TANFIELD.
The last time she awoke, the rush and the roar had ceased; the train was
standing still in the darkness. Not utterly in the dark, for one or two
miserable lamps were giving a feeble illumination; and there was a stir
and a hum of voices. Another station, evidently. "What is it?" she asked
somebody passing her.
"Tanfield."
Tanfield! and this darkness still. "What o'clock is it, please?" she
asked the conductor, who just then appeared.
"Three o'clock in the morning. You stop here, don't you?"
"Yes; but how can I get to the hotel?"
"It's just by; not a dozen steps off. Here, give me your bag--I'll see
you there. We don't go on; change cars, for whoever wants to go further.
You don't go further?"
"No."
"Then come on."
Half awake, and dazed, Rotha gratefully followed her companion; who
piloted the way for her out of the train and through the station house
and across a street, or road rather, for it was not paved. A hotel of
some pretension faced them on the other side of the street. The kind
conductor marched in like one at home, sent for the sleepy chambermaid,
and consigned Rotha to her care.
"You would like a room and a bed, ma'am?"
"A room, yes, and water to wash the dust off; but I do not want a bed.
How early can you give me breakfast?"
"Breakfast? there's always breakfast full early, ma'am, for the train
that goes out at half past six. You'll get breakfast then. Going by the
half past six train, ma'am?"
"No. I shall want some sort of a carriage by and by, to drive me out to
Mrs. Busby's place; do you know where that is? And can I get a carriage
here?"
"You can get carriages enough. I don't know about no places. Then you'll
take breakfast at six, ma'am? You'll be called."
With which she shewed Rotha into a bare little hotel room, lit a lamp,
and left her.
Rotha refreshed herself with cold water and put her hair in order. It
must be half past three then. She went to the window, pulled up the shade
and opened the sash and sat down. At half past three in the morning, when
the season is no further advanced than May, the world is still nearly
dark. Yet two cocks were answering each other from different roosts in
the neighbourhood, and announcing that morning was on its way. The sky
gave little token yet, however; and the stars sparkled silently out of
its dark depths. The rush and the roar of the train, and of life itself,
seemed to be left behind; the air had the fresh sweetness which it never
can have where human beings do greatly congregate; there was a spice in
it which Rotha had not tasted for a long while. That sort of spice is
enlivening and refreshing; there is a good tonic in it, which Rotha felt
and enjoyed; at the same time it warned her she was in new circumstances.
She had an uneasy suspicion, or intuition rather, that these new
circumstances were not intended, so far as her aunt's intentions affected
them, to be of transient duration. It was all very well to talk of July
or the beginning of August; truth has a way of making itself known
independent of words and even athwart them; and so it had been now; and
while Mrs. Busby talked of the middle of summer, some subtle sense in
Rotha's nature translated the words and made them signify an indefinite
and distant future, almost as uncertain as indefinite. Rotha could not
help feeling that it might be long before she saw New York or Mrs.
Mowbray again; and anew the wondering thought arose, why Mrs. Mowbray
should have been incapacitated for helping her precisely at this
juncture? It was mysterious. It was evident that a higher rule than Mrs.
Busby's was taking effect here; it was plain that not her aunt alone had
willed to put her away from all she trusted and delighted in, and bring
her to this strange place; where she would be utterly alone and uncared-
for and shut off from all her beloved pursuits. But why?
It is the vainest of questions; yet one which in such circumstances
mortals are terribly tempted to ask. If they could be told, _then_, the
design of the movement would be lost upon their mental and spiritual
education; and ten to one the ulterior developments would be hindered
also which are meant to turn to their temporal advantage. It is in the
nature of things, that the "why" should be hidden in darkness; without
being omniscient we cannot see beforehand the turns that things will
take; and so now is Faith's time to be quiet and trust and believe. And
somehow faith is apt to find it hard work. Most of us know what it is to
trust a human fellow creature absolutely, implicitly; with so full a
trust that we are not afraid nor doubtful nor unwilling; but with one
hand in the trusted one's hand are ready to go blindly anywhere, or to
dare or to do gladly, counting with certainty that there is no hazard
about it. So children can trust their father or their mother; so friends
and lovers can trust one another. But it is very hard, somehow, to trust
God so. Precisely such trust is what he wants of us; but--we do not know
him well enough! "They that know thy name _will put their trust in
thee_." Yet it is rare, rare, to find a Christian who can use Faber's
words--
"I know not what it is to doubt;
My mind is ever gay;
I run no risk, for come what will,
Thou always hast thy way."
Rotha at any rate had not got so far. Her mind was in a troubled state,
as she sat at the window of the Tanfield hotel and stared out into the
dewy dusk of the morning. It was indignant besides; and that is a very
disturbing element in one's moods. She felt wronged, and she felt
helpless. The sweet trust of the night seemed to have deserted her. A
weary sense of loneliness and forlornness came instead, and at last found
its safest expression in a good hearty fit of weeping. That washed off
some of the dust from her tired spirit.
When she raised her head again and looked out, the dawn was really coming
up in the sky. Things were changed. There was a sweeter breath in the
air; there was an indefinable stir of life in all nature. The grey soft
light was putting out the stars; the tops of the trees swayed gently in a
morning breeze; scents came fresher from flowers and fields; scents so
rarely spicy and fragrant as dwellers in towns never know them, as all
towns of men's building banish them. Birds were twittering, cocks were
crowing; and soon a stir of humanity began to make itself known in the
neighbourhood; a soft, vague stir and movement telling of the awaking to
life and business and a new day. Feet passed along the corridor within
doors, and doors opened and shut, voices sounded here and there, horses
neighed, dogs barked. Rotha sat still, looking, watching, listening, with
a growing spring of life and hope in herself answering to the movement
without her. And then the light broadened; dusky forms began to take
colour; the eastern sky grew bright, and the sun rose.
Now Rotha could see about her. She was in a well-built village. Well-to-
do looking house tops appeared between the leafy heads of trees that were
much more than "well-to-do"; that were luxuriant, large, and old, and
rich in their growth and thriving. The road Rotha could not see from her
window; however, what she did see shewed that the place was built
according to the generous roomy fashion of New England villages; the
houses standing well apart, with gardens and trees around and between
them; and furthermore there was an inevitable character of respectability
and comfort apparent everywhere. Great round elm heads rose upon her
horizon; and the roof trees which they shadowed were evidently solid and
substantial. This town, to be sure, was not Rotha's place of abode; yet
she might fairly hope to find that, when she got to it, of the like
character.
She sat at the window almost moveless, until she was called to her early
breakfast. It was spread in a very large hall-like room, where small
tables stood in long rows, allowing people to take their meals in a sort
by themselves. Rotha placed herself at a distance from all the other
persons who were breakfasting there, and was comfortably alone.
She never forgot that meal in all her life. She wanted it; that was one
thing; she was faint and tired, with her night journey and her morning
watch. The place was brilliantly clean; the service rendered by neat
young women, who went back and forth to a room in the rear whence the
eatables were issued. And very excellent they were, albeit not in the
least reminding one of Delmonico's; if Delmonico had at that day existed
to let anybody remember him. No doubt, it might have been difficult to
guess where the coffee was grown; but it was well made and hot and served
with good milk and cream; and Rotha was exhausted and hungry. The coffee
was simply nectar. The corn bread was light and sweet and tender; the
baked potatoes were perfect; the butter was good, and the ham, and the
apple sauce, and the warm biscuit. There was a pleasant sensation of
independence and being alone, as Rotha sat at her little table in the not
very brightly lit room; and it seemed as if strength and courage came
back to her heart along with the refitting of her physical nature. She
was not in a hurry to finish her breakfast. The present moment was
pleasant, and afforded a kind of lull; after it must come action, and
action would plunge her into she could not tell what. The lull came to an
end only too soon.
"Do you know where Mrs. Busby's place is?" she inquired of the girl that
served her.
"Place? No, I don't. Is it in Tanfield?"
"It is near Tanfield."
"You are not going by the train, then?"
"No. I am going to this place. Can I get a carriage to take me there?"
"I'll ask Mr. Jackson."
Mr. Jackson came up accordingly, and Rotha repeated her question. He was
a big, fat, comfortable looking man.
"Busby?" he said with his hand on his chin--"I don't seem to recollect no
Busbys hereabouts. O, you mean the old Brett place?"
"Yes, I believe I do. Mrs. Busby owns it now."
"That's it. Mrs. Busby. She was the old gentleman's daughter. The family
aint lived here this long spell."
"But there is somebody there? somebody in charge?"
"Likely. Somebody to look arter things. You're a goin' there?"
"If I can get a carriage to take me."
"When'll you want it?"
"Now. At once."
"There aint no difficulty about that, I guess. Baggage?"
"One small trunk."
"All right I'll have the horse put to right away."
So a little before eight o'clock Rotha found herself in a buggy, with her
trunk behind her and a country boy beside her for a driver, on the way to
her aunt's place.
Eight o'clock of a May morning is a pleasant time, especially when May is
near June. All the world was fresh and green and dewy; the very spirit of
life in the air, and the very joy of life too, for a multitude of birds
were filling it with their gleeful melody. How they sang! and how utterly
perfumed was every breath that Rotha drew. She sniffed the air and tasted
it, and breathed in full long breaths of it, and could not get enough.
Breathing such air, one might put up with a good deal of disagreeableness
in other things. The country immediately around Tanfield she found was
flat; in the distance a chain of low hills shut in the horizon, blue and
fair in the morning light; but near at hand the ground was very level.
Fields of springing grain; meadows of lush pasture; orchards of apple
trees just out of flower; a farmhouse now and then, with its comfortable
barns and outhouses and cattle in the farmyard. Every here and there one
or two great American elms, lifting their great umbrella-like canopies
over a goodly extent of turf. Barns and houses, fences and gateways, all
in order; nothing tumble-down or neglected to be seen anywhere; an
universal look of thrift and business and comfort. The drive was
inexpressibly sweet to Rotha, with her Medwayville memories all stirred
and quickened, and the contrast of her later city life for so many years.
She half forgot what lay behind her and what might be before; and with
her healthy young spirit lived heartily in the present. The drive however
was not very long.
At the end of two miles the driver stopped and got down before a white
gate enclosed in thick shrubbery. Nothing was to be seen but the gate and
the green leafage of trees and shrubs on each side of it. The boy opened
the gate, led his horse in, shut the gate behind him, then jumped up to
his seat and drove on rapidly. The road curved in a semi-circle from that
gate to another at some distance further along the road; and midway, at
the point most distant from the road, stood a stately house. The approach
was bordered with beds of flowers and shrubbery; a thick hedge of trees
and shrubs ran along the fence that bordered the road and hid it from the
house, sheltering the house also from the view of passers-by; and tall
trees, some of them firs, increased the bowery and bosky effect. The
house was well shut in. And the flower borders were neglected, and the
road not trimmed; so that the impression was somewhat desolate. All
windows and blinds and doors moreover were close and fastened; the look
of life was entirely wanting.
"Is there anybody here?" said Rotha, a little faint at heart.
"I'll find out if there aint," said her boy companion, preparing to
spring out of the wagon.
"O give me the reins!" cried Rotha. "I'll hold them while you are gone."
"You can hold 'em if you like, but he won't do nothin'," returned Jehu.
And dashing round the corner of the house, he left Rotha to her
meditations. All was still, only the birds were full of songs and pouring
them out on all sides; from every tree and bush came a warble or a
twitter or a whistle of ecstasy. The gleeful tones half stole into
Rotha's heart; yet on the whole her spirit thermometer was sinking. The
place had the neglected air of a place where nobody lives, and that has
always a depressing effect. Her charioteer's absence was prolonged, too;
which of itself was not cheering. At last he came dashing round the
corner again.
"Guess it's all right," he said. "But you'll have to git down, fur's I
see; I can't git you no nearer, and she won't come to the front door.
They don't never open it, ye see. So they says."
Rotha descended, and bag in hand followed the boy, who piloted her round
the corner of the house and along a weedy walk overhung with lilacs and
syringas and overgrown rosebushes, until they were near another corner.
The house seemed to be square on the ground.
"There!" said he,--"you go jist roun' there, and you'll see the kitchen
door--leastways the shed; and so you'll git in. Mrs. Purcell is there."
"Who is Mrs. Purcell?" said Rotha stopping.
"I d'n' know; she's the woman what stops here; her and Joe Purcell. She's
Joe Purcell's wife. I'll git your trunk out, but you must send some un
roun' to fetch it, you see."
Rotha turned the second corner, while the boy went back; and a few steps
more brought her round to the back of the house, where there was a broad
space neatly paved with small cobble stones. An out-jutting portion of
the building faced her here, and a door in the sane. This must be the
"shed," though it had not really that character. Rotha went in. It seemed
to be a small outer kitchen. At the house side an open ladder of steps
led up to another door. Going up, Rotha came into the kitchen proper. A
fire was burning in the wide chimney, and an old-fashioned dresser
opposite held dishes and tins. Between dresser and fire stood a woman,
regarding Rotha as she came in with a consideration which was more
curious than gracious. Rotha on her part looked eagerly at her. She was a
tall woman, very well formed; not very neatly dressed, for her sleeves
were worn at the elbows, and a strip torn from her skirt and not torn
off, dangled on the floor. The dress was of some dark stuff, too old to
be of any particular colour. But what struck Rotha immediately was, that
the woman was not a white woman. Very light she was, undoubtedly, and of
a clear good colour, but she had not the fair tint of the white races.
Red shewed in her cheeks, through the pale olive of them; and her hair,
black and crinkly, was not crisp but long, and smoothly combed over her
temples. She was a very handsome woman; a fact which Rotha did not
perceive at first, owing to a dark scowl which drew her eyebrows
together, and under which her eyes looked forth fiery and ominous. They
fixed the new-comer with a steady stare of what seemed displeasure.
"Good morning!" said Rotha. "Are you Mrs. Purcell?"
"Who wants Mrs. Purcell?" was the gruff answer.
"I was told that Mrs. Purcell is the name of the person who lives here?"
"There's two folks lives here."
"Yes," said Rotha, "I understood so. You and your husband work for Mrs.
Busby, do you not?"
"No," said the woman decidedly. "Us don't work for nobody. Us works for
our ownselves;"--with an accent on the word "own."
"This is Mrs. Busby's house?"
"Yes, this is her house, I reckon."
"And she pays you for taking care of it."
"Who told you she does?"
"Nobody told me; but I supposed it, of course."
"She don't pay nothin'. Us pays her; that's how it is. Us pays her, for
all us has; the land and the house and all."
"I am Mrs. Busby's niece. Did she send you any word about me?"
"Sent Joseph word--" said the woman mutteringly. "He said as some one was
comin'. I suppose it's you. I mean, Mr. Purcell."
"Then you expected me. Did Mrs. Busby tell you what you were to do with
me?"
"I didn't read the letter," said the woman, turning now from her
examination of Rotha to take up her work, which had been washing up her
breakfast dishes. "Joseph didn't tell me nothin'."
"I suppose you know where to put me," said Rotha, getting a little out of
patience. "I shall want a room. Where is it to be?"
"_I_ don' know," said Mrs. Purcell, whose fingers were flying among her
pots and dishes in a way that shewed laziness was no part of her
character. "There aint no room but at the top o' the house. Joseph and me
has the only room that's down stairs. I s'pose you wouldn't like one o'
the parlours. The rest is all at the top."
"Can I go to the parlour in the mean time, till my room is ready?--if it
is not ready."
"It aint ready. I never heerd you was comin', till last night. How was I
to have the room ready? and I don' know which room it's to be."
"Then can I go to the parlour? where is it?"
"It's all the next floor. There's nothin' but parlours. You can go there
if you like; but they aint been opened in a year. I never was in 'em but
once or twice since I lived here."
Rotha was in despair. She set her bag on one chair and placed herself on
another, and waited. This was far worse even than her fears. O if she had
but a little money, to buy this woman's civility! perhaps it could be
bought. But she was thrown from one dependence to another; and now she
was come to depend on this common person. She did not know what more to
say; she could not do anything to propitiate her. She waited.
"Have you had any breakfast?" said Mrs. Purcell, after some ten minutes
had passed with no sound but that of her cups and plates taken up and set
down. This went on briskly; Mrs. Purcell seemed to be an energetic
worker.
"Yes, thank you. I took breakfast at the hotel in Tanfield."
"I didn't know but I had to cook breakfast all over again."
"I will not give you any more trouble than I can help--if you will only
give me a room by and by."
"There's nothin' fur I to _give_--you can pick and choose in the whole
house. Us has only these rooms down here; there's the whole big barn of a
house overhead. Folks meant it to be a grand house, I s'pose; it's big
enough; but I don't want no more of it than I can take care of."
"You can take care of my room, I suppose?" said Rotha.
The woman gave a kind of grunt, which was neither assent nor denial, but
rather expressed her estimation of the proposal. She went on silently and
rapidly with her kitchen work; putting up her dishes, brushing the floor,
making up the fire, putting on a pot or two. Rotha watched and waited in
silence also, trying to be patient. Finally Mrs. Purcell took down a key,
and addressing herself to Rotha, said,
"Now I'm ready. If you like to come, you can see what there is."
She unlocked a door and led the way up a low flight of steps. At the top
of them another door let them out upon a wide hall. The hall ran from one
side of the house to the other. With doors thrown open to let in the air
and light this might have been a very pleasant place; now however it was
dark and dank and chilly, with that dismal closeness and rawness of
atmosphere which is always found in a house long shut up. Doors on the
one hand and on the other hand opened into it, and at the end where the
two women had entered it, ran up a wide easy staircase.
"Will you go higher?" said Mrs. Purcell; "or will you have a room here?"
Rotha opened one of the doors. Light coming scantily in through chinks in
the shutters revealed dimly a very large, very lofty apartment, furnished
as a drawing-room. She opened another door; it gave a repetition of the
same thing, only the colour of the hangings and upholsteries seemed to be
different. A third, and a fourth; they were all alike; large, stately
rooms, fit to hold a great deal of company, or to accommodate an
exceedingly numerous family with sitting and dining and receiving rooms.
The four saloons took up the entire floor.
"There is no bedroom here," said Rotha.
"The folks that lived here didn't make no 'count o' sleepin', I guess.
They put all the house into their parlours. I suppose the days was longer
than the nights, when they was alive."
"But there must be bedrooms somewhere?"
"You can go up and see. _Us_ wouldn't sleep up there for nothin'. Us
could ha' took what we liked when us come; but I said to Mr. Purcell,--I
said,--I wasn't goin' to break my back runnin' up and down stairs; and if
he wanted to live up there, he had got to live without I. So us fixed up
a little room down near the kitchen. These rooms is awful hot in summer,
too. I can dry fruit in 'em as good as in an oven."
They had reached the top story of the house by this time, after climbing
a long flight of stairs. Here there were a greater number of rooms, and
indeed furnished as bedrooms; but they were low, and immediately under
the roof. The air was less dank than in the first story, but excessively
close.
"Is this all the choice I have?" Rotha asked.
"Unless us was to give you our room."
"But nobody else sleeps in all this part of the house!"
"No," said Mrs. Purcell, with an action that answered to a Frenchman's
shrug of the shoulders; "you can have 'em all, and sleep in 'em all, one
after the other, if you like. There's nobody to object."
"But suppose I wanted something in the night?" said Rotha, who did not in
the least relish this liberty.
"You'd have to holler pretty loud, if you wanted I to do anything for
you. I guess you'll have to learn to wait on yourself."
"O it isn't that," said Rotha; "I can wait on myself; but if I wanted--
something I couldn't do for myself--if I was frightened--"
"What's to frighten you?"
"I do not know--"
"If you got frightened, all you'd have to do would be to take your little
feet in your hand and run down to we; that's all you could do."
Rotha looked somewhat dismayed.
"I could ha' told you, it wasn't a very pleasant place you was a comin'
to," Mrs. Purcell went on. "Sick o' your bargain, aint ye?"
"What bargain?"
"I don' know! Which o' these here rooms will you take? You've seen the
whole now."
Rotha was very unwilling to make choice at all up there. Yet a thought of
one of those great echoing drawing rooms was dismissed as soon as it
came. At last she fixed upon a room near the head of the stairs; a corner
room, with outlook in two directions; flung open the windows to let the
air and the light come, in; and locked up her bag in a closet.
"There aint nobody to meddle with your things," observed Mrs. Purcell,
noticing this action,--"without it's me; and I've got enough to do down
stairs. There's nothin' worse than rats in the house."
"Have you some sheets and towels for me?" said Rotha. "And can you give
me some water by and by?"
"I've got no sheets and towels but them as us uses," replied Mrs.
Purcell. "Mrs Busby haint said nothin' about no sheets and towels. Those
us has belongs to we. They aint like what rich folks has."
"I have brought none with me, of course. Mrs. Busby will pay you for the
use of them, I have no doubt."
"Mrs. Busby don't pay for nothin'," said the woman.
"Will you bring me some water?"
"I'll give you a pail, and you can fetch some for your own self. I can't
go up and down them stairs. It gives me a pain in my back. I'll let you
have some o' us's sheets, if you like."
"If you please," said Rotha.
"But I can't come up with 'em. I'd break in two if I went up and down
there a few times. I'll let you have 'em whenever you like to come after
'em."
And therewith Mrs. Purcell vanished, and her feet could be heard
descending the long stair. I think in all her life Rotha had never felt
much more desolate than she felt just then. She let herself drop on a
chair and buried her face in her hands. Things were worse, a hundred
fold, than ever she could have imagined them. She was of rather a nervous
temperament; and the idea of being lodged up there at the top of that
great, empty, echoing house, with nobody within call, and neither help
nor sympathy to be had if she wanted either, absolutely appalled her.
True, no danger was to be apprehended; not real danger; but that
consideration did not quiet fancy nor banish fear; and if fear possessed
her, what sort of consolation was it that there was no cause? The fear
was there, all the same; and Rotha thought of the yet distant shades of
night with absolute terror. After giving way to this feeling for a little
while, she began to fight against it. She raised her head from her hands,
and went and sat down by the open window. Soft, sweet, balmy air was
coming in gently, changing the inner condition of the room by degrees;
Rotha put her head half out, to get it unmixed. It was May, May in the
country; and the air was bringing May tokens with it, of unseen
sweetness. There were lilies of the valley blooming somewhere, and
daffodils; and there was the smell of box, and spice from the fir trees,
and fragrance from the young leaf of oaks and maples and birches and
beeches. There was a wild scent from not distant woods, given out from
mosses and wild flowers and turf, and the freshness of the upturned soil
from ploughed fields. It was May, and May whispering that June was near.
The whisper was so unspeakably sweet that it stole into Rotha's heart and
breathed upon its disturbance, almost breathing it away. For June means
life and love and happiness.
"Everything is happy now;
Everything is upward striving;
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true,
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue;
'Tis the natural way of living!"
June was coming, and May was here; more placid and more pensive, but
hardly less fair; that is, in her good moods; and Rotha insensibly grew
comforted. _This_ delight would remain, whatever she had or had not
within the house; there was all out of doors, and the Spring! and Rotha's
heart made a great bound to meet it. She could live out of doors a great
deal; and in the house--well, she would make the best of things.
She drew in her head to take a survey. Yes, it was a snug room enough,
once in nice order; and the first thing to do, she decided, was to put it
in nice order. She must do it herself. O for one of those calicos, lying
at present cut and basted in her trunk. She must make them up as fast as
possible. With the feeling of a good deal of business on hand, Rotha's
spirits rose. She went down to the kitchen again, and begged the loan of
a big apron. Mrs. Purcell silently gave it. Then Rotha desired brushes
and a broom and dusters, and soap and water and towels. One after another
Mrs. Purcell placed these articles, such as she had, at her disposal.
"My trunk is in the road by the front steps," she remarked. "Can you get
it taken up for me?"
"A trunk?" said Mrs. Purcell, knitting her brows again into the scowl
which had greeted Rotha at the first. A very black scowl the latter
thought it.
"Yes, my trunk. It's a little one. Not much for anybody to carry."
"Whatever did you want of a trunk?"
"Why, to hold my things," said Rotha quietly.
"Are you goin' to stay all summer?"
"I hope not; but I do not know how long. My aunt is going on a journey; I
must stay till she comes back."
"Why didn't she let you go along?"
"I suppose it was not convenient."
A grunt from Mrs. Purcell. "Rich folks only thinks what's convenient for
their own selves!"
"But she will pay you for your trouble."
"She'll pay Mr. Purcell, if she pays anybody. It don't come into _my_
pocket, and the trouble don't go into his'n."
"I shall not be much trouble."
"Where is you goin' to eat? You won't want to eat along o' we?"
No, certainly, that was what Rotha did not want. She made no reply.
"Mis' Busby had ought to send folks to take care o' her company, when she
sends company. _I_ haint got no time. And us hasn't got no place. There's
no place but us's kitchen--will you like to eat here? I can't go and tote
things up to one o' them big parlours."
"Do the best you can for me," said Rotha. "I will try and be content."
And staying no further parley, which she felt just then unable to bear,
she gathered together her brushes and dusters and climbed up the long
stairs again. But it was sweet when she got to her room under the roof.
The May air had filled the room by this time; the May sunshine was
streaming in; the scents and sounds of the spring were all around; and
they brought with them inevitably a little bit of hope and cheer into
Rotha's heart. Without stopping to let herself think, she set about
putting the place in order; brushed and dusted everything; washed up the
furniture of the washstand; made up the bed, and hung towels on the rack.
Then she drew an old easy chair to a convenient place by one of the
windows; put a small table before it; got out and arranged in order her
writing materials, her Bible and Scripture Treasury; put her bonnet and
wrappings away in a closet; and at last sat down to consider the
situation.
She had got a corner of comfort up there, private to herself. The room
was large and bright; one window looked out into the top of a great tulip
tree, the other commanded a bit of meadow near the house, and through the
branches and over the summits of firs and larches near at hand and apple
trees further off, looked along a distant stretch of level country. No
extended view, and nothing remarkable; but sweet, peaceful nature, green
turf, and leafy tree growths; with the smell of fresh vegetation and the
spiciness of the resiny evergreens, and the delicious song and chipper
and warble of insects and birds. It all breathed a breath of content into
Rotha's heart. But then, she was up here alone at the top of the house;
there was all that wilderness of empty rooms between her and the rest of
the social world; and at the end of it, what? Mrs. Purcell and her
kitchen; and doubtless, Mr. Purcell. And what was Rotha to do, in the
midst of such surroundings? The girl grew almost desperate by the time
she had followed this train of thought a little way. It seemed to her
that her pleasant room was a prison and Mr. and Mrs. Purcell her jailers;
and her term of confinement one of unknown duration. If she had only a
little money, then she would not be so utterly helpless and dependent;
even money to buy Mrs. Purcell's civility and good-will; or if she had a
little more than that, she might get away. Without any money, she was
simply a prisoner, and at the mercy of her jailers. O what had become of
her friends! Where was Mr. Southwode, and how could he have forgotten
her? and how was it that Mrs. Mowbray had been taken from her just now,
just at this point when she was needed so dreadfully? Rotha could have
made all right with a few minutes' talk to Mrs. Mowbray; to write and
state her grievances, she justly felt, was a different thing, not so easy
nor so manifestly proper. She did not like to do what would be in effect
asking Mrs. Mowbray to send for her and keep her during her aunt's
absence. No, it was impossible to do that. Rotha could not Better bear
anything. But then,--here she was with no help!
It all ended in some bitter weeping. Rotha was too young yet not to find
tears a relief. She cried herself tired; and then found she was very much
in need of sleep. She gave herself up to it, and to forgetfulness.