A Letter of Credit Part 89

"I don't mean nothin'," said the woman impatiently. "There's my 'little blue John'--up on the mantel shelf; you can look at it if you want to."

Looking to the high shelf above the kitchen fireplace, Rotha saw a little book lying there. Taking it down, she was greatly astonished to find it a copy of the gospel of John, a little square copy, in limp covers, very much read. More surprised Rotha could hardly have been.

"Why, do you like this?" she involuntarily exclaimed.

"Sometimes I think I do,"--was Mrs. Purcell's ambiguous, or ironical, answer; as she carefully spread neat cloths over her pans of bread. Rotha wondered at the woman. She was handsome, she had a good figure and presence; but there was a curious mixture of defiance and recklessness in her expression and manner.

"I see you have read it a good deal."

"It's easy readin',"--was the short answer.

"Do you like the gospel of John so much better than all the rest of the Bible?"

"I don' know. The rest has too many words I can't make out."

"Well, I am very fond of the gospel of John too," said Rotha. "I think everybody is,--that loves Christ."

"Do you love him?" Mrs. Purcell asked quickly and with a keen look.

"Yes, indeed. Do you?"

Mrs. Purcell laughed a little laugh, which Rotha could not understand. "I aint one o' the good folks"--she said.

"But you might love him, still," said Rotha, drawn on to continue the conversation, she hardly knew why, for she certainly believed the woman's last a.s.sertion.

"The folks that love him are good folks, aint they?"

"They ought to be," said Rotha slowly.

"Well, that's what I think. There's folks that _say_ they love him, and I can't see as they're no better for it. _I_ can't."

"Perhaps they are trying to be better."

"Do you think Mis' Busby is?"

The question came with such sharp quickness that Rotha was at a loss how to answer.

"She says she do. I aint one o' the good folks; and sometimes I tells Joe I'm glad I aint."

"But Mrs. Purcell, that is not the way to look at it. I have seen other people that said they loved Christ, and they lived as if they did. They were beautiful people!"

Rotha spoke with emphasis, and Mrs. Purcell gave her one of her sideway glances. "I never see no such folks," she returned cynically.

"I am very glad I have," said Rotha; "and I know religion is a blessed, beautiful truth. I have seen people that loved Jesus, and were a little bit like him in loving other people; they did not live for themselves; they were always taking care of somebody, or teaching or helping somebody; making people happy that had been miserable; and giving, everywhere they could, pleasure and comfort and goodness. I have seen such people."

"Where did they live?"

"In New York."

"Was they in Mis' Busby's house?"

"Not those I was speaking of."

"When I see folks like that, I'll be good too," was Mrs. Purcell's conclusion.

"But you love this little book?" said Rotha, recurring to the thumb-worn little volume in her hand.

"I didn't tell you I did."

"No, but I see you do. I should think, anybody that liked the gospel of John, would want to be like what it says."

"I didn't tell you I didn't."

"No," said Rotha, half laughing. "I am only guessing, and wishing, you see. Mrs. Purcell, will you take some water up to my room?"

The woman's brows darkened. "What for?" she asked.

"To wash with. The water I took up this afternoon was for putting my room in order,--basin and pitcher and washstand, and wiping off dust. I want water, you know, every day for myself."

"The water's down here--just out o' that door."

"But I cannot wash down here."

"I don't know nothin' about that, whether you can or whether you can't.

That's where us washes. If you want to do it up stairs, there's nothin'

to hinder you."

"Except that somebody must carry up the water."

"That's not _my_ business," said the woman. "You can take that pail if you want to; but you must bring it down again. That's my pail for goin'

to the pump."

Rotha hesitated. Must she come to this? And to doing _everything_ for herself and for her own room? For if carrying up the water, then surely all other services beside. Providing water was one of the least. Was it come to this? She must know.

"Then you will not take care of my room for me, Mrs. Purcell?" she asked quietly.

"Mis' Busby didn't write nothin' about my takin' care o' rooms," said Mrs. Purcell; "without they was empty ones. I've got you to take care of; I can't take o' your room too. You're strong and well, aint you, like other folks?"

Rotha made no reply. She stood still, silent and indignant, both at the impertinence of the woman's speech and at the hardness of her aunt's unkindness. The shadow of the prospect before her fell upon her very gloomily and chill. Mrs. Purcell it was safest not to answer. Rotha turned, took up the pail and went to the pump.

And there she stood still She set down her pail, but instead of pumping the water, she laid hold of the pump handle and leaned upon it What ever was to become of her? Must she be degraded not only to menial companionship but to manual labour also? Once no doubt Rotha had been familiar with such service; but that was when she was a child; and the years that had pa.s.sed since then and the atmosphere of Mrs. Mowbray's house had ripened in her a love of refinement that was almost fastidious.

Not only of innate refinement, which she knew would not be affected, but of refinement in all outward things; her hands, her carriage, her walk, her dress. Must she live now to do things which would harden her hands, soil her dress, bend her straight figure, and make her light step heavy?

For how long? If she had known it would be only for a month, Rotha would have laughed at it, and played with it; instead of any such comforting a.s.surance, she had a foreboding that she was to be left in Tan field for an indefinite length of time. She tried to reason herself out of this, saying to herself that she had really no ground for it; in vain. The sure instinct, keener than reason in taking evidence, forbade her. She stood in a sort of apathy of dismay, looking into the surrounding shrubbery and noting things without heeding them; feeling the sweet, still spring air, the burst of fresh life and the opening of fresh promise in earth and sky; hearing the birds twitter, the c.o.c.ks crowing, and noticing that there was little else to even characterize, much less break, the silent peace of nature. In the midst of all this what she felt was revulsion from her present surroundings and companionship; and it was at last more to get out of Mrs. Purcell's near neighbourhood than for any other reason that she filled her pail and carried it up stairs to her room. She was half glad now that it was so far away from the kitchen. If she could but take her meals up there! She filled her pitchers; but did not immediately go back with Mrs. Purcell's pail. She sat down at the window instead, and crossing her arms on the sill, sat looking out, questioning the May why she was there?

Oddly enough, it seemed as if the May answered her after a while. The beauty, the perfectness, the loveliness, the peace, held perhaps somewhat the same sort of argument with her as was addressed by the Lord himself, once upon a time, to his servant Job. Here there was no audible voice; yet I think it is still the same blessed Speaker that speaks through his works, and partly the same, or similar, things that he says. Could there be such order, such beauty, such plain adaptation, regularity and system, in one part of the works and government of G.o.d, and not in another. And after all it was He who had sent Rotha to this place and involved her in such conditions. Then surely for some reason. As the gentleness of the spring air is unto the breaking of winter's bands, and the rising of the sap is unto the swelling of the buds and by and by the bursting leaf, must it not be so surely a definite purpose with which she had been brought here? What purpose? Were there bands to be broken in her soul's life? were buds and leaf.a.ge and flower to be developed in her character, for which this severe weather was but a safe and necessary precursor? It might be; it must be; for it is written that "all things work together for good to them that love G.o.d." Rotha grew quieter, the voice of the spring was so sweet and came so clear--"Child, trust, trust! Nothing can go wrong in G.o.d's management." She heard it and she felt it; but Rotha was after all a young disciple and her experience was small, and things looked unpromising. Some tears came; however she was comforted and did trust, and resolved that she would try to lose none of the profiting she might anyway gain.

And, as she had now so few books to be busy with, might she not be meant to find one such great source of profiting in her Bible?