A NEW DEPARTURE.
Rotha found her room too cold to stay in, after the first heat of her
wrath had passed off. The only warm place that she knew of, beside her
aunt's dressing room, was the parlour; and after a little hesitation and
shivering, she softly crept down the stairs. The warm, luxurious place
was empty, of people, that is; and before the glowing grate Rotha sat
down on the rug and looked at the situation. Or she looked at that and
the room together; the latter made her incensed. It was so full of
luxury. The soft plush carpet, the thick rug on which she was crouching;
how they glowed warm and rich in the red shine of the fiery grate; how
beautiful the crimson ground was, and how dainty the drab tints of the
flowers running over it. How stately the curtains fell to the floor with
their bands of drab and crimson; and the long mirror between them,
redoubling all the riches reflected in it. What a magnificent extension
table, really belonging in the dining room, but doing duty now as a large
centre table, only it was shoved up in one corner; and upon it the gas
fixture stood, with its green glass shaft and its cut glass shade full of
bunches of grapes. Nothing else was on the table; not a book; not a
trinket; and so all the rest of the room was bare of everything _but_
furniture. The furniture was elegant; but the chairs stood round the
sides of the room with pitiless regularity and seemed waiting for
somebody that would never come. Empty riches! nothing else. At Mrs.
Mowbray's Rotha was in another world, socially and humanly. Books swarmed
from the shelves and lay on every table; pictures hung on the walls and
stood on the mantelpieces; here and there some lovely statuette delighted
the eye by its beauty or the mind by its associations; flowers were sure
to be in a glass or a dish somewhere; and all over there were traces of
travel and of cultivation, in bits of marble, or bits of bronze, or
photographs, or relics, telling of various ages and countries and
nationalities. Here, in Mrs. Busby's handsome rooms, the pretty hanging
lamps were exceedingly new, and they were the only bronze to be seen.
Rotha studied it all and made these comparisons for a while, in a vague,
purposeless reverie, while she was getting warm; but then her thoughts
began to come to a point. Everything and everybody in this house was
utterly unsympathetic to her; animate or inanimate; was this her home? In
no sense of the word. Had not her aunt just informed her, in effect, that
she had no home; that if she lived to grow up she must make her own way
and earn her own bread, or have none. Antoinette would grow up to all
this luxury, and in all this luxury; while she would be penniless, and
homeless. Had she brought this upon herself? Well, she might have been
more conciliating; but in her heart of hearts Rotha did not wish she had
been other than she had been. A home or friends to be gained only by
subserviency and truckling, she did not covet. There came a little
whisper of conscience here, suggesting that a medium existed between
truckling and defiance; that it was a supposable case that one might be
so pure and fair in life and spirit, that the involuntary liking and
respect of friends and acquaintances would follow of necessity. Was not
Mr. Digby such a person? did not Mrs. Mowbray win good-will wherever she
appeared? and Rotha was just enough to acknowledge to herself that her
own demeanour had been nothing less than love-winning. Alas, how could
she help it, unless she were indeed made over new; a different creature.
How else could she bear what must be borne in this house? But in this
house she was an outcast; they would have nothing to do with her more
than to see her through her schooling; there was no shelter or refuge
here to which she could ever look. Nor did she care for it, if only Mr.
Digby would come again. Was he lost to her? Had he really forgotten her?
would he forget his promise? Rotha did not believe it; her faith in him
was steadfast; but she did conceive it possible that business and
circumstances might keep him where his promise would be rendered of
little avail; and her heart was wrung with distress at the thought of
this possibility. Distress, which but for Mrs. Mowbray would have been
desolation. Even as it was, Rotha felt very desolate, very blank; and she
remembered again what Mr. Digby had said, about a time that might come
when all other help would fail her and she would be _driven_ to seek God.
All help had not failed yet; Mrs. Mowbray was a blessed good friend; but
she was all, and Rotha had no claim upon her. I will not wait to be
_driven_, she thought; I will not wait to be driven by extremity; things
are bad enough as it is; I will seek God now.--I have been seeking him.--
Mr. Digby said I must keep on seeking, until I found. I will. But in the
mean time I choose. I choose I will be a Christian, and that means, a
servant of Jesus. I will be his servant, no matter what he bids me do.
From this time on, I will be his servant. And then, some time, he will
keep his word and take the stony heart out of me, and give me a new
heart; a heart of flesh, I wonder how I came to be so hard!----
It was a step in advance of all Rotha had made yet. It was _the_ step,
which introduces a sinner into the pathway of a Christian; before which
that path is not entered, however much it may be looked at and thought
desirable. Rotha had made her choice and given her allegiance; for she at
once told it to the Lord and asked his blessing.
And then, forthwith, came the trial of her sincerity. The cross was
presented to her; which the Lord says those must take up and bear daily
who would follow him. People think that crosses start up in every path;
it is a mistake; they are only found in the way of following Christ and
in consequence of such following. They are things that may be taken up
and carried along; that _must_ be, if the Christian follows his Master;
but that he may escape if he will turn aside from following him and go
with the world. They are of many kinds, but all furnished by the world
and Satan without, or by self-will within. The form which the cross took
on this occasion for Rotha was of the latter kind. Conscience whispered a
reminder--"If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest
that thy brother hath ought against thee--" And instantly Rotha's whole
soul rose up in protest. Make an apology to her aunt _now?_ Humble
herself to confess herself wrong, when the wrong done to her was so
manyfold greater? Bend to the hardness that would crush her? Justify
another's evil by confessing her own? Self-will gave her an indignant
"Impossible!" And conscience with quiet persistence held forth the cross.
Rotha put both hands to her face and swayed up and down, with a kind of
bodily struggle, which symbolized that going on in her mind. It was hard,
it was hard! Nature cried out, with a repulsion that seemed
unconquerable, against taking up this cross; yet there it was before her,
in the inexorable hands of conscience, and Grace said, "Do it; take it up
and bear it." And Nature and Grace fought. But all the while, down at the
bottom of the girl's heart, was a certain knowledge that the cross must
be borne; a certain prevision that she would yield and take it up; that
she must, if her new determination meant anything; and Rotha felt she
could not afford to let it vanish in air. She struggled, rebelled,
repined, and ended with yielding. Her will submitted, and she said in her
heart, "I must, and I will."
There came a sort of tired lull over her then, which was grateful, after
the battle. She considered _when_ she should do this thing, which it was
so disagreeable to do. She could not quite make up her mind; but at the
first opportunity, whenever that might be. Before she left the house at
any rate, if even she had to make the opportunity she wanted.
Then she thought she would return to her little cold room again, before
anybody found her in the parlour. She was thoroughly warmed up, she had
no more thinking to do just then; and if need be she would lay herself on
the bed and cover herself with blankets, and so wait till luncheon time.
As she went up stairs, something happened that she did not expect; there
stole into her heart as it were a rill of gladness, which swelled and
grew. "Yes, Jesus _is_ my King, she thought, and I am his child. O I
don't care now for anything, for Jesus is my King, and He will help and
take care." She went singing that Name in her heart all the way up
stairs; for the first time in her life the sweetness of it was sweet to
her; for the first time, the strength of it was something to lean upon.
Ay, she was right; she had stepped over the narrow boundary line between
the realm of the Prince of this world and the kingdom of Christ. She had
submitted herself to the one Ruler; she was no longer under the dominion
of the other. And with her first entrance into the kingdom of the Prince
of peace, she had stepped out of the darkness into the light, and the air
of that new country blew softly upon her. O wonderful! O sweet! O
strange!--that such a change should be so quickly made, and yet so hard
to make. Rotha had not fought all her battles nor got rid of all her
enemies, but that the latter should have no more _dominion_ over her she
felt confident. She was a different creature from the Rotha who had fled
down stairs an hour or two before in wrath and bitterness.
It was very cold up stairs. She lay down and covered herself with
blankets and went to sleep.
She was called to luncheon; got up and smoothed her hair as well as she
could with her hands, and thought over what she had to do. She had to set
her teeth and go at it like a forlorn-hope upon a battery, but she did
not flinch at all.
Mr. Busby was at luncheon, which was unusual and she had not counted
upon. He was gracious.
"How do you do, Rotha? Bless me, how you have improved! grown too, I
declare."
"There was no need of that, papa," said Antoinette, who was going to be a
dumpy.
"What has Mrs. Mowbray done to you? I really hardly know you again."
"Fine feathers, papa."
"Mrs. Mowbray has been very kind to me," Rotha managed to get in quietly.
"She's growing handsome, wife!" Mr. Busby declared as he took his seat at
the table.
"You shouldn't say such things to young girls, Mr. Busby," said his wife
reprovingly.
"Shouldn't I? Why not? It is expected that they will hear enough of that
sort of thing when they get a little older."
"Why should they, Mr. Busby?" asked Rotha, innocently curious.
"Yes indeed, why should they?" echoed her aunt.
"Why should they? I don't know. As I said, it is expected. Young ladies
usually demand such tribute from their admirers."
"To tell them they are handsome?" said Rotha.
"Yes," said Mr. Busby looking at her. "Ladies like it. Wouldn't you like
it?"
"I should not like it at all," said Rotha colouring with a little
excitement. "I don't mind your saying so, Mr. Busby; you have a right to
say anything you like to me; but if any stranger said it, I should think
he was very impertinent."
"You don't know much yet," said Mr. Busby.
"There is small danger that Rotha will ever be troubled with that sort of
impertinence," said Mrs. Busby, with that peculiar air of her head, which
always meant that she thought a good deal more than she spoke out at the
minute.
"Maybe," returned her husband; "but she is going to deserve it, I can
tell you. She'll be handsomer than ever Antoinette will."
Which remark seemed to Rotha peculiarly unlucky for her just that day.
Mrs. Busby reddened with displeasure though she held her tongue.
Antoinette was not capable of such forbearance.
"Papa!" she said, breaking out into tears, "that is very unkind of you!"
"Well, don't snivel," said her father. "You are pretty enough, if you
keep a smooth face; but don't you suppose there are other people in the
world handsomer? Be sensible."
"It is difficult not to be hurt, Mr. Busby," said his wife, pressing her
lips together.
"Mamma!" cried Antoinette in a very injured tone, "he called me
'pretty'?"
"Aint you?" said her father, becoming a little provoked. "I thought you
knew you were. But Rotha is going to be a beauty. It is no injury to you,
my child."
"You seem to forget it may be an injury to Rotha, Mr. Busby."
Whether Mr. Busby forgot it, or whether he did not care, he made no reply
to this suggestion.
"I _never_ tell Antoinette she will be a beauty," Mrs. Busby went on
severely.
"Well, I don't think she will. Not her style."
"Is it my style to be ugly, papa?" cried the injured daughter.
"Where will you see such a skin as Antoinette's?" asked the mother.
"Skin isn't everything. My dear, don't be perverse," said Mr. Busby, in
his husky tones which sounded so oddly. "Nettie's a pretty little girl,
and I am glad of it; but don't you go to making a fool of her by making
her think she is more. You had just as fine a skin when I married you;
but that wasn't what I married you for."
Rotha wondered what her aunt had married Mr. Busby for! However, if there
had once been a peach-blossom skin at one end of the table, perhaps there
had been also some corresponding charm at the other end; a sweet voice,
for instance. Both equally gone now. Meantime Antoinette was crying, and
Mrs. Busby looking more annoyed than Rotha had ever seen her. Her self-
command still did not fail her, and she pursed up her lips and kept
silence. Rotha wanted a potatoe, but the potatoes were before Mrs. Busby,
and she dared not ask for it. The silence was terrible.
"What's the matter, Nettie?" said her father at length. "Don't be silly.
I don't believe Rotha would cry if I told her her skin was brown."
"You've said enough to please Rotha!" Antoinette sobbed.
"And it is unnecessary to be constantly comparing your daughter with some
one else," said Mrs. Busby. "Can't we talk of some other subject, more
useful and agreeable?"
Then Rotha summoned up her courage, with her heart beating.
"May I speak of another subject?" she said. "Aunt Serena, I have been
wanting to tell you--I have been waiting for a chance to tell you--that I
want to beg your pardon."
Mrs. Busby made no answer; it was her husband who asked, "For what?"
"To-day, sir, and a good while ago when I was here--different times--I
spoke to aunt Serena as I ought not; rudely; I was angry. I have been
wanting to say so and to beg her pardon."
"Well, that's all anybody can do," said Mr. Busby. "Enough's said about
that. It's very proper, if you spoke improperly, to confess it and make
an apology; that's all that is necessary. At least, as soon as Mrs. Busby
has signified that she accepts the apology."
But Mrs. Busby signified no such thing. She kept silence.
"My dear, do you want Rotha to say anything more? Hasn't she apologized
sufficiently?"
"I should like to know first," Mrs. Busby began in constrained tones,
"what motive prompted the apology?"
"Motive!--" Mr. Busby began; but Rotha struck in.
"My motive was, that I wanted to do right; and I knew it was right that I
should apologize."
"Then your motive was not that you were sorry for what you said?" Mrs.
Busby inquired magisterially.
Rotha was so astonished at this way of receiving her words that she
hesitated.
"I am sorry, certainly, that I should have spoken rudely," she said.
"But not sorry for what you said?"
"You are splitting hairs, my dear!" said Mr. Busby impatiently.
"Let her answer--" said his wife.
"I do not know how to answer," said Rotha slowly, and thinking how to
choose her words. "I am sorry for my ill-manners and unbecoming
behaviour; I beg pardon for that. Is there anything else to ask pardon
for?"
"You do not answer."
"What else can I say?" Rotha returned with some spirit. "I am not
apologizing for thoughts or feelings, but for my improper behaviour.
Shall I not be forgiven?"
"Then your _feeling_ is not changed?" said the lady with a sharp look at
her.
Rotha thought, It would be difficult for her feeling to change, under the
reigning system. She did not answer.
"Pish, pish, my dear!" said the master of the house,--"you are splitting
straws. When an apology is made, you have nothing to do but to take it.
Rotha has done her part; now you do yours. Has Santa Claus come your way
this year, Rotha?"
"Yes, sir."
"What did he bring you, hey?"
"Mrs. Mowbray gave me a Bible."
"A Bible!" Mrs. Busby and her daughter both exclaimed at once; "you said
a bag?"
"I said true," said Rotha.
"She gave you a Bible and a bag too?"
"Yes."
"What utter extravagance! Had you no Bible already?"
"I had one, but an old one that had no references."
"What did you want with references! That woman is mad. If she gives to
everybody on the same scale, her pocket will be empty enough when the
holidays are over."
"But she gets a great deal of pleasure that way--" Rotha ventured.
"You do, you mean."
"Well, I am not so rich as Mrs. Mowbray," Mr. Busby said; "but I must
remember you, Rotha." And he rose and went to a large secretary which
stood in the room; for that basement room served Mr. Busby for his study
at times when the table was not laid for meals. Three pair of eyes
followed him curiously. Mr. Busby unlocked his secretary, opened a
drawer, and took out thence a couple of quires of letter paper: 'sought
out then some envelopes of the right size, and put the whole, two quires
of paper and two packages of envelopes, into Rotha's astonished hands.
"There, my dear," said he, "that will be of use to you."
"What is she to do with it, papa?" Antoinette asked in an amused manner.
"Rotha has nobody to write letters to."
"That may be. She will have writing to do, however, of some kind. You
write themes in school, don't you?"
"But then, what are the envelopes for, papa? We don't put our
compositions in envelopes."
"Never mind, my dear; the envelopes belong to the paper. Rotha can keep
them till she finds a use for them."
"They won't match other paper, papa," said Antoinette. But Rotha
collected her wits and made her acknowledgments, as well as she could.
"Has Nettie shewn you her Christmas things?"
"No, sir."
"Well, it will please you to see them. You are welcome, my dear."
Rotha carried her package of paper up stairs, wondering what experiences
would till out the afternoon. Her aunt and cousin seemed by no means to
be in a genial mood. They all went up to the dressing room and sat down
there in silence; all, that is, except Mr. Busby. Rotha's thoughts went
with a spring to her bag and her books at Mrs. Mowbray's. Two o'clock,
said the clock over the chimney piece. In three hours more she might go
home.
Mrs. Busby took some work; she always had a basket of mending to do.
Apologies did not seem to have wrought any mollification of her temper.
Antoinette went down to the parlour to practise, and the sweet notes of
the piano were presently heard rumbling up and down. Rotha sat and looked
at her aunt's fingers.
"Do you know anything about mending your clothes, Rotha?" Mrs. Busby at
last broke the silence.
"Not much, ma'am."
"Suppose I give you a lesson. See here--here is a thin place on the
shoulder of one of Mr. Busby's shirts; there must go a patch on there.
Now I will give you a patch--"
She sought out a piece of linen, cut a square from it with great
attention to the evenness of the cutting, and gave it to Rotha.
"It must go from here to here--see?" she said, shewing the place; "and
you must lay it just even with the threads; it must be exactly even; you
must baste it just as you want it; and then fell it down very neatly."
Rotha thought, as she did not wear linen shirts, that this particular
piece of mending was rather for her aunt's account than for her own. Lay
it by the threads! a good afternoon's work.
"I have no thimble,--" was all she said.
Mrs. Busby sought her out an old thimble of her own, too big for Rotha,
and it kept slipping off.
The rest of the history of that afternoon is the history of a patch. How
easy it is, to an unskilled hand, to put on a linen patch by a thread,
let anyone who doubts convince herself by trying. Rotha basted it on, and
took it off, basted it on again and took it off again; it would not lie
smooth, or it would not lie straight; and when she thought it would do,
and shewed it to her aunt, Mrs. Busby would point out that what
straightness there was belonged only to one side, or that there was a
pucker somewhere. Rotha sighed and began again. She did not like the job.
Neither had she any pleasure in doing it for her aunt. Her impatience was
as difficult to straighten out as the patch itself, but Rotha thought it
was only the patch. Finally, and it was not long first, either, she began
to grow angry. Was her aunt trying her, she questioned, to see if she
would not forget herself and be ill-mannerly again? And then Rotha saw
that the cross was presented to her anew, under another form. Patience,
and faithful service, involving again the giving up of her own will. And
here she was, getting angry already. Rotha dropped her work and hid her
face in her hands, to send up one silent prayer for help.
"You won't get your patch done that way," said Mrs. Busby's cold voice.
Rotha took her hands down and said nothing, resolved that here too she
would do what it was right to do. She gave herself to the work with
patient determination, and arranged the patch so that even Mrs. Busby
said it was well enough. Then she received a needle and fine thread and
was instructed how to sew the piece on with very small stitches. But now
the difficulty was over. Rotha had good eyes and stitched away with a
good will; and so had the work done, just before the light failed too
much for her to see any longer. She folded up the shirt, with a gleeful
feeling that now the afternoon was over. Antoinette came up from her
practising, or whatever else she had been doing, just as Rotha rose.
"Aunt Serena," said the girl, and she said it pleasantly, "my stockings
some of them want mending, and I have no darning cotton. If you would
give me a skein of darning cotton, I could keep them in order."
"Do you know how?"
"Yes, ma'am, I know how to do that. Mother taught me. I can darn
stockings."
Mrs. Busby rummaged in her basket and handed to Rotha a ball of cotton
yarn.
"This is too coarse, aunt Serena," Rotha said after examining it.
"Too coarse for what?"
"To mend my stockings with."
"It is not too coarse to mend mine."
"But it would not go through the stitches of mine," said Rotha looking
up. "It would tear every time."
"How in the world did you come to have such ridiculous stockings? Such
stockings are expensive. I do not indulge myself with them; and I might,
better than your mother."
"Poor people always think they must have things fine, I suppose," said
Antoinette. "I wonder what sort of shoes she has, to go with the
stockings?"
The blood flushed to Rotha's face; and irritation pricked her to retort
sharply; yet she did not wish to speak Mr. Digby's name again. She
hesitated.
"Whose nonsense was that?" asked Mrs. Busby; "yours, or your mother's? I
never heard anything equal to it in my life. I dare say they are
Balbriggans. I should not be at all surprised!"
"I do not know what they are," said Rotha, striving to hold in her wrath,
"but they are not my mother's nonsense, nor mine."
"Whose then?" said Mrs. Busby sharply.
Rotha hesitated.
"Mrs. Mowbray's!" cried Antoinette. "It is Mrs. Mowbray again! Mamma, I
should think you would feel yourself insulted. Mrs. Mowbray is
ridiculous! As if you could not get proper stockings for Rotha, but she
must put her hand in."
"I think it is very indelicate of Mrs. Mowbray; and Rotha is welcome to
tell her I say so," Mrs. Busby uttered with some discomposure. Rotha's
discomposure on the other hand cooled, and a sense of amusement got up.
It is funny, to see people running hard after the wrong quarry; when they
have no business to be running at all. However, she must speak now.
"It is not Mrs. Mowbray's nonsense either," she said. "Mr. Southwode got
them for me."
"Mr. Southwode!"--Mrs. Busby spoke out those two words, and the rest of
her mind she kept to herself.
"Mamma," said Antoinette, "Mr. Southwode is as great a goose as other
folks. But then, gentlemen don't know things--how should they?"
"You are a goose yourself, Antoinette," said her mother.
"Have you no cotton a little finer? I mean a good deal finer?" said
Rotha, going back to the business question.
"There are no stockings in my house to need it."
"Then what shall I do? There are two or three little holes in the toes."
"I will tell you. I will get you some stockings fit for you; and you may
bring those to me. I will take care of them till you want them, which
will not be for a long time."
Rotha turned cold with dismay. This was usurpation and oppression at
once; against both which it was in her nature to rebel furiously. She was
fond of the stockings, as of everything which Mr. Southwode had got for
her; moreover they suited her, and she liked the delicate comfort of
them. And though nothing less than suspicious, Rotha had a sudden feeling
that the time for her to see her stockings again would never come; they
would be put to other use, and Mrs. Busby would think it was a fair
exchange. _She_ would wear the coarse and Antoinette would have the fine.
There was a terrible tempest in Rotha's soul, which nevertheless she did
not suffer to burst out. She would appeal to Mrs. Mowbray. She took leave
somewhat curtly, carrying her two quires of paper with her, but leaving
the coarse darning cotton which she did not intend to use.