Rutledge

by Miriam Coles Harris

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 constitutionally unfitted to receive. Other studies were made to bend before it; favorite pursuits were sacrificed to this one object; passionate 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 passed, 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 glasses and fumbled among the loose papers on which Dorothy registered her financial transactions, with agonizing bewilderment. In vain I assured 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 sunshine 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 passed 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 pronounced 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 assistance 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 sunshine 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 cushions 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 fagged 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 personæ from heroine to bête 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 cushions, 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."