Rutledge Part 12

"But if you don't approve, of course I will not do so again; and when Kitty can't be spared to go with me, I will stay nearer the house."

"Kitty always can be spared, and though I am sorry to insist upon your taking her, I shall be much better satisfied to know you are not alone."

"Very well, sir. May I trouble you for another biscuit?"

"You have a fine color this morning. Rutledge agrees with you."

"Famously," I replied, applying myself with great satisfaction to my breakfast; "and as I have so much to do before ten o'clock, there's no time to lose."

"Not a minute; but I should be uncomfortable to think you were starved; don't hurry so frantically."

"There! I'm ready now," I exclaimed, in a few minutes following him into the library with a light step, and singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of a gay tune.

"I see you do not dread work," he said, as I sat down before the writing-table, and took up a pen with alacrity.

"Not when I can see daylight through it, sir, and a reasonable prospect ahead of getting it done. Now, sir."

And Mr. Rutledge dictated, and I wrote for an hour, without the slightest intermission. At the end of that time he said:

"Do you think you are equal to the task of answering those two letters by yourself, of which I will give you a general idea, while I look over those accounts with Maurice and Ruthven, to be added to the New Orleans letter? It is important that they should all be dispatched to-day."

"If you are willing to trust me, I am willing to try."

And I immediately began the task. It was by no means an easy one; but by referring to the letters to be answered, and by keeping before my mind the synopsis Mr. Rutledge had briefly given me, I was able to finish them to his satisfaction; added the memoranda he had been making to the other letter, sealed and addressed them all, and had the package ready for Michael when he appeared at the door at ten o'clock.

"You have worked pretty well for two hours," said Mr. Rutledge, as for a moment I leaned my head on my hand. "I am afraid you are tired."

"Not in the least," I said bravely, looking up.

"Then get your bonnet and come out with me. It is too fine a day to stay in the house."

As I followed him through the hall, Mrs. Roberts encountered us at the dining-room door. Her greeting to me was stiffer than ever. To Mr.

Rutledge she said:

"If you can spare the time, sir, you would oblige me very much by looking over the 'household expenses' this morning; Dorothy has got her account with the grocer in a great snarl, and hasn't done much better with the butcher, and I can't make them all come out right."

"My good friend," said Mr. Rutledge, "if you had appealed to me any other time, I might have helped you, but I have been doing quite as much this morning as I think prudent; to-morrow I will attend to the books."

"I am sorry," said Mrs. Roberts, uneasily; "but to-day is the day the grocer brings in his account, and I don't like those sort of people to suppose there's any irregularity in the accounts we keep. They're always ready enough to take advantage."

"Couldn't I help you, Mrs. Roberts?" I asked. "I should be very willing to."

She gave me a look which plainly said, "_You_ help _me!_" but she merely answered:

"Thank you, Miss, but Mr. Rutledge understands the books better than any one; and if he felt able"----

"But he doesn't," said the gentleman in question. "The grocer can come to-morrow with his bill. It will not signify for once."

Still Mrs. Roberts demurred, and I saw there would be no peace till she worried Mr. Rutledge into it, so I renewed my offer of a.s.sistance. This time it seemed to strike her in a more favorable light.

"If I didn't mind the trouble, perhaps I might help her reckon it up.

She wasn't as quick at figures as she used to be."

I would do my best, I said, untying my bonnet. But Mr. Rutledge peremptorily interfered.

"By no means, Mrs. Roberts. She has been writing two hours already for me; she must have nothing more at present," and he walked on toward the door.

But the housekeeper was by no means vanquished, and clung tenaciously to my offer. She was sure, she said, the young lady would be glad to oblige an old woman. And duty so plainly pointed that way, that I wavered no longer. I had made up my mind to be kind to Mrs. Roberts; here was the chance to carry my good resolutions into effect. Throwing my bonnet into a chair, I said:

"If you will excuse me from walking with you, Mr. Rutledge, I will see what I can do to help Mrs. Roberts."

"I cannot excuse you," he replied, with decision. "I do not think it best for you to be confined to the house any longer at present."

"Oh," I exclaimed, while Mrs. Roberts looked on anxiously, "I have been used to studying and writing nine hours out of the twenty-four at school, and this morning's business has been mere play. I shall not think of feeling tired for hours yet, so please do not make any objections. Come, Mrs. Roberts," I continued, going toward the stairs, and giving her a little nod.

She hesitated, and I saw her glance uneasily at Mr. Rutledge. I now perceived that he was more than vexed; but I was strong enough to dare even that, when I was as certain as I now was about what I ought to do.

He naturally, I thought, didn't like to have his wishes interfered with; but that could not alter the right for me, "and he cannot help but see that when he thinks it over." So again summoning Mrs. Roberts, I excused myself to him, and ran upstairs, followed lumberingly by the housekeeper, while the hall door closed, with no gentle emphasis, between us and the sunny autumn morning.

I am only doing Mrs. Roberts justice, when I say that on that particular occasion, she manifested diplomatic talents, which, in another sphere of life, would have won her no inconsiderable place. I had not given her credit for the tact and acuteness that developed themselves that morning, and which, added to her well-known decision and unalterable devotion to the one idea that happened to be uppermost, formed the elements of a character I had not sufficiently looked up to. This, of course, I did not appreciate at first, and went at my task with the kindest desire to get Mrs. Roberts out of her perplexity, and unravel the tangled threads of Dorothy's arithmetical inaccuracies.

It was the greatest effort of self-denial that I could well have attempted, for besides the heroism required to give up my walk with Mr.

Rutledge, on this splendid day, and spending the morning instead with the only person I sincerely disliked in the house, and in the room of all others that I was most averse to, was added my unconquerable detestation of mathematical calculations of all kinds. From the multiplication table up, I held all such exercises in abomination. But Miss Crowen, with her usual discrimination, having detected this weak point in my character, bent her whole mind to the strengthening of it, and night and day, labored to instill into my unwilling brain the rules and methods it was const.i.tutionally unfitted to receive. Other studies were made to bend before it; favorite pursuits were sacrificed to this one object; pa.s.sionate tears had washed the distracting figures from the hated slate; high tragedy had been enacted before the blackboard, and stormy scenes in the study had only strengthened Miss Crowen in her determination to enforce obedience, and her pupil in resistance to what she looked upon as tyrannical injustice. The result of this continued struggle was, that after nearly five years of drilling in that branch of study, to the exclusion of more congenial pursuits, I left St.

Catharine's with about the amount of mathematical knowledge usually acquired by girls of ordinary application in a year and a half. I was too fresh, however, from such exercises, not to be quite competent to master the difficulties presented in the Rutledge "Household Expenses,"

and before an hour had pa.s.sed, had reduced the "snarl" to a very comprehensible state, and calling to Mrs. Roberts to come and look over it, I began to explain the errors I had found, and the manner in which I had corrected them, in as lucid language as I could command.

But Mrs. Roberts was hopelessly obtuse; she put on her gla.s.ses and fumbled among the loose papers on which Dorothy registered her financial transactions, with agonizing bewilderment. In vain I a.s.sured her I had copied them off on the book, and they would give her no light on the subject; she could not give them up, and again and again looked them over, and bemoaned Dorothy's inaccuracy and her own stupidity. She hoped I would excuse her, but she could not really get her mind quite clear about that last column; would it be asking too much of me to run it over again aloud. I tried to be patient, and again went over it, and explained the case in all its bearings. I resolutely kept my back to the window, and would, if I could, have forgotten that there was such a thing as suns.h.i.+ne in the world; but, however I may have succeeded in that attempt, I could not help hearing Mr. Rutledge's step on the stone walk outside, as he returned from the direction of the stables; nor could I help being aware that he entered the house, paused a moment in the library, then came upstairs. The fragrance of an Havana penetrating the keyhole, told he had pa.s.sed this door, and gone into his dressing-room. My fingers flew over the columns; in proportion as my patience diminished Mrs. Roberts' dullness increased; she fretted, she groaned, she bewildered me with questions, and almost crying with vexation, I exclaimed, as I heard the horses coming up from the stable:

"Oh, Mrs. Roberts! Won't you please understand! Can't you see the only mistake was in that second figure, and that I've put it all right? Can't you see it balances?"

But Mrs. Roberts couldn't see, and her obtuseness redoubled, as Mr.

Rutledge's door opened and closed again, and his steps echoed down the staircase and across the hall. I could not help leaning back, and glancing out of the window, while tears of disappointment and vexation rushed to my eyes, as I saw Mr. Rutledge drive off with Michael in the light wagon, and the identical pair of fast trotters that I had made admiring acquaintance with a few days since at the stable. As their hoofs clattered rapidly down the avenue, I could have thrown the account-books at Mrs. Roberts' head, for in truth it began to dawn upon me that that worthy person had had some ends of her own to serve in keeping me so long at the work of elucidation, and that something besides natural dullness of comprehension had been in the way of her understanding my calculations. I began to reflect on the absurdity of supposing that a woman who had for years had the charge of such an establishment as Rutledge, could be in reality so dull and ignorant as she had appeared this morning. There could be no doubt but that she had intended to keep me in the house; for what cause, I could not yet determine.

The mists that had obscured her intellect, began now, however, to clear away; and it was not long before she p.r.o.nounced herself quite satisfied on all points, even on the vexed and tortured question of that "last column," and I was released from my task. I did not doubt the sincerity of Mrs. Roberts' rather meagre thanks, nor the truthfulness of her slight commendation of my patience. It was not in her way to flatter, and I knew that for some cause she distrusted me, and that whatever praise she awarded me, was fairly wrung from her by her stubborn sense of justice. Though I knew Mrs. Roberts had been generalling this morning, there was that about her that forbade my doubting her habitual truthfulness. I merely replied that she was welcome to the a.s.sistance I had been able to give her, and with a weary step I left the room.

At the door I found Tigre waiting for me with wistful earnestness in his erected ears and attentive eyes. I took him in my arms, and carried him into my own room, where I tried to enter with spirit into the frolic he seemed to desire. But it proved a miserable failure; I could not enjoy that or anything else; my head ached "splittingly," and the suns.h.i.+ne streaming in at the window made it worse, and playing with Tigre made it worse, and reading, writing, thinking, all made it worse. What should I do? I hadn't even the spirit to go out into the fresh air; but, leaning wearily on the dressing-table, counted the heads on my bracelet, and wondered that I could have been so happy this morning.

By and by, I summoned sufficient energy to smooth my hair, and bathe my head with eau de Cologne; then, calling Tigre, I concluded to go to the library for a book. I found that apartment rather more endurable than my own just then, as the sun did not come in there at that hour of the morning, and the light was very subdued, and the room was quietness itself; so, taking a book from the table, I arranged the cus.h.i.+ons of the sofa alluringly, and motioning Tigre to his place beside me, sat down to reading. It would have been a thrilling book that could have riveted my wandering thoughts that morning; and unluckily the book I had chosen was very far from that stamp; it was a third-rate novel of the highly wrought order, into whose pages characters, incidents, scenes, were crowded in such bewildering profusion, that one's appreciative powers were f.a.gged out and exhausted, before the first chapter was accomplished, and, like a restaurant dinner, where all the dishes taste alike, there was but one flavor to the whole array of dramatis personae from heroine to _bete noire;_ but "one gravy" for roast, bouilli, and ragout. The wearying tide of adjectives and interjections stunned my senses; the book slipped from my hands, and, leaning my head on the cus.h.i.+ons, my eyes closed, and with one arm round Tigre and the other under my head, I slept, realizing even in sleep that the bracelet touched my cheek.

The precise duration of my nap I could not tell; but when I awoke, it was to find Mr. Rutledge standing by me, I started up, and he said:

"I meant to be angry, but you look so pale and tired I think you are punished enough already. Does your head ache still?" he continued, laying his hand on my shoulder. "You would have done better to have followed my advice. I knew you would repent."

"I don't repent, though," I said, quite decidedly. "I haven't even thought of repenting, and would do it all over again, if the same circ.u.mstances occurred."

"You begin to relent toward Mrs. Roberts, then," he said, coolly. "I thought yesterday you didn't particularly affect my worthy housekeeper."

"My liking or disliking her doesn't alter the question of my duty. And, Mr. Rutledge, I don't think it's kind in you to pretend not to understand my motive. You must know that in all reason, I could not prefer staying worrying in the house over some tiresome accounts, to going out on such a splendid day; and you must see that there was no way for me to refuse her conscientiously. You yourself say she is old, and particular, and fixed in her ways; and I am certain you often put yourself out to humor her; how can you blame me for not leaving her to fret and worry over something that I could do for her in half the time?"

Mr. Rutledge looked down at me, but said nothing, while I briefly concluded my defence, adding at the end, a concise request that he'd please not say anything more about the matter.