The Letter of Credit

June passed, and July, and August came. No word from Mrs. Busby to Rotha, and Joe Purcell said none came for him. The raspberries were gone, and currants and gooseberries in full harvest; when there happened an unlocked for and unwelcome variety in Rotha's way of life. Mrs. Purcell was taken ill. It was nothing but chills and fever, the doctor said; but chills and fever are pretty troublesome visiters if you do not know how to get rid of them; and that this doctor certainly did not. It may be said, that he had a difficult patient. Prissy Purcell was unaccustomed to follow any will but her own, and made the time of sickness no exception to her habit. With a chill on her she would get up to make bread; with the "sick day" demanding absolute rest and quiet care, she would go out to the garden to gather cabbages, and stand about preparing them and getting ready her dinner; till provoked nature took her revenge and sent the chill creeping over her. Then Prissy would (if it was not baking day) throw down whatever she had in hand and go to her bed; and it fell to Rotha's unwonted fingers to put on the pot and cook the dinner, set the table and wash the dishes, even the pots and pans; for somebody must do it, as she reflected, and poor Mrs. Purcell would come out of her bed in the evening a mere wreck of her usual self, very unfit to do anything.

It was a strange experience, for Rotha to be cooking Joe Purcell's dinner and then eating it with him; making gruel and toast for Prissy and serving it to her; keeping the kitchen in order; sweeping, dusting, mopping, scrubbing, for even that could not be avoided sometimes. "It is my work," Rotha said to herself; "it is what is given me just now to do. I wonder, why? But all the same, it is given; and there must be some use in it." She was very busy oftentimes now, without the help of her flower borders, which had to be neglected; she rejoiced that the small fruit was gone, or nearly gone; from morning to night, when Prissy was abed, she went steadily from one thing to another with scarce any interval of active work. No study now but her Bible study; and to have time for that, Rotha must get up very early in the morning. Then, at her window, with the glory of the summer day just coming upon the outer world, she sat and read and thought and prayed; her eyes going alternately from her open page to the green and golden depths of the tulip tree opposite her window; looking the while with her mental eye at the fresh and glorious riches of some promise or prophecy. Perhaps Rotha never enjoyed her Bible more, nor ever would, only that with growing experience in the ways of the Lord comes ever new power to see the beauties of them, and with greater knowledge of him comes a larger love.

August passed, and September came. And September also ran its course. The weather grew calm and clear, and began to be crisp with frost, and the outer world beautified with red maple leaves and crimson creepers and golden hickory trees. Prissy got better and took her former place in the house; and therewith Rotha had time to breathe and bethink herself.

Her aunt must long since be returned from Chicago. Once a scrap of a note had been received from her, but it told nothing. It was not dated, and the postmark was not New York. It told absolutely nothing, even indirectly. Airs. Mowbray must long since have reopened her school, but it seemed to be tacitly agreed upon that Rotha was to go to school no more. What were all the people about? there seemed to be a spell upon Rotha and her affairs, as much as if she had been a princess in a fairy tale enchanted and turned to stone, or put to sleep; only she was not turned to stone at all, but all alive and quivering with pain and fear and anxiety. It was her life that was spell-bound. A thousand times she revolved the possibility of going into some work by which she could make money; and always had to give it up. She saw nobody, knew nobody, could apply to no one. She had used up all her writing paper in letters; and never an answer did she get. She began to think indeed her world was bewitched. Winter was looming up in the distance, not so very far off neither; was she to pass it here, alone with Prissy Purcell and her husband? Sometimes Rotha's courage gave way and she shed bitter tears; other times, when she was dressing her flowers in the long beds, or when she was looking into the tulip tree with some sweet word of the Bible in her mind, she could even smile at her prospect, and trust, and be quiet, and wait. However, as the autumn wore on, I am afraid the quiet was more and more broken up and the trust more sorrowful.

It was on one of these evenings of early October, that Mr. Southwode presented himself, after so long an interval, at Mrs. Busby's door. Nothing was changed, to all appearance, in the house; it might have been but yesterday that he walked out of it for the last time; and nothing was changed in the appearance of Mr. Southwode himself. Just as he came three years ago, he came now.

Mrs. Busby was alone in her drawing room, and advanced to meet him with outstretched hand and an expression of great welcome. She had not changed either, unless for the better. Her visiter recognized, as he had often done before, the expression of sense and character in her face, the quiet suavity of her manner, the many indications that here was what is called a fine woman. About the goodness of this fine woman he was not so sure; but he paid her a tribute of involuntary respect for her abilities, her cleverness, and her good manners.

"Mr. Southwode! I am delighted to see you!" she exclaimed as she advanced to meet him, cordially, and yet with quiet dignity; not too cordial. "You have been a stranger to New York a great while."

"Yes," he said. "Much longer than I anticipated."

"I thought we should hardly ever see you here again."

"Why not?" he asked with a smile.

"Want of sufficient attraction. You know, we are apt to think here that Englishmen, if they are well placed in their own country, do not want anything of other countries. They are on the very height of civilization, and of everything else. They have enough. And certainly, America cannot offer them much."

"America is a large field for work," – Mr. Southwode observed.

"Ah yes; but what country is not? I dare say you find enough to do on the other side. Do you not?"

"I have no difficulty on that score," Mr. Southwode confessed; "on either side of the Atlantic."

"We were very glad to hear of the successful termination of your lawsuit," Mrs. Busby went on. "I may congratulate you, may I not? I know you do not set an over value on the goods of fortune; but at the same time, it always seems to me that the possessor of great means has a great advantage. It is true, wealth is a flood in which many people's heads and hearts are submerged; but that would never be your case, I judge."

"I would rather be drowned in some other medium," he allowed.

"Well, we heard right? The decisions were in your favour, and triumphantly?"

"They were in my favour, and unconditionally. I did not feel that there was much to triumph about, or can be, in a family lawsuit."

"No; they are very sad things. I am very glad you are out of them, and so well out of them."

"Thank you. How are my young friends in the family?"

"The girls? Quite well, thank you, They are unluckily neither of them at home."

"Not at home! I am sorry for that. How has my child developed?" he asked with a slight smile.

"She has grown into a young woman," Mrs. Busby answered, with one of those utterly imperceptible, yet thoroughly perceived, changes of manner which speak of a mental check received or a mental protest made. It was not a change of manner either; nothing so tangible; I cannot tell what it was in her expression that Mr. Southwode instantly saw and felt, and that put him upon his guard and upon his mettle at once. Mrs. Busby had drawn her shawl closer round her; that was all the outward gesture. She always wore a shawl. In winter it was thick and in summer it was gossamer; but one way or another a shawl seemed essential to Mrs. Busby's well-being. What Mr. Southwode gathered from her words was a covert rebuke and rebuff. He was informed that Rotha was grown up.

"It is hard to realize that," he said lightly. "It seems but the other day that I left her; and since then, nothing else has changed!"

"She has changed," said Mrs. Busby drily.

"May I ask, how? – besides the physical difference, which to be sure was to be looked for?"

"I do not know that there is any other particular change."

"That would disappoint me," said Mr. Southwode. "I hoped to find a good deal of mental growth and improvement as the fruit of these three years. She has been at school all the time?"

"Yes."

"What is her school record?"

"Very fairly good," said Mrs. Busby, turning her eyes now upon the young man, whom for the last few minutes they had avoided. "I did not know you were so much interested in Rotha, Mr. Southwode."

"She was my charge, you are aware. Her mother left her to my care."

"Until she was placed in mine," said Mrs. Busby with dignity. "I hope you believe that I am able to take good care of her?"

"I should be very sorry to doubt that, and no one who knows Mrs. Busby could question it for a moment. But a charge is a charge, you know. To resign it or delegate it is not optional. I regard myself as Rotha's guardian always, and it was as her guardian that I entrusted her to you."

Mrs. Busby did not answer this, and did not change a muscle in face or figure.

"And so," Mr. Southwode went on, smiling, – he was amused, and he appreciated Mrs. Busby, – "it is as her guardian that I am asking an account of her now."

"I have given it," said Mrs. Busby; and she moved her lips as if they were dry, which however her utterance was not. It was pleasant.

"The young ladies can hardly be expected home early, I suppose?" said Mr.

Southwode, looking at his watch.

"Hardly" – returned Mrs. Busby in the same way.

"When can I see Rotha to-morrow?"

"To-morrow," said Mrs. Busby, speaking leisurely, "you will hardly see her. She is not at home. I said that before, but you understood me to speak of the evening merely."

"Where is she then? I can go to her."

"No, you cannot," said Mrs. Busby half smiling, but it was not a smile Mr. Southwode liked. "She is at a friend's house in the country."

"Not in New York! How long do you expect her to be absent?"

"That I cannot possibly tell. It depends on circumstances that I do not know."

Mr. Southwode pondered. "Will you favour me with her address?" he asked, taking out his notebook.

"It is not worth the while," said the lady quietly. "She is at a considerable distance from New York, too far for you to go to her; and she may be home any day. It depends, as I said, on what I do not now know."

"And may be delayed yet for some time, then?"

"Possibly."

"Will you give me her address, Mrs. Busby."

Mr. Southwode's pencil was ready, but instead of giving him something to do with it, Mrs. Busby rang the bell. Pencil and notebook waited.

"Lesbia, go up to my dressing room and bring me a little green book with a clasp lying on my table there."

A few minutes of silence and waiting; then Lesbia returned with the announcement, "There aint no sort o' little book there, Mis' Busby. There's a heap o' big ones, but they aint green."

"Go again and look in the left hand drawer."

Lesbia came again. "Aint nothin' there but papers."

"That will do. Mr. Southwode, I have not my address book, and without that I cannot give you what you want. The name of the post-office town is very peculiar, and I always forget it. But I can write to Rotha to-morrow and summon her, if you think it necessary."

"Would that be an inexpedient measure?"

"You must judge. I have not thought best to do it; but if it is necessary I can do it now."

"I will not give you so much trouble. If you will allow me, I will come again to morrow evening, and get the address."

"To-morrow evening!" said the lady slowly. "I am very sorry, I have an engagement; I shall not be at home to-morrow evening."

Why did it not occur to Mrs. Busby to say that she would leave the address for him, if he would call for it? Mr. Southwode quietly put up his pencil, and remarked that another time would do; and passed on easily to make inquiries about what New York had been doing since he went away? Mrs. Busby told him of certain buildings and plans for buildings here and there, and then suddenly asked,

"When did you come, Mr. Southwode?"

"I landed to-day."

"To-day! Rotha would be very much flattered if she knew how prompt you have been to seek her out."

It was said with a manner meant to be smoothly insinuating, but which somehow had missed the smoothness. Mrs. Busby for that moment had lost the hold she usually kept of herself.

"Rotha would expect no less of me," Mr. Southwode answered calmly.

"Then you and she must have been great friends before you went away? greater then I knew."

"Did Rotha not credit me with so much?" he asked with a smile, which covered a sharp observation of the lady, examining him.

"To tell you the truth," said Mrs. Busby, with a manner which was intended to be gracious, "I did not encourage her. Knowing what gentlemen, and young gentlemen, generally are, I thought it unlikely that you would much remember Rotha amid the pressure of your business in England, and very likely that things might turn out so that she would never see you again. I expected every day to hear that you were married; and of course that would have been an end of your interest in her."

"Why do you think so, may I ask?"

"Why? Every woman knows," said Mrs. Busby in amused fashion.

"I will not marry till I find a woman that does not know," said Mr.

Southwode shaking his head.

"Now that is unreasonable, Mr. Southwode."

"I do not think so. Prove it."

"I cannot prove it to a man. I have only a woman's knowledge, of what he does not understand. And besides, Mr. Southwode, it is quite right and proper that it should be so. A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife; and if his father and mother, surely everybody else."

"As I am not married, the case does not come under consideration," said the gentleman carelessly. And after a pause he went on – "I have written several letters to Rotha during the time of my absence, and addressed them to your care. Did you receive them safe?"

"I received several – I do not at this moment recollect just how many."

"Do you know why they were never answered?"

"I suppose I do," said Mrs. Busby composedly. "Rotha has been exceedingly engrossed with her studies."

"She had vacations?"

"O certainly. She had vacations."

"Then can you tell me, Mrs. Busby, why Rotha never wrote to me?"

"I am afraid I cannot tell you," the lady answered slowly, looking into the fire.

"Do you think Rotha has forgotten me?"

"It is not like her, I should say, to forget. I never hear her mention you. But then, I see her little except in the vacations, and not always then; she was often carried off from me."

"By whom, may I ask?"

"O by her school teacher."

"And that was – ? Pardon me, but it concerns me to know all about Rotha I can."

"I am not sure if I am justified in telling you."

"Why not?"

"I think," said Mrs. Busby with an appearance of candour, "my guardianship is the proper one for her. How can you be her guardian, while she lives in my house, Mr. Southwode? Or how can you be her guardian out of it?"

"I promised her mother," he said. "How a promise shall be fulfilled, may admit of question; but not whether it shall be fulfilled."

"I know of but one way," Mrs. Busby went on, eyeing him now intently. "If you tell me you are intending to take that way, – then I have no more to say, of course. But I know of but one way in which it can be done."

Mr. Southwode laughed a little, a low, soft laugh, that in him always meant amusement. "I did not promise that to her mother," he said, "and I cannot promise it to you. It might be convenient, but I do not contemplate it."

"Then, Mr. Southwode, I feel it my duty to request that you fulfil your promise by acting through me."

It was well enough said; it was not without some ground of reason. If he could have felt sure of Mrs. Busby, it might have received, partially at least, his concurrence. But he was as far as possible from feeling sure of Mrs. Busby; and rather gave her credit for playing a clever mask. Upon a little pause which followed the last words, there came a ring at the door and the entrance of the young lady of the house. Antoinette was grown up excessively pretty, and was dressed to set off her prettiness. Her mother might be pardoned for viewing her with secret pride and exultation, if not for the thrill of jealous fear which accompanied the proud joy. That anybody should stand in this beauty's way!

"Mr. Southwode!" exclaimed the young lady. "It is Mr. Southwode come back. Why, Mr. Southwode, what has kept you so long? We heard you were coming five months ago. Why didn't you come then?"

Mrs. Busby wished her daughter had not said that.

"There were reasons – not interesting enough to occupy your ear with them."

"'Occupy my ear'!" repeated the girl. "That is something new. Mamma, isn't that deliciously polite! Well, what made you stay away so long, Mr. Southwode? I like to have my ear occupied."

"Should not people stay where they belong?"

"And do you belong in England?"

"I suppose, in a measure, I may say I do."

"You talk foolishly, Antoinette," her mother put in. "Don't you know that Mr. Southwode's home is in England?"

"People can change their homes, mamma. Then, you are not going to stay long, Mr. Southwode?"

"I do not know how long. That is an undecided point."

"And what have you come over for now?"

"Antoinette!" said her mother again. "I do not know if you can excuse her, Mr. Southwode; she is entirely too out-spoken. That is a question you have nothing to do with, Nettie."

"Why not, mamma? He has come for something; and if it is business, or travelling, or hunting, I would like to know."

"Hunting, at this time of year!" said Mrs. Busby.

"I might say it is business," said Mr. Southwode. "In one part of my business, perhaps you can help me."

Antoinette pricked up her ears delightedly, and eagerly asked how? and what?

"I made it part of my business to inquire about a little girl that I left three years ago under your mother's care."

"Rotha!" exclaimed Antoinette; and a cloudy shadow of displeasure and suspicion forthwith fell over her face; not tinder such good control as her mother's. "A little girl! She was not so very little."

"What sort of a girl has she turned out to be?"

"Not little now, I can tell you. She is a great deal bigger than I am. So you came to see about Rotha?"

"What can you tell me about her?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Nothing but the truth," said Mr. Southwode gravely.

"But the truth about what? Rotha is just what she used to be."

"Not changed except in inches?"

"Inches! Feet! – " said Antoinette. "We don't think about inches when we look at her. I don't know about anything else. If you want an account of her studies you must ask somebody at school."

"Her teacher was yours?"

"O yes. Lately, you know, we were both in the upper class; and of course we were together in Mrs. Mowbray's lessons; but then in other things we were apart."

"How was that?"

"Studied different things," said Antoinette shortly. "Had different masters. I can't tell you about Rotha's lessons, if you want to know that." She was pulling off her gloves as she spoke, and tugged at them with an appearance of vexation, which might be due to their excellent fit and consequent difficulty of removal.

"Has she proved herself a pleasant inmate of the family?"

"She has been rather an inmate of Mrs. Mowbray's family," said Antoinette. "Mrs. Mowbray has swallowed her up and carried her off from us. We don't see much of her."

"Antoinette," said her mother here, "Mr. Southwode wants to know Rotha's address; and I cannot give him the name of the place. Can you help me recollect it?"

"Never knew it, mamma. I didn't know the place had a name. I can't recollect what I never heard."

"There must be a post-office," Mr. Southwode remarked.

"Must there? O I suppose there must, somewhere; but I don't know it."

"Lesbia could not find my address book," Mrs. Busby added.

"It is a matter of no consequence," Mr. Southwode rejoined. And he presently after took his leave. A moment's silence followed his departure.

"There was no need to tell him you did not know the post-office town," said Mrs. Busby. "That was as much as to say, you never write."

"What should I write for?" returned Antoinette defiantly. "Mamma! was that all he came for? to ask about Rotha?"

"All that he came here for," said Mrs. Busby, with lines in her brow and a compressed mouth. "I wish you had not told him where Rotha went to school, either."

"Why?"

"Just as well not to say it."

"But what harm? He could ask, if he wanted to know; and then you would have to tell. What does he want her address for?"

"I don't know; but I can manage that, well enough. He knows nothing about Tanfield."

"Mamma! I wish Rotha had never come to us!" cried Antoinette with tears in her eyes.

"Don't be foolish, Antoinette. Mr. Southwode will be here again in a day or two; and then leave things to me."

Mr. Southwode meantime walked slowly and thoughtfully to the corner of the street. By that time his manner changed; and he hailed a horse car and sprang into it like a man who was suffering from no indecision in either his views or purposes. Oddly enough, the very name which Antoinette had comforted herself with thinking he did not know, had suddenly occurred to him, together with a long-ago proposition of Mrs. Busby to her sister in the latter's time of need. He had pretty well made up his mind.

Half an hour later Mr. Southwode was announced to Mrs. Mowbray.

Mrs. Mowbray recollected him; she never forgot anybody, or failed to catalogue anybody rightly in the vast collections and stores of her memory. She received Mr. Southwode therefore with the gracious courtesy and dignity which was habitual with her, and with the full measure also of her usual reserve and quick observation.

After a few commonplaces respecting his absence and his return, Mr. Southwode begged to ask if Mrs. Busby's niece, Miss Carpenter, were in her house or school?

"Miss Carpenter is not with me," Mrs. Mowbray answered guardedly.

"But she has been with you, if I understand aright?"

"She has been with me until lately."

"Are you informed that she will not return?"

"By no means! I am expecting to see her or hear from her every day. O by no means. Miss Carpenter ought to remain with me several years yet. I shall be much disappointed if she do not. It is one great mistake of parents now-a-days, that they do not give me time enough. The first two or three years can but lay a foundation, on which to build afterwards."

"May I ask, if the foundation has been successfully laid in Miss Carpenter's case? I am interested to know; because Mrs. Carpenter when she died left her child to my care; and I hold myself responsible for what concerns her."

Mrs. Mowbray hesitated slightly. "Where was Mrs. Busby?" she asked then.

"Here; but there was no intercourse between the sisters."

"Was it not by her mother's wish that Miss Carpenter was placed with her aunt?"

"No. I acted on no authority but my own."

"What sort of a woman was Mrs. Carpenter?"

"A very admirable woman. A sweet, sound, noble nature, with a great deal of quiet strength."

"Is her daughter like her?"

"Not in the least. I do not mean that she lacks some of her mother's good qualities; but they are developed differently, and with a wholly different background of temperament."

"Was there a feud between the sisters, or anything like it?"

Mr. Southwode hesitated. "I know the story," he said. "Mrs. Carpenter never complained; but I think another woman would, in her place."