Roses by Leila Meacham

in you a young woman who will live to regret the decision she has made.”
    “I doubt it, Miss Peabody.”
    The headmistress was referring to her refusal to become one-half of the famous pairs Bellington Hall was noted for matching.
     Early on, Mary had discovered that many parents sent their daughters to the school to seek suitable husbands among the rich
     brothers, cousins, youngish uncles, and even widower fathers of classmates. The man Mary had refused was Richard Bentwood,
     a wealthy textile manufacturer from Charleston and the brother of one of the few girls of whom Mary had grown fond. “Since
     Amanda will have one more year here,” she offered, “perhaps you’ll have greater success in introducing her brother to someone
     far more suitable for him than I.”
    “Mr. Bentwood does not need my services in introducing him to suitable women, Miss Toliver. You can be assured that they abound
     in
his
social circles, whereas you are not likely to meet another Richard Bentwood in
yours
.”
    Mary turned away to pin on a floppy-brimmed hat before Miss Peabody could see that her shot had hit home. The headmistress
     was right in a way, though Percy and Ollie and Emmitt Waithe’s son, Charles, could measure up to any man, including Richard
     Bentwood. The problem was, none of those boys were for her, and she had wondered, when she turned down Richard’s marriage
     proposal, where and when she would ever meet his like again. He had been correct for her in every way but the one that mattered.
     He would have expected her to turn Somerset over to a land manager when they married, in order to live with him in Charleston.
     That was unthinkable, of course, but the night they had parted forever, she’d experienced an unfamiliar panic. What if no
     one came along who could stir her blood like Richard? What if there was no one in her future whom she would want to marry
     and have father her children?
    To her relief, Mary heard the porter pick up her luggage in the hall, but the headmistress was not yet through with her. As
     Mary pulled on her gloves, she continued. “I understand that the lusty heirs of your ruling families will be going to war.
     Let us hope that fate will be kind and spare them to perpetuate their lines. However, from what I have read of the trench
     warfare in Europe, there is reason to doubt its beneficence. Should the young men be lost”—the headmistress touched her cheek
     in feigned horror—“there will not be much of a pool from which to make a choice, will there?”
    Mary felt herself grow pale. The images that had haunted her since hearing of the boys’ enlistment flashed through her mind.
     She saw their bodies lying in pools of blood on some godforsaken battlefield, Miles sprawled like a scarecrow, Percy’s blond
     head forever still, the light eternally snuffed from Ollie’s twinkling eyes.
    She opened her handbag, a small beaded affair with a tortoiseshell frame, one of her last purchases from the DuMont Department
     Store. “Here is the key to my room,” Mary said without a trace of regret. “That should do it, Miss Peabody. I have a train
     to catch.”
    Mary expected to be called back as she sailed from the room. It would be so like the witch to conjure up some reason to detain
     her—a fee not paid, a trumped-up damage charge, a lost book. Apparently, the headmistress was as happy to be rid of her as
     she of Bellington Hall, and she fled unassailed down the hall to the stairwell and freedom.
    At the bottom of the stairs, she found Samuel, the porter, waiting for her. He greeted her with a gold-toothed grin. “I knowed
     you be anxious to leave, Miss Mary. A cab, it be on the way. How long it be since you been home?”
    “Too long, Samuel.” She handed him a nickel tip with a grateful smile. “Have you seen Miss Lucy?”
    “She be up the Hill. Went that way ’bout twenty minutes ago.”
    “The Hill?” Mary cried. “Why would she go now, of all times?” The Hill was