The Letter of Credit

"Where is Rotha?"

"Rotha! she's up there. I guess wild horses wouldn't get her away. I tried; I tried to get her to come down and have some breakfast with me; but la! she thinks she can live on air; or I suppose she don't think about it."

"How is she?"

"Queer. She is always a queer child. I can't make her out. And I wanted to consult you about her, sir; what's to be done with Rotha? who'll take care of her? She's just an age to want care. She'll be as wild as a hawk if she's let loose to manage herself."

"I thought she was very quiet."

"Maybe, up stairs. But just let anybody touch her down here, in a way she don't like, and you'd see the sparks fly! If you want to know how, just take and knock a firebrand against the chimney back."

"Who would touch her, here?" asked the gentleman.

"La! nobody, except with a question maybe, or a bit of advice. I shouldn't like to take hold of her any other way. I never did see a more masterful piece of human nature, of fourteen years old or any other age. She aint a bad child at all; I'm not meaning that; but her mother let her have her own way, and I guess she couldn't help it. It'll be worse for Rotha now, for the world aint like that spring chair you had fetched for her poor mother. You've been an angel of mercy in that room, sure enough."

Mr. Digby passed the good woman and began to ascend the stairs.

"I wanted to ask you about Rotha," Mrs. Marble persisted, speaking up over the bannisters, "because, if that was the best, I would take her myself and bring her up to my business. I don't know who is to manage things now, or settle anything."

"I will," said Mr. Digby. "Thank you, Mrs. Marble; I will see you again."

"'Thank you, Mrs. Marble, I don't want you,' that means," said the little woman as she retreated to her own apartments. "There's somebody else a little bit masterful, I expect. Well, it's all right for the men, I s'pose, at least if they take a good turn; any way, we can't help it; but for a girl that aint fifteen yet, – it aint so agreeable. And poor child! who'll have patience with her now?"

Meanwhile Mr. Digby went up stairs and softly opened the door of the sitting room. For some time ago, since Mrs. Carpenter became more feeble, he had insisted on her having her old sleeping apartment again, other quarters being found or made for Mrs. Cord in the house. Mrs. Cord had naturally assumed the duties of her profession, which was that of a nurse; for the sake of which, knowing that they would be needed, Mr. Digby had first introduced her here.

At the window of the sitting room, looking out into the street, Rotha was sitting listlessly. No one else was in the room. She turned her head when she heard Mr. Digby's footsteps, and the face he saw then smote his heart. It was such a changed face; wan and pale, with the rings round the eyes that come of excessive weeping, and a blank, dull expression in the eyes themselves which was worse yet. She did not move, nor give any gesture of greeting, but looked at the young man entering as if neither he nor anything else in the world concerned her.

Mr. Digby felt then, what everybody with a heart has felt at one time or another, that the office of comforter is the most difficult in the world. In one thing at least he imitated Job's friends; he was silent. He came close up to the girl and stood there, looking down at her. But she turned her wan face away from him and looked out of the window again. She looked, but he was sure she saw nothing. He did not venture to touch her; he saw that she was not open to the least token of tenderness; such a token would surely turn her apathetic calm into irritation. Perhaps even his standing there had some such effect; for after a little while, Rotha said, "Won't you sit down, Mr. Digby?"

He sat down, and waited. However, people do not live in these days to be several hundred years old; and proportionately, seven days of silence would be more of that sort of sympathy than can be shewn since Job's time. Yet what to say, Mr. Digby was profoundly doubtful. Finding nothing that would do, of his own, he took his little Testament from his pocket, and turning the leaves aimlessly came upon the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John. He began at the beginning and read slowly and quietly on till he came to the words,

'"Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.

"'Jesus said unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.' – "

"Please don't, Mr. Digby!" said Rotha, who after a few verses had buried her face in her hands.

"Don't what?"

"Don't read any more."

"Why not?"

"I know how it goes on. I know what he did. But he will not do that – here."

"Yes, he will. Not immediately, but by and by."

"I don't care for by and by."

"Yes you do, Rotha. By and by the Lord Jesus will come again; and when he comes he will send his angels to gather up and bring to him all his people who are then living, scattered about in the world, and at the same time all his people who once lived and have died shall be raised up. Then will come your dear mother, with the rest, in beauty and glory."

"But," said Rotha, bursting out into violent sobs, "I don't know where I shall be!" —

The paroxysm of tears and sobs that followed, startled Mr. Digby; it was so extreme in its passion beyond anything he had ever seen in his life; even beyond her passion on the sea shore. It seemed as if the girl must almost strangle in her convulsive oppression of breath. He tried soothing words, and he tried authority; and both were as vain as the recoil of waves from a rock. The passion spent itself by degrees, and was succeeded by a more gentle, persistent rain of tears which fell quietly.

"Rotha," said Mr. Digby gravely, "that is not right."

"Very likely," she answered. "How are you going to help it?"

"I cannot; but you can."

"I can't!" she exclaimed, with almost a cry. "When it comes, I must."

"No, my child; you must learn self-command."

"How can I?" she said doggedly.

"By making it your rule, that you will always do what is right– not what you like."

"It never was my rule."

"Perhaps. But do you mean that it never shall be?"

There followed a long silence, during which Rotha's tears gradually stilled; but she said nothing, and Mr. Digby let her alone. After this time, she rose and came to him and laid one hand half timidly, half confidingly, upon his shoulder.

"Mr. Digby," she said softly, "because I am so wicked, will you get tired and forsake me?"

"Never!" he answered heartily, putting his arm round the forlorn child and drawing her a little nearer. And Rotha, in her forlornness and in the gentle mood that had come over her, laid her head down on his shoulder, or rather in his neck, nestling to him. It was an unconscious, mute appeal to his kindness and for his kindness; it was a very unconscious testimony of Rotha's trust and dependence on him; it was very child-like, but coming from this girl who was so nearly not a child, it moved the young man strangely. He had no sisters; the feeling of Rotha's silky, thick locks against the side of his face and the clinging appeal of her hand and head on his shoulder, gave him an entirely new sensation. All that was manly in him stirred to meet the appeal, and at the same time Rotha took a suddenly different place in his thoughts and regards. He was glad Mrs. Cord was not there to see; but if she had been, I think he would have done just the same. He drew the girl close to him, and laid his other hand tenderly upon those waving, thick, dark locks of hair.

"I will never forsake you, Rotha. I will never be tired. You shall be like my own little sister; for your mother left you in my charge, and you belong to me now, and to nobody else in the world."

She accepted it quietly, making no response at all; her violent passion had been succeeded by a gentle, subdued mood. Favourable for saying several things and making sundry arrangements; only that just then was not the time that would do. Both of them remained still and silent, Mr. Digby thinking this among other things; poor Rotha was hardly thinking at all, any more than a shipwrecked man just flung ashore by the waves, and clinging to the rock that has saved him from sweeping out to sea again, lie blesses the rock, maybe, but it is no time for considering anything. The one idea is to hold fast; and Rotha mentally did it, with an intensity of trust and clinging that her protector never guessed at.

"Then I must do what you say, now?" she remarked after a while.

"I suppose so," he answered, much struck by this tone of docility.

"I will try, Mr. Digby."

"Will you trust me too, Rotha?"

"For what?"

"I mean, will you trust me that what I do for you, or want you to do, is the best thing to be done?"

Rotha lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.