A DEBT OF GRATITUDE
As Rosalie passed along the corridor her sudden decision was sealed by
growing annoyance and a longing, almost amounting to fear, to get away.
With scarcely a pause she knocked upon the door, that door through which
she entered last night. Without stopping she opened it. Mr. Barringcourt
was there alone, at a table littered with papers, writing. He was indeed
busy and engrossed, for on her entrance he did not raise his head, till
accosted by her voice, and then he looked up sharply enough.
“You!” said he, bringing his eyebrows together in that dark frown which
Rosalie had seen last night, and seeing had never forgotten.
“Yes. I want to go out.”
“Impossible!” said he, with an impatient gesture of his hand, and
returned to the paper.
“I want to go out,” she repeated. “And you have no right to stop me.”
“In my own house I have every right. Go away, you are interrupting me.”
“So are you interrupting me.”
He laughed, not altogether kindly, and looked up at her again.
“That is little short of impudent.”
“I don’t care. I want to go out, and if you won’t give me leave, I shall
take it.”
“Take it then, by all means.”
“That man at the door won’t let me.”
“Knock him down. It will be one way of surmounting the difficulty.”
“He is such an elephant. I disliked him the very first time I saw him,”
she replied with energy, and as much simplicity as the truth occasioned.
“Well, go away and fight it out with him; watch the door, and bounce out
when he’s not looking.”
“I won’t do anything so undignified. I shall make friends with the
kitchen people, and creep out that way.”
“The kitchen door leads into the garden, and the walls are high, and the
gate is locked. I keep the key myself, to ensure no one getting to the
stables.”
“Then give me leave to go out at the front.”
“Now, why should you want to go out at the front? You have as beautiful
a home as you could possibly wish for. What more can you want?”
“Fresh air and human beings.”
“You have them here.”
She shook her head. The tears rose in her throat, and were very hard to
choke down again.
“It’s the dismallest place I ever came to; and I’m no use. The people
here always contradict me.”
“You are the first person who has ever complained of them; and your
opinion goes for nothing, your own conduct leaves so much to be
desired.”
“In what way?”
“In my time I have experienced much ingratitude, but never any quite to
equal yours.”
“I—ungrateful?”
“Most decidedly!”
“What are you wanting from me?”
“Quiet submission.”
Rosalie’s eyes opened wide, her lips parted; her expression was one of
unfeigned surprise.
“What’s that?”
“To do what you’re told quietly. Now you _know_, there is no excuse for
your not complying.”
“But to submit means to stay here.”
“Of course!”
“But I can’t. Oh, I can’t really! Anything but that.”
“Nothing but that. You come to me with the most unusual request, and I
am fool enough to put myself out of the way for you. Then you expect to
go away, or rather slip away, without any more words about repayment.
And when you are brought back, all this squalling.”
“Nice people are quite content with ‘Thank you.’”
“I’m not nice, and ‘Thank you’ never appeals to me.”
“But if I stay here I can do nothing.”
“Yes, you can mope.”
“In return for a tongue?”
“Why not? It would be the height of self-sacrifice, and the perfection
of thanksgiving.”
Her serious eyes met his thoughtfully. “Do you really wish me to stay
here?”
“I not only wish, but am determined on it.”
“Then my self-sacrifice can never be spontaneous.”
“You mean you are changing your mind. You are wishful to stop?”
“Not wishful, but if you want it, I’ll—I’ll try to settle down more
cheerfully. After all, it’s only just.”
“That is so.”
“Shall I often see you?”
“Never. I am not fond of inflictions.”
He spoke so drily, and the words were so unkind, that Rosalie’s wistful
face grew paler. Yet still she argued to herself it would be selfish to
wish to be free, to have a tongue and everything. And after all, the
stranger was so clever that he must of necessity know best.
“Will you let me out just for an hour?” she asked at length, with a
voice greatly subdued from the first clamorous outburst.
“Not for an hour.”
“But I have an aunt, and she is dead. I shouldn’t like strangers to take
what once belonged to her.”
“Where is your uncle?”
“He is dead too.”
“Your people?”
“I have none.”
“Where then, in the name of all the devils in Lucifram, do you intend to
go to?”
“I thought when people knew I had miraculously come by a tongue they
would—”
“Ah! I thought as much. You want to behave with all the absurdity of a
hen that has laid an egg.”
“Indeed!” said Rosalie, flushing.
“You want to get out just to cackle.”
She was silent.
“You admit it?”
“I admit nothing but your want of manners.”
“What a waspish, vinegarish tongue yours is.”
“It’s the fault of the doctor, then. If one cannot produce a sweet
instrument one might as well admit oneself a failure.”
“How was I to tell? Your face was so deceptive.”
“Maybe so is my tongue. I was only speaking in fun. Let me out for one
hour. Lend me twopence, and I will return, having spoken to no one, and
in the right frame for being submissive.”
For a short time he was silent. At last he said:
“Promise me faithfully you will return.”
“I promise you most faithfully.”
“Within the hour?”
“Yes.”
“You understand perfectly that my reason for bringing you back is not
for any personal gratification I should derive from it. It is simply so
that you may not obtain any great or particular pleasure from having a
prayer perfected.”
“You speak plainly enough for the dullest mind.”
“I’m glad. Now you may go. And remember, come back if you have any sense
of gratitude.”
So Rosalie passed out again into the farther hall.
“I have permission to pass,” said she at the door, and then she stood
outside.
It seemed to her when she reached the parapet that she had been out of
the world for years. And oh! to be back in the world again! To see and
hear the sights and sounds, so commonplace and ordinary, yet to her
stilled ear so sweet again. Never had that terrible silent mansion
struck her as so terrible till now she stood amongst the noise of work
and life once more.
One hour of freedom. One hour with the light, jogging world, and then to
pass once more beneath the shadow—a silent spirit in a silent world. The
’bus rattled on, taking its own slow time towards that quarter of the
city where she had lived. She found the upper storey empty, and none had
missed her. Yesterday the doctor had told her his intention of coming
for her at four o’clock to-day. It was not yet quite twelve.
Each of the little rooms was now quite bare, except the tiny attic
called her bedroom. In it were gathered the few trivial things she
prized as belonging to days that were less dark than these. There was a
necklace of coral, a collar of lace, a pair of gloves, kid, backed with
astrachan, the last present her uncle ever gave her; a tiny brooch of
gold, left by her aunt, and always worn by her, and but little else. One
other thing she found, a book that in that planet compares nearly to our
Bible. Sadly and lovingly she placed them all together, and kissed them
many times, her eyes blinded with tears; and then a voice whispered:
“Why go back? Go to this doctor. Tell him everything, for he is kind.
None would blame you for not returning to that prison mansion, even
though under a promise. It was an unfair advantage.”
But Rosalie shook her head.
“I must go back, because I promised. I asked everything in return for
nothing. And God, in His own good time, will make the dark path plain.”
The struggle gradually died, and Right conquered.
At last she was ready to go. Glancing round for the last time, she saw
upon the mantelpiece a key, a solitary one upon an iron ring.
“It belonged to uncle’s safe, the one that had so little in it,” she
thought. She took it up. Its dull appearance suggested so much dull
tragedy to her. “I’ll take it with me,” she thought, and slipped it in
the pocket of her dress.
Then she passed down the broad stone steps out once more into the
street. Her brief holiday was over. The short hour was almost passed.
She clenched her hands together, and drove back the blinding tears that
struggled in her eyes. Gradually she drew nearer to the Avenue—how
eagerly she had rushed there on the night before! The great black marble
mansion came in view, its dusky grandeur having a certain sinister
lowering to her understanding eye no different from a prison.
“I wonder when I’ll walk along this street again?” she thought, and
ascended the marble steps, hiding all trace of past emotion.