A Letter of Credit Part 56

"I am accustomed to having her under my own wing."

"And that is a privilege you would not yield to any one else. I understand. Well, what do you say about Miss Carpenter?"

Mrs. Busby looked at her husband. Long experience enabled him to guess at what he was desired to say.

"My dear--since Mrs. Mowbray is so kind--it would be a great thing for Rotha the best thing that could happen to her--"

Mrs. Busby turned her eyes to her visiter.

"Since you are so good, Mrs. Mowbray--it is more than I could ask you to do--"

"I shall be very glad to do it. I am nothing if not professional, you know," Mrs. Mowbray said rising and drawing her fur together again. "Then that is settled."-- And with gracious deference and sweetness of manner she took her leave.

"That's what I call a good riddance!" exclaimed Antoinette when she was free to express her opinion.

"You will find it a happy relief," added Mr. Busby. "And not a little saving, too."

Mrs. Busby was silent. With all the relief and the saving, there was yet something in the plan which did not suit her. Nevertheless, the relief, and the saving, were undoubted facts; and she held her tongue.

"Mamma, what are you going to do about Rotha's dresses?"

"I will see, when she comes to me with a proper apology."

Of all this nothing was told to Rotha. So she was a little surprised, when next morning Mrs. Mowbray came into the schoolroom and desired to see her after school. But then Mrs. Mowbray's first words were about her cold.

"My dear, you are very hoa.r.s.e! You can hardly speak. And you feel miserably, I see. I shall sequester you at once. Come with me."

Wondering but obedient, Rotha followed. What was going to happen now? Up stairs, along a ball, up another flight of stairs, past the great schoolrooms, now empty, through a small bedroom, through a large one, along another pa.s.sage. At last a door is opened, into what, as Rotha enters it, seems to her a domestic paradise. The air deliciously warm and sweet, the walls full of engravings or other pictures, tables heaped with books, a luxuriously appointed bed and dressing tables, (what to Rotha's eyes was enormous luxury)--finally a couch, where she was made to lie down and covered over with a brilliant affghan. Rotha was transported into the strangest of new worlds. Her new friend arranged the pillow under her head, gave her some tasteless medicine; that was a wonderful innovation too, for all Rotha's small experience had been of nauseous rhubarb and magnesia or stinging salts; and finally commanded her to lie still and go to sleep.

"But aunt Serena--?" Rotha managed to whisper.

"She has made you over to me. You are going to live in my house for the present, where you can carry on your studies better than you could at home, and I can attend to you better. Here you have been losing a month, because I did not know what you properly required. Are you willing to be my child, Rotha?--instead of Mrs. Busby's?--for a time?"

The flash of joy in Rotha's eyes was so eloquent and so bright, that Mrs.

Mowbray stooped down and kissed her.

"I never was Mrs. Busby's child,"--the girl must make so much protest.

"Well, no matter; you are not her child now. Lie still, and go to sleep if you can."

Could she? Not at once. Is it possible to tell the sort of Elysium in which the child was lapped? Softness and warmth and ease and rest, and _hiding_, and such beauty and such luxury! Mrs. Mowbray left the room presently; and Rotha lay still under her affghan, looking from one to another point of delight in the room, wondering at this suddenly entered fairyland, comforted inexpressibly by the a.s.surance that she was taken out of her aunt's house and presence, happy in the promise of the new guardians.h.i.+p into which she had come. What pretty pictures were on the walls, all around her, over her head; here was a lady, there a lovely little girl; here a landscape; there a large print shewing a horse which a smith is just about shoeing, and a little foal standing by. And so her eye wandered, from one to another, every one having its peculiar interest for Rotha. Then the books. How the books were piled up, on the floor, on the dressing-table, on benches, on the mantelpiece; there was a kind of overflow and breaking wave of literary riches which seemed to have scattered its surplus about this room. And there were trinkets too, and pretty useful trifles, and pretty things of use that were not trifles.

Rotha had always lived in a very plain way; her father's house had shewed no far-off indication of this sort of life. Neither had her aunt's house.

Plenty of means was not wanting there; the house had money enough; what it lacked was the life. No love of the beautiful; no habit of elegant surroundings; no literary taste that had any tide or flow whatsoever, much less overflow. No art, and no a.s.sociations. Everything here had meaning, and indications of life, or a.s.sociations with it; with mental life especially. What exactly it was that charmed her, Rotha could not have told; she could not have put all this into words; yet she felt all this. The girl had come into a new atmosphere, where for the first time her soul seemed to draw free breath. It was, by its affinities, her native air. Certainly in the company of Mr. Southwode all this higher part of her nature had been fed and fostered, and with him too she was at home; but she had seen him only in Mrs. Marble's house or in the lodgings at Fort Was.h.i.+ngton.

It was long before Rotha could sleep. She waked as the day was declining and the room growing dusky. A maid came in and lit the fire, which presently sparkled and snapped and sent forth jets of flame which lit up the room with a red illumination. Rotha recognized, she thought, the sort of coal which Mr. Digby had sent in for her mother, and hailed the sight; but she was mistaken, a little; it was kennal coal, not Liverpool. It snapped and shone, and the light danced over pictures and books and curtains; and Rotha wondered what would come next.

What came next was Miss Blodgett, followed by the maid bearing a tray.

The tray was placed on a stand by the couch, and Rotha was informed that this was her dinner. Mrs. Mowbray wished her to keep quite quiet and live very simply until this cold was broken up. Rotha raised herself on her couch and looked in astonishment at what was before her. A hot mutton chop, a roll, a cup of tea, and some mashed potatoe. A napkin was spread over the tray; and there was a little silver salt cellar, and a gla.s.s of water, and a plate of rice pudding. Ah, surely Rotha was in fairyland; and never was there so beneficent and so magnificent a fairy in human shape. Miss Blodgett saw her arranged to her mind, and left her to take her dinner in peace and at leisure; which Rotha did, almost ready to cry for sheer pleasure. When had dinner been so good to her? Everything was so hot and so nice and so prettily served. Rotha lay down again feeling half cured already.

However, such well-grounded colds as she had taken are not disposed of in a minute; and Rotha's kept her shut up for yet several days more. Wonders went on multiplying; for a little cot bed was brought into the room, (which Rotha found was Mrs. Mowbray's own) and made up there for her occupancy; and there actually she slept those nights. And Mrs. Mowbray nursed her; gave her medicine, by night and by day; sent her dainty meals, and allowed her to amuse herself with anything she could find.

Rotha found a book suited to her pleasure, and had a luxurious time of it. Towards the end of the second day, Mrs. Mowbray came into the room; a little while before dinner.

"How do you do?" she said, standing and surveying her patient.

"Very well, ma'am; almost quite well."

"You will be glad to be let out of prison?"

"It is a very pleasant prison."

"I do not think any prison is pleasant. What book have you got there?

Mrs. Sherwood. Do you like it?"

"O _very_ much, ma'am!"

"My dear, your aunt has sent your trunk, at my request; and Miss Blodgett has unpacked it to get at the things you were wanting. But there is only one warm dress in it. Is that your whole ward robe?"

"What dress is that? what sort, I mean?"

"Grey merino, I believe."

"It is not mine," said Rotha flus.h.i.+ng. "It is Antoinette's. They tried it on, but it did not fit me. I told aunt Serena I would rather wear my own old one."

"That is the one you are wearing now?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"My dear, is that your whole supply for the winter?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I observe you have a nice supply of under wear."

"Yes, ma'am. That was got for me by somebody else; not my aunt."

"Have you other relations then, besides Mrs. Busby?"

"No, ma'am. But I have a friend."

"May I know more, since you have begun to confide in me? Who is this friend?"

"It is the friend mother trusted me to, when she--when she--"

"Yes, I understand," said Mrs. Mowbray gently. "Why does not this friend take care of you then, instead of leaving you to your aunt?"

"O he does take care of me," cried Rotha; "but he is in England; he is not here. He had to go home because his father was very ill--dying, I suppose."

"_He?_" repeated Mrs. Mowbray. "A gentleman?"