A Letter of Credit Part 82

With which speech Mrs. Busby ended the interview; and Rotha was left to think what she would do next.

Her trunk must be left behind. It was too plain that here power was on the side of her aunt. Without coming to downright fighting, this point could not be carried against her. Rotha longed to go and talk to Mrs.

Mowbray; alas, that was not to be thought of. Mrs. Mowbray's hands and head were full, and her house was a forbidden place. How swiftly circ.u.mstances can whirl about in this world! Yesterday a refuge, to-day a danger. Rotha must leave her trunk. But many things in it she must not leave. What to do? I will not deny that her thoughts were bitter for a while. A little matter! Yes, a little matter, compared with Waterloo or Gravelotte; but _not_ a little matter to a girl in every day life and having a girl's every day liking for being neat and feeling comfortable.

And right is right; and the infringing of right is hard to bear, perhaps equally hard, whether it concerns a nation's boundaries or a woman's wardrobe. If Rotha had been more experienced, perhaps the wisdom of doing nothing would have suggested itself; but she was young and did not know what to do. So she laid out of her trunk certain things; her Bible and Scripture Treasury; her writing materials; her underclothes; and her gloves. If Rotha had a weakness, it was for neat and _suitable_ gloves.

The rest of her belongings she locked up carefully, and sat down to await the course of events.

It was swift, as some intuition told her it would be. There was no more disputing. Mrs. Busby let the subject of the trunk drop, and was as benign as usual; which was never benign except exteriorly. She was as good as her word in purchasing calicos; brought home what seemed to Rotha an unnecessary stock of them; and that afternoon and the next day kept a dress-maker cutting and basting, and Rotha at work to help. These cut and basted dresses, as they were finished, Mrs. Busby stowed with her own hands in a little old leather trunk. Then, when the last one went in, she told Rotha to bring whatever she wished to have go with her.

"To put in that?" Rotha asked.

"Certainly. It will hold all you want."

Rotha struggled with herself with the feeling of desperate indignation which came over her; struggled, grew red and grew pale, but finally did go without another word; and brought down, pile by pile, her neat under wardrobe. Mrs. Busby packed and packed. Her trunk was leather, and strong, but its capacities were bounded by that very strength.

"All these!" she exclaimed in a sort of despair. "There is no use whatever in having so much linen under wear."

Rotha was silent.

"It is _much_ better to have fewer things, and let them be washed as often as necessary. A family would want a caravan at this rate."

"This is Mrs. Mowbray's way," said Rotha.

"Mrs. Mowbray's way is not a way to be copied, unless you are a millionaire. She is the most extravagant woman I ever met, without exception."

"But aunt Serena, it costs no more in the end, whether you have a dozen things for two years, and comfort, or half a dozen a year, and discomfort."

"You don't know that you will live two years to want them."

"You don't know that you will live one, for that matter," said Antoinette, who always spoke her mind, careless whom the words touched.

"At that rate, mamma, we ought to do like savages,--have one dress and wear it out before getting another; but it strikes me that would be rather disagreeable."

"You will not find anybody at Tanfield to do all this was.h.i.+ng for you,"

Mrs. Busby went on.

"I shall have no more was.h.i.+ng done than if I had fewer things," Rotha said.

"Then there is no sort of use in lugging all these loads of linen up there just to bring them back again. The trunk will not hold them. Here, Rotha--take back these,--and these, and these--"

Rotha received them silently; silently carried them up stairs and came down for more. She was in a kind of despair. Her Bible and most precious belongings she had put carefully in her travelling bag, rejoicing in its beauty and security.

"Mamma," said Antoinette now, "does Rotha know when she is going?"

"I do not know."

"Well, that's funny. I should think you would tell her. Why it's almost time for her to put on her bonnet."

Rotha's eyes went from one to the other. She was startled.

"I am going to send you off by the night train to Tanfield,"--Mrs. Busby said without looking up from the trunk.

"The _night_ train!" exclaimed Rotha.

"It is the best you can do. It brings you there by daylight. The night train is as pleasant as any."

"If you have company"--said Rotha.

"And if the cars don't run off nor anything," added Antoinette. "All the awful accidents happen in the night."

"I would not have Rotha go alone," said Mrs. Busby grimly; "but she don't want my companions.h.i.+p."

Rotha would have been glad of it; however, she did not say so. She stood confounded. What possible need of this haste?

"Put your things away, Rotha," said Mrs. Busby glancing up,--"and come down to dinner. You must leave at seven o'clock, and I have had dinner early for you."

The dinner being early, Mr. Busby was not there; which Rotha regretted.

From him she hoped for at least one of his dry, sensible remarks, and possibly a hint of sympathy. She must go without it. Dinner had no taste, and the talk that went on no meaning. Very poor as this home was, it was better than an unknown country, and uncongenial as were her companions, she preferred them to n.o.body. Gradually there grew a lump in her throat which almost choked her.

Meantime she was silent, seemed to eat, and did quietly whatever she was told She put up sandwiches in a paper; accepted an apple and some figs; looked curiously at the old bas.e.m.e.nt dining room, which she had never liked, but which had never seemed to her so comfortable as now; and at last left it to get herself ready. Taking her Russia bag in her hand, she seemed to grasp Mrs. Mowbray's love; and it comforted her.

Her aunt and she had a silent drive through the streets, already dark and lamp-lit. All necessary directions were given her by the way, and a little money to pay for her drive out from Tanfield. Then came the confusion of the Station--not the Grand Central by any means; the bustle of getting her seat in the cars; her aunt's cold kiss. And then she was alone, and the engine sounded its whistle, and the train slowly moved away into the darkness.

For a while Rotha's mind was in a tumult of confusion. If Mrs. Mowbray knew where she was at that minute! She had had no chance to write to her.

If she only knew! What then? she could not help matters. O but she could!

Mrs. Mowbray could always find help. Love that would not rest, energy that would not tire, a power of will that would not be denied, and a knowledge and command of men and things which enabled her always to lay her hand on the right means and apply them; all this belonged to Mrs.

Mowbray, and made her the most efficient of helpers. But just now, doubtless, the affairs of her own house laid full claim to all her energies; and then, she did not know about Rotha's circ.u.mstances. How strange, thought Rotha, that she does not--that things should have come together so that she cannot! I seem to be cut off designedly from her, and from everybody.

There crept slowly into her heart the recollection that there was One who did know the whole; and if there were design in the peculiar collocation of events, as who could doubt, it was _His_ design. This gave a new view of things. Rotha looked round on the dingy car, dingy because so dimly lighted; filled, partly filled, with dusky figures; and wondered if one there were so utterly alone as she, and marvelled greatly why she had been brought into such a strange position. Separated from everything!

Then her Russia bag rebuked her, for her Bible was in it. Not separated from G.o.d, whose message was there; perhaps, who knows? she was to come closer to him, in the default of all other friends. She remembered the words of a particular psalm which not long ago had been read at morning prayers and commented on by Mrs. Mowbray; it came home to her now.

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth."

If he made heaven and earth, he surely can manage them. And Mrs. Mowbray had said, that whoever could honestly adopt and say those first words of the psalm, might take to himself also all the following. Then how it went on!--

"He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."

The tears rushed into Rotha's eyes. So he would watch the night train in which she journeyed, and let no harm come to it without his pleasure. The words followed,--

"The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand; the sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil, he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth, and even for evermore."

It was to Rotha as if she had suddenly seen a guard of angels about her.

Nay, better than that. She was a young disciple yet, she had not learned all the ins and outs of faith; but this night her journey was sweet to her. The train rumbled along through the darkness; but "darkness and the light are alike to him," she remembered. Now and then the cars stopped at a village or wayside station; and a few lights shone upon boards and platforms and bits of wall; sometimes shone from within a saloon where refreshments were set out; there were switches to be turned on or off; there was a turn-out place where the train waited three quarters of an hour for the down train. All the same! Rotha remembered that switches and turnouts made no manner of difference, no more than the darkness, if the Lord was keeping her. It was somehow a sweet kind of a night that she had; not alone nor unhappy; faith, for the moment at least, laying its grasp on the whole wide realm of promise and resting satisfied and quiet in its possessions. After a while she slept and dozed, waking up occasionally to feel the rush and hear the rumble of the cars, to remember in whose hand she was, and then quietly to doze off again.

CHAPTER XXIII.

TANFIELD.