Part 94 (1/2)
”My aunt? No indeed!” said Rotha looking up with a flush. ”I have no idea when I shall see my aunt again; and certainly I do not expect to see her here.”
”Somebody else, then?”
”Why no! There is n.o.body to come.”
”Didn't you never have a beau?” said Prissy Purcell, stooping down and speaking lower.
”A _what?_” said Rotha turning to her.
”A beau. A young man. Most girls does, when they're as good-lookin' as you be. You know what I mean. Didn't you never keep company with no one?”
”Keep company!” said Rotha, half vexed and half amused. ”Mrs. Purcell, I was a little girl only just a few days ago.”
”But you're as handsome as a red rose,” insisted Mrs. Purcell. ”Didn't you never yet see n.o.body you liked more 'n common?”
Rotha looked at her again, and then went on forking up her ground. ”Yes,”
she said; ”but people a great deal older than myself, Mrs. Purcell. Now see how that beautiful stem of white lilies is choked and covered up. A little while longer and we shall have a lovely head of white blossom bells there.”
”Older 'n your own self?” repeated Mrs. Purcell softly.
”What?--O yes!” said Rotha laughing; ”a great deal older than myself. Not what you are thinking about. I have been a school girl till I came here, Mrs. Purcell.”
”Then Mis' Busby didn't send you here to keep you away from no one?”
Again Rotha looked in the woman's face, a half startled look this time.
”No one, that I know,” she answered. But a strange, doubtful feeling therewith came over her, and for a moment she stood still, with her eye going off to the gate and the road, musing. If it were so!--and a terrible impatience swelled in her breast. Ay, if it _were_ so, there was no help for her. She could not get away, and n.o.body could come to her, because n.o.body knew and n.o.body would know where she was. Even supposing that so unimportant a person as poor little Rotha Carpenter were not already and utterly forgotten. That was most probable, and anything different was not to be a.s.sumed. Continued care for her would have forwarded some testimonials of its existence, in letters or messages. Who should say that it had not? was the next instant thought. They would have come to her aunt, and her aunt would never have delivered them.
This sort of speculation, natural enough, is besides very exasperating.
It broke up Rotha's peace for that day and took all the pleasure out of her garden work. She went on pulling up weeds and forking up the soil, but she did the one with a will and the other with a vengeance; staid out longer than usual, and came in tired.
”Joe,” said Mrs. Purcell meanwhile in the solitude of her kitchen, ”I'll bet you a cookie, Mis' Busby's up to some tricks!”
CHAPTER XXVII.
INQUIRIES.
The weeks went on now without any change but the changes of the season.
Rotha's flower borders bloomed up into beauty; somewhat old-fas.h.i.+oned beauty, but none the worse for that. Hyperic.u.m and moss pink faded away; the roses blossomed and fell; sweet English columbines lifted their sonsy heads, pale blue and pale rose, and dark purple; poppies sprang up, as often in the gravel road as in the beds; lilies came and went; the laburnum shook out its cl.u.s.ters of gold; old honeysuckles freshened out and filled all the air with the fragrance of their very sweet flowers.
Rotha's tulip tree came into blossom, and was a beautiful object from her high window which looked right into the heart of it. Rotha grew very fond of that tulip tree. There were fruits too. The door in the fence, which she had noticed on her first expedition to the barnyard, was found to be the entrance to a large kitchen garden. Truly, Joe Purcell cultivated few vegetables; cabbages however were in number and variety, also potatoes, and that resource of the poor, onions.
The fruits were little cared for; still, there were numbers of purple raspberry bushes trained along the fence, which yielded a good supply of berries; there were strawberry beds, grown up with weeds, where good picking was to found if any one wanted to take the trouble. Gooseberries were in great profusion, and currants in mult.i.tude. Old cherry trees, which shaded parts of the garden disadvantageously for the under growth, yielded a magnificent harvest of Maydukes, white hearts and ox hearts; and pear trees and mulberry trees were not wanting, promising later crops. Mr. and Mrs. Purcell had paid little attention to these treasures; Joe hadn't time, he said; and Prissy wouldn't be bothered with gathering berries after all the rest she had to do. Rotha made it her own particular task to supply the little family with fruit; and it was one of the pieces of work she most enjoyed. Very early, most often, while the sun's rays yet came well aslant, she set off for the old garden with her basket on her arm; and brought in such loads of nature's riches that Joe and his wife declared they had never lived so in their lives. It was lonely but sweet work to Rotha to gather the fruit. The early summer mornings are some of the most wonderful times of the year, for the glory and fulness and freshness of nature; the spirit of life and energy abroad is catching; and sometimes Rotha's heart sang with the birds. For she had a happy faculty of living in the present moment, and throwing herself wholly into the work she might be about, forgetting care and trouble for the time. Other mornings and evenings, she would almost forget the present in thoughts that roamed the past and the future. Pus.h.i.+ng her hand among the dewy tufts of strawberry plants to seek the red fruit which had grown large under the shadow of them, her mind would go wandering and searching among old experiences to find out the hidden motives and reasons which had been at work, or the hidden issues which must still be waited for. At such times Rotha would come in thoughtful and tired. How long would her aunt leave her in this place? and how, if her aunt did not release her, was she ever to release herself? What was Mrs. Mowbray about, that she never wrote? several letters had been sent off to her, now a good while ago; letters telling all, and seeking counsel and comfort. No word came back. And oh, where was that once friend, who had told her to tell him everything that concerned her, and promised, tacitly or in so many words, that her applications would never be disregarded nor herself lost sight of? Years had pa.s.sed now since he had given a sign of his existence, much less a token of his care. But after all, was that a certain thing? Was it not possible, that Mrs. Busby might have come in between, and prevented any letter or word of Mr. Digby's from reaching her? This sort of speculation always made Rotha feel wild and desperate; she banished it as much as she could; for however the case were, she possessed no remedy.
June pa.s.sed, and July, and August came. No word from Mrs. Busby to Rotha, and Joe Purcell said none came for him. The raspberries were gone, and currants and gooseberries in full harvest; when there happened an unlocked for and unwelcome variety in Rotha's way of life. Mrs. Purcell was taken ill. It was nothing but chills and fever, the doctor said; but chills and fever are pretty troublesome visiters if you do not know how to get rid of them; and that this doctor certainly did not. It may be said, that he had a difficult patient. Prissy Purcell was unaccustomed to follow any will but her own, and made the time of sickness no exception to her habit. With a chill on her she would get up to make bread; with the ”sick day” demanding absolute rest and quiet care, she would go out to the garden to gather cabbages, and stand about preparing them and getting ready her dinner; till provoked nature took her revenge and sent the chill creeping over her. Then Prissy would (if it was not baking day) throw down whatever she had in hand and go to her bed; and it fell to Rotha's unwonted fingers to put on the pot and cook the dinner, set the table and wash the dishes, even the pots and pans; for somebody must do it, as she reflected, and poor Mrs. Purcell would come out of her bed in the evening a mere wreck of her usual self, very unfit to do anything.
It was a strange experience, for Rotha to be cooking Joe Purcell's dinner and then eating it with him; making gruel and toast for Prissy and serving it to her; keeping the kitchen in order; sweeping, dusting, mopping, scrubbing, for even that could not be avoided sometimes. ”It is my work,” Rotha said to herself; ”it is what is given me just now to do.
I wonder, why? But all the same, it is given; and there must be some use in it.” She was very busy oftentimes now, without the help of her flower borders, which had to be neglected; she rejoiced that the small fruit was gone, or nearly gone; from morning to night, when Prissy was abed, she went steadily from one thing to another with scarce any interval of active work. No study now but her Bible study; and to have time for that, Rotha must get up very early in the morning. Then, at her window, with the glory of the summer day just coming upon the outer world, she sat and read and thought and prayed; her eyes going alternately from her open page to the green and golden depths of the tulip tree opposite her window; looking the while with her mental eye at the fresh and glorious riches of some promise or prophecy. Perhaps Rotha never enjoyed her Bible more, nor ever would, only that with growing experience in the ways of the Lord comes ever new power to see the beauties of them, and with greater knowledge of him comes a larger love.