The Letter of Credit
by Susan Warner · English · Gutenberg #36159 · 965,172 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Letter of Credit
Author: Susan Warner
Release date: May 18, 2011 [eBook #36159]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36159
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LETTER OF CREDIT ***
Susan Warner (1819-1885), A letter of credit (1881), 1882 edition
Produced by Daniel FROMONT
Note from the transcriber: a very important text for the study of
Susan Warner's "Queechy".
THE LETTER OF CREDIT.
_BY THE AUTHOR OF "WILD, WILD WORLD_."
I. THE END OF A COIL. 12mo. $1.75.
"Miss Warner has added another pure and beautiful picture to the gallery
that has given so much pleasure to such great numbers. All her pictures
are bright and warm with the blessedness of true love and true religion.
We do not wonder that they receive so wide a welcome, and we wish
sincerely that only such stories were ever written."--_N. Y. Observer_.
II. MY DESIRE. 12mo. $1.75.
"Miss Warner possesses in a remarkable degree the power of vividly
describing New England village life, the power of making her village
people walk and talk for the benefit of her readers in all the freshness
of their clear-cut originality. She has an ample fund of humor, a keen
sense of the ridiculous, and a rare faculty of painting homely truths in
homely but singularly felicitous phrases."--_Philadelphia Times_.
III. THE LETTER OF CREDIT. 12mo. $1.75.
IV. PINE NEEDLES. A Tale. 12mo. $1.50.
V. THE OLD HELMET. A Tale. 12mo. $2.25.
VI. MELBOURNE HOUSE. A Tale. 12mo. $2.00.
VII. THE KING'S PEOPLE. 5 vols. $7.00.
VIII. THE SAY AND DO SERIES. 6 vols. $7.50.
IX. A STORY OF SMALL BEGINNINGS. 4 vols. $5.00.
_By Miss Anna Warner_.
THE BLUE FLAG AND THE CLOTH OF GOLD $1.25
STORIES OF VINEGAR HILL 3 vols. 3.00
ELLEN MONTGOMERY'S BOOKSHELF 5 vols. 5.00
LITTLE JACK'S FOUR LESSONS 2.50
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS,
NEW YORK.
THE
LETTER OF CREDIT.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD."
...."The bewildering masquerade of life,
Where strangers walk as friends, and friends as strangers."
LONGFELLOW.
NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS,
530 BROADWAY.
1882.
Copyright, 1881,
BY ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS.
CAMBRIDGE: PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.
ST. JOHNLAND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, SUFFOLK CO., N. Y.
_NOTE.
The following story, like its predecessors, "The End of a Coil," "My
Desire," and "Diana," is a record of facts. For the characters and the
coloring, of course, I am responsible; but the turns of the story, even
in detail, are almost all utterly true.
S. W.
Martlaer's Rock,
Sept. 12, 1881_.
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. THE LETTER
II. MOVING
III. JANE STREET
IV. A VISITER
V. PRIVATE TUITION
VI. A LEGACY
VII. MENTAL PHILOSOPHY
VIII. STATEN ISLAND
IX. FORT WASHINGTON
X. L'HOMME PROPOSE
XI. MRS. BUSBY
XII. MRS. BUSBY'S HOUSE
XIII. NOT DRESSED
XIV. IN SECLUSION
XV. MRS. MOWBRAY
XVI. SCHOOL
XVII. BAGS AND BIBLES
XVIII. FLINT AND STEEL
XIX. A NEW DEPARTURE
XX. STOCKINGS
XXI. EDUCATION
XXII. A CHANGE
XXIII. TANFIELD
XXIV. THE PURCELLS
XXV. ROTHA'S REFUGE
XXVI. ROTHA'S WORK
XXVII. INQUIRIES
XXVIII. DISCOVERIES
XXIX. PERPLEXITIES
XXX. DOWN HILL
XXXI. DISCUSSIONS
XXXII. END OF SCHOOL TERM
THE LETTER OF CREDIT.
CHAPTER I.
THE LETTER.
"Mother, I wonder how people do, when they are going to write a book?"
"Do?" repeated her mother.
"Yes. I wonder how they begin."
"I suppose they have something to tell; and then they tell it," said
simple Mrs. Carpenter.
"No, no, but I mean a story."
"What story have you got there?"
The mother was shelling peas; the daughter, a girl of twelve years old
perhaps, was sitting on the floor at her feet, with an octavo volume in
her lap. The floor was clean enough to sit upon; clean enough almost to
eat off; it was the floor of the kitchen of a country farmhouse.
"This is the 'Talisman,'" the girl answered her mother's question. "O
mother, when I am old enough, I should like to write stories!"
"Why?"
"I should think it would be so nice. Why, mother, one could imagine
oneself anything."
"Could you?" said her mother. "I never imagined myself anything but what
I was."
"Ah, but perhaps you and I are different."
Which was undoubtedly the fact, as any stander by might have seen with
half an eye. Good types both of them, too. The mother fair, delicate
featured, with sweet womanly eyes, must have been exceedingly pretty in
her young days; she was pretty now; but the face shewed traces of care
and was worn with life-work. While she talked and now and then looked at
her daughter, her fingers were untiringly busy with the peas and peas
pods and never paused for a minute. The girl on the floor did not look
like her mother. She was dark eyed and dark haired; with a dark
complexion too, which at present was not fine; and the eyes, large and
handsome eyes, revealed a fire and intensity and mobility of nature which
was very diverse from the woman's gentle strength. Mrs. Carpenter might
be intense too, after her fashion; but it was the fashion of the
proverbial still waters that run deep. And I do not mean that there was
any shallowness about the girl's nature; though assuredly the placidity
would be wanting.
"I wish your father would forbid you to read stories," Mrs. Carpenter
went on.
"Why, mother?"
"I don't believe they are good for you."
"But what harm should they do me?"
"Life is not a story. I don't want you to think it is."
"Why shouldn't it be? Perhaps my life will be a story, mother. I think it
will," said the girl slowly. "I shouldn't want my life to be always like
this."
"Are you not happy?"
"O yes, mother! But then, by and by, I should like to be a princess, or
to have adventures, and see things; like the people in stories."
"You will never be a princess, my child. You are a poor farmer's
daughter. You had better make up your mind to it, and try to be the best
thing you can in the circumstances."
"You mean, do my duty and shell peas?" asked the girl somewhat
doubtfully, looking at her mother's fingers and the quick stripped pea
pods passing through them. "Is father poor, mother?"
"Yes."
"He has a good farm, he says."
"Yes, but it is encumbered heavily." And Mrs. Carpenter sighed. Rotha had
often heard her mother sigh so. It was a breath with a burden.
"I don't know what you mean by 'encumbered.'"
"It is not needful you should know, just yet."
"But I should like to know, mother. Won't you tell me?"
"It is heavily mortgaged. And _that_ you do not understand. Never mind. He
has a great deal of money to pay out for it every year the interest on
the mortgages and that keeps us poor."
"Why must he pay it?"
"Because the farm is pledged for the debt; and if the interest, this
yearly money, were not paid, the farm itself would go."
"Go? How?"
"Be sold. For the money due on it."
There was silence awhile, during which only the pea pods rustled and
fell; then the girl asked,
"What should we do then, mother, if the farm was sold?"
"I do not know." The words came faint.
"Does it trouble you, mother?"
"It need not trouble you, Rotha. It cannot happen unless the Lord will;
and that is enough. Now you may carry these pea pods out and give them to
the pigs."
"Mother," said Rotha as she slowly rose and laid away her book, "all you
say makes me wish more than ever that I were a princess, or something."
"You may be _something_," said Mrs. Carpenter laughing slightly, but with
a very sweet merriment. "Now take away this basket."
Rotha stooped for the basket, and then stood still, looking out of the
window. Across the intervening piece of kitchen garden, rows of peas and
tufts of asparagus greenery, her eye went to the road, where a buggy had
just stopped.
"Maybe something is going to happen now," she said. "Who is that, mother?
There is somebody getting out of a wagon and tying his horse;--now he is
coming in. It is 'Siah Barker, mother."
Mrs. Carpenter paused to look out of the window, and then hastily
throwing her peas into the pot of boiling water, went herself to the
door. A young countryman met her there, with a whip in his hand.
"Mornin', Mis' Carpenter. Kin you help the distressed?"
"What's the matter, 'Siah?"
"Shot if I know; but he's took pretty bad."
"Who, pray?"
"Wall, I skurce can tell that. He's an Englisher--come to our place this
mornin' and axed fur a horse and wagon to carry him to Rochester; and
he's got so fur,--that's two miles o' the way,--and he can't go no furder,
I guess. He's took powerful bad."
"Ill, is he?"
"Says so. And he looks it."
"Cannot go on to Rochester?
"It's fifteen mile, Mis' Carpenter. I wouldn't like to be the man to
drive him. He can't go another foot, he says. He was took quite sudden."
"Cannot you turn about and carry him back to Medwayville?"
"Now, Mis' Carpenter, you're a Christian, and a soft-hearted one, we all
know. Can't you let him come in and rest a bit? Mebbe you could give him
sunthin' that would set him up. You understand doctorin', fust-rate."
Mrs. Carpenter looked grave, considered.
"Is this your idea, or the stranger's, 'Siah?"
"It's his'n, ef it's anybody's in partickler. He told me to set him down
some'eres, for he couldn't hold out to go on nohow; and then he seed this
house, and he made me stop. He's a sick man, I tell you."
"What's the matter with him?"
"Wall, it's sunthin' in his insides, I guess. He don't say nothin', but
he gits as white as a piece o' chalk, and then purple arter it."
Mrs. Carpenter made no more delay, but bade 'Siah fetch the sick man in;
and herself hastily threw open the windows of the "spare room" and put
sheets on the bed. She had time for all her preparations, for the
bringing the stranger to the house was a work of some difficulty, and not
accomplished without the help of one of the hired men about the farm.
When he came, he was far too ill to give any account of himself; his
dress proclaimed him a well-to-do man, and belonging to the better
classes; that was all they knew.
As Mrs. Carpenter came out from seeing the stranger put to bed in the
spare room, her husband came in from the field. An intellectual looking
man, in spite of his farmer's dress, and handsome; but thin, worn, with
an undue flush on his cheek, and a cough that sounded hollow. He was very
like his little daughter, who instantly laid hold of him.
"Father, father! something has happened. Guess what. There's a sick man
stopped here, and he is in the spare room, and we don't know the least
bit who he is; only 'Siah Barker said he was English, or an 'Englisher,'
he said. We don't know a bit who he is; and his clothes are very nice,
like a gentleman, and his valise is a beautiful, handsome leather one."
"You use rather more adjectives than necessary, Rotha."
"But, father, that is something to happen, isn't it?"
"You speak as if you were glad of it."
"I am not glad the man is sick. I am just glad to have something happen.
Things never do happen here."
"I am afraid your mother will hardly feel as much pleased as you do. Is
the man very ill, Eunice?"
"I think so. He is too ill to tell how he feels."
"He may be on your hands then for a day or two."
"He may for more than that."
"How can you manage?" said Mr. Carpenter, looking anxiously at the sweet
face which already bore such lines of care, and was so work-worn.
"I don't know. I shall find out," Mrs. Carpenter answered as she was
dishing the dinner. "The Lord seems to have given me this to do; and he
knows. I guess, what he gives me to do, I can do."
"I don't see how you can say that, mother," Rotha put in here.
"What?"
"This man was taken sick on the road, and happened to come in here. How
can you say, the Lord gave him to you to take care of?"
"Nothing 'happens,' Rotha. Suppose his sickness had come on a little
sooner, or a little later? why was it just here that he found he could go
no further?"
"Do you suppose there was any 'why' about it?"
Father and mother both smiled; the father answered.
"Do you suppose I would plough a field, without meaning to get any fruit
from it."
"No, father."
"Neither does the Lord, my child."
Rotha pondered the subject, and had occasion to ponder it more as the
days went on. She found she had some share in the consequences of this
"happening"; more dishes to wash, and more sweeping and dusting, and
churning, and setting of tables, and cleaning of vegetables; and she
quite ceased to be glad that something had come to them out of the common
run of affairs. For several days her mother was much engaged in the care
of the sick man, and put all she could of the housework upon Rotha's
hands; the nursing kept herself very busy. The sickness was at first
severe; and then the mending was gradual; so that it was full two weeks
before the stranger could leave his room. Mrs. Carpenter had no servant
in the house; she did everything for him with her own hands; and with as
much care and tenderness and exactness it was done as if the sick man had
been a dear friend. By day and by night; nothing failed him; and so, in
about two weeks, he was healed and had only his weakness to recover from.
Mrs. Carpenter often looked tired and pale during those weeks, but
cheerfulness and courage never gave out.
"I have learned something," she said one day at dinner, as the two weeks
were ended.
"What is that?" her husband asked.
"The name of our guest."
"Well who is he?"
"He is English; his name is Southwode. He came to America on business two
months ago; to New York; then found it was needful for him to see some
people in Rochester; and was on his way when he was taken ill at our
door."
"That's all?"
"Pretty much all. He is not much of a talker. I never found out so much
till to-day."
"It is quite enough. I suppose he will go on to Rochester now?"
"Not for two or three days yet, Liph; he is very weak; but I guess we
will have him out to supper with us this evening. You may put a glass of
roses on the table, Rotha, and make it look very nice. And set the table
in the hall."
Unlike most of its kind, this farmhouse had a wide hall running through
the middle of it. Probably it had been built originally for somewhat
different occupation. At any rate, the hall served as a great comfort to
Mrs. Carpenter in the summer season, enabling her to get out of the hot
kitchen, without opening her best room, the "parlour."
It was a pretty enough view that greeted the stranger here, when he was
called to supper and crept out of his sick room. Doors stood open at
front and rear of the house, letting the breeze play through. It brought
the odours of the new hay and the shorn grass, mingled with the breath of
roses. Roses were on the table too; a great glass full of them; not
skilfully arranged, certainly, but heavy with sweetness and lovely in
various hues of red and blush white. A special comfortable chair was
placed for him, and a supper served with which an epicure could have
found no fault. Mrs. Carpenter's bread was of the lightest and whitest;
the butter was as if the cows had been eating roses; the cold ham was
cured after an old receipt, and tender and juicy and savoury to suit any
fastidious appetite; and there were big golden raspberries, and cream
almost as golden. Out of doors, the eye saw green fields, with an elm
standing here and there; and on one side, a bit of the kitchen garden.
Mr. Southwode was a silent man, at least he was certainly silent here;
but he was observant; and his looks went quietly from one thing to
another, taking it all in. Perhaps the combination was strange to him and
gave him matter for study. There was conversation too, as the meal went
on, which occupied his ears, though he could hardly be said to take an
active part in it. His host made kind efforts for his entertainment; and
Rotha and her father had always something to discuss. Mr. Southwode
listened. It was not the sort of talk he expected to hear in a farmhouse.
The girl was full of intelligence, the father quite able to meet her, and
evidently doing it with delight; the questions they talked about were
worthy the trouble; and while on the one hand there was keen
inquisitiveness and natural acumen, on the other there was knowledge and
the habit of thought and ease of expression. Mr. Southwode listened, and
now and then let his eye go over to the fair, placid, matronly face at
the head of the table. Mrs. Carpenter did not talk much; yet he saw that
she understood. And more; he saw that in both father and mother there was
culture and literary taste and literary knowledge. Yet she did her own
work, and he came in to-day in his shirt sleeves from the mowing of his
own fields. Mr. Southwode drew conclusions, partly false perhaps, but
partly true. He thought these people had seen what are called better
days; he was sure that they were going through more or less of a struggle
now. Moreover, he saw that the farmer was not strong in body or sound in
health, and he perceived that the farmer's wife knew it.
The supper ended, a new scene opened for his consideration. With quick
and skilful hands the mother and daughter cleared the table, carrying the
things into the kitchen. Rotha brought a Bible and laid it before her
father; and mother and daughter resumed their seats. Mr. Carpenter read a
chapter, like a man who both knew and loved it; and then, a book being
given to the stranger, the other three set up a hymn. There was neither
formality nor difficulty; as the one had read, so they all sang, as if
they loved it. The voices were not remarkable; what was remarkable, to
the guest, was the sweet intonations and the peculiar _appropriation_ with
which the song was sung. It was a very common hymn,
"Jesus, I love thy charming name,
'Tis music to my ear;"--
And Mr. Southwode noticed a thing which greatly stirred his curiosity. As
the singing went on, the lines of those careworn faces relaxed; Mrs.
Carpenter's brow lost its shadow, her husband's face wore an incipient
smile; it was quite plain that both of them had laid down for the moment
the burden which it was also quite plain they carried at other times.
What had become of it? and what power had unloosed them from it? Not the
abstract love of music, certainly; though the melody which they sang was
sweet, and the notes floated out upon the evening air with a kind of
grave joy. So as the summer breeze was wafted in. There was a harmony,
somehow, between the outer world and this little inner world, for the
time, which moved Mr. Southwode strangely, though he could not at all
understand it. He made no remark when the service was over, either upon
that or upon any other subject. Of course the service ended with a
prayer. Not a long one; and as it was in the reading and singing, so in
this; every word was simply said and meant. So evidently, that the
stranger was singularly impressed with the reality of the whole thing, as
contradistinguished from all formal or merely duty work, and as being a
matter of enjoyment to those engaged in it.
He had several occasions for renewing his observations; for Mr.
Southwode's condition of weakness detained him yet several days at the
farm-house. He established for himself during this interval the character
he had gained of a silent man; however, one afternoon he broke through
his habit and spoke. It was the day before he intended to continue his
journey. Rotha had gone to the field with her father, to have some fun in
the hay; Mr. Southwode and Mrs. Carpenter sat together in the wide
farmhouse hall. The day being very warm, they had come to the coolest
place they could find. Mrs. Carpenter was busy with mending clothes; her
guest for some time sat idly watching her; admiring, as he had done often
already, the calm, sweet strength of this woman's face. What a beauty she
must have been once, he thought; all the lines were finely drawn and
delicate; and the soul that looked forth of them was refined by nature
and purified by patience. Mr. Southwode had something to say to her this
afternoon, and did not know how to begin.
"Your husband seems to have a fine farm here," he remarked.
"It is, I believe," Mrs. Carpenter answered, without lifting her eyes
from her darning.
"He took me over some of his ground this morning. He knows what to do
with it, too. It is in good order."
"It would be in good order, if my husband had his full strength."
"Yes. I am sorry to see he has not."
"Did he say anything to you about it?" the wife enquired presently, with
a smothered apprehensiveness which touched her companion. He answered
however indifferently in the negative.
"I don't like his cough, though," he went on after a little interval.
"Have you had advice for him?"
There was a startled look of pain in the eyes which again met him, and
the lips closed upon one another a little more firmly. They always had a
firm though soft set, and the corners of the mouth told of long and
patient endurance. Now the face told of another stab of pain, met and
borne.
"He would not call in anybody," she said faintly.
That was not what Mr. Southwode had meant to talk about, though closely
connected with the subject of his thoughts. He would try again.
"I owe you a great debt of gratitude, Mrs. Carpenter," he said after a
long enough pause had ensued, and beginning on another side. "I presume
you have saved my life."
"I am very glad we have been able to do anything," she said quietly.
"There is no need of thanks."
"But I must speak them, or I should not deserve to live. It astonishes
me, how you should be so kind to an entire stranger."
"That's why you needed it," she said with a pleasant smile.
"Yes, yes, my need is one thing; that was plain enough; but if everybody
took care of other people's needs--Why, you have done everything for me,
night and day, Mrs. Carpenter. You have not spared yourself in the least;
and I have given a deal of trouble."
"I did not think it trouble," she said in the same way. "There is no need
to say anything about it."
"Excuse me; I must say something, or earn my own contempt. But what made
you do all that for a person who was nothing to you? I do not understand
that sort of thing, in such a degree."
"Perhaps you do not put it the right way," she returned. "Anybody who is
in trouble is something to me."
"What, pray?" said he quickly.
"My neighbour,"--she said with that slight, pleasant smile again. "Don't
you know the gospel rule is, to do to others what you would wish them to
do to you?"
"I never saw anybody before who observed that rule."
"Didn't you? I am sorry for that. It is a pleasant rule to follow."
"Pleasant!" her guest echoed. "Excuse me; you cannot mean that?"
"I mean it, yes, certainly. And there is another thing, Mr. Southwode; I
like to do whatever my Master gives me to do; and he gave you to me to
take care of."
"Did he?"
"I think so."
"You did it," said the stranger slowly. "Mrs. Carpenter, I am under very
great obligations to you."
"You are very welcome," she said simply.
"You have done more for me than you know. I never saw what religion can
be--what religion is--until I saw it in your house."
She was silent now, and he was silent also, for some minutes; not knowing
exactly how to go on. He felt instinctively that he must not offer money
here. The people were poor unquestionably; at the same time they did not
belong to the class that can take that sort of pay for service. He never
thought of offering it. They were quite his equals.
"Mr. Carpenter was so good as to tell me something of his affairs as we
walked this morning," he began again. "I am sorry to hear that his land
is heavily encumbered."
"Yes!" Mrs. Carpenter said with a sigh, and a shadow crossing her face.
"That sort of thing cannot be helped sometimes, but it is a bother, and
it leads to more bother. Well! I should like to be looked upon as a
friend, by you and your husband; but I shall be a friend a good way off.
Mrs. Carpenter, do not be offended at my plain speaking;--I would say,
that if ever you find yourself in difficulties and need a friend's help,
I would like you to remember me, and deliver that letter according to the
address."
He handed her as he spoke a letter, sealed, and addressed to "Messrs.
Bell & Buckingham, 46 Barclay St., New York." Mrs. Carpenter turned the
letter over, in silent surprise; looked at the great red seal and read
the direction.
"Keep it safe," Mr. Southwode went on, "and use it if ever you have'
occasion. Do not open it; for I shall not be at the place where it is to
be delivered, and an open letter would not carry the same credit. With
the letter, if ever you have occasion to make use of it, enclose a card
with your address; that my agent may know where to find you."
"You are very kind!" Mrs. Carpenter said in a little bewilderment; "but
nothing of this kind is necessary."
"I hope it may not be needed; however, I shall feel better, if you will
promise me to do as I have said, if ever you do need it."
Mrs. Carpenter gave the promise, and looked at the letter curiously as
she put it away. Would the time ever come when she would be driven to use
it? Such a time could not come, unless after the wreck of her home and
her life happiness; never could come while her husband lived. If it came,
what would matter then? But there was the letter; almost something
uncanny; it looked like a messenger out of the unknown future.
CHAPTER II.
MOVING.
Mr. Southwode went away, his letter was locked up in a drawer, and both
were soon forgotten. The little family he left had enough else to think
of.
As the warm weather turned to cold, it became more and more evident that
the head of the family was not to be with it long. Mr. Carpenter was ill.
Nevertheless, with failing strength, he continued to carry the burden
that had been too much for him when well. He would not spare himself. The
work must be done, he said, or the interest on the mortgages could not be
paid. He wrought early and late, and saw to it that his hired people did
their part; he wore himself out the quicker; but the interest on the
mortgages was not paid, even so. Mrs. Carpenter saw just how things were
going, saw it step by step, and was powerless to hinder.
"They will foreclose!" Mr. Carpenter said with a half groan. It was late
in the winter; towards spring; his health had failed rapidly of late; and
it was no secret either to him or his wile that his weeks were numbered.
They were sitting together one evening before the fire; he in his easy
chair, and she beside him; but not holding each other's hands, not
touching, nor looking at one another. Their blood was of a genuine New
England course; and people of that kind, though they would die for one
another, rarely exchange kisses. And besides, there are times when
caresses cannot be borne; they mean too much. Perhaps this was such a
time. Mrs. Carpenter sat staring into the fire, her brow drawn into fine
wrinkles, which was with her a sign of uncommon perturbation. It was
after a time of silence that her husband came out with that word about
foreclosing.
"If I had been stronger," he went on, "I could have taken in that twenty
acre lot and planted it with wheat; and that would have made some
difference. Now I am behindhand--and I could not help it--and they will
foreclose."
"They cannot do it till next fall," said Mrs. Carpenter; and her secret
thought was, By that time, nothing will matter!
"No," said her husband,--"not until fall. But then they will. Eunice,
what will you do?"
"I will find something to do."
"What? Tell me now, while I can counsel you."
"I don't know anything I could do, but take in sewing." She spoke calmly,
all the while a tear started which she did not suffer to be seen.
"Sewing?" said Mr. Carpenter. "There are too many in the village already
that do sewing--more than can live by it."
"If I cannot here," his wife said after a pause, overcoming herself,--"I
might go to New York. Serena would help me to get some work."
"Would she?" asked her husband.
"I think she would."
"Your charity always goes ahead of mine, Eunice."
"You think she would not?"
"I wouldn't like to have you dependent on her.--This is what you get for
marrying a poor man, Eunice!"
He smiled and stretched out his hand to take the hand of his wife.
"Hush!" she said. "I married a richer man than she did. And I have wanted
for nothing. We have not been poor."
"No," he said. "Except in this world's goods--which are unimportant.
Until one is leaving one's wife and child alone!"
I suppose she could not speak, for she answered nothing. The fingers
clasped fingers fast and hard; wrung them a little. Yet both faces were
steady. Mrs. Carpenter's eyes looked somewhat rigidly into the fire, and
her husband's brow wore a shadow.
"I wish your father had left you at least the old place at Tanfield. It
would have been no more than justice. Serena might have had all the rest,
but that would have given you and Rotha a home."
"Never mind," said Mrs. Carpenter gently. "I am content with my share."
"Meaning me!" And he sighed.
"The best share of this world's goods any woman could have, Liph."
"We have been happy," he said, "in spite of all. We have had happy years;
happier I could not wish for, but for this money trouble. And we shall
have happy years again, Eunice; where the time is not counted by years,
but flows on forever, and people are not poor, nor anxious, nor
disappointed."
She struggled with tears again, and then answered, "I have not been
disappointed. And you have no need to be anxious."
"No, I know," he said. "But at times it is hard for faith to get above
sense. And I am not anxious; only I would like to know how you are going
to do."
There was a silence then of some length.
"Things are pretty unequal in this world," Mr. Carpenter began again.
"Look at Serena and you. One sister with more than she can use; the other
talking of sewing for a livelihood! And all because you would marry a
poor man. A poor reason!"
"Liph, I had my choice," his wife said, with a shadow of a smile. "She is
the one to be pitied."
"Well, I think so," he said. "For if her heart were as roomy as her
purse, she would have shewn it before now. My dear, do not expect
anything from Serena. Till next fall you will have the shelter of this
house; and that will give you time to look about you."
"Liph, you must not talk so!" his wife cried; and her voice broke. She
threw herself upon her husband's breast, and they held each other in a
very long, still, close embrace.
Mr. Carpenter was quite right in some at least of his expectations. His
own life was not prolonged to the summer. In one of the last days of a
rough spring, the time came he had spoken of, when his wife and child
were left alone.
She had till fall to look about her. But perhaps, in the bitterness of
her loneliness, she had not heart to push her search after work with
sufficient energy. Yet Mrs. Carpenter never lacked energy, and indulged
herself selfishly no more in grief than she did in joy. More likely it is
that in the simple region of country she inhabited there was not call
enough for the work she could do. Work did not come, at any rate. The
only real opening for her to earn her livelihood, was in the shape of a
housekeeper's situation with an old bachelor farmer, who was well off and
had nobody to take care of him. In her destitution, I do not know but
Mrs. Carpenter might have put up with even this plan; but what was she to
do with Rotha? So by degrees the thought forced itself upon her that she
must take up her old notion and go to the great city, where there were
always people enough to want everything. How to get there, and what to do
on first arriving there, remained questions. Both were answered.
As Mr. Carpenter had foreseen, the mortgages came in the fall to
foreclosure. The sale of the land, however, what he had not foreseen,
brought in a trifle more than the mortgage amount. To this little sum the
sale of household goods and furniture and stock, added another somewhat
larger; so that altogether a few hundreds stood at Mrs. Carpenter's
disposal. This precisely made her undertaking possible. It was a very
doubtful undertaking; but what alternative was there? One relation she
would find, at the least; and another Mrs. Carpenter had not in the wide
world. She made her preparations very quietly, as she did everything; her
own child never knew how much heart-break was in them.
"Shall we go first to aunt Serena's, mother?" Rotha asked one day.
"No."
The "no" was short and dry. Rotha's instinct told her she must not ask
why, but she was disappointed. From a word now and then she had got the
impression that this relation of theirs was a very rich woman and lived
accordingly; and fancy had been busy with possibilities.
"Where then, mother?"
"Mr. Forbes," he was the storekeeper at the village, "has told me of the
boarding house he goes to when he goes to New York. We can put up there
for a night or two, and look out a quiet lodging."
"What is New York like, mother?"
"I have never been there, Rotha, and do not know. O it is a city, my
child; of course; it is not like anything here."
"How different?"
"In every possible way."
"_Every_ way, mother? Aren't the houses like?"
"Not at all. And the houses there stand close together."
"There must be room to get about, I suppose?"
"Those are the streets."
"No green grass, or trees?"
"Little patches of grass in the yards."
"No trees?"
"No. In some of the fine streets I believe there are shade trees."
"No _gardens_, mother?"
"No."
"But what do people do for vegetables and things?"
"They are brought out of the country, and sold in the markets. Don't you
know Mr. Jones sends his potatoes and his fruit to the city?"
"Then if you want a potato, you must go to the market and buy it?"
"Yes."
"Or an apple, mother?"
"Yes, or anything."
"Well I suppose that will do," said Rotha slowly, "if you have money
enough. I shouldn't think it was pleasant. Do the houses stand _close_
together?"
"So close, that you cannot lay a pin between them."
"I should want to have very good neighbours, then."
Rotha was innocently touching point after point of doubt and dread in her
mother's mind. Presently she touched another.
"I don't think it sounds pleasant, mother. Suppose we should not like it
after we get there?"
Mrs. Carpenter did not answer.
"What then, mother? Would you come back again, if we did not like it
there?"
"There would be no place to come to, here, any more, my child. I hope we
shall find it comfortable where we are going."
"Then you don't know?" said Rotha. "And perhaps we shall not! But,
mother, that would be dreadful, if we did not like it!"
"I hope you would help me to bear it."
"I!" said Rotha. "You don't want help to bear anything; do you, mother?"
An involuntary gush of tears came at this appeal; they were not suffered
to overflow.
"I should not be able to bear much without help, Rotha. Want help? yes, I
want it--and I have it. God sends nothing to his children but he sends
help too; else," said Mrs. Carpenter, brushing her hand across her eyes,
"they would not last long! But, Rotha, lie means that we should help each
other too."
"I help you?"
"Yes, certainly. You can, a great deal."
"That seems very funny. Mother, what is wrong about aunt Serena?" said
Rotha, following a very direct chain of ideas.
"I hope nothing is wrong about her."
And Mrs. Carpenter, in her gentle, unselfish charity, meant it honestly;
her little daughter was less gentle and perhaps more logical.
"Why, mother, does she ever do anything to help you?"
"Her life is quite separate from mine," Mrs. Carpenter replied evasively.
"Well, it would be right in her to help you. And when people are not
right, they are wrong."
"Let us take care of our own right and wrong, Rotha. We shall have enough
to do with that."
"But, mother, what _is_ the matter with aunt Serena? Why doesn't she help
you? She can."
"Our lives went different ways, a long time ago, my child. We have never
been near each other since."
"But now you are going to be where she is, mother?"
"Rotha, did you rip up your brown merino?"
"Not yet."
"Then go and do it now. I want it to make over for you."
"You'll never make much of that," said the girl discontentedly. But she
obeyed. She saw a certain trait in the lines of her mother's lips; it
might be reserve, it might be determination, or both; and she knew no
more was to be got from her at that time.
The brown merino disappointed her expectation; for when cleaned and made
over it proved to be a very respectable dress. Rotha was well satisfied
with it. The rest of Mrs. Carpenter's preparations were soon
accomplished; and one day in November she and her little daughter left
what had been home, and set out upon their journey to seek another in the
misty distance. The journey itself was full of wonder and delight to
Rotha. It was a very remarkable thing, in the first place, to find the
world so large; then another remarkable thing was the variety of the
people in it. Rotha had known only one kind, speaking broadly; the plain,
quiet, respectable, and generally comfortable in habitants of the village
and of the farms around the village. They were not elegant specimens, but
they were solid, and kindly. She saw many people now that astonished her
by their elegance; few that awakened any feeling of confidence. Rotha's
eyes were very busy, her tongue very silent. She was taking her first
sips at the bitter-sweet cup of life knowledge.
The third-class hotel at which they put up in New York received her
unqualified disapprobation. None of its arrangements or accommodations
suited her; with the single exception of gas burners.
Close, stuffy, confined, gloomy, and dirty, she declared it to be.
"Mother," she said half crying, "I hope our house will not be like this?"
"We shall not have a house, Rotha; only a few rooms."
"They'll be rooms in a house, I suppose," said the girl petulantly; "and
I hope it will be very different from this."
"We will have our part of it clean, at any rate," answered her mother.
"And the rest too, won't you? You would not have rooms in a house that
was not all clean, would you, mother?"
"Not if I could help it."
"Cannot you help it?"
"I hope so. But you must not expect that things here in a big city can
ever be bright and sweet like the fields at home. That can hardly be."
Rotha sighed. A vision of dandelions came up before her, and waving grass
bent by summer wind. But there was hope that the morrow's search would
unfold to her some less unpromising phases of city life, and she
suspended judgment.
Next day, wonder and amusement for a time superseded everything else. The
multitude of busy people coming and going, the laden carts and light
passing carriages, the gay shops, and the shops that were not gay, filled
Rotha's eye and mind. Even the vegetables exposed at a corner shop were a
matter of lively interest.
"O mother," she cried, "is this a market?"
"No. It is a store for groceries."
"Well, they have got some other things here. Mother, the cabbages don't
look nice." Then soon after coming to a small market store, Rotha must
stand still to look.
"They are a little better here," she judged. "Mother, mother! they have
got everything at this market. Do see! there are fish, and oysters, and
clams; and eggs; and what are those queer things?"
"Lobsters."
"What are they good for?"
"To eat."
"They don't look as if they were good for anything. Mother, one could get
a very good dinner here."
"With plenty of money."
"Does it take much?--to get one dinner?"
"Are you hungry?" said her mother, smiling faintly. "It takes a good deal
of money to get anything in New York, Rotha."
"Then I am afraid we ought to have staid at Medwayville."
A conclusion which almost forced itself upon Mrs. Carpenter's mind. For
the business of finding a lodging that would suit her and that she could
pay for, soon turned out to be one of difficulty. She and Rotha grew
weary of walking, and more weary of looking at rooms that would suit them
which they could not pay for, and other rooms which they could pay for
and that would not do. All the houses in New York seemed to come under
one or the other category. From one house agency to another, and from
these to countless places referred to, advertised for hire, the mother
and daughter wandered; in vain. One or the other difficulty met them in
every case.
"What will you do, mother, if you cannot find a place?" Rotha asked, the
evening of the first day. "Go back to Medwayville?"
"We cannot go back."
"Then we must find a place," said Rotha.
And driven by this necessity, so they did. The third day, well tired in
body and much more in mind, they did at last find what would do. It was a
long walk from their hotel, and seemed endless. No doubt, in the country,
with grass under their feet, or even the well beaten foot track beside
the highway, neither mother nor daughter would have thought anything of
the distance; but here the hard pavement wearied them, and the way
measured off by so many turns and crossings and beset with houses and
human beings, seemed a forlorn pilgrimage into remote regions. Besides,
it left the pleasanter part of the city and went, as Rotha remarked,
among poor folks. Down Bleecker St. till it turned, then following the
new stretch of straight pavement across Carmine St., and on and on into
the parts then called Chelsea. On till they came to an irregular open
space.
"This must be Abingdon Square," said the mother.
"It isn't square at all," Rotha objected.
"But this must be it. Then it's only one street more, Rotha. Look for
Jane Street."
Beyond Abingdon Square Jane Street was found to be the next crossing.
They turned the corner and were at the place they sought.
The region was not one of miserable poverty and tenant houses. Better
than that; and the buildings being low and small did not darken the
streets, as Mrs. Carpenter had found in some parts of the city. A decent
woman, a mantua-maker, had the house and offered Mrs. Carpenter the
second floor; two little rooms and a closet off them. The rooms were
furnished after a sort; but Mrs. Marble could give no board with them;
only lodging. She was a bright, sharp little woman.
"Yes, I couldn't," she said. "It wouldn't pay. I couldn't mind my
business. I take _my_ meals in a corner; for I couldn't have grease and
crumbs round; but where one person can stand, three can't sit. You'll
have to manage that part yourself. It'll be cheaper for you, too."
"Is anything cheap here?" Mrs. Carpenter asked wearily. She had sat down
to rest and consider.
"That's how you manage it," said the other, shewing a full and rather
arch smile. She was a little woman, quick and alert in all her ways and
looks. "My rooms aint dear, to begin with; and you needn't ruin yourself
eating; if you know how."
"I knew how in the country," said Mrs. Carpenter. "Here it is different."
"Aint it! I guess it is. Rents, you see; and folks must live, landlords
and all. Some of 'em do a good deal more; but that aint my lookout. I'd
eat bread and salt sooner than I'd be in debt; and I never do be that. Is
it only you two?"
"That is all."
"Then you needn't to worry. I guess you'll get along."
For Mrs. Marble noticed the quiet respectability of her caller, and
honestly thought what she said. Mrs. Carpenter reflected. The rooms were
not high; she could save a good deal by the extra trouble of providing
herself; she would be more private, and probably have things better to
her liking. Besides, her very soul sickened at the thought of looking for
any more rooms. She decided, and took these. Then she asked about the
possibilities of getting work. Mrs. Marble's countenance grew more
doubtful.
"Plain sewing?" she said. "Well, there's a good many folks doing that,
you see."
"I thought, perhaps, you could put me in the way of some."
"Well, perhaps I can. I'll see what I can think of. But there's a many
doing that sort o' thing. They're in every other house, almost. Now, when
will you come?"
"To-morrow. I suppose I cannot tell what I want to get till I do come."
"I can tell you some things right off. You'd better do part of it to-day,
or you'll want everything at once. First of all, you'd better order in
some coal. You can get that just a block or two off; Jones & Sanford;
they have a coal yard. It is very convenient."
"Where can it be put?"
"In the cellar. There's room enough. And if I was you, I wouldn't get
less than half a ton. They make awful profits when they sell by the
basket. You will want a little kindling too. Hadn't you better get a
little bit of a stove? one with two places for cooking; or one place. It
will save itself six times over in the course of the winter."
"Where can I get it?"
"I guess you're pretty much of a stranger here, aint you?"
"Entirely a stranger."
"I thought so. Folks get a look according to the place they live. You
aint bad enough for New York," she added with a merry and acute smile.
"I hope there are some good people here," said Mrs. Carpenter.
"I hope so. I haven't passed 'em all through my sieve; got something else
to do; and it aint my business neither. Well--only don't you think there
aint some bad ones in the lot, that's all. There's plenty of places where
you can get your stove, if you want to. Elwall's in Abingdon Square, is a
very good place. Some things goes with the stove. I guess you know what
you want as well as I do," she said, breaking off and smiling again.
"I shall need bedding too," said Mrs. Carpenter, with a look at the empty
bedstead.
"You can't do everything at once, if you're to come in to-morrow. I'll
tell you--I've a bed you can have, that I aint using. It'll cost you
less, and do just as well. I aint one of the bad ones," she said, again
with a gleam of a smile. "I shan't cheat you."
The arrangement was made at last, and Mrs. Carpenter and Rotha set out on
their way back. They stopped in Abingdon Square and bought a stove, a
little tea-kettle, a saucepan and frying pan; half a dozen knives and
forks, spoons, etc., a lamp, and sundry other little indispensable
conveniences for people who would set up housekeeping. Rotha was glad to
be quit of the hotel, and yet in a divided state of mind. Too tired to
talk, however, that night; which was a happiness for her mother.
The next day was one of delightful bustle; all filled with efforts to get
in order in the new quarters. And by evening a great deal was done. The
bed was made; the washstand garnished; the little stove put up, fire made
in it, and the kettle boiled; and at night mother and daughter sat down
to supper together, taking breath for the first time that day. Mrs.
Carpenter had been to a neighbouring grocery and bought a ham and bread;
eggs were so dear that they scared her; she had cooked a slice and made
tea, and Rotha declared that it tasted good.
"But this is funny bread, mother."
"It is baker's bread."
"It is nice, a little, but it isn't sweet."
"Let us be thankful we have got it, Rotha."
"Yes; but, mother, I think I should be _more_ thankful for better bread."
"I will try and make you some better," Mrs. Carpenter said laughing.
"This is not economical, I am sure."
"Mother," said Rotha, "do you suppose aunt Serena takes in sewing?"
"She? no. She gives it out."
"You would not like to do _her_ sewing?"
"I shall not ask for it," said the mother calmly.
"Does she do her own cooking, as you do?"
"No, my child. She has no need."
"Do you think she is a better woman than you are, mother?"
"That's not a wise question, I should say," Mrs. Carpenter returned. But
something about it flushed her cheek and even brought an odd moisture to
her eyes.
"Because," said Rotha, wholly disregarding the animadversion, "_if she
isn't_, I should say that things are queer."
"That's what Job thought, when his troubles came on him."
"And weren't they?" asked Rotha.
"No. He did not understand; that was all."
"I should like to understand, though, mother. Not understanding makes me
uneasy."
"You may be uneasy then all your life, for there will be a great many
things you cannot understand. The better way is to trust and be easy."
"Trust what?" Rotha asked quickly.
"Trust God. He knows."
"Trust him for what?" Rotha insisted.
"For everything. Trust him that he will take care of you, if you are his
child; and let no harm come to you; and do all things right for you, and
in the best way."
"Mother, that is trusting a good deal."
"The Lord likes to have us trust him."
"But you are his child, and he has let harm come to you?"
"You think so, because you know nothing about it. No harm can come to his
children."
"I don't know what you call harm, then," said Rotha half sullenly.
"Harm is what would hurt me. You know very well that pain does not always
do that."
"And can you trust him, mother, so as to be easy? Now?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Carpenter. "Most days."
Rotha knew from the external signs that this must be true.
"Are you going to see aunt Serena, mother?"
"Not now."
"When?"
"I do not know."
"Where does she live?"
"Rotha, you may wash up these dishes, while I put things a little to
rights in the other room."
The next day Mrs. Carpenter set about finding some work. Alas, if there
were many that had it to give, there seemed to be many more that wanted
it. It was worse than looking for rooms. At last some tailoring was
procured from a master tailor; and Mrs. Carpenter sat all day over her
sewing, giving directions to Rotha about the affairs of the small
housekeeping. Rotha swept and dusted and washed dishes and set the table,
and prepared vegetables. Not much of that, for their meals were simple
and small; however, with one thing and another the time was partly filled
up. Mrs. Carpenter stitched. It was a new thing, and disagreeable to the
one looker-on, to see her mother from morning to night bent over work
which was not for herself. At home, though life was busy it was not
slaving. There were intervals, and often, of rest and pleasure taking.
She and Rotha used to go into the garden to gather vegetables and to pick
fruit; and at other times to weed and dress the beds and sow flower
seeds. And at evening the whole little family were wont to enjoy the air
and the sunsets and the roses from the hall door; and to have sweet and
various discourse together about a great variety of subjects. Those
delights, it is true, ceased a good while ago; the talks especially. Mrs.
Carpenter was not much of a talker even then, though her words were good
when they came. Now she said little indeed; and Rotha missed her father.
An uneasy feeling of want and longing took possession of the child's
mind. I suppose she felt mentally what people feel physically when they
are slowly starving to death. It had not come to that yet with Rotha; but
the initial fret and irritation began to be strong. Her mother seemed to
be turned into a sewing machine; a thinking one, she had no doubt,
nevertheless the thoughts that were never spoken did not practically
exist for her. She was left to her own; and Rotha's thoughts began to
seethe and boil. Another child would have found food enough and amusement
enough in the varied sights and experiences of life in the great city.
They made Rotha draw in to herself.
CHAPTER III.
JANE STREET.
Mrs. Carpenter's patient face, as she sat by the window from morning till
night, and her restless busy hands, by degrees became a burden to Rotha.
"Mother," she said one day, when her own work for the time was done up
and she had leisure to make trouble,--"I do not like to see you doing
other people's sewing."
"It is my sewing," Mrs. Carpenter said.
"It oughtn't to be."
"I am very thankful to have it."
"It takes very little to make you thankful, seems to me. It makes _me_
feel angry."
"I am sorry for that."
"Well, if you would be angry, I wouldn't be; but you take it so quietly.
Mother, it's wrong!"
"What?"
"For you to be doing that work, which somebody else ought to do."
"If somebody else did it, somebody else would get the pay; and what would
become of us then?"
"I don't see what's to become of us now. Mother, you said I was to go to
school."
"Yes,"--and Mrs. Carpenter sighed here. "I have not had time yet to find
the right school for you."
"When will you find time? Mother, I think it was a great deal better at
Medwayville."
Mrs. Carpenter sighed again, her patient sigh, which aggravated Rotha.
"I don't like New York!" the latter went on, emphasizing every word.
"There is not one single thing here I do like."
"I am sorry, my child. It is not our choice that has brought us here."
"Couldn't our choice take us away again, mother?"
"I am afraid not."
Rotha looked on at the busy needle for a few minutes, and then burst out
again.
"I think things are queer! That you should be working so, and other
people have nothing to do."
"Hush, Rotha. Nobody in this world has nothing to do."
"Nothing they need do, then. You are better than they are."
"You speak foolishly. God gives everybody something to do, and his hands
full; and the work that God gives we need to do, Rotha. He has given me
this; and as long as he gives me his love with it, I think it is good. He
has given you your work too; and complaining is not a part of it. I hope
to send you to school, as soon as ever I can."
Before Rotha had got up her ammunition for another attack, there was a
tap at the door, and Mrs. Marble came in. She always seemed to bring life
with her.
"What do you get for that?" she asked, after she had chatted awhile,
watching her lodger. Mrs. Carpenter was making buttonholes.
"A shilling a dozen."
Mrs. Marble inspected the work.
"And how many can you make in that style in a day? I should like to
know."
"I cannot do this all day," said Mrs. Carpenter. "I get blind, and I get
nervous. I can make about two dozen and a half in five hours."
"Twenty five cents' worth: I declare!" said the little woman. "I wonder
if such folks will get to heaven?"
"What folks, Mrs. Marble?" enquired Rotha, to whom this saying sounded
doubtful.
"The folks that want to get so much for so little. They wouldn't be
satisfied with any heaven where they couldn't get a hundred per cent."
"The Lord gives more than that," said Mrs. Carpenter quietly. "A
hundredfold in this present world; and in the world to come, eternal
life."
"I never could get right hold of that doctrine," said Mrs. Marble. "Folks
talk about it,--but I never could find out it was much more than talk."
"Try it," said Mrs. Carpenter. "Then you'll know."
"Maybe I shall, if you stay with me long enough. I wisht I was rich, and
I'd do better for you than those buttonholes. I think I can do better
anyhow," said the little woman, brimming over with good will. "Ha' you
got no friends at all here?"
Mrs. Carpenter hesitated; and then said "no." "What schools are there in
this neighbourhood?" she asked then immediately.
"Schools? There's the public school, not far off."
"The public school? That is where everybody goes?"
"Everybody that aint rich, and some that be. I don't think they had ought
to. There's enough without 'em. Twelve hundred and fifty in this school."
"Twelve hundred and fifty children!"
"All that. Enough, aint it? But they say the teaching's first rate. You
want to send Rotha? You can't get along without her at home, can you? Not
unless you can get somethin' better than them buttonholes."
"Mother," said Rotha when Mrs. Marble had gone, "you wouldn't send me to
that school, would you? That's where all the poor children go. I don't
think anybody but poor people live all about here."
"Then it is a proper place for us. What are we but poor people, Rotha?"
"But mother, we were not poor people at Medwayville? And losing our farm
and our home and all, don't make any difference."
"Don't it?"
"No, mother, not in us. We are not that sort of people. You wouldn't send
me to such a school?"
"Take care, my child. 'The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich;' and one is
not better than the other."
"One is better off than the other," said Rotha. "Mother, how comes aunt
Serena to be rich and you to be poor?"
Mrs. Carpenter hesitated and seemed to choose her words.
"It was because of the way she married," she answered at last. "I married
a poor man, and her marriage brought her into riches. I would not
exchange with her for all the world, Rotha. I have had much the best of
it. You see your judgment is not worth much."
Rotha was not satisfied by this statement, and as time wore on she
thought she had less and less reason. Mrs. Marble did succeed in finding
some different work with better pay for her lodger; that is, she got her
the private sewing of a family that paid her at the rate of seventy five
cents for a gentleman's shirt, with stitched linen bosom and cuffs. It
was better than the buttonhole making; yet even so, Mrs. Carpenter found
that very close and diligent application was necessary, if she would pay
her rent and pay her way. She could hardly do without Rotha's assistance.
If she tried, with natural motherly feeling, to spare her child, she made
her fingers rough and unfit for delicate work. It would not do. Rotha's
hands must go into the hot water, and handle the saucepan, and the broom,
and the box-iron. Ironing made Mrs. Carpenter's hands tremble; and she
must not be hindered in her work or made to do it slowly, if she and her
child were to live. And by degrees Rotha came thus to be very busy and
her days well filled up. All errands were done by her; purchases at the
market and the grocery shop and the thread and needle store. The care of
the two little rooms was hers; the preparation of meals, the clearing of
tables. It was better than to be idle, but Rotha sighed over it and Mrs.
Carpenter sometimes did the same. If she had known just what a public
school is, at all hazards she would not have kept her child at home;
Rotha should have had so much education as she could get there. But Mrs.
Carpenter had a vague horror of evil contact for her daughter, who had
lived until now in so pure an atmosphere bodily and mentally. Better
anything than such contact, she thought; and she had no time to examine
or make inquiries.
So days slipped by, as days do where people are overwhelmingly busy; the
hope and intention of making a change kept in the background and
virtually nullified by the daily and instant pressure. Rotha became
accustomed to the new part she was playing in life; and to her turn of
mind, there was a certain satisfaction in the activity of it. Mrs.
Carpenter sat by the window and sewed, from morning to night. Both of
them began to grow pale over their confined life; but they were caught in
the machinery of this great, restless, evil world, and must needs go on
with it; no extrication was possible. One needleful of thread after
another, one seam after another, one garment finished and another begun;
that was the routine of Mrs. Carpenter's life, as of so many others; and
Rotha found an incessant recurrence of meal-times, and of the necessary
arrangements before and after. The only break and change was on Sunday.
Mrs. Carpenter suddenly awoke to the conviction, that Rotha's going to
any sort of school was not a thing at present within the range of vision.
What was to be done? She thought a great deal about it.
On their way to and from church she had noticed a small bookstall, closed
then of course, which from its general appearance and its situation
promised a tariff of prices fitted for very shallow pockets. One
afternoon she resolutely laid down her work and took time to go and
inspect it. The stock was small enough, and poor; in the whole she found
nothing that could serve her purpose, save two volumes of a broken set of
Rollin's Ancient History. Being a broken set, the volumes were prized at
a mere trifle, and Mrs. Carpenter bought them. Rotha had been with her,
and as soon as they reached home subjected the purchase to a narrow and
thorough inspection.
"Mother, these are only Vol. I. and Vol. V."
"Yes, I know it."
"And they are not very clean."
"I know that too. I will cover them."
"And then, what are you going to do with them? Read them? You have no
time."
"I am going to make you read them."
"Well, I would like to read anything new," said Rotha; "but what shall we
do for all that goes between No. I. and No. V.?"
"We will see. Perhaps we can pick them up too, some time."
The reading, Rotha found, she was to do aloud, while her mother sewed. It
became a regular thing every afternoon, all the time there was to give to
it; and Rotha was not aware what schooling her mother managed to get out
of the reading. Mrs. Carpenter herself had been well educated; and so was
able to do for Rotha what was possible in the circumstances. It is
astonishing how much may be accomplished with small means, if there is
sufficient power of will at work. Not a fact and not a name in their
reading, but it was made the nucleus of a discussion, of which Rotha only
knew that it was very interesting; Mrs. Carpenter knew that she was
teaching her daughter history and chronology. Not the history merely of
the people immediately in question, but the history of the world and of
humanity. For without being a scholar or having dead languages at her
command, Mrs. Carpenter had another knowledge, which gives the very best
key to the solution of many human questions, leads to the most clear and
comprehensive view of the whole human drama of life and gives the only
one clue to guide one amidst the confusions of history and to its
ultimate goal and termination. Namely, the knowledge of the Bible. It is
marvellous, how that knowledge supplies and supplements other sorts. So
Rotha and her mother, at every step they made in their reading, stopped
to study the ground; looked back and forward, traced connections of
things, and without any parade of learning got deep into the philosophy
of them.
History was only one branch of the studies for which Rollin was made a
text-book. Mrs. Carpenter had an atlas in her possession; and she and
Rotha studied geography. Studied it thoroughly, too; traced and fixed the
relations of ancient and modern; learned by heart and not by head, which
is always the best way. And Mrs. Carpenter taxed her memory to enable her
as far as practicable to indoctrinate Rotha in the mysteries and delights
of physical geography, which the girl took as she would the details of a
story. Culture and the arts and industries came in for a share of
attention; but here Mrs. Carpenter's knowledge reached not far. Far
enough to excite Rotha's curiosity very much, which of itself was one
good thing. That indeed may be said to have been one general result and
fruit of this peculiar method of instruction.
A grammar was not among Mrs. Carpenter's few possessions, nor found on
the shelves of the book-stall above-mentioned. Here too she sought to
make memory supply the place of printed words. Rollin served as a text-
book again. Rotha learned the parts of speech, and their distinctions and
inflexions; also, as far as her mother could recollect them, the rules of
syntax. Against all this branch of study she revolted, as unintelligible.
Writing compositions went better; but for the mechanical part of this
exercise Mrs. Carpenter had no leisure. She did set Rotha a copy now and
then; but writing and arithmetic for the most part got the go-by. What
Mrs. Carpenter did she must do with her fingers plying the needle and her
eyes on her work.
It helped them both, all this learning and teaching; reading and talking.
It saved their life from being a dead monotony, and their minds from
vegetating; and diverted them from sorrowful regrets and recollections.
Life was quite active and stirring in the little rooms where they lived.
Nevertheless, their physical nature did not thrive so well as the mental.
Rotha was growing fast, and shooting up slender and pale, living too
housed a life; and her mother began to lose freshness and to grow thin
with too constant application. As the winter passed away, and warm
weather opened the buds of the trees which in some places graced the
city, these human plants seemed to wither more and more.
"O mother," said Rotha, standing at the window one day in the late
spring, "I think the city is just horrid!"
"Never mind, my child. We have a comfortable home, and a great deal to be
thankful for."
"If I could only see the butterflies in the fields again!" sighed Rotha.
Her mother echoed the sigh, but this time said nothing.
"And I would like a good big tumbler of real milk, and some strawberries,
and some of your bread and butter, mother."
"Yes, my child."
"Mother, how comes it that aunt Serena is rich, and you and I are so
poor?"
"You have asked me that before."
"But you didn't tell me."
"I told you, it was in consequence of the different marriages we made."
"Yes, I know. But you were not poor before you married father, were you?"
"No."
"Then that is what I mean. What is become of it? Where is your part?"
"Nowhere, dear."
"What became of it then, mother?"
"I never had it, Rotha. You had better get your book and read. That would
be wiser than asking useless questions."
"But why didn't you have it, mother? Did aunt Serena--did your sister--
get it all?"
"Get your book, Rotha."
"Mother, please tell me. I shall know the answer if you do not tell me."
"Your aunt had it all," Mrs. Carpenter said very quietly.
"Why?"
"Your grandfather thought there were good reasons."
"_Were_ there, mother?"
"I do not think so. But let it be, Rotha, and never mention this subject
to me again. Different people have different ways of looking at the same
thing; and people are often very honestly mistaken. You must not judge
others by yourself."
"Mother, I think that was very unjust," said Rotha, in immediate
disregard of this precept.
"You must not think it was meant so."
"But, mother, if a wrong thing is honestly meant, does that make it
right?"
"There is but one rule of right and wrong; it is God's rule."
"Then what difference does it make, whether it was 'honestly meant' or
no?"
"A good deal, I should say. Don't you think it does?"
"I do not believe aunt Serena means it honestly, though. If she was a
good woman, she wouldn't keep what belongs to you. She must _know_ it is
wrong!"
"Rotha, you are paining me," said Mrs. Carpenter, the tears springing to
her eyes. "This is very foolish talk, and very improper. Get your book."
"I don't wonder you don't want to go and see her!" said Rotha indignantly
as she obeyed the order. "O mother! if I could just once roll in the
grass again!"
At this moment came a cry from the street--
"Straw--berr_ees!_"
"What's that?" exclaimed Rotha springing to the window. "Mother, it's a
woman with a basket full of something red. Strawberries! it's
strawberries!"
The accent of this word went to the mother's heart.
"It's early yet," she said. "They will be very dear. By and by they will
be plenty and cheaper."
"Strawberries!" repeated Rotha, following the woman with her eyes.
"Mother, I think I do hate New York. The sight of those strawberries
makes me wild. I want Carlo, and the ducks, and my old pussy cat, and the
garden; and--Oh, I want father!"
The natural conclusion to this burst was a passion of weeping. Mrs.
Carpenter was fain to lay down her work, and put her arms round the
child, and shed some tears with her; though even as they fell she was
trying to soothe Rotha into patience and self-command. Two virtues of
which as yet the girl knew nothing, except that her mother was a very
lovely and constant exemplification of them. Nobody ever expected either
from Rotha; although this was the first violent expression of grief and
longing that her mother had seen since their removal to New York, and it
took her by surprise. Rotha had seemed to acquiesce with tolerable ease
in the new conditions of things; and this was Mrs. Carpenter's first
notification that under all the outside calm there lay a power of wish
and pain. They wept together for a while, the mother and child, which was
a sort of relief to both of them.
"Mother," said Rotha, as she dried her tears and struggled to prevent
more coming,--"I could bear it, only that I don't see any end to it."
"Well, my child? what then?" said the mother tenderly.
"I don't feel as if I could bear this always."
"There might be much worse, Rotha."
"That don't make this one bit better, mother. It makes it harder."
"We must trust God."
"For what? I don't see."
"Trust him, that he will keep his promises. I do."
"What promises?"
"He has said, that none of them that trust in him shall be desolate."
"But 'not desolate'! That is not enough," said. Rotha. "I want more than
that. I want to be happy; and I want to be comfortable."
"Are you not comfortable, my child?"
"No, mother," Rotha said with a sob.
"What do you want?" Mrs. Carpenter spoke with a gentle soft accent, which
half soothed, half reproached Rotha, though she did not mean any
reproach. Rotha, nevertheless went on.
"I want nearly everything, mother! everything that we haven't got."
"It would not make you happy, if you had it."
"Why not? Why wouldn't it?"
"Because nothing of that sort can. There is only one thing that makes
people happy."
"I know; you mean religion. But I am not religious. And if I _was_ happy,
mother, I should want those other things too."
"If you were happy--you would be happy," Mrs. Carpenter said with a
slight smile.
"That would not hinder my wanting other things. I should want, as I do
now, nice dresses, and a nice house, and books, and not to have to cook
and wash dishes, and to take a ride sometimes and a walk sometimes--not a
walk to market--I want all that, mother."
"I would give it you if I could, Rotha. If I had it and did not give it
to you, you would know that I had some very good reason."
"I might think you were mistaken," said Rotha.
"We cannot think that of the only wise God," Mrs. Carpenter said with
that same faint, sweet smile again; "so we must fall back upon the
other alternative."
Rotha was silenced.
"We know that he loves us, dear; and 'they that trust in the Lord shall
not want any good thing.' As soon as it would be good for us, if that
time ever comes, we shall have it. As for me, if you were only one of
those that trust in him, I should hardly have a wish left."
Rotha dried her tears and went at her work. But the summer, as the days
passed, was a trial to both of them. Accustomed to sweet country air and
free motion about the farm, the closeness, the heat, the impurities, and
the confinement of the city were extremely hard to bear. They made it
also very difficult to work. Often it seemed to Mrs. Carpenter, unused to
such a sedentary life and close bending over her needle, that she must
stop and wait till it grew cooler, or till she herself felt a little
refreshed. But the necessities of living drove her on, as they drive so
many, pitilessly. She could not intermit her work. Rents were due just
the same in summer as in winter, and meat and bread were no cheaper. She
grew very thin and pale; and Rotha too, though in a far less degree,
shewed the wilting and withering effect of the life they led. Rarely a
walk could be had; the streets were hot and disagreeable; and Mrs.
Carpenter could but now and then dare to spend twenty cents for car hire
to take her and Rotha to the Park and back again. The heats of July were
very hard to bear; the heats of August were more oppressive still; and
when September came with its enervating moist, muggy, warm days, Mrs.
Carpenter could scarcely keep her place and her work at her window. All
day she could not. She was obliged to stop and lie by. Appetite failed,
meals were not enticing; and on the whole, Mrs. Marble was not at all
satisfied with the condition of either of her lodgers.
The cooler weather and then the frosts wrought some amendment. Yet all
the autumn did not put them back where the spring had found them; and
late in November Mrs. Carpenter took a cold which she could not
immediately get rid of. A bad cough set in; strength rather failed than
grew; and the thin hands which were so unceasingly busy with their work,
became more and more transparently thin. Mrs. Carpenter needed rest; she
knew it; and the thought came to her that it might be duty, and even it
might be necessity, to apply to her sister for help. Surely it could not
be refused?
She was often busy with this thought.
One day she had undertaken a longer walk than usual, to carry home some
articles of fine sewing that she had finished. She would not send Rotha
so far alone, but she took her along for company and for the air and
exercise. Her way led her into the finer built part of the city. Coming
down Broadway, she was stopped a minute by a little crowd on the
sidewalk, just as a carriage drew up and a lady with a young girl stepped
out of it and went into Tiffany's; crossing the path of Mrs. Carpenter
and Rotha. The lady she recognized as her own sister.
"Mother," said Rotha, as they presently went on their way again, "isn't
that a handsome carriage?"
"Very."
"What is the coachman dressed so for?"
"That is what they call a livery."
"Well, what _is_ it? He has top boots and a gold band round his hat. What
for? I see a great many coachmen and footmen dressed up so or some other
way. What is the use of it?"
"No use, that I know."
"Then what is it for?"
"I suppose they think it looks well."
"So it does. But how rich people must be, mother, when their servants can
dress handsomer than we ever could. And their own dresses! Did you see
the train of that lady's dress?"
"Yes."
"Beautiful black silk, ever so much of it, sweeping over the sidewalk.
She did not even lift it up, as if she cared whether it went into the
dirt or not."
"I suppose she did not care," said Mrs. Carpenter mechanically, like a
person who is not giving much thought to her answers.
"Then she must be _very_ rich indeed. I suppose, mother, her train would
make you a whole nice dress."
"Hardly so much of it as that," said Mrs. Carpenter.
"No, no; I mean the cost of it. Mother, I wonder if it is _right_, for
that woman to trail so much silk on the ground, and you not to be able to
get yourself one good dress?"
"It makes no difference in my finances, whether she trails it or not."
"No, but it ought."
"How should it?"
Rotha worked awhile at this problem in silence.
"Mother, if nobody used what he didn't want, don't you think there would
be enough for the people who do want? You know what I mean?"
"I know what you mean. But how should the surplus get to the people who
want it?"
"Why!--that's very simple."
"Not so simple as you think."
"Mother, that is the way people did in the second chapter of Acts, that
we were reading yesterday. Nobody said that anything he had was his own."
"That was when everybody was full of the love of Christ. I grant you,
Rotha, that makes things easy. My child, let us take care we act on that
principle."
"We have nothing to give," said Rotha. "Mother, how that girl was dressed
too, that came out of that same carriage. Did you see her?"
"Hardly."
"She was about as old as I am, I guess. Mother, she had a feather in her
hat and a beautiful little muff, and a silk frock too, though there was
no train to it. Her silk was red--dark red," Rotha added with a sigh.
Mrs. Carpenter had been struck and moved, as well as her daughter, by the
appearance of the figures in question, though, as she said, she had
scarce seen more than one of them. But her thoughts were in a different
channel.
When she got home, contrary to all her wont, Mrs. Carpenter sat down and
put her head in her hands, instead of going to work. She said she was a
little tired, which was very true; but the real reason was a depression
and at the same time a perturbation of mind which would not let her work.
She had been several times lately engaged with the thought, that it might
be better, that it might be her duty, to make herself known to her
sister. She felt that her strength lately had been decreasing; it had
been with much difficulty that she accomplished her full tale of work;
help, even a little, would be very grateful, and a friend for Rotha might
be of the greatest importance. It was over with those thoughts. That one
glimpse of her sister as she swept past, had shewn her the utter futility
of such an appeal as she had thought of making. There was something in
the whole air and style of the rich woman which convinced Mrs. Carpenter
that she would not patiently hear of poor relations in her neighbourhood;
and that help given, even if she gave it, would be so given that it would
be easier to do without it than to accept it. She was thrown back upon
herself; and the check and the disappointment shewed how much, secretly
she had been staying herself upon this hope which had failed her.
She said nothing to her daughter, and Rotha never knew what that
encounter had been. But a few days later, finding herself still not
gaining strength, and catching at any thread of hope or help, Mrs.
Carpenter took another long walk and delivered at its place of address
the letter which her English guest had left her. She hardly expected ever
to hear anything from it again; and in fact it was long before she did
hear either of the letter or of its writer.
The months of winter went somewhat painfully along. Mrs. Carpenter's
health did not mend, and the constant sewing became more and more
difficult to bear. Mrs. Carpenter now more frequently went out with her
work herself; leaving Rotha to make up the lost time by doing some of the
plainer seams, for which she was quite competent.
CHAPTER IV.
A VISITER.
One cold afternoon in the latter part of January, a stranger came to Mrs.
Marble's door and begged for a few minutes' interview. He did not make it
longer; but after a very brief conversation on religious matters, and
giving her a tract or two, inquired if there was anybody else in the
house?
"Lodgers," said Mrs. Marble. "They've got the second floor. A woman and a
girl."
"What sort of people?"
"Well, I should say they were an uncommon sort. Your sort, I guess.
Religious. I mean the mother is. I reckon the little one haint anything
o' that kind about her."
"Then they pay their rent, I suppose?"
"As regular as clockwork. 'Taint always easy, I know; but it comes up to
the day. I don't believe much in the sort o' religion that don't pay
debts."
"Nor I; but sometimes, you know, the paying is not only difficult but
impossible. Why is it difficult in this case?"
"Don't ask _me!_ Because another sort of religious folk, that go to church
regular enough and say their prayers, won't pay honest wages for honest
work. How is a woman to live, that can't get more than a third or a
quarter the value o' what she does? So they _don't_ live; they die; and
that's how it's goin' to be here."
A tear was glittering in Mrs. Marble's honest eyes, while at the same
time she bit off her words as if they had been snap gingerbread.
"Is it so bad as that?" asked the visiter.
"Well, I don' know if you ought to call it, 'bad,'" said Mrs. Marble with
a compound expression. "When livin' aint livin' no longer, then dyin'
aint exactly dyin'. 'Taint the worst thing, anyhow; if it warnt for the
folk left behind. If I was as ready as she is, I wouldn't mind goin', I
guess. I s'pose she thinks of her child some."
"Would they receive a visit from me?"
"I don' know; but they don't have many. So long as they've been here, and
that's more'n a year now, there aint a livin' soul as has called to ask
after 'em. I guess they'd receive most anybody that come with a friend's
face. Shall I ask 'em?"
"Not _that_, but if they will see me. I shall be much obliged."
Mrs. Marble laid down her work and tripped up stairs.
"Rotha," she said putting her head inside the door, "here's somebody to
see you."
The girl started up and a colour came into her face, as she eagerly
asked, "Who?"
"I don't know him from Adam. He's a sort of a missionary; they come round
once in a while; and he wants to see you."
"Mother's gone out," said Rotha, her colour fading as quick as it had
risen.
"May he come and see you? He's a nice lookin' feller."
"I don't care," said Rotha. "I don't want to see any missionary."
"O well! it won't hurt you to see this one, I guess."
A few minutes after came a tap at the door, and Rotha with a mingling of
unwillingness and curiosity, opened it. What she saw was not exactly what
she had expected; curiosity grew and unwillingness abated. She asked the
stranger in with tolerable civility. He _was_ nice looking, she confessed
to herself, and very nicely dressed! not at all the rubbishy exterior
which Rotha somehow associated with her idea of missionaries. He came in
and sat down, quite like an ordinary man; which was soothing.
"Mother is out," Rotha announced shortly.
"It is so much the kinder of you to let me come in."
"I was not thinking of kindness," said Rotha.
"No? Of what then?
"Nothing in particular. You do not want kindness."
"I beg your pardon. Everybody wants it."
"Not kindness _from_ everybody then."
"I do."
"But some people can do without it."
"Can they? What sort of people?"
"Why, a great many people. Those that have all they want already."
"I never saw any of that sort of people," said the stranger gravely.
"Pray, did you?"
"I thought I had."
"And you thought I was one of them?"
"I believe so."
"You were mistaken in me. Probably you were mistaken also in the other
instances. Perhaps you were thinking of the people who have all that
money can buy?"
"Perhaps," Rotha assented.
"Do you think money can buy all things?"
"No," said Rotha, beginning to recover her usual composure; "but the
people who have all that money can buy, can do without the other things."
"What do you mean by the 'other things'?"
Rotha did not answer.
"I suppose kindness is one of them, as we started from that."
Rotha was still silent.
"Do you think you could afford to do without kindness?"
"If I had money enough," Rotha said bluntly.
"And what would you buy with money, that would be better?"
"O plenty!" said Rotha. "Yes, indeed! I would stop mother's working; and
I would buy our old home, and we would go away from this place and never
come back to it. I would have somebody to do the work that I do, too; and
I would have a garden, and plenty of flowers, and plenty of everything."
"And live without friends?"
"We always did," said Rotha. "We never had friends. O friends!--everybody
in the village and in the country was a friend; but you know what I mean;
nobody that we cared for."
"Then you have no friends here in New York?"
"No."
"I should think you would have stayed where, as you say, everybody was a
friend."
"Yes, but we couldn't."
"You said, you would if you could stop your mother's working. Do you
think she would like that?"
"O she's tired to death!" said Rotha; and her eyes reddened in a way that
shewed there were at least two sides to her character. "She is not strong
at all, and she wants rest. Of course she would like it. Not to have to
do any more than she likes, I mean."
"Then perhaps she would not choose to take some work I was thinking to
offer her. Or perhaps you would not take it?" he added smiling.
"We _must_ take it," said Rotha, "if we can get it. What is it?"
"A set of shirts. A dozen."
"Mother gets seventy five cents a piece, if they are tucked and
stitched."
"That is not my price, however. I like my work particularly done, and I
give two dollars a piece."
"Two dollars for one shirt?" inquired Rotha.
"That is my meaning. Do you think your mother will take them?"
For all answer the girl clapped her two hands together.
"Then you are not a master tailor?" she asked.
"No."
"I thought maybe you were. I don't like them. What are you, please?"
"If I should propose myself as a friend, would you allow it?"
Is this a "kindness"? was the suspicion that instantly darted into
Rotha's mind. The visiter saw it in her face, and could have smiled; took
care to do no such thing.
"That is a question for mother to answer," she said coolly.
"When it is put to her. I put the question to you."
"Do you mean, that you are talking of being a friend to _me?_"
"Is that too bold a proposition?"
"No--but it cannot be true."
"Why not?"
"You cannot want me for a friend. You do not know me a bit."
"Pardon me. And my proposal was, that I should be a friend to _you_."
"I always thought there were two sides to a friendship."
"True; and in time, perhaps, when you come to know me as well as I know
you, perhaps you will be my friend as well."
"How should you know me?" said Rotha quickly.
"People's thoughts and habits of feeling have a way of writing themselves
somehow in their faces, and voices, and movements. Did you know that?"
"No--" Rotha said doubtfully.
"They do."
"But you don't know me."
"Will you put it to the proof? But do you like to hear the truth spoken
about yourself?"
"I don't know. I never tried."
"Shall I try you? I think I see before me a person who likes to have her
own way--and has it."
"You are wrong there," said Rotha. "If I had my own way, I should not be
doing what I am doing; no indeed! I should be going to school."
"I did not mean that your will could get the better of all circumstances;
only of the will of other people. How is that?"
"I suppose everybody likes to have his own way," said Rotha in defence.
"Probably; but not every one gets it. Then, when upon occasion your will
is crossed, whether by persons or circumstances, you do not take it very
patiently."
"Does anybody?"
"Some people. But on these occasions you are apt to shew your displeasure
impatiently--sometimes violently."
"How do you know?" said Rotha wonderingly. "You cannot see that in my
face _now?_"
And she began curiously to examine the face opposite to her, to see if it
too had any disclosures to make. He smiled.
"Another thing,--" he went on. "You have never yet learned to care for
others more than for yourself."
"Does anybody?" said Rotha.
"How is it with your mother?"
"Mother?-- But then, mother and I are very different"
"Did I not intimate that?"
"But I mean I am naturally different from her. It is not only because she
is a Christian."
"Why are you not a Christian too?"
Rotha hesitated. Her interlocutor was certainly a great stranger; and as
certainly she had not found it possible to read his face;
notwithstanding, two effects had resulted from the interview thus far;
she believed in him, and he was somewhat imposing to her. Dress and
manner might have a little to do with this; poor Rotha had rarely in her
short life spoken to any one who had the polish of manner that belongs to
good breeding and the habit of society; but that was not the whole. She
felt the security and the grace with which every word was said, and she
trusted his face. At the same time she rebelled against the slight awe he
inspired, and was a little afraid of some lurking "kindness" under all
this extraordinary interest and affability. Her answer was delayed and
then came somewhat defiantly.
"I never wanted to be a Christian."
"That answer has the merit of truth," said her visiter calmly. "You have
mentioned the precise reason that keeps people out of the kingdom of
heaven. 'Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life,' the Lord
said to some of them when he was upon earth. 'When they shall see him,
there is no beauty that they should desire him.'"
"Well, I cannot help that," said Rotha.
"No,--" said her visiter slowly, "you cannot help that; but it does not
excuse you."
"Why, how can I be a Christian, when I _dont want to?_"
"How can you do anything else that you do not want to do? Duty remains
duty, does it not?"
"But religion is not outside work."
"No."
"Mother says, it is the love of God. How can I make myself love him?"
"Poor child!" said her visiter. "When you are in earnest about that
question it will not be difficult to find the answer." He rose up. "Then
I may send the shirts I spoke of?"
"Yes," said Rotha; "but I don't know about the price. Mother does not
want anything but the proper pay; and she does all her work
particularly."
"Are you afraid I shall give her too much?"
"She does not want too much."
"I will arrange that with her. Stay,--we have not been introduced to each
other. You may call me Mr. Digby; what may I call you?"
"Rotha Carpenter."
"Good morning, Rotha," said the gentleman, offering his hand. Rotha shyly
took it, and he went away.
Half an hour afterwards, Mrs. Carpenter came home. She came slowly up the
short flight of stairs, and sat down by her fireside as if she was tired.
She was pale, and she coughed now and then.
"Mother," began Rotha, full of the new event, "somebody has been here
since you have been away."
"A messenger from Mr. Farquharson? I shall have the things done to-
morrow, I hope."
"No messenger at all, and no tailor, nor any such horrid person. Mother,
what is a 'gentleman'?"
"What makes you ask?"
"Because Mrs. Marble said this man was a gentleman. He's a missionary. Do
you know what a 'city missionary' means, mother?"
"Yes, in general."
"The same as a foreign missionary, only he does not go out of the
country?"
"He does his work in the city."
"But there are no heathen in New York."
"There are worse."
"Worse? what can be worse?"
"It is worse to see the light and refuse it, than never to have had the
choice."
"Then I should think it would be better not to send missionaries to the
heathen."
"Rotha, take my bonnet and cloak, dear, and put them away; and make me
some tea, will you?"
"Why mother, it is not tea-time yet."
"No matter; I am tired, and cold."
"But you didn't tell me what a gentleman is?" pursued Rotha, beginning
now to bustle about and do as she was told.
"Wait till I have had some tea. How much tea is left, Rotha?"
"Well, I guess, enough to last almost a week," said the girl, peering
into the box which did duty for a tea-caddy.
"I must manage to get some more," said the mother. "I could hardly get
along without my cup of tea."
"Mother, here has been somebody who wants you to make shirts for him at
two dollars a piece."
"Two dollars a piece!" Mrs. Carpenter echoed. "I could afford to get tea
then. Who was that, Rotha? and what sort of shirts does he want made for
such a price?"
"I don't know! he said he wanted them very particularly made, and I told
him that was the way you did everything. Now mother dear, the kettle will
boil in two minutes."
"Who is this person?"
"I told you, he is a city missionary. His name is Mr. Digby."
"Digby,"--said Mrs. Carpenter. "I do not know him."
"Of course you don't. But you will be glad of the shirts, won't you?"
"Very glad, and thankful."
"But is two dollars a proper price?" inquired Rotha a little jealously.
"It is an uncommon price."
"What could make him offer an uncommon price?"
"I don't know. It is not the way of the world, so perhaps he is not one
of the world."
"He's a Christian, you mean?"
"Yes."
"Do Christians always do the right thing?"
"Real Christians do, when they know what the right thing is. I am too
tired to talk, Rotha."
Rotha bestirred herself and set the little table. Not very much went on
it, besides the cups and plates; but there was a loaf of bread, and Rotha
made a slice of toast; and Mrs. Carpenter sipped her tea as if she found
it refreshing.
"I wish I had a good tumbler of milk," sighed Rotha; "real milk, not like
this. And I wish you had some Medwayville cream, mother. I think, if I
ever get back into the country again, I shall go wild."
"I sometimes think you are a little of that here," said Mrs. Carpenter.
"Not wild with joy, mother."
Mrs. Carpenter sipped her tea, and stretched out her feet towards the
small stove, and seemed to be taking some comfort. But her face was thin
and worn, the hands were very thin; a person with more experience than
her young daughter would have been ill content with her appearance.
"Mother, now can you tell me my question? What do you mean by a
'gentleman.'"
"Perhaps not just what Mrs. Marble means by it."
"Well, I'll tell you. This person was very well dressed, but clothes do
not make it, do they, mother?"
"Certainly not."
"He has got a nice face, and he seemed to know always just what to do and
to say; I can't tell you what I mean exactly; but I should think, to look
at him and hear him, that he knew everything and had seen all the world.
Of course he hasn't and doesn't; but that is the sort of feeling I have
when I look at him."
Mrs. Carpenter smiled.
"Did you never see anybody before of whom you thought so?"
"Never. I never did," said Rotha. "The people who come here on business,
don't know the least bit how to behave; and the people at dear old
Medwayville did not. O they were kind and good as they could be, some of
them; but mother, they could not make a bow to save their lives, and they
would stand and sit all sorts of ways; and they wouldn't know when they
had done talking, nor how to do anything nicely."
"Perhaps this man was stiff," said Mrs. Carpenter amused.
"He was not stiff in the least; but mother, what is a gentleman?"
"I do not know how to tell you, Rotha. Your description sounds very much
like one."
A day or two after, Mr. Digby came again, and had an interview with Mrs.
Carpenter. This time he paid no attention to Rotha, and I think the
little girl was somewhat disappointed. The next day he came again and
brought with him the bundle of shirts. He inquired now very kindly into
Mrs. Carpenter's state of health, and offered to send his own physician
to see her. But she refused; and the manner of her refusal persuaded Mr.
Digby that she was aware of her own condition and believed no medicine
would be of avail. He was much of the same opinion himself; and indeed
was inclined to suspect that there was more need of good food than of
drugs in this case. More difficult at the same time to administer.
A few days passed, and Mr. Digby again came.
He found Mrs. Carpenter steady at her work, but looking very worn and
pale. Rotha was just putting on the small tea kettle. Mr. Digby sat down
and made kind inquiries. The answers were with the sweet patient
composure which he saw was habitual with Mrs. Carpenter.
"How is your appetite?" he asked.
"I suppose I am not enough in the open air and stirring about, to have it
very good."
"Have you much strength for 'stirring about'?"
"Not much."
"People cannot have strength without eating. Rotha, what time do you give
your mother her dinner?"
"Now," said Rotha. "I put the kettle on just as you came in."
"I saw you did. But what is the connection, may I ask, between dinner and
the tea kettle?"
"Rotha makes me a cup of tea," said Mrs. Carpenter smiling. "I can hardly
get along without that."
"Ah!--Mrs. Carpenter, I have had a busy morning and am--which I am sorry
you are not--_hungry_. May I take a cup of tea with you?"
"Certainly!--I should be very glad. Rotha, set a cup for Mr. Digby, dear.
But tea is not much to a hungry man," she went on; "and I am afraid there
is little in the house but bread and butter."
"That will do capitally. If you'll furnish the bread and butter, I will
see what I can get for my part. If you'll excuse the liberty, Mrs.
Carpenter?"
Mrs. Carpenter would excuse, I think, whatever he might take a fancy to
do. She had seen him now several times, and he had quite won her heart.
"Mother," said Rotha, as soon as their visiter had gone out, "what is he
going to do?"
"I do not know. Get something for dinner, he said."
"Do you like him to do that?"
"Do what?"
"Bring us dinner."
"Don't be foolish, Rotha."
"Mother, I think he is doing what he calls a 'kindness.'"
"Have you any objection?"
"Not to his doing it for other people; but for you and me-- Mother, we
have not come to receiving charity yet."
"Rotha!" exclaimed her mother. "My child, what are you thinking of?"
"Having kindnesses done to us, mother; and I don't like it. It is not Mr.
Digby's business, what we have for dinner!"
"I told him we had not much but bread."
"Why did you tell him?"
"He would have found it out, Rotha, when he came to sit down to the
table."
"He had no business to ask to do that."
"I think you are ungrateful."
"Mother, I don't want to be grateful. Not to him."
"Why not to him, or to anybody, my child, that deserves it of you?"
"_He_ don't!"--said Rotha, as she finished setting the table, rather in
dudgeon. "What do you suppose he is going to bring?"
"Rotha, what will ever become of you in this world, with that spirit?"
"What spirit?"
"Pride, I should say."
"Isn't pride a good thing?"
"Not that ever I heard of, or you either," Mrs. Carpenter said with a
sigh.
"Mother, I don't think you have enough pride."
"A little is too much. It makes people fall into the condemnation of the
devil. And you are mistaken in thinking there is anything fine in it.
Don't shew that feeling to Mr. Digby, I beg of you."
Rotha did not exactly pout, for that was not her way; but she looked
dissatisfied. Presently she heard a sound below, and opened the door.
"He's coming up stairs," she said softly, "and a boy with him bringing
something. Mother!--"
She had no chance to say more. Mr. Digby came in, followed by a boy with
a basket. The basket was set down and the boy disappeared.
"Mrs. Carpenter," said the gentleman, "I could not find anything in this
neighbourhood better than oysters. Do you like them?"
"Oysters!" said Mrs. Carpenter. "It is very long since I have seen any.
Yes, I like them."
"Then the next question is, how do you like them? Saw? or roasted? We can
roast them here, cannot we?"
"I have not seen a roast oyster since I was a girl," said Mrs. Carpenter.
Her visiter could hear in the tone of her voice that the sight would be
very welcome. As for Rotha, displeasure was lost in curiosity. The
oysters were already nicely washed; that Mr. Digby had had done by the
same boy that brought the basket; it only remained to put them on the
fire and take them off; and both operations he was quite equal to. Rotha
looked on in silent astonishment, seeing the oyster shells open, and the
juice sputter on the hot iron, and perceiving the very acceptable
fragrance that came from them. Mr. Digby admonished her presently to make
the tea; and then they had a merry meal. Absolutely merry; for their
visitor, he could hardly be called their guest, spiced his ministrations
with so pleasant a manner that nothing but cheerfulness could keep its
ground before him. At the first taste of the oysters, it is true, some
associations seemed to come over Mrs. Carpenter which threatened to make
a sudden stop to her dinner. She sat back in her chair, and perhaps was
swallowing old troubles and heartburnings over again, or perhaps
recalling involuntarily a time before troubles began. The oysters seemed
to choke her; and she said she wanted no more. But Mr. Digby guessed what
was the matter; and was so tenderly kind and judiciously persuasive, that
Mrs. Carpenter could not withstand him; and then, Rotha looked on in new
amazement to see how the oysters went down and how manifestly they were
enjoyed. She herself declined to touch them; they did not look attractive
to her.
"Rotha," said Mr. Digby, as he opened a fine, fat oyster, "the only way
to know things is, to submit to learn."
"I needn't learn to like oysters, I suppose, need I?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"It might be useful some day."
"I don't see how it should. We never had oysters before, and perhaps we
never shall again."
"You might go a missionary to some South Sea island, and be obliged at
times to live upon oysters."
"I am not going to be a missionary."
"That is more than you know."
"But I know what I like, and what I think."
"At present. Perhaps you do. You do not know whether you like oysters,
however, for you have not tried."
"Your sphere of knowledge will be small, Rotha," said her mother, "if you
refuse to enlarge it."
Stung a little, Rotha made up her mind to try an oyster, to which her
objections were twofold. Nevertheless, she was obliged to confess, she
liked it; and the meal, as I said, went merrily on; Rotha from that time
doing her fall share. Mrs. Carpenter was plainly refreshed and comforted,
by the social as well as the material food she received.
"How good he is!" she exclaimed when their friend was gone.
"So are the oysters," said Rotha; "but I don't like him to bring them. I
do not think I like Mr. Digby much, anyhow."
"You surprise me. And it is not a little ungrateful."
"I don't want to be grateful to him. And mother, I _don't_ like him to
bring oysters here!"
"Why shouldn't he, if he likes? I am sorry to see such pride in you,
Rotha. It is _very_ foolish, my child."
"Mother, it looks as if he knew we were poor."
"He knows it, of course. Am I not making his shirts?"
Rotha was silent, clearing away the dishes and oyster shells with a good
deal of decision and dissatisfaction revealed in her movements.
"Everybody knows it, my child."
"I do not mind everybody. I just mind him. He is different. Why is he
different, mother?"
"I suppose the difference you mean is, that he is a gentleman."
"And what are we?" said Rotha, suddenly standing still to put the
question.
"We are respectable people," said her mother smiling.
"Not gentlemen, of course; but what do you call us?"
"If I could call you a Christian, Rotha, I should not care for anything
else; at least I should not be concerned about it. Everything else would
be right."
"Being a Christian would not make any difference in what I am talking
about."
"I think it would; but I cannot talk to you about it, Ask Mr. Digby the
next time he comes."
"Ask _him!_" cried Rotha. "I guess I will! What makes you think he is
coming again, mother?"
"It would be like him."
CHAPTER V.
PRIVATE TUITION.
More days passed however, than either of them expected, before Mr. Digby
came again. They were days of stern cold winter weather, in which it was
sometimes difficult to keep their little rooms comfortable without
burning more coal than Mrs. Carpenter thought she could afford. Rotha ran
along the streets to the corner shop where she bought tea and sugar, not
quite so well wrapped up but that she found a quick pace useful to
protect her from the cold; and Mrs. Carpenter wrought at her sewing
sometimes with stiffened fingers.
"Mother," said Rotha, one day, "_I_ think it would be better to do without
tea and have a little more fire."
"I do not know how to get along without tea," Mrs. Carpenter said with a
sigh.
"But you are getting along without almost everything else."
"We do very well yet," answered the mother patiently.
"Do we?" said Rotha. "If this is what you call very well-- Mother, you
cannot live upon tea."
"I feel as if I could not live without it."
"Has Mr. Digby given you any money yet?"
"The shirts are only just finished."
"And what are you going to do now? But he'll pay you a good many dollars,
won't he, mother? Twenty four, for twelve shirts. But there is eight to
be paid for rent, I know, and that leaves only sixteen. And he can afford
to pay the whole twenty four, just for a dozen shirts! Mother, I don't
think some people have a _right_ to be so rich, while others are so poor."
"'The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich,'"--Mrs. Carpenter answered.
"Why does he?"
"Sometimes, I think, he wishes to teach his children to depend on him."
"Couldn't they do it if they were rich?"
"There is great danger they would not."
"You would, mother."
"Perhaps not. But I have always enough, Rotha."
"Enough!" echoed Rotha. "Enough! when you haven't had a good dinner
since-- Mother, there he is again, I do believe!"
And she had hardly time to remove the empty tea cup and, alas! empty
plates, which testified to their meagre fare, when the knock came and Mr.
Digby shewed himself. He explained that he had been out of town; made
careful inquiries as to Mrs. Carpenter's health; paid for the shirts; and
finally turned to Rotha.
"How is my friend here doing?"
"We always go on just the same way," said Rotha. But he could see that
the girl was thin, and pale; and that just at an age when she was growing
fast and needing abundant food, she was not getting it.
"Ask Mr. Digby your question, Rotha," her mother said.
"I do not want to ask him any questions," the girl answered defiantly.
But Mrs. Carpenter went on.
"Rotha wants to know what a gentleman is; and I was not able to discuss
the point satisfactorily with her. I told her to ask you."
Rotha did not ask, however, and there was silence.
"Rotha is fond of asking questions," Mr. Digby observed.
"What makes you think so?" she retorted.
He smiled. "It is a very good habit--provided of course that the
questions are properly put."
"I like to ask mother questions," Rotha said, drawing in a little.
"I have no doubt you would like to ask me questions, if you once got into
the way of it. Habit is everything."
"Not quite everything, in this," said Rotha. "There must be something
before the habit."
"Yes. There must be a beginning."
"I meant something else."
"Did you? May I ask, what did you mean?"
"I mean a good deal," said Rotha. "Before one could get a habit like
that, one must know that the person could answer the questions; and
besides, that he would like to have them asked."
"In my case I will pledge myself for the second qualification; about the
first you must learn by experience. Suppose you try."
His manner was so pleasant and well bred, and Rotha felt that she had
gone so near the edge of politeness, she found it best for this time to
comply.
"I asked mother one day what is the meaning of a 'gentleman'; and I
suppose she was too tired to talk to me, for she said I had better ask
you."
"O he did me honour."
"Well, what is it then, Mr. Digby."
"I should say, it is the counterpart to a 'lady.'"
"But isn't everybody that is grown up, a 'lady'?--every woman, I mean?"
"No more than every grown up man is a gentleman."
Rotha stood looking at him, and the young man on his part regarded her
with more attention than usual. He was suddenly touched with compassion
for the girl. She stood, half doubtful, half proud, dimly conscious of
her enormous ignorance, and with an inward monition of a whole world of
knowledge to be acquired, yet beyond her reach; at the same time her look
shewed capacity enough both to understand and to feel. Rotha was now
nearly fourteen, with mental powers just opening and personal gifts just
beginning to dawn. The child's complexion told of poor feeding and want
of air and exercise; it was sallow, and her features were sharp; but her
hair was beautiful in its lustrous, dark abundance; the eyes shewed the
fire of native passion and intelligence; the mouth was finely cut and
expressed half a dozen things in as many minutes. "Poor child!" thought
the visiter; "what is to become of her, with all this latent power and
possibility?"
"A gentleman, Rotha," he said aloud, "may be defined as a person who in
all manner of little things keeps the golden rule--does to everybody as
he would be done by; and knows how."
"In little things? Not in great things?"
"One may do it in great things, and not be a gentleman in manner; though
certainly in heart."
"Then it is manner?"
"Very much."
"And a lady the same way?"
"Of course."
"What sort of little things?" said Rotha curiously.
"A lady in the first place will be always careful and delicate about her
own person and dress; it does not depend upon what she wears, but how she
wears it; a lady might wear patches, but never could be untidy. Then, in
all her moving, speaking, and acting, she will be gentle, quiet, and
polite. And in her behaviour to others, she will give everybody the
respect that is due, and never put herself forward. 'In honour preferring
one another,' is the Bible rule, and it is the law of good breeding. And
the Bible says, 'Honour all men;' and, 'Be courteous.'--Have I spoken
according to your mind, Mrs. Carpenter?"
"Beautifully," said the silent, pale seamstress, never stopping her
needle. "Better than I could have done it. Now you know, Rotha."
Rotha stood considering, uneasy.
"What is the next question?" said Mr. Digby smiling.
"I was thinking--" said Rotha. "Mustn't one know a good deal, to do all
that?"
"To do what, for instance?"
"To give everybody the respect that is due; it is not the same to
everybody, is it?"
"No, certainly."
"How can one know?"
"There _is_ a good deal to be learned in this world, before one can hold
the balance scales to weigh out to each one exactly what belongs to him,"
Mr. Digby admitted.
"That is one of my troubles," said Mrs. Carpenter looking up. "I cannot
give my child an education. I do a little at home; it is better than
nothing; but I feel that my power grows less and less; and Rotha's needs
are more and more."
"What do you know, Rotha?" said Mr. Digby.
"I don't know much of anything!" said the girl, an eloquent flush coming
into her pale face. It touched him.
"A little of what, then?" said their visiter kindly.
"You would not say it was anything."
"She knows a little history," Mrs. Carpenter put in.
"Have you any acquaintance with Alexander of Macedon, Rotha?"
"The Great? asked Rotha.
"He is called so."
"Yes, I know about him."
"Think he deserved the title?"
"Yes, I suppose he did."
"What for?"
"He was such a clever man."
"Well, I have no doubt he was," Mr. Digby returned, keeping a perfectly
grave face with some difficulty; "a clever man; but how did he shew it?"
Rotha paused, and a faint tinge, of excitement this time, rose again in
her cheeks, and her eye waked up with the mental stir. "He had such grand
plans," she answered.
"Ah? yes. Which do you mean?"
"For civilizing people; for bringing the different nations to know each
other and be friends with each other; so that trade could be carried on,
and knowledge and arts and civilization could spread to all; that his
empire could be one great whole."
"On the whole you approve of Alexander. After all, what use was he to the
world?"
"Why a good deal," said Rotha. "Don't you think so? His successors
carried on his plans; at least some of them did; and the Greek language
was spread through Asia, and the Jews encouraged to settle in Egyptian
and Greek cities; and so the way was prepared for the spread of the
gospel when it came."
"Mrs. Carpenter," said Mr. Digby, "your manner of teaching history is
very satisfactory!"
"I have done what I could," said the mother, "but we had very few books
to work with."
"We had none," said Rotha, "except Rollin's Ancient History, and
Plutarch's Lives."
"One good book, well used, is worth a hundred under other circumstances.
Then you do not know much of modern history, Rotha?"
"Nothing at all; except what mother has told me."
"How about grammar?"
"I have taught her grammar," said Mrs. Carpenter; "and geography. She
knows both pretty well. But I found, with my work, I could not teach her
arithmetic; and I had not a good book for it. Rotha can do nothing with
numbers."
Mr. Digby gave the girl a simple question in mental arithmetic; and then
another, and another. Rotha's brow grew intent; the colour in her cheeks
brightened; she was grappling, it was plain, with the difficulties
suggested to her, wrestling with them, conquering them, with the sort of
zeal which conquers all difficulties not insurmountable.
"May I give Rotha lessons in Latin?" Mr. Digby asked, turning quietly to
Rotha's mother.
"Latin!" Mrs. Carpenter exclaimed, and her cheeks too flushed slightly.
"I should enjoy it. It is likely that important business will bring me
frequently into this part of the city; so I could do it as well as not."
"But it would be so much trouble--unless you are fond of teaching--"
"I am fond of teaching--when I find somebody that can learn."
"You are very kind!--I should be very glad--Poor Rotha, I have been
unable to do for her what I wished--"
"I think you have done admirably, from the slight specimen I have had.
How much time can she give to study?"
"O she has time enough. She is much more idle than I like to have her."
"Then that is arranged. I am going to send you a few raw oysters, Mrs.
Carpenter; and I wish you would eat them at all times of day, whenever
you feel like it. I knew a very slender lady once, who grew to very ample
proportions by following such a regimen. Try what they will do for you."
A grateful, silent look thanked him, and he took his departure. Rotha,
who had been standing silent and cloudy, now burst forth.
"Mother!--I do not want him to teach me!"
"Why not, my child? I think he is very kind.'
"Kind! I don't want to be taught out of kindness; and I _don't_ want
_him_ to teach me, mother!"
"What's the matter?" for Rotha was flushed and fierce.
"I can learn without him. It is none of his business, whether I learn or
not. And if I shouldn't say something just right, and he should find
fault, I should be so angry I shouldn't know what to do!"
"You talk as if you were angry now."
"Well I am! Why did you say yes, mother?"
"Would you have had me say no?"
"Yes! I don't want to learn Latin anyhow. What's the use of my learning
Latin? And of him,--O mother, mother!"
And Rotha burst into impatient and impotent tears.
"Why not of Mr. Digby?" said her mother soothingly.
"O he is so--I can't tell!--he's so uppish."
"He is not _uppish_ at all. I am ashamed of you, Rotha."
"Well, nothing puts him out. He is just always the same; and he thinks
everything must be as he says. I don't like him to come here teaching
me."
"What folly is this? He is a gentleman, that's all. Do you dislike him
for being a gentleman?"
"I'm not a lady"--sobbed Rotha.
"What has that to do with it?"
"Mother, I wish I could be a lady!"
"My child, Mr. Digby told you how."
"No, he didn't. He told me _what_ it was; he didn't tell me how I could
get all that."
"You can follow the Bible roles, at any rate, Rotha; and they go a good
way."
"No, I can't, mother. I could if I were a Christian, I suppose; but I am
not I can't 'honour all men'; I don't know how; and I can't prefer others
before myself I prefer myself But if I could, that wouldn't make me a
lady."
Mrs. Carpenter did not know what to do with this passion, the cause of
which she was at a loss to understand. It was very real; Rotha sobbed;
and her mother was at a loss how to comfort her. What dim, far-off
recognition was this, of powers and possibilities in life--or in herself
--of which the girl had hitherto no experience and no knowledge? It was
quite just Mrs. Carpenter, herself refined and essentially lady-like,
knew very well that her little girl was not growing up to be a lady; she
had laid that off, along with several other subjects of care, as beyond
her reach to deal with; but Rotha's appeal smote a tender spot in her
heart, and she was puzzled how to answer her. Perhaps it was just as well
that she took refuge in her usual silence and did not try any further.
As Mr. Digby was going through the little passage way to the front door,
another door opened and Mrs. Marble's head was put out.
"Good morning!" she said. "You're a friend of those folks up stairs, aint
you?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Well, what do you think of her?" she said, lowering her voice.
"I think you are a happy woman, to have such lodgers, Mrs. Marble."
"I guess I know as much as that," said the mantua-maker, with her
pleasant, arch smile. "I meant something else. _I_ think, she's a sick
woman."
Mr. Digby did not commit himself.
"I'm worried to death about her," Mrs. Marble went on. "Her cough's bad,
and it's growin' worse; and she aint fit to be workin' this minute. And
what's goin' to become of her?"
"The Lord takes care of his children; and she is one."
"If there is such a thing!" said the mantua-maker, a quick tear dimming
her eye. "But you see, I have my own work, and I can't leave it to do
much for her; and she won't let me, neither; and I am thinkin' about it
day and night. She aint fit to work, this minute. And there's the child;
and they haven't a living soul to care for them, as I see, in all the
world. They never have a letter, and they never get a visit, except
your'n."
"Rent paid?" asked the gentleman low.
"Always! never miss. But I'm thinkin'--how do they live? That child's
grown thin--she's like a piece o' wiggin'; she'll hold up when there's
nothin' to her."
Mr. Digby could not help laughing.
"I thought, if you can't help, nobody can. What's to become of them if
she gets worse? That child can't do for her."
"Thank you, Mrs. Marble; you are but touching what I have thought of
myself. I will see what can be done."
"And don't be long about it," said the mantua-maker with a nod of her
head as she closed the door.
Perhaps it was owing to Mrs. Marble's suggestions that Mr. Digby made his
next visit the day but one next after; perhaps they were the cause that
he did not come sooner! At any rate, in two days he came again; and
brought with him not only a Latin grammar, but a paper of grapes for Mrs.
Carpenter. At the grammar Rotha's soul rebelled; but what displeasure
could stand against those beautiful grapes and the sight of her mother
eating them? They were not very good, Mr. Digby said; he would bring
better next time; though to the sick woman they were ambrosia, and to
Rotha an unknown, most exquisite dainty. Seeing her delighted, wondering
eyes, Mr. Digby with a smile broke off part of a bunch and gave to her.
"It shall not rob your mother," he said observing that she hesitated. "I
will bring her some more."
Rotha tasted.
"O mother!" she exclaimed in ecstasy,--"I should think these would make
you well right off!"
Mr. Digby opened the Latin grammar. I think he wanted an excuse for
veiling his eyes just then. And Rotha, mollified, when she had finished
her grapes, submitted patiently to receive her first lesson and to be
told what her teacher expected her to do before he came again.
"By the way," said he as he was about going,--"have you any more room
than you need, Mrs. Carpenter?"
"Room? no. We have this floor--" said Mrs. Carpenter bewilderedly.
"You have not one room that you could let? I know a very respectable
person, an elderly woman, who I think would be comfortable here, if you
would allow her to come. She could pay well for the accommodation."
"What would be 'well'?" said Mrs. Carpenter, looking up.
"According to the arrangement, of course. For a room without a fire, she
would pay four dollars a month; with fire, I should say, twelve."
"That would be a great help to me," said Mrs. Carpenter, considering.
"I know the person, I have known her a great while. I think I can promise
that she would not in any way annoy you."
"She brings her own furniture?"
"Of course."
After a little more turning the matter over in her mind, Mrs. Carpenter
gave an unqualified assent to the proposal; and her visiter took his
leave.
"Mother," said Rotha, "what room are you going to give her?"
"There is but one; our bed-room."
"Then where shall we sleep?"
"Here."
"Here! Where we do everything!--"
"It is not so pleasant; but it will pay our rent, Rotha. And I should
like a little more warmth at night, now the weather is so severe."
"O mother, mother! We have got down to two rooms, and now we are come
down to one!"
"Hush, my child. I am thankful."
"Thankful!"
"Yes, for the means to pay my rent."
"You might have had means to pay your rent, and kept your two rooms,"
said Rotha; thinking, like a great many other people, that she could
improve upon Providence.
"How do you like Latin?"
"If you mean, how I like _Sermo Sermonis_, I don't like it at all. And it
is just ridiculous for Mr. Digby to be giving me lessons."
The new lodger moved in the very next week. She was a portly,
comfortable-looking, kindly-natured woman, whom Mrs. Carpenter liked from
the first. She established herself quietly in her quarters and almost as
soon began to shew herself neighbourly and helpful. One day Mrs.
Carpenter's cough was particularly troublesome. Mrs. Cord came in and
suggested a palliative which she had known often to work comfortingly.
She procured it and prepared it herself, and then administered it, and
begged permission to cook Mrs. Carpenter's dinner; and shook up the
pillow at her back, and set the rocking chair at an inclined angle which
gave support and relief. When she had done all she could, she went away;
but she came in again as soon as there was fresh occasion for her
services, and rendered them with a hearty good will which made them
doubly acceptable, and with a ready skill and power of resources which
would have roused in any sophisticated mind the suspicion that Mrs. Cord
was a trained nurse. Mrs. Carpenter suspected no such thing; she only
felt the blessed benefit, and told Mr. Digby what a boon the new lodger
had become to her.
So the winter, the latter part of it, passed in rather more comfort to
the invalid. She did not work quite so steadily, and in good truth she
would have been unable; she was free of anxieties about debt, for the
rent was sure; and of other things they bought only what they could pay
for. The fare might so have been meagre sometimes; were it not that
supplies seemed to come in, irregularly but opportunely, in such very
pertinent and apt ways that all sorts of gaps in the housekeeping were
filled up. Mr. Digby kept their larder stocked with oysters, for one
thing. Then he would bring a bit of particularly nice salmon he had
found; or fresh eggs that he got from an old woman down town near one of
the ferries, whom he said he could trust. Or he brought some new tea for
Mrs. Carpenter to try; sometimes a sweetbread, or a fresh lobster, from
the market. Then it was remarkable how often Mr. Digby was tempted by the
sight of game; and came with prairie chickens, quails, partridges and
ducks, to tempt, as he said, Mrs. Carpenter's appetite. And at last he
brought her wine. There had grown up between the two, by this time, a
relation of great kindness and even affection. Ever since one day Mrs.
Carpenter had been attacked by a terrible fit of coughing when he was
there; and the young man had waited upon her and ministered to her in a
way that Rotha had neither strength for nor skill, and also with a
tenderness which she could not have surpassed. And Rotha could be tender
where her mother was concerned. Ever since that day Mr. Digby had
assumed, and been allowed, something like a son's place in the little
family; and Mrs. Carpenter only smiled at him when he appeared with new
tokens of his thoughtfulness and care.
Rotha did not accept him quite so easily. She was somewhat jealous of his
favour and of the authority he exercised; for without making the fact in
any way obtrusive, a fact it was, that Mr. Digby did what he pleased. It
pleased Mrs. Carpenter too; it did not quite please Rotha.
Yet in the matter of the lessons it was as much a fact as anywhere else.
Mr. Digby had it quite his own way. To Mrs. Carpenter this 'way' seemed a
marvel of kindness, and her gratitude was unbounded. A feeling which
Rotha's heart did not at all share. She got her lessons, it is true; she
did what was required of her; it soon amused Mrs. Carpenter to see with
what punctilious care she did it; for in the abstract Rotha was not fond
of application. She was one of those who love to walk in at the doors of
knowledge, but do not at all enjoy forging the keys with which the locks
must be opened. And forging keys was the work at which she was now kept
busy. Rotha always knew her tasks, but she came to her recitations with a
sort of reserved coldness, as if inwardly resenting or rebelling, which
there is no doubt she did.
"Mr. Digby, what is the good of my knowing Latin?" she ventured to ask
one day.
"You know a little about farming, do you not, Rotha?" was the counter
question.
"More than a little bit, I guess."
"Do you? Then you know perhaps what is the use of ploughing the ground?"
"To make it soft. What ground are you ploughing with Latin, Mr. Digby?"
"The ground of your mind; to get it into working order."
This intimation incensed Rotha. She was too vexed to speak. All this
trouble just to get her mind into working order?
"Is that all Latin is good for?" she asked at length.
"By no means. But if it were--that is no small benefit. Not only to get
the ground in working order, but to develope the good qualities of it; as
for instance, the power of concentration, the power of attention, the
power of discernment."
"I can concentrate my attention when I have a mind to," said Rotha.
"That is well. I am going to give you something else to do which will
practise you in that."
"What, Mr. Digby?" With all her impatience Rotha was careful to observe
the forms of politeness with her teacher. He silently handed her an
arithmetic.
"Oh!--" said the girl, drawing out the word"--I have done sums, Mr.
Digby."
"How far?"
It turned out that Rotha's progress in that walk of learning had been
limited to a very few steps. And even in those few steps, Mr. Digby's
tests and questions gave her a half hour of sharp work; so sharp as to
bar other thoughts for the time. Rotha shewed in this half hour
uumistakeable capacity for the science of numbers; nevertheless, when her
teacher went away leaving her a good lesson in arithmetic to study along
with her Latin grammar, Rotha spoke herself dissatisfied.
"Am I to learn just whatever Mr. Digby chooses to give me?" she asked.
"I thought you liked learning, Rotha?"
"Yes, mother; so I do. I like learning well enough; I don't like him to
say what I shall learn."
"Why not? Mr. Digby is very kind, Rotha!"
"He may mean it for kindness. I don't know what he means it for."
"It is nothing but pure goodness," said the mother with a grateful sigh.
"Well, is he to give me everything to learn that he takes into his head?"
"Rotha, a teacher could not be kinder or more patient than Mr. Digby is
with you."
"I don't try his patience, mother."
It was true enough; she did not. She had often tried her mother's; with
Mr. Digby Rotha was punctual, thorough, prompt and docile. Whether it
were pride or a mingling of something better,--and Rotha did love
learning,--she never gave occasion for a point of blame. It was not
certainly that Mr. Digby was harsh or stern, or used a manner calculated
to make anybody fear him; unless indeed it were the perfectness of good
breeding which he always shewed, here in the poor sempstress's room, and
in his lessons to the sempstress's child. Rotha had never seen the like
in anybody before; and that more than ought else probably wrought in her
such a practical awe of him. Mrs. Carpenter was even half amused to
observe how Rotha unconsciously in his presence was adopting certain
points of his manner; she was quiet; she moved with moderate steps; she
spoke in low tones; she did not fly out in impatient or angular words or
gestures, as was her way often enough at other times. Yet her mother
knew, and wondered why, Rotha rebelled in secret against the whole thing.
For herself, she was growing into a love for Mr. Digby which was almost
like that of a mother for a son; as indeed his manner towards her was
much like that of a son towards his mother. It was not the benefits
conferred and received; it was a closer bond which drew them together,
and a deeper relation. They looked into each other's faces, and saw
there, each in the other, what each recognized as the signature of a
handwriting that they loved; the stamp of a likeness that was to them
both the fairest of all earthly things. Then came the good offices
rendered and accepted; the frequent familiar intercourse; the purely
human conditions of acquaintanceship and friendship; and it was no matter
of surprise if by and by the care on the one part and the dependence on
the other grew to be a thing most natural and most sweet.
So it came about, that by degrees the look of things changed in Mrs.
Carpenter's small dwelling place. As the cold of the winter began to give
way to the harshness of spring, and March winds blew high, the gaseous
fumes from the little anthracite coal stove provoked Mrs. Carpenter's
cough sadly. "She was coughing all day," Mrs. Cord told their friend in
private; "whenever the wind blew and the gas came into the room." Mr.
Digby took his measures. The little cooking stove was removed; a little
disused grate behind it was opened; and presently a gentle fire of
Liverpool coal was burning there. The atmosphere of the room as well as
the physiognomy of it was entirely changed; and Mrs. Carpenter hung over
the fire and spread out her hands to it with an expression of delight on
her wasted face which it was touching to see. Mr. Digby saw it, and
perhaps to divert the feeling which rose in him, began to find fault with
something else.
"That's a very uncomfortable chair you are sitting in!" he said with a
strong expression of disapproval.
"O it does very well indeed," answered Mrs. Carpenter. "I want nothing, I
think, having this delightful fire."
"How do you rest when you are tired?"
"I lean back. Or I lie down sometimes."
"Humph! Beds are very well at night. I do not think they are at all
satisfactory by day."
"Why what would you have?" said Mrs. Carpenter, smiling at him.
"I'll see."
It was the next day only after this that Rotha, having finished her work
for her teacher and nothing else at the moment calling for attention, was
standing at the window looking out into the narrow street. The region was
poor, but not squalid; nevertheless it greatly stirred Rotha's disgust.
If New York is ever specially disagreeable, it finds the occasion in a
certain description of March weather; and this was such an occasion. It
was very cold; the fire in the grate was well made up and burning
beautifully and the room was pleasant enough; but outside there were
gusts that were almost little whirlwinds coursing up and down every
street, carrying with them columns and clouds of dust. The dust
accordingly lay piled up on one side of the way, swept off from the rest
of the street; not lying there peacefully, but caught up again from time
to time, whirled through the air, shaken out upon everybody and
everything in its way, and finally swept to one side and deposited again.
"It's the most horrid weather, mother, you can think of!" Rotha reported
from her post of observation. "I shouldn't think anybody would be out;
but I suppose they can't help it. A good many people are going about,
anyhow. Some of them are so poorly dressed, mother! there was a woman
went by just now, carrying a basket; I should say she had very little on
indeed under her gown; the wind just took it and wrapped it round her,
and she looked as slim as a post."
"Poor creature!" said Mrs. Carpenter.
"Mother, we never saw people like that in Medwayville."
"No."
"Why are they here, and not there?"
"You must ask Mr. Digby."
"I don't want to ask Mr. Digby!--There are two boys; ragged;--and
barefooted. I don't know what they are out for; they have nothing to do;
they are just playing round an ash-barrel. I should think they'd be at
home."
"Such people's home is often worse than the streets."
"But you don't know how it blows to-day. I should think, mother," said
Rotha slowly, "New York must want a great many good people in it."
"There are a great many good people in it."
"What are they doing, then?"
"Looking out for Number One, mostly," Mrs. Cord answered, who happened to
be in the room.
"But it wants people rich enough to look out for Number One, and for
Number Two as well."
Mrs. Carpenter sighed. She knew there were more sides to the problem than
the simple "one and two" which appeared to Rotha.
"There comes a coal cart, mother; that has to go, I suppose, for somebody
wants it. I should hate to drive a coal cart! Mother, who wants it here?
It is backing down upon our sidewalk."
"Mrs. Marble, I suppose."
"No, she don't; she has got her coal all in; and this isn't her coal at
all; it is in big lumps some of it, like what came for the grate, and it
isn't shiny like the stove coal. It must be for you, I guess."
Rotha ran down to see, and came back with the receipt for her mother to
sign. Mrs. Carpenter signed with a trembling hand, and Rotha flew away
again.
"It is a whole cart-load, mother," she said coming back.
"There is one good rich man in New York," said Mrs. Carpenter
tremulously.
"Do you think he is rich?"
"I fancy so."
"He hasn't spent so very much on us, has he?" asked Rotha consideringly.
"It seems much to me. More than our share, I am afraid."
"Our share of what?"
"His kindness."
"Who has the other shares?"
"I cannot tell. Other people he knows, that are in need of it."
"Mother, we are not in _need_ of it, are we? We could get along without
oysters, I suppose. But what I am thinking of is, if he gives other
people as good a share of his time as he gives us, he cannot live at home
much. Where _does_ Mr. Digby live, Mrs. Cord?"
"I don't know as I can say, Rotha. It is a hotel somewheres, I believe."
"I should not think anybody would live in a hotel," said Rotha,
remembering her own and her mother's experience of the "North River."
"Now here comes another cart the carts have to go in all sorts of times;
but O how the dust blows about! This cart is carrying something--I can't
see what it's all wrapped up."
"My dear Rotha," said her mother, "I am not interested to know what the
carts in the street are doing. Are you?"
"This one is stopping, mother. It is stopping _here!_"
"Well, my dear, what if it is. It is no business of ours."
"The other cart was our business, though; how do you know, mother? It has
stopped here, and the man is taking the thing off."
Mrs. Cord came to the window to look, and then went down stairs. Rotha,
seeing that the object of her interest, whatever it were, had disappeared
within doors, presently followed her. In the little bit of a hall below
stood a large something which completely filled it up; and on one side
and on the other, Mrs. Marble and Mrs. Cord were taking off the wrappings
in which it was enfolded.
"Well, I declare!" said the former, when they had done. "Aint that
elegant!"
"Just like him," said Mrs. Cord. "I guessed this was coming, or something
like it."
"What is it?" asked Rotha.
"How much does a thing like that cost, now?" Mrs. Marble went on. "Oh see
the dust on it! There's a half bushel or less. Here--wait till I get my
brush.--How is it ever to go up stairs? that's what I'm lookin' at."
Help had to be called in; and meantime Rotha rushed up stairs and
informed her mother that a chair was come for her that was like nothing
she had ever seen in her life; "soft all over," as Rotha expressed it;
"back and sides and all soft as a pillow, and yet harder than a pillow;
like as if it were on springs everywhere;" which was no doubt the truth
of the case. "It's like getting into a nest, mother; I sat down in it;
there's no hard place anywhere; there's no wood to it, that you can see."
When a little later the chair made its appearance, and Mrs. Carpenter
sank down into its springy depths, it is a pity that Mr. Digby could not
have heard the low long-drawn 'Oh!--' of satisfaction and relief and
wonder together, which came from her lips. Rotha stood and looked at her.
Mrs. Carpenter was resting, in a very abandonment of rest; but in the
abandonment of the moment shewing, as she did not use to shew it, the
great enervation and prostration of her system. Her head, leaning back on
the soft support it found, her hands laid exhaustedly on one side and on
the other, the motionless pose of her whole person, struck Rotha with
some strange new consciousness.
"Is it good?" she asked shortly.
"Very!" The word was almost a sigh.
"What makes you so weak to-day?"
"I am not weaker than usual."
"You don't always look like that."
"She's never had anything like that to rest in before," Mrs. Cord
suggested. "A bed aint like one o' them chairs, for supportin' one
everywhere alike. You let her rest, Rotha. Will you have an oyster,
dear?"
Rotha sat down at the corner of the fireplace and stared at her mother;
taking the oyster, and yet not relinquishing that air of helpless
lassitude. She was not sewing either; and had not been sewing, Rotha
remembered, except by snatches, for several days past. Rotha sat and
gazed at her, an anxious shadow falling upon her features.
"You needn't look like that at her," said the good woman who was
preparing Mrs. Carpenter's glass of wine; "she'll be rested now in a
little, and feel nicely. She's been a wantin' this, or something o' this
sort; but there aint nothing better than one o' them spring chairs, for
resting your back and your head and every inch of you at once. Now she's
got her oyster and somethin' else, and she'll pick up, you'll see."
"How good it is you came to live here," said the sick woman. "I do not
know what we should do without you. You seem to understand just how
everything ought to be done."
"Mother," said Rotha, "do you think I couldn't take care of you just as
well? Didn't I, before Mrs. Cord came?"
"You haven't had quite so much experience, you see," put in the latter.
"Didn't I, mother?" the girl said passionately.
Mrs. Carpenter answered only by opening her arms; and Rotha coming into
them, sat down lightly upon her mother's lap and hid her head on her
bosom. A shadow of, she knew not what, had fallen across her, and she was
very still. Mrs. Carpenter folded her arms close about her child; and so
they sat for a good while. Mother and daughter, each had her own
thoughts; but those of the one were dim and confused as ever thoughts
could be. The other's were sharp and clear. Rotha had an uneasy sense
that her mother's strength was not gaining but losing; an uneasy
impatience of her lassitude and powerlessness, which yet she could not at
all read. Mrs. Carpenter read it well.
She knew of a surety that her days were numbered; and not only so, but
that the number of them was running out. Many cares she had not, in view
of this fact; but one importunate, overwhelming, intolerable, were it not
that the mother's faith was fixed where faith is never disappointed. Even
so, she was human; and the question, what would be the fate of her little
daughter when she herself was gone, pressed hard and pressed constantly,
and found no solution. So the two were sitting, in each other's arms,
mute and thoughtful, when Mr. Digby came in.
Rotha did not stir, and he came up to them, bent down by the side of the
chair and took Mrs. Carpenter's hand. If he put the usual question, Mrs.
Carpenter did not answer it; her eyes met his silently. There was a power
of grateful love and also of grave foreboding in her quiet face; one of
those looks which from an habitually self-contained spirit come with so
much power on any one capable of understanding them. The young man's eyes
fell from her to Rotha; the two faces were very near each other; and for
the first time Rotha's defiance gave place to a little bit of liking. She
had not seen her mother's look; but she had watched Mr. Digby's eyes as
they answered it, in their ear nest, intent expression, and then as the
eyes came to her she felt the warm ray of kindness and sympathy which
beamed from them. A moment it was, but Rotha was Mr. Digby's opponent no
more from that time.
"You seem to be having a pleasant rest," he remarked in his usual calm
way. "I hope you have got all your work done for me?"
"I never do rest till my work is done," said the girl.
"That is a very good plan. Will you prove the fact on the present
occasion?"
Rotha unwillingly left her place.
"Mr. Digby, what sort of a chair is this?"
"A spring chair."
"It is a very good thing."
"I am glad it meets your approbation."
"It meets mother's too. Do you see how she rests in it?"
"Does she rest?" asked the young man, rather of Mrs. Carpenter than of
her daughter.
"All the body can," she answered with a faint smile.
"'Underneath are the everlasting arms'--" he said.
But that word caused a sudden gush of tears on the sick woman's part; she
hid her face; and Mr. Digby called off Rotha at once to her recitations.
He kept her very busy at them for some time; Latin and arithmetic and
grammar came under review; and then he proceeded to put a pen in her hand
and give her a dictation lesson; criticised her handwriting, set her a
copy, and fully engrossed Rotha's eyes and mind.
CHAPTER VI.
A LEGACY.
"Mother," said Rotha, when their visiter was again gone and her copy was
done and she had returned to her mother's side, "I never knew before to-
day that Mr. Digby has handsome eyes."
"How did you find it out to-day?"
"I had a good look at them, and they looked at me so."
"How?"
"I don't know--as if they meant a good deal, and good. Don't you think he
has handsome eyes, mother?"
"I always knew that. He is a very fine-looking man altogether."
"Is he? I suppose he is. Only he likes to have his own way."
"I wonder if somebody else doesn't, that I know?"
"That's the very thing, mother. If I didn't, I suppose I shouldn't care.
But when Mr. Digby says anything, he always looks as if he expected it to
be just so, and everybody to mind him."
Mrs. Carpenter could not help laughing, albeit she was by no means in a
laughing mood. Her laugh was followed by a sigh.
"What makes you draw a long breath, mother?"
"I wish you could govern that temper of yours, my child."
"Why, mother? Haven't I as good a right to my own way as Mr. Digby, or
anybody?"
"Few people can have their own way in the world; and a woman least of
all."
"Why?"
"She generally has to mind the will of somebody else."
"But that isn't fair."
"It is the way things are."
"Mother, it may be the way with some people; but _I_ have got nobody to
mind?"
"Your mother?--"
"O yes; but that isn't it. You are a woman. There is no man I must mind."
"If you ever grow up and marry somebody, there will be."
"I would _never_ marry anybody I had to mind!" said the girl
energetically.
"You are the very person that would do it," said the mother; putting her
hand fondly upon Rotha's cheek. "My little daughter!--If only I knew that
you were willing to obey the Lord Jesus Christ, I could be easy about
you."
"And aren't, you easy about me?"
"No," said the mother sadly.
"Would you be easy if I was a Christian?"
Mrs. Carpenter nodded. There was a pause.
"I would like to be a Christian, mother, if it would make you feel easy;
but--somehow--I don't want to."
"I know that."
"How do you know that?"
"Because you hold off. If you were once willing, the thing would be
done."
There was silence again; till Rotha suddenly broke it by asking,
"Mother, can I help my will?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why! If I don't want to be a Christian, can I make myself want to?"
"That seems to me a foolish question," said her mother. "Suppose you do
not want to do something I tell you to do; need that hinder your
obeying?"
"But this is different."
"I do not see how it is different."
"What is being a Christian, then?"
"You know, Rotha."
"But tell me, mother. I don't know if I know."
"You ought to know. A Christian is one who loves and serves the Lord
Jesus."
"And then he can't do what he has a mind to," said Rotha.
"Yes, he can; unless it is something wrong."
"Well, he can't do _what he has a mind to;_ he must always be asking."
"That is not hard, if one loves the Lord."
"But I don't love him, mother."
"No," said Mrs. Carpenter sadly.
"Can I make myself love him?"
"No; but that is foolish talk."
"I don't see why it is foolish, I am sure. I wish I did love him, if it
would make you feel better."
"I should not have a care left!" said Mrs. Carpenter, with a sort of
breath of longing.
"Why not, mother?"
"Get the Bible and read the 121st psalm,--slowly."
Rotha obeyed.
"'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My
help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth'"--
"There! if you were one of the Lord's dear children, you would say that;
that would be true of you. Now go on, and see what the Lord says to it;
see what would follow."
Rotha went on.
"'He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; he that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor
sleep.'--_Israel_, mother."
"The true Israel are the Lord's true children, of any nation."
"Are they? Well--'The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy
right hand; the sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time
forth, and even for evermore. Praise ye the Lord.'"
"Would anybody be well kept that was kept so?" Mrs. Carpenter broke
forth, with the tears running down her face. "O my little Rotha! my
little daughter! if I knew you in that care, how blessed I should be!"
The tears streamed, and Mrs. Carpenter in vain tried to wipe them dry.
Rotha looked on, troubled, and a little conscience-stricken.
"Mother," she began, "don't he take care of anybody except Christians?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Carpenter; "he takes care of the children of Christians;
and so I have faith that he will take care of you; but it is not just so.
If you will not come to him now, he may take painful ways to bring you;
if you will not trust him now, he may cut away everything else you trust
to, till you flee to him for help. But I wish you would take the easier
way."
"But can I help my will?" said Rotha again, holding fast to that tough
argument. "What can I do?"
"I cannot tell. You had better ask Mr. Digby. I am not able for any more
questions just now."
"Mother. I'll bring you your milk," said Rotha, rather glad of a
diversion. "Mother, do you think Mr. Digby can answer all sorts of
questions?"
"Better than I can."
She brought her mother the glass of milk and the biscuit and sat watching
her while she took them. She noticed the thin hands, the exhausted look,
the weary attitude, the pale face. What state of things was this? Her
mother eating biscuit and oysters got with another person's money; doing
no work, or next to none; living in lodgings, but apparently without the
prospect of earning the means to pay her rent; too feeble to do much but
rest in that spring chair.
"Mother," Rotha began, with a lurking, unrecognized feeling of anxiety--
"I wish you would make haste and get well!"
Mrs. Carpenter was eating biscuit, and made no reply.
"Don't you think you _are_ a little better?"
"Not exactly to-day."
"What _would_ do you good?"
"Nothing that you could give me, darling. I am very comfortable. I wonder
to see myself so supplied with everything I can possibly want. Look at
this chair! It is almost better than all the rest."
"That and the fire."
"Yes; the blessed fire! It is so good!"
"But I wish you'd get well, mother!" Rotha said with a half sigh.
Mrs. Carpenter made no answer.
"I don't see how we are going to do, if you don't get well soon," Rotha
went on with a kind of impatient uneasiness. "What shall we do for money,
mother? there's the rent and everything."
"You forget what you have just been reading, my child. Do you think the
words mean nothing?--'The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon
thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by
night.'"
"But that don't pay rent," said Rotha.
"You think the Lord can do great things, and cannot do little things. I
can trust him for all."
"Then why cannot you trust him for me?"
"I do."
"Then why are you troubled?"
"Because here your self-will comes in; and you may have to go through
hard times before it is broken."
"Broken? My self-will broken?"
"Yes."
"I do not want to be a creature without a will. I do not like such
creatures."
"You must talk to Mr. Digby, Rotha. I am too tired."
"I won't tire you any more, mother dear! But I don't see why I should
talk to Mr. Digby."
And for a few moments Rotha was silent. Then she broke out again.
"Mother, don't you think if you could get back to Medwayville you would
be well again?"
"I shall never go back to Medwayville," the sick woman said faintly.
"But if you could get into the country somewhere? out of this horrid dust
and these mean little streets. O mother, think of the great fields of
grass, and the trees, and the flowers!"
"Darling, I am very well here. Suppose you take the poker and punch that
lump of coal, so that it may blaze up a little."
Rotha punched the lump of coal, and sat watching the brilliant jets of
flame that leapt from it, sending a gentle illumination all through the
room; revolving in her mind whether it might be possible by and by to get
her mother among the sights and sounds of the country again.
As the spring advanced however, though the desirableness of such a move
might be more apparent, the difficulty of it as evidently increased. The
close, stifling air of the city, when the warm days came, was hard to
bear for the sick woman, and hard in two ways for Rotha. But Mrs.
Carpenter's strength failed more and more. There was no question now of
her sewing; she did not attempt it. She sat all day in her spring easy
chair, by the window or before the fire as the day happened to be, now
and then turning over the leaves of her Bible which always lay open
before her. And now Mr. Digby when he came would often take the book and
read to her; and even talks of some length would grow up out of the
reading; talks that seemed delightful to both the parties concerned,
though Rotha could not understand much of it. Little by little the room
had entirely changed its character, and no longer seemed to be a part of
Mrs. Marble's domain. A fluffy rug lay under Mrs. Carpenter's feet; a
pretty lamp stood on the table; a screen of Japanese manufacture,
endlessly interesting to Rotha, stood between the weary eyes and the
fire, when there was a fire; and Mrs. Carpenter herself was enveloped in
a warm, soft fleecy shawl. As the warm weather came on indeed, this had
to give place to something lighter. Then Mr. Digby brought fruit; early
fruit, and foreign fruit; then a little India tea caddy of very nice tea
stood on the table; tea such as in all her life Mrs. Carpenter had never
drunk till now. She had long ceased to make any objection to whatever Mr.
Digby pleased to do; taking it all as simply and as graciously as a
child. Much more than her own child. However, Rotha was mollified towards
their benefactor from that day above mentioned; and if she looked on
wonderingly, and even a little jealously, at his unresisted assuming of
the direction of their affairs, she no more openly rebelled.
Mr. Digby, it may be remarked, kept her so persistently busy, that she
had small time to disturb herself with any sort of speculations. Lessons
were lively. History was added to Latin and arithmetic; Rotha had a good
deal to read, and troublesome sums to manage; and finally every remnant
of spare leisure was filled up by a demand for writing. Mr. Digby did not
frighten her by talking of compositions, but he desired her to prepare
now an abstract of the history of the crusades, now of the Stuart
dynasty, now of the American revolution; and now again of the rise of the
art of printing, or the use and manufacture of gunpowder.
Studying out these subjects, pondering them, writing and writing over her
sketches, Rotha was both very busy and very happy; and then the handing
over her papers to Mr. Digby, and his reading them, and his strictures
upon them, were a matter of intense interest and delight; for though
Rotha trembled with excitement she was still more thrilled with pleasure.
For she was just at the age when the mind begins to open to a rapturous
consciousness of its powers, and at the same time of the wonderful riches
of the fields open to the exercise of them. In her happy ignorance, in
her blessed inexperience, Rotha did not see what the days were doing with
her mother; and if occasionally a flash of unwelcome perception would
invade her mind, with the unbounded presumption of her young years she
shut her eyes and refused to believe in it. But all the while Mrs.
Carpenter was growing feebler and wasting to more of a shadow. Rotha
still comforted herself that she had "a nice colour in her cheeks."
It came to be the latter end of June. Windows were open; what would have
been delicious summer air came in laden with the mingled odours of street
mud and street dust, garbage, the scents of butcher stalls and grocery
shops, and far worse, the indefinable atmospheric tokens of poor living
and uncleanness. Now and then a whiff of more energy brought a reminder
not quite perverted of the places where flowers grow and cows pasture and
birds sing. It only served to make the next breath more heavy and
disappointing. Mrs. Carpenter sat by the window to get all the freshness
she could; albeit with the air came also the sounds from without; the
creak or the rattle of wheels on the pavement, the undistinguishable
words of a rough voice here and there, the shrill cry of the strawberry
seller, the confused, mixed, inarticulate din of the great city all
around. A sultry heaviness seemed to rest upon everything, disheartening
and depressing to anybody whose physical powers were not strong or his
nerves not well strung for the work and struggle of life. There was a
pump over the way; and from time to time the creak of its handle was to
be heard, and then the helpless drip and splash of the last runnings of
the water falling into the gutter, after the applicant had gone away with
his or her pail. It mocked Mrs. Carpenter's ear with the recollection of
running brooks, and of a certain cool deep well into which the bucket
used to go down from the end of a long pole and come up sparkling with
drops of the clear water.----
"Well, how do you do?" said the alert voice of Mrs. Marble by her side.
"Sort o' close, aint it?"
"Rather."
"The city aint a place for Christians to live in, when it gets to this
time; anyhow, not for Christians that aint good and strong. I'd like to
put you out to pasture somewheres."
"She won't go," said Rotha longingly.
"I am, very comfortable here," said the invalid faintly.
"Comfortable! well, I feel as if you ought to be top of a mountain
somewheres; out o' this. _I'd_ like to; but I guess I'm a fixtur. Mr.
Digby I'd find ways and means, I'll engage," she said, eyeing the sick
woman with kindly interest and concern, who however only shook her head.
"Could you eat your strawberries?" she asked presently.
"A few of them. They were very nice."
"I never see such berries. They must have been raised somewhere in
Gulliver's Brobdignay; and Gulliver don't send 'em round in these parts.
I thought, maybe you'd pay 'em the compliment to eat 'em; but when
appetite's gone, it's no use to have big strawberries. That's what I
thought a breath of hilly air somewheres would do for you."
And Mrs. Marble presently went away, shaking her head, just as Mr. Digby
came in; exchanging a look with him as she passed. Mr. Digby came up to
the window, and greeted Mrs. Carpenter with the gentle affectionate
reverence he always shewed her.
"No stronger to-day?" said he.
"She won't go into the country, Mr. Digby," said Rotha.
"You may go and get a walk at least, my child," Mrs. Carpenter said. "Ask
Mrs. Cord to be so kind as to take you. Now while Mr. Digby is here, I
shall not be alone. Can you stay half an hour?" she asked him suddenly.
He gave ready assent; and Rotha, weary of her cooped-up life, eagerly
sought Mrs. Cord and went off for her walk. Mrs. Carpenter and Mr. Digby
were left alone.
"I am _not_ stronger," the former began as the house door closed. "I am
losing strength, I think, every day. I wanted to speak to you; and it had
better be done at once."
She paused, and he waited. The trickle of the water from the pump came to
her ear again, stirring memories oddly.
"You asked me the other day, whether I had no friends in the city. I told
you I had not. I told you the truth, but not the whole truth. Before
Rotha I could not say all I wished. I have a sister living in New York."
"A sister!" Mr. Digby echoed the word in great surprise. "She knows of
your being here?"
"She does not."
"Surely she ought to know."
"No, I think not. I told you the truth the other day. I have not a
friend, here or elsewhere. Not what you call a friend. Only you."
"But your _sister?_ How is that possible?"
Mrs. Carpenter sighed. "I had better tell you all about it, and then you
will know how to understand me. Perhaps. I can hardly understand it
myself."
There was a pause again. The sick woman was evidently looking back in
thought over days and years and the visions of what had been in them. Her
gentle, quiet eyes had grown intent, and over her brows there was a fold
in her forehead that Mr. Digby had never seen there before. But there was
no trembling of the mouth. That was steady and grave and firm.
"There were two of us," she said at last. "My father had but us two, how
long it is ago!--"
She was silent again with her thoughts, and Mr. Digby again waited. It
was a patient face he was looking at; a gentle face; not a face that
spoke of any experience that could be called bitter, yet the patient
lines told of something endured or something resigned; it might be both.
The last two years of experience, with a sister in the same city, must
needs furnish occasion. But Mrs. Carpenter's brow was quiet, except for
that one fold in it. Yet she seemed to have forgotten what she had meant
to say, and only after a while pulled herself up, as it were, and began
again.
"It is not so long as it seems, I suppose, for I am not very old; but it
seems long. We two were girls together at home, and my father was living;
and I knew nothing about the world."
"Was that here? in New York?" Mr. Digby asked, by way of helping her on.
"O no. I knew nothing about New York. I had never been here. No; our home
was not far from Tanfield; up in this state, near the Connecticut border.
We lived a little out of the town, and had a nice place. My father was
very well off indeed. I wanted for nothing in those days." She sighed.
"The world is a strange place, Mr. Digby! I cannot comprehend, even now,
how things should have gone as they did. We lived as happy as anybody;
until a gentleman, a young lawyer of New York, began to make visits at
our house. He paid particular attention to me at first; but it was of no
use; I had learned to know Mr. Carpenter, and nobody else could be
anything to me. He was a thriving lawyer; a rising young man, people
said; and my father would have had me marry him; but I could not. So then
he courted my sister. O the splash of that water from the pump over
there! it keeps me thinking to-day of the well behind our house--where it
stood on a smooth green plat of grass--and of the trickle of the water
from the buckets as they were drawn up. Just because the day is so warm,
I think of those buckets of well water. The well was sixty feet deep, and
the water was clear and cold and beautiful--I never saw such water
anywhere else; and when the bucket came slowly up, with the moss on its
sides glittering with the wet, there was refreshment in the very look of
it. Tanfield seems to me a hundred thousand miles away from Jane Street;
and those times about a thousand years ago. I wonder, how will all our
life seem when we look back upon it from the other side?"
"Very much as objects seen under a microscope, I fancy."
"Do you? Why?"
"In the clear understanding of details, and in the new perception of the
relative bearing and importance of parts."
"Yes, I suppose so. Things are very mixed and confused as we see them
here. Take what I am telling you, for instance; it is incredible, only
that it is true."
"You have not told me much yet," said her friend gently.
"No. The gentleman I spoke of, the lawyer, he married my sister. And
then, when I would have married Mr. Carpenter, my sister set herself
against it, and she talked over my father into her views, and they both
opposed it all they could."
"Did they give any reasons for their opposition?"
"O yes. Mr. Carpenter was only a farmer, they said; not my equal, and not
very well off. I am sure in all real qualities he was much my superior;
but just in the matter of society it was more or less true. He did not
mix in society much, and did not care for it; but he had education and
cultivation a great deal more than many that do; he had read and he had
thought, and he could talk too, and well, to one or two alone. But they
wanted me to marry a rich man. I think half the trouble in the world
comes about money."
"'The love of money is the root of all evil,' the Bible says."
"I believe it. There was nothing else to be said against Mr. Carpenter,
but that he had not money; if he had had it, nobody would have found out
that he wanted cultivation, or anything else. But he was a poor man. And
when I married him, my father cut me off from all share in the
inheritance of his property."
"It all fell to your sister?"
"Yes. All. The place, the old place, and all. She had everything."
"And kept it."
"O yes. Of course. She is a rich woman. Her husband has prospered in his
business; and they are _very_ well off now. They have only one child,
too."
Mrs. Carpenter was silent, and Mr. Digby paused a minute or two before he
spoke again.
"Still, my dear friend, do you not think your sister would shew herself
your sister, if she knew where you are and how you are? Do you not think
it would be right and kind to let her know?"
Mrs. Carpenter shook her head. "No," she said, "it would be no comfort to
me; and you are mistaken if you think it would be any satisfaction to
her. She is a rich woman. She keeps her carriage, and she has her
liveried servants, and she lives in style. She would not like to come
here to see me."
"I cannot conceive it," said Mr. Digby. "I think you must unconsciously
be doing her wrong."
"I tried her," said Mrs. Carpenter. "I will not try her again. When my
husband got into difficulties, and his health was giving way, and he was
driven a little too hard, I wrote to my sister in New York to ask her to
give us some help; knowing that she was abundantly able to do it, without
hurting herself. She sent me for answer--" Mrs. Carpenter stopped; the
words seemed to choke her; her lip quivered; and when she began to speak
again her voice was a little hoarse.
"She wrote me, that if my husband _died_, she would have no objection to
my going back to the old place, and getting along there as well as I
could; Rotha and I."
One or two sore, sorrowful tears forced their way out of the speaker's
eyes; but she said no more. And Mr. Digby did not know what further to
counsel, and was also silent. The silence lasted some little time, while
a strawberry seller was making the street ring with her cries of
"Straw....berr_ees_," and the hot air wafted in the odours from near and
far, and the water trickled from the pump nose again. At last Mrs.
Carpenter began again, with some difficulty and effort; not bodily
however, but mental.
"You have been so exceedingly kind to me, to us, Mr. Digby, I--"
"Hush," he said. "Do not speak of that. You have done far more for me
than I ever can do for you?"
"I? No. I have done nothing."
"You saved my father's life."
"Your father's life? You are under some mistake. I never knew a Mr. Digby
till I knew you I never even heard the name."
"You knew a Mr. Southwode," said he smiling.
"Southwode? Southwode! The English gentleman! But you are not his son?"
"I am his son. I am Digby-Southwode. I took my mother's name for certain
business reasons."
"And you are his son! How wonderful! That strange gentleman's son!--But I
did not do so much for your father, Mr. Southwode. You have done
_everything_ for me."
"I wish I could do more," said he shortly.
"I am ashamed to ask,--and yet, I was going to ask you to do something
more--a last service--for me. It is too much to ask."
"I am sure it is not that," he said with great gentleness. "Let me know
what you wish."
Mrs. Carpenter hesitated. "Rotha does not know,"--she said then. "She has
no idea--"
"Of what?"
"She has no idea that I am going to leave her."
"I am afraid that is true."
"And it will be soon Mr. Digby."
"Perhaps not; but what is it you wish of me?"
"Tell her--" whispered Mrs. Carpenter.
The young man might feel startled, or possibly an inevitable strong
objection to the service demanded of him. He made no answer; and Mrs.
Carpenter soon went on.
"It is wrong to ask it, and yet whom shall I ask? I would not have her
learn it from any of the people in the house; though they are kind, they
are not discreet; and Rotha would in any case come straight to me; and
I--cannot bear it. She is a passionate child; violent in her feelings
and in the expression of them. I have been thinking about it day and
night lately, and I _cannot_ get my courage up to face the first storm of
her distress. My poor child! she is not very fitted to go through the
world alone."
"What are your plans for her?"
"I am unable to form any."
"But you must tell me what steps you wish me to take in her behalf--if
there is no one whom you could better trust."
"There is no one whom I can trust at all. Except only my Father in
heaven. I trust him, or I should die before my time. I thought my heart
_would_ break, a while ago; now I have got over that. Do you know He has
said, 'Leave thy fatherless children to me'?"
Yet now the mother's tears were falling like rain.
"I will do the very best I can," said the young man at her side; "but I
wish you would give me some hints, or directions, at least."
"How can I? There lie but two things before me;--that Mrs. Cord should
bring her up and make a sempstress of her; or that Mrs. Marble should
teach her to be a mantua-maker; and I am so foolish, I cannot bear the
thought of either thing; even if they would do it, which I do not know."
"Make your mind easy. She shall be neither the one thing nor the other.
Rotha has far too good abilities for that. I will not give her to Mrs.
Cord's or Mrs. Marble's oversight. But what _would_ you wish?"
"I do not know. I must leave you to judge. You can judge much better than
I. I have no knowledge of the world, or of what is possible. Mrs. Marble
tells me there are free schools here--"
"Of course she shall go to school. I will see that she does. And I will
see that she is under some woman's care who can take proper care of her.
Do not let yourself be troubled on that score. I promise you, you need
not. I will take as good care of her as if she were a little sister of my
own."
There was silence at first, the silence of a heart too full to find
words. Mrs. Carpenter sat with her head a little bowed.
"You will lose nothing by it," she said huskily after a few minutes.
"There is a promise somewhere--"
But with that she broke down and cried.
"I don't know what you will do with her!" she said; "nor what anybody
will do with her, except her mother. She is a wayward child; passionate;
strong, and also weak, on the side of her affections. She has never
learned yet to submit her will, though for love she is capable of great
devotion. She has shewed it to me this past winter."
"Is there any other sort of devotion that is worth much?" asked the young
man.
"Duty?--"
"Surely the devotion of love is better."
"Yes--. But duty ought to be recognized for what it is."
"Nay, I think it ought to be recognized for a pleasure. Here she comes.--
Well, Rotha, was the walk pleasant?"
"No."
"Indeed? Why not?"
"How could it be, Mr. Digby? Not a bit of good air, nor anything pleasant
to see; just all hot and dirty."
"I thought you said there were some flowers in front of some of the
shops?" her mother said.
"Yes, mother; but they looked melancholy."
"Did they?" said Mr. Digby smiling. "Suppose you go with me to-morrow,
and I will take you to the Park."
"O! will you?" said Rotha with suddenly opening eyes. "Can you?"
"If Mrs. Carpenter permits."
CHAPTER VII.
MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.
The next day being again warm, Mr. Digby did not come for Rotha till the
afternoon was far advanced. They took then one of the street cars, which
would bring them to the Park entrance. The way was long and the drive
slow. It was also silent, of necessity; and both parties had leisure for
thoughts, as well as material enough.
Rotha was at first divided between the pleasure of seeing things, and a
somewhat uneasy reflection upon her own appearance. She was not in
general a self-conscious child; very much the reverse; but to-day she was
with Mr. Digby, and she had an exalted idea of the requirements of
everything even remotely connected with him. She was going in his
company; under his charge; how did she look? She was not satisfied on
that point. Mr. Digby himself was always so nice and perfect in his
dress, she said to herself; she ought to be very nice to go with him.
Truly she had put on the best she had; a white cambrick frock; it was
clean and white; but Rotha had none but her everyday brown straw hat, and
she knew _that_ was not "smart"; and her dress, she pondered it as she
went along, she was sure it was very old-fashioned indeed. Certainly it
was not made like the dresses of other girls of her own age, whom she saw
in the car or on the sidewalk. Theirs were ruffled; hers was plain; theirs
generally stood out in an imposing manner; while her own clung in slim
folds around her slim little person. She concluded that she could not be
in any degree what Mrs. Marble called "stylish." The exact meaning of
that word indeed Rotha could not define; undefinedly she felt it to be
something vastly desirable. She decided in her own mind that Mr. Digby
was stylish; which it is true proved that the young girl had a nice
feeling for things; since the fact, which was undoubted, was entirely
unaccompanied by anything in matter or manner of wearing which could take
the vulgar eye. Would he dislike going in public, she wondered, with a
little figure like herself? She hoped not, she thought not; but thought
it with a curious independence, which I am afraid was really born of
pride though it took the semblance of good sense.
Gradually the interest of other figures made Rotha forget her own. They
came out from the poor part of the city where she dwelt; streets grew
wide and shops lofty and imposing; equipages drove along, outstripping
the slow-going car; and in them, what ladies, and what gentlemen, and
what little girls now and then! This was the wonderful New York, at which
she had now and then had a peep; this was something five hundred miles
removed from Jane Street. What sort of human beings were these? and what
sort of life did they live? and did money make all the difference, or was
there some more intrinsic and essential distinction between them and
their fellows in Abingdon Square? At any rate, how very, very much better
off they were!
Mr. Digby's musings had much less to do with the surface of things. I
doubt indeed if he saw ought that was before his eyes, all the way to the
Park. Not even Rotha herself; and yet she was the main subject of his
cogitations. He was feeling that his kindness to Mrs. Carpenter had
brought him into difficulties. The very occasion for this journey to the
Park was bad enough; so disagreeable in fact that he did not like to look
at it, and hardly had looked at it until now; he was going as a man goes
into battle; and a rain of bullets, he thought, would have been easier to
face. How he should accomplish his task he had as yet no idea. But
supposing it done; and supposing all the trouble past for which he had to
prepare Rotha; what then? What was he to do with the charge he had
assumed? He, a young man without a family, with no proper home in the
country of his abode, what was he to do with the care of a girl like
Rotha? how should he manage it? If she had been a little child it would
have been a more simple affair; but fourteen years old is not at all far
removed from seventeen, and eighteen. Where should _her_ home be? and her
future sphere of life? and where was the promised womanly protection
under which he was to place her? He gave a glance at the girl. She was
good material to work upon, that was one alleviation of his task; he had
had some practical proof of it, and now, more carefully than ever before,
he looked for the outward signs and tokens in feature and expression. And
as Rotha had once declared that Mr. Digby's eyes were handsome, he now
privately returned the compliment to hers. Yes, this child, who had an
awkward appearance as to her figure--he did not know then that the effect
was due to her dress--she had undoubtedly fine eyes. Poor complexion, he
said to himself after a second glance, but good eyes. And not merely in
shape and hue; they were full of speculation, full of thought, full of
the possibilities of passion and feeling. There was character in them;
and so there was in the well formed, well closed mouth. _There_ was
refinement too; the lines were not those of an uncultured, low-
conditioned nature; they were fine and beautiful. It had never occurred
to Mr. Digby before to think how Rotha promised to be in the matter of
looks; although he had many a time caught the gleam of intelligent fire
in the course of her recitations and his lesson giving, and once or twice
had seen that passion of one kind or another was at work. He read now
very plainly that his charge, to go back to the old philosophy of human
nature which reckoned man to be composed of the four elements, had a
great deal of the fire and the air in her composition, with little of the
heaviness of the earth, and as little as possible of the lymphatic
quality. It made his task the more interesting, and in so far lightened
it; but it made it at the same time vastly more difficult. Here was a
sensitive, quick, passionate, independent nature to deal with; how ever
should he deal with it? And how ever was he to execute his purpose to-
day? the purpose with which he had brought her, poor child, to this walk
in the Park. Was it not rather cruel, to begin a time of great pain with
a taste of exquisite pleasure? Mr. Digby hardly knew what he would do,
when he left the car with his charge and entered the Park.
They went in at the great Fifth Avenue entrance; and for a few minutes he
was engaged in piloting himself and her through the crowd of coming and
going carriages; but when they reached quiet going and a secure footpath,
he looked at her. It smote him. Such an expression of awakened delight
was in her face; such keen curiosity, such simplicity and fulness of
enjoyment. Rotha was at a self-conscious age, but she had forgotten
herself; two years old is not more free from self-recollection. They
walked along slowly, the girl reviewing everything in the lively show
before her; lips parting sometimes for a smile, but with no leisure for a
word. Her companion watched her. They walked on and on; turned now hither
and now thither; Rotha remained in a maze, only mechanically following
where she was led.
It was a fine afternoon, and all the world was out. Carriages, riders,
foot travellers; everywhere crowds of people. Where was Mr. Digby going
to make the communication he had come here to make? He doubted about it
now, but if he spoke, where should it be? Not in this crowd, where any
minute some acquaintance might see him and speak to him. With some
trouble he sought out a resting place for Rotha from whence she could
have a good view of one angle of a much travelled drive, and at the same
time both of them were in a sort hid away from observation. Here they sat
down; but if Rotha's feet might rest, her companion's mind was further
and further from any such point of comfort. They had exchanged hardly any
words since they set out; and now the difficulty of beginning what he had
to say seemed greater than ever. There was a long silence. Rotha broke
it; she did not know that it had been long.
"Mr. Digby--there are a great many things I do not understand."
"My case too, Rotha."
"Yes, but you understand a great many things that I don't."
"What is troubling you now, with a sense of ignorance?"
"I see in a great many carriages two gentlemen dressed just alike,
sitting together; they are on the back seat always, and they always have
their arms folded, just alike; what are they?"
"Not gentlemen, Rotha; they are footmen, or grooms."
"What's the difference?"
"Between footmen and grooms?"
"No, no; between a gentleman and a man that isn't a gentleman?"
"You asked me that once before, didn't you?"
"Yes; but I don't make it out."
"Why do you try?"
"Why Mr. Digby, I like to understand things."
"Quite right, too, Rotha. Well--the difference is more in the feelings
and manners than in anything else."
"Not in the dress?"
"Certainly not. Though it is not like a gentleman to be improperly
dressed."
"What is 'improperly dressed.'"
"Not nice and neat."
"Nice and neat--_clean_ and neat, you mean?"
"Yes."
"Then a gentleman may have poor clothes on?"
"Of course."
"Can anybody be _poor_ and be a gentleman?"
"Not _anybody_, but a gentleman may be poor, certainly, without ceasing
to be a gentleman."
"But if he was poor to begin with--could he be a gentleman then?"
"Yes, Rotha," said her friend smiling at her; "money has nothing to do
with the matter. Except only, that without money it is difficult for a
boy to be trained in the habits and education of a gentleman."
"Education?" said Rotha.
"Yes."
"You said, 'feeling and manners.'"
"Well, yes. But you can see for yourself, that without education it would
be hardly possible that manners should be exactly what they ought to be.
A gentleman should give to everybody just that sort of attention and
respect which is due; just the right words and the right tone and the
fitting manner; how can he, if he does not understand his own position in
the world and that of other people? and why the one and the other are
what they are."
"Then I don't see how poor people can be ladies and gentlemen," said
Rotha discontentedly.
"Being poor has nothing to do with it, except so far."
"But that's far enough, Mr. Digby."
He heard the disappointed ambition in the tone of the girl's words.
"Rotha," he said kindly, "whoever will follow the Bible rules of good
manners, will be sure to be right, as far as that goes."
"Can one follow them without being a Christian?"
"Well no, hardly. You see, the very root of them is love to one's
neighbour; and one cannot have that, truly and universally, without
loving Christ first."
"Then are all gentlemen Christians?"
The young man laughed a little at her pertinacity.
"What are you so much concerned about it, Rotha?"
"I was just thinking."--
And apparently she had a good deal of thinking to do; for she was quite
silent for some time. And Mr. Digby on his part went back to his problem,
how was he to tell Rotha what he had promised to tell her? From their
somewhat elevated and withdrawn position, the moving scene before them
was most bright and gay. An endless procession of equipages--beautiful
carriages, stately horses, pompous attendants, luxurious pleasure-takers;
one after another, and twos and threes following each other, a continuous
stream; carriages of all sorts, landaus, Victorias, clarences, phaetons,
barouches, close coaches, dog carts, carryalls, gigs, buggies. Now and
then a country affair, with occupants to match; now a plain wagon with a
family of children having a good time; now an old gentleman and his wife
taking a sober airing; then a couple of ladies half lost in the depths of
their cushions, and not having at all a good time, to judge by their
looks; and then a young man with nobody but himself and a pair of fast
trotting horses, which had, and needed, all his attention; and then a
whirl of the general thing, fine carriages, fine ladies, fine gentlemen,
fine servants and fine horses; in all varieties of combination. It was
very pretty; it was very gay; the young foliage of early summer was not
yet discouraged and dulled by the heat and the dust; the air was almost
country sweet, and flowers were brilliant in one of the plantations
within sight. How the world went by!--
Mr. Digby had half forgotten it and everything else, in his musings, when
he was aroused, and well nigh startled, by a question from Rotha.
"Mr. Digby--can I help my will?"
He looked down at her. "What do you mean, Rotha?"
"I mean, can I help my will? I asked mother one day, and she said I had
better ask you."
Rotha's eyes came up to his face with their query; and whatever it might
import, he saw that she was in earnest. Grave and intent the girl's fine
dark eyes were, and came up to his eyes with a kind of power of search.
"I do not think I understand you."
"Yes, you do. If I do not like something--do not want to be something--
can I help my will?"
"What do you not want to be?" said Mr. Digby, waiving this severe
question in mental philosophy.
"Must I tell you?"
"Not if you don't like; but I think it might help me to get at your
difficulty, and so to get at the answer you want."
"Mr. Digby, can a person want to do something, and yet not be willing?"
"Yes," said he, in growing surprise.
"Then, can he _help_ not being willing?"
"What is the case in hand, Rotha? I am wholly in the dark. I do not know
what you would be at."
To come nearer to the point was not Rotha's wish and had not been her
purpose; she hesitated. However, the subject was one which exercised her,
and the opportunity of discussing her difficulty with Mr. Digby was very
tempting. She hesitated, but she could not let the chance go.
"Mother wishes I would be a Christian," she said low and slowly. "And I
wish I could, to please her; but I do not want to. Can I help my will?
and I am not willing."
There was a mixture of defiance and desire in this speech which instantly
roused the somewhat careless attention of the young man beside her.
Anything that touched the decision of any mortal in the great question of
everlasting life, awoke his sympathies always to fullest exercise. It was
not his way, however, to shew what he felt; and he answered her with the
same deliberate calm as hitherto. Nobody would have guessed the quickened
pulses with which he spoke.
"Why do you not want to be a Christian, Rotha?"
"I do not know," she answered slowly. "I suppose, I want to be free."
"Go on a little bit, and tell me what you mean by being 'free.'"
"Why--I mean, I suppose,--I _know_ I mean, that I want to do what I like."
"You are taking the wrong way for that."
"Why, I could not do what I liked if I was a Christian, Mr. Digby?"
"A Christian, on the contrary, is the only person in this world, so far
as I know, who can do what he likes."
"Why, do you?" said Rotha, looking at him.
"Yes," said he smiling. "Always."
"But I thought--"
"You thought a Christian was a sort of a slave."
"Yes. Or a servant. A servant he is; and a servant is not free. He has
laws to mind."
"And you think, by refusing the service you get rid of the laws? That's a
mistake. The laws are over you and binding on you, just the same, whether
you accept them or not; and you have got to meet the consequences of not
obeying them. Did you never think of that?"
"But it is different if I _promised_ to obey them," said Rotha.
"How different?"
"If I promised, I must do it."
"If you do not promise you must take the consequences of not doing it.
You cannot get from under the law."
"But how can you do whatever you like, Mr. Digby?"
"There comes in your other mistake," said he. "I can, because I am free.
It is you who are the slave."
"I? How, Mr. Digby?"
"You said just now, you wished you could be a Christian, but you could
not. Are you free to do what you wish?"
"But can I help my will?"
The gentleman took out of his pocket a slim little New Testament which
always went about with him, and put it into Rotha's hands open at a
certain place, bidding her read.
"'Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in
my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free.'"
Rotha stopped and looked up at her companion.
"Go on," he bade her; and she read further.
"'They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to
any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
"'Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever
committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the
house forever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make
you free, ye shall be free indeed.'"
Rotha looked at the words, after she had done reading.
"Mr. Digby," she said then again, "can I help my will?"
"No," said he, "for you are a poor bond-slave. But see what is written
there. What you cannot do, Christ can."
"Why don't he do it, then?" she said defiantly.
"You have not asked him, or wished him to do it."
"But why shouldn't he do it without my asking, or wishing, if he can?"
"It is not his way. He says, 'Ask, and ye shall receive'; but he promises
nothing to those who do not apply to him. And the application must be in
good earnest too, Rotha; not the form of the thing, but the truth.
'Blessed are they that _hunger and thirst_ after righteousness; for they
shall be filled.'"
"Then, if I asked him, could he change my will?"
"He says, he can make you free. It was one thing he came to do; to
deliver people from the bondage of sin and the power of Satan."
"The power of Satan!" said Rotha. "I am not under _his_ power!"
"Certainly you are. There are only two parties in the world; two
kingdoms; those who do not belong to the one, belong to the other."
"But Mr. Digby," said Rotha, now much exercised, "I hate the devil as
much as you do."
"Don't help, Rotha. 'From the power of Satan to God,' is the turn people
take when they become Christians."
"What makes you think I am under his power?"
"Because I see you are not under the rule of Christ. And because I see
you are doing precisely what Satan would have you do."
"What?" said Rotha.
"Refusing the Lord Jesus Christ, or putting off accepting him."
Rotha was silent. Her breast was heaving, her breath coming thick and
short. Mr. Digby's conclusions were very disagreeable to her; but what
could she say?
"I can't help my will," she said doggedly.
"You see you are not honest with yourself. You have just learned that
there is a remedy for that difficulty."
"But Mr. Digby," said Rotha, "how is it that you can do what you like?"
He smiled down at her, a pleasant, frank smile, which witnessed to the
truth of his words and wrought more with Rotha than the words themselves;
while the eyes that she admired rested on her with grave penetration.
"There is an old promise the Lord gave his people a great while ago; that
in the new covenant which he would make with them in Christ, he would
write all his laws in their hearts. He has done that for me."
"You mean--" said Rotha.
"Yes, go on, and say what you think I mean."
"You mean,--that what you like to do, is just what God likes you to do."
"And never anything else, Rotha," he said gravely.
"Well, Mr. Digby," said Rotha slowly, "after all, you have given up
yourself."
"And very glad to be rid of that personage."
"But I don't want to give up myself."
"I see."
And there followed a long silence. Mr. Digby did not wish to add anything
to his words, and Rotha could not to hers; and they both sat in
meditation, until the girl's lighter humour got away from the troublesome
subject altogether. Watching her, Mr. Digby saw the pleased play of
feature which testified to her being again absorbed in the scene before
her; her eye was alive, her lip moved with a coming and going smile.
"It amuses you, does it not?" he said.
"O yes!" Rotha exclaimed with a long breath. "I wish mother could see
it."
"She can," said Mr. Digby. "We will have a carriage and take her out. I
don't know why I never thought, of it before."
"A carriage? For mother? And bring her here?" said Rotha breathless.
"Yes, to-morrow, if the day is good. It will refresh her. And meanwhile,
Rotha, I am afraid we must leave this scene of enchantment."
Rotha had changed colour with excitement and delight; now she rose up
with another deep sigh.
"There are more people than ever," she remarked; "more carriages. Mr.
Digby, I should think they would be perfectly happy?"
"What makes you think they are not?" said he amused.
"They don't look so."
"They are accustomed to it. They come every day or two."
"Does that make it less pleasant?"
"It takes off the novelty, you know. Most pleasures are less pleasant
when the novelty is gone."
"Why?"
Mr. Digby smiled again. "You never found it so?" he said.
"No. I remember when we were at Medwayville, everything I liked to do, I
liked it more the more I did it."
"You are of a happy temperament. What did you use to like to do there?"
"O a load of things!" said Rotha sighing. "I liked our old dog, and my
kittens; and riding about; and I liked very much going to the hay field
and getting into the cart with father and riding home. And then--"
But Rotha's words stopped suddenly, and her companion looking down at her
saw that her eyes were brimming full of tears, and her face flushed with
the emotion which almost mastered her. A little kind pressure of the hand
he held was all the answer he made; and then they made their way through
the crowd and got into the cars to go home.
He had not discharged his commission; how could he? Things had taken a
turn which made it almost impossible. It must be done another day. Poor
child! The young man's mind was filled with sympathy and compassion, as
he looked at Rotha sitting beside him and noted how her aspect had
changed and brightened; just with this afternoon's pleasure and the new
thoughts and mental stir and hope to which it had given rise. Poor child!
what lay before her, that she dreamed not of, yet must face and meet
inevitably. That in the near future; and beyond--what? No friend but
himself in all the world; and how was he to take care of her? The young
man felt a little pity for himself by the way. Truly, a girl of this
sort, brimfull of mental capacity and emotional sensitiveness, was a
troublesome legacy for a young man situated as he was. However, his own
trouble got not much regard on the present occasion; for his heart was
burdened with the sorrow and the tribulation coming upon these two, the
mother and daughter. And these were but two, in a world full of the like
and of far worse. He remembered how once, in the sight of the tears and
sorrowing hearts around him and in view of the great flood of human
miseries of which they were but instances and reminders, "Jesus wept;"
and the heart of his servant melted in like compassion. But he shewed
none of it, when he came with Rotha into her mother's presence again; he
was calm and composed as always.
"Mrs. Carpenter," he said, as he found himself for a moment alone with
her, Rotha having run off to change her dress,--"you did not tell me your
sister's name. I think I ought to know it."
"Her name?" said Mrs. Carpenter starting and hesitating. What did he want
to know her sister's name for? But Mr. Digby did not look as if he cared
about knowing it; he had asked the question indifferently, and his face
of careless calm reassured her. She answered him at last.
"Her name is Busby."
It was characteristic of Mr. Digby that his features revealed no
quickening of interest at this; for he was acquainted with a Mrs. Busby,
who was also the wife of a lawyer in the city. But he shewed neither
surprise nor curiosity; he merely said in the same unconcerned manner and
tone,
"There may be more Mrs. Busby's than one. What is her husband's name?"
"I forget--It begins with 'A.' I know; but I can't think of it. I can
think of nothing but the name of that old New York baker they used to
speak of--Arcularius."
"Will Archibald do?"
"That is it!"
Mr. Digby could hardly believe his ears. Mrs. Archibald Busby was very
well known to him, and he was a welcome and tolerably frequent visiter at
her house. Was it possible? he thought; was it possible? Could that woman
be the sister of this? and such a sister? Nothing in her or in her house
that he had seen, looked like it. He made neither remark nor suggestion
however, but took quiet leave, after his wont, and went away; after
arranging that a carriage should come the next day to take Mrs. Carpenter
to the Park.
CHAPTER VIII.
STATEN ISLAND.
Mr. Digby had a great many thoughts during the next few days; some of
which almost went to make Mrs. Carpenter in the wrong. The Mrs. Busby he
knew was so very unexceptionable a lady; how could she be the black sheep
of the story he had heard? Mrs. Carpenter might labour under a mistake,
might she not? Yet facts are said to be stubborn things, and some facts
were hard for the truth of the story. Mr. Digby was puzzled. He would
perhaps have gone promptly to Mrs. Busby's home, to make observations
with a keenness he had never thought worth while when there; but Mrs.
Busby and all her family were out of town, spending the hot months at a
watering place, or at several watering places. Meanwhile Mr. Digby had
his unfulfilled commission to attend to.
Mrs. Carpenter went driving to the Park now every pleasant day; to the
great admiration of Mrs. Marble, the wonderful refreshment of the sick
woman herself, and the extravagant delight and pride of Rotha. She said
she was sure her mother would get well now. But her mother's eye, as she
said it, went to Mr. Digby's, with a warning admonition that he must
neither be deceived nor lose time. He understood.
"I am going down to Staten Island to-morrow," he remarked. "Would you
like to go with me, Rotha?"
"Staten Island?" she repeated.
"Yes. It is about an hour's sail from New York, or nearly; across the
bay. You can become acquainted with the famous bay of New York."
"Is it famous?"
"For its beauty."
"Oh I should like to go very much, Mr. Digby, if it was as ugly as it
could be!"
"Then when your mother comes from the Park in the morning, we will go."
Rotha was full of delight. But her mother, she thought, was very sober
during that morning's drive; she tried in vain to brighten her up. Again
and again Mrs. Carpenter's eyes rested on her with a lingering, tender
sorrowfulness, which was not their wont.
"Mother, is anything the matter?" she asked at length.
"I am thinking of you, my child."
"Then don't think of me! What about me?"
"I am grieved that a shadow should ever come over your gay spirits. Yet I
am foolish."
"What makes you think of shadows? I am going to be always as gay as I am
to-day."
"That is impossible."
"Why?"
"It is not the way of this world."
"Does trouble come to everybody?"
"Yes. At some time."
"Well, mother dear, you can just wait till it comes. There is no shadow
over me now, at any rate. If you were only well, I should be happy
enough."
"I shall never be well, my child."
"O you say that just because a shadow has come over you. I wish I knew
where it comes from; I would scare it away. Mother, mother, look, look!--
see that little carriage with the little horses, and the children
driving! Oh--!"
Rotha's expression of intense admiration is not to be given on paper.
"Shetland ponies, those are," said her mother.
"What are Shetland ponies?"
"Ponies that come from Shetland."
"And do they never grow any bigger?"
"No."
"How jolly!"
"Rotha, that is a boy's word, I think."
"If it is good for a boy, why isn't it good for me?"
"I do not know that it is good for a boy. But a lady is bound to be more
pa
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