The Letter of Credit

"It aint ready. I never heerd you was comin', till last night. How was I to have the room ready? and I don' know which room it's to be."

"Then can I go to the parlour? where is it?"

"It's all the next floor. There's nothin' but parlours. You can go there if you like; but they aint been opened in a year. I never was in 'em but once or twice since I lived here."

Rotha was in despair. She set her bag on one chair and placed herself on another, and waited. This was far worse even than her fears. O if she had but a little money, to buy this woman's civility! perhaps it could be bought. But she was thrown from one dependence to another; and now she was come to depend on this common person. She did not know what more to say; she could not do anything to propitiate her. She waited.

"Have you had any breakfast?" said Mrs. Purcell, after some ten minutes had passed with no sound but that of her cups and plates taken up and set down. This went on briskly; Mrs. Purcell seemed to be an energetic worker.

"Yes, thank you. I took breakfast at the hotel in Tanfield."

"I didn't know but I had to cook breakfast all over again."

"I will not give you any more trouble than I can help – if you will only give me a room by and by."

"There's nothin' fur I to give– you can pick and choose in the whole house. Us has only these rooms down here; there's the whole big barn of a house overhead. Folks meant it to be a grand house, I s'pose; it's big enough; but I don't want no more of it than I can take care of."

"You can take care of my room, I suppose?" said Rotha.

The woman gave a kind of grunt, which was neither assent nor denial, but rather expressed her estimation of the proposal. She went on silently and rapidly with her kitchen work; putting up her dishes, brushing the floor, making up the fire, putting on a pot or two. Rotha watched and waited in silence also, trying to be patient. Finally Mrs. Purcell took down a key, and addressing herself to Rotha, said,

"Now I'm ready. If you like to come, you can see what there is."

She unlocked a door and led the way up a low flight of steps. At the top of them another door let them out upon a wide hall. The hall ran from one side of the house to the other. With doors thrown open to let in the air and light this might have been a very pleasant place; now however it was dark and dank and chilly, with that dismal closeness and rawness of atmosphere which is always found in a house long shut up. Doors on the one hand and on the other hand opened into it, and at the end where the two women had entered it, ran up a wide easy staircase.

"Will you go higher?" said Mrs. Purcell; "or will you have a room here?"

Rotha opened one of the doors. Light coming scantily in through chinks in the shutters revealed dimly a very large, very lofty apartment, furnished as a drawing-room. She opened another door; it gave a repetition of the same thing, only the colour of the hangings and upholsteries seemed to be different. A third, and a fourth; they were all alike; large, stately rooms, fit to hold a great deal of company, or to accommodate an exceedingly numerous family with sitting and dining and receiving rooms. The four saloons took up the entire floor.

"There is no bedroom here," said Rotha.

"The folks that lived here didn't make no 'count o' sleepin', I guess. They put all the house into their parlours. I suppose the days was longer than the nights, when they was alive."

"But there must be bedrooms somewhere?"

"You can go up and see. Us wouldn't sleep up there for nothin'. Us could ha' took what we liked when us come; but I said to Mr. Purcell, – I said, – I wasn't goin' to break my back runnin' up and down stairs; and if he wanted to live up there, he had got to live without I. So us fixed up a little room down near the kitchen. These rooms is awful hot in summer, too. I can dry fruit in 'em as good as in an oven."

They had reached the top story of the house by this time, after climbing a long flight of stairs. Here there were a greater number of rooms, and indeed furnished as bedrooms; but they were low, and immediately under the roof. The air was less dank than in the first story, but excessively close.

"Is this all the choice I have?" Rotha asked.

"Unless us was to give you our room."

"But nobody else sleeps in all this part of the house!"

"No," said Mrs. Purcell, with an action that answered to a Frenchman's shrug of the shoulders; "you can have 'em all, and sleep in 'em all, one after the other, if you like. There's nobody to object."

"But suppose I wanted something in the night?" said Rotha, who did not in the least relish this liberty.

"You'd have to holler pretty loud, if you wanted I to do anything for you. I guess you'll have to learn to wait on yourself."

"O it isn't that," said Rotha; "I can wait on myself; but if I wanted – something I couldn't do for myself – if I was frightened – "

"What's to frighten you?"

"I do not know – "

"If you got frightened, all you'd have to do would be to take your little feet in your hand and run down to we; that's all you could do."

Rotha looked somewhat dismayed.

"I could ha' told you, it wasn't a very pleasant place you was a comin' to," Mrs. Purcell went on. "Sick o' your bargain, aint ye?"

"What bargain?"

"I don' know! Which o' these here rooms will you take? You've seen the whole now."

Rotha was very unwilling to make choice at all up there. Yet a thought of one of those great echoing drawing rooms was dismissed as soon as it came. At last she fixed upon a room near the head of the stairs; a corner room, with outlook in two directions; flung open the windows to let the air and the light come, in; and locked up her bag in a closet.

"There aint nobody to meddle with your things," observed Mrs. Purcell, noticing this action, – "without it's me; and I've got enough to do down stairs. There's nothin' worse than rats in the house."

"Have you some sheets and towels for me?" said Rotha. "And can you give me some water by and by?"

"I've got no sheets and towels but them as us uses," replied Mrs. Purcell. "Mrs Busby haint said nothin' about no sheets and towels. Those us has belongs to we. They aint like what rich folks has."

"I have brought none with me, of course. Mrs. Busby will pay you for the use of them, I have no doubt."

"Mrs. Busby don't pay for nothin'," said the woman.

"Will you bring me some water?"

"I'll give you a pail, and you can fetch some for your own self. I can't go up and down them stairs. It gives me a pain in my back. I'll let you have some o' us's sheets, if you like."

"If you please," said Rotha.

"But I can't come up with 'em. I'd break in two if I went up and down there a few times. I'll let you have 'em whenever you like to come after 'em."

And therewith Mrs. Purcell vanished, and her feet could be heard descending the long stair. I think in all her life Rotha had never felt much more desolate than she felt just then. She let herself drop on a chair and buried her face in her hands. Things were worse, a hundred fold, than ever she could have imagined them. She was of rather a nervous temperament; and the idea of being lodged up there at the top of that great, empty, echoing house, with nobody within call, and neither help nor sympathy to be had if she wanted either, absolutely appalled her. True, no danger was to be apprehended; not real danger; but that consideration did not quiet fancy nor banish fear; and if fear possessed her, what sort of consolation was it that there was no cause? The fear was there, all the same; and Rotha thought of the yet distant shades of night with absolute terror. After giving way to this feeling for a little while, she began to fight against it. She raised her head from her hands, and went and sat down by the open window. Soft, sweet, balmy air was coming in gently, changing the inner condition of the room by degrees; Rotha put her head half out, to get it unmixed. It was May, May in the country; and the air was bringing May tokens with it, of unseen sweetness. There were lilies of the valley blooming somewhere, and daffodils; and there was the smell of box, and spice from the fir trees, and fragrance from the young leaf of oaks and maples and birches and beeches. There was a wild scent from not distant woods, given out from mosses and wild flowers and turf, and the freshness of the upturned soil from ploughed fields. It was May, and May whispering that June was near. The whisper was so unspeakably sweet that it stole into Rotha's heart and breathed upon its disturbance, almost breathing it away. For June means life and love and happiness.

"Everything is happy now;Everything is upward striving;'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true,As for grass to be green or skies to be blue;'Tis the natural way of living!"

June was coming, and May was here; more placid and more pensive, but hardly less fair; that is, in her good moods; and Rotha insensibly grew comforted. This delight would remain, whatever she had or had not within the house; there was all out of doors, and the Spring! and Rotha's heart made a great bound to meet it. She could live out of doors a great deal; and in the house – well, she would make the best of things.

She drew in her head to take a survey. Yes, it was a snug room enough, once in nice order; and the first thing to do, she decided, was to put it in nice order. She must do it herself. O for one of those calicos, lying at present cut and basted in her trunk. She must make them up as fast as possible. With the feeling of a good deal of business on hand, Rotha's spirits rose. She went down to the kitchen again, and begged the loan of a big apron. Mrs. Purcell silently gave it. Then Rotha desired brushes and a broom and dusters, and soap and water and towels. One after another Mrs. Purcell placed these articles, such as she had, at her disposal.

"My trunk is in the road by the front steps," she remarked. "Can you get it taken up for me?"

"A trunk?" said Mrs. Purcell, knitting her brows again into the scowl which had greeted Rotha at the first. A very black scowl the latter thought it.

"Yes, my trunk. It's a little one. Not much for anybody to carry."

"Whatever did you want of a trunk?"

"Why, to hold my things," said Rotha quietly.

"Are you goin' to stay all summer?"

"I hope not; but I do not know how long. My aunt is going on a journey; I must stay till she comes back."

"Why didn't she let you go along?"

"I suppose it was not convenient."

A grunt from Mrs. Purcell. "Rich folks only thinks what's convenient for their own selves!"

"But she will pay you for your trouble."

"She'll pay Mr. Purcell, if she pays anybody. It don't come into mypocket, and the trouble don't go into his'n."

"I shall not be much trouble."

"Where is you goin' to eat? You won't want to eat along o' we?"

No, certainly, that was what Rotha did not want. She made no reply.

"Mis' Busby had ought to send folks to take care o' her company, when she sends company. I haint got no time. And us hasn't got no place. There's no place but us's kitchen – will you like to eat here? I can't go and tote things up to one o' them big parlours."

"Do the best you can for me," said Rotha. "I will try and be content." And staying no further parley, which she felt just then unable to bear, she gathered together her brushes and dusters and climbed up the long stairs again. But it was sweet when she got to her room under the roof. The May air had filled the room by this time; the May sunshine was streaming in; the scents and sounds of the spring were all around; and they brought with them inevitably a little bit of hope and cheer into Rotha's heart. Without stopping to let herself think, she set about putting the place in order; brushed and dusted everything; washed up the furniture of the washstand; made up the bed, and hung towels on the rack. Then she drew an old easy chair to a convenient place by one of the windows; put a small table before it; got out and arranged in order her writing materials, her Bible and Scripture Treasury; put her bonnet and wrappings away in a closet; and at last sat down to consider the situation.

She had got a corner of comfort up there, private to herself. The room was large and bright; one window looked out into the top of a great tulip tree, the other commanded a bit of meadow near the house, and through the branches and over the summits of firs and larches near at hand and apple trees further off, looked along a distant stretch of level country. No extended view, and nothing remarkable; but sweet, peaceful nature, green turf, and leafy tree growths; with the smell of fresh vegetation and the spiciness of the resiny evergreens, and the delicious song and chipper and warble of insects and birds. It all breathed a breath of content into Rotha's heart. But then, she was up here alone at the top of the house; there was all that wilderness of empty rooms between her and the rest of the social world; and at the end of it, what? Mrs. Purcell and her kitchen; and doubtless, Mr. Purcell. And what was Rotha to do, in the midst of such surroundings? The girl grew almost desperate by the time she had followed this train of thought a little way. It seemed to her that her pleasant room was a prison and Mr. and Mrs. Purcell her jailers; and her term of confinement one of unknown duration. If she had only a little money, then she would not be so utterly helpless and dependent; even money to buy Mrs. Purcell's civility and good-will; or if she had a little more than that, she might get away. Without any money, she was simply a prisoner, and at the mercy of her jailers. O what had become of her friends! Where was Mr. Southwode, and how could he have forgotten her? and how was it that Mrs. Mowbray had been taken from her just now, just at this point when she was needed so dreadfully? Rotha could have made all right with a few minutes' talk to Mrs. Mowbray; to write and state her grievances, she justly felt, was a different thing, not so easy nor so manifestly proper. She did not like to do what would be in effect asking Mrs. Mowbray to send for her and keep her during her aunt's absence. No, it was impossible to do that. Rotha could not Better bear anything. But then, – here she was with no help!

It all ended in some bitter weeping. Rotha was too young yet not to find tears a relief. She cried herself tired; and then found she was very much in need of sleep. She gave herself up to it, and to forgetfulness.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE PURCELLS

Rotha's sleep had not lasted two hours when it was interrupted. There came a pounding at her door. She jumped up and unlocked it.

"Joseph said, he guessed you'd want some dinner. I told him, I didn't know as you'd care for the victuals us has; but it's ready, if you like to come and try."

The extreme rudeness of the woman acted by way of a counter irritant on Rotha, and gave her self-command and composure. She answered civilly; waited to put her hair and dress in order, wisely resolving to lose no means of influence and self-assertion that were within her reach; and went down.

A small table was set in the kitchen, coarsely but neatly, as Rotha saw at a glance. It was set for three; and the third at the table was the hitherto unseen Mr. Purcell. He was a white man; not so good-looking as his wife, but with a certain aspect of sense and shrewdness that was at least not unkindly. He nodded, did not trouble himself to rise as Rotha came in; indeed he was busily occupied in supplying himself with such strength and refreshment as viands can give; and to judge by his manner he needed a great deal of such strength and was in a hurry to get it. He nodded, and indicated with a second nod the place at table which Rotha was expected to take.

"It's an unexpected pleasure," he said. "Prissy and me doesn't often have company. Hope you left Mis' Busby well?"

Rotha had an instant's hesitation, whether she should accept the place in the household thus offered her, or claim a different one. It was an instant only; her sense and her sense of self-respect equally counselled her not to try for what she could not accomplish; and she quietly took the indicated seat, and answered that Mrs. Busby was well.

"Now, what'll you eat?" Mr. Purcell went on. "We're plain folks – plainer 'n you're accustomed to, I guess; and we eat what we've got; sometimes it's one thing and sometimes it's another. Prissy, she gen'lly fixes it up somehow so's it'll do, for me, anyhow; but I don' know how it'll be with you. Now to-day, you see, we've got pork and greens; it's sweet pork, for I fed it myself and I know all about it; and the greens is first-rate. I don' know what they be; Prissy picked 'em; but now, will you try 'em? If you're hungry, they'll go pretty good."

"They's dandelions – " said Mrs. Purcell.

Pork and dandelions! Rotha was at first dumb with a sort of perplexed dismay; then she reflected, that to carry out her propitiating policy it would be best not to shew either scorn or disgust. She accepted some of the greens and the pork; found the potatoes good, and the bread of capital quality, and the butter sweet; and next made the discovery that Mr. Purcell had not overrated his wife's abilities in the cooking line; the dinner was really, of its kind, excellent. She eat bread and butter, then conscious that two pair of eyes were covertly watching her, nibbled at her greens and pork; found them very passable, and ended by making a good meal.

"You was never in these parts before?" Mr. Purcell asked meanwhile.

"No," said Rotha. "Never."

"Mis' Busby comin' along, some o' these days?"

"No, I think not. I have not heard anything about her coming here."

"'Spect she likes grand doings. Does she live very fine, down to New York?"

"How do you mean?"

"All the folks does, in the City o' Pride," remarked Mrs. Purcell.

"Do Mis' Busby?" persisted her husband. "Be they all highflyers, to her house?"

"I do not know what you mean by 'highflyers.'"

"Folks that wears heels to their shoes," put in Mrs. Purcell. "They can't set foot to the ground, like common folks. And they puts their hair up in a bunch on the top."

"Anybody can do that," said Mr. Purcell, sticking his knife in the butter to detach a portion of it.

"Anybody can't, Joe! that's where you're out. It takes one o' them highflyers. And then they thinks, when their heels and their heads is all right, they've got up above the rest of we."

"You can put your hair any way you've a mind to," returned her husband.

"There can't none of 'em get ahead o' you there."

Both parties glanced at Rotha. Her long hair was twisted up in a loose knot on the top of her head; very becoming and very graceful; for without being in the least disorderly it was careless, and without being in the least complicated or artificial it was inimitable, by one not initiated. Husband and wife looked at her, looked at each other, and laughed.

"Mis' Busby writ me about you," said Joe, slightly changing the subject.

"She said, you was one o' her family."

"She is my aunt."

"She is! I didn't know Mis' Busby never had no brother, nor sister', nor nothin'."

"She had a sister once."

"She aint livin' then. And you live with Mis' Busby?"

"Yes."

"Well, 'taint none o' my business, but Mis' Busby didn't say, and I didn't know what to think. She said you was comin', but she didn't say how long you was goin' to stay; and we'd like to know that, Prissy and me; 'cause o' course it makes a difference."

"In what?" said Rotha, growing desperate.

"Well, in our feelin's," said Mr. Purcell, inclining his head in a suave manner, indicating his good disposition. "You see, we don' know how to take care of you, 'thout we knowed if it was to be for a week, or a month, or that. Mis' Busby only said you was comin'; and she didn't say why nor whether."

"I do not know," said Rotha. "You must manage as well as you can without knowing; for I cannot tell you."

"Very good!" said Mr. Purcell, inclining his head blandly again; "then that's one point. You don' know yourself."

"No."

"That means she aint a goin' in a hurry," said Mrs. Purcell. "There's her trunk, Joe, that you've got to tote up stairs."

"I'll do that," said Joe rising; "if it aint bigger 'n I be. Where is it at?"

"Settin' out in the road."

"And where's it goin'?"

"Up to her room. She'll shew you."

Rotha mounted the stairs again, preceding Joe and her trunk, and feeling more utterly desolate than it is easy to describe. Shut up here, at the top of this great empty house, and with these associates! Her heart almost failed her.

"Well, you've got it slicked up here, nice!" was Mr. Purcell's declaration when he had come in and deposited the little trunk on the floor, and could look around him. "You find it pretty comfortable up here, don't you."

"It's very far from the kitchen – " said Rotha with an inward shudder.

"Well – 'tis; but I don' know as that's any objection. Young feet don't mind runnin' up and down; and when you are here, you've got it to yourself. Well, you can take care o' yourself up here; and down stairs Prissy will see that you don't starve. I expect that's how it'll be." And with again an affable nod of his capable head, Mr. Purcell departed. Rotha locked the door, and went to her window; nature being the only quarter from which she could hope for a look or a tone of sympathy. The day was well on its way now, and the May sun shining warm and bringing out the spicy odours of the larches and firs. A little stir of the soft air lightly moved the small branches and twigs and caressed Rotha's cheek. A sudden impulse seized her, to rush out and get rid of the house and its inmates for a while, and be alone with the loveliness of the outer world. She threw a shawl round her, put on her straw bonnet, locked her door, and ran down.

The front door of the main hall was fast, and no key in the lock; Rotha must go out as she had come in, through the kitchen. Mrs. Purcell was there, but made no remark, and Rotha went out and made her way first of all round to the front of the house. There she sat down upon the steps and looked about her.

An unkept gravel road swept round from the gate by which she had entered, up to her feet, and following a similar curve on the other side swept round to another gate, opening on the same high-road. The whole sweep took in a semicircle of ground, which lay in grass, planted with a few trees. To explore this gravel sweep was the first obvious move. So Rotha walked down to the gate by which she had come in that morning, and then back and down to the corresponding gate on the other side. All along the way from gate to gate, there ran wide flower beds on both sides; the back of the flower beds being planted thick with trees and shrubbery. Old fashioned flowering shrubs stood in close and wildering confusion. Lilac bushes held forth brown bunches where the flowers had been. Syringas pushed sweet white blossoms between the branches of other shrubs that crowded them in. May roses were there, with their bright little red faces, modest but sweet; and Scotch roses, aromatic and wild-looking. There was a profusion of honeysuckle, getting ready to bloom; and laburnums hung out tresses of what would be soon "dropping gold." And Rotha stood still once before the snowy balls of a Guelder rose, so white and fresh and fair that they dazzled her. She went on, down to the gate furthest from Tanfield, and spent a little while there, looking up and down the road. A straight, well-kept country road it was, straight and empty. Not a house was in sight, and only farm fields on the other side of the bordering fences. Rotha would have gone out, and walked at least a rod or two, but that gate was locked. There was no traffic or intercourse in any direction but with Tanfield. The empty highway seemed very lonely and desolate to the gazer at the gate. How shut off from the world she was! shut off in one little corner where nobody would ever look for her. If Rotha had put any faith in her aunt's promises, of course she would not have minded a month's abode in this place; but she put no faith in her aunt, and had a sort of instinct that she had been sent here for no good reason, and would be allowed, or forced, to remain here for an indeterminate and possibly quite protracted length of time. The mere feeling of being imprisoned makes one long to break bounds; and so Rotha longed, impatiently, passionately; but she saw no way. A little money would enable her to do it. Alas, she had no money. Her aunt had taken care of that. After paying for her breakfast and drive, she had only a very few shillings left; not even enough to make any impression upon the good will of her guardians, or jailers. Somehow they seemed a good deal more like that than like servants.