Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

III.

Yes, Honor was crying. The dire mistake, the contempt, and, worse than all, the laughter, had struck the proud little Southern girl to the heart.

"My dear child," said Wainwright, all the gentleman in him aroused at once, "why should you care for so small and natural a mistake? It is all clear to me now. I gave no account of myself coming over on the stage; I remember, too, that I spoke of the moonlight whisky-makers myself, and that I made no effort to find out what Mr. Head was alluding to when he talked on in his mysterious way. It is my usual unpardonable laziness which has brought you to this error. Pray forgive it."

Honor cried on, unable to stop, but his voice and words had soothed her; he stood beside her, hat in hand, and after a few moments she summoned self-control enough to dry her eyes and put down her handkerchief. But her eyelashes were still wet, her breath came tremulously, and there was a crimson spot on each cheek. She looked, at that moment, not more than fifteen years old, and Wainwright sat down, this time nearer to her, determined to make her feel easier. He banished the subject of her mistake at once, and began talking to her about herself. He asked many questions, and she answered them humbly, as a Lenten penitent might answer a father confessor. She seemed to feel as though she owed him everything he chose to take. She let him enter and walk through her life and mind, through all her hopes and plans; one or two closed doors he noted, but did not try to open, neither did he let her see that he had discovered them. He learned how poor they were; he learned her love for her uncle, her Switzer's attachment to the mountain-peaks about her; he learned what her daily life was; and he came near enough to her religious faith, that faith which had first attracted him, to see how clear and deep it was, like a still pool in a shaded glen. It was years since Stephen Wainwright had been so close to a young girl's soul, and, to do him justice, he felt that he was on holy ground.

When at last he left her, he had made up his mind that he would try an experiment. He would help this child out of the quagmire of poverty, and give her, in a small way, a chance. The question was, how to do it. He remained at Ellerby, made acquaintances, and asked questions. He pretended this, and pretended that. Finally, after some consideration, he woke up the old library association, reopened the building, and put in Honor as librarian, at a salary of two hundred dollars a year. To account for this, he was obliged, of course, to be much interested in Ellerby; his talk was that the place must eventually become a summer resort, and that money could be very well invested there. He therefore invested it. Discovering, among other things, pink marble on wild land belonging to the Colonel, he bought a whole hillside, and promptly paid for it. To balance this, he also bought half a mile of sulphur springs on the other side of the valley (the land comically cheap), and spoke of erecting a hotel there. The whole of Ellerby awoke, talked, and rejoiced; no one dreamed that the dark eyes of one young girl had effected it all.

Honor herself remained entirely unconscious. She was so openly happy over the library that Wainwright felt himself already repaid. "It might stand against some of my omissions," he said to himself.

One thing detained him where he was; then another. He could not buy property without paying some attention to it, and he did not choose to send for his man of business. He staid on, therefore, all summer. And he sent books to the library now and then during the winter that followed—packages which the librarian, of course, was obliged to acknowledge, answering at the same time the questions of the letters which accompanied them. Stephen's letters were always formal; they might have been nailed up on the walls of the library for all comers to read. He amused himself, however, not a little over the carefully written, painstaking answers, in which the librarian remained "with great respect" his "obliged servant, Honor Dooris."

The second summer began, and he was again among the mountains; but he should leave at the end of the month, he said. In the mean time it had come about that he was teaching the librarian. She needed instruction, certainly; and the steps that led up to it had been so gradual that it seemed natural enough now. But no one knew the hundred little things which had been done to make it seem so.

What was he trying to do?

His cousin, Adelaide Kellinger, determined to find out that point, was already domiciled with her maid at the inn. There had been no concealment about Honor; Wainwright had told Adelaide the whole story. He also showed to her the librarian's little letters whenever they came, and she commented upon them naturally, and asked many questions. "Do you know, I feel really interested in the child myself?" she said to him one day; and it was entirely true.