Faith Gartney's Girlhood by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney (people reading books TXT) 📕

step and voice of Dr. Wasgatt were heard, as he inquired for Miss Gartney.

Faith left her seat, with a word of excuse, and met him in the hall.

"I had a patient up this way," said he, "and came round to bring you a message from Miss Henderson. Nothing to be frightened at, in the least; only that she isn't quite so well as ordinary, these last hot days, and thought perhaps you might as lief come over. She said she was expecting you for a visit there, before your folks get back. No, thank you"--as Faith motioned to conduct him to the drawing-room--"can't come in. Sorry I couldn't offer to take you down; but I've got more visits to make, and they lie round the other way."

"Is Aunt Faith ill?"

"Well--no. Not so but that she'll be spry again in a day or two; especially if the weather changes. That ankle of hers is troublesome, and she had something of an ill turn last night, and called me over this morning. She seems to have taken a sort of fancy that she'd like to have you there."

"I'll come."

And Faith went back, quickly, as Dr. Wasgatt departed, to make his errand known, and to ask if Mr. Rushleigh would mind driving her round to Cross Corners, after going to his mills.

"Wait till to-morrow, Faithie," said Margaret, in the tone of one whom it fatigues to think of an exertion, even for another. "You'll want your box with you, you know; and there isn't time for anything to-night."

"I think I ought to go now," answered Faith. "Aunt Henderson never complains for a slight ailment, and she might be ill again, to-night. I can take all I shall need before to-morrow in my little morocco bag. I won't keep you waiting a minute," she added, turning to Mr. Rushleigh.

"I can wait twenty, if you wish," he answered kindly.

But in less than ten, they were driving down toward the river.

Margaret Rushleigh had betaken herself to her own cool chamber, where the delicate straw matting, and pale green, leaf-patterned chintz of sofa, chairs, and hangings, gave a feeling of the last degree of summer lightness and daintiness, and the gentle air breathed in from the southwest, sifted, on the way, of its sunny heat, by the green draperies of vine and branch it wandered through.

Lying there, on the cool, springy cushions of her couch--turning the fresh-cut leaves of the August _Mishaumok_--she forgot the wheels and the spindles--the hot mills, and the ceaseless whir.

Just at that moment of her utter comfort and content, a young factory girl dropped, fainting, in the dizzy heat, before her loom.


CHAPTER XXVII.

AT THE MILLS.

"For all day the wheels are droning, turning,-- Their wind comes in our faces,-- Till our hearts turn,--our head with pulses burning,-- And the walls turn in their places." MRS. BROWNING.

Faith sat silent by Mr. Rushleigh's side, drinking in, also, with a cool content, the river air that blew upon their faces as they drove along.

"Faithie!" said Paul's father, a little suddenly, at last--"do you know how true a thing you said a little while ago?"

"How, sir?" asked Faith, not perceiving what he meant.

"When you spoke of having your hand on the mainspring of all this?"

And he raised his right arm, motioning with the slender whip he held, along the line of factory buildings that lay before them.

A deep, blazing blush burned, at his words, over Faith's cheek and brow. She sat and suffered it under his eye--uttering not a syllable.

"I knew you did _not_ know. You did not think of it so. Yet it is true, none the less. Faith! Are you happy? Are you satisfied?"

Still a silence, and tears gathering in the eyes.

"I do not wish to distress you, my dear. It is only a little word I should like to hear you speak. I must, so far as I can, see that my children are happy, Faith."

"I suppose," said Faith, tremulously, struggling to speech--"one cannot expect to be utterly happy in this world."

"One does expect it, forgetting all else, at the moment when is given what seems to one life's first, great good--the earthly good that comes but once. I remember my own youth, Faithie. Pure, present content is seldom overwise."

"Only," said Faith, still tremblingly, "that the responsibility comes with the good. That feeling of having one's hand upon the mainspring is a fearful one."

"I am not given," said Mr. Rushleigh, "to quoting Bible at all times; but you make a line of it come up to me. 'There is no fear in love. Perfect love casteth out fear.'"

"Be sure of yourself, dear child. Be sure you are content and happy; and tell me so, if you can; or, tell me otherwise, if you must, without a reserve or misgiving," he said again, as they drove down the mill entrance; and their conversation, for the time, came, necessarily, to an end. Coming into the mill yard, they were aware of a little commotion about one of the side doors.

The mill girl who had fainted sat here, surrounded by two or three of her companions, slowly recovering.

"It is Mary Grover, sir, from up at the Peak," said one of them, in reply to Mr. Rushleigh's question. "She hasn't been well for some days, but she's kept on at her work, and the heat, to-day, was too much for her. She'd ought to be got home, if there was any way. She can't ever walk."

"I'll take her, myself," said the mill owner, promptly. "Keep her quiet here a minute or two, while I go in and speak to Blasland."

But first he turned to Faith again. "What shall I do with you, my child?"

"Dear Mr. Rushleigh," said she, with all her gratitude for his just spoken kindness to herself and her appreciation of his ready sympathy for the poor workgirl, in her voice--"don't think of me! It's lovely out there over the footbridge, and in the fields; and that way, the distance is nearly nothing to Aunt Faith's. I should like the walk--really."

"Thank you," said Mr. Rushleigh. "I believe you would. Then I'll take Mary Grover up to the Peak."

And he shook her hand, and left her standing there, and went up into the mill.

Two of the girls who had come out with Mary Grover, followed him and returned to their work. One, sitting with her in the doorway, on one of the upper steps, and supporting her yet dizzy head upon her shoulder, remained.

Faith asked if she could do anything, and was answered, no, with thanks.

She turned away, then, and walked over the planking above the race way, toward the river, where a pretty little footbridge crossed it here, from the end of the mill building.

Against this end, projected, on this side, a square, tower-like appendage to the main structure, around which one must pass to reach the footbridge. A door at the base opened upon a staircase leading up. This was the entrance to Mr. Rushleigh's "sanctum," above, which communicated, also, with the second story of the mill.

Here Faith paused. She caught, from around the corner, a sound of the angry voices of men.

"I tell you, I'll stay here till I see the boss!"

"I tell you, the boss won't see you. He's done with you."

"Let him _be_ done with me, then; and not go spoiling my chance with other people! I'll see it out with him, somehow, yet."

"Better not threaten. He won't go out of his way to meddle with you; only it's no use your sending anybody here after a character. He's one of the sort that speaks the truth and shames the devil."

"I'll let him know he ain't boss of the whole country round! D----d if I don't!"

Faith turned away from hearing more of this, and from facing the speakers; and took refuge up the open staircase.

Above--in the quiet little countingroom, shut off by double doors at the right from the great loom chamber of the mill, and opening at the front by a wide window upon the river that ran tumbling and flashing below, spanned by the graceful little bridge that reached the green slope of the field beyond--it was so cool and pleasant--so still with continuous and softened sound--that Faith sat down upon the comfortable sofa there, to rest, to think, to be alone, a little.

She had Paul's letter in her pocket; she had his father's words fresh upon ear and heart. A strange peace came over her, as she placed herself here; as if, somehow, a way was soon to be opened and made clear to her. As if she should come to know herself, and to be brave to act as God should show her how.

She heard, presently, Mr. Rushleigh's voice in the mill yard, and then the staircase door closed and locked below. Thinking that he should be here no more, to-night, he had shut and fastened it.

It was no matter. She would go through the mill, by and by, and look at the looms; and so out, and over the river, then, to Aunt Faith's.


CHAPTER XXVIII.

LOCKED IN.

"How idle it is to call certain things godsends! as if there were anything else in the world."--HARE.

It is accounted a part of the machinery of invention when, in a story, several coincident circumstances, that apart, would have had no noticeable result, bear down together, with a nice and sure calculation upon some catastrophe or _denouement_ that develops itself therefrom.

Last night, a man--an employee in Mr. Rushleigh's factory--had been kept awake by one of his children, taken suddenly ill. A slight matter--but it has to do with our story.

Last night, also, Faith--Paul's second letter just received--had lain sleepless for hours, fighting the old battle over, darkly, of doubt, pity, half-love, and indecision. She had felt, or had thought she felt--thus, or so--in the days that were past. Why could she not be sure of her feeling now?

The new wine in the old bottles--the new cloth in the old garment--these, in Faith's life, were at variance. What satisfied once, satisfied no longer. Was she to blame? What ought she to do? There was a seething--a rending. Poor heart, that was likely to be burst and torn--wonderingly, helplessly--in the half-comprehended struggle!

So it happened, that, tired with all this, sore with its daily pressure and recurrence, this moment of strange peace came over her, and soothed her into rest.

She laid herself back, there, on the broad, soft, old-fashioned sofa, and with the river breeze upon her brow, and the song of its waters in her ears, and the deadened hum of the factory rumbling on--she fell asleep.

How long it had been, she could not tell; she knew not whether it were evening, or midnight, or near the morning; but she felt cold and cramped; everything save the busy river was still, and the daylight was all gone, and stars out bright in the deep, moonless sky, when she awoke.

Awoke, bewilderedly, and came slowly to the comprehension that she was