Part 46 (1/2)

'Then, mum,' said Barker still more constrainedly, 'could you perhaps let me have a sixpence? I don't like to send and ask a stranger like that to wait for what's no more'n twopence at home.'

'Wait?' repeated Esther. 'Didn't papa give you money for the housekeeping this week?'

'Miss Esther, he did; but--I haven't a cent.'

'Why? He did not give you as much as usual?'

The housekeeper hesitated, with a troubled face.

'Miss Esther, he did give me as much as usual,--I would say, as much as he uses to give me nowadays; but that ain't the old sum, and it ain't possible to do the same things wi' it.' And Mrs. Barker looked anxiously and doubtfully at her young mistress. 'I wouldn't like to tell ye, mum; but in course ye must know, or ye'd maybe be doubtful o'

_me_.'

'Of course I should know!' repeated Esther. 'Papa must have forgotten.

I will see about it. Give me a basket, Barker, and I will go over to the garden myself and get a head of lettuce,--now, before I take my things off. I would like to go.'

Seeing that she spoke truth, Mrs. Barker's scruples gave way. She furnished the basket, and Esther set forth. There was but a field or two to cross, intervening between her own ground and the slopes where the beds of the market garden lay trim and neat in the sun. Or, rather, to-day, in the warm, hazy, soft October light; the sun's rays could not rightly get through the haze. It was one of the delicious times of October weather, which the unlearned are wont to call Indian summer, but which is not that, and differs from it essentially. The glory of the Indian summer is wholly ethereal; it belongs to the light and the air; and is a striking image and eloquent testimony of how far spirit can overmaster matter. The earth is brown, the trees are bare; the drapery and the colours of summer are all gone; and then comes the Indian summer, and makes one forget that the foregoing summer had its glories at all, so much greater is the glory now. There is no sense of bareness any longer, and no missing of gay tints, nor of the song of birds, nor of anything else in which June revelled and August showed its rich maturity; only the light and the air, filling the world with such unearthly loveliness that the looker-on holds his breath, and the splendour of June is forgotten. This October day was not after such a fas.h.i.+on; it was steeped in colour. Trees near at hand showed yellow and purple and red; the distant Jersey sh.o.r.e was a strip of warm, sunburnt tints, merged into one; over the river lay a sunny haze that was, as it were, threaded with gold; as if the sun had gone to sleep there and was in a dream; and mosses, and bushes, and lingering asters and golden-rod, on rocks or at the edges of the fields near at hand, gave the eye a welcome wherever it turned. Not a breath of air was stirring; the landscape rested under a spell of peace.

Esther walked slowly, every step was so full of pleasure. The steps were few, however, and her pleasure was mingled with an odd questioning in her mind, what all this about money could mean? A little footpath worn in the gra.s.s led her over the intervening fields to Mrs.

Blumenfeld's garden. Christopher must have worn that path, going and coming; for the family had been supplied through the summer with milk from the dairy of the gardener's wife. Mrs. Blumenfeld was out among her beds of vegetables, Esther saw as she drew near; she climbed over the fence, and in a few minutes was beside her.

'Wall, ef you ain't what I call a stranger!' said the woman good-humouredly. 'I don't see you no more'n the angels, for all you're so near!'

'I am going to school, Mrs. Blumenfeld; and that keeps me away from home almost all the week. How do you do?'

'Dear me, I dursn't be anything but well,' said the gardener's widow.

'Ef I ain't at both ends o' everything, there ain't no middle to 'em.

There ain't a soul to be trusted, 'thout it's yourself. It's kind o'

tedious. I get to the wrong end o' my patience once in a while. Jest look at them rospberry canes! and I set a man only yesterday to tie 'em up. They ain't done nohow!'

'But your garden always looks beautiful.'

'Kin you see it from your windows? I want to know!'

'Not very much of it; but it always looks so bright and trim. It does now.'

'Wall, you see,' said Mrs. Blumenfeld, 'a garden ain't nothin' ef it ain't in order. I do despise s.h.i.+ftless ways! Now jes' see them rospberry canes!'

'What's the matter with them?'

'I don't suppose you'd know ef I showed you,' said the good woman, checking herself with a half laugh; 'and there ain't no need, as I know, why I should bother you with my bothers. But it's human natur', ain't it?'

'Is _what_ human nature?'

'Jes' that same. Or don't you never want to tell no one your troubles?

Maybe ye don't hev none?' she added, with an inquiring look into Esther's face. 'Young folks!--the time for trouble hain't come yet.'

'Oh yes,' said Esther. 'I have known what trouble is.'

'Hev ye?' said the woman with another inquisitive look into the fair face. 'Mebbe. There is folks that don't show what they goes through. I guess I'm one o' that sort myself.'