Читать книгу The Letter of Credit - Warner Susan - Страница 9

One cold afternoon in the latter part of January, a stranger came to Mrs. Marble's door and begged for a few minutes' interview. He did not make it longer; but after a very brief conversation on religious matters, and giving her a tract or two, inquired if there was anybody else in the house?

"Lodgers," said Mrs. Marble. "They've got the second floor. A woman and a girl."

"What sort of people?"

"Well, I should say they were an uncommon sort. Your sort, I guess. Religious. I mean the mother is. I reckon the little one haint anything o' that kind about her."

"Then they pay their rent, I suppose?"

"As regular as clockwork. 'Taint always easy, I know; but it comes up to the day. I don't believe much in the sort o' religion that don't pay debts."

"Nor I; but sometimes, you know, the paying is not only difficult but impossible. Why is it difficult in this case?"

"Don't ask me! Because another sort of religious folk, that go to church regular enough and say their prayers, won't pay honest wages for honest work. How is a woman to live, that can't get more than a third or a quarter the value o' what she does? So they don't live; they die; and that's how it's goin' to be here."

A tear was glittering in Mrs. Marble's honest eyes, while at the same time she bit off her words as if they had been snap gingerbread.

"Is it so bad as that?" asked the visiter.

"Well, I don' know if you ought to call it, 'bad,'" said Mrs. Marble with a compound expression. "When livin' aint livin' no longer, then dyin' aint exactly dyin'. 'Taint the worst thing, anyhow; if it warnt for the folk left behind. If I was as ready as she is, I wouldn't mind goin', I guess. I s'pose she thinks of her child some."

"Would they receive a visit from me?"

"I don' know; but they don't have many. So long as they've been here, and that's more'n a year now, there aint a livin' soul as has called to ask after 'em. I guess they'd receive most anybody that come with a friend's face. Shall I ask 'em?"

"Not that, but if they will see me. I shall be much obliged."

Mrs. Marble laid down her work and tripped up stairs.

"Rotha," she said putting her head inside the door, "here's somebody to see you."

The girl started up and a colour came into her face, as she eagerly asked, "Who?"

"I don't know him from Adam. He's a sort of a missionary; they come round once in a while; and he wants to see you."

"Mother's gone out," said Rotha, her colour fading as quick as it had risen.

"May he come and see you? He's a nice lookin' feller."

"I don't care," said Rotha. "I don't want to see any missionary."

"O well! it won't hurt you to see this one, I guess."

A few minutes after came a tap at the door, and Rotha with a mingling of unwillingness and curiosity, opened it. What she saw was not exactly what she had expected; curiosity grew and unwillingness abated. She asked the stranger in with tolerable civility. He was nice looking, she confessed to herself, and very nicely dressed! not at all the rubbishy exterior which Rotha somehow associated with her idea of missionaries. He came in and sat down, quite like an ordinary man; which was soothing.

"Mother is out," Rotha announced shortly.

"It is so much the kinder of you to let me come in."

"I was not thinking of kindness," said Rotha.

"No? Of what then?

"Nothing in particular. You do not want kindness."

"I beg your pardon. Everybody wants it."

"Not kindness from everybody then."

"I do."

"But some people can do without it."

"Can they? What sort of people?"

"Why, a great many people. Those that have all they want already."

"I never saw any of that sort of people," said the stranger gravely.

"Pray, did you?"

"I thought I had."

"And you thought I was one of them?"

"I believe so."

"You were mistaken in me. Probably you were mistaken also in the other instances. Perhaps you were thinking of the people who have all that money can buy?"

"Perhaps," Rotha assented.

"Do you think money can buy all things?"

"No," said Rotha, beginning to recover her usual composure; "but the people who have all that money can buy, can do without the other things."

"What do you mean by the 'other things'?"

Rotha did not answer.

"I suppose kindness is one of them, as we started from that."

Rotha was still silent.

"Do you think you could afford to do without kindness?"

"If I had money enough," Rotha said bluntly.

"And what would you buy with money, that would be better?"

"O plenty!" said Rotha. "Yes, indeed! I would stop mother's working; and

I would buy our old home, and we would go away from this place and never

come back to it. I would have somebody to do the work that I do, too; and

I would have a garden, and plenty of flowers, and plenty of everything."

"And live without friends?"

"We always did," said Rotha. "We never had friends. O friends!—everybody in the village and in the country was a friend; but you know what I mean; nobody that we cared for."

"Then you have no friends here in New York?"

"No."

"I should think you would have stayed where, as you say, everybody was a friend."

"Yes, but we couldn't."

"You said, you would if you could stop your mother's working. Do you think she would like that?"

"O she's tired to death!" said Rotha; and her eyes reddened in a way that shewed there were at least two sides to her character. "She is not strong at all, and she wants rest. Of course she would like it. Not to have to do any more than she likes, I mean."

"Then perhaps she would not choose to take some work I was thinking to offer her. Or perhaps you would not take it?" he added smiling.

"We must take it," said Rotha, "if we can get it. What is it?"

"A set of shirts. A dozen."

"Mother gets seventy five cents a piece, if they are tucked and stitched."

"That is not my price, however. I like my work particularly done, and I give two dollars a piece."

"Two dollars for one shirt?" inquired Rotha.

"That is my meaning. Do you think your mother will take them?"

For all answer the girl clapped her two hands together.

"Then you are not a master tailor?" she asked.

"No."

"I thought maybe you were. I don't like them. What are you, please?"

"If I should propose myself as a friend, would you allow it?"

Is this a "kindness"? was the suspicion that instantly darted into Rotha's mind. The visiter saw it in her face, and could have smiled; took care to do no such thing.

"That is a question for mother to answer," she said coolly.

"When it is put to her. I put the question to you."

"Do you mean, that you are talking of being a friend to me?"

"Is that too bold a proposition?"

"No—but it cannot be true."

"Why not?"

"You cannot want me for a friend. You do not know me a bit."

"Pardon me. And my proposal was, that I should be a friend to you."

"I always thought there were two sides to a friendship."

"True; and in time, perhaps, when you come to know me as well as I know you, perhaps you will be my friend as well."

"How should you know me?" said Rotha quickly.

"People's thoughts and habits of feeling have a way of writing themselves somehow in their faces, and voices, and movements. Did you know that?"

"No—" Rotha said doubtfully.

"They do."

"But you don't know me."

"Will you put it to the proof? But do you like to hear the truth spoken about yourself?"

"I don't know. I never tried."

"Shall I try you? I think I see before me a person who likes to have her own way—and has it."

"You are wrong there," said Rotha. "If I had my own way, I should not be doing what I am doing; no indeed! I should be going to school."

"I did not mean that your will could get the better of all circumstances; only of the will of other people. How is that?"

"I suppose everybody likes to have his own way," said Rotha in defence.

"Probably; but not every one gets it. Then, when upon occasion your will is crossed, whether by persons or circumstances, you do not take it very patiently."

"Does anybody?"

"Some people. But on these occasions you are apt to shew your displeasure impatiently—sometimes violently."

"How do you know?" said Rotha wonderingly. "You cannot see that in my face now?"

And she began curiously to examine the face opposite to her, to see if it too had any disclosures to make. He smiled.

"Another thing,—" he went on. "You have never yet learned to care for others more than for yourself."

"Does anybody?" said Rotha.

"How is it with your mother?"

"Mother?— But then, mother and I are very different"

"Did I not intimate that?"

"But I mean I am naturally different from her. It is not only because she is a Christian."

"Why are you not a Christian too?"

Rotha hesitated. Her interlocutor was certainly a great stranger; and as certainly she had not found it possible to read his face; notwithstanding, two effects had resulted from the interview thus far; she believed in him, and he was somewhat imposing to her. Dress and manner might have a little to do with this; poor Rotha had rarely in her short life spoken to any one who had the polish of manner that belongs to good breeding and the habit of society; but that was not the whole. She felt the security and the grace with which every word was said, and she trusted his face. At the same time she rebelled against the slight awe he inspired, and was a little afraid of some lurking "kindness" under all this extraordinary interest and affability. Her answer was delayed and then came somewhat defiantly.

"I never wanted to be a Christian."

"That answer has the merit of truth," said her visiter calmly. "You have mentioned the precise reason that keeps people out of the kingdom of heaven. 'Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life,' the Lord said to some of them when he was upon earth. 'When they shall see him, there is no beauty that they should desire him.'"

"Well, I cannot help that," said Rotha.

"No,—" said her visiter slowly, "you cannot help that; but it does not excuse you."

"Why, how can I be a Christian, when I dont want to?"

"How can you do anything else that you do not want to do? Duty remains duty, does it not?"

"But religion is not outside work."

"No."

"Mother says, it is the love of God. How can I make myself love him?"

"Poor child!" said her visiter. "When you are in earnest about that question it will not be difficult to find the answer." He rose up. "Then I may send the shirts I spoke of?"

"Yes," said Rotha; "but I don't know about the price. Mother does not want anything but the proper pay; and she does all her work particularly."

"Are you afraid I shall give her too much?"

"She does not want too much."

"I will arrange that with her. Stay,—we have not been introduced to each other. You may call me Mr. Digby; what may I call you?"

"Rotha Carpenter."

"Good morning, Rotha," said the gentleman, offering his hand. Rotha shyly took it, and he went away.

Half an hour afterwards, Mrs. Carpenter came home. She came slowly up the short flight of stairs, and sat down by her fireside as if she was tired. She was pale, and she coughed now and then.

"Mother," began Rotha, full of the new event, "somebody has been here since you have been away."

"A messenger from Mr. Farquharson? I shall have the things done to- morrow, I hope."

"No messenger at all, and no tailor, nor any such horrid person. Mother, what is a 'gentleman'?"

"What makes you ask?"

"Because Mrs. Marble said this man was a gentleman. He's a missionary. Do you know what a 'city missionary' means, mother?"

"Yes, in general."

"The same as a foreign missionary, only he does not go out of the country?"

"He does his work in the city."

"But there are no heathen in New York."

"There are worse."

"Worse? what can be worse?"

"It is worse to see the light and refuse it, than never to have had the choice."

"Then I should think it would be better not to send missionaries to the heathen."

"Rotha, take my bonnet and cloak, dear, and put them away; and make me some tea, will you?"

"Why mother, it is not tea-time yet."

"No matter; I am tired, and cold."

"But you didn't tell me what a gentleman is?" pursued Rotha, beginning now to bustle about and do as she was told.

"Wait till I have had some tea. How much tea is left, Rotha?"

"Well, I guess, enough to last almost a week," said the girl, peering into the box which did duty for a tea-caddy.

"I must manage to get some more," said the mother. "I could hardly get along without my cup of tea."

"Mother, here has been somebody who wants you to make shirts for him at two dollars a piece."

"Two dollars a piece!" Mrs. Carpenter echoed. "I could afford to get tea then. Who was that, Rotha? and what sort of shirts does he want made for such a price?"

"I don't know! he said he wanted them very particularly made, and I told him that was the way you did everything. Now mother dear, the kettle will boil in two minutes."

"Who is this person?"

"I told you, he is a city missionary. His name is Mr. Digby."

"Digby,"—said Mrs. Carpenter. "I do not know him."

"Of course you don't. But you will be glad of the shirts, won't you?"

"Very glad, and thankful."

"But is two dollars a proper price?" inquired Rotha a little jealously.

"It is an uncommon price."

"What could make him offer an uncommon price?"

"I don't know. It is not the way of the world, so perhaps he is not one of the world."

"He's a Christian, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Do Christians always do the right thing?"

"Real Christians do, when they know what the right thing is. I am too tired to talk, Rotha."

Rotha bestirred herself and set the little table. Not very much went on it, besides the cups and plates; but there was a loaf of bread, and Rotha made a slice of toast; and Mrs. Carpenter sipped her tea as if she found it refreshing.

"I wish I had a good tumbler of milk," sighed Rotha; "real milk, not like this. And I wish you had some Medwayville cream, mother. I think, if I ever get back into the country again, I shall go wild."

"I sometimes think you are a little of that here," said Mrs. Carpenter.

"Not wild with joy, mother."

Mrs. Carpenter sipped her tea, and stretched out her feet towards the small stove, and seemed to be taking some comfort. But her face was thin and worn, the hands were very thin; a person with more experience than her young daughter would have been ill content with her appearance.

"Mother, now can you tell me my question? What do you mean by a 'gentleman.'"

"Perhaps not just what Mrs. Marble means by it."

"Well, I'll tell you. This person was very well dressed, but clothes do not make it, do they, mother?"

"Certainly not."

"He has got a nice face, and he seemed to know always just what to do and to say; I can't tell you what I mean exactly; but I should think, to look at him and hear him, that he knew everything and had seen all the world. Of course he hasn't and doesn't; but that is the sort of feeling I have when I look at him."

Mrs. Carpenter smiled.

"Did you never see anybody before of whom you thought so?"

"Never. I never did," said Rotha. "The people who come here on business, don't know the least bit how to behave; and the people at dear old Medwayville did not. O they were kind and good as they could be, some of them; but mother, they could not make a bow to save their lives, and they would stand and sit all sorts of ways; and they wouldn't know when they had done talking, nor how to do anything nicely."

"Perhaps this man was stiff," said Mrs. Carpenter amused.

"He was not stiff in the least; but mother, what is a gentleman?"

"I do not know how to tell you, Rotha. Your description sounds very much like one."

A day or two after, Mr. Digby came again, and had an interview with Mrs. Carpenter. This time he paid no attention to Rotha, and I think the little girl was somewhat disappointed. The next day he came again and brought with him the bundle of shirts. He inquired now very kindly into Mrs. Carpenter's state of health, and offered to send his own physician to see her. But she refused; and the manner of her refusal persuaded Mr. Digby that she was aware of her own condition and believed no medicine would be of avail. He was much of the same opinion himself; and indeed was inclined to suspect that there was more need of good food than of drugs in this case. More difficult at the same time to administer.

A few days passed, and Mr. Digby again came.

He found Mrs. Carpenter steady at her work, but looking very worn and pale. Rotha was just putting on the small tea kettle. Mr. Digby sat down and made kind inquiries. The answers were with the sweet patient composure which he saw was habitual with Mrs. Carpenter.

"How is your appetite?" he asked.

"I suppose I am not enough in the open air and stirring about, to have it very good."

"Have you much strength for 'stirring about'?"

"Not much."

"People cannot have strength without eating. Rotha, what time do you give your mother her dinner?"

"Now," said Rotha. "I put the kettle on just as you came in."

"I saw you did. But what is the connection, may I ask, between dinner and the tea kettle?"

"Rotha makes me a cup of tea," said Mrs. Carpenter smiling. "I can hardly get along without that."

"Ah!—Mrs. Carpenter, I have had a busy morning and am—which I am sorry you are not—hungry. May I take a cup of tea with you?"

"Certainly!—I should be very glad. Rotha, set a cup for Mr. Digby, dear. But tea is not much to a hungry man," she went on; "and I am afraid there is little in the house but bread and butter."

"That will do capitally. If you'll furnish the bread and butter, I will see what I can get for my part. If you'll excuse the liberty, Mrs. Carpenter?"

Mrs. Carpenter would excuse, I think, whatever he might take a fancy to do. She had seen him now several times, and he had quite won her heart.

"Mother," said Rotha, as soon as their visiter had gone out, "what is he going to do?"

"I do not know. Get something for dinner, he said."

"Do you like him to do that?"

"Do what?"

"Bring us dinner."

"Don't be foolish, Rotha."

"Mother, I think he is doing what he calls a 'kindness.'"

"Have you any objection?"

"Not to his doing it for other people; but for you and me— Mother, we have not come to receiving charity yet."

"Rotha!" exclaimed her mother. "My child, what are you thinking of?"

"Having kindnesses done to us, mother; and I don't like it. It is not Mr.

Digby's business, what we have for dinner!"

"I told him we had not much but bread."

"Why did you tell him?"

"He would have found it out, Rotha, when he came to sit down to the table."

"He had no business to ask to do that."

"I think you are ungrateful."

"Mother, I don't want to be grateful. Not to him."

"Why not to him, or to anybody, my child, that deserves it of you?"

"He don't!"—said Rotha, as she finished setting the table, rather in dudgeon. "What do you suppose he is going to bring?"

"Rotha, what will ever become of you in this world, with that spirit?"

"What spirit?"

"Pride, I should say."

"Isn't pride a good thing?"

"Not that ever I heard of, or you either," Mrs. Carpenter said with a sigh.

"Mother, I don't think you have enough pride."

"A little is too much. It makes people fall into the condemnation of the devil. And you are mistaken in thinking there is anything fine in it. Don't shew that feeling to Mr. Digby, I beg of you."

Rotha did not exactly pout, for that was not her way; but she looked dissatisfied. Presently she heard a sound below, and opened the door.

"He's coming up stairs," she said softly, "and a boy with him bringing something. Mother!—"

She had no chance to say more. Mr. Digby came in, followed by a boy with a basket. The basket was set down and the boy disappeared.

"Mrs. Carpenter," said the gentleman, "I could not find anything in this neighbourhood better than oysters. Do you like them?"

"Oysters!" said Mrs. Carpenter. "It is very long since I have seen any.

Yes, I like them."

"Then the next question is, how do you like them? Saw? or roasted? We can roast them here, cannot we?"

"I have not seen a roast oyster since I was a girl," said Mrs. Carpenter. Her visiter could hear in the tone of her voice that the sight would be very welcome. As for Rotha, displeasure was lost in curiosity. The oysters were already nicely washed; that Mr. Digby had had done by the same boy that brought the basket; it only remained to put them on the fire and take them off; and both operations he was quite equal to. Rotha looked on in silent astonishment, seeing the oyster shells open, and the juice sputter on the hot iron, and perceiving the very acceptable fragrance that came from them. Mr. Digby admonished her presently to make the tea; and then they had a merry meal. Absolutely merry; for their visitor, he could hardly be called their guest, spiced his ministrations with so pleasant a manner that nothing but cheerfulness could keep its ground before him. At the first taste of the oysters, it is true, some associations seemed to come over Mrs. Carpenter which threatened to make a sudden stop to her dinner. She sat back in her chair, and perhaps was swallowing old troubles and heartburnings over again, or perhaps recalling involuntarily a time before troubles began. The oysters seemed to choke her; and she said she wanted no more. But Mr. Digby guessed what was the matter; and was so tenderly kind and judiciously persuasive, that Mrs. Carpenter could not withstand him; and then, Rotha looked on in new amazement to see how the oysters went down and how manifestly they were enjoyed. She herself declined to touch them; they did not look attractive to her.

"Rotha," said Mr. Digby, as he opened a fine, fat oyster, "the only way to know things is, to submit to learn."

"I needn't learn to like oysters, I suppose, need I?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It might be useful some day."

"I don't see how it should. We never had oysters before, and perhaps we never shall again."

"You might go a missionary to some South Sea island, and be obliged at times to live upon oysters."

"I am not going to be a missionary."

"That is more than you know."

"But I know what I like, and what I think."

"At present. Perhaps you do. You do not know whether you like oysters, however, for you have not tried."

"Your sphere of knowledge will be small, Rotha," said her mother, "if you refuse to enlarge it."

Stung a little, Rotha made up her mind to try an oyster, to which her objections were twofold. Nevertheless, she was obliged to confess, she liked it; and the meal, as I said, went merrily on; Rotha from that time doing her fall share. Mrs. Carpenter was plainly refreshed and comforted, by the social as well as the material food she received.

"How good he is!" she exclaimed when their friend was gone.

"So are the oysters," said Rotha; "but I don't like him to bring them. I do not think I like Mr. Digby much, anyhow."

"You surprise me. And it is not a little ungrateful."

"I don't want to be grateful to him. And mother, I don't like him to bring oysters here!"

"Why shouldn't he, if he likes? I am sorry to see such pride in you,

Rotha. It is very foolish, my child."

"Mother, it looks as if he knew we were poor."

"He knows it, of course. Am I not making his shirts?"

Rotha was silent, clearing away the dishes and oyster shells with a good deal of decision and dissatisfaction revealed in her movements.

"Everybody knows it, my child."

"I do not mind everybody. I just mind him. He is different. Why is he different, mother?"

"I suppose the difference you mean is, that he is a gentleman."

"And what are we?" said Rotha, suddenly standing still to put the question.

"We are respectable people," said her mother smiling.

"Not gentlemen, of course; but what do you call us?"

"If I could call you a Christian, Rotha, I should not care for anything else; at least I should not be concerned about it. Everything else would be right."

"Being a Christian would not make any difference in what I am talking about."

"I think it would; but I cannot talk to you about it, Ask Mr. Digby the next time he comes."

"Ask him!" cried Rotha. "I guess I will! What makes you think he is coming again, mother?"

"It would be like him."