A Red Wallflower Part 48

'She told me, several times she has not had enough, sir.'

'In that she may be right.'

Esther paused, questioning what this might mean. She must know.

'Papa, do you mean you gave her insufficient money and knew it at the time?'

'I knew it at the time.'

There was another interval, of greater length. Esther felt a little chill creeping over her. Yet she must come to an understanding with her father; that was quite indispensable.

'Papa, do you mean that it was inadvertence? Or was it necessity?'

'How could it be inadvertence, when I tell you I knew what I did?'

'But, papa'-- Esther's breath almost failed her. 'Papa, we are living just as we always have lived?'

'Are we?'--somewhat drily.

'There is my schooling, of course'--

'And rent, and a horse to keep, and a different scale of market prices from that which we had in Seaforth. Everything costs more here.'

'There was the money for the sale of the place,' said Esther vaguely.

'That was not a great deal, after all. It was a fair price, perhaps, but less than the house and ground were worth. The interest of that does not cover the greater outlay here.'

This was very dismayful, all the more because Colonel Gainsborough did not come out frankly with the whole truth. Esther was left to guess it,--to fear it,--to fancy it more than it was, perhaps. She felt that she could not have things left in this in indeterminate way.

'Papa, I think it would be good that I should know just what the difference is; so that I might know how to bring in our expenses within the necessary limits.'

'I have not cyphered it out in figures. I cannot tell you precisely how much my income is smaller than it used to be.'

'Can you tell me how much we ought to spend in a week, papa?--and then we will spend no more.'

'Barker will know when I give it to her.'

The colonel had finished his tea and toast, which this evening he certainly did not enjoy; and went back to his book and his sofa.

Though, indeed, he had not left his sofa, he went back to a reclining position, and Esther moved the table away from him. She was bewildered.

She forgot to ring for Barker; she sat thinking how to bring the expenses of the family within narrower limits. Possible things alternated with impossible in her mind. She mused a good while.

'Papa,' she said, breaking the silence at last, 'do you think the air suits you here?'

'No, I do not. I have no cause.'

'You were better at Seaforth?'

'Decidedly. My chest always feels here a certain oppression. I suppose there is too much sea air.'

'Was not the sea quite as near them at Seaforth, and salt air quite as much at hand?' Esther thought. However, as she did not put entire faith in the truth of her father's conclusions, it was no use to question his premises.

'Papa,' she said suddenly, 'suppose we go back to Seaforth?'

'Suppose nonsense!'

'No, sir; but I do not mean it as nonsense. I have had one year's schooling--that will be invaluable to me; now with books I can go on by myself. I can, indeed, papa, and will. You shall not need to be ashamed of me.'

'You are talking foolishly, Esther.'

'I do not mean it foolishly, papa. If we have not the means to live here, and if the Seaforth air is so much better for you, then there is nothing to keep us here but my schooling; and that, as I tell you, I can manage without. And I can manage right well, papa; I have got so far that I can go on alone now. I am seventeen; I am not a child any longer.'

There was a few minutes' silence, but probably that fact, that Esther was a child no longer, impelled the colonel to show her a little more consideration.

'Where would you go?' he asked, a trifle drily.

'Surely we could find a place, papa. Couldn't you, perhaps, buy back the old house--the dear old house!--as Mr. Dallas took it to accommodate you? I guess he would give it up again.'

'My dear, do not say "guess" in that very provincial fas.h.i.+on! I shall not ask Mr. Dallas to play at buying and selling in such a way. It would be trifling with him. I should be ashamed to do it. Besides, I have no intention of going back to Sea forth till your education is ended; and by that time--if I live to see that time--I shall have so little of life left that it will not matter where I spend it.'

Esther did not know how to go on.

'Papa, could we not do without Buonaparte? I could get to school some other way?'

'How?'

Esther pondered. 'Could I not arrange to go in Mrs. Blumenfeld's waggon, when it goes in Monday morning?'

'Who is Mrs. Blumenfeld?'

'Why, papa, she is the woman that has the market garden over here. You know.'

'Do I understand you aright?' said the colonel, laying his book down for the moment and looking over at his daughter. 'Are you proposing to go into town with the cabbages?'

'Papa, I do not mind. I would not mind at all, if it would be a relief to you. Mrs. Blumenfeld's waggon is very neat.'

'My dear, I am surprised at you!'

'Papa, I would do _anything_, rather than give you trouble. And, after all, I should be just as much myself, if I did go with the cabbages.'

'We will say no more about it, if you please,' said the colonel, taking up his book again.

'One moment, papa! one word more. Papa, I am so afraid of doing something I ought not. Can you not give me a hint, what sort of proportion our expenditures ought to bear to our old ways?'

'There is the rent, and the keeping of the horse, to be made good.

Those are additions to our expenses; and there are no additions to my income. You know now as much as I can tell you.'

The discussion was ended, and left Esther chilled and depressed. The fact itself could be borne, she thought, if it were looked square in the face, and met in the right spirit. As it was, she felt involved in a mesh of uncertainty. The rent,--she knew how much that was,--no such great matter; how much Buonaparte's keep amounted to she had no idea.

She would find out. But how to save even a very few hundred dollars, even one or two hundred, by retrenchment of the daily expenses, Esther did not see. Better, she thought, make some great change, cut off some larger item of the household living, and so cover the deficit at once, than spare a partridge here and a pound of meat there. That was a kind of petty and vexing care which revolted her. Far better dispense with Buonaparte at once, and go into town with the cabbages. It will be seen that Esther as yet was not possessed of that which we call knowledge of the world. It did not occur to her that the neighbourhood of the cabbages would hurt her, though it might hurt her fastidious taste. It would not hurt _her_, Esther thought; and what did the rest matter?

Anything but this pinching and sparing penny by penny. But if she drove into town with the cabbages, that would only dispose of Buonaparte; the other item--the rent--would remain unaccounted for. How should that be made up?