_AN OLD ENEMY._
RHODA went to her room burning with shame and anger. Her first impulse
was to put on her bonnet and go home, but she reflected, as she grew
a little cooler, that it was after nine o'clock of a dark night, and
too late to undertake a walk of a mile alone, and that she could not
possibly take her trunk. And then what would Miss Carpenter say? What
would the ladies of the board say when they came to hear the whole
story? They would think she had disgraced the institution and herself.
Perhaps they would not let her stay there any more. And oh, what would
Aunt Hannah say if she knew?
The very thought of Aunt Hannah seemed to bring some peace to Rhoda's
tempest-tossed spirit.
"I know what she would say," thought the poor girl. "She would say that
I had done very wrong, but that was no reason why I should go on doing
wrong. She would tell me to confess my sin and ask forgiveness and
grace to do better. But oh, how can I? I knew I was wrong. I knew I was
deceiving and helping Isa to deceive, and yet I was so selfish, so bent
on having my own way, that I kept on, though something warned me all
the time. And yet—Oh yes, I must ask forgiveness for myself and Isa.
Poor girl! I wonder what her father will do to her? I feel worse about
her than even for myself."
Rhoda knelt down by her bedside, and humbly and with many tears
confessed her sin and asked forgiveness in His name who said, "Not
seven times, but seventy times seven." She was still kneeling when some
one tapped lightly at the door. She started up and opened it, thinking
of Isa, but it was Mrs. Ferrand who had knocked. She had been crying as
well as Rhoda, and looked even more unhappy.
"Oh, Rhoda, how could you?" said she, in a half whisper. And then,
with a fresh burst of tears, "I am sure I liked you and trusted you
more than any girl I ever had. I thought you were almost perfect. And
now Mr. Ferrand says it is just what he expected and what I might have
known. Why wouldn't you be contented to read the books he gave you,
and not get out of your station into algebra and geometry and all such
things?"
Despite her grief and shame, Rhoda could hardly forbear smiling.
"Mrs. Ferrand, I am very sorry," said she, earnestly—"I am more sorry
than I can tell you. You have been very good to me ever since I came
here, and it was a shame for me to deceive you so. But I do think it
was the deception that was the harm, and not the algebra and geometry,
or the music either, for that matter."
"But, Rhoda, don't you see that you wouldn't have been tempted to
deceive only for the music?"
"I am not sure of that, Mrs. Ferrand. Did you never hear of servants
who didn't care about music or books deceiving their employers?"
"To be sure," said Mrs. Ferrand, considering. "There was Mary Blane.
She couldn't even read, and she stole tea and candles, and baked cakes
on the sly, and got out of the window and ran away to balls, and got
taken up by the police. But I don't think that any excuse for you,
Rhoda."
"I know it isn't, Mrs. Ferrand, and I don't mean to excuse myself. I
think I was very much to blame—not for playing the piano, but for doing
it slyly and helping Miss Isa to deceive her father. I feel worse about
that than anything."
"And we all thought she was improving so much," said Mrs. Ferrand,
wiping her eyes. "Mr. Harvey told her father that she had gained more
in the last six weeks than in all the winter."
"Well, Mrs. Ferrand, honestly, I do think she has; and so far as her
music went, I think I was an advantage to her, for I used to play over
her lessons and show her how to learn them. Miss Isa—"
"Well, go on," said Mrs. Ferrand, as Rhoda checked herself and
coloured. "What were you going to say?"
"I was going to say, if you will excuse me, that Miss Isa needs a great
deal of help and showing to learn anything, or so it seems to me. She
gets puzzled, and the harder she works, the more puzzled she grows;
whereas, if she has some one to show her and make things that she don't
understand plain to her, she gets on pretty well."
"I know it," said Mrs. Ferrand, sighing. "Isa isn't bright. She is
like me, and I never was one bit of a scholar. I was the only dunce in
our family. It used to trouble mother a good deal, but father said it
didn't matter.
"'You can't make scholars out of everybody,' I remember his saying;
'Lucilla may make a very good and useful woman without knowing anything
about algebra.'
"That was a great comfort to me."
"I am sure he was right," said Rhoda, warmly. "I think you are just
as lovely and good as you can be, and it makes me feel all the more
ashamed to think how I have treated you."
"Oh, my dear, and I was so fond of you, and trusted you so. I always
felt perfectly easy about anything you undertook to do. You never
disappointed me. Now, we are going to have ever so much company next
week, and very particular company too, and I was thinking all the time
what a comfort it was going to be to have you and Marion, and now I
shall have a new girl to teach, and I dare say Marion will go away too."
"She mustn't do that," said Rhoda. "I will talk to her." Rhoda
swallowed a great lump of pride that rose in her throat at that moment,
and added, "I will stay through the week and help you if Mr. Ferrand is
willing."
"Oh, if you would! But I am afraid he will not consent, he is so angry
with me and Isa and everybody. I am sure I am at my wit's end what to
do," continued the poor lady. "If Isa gets one of her obstinate fits,
she will half starve before she will give in, and I am afraid she will
make herself sick. Well, I mustn't stay any longer. Mr. Ferrand told me
to talk to you and see if I could make you see your sin; but I am sure
you do see it, don't you, Rhoda?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Rhoda, swallowing the lump again. "Will you please
tell Mr. Ferrand that I am very sorry I deceived him about the piano,
and that if he is willing I will stay and help you through this week?"
The next morning Isa's door was open, and Mrs. Ferrand found her
daughter prostrated with a sick headache, which proved the beginning
of a somewhat serious attack of fever and indigestion. Mr. Ferrand
at first refused to believe in Isa's illness, declaring it was only
another deception—a mere pretext for keeping her room and escaping
merited reproof; but when he came to see her, he was compelled to own
himself mistaken for once, and consented to send for Doctor Morton.
"She will get over it this time, or so I think," said the blunt doctor,
who stood in no awe of Mr. Ferrand's wealth, family, or theories. "She
has been working too hard and walking too much and living on too low
diet. Her mother tells me that she has been breakfasting on oatmeal,
and that she does not like it. That is all nonsense. Let her have meat
twice a day, and plenty of it; keep her out of school a while, and let
her have plenty of fun and amusement. Get some girl of her own age to
stay with her, buy her a croquet set, or send her to some old woman in
the country who will coddle and pet her and let her run wild. If you
don't mind, she will slip through your fingers some day like the other
one."
Mr. Ferrand's feelings were deeply wounded, and also his dignity. As
he said to his wife, Dr. Morton really seemed to have no idea of the
respect due to a gentleman of his family and social position. Still, he
did not like to take the responsibility of disregarding the doctor's
advice.
That remark about "the other one" had touched a sensitive place in Mr.
Ferrand's heart, for he really had a heart. But he could not bear to
give up and own that he had been in the wrong; and as to taking his
daughter out of school and letting her run wild, the idea was not to be
entertained for a moment. But something might perhaps be done by way of
compromise, and Mr. Ferrand began to cast about for a way of saving his
daughter and his dignity at the same time.
Mr. Ferrand said nothing to Rhoda all day Sunday, though she went about
her work as usual.
On Monday morning, Marion came to her with a message.
"Yon man wants to see you in the library," said she. "He's stalking
about like a midden-cock on pattens. The doctor gave him an awful
take-down yesterday about Miss Isa, and he will have to be extra
dignified to make up for 't. Lass, did ye really tell Mrs. Ferrand you
would stay the week out?"
"Yes, I did," answered Rhoda. "I thought it was the best I could do,
seeing all the trouble I had made."
"Aweel, it's very well done, and very pretty of you, and I am glad of
it for the poor lady's sake as well as my own. I'm grown very fond of
you, lass. I think I shall no stop myself when you're gone."
"Oh, please, Marion, don't go away if you can help it," said Rhoda;
"Mrs. Ferrand will be so sorry. I am sure you are very good to be fond
of me. I haven't treated you very well lately. If I had only taken your
advice, all this wouldn't have happened."
"Tut, tut!" said Marion. "I was as bad as yourself, and worse, for I
was older. But now, lass, take my advice this time. Speak yon man fair,
and let him have it all his own way, and it will come out all right.
But, above all, don't keep him waiting."
Mr. Ferrand was in the library, seated in his arm-chair, with his most
decided expression of dignity and importance. But it is not easy to
look dignified and important on purpose without overdoing the matter,
and, consequently, Mr. Ferrand succeeded in being only stiff and
pompous. Rhoda instantly compared him in her own mind to a certain
small bantam cock formerly belonging to Aunt Hannah.
Mr. Ferrand looked at Rhoda, and Rhoda looked on the floor, vexed at
herself for feeling like laughing. She had not felt in the least like
laughing under Mrs. Ferrand's gentle and somewhat incoherent reproaches.
"I understand, Rhoda Bowers—I believe that is your name?" said Mr.
Ferrand, pausing for an answer.
"Yes, sir," answered Rhoda, meekly, thinking, "The old goose! Just as
if he didn't know my name!"
"I understand from Mrs. Ferrand, Rhoda Bowers, that you repent of your
conduct on Saturday night and other preceding nights in invading my
drawing-room and trespassing upon my daughter's instrument?"
Mr. Ferrand again paused for a reply, and Rhoda said,—
"Yes, sir, I am sorry I should have deceived you and helped Miss Isa to
do so. I think it was very wrong, and I beg your pardon."
"Well," said Mr. Ferrand, "I understand also that you are very desirous
to remain in my family a short time longer, until you can find another
place. Since you see and acknowledge your errors—"
"Excuse me, Mr. Ferrand," said Rhoda, modestly. "It was not that I
wished to stay till I can find another place. I can always go back to
'The Home.' But as Mrs. Ferrand was expecting company, and Miss Ferrand
is not very well, I thought I might save her trouble by staying till
she could find another girl. I have made her so much trouble that I
should like to make some amends."
"Well, well, it comes to much the same thing," said Mr. Ferrand. "You
are at liberty to remain this week, and then we will see. But one thing
I must insist upon—that you shall have no intercourse whatever with
Miss Ferrand. If you would give me your word to abandon those pursuits
which you must be sensible are altogether unfitted for you, and to
be guided by me in your reading, I might perhaps allow you to remain
altogether."
"I don't think I can do that, Mr. Ferrand," said Rhoda. "It has always
been my greatest desire to get an education, so as to be able to teach,
and I do not think I can give it up."
"To teach!" repeated Mr. Ferrand.
"Yes, sir. I am quite sure I could teach if I only had an education.
I don't want to boast, but I know I have a talent for both music and
mathematics, and I don't think it would be right for me to neglect them
altogether, any more than it was right for me to try to cultivate them
in wrong ways. It would have been wrong for the man in the parable to
use dishonest means to increase his one talent, but that didn't make it
right for him to bury it in the ground."
Mr. Ferrand looked surprised, but not offended.
"You really seem to have thought upon the subject," said he. "Sit down.
I should like to converse with you farther on this subject."
Never before had Mr. Ferrand asked a servant to sit down in that august
apartment, But he was interested, as it were, in spite of himself.
Rhoda took a seat. She was a very pretty and somewhat
distinguished-looking girl, and always neat in her dress; and as she
sat before him, her face full of animation and thought, Mr. Ferrand was
surprised to find himself admiring her and wishing that Isa looked like
her.
"You say you think you can teach," he continued. "Why do you think so?
You should be able to give a reason for your conviction."
"I think so," answered Rhoda, "because I have always succeeded whenever
I have tried."
"Then you have tried?"
"Yes, sir. I have taught two or three of the little ones at 'The Home'
to read this last winter. Then there was a little girl in Boonville
whom every one thought was not quite like other children—deficient in
mind, or peculiar, at any rate. She did not learn to read, and her
parents thought she never would, but the poor thing wanted to learn—"
"Excuse me: wished or desired to learn would be the better expression,"
said Mr. Ferrand. "But go on. I am much interested in everything
pertaining to education."
"She wished very much to learn," continued Rhoda, accepting the
correction, not without some inward amusement, "and I asked Mrs. Bowers
if I might try to teach her. I worked with her nearly three months
before she learned a single thing. If she learned to know a word in one
place, she did not know it in another; and when she had spelled bat
and cat and hat, she had no more idea how to spell rat than if she had
never seen a letter. But she would not give up, and I was ashamed to be
less persevering than a little child, and at last she seemed to start
right off and read without any trouble. It all came to her at once, and
after that, I never saw any child improve so fast."
"That is a very interesting case," said Mr. Ferrand. "With your
permission, I shall make use of it in my work on education. Have you
ever tried to teach anything but reading?"
"Only when I was helping Miss Isa—Miss Ferrand, I mean," said Rhoda,
blushing. "I have tried to help her in her music."
Mr. Ferrand's face darkened a little.
"I know it was very wrong," said Rhoda, humbly. "It was deceitful, and
deceit can never be right; but Miss Ferrand does work so hard it seemed
almost cruel not to help her when she asked me."
"Well, well, I am glad you are sensible of your error. We will talk of
this matter again. Meantime, you can go about your duties as usual, for
this week, at any rate. I should wish you to take down and dust all the
vases and other ornaments in the upper hall. I observed several small
cobwebs there yesterday when I had occasion to look behind them."
"Thank you, sir," said Rhoda, both gratified and surprised at the
result of the interview.
She longed to intercede for Isa, but something told her that it would
not be best. So she made her curtsey and withdrew, resolved to leave
not the shadow of a cobweb anywhere within her jurisdiction.
Mr. Ferrand closed the library door, and sat down to meditate upon
an idea which had crossed his mind, and which a week ago he would
have rejected as utterly wild and impracticable. This young person
had certainly a good and clear intellect, however she came by it. She
was really talented, and it was evident that she had no common share
of perseverance to pursue a course of study at home; yet here was a
servant who, with all her work to do and without neglecting the duties
of her position, had made very creditable progress in mathematics and
music. True, she had been much to blame, but she seemed fully sensible
of her error, and we are all human and liable to err, thought Mr.
Ferrand, not even excepting himself from this general principle.
Doctor Morton had said very decidedly that Isabella must be taken out
of school, and that she ought to have a companion of her own age.
"Get some girl of her own age to stay with her," was his inelegant
expression, Mr. Ferrand remembered.
What if he should adopt this young person into his family, procure
a suitable governess, and allow the two to study and associate upon
equal terms? Rhoda was an orphan—that was one great advantage. She
was well-looking and had good taste in dress—that was another. And
though, as was to be expected, she used somewhat common and colloquial
expressions, she was not vulgar or ungrammatical in her speech,
Isabella was fond of her, so was Mrs. Ferrand.
"I will consider upon it, I really will," said Mr. Ferrand to himself.
"I cannot but think the plan offers some considerable advantages, But
it is not best to act in haste. I will consider upon it."
Two or three days after the conversation in the library there came a
ring at the door, and Rhoda opened it, as usual, to be astonished at
the apparition of Uncle Jacob Weightman, who looked no less surprised
at seeing her.
"Why, Rhoda, is this you?" said he. "What are you doing here?"
"My work," answered Rhoda. "Whom did you wish to see, Mr. Weightman?"
"Oh, that is it?" answered the old man, with a smile of sour
satisfaction. "I hope you like your boarding-school."
"Whom did you wish to see?" repeated Rhoda. She was choked with anger,
grief, and a spasm of homesickness, but not for the world would she
have shed a tear before Uncle Jacob.
"Does Mr. Ferrand live here?"
"Yes. Do you wish to see him?"
"You may tell him I have got some business with him," said Uncle Jacob.
"Tell him a gentleman wants to see him on business about his Hobarttown
property."
Rhoda knocked at the library door, and said,—
"Mr. Ferrand, here is a person wants to see you on business, if you
please."
"Oh, so I am not a gentleman in your eyes, Miss Rhoda? See if I don't
pay you for that," muttered the old man as he went forward into the
library.
It was not very wise in Rhoda, or perhaps very Christian, but she was
only a child, after all, and she certainly had small reason to love Mr.
Weightman. She was to have still less before the morning was over.
Mr. Ferrand was polite to everybody for his own sake, and he received
Mr. Weightman with his usual courtesy.
After they had finished their business, Mr. Weightman remarked,
carelessly,—
"I see you have that girl that my niece took from the asylum."
"Your niece!" said Mr. Ferrand.
"Yes, Mrs. Bowers, of Boonville. She had no children, and adopted this
girl from some home or asylum in the city here. It was against my
advice, and turned out just as I expected."
"May I ask why your niece did not keep her?" asked Mr. Ferrand. "Please
excuse my curiosity. I have a special reason for asking."
"Oh, well, the fact is, I don't want to say anything against the
girl, but it did not answer. I don't think such arrangements often
do. The girl was sly and idle, and made mischief in the family. I had
a sister—she is dead now—but she was infirm in mind, and this girl
actually got the poor old woman to make a will leaving her all her
property. It was not signed, and of course was worth no more than so
much waste paper. She made a deal of trouble for me with poor Hannah,
and there were other reasons—in short, they had to get rid of her. But
what can you expect? Crab trees will bear crab apples, you know. If
people will take children of that kind, they must expect to have the
father, and especially the mother, come out in them. You have seen
enough of the world to know that, Mr. Ferrand. However, I don't want to
injure Rhoda. I am glad to see her working honestly for a living, for
there is no knowing what such girls will do."
Mr. Weightman had no particular intention of lying about Rhoda,
although he did mean to pay her, as he said, for her disrespect to
himself. He had all the time been trying to justify his treatment of
Rhoda to himself by making himself believe that Rhoda was all he had
represented, and he had to some extent succeeded. Was not Aunt Hannah
always making her expensive presents? Had she not made a will at last
leaving Rhoda that estate which was his by all right? True, it was not
witnessed, or even signed, and he had reason to think that nobody knew
of its existence but himself, but that was no thanks to Rhoda. Yes, she
was a wicked, designing girl, and it was right to warn people against
her.
Rhoda exchanged no words with Uncle Jacob as he went out. She of course
knew nothing of what had passed in the library, but the moment she saw
Mr. Ferrand, she felt there was a change in his manner toward her. He
hardly spoke to her all the rest of the week. When Monday came, he paid
her her wages and a month over, made her a present of a good book,
handsomely bound, and hoped she would do well. He had reconsidered the
matter, and had come to the conclusion that it would not do at all.