FLINT AND STEEL.
That Christmas dinner remained a point of delight in Rotha's memory for
ever. The company was small, several of the young ladies having accepted
invitations to dine with some friend or acquaintance. It was most
agreeably small, to Rotha's apprehension, for she could see more of Mrs.
Mowbray and more informally. Everybody was in gala dress and gala humour,
nobody more than the mistress of the house; and she had done everything
in her power to make the Christmas dinner a gala meal. Flowers and lights
were in plenty; the roast turkey was followed by ices, confections and
fruits, all of delicious quality; and Mrs. Mowbray's own kind and
gracious ministry made everything doubly sweet. Rotha had besides such
joy in her heart, that turkey and ices had never seemed so good in her
life. The whole day had been rich, full, sweet, blessed; the girl had
entered a new sphere where every want of her nature was met and
contented; under such conditions the growth of a plant is rapid; and in a
plant of humanity it is not only rapid but blissful.
Christmas joys were not done when the dinner was over. The girls who were
present, and the one or two under teachers, repaired to the library, Mrs.
Mowbray's special domain; and there she exerted herself unweariedly to
give them a pleasant evening. Two of them sat down to a game of chess;
two of them were allowed to look over some very rare and splendid books
of engravings; one or two were deep in fancy work, and one or two amused
themselves with a fine microscope. Rotha received her first introduction
to the stereoscope. This was no novelty to the rest, and she was left in
undisturbed enjoyment; free to look as long as she liked at any view that
excited her interest. Which of them did not! At Rotha's age, with her
mind just opening rapidly and her intellectual hunger great for all sorts
of food, what were not the revelations of the stereoscope to her! Delight
and wonder went beyond all power of words to describe them. And with
delight and wonder started curiosity. Rotha's first view was a gorge
in the Alps.
"Where is it?" she asked. And Mrs. Mowbray told her.
"How high are those hills?"
"Really, I don't know," said her friend laughing. "I will give you a
guide book to study."
Rotha thought she would like a guide book. Anything so majestic as the
sweep of those mountain lines and the lift of their snowy heads, she had
never imagined; nor anything so lovely as the peace of that narrow,
meadowy valley at the foot of them.
"Is it as good really, Mrs. Mowbray, as it looks here?" she asked.
"It is better. Don't you think colour goes for anything? and the sound of
a cowbell, and the rush of the torrents that come from the mountains?"
"I can hear cowbells and the rush of brooks here," said Rotha.
"It sounds different there."
Slowly and unwillingly and after long looking at it, Rotha laid the Swiss
valley away. Her next view happened to be the ruins of the Church at
Fountain's Abbey; and with that a new nerve of pleasure seemed to be
stirred. This was something in an entirely new department, of knowledge
and interest both. "How came people to let such a beautiful church go to
ruin?"
Mrs. Mowbray went back to the Reformation, and Henry the Eighth, and the
monkish orders; and the historical discussion grew into length. Then a
very noble view of the Fountain's Abbey cloisters opened a new field of
inquiry; and Rotha's eye gazed along the beautiful arches with an awed
apprehension of the life that once was lived under them; gazed and
marvelled and queried.
"That was an ugly sort of life," she said at last; "why do I like to look
at these cloisters, Mrs. Mowbray?"
Mrs. Mowbray laughed. "I suppose your eye finds beauty in the lines of
the architecture."
"Are they beautiful?"
"People say so, my dear."
"But do you think they are?"
"My dear, I must confess to you, I never paid much attention to
architecture. I never asked myself the question."
"I do not think there is any _beauty_ about them," said Rotha; "but
somehow I like to look at them. I like to look at them _very_ much."
"Here is another cloister," said Mrs. Mowbray; "of Salisbury cathedral.
The arches and lines here are less severe. How do you like that?"
"Not half so well," Rotha answered, after making the comparison. "I think
Fountain's Abbey _is_ beautiful, compared with this."
"It is called, I believe, one of the finest ruins in England. My dear, if
you want to study architecture, I shall turn you over to Mr. Fergusson's
book. It is in the corner stand in the breakfast room--two octavo
volumes. There you can find all your questions answered."
Which Rotha did not however find to be the case, though Fergusson in
after days was a good deal studied by her in her hours of leisure. For
this evening it was enough, that she went to her room with the feeling
that the world is very rich in things to be seen and things to be known;
a vast treasure house of wonders and beauties and mysteries; which
mysteries must yet have their hidden truth and solution, delightful to
search for, delightful to find. Would she some day see the Alps? and what
dreadful things cloisters and the life lived in them must have been! Her
eye fell on her Russia leather bag, in which she had placed her Bible for
safe keeping; and her thoughts went to the Bible. That told how people
should live to serve God; and it was not by shutting themselves up in
cloisters. How then? That question she deferred.
But took it up again the next day. It was a rainy day; low clouds and
thick beat of the rain storm against the windows and upon the street.
Rotha was well pleased. Good so; yesterday had held novelty and
excitement enough for a week; to-day she could be quiet, study Fergusson
on architecture, perhaps; and at all events study the life question in
her beautiful Bible. She had the morning to herself after breakfast, and
her room to herself; the patter and beat of the rain drops made her feel
only more securely safe in her solitude and opportunity. Rotha took her
Bible lovingly in her hands and slowly turned over the leaves to find the
thirty sixth chapter of Ezekiel. And unquestionably, the great beauty of
the book, of the paper and the limp covers and the type, did help her
pleasure and did give an additional zest to the work she was about.
Nevertheless, Rotha was in earnest, and it _was_ work. The chapter, when
she found it, was an enigma to her. She read on and on, understanding but
very dimly what might be meant under the words; till she came to the
notable promise and prophecy beginning with the twenty fourth verse. Then
her eyes opened, and lingered, slowly going over item after item of the
help promised to humanity's wants, and then she read:--
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within
you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will
give you an heart of flesh."----
It struck Rotha with a strange sort of surprise, the words meeting so
exactly the thought and want of her own heart. Did He who gave that
promise, long ago, know so well what she would be one day thinking and
feeling? But that was the very help she needed; all she needed; if the
heart of stone within her were gone, all the rest would fall into train.
Rotha waited no longer, but poured out a longing, passionate prayer that
this mighty change might be wrought in her. Even with tears she prayed
her prayer. She had resolved to be a Christian; yet she was not one;
could not be one; till a heart of flesh took the place of that impassive
induration which was where a heart should be. As she rose from her knees,
she thought she would follow out this subject of a hard heart, and see
what else the Bible said of it. She applied to her "Treasury of Scripture
Knowledge"; found the thirty sixth chapter of Ezekiel, and the twenty
sixth verse. The first reference sent her to the eleventh chapter of the
same book, where she found the promise already previously given.
"And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you;
and I will take the stony-heart out of their flesh, and I will give them
an heart of flesh; _that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine
ordinances, and do them;_ and they shall be my people, and I will be
their God."
That is it! thought Rotha. I knew I could not be a Christian while I felt
so as I do. I could not keep the commandments either. If I had a new
heart, I suppose I could forgive aunt Serena fast enough. God must be
very willing to take people's stony heart away, or he would not promise
it so twice over. O my dear "Scripture Treasury"! how good you are!
Following its indications, she came next to a word of the prophet
Zechariah, accusing the people of obduracy:--"They refused to hearken,
and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should
not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they
should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in
his spirit by the former prophets"--
Over this passage Rotha lingered, pondering. Could it be true that she
herself was to blame for the very hardness of heart she wanted to get rid
of? Had she "refused to hearken and pulled away the shoulder and stopped
her ears"? What else had she done? when those "former prophets" to her,
her mother, and Mr. Digby, had set duty and truth before her? They set it
before her bodily, too; and how fair their example had been! and how
immoveable she! Rotha lost herself for a while here, longing for her
mother, and crying in spirit for her next friend, Mr. Digby; wondering at
his silence, mourning his absence; and it was when a new gush of
indignation at her aunt seemed to run through all her veins, that she
caught herself up and remembered the work in hand, and slowly and
sorrowfully came back to it. How angry she was at Mrs. Busby this minute!
what a long way she was yet, with all her wishes and resolves, from the
loving tenderness of heart which would forgive everything. She went on,
hoping always for more light, and willing to take the sharpest charges
home to herself. Yet the next reference startled her.
"Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth; and
forthwith they sprang up because they had no deepness of earth: and when
the sun was up, they were scorched;"--
Was it possible, that she had been like that very bad ground? Yes, she
knew the underlying rock too well. Then in her case there was special
danger of a flash religion, taken up for the minute's sense of need or
perception of advantage merely, and not rooted so that it would stand
weather. Hers should not be so; no profession of being a Christian would
she make, till it was thorough work; till at last she could forgive her
aunt's treachery; it would be pretty thorough if she could do that! But
how long first? At present Rotha thought of her aunt in terms that I will
not stop to detail; in which there was bitter anger and contempt and no
love at all. She knew it, poor child; she felt the difficulty; her only
sole hope was in the power of that promise in Ezekiel, which she blessed
in her heart, almost with tears. That way there was an outlook towards
light; no other way in all her horizon. She would see what more the Bible
had to say about it.
Going on in her researches, after another passage or two she came to
those notable words, also in Ezekiel,--
"Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have
transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye
die, O house of Israel?"
Make herself a new heart? how could she? she could not; and yet, here the
words were, and they must mean something. And to be sure, she thought, a
man is said to build him a new house, who gets the carpenter to make it,
and never himself puts hand to tool. But cast away her transgressions?--
_that_ she could do, and she would. From that day forth. The next passage
was in the fifty first psalm; David's imploring cry that the Lord would
"create" in him "a new heart"; and then the lovely words in Jeremiah:--
"After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward
parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they
shall be my people."
Rotha shut her book. That was the very thing wanted. When the law of God
should be _in her heart_ so, then all would be right, and all would be
easy too. It is easy to do what is in one's heart. What beautiful words!
what exquisite promises! what tender meeting of the wants of weak and
sinful men! Rotha saw all this, and felt it. Ay, and she felt that every
vestige of excuse was gone for persistence in wrong; if God was so ready
to put in his hand of love and power to make things right. And one more
passage made this conclusively certain. It was the thirteenth verse of
the eleventh chapter of Luke.
The morning's work was a good one for Rotha. She made up her mind. That,
indeed, she had done before; now she took her stand with a clearer
knowledge of the ground and of the way in which the difficulties were to
be met. By a new heart, nothing less; a heart of flesh; which indeed she
could not create, but which she could ask for and hope for; and in the
mean time she must "cast away from her all her transgressions." No
compromise, and no delay. As to this anger at her aunt,--well, it was
there, and she could not put it out; but allow it and agree to it, or
give it expression, that she would not do.
She cast about her then for things to be done, neglected duties. No
studies neglected were on her conscience; there did occur to her some
large holes in the heels of her stockings. Rotha did not like mending;
however, here was duty. She got out the stockings and examined them. A
long job, and to her a hateful one, for the stockings had been neglected.
Rotha had but a little yarn to mend with; she sat down to the work and
kept at it until she had used up her last thread. That finished the
morning, for the stockings were fine, and the same feeling of duty which
made her take up the mending made her do it conscientiously.
The evening was spent happily over the stereoscope and Fergusson on
Architecture. Towards the end of it Mrs. Mowbray whispered to her,
"My dear, your aunt wishes you to spend a day with her; don't you think
it would be a good plan to go to-morrow? A thing is always more graceful
when it is done without much delay."
Rotha could but acquiesce.
"And make the best of it," Mrs. Mowbray went on kindly; "and make the
best of _them_. There is a best side to everybody; it is good to try and
get at it. The Bible says 'Overcome evil with good.'"
"Can one, always?" said Rotha.
"I think one can always--if one has the chance and time. At any rate, it
is good to try."
"But don't you think, ma'am, one must feel pleasant, before one can act
pleasant?"
"Feel pleasant, then," said Mrs. Mowbray smiling. "Can't you?"
"You do not know how difficult it is," said Rotha.
"Perhaps I do. Hearts are alike."
"O no, Mrs. Mowbray!" said Rotha in sudden protest.
"Not in everything. But fallen nature is fallen nature, my dear; one
person's temptations may be different from another's, but in the longing
to do our own pleasure and have our own way, we are all pretty much
alike. None of us has anything to boast of. What you despise, is the
yielding to a temptation which does not attack you."
Rotha's look at her friend was intelligent and candid. She said nothing.
"And if you can meet hatred with love, it is ten to one you can overcome
it. Wouldn't that be a victory worth trying for?"
Rotha knew the victory over herself was the first one to be gained. But
she silently acquiesced; and after breakfast next morning, with reluctant
steps, she set forth to go to her aunt's in Twenty-third Street. She had
been in a little doubt how to dress herself. Should she wear her old
things? or subject the new ones to her aunt's criticism? But Antoinette
had seen the pretty plaid school dress; it would be foolish to make any
mystery of it. She dressed herself as usual.
Mrs. Busby and her daughter were in the sitting room up stairs. Rotha had
knocked, modestly, and as she went in they both lifted up their heads and
looked at her, with a long look of survey. Rotha had come quite up to
them before her aunt spoke.
"Well, Rotha,--so it is you?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Have you come to see me at last?"
"Yes, ma'am. Mrs. Mowbray said you wished it."
"What made you choose to-day particularly?"
"Nothing. Mrs. Mowbray said--"
"Well, go on. What did Mrs. Mowbray say?"
"She said you wanted to have me come, some day, and she thought I had
better do it to-day."
"Yes. Did she give no reason?"
"No. At least--"
"At least what?"
Rotha had no skill whatever in prevarication, nor understood the art.
Nothing occurred to her but to tell the truth.
"Mrs. Mowbray said a thing was more graceful that was done promptly."
The slightest possible change in the set of Mrs. Busby's lips, the least
perceptible air of her head, expressed what another woman might have told
by a snort of disdain. Mrs. Busby's manner was quite as striking, Rotha
thought. Her own anger was rising fast.
"O, and I suppose she is teaching you to do things gracefully?" said
Antoinette. "Mamma, the idea!"
"It did not occur to her or you that I might like to see my niece
occasionally?" said Mrs. Busby.
Rotha bit her lips and succeeded in biting down the answer.
"We have not grown very graceful _yet_," Antoinette went on. "It is
usually thought civilized to answer people."
"You had better take off your things," Mrs. Busby said. "You may lay them
up stairs in your room."
"Is there any reason which makes this an inconvenient day for me to be
here?" Rotha asked before moving to obey this command.
"It makes no difference. The proper time for putting such a question, if
you want to do things _gracefully_, is before taking your action, while
the answer can also be given gracefully, if unfavourable."
Rotha went slowly up stairs, feeling that or any other place in the house
better than the room where her aunt was. She went to her little cold,
cheerless, desolate-looking, old room. How she had suffered there! how
thankful she was to be in it no more! how changed were her circumstances!
Could she not be good and keep the peace, this one day? She had purposed
to be very good, and calm, like Mr. Digby; and now already she felt as if
a bunch of nettles had been drawn all over her. What an unmanageable
thing was this temper of hers. She went down stairs slowly and
lingeringly. The two looked at her again as she entered the room; now
that her cloak was off, the new dress came into view.
"Where did you get that dress, Rotha?" was her aunt's question.
"Mrs. Mowbray got it for me."
"Does she propose to send me the bill by and by?"
"Of course not! Aunt Serena, Mrs. Mowbray never does mean things."
"H'm! What induced her then to go to such expense for a girl she never
saw before?"
"I suppose she was sorry for me," said Rotha, with her heart swelling.
"Sorry for you! May I ask, why?"
"You know how I was dressed, aunt Serena; and you know how the other
girls in school dress."
"I know a great many of them have foolish mothers, who make themselves
ridiculous by the way they let their children appear. It is a training of
vanity. I should not have thought Mrs. Mowbray would lend herself to such
nonsense."
"But you do not think Antoinette has a foolish mother?" Rotha could not
help saying. Mrs. Busby's daughter was quite as much dressed as the other
girls. That she ought not to have made that speech, Rotha knew; but she
made it. So much satisfaction she must have. It remained however
completely ignored.
"Who made your dress?" Mrs. Busby went on.
"A dress-maker. One of the ladies went with me to have it cut."
"What did you do Christmas?" Antoinette inquired. In reply to which,
Rotha gave an account of her visit to the Old Coloured Home.
"Just like Mrs. Mowbray!" was Mrs. Busby's comment. "She has no
discretion."
"Why do you say that, aunt Serena?"
"Such an expenditure of money for nothing. What good would a little tea
and a little tobacco do those people? It would not last more than a week
or two; and then they are just where they were before."
"But it did not cost so very much," objected Rotha.
"Have you reckoned it up? Fifty or sixty half-pounds of tea, fifty or
sixty pounds of sugar,--why, the sugar alone would be five or six
dollars; and the tobacco, and the carriage hire; and I don't know what
beside. All for nothing. That woman does not know what to do with money."
"But is it not something, to make so many poor people happy, if even only
for a little while?"
"It would be a great deal better to give them something to do them good;
a flannel petticoat, now, or a pair of warm socks. That would last. Or
putting the money in the funds of the Institution, where it would go to
their daily needs. I always think of that."
"_Would_ it go to their daily needs? Some ladies got a cow for them once;
and it just gave the matron cream for her tea, and they got no good of
it."
"I don't believe that at all!" exclaimed Mrs. Busby. "I know the matron;
Mrs. Bothers; I know her, for I recommended her myself. I have no idea
she would be guilty of any such impropriety. It is just the gossip in the
house, that Mrs. Mowbray has taken up in her haste and swallowed."
Rotha tried to hold her tongue. It was hard.
"Did Mrs. Mowbray give _you_ anything Christmas?" Antoinette asked,
pushing her inquiries. Rotha hesitated, but could find no way to answer
without admitting the affirmative.
"What?" was the immediate next question; and even Mrs. Busby looked with
ill-pleased eyes to hear Rotha's next words. It seemed like making her
precious things common, to tell of them to these unkind ears. Yet there
was no help for it.
"She gave me a travelling hand-bag."
"What sort?"
"Russia leather."
"There, mamma!" Antoinette exclaimed. "Isn't that Mrs. Mowbray all over?
When a morocco one, or a canvas one, would have done just as well."
"As I said," returned Mrs. Busby. "Mrs. Mowbray does not know what to do
with money. When are you going travelling, Rotha?"
"I do not know. Some time in my life, I suppose."
"What a ridiculous thing to give her!" pursued Antoinette.
"Yes, I think so," her mother echoed. "Do not let yourself be deluded,
Rotha, by presents of travelling bags or anything else. Your future life
is not likely to be spent in pleasuring. What I can do for you in the way
of giving you an education, will be all I can do; then you will have to
make a living and a home for, yourself; and the easiest way you can do it
will be by teaching. I shall tell Mrs. Mowbray to educate you for some
post in which perhaps she can put you by and by; she or somebody else. So
pack up your expectations; you will not need to do much of other sorts of
packing."
"You forget there is another person to be consulted, aunt Serena."
"What other person?" said Mrs. Busby raising her head and fixing her
observant eyes upon Rotha.
"Mr. Southwode."
"Mr. Southwode!" repeated the lady coldly. "I am ignorant what a stranger
like him has to say about our family affairs."
"He is not a stranger," said Rotha hotly. "He is the person I know best
in the world, and love best. He is the person to whom I belong; that
mother left me to; and it is for him, not for you, to say what I shall
do, or what I shall be."
Imprudent Rotha! But passion is always imprudent.
"Very improper language!" said Mrs. Busby coldly. "When a young lady
speaks so of a young gentleman, what are we to think?"
"I am not a young lady," said Rotha; "and he is not a young gentleman; at
least, not very young; and you may think the truth, which is what I say."
"Do you mean that you have arranged to marry Mr. Southwode?" said the
lady, fixing her keen little eyes upon Rotha's face.
Rotha's face flamed, with mingled indignation and shame; she deigned no
answer.
"She doesn't speak, mamma," said Antoinette mischievously. "You may
depend, that's the plan. Rotha and Mr. Southwode! I declare, that's too
good! So that's the arrangement!"
"I am so ashamed that I cannot speak to you," said Rotha in her passion
and humiliation. "How can you say such wicked things! I wish Mr.
Southwode was here to give you a proper answer."
"What, you think he would take your part?" said her aunt.
"He always did. He would now. He will yet, aunt Serena."
"That is enough!" said Mrs. Busby, becoming excited a little on her part.
"Hush, Antoinette; I will have no more of this very unedifying
conversation. But you, Rotha, may as well know that you will never see
Mr. Southwode again. He is engaged in England with the affairs of his
father's business; he will probably soon marry; and then there is no
chance whatever that he will ever return to America. So you had best
consider whether it is worth while to offend the friends you have left,
for the sake of one who is nothing to you any more."
"I know Mr. Southwode better than that," was Rotha's answer. But the
girl's face was purple with honest shame.
"You expect he will come back and make you his wife?" said Mrs. Busby
scornfully.
"I expect he will come back and take care of me. You might as well talk
of his making that pussy cat his wife. I am just a poor girl, and no
more. But he will take care of me. I know he will, if I have to wait ten
years first."
"How old are you now?"
"Sixteen, almost."
"Then in ten years you will be twenty six. My dear, there is only one way
in which Mr. Southwode could take care of you then; he must make you his
wife, or leave it to somebody else to take care of you. He knows that as
well as I do; and so he put you in my hands. Now let us make an end of
this disgraceful scene. Before ten years are past, you will probably be
the wife of somebody else. All this talk is very foolish."
Rotha thought it _was_, but also thought the fault was not in her part of
it. She sat glowing with confusion; she felt as if the blood would verily
start through her skin; and angry in proportion. Still she was silent,
though Antoinette laughed.
"What a farce, mamma! To think of Rotha being in love with Mr.
Southwode!"
"Hold your tongue, Nettie."
"To love, and to be in love, are two things," said Rotha hotly. "I do not
know what being in love means; I _do_ know the other."
"O mamma!--she doesn't know what it means!"
"I told you to be quiet, Antoinette."
"I didn't hear it, mamma. But I think you might reprove Rotha for saying
what is not true."
"That is what I never do," said Rotha.
Mrs. Busby here interfered, and ordered Rotha to go up stairs to her room
and stay there till she could command herself. Rotha went.
"Mamma," said Antoinette then, "I do believe it is earnest about her and
Mr. Southwode. In her mind, I mean. Did you see how she coloured?"
"I should not be at all surprised," said, Mrs. Busby.
"When is he coming back, mamma?"
"I cannot say. I think he does not know himself. He writes that he is
very busy at present."
"But he will come back, you think?"
"He says so. Antoinette, say nothing--not a word more--about him to
Rotha. She has got her head turned, and it is best she should hear
nothing whatever about him. I shall take good care that she never sees
him again."
"Mamma, _he_ don't care for her?"
"Of course not. He is too much a man of the world."
There was silence.
"Mamma," Antoinette began after a pause, "do you think Rotha is
handsome?"
"She is very well," said Mrs. Busby in an indifferent tone.
"They think at school, that is, the teachers do, that she is a beauty."
"I dare say they have told her so."
"And you see how Mrs. Mowbray has dressed her up."
"I would not have sent her there, if I had known how it would be.
However, I could not arrange for her so cheaply anywhere else."
"What would you do, mamma, if Mr. Southwode were coming back?"
"I should know, in that case. He will not come yet a while. Now
Antoinette, let this subject alone."
"Yes, mamma. You are a clever woman. I don't believe even Mr. Southwode
could manage you."
"I can manage Mr. Southwode!" said Mrs. Busby contentedly.