CHAPTER XIV.

IN SECLUSION.

Rotha climbed the three flights of stairs from the breakfast room, feeling that her aunt's house, and the world generally, had become a desert to her. She went up to her own little room, being very sure that neither in the warm dressing room on the second floor, nor indeed in any other, would she be welcome, or even perhaps tolerated. How should she be, after what had taken place? And how could she breathe, anyhow, in any atmosphere where her aunt was? Imprudent? had she been imprudent? Very possibly; she had brought matters to an unmanageable point, inconvenient for all parties; and she had broken through the cold reserve which it had been her purpose to maintain, and lost sight wholly of the principles by which it had Been Mr. Digby's wish that she should be guided. Rotha had a mental recognition of all this; but passion met it with simple defiance. She was not weeping; the fire at her heart scorched all tender moisture, though it would not keep her blood warm. The day was wintry indeed. Rotha pulled the coverlet off her bed and wrapped herself in it, and sat down to think. .

Thinking, is too good a name to give to what for some time went on in Rotha's mind. She was rather looking at the procession of images which passion called up and sent succeeding one another through the chambers of her brain. It was a very dreary time with the girl. Her aunt's treachery, her cousin's coldness, Mr. Digby's pitiless desertion, her lonely, lonely place in the world, her unendurable dependence on people that did not love her; for just now her dependence on Mr. Digby had failed; it all rushed through and through Rotha's head, for all the world like the changing images in a kaleidoscope, which are but new combinations, eternally renewed, of the same changeless elements. At first they went through Rotha's head in a kind of storm; gradually, for very weariness, the storm laid itself, and cold reality and sober reason had the field.

But what could reason do with the reality? In other words, what step was now to take? What was to be done? Rotha could not see. She was at present at open war with her aunt. Yes, she allowed, that had not been exactly prudent; but it would have had to come, sooner or later. She could not live permanently on false social grounds; as well break through them at once. But what now? What ground did she expect to stand and move on now? She could not leave her aunt's house, for she had no other home to go to. How was she to stay in it, if she made no apology or submission? And I cannot do that, said the girl to herself. Apology indeed! It is she who ought to humble herself to me, for it is she who has wronged me, bitterly, meanly. Passion renewed the storm, for a little while. But by degrees Rotha came to be simply cold and tired and miserable. What to do she did not know.

Nobody was at home to luncheon. She knew this, and got some refreshment from Lesbia, and also warmed herself through at the dressing-room fire. But when the door bell announced the return of her aunt and cousin, she sped away up stairs again and wrapped herself in her coverlet, and waited. She waited till it grew dark. She was not called to dinner, and saw that she would not be. Rotha fed upon indignation, which furnished her a warm meal; and then somebody knocked softly at her door. Lesbia had brought a plate with some cold viands.

"I'll fetch it agin by and by," she whispered. "I'm allays agin seein' folks starve. What's the matter, Miss Rotha?"

Lesbia had heard one side down stairs, and impartially was willing now to hear the other. Rotha's natural dignity however never sought such solace of her troubles.

"Thank you, Lesbia," she simply said. "My aunt is vexed with me."

"She's vexed worse'n ever I seen her. What you gone and done, Miss Rotha?"

"It can't be helped," said Rotha. "She and I do not think alike."

"It's convenientest not to quarrel with Mrs. Busby if you live in the house with her," said Lesbia. "She's orful smart, she is. But she and me allays thinks just alike, and so I get on first rate with her."

"That's a very good way, for you," said Rotha.

She went to bed, dulled that night with pain and misery, and slept the night through. When the light of a bright Sunday morning awoke her, she opened her eyes again to the full dreariness of her situation. So terribly dreary and cold at heart Rotha had never felt. Deserted by her one friend--and with that thought Rotha broke down and cried as if she would break her heart. But hearts are tough, and do not break so easily. The necessity of getting dressed before breakfast obliged her to check her passion of grief and dry her eyes; though _that_ she did not; the tears kept dripping on her hands and into her basin of water; but she finished dressing, and then queried what she should do about going to the breakfast-table. She was very uncertain whether she would be allowed there. However, it was disagreeable, but the attempt must be made; she must find out whether it was war to the knife or not. And although the thought choked her, she was hungry; and be it the bread of charity, and her aunt's charity to boot, she could not get along without it. She went down stairs, rather late. The family were at breakfast.

Her aunt did not look at her. Antoinette stared at her. Mr. Busby, as usual, took no notice. Rotha came up to the side of the table and stood there, changing colour somewhat.

"I do not know," she said, "if I am to be allowed to come to breakfast. I came to see."

Mrs. Busby made no answer.

"Polite--" said Antoinette.

"Eh?" said Mr. Busby looking up from a letter, "what's that? Sit down, my dear, you are late. Hold your plate--"

As nobody interfered, Rotha did so and sat down to her meal. Mrs. Busby said nothing whatever. Perhaps she felt she had pushed matters pretty far; perhaps she avoided calling her husband's attention any further to the subject. She made no remark about anything, till Mr. Busby had left the room; nor then immediately. When she did speak, it was in her hard, measured way.

"As you present yourself before me this morning, Rotha, I may hope that you are prepared to make me a proper apology."

"What have I done, aunt Serena?"

"Do you ask me? You have forgotten strangely the behaviour due from you to me."

"I did not forget it--" said Rotha slowly.

"Will you give me an excuse for your conduct, then?"

"Yes," said Rotha. "Because, aunt Serena, you had forgotten so utterly the treatment due from you to me."

Mrs. Busby flushed a little. Still she commanded herself She always did.

"Mamma, she's pretty impudent!" said Antoinette.

"I always make allowances, and you must learn to do so, Antoinette, for people who have never learned any manners."

Rotha was stung, but she confessed to herself that passion had made her overleap the bounds which she had purposed, and Mr. Digby had counselled, her behaviour should observe. So she was now silent.

"However," Mrs. Busby went on, "it is quite necessary that any one living in my family and sheltered by my roof, should pay me the respect which they owe to me."

"I will always pay all I owe," said Rotha deliberately, "so far as I have anything to pay it with."

"And in case the supply fails," said Mrs. Busby, her voice trembling a little, "don't you think you had better avoid going deeper into debt?"

"What do I owe you, aunt Serena?" asked the girl.

Mrs. Busby saw the gathering fire in the dark eyes, and did not desire to bring on another explosion. She assumed an impassive air, looked away from Rotha, rose and began to put her cups together on the tea-board, and rang for the tub of hot water.

"I leave that to your own sense to answer," she said. "But if you are to stay in my house, I beg you to understand, you must behave yourself to me with all proper civility and good manners. Else I will turn you into the street."

Rotha recognized the necessity for a certain decency of exterior form at least, if she and her aunt were to continue under one roof; and so, though her tongue was ready with an answer, she did not at once make it. She rose, and was about quitting the room, when the fire in her blazed up again.

"It is where mother would have been, if it had not been for other friends," she said.

She opened the door as she spoke, and toiled up the long stairs to her room; for when the heart is heavy somehow one's feet are not light. She went to her cold little room and sat down. The sunshine was very bright outside, and church bells were ringing. No going to church for her, nor would there have been in any case; she had no garments fit to go out in. Would she ever have them? Rotha queried. The church bells hurt her heart; she wished they would stop ringing; they sounded clear and joyous notes, and reminded her of happy times past. Medwayville, her father, her mother, peace and honour, and latterly Mr. Southwode, and all his kindness and teaching and his affection. It was too much. The early Sunday morning was spent by Rotha in an agony of weeping and lamentation; silent, however; she made no noise that could be heard down stairs where Mrs. Busby and Antoinette were dressing to go to church. The intensity of her passion again by and by wore itself out; and when the last bells had done ringing, and the patter of feet was silenced in the streets, Rotha crept down to the empty dressing room, feeling blue and cold, to warm herself. She shivered, she stretched her arms to the warmth of the fire, she was chilled to the core, with a chill that was yet more mental than physical Alone, and stripped of everything, and everybody gone that she loved. What was she to do? how was she to live? She was struggling with a burden of realities and trying to make them seem unreal, trying for an outlook of hope or comfort in the darkness of her prospects. In vain; Mr. Digby was gone, and with him all her strength and her reliance. He was gone; nobody could tell when he would come back; perhaps never; and she could not write to him, and his letters would never get to her. Never; she was sure of it. Mrs. Busby would never let them get further than her own hands. So everything was worse than she had ever feared it could be.

Sitting there on the rug before the fire, and with her teeth chattering, partly from real cold and partly from the nervous exhaustion, there came to her suddenly something Mr. Digby had once said to her. If she should come to see a time when she would have nobody to depend on; when her world would be wholly a desert; _all_ gone that she had loved or trusted. It has come now!--she thought to herself; even he, who I thought would never fail me, he has failed. He said he would not fail me, but he has failed. I am alone; I have nobody any more. Then he told me----

She went back and gathered it up in her memory, what he had told her to do then. Then if she would seek the Lord, seek him with her whole heart, she would find him; and finding him, she would find good again. The poor, sore heart caught at the promise. I will seek him, she suddenly said; I will seek till I find; I have nothing else now.

The resolve was as earnest as it was sudden. Doubtless the way had been preparing for it, in her mother's and her father's teachings and prayers and example, and in Mr. Digby's words and kindness and his example; she remembered now the look of his eyes as he told her the Lord Jesus would do all she trusted him to do. Yet the determination was extremely sudden to Rotha herself. And as the meeting of two currents, whether in the waters or in the air or the human mind, generally raises a commotion, so this flowing in of light and promise upon the midst of her despair almost broke Rotha's heart. The tears shed this time, however, though abundant, were less bitter; and Rotha raised her head and dashed the drops away, and ran up stairs to fetch her mother's Bible and begin her quest upon the spot. Lying there upon the rug in her aunt's dressing room, she began it.

She began with a careful consideration of the three marked passages. The one in John especially held her. "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me."--I do not love Him, thought Rotha, for I do not know Him; but I must begin, I suppose, with keeping his commandments. Now the thing is, to find out what.--

She opened her book at hap hazard, lying on the rug there with it before her. A leaf or two aimlessly turned,--and her eye fell on these words:

"And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel."

I am poor enough, thought Rotha, while soft warm tears streamed afresh from her eyes;--and deaf enough, and blind enough too, I have been; but meek?--I guess I'm not meek.

Turning over a leaf or two, her eyes were caught by the thirty fifth chapter of Isaiah, and she read it all. There was the promise for the deaf and the blind again; Rotha applied that to herself unhesitatingly; but the rest of the chapter she could not well understand. Except one thing; that the way of the blessed people is a "way of holiness." And also the promise in the last verse, which seemed to be an echo of those words of Jesus--"He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." And Rotha was so hungry, and so thirsty! She paused just there, and covering her eyes with her hand, made one of the first real prayers, perhaps, she had ever prayed. It was a dumb stretching out of her hands for the food she was starving for; not much more; but it was eagerly put in the name of Christ, and such cries he hears. She turned over a few more leaves and stopped.

"I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house."

Who could that be? Rotha knew enough to guess that it could mean but one, even the great Deliverer. And a little further on she saw other words which encouraged her.

"I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; I will lead them in paths they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."

So many promises to the blind, Rotha said to herself; and that means me. I don't think I am meek, but I know I am blind.--Then on the very next leaf she read--

"I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me; for I have redeemed thee."

_Redeemed_, that means, bought back, said Rotha; and I know who has done it, too. I suppose that is how he delivered the prisoners out of the prison house. Well, if he has redeemed me, I ought to belong to him,--and I will! I do not know much, but there is another promise; he will bring the blind by a way they have not known, and will make darkness light before them. Now what I have to do,--yes, I am redeemed, and I _will_ be redeemed; and I belong to him who has redeemed me, of course. "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them"--what are they?

She thought she must look in the New Testament for them; and not knowing where to look in particular, she turned to the first chapter. It did not seem to contain much that concerned her, till she came to the 21st verse.

"And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."

Rotha put that together with the "way of holiness," but it seemed to her unspeakably wonderful. In fact, it was hard to believe. Save _her_ from her sins? from pride and anger and self-will and self-pleasing? why, they were inborn; they were in her very blood; they came like the breath of her breathing. Could she be saved from them? Mr. Digby was like that. But a Rotha without anger and pride and self-will--would she know herself? would it be Rotha? and was she quite sure that she desired to be the subject of such a transformation? Never mind; desire it or not, this was the "way of holiness," and there was no other. But about commandments?--

She read the second chapter with an interest that hitherto she had never given to it; so also the third, without finding yet what she was looking for. The second verse, John the Baptist's cry to repentance, she answered by saying that she _had_ repented; that step was taken; what next? In the fourth chapter she paused at the 10th verse. I see, she said, one is not to do wrong even for the whole world; but what must I do that is _right?_ She startled a little at the 19th verse; concluded however that the command to "follow him" was directed only to the people of that time, the apostles and others, who were expected literally to leave their callings and accompany Jesus in his wanderings. The beatitudes were incipient commands, perhaps. But she did not quite understand most of them. At the 16th verse she came to a full pause.

"Let your light so shine"--That is like Mr. Digby. Everything he does is just beautiful, and shews one how one ought to be. Then according to that, I must not do any wrong at all!--

ust here Rotha heard the latch key in the house door, and knew the family were coming home from church. She seized her Bible and ran off up stairs. There it was necessary to wrap herself in her coverlet again; and shivering a little she put her book on the bed side and knelt beside it. But presently poor Rotha was brought up short in her studies. She had been saying comfortably to herself, reading v. 22,--I have not been "angry without a cause"; and I have not called anybody "Raca," or "Thou fool"; but then it came--

"If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest _that thy brother hath ought against thee_, leave there thy gift... go thy way... first be reconciled... then offer thy gift."

Rotha felt as if she had got a blow. Her aunt had "something against her." But, said Rotha to herself, not the thousandth part of what _I_ have against her. No matter, conscience objected; her charge remains the same, although you may have a larger to set off against it. Then am I to go and make it up with her? I can't do it, said Rotha. I do not wish to do it. I wish her to know that I am angry, and justly angry; if I were to go and ask her pardon for my way of speaking, she would just think I want to make it up with her so that she may get me my new cloak and other things.? And Rotha turned hot and cold at the thought. Yet conscience pertinaciously presented the injunction?"first be reconciled to thy brother." It was a dead lock. Rotha felt that her prayers would not be acceptable or accepted, while a clear duty was knowingly left undone; and do it she would not. At least not now; and how ever, that she could not see. Her heart which had been a little lightened, sank down like lead. O, thought she, is it so hard a thing to be a Christian? Did Mr. Digby ever have such a fight, I wonder, before he got to be as he is now? He does not look as if he ever had fights. But then he is strong.

And Rotha was weak. She knew it. She let her eye run down the page a little further; and it came to these words--

"If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee."... "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off."...

Duty was plain enough. This luxury of anger at her aunt was a forbidden pleasure; it must be given up; and at the thought, Rotha clutched it the more warmly. So the bell rang for dinner, always early on Sunday. She would rather not have gone down, and did linger; then she heard it rung the second time and knew that was to summon the stragglers. She went down. The rest were at table.

"Mamma," Antoinette was saying, "you must get a new bonnet."

"Why?"

"Mrs. Mac Jimpsey has got a new one, and it is handsomer than yours."

"What does that signify?" was asked in Mr. Busby's curious husky tones and abrupt utterance.

"O papa, you don't understand such things."

"Nor you neither. You are a little goose."

"Papa! don't you want mamma and me to be as nice as anybody?"

"You are."

"O but Mrs. Mac Jimpsey's bonnet was fifty times handsomer than mamma's. _You_ don't know, but it was."

"Nevertheless, your mamma is fifty times handsomer than Mrs. Mac Jimpsey."

"O papa! but _that_ isn't the thing."

"And Mr. Mac Jimpsey's pocket is some fifty dollars or so emptier than mine. You see, we have a hundred times the advantage, to say the least."

"Papa, gentlemen never understand such things."

"Better for them if the ladies didn't."

"My dear," said Mrs. Busby smoothly, "you do not consider dress a subject of small importance?"

"I have no occasion to think about it, my dear, I am aware."

"Why do you say that, Mr. Busby?"

"It receives such exhaustive consideration from you."

"It cannot be done without consideration; not properly. Good dressing is a distinction; and it requires a careful regard to circumstances, to keep up one's appearance properly."

"What do you think about it, Rotha?" said Mr. Busby.

Rotha was startled, and flushed all over. To answer was not easy; and yet answer she must. "I think it is comfortable to be well dressed," she said.

"Well dressed! but there is the question. What do you mean by 'well dressed'? You see, Antoinette means by it simply, handsomer things than Mrs. Mac Jimpsey."

Antoinette pouted, much incensed at this speech and at the appeal to Rotha generally; and Mrs. Busby brought her lips into firmer compression; though neither spoke. Mr. Busby went on, rather kindly.

"What's the matter, that you didn't go to church to-day? Is Antoinette's bonnet handsomer than yours?"

"It ought to be, Mr. Busby," said the lady of the house here.

"Ought it? Rotha might put in a demurrer. May I ask why?"

"Circumstances are different, Mr. Busby. That is what I said. Proper dressing must keep a due regard to circumstances."

"Mine among the rest. Now I don't see why a bonnet fit for Antoinette's cousin isn't good enough for Antoinette; and the surplus money in my pocket."

"And you would have your daughter dress like a poor girl?"

"Couldn't do better, in my opinion. That's the way not to become one. Fetch me your bonnet, Rotha, and let us see what it is like."

Rotha coloured high and sat still. Indeed her aunt said, "Nonsense! do no such thing." But Mr. Busby repeated, "Fetch it, fetch it. We are talking in the abstract; I cannot convict anybody in the abstract."

"But it is Sunday, Mr. Busby."

"Well, my dear, what of that? The better day, the better deed. I am trying to bring you and Antoinette to a more Christian mind in respect of bonnets; that's good work for Sunday. Fetch your bonnet, Rotha."

"Do no such thing, Rotha," said her aunt. "Mr. Busby is playing; he does not mean his words to be taken literally. You would not send her up three pair of stairs to gratify your whim, when another time would do just as well?"

"My dear, I always mean my words to be taken literally. I do not understand your arts of rhetoric. I will send Rotha up stairs, if she will be so obliging as to gratify my whim."

He looked at Rotha as he spoke, and Rotha half rose from her seat; when Antoinette suddenly dashed past her, saying, "I will fetch it"--and ran off up stairs. Rotha sat down again, much confounded at this benevolence, and wondering what that was not benevolent might lie beneath it. Mrs. Busby pursed up her mouth and looked at nobody. Presently Antoinette came down again. In her hand she held a little grey plush hat, somewhat worn but very jaunty, with a long grey feather, curled round it. This hat she held out on the tips of her fingers for her father's inspection. Rotha's eyes grew large with astonishment. Mrs. Busby's lips twitched. Antoinette looked daring and mischievous. Mr. Busby innocently surveyed the grey plush and feather.

"So that is what you call a hat for a poor girl?" he said. "It seems to me, if I remember, that is very like one you used to wear, Nettie."

"Yes, papa, it is; but this is Rotha's."

"Mrs. Busby, was this your choice?"

"Yes, Mr. Busby."

"Then of course this is proper for Rotha. Now will you explain to me why it is not equally proper for Antoinette? But this is not what I should have called a hat for a poor girl, my dear."

"Mr. Busby, while Rotha lives with us, it is necessary to have a certain conformity--there cannot be _too_ much difference made."

"Hum--ha!" said the bewildered man. Rotha by this time had got her breath.

"That is not my hat however, Mr. Busby," she said, with cheeks on fire.

"Yes, it is your hat," said Antoinette. "Do you think I am saying what is not true? It is your hat, and nobody else's."

"It is _your_ hat. I have seen you wear it."

"I have given it to you. It is your hat."

"I don't take it," said Rotha. "Your things do not suit me, as your mother has just said. You may do what you like with it; but you do not give it to me!"

Mr. Busby looked from one to the other.

"Do you expect me to buy new everything for you?" Mrs. Busby asked now. "Is it not good enough? I suppose it is much better than any hat you ever had before in your life."

"But it is not mine," said Rotha. "It never was given to me. I never heard anything of it until now, when Antoinette fetched it because she did not want Mr. Busby to see what sort of a hat I really had. Thank you! I do not take it."

"But it is yours!" cried Antoinette. "I have given it to you. Do you think I would wear it, after giving it away?"

"If it was convenient, you would," said Rotha.

"You may lay your account with not having any hat, then, unless you wear this," said Mrs. Busby. "You may take your choice. If you receive Antoinette's kindness so, you must not look for mine."

"Your kindness, and hers, are the very strangest sort I ever heard of in my life," said Rotha.

"What am I to understand by all this?" asked the perplexed Mr. Busby, looking from the hat to the faces of the speakers.

"Only, that I never heard of that hat's being intended for me until this minute," said Rotha.

"Rotha," said her aunt quietly, "you may go up stairs."

"What did you bring it down for, Nettie?"

"Because you took an insane fancy to see Rotha's bonnet, papa; so I brought it."

"That is not true, Mr. Busby," Rotha said, standing up to go.

"It is not your hat?"

"No, sir."

"Mr. Busby, if you would listen to Antoinette's words," said his wife with her lips very compressed, "you would understand things. Rotha, I said you might go."

Which Rotha did, Antoinette at the same moment bursting into tears and flinging the hat on the dinner table.

What followed, Rotha did not know. She climbed the many stairs with a heavy heart. It was war to the knife now. She was sure her aunt would never forgive her. And, much worse, she did not see how she was ever to forgive her aunt. And yet--"if thy neighbour hath ought against thee"--. Rotha had far more against _her_, she excused herself, in vain. The one debt was not expunged by the other. And, bitter as her own grievances seemed to her, there was a score on the other side. Not so would Mr. Digby have received or returned injuries. Rotha knew it. And as fancy represented to her the quiet, manly, dignified sweetness which always characterized him, she did not like the retrospect of her own behaviour. So true it is, that "whatsoever doth make manifest is light." No discourse could have given Rotha so keen a sense of her own failings as that image of another's beautiful living. What was done could not be undone; but the worst was, Rotha was precisely in the mood to do it over again; so though sorry she was quite aware that she was not repentant.

It followed that the promises for which she longed and to which she was stretching out her hands, were out of reach. Clean out of reach. Rotha's heart was the scene of a struggle that took away all possibility of comfort or even of hope. She had no right to hope. "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off"--but Rotha was not so minded. The prospect was dark and miserable. How could she go on living in her aunt's house? and how could she live anywhere else? and how could she bear her loneliness? and how could she get to the favour of that one great Friend, whose smile is only upon them that are at least trying to do his commandments? It was dark in Rotha's soul, and stormy.

It continued so for days. In the house she was let alone, but so thoroughly that it amounted to domestic exile or outlawry. She was let alone. Not forbidden to take her place at the family table, or to eat her portion of the bread and the soup; but for all social or kindly relations, left to starve. Mr. Busby's mouth had been shut somehow; he was practically again a man of papers; and the other two hardly looked at Rotha or spoke to her. Antoinette and she sometimes went to school together and sometimes separate; it was rather more lonely when they went together. In school they hardly saw each other. So days went by.