A Red Wallflower Part 46

'Then, mum,' said Barker still more constrainedly, 'could you perhaps let me have a sixpence? I don't like to send and ask a stranger like that to wait for what's no more'n twopence at home.'

'Wait?' repeated Esther. 'Didn't papa give you money for the housekeeping this week?'

'Miss Esther, he did; but--I haven't a cent.'

'Why? He did not give you as much as usual?'

The housekeeper hesitated, with a troubled face.

'Miss Esther, he did give me as much as usual,--I would say, as much as he uses to give me nowadays; but that ain't the old sum, and it ain't possible to do the same things wi' it.' And Mrs. Barker looked anxiously and doubtfully at her young mistress. 'I wouldn't like to tell ye, mum; but in course ye must know, or ye'd maybe be doubtful o'

_me_.'

'Of course I should know!' repeated Esther. 'Papa must have forgotten.

I will see about it. Give me a basket, Barker, and I will go over to the garden myself and get a head of lettuce,--now, before I take my things off. I would like to go.'

Seeing that she spoke truth, Mrs. Barker's scruples gave way. She furnished the basket, and Esther set forth. There was but a field or two to cross, intervening between her own ground and the slopes where the beds of the market garden lay trim and neat in the sun. Or, rather, to-day, in the warm, hazy, soft October light; the sun's rays could not rightly get through the haze. It was one of the delicious times of October weather, which the unlearned are wont to call Indian summer, but which is not that, and differs from it essentially. The glory of the Indian summer is wholly ethereal; it belongs to the light and the air; and is a striking image and eloquent testimony of how far spirit can overmaster matter. The earth is brown, the trees are bare; the drapery and the colours of summer are all gone; and then comes the Indian summer, and makes one forget that the foregoing summer had its glories at all, so much greater is the glory now. There is no sense of bareness any longer, and no missing of gay tints, nor of the song of birds, nor of anything else in which June revelled and August showed its rich maturity; only the light and the air, filling the world with such unearthly loveliness that the looker-on holds his breath, and the splendour of June is forgotten. This October day was not after such a fashion; it was steeped in colour. Trees near at hand showed yellow and purple and red; the distant Jersey sh.o.r.e was a strip of warm, sunburnt tints, merged into one; over the river lay a sunny haze that was, as it were, threaded with gold; as if the sun had gone to sleep there and was in a dream; and mosses, and bushes, and lingering asters and golden-rod, on rocks or at the edges of the fields near at hand, gave the eye a welcome wherever it turned. Not a breath of air was stirring; the landscape rested under a spell of peace.

Esther walked slowly, every step was so full of pleasure. The steps were few, however, and her pleasure was mingled with an odd questioning in her mind, what all this about money could mean? A little footpath worn in the gra.s.s led her over the intervening fields to Mrs.

Blumenfeld's garden. Christopher must have worn that path, going and coming; for the family had been supplied through the summer with milk from the dairy of the gardener's wife. Mrs. Blumenfeld was out among her beds of vegetables, Esther saw as she drew near; she climbed over the fence, and in a few minutes was beside her.

'Wall, ef you ain't what I call a stranger!' said the woman good-humouredly. 'I don't see you no more'n the angels, for all you're so near!'

'I am going to school, Mrs. Blumenfeld; and that keeps me away from home almost all the week. How do you do?'

'Dear me, I dursn't be anything but well,' said the gardener's widow.

'Ef I ain't at both ends o' everything, there ain't no middle to 'em.

There ain't a soul to be trusted, 'thout it's yourself. It's kind o'

tedious. I get to the wrong end o' my patience once in a while. Jest look at them rospberry canes! and I set a man only yesterday to tie 'em up. They ain't done nohow!'

'But your garden always looks beautiful.'

'Kin you see it from your windows? I want to know!'

'Not very much of it; but it always looks so bright and trim. It does now.'

'Wall, you see,' said Mrs. Blumenfeld, 'a garden ain't nothin' ef it ain't in order. I do despise shiftless ways! Now jes' see them rospberry canes!'

'What's the matter with them?'

'I don't suppose you'd know ef I showed you,' said the good woman, checking herself with a half laugh; 'and there ain't no need, as I know, why I should bother you with my bothers. But it's human natur', ain't it?'

'Is _what_ human nature?'

'Jes' that same. Or don't you never want to tell no one your troubles?

Maybe ye don't hev none?' she added, with an inquiring look into Esther's face. 'Young folks!--the time for trouble hain't come yet.'

'Oh yes,' said Esther. 'I have known what trouble is.'

'Hev ye?' said the woman with another inquisitive look into the fair face. 'Mebbe. There is folks that don't show what they goes through. I guess I'm one o' that sort myself.'

'Are you?' said Esther, smiling. 'Certainly, to look at you, I never should think your life had been very crooked or very rough. You always seem bright and peaceful.'

It was true. Mrs. Blumenfeld had a quiet steady way with her, and both face and voice partook of the same calm; though energy and activity were at the same time as plainly manifested in every word and movement.

Esther looked at her now, as she went among her beds, stooping here and there to remove a weed or pull off a decayed leaf, talking and using her eyes at the same time. Her yellow hair was combed smooth and flat at both sides of her head and knotted up firmly in a tight little business knot behind. She wore a faded print dress and a shawl, also faded, wrapped round her, and tied by the ends at the back; but both shawl and gown were clean and whole, and gave her a thoroughly respectable appearance. At Esther's last remark she raised herself up and stood a moment silent.

'Wall,' she said, 'that's as fur as you kin see. It's ben both crooked _and_ rough. I mayn't look it,--where's the use? And I don't talk of it, for I've n.o.body to talk to; but, as I said, human natur' 'd like to, ef it had a chance. I hain't a soul in the world to speak to; and sometimes I feel as ef I'd give all I've got in the world to talk.

Then, mostly, I go into the garden and rout out the weeds. I tell you they has to fly, those times!--But I believe folks was made to hev company.'

'Have you no children?'

'Five of 'em, over there,' the woman said, pointing away, Esther could only guess where, as it was not to the house. She was sorry she had asked, and stood silent.

'Five of 'em,' Mrs. Blumenfeld repeated slowly. 'I had 'em,--and I haven't 'em. And now, there is times when the world seems to me that solitary that I'm a'most scared at myself.'

Esther stood still, with mute sympathy, afraid to speak.

'I s'pose, to you now, the world is all full o' friends?' the other went on more lightly, turning from her own troubles, as it were.

'No,' said Esther gently; 'not at all. I am very much alone, and always have been.'

'Mebbe you like it?'

'No, I do not like it. I sometimes wish very much for one or two friends who are not here.'

There came a sigh from the bosom of the other woman, unwonted, and tale-telling, and heavy.

'My marriage warn't happy,' she said, lower than her usual tone. 'I kin manage the garden alone; and I'd jes' as lieve. Two minds about a thing makes unpeace; and I set a great deal by peace. But it's awful lonely, life is, now and then!'

'It is not that to me,' said Esther sympathizingly; she was eager to speak, and yet doubtful just what to say. She fell back upon what perhaps is the safest of all, her own experience. 'Life _used_ to be like that to me--at one time,' she went on after a little pause. 'I was very lonely and sad, and didn't know how I could live without comfort.

And then I got it; and as I got it, I think so may you.'

The woman looked at her, not in the least understanding what she would be at, yet fascinated by the sympathy--which she read plainly enough--and held by the beauty. By something besides beauty, too, which she saw without being able to fathom it. For in Esther's eyes there was the intense look of love and the fire of joy, and on her lips the loveliest lines of tenderness were trembling. Mrs. Blumenfeld gazed at her, but would almost as soon have addressed an angel, if one had stood beside her with wings that proclaimed his heavenly descent.

'I'll tell you how I got comfort,' Esther went on, keeping carefully away from anything that might seem like preaching. 'I was, as I tell you, dark and miserable and hopeless. Then I came to know the Lord Jesus; and it was just as if the sun had risen and filled all my life with sunlight.'

The woman did not remove her eyes from Esther's face. 'I want to know!'

she said at last. 'I've heerd tell o' sich things;--but I never see no one afore that hed the knowledge of 'em, like you seem to hev. I've heerd parson talk.'

'This is not parson talk.'

'I see 'tain't. But what is it then? You see, I'm as stupid as a b.u.mble bee; I don't understand nothin' without it's druv into me--unless it's my garden. Ef you ask me about cabbages, or early corn, I kin tell you.

But I don't know no more'n the dead what you are talkin' of.'

Esther's eyes filled with tender tears. 'I want you to know,' she said.

'I wish you could know!'

'How am I goin' to?'