56 pages • 1 hour read
A Lost Lady
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Part 2, Chapters 6-7
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary
Captain Forrester dies in early December. Many of his old friends and acquaintances send telegrams and flowers, but none of them attend the funeral. Judge Pommeroy and the town doctor are his only contemporaries who serve as pallbearers.
The morning of the funeral, Niel answers a knock at the kitchen door. Adolph Blum has brought a box of yellow roses for Mrs. Forrester. Niel knows that Adolph, dressed in his workman’s clothes, will not come to the funeral, so he invites Adolph in to view Captain Forrester. Adolph sees an employee of the undertaker inside, so he declines the invitation. Niel takes the flowers up to Mrs. Forrester, who is overcome with emotion and turns her head away. Niel notes, “It was the only time that day he saw her pale composure break” (84).
Many people attend the funeral, including settlers and farmers from all over the county. As Niel and his uncle drive Mrs. Forrester home afterward, she says that she will have her husband’s sun dial set upon his grave as a headstone, and that she will plant some of his roses beside it.
When they get to her house, Mrs. Forrester insists on preparing tea for them to occupy herself. She asks Niel to return the furniture to their usual places, as it had been rearranged for the coffin and viewing chairs. As they sit in the parlor with their tea, snow begins to fall, “and the creaking of the big cottonwoods about the house seemed to say that winter had come” (84).
Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary
The next April, Niel is in his uncle’s law office, where he has been taking care of his uncle’s routine business after Judge Pommeroy fell ill with rheumatic fever and needed Niel’s help.
A man comes into the building, and after a moment Niel realizes that it is Orville Ogden, who has not been to Sweet Water in several years. Mr. Ogden asks for Judge Pommeroy, so Niel explains that his uncle has been ill for several months and had asked Niel to delay his return to school. His uncle trusts no one else to carry on his business. Mr. Ogden comments that he and the judge are getting older and that Captain Forrester’s death signaled a great difference in their lives. He then says he stopped in Sweet Water between trains to tell Judge Pommeroy that he thought that they could petition the government to increase Mrs. Forrester’s pension. Niel replies that Mrs. Forrester is no longer his uncle’s client, that she took her business to Ivy Peters after Captain Forrester’s death.
Shocked by this news, Mr. Ogden asks if Ivy Peters is trustworthy, and Niel answers that Ivy is unprincipled and takes cases that no one else will. Mr. Ogden is distressed and wonders if Ivy may have romantic intentions toward Mrs. Forrester. Looking out toward the Forresters’ grove, Mr. Ogden sadly says that Mrs. Forrester is misguided and should have asked her husband’s friends for advice. He considers going to see her but says that his train is due, so he takes his leave.
Niel is sure that Mr. Ogden wanted to go see Mrs. Forrester and wonders why he did not. Niel thinks he might have been afraid of what his wife and daughter would say, then wonders if it was “another kind of cowardice, the fear of losing a pleasant memory, of finding her changed and marred, a dread of something that would throw a disenchanting light upon the past” (87).
Niel realizes that the fact that he had not encouraged Mr. Ogden to go see Mrs. Forrester, to help her, stems from his own changed feelings toward her. Niel is troubled by Mrs. Forrester’s behavior since her husband’s death. All her friends always thought that Captain Forrester was an anchor weighing down Mrs. Forrester’s lively sparkle, preventing her from living the life she was meant to live. Instead, “without him, she was like a ship without ballast, driven hither and thither by every wind” (88).
Mrs. Forrester no longer entertains members of the upper class. Instead, Ivy Peters is frequently seen at her house, and sometimes he brings other young men from town over to her house for dinner, causing further gossip. Niel goes to talk to Mrs. Forrester about the gossip. She says that she does not want to sit alone every evening and that it would truly cause gossip if Niel came to see her more often, since he is more handsome than Ivy. Niel coldly asks her not to speak to him like that and suggests she should go back to California, to people of her own kind.
Mrs. Forrester replies that she will move as soon as her house is sold, and shares that Ivy is helping her accomplish that. She says that Judge Pommeroy could not get her as much for the house as Ivy promised her. She defiantly says that she knows how her actions look to the townspeople, that they call her the Merry Widow, but she does not care.
Niel does not visit Mrs. Forrester again. His uncle is very hurt that she took her business to Ivy, despite his many loyal years of service and friendship, and even though he had not charged Captain Forrester any fees since the Denver bank failed.
Part 2, Chapters 6-7 Analysis
Captain Forrester’s death marks the end of an era. He was one of the last of the grand pioneers, as noted by Orville Ogden. His towering influence has waned over the years, as shown by the lack of dignitaries at his funeral. Once he was visited constantly by the elite, but now only local farmers and townspeople are present to bid him a final farewell. This is mirrored in the decline of the town, as Captain Forrester’s death is “the only State news that the discouraged town of Sweet Water had furnished for a long while” (83). When Mrs. Forrester decides to place Captain Forrester’s sun dial on his grave, this further symbolizes that the pioneering era has died along with him.
Captain Forrester’s passing also signals the end of Mrs. Forrester’s role as an upper class “lady.” Niel says that Mrs. Forrester has become another woman. She abandons her husband’s friend and business associate, Judge Pommeroy, and associates instead with Ivy Peters, who represents the crass new class of Westerners. Mrs. Forrester cares only about making enough money to move back to California, not by what means it is acquired, and she surrounds herself with the young men that Ivy brings to her home. There is a sense that she knows that her actions are wrong, that she has abandoned her former dignity. Niel notes that “she talked nervously, with exaggerated earnestness, as if she were trying to persuade herself” (89). When he criticizes her behavior, she looks at him with “pleading plausibility” and tries to convince him that she has altruistic motives for consorting with the young men. She says that she does not care about the gossip being spread about her, but it appears that she does: “Her eyes glittered, but there was no mirth in them—it was more like hysterical defiance. ‘I know; they call me the Merry Widow. I rather like it!’” (89).
For Niel, the change in Mrs. Forrester, and his changed feelings toward her, are devastating. She had been his epitome of womanhood, and she has betrayed that image. As the title suggests, she is a “lost lady.” When she speaks crassly to him, Niel verbally strikes back at her, telling her to go away and saying, “You know this town is no place for you” (88).
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