A Letter of Credit Part 3

CHAPTER II.

MOVING.

Mr. Southwode went away, his letter was locked up in a drawer, and both were soon forgotten. The little family he left had enough else to think of.

As the warm weather turned to cold, it became more and more evident that the head of the family was not to be with it long. Mr. Carpenter was ill.

Nevertheless, with failing strength, he continued to carry the burden that had been too much for him when well. He would not spare himself. The work must be done, he said, or the interest on the mortgages could not be paid. He wrought early and late, and saw to it that his hired people did their part; he wore himself out the quicker; but the interest on the mortgages was not paid, even so. Mrs. Carpenter saw just how things were going, saw it step by step, and was powerless to hinder.

"They will foreclose!" Mr. Carpenter said with a half groan. It was late in the winter; towards spring; his health had failed rapidly of late; and it was no secret either to him or his wile that his weeks were numbered.

They were sitting together one evening before the fire; he in his easy chair, and she beside him; but not holding each other's hands, not touching, nor looking at one another. Their blood was of a genuine New England course; and people of that kind, though they would die for one another, rarely exchange kisses. And besides, there are times when caresses cannot be borne; they mean too much. Perhaps this was such a time. Mrs. Carpenter sat staring into the fire, her brow drawn into fine wrinkles, which was with her a sign of uncommon perturbation. It was after a time of silence that her husband came out with that word about foreclosing.

"If I had been stronger," he went on, "I could have taken in that twenty acre lot and planted it with wheat; and that would have made some difference. Now I am behindhand--and I could not help it--and they will foreclose."

"They cannot do it till next fall," said Mrs. Carpenter; and her secret thought was, By that time, nothing will matter!

"No," said her husband,--"not until fall. But then they will. Eunice, what will you do?"

"I will find something to do."

"What? Tell me now, while I can counsel you."

"I don't know anything I could do, but take in sewing." She spoke calmly, all the while a tear started which she did not suffer to be seen.

"Sewing?" said Mr. Carpenter. "There are too many in the village already that do sewing--more than can live by it."

"If I cannot here," his wife said after a pause, overcoming herself,--"I might go to New York. Serena would help me to get some work."

"Would she?" asked her husband.

"I think she would."

"Your charity always goes ahead of mine, Eunice."

"You think she would not?"

"I wouldn't like to have you dependent on her.--This is what you get for marrying a poor man, Eunice!"

He smiled and stretched out his hand to take the hand of his wife.

"Hus.h.!.+" she said. "I married a richer man than she did. And I have wanted for nothing. We have not been poor."

"No," he said. "Except in this world's goods--which are unimportant.

Until one is leaving one's wife and child alone!"

I suppose she could not speak, for she answered nothing. The fingers clasped fingers fast and hard; wrung them a little. Yet both faces were steady. Mrs. Carpenter's eyes looked somewhat rigidly into the fire, and her husband's brow wore a shadow.

"I wish your father had left you at least the old place at Tanfield. It would have been no more than justice. Serena might have had all the rest, but that would have given you and Rotha a home."

"Never mind," said Mrs. Carpenter gently. "I am content with my share."

"Meaning me!" And he sighed.

"The best share of this world's goods any woman could have, Liph."

"We have been happy," he said, "in spite of all. We have had happy years; happier I could not wish for, but for this money trouble. And we shall have happy years again, Eunice; where the time is not counted by years, but flows on forever, and people are not poor, nor anxious, nor disappointed."

She struggled with tears again, and then answered, "I have not been disappointed. And you have no need to be anxious."

"No, I know," he said. "But at times it is hard for faith to get above sense. And I am not anxious; only I would like to know how you are going to do."

There was a silence then of some length.

"Things are pretty unequal in this world," Mr. Carpenter began again.

"Look at Serena and you. One sister with more than she can use; the other talking of sewing for a livelihood! And all because you would marry a poor man. A poor reason!"

"Liph, I had my choice," his wife said, with a shadow of a smile. "She is the one to be pitied."

"Well, I think so," he said. "For if her heart were as roomy as her purse, she would have shewn it before now. My dear, do not expect anything from Serena. Till next fall you will have the shelter of this house; and that will give you time to look about you."

"Liph, you must not talk so!" his wife cried; and her voice broke. She threw herself upon her husband's breast, and they held each other in a very long, still, close embrace.

Mr. Carpenter was quite right in some at least of his expectations. His own life was not prolonged to the summer. In one of the last days of a rough spring, the time came he had spoken of, when his wife and child were left alone.

She had till fall to look about her. But perhaps, in the bitterness of her loneliness, she had not heart to push her search after work with sufficient energy. Yet Mrs. Carpenter never lacked energy, and indulged herself selfishly no more in grief than she did in joy. More likely it is that in the simple region of country she inhabited there was not call enough for the work she could do. Work did not come, at any rate. The only real opening for her to earn her livelihood, was in the shape of a housekeeper's situation with an old bachelor farmer, who was well off and had n.o.body to take care of him. In her dest.i.tution, I do not know but Mrs. Carpenter might have put up with even this plan; but what was she to do with Rotha? So by degrees the thought forced itself upon her that she must take up her old notion and go to the great city, where there were always people enough to want everything. How to get there, and what to do on first arriving there, remained questions. Both were answered.

As Mr. Carpenter had foreseen, the mortgages came in the fall to foreclosure. The sale of the land, however, what he had not foreseen, brought in a trifle more than the mortgage amount. To this little sum the sale of household goods and furniture and stock, added another somewhat larger; so that altogether a few hundreds stood at Mrs. Carpenter's disposal. This precisely made her undertaking possible. It was a very doubtful undertaking; but what alternative was there? One relation she would find, at the least; and another Mrs. Carpenter had not in the wide world. She made her preparations very quietly, as she did everything; her own child never knew how much heart-break was in them.

"Shall we go first to aunt Serena's, mother?" Rotha asked one day.

"No."

The "no" was short and dry. Rotha's instinct told her she must not ask why, but she was disappointed. From a word now and then she had got the impression that this relation of theirs was a very rich woman and lived accordingly; and fancy had been busy with possibilities.

"Where then, mother?"

"Mr. Forbes," he was the storekeeper at the village, "has told me of the boarding house he goes to when he goes to New York. We can put up there for a night or two, and look out a quiet lodging."

"What is New York like, mother?"

"I have never been there, Rotha, and do not know. O it is a city, my child; of course; it is not like anything here."

"How different?"

"In every possible way."

"_Every_ way, mother? Aren't the houses like?"