A Letter of Credit Part 84

"O give me the reins!" cried Rotha. "I'll hold them while you are gone."

"You can hold 'em if you like, but he won't do nothin'," returned Jehu.

And das.h.i.+ng round the corner of the house, he left Rotha to her meditations. All was still, only the birds were full of songs and pouring them out on all sides; from every tree and bush came a warble or a twitter or a whistle of ecstasy. The gleeful tones half stole into Rotha's heart; yet on the whole her spirit thermometer was sinking. The place had the neglected air of a place where n.o.body lives, and that has always a depressing effect. Her charioteer's absence was prolonged, too; which of itself was not cheering. At last he came das.h.i.+ng round the corner again.

"Guess it's all right," he said. "But you'll have to git down, fur's I see; I can't git you no nearer, and she won't come to the front door.

They don't never open it, ye see. So they says."

Rotha descended, and bag in hand followed the boy, who piloted her round the corner of the house and along a weedy walk overhung with lilacs and syringas and overgrown rosebushes, until they were near another corner.

The house seemed to be square on the ground.

"There!" said he,--"you go jist roun' there, and you'll see the kitchen door--leastways the shed; and so you'll git in. Mrs. Purcell is there."

"Who is Mrs. Purcell?" said Rotha stopping.

"I d'n' know; she's the woman what stops here; her and Joe Purcell. She's Joe Purcell's wife. I'll git your trunk out, but you must send some un roun' to fetch it, you see."

Rotha turned the second corner, while the boy went back; and a few steps more brought her round to the back of the house, where there was a broad s.p.a.ce neatly paved with small cobble stones. An out-jutting portion of the building faced her here, and a door in the sane. This must be the "shed," though it had not really that character. Rotha went in. It seemed to be a small outer kitchen. At the house side an open ladder of steps led up to another door. Going up, Rotha came into the kitchen proper. A fire was burning in the wide chimney, and an old-fas.h.i.+oned dresser opposite held dishes and tins. Between dresser and fire stood a woman, regarding Rotha as she came in with a consideration which was more curious than gracious. Rotha on her part looked eagerly at her. She was a tall woman, very well formed; not very neatly dressed, for her sleeves were worn at the elbows, and a strip torn from her skirt and not torn off, dangled on the floor. The dress was of some dark stuff, too old to be of any particular colour. But what struck Rotha immediately was, that the woman was not a white woman. Very light she was, undoubtedly, and of a clear good colour, but she had not the fair tint of the white races.

Red shewed in her cheeks, through the pale olive of them; and her hair, black and crinkly, was not crisp but long, and smoothly combed over her temples. She was a very handsome woman; a fact which Rotha did not perceive at first, owing to a dark scowl which drew her eyebrows together, and under which her eyes looked forth fiery and ominous. They fixed the new-comer with a steady stare of what seemed displeasure.

"Good morning!" said Rotha. "Are you Mrs. Purcell?"

"Who wants Mrs. Purcell?" was the gruff answer.

"I was told that Mrs. Purcell is the name of the person who lives here?"

"There's two folks lives here."

"Yes," said Rotha, "I understood so. You and your husband work for Mrs.

Busby, do you not?"

"No," said the woman decidedly. "Us don't work for n.o.body. Us works for our ownselves;"--with an accent on the word "own."

"This is Mrs. Busby's house?"

"Yes, this is her house, I reckon."

"And she pays you for taking care of it."

"Who told you she does?"

"n.o.body told me; but I supposed it, of course."

"She don't pay nothin'. Us pays her; that's how it is. Us pays her, for all us has; the land and the house and all."

"I am Mrs. Busby's niece. Did she send you any word about me?"

"Sent Joseph word--" said the woman mutteringly. "He said as some one was comin'. I suppose it's you. I mean, Mr. Purcell."

"Then you expected me. Did Mrs. Busby tell you what you were to do with me?"

"I didn't read the letter," said the woman, turning now from her examination of Rotha to take up her work, which had been was.h.i.+ng up her breakfast dishes. "Joseph didn't tell me nothin'."

"I suppose you know where to put me," said Rotha, getting a little out of patience. "I shall want a room. Where is it to be?"

"_I_ don' know," said Mrs. Purcell, whose fingers were flying among her pots and dishes in a way that shewed laziness was no part of her character. "There aint no room but at the top o' the house. Joseph and me has the only room that's down stairs. I s'pose you wouldn't like one o'

the parlours. The rest is all at the top."

"Can I go to the parlour in the mean time, till my room is ready?--if it is not ready."

"It aint ready. I never heerd you was comin', till last night. How was I to have the room ready? and I don' know which room it's to be."

"Then can I go to the parlour? where is it?"

"It's all the next floor. There's nothin' but parlours. You can go there if you like; but they aint been opened in a year. I never was in 'em but once or twice since I lived here."

Rotha was in despair. She set her bag on one chair and placed herself on another, and waited. This was far worse even than her fears. O if she had but a little money, to buy this woman's civility! perhaps it could be bought. But she was thrown from one dependence to another; and now she was come to depend on this common person. She did not know what more to say; she could not do anything to propitiate her. She waited.

"Have you had any breakfast?" said Mrs. Purcell, after some ten minutes had pa.s.sed with no sound but that of her cups and plates taken up and set down. This went on briskly; Mrs. Purcell seemed to be an energetic worker.

"Yes, thank you. I took breakfast at the hotel in Tanfield."

"I didn't know but I had to cook breakfast all over again."

"I will not give you any more trouble than I can help--if you will only give me a room by and by."

"There's nothin' fur I to _give_--you can pick and choose in the whole house. Us has only these rooms down here; there's the whole big barn of a house overhead. Folks meant it to be a grand house, I s'pose; it's big enough; but I don't want no more of it than I can take care of."

"You can take care of my room, I suppose?" said Rotha.

The woman gave a kind of grunt, which was neither a.s.sent nor denial, but rather expressed her estimation of the proposal. She went on silently and rapidly with her kitchen work; putting up her dishes, brus.h.i.+ng the floor, making up the fire, putting on a pot or two. Rotha watched and waited in silence also, trying to be patient. Finally Mrs. Purcell took down a key, and addressing herself to Rotha, said,

"Now I'm ready. If you like to come, you can see what there is."

She unlocked a door and led the way up a low flight of steps. At the top of them another door let them out upon a wide hall. The hall ran from one side of the house to the other. With doors thrown open to let in the air and light this might have been a very pleasant place; now however it was dark and dank and chilly, with that dismal closeness and rawness of atmosphere which is always found in a house long shut up. Doors on the one hand and on the other hand opened into it, and at the end where the two women had entered it, ran up a wide easy staircase.

"Will you go higher?" said Mrs. Purcell; "or will you have a room here?"

Rotha opened one of the doors. Light coming scantily in through c.h.i.n.ks in the shutters revealed dimly a very large, very lofty apartment, furnished as a drawing-room. She opened another door; it gave a repet.i.tion of the same thing, only the colour of the hangings and upholsteries seemed to be different. A third, and a fourth; they were all alike; large, stately rooms, fit to hold a great deal of company, or to accommodate an exceedingly numerous family with sitting and dining and receiving rooms.

The four saloons took up the entire floor.

"There is no bedroom here," said Rotha.

"The folks that lived here didn't make no 'count o' sleepin', I guess.

They put all the house into their parlours. I suppose the days was longer than the nights, when they was alive."

"But there must be bedrooms somewhere?"

"You can go up and see. _Us_ wouldn't sleep up there for nothin'. Us could ha' took what we liked when us come; but I said to Mr. Purcell,--I said,--I wasn't goin' to break my back runnin' up and down stairs; and if he wanted to live up there, he had got to live without I. So us fixed up a little room down near the kitchen. These rooms is awful hot in summer, too. I can dry fruit in 'em as good as in an oven."