The Letter of Credit

"There is no doing great things in any line without being very much in earnest. The start isn't the thing; it is the steady pull that tries."

"Can you draw, Mr. Digby?"

"Yes, a little."

Again Rotha was all absorbed in what lay before and around her; getting unconscious education through her eyes, as they received for the first time the images of so many new things. To the people on board she gave scarcely any heed at all.

Arrived at Brighton, Mr. Digby's first care was to give his charge and himself some refreshment. He took Rotha to a hotel and ordered a simple dinner. Then he desired to have a little wagon harnessed up, and putting the delighted girl into it, he drove to the sea shore and let her feast her eyes on the incoming waves and breaking surf. He himself was full of one thought, waiting for the moment when he could say to her what he had to say; but he was forced to wait a good while. He had made a mistake, he found, in choosing this precise direction for their drive. Rotha's overwhelming pleasure and entranced absorption for some time could not be broken in upon. She was too utterly happy to notice how different was her friend's absorption from her own; unless with a vague, passing perception, which she could not dwell upon.

At last her friend asked her if she would like a run upon the sand, the tide being then out. He drove up to a straggling bit of fence, tied his horse, and lifted Rotha out; who immediately ran down to the narrow beach and as near to the water as she dared; there stood still and looked. There was but a gentle surf that day, with the ebb tide; but to Rotha it was a scene of unparalleled might and majesty. She was drinking in pleasure, as one can at fourteen, with all the young susceptibilities fully alive and strong. Mr. Digby could not interrupt her. He threw himself down 011 a dry piece of sand, and waited; watching her, and watching with a sad sort of pleasure the everlasting rise and breaking of those curling billows. Things spiritual and material get very mixed up in such a mood; and anon the ocean became to Mr. Digby somehow identified with the sea of trouble the tides of which do overflow all this world. The breaking waves were but the constantly occurring and recurring bursts of misfortune and disaster which overtake everybody. Here it is, there it is, it is here again, it is always somewhere; ay, far as the eye can reach. Here is this child, now, —

"Mr. Digby, you are tired – you don't like it – you are just waiting for me," Rotha said suddenly, with delicate good feeling, coming to his side.

"I do like it, always. I am not tired, thank you, Rotha."

"But you are not taking pleasure in it now," she said gently.

"No. I was thinking, how full the world is of trouble."

"Why should you think that just now? You had better think, how full it is of pleasure. It's as full – it seems to me as full – as the very sea itself."

"Does your life have so much pleasure?"

"To-day – " said the girl, with a rapt look out to sea.

"And yet Rotha, it is for you I am troubled."

"For me!" she said with a surprised look at him.

"Yes. Suppose you sit down here for a few minutes, and let me talk to you."

"I don't want to talk about trouble just now," she said; sitting down however as he bade her.

"I am very sorry to talk about it now, or at any time; but I must. Can you bear trouble, Rotha?"

There was something tender and grave and sympathizing in his look and tone, which somehow made the girl's heart beat quicker. That there was real gravity of tidings beneath such a manner, she felt intuitively; though she strove not to believe it.

"I don't know, – " she said in answer to his question. "I have borne it."

"This is more than you have borne yet."

"I had a father, once, Mr. Digby, – " she said with a curious self- restraint that did not lack dignity.

How could he answer her? He did not find words. And instead, there came over him such a rush of tenderness in view of what was surely to fall upon the girl, in the present and in the future, that for a moment he was unmanned. To hide the corresponding rush of water to his eyes, Mr. Digby was fain to bow his face in the hand which rested on his knees. Neither the action nor the cause of it escaped Rotha's shrewdness and awakened sense of fear, but it silenced her at the same time; and it was not till a little interval had passed, though before Mr. Digby had lifted up his head, that the silence became intolerable to her. She heard the sea and saw the breakers no more, or only with a feeling of impatience.

"Well," she said at last, in a changed voice, hard, and dry, – "why don't you tell me what it is?" If she was impolite, she did not mean it, and her friend knew she did not mean it.

"I hardly can, Rotha," he answered sorrowfully.

"I know what you mean," she said, "but it isn't true. You think so, but it isn't true."

"What are you speaking of?"

"You know. I know what you mean; you are speaking of – mother!" The word came out with difficulty and only by stern determination. "It is not true, Mr. Digby."

"What is not true, Rotha?"

"You know. It is not true!" she repeated vehemently.

"But Rotha, my child, what if it were true?"

"You know it couldn't be true," she said, fixing on him a pair of eyes almost wild in their intensity. "It couldn't be true. What would become of me?"

"I will take care of you, always."

"You!" she retorted, with a scorn supreme and only matched by the pain with which she spoke. "What are you? It couldn't be, Mr. Digby."

"Listen to me, child. Rotha, I have come here to talk to you about it." He saw how full the girl's eyes were growing, of tears just swelling and ready to burst forth; and he stopped. But she impatiently dashed them right and left.

"I don't want to talk about it. It's no use, here or anywhere else. I would like to go home."

"Not yet. Before you go home I want you to be quite composed, and to have good command of yourself, so that you may not distress your mother. She cannot bear it. Therefore she asked me to tell you, because she dreaded to see your suffering. Can you bear it and hide it, Rotha, bravely, for her sake?"

"She asked you to tell me?" cried the girl; and Mr. Digby never forgot the face of wild agony with which she looked at him. He answered quietly, "Yes;" though his heart was bleeding for her.

"She thinks – "

"She knows how it must be. It is nothing new, or strange, or sorrowful, to her, – except only for you. But in her love for you, she greatly dreads to see your sorrow. Do you think, Rotha, for her sake, you can bear up bravely, and be quiet, and not shew what you feel? For her sake?"

He doubted if the girl rightly heard him. She looked at him, indeed, while he spoke, as if listening; but her face was white, or rather livid, and her eyes seemed to be gazing into despair.

"I do not think it can be, Mr. Digby," she said. "She don't look like it.

And what would become of me?

"I will take faithful care of you, Rotha, as long as you live, and I live."

"You are nothing!" she said contemptuously. But then followed a cry which curdled Mr. Digby's blood. It was not a piercing shriek, yet it was a prolonged cry, pointed and sharpened with pain and heavy with despair. One such wail, and the girl dropped her face in her hands and sat motionless. Her companion would rather have seen sobs and tears; he did not know what to do with her. The soft beat and wash of the waves sounded drearily in the silence. Mr. Digby waited. Nothing but time, he knew, can cover the roughness of life's rough places with its moss and lichen of patience and memory. Comfort was not to be spoken of, not here. He comprehended now why Mrs. Carpenter had shrank from telling the tidings herself. But the day was wearing away; they must go home; the burden, however heavy, must be lifted and carried. —

"Rotha – my child – " he said after a long interval.

No answer.

"Rotha, my child, cannot you look up and speak to me? Rotha – my poor little Rotha – it is very heavy for you! But won't you make it as light as you can for your mother?"

The child writhed away from under the hand he had gently laid on her shoulder; but uttered no sound.

"Rotha – we must go home presently. Do you know, your mother will be very anxious to see you. She is expecting us now, I dare say."

It came then, the burst of tears which he had dreaded and yet half longed for. The girl turned a little more from him and flung herself down on the sand, and there wept as he had never seen anybody weep before. With all the passion of an intense nature, and all the self abandonment of an ungoverned nature, sobbing such sobs as shook her whole frame, and with loud weeping which could not be restrained into silence. Better it should not be, Mr. Digby thought; better she should be allowed to exhaust herself so that very fatigue should induce quiet. But to the sitter-by it was unspeakably painful; a scene never to be recalled without a profound prayer, like Noah's, I fancy, after the deluge, that the like might never come again.

And happily, nature did exhaust herself; and just because the passion of sobs and tears was so violent, it did yield after a time, as strength gave way. But it lasted fearfully long. However, at last Rotha grew quieter, and then still; and not till then Mr. Digby spoke again. He spoke as if all this had been an interlude not noticed by him.

"Rotha, my child, can you gather up your courage and be quiet and be brave now?"

She hesitated, and then in a smothered voice said, "I'm not brave."

"I think you can be."

"I wish – I could die," she said slowly.

"But what we have to do, is to live and act for others. Yes, it would often seem a great deal easier to die; but we have something to do in the world. You have something to do. Your mother's comfort, and even the prolonging of her stay with us, may depend on your quietness and self- command. For love of her, can you be strong and do it?"

"I am not strong – " said Rotha, as she had spoken before.

"Love makes people strong. And Jesus will help the weak, if they trust him, to do anything they have to do."

"You know I am not a Christian," Rotha answered in the same matter-of- fact way.

"Suppose you do not let that be true after to-day."

There was another silence.

"I am ready to go, Mr. Digby," Rotha said.

"And you will be a woman, and wise, and quiet?"

"I don't know!"

Mr. Digby thought it was not best to press matters further. He put Rotha into the wagon again and drove back to the hotel. Quiet she was, at any rate, now; he did not even see any more tears; but alas, of all the things in the world which she had been so glad to look at on the way down, she saw nothing on the way back. Driving or sailing, it was all the same; only when Mr. Digby put her into the omnibus at Whitehall he saw a flash of something like terror which crossed her face and left it blanched. But that was all.

He went into the invalid's room at Mrs. Marble's with trepidation. Rotha however was merely less effusive and more hasty than usual in her greetings to her mother, and after a kiss or two turned away "to get her things off," as she said. And when Mrs. Cord unluckily asked her in passing, if she had had a pleasant day? Rotha choked, but managed to get out that it had been "as good as it could be." What she went through in the little hall room which served for closet and wardrobe, no one knew; but Mr. Digby, who stayed purposely till she came back again, was reassured to see that she was perfectly quiet, and that she set about her wonted duties in a grave, collected way, more grave than usual, but quite as methodical. He went away sighing, at the same time with a relieved heart. One of the hard things he had had to do in his life, was over.

Mr. Digby however, as he walked homeward to his hotel, saw the difficulties yet in store for him. How in the world was he to perform his promise of taking care of this wildfire girl? Her aunt surely, would be the fittest person to be intrusted with her. If he only knew what sort of person Mrs. Busby really was, and how much of Mrs. Carpenter's story might have two sides to it? The lady was not in the city, or he would have been tempted to go and see her at once, for the purpose of studying her and gathering information. Nothing of the kind was possible at present; and he could only hope that Mrs. Carpenter's frail life would be prolonged until her sister's return to New York would lift, or might lift, one difficulty out of his path.

CHAPTER IX.

FORT WASHINGTON

No such hope was to be realized. With all that care and kindness could do, the sick woman failed more and more. The great heats weakened her. The drives in the Park were refreshing, but alas, fatiguing, and sometimes had to be relinquished; and this happened again and again. Rotha behaved unexceptionably; was devoted to the service of her mother; untiring, and unselfish, and quiet; "another girl," Mrs. Cord said. Poor child! she was another girl in more ways than one; her fiery brightness of spirits was over, her cheeks grew thin, her eyes had dark rings round them, and their brown depths were heavy with a shadow darker yet. Energetic she was, as ever, but in a more staid and womanly way; the gladness of her doings was gone. Still, Mrs. Carpenter never saw her weep. In the evenings, or in the twilight, when there was nothing particular to be done, the child would nestle close to her mother, lay her head in her lap or rest it against her knee, and sit quiet. Still, at least, if not quiet; Mrs. Carpenter did sometimes fancy that she felt the drawing of a convulsive breath; but if she spoke then to Rotha, Rotha would answer with a specially calm and clear voice; and her mother did not get at her sorrow, if it were that which moved her. And Mrs. Carpenter was too weak now to try.

Mr. Digby came as usual, constantly. It was known to none beside himself, that he staid in town through the hot July and August days for this purpose solely. He saw that his sick friend grew weaker every day, yet he did not expect after all that the end would come so soon as it did. He had yet a lingering notion of bringing the sisters together, when Mrs. Busby should return. He was thinking of this one August afternoon as he approached the house. Mrs. Marble met him in the hall.

"Well, Mr. Digby, – it's all up now!"

The gentleman paused on his way to the stairs and looked his inquiry.

"She aint there. Warn't she a good woman, though!" And Mrs. Marble's face was all quivering, and some big tears fell from the full eyes.

"Was?" said Mr. Digby. "You do not mean – "

"She's gone. Yes, she's gone. And I guess she's gone to the good land; and I guess she aint sorry to be free; but —I'm sorry!"

For a few minutes the kind little woman hid her face in her apron, and sadly blotched with tears the apron was when she took it down.

"It's all over," she repeated. "At two o'clock last night, she just slipped off, with no trouble at all. And the house does feel as lonely as if fifty people had gone out of it. I never see the like o' the way I miss her. I'd got to depend on her living up there, and it was good to think of it; there warn't no noise, more'n if nobody had been up there; but if I aint good myself and I don't think I be – I do love to have good folks round. She was good. I never see a better. It's been a blessin' to the house ever since she come into it; and I always said so. An' she's gone!"

"Where is Rotha?"

"Rotha! she's up there. I guess wild horses wouldn't get her away. I tried; I tried to get her to come down and have some breakfast with me; but la! she thinks she can live on air; or I suppose she don't think about it."

"How is she?"

"Queer. She is always a queer child. I can't make her out. And I wanted to consult you about her, sir; what's to be done with Rotha? who'll take care of her? She's just an age to want care. She'll be as wild as a hawk if she's let loose to manage herself."

"I thought she was very quiet."

"Maybe, up stairs. But just let anybody touch her down here, in a way she don't like, and you'd see the sparks fly! If you want to know how, just take and knock a firebrand against the chimney back."

"Who would touch her, here?" asked the gentleman.

"La! nobody, except with a question maybe, or a bit of advice. I shouldn't like to take hold of her any other way. I never did see a more masterful piece of human nature, of fourteen years old or any other age. She aint a bad child at all; I'm not meaning that; but her mother let her have her own way, and I guess she couldn't help it. It'll be worse for Rotha now, for the world aint like that spring chair you had fetched for her poor mother. You've been an angel of mercy in that room, sure enough."

Mr. Digby passed the good woman and began to ascend the stairs.

"I wanted to ask you about Rotha," Mrs. Marble persisted, speaking up over the bannisters, "because, if that was the best, I would take her myself and bring her up to my business. I don't know who is to manage things now, or settle anything."

"I will," said Mr. Digby. "Thank you, Mrs. Marble; I will see you again."

"'Thank you, Mrs. Marble, I don't want you,' that means," said the little woman as she retreated to her own apartments. "There's somebody else a little bit masterful, I expect. Well, it's all right for the men, I s'pose, at least if they take a good turn; any way, we can't help it; but for a girl that aint fifteen yet, – it aint so agreeable. And poor child! who'll have patience with her now?"

Meanwhile Mr. Digby went up stairs and softly opened the door of the sitting room. For some time ago, since Mrs. Carpenter became more feeble, he had insisted on her having her old sleeping apartment again, other quarters being found or made for Mrs. Cord in the house. Mrs. Cord had naturally assumed the duties of her profession, which was that of a nurse; for the sake of which, knowing that they would be needed, Mr. Digby had first introduced her here.

At the window of the sitting room, looking out into the street, Rotha was sitting listlessly. No one else was in the room. She turned her head when she heard Mr. Digby's footsteps, and the face he saw then smote his heart. It was such a changed face; wan and pale, with the rings round the eyes that come of excessive weeping, and a blank, dull expression in the eyes themselves which was worse yet. She did not move, nor give any gesture of greeting, but looked at the young man entering as if neither he nor anything else in the world concerned her.

Mr. Digby felt then, what everybody with a heart has felt at one time or another, that the office of comforter is the most difficult in the world. In one thing at least he imitated Job's friends; he was silent. He came close up to the girl and stood there, looking down at her. But she turned her wan face away from him and looked out of the window again. She looked, but he was sure she saw nothing. He did not venture to touch her; he saw that she was not open to the least token of tenderness; such a token would surely turn her apathetic calm into irritation. Perhaps even his standing there had some such effect; for after a little while, Rotha said, "Won't you sit down, Mr. Digby?"

He sat down, and waited. However, people do not live in these days to be several hundred years old; and proportionately, seven days of silence would be more of that sort of sympathy than can be shewn since Job's time. Yet what to say, Mr. Digby was profoundly doubtful. Finding nothing that would do, of his own, he took his little Testament from his pocket, and turning the leaves aimlessly came upon the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John. He began at the beginning and read slowly and quietly on till he came to the words,

'"Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.

"'Jesus said unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.' – "

"Please don't, Mr. Digby!" said Rotha, who after a few verses had buried her face in her hands.

"Don't what?"

"Don't read any more."

"Why not?"

"I know how it goes on. I know what he did. But he will not do that – here."

"Yes, he will. Not immediately, but by and by."

"I don't care for by and by."

"Yes you do, Rotha. By and by the Lord Jesus will come again; and when he comes he will send his angels to gather up and bring to him all his people who are then living, scattered about in the world, and at the same time all his people who once lived and have died shall be raised up. Then will come your dear mother, with the rest, in beauty and glory."

"But," said Rotha, bursting out into violent sobs, "I don't know where I shall be!" —

The paroxysm of tears and sobs that followed, startled Mr. Digby; it was so extreme in its passion beyond anything he had ever seen in his life; even beyond her passion on the sea shore. It seemed as if the girl must almost strangle in her convulsive oppression of breath. He tried soothing words, and he tried authority; and both were as vain as the recoil of waves from a rock. The passion spent itself by degrees, and was succeeded by a more gentle, persistent rain of tears which fell quietly.

"Rotha," said Mr. Digby gravely, "that is not right."

"Very likely," she answered. "How are you going to help it?"

"I cannot; but you can."

"I can't!" she exclaimed, with almost a cry. "When it comes, I must."

"No, my child; you must learn self-command."

"How can I?" she said doggedly.

"By making it your rule, that you will always do what is right– not what you like."

"It never was my rule."

"Perhaps. But do you mean that it never shall be?"

There followed a long silence, during which Rotha's tears gradually stilled; but she said nothing, and Mr. Digby let her alone. After this time, she rose and came to him and laid one hand half timidly, half confidingly, upon his shoulder.

"Mr. Digby," she said softly, "because I am so wicked, will you get tired and forsake me?"

"Never!" he answered heartily, putting his arm round the forlorn child and drawing her a little nearer. And Rotha, in her forlornness and in the gentle mood that had come over her, laid her head down on his shoulder, or rather in his neck, nestling to him. It was an unconscious, mute appeal to his kindness and for his kindness; it was a very unconscious testimony of Rotha's trust and dependence on him; it was very child-like, but coming from this girl who was so nearly not a child, it moved the young man strangely. He had no sisters; the feeling of Rotha's silky, thick locks against the side of his face and the clinging appeal of her hand and head on his shoulder, gave him an entirely new sensation. All that was manly in him stirred to meet the appeal, and at the same time Rotha took a suddenly different place in his thoughts and regards. He was glad Mrs. Cord was not there to see; but if she had been, I think he would have done just the same. He drew the girl close to him, and laid his other hand tenderly upon those waving, thick, dark locks of hair.

"I will never forsake you, Rotha. I will never be tired. You shall be like my own little sister; for your mother left you in my charge, and you belong to me now, and to nobody else in the world."

She accepted it quietly, making no response at all; her violent passion had been succeeded by a gentle, subdued mood. Favourable for saying several things and making sundry arrangements; only that just then was not the time that would do. Both of them remained still and silent, Mr. Digby thinking this among other things; poor Rotha was hardly thinking at all, any more than a shipwrecked man just flung ashore by the waves, and clinging to the rock that has saved him from sweeping out to sea again, lie blesses the rock, maybe, but it is no time for considering anything. The one idea is to hold fast; and Rotha mentally did it, with an intensity of trust and clinging that her protector never guessed at.

"Then I must do what you say, now?" she remarked after a while.

"I suppose so," he answered, much struck by this tone of docility.

"I will try, Mr. Digby."

"Will you trust me too, Rotha?"

"For what?"

"I mean, will you trust me that what I do for you, or want you to do, is the best thing to be done?"