The Letter of Credit

"Mr. Busby – " cried the voice of his wife, a little uplifted, "don't come in here – I am engaged."

"Very well, my dear," came answer in a husky, rough voice, and the step passed on.

"The first thing is a school dress," Mrs. Busby proceeded. "Antoinette, fetch that purple poplin of yours, that you wore last winter, and let us see if that would not do, for a while at least, till something can be made."

Nothing that fits her can fit me, thought Rotha; but with some self- command she kept her thoughts to herself. Antoinette brought the dress in question and held it up, chuckling.

"It's about six inches too short, I should say, and wouldn't meet round the waist by three at least."

"Try it on, Rotha."

Very unwillingly Rotha did as she was told. Mrs. Busby pulled and twitched and stroked the dress here and there.

"It is a little too short. Could be let out."

"Then the marks of the gathers would shew, mamma."

"That could be hidden by a basque."

"There isn't much stuff left to make a basque. Miss Hubbell cut it all up for the trimming."

"It could be made to do for a few days. I am anxious that Rotha should lose no time in beginning school. See, it is November now."

All this was extremely distasteful to the subject of it. She knew right well that her cousin's dress could never be made to look as if it belonged to her, unless it were wholly taken to pieces and put together again; neither was the stuff of the dress very clean, and the trimmings had the forlorn, jaded look of a thing which has been worn to death. The notion of appearing in it revolted her unbearably.

"Aunt Serena," she said, "I would just as lief wear my old dress, if you don't mind. It would do as well as this, and be no trouble."

"Well – " said Mrs. Busby; "it would take some time, certainly, to fit Antoinette's to you; perhaps that is the best way; and it is only for a day or two; it wouldn't matter much. Well, then you may take these things away, Rotha, and put them by."

"Where?" said Rotha. "In my trunk?"

"Yes, for the present That will do."

Rotha carried her muslins up stairs again, and had some ado not to sit down and cry. But she would not, and fought the weakness successfully down, appearing before her aunt again in a few minutes with an imperturbable exterior. Which she was able to maintain about ten minutes.

Antoinette was dressing for dinner; dressing in front of her mother's fire; making herself rather striking in a blue silk, over which her long curling fair hair tumbled as over a pretty foil. Mrs. Busby also was putting herself in order. Rotha looked on. Presently the dinner bell rang.

"I'll send you up your dinner, Rotha," Mrs. Busby said, turning to her niece. "Till we get some gowns made for you, you must keep in hiding. I'll send it up to you here, hot and nice."

Rotha said not one word, but two flames shot into her cheeks, and from her dark eyes flared two such lightnings, that Mrs. Busby absolutely shrank back, and did not meet those eyes again while she remained in the room. But in that one moment aunt and niece had taken their position towards each other, and what is more, recognized it.

"I shall have my hands full with that girl," Mrs. Busby muttered as she went down stairs. "Did you see how she looked at me?"

"I didn't know she could look so," replied Antoinette. "Isn't she a regular spitfire?"

"I shall know how to manage her," Mrs. Busby said, with her mouth set.

"She is not at all like her mother."

Rotha, left in the dressing room, sat down and laid her head on her arms on the table. Wrath and indignation were boiling within her. The girl dimly felt more than her reason could as yet grasp; somewhat sinister which ran through all her aunt's manner towards her and had undoubtedly called forth this last regulation. What did it mean? So she could go to school in her old dress and be seen by a hundred strange eyes, but might not sit at the table with her aunt's family and take her dinner in their company! And this was the very dress in which she had gone to the Park with Mr. Digby more than once. He had not minded it. And here there was nobody that had not seen it already, except Mr. Busby.

Poor Rotha's heart, when once a passion of displeasure seized it, was like the seething pot in Ezekiel's vision. She was helpless to stay the outpour of anger and pride and grief and contempt and mortification, every one of which in turn came uppermost and took forms of utterance in her imagination. She had a firm determination to follow Mr. Digby's teaching and example; but for the present she was alone, and the luxury of passion might storm as it would. Upon this state of things came the dinner, borne by the hands of Lesbia, who was a very sable serving maid; otherwise very sharp. She set the tray on the table. Rotha lifted a white face and fiery eyes, and glared at it and at her. Gladly would she have sent it all down again; but she was hungry, and the tray steamed a pleasant savour towards her.

"Thank you," said Rotha, with the courtesy she had learned of her friend.

"Would you like anything else?" the girl asked with an observing look.

"Nothing else, thank you."

"Why aint miss down stairs with the rest?"

"I couldn't go down to-day. That will do, thank you."

Lesbia withdrew, and Rotha mustered her viands. A glass of water and a piece of bread, very nicely arranged; a plate with hot potatoes, turnips mashed, beets, and three small shrimps fried.

Rotha cleared the board, and found the fish very small. By and by came up Lesbia with a piece of apple pie. She took the effect of the empty dishes.

"Did miss have enough?"

"It will do very well, thank you," said Rotha, attacking the piece of pie, which was also small.

"Didn't you want a bit of the mutton?"

"Mutton!" exclaimed Rotha, and again an angry colour shewed itself in her cheeks.

"Roast mutton and jelly and sweet potatoes. You hadn't only fish, had ye?

Don't ye like yaller potatoes? Car'lina potatoes?"

"Yes, I like them," said Rotha indifferently.

N. B. She had eaten them but a few times in her life, and thought them a prime delicacy.

"I'll bring you some if you like, and some of the meat."

"No, thank you," said Rotha, finishing her pie and depositing that plate with the rest.

"You'll have time enough," said Lesbia sympathizingly. "They won't come up stairs; they stays down to see company."

"No, thank you," said Rotha again; but a new pang seized her. Company!

Mr. Digby would be company. What if he should come?

Lesbia went off with the tray, after casting several curious glances at the new comer, whom she had heard talked of enough to give her several clues. Rotha was left in the darkening dressing room; for the afternoon had come to its short November end.

CHAPTER XIII.

NOT DRESSED

Mr. Digby did not come that evening. Next evening he did. He came early, just as the family had finished dinner. Mrs. Busby welcomed him with outstretched hand and a bland smile.

"I am so glad to see you, Mr. Southwode," she said, before he had time to begin anything. "I want to know what you think of this proposition to open picture galleries and libraries to the people on Sunday?"

"The arguments for it are plausible."

"Certainly plausible. What do you think?"

"It is of no consequence, is it, what any individual thinks?"

"Why yes, as it seems to me. By comparing views and the reasons given in support of the views, one may hope to attain some sound conclusion."

"Is it a matter for reason to consider?"

Mrs. Busby opened her eyes. "Is not everything that, Mr. Southwode?"

"I should answer 'no,' if I answered."

"Please answer, because I am very much in earnest; and I like to drive every question to the bottom. Give me an instance to the contrary."

"When you tell Miss Antoinette, for example, to put on india rubbers when she goes out in the wet, is she to exercise her reason upon the thickness of the soles of her boots?"

"Yes," cried the young lady referred to; "of course I am! India rubbers are horrid things anyhow; do you think I am going to put them on with boots an inch thick?"

Mr. Southwode turned his eyes upon her with one of his grave smiles. Mrs.

Busby seemed to ponder the subject.

"Is it raining to-night, Mr. Southwode?" Antoinette went on.

"Yes."

"How provoking! then I can't go out. Mr. Southwode, you never took me anywhere, to see anything."

"True, I believe," he answered. "How could I ask Mrs. Busby to trust me with the care of such an article?"

"What 'such an article'?"

"Subject to damage; in which case the damage would be very great."

"I am not subject to damage. I never get cold or anything. Mr. Southwode, won't you take me, some night, to see the Minstrels?"

"They are not much to see."

"But to hear, they are. Won't you, Mr. Southwode? I am crazy to hear them, and mamma won't take me; and papa never goes anywhere but to his office and to court; won't you, Mr. Southwode?"

"Perhaps; if Mrs. Busby will honour me so much."

"O mamma will trust you, I know. Then the first clear evening, Mr.

Southwode? the first that you are at leisure?"

Without answering her he turned to Mrs. Busby.

"How is Rotha?"

"Very well!" the lady answered smoothly.

"Shall I have the pleasure of seeing her?"

"I am afraid, not to-night. She was unable to come down stairs this afternoon, and so took her dinner alone. Next time, I hope, she will be able to see you."

Mr. Digby privately wondered what the detaining cause could be, but thought it most discreet not to inquire; at least, not in this quarter. "Is the school question decided?" he therefore went on quietly.

"Why no. I have been debating the pros. and cons.; in which process one is very apt to get confused. As soon as one makes up one's mind to forego certain advantages in favour of certain others, the rejected ones immediately rise up in fresh colours of allurement before the mind, and disturb one's judgment, and the whole calculation has to be gone over again."

"The choice lies between – ?"

"Mrs. Mulligan, Miss Wordsworth, and Mrs. Mowbray, have the highest name in the city."

"And may I know the supposed counter advantages and disadvantages?"

"I'll tell you, Mr. Southwode," said Antoinette. "At Mrs. Mulligan's you learn French and manners. At Miss Wordsworth's you learn arithmetic and spelling. At Mrs. Mowbray's you learn Latin and the Catechism."

Mr. Southwode looked to Mrs. Busby.

"That's rather a caricature," said the lady smiling; "but it has some truth. I think Mrs. Mowbray's is quite as fashionable a school as Mrs. Mulligan's. It is quite as dear."

"Is it thought desirable, that it should be fashionable?"

"Certainly; for that shews what is public opinion. Besides, it secures one against undesirable companions for a girl. Both at Mrs. Mulligan's and Mrs. Mowbray's the pupils come from the very best families, both South and North. There is a certain security in that."

Mr. Southwode allowed the conversation presently to take another turn, and soon took his leave.

Rotha had watched and listened from the upper hall; had heard him come in, and then had waited in an ecstasy of impatient eagerness till she should be sent for. She could hear the murmur of voices in the parlour; but otherwise the house was ominously quiet. No doors opening, no bell to call the servant, no stir at all; until the parlour door opened and Mr. Digby came out. Rotha was in a very agony, half ready to rush down, unsummoned, and see him; and yet held back by a shy feeling of proud reserve. He could ask for her if he had wanted her, she thought bitterly; and while she lingered he had put on his overshoes and was gone. Rotha crept up stairs to her own room, feeling desperately disappointed. That her aunt might have made excuses to keep her up stairs, she divined; but the thought put her in a rage. She had to sit a long while looking out of her window at the lights twinkling here and there through the rain, before the fever in her blood and her brain had cooled down enough to let her go to bed and to sleep.

The next day she began her school experience. The intervening day had been used by Mrs. Busby to make a call upon Mrs. Mowbray, in which she explained that she had an orphan niece left under her care, for whom she much desired the training and the discipline of Mrs. Mowbray's excellent school. The girl had had no advantages; her mother had been ill and the child neglected; she supposed Mrs. Mowbray would find that she knew next to nothing of all that she ought to know. So it was arranged that Rotha should accompany her cousin the very next morning, and make her beginning in one of the younger classes.

Rotha went in her old grey dress. The walk was not long. Antoinette stopped at the area gate of a house in a fine open street.

"Where are you going?" said Rotha.

"Here. This is the place."

"This? Why it is a very handsome house," said Rotha. "As good as yours."

"Of course it is handsome," Antoinette replied. "Do you think my mother would let me go to a shabby place. Handsome! of course it is. Come down this way; we don't ring the bell."

What a new world it was to Rotha! In the lower hall the girls took off bonnets and wraps, hanging them up on hooks arranged there. Then Antoinette took her up stairs, up a second flight of stairs, through halls and stairways which renewed Rotha's astonishment. Was this a school? All the arrangements seemed like those of an elegant private home; soft carpet was on the stairs, beautiful engravings hung on the walls. The school rooms filled the second floor; they were already crowded, it seemed to Rotha, with rows and ranks of scholars of all sizes, from ten years old up. Antoinette and she, being later than the rest, slipped into the first seats they could find, near the door.

There was deep silence and great order, and then Rotha heard a voice in the next room beginning to read a chapter in the Bible. The sound of the voice struck her and made her wish to get a sight of the reader; but that was impossible, for a bit of partition wall hid her and indeed most of the room in which she was from Rotha's view. So Rotha's attention concentrated itself upon what she could see. The pleasant, bright apartments; the desks before which sat so many well-dressed and well- looking girls; ah, they were very well dressed, and many of them, to her fancy, very richly dressed; as for the faces, she found there was the usual diversity. But what would anybody think of a girl coming among them so very shabby and meanly attired as she was? If she had known – However, self-consciousness was not one of Rotha's troubles, and soon in her admiration of the maps and pictures on the walls she almost forgot her own poor little person. She was aware that after the reading came a prayer; but though she knelt as others knelt, I am bound to say very little of the sense of the words found its way to her mind.

After that the girls separated. Rotha was introduced by her cousin to a certain Miss Blodgett, one of the teachers, under whose care she was placed, and by whom she was taken to a room apart and set down to her work along with a class of some forty girls, all of them or nearly all, younger than she was. And here, for a number of days, Rotha's school life went on monotonously. She was given little to do that she could not do easily; she was assigned no lessons that were not already familiar; she was put to acquire no knowledge that she did not already possess. She got sight of nobody but Miss Blodgett and the girls; for every morning she was sure to be crowded into that same corner at school-opening, where she could not look at Mrs. Mowbray; nobody else wanted that place, so they gave it to her; and Rotha was never good at self-assertion, unless at such times as her blood was up. She took the place meekly. But school was very tiresome to her; and it gave her nothing to distract her thoughts from her troubles at home.

Those were threefold, to take them in detail. She wore still the old dress; she was consequently still kept up stairs; and it followed also of course that Mr. Digby came and went and she had no sight of him. It happened thus.

Several days he allowed to pass without calling again. Not that he forgot Rotha, or was careless about her; but he partly knew his adversary and judged this course wise, for Rotha's sake. His first visit had been on Tuesday evening; he let a week go by, and then he went again. Mrs. Busby was engaged with other visitors; he had to post-pone the inquiries he wished to make. Meanwhile Antoinette attacked him.

"Mr. Southwode, – now it is a nice evening, and you promised; – will you take me to the Minstrels?"

"I always keep my promises."

"Then shall we go?" with great animation.

"Did I say I would go to-night?"

"No; but to-night is a good time; as good as any. Ah, Mr. Southwode! let us go. You'll never take me, if you do not to-night."

"What would Mrs. Busby say?"

"O she'd say yes. Of course she'd say yes. Mamma always says yes when I ask her things. Mamma! I say, mamma! listen to me one moment; may I go with Mr. Southwode?"

One moment Mrs. Busby turned her head from the friend with whom she was talking, looked at her daughter, and said, "Yes"; then turned again and went on with what she was saying. Antoinette jumped up.

"And bring your cousin too," said Mr. Southwode as she was flying off.

Antoinette stopped.

"Rotha? she can't go."

"Why can she not go?"

"She has got nothing ready to wear out yet. Mamma hasn't had time to get the things and have 'em made. She couldn't go."

"She might wear what she wore when I brought her here," Mr. Digby suggested. Antoinette shook her head.

"O no! Mamma wouldn't let her go out so. She couldn't, now that she is under her care, you know. Her things are not fit at all."

"Will you have the kindness to send word to your cousin that I should like to see her for a few minutes?"

"O she can't come down?"

"Why not?"

"O she's in no condition. Mamma – mamma! Mr. Southwode wants to see Rotha."

"I am very sorry!" said Mrs. Busby smoothly and calmly, turning again from the discourse she was carrying on, – "I have sent her to bed with a tumbler of hot lemonade."

"What is the matter?"

"A slight cold – nothing troublesome, I hope; but I thought best to take it in time. I do not want her studies to be interrupted."

Mr. Southwode was powerless against this announcement, and thought his own thoughts, till Mrs. Busby drew him into the discussion which just then engaged her. Upon this busy talk presently came Antoinette, hatted and cloaked, and drawing on her gloves. Stood and waited.

"Mr. Southwode – I am ready," she said, as he did not attend to her.

"For the Minstrels?" said he, with that very unconcerned manner of his.

"But, Miss Antoinette, would not your cousin like to go?"

"She can't, you know. Where are your ears, Mr. Southwode? Mamma explained to you that she was in bed."

"Then do you not agree with me, that it would be the kindest thing to defer our own pleasure until she can share it?"

Antoinette flushed and coloured, and tears of disappointment came into her eyes. A little tinge rose in Mrs. Busby's cheeks too.

"Go and take your cloak off," she said coldly. "And Antoinette, you had better see that your lessons for to-morrow morning are all ready."

Mr. Southwode thereupon took his departure. If he had known what eyes and ears were strained to get knowledge of him at that moment, I think he would have stood his ground and taken some very decided measures. But he could not see from the lighted hall below up into the darkness of the third story, even' if it could have occurred to him to try. There stood however a white figure, leaning over the balusters, and very well aware whose steps were going through the hall and out at the front door. Poor Rotha had obeyed orders and undressed and gone to bed, though she insisted her throat was only a very little irritated; and neither the one fact nor the other had prevented her from jumping tip to listen when the door bell rang, and again when steps she knew came out from the parlour. Again he had been here, and again she had missed him. Of course he could do nothing when told that she was in bed with a cold. Rotha went back into her room and stood trembling, not with a chill, though the night was cold enough, but with a fever of rage and desperation. She opened the window and poured out the lemonade which she had not touched; she shut the window and wrung her hands. She seemed to be in a net, in a cage, in a prison; and the walls of her prison were so invisible that she could not get at them to burst them. She would write to Mr. Digby, only she did not know his address. Would he not write to her, perhaps? Rotha Was in a kind of fury of impatience and indignation; this thought served to give her a little stay to hold by.

And a letter did come for her the very next evening; and Rotha's eyes never saw it, nor did her ears hear of it.

Neither did her new dresses come to light; and evening after evening her condition was not changed. She was prisoner up stairs with her books and studies, which did not occupy her; and hour after hour Rotha stood in the hall and listened, or sat watching. She could not hear Mr. Digby's voice again. She wondered what had power to detain him. With craving anxiety and the strain of hope and fear, Rotha's cheek began to grow pale. It was getting at last beyond endurance. She went through her school duties mechanically, thinking of something else, yet doing all that was required of her; for, as I said, it was ground that she had gone over already. She queried with herself whether Mr. Southwode might not come even to the school to seek her; it seemed so impossible that she should be utterly kept from the sight of him. All this while Rotha never spoke his name before her aunt or cousin; never asked a question about him or his visits. By what subtle instinct it is hard to tell, she knew the atmosphere of the house was not favourable to the transmission of those particular sounds.

One thing, one day, had made a break in her gloomy thoughts. She was in her class, in the special room appropriated to that class, busy as usual; when the door opened and a lady came in whom Rotha had not fairly seen before, yet whom she at once recognized for what she was, the head of the establishment. Rotha's eyes were fascinated. It was a tall figure, very stately and dignified as well as graceful; handsomely and carefully dressed; but Rotha took in that fact without knowing what the lady wore, she was so engrossed with the face and manner of this vision. The manner was at once gracious and commanding; courteous exceedingly, while the air of decision and the tone of authority were well marked. But the face! It was wonderfully lovely; with fair features and kind eyes; the head sat well upon the shoulders, and the hair was arranged with very rare grace around the delicate head. So elegant a head one very rarely sees, as was Mrs. Mowbray's, although the dressing of the hair was as simple as possible. The hair was merely twisted up in a loose knot or coil at the back; the effect was what not one in a thousand can reach with all the arts of the hair-dresser. This lovely apparition paused a minute or two before Miss Blodgett, while some matter of business was discussed; then the observant eyes came to the young stranger in the class, and a few steps brought them close up to her.

"This is Miss Carpenter, isn't it? – yes. How do you do, my dear." She took Rotha's hand kindly. "How is your aunt, Mrs. Busby?"

Rotha answered. Perhaps those watchful eyes saw that there was no pleasure in the answer.

"Your cousin – she is in Miss Graham's class, is she not?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, I hope you have made some friends here. Miss Doolittle, won't you be helpful to Miss Carpenter if you can? she is a stranger among us. – Good morning, young ladies!"

The lady swept away from the room; but all that day there hovered in Rotha's thoughts a vision of beauty and grace and dignity, an accent of kindness, a manner of love and authority, which utterly fascinated and wholly captivated her. It was quite a sweetener of that day's dry work. She looked to see the vision come again the next day, and the next; in vain; but Rotha now knew the voice; and not a word was let fall from those lips, in reading or prayer, at the school opening now, that she did not listen to.