A Red Wallflower Part 53

_HAY AND OATS_.

But it is in the nature of this particular subject that the discussion of it is apt to recur. Esther kept silence for some time, possessing herself in patience as well as she could. Nothing more was said about Christopher by anybody, and things went their old train, minus peaches, to be sure, and also minus pears and plums and nuts and apples, articles which Esther at least missed, whether her father did or not.

Then fish began to be missing.

'I thought, Miss Esther, dear,' said Mrs. Barker when this failure in the _menu_ was mentioned to her,--'I thought maybe the colonel wouldn't mind if he had a good soup, and the fish ain't so nourishin', they say, as the meat of the land creatures. Is it because they drinks so much water, Miss Esther?'

'But I think papa does not like to go without his fish.'

'Then he must have it, mum, to be sure; but I'm sure I don't just rightly know how to procure it. It must be done, however.'

The housekeeper's face looked doubtful, notwithstanding her words of a.s.surance, and a vague fear seized her young mistress.

'Do not get anything you have not money to pay for, at any rate!' she said impressively.

'Well, mum, and there it is!' cried the housekeeper. 'There is things as cannot be dispensed with, in no gentleman's house. I thought maybe fish needn't be counted among them things, but now it seems it must. I may as well confess, Miss Esther; that last barrel o' flour ain't been paid for yet.'

'Not paid for!' cried Esther in horror. 'How came that?'

'Well, mum, just that I hadn't the money. And bread must be had.'

'Not if it cannot be paid for! I would rather starve, if it comes to that. You might have got a lesser quant.i.ty.'

'No, mum,' replied the housekeeper; 'you have to have the whole barrel in the end; and if you get it by bits you pay every time for the privilege. No, mum, that ain't no economy. It's one o' the things which kills poor people; they has to pay for havin' every quart of onions measured out to 'em. I'm afeard Christopher hain't had no money for his hay and his oats that he's got latterly.'

'Hay and oats!' cried Esther. 'Would he get them without orders and means?'

'I s'pose he thinks he has his orders from natur'. The horse can't be let to go without his victuals, mum. And means Christopher hadn't, more'n a quarter enough. What was he to do?'

Esther stood silent and pale, making no demonstration, but the more profoundly moved and dismayed.

'An' what's harder on _my_ stomach than all the rest,' the housekeeper went on, 'is that woman sendin' us milk.'

'That woman? Mrs. Blumenfeld?'

'Which it _was_ her name, mum.'

'_Was!_ You do not mean-- Is Christopher really married?'

'He says that, mum, and I suppose he knows. He's back and forth, and don't live nowheres, as I tells him. And the milk comes plentiful, and to be sure the colonel likes his gla.s.s of a mornin'; and curds, and blancmange, and the like, I see he's no objection to; but thinks I to myself, if he knowed, it wouldn't go down quite so easy.'

'If he knew what? Don't you pay for it?'

'I'd pay that, Miss Esther, if I paid nothin' else; but Christopher's beyond my management and won't hear of no money, nor his wife neither, he says. It's uncommon impudence, mum, that's what I think it is. Set her up! to give us milk, and onions, and celery; and she would send apples, only I dursn't put 'em on the table, being forbidden, and so I tells Christopher.'

Esther was penetrated through and through with several feelings while the housekeeper spoke; touched with the kindness manifested, but terribly humbled that it should be needed, and that it should be accepted. This must not go on; but, in the meantime, there was another thing that needed mending.

'Have you been to see your new sister, Barker?'

'Me? That yellow-haired woman? No, mum; and have no desire.'

'It would be right to go, and to be very kind to her.'

'She's that independent, mum, she don't want no kindness. She's got her man, and I wish her joy.'

'I am sure you may,' said Esther, half laughing. 'Christopher will certainly make her a good husband. Hasn't he been a good brother?'

'Miss Esther,' said the housekeeper solemnly, 'the things is different.

It's my belief there ain't half a dozen men on the face o' the earth that is fit to have wives, and one o' the half dozen I never see yet.

Christopher's a good brother, mum, as you say; as good as you'll find, maybe,--I've nought against him as sich; but then, I ain't his wife, and that makes all the differ. There's no tellin' what men don't expect o' their wives, when once they've got 'em.'

'Expectations ought to be mutual, I should think,' said Esther, amused.

'But it would be the right thing for you to go and see Mrs. Bounder at any rate, and to be very good to her; and you know, Barker, you always like to do what is right.'

There was a sweet persuasiveness in the tone of the last words, which at least silenced Mrs. Barker; and Esther went away to think what she should say to her father. The time had come to speak in earnest, and she must not let herself be silenced. Getting into debt on one hand, and receiving charity on the other! Esther's pulses made a bound whenever she thought of it. She must not put it _so_ to Colonel Gainsborough. How should she put it? She knelt down and prayed for wisdom, and then she went to the parlour. It was one Sat.u.r.day afternoon in the winter; school business in full course, and Esther's head and hands very much taken up with her studies. The question of ways and means had been crowded out of her very memory for weeks past; it came with so much the sharper incisiveness now. She went in where her father was reading, poked the fire, brushed up the hearth, finally faced the business in hand.

'Papa, are you particularly busy? Might I interrupt you?'

'You _have_ interrupted me,' said the colonel, letting his hand with the book sink to his side, and turning his face towards the speaker.

But he said it with a smile, and looked with pleased attention for what was coming. His fair, graceful, dignified daughter was a constant source of pride and satisfaction to him, though he gave little account of the fact to himself, and made scarce any demonstration of it to her.

He saw that she was fair beyond most women, and that she had that refined grace of carriage and manner which he valued as belonging to the highest breeding. There was never anything careless about Esther's appearance, or hasty about her movements, or anything that was not sweet as balm in her words and looks. As she stood there now before him, serious and purposeful, her head, which was set well back on her shoulders, carried so daintily, and the beautiful eyes intent with grave meaning amid their softness, Colonel Gainsborough's heart swelled in his bosom, for the delight he had in her.

'What is it?' he asked. 'What do you want to say to me? All goes well at school?'

'Oh yes, papa, as well as possible. It isn't that. But I am in a great puzzle about things at home.'

'Ah! What things?'

'Papa, we want more money, or we need to make less expenditure. I must consult you as to the which and the how.'

The colonel's face darkened. 'I see no necessity,' he answered.

'But I do, papa. I see it so clearly that I am forced to disturb you. I am very sorry, but I must. I am sure the time has come for us to take some decided measures. We cannot go on as we are going now.'

'I should like to ask, why not?'

'Because, papa--because the outlay and the income do not meet.'

'It seems to me that is rather my affair,' said the colonel coolly.

'Yes, papa,' said Esther, with a certain eagerness, 'I like it to be your affair--only tell me what I ought to do.'

'Tell you what you ought to do about what?'

'How to pay as we go, papa,' she answered in a lower tone.

'It is very simple,' the colonel said, with some impatience. 'Let your expenses be regulated by your means. In other words, do not get anything you have not the money for.'