A Letter of Credit Part 52

"Polite--" said Antoinette.

"Eh?" said Mr. Busby looking up from a letter, "what's that? Sit down, my dear, you are late. Hold your plate--"

As n.o.body interfered, Rotha did so and sat down to her meal. Mrs. Busby said nothing whatever. Perhaps she felt she had pushed matters pretty far; perhaps she avoided calling her husband's attention any further to the subject. She made no remark about anything, till Mr. Busby had left the room; nor then immediately. When she did speak, it was in her hard, measured way.

"As you present yourself before me this morning, Rotha, I may hope that you are prepared to make me a proper apology."

"What have I done, aunt Serena?"

"Do you ask me? You have forgotten strangely the behaviour due from you to me."

"I did not forget it--" said Rotha slowly.

"Will you give me an excuse for your conduct, then?"

"Yes," said Rotha. "Because, aunt Serena, you had forgotten so utterly the treatment due from you to me."

Mrs. Busby flushed a little. Still she commanded herself She always did.

"Mamma, she's pretty impudent!" said Antoinette.

"I always make allowances, and you must learn to do so, Antoinette, for people who have never learned any manners."

Rotha was stung, but she confessed to herself that pa.s.sion had made her overleap the bounds which she had purposed, and Mr. Digby had counselled, her behaviour should observe. So she was now silent.

"However," Mrs. Busby went on, "it is quite necessary that any one living in my family and sheltered by my roof, should pay me the respect which they owe to me."

"I will always pay all I owe," said Rotha deliberately, "so far as I have anything to pay it with."

"And in case the supply fails," said Mrs. Busby, her voice trembling a little, "don't you think you had better avoid going deeper into debt?"

"What do I owe you, aunt Serena?" asked the girl.

Mrs. Busby saw the gathering fire in the dark eyes, and did not desire to bring on another explosion. She a.s.sumed an impa.s.sive air, looked away from Rotha, rose and began to put her cups together on the tea-board, and rang for the tub of hot water.

"I leave that to your own sense to answer," she said. "But if you are to stay in my house, I beg you to understand, you must behave yourself to me with all proper civility and good manners. Else I will turn you into the street."

Rotha recognized the necessity for a certain decency of exterior form at least, if she and her aunt were to continue under one roof; and so, though her tongue was ready with an answer, she did not at once make it.

She rose, and was about quitting the room, when the fire in her blazed up again.

"It is where mother would have been, if it had not been for other friends," she said.

She opened the door as she spoke, and toiled up the long stairs to her room; for when the heart is heavy somehow one's feet are not light. She went to her cold little room and sat down. The suns.h.i.+ne was very bright outside, and church bells were ringing. No going to church for her, nor would there have been in any case; she had no garments fit to go out in.

Would she ever have them? Rotha queried. The church bells hurt her heart; she wished they would stop ringing; they sounded clear and joyous notes, and reminded her of happy times past. Medwayville, her father, her mother, peace and honour, and latterly Mr. Southwode, and all his kindness and teaching and his affection. It was too much. The early Sunday morning was spent by Rotha in an agony of weeping and lamentation; silent, however; she made no noise that could be heard down stairs where Mrs. Busby and Antoinette were dressing to go to church. The intensity of her pa.s.sion again by and by wore itself out; and when the last bells had done ringing, and the patter of feet was silenced in the streets, Rotha crept down to the empty dressing room, feeling blue and cold, to warm herself. She s.h.i.+vered, she stretched her arms to the warmth of the fire, she was chilled to the core, with a chill that was yet more mental than physical Alone, and stripped of everything, and everybody gone that she loved. What was she to do? how was she to live? She was struggling with a burden of realities and trying to make them seem unreal, trying for an outlook of hope or comfort in the darkness of her prospects. In vain; Mr.

Digby was gone, and with him all her strength and her reliance. He was gone; n.o.body could tell when he would come back; perhaps never; and she could not write to him, and his letters would never get to her. Never; she was sure of it. Mrs. Busby would never let them get further than her own hands. So everything was worse than she had ever feared it could be.

Sitting there on the rug before the fire, and with her teeth chattering, partly from real cold and partly from the nervous exhaustion, there came to her suddenly something Mr. Digby had once said to her. If she should come to see a time when she would have n.o.body to depend on; when her world would be wholly a desert; _all_ gone that she had loved or trusted.

It has come now!--she thought to herself; even he, who I thought would never fail me, he has failed. He said he would not fail me, but he has failed. I am alone; I have n.o.body any more. Then he told me----

She went back and gathered it up in her memory, what he had told her to do then. Then if she would seek the Lord, seek him with her whole heart, she would find him; and finding him, she would find good again. The poor, sore heart caught at the promise. I will seek him, she suddenly said; I will seek till I find; I have nothing else now.

The resolve was as earnest as it was sudden. Doubtless the way had been preparing for it, in her mother's and her father's teachings and prayers and example, and in Mr. Digby's words and kindness and his example; she remembered now the look of his eyes as he told her the Lord Jesus would do all she trusted him to do. Yet the determination was extremely sudden to Rotha herself. And as the meeting of two currents, whether in the waters or in the air or the human mind, generally raises a commotion, so this flowing in of light and promise upon the midst of her despair almost broke Rotha's heart. The tears shed this time, however, though abundant, were less bitter; and Rotha raised her head and dashed the drops away, and ran up stairs to fetch her mother's Bible and begin her quest upon the spot. Lying there upon the rug in her aunt's dressing room, she began it.

She began with a careful consideration of the three marked pa.s.sages. The one in John especially held her. "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me."--I do not love Him, thought Rotha, for I do not know Him; but I must begin, I suppose, with keeping his commandments. Now the thing is, to find out what.--

She opened her book at hap hazard, lying on the rug there with it before her. A leaf or two aimlessly turned,--and her eye fell on these words:

"And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel."

I am poor enough, thought Rotha, while soft warm tears streamed afresh from her eyes;--and deaf enough, and blind enough too, I have been; but meek?--I guess I'm not meek.

Turning over a leaf or two, her eyes were caught by the thirty fifth chapter of Isaiah, and she read it all. There was the promise for the deaf and the blind again; Rotha applied that to herself unhesitatingly; but the rest of the chapter she could not well understand. Except one thing; that the way of the blessed people is a "way of holiness." And also the promise in the last verse, which seemed to be an echo of those words of Jesus--"He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." And Rotha was so hungry, and so thirsty! She paused just there, and covering her eyes with her hand, made one of the first real prayers, perhaps, she had ever prayed. It was a dumb stretching out of her hands for the food she was starving for; not much more; but it was eagerly put in the name of Christ, and such cries he hears. She turned over a few more leaves and stopped.

"I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house."

Who could that be? Rotha knew enough to guess that it could mean but one, even the great Deliverer. And a little further on she saw other words which encouraged her.

"I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; I will lead them in paths they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."

So many promises to the blind, Rotha said to herself; and that means me.

I don't think I am meek, but I know I am blind.--Then on the very next leaf she read--

"I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me; for I have redeemed thee."

_Redeemed_, that means, bought back, said Rotha; and I know who has done it, too. I suppose that is how he delivered the prisoners out of the prison house. Well, if he has redeemed me, I ought to belong to him,--and I will! I do not know much, but there is another promise; he will bring the blind by a way they have not known, and will make darkness light before them. Now what I have to do,--yes, I am redeemed, and I _will_ be redeemed; and I belong to him who has redeemed me, of course. "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them"--what are they?

She thought she must look in the New Testament for them; and not knowing where to look in particular, she turned to the first chapter. It did not seem to contain much that concerned her, till she came to the 21st verse.

"And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."

Rotha put that together with the "way of holiness," but it seemed to her unspeakably wonderful. In fact, it was hard to believe. Save _her_ from her sins? from pride and anger and self-will and self-pleasing? why, they were inborn; they were in her very blood; they came like the breath of her breathing. Could she be saved from them? Mr. Digby was like that. But a Rotha without anger and pride and self-will--would she know herself?

would it be Rotha? and was she quite sure that she desired to be the subject of such a transformation? Never mind; desire it or not, this was the "way of holiness," and there was no other. But about commandments?--

She read the second chapter with an interest that hitherto she had never given to it; so also the third, without finding yet what she was looking for. The second verse, John the Baptist's cry to repentance, she answered by saying that she _had_ repented; that step was taken; what next? In the fourth chapter she paused at the 10th verse. I see, she said, one is not to do wrong even for the whole world; but what must I do that is _right?_ She startled a little at the 19th verse; concluded however that the command to "follow him" was directed only to the people of that time, the apostles and others, who were expected literally to leave their callings and accompany Jesus in his wanderings. The beat.i.tudes were incipient commands, perhaps. But she did not quite understand most of them. At the 16th verse she came to a full pause.

"Let your light so s.h.i.+ne"--That is like Mr. Digby. Everything he does is just beautiful, and shews one how one ought to be. Then according to that, I must not do any wrong at all!--

ust here Rotha heard the latch key in the house door, and knew the family were coming home from church. She seized her Bible and ran off up stairs. There it was necessary to wrap herself in her coverlet again; and s.h.i.+vering a little she put her book on the bed side and knelt beside it.

But presently poor Rotha was brought up short in her studies. She had been saying comfortably to herself, reading v. 22,--I have not been "angry without a cause"; and I have not called anybody "Raca," or "Thou fool"; but then it came--

"If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest _that thy brother hath ought against thee_, leave there thy gift... go thy way...

first be reconciled... then offer thy gift."

Rotha felt as if she had got a blow. Her aunt had "something against her." But, said Rotha to herself, not the thousandth part of what _I_ have against her. No matter, conscience objected; her charge remains the same, although you may have a larger to set off against it. Then am I to go and make it up with her? I can't do it, said Rotha. I do not wish to do it. I wish her to know that I am angry, and justly angry; if I were to go and ask her pardon for my way of speaking, she would just think I want to make it up with her so that she may get me my new cloak and other things.? And Rotha turned hot and cold at the thought. Yet conscience pertinaciously presented the injunction?"first be reconciled to thy brother." It was a dead lock. Rotha felt that her prayers would not be acceptable or accepted, while a clear duty was knowingly left undone; and do it she would not. At least not now; and how ever, that she could not see. Her heart which had been a little lightened, sank down like lead. O, thought she, is it so hard a thing to be a Christian? Did Mr. Digby ever have such a fight, I wonder, before he got to be as he is now? He does not look as if he ever had fights. But then he is strong.

And Rotha was weak. She knew it. She let her eye run down the page a little further; and it came to these words--

"If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee."...

"If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off."...