A Letter of Credit Part 78

"Quite well, madame,"--one of them answered, making an expressive facial sign to her neighbours on the other side, which Rotha saw and greatly resented.

"So well that you did not hear the bell?" Mrs. Mowbray went on.

Silence.

"Answer, if you please. Did you hear the bell?"

"I did, madame," came in faint tones from one of the young ladies; and a still more smothered affirmative from the other.

"Then why were you late?"

Again silence. Profound attention in all parts of the rooms; n.o.body stirring.

"It has happened once or twice before. Now, young ladies, please take notice," said Mrs. Mowbray, raising her voice somewhat. "If any young lady is not in her place here at seven o'clock, I shall go up for her myself; and if I go up for her, she will have to come down with me, just as she is. I will bring you down in your nightgown, if you are not out of it before I come for you; you shall come down in your night dress, here, to the parlour. So now you know what you have to expect; and remember, I always keep my promises."

The silence was awful, Rotha thought. It was unbroken, even by a movement, until Mrs. Mowbray turned round to her book and took up the interrupted reading. Very decorously the reading went on and ended; in subdued good order the girls came to the table and eat their breakfast; but there were smouldering fires under this calm exterior; and it was to be expected that when the chance came the fire would break forth.

The chance came that same evening before tea. The girls were gathered, preparatory to that ceremony, in the warm, well lighted rooms; and as the custom was, each one had her favourite bit of ornamental work in hand. It was a small leisure time. No teacher, as it happened, was in the front parlour where Rotha sat, deep in a book; and a conversation began near her, in under tones to be sure, which she could not but hear. Several new scholars had come into the family at the New Year. One of these, a Miss Farren, made the remark that Mrs. Mowbray had "showed out" that morning.

"Didn't she!" said another girl. "O that's what she is! You'll see.

That's _just_ what she is."

"She is an old cat!"

This last speaker was Miss Dunstable, and the spitefulness of the words brought Rotha's head up from her book, with ears pointed and sharpened.

"I thought she looked so sweet," the new comer, Miss Farren, remarked further. "I was quite taken with her at first. I thought she looked so pleasant."

"Pleasant! She's as pleasant as a mustard plaster, and as sweet as cayenne pepper. I'll tell you, Miss Farren; you're a stranger; you may as well know what you have to expect--"

"Hush, girls!"

"What's the matter?" said the Dunstable, looking round. "There's n.o.body near. Jewett has gone off into the other room. No, it is a work of charity to let Miss Farren into the secrets of her prison house, 'cause there are two sides to every game. Mrs. M. is a tyrannical, capricious, hypocritical, domineering, fiery old cat. O she's fiery; you have got to take care how you rise up and sit down; and she's stiff, she thinks there's only one way and that's her way; and she's unjust, she has favourites--"

"They all have favourites!" here put in another.

"She has ridiculous favourites. And she is pious, you'll be deluged with the Bible and prayers; and she's sanctimonious, you won't get leave to go to the opera or the theatre, or to do anything lively; and she's stingy, you'll learn that you must take all the potatoes you want the first time the dish is handed you, for it won't come a second time; and she's prudish, she won't let you receive visitors; and she's pa.s.sionate, she'll fly out like a volcano if you give her a chance; and she's obstinate, she'll be as good--or as bad--as her word."

By this time Rotha had sprung to her feet, with ears tingling and cheeks burning, and stood there like Abdiel among the fallen angels, only indeed that is comparing great things with small She was less patient and prudent than Abdiel might have been.

"Miss Farren," she said, speaking with the calmness of intensity, "there is not one bit of truth in all that Miss Dunstable has been saying to you."

The young lady addressed looked in surprise at the new speaker. Rotha's indignant eyes were sending out angry fires. The other girls looked on too, in scorn and anger, but some awe.

"Miss Carpenter is polite!" said one.

"Her sort," said another, "What you might expect from her family."

"She is a favourite herself," cried a third. "Of course, Mrs. M. is smooth as b.u.t.ter to her."

"You may say what you like of me," said Rotha; "but you shall not tell a stranger all sorts of false things about Mrs. Mowbray, without my telling her that they are false."

"Don't speak so loud!" whispered a stander-by; but Sotha went on, overpowering and silencing her opponents for the moment by the moral force of her pa.s.sionate utterance,--

"She is as kind as it is possible to be. She is kinder than ever you can think. She is as generous as a horn of plenty, and there is not a small thread in all her composition. She knows how to govern, and she will govern you, if you stay in her house; and she will keep her promises, as you will find to your cost if you break her laws; but she is good, and sweet, and bountiful, as a G.o.ddess of mercy. And whoever says anything else of her, you may be sure is not worthy of her Kindness; and speaks not true, but meanly, falsely, ungratefully, and mischievously!"

Rotha stood and blazed at them; and incensed and resentful as they were, the others were afraid now to say anything; for Mrs. Mowbray herself had come into the centre room, and other ears were near, which they did not wish to arouse. It pa.s.sed for the time; but the next day another of her companions attacked Rotha on the subject.

"You made Miss Dunstable awfully angry at you last evening, Rotha."

"I suppose so."

"What did you do it for?"

"Because she was telling a pack of lies!" said Rotha. "I'm not going to sit by and hear anybody talk so of Mrs. Mowbray. And you ought not; and n.o.body ought."

"Miss Dunstable will hate you, I can tell you. She'll be your enemy after this."

"That is nothing to me."

"Yes, it's all very well to say that, but you won't think so when you come to find out. She belongs to a very rich family, and she is worth having for a friend."

"A girl like that?" cried Rotha. "A low spirited, false girl? Worth having for a friend? Not to anybody who is worth anything herself."

"But she is ever so rich."

"What's that to me? Do you think I am going to sit by and hear Mrs.

Mowbray slandered, or anybody else, because the story teller has plenty of money? What is her money to me?"

"Well, I don't know," said the other deprecatingly. "It puts things in her power. Her family is one of the best in New York."

"Then the other members of it are much superior to this one!--that's all I have got to say."

"But Rotha, she can hurt you."

"How?"

"She can make the other girls treat you ill."

"I can bear as much as that for Mrs. Mowbray, I guess."

"What makes you like her so much?"

Rotha's eyes gave a wondering, very expressive, glance at her interlocutor.

"Because she is so unspeakably good, and beautiful, and generous. She is a kind of a queen!"

"She likes to rule."