The Letter of Credit

"Will you allow me to ask, how she came to entrust her child to you?"

"I was the only friend at hand. And now," Mr. Southwode went on smiling, "may I be permitted to ask another question or two? When have you heard from Miss Carpenter?"

"Not a word all summer. In the spring my school was broken up, on account of sickness in the house; I sent Rotha home to her aunt; and since then I have heard nothing from her. Not a word."

"You do not know then of course where she is?"

"With her aunt, I suppose, of course. Is she not with Mrs. Busby?"

"She is making a visit somewhere, Mrs. Busby tells me." And he hesitated.

"Has Rotha's home been happy with her aunt?"

"That is a question I never ask. Rotha does not complain."

"I need not ask whether her abode has been happy here," said the gentleman smiling again; "but, has she been a satisfactory member of your school?"

"Perfectly so! Of my school and family."

"You are satisfied with her studies, her progress in them, I mean?"

"Perfectly. I never taught any one with more pleasure or better results."

"I am very glad to hear that," said Mr. Southwode. And he took his leave.

The very next train for Tanfield carried him northward.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

DISCOVERIES

The next day, which was the 24th of October, passed as other days of less significance had done. At dinner Mrs. Purcell complained of Rotha's failure of appetite. Rotha had been down-hearted all the morning. Seven days more, and November would begin!

"You don't eat worth a red cent!" said Mrs. Purcell. "Aint that a good pot pie?"

"Excellent! The queen of England couldn't have a better."

"If she hasn't a better appetite she won't be queen long. Why don't ye eat?"

"Sometimes I can't, Prissy."

"What ails you?"

"Nothing. I get thinking; that's all."

"Joe," said his wife, "what's Mis' Busby doin'?"

"Couldn't say."

"Where is she? Why don't she come after Miss Rotha?"

"I s'pose she's busy with her own affairs. If she' had consulted me, I could ha' told you more."

"If she ever consults you, I hope you'll give her some good advice. She wants it bad!"

"I guess I will," said Mr. Purcell, lounging out. "If I don't, you kin."

Rotha wished to escape further remark or enquiry, and went out too. She would divert herself with gathering a great bunch of the fall flowers and dress some dishes. She often refreshed herself and refined the tea-table with a nosegay dressed in the middle of it, especially as it seemed to give not less pleasure to her entertainers than to her. She went now slowly down the gravelled drive, filling her hands as she went with asters, chrysanthemums, late honeysuckles, and bits of green from box and cedar and feathery larches. She went slowly, thinking hard all the way, and feeling very blue indeed. She saw no opening out of her troubles, and she strongly suspected that her aunt meant there should be none. What was to become of her? True, it flashed into her mind, "The Lord is my Shepherd"; – but the sheep was taking it into her head to think for herself, and could not see that the path she was following would end in anything but disaster and famishing. If she could but get out of this path —

Ah, silly sheep!

Rotha found herself at the gate leading into the high road; the gate by which she had been admitted so many months ago, and which she had never passed through since. She did not open it now; she stood still, resting one hand on the bars of it and gazing off along the road that led to Tanfield. It was quite empty; there was little passing along that road in the best of times, and very little at this season. It looked hopeless and desolate, the long straight lines of fences, and the gray, empty space between running off into nothing. Anything moving upon it would have been a relief to the eye and the mind; it looked like Rotha's own life at present, unchanging, Monotonous, solitary, barren, endless. Yet very precious flowers had been lately blossoming upon her path, and fragrant plants springing; but this, if she partly knew, at this moment she wholly ignored or forgot. She stood in a dream reverie, looking forward with her bodily eye, but with the eye of her mind back, and far back; to her mother, to her father, to Mr. Digby, and the times at Medwayville when she was a happy child. Nothing regular or consecutive; a maze of dream images in which she lost herself, and under the power of which her tears slowly gathered and began to run down her cheeks. Standing so, looking down the long empty road, and in the very depths of disheartened foreboding and dismay, a step startled her. Nobody was in sight on the road towards Tanfield; it was a quick business step coming in the other direction. Rotha turned her head hurriedly, and then was more in a maze than ever, though of a different kind. Close by the gate somebody was standing. A stranger? And why did he look so little strange? Rotha's eyes grew big unconsciously, while she likewise utterly forgot that they were framed in a setting of wet eyelashes; and then there came flashing changes in her face. I cannot describe how all the lines of it altered; and fire leapt to her eye, not without an alternating shadow however, a sort of shadow of doubt; her lips parted, but she could not bring out a word. The stranger stood still likewise, and looked, and I am not sure but his eyes opened a little; light came into them too, and a smile.

"Have I found you?" he said. "Perhaps you will let me come in."

And while Rotha remained in stupid bewilderment and uncertainty of everything except the identity of the person before her, he laid hold of the latch of the gate and made his own words good; Rotha giving way just enough to allow of it. I think the new-comer was a little uncertain as well; nevertheless he was not the sort of man to shew uncertainty.

"Is this my little Rotha?" he said as he came up to her; and then, taking her hand, he began just where he left off, by stooping and kissing her. That roused Rotha, as much as ever the kiss of the prince in the fairy tale woke the sleeping beauty. The blood flushed all over her face, she pulled her hand away, and flung herself as it were upon the gate again; laying hold of the bars of it and bending down her face upon her arms. What did he do that for? and had he a right? After leaving her unthought of for so many years, was he entitled to speak to her and look at her and – kiss her, just as he could do once when she was a child? Rotha's mind was in terrible tumult, for notwithstanding this protest of reason, or of feeling, that touch of his lips upon her lips had waked up all the old past; it was just like the kiss with which he had bid her good bye three years ago; but whether to forgive him or not, and whether there was anything or not, Rotha did not yet know. Yet the old power of his presence was asserting itself already. All she could do was to keep silent, and the silence was of some little duration; for Mr. Digby, as his old fashion was, waited.

"I see you have not forgotten me," he said at length. "Or – should I say – "

"I thought you had forgotten me, Mr. Southwode," said Rotha. She said it with some dignity, removing her arms from the gate and standing before him. Yet she could not raise her eyes to him. Her manner was entirely unexceptionable and graceful.

"What made you think that?"

"I had some reason. It is three years, just three years, since you went away; and I have never heard a word from you in all the time."

"You have not heard from me? How comes that?"

"I do not know how it comes. I have never heard."

"And so, you thought I had never written?"

"Did you write?" said Rotha, flashing the question now at him with her eyes. It was exactly one of the old looks, that he remembered, bright, deep, eager. Yet how the girl had changed!

"I wrote a number of times."

"To me?"

"Yea. I got no answer."

"How could I answer letters that I never had?" cried Rotha.

"Could you not, possibly, have written to me a letter that was not an answer?"

"Yes, and I would; O how I wanted to write, many a time! – but I did not know where to send it. I had not your address."

"I left it with your aunt for you; or rather, I believe I left it in a note for you, when I went away."

"She never let me know as much," said Rotha a little bitterly.

"You might have guessed she had my address. Did you ever ask her? You know, I promised to give it to you?"

"There was no use in my asking her any such thing,"' said Rotha. "She never let me hear a word from you or about you. I only learned by chance, as it were, that you had gone back to England."

"And so you thought I had forgotten you?"

"What could I think? I did not want to think that," said Rotha, feeling somewhat put in the wrong.

"I did not want you to think that. The least you can do to a friend, if you have got him, is to trust him."

"But then, I thought – they said – I thought, maybe, after you had put me in aunt Serena's care, you had done – or thought you had done – the best you could for me."

"The best I could just at the moment. I never promised to leave you with Mrs. Busby always, did I?"

"But you were in England, and busy," said Rotha. "It seemed – No, itdidn't seem very natural that you should forget all about me, for I did not think it was at all like you; but that was what people said."

"And Rotha believed?"

"I almost believed it at last," said Rotha, very sorry to confess the fact.

"What do you think now?"

"I think I was mistaken. But, Mr. Digby, three years is a long time; and after all, why should you remember me? I was nothing to you; only a child that you had been very kind to."

He was silent. What was she to him indeed? And what sort of relations was he to maintain between them now? She was not a child any longer. Here was a tall, graceful girl, albeit dressed in exceedingly plain garments; the garments could not hide and even rather emphasized the fact, for she was graceful in spite of them. And the promise of the child's face was abundantly fulfilled in the woman. Features very fine, eyes of changing and flashing power, all the indications that he well remembered of a nature passionate, tender, sensitive and strong; while there was also a certain veil of sweetness and patience over them all, which he did not remember. Mr. Southwode began dimly to perceive that he could not take up things just where he left them; what he left was not in existence. In place of the passionate, variable, wilful child, here was a developed, sensitive, and withal very beautiful woman. What was he to do with her? or what could he do for her?

Unconsciously, the two had begun slowly pacing towards the house, and Rotha was the one to break the silence. Happily, her companion's scruples did not enter her head.

"What brought you here, Mr. Digby? How ever came you to Tanfield?"

"To look after that little girl you thought I had forgotten," he said with a slight smile.

"But what made you come here? Did you know I was here?"

"Not at all. I could not find out anything of your whereabouts; except indeed that you were 'in the country.' So much I learned."

"From whom?"

"From Mrs. Busby."

"From my aunt! You have seen her! When did you see her?"

"Yesterday; immediately upon my arrival."

"Then you have only just come? From England, I mean."

"Only just come."

Rotha paused. This statement was delightfully soothing.

"And you saw aunt Serena? And what did she say?"

"She said nothing. I could get nothing out of her, of what I wanted to hear. She said you were quite well, making a visit at a friend's house in the country."

"That – is – not – true!" said Rotha slowly and indignantly. "Did she tell you that?"

"Are you not making a visit here?"

"What is a 'visit'? No, I am not. And, it is not a friend's house, either."

"How came you here? and when? and what for, then?" said he now in his turn.

"I came – some time in last May; near the end, I believe."

"Why?"

Rotha lifted her eyes to his. "I do not know," she said.

"What was the alleged reason for your coming?"

"Aunt Serena was going, she said, to Chicago, on a visit, and my presence would not be convenient. I could not stay in the house in New York alone. So I was sent here. That is all I know."

"Sent?"

Rotha nodded. "Yes."

"Not brought?"

"O no!"

"Did you come alone?"

A sudden spasm seemed to catch the girl's heart; she stopped and covered her face with her hands; and for a minute or two there came a rush of hot tears, irrepressible and unmanageable. Why they came Rotha did not know, and was surprised at them; but there was a quiver and a glitter in her face when she took her hands down, which shewed to her companion that the clouds and the sunshine were at strife somewhere. They walked on a few paces more, and then, coming full in sight of the house, Rotha's steps stayed.

"Where are we going?" she said. "I have no place to take you to, in there."

Mr. Digby's eyes made a survey of the building before him.

"O it is large enough – there is room, and rooms, enough," said Rotha; "but it is all unused and unopened. I have one corner, at the top of the house; and down in another corner Mr. and Mrs. Purcell have their kitchen and a little sleeping place off it; all the rest is desert."

"Who are Mr. and Mrs. Purcell?"

"Aunt Serena's tenants – farmers – I do not know what to call them. They might be servants, but they are not that exactly."

"Do you mean that there is no other person in the house?"

"No other person."

Mr. Southwode began to go forward again, slowly, looking at everything as he went.

"What do you hear from your aunt?"

"Nothing. O yes, I have had one scrap of a note from her; some time ago; but it told me nothing:"

"Have you written to her?"

"Over and over; till I was tired."

"Have you written to no one else?"

"Why of course! I wrote to Mrs. Mowbray, again and again; and to one or two of the girls; but I never got an answer. The whole world has seemed dead, and been dead, for me."

They slowly paced by the house, and began to go down the sweep towards the other gate.

"Alone with these two servants for five months!" Mr. Southwode said.

"Rotha, what sort of a life have you been living all this while?"

"I do not know," said the girl catching her breath. "Rather queer. I suppose it has been good for me."

"What makes you suppose that?"

"I think I can feel that it has." – But Rotha added no more.

"Is confidence between us not fully reestablished?" he asked with a smile.

"O yes – if you care to know," Rotha answered hesitatingly, at the same time finding herself ready to slide back into the old habit of being very open with him.

"I care to know – if you like to tell me."

"It has been a queer life," she repeated. "I have been living between two things, my Bible, and the garden. There was an interval of some weeks not long ago, when Mrs. Purcell was sick; and then I lived largely in the kitchen."

"Go on, and tell me – But how can you go on!" Mr. Southwode found himself approaching the gate and road again, and suddenly broke off. "I cannot keep you standing here by the hour, and a little time will not do for us. Pray, if you have no place to take me to, where do you yourself live?"

The laughing glance that came to him now was precisely another of the child's looks that he remembered; a look that recognized his sympathy, and answered it out of a fund of heart treasure.

"I live between my corner at the top of the house, and Mrs. Purcell's corner at the bottom. I have no place but my room and her kitchen."

"Where can I see you? We have a great deal to talk about. Rotha, suppose you go for a drive with me?"

Rotha's eyes sparkled. "It would not be the first time," she said.

"No. Then the next question is, when can we go?" He looked at his watch.

"It is too late for this afternoon," Rotha opined.

"I am afraid it is. I do not think we can manage it. Then – Rotha, will you be ready to-morrow morning? How early can you be ready?"

"We have breakfast about half past six."

"We?"

"Yes," said Rotha half laughing. "We. That is, Mr. Purcell, and his wife, and myself."

"Do you take your meals with these people?"

Rotha nodded. "And in their kitchen. It is the only place."

"But they are not – What are they?"

"Not what you would call refined persons," said Rotha, while again the laugh of amusement and pleasure in her eyes shone through an iris of sudden tears. "No – they have been kind to me, though, in their way."

"As kind as their allegiance to Mrs. Busby permitted," said Mr. Southwode drily, recognizing at the same time the full beauty of this look I have tried to describe. "Well! That is over. How early to-morrow will you be ready to come away?"

"To come away?" repeated Rotha. "For a drive, you mean?"

"For a drive from this place. It is not my purpose ever to bring you back again."

The colour darted vividly into Rotha's cheeks, and a corresponding flash came to her eye. Yet she stood still and silent, while the colour went and came. Never here again? Then whither? and under what guardianship? His own? There came a great heart leap of joy at this suggestion, but with it came also a vague pull-back of doubt; the origin of which probably lay in words she had heard long ago and never forgotten, the tendency of which was to throw scruples in the way of such an arrangement or to cast some slur upon it. Was there an echo of them in Rotha's young consciousness? She did feel that she was a child no longer; that there was a difference since the old time. Yet she was still as simple, nearly, as a child; and of that sort of truth in her own heart which readily believes truth in others. Mr. Digby's truth she knew. Altogether there was a confusion of thoughts within her, which he saw, though he did not read.

"Do you owe anything to these people here?" he asked, a sudden question rising in his mind.

"Owe? To Mr. Purcell and his wife? No. I owe them for a good deal of kindness. O! you mean – Yes, in one sense I owe them. I have never paid them anything."

"For your board, and their care of you?"

"No. – I do not owe them for much care," said Rotha smiling. "I have taken care of myself since I have been here."

"Do I understand you? Has nobody paid them anything for your stay here?"

"Nobody."

"Upon what footing were you here, then?"

"It has no name," said Rotha contentedly. She could be gay now over this anomalous past. "I do not know what to call it."

"Has your aunt allowed you to depend upon these people?"

"Yes. I have not really depended upon them, Mr. Southwode. I promised myself, and I promised Mrs. Purcell, that some day, if I ever could do it, I would live to pay her. If I could have got any work to do, I would have taken it, and paid her before now; but I had no chance. I could see nobody."

"How literally is that to be taken?"

"With absolute literalness. I have seen nobody but Mr. and Mrs. Purcell since I came here. Began almost to think I never should."

"But Sundays?"

"What of Sundays?"

"Did you not go to church somewhere?"

"Yes," said Rotha smiling; "in my pleasant corner room at the top of the house. Nowhere else."

"Why not?"

"It is not the habit of the people. And their habit, I found, I could not change."

"What did you do with your Sundays?"

"Spent them alone with my Bible. And often they were very, very pleasant; though I found it difficult to keep up such study all alone, through the long days."

"I must not let you stand here any longer! Will you be ready for me at eleven o'clock to-morrow?"

"Yes. There is no difficulty in that."

"Then I will be here at eleven. Good bye!"

He gave her his hand, looked at her a little steadily, but Rotha could not tell what he was thinking of; then as he let go her hand he lifted his hat and turned away.

A flush of colour came over Rotha's face, and she was glad to turn too; to hide it. Walking up to the house, she tried to think what Mr. Southwode meant by that last gesture. She was half pleased, and half not pleased. It was the manner of a gentleman to a stranger; she was no stranger. But it was also the manner of a gentleman towards a lady. Did he recognize her then for one? for a grown-up woman? a child no longer? and was he going to take on distance in his behaviour to her? She did not like the idea. That thought however, and all thoughts, soon merged in a feeling of exceeding joy. In the surprise and strangeness of the first meeting, Rotha had hardly had time to know how she felt; no Aurora Borealis is more splendid than the rosy rays of light which began now to stream up into her sky. She knew and began to realize that she was overwhelmingly happy. There were questions unsolved and not easy to solve; there were uncertainties and perplexities in her future; she half discerned that; but she could not give attention to it, in the present she was so exceedingly glad. And she need not; for did not Mr. Digby always know what to do with perplexities? She belonged to him again, and he, not her aunt any more, had the disposal of her; it was the old time come back. She was no longer alone and forlorn; no longer divided from her best friend; what of very hard or very evil could come to her now?

She felt she was too much excited to bear the sight of Mrs. Purcell just yet; she turned into the old garden to gather some pears. For the last time! It rang in Rotha's heart like a peal of bells. The glint of the October sun, warm and mellow on yellow leaves and on leaves yet green, on tree branches and even garden palings, was like a reflection from the inner sunshine which even so shone upon everything. The world had not looked so when she came out of the house that afternoon; everything was changed. No more under the dominion of her aunt Busby! how Rotha's heart leapt at the thought. No longer to be shut up here with the two Purcell people, and having an indefinite prospect of dull isolation and hopeless imprisonment before her. What was before her, Rotha did not indeed know; only Mr. Digby was in it, and that was enough, and security for all the rest.

She was thinking this, when it suddenly occurred to her, that she had known all along that the love and power of a heavenly friend had been in her future; and yet the knowledge had never given her the rest and the content that the certainty of the human friend gave. Rotha stopped picking pears and stood still, sorry and ashamed. It was true; she could not deny it; and it grieved her. So this was all her faith amounted to, her faith in the Friend who is better and surer immeasurably than all other friends! She could trust Mr. Digby with a trust that made her absolutely careless and happy; she could not trust Christ so. It grieved Rotha keenly; it made her ashamed with a genuine and wholesome shame; but the fact stood.

CHAPTER XXIX.

PERPLEXITIES

She went in with a lapful of pears. By the way she had made up her mind not to speak of what had happened. She had been considering. Joe and Prissy were certainly kind to her, and kindly disposed; yet, what had become of her letters? They had all been intrusted to Mr. Purcell, to mail or have mailed in Tanfield. Did that fact stand in connection with the other fact, that no answers ever came? It was plain now that Mrs. Busby had been playing a deep game; plain that it had been her purpose to keep Rotha hidden away at least from one person. Rotha was the least in. the world of a suspicious nature; nevertheless she felt uncertain what course Joe and Prissy might see fit to take if they knew of what was planning; she resolved they should not know. If only they had not seen Mr. Southwode already! he would stand so in sight of the house. But Prissy looked very unsuspicious.

"Well, I do think!" she began. "I should say, you wanted some pears. What ever did you s'pose was goin' to be done with 'em?"

"Eat them!" said Rotha cheerily, emptying her apronful upon the table.

"The boards is just scoured! And them aint the kind."

"The kind for what? They are ripe, are they not?"

"Ripe enough for doin' up. I can make pear honey of 'em. They'd ha' been good done with molasses, if I'd ha' had 'em in time. You can't do nothin' with 'em as they be. They'd draw your mouth all up."