The Letter of Credit. Warner Susan
was more need of good food than of drugs in this case. More difficult at the same time to administer.
A few days passed, and Mr. Digby again came.
He found Mrs. Carpenter steady at her work, but looking very worn and pale. Rotha was just putting on the small tea kettle. Mr. Digby sat down and made kind inquiries. The answers were with the sweet patient composure which he saw was habitual with Mrs. Carpenter.
"How is your appetite?" he asked.
"I suppose I am not enough in the open air and stirring about, to have it very good."
"Have you much strength for 'stirring about'?"
"Not much."
"People cannot have strength without eating. Rotha, what time do you give your mother her dinner?"
"Now," said Rotha. "I put the kettle on just as you came in."
"I saw you did. But what is the connection, may I ask, between dinner and the tea kettle?"
"Rotha makes me a cup of tea," said Mrs. Carpenter smiling. "I can hardly get along without that."
"Ah! – Mrs. Carpenter, I have had a busy morning and am – which I am sorry you are not —hungry. May I take a cup of tea with you?"
"Certainly! – I should be very glad. Rotha, set a cup for Mr. Digby, dear. But tea is not much to a hungry man," she went on; "and I am afraid there is little in the house but bread and butter."
"That will do capitally. If you'll furnish the bread and butter, I will see what I can get for my part. If you'll excuse the liberty, Mrs. Carpenter?"
Mrs. Carpenter would excuse, I think, whatever he might take a fancy to do. She had seen him now several times, and he had quite won her heart.
"Mother," said Rotha, as soon as their visiter had gone out, "what is he going to do?"
"I do not know. Get something for dinner, he said."
"Do you like him to do that?"
"Do what?"
"Bring us dinner."
"Don't be foolish, Rotha."
"Mother, I think he is doing what he calls a 'kindness.'"
"Have you any objection?"
"Not to his doing it for other people; but for you and me – Mother, we have not come to receiving charity yet."
"Rotha!" exclaimed her mother. "My child, what are you thinking of?"
"Having kindnesses done to us, mother; and I don't like it. It is not Mr.
Digby's business, what we have for dinner!"
"I told him we had not much but bread."
"Why did you tell him?"
"He would have found it out, Rotha, when he came to sit down to the table."
"He had no business to ask to do that."
"I think you are ungrateful."
"Mother, I don't want to be grateful. Not to him."
"Why not to him, or to anybody, my child, that deserves it of you?"
"He don't!" – said Rotha, as she finished setting the table, rather in dudgeon. "What do you suppose he is going to bring?"
"Rotha, what will ever become of you in this world, with that spirit?"
"What spirit?"
"Pride, I should say."
"Isn't pride a good thing?"
"Not that ever I heard of, or you either," Mrs. Carpenter said with a sigh.
"Mother, I don't think you have enough pride."
"A little is too much. It makes people fall into the condemnation of the devil. And you are mistaken in thinking there is anything fine in it. Don't shew that feeling to Mr. Digby, I beg of you."
Rotha did not exactly pout, for that was not her way; but she looked dissatisfied. Presently she heard a sound below, and opened the door.
"He's coming up stairs," she said softly, "and a boy with him bringing something. Mother! – "
She had no chance to say more. Mr. Digby came in, followed by a boy with a basket. The basket was set down and the boy disappeared.
"Mrs. Carpenter," said the gentleman, "I could not find anything in this neighbourhood better than oysters. Do you like them?"
"Oysters!" said Mrs. Carpenter. "It is very long since I have seen any.
Yes, I like them."
"Then the next question is, how do you like them? Saw? or roasted? We can roast them here, cannot we?"
"I have not seen a roast oyster since I was a girl," said Mrs. Carpenter. Her visiter could hear in the tone of her voice that the sight would be very welcome. As for Rotha, displeasure was lost in curiosity. The oysters were already nicely washed; that Mr. Digby had had done by the same boy that brought the basket; it only remained to put them on the fire and take them off; and both operations he was quite equal to. Rotha looked on in silent astonishment, seeing the oyster shells open, and the juice sputter on the hot iron, and perceiving the very acceptable fragrance that came from them. Mr. Digby admonished her presently to make the tea; and then they had a merry meal. Absolutely merry; for their visitor, he could hardly be called their guest, spiced his ministrations with so pleasant a manner that nothing but cheerfulness could keep its ground before him. At the first taste of the oysters, it is true, some associations seemed to come over Mrs. Carpenter which threatened to make a sudden stop to her dinner. She sat back in her chair, and perhaps was swallowing old troubles and heartburnings over again, or perhaps recalling involuntarily a time before troubles began. The oysters seemed to choke her; and she said she wanted no more. But Mr. Digby guessed what was the matter; and was so tenderly kind and judiciously persuasive, that Mrs. Carpenter could not withstand him; and then, Rotha looked on in new amazement to see how the oysters went down and how manifestly they were enjoyed. She herself declined to touch them; they did not look attractive to her.
"Rotha," said Mr. Digby, as he opened a fine, fat oyster, "the only way to know things is, to submit to learn."
"I needn't learn to like oysters, I suppose, need I?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"It might be useful some day."
"I don't see how it should. We never had oysters before, and perhaps we never shall again."
"You might go a missionary to some South Sea island, and be obliged at times to live upon oysters."
"I am not going to be a missionary."
"That is more than you know."
"But I know what I like, and what I think."
"At present. Perhaps you do. You do not know whether you like oysters, however, for you have not tried."
"Your sphere of knowledge will be small, Rotha," said her mother, "if you refuse to enlarge it."
Stung a little, Rotha made up her mind to try an oyster, to which her objections were twofold. Nevertheless, she was obliged to confess, she liked it; and the meal, as I said, went merrily on; Rotha from that time doing her fall share. Mrs. Carpenter was plainly refreshed and comforted, by the social as well as the material food she received.
"How good he is!" she exclaimed when their friend was gone.
"So are the oysters," said Rotha; "but I don't like him to bring them. I do not think I like Mr. Digby much, anyhow."
"You surprise me. And it is not a little ungrateful."
"I don't want to be grateful to him. And mother, I don't like him to bring oysters here!"
"Why shouldn't he, if he likes? I am sorry to see such pride in you, Rotha. It is very foolish, my child."
"Mother, it looks as if he knew we were poor."
"He knows it, of course. Am I not making his shirts?"
Rotha