The Letter of Credit. Warner Susan
how to answer her. Perhaps it was just as well that she took refuge in her usual silence and did not try any further.
As Mr. Digby was going through the little passage way to the front door, another door opened and Mrs. Marble's head was put out.
"Good morning!" she said. "You're a friend of those folks up stairs, aint you?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Well, what do you think of her?" she said, lowering her voice.
"I think you are a happy woman, to have such lodgers, Mrs. Marble."
"I guess I know as much as that," said the mantua-maker, with her pleasant, arch smile. "I meant something else. I think, she's a sick woman."
Mr. Digby did not commit himself.
"I'm worried to death about her," Mrs. Marble went on. "Her cough's bad, and it's growin' worse; and she aint fit to be workin' this minute. And what's goin' to become of her?"
"The Lord takes care of his children; and she is one."
"If there is such a thing!" said the mantua-maker, a quick tear dimming her eye. "But you see, I have my own work, and I can't leave it to do much for her; and she won't let me, neither; and I am thinkin' about it day and night. She aint fit to work, this minute. And there's the child; and they haven't a living soul to care for them, as I see, in all the world. They never have a letter, and they never get a visit, except your'n."
"Rent paid?" asked the gentleman low.
"Always! never miss. But I'm thinkin' – how do they live? That child's grown thin – she's like a piece o' wiggin'; she'll hold up when there's nothin' to her."
Mr. Digby could not help laughing.
"I thought, if you can't help, nobody can. What's to become of them if she gets worse? That child can't do for her."
"Thank you, Mrs. Marble; you are but touching what I have thought of myself. I will see what can be done."
"And don't be long about it," said the mantua-maker with a nod of her head as she closed the door.
Perhaps it was owing to Mrs. Marble's suggestions that Mr. Digby made his next visit the day but one next after; perhaps they were the cause that he did not come sooner! At any rate, in two days he came again; and brought with him not only a Latin grammar, but a paper of grapes for Mrs. Carpenter. At the grammar Rotha's soul rebelled; but what displeasure could stand against those beautiful grapes and the sight of her mother eating them? They were not very good, Mr. Digby said; he would bring better next time; though to the sick woman they were ambrosia, and to Rotha an unknown, most exquisite dainty. Seeing her delighted, wondering eyes, Mr. Digby with a smile broke off part of a bunch and gave to her.
"It shall not rob your mother," he said observing that she hesitated. "I will bring her some more."
Rotha tasted.
"O mother!" she exclaimed in ecstasy, – "I should think these would make you well right off!"
Mr. Digby opened the Latin grammar. I think he wanted an excuse for veiling his eyes just then. And Rotha, mollified, when she had finished her grapes, submitted patiently to receive her first lesson and to be told what her teacher expected her to do before he came again.
"By the way," said he as he was about going, – "have you any more room than you need, Mrs. Carpenter?"
"Room? no. We have this floor – " said Mrs. Carpenter bewilderedly.
"You have not one room that you could let? I know a very respectable person, an elderly woman, who I think would be comfortable here, if you would allow her to come. She could pay well for the accommodation."
"What would be 'well'?" said Mrs. Carpenter, looking up.
"According to the arrangement, of course. For a room without a fire, she would pay four dollars a month; with fire, I should say, twelve."
"That would be a great help to me," said Mrs. Carpenter, considering.
"I know the person, I have known her a great while. I think I can promise that she would not in any way annoy you."
"She brings her own furniture?"
"Of course."
After a little more turning the matter over in her mind, Mrs. Carpenter gave an unqualified assent to the proposal; and her visiter took his leave.
"Mother," said Rotha, "what room are you going to give her?"
"There is but one; our bed-room."
"Then where shall we sleep?"
"Here."
"Here! Where we do everything! – "
"It is not so pleasant; but it will pay our rent, Rotha. And I should like a little more warmth at night, now the weather is so severe."
"O mother, mother! We have got down to two rooms, and now we are come down to one!"
"Hush, my child. I am thankful."
"Thankful!"
"Yes, for the means to pay my rent."
"You might have had means to pay your rent, and kept your two rooms," said Rotha; thinking, like a great many other people, that she could improve upon Providence.
"How do you like Latin?"
"If you mean, how I like Sermo Sermonis, I don't like it at all. And it is just ridiculous for Mr. Digby to be giving me lessons."
The new lodger moved in the very next week. She was a portly, comfortable-looking, kindly-natured woman, whom Mrs. Carpenter liked from the first. She established herself quietly in her quarters and almost as soon began to shew herself neighbourly and helpful. One day Mrs. Carpenter's cough was particularly troublesome. Mrs. Cord came in and suggested a palliative which she had known often to work comfortingly. She procured it and prepared it herself, and then administered it, and begged permission to cook Mrs. Carpenter's dinner; and shook up the pillow at her back, and set the rocking chair at an inclined angle which gave support and relief. When she had done all she could, she went away; but she came in again as soon as there was fresh occasion for her services, and rendered them with a hearty good will which made them doubly acceptable, and with a ready skill and power of resources which would have roused in any sophisticated mind the suspicion that Mrs. Cord was a trained nurse. Mrs. Carpenter suspected no such thing; she only felt the blessed benefit, and told Mr. Digby what a boon the new lodger had become to her.
So the winter, the latter part of it, passed in rather more comfort to the invalid. She did not work quite so steadily, and in good truth she would have been unable; she was free of anxieties about debt, for the rent was sure; and of other things they bought only what they could pay for. The fare might so have been meagre sometimes; were it not that supplies seemed to come in, irregularly but opportunely, in such very pertinent and apt ways that all sorts of gaps in the housekeeping were filled up. Mr. Digby kept their larder stocked with oysters, for one thing. Then he would bring a bit of particularly nice salmon he had found; or fresh eggs that he got from an old woman down town near one of the ferries, whom he said he could trust. Or he brought some new tea for Mrs. Carpenter to try; sometimes a sweetbread, or a fresh lobster, from the market. Then it was remarkable how often Mr. Digby was tempted by the sight of game; and came with prairie chickens, quails, partridges and ducks, to tempt, as he said, Mrs. Carpenter's appetite. And at last he brought her wine. There had grown up between the two, by this time, a relation of great kindness and even affection. Ever since one day Mrs. Carpenter had been attacked by a terrible fit of coughing when he was there; and the young man had waited upon her and ministered to her in a way that Rotha had neither strength for nor skill, and also with a tenderness which she could not have surpassed. And Rotha could be tender where her mother was concerned. Ever since that day Mr. Digby had assumed, and been allowed, something like a son's place in the little family; and Mrs. Carpenter only smiled at him when he appeared with new tokens of his thoughtfulness and care.
Rotha did not accept him quite so easily. She was somewhat jealous of his favour and of the authority he exercised; for without making the fact in any way obtrusive, a fact it was, that Mr. Digby did what he pleased. It pleased Mrs. Carpenter