A Letter of Credit Part 54

"I don't take it," said Rotha. "Your things do not suit me, as your mother has just said. You may do what you like with it; but you do not give it to me!"

Mr. Busby looked from one to the other.

"Do you expect me to buy new everything for you?" Mrs. Busby asked now.

"Is it not good enough? I suppose it is much better than any hat you ever had before in your life."

"But it is not mine," said Rotha. "It never was given to me. I never heard anything of it until now, when Antoinette fetched it because she did not want Mr. Busby to see what sort of a hat I really had. Thank you!

I do not take it."

"But it is yours!" cried Antoinette. "I have given it to you. Do you think I would wear it, after giving it away?"

"If it was convenient, you would," said Rotha.

"You may lay your account with not having any hat, then, unless you wear this," said Mrs. Busby. "You may take your choice. If you receive Antoinette's kindness so, you must not look for mine."

"Your kindness, and hers, are the very strangest sort I ever heard of in my life," said Rotha.

"What am I to understand by all this?" asked the perplexed Mr. Busby, looking from the hat to the faces of the speakers.

"Only, that I never heard of that hat's being intended for me until this minute," said Rotha.

"Rotha," said her aunt quietly, "you may go up stairs."

"What did you bring it down for, Nettie?"

"Because you took an insane fancy to see Rotha's bonnet, papa; so I brought it."

"That is not true, Mr. Busby," Rotha said, standing up to go.

"It is not your hat?"

"No, sir."

"Mr. Busby, if you would listen to Antoinette's words," said his wife with her lips very compressed, "you would understand things. Rotha, I said you might go."

Which Rotha did, Antoinette at the same moment bursting into tears and flinging the hat on the dinner table.

What followed, Rotha did not know. She climbed the many stairs with a heavy heart. It was war to the knife now. She was sure her aunt would never forgive her. And, much worse, she did not see how she was ever to forgive her aunt. And yet--"if thy neighbour hath ought against thee"--.

Rotha had far more against _her_, she excused herself, in vain. The one debt was not expunged by the other. And, bitter as her own grievances seemed to her, there was a score on the other side. Not so would Mr.

Digby have received or returned injuries. Rotha knew it. And as fancy represented to her the quiet, manly, dignified sweetness which always characterized him, she did not like the retrospect of her own behaviour.

So true it is, that "whatsoever doth make manifest is light." No discourse could have given Rotha so keen a sense of her own failings as that image of another's beautiful living. What was done could not be undone; but the worst was, Rotha was precisely in the mood to do it over again; so though sorry she was quite aware that she was not repentant.

It followed that the promises for which she longed and to which she was stretching out her hands, were out of reach. Clean out of reach. Rotha's heart was the scene of a struggle that took away all possibility of comfort or even of hope. She had no right to hope. "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off"--but Rotha was not so minded. The prospect was dark and miserable. How could she go on living in her aunt's house? and how could she live anywhere else? and how could she bear her loneliness? and how could she get to the favour of that one great Friend, whose smile is only upon them that are at least trying to do his commandments? It was dark in Rotha's soul, and stormy.

It continued so for days. In the house she was let alone, but so thoroughly that it amounted to domestic exile or outlawry. She was let alone. Not forbidden to take her place at the family table, or to eat her portion of the bread and the soup; but for all social or kindly relations, left to starve. Mr. Busby's mouth had been shut somehow; he was practically again a man of papers; and the other two hardly looked at Rotha or spoke to her. Antoinette and she sometimes went to school together and sometimes separate; it was rather more lonely when they went together. In school they hardly saw each other. So days went by.

CHAPTER XV.

MRS. MOWBRAY.

"How is that Carpenter girl doing?" Mrs. Mowbray inquired one day of Miss Blodgett, as they met in one of the pa.s.sages.

"I have been wanting to speak to you about her, madame. She knows all I can teach her in that cla.s.s."

"Does she! Her aunt told me she had had no advantages. Does she study?"

"I fancy she has no need to study much where she is. She has been further."

"How does she behave?"

"Perfectly well. She does not look to me happy."

"Not happy! Is her cousin kind to her? She is cousin to that pretty Busby, you know."

"I think she hardly speaks to her. Not here, I mean."

Mrs. Mowbray pa.s.sed on. But that very afternoon, when school was breaking up, Miss Blodgett asked Rotha to wait a few minutes. The girls were all gone in a trice; Miss Blodgett herself followed; and Rotha was left alone. She waited a little while. Then the door opened and the figure which had such a fascination for her appeared. The face looked gentler and kinder than she had seen it before; this was not school time. Mrs.

Mowbray came in and sat down by Rotha, after giving her her hand.

"Are you quite well, my dear?" was her instant question after the greeting. "You are hoa.r.s.e."

Rotha said she had caught a little cold.

"How did you do that?"

"I think it was sitting in a cold room."

"Were you obliged to sit in a cold room?"

Rotha hesitated. "It was pleasanter there," she said with some embarra.s.sment.

"You never should sit in a cold room. What did you want to be in a cold room for?"

Rotha hesitated again. "I wanted to be alone."

"Studying?"

"Not my lessons,"--said Rotha doubtfully.

"Not your lessons? If you and I were a little better acquainted, I should ask for a little more confidence. But I will not be unreasonable."

Rotha glanced again at the sweet face, so kindly now with all its penetrating acuteness and habit of authority; so sweet with its smile; and confidence sprang forth at the instant, together with the longing for help. Did not this look like a friend's face? Where else was she to find one? Reserve gave way.

"I was studying my duty," she said softly.

"Your duty, my dear? Was the difficulty about knowing it, or about doing it?"