No, ma'am," he said stoutly. "I don't steal."

  "No, I'm sorry, Roberty, I know you don't steal," Jeanne said apologetically. "Are you making it all right? That's a pretty hefty bundle you have there."

  "I don't know what hefty is, but it ain't too heavy." Gamely he struggled to match his stride with Jeanne's as they hurried north of town, to the district known as "The Pinch." Originally it had been called the Pinchgut District, because of the gaunt and pinched faces of the poor people, mostly Irish, who had settled there. It was the poorest section of the town.

  But Jeanne felt that she and Marvel had a fairly good house, considering that they were indeed very poor. It was a small clapboard shotgun house that was only about ten years old. Shotgun houses were called that because of the open middle hallway from front to rear; you could shoot a shotgun through them. To keep out the homeless drunks and thieves and other, worse criminals, Jeanne and her neighbors, the O'Dwyers, had put up stout bolted doors at each end of the house. The O'Dwyers lived in the room on the right side and Jeanne and Marvel on the left. The one thing that Jeanne treasured most about the single room was that it had a fireplace. That was why she had decided on renting the house instead of living in a more convenient boardinghouse.

  Finally they reached her home, and Jeanne dreaded the next few minutes. She felt terribly guilty about Roberty. She didn't know if he had any family, any parents. She didn't even know if he had a home or if he was one of the true orphans who camped out in the summer and slept in a crowded church shelter on the coldest winter nights. But what could she do? Just because he had adopted her, that didn't mean that she could adopt him.

  Jeanne opened the door and they went into the dark hallway. From the O'Dwyers, loud voices sounded, arguing about someone's tobacco, and one of the children was crying. The strong smell of onions pervaded the hall. Roberty slipped past her, laid his bundle of wood down at her door, then pulled some sticks out of his pocket. "Here's the rich pine, Mrs. Bettencourt. How many matches do you need?"

  "How many do you have?"

  "'Bout a dozen left, I think," he said, groping in the dark hallway.

  "Good, I'll take whatever you have. Now, I want you to take this, Roberty, for the wood and the rich pine and the matches. And for Merry Christmas," she said, handing him two quarters.

  His dulled eyes grew round. "Gosh! Thanks, Mrs. Bettencourt! Merry Christmas to you too, and, and I'll see you tomorrow with the pine cones!" He turned and ran out the door, pulling it securely shut behind him. He always hurried away like that, as if he sensed Jeanne's turmoil over asking him into her home. With regret, Jeanne opened the door to her room and hurried to bring in the wood and put all of her things away.

  But somehow Marvel must have heard them, perhaps when the door slammed, for the O'Dwyers' door opened and she came running out. "Mama, you're home! Why didn't you come get me?" she cried, throwing her arms around Jeanne's legs.

  "Because I have a birthday surprise here for someone and I was trying to hide it," Jeanne said, swooping down to lift her up and kiss her. "You're going to have to go stand in the corner and hide your eyes."

  "That's silly, I haven't been naughty," Marvel scoffed. "I've been very good today."

  Jeanne let her slide down to the floor, and Marvel's eyes grew big and round as she saw the bulging canvas bag on the worktable. "Gunness! Are those all your things, Mama?"

  "They are mine and yours," Jeanne said, smiling. Marvel always said gunness, not goodness. "Now, if you'll let me get my breath, and get that fire going good, I'll show you our treasures, and tell you about my exciting adventures today."

  "I'll help you," Marvel said happily. "With the fire, not your breath."

  Jeanne took off her cape and muffler and then carefully removed her mobcap. It looked clean, but of course her apron got dirty in the course of a day's work. She threw it into a bucket of water with boracic acid in it, for she had found that just soaking it overnight would remove the stains without having to scrub. Smoothing her hair, she put on a black wool shawl and went out in the hallway to fetch a good-sized log for the fire. She and the O'Dwyers split the cost of a cord of wood, which ran about ten dollars.

  Marvel stood at the fireplace with the poker, vigorously stirring a good-sized bed of coals and carefully placing small branches on it. The coal-glow lit her intent face. Though she had inherited Jeanne's large dark eyes, she was rather a plain child, with a thin face and mousy sandy-colored hair. Small for her age, her hands were more like a four-year-old's than a six-year-old's. Her legs and arms were skinny, and her neck seemed too small for her head. This was not evidence of malnutrition, because Jeanne was vigilant about feeding her well. Rather, it was because she was frail and sickly. Marvel had been born two months prematurely, and she had never gained normal strength and health.

  But she was a pleasing child, because she was bright and alert and interested in everything, even things that most children her age would find a dead bore. Jeanne was alternately grateful and frustrated with her cleverness. She was gratified when Marvel had started learning to read at five years old, and she had been frustrated when Marvel had insisted she explain why the O'Dwyers had six children and Jeanne only had one. Life with Marvel was like that.

  Jeanne came in to put the log on the fire. "Did Mr. O'Dwyer give us the coal starter?"

  "Yes, ma'am, Angus got home early today and stoked their fire up real good, and Mr. O'Dwyer brought a shovelful of live coals over here just a little while ago," she said.

  "Did you remember to thank him?"

  "Yes, ma'am. I told you I was very good today."

  "Pardon me, I forgot," Jeanne said gravely. "Now I'm going to put this soup on, and while it's heating up we'll take a look at my bag over there." She set up the iron tripod and suspended a cast-iron pot over the hottest part of the fire. All last night she had simmered oxtails, onions, and carrots over the slow fire. Now she added a cupful of cooked rice for a good, thick stew.

  "Let's go ahead and put our bed down, shall we?" Jeanne said. They had an iron bedstead with rusty springs, but in winter they always put the mattress down in front of the fire and sat wrapped up in wool blankets. Most nights they read some, and then they talked while Jeanne sewed. Tonight they got the canvas bag and set it down between them.

  "First, though, before we see these wonderful things, I want us to say a thank-you prayer," Jeanne said. "Today I had some generous guests that gave me tips. We have to thank Mr. Borden, Mr. Masters, Mr. Cunningham, and Mr. Davis."

  Marvel nodded and bowed her head. "Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for Mr. Borden and Mr. Masters and Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Davis. Thank you for the money they gave Mama. Thank you for all the stuff in the bag. Amen."

  Jeanne began taking things out of the bag. "Surprise! Kale! Isn't that wonderful?"

  "Mama, that bag's got more things in it," Marvel said reproachfully. "You're just joshin' me."

  "I'm sorry, I think you'll like this better. Here is milk and a ham hock, which I suppose are almost as amazing as kale. But look at this—and this—" Jeanne pulled out the mu
slin bag of tea, and the apples.

  Marvel's mouth made a small o. "Those apples! They're so, so red and shiny and fat! And, Mama is that—" She snatched the bag from Jeanne's hand and lifted it to her nose and sniffed. "It is! It's tea! You got us some tea!"

  "Mr. Borden got us some tea," Jeanne corrected her. "And these newspapers. Just look, Marvel, this one has pictures."

  "Oh, Mama, could we please, please, have a cup of tea? And we have milk and sugar! Couldn't we make tea, and then read the newspapers while we're having tea?" she pleaded.

  "Hmm, I suppose we might, though I'll have to take the stew off the fire," Jeanne said thoughtfully.

  "But just this once, to celebrate Mr. Borden and Mr.—and the other gentlemen—may we have tea and bread and cheese and apples for supper?" Marvel said slyly.

  "Ah, to celebrate," Jeanne said. "As a matter of fact, that is just about what Mr. Borden told me he'd like me to do with the money he gave me. Yes, tonight we may have tea instead of supper."

  "Oh, thank you, thank you!" Marvel said. "I just love tea, and I know it's so 'spensive we can't hardly ever buy it."

  "We can hardly ever buy it," Jeanne corrected her.

  "We can hardly ever buy it," Marvel echoed. "Mr. Borden must be nice. You like him, don't you, Mama?"

  "Hm? Oh. It's not a question of whether I like him or not, Marvel," Jeanne explained. "In a way, I work for him. He is a generous man, and I am grateful to him."

  Marvel frowned. "I thought you liked him, because when you talk about him you sound okay. But when you talk about the others you sound funny, like you don't like them."

  "What? No, no, Marvel, it's not that I dislike them. It's just not—the situation—it's one of those things about adults that you can't understand yet," Jeanne struggled to explain.