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ELIZABETH GASKELL
RUTH
CHAPTER I
THE DRESSMAKER'S APPRENTICE AT WORK
There is an assize-town in one of the eastern counties which was
much distinguished by the Tudor Sovereigns, and, in consequence
of their favour and protection, attained a degree of importance
that surprises the modern traveller.
A hundred years ago its appearance was that of picturesque
grandeur. The old houses, which were the temporary residences of
such of the county families as contented themselves with the
gaieties of a provincial town, crowded the streets, and gave them
the irregular but noble appearance yet to be seen in the cities
of Belgium. The sides of the streets had a quaint richness, from
the effect of the gables, and the stacks of chimneys which cut
against the blue sky above; while, if the eye fell lower down,
the attention was arrested by all kinds of projections in the
shape of balcony and oriel; and it was amusing to see the
infinite variety of windows that had been crammed into the walls
long before Mr. Pitt's days of taxation. The streets below
suffered from all these projections and advanced stories above;
they were dark, and ill-paved with large, round, jolting pebbles,
and with no side-path protected by kerb-stones; there were no
lamp-posts for long winter nights; and no regard was paid to the
wants of the middle class, who neither drove about in coaches of
their own, nor were carried by their own men in their own sedans
into the very halls of their friends. The professional men and
their wives, the shopkeepers and their spouses, and all such
people, walked about at considerable peril both night and day.
The broad, unwieldy carriages hemmed them up against the houses
in the narrow streets. The inhospitable houses projected their
flights of steps almost into the carriage-way, forcing
pedestrians again into the danger they had avoided for twenty or
thirty paces. Then, at night, the only light was derived from the
glaring, flaring oil-lamps, hung above the doors of the more
aristocratic mansions; just allowing space for the passers-by to
become visible, before they again disappeared into the darkness,
where it was no uncommon thing for robbers to be in waiting for
their prey.
The traditions of those bygone times, even to the smallest social
particular, enable one to understand more clearly the
circumstances which contributed to the formation of character.
The daily life into which people are born, and into which they
are absorbed before they are well aware, forms chains which only
one in a hundred has moral strength enough to despise, and to
break when the right time comes--when an inward necessity for
independent individual action arises, which is superior to all
outward conventionalities. Therefore, it is well to know what
were the chains of dally domestic habit, which were the natural
leading strings of our forefathers before they learnt to go
alone.
The picturesqueness of those ancient streets has departed now.
The Astleys, the Dunstans, the Waverhams--names of power in that
district--go up duly to London in the season, and have Sold their
residences in the county town fifty years ago, or more. And when
the county town lost its attraction for the Astleys, the
Dunstans, the Waverhams, how could it be supposed that the
Domvilles, the Bextons, and the Wildes would continue to go and
winter there in their second-rate houses, and with their
increased expenditure? So the grand old houses stood empty
awhile; and then speculators ventured to purchase, and to turn
the deserted mansions into many smaller dwellings, fitted for
professional men, or even (bend your ear lower, lest the shade of
Marmaduke, first Baron Waverham, hear) into shops!
Even that was not so very bad, compared with the next innovation
on the old glories. The shopkeepers found out that the once
fashionable street was dark, and that the dingy light did not
show off their goods to advantage; the surgeon could not see to
draw his patients' teeth; the lawyer had to ring for candles an
hour earlier than he was accustomed to do when living in a more
plebeian street. In short, by mutual consent, the whole front of
one side of the street was pulled down, and rebuilt in the flat,
mean, unrelieved style of George the Third. The body of the
houses was too solidly grand to submit to alteration; so people
were occasionally surprised, after passing through a
commonplace-looking shop, to find themselves at the foot of a
grand carved oaken staircase, lighted by a window of stained
glass, storied all over with armorial bearings. Up such a
stair--past such a window (through which the moonlight fell on
her with a glory of many colours)--Ruth Hilton passed wearily one
January night, now many years ago. I call it night; but, strictly
speaking, it was morning. Two o'clock in the morning chimed forth
the old bells of St. Saviour's. And yet, more than a dozen girls
still sat in the room into which Ruth entered, stitching away as
if for very life, not daring to gape, or show any outward
manifestation of sleepiness. They only sighed a little when Ruth
told Mrs. Mason the hour of the night, as the result of her
errand; for they knew that, stay up as late as they might, the
work-hours of the next day must begin at eight, and their young
limbs were very weary.
Mrs. Mason worked away as hard as any of them; but she was older
and tougher; and, besides, the gains were hers. But even she
perceived that some rest was needed. "Young ladies! there will be
an interval allowed of half-an-hour. Ring the bell, Miss Sutton.
Martha shall bring you up some bread, and cheese, and beer. You
will be so good as to eat it standing--away from the dresses--and
to have your hands washed ready for work when I return. In
half-an-hour," said she once more, very distinctly; and then she
left the room.
It was curious to watch the young girls as they instantaneously
availed themselves of Mrs. Mason's absence. One fat, particularly
heavy-looking damsel laid her head on her folded arms and was
asleep in a moment; refusing to be wakened for her share in the
frugal supper, but springing up with a frightened look at the
sound of Mrs. Mason's returning footstep, even while it was still
far off on the echoing stairs. Two or three others huddled over
the scanty fireplace, which, with every possible economy of
space, and no attempt whatever at anything of grace or ornament,
was inserted in the slight, flat-looking wall, that had been run
up by the present owner of the property to portion off this
division of the grand old drawing-room of the mansion. Some
employed the time in eating their bread and cheese, with as
measured and incessant a motion of the jaws (and almost as
stupidly placid an expression of countenance), as you may see in
cows ruminating in the first meadow you happen to pass.
Some held up admiringly the beautiful ball-dress in progress,
while others examined the effect, backing from the object to be
criticised in the true artistic manner. Others stretched
themselves into all sorts of postures to relieve the weary
muscles; one or two gave vent to all the yawns, coughs, and
sneezes that bad been pent up so long in the presence of Mrs.
Mason. But Ruth Hilton sprang to the large old window, and
pressed against it as a bird presses against the bars of its
cage. She put back the blind, and gazed into the quiet moonlight
night. It was doubly light--almost as much so as day--for
everything was covered with the deep snow which had been falling
silently ever since the evening before. The window was in a
square recess; the old strange little panes of glass had been
replaced by those which gave more light. A little distance off,
the feathery branches of a larch waved softly to and fro in the
scarcely perceptible night-breeze. Poor old larch! the time had
been when it had stood in a pleasant lawn, with the tender grass
creeping caressingly up its very trunk; but now the lawn was
divided into yards and squalid back premises, and the larch was
pent up and girded about with flagstones. The snow lay thick on
its boughs, and now and then fell noiselessly down. The old
stables had been added to, and altered into a dismal street of
mean-looking houses, back to back with the ancient mansions. And
over all these changes from grandeur to squalor, bent down the
purple heavens with their unchanging splendour!
Ruth pressed her hot forehead against the cold glass, and
strained her aching eyes in gazing out on the lovely sky of a
winter's night. The impulse was strong upon her to snatch up a
shawl, and, wrapping it round her head, to sally forth and enjoy
the glory; and time was when that impulse would have been
instantly followed; but now, Ruth's eyes filled with tears, and
she stood quite still dreaming of the days that were gone. Some
one touched her shoulder while her thoughts were far away,
remembering past January nights, which had resembled this, and
were yet so different.
"Ruth, love," whispered a girl, who had unwillingly distinguished
herself by a long hard fit of coughing, "come and have some
supper. You don't know yet how it helps one through the night."
"One run--one blow of the fresh air would do me more good," said
Ruth.
"Not such a night as this," replied the other, shivering at the
very thought.
"And why not such a night as this, Jenny?" answered Ruth. "Oh! at
home I have many a time run up the lane all the way to the mill,
just to see the icicles hang on the great wheel; and, when I was
once out, I could hardly find in my heart to come m, even to
mother, sitting by the fire;--even to mother," she added, in a
low, melancholy tone, which had something of inexpressible
sadness in it. "Why, Jenny!" said she, rousing herself, but not
before her eyes were swimming in tears, "own, now, that you never
saw those dismal, hateful, tumble-down old houses there look half
so--what shall I call them? almost beautiful--as they do now,
with that soft, pure, exquisite covering; and if they are so
improved, think of what trees, and grass, and ivy must be on such
a night as this."
Jenny could not be persuaded into admiring the winter's night,
which to her came only as a cold and dismal time, when her cough
was more troublesome, and the pain in her side worse than usual.
But she put her arm round Ruth's neck, and stood by her, glad
that the orphan apprentice, who was not yet inured to the
hardship of a dressmaker's workroom, should find so much to give
her pleasure in such a common occurrence as a frosty night.
They remained deep in separate trains of thought till Mrs.
Mason's step was heard, when each returned supperless, but
refreshed, to her seat.
Ruth's place was the coldest and the darkest in the room,
although she liked it the best; she had instinctively chosen it
for the sake of the wall opposite to her, on which was a remnant
of the beauty of the old drawing-room, which must once have been
magnificent, to judge from the faded specimen left. It was
divided into panels of pale sea-green, picked out with white and
gold; and on these panels were painted--were thrown with the
careless, triumphant hand of a master--the most lovely wreaths of
flowers, profuse and luxuriant beyond description, and so
real-looking, that you could almost fancy you smelt their
fragrance, and heard the south wind go softly rustling in and out
among the crimson roses--the branches of purple and white
lilac--the floating golden-tressed laburnum boughs. Besides
these, there were stately white lilies, sacred to the
Virgin--hollyhocks, fraxinella, monk's-hood, pansies, primroses;
every flower which blooms profusely in charming old-fashioned
country gardens was there, depicted among its graceful foliage,
but not in the wild disorder in which I have enumerated them. At
the bottom of the panel lay a holly branch, whose stiff
straightness was ornamented by a twining drapery of English ivy,
and mistletoe, and winter aconite; while down either side hung
pendent garlands of spring and autumn flowers; and, crowning all,
carne gorgeous summer with the sweet musk-roses, and the
rich-coloured flowers of June and July.
Surely Monnoyer, or whoever the dead-and-gone artist might be,
would have been gratified to know the pleasure his handiwork,
even in its wane, had power to give to the heavy heart of a young
girl; for they conjured up visions of other sister-flowers that
grew, and blossomed, and withered away in her early home. Mrs.
Mason was particularly desirous that her workwomen should exert
themselves to-night, for, on the next, the annual hunt-ball was
to take place. It was the one gaiety of the town since the
assize-balls had been discontinued. Many were the dresses she had
promised should be sent home "without fail" the next morning; she
had not let one slip through her fingers, for fear, if it did, it
might fall into the hands of the rival dressmaker, who had just
established herself in the very same street.
She determined to administer a gentle stimulant to the flagging
spirits, and with a little preliminary cough to attract
attention, she began--
"I may as well inform you, young ladies, that I have been
requested this year, as on previous occasions, to allow some of
my young people to attend in the antechamber of the assembly-room
with sandal ribbon, pins, and such little matters, and to be
ready to repair any accidental injury to the ladies' dresses. I
shall send four--of the most diligent." She laid a marked
emphasis on the last words, but without much effect; they were
too sleepy to care for any of the pomps and vanities, or, indeed,
for any of the comforts of this world, excepting one sole
thing--their beds.
Mrs. Mason was a very worthy woman, but, like many other worthy
women, she had her foibles; and one (very natural to her calling)
was to pay an extreme regard to appearances. Accordingly, she had
already selected in her own mind the four girls who were most
likely to do credit to the "establishment;" and these were
secretly determined upon, although it was very well to promise
the reward to the most diligent. She was really not aware of the
falseness of this conduct; being an adept in that species of
sophistry with which people persuade themselves that what they
wish to do is right.
At last there was no resisting the evidence of weariness. They
were told to go to bed; but even that welcome command was
languidly obeyed. Slowly they folded up their work, heavily they
moved about, until at length all was put away, and they trooped
up the wide, dark staircase.
"Oh! how shall I get through five years of these terrible nights!
in that close room! and in that oppressive stillness! which lets
every sound of the thread be heard as it goes eternally backwards
and forwards," sobbed out Ruth, as she threw herself on her bed,
without even undressing herself.
"Nay, Ruth, you know it won't be always as it has been to-night.
We often get to bed by ten o'clock, and by-and-by you won't mind
the closeness of the room. You're worn-out to-night, or you would
not have minded the sound of the needle; I never hear it. Come,
let me unfasten you," said Jenny.
"What is the use of undressing? We must be up again and at work
in three hours."
"And in those three hours you may get a great deal of rest, if
you will but undress yourself and fairly go to bed. Come, love."
Jenny's advice was not resisted; but before Ruth went to sleep
she said--
"Oh! I wish I was not so cross and impatient. I don't think I
used to be."
"No, I am sure not. Most new girls get impatient at first; but it
goes off, and they don't care much for anything after a while.
Poor child! she's asleep already," said Jenny to herself.
She could not sleep or rest. The tightness at her side was worse
than usual. She almost thought she ought to mention it in her
letters home; but then she remembered the premium her father had
struggled hard to pay, and the large family, younger than
herself, that had to be cared for, and she determined to bear on,
and trust that, when the warm weather came, both the pain and the
cough would go away. She would be prudent about herself.
What was the matter with Ruth? She was crying in her sleep as if
her heart would break. Such agitated slumber could be no rest; so
Jenny wakened her.
"Ruth! Ruth!"
"Oh, Jenny!" said Ruth, sitting up in bed, and pushing back the
masses of hair that were heating her forehead, "I thought I saw
mamma by the side of the bed, coming as she used to do, to see if
I were asleep and comfortable; and when I tried to take hold of
her, she went away and left me alone--I don't know where; so
strange!"
"It was only a dream; you know you'd been talking about her to
me, and you're feverish with sitting up late. Go to sleep again,
and I'll watch, and waken you if you seem uneasy."
"But you'll be so tired. Oh, dear! dear!" Ruth was asleep again,
even while she sighed.
Morning came, and though their rest had been short, the girls
arose refreshed.
"Miss Sutton, Miss Jennings, Miss Booth, and Miss Hilton, you
will see that you are ready to accompany me to the shire-hall by
eight o'clock."
One or two of the girls looked astonished, but the majority,
having anticipated the selection, and knowing from experience the
unexpressed rule by which it was made, received it with the
sullen indifference which had become their feeling with regard to
most events--a deadened sense of life, consequent upon their
unnatural mode of existence, their sedentary days, and their
frequent nights of late watching.
But to Ruth it was inexplicable. She had yawned, and loitered,
and looked off at the beautiful panel, and lost herself in
thoughts of home, until she fully expected the reprimand which at
any other time she would have been sure to receive, and now, to
her surprise, she was singled out as one of the most diligent!
Much as she longed for the delight of seeing the noble
shire-hall--the boast of the county--and of catching glimpses of
the dancers, and hearing the band; much as she longed for some
variety to the dull, monotonous life she was leading, she could
not feel happy to accept a privilege, granted, as she believed,
in ignorance of the real state of the case; so she startled her
companions by rising abruptly and going up to Mrs. Mason, who was
finishing a dress which ought to have been sent home two hours
before--
"If you please, Mrs. Mason, I was not one of the most diligent; I
am afraid--I believe--I was not diligent at all. I was very
tired; and I could not help thinking, and, when I think, I can't
attend to my work." She stopped, believing she had sufficiently
explained her meaning; but Mrs. Mason would not understand, and
did not wish for any further elucidation.
"Well, my dear, you must learn to think and work, too; or, if you
can't do both, you must leave off thinking. Your guardian, you
know, expects you to make great progress in your business, and I
am sure you won't disappoint him."
But that was not to the point. Ruth stood still an instant,
although Mrs. Mason resumed her employment in a manner which any
one but a "new girl" would have known to be intelligible enough,
that she did not wish for any more conversation just then.
"But as I was not diligent I ought not to go, ma'am. Miss Wood
was far more industrious than I, and many of the others."
"Tiresome girl!" muttered Mrs. Mason; "I've half a mind to keep
her at home for plaguing me so." But, looking up, she was struck
afresh with the remarkable beauty which Ruth possessed; such a
credit to the house, with her waving outline of figure, her
striking face, with dark eyebrows and dark lashes, combined with
auburn hair and a fair complexion. No I diligent or idle, Ruth
Hilton must appear to-night.
"Miss Hilton," said Mrs. Mason, with stiff dignity "I am not
accustomed (as these young ladies can tell you) to have my
decisions questioned. What I say, I mean; and I have my reasons.
So sit down, if you please, and take care and be ready by eight.
Not a word more," as she fancied she saw Ruth again about to
speak.
"Jenny, you ought to have gone, not me," said Ruth, in no low
voice to Miss Wood, as she sat down by her.
"Hush! Ruth. I could not go if I might, because of my cough. I
would rather give it up to you than any one if it were mine to
give. And suppose it is, then take the pleasure as my present,
and tell me every bit about it when you come home to-night."
"Well! I shall take it in that way, and not as if I'd earned it,
which I haven't. So thank you. You can't think how I shall enjoy
it now. I did work diligently for five minutes last night, after
I heard of it; I wanted to go so much. But I could not keep it
up. Oh, dear! and I shall really hear a band! and see the inside
of that beautiful shire-hall!"
CHAPTER II
BUTH GOES TO THE SHIRE-HALL
In due time that evening, Mrs. Mason collected her "young ladies"
for an inspection of their appearance before proceeding to the
shire-hall. Her eager, important, hurried manner of summoning
them was not unlike that of a hen clucking her chickens together;
and, to judge from the close investigation they had to undergo,
it might have been thought that their part in the evening's
performance was to be far more important than that of temporary
ladies'-maids.
"Is that your best frock, Miss Hilton?" asked Mrs. Mason, in a
half-dissatisfied tone, turning Ruth about; for it was only her
Sunday black silk, and was somewhat worn and shabby.
"Yes, ma'am," answered Ruth quietly.
"Oh! indeed. Then it will do" (still the half-satisfied tone).
"Dress, young ladies, you know, is a very secondary
consideration. Conduct is everything. Still, Miss Hilton, I think
you should write and ask your guardian to send you some money for
another gown. I am sorry I did not think of it before.
"I do not think he would send any if I wrote," answered Ruth, in
a low voice.
"He was angry when I wanted a shawl, when the cold weather set
in."
Mrs. Mason gave her a little push of dismissal, and Ruth fell
into the ranks by her friend, Miss Wood.
"Never mind, Ruthie; you're prettier than any of them," said a
merry, good-natured girl, whose plainness excluded her from any
of the envy of rivalry.
"Yes; I know I am pretty," said Ruth sadly; "but I am sorry I
have no better gown, for this is very shabby. I am ashamed of it
myself, and I can see Mrs. Mason is twice as much ashamed. I wish
I need not go. I did not know we should have to think about our
own dress at all, or I should not have wished to go."
"Never mind, Ruth," said Jenny, "you've been looked at now, and
Mrs. Mason will soon be too busy to think about you and your
gown."
"Did you hear Ruth Hilton say she knew she was pretty?" whispered
one girl to another, so loudly that Ruth caught the words.
"I could not help knowing," answered she simply, "for many people
have told me so."
At length these preliminaries were over, and they were walking
briskly through the frosty air; the free motion was so
inspiriting that Ruth almost danced along, and quite forgot all
about shabby gowns and grumbling guardians. The shire-hall was
even more striking than she had expected. The sides of the
staircase were painted with figures that showed ghostly in the
dim light, for only their faces looked out of the dark, dingy
canvas, with a strange fixed stare of expression.
The young milliners had to arrange their wares on tables in the
ante-room, and make all ready before they could venture to peep
into the hall-room, where the musicians were already tuning their
instruments, and where one or two charwomen (strange contrast,
with their dirty, loose attire, and their incessant chatter, to
the grand echoes of the vaulted room!) were completing the
dusting of benches and chairs.
They quitted the place as Ruth and her companions entered. They
had talked lightly and merrily in the ante-room, but now their
voices were hushed, awed by the old magnificence of the vast
apartment. It was so large that objects showed dim at the further
end, as through a mist. Full-length figures of county worthies
hung around, in all varieties of costume, from the days of
Holbein to the present time. The lofty roof was indistinct, for
the lamps were not fully lighted yet; while through the
richly-painted Gothic window at one end the moonbeams fell,
many-tinted, on the floor, and mocked with their vividness the
struggles of the artificial light to illuminate its little
sphere.
High above sounded the musicians, fitfully trying some strain of
which they were not certain. Then they stopped playing, and
talked, and their voices sounded goblin-like in their dark
recess, where candles were carried about in an uncertain wavering
manner, reminding Ruth of the flickering zig-zag motion of the
will-o'-the-wisp.
Suddenly the room sprang into the full blaze of light, and Ruth
felt less impressed with its appearance, and more willing to obey
Mrs. Mason's sharp summons to her wandering flock, than she had
been when it was dim and mysterious. They had presently enough to
do in rendering offices of assistance to the ladies who thronged
in, and whose voices drowned all the muffled sound of the band
Ruth had longed so much to hear. Still, if one pleasure was less,
another was greater than she had anticipated.
"On condition" of such a number of little observances that Ruth
thought Mrs. Mason would never have ended enumerating them, they
were allowed during the dances to stand at a side-door and watch.
And what a beautiful sight it was! Floating away to that bounding
music--now far away, like garlands of fairies, now near, and
showing as lovely women, with every ornament of graceful
dress--the elite of the county danced on, little caring whose
eyes gazed and were dazzled. Outside all was cold, and
colourless, and uniform,--one coating of snow over all. But
inside it was warm, and glowing, and vivid; flowers scented the
air, and wreathed the head, and rested on the bosom, as if it
were midsummer. Bright colours flashed on the eye and were gone,
and succeeded by others as lovely in the rapid movement of the
dance. Smiles dimpled every face, and low tones of happiness
murmured indistinctly through the room in every pause of the
music.
Ruth did not care to separate figures that formed a joyous and
brilliant whole; it was enough to gaze, and dream of the happy
smoothness of the lives in which such music, and such profusion
of flowers, of jewels, elegance of every description, and beauty
of all shapes and hues, were everyday things. She did not want to
know who the people were; although to hear a catalogue of names
seemed to be the great delight of most of her companions.
In fact, the enumeration rather disturbed her; and, to avoid the
shock of too rapid a descent into the commonplace world of Miss
Smiths and Mr. Thomsons, she returned to her post in the
ante-room. There she stood, thinking or dreaming. She was
startled back to actual life by a voice close to her. One of the
dancing young ladies had met with a misfortune. Her dress, of
some gossamer material, had been looped up by nosegays of
flowers, and one of these had fallen off in the dance, leaving
her gown to trail. To repair this, she had begged her partner to
bring her to the room where the assistants should have been. None
were there but Ruth.
"Shall I leave you?" asked the gentleman. "Is my absence
necessary?"
"Oh, no!" replied the lady; "a few stitches will set all to
rights. Besides, I dare not enter that room by myself." So far
she spoke sweetly and prettily. But now she addressed Ruth. "Make
haste--don't keep me an hour!" And her voice became cold and
authoritative.
She was very pretty, with long dark ringlets and sparkling black
eyes. These had struck Ruth in the hasty glance she had taken,
before she knelt down to her task. She also saw that the
gentleman was young and elegant.
"Oh, that lovely galop! how I long to dance to it! Will it never
be done? What a frightful time you are taking; and I'm dying to
return in time for this galop!" By way of showing a pretty,
childlike impatience, she began to beat time with her feet to the
spirited air the band was playing. Ruth could not darn the rent
in her dress with this continual motion, and she looked up to
remonstrate. As she threw her head back for this purpose, she
caught the eye of the gentleman who was standing by; it was so
expressive of amusement at the airs and graces of his pretty
partner, that Ruth was infected by the feeling, and had to bend
her face down to conceal the smile that mantled there. But not
before he had seen it; and not before his attention had been
thereby drawn to consider the kneeling figure, that, habited in
black up to the throat, with the noble head bent down to the
occupation in which she was engaged, formed such a contrast to
the flippant, bright, artificial girl, who sat to be served with
an air as haughty as a queen on her throne.
"Oh, Mr. Bellingham! I'm ashamed to detain you so long. I had no
idea any one could have spent So much time over a little tear No
wonder Mrs. Mason charges so much for dressmaking, if her
workwomen are so slow."
It was meant to be witty, but Mr. Bellingham looked grave. He saw
the scarlet colour of annoyance flush to that beautiful cheek,
which was partially presented to him. He took a candle from the
table, and held it so that Ruth had more light. She did not look
up to thank him, for she felt ashamed that he should have seen
the smile which she had caught from him.
"I am sorry I have been so long, ma'am," said she gently, as she
finished her work; "I was afraid it might tear out again if I did
not do it carefully." She rose.
"I would rather have had it torn than have missed that charming
galop," said the young lady, shaking out her dress as a bird
shakes its plumage. "Shall we go, Mr. Bellingham?" looking up at
him.
He was surprised that she gave no word or sign of thanks to the
assistant. He took up a camellia that some one had left on the
table.
"Allow me, Miss Duncombe, to give this, in your name, to this
young lady, as thanks for her dexterous help."
"Oh, of course," said she.
Ruth received the flower silently, but with a grave, modest
motion of her head. They had gone, and she was once more alone.
Presently her companions returned.
"What was the matter with Miss Duncombe? Did she come here?"
asked they.
"Only her lace dress was torn, and I mended it," answered Ruth
quickly.
"Did Mr. Bellingham come with her?--they say he's going to be
married to her. Did he come, Ruth?"
"Yes," said Ruth, and relapsed into silence.
Mr. Bellingham danced on gaily and merrily through the night, and
fitted with Miss Duncombe as he thought good. But he looked often
to the side-door where the milliner's apprentices stood; and once
he recognised the tall, slight figure, and the rich auburn hair
of the girl in black; and then his eye sought for the camellia.
It was there, snowy white in her bosom. And he danced on more
gaily than ever.
The cold grey dawn was drearily lighting up the streets when Mrs.
Mason and her company returned home. The lamps were extinguished,
yet the shutters of the shops and dwelling-houses were not
opened. All sounds had an echo unheard by day. One or two
houseless beggars sat on doorsteps, and shivering, slept with
heads bowed on their knees, or resting against the cold hard
support afforded by the wall.
Ruth felt as if a dream had melted away, and she were once more
in the actual world. How long it would be, even in the most
favourable chance, before she should again enter the shire-hall,
or hear a band of music, or even see again those bright, happy
people--as much without any semblance of care or woe as if they
belonged to another race of beings! Had they ever to deny
themselves a wish, much less a want? Literally and figuratively
their lives seemed to wander through flowery pleasure-paths. Here
was cold, biting, mid-winter for her, and such as her--for those
poor beggars almost a season of death; but to Miss Duncombe and
her companions, a happy, merry time--when flowers still bloomed,
and fires crackled, and comforts and luxuries were piled around
them like fairy gifts. What did they know of the meaning of the
word, so terrific to the poor? What was winter to them? But Ruth
fancied that Mr. Bellingham looked as if he could understand the
feelings of those removed from him by circumstance and station.
He had drawn up the windows of his carriage, it is true, with a
shudder.
Ruth, then, had been watching him.
Yet she had no idea that any association made her camellia
precious to her. She believed it was solely on account of its
exquisite beauty that she tended it so carefully. She told Jenny
every particular of its presentation, with open, straight-looking
eye, and without the deepening of a shade of colour.
"Was it not kind of him? You can't think how nicely he did it,
just when I was a little bit mortified by her ungracious ways."
"It was very nice, indeed," replied Jenny. "Such a beautiful
flower! I wish it had some scent."
"I wish it to be exactly as it is--it is perfect. So pure!" said
Ruth, almost clasping her treasure as she placed it in water.
"Who is Mr. Bellingham?"
"He is son to that Mrs. Bellingham of the Priory, for whom we
made the grey satin pelisse," answered Jenny sleepily.
"That was before my time," said Ruth. But there was no answer.
Jenny was asleep.
It was long before Ruth followed her example. Even on a winter
day, it was clear morning light that fell upon her face as she
smiled in her slumber. Jenny would not waken her, but watched her
face with admiration; it was So lovely in its happiness.
"She is dreaming of last night," thought Jenny.
It was true she was; but one figure flitted more than all the
rest through her visions. He presented flower after flower to her
in that baseless morning dream, which was all too quickly ended.
The night before she had seen her dead mother in her sleep, and
she wakened weeping. And now she dreamed of Mr. Bellingham, and
smiled.
And yet, was this a more evil dream than the other?
The realities of life seemed to cut more sharply against her
heart than usual that morning. The late hours of the preceding
nights, and perhaps the excitement of the evening before, had
indisposed her to bear calmly the rubs and crosses which beset
all Mrs. Mason's young ladies at times.
For Mrs. Mason, though the first dressmaker in the county, was
human after all; and suffered, like her apprentices, from the
same causes that affected them. This morning she was disposed to
find fault with everything, and everybody. She seemed to have
risen with the determination of putting the world and all that it
contained (her world, at least) to rights before night; and
abuses and negligences, which had long passed unreproved, or
winked at, were to-day to be dragged to light, and sharply
reprimanded. Nothing less than perfection would satisfy Mrs.
Mason at such times.
She had her ideas of justice, too; but they were not divinely
beautiful and true ideas; they were something more resembling a
grocer's or tea-dealer's ideas of equal right. A little
over-indulgence last night was to be balanced by a good deal of
over-severity to-day; and this manner of rectifying previous
errors fully satisfied her conscience.
Ruth was not inclined for, or capable of, much extra exertion;
and it would have tasked all her powers to have pleased her
superior. The work-room seemed filled with sharp calls. "Miss
Hilton! where have you put the blue Persian? Whenever things are
mislaid, I know it has been Miss Hilton's evening for siding
away!"
"Miss Hilton was going out last night, so I offered to ear the
work-room for her. I will find it directly, ma'am," answered one
of the girls.
"Oh, I am well aware of Miss Hilton's custom of shuffling off her
duties upon any one who can be induced to relieve her," replied
Mrs. Mason.
Ruth reddened, and tears sprang to her eyes; but she was so
conscious of the falsity of the accusation, that she rebuked
herself for being moved by it, and, raising her head, gave a
proud look round, as if in appeal to her companions.
"Where is the skirt of Lady Farnham's dress? The flounces not put
on! I am surprised! May I ask to whom this work was entrusted
yesterday?" inquired Mrs. Mason, fixing her eyes on Ruth.
"I was to have done it, but I made a mistake, and had to undo it.
I am very sorry."
"I might have guessed, certainly. There is little difficulty, to
be sure, in discovering, when work has been neglected or spoilt,
into whose hands it has fallen."
Such were the speeches which fell to Ruth's share on this day of
all days, when she was least fitted to bear them with equanimity.
In the afternoon it was necessary for Mrs Mason to go a few miles
into the country. She left injunctions, and orders, and
directions, and prohibitions without end; but at last she was
gone, and, in the relief of her absence, Ruth laid her arms on
the table, and, burying her head, began to cry aloud, with weak,
unchecked sobs.
"Don't cry, Miss Hilton,"--"Ruthie, never mind the old
dragon,"--"How will you bear on for five years, if you don't
spirit yourself up not to care a straw for what she says?"--were
some of the modes of comfort and sympathy administered by the
young workwomen.
Jenny, with a wiser insight into the grievance and its remedy,
said--
"Suppose Ruth goes. out instead of you, Fanny Barton, to do the
errands. The fresh air will do her good; and you know you dislike
the cold east winds, while Ruth says she enjoys frost and snow,
and all kinds of shivery weather."
Fanny Barton was a great sleepy-looking girl, huddling over the
fire. No one so willing as she to relinquish the walk on this
bleak afternoon, when the east wind blew keenly down the street,
drying up the very snow itself. There was no temptation to come
abroad, for those who were not absolutely obliged to leave their
warm rooms; indeed, the dusk hour showed that it was the usual
tea-time for the humble inhabitants of that part of the town
through which Ruth had to pass on her shopping expedition. As she
came to the high ground just above the river, where the street
sloped rapidly down to the bridge, she saw the fiat country
beyond all covered with snow, making the black dome of the
cloud-laden sky appear yet blacker; as if the winter's night had
never fairly gone away, but had hovered on the edge of the world
all through the short bleak day. Down by the bridge (where there
was a little shelving bank, used as a landing-place for any
pleasure-boats that could float on that shallow stream) some
children were playing, and defying the cold; one of them had got
a large washing-tub, and with the use of a broken oar kept
steering and pushing himself hither and thither in the little
creek, much to the admiration of his companions, who stood
gravely looking on, immovable in their attentive observation of
the hero, although their faces were blue with cold, and their
hands crammed deep into their pockets with some faint hope of
finding warmth there. Perhaps they feared that, if they unpacked
themselves from their lumpy attitudes and began to move about,
the cruel wind would find its way into every cranny of their
tattered dress. They were all huddled up, and still; with eyes
intent on the embryo sailor. At last, one little man, envious of
the reputation that his playfellow was acquiring by his daring,
called out--
"I'll set thee a craddy, Tom! Thou dar'n't go over yon black line
in the water, out into the real river."
Of course the challenge was not to be refused; and Tom paddled
away towards the dark line, beyond which the river swept with
smooth, steady current. Ruth (a child in years herself) stood at
the top of the declivity watching the adventurer, but as
unconscious of any danger as the group of children below. At
their playfellow's success, they broke through the calm gravity
of observation into boisterous marks of applause, clapping their
hands, and stamping their impatient little feet, and shouting,
"Well done, Tom; thou hast done it rarely!"
Tom stood in childish dignity for a moment, facing his admirers;
then, in an instant, his washing-tub boat was whirled round, and
he lost his balance, and fell out; and both he and his beat were
carried away slowly, but surely, by the strong full river which
eternally moved onwards to the sea.
The children shrieked aloud with terror; and Ruth flew down to
the little bay, and far into its shallow waters, before she felt
how useless such an action was, and that the sensible plan would
have been to seek for efficient help. Hardly had this thought
struck her, when, louder and sharper than the sullen roar of the
stream that was ceaselessly and unrelentingly flowing on, came
the splash of a horse galloping through the water in which she
was standing. Past her like lightning--down in the stream,
swimming along with the current--a stooping rider--an
outstretched grasping arm--a little life redeemed, and a child
saved to those who loved it! Ruth stood dizzy and sick with
emotion while all this took place; and when the rider turned the
swimming horse, and slowly breasted up the river to the
landing-place, she recognised him as the Mr. Bellingham of the
night before. He carried the unconscious child across his horse,
the body hung in so lifeless a manner that Ruth believed it was
dead; and her eyes were suddenly blinded with tears. She waded
back to the beach, to the point towards which Mr. Bellingham was
directing his horse.
"Is he dead?" asked she, stretching out her arms to receive the
little fellow; for she instinctively felt that the position in
which he hung was not the most conducive to returning
consciousness, if indeed it would ever return.
"I think not," answered Mr. Bellingham, as he gave the child to
her, before springing off his horse. "Is he your brother? Do you
know who he is?"
"Look!" said Ruth, who had sat down upon the ground, the better
to prop the poor lad, "his hand twitches! he lives; oh, sir, he
lives! Whose boy is he?" (to the people, who came hurrying and
gathering to the spot at the rumour of an accident).
"He's old Nelly Brownson's," said they. "Her grandson."
"We must take him into a house directly," said she. "Is his home
far off?"
"No, no; it's just close by."
"One of you go for a doctor at once," said Mr. Bellingham
authoritatively, "and bring him to the old woman's without delay.
You must not hold him any longer," he continued, speaking to
Ruth, and remembering her face now for the first time; "your
dress is dripping wet already. Here! you fellow, take him up,
d'ye see!" But the child's hand had nervously clenched Ruth's
dress, and she would not have him disturbed. She carried her
heavy burden very tenderly towards a mean little cottage
indicated by the neighhours; an old crippled woman was coming out
of the door, shaking all over with agitation.
"Dear heart!" said she, "he's the last of 'em all, and he's gone
afore me."
"Nonsense," said Mr. Bellingham, "the boy is alive, and likely to
live."
But the old woman was helpless and hopeless, and insisted on
believing that her grandson was dead; and dead he would have been
if it had not been for Ruth, and one or two of the more sensible
neighbours, who, under Mr. Bellingham's directions, bustled
about, and did all that was necessary until animation was
restored.
"What a confounded time those people are in fetching the doctor!"
said Mr. Bellingham to Ruth, between whom and himself a sort of
silent understanding had sprung up from the circumstance of their
having been the only two (besides mere children) who had
witnessed the accident, and also the only two to whom a certain
degree of cultivation had given the power of understanding each
other's thoughts and even each other's words.
"It takes so much to knock an idea into such stupid people's
heads. They stood gaping and asking which doctor they were to go
for, as if it signified whether it was Brown or Smith, so long as
he had his wits about him. I have no more time to waste here,
either; I was on the gallop when I caught sight of the lad; and,
now he has fairly sobbed and opened his eyes, I see no use in my
staying in this stifling atmosphere. May I trouble you with one
thing? Will you be so good as to see that the little fellow has
all that he wants? If you'll allow me, I'll leave you my purse,"
continued he, giving it to Ruth, who was only too glad to have
this power entrusted to her of procuring one or two requisites
which she had perceived to be wanted. But she saw some gold
between the network; she did not like the charge of such riches.
"I shall not want so much, really, sir. One sovereign will be
plenty--more than enough. May I take that out, and I will give
you back what is left of it when I see you again? or, perhaps, I
had better send it to you, sir.
"I think you had better keep it all at present. Oh, what a horrid
dirty place this is insufferable two minutes longer. You must not
stay here; you'll be poisoned with this abominable air. Come
towards the door, I beg. Well, if you think one sovereign will he
enough, I will take my purse; only, remember you apply to me if
you think they want more."
They were standing at the door, where some one was holding Mr.
Bellingham's horse. Ruth was looking at him with her earnest eyes
(Mrs. Mason and her errands quite forgotten in the interest of
the afternoon's event), her whole thoughts bent upon rightly
understanding and following out his wishes for the little boy's
welfare; and until now this had been the first object in his own
mind. But at this moment the strong perception of Ruth's
exceeding beauty came again upon him. He almost lost the sense of
what he was saying, he was so startled with admiration. The night
before, he had not seen her eyes; and now they looked straight
and innocently full at him, grave, earnest, and deep. But when
she instinctively read the change in the expression of his
countenance, she dropped her large white veiling lids; and he
thought her face was lovelier still. The irresistible impulse
seized him to arrange matters, so that he might see her again
before long.
"No!" said he. "I see it would he better that you should keep the
purse. Many things may be wanted for the lad which we cannot
calculate upon now. If I remember rightly, there are three
sovereigns and some loose change; I shall, perhaps, see you again
in a few days, when, if there he any money left in the purse, you
can restore it to me."
"Oh, yes, sir," said Ruth, alive to the magnitude of the wants to
which she might have to administer, and yet rather afraid of the
responsibility implied in the possession of so much money.
"Is there any chance of my meeting you again in this house?"
asked he.
"I hope to come whenever I can, sir; but I must run in
errand-times, and I don't know when my turn may be."
"Oh"--he did not fully understand this answer--"I should like to
know how you think the boy is going on, if it is not giving you
too much trouble; do you ever take walks?"
"Not for walking's sake, sir."
"Well," said he, "you go to church, I suppose? Mrs. Mason does
not keep you at work on Sundays; I trust?"
"Oh, no, sir. I go to church regularly."
"Then, perhaps, you will be so good as to tell me what church you
go to, and I will meet you there next Sunday afternoon?"
"I go to St. Nicholas', sir. I will take care and bring you word
how the boy is, and what doctor they get; and I will keep an
account of the money I spend."
"Very well, thank you. Remember, I trust to you."
He meant that he relied on her promise to meet him; but Ruth
thought that he was referring to the responsibility of doing the
best she could for the child. He was going away, when a fresh
thought struck him, and he turned back into the cottage once
more, and addressed Ruth, with a half smile on his
countenance----
"It seems rather strange, but we have no one to introduce us; my
name is Bellingham--yours is"--
"Ruth Hilton, sir," she answered, in a low voice, for, now that
the conversation no longer related to the boy, she felt shy and
restrained.
He held out his hand to shake hers; and, just as she gave it to
him, the old grandmother came tottering up to ask some question.
The interruption jarred upon him, and made him once more keenly
alive to the closeness of the air, and the squalor and dirt by
which he was surrounded.
"My good woman," said he to Nelly Brownson, "could you not keep
your place a little neater and cleaner? It is more fit for pigs
than human beings. The air in this room is quite offensive, and
the dirt and filth is really disgraceful." By this time he was
mounted, and, bowing to Ruth, he rode away.
Then the old woman's wrath broke out.
"Who may you be, that knows no better manners than to come into a
poor woman's house to abuse it?--fit for pigs, indeed! What d'ye
call yon fellow?"
"He is Mr. Bellingham," said Ruth, shocked at the old woman's
apparent ingratitude. "It was he that rode into the water to save
your grandson. He would have been drowned but for Mr. Bellingham.
I thought once they would both have been swept away by the
current, it was so strong."
"The river is none so deep, either," the old woman said, anxious
to diminish as much as possible the obligation she was under to
one who had offended her. "Some one else would have saved him, if
this fine young spark had never been here. He's an orphan, and
God watches over orphans, they say. I'd rather it had been any
one else as had picked him out, than one who comes into a poor
body's house only to abuse it."
"He did not come in only to abuse it," said Ruth gently. "He came
with little Tom; he only said it was not quite so clean as it
might be."
"What! you're taking up the cry, are you? Wait till you are an
old woman like me, crippled with rheumatiz, and a lad to see
after like Tom, who is always in mud when he isn't in water; and
his food and mine to scrape together (God knows we're often
short, and do the best I can), and water to fetch up that steep
brow."
She stopped to cough; and Ruth judiciously changed the subject,
and began to consult the old woman as to the wants of her
grandson, in which consultation they were soon assisted by the
medical man.
When Ruth had made one or two arrangements with a neighbour whom
she asked to procure the most necessary things, and had heard
from the doctor that all would be right in a day or two, she
began to quake at the recollection of the length of time she had
spent at Nelly Brownson's, and to remember, with some affright,
the strict watch kept by Mrs. Mason over her apprentices'
out-goings and in-comings on working-days. She hurried off to the
shops, and tried to recall her wandering thoughts to the
respective merits of pink and blue as a match to lilac, found she
had lost her patterns, and went home with ill-chosen things, and
in a fit of despair at her own stupidity.
The truth was, that the afternoon's adventure filled her mind;
only the figure of Tom (who was now safe and likely to do well)
was receding into the background, and that of Mr. Bellingham
becoming more prominent than it had been. His spirited and
natural action of galloping into the water to save the child, was
magnified by Ruth into the most heroic deed of daring; his
interest about the boy was tender, thoughtful benevolence in her
eyes, and his careless liberality of money was fine generosity;
for she forgot that generosity implies some degree of
self-denial. She was gratified, too, by the power of dispensing
comfort he had entrusted to her, and was busy with Alnaschar
visions of wise expenditure, when the necessity of opening Mrs.
Mason's house-door summoned her back into actual present life,
and the dread of an immediate scolding.
For this time, however, she was spared; but spared for such a
reason that she would have been thankful for some blame in
preference to her impunity. During her absence, Jenny's
difficulty of breathing had suddenly become worse, and the girls
had, on their own responsibility, put her to bed, and were
standing round her in dismay, when Mrs. Mason's return home (only
a few minutes before Ruth arrived) fluttered them back into the
workroom.
And now all was confusion and hurry; a doctor to be sent for; a
mind to be unburdened of directions for a dress to a forewoman,
who was too ill to understand; scoldings to be scattered with no
illiberal hand amongst a group of frightened girls, hardly
sparing the poor invalid herself for her inopportune illness. In
the middle of all this turmoil Ruth crept quietly to her place,
with a heavy saddened heart at the indisposition of the gentle
forewoman. She would gladly have nursed Jenny herself, and often
longed to do it, but she could not be spared. Hands, unskilful in
fine and delicate work, would be well enough qualified to tend
the sick, until the mother arrived from home. Meanwhile, extra
diligence was required in the workroom; and Ruth found no
opportunity of going to see little Tom, or to fulfil the plans
for making him and his grandmother more comfortable, which she
had proposed to herself. She regretted her rash promise to Mr.
Bellingham, of attending to the little boy's welfare; all that
she could do was done by means of Mrs. Mason's servant, through
whom she made inquiries, and sent the necessary help.
The subject of Jenny's illness was the prominent one in the
house. Ruth told of her own adventure, to be sure; but, when she
was at the very crisis of the boy's fall into the river, the more
fresh and vivid interest of some tidings of Jenny was brought
into the room, and Ruth ceased, almost blaming herself for caring
for anything besides the question of life or death to be decided
in that very house.
Then a pale, gentle-looking woman was seen moving softly about;
and it was whispered that this was the mother come to nurse her
child. Everybody liked her, she was so sweet-looking, and gave so
little trouble, and seemed so patient, and so thankful, for any
inquiries about her daughter, whose illness it was understood,
although its severity was mitigated, was likely to be long and
tedious. While all the feelings and thoughts relating to Jenny
were predominant, Sunday arrived. Mrs. Mason went the accustomed
visit to her father's, making some little show of apology to Mrs.
Wood for leaving her and her daughter; the apprentices dispersed
to the various friends with whom they were in the habit of
spending the day; and Ruth went to St. Nicholas', with a
sorrowful heart, depressed on account of Jenny, and
self-reproachful at having rashly undertaken what she had been
unable to perform.
As she came out of church she was joined by Mr. Bellingham. She
had half hoped that he might have forgotten the arrangement, and
yet she wished to relieve herself of her responsibility. She knew
his step behind her, and the contending feelings made her heart
beat hard, and she longed to run away.
"Miss Hilton, I believe," said he, overtaking her, and bowing
forward, so as to catch a sight of her rose-red face. "How is our
little sailor going on? Well, I trust, from the symptoms the
other day."
"I believe, sir, he is quite well now. I am very sorry, but I
have not been able to go and see him. I am so sorry--I could not
help it. But I have got one or two things through another person.
I have put them down on this slip of paper; and here is your
purse, sir, for I am afraid I can do nothing more for him. We
have illness in the house, and it makes us very busy."
Ruth had been so much accustomed to blame of late, that she
almost anticipated some remonstrance or reproach now, for not
having fulfilled her promise better. She little guessed that Mr.
Bellingham was far more busy trying to devise some excuse for
meeting her again, during the silence that succeeded her speech,
than displeased with her for not bringing a more particular
account of the little boy, in whom he had ceased to feel any
interest.
She repeated, after a minute's pause--
"I am very sorry I have done so little, sir."
"Oh, yes, I am sure you have done all you could. It was
thoughtless in me to add to your engagements."
"He is displeased with me," thought Ruth, "for what he believes
to have been neglect of the boy, whose life he risked his own to
save. If I told all, he would see that I could not do more; but I
cannot tell him all the sorrows and worries that have taken up my
time."
"And yet I am tempted to give you another little commission, if
it is not taking up too much of your time, and presuming too much
on your good nature," said he, a bright idea having just struck
him. "Mrs. Mason lives in Heneage Place, does not she? My
mother's ancestors lived there; and once, when the house was
being repaired, she took me in to show me the old place. There
was an old hunting-piece painted on a panel over one of the
chimney-pieces; the figures were portraits of my ancestors. I
have often thought I should like to purchase it, if it still
remained there. Can you ascertain this for me, and bring me word
next Sunday?"
"Oh, yes, sir," said Ruth, glad that this commission was
completely within her power to execute, and anxious to make up
for her previous seeming neglect. "I'll look directly I get home,
and ask Mrs. Mason to write and let you know."
"Thank you," said he, only half satisfied; "I think, perhaps,
however, it might be as well not to trouble Mrs. Mason about it
you see it would compromise me, and I am not quite determined to
purchase the picture; if you would ascertain whether the painting
is there, and tell me, I would take a little time to reflect, and
afterwards I could apply to Mrs. Mason myself."
"Very well, sir; I will see about it." So they parted.
Before the next Sunday Mrs. Wood had taken her daughter to her
distant home, to recruit in that quiet place. Ruth watched her
down the street from an upper window, and, sighing deep and long,
returned to the workroom, whence the warning voice and gentle
wisdom had departed.
CHAPTER III
SUNDAY AT MRS. MASON'S
Mr. Bellingham attended afternoon service at St. Nicholas' church
the next Sunday. His thoughts had been far more occupied by Ruth
than hers by him, although his appearance upon the scene of her
life was more an event to her than it was to him. He was puzzled
by the impression she had produced on him, though he did not in
general analyse the nature of his feelings, but simply enjoyed
them with the delight which youth takes in experiencing new and
strong emotion. He was old compared to Ruth, but young as a man;
hardly three-and-twenty. The fact of his being an only child had
given him, as it does to many, a sort of inequality in those
parts of the character which are usually formed by the number of
years that a person has lived.
The unevenness of discipline to which only children are
subjected; the thwarting, resulting from over-anxiety; the
indiscreet indulgence, arising from a love centred all in one
object--had been exaggerated in his education, probably from the
circumstance that his mother (his only surviving parent) had been
similarly situated to himself.
He was already in possession of the comparatively small property
he inherited from his father. The estate on which his mother
lived was her own; and her income gave her the means of indulging
or controlling him, after he had grown to man's estate, as her
wayward disposition and her love of power prompted her. Had he
been double-dealing in his conduct towards her, had he
condescended to humour her in the least, her passionate love for
him would have induced her to strip herself of all her
possessions to add to his dignity or happiness. But although he
felt the warmest affection for her, the regardlessness which she
had taught him (by example, perhaps, more than by precept) of the
feelings of others, was continually prompting him to do things
that she, for the time being, resented as mortal affronts. He
would mimic the clergyman she specially esteemed, even to his
very face; he would refuse to visit her schools for months and
months; and, when wearied into going at last, revenge himself by
puzzling the children with the most ridiculous questions (gravely
put) that he could imagine.
All these boyish tricks annoyed and irritated her far more than
the accounts which reached her of more serious misdoings at
college and in town. Of these grave offences she never spoke; of
the smaller misdeeds she hardly ever ceased speaking.
Still, at times, she had great influence over him, and nothing
delighted her more than to exercise it. The submission of his
will to hers was sure to be liberally rewarded; for it gave her
great happiness to extort, from his indifference or his
affection, the concessions which she never sought by force of
reason, or by appeals to principle--concessions which he
frequently withheld, solely for the sake of asserting his
independence of her control.
She was anxious for him to marry Miss Duncombe. He cared little
or nothing about it--it was time enough to be married ten years
hence; and so he was dawdling through some months of his
life--sometimes flirting with the nothing-loth Miss Duncombe,
sometimes plaguing, and sometimes delighting his mother, at all
times taking care to please himself--when he first saw Ruth
Hilton, and a new, passionate, hearty feeling shot through his
whole being. He did not know why he was so fascinated by her. She
was very beautiful, but he had seen many more ~agaceries~
calculated to set off the effect of their charms.
There was, perhaps, something bewitching in the union of the
grace and loveliness of womanhood with the naivete, simplicity,
and innocence of an intelligent child. There was a spell in the
shyness, which made her avoid and shun all admiring approaches to
acquaintance. It would be an exquisite delight to attract and
tame her wildness, just as he had often allured and tamed the
timid fawns in his mother's park.
By no over-bold admiration, or rash, passionate word, would he
startle her; and, surely, in time she might be induced to look
upon him as a friend, if not something nearer and dearer still.
In accordance with this determination, he resisted the strong
temptation of walking by her side the whole distance home after
church. He only received the intelligence she brought
respecting the panel with thanks, spoke a few words about the
weather, bowed, and was gone. Ruth believed she should never see
him again; and, in spite of sundry self-upbraidings for her
folly, she could not help feeling as if a shadow were drawn over
her existence for several days to come.
Mrs. Mason was a widow, and had to struggle for th. sake of the
six or seven children left dependent on her exertions; thus there
was some reason, and great excuse, for the pinching economy which
regulated her household affairs. On Sundays she chose to conclude
that all her apprentices had friends who would be glad to see
them to dinner, and give them a welcome reception for the
remainder of the day; while she, and those of her children who
were not at school, went to spend the day at her father's house,
several miles out of the town. Accordingly, no dinner was cooked
on Sundays for the young workwomen; no fires were lighted in any
rooms to which they had access. On this morning they breakfasted
in Mrs. Mason's own parlour, after which the room was closed
against them through the day by some understood, though unspoken
prohibition.
What became of such as Ruth, who had no home and no friends in
that large, populous, desolate town? She had hitherto
commissioned the servant, who went to market on Saturdays for the
family, to buy her a bun or biscuit, whereon she made her fasting
dinner in the deserted workroom, sitting in her walking-dress to
keep off the cold, which clung to her in spite of shawl and
bonnet. Then she would sit at the window, looking out on the
dreary prospect till her eyes were often blinded by tears; and,
partly to shake off thoughts and recollections, the indulgence in
which she felt to be productive of no good, and partly to have
some ideas to dwell upon during the coming week beyond those
suggested by the constant view of the same room she would carry
her Bible, and place herself upon the window-seat on the wide
landing, which commanded the street in front of the house. From
thence she could see the irregular grandeur of the place; she
caught a view of the grey church-tower, rising hoary and massive
into mid-air; she saw one or two figures loiter along on the
sunny side of the street, in all the enjoyment of their fine
clothes and Sunday leisure; and she imagined histories for them,
and tried to picture to herself their homes and their daily
doings.
And, before long, the bells swung heavily in the church-tower,
and struck out with musical clang the first summons to afternoon
church.
After church was over, she used to return home to the same
window-seat, and watch till the winter twilight was over and
gone, and the stars came out over the black masses of houses. And
then she would steal down to ask for a candle, as a companion to
her in the deserted workroom. Occasionally the servant would
bring her up some tea; but of late Ruth had declined taking any,
as she had discovered she was robbing the kind-hearted creature
of part of the small provision left out for her by Mrs. Mason.
She sat on, hungry and cold, trying to read her Bible, and to
think the old holy thoughts which had been her childish
meditations at her mother's knee, until one after another the
apprentices returned, weary with their day's enjoyment and their
week's late watching; too weary to make her in any way a partaker
of their pleasure by entering into details of the manner in which
they had spent their day.
And, last of all, Mrs. Mason returned; and, summoning her "young
people" once more into the parlour, she read a prayer before
dismissing them to bed. She always expected to find them all in
the house when she came home, but asked no questions as to their
proceedings through the day; perhaps because she dreaded to hear
that one or two had occasionally nowhere to go to, and that it
would be sometimes necessary to order a Sunday's dinner, and
leave a lighted fire on that day.
For five months Ruth had been an inmate at Mrs. Mason's; and such
had been the regular order of the Sundays. While the forewoman
stayed there, it is true, she was ever ready to give Ruth the
little variety of hearing of recreations in which she was no
partaker; and, however tired Jenny might be at night, she had
ever some sympathy to bestow on Ruth for the dull length of day
she had passed. After her departure, the monotonous idleness of
the Sunday seemed worse to bear than the incessant labour of the
work-days; until the time came when it seemed to be a recognised
hope in her mind, that on Sunday afternoons she should see Mr.
Bellingham, and hear a few words from him as from a friend who
took an interest in her thoughts and proceedings during the past
week.
Ruth's mother had been the daughter of a poor curate in Norfolk,
and, early left without parents or home, she was thankful to
marry a respectable farmer a good deal older than herself. After
their marriage, however, everything seemed to go wrong. Mrs.
Hilton fell into a delicate state of health, and was unable to
bestow the ever-watchful attention to domestic affairs so
requisite in a farmer's wife. Her husband had a series of
misfortunes--of a more important kind than the death of a whole
brood of turkeys from getting among the nettles, or the year of
bad cheeses spoilt by a careless dairymaid--which were the
consequences (so the neighbours said) of Mr. Hilton's mistake in
marrying a delicate fine lady. His crops failed; his horses died;
his barn took fire: in short, if he had been in any way a
remarkable character, one might have supposed him to be the
object of an avenging fate, so successive were the evils which
pursued him; but, as he was only a somewhat commonplace farmer, I
believe we must attribute his calamities to some want in his
character of the one quality required to act as keystone to many
excellences. While his wife lived, all worldly misfortunes seemed
as nothing to him; her strong sense and lively faculty of hope
upheld him from despair; her sympathy was always ready, and the
invalid's room had an atmosphere of peace and encouragement which
affected all who entered it. But when Ruth was about twelve, one
morning in the busy hay-time, Mrs. Hilton was left alone for some
hours. This had often happened before, nor had she seemed weaker
than usual when they had gone forth to the field; but on their
return, with merry voices, to fetch the dinner prepared for the
haymakers, they found an unusual silence brooding over the house;
no low voice called out gently to welcome them, and ask after the
day's progress; and, on entering the little parlour, which was
called Mrs. Hilton's, and was sacred to her, they found her lying
dead on her accustomed sofa. Quite calm and peaceful she lay;
there had been no struggle at last; the struggle was for the
survivors, and one sank under it. Her husband did not make much
ado at first--at least, not in outward show; her memory seemed to
keep in check all external violence of grief; but, day by day,
dating from his wife's death, his mental powers decreased. He was
still a hale-looking elderly man, and his bodily health appeared
as good as ever; but he sat for hours in his easy-chair, looking
into the fire, not moving, nor speaking, unless when it was
absolutely necessary to answer repeated questions. If Ruth, with
coaxings and draggings, induced him to come out with her, he went
with measured steps around his fields, his head bent to the
ground with the same abstracted, unseeing look; never
smiling--never changing the expression of his face, not even to
one of deeper sadness, when anything occurred which might be
supposed to remind him of his dead wife. But, in this abstraction
from all outward things, his worldly affairs went ever lower
down. He paid money away, or received it, as if it had been so'
much water; the gold mines of Potosi could not have touched the
deep grief of his soul; but God in in His mercy knew the sure
balm, and sent the Beautiful Messenger to take the weary one
home.
After his death, the creditors were the chief people who appeared
to take any interest in the affairs; and it seemed strange to
Ruth to see people, whom she scarcely knew, examining and
touching all that she had been accustomed to consider as precious
and sacred. Her father had made his will at her birth. With the
pride of newly and late-acquired paternity, he had considered the
office of guardian to his little darling as one which would have
been an additional honour to the lord-lieutenant of the county;
but as he had not the pleasure of his lordship's acquaintance, he
selected the person of most consequence amongst those whom he did
know; not any very ambitious appointment in those days of
comparative prosperity; but certainly the flourishing maltster of
Skelton was a little surprised, when, fifteen years later, he
learnt that he was executor to a will bequeathing many vanished
hundreds of pounds, and guardian to a young girl whom he could
not remember ever to have seen.
He was a sensible, hard-headed man of the world; having a very
fair proportion of conscience as consciences go; indeed, perhaps
more than many people; for he had some ideas of duty extending to
the circle beyond his own family, and did not, as some would have
done, decline acting altogether, but speedily summoned the
creditors, examined into the accounts, sold up the farming-stock,
and discharged all the debts; paid about L 80 into the Skelton
bank for a week, while he inquired for a situation or
apprenticeship of some kind for poor heart-broken Ruth; heard of
Mrs. Mason's; arranged all with her in two short conversations;
drove over for Ruth in his gig; waited while she and the old
servant packed up her clothes; and grew very impatient while she
ran, with her eyes streaming with tears, round the garden,
tearing off in a passion of love whole boughs of favourite China
and damask roses, late flowering against the casement-window of
what had been her mother's room. When she took her seat in the
gig, she was little able, even if she had been inclined, to
profit by her guardian's lectures on economy and self-reliance;
but she was quiet and silent, looking forward with longing to the
night-time, when, in her bedroom, she might give way to all her
passionate sorrow at being wrenched from the home where she had
lived with her parents, in that utter absence of any anticipation
of change, which is either the blessing or the curse of
childhood. But at night there were four other girls in her room,
and she could not cry before them. She watched and waited till,
one by one, they dropped off to sleep, and then she buried her
face in the pillow, and shook with sobbing grief; and then she
paused to conjure up, with fond luxuriance, every recollection of
the happy days, so little valued in their uneventful peace while
they lasted, so passionately regretted when once gone for ever;
to remember every look and word of the dear mother, and to moan
afresh over the change caused by her death--the first clouding in
of Ruth's day of life. It was Jenny's sympathy on this first
night, when awakened by Ruth's irrepressible agony, that had made
the bond between them. But Ruth's loving disposition, continually
sending forth fibres in search of nutriment, found no other
object for regard among those of her daily life to compensate for
the want of natural ties.
But, almost insensibly, Jenny's place in Ruth's heart was filled
up; there was some one who listened with tender interest to all
her little revelations; who questioned her about her early days
of happiness, and, in return, spoke of his own childhood--not so
golden in reality as Ruth's, but more dazzling, when recounted
with stories of the beautiful cream-coloured Arabian pony, and
the old picture-gallery in the house, and avenues, and terraces,
and fountains in the garden, for Ruth to paint, with all the
vividness of imagination, as scenery and background for the
figure which was growing by slow degrees most prominent in her
thoughts.
It must not be supposed that this was affected all at once,
though the intermediate stages have been passed over. On Sunday,
Mr. Bellingham only spoke to her to receive the information about
the panel; nor did he come to St. Nicholas' the next, nor yet the
following Sunday. But the third he walked by her side a little
way, and, seeing her annoyance, he left her; and then she wished
for him back again, and found the day very dreary, and wondered
why a strange, undefined feeling, had made her imagine she was
doing wrong in walking alongside of one so kind and good as Mr.
Bellingham; it had been very foolish of her to be self-conscious
all the time, and if ever he spoke to her again she would not
think of what people might say, but enjoy the pleasure which his
kind words and evident interest in her might give. Then she
thought it was very likely he never would notice her again, for
she knew she had been very rude with her short answers; it was
very provoking that she had behaved so rudely. She sould be
sixteen in another month, and she was still childish and awkward.
Thus she lectured herself, after parting with Mr. Bellingham; and
the consequence was, that on the following Sunday she was ten
times as blushing and conscious, and (Mr. Bellingham thought) ten
times more beautiful than ever. He suggested that, instead of
going straight home through High Street, she should take the
round by the Leasowes; at first she declined, but then, suddenly
wondering and questioning herself why she refused a thing which
was, as far as reason and knowledge (her knowledge) went, so
innocent, and which was certainly so tempting and pleasant, she
agreed to go the round; and, when she was once in the meadows
that skirted the town, she forgot all doubt and awkwardness--nay,
almost forgot the presence of Mr. Bellingham--in her delight at
the new, tender beauty of an early spring day in February. Among
the last year's brown ruins, heaped together by the wind in the
hedgerows, she found the fresh, green, crinkled leaves and pale
star-like flowers of the primroses. Here and there a golden
celandine made brilliant the sides of the little brook that (full
of water in "February fill-dyke") bubbled along by the side of
the path; the sun was low in the horizon, and once, when they
came to a higher part of the Leasowes, Ruth burst into an
exclamation of delight at the evening glory of mellow light which
was in the sky behind the purple distance, while the brown
leafless woods in the foreground derived an almost metallic
lustre from the golden mist and haze of sunset. It was but
three-quarters of a mile round by the meadows, but somehow it
took them an hour to walk it. Ruth turned to thank Mr. Bellingham
for his kindness in taking her home by this beautiful way, but
his look of admiration at her glowing, animated face, made her
suddenly silent; and, hardly wishing him good-bye, she quickly
entered the house with a beating, happy, agitated heart.
"How strange it is," she thought that evening, "that I should
feel as if this charming afternoon's walk were, somehow, not
exactly wrong, but yet as if it were not right. Why can it be? I
am not defrauding Mrs. Mason of any of her time; that I know
would be wrong; I am left to go where I like on Sundays. I have
been to church, so it can't be because I have missed doing my
duty. If I had gone this walk with Jenny, I wonder whether I
should have felt as I do now. There must be something wrong in
me, myself, to feel so guilty when I have done nothing which is
not right; and yet I can thank God for the happiness I have had
in this charming spring walk, which dear mamma used to say was a
sign when pleasures were innocent and good for us."
She was not conscious, as yet, that Mr. Bellingham's presence had
added any charm to the ramble; and when she might have become
aware of this, as, week after week, Sunday after Sunday,
loitering ramble after loitering ramble succeeded each other, she
was too much absorbed with one set of thoughts to have much
inclination for self-questioning.
"Tell me everything, Ruth, as you would to a brother; let me help
you, if I can, in your difficulties," he said to her one
afternoon. And he really did try to understand, and to realise,
how an insignificant and paltry person like Mason the dressmaker
could be an object of dread, and regarded as a person having
authority, by Ruth. He flamed up with indignation when, by way of
impressing him with Mrs. Mason's power and consequence, Ruth
spoke of some instance of the effects of her employer's
displeasure. He declared his mother should never have a gown made
again by such a tyrant--such a Mrs. Brownrigg; that he would
prevent all his acquaintances from going to such a cruel
dressmaker; till Ruth was alarmed at the threatened consequences
of her one-sided account, and pleaded for Mrs. Mason as earnestly
as if a young man's menace of this description were likely to be
literally fulfilled.
"Indeed, sir, I have been very wrong; if you please, sir, don't
be so angry. She is often very good to us; it is only sometimes
she goes into a passion: and we are very provoking, I dare say. I
know I am for one. I have often to undo my work, and you can't
think how it spoils anything (particularly silk) to be unpicked;
and Mrs. Mason has to bear all the blame. Oh! I am sorry I said
anything about it. Don't speak to your mother about it, pray,
sir. Mrs. Mason thinks so much of Mrs. Bellingham's custom."
"Well, I won't this time"--recollecting that there might be some
awkwardness in accounting to his mother for the means by which he
had obtained his very correct information as to what passed in
Mrs. Mason's workroom--"but, if ever she does so again, I'll not
answer for myself."
"I will take care and not tell again, sir," said Ruth, in a low
voice.
"Nay, Ruth, you are not going to have secrets from me, are you?
Don't you remember your promise to consider me as a brother? Go
on telling me everything that happens to you, pray; you cannot
think how much interest I take in all your interests. I can quite
fancy that charming home at Milham you told me about last Sunday.
I can almost fancy Mrs. Mason's workroom; and that, surely, is a
proof either of the strength of my imagination, or of your powers
of description."
Ruth smiled. "It is, indeed, sir. Our workroom must be so
different to anything you ever saw. I think you must have passed
through Milham often on your way to Lowford."
"Then you don't think it is any stretch of fancy to have so clear
an idea as I have of Milham Grange? On the left hand of the road,
is it, Ruth?"
"Yes, sir, just over the bridge, and up the hill where the
elm-trees meet overhead and make a green shade; and then comes
the dear old Grange, that I shall never see again."
"Never! Nonsense, Ruthie; it is only six miles off; you may see
it any day. It is not an hour's ride."
"Perhaps I may see it again when I am grown old; I did not think
exactly what 'never' meant; it is so very long since I was there,
and I don't see any chance of my going for years and years at any
rate."
"Why, Ruth, you--we may go next Sunday afternoon, if you like."
She looked up at him with a lovely light of pleasure in her face
at the idea.
"How, sir? Can I walk it between afternoon-service and the time
Mrs. Mason comes home? I would go for only one glimpse; but if I
could get into the house--oh, sir! if I could just see mamma's
room again!"
He was revolving plans in his head for giving her this pleasure,
and he had also his own in view. If they went in any of his
carriages, the loitering charm of the walk would be lost; and
they must, to a certain degree, be encumbered by, and exposed to
the notice of servants.
"Are you a good walker, Ruth? Do you think you can manage six
miles? If we set off at two o'clock, we shall be there by four,
without hurrying; or say half-past four. Then we might stay two
hours, and you could show me all the old walks and old places you
love, and we could still come leisurely home. Oh, it's all
arranged directly!"
"But do you think it would be right, sir? It seems as if it would
be such a great pleasure, that it must be in some way wrong."
"Why, you little goose, what can be wrong in it?"
"In the first place, I miss going to church by setting out at
two," said Ruth, a little gravely.
"Only for once. Surely you don't see any harm in missing church
for once? You will go in the morning, you know."
"I wonder if Mrs. Mason would think it right--if she would allow
it?"
"No, I dare say not. But you don't mean to be governed by Mrs.
Mason's notions of right and wrong. She thought it right to treat
that poor girl Palmer in the way you told me about. You would
think that wrong, you know, and so would every one of sense and
feeling. Come, Ruth, don't pin your faith on any one, but judge
for yourself. The pleasure is perfectly innocent: it is not a
selfish pleasure either, for I shall enjoy it to the full as much
as you will. I shall like to see the places where you spent your
childhood; I shall almost love them as much as you do." He had
dropped his voice; and spoke in low, persuasive tones. Ruth hung
down her head, and blushed with exceeding happiness; but she
could not speak, even to urge her doubts afresh. Thus it was in a
manner settled. How delightfully happy the plan made her through
the coming week! She was too young when her mother died to have
received any cautions or words of advice respecting the subject
of a woman's life--if, indeed, wise parents ever directly speak
of what, in its depth and power, cannot be put into words--which
is a brooding spirit with no definite form or shape that men
should know it, but which is there, and present before we have
recognised and realised its existence. Ruth was innocent and
snow-pure. She had heard of falling in love, but did not know the
signs and symptoms thereof; nor, indeed, had she troubled her
head much about them. Sorrow had filled up her days, to the
exclusion of all lighter thoughts than the consideration of
present duties, and the remembrance of the happy time which had
been. But the interval of blank, after the loss of her mother and
during her father's life-in-death, had made her all the more
ready to value and cling to sympathy--first from Jenny, and now
from Mr. Bellingham. To see her home again, and to see it with
him; to show him (secure of his interest) the haunts of former
times, each with its little tale of the past--of dead-and-gone
events!--No coming shadow threw its gloom over this week's dream
of happiness--a dream which was too bright to be spoken about to
common and indifferent ears.
CHAPTER IV
TREADING IN PERILOUS PLACES
Sunday came, as brilliant as if there were no sorrow, or death,
or guilt in the world; a day or two of rain had made the earth
fresh and brave as the blue heavens above. Ruth thought it was
too strong a realisation of her hopes, and looked for an
over-clouding at noon; but the glory endured, and at two o'clock
she was in the Leasowes, with a beating heart full of joy,
longing to stop the hours, which would pass too quickly through
the afternoon.
They sauntered through the fragrant lanes, as if their loitering
would prolong the time and check the fiery-footed steeds
galloping apace towards the close of the happy day. It was past
five o'clock before they came to the great mill-wheel, which
stood in Sabbath idleness, motionless in a brown mass of shade,
and still wet with yesterday's immersion in the deep transparent
water beneath. They clambered the little hill, not yet fully
shaded by the overarching elms; and then Ruth checked Mr.
Bellingham, by a slight motion of the hand which lay within his
arm, and glanced up into his face to see what that face should
express as it looked on Milham Grange, now lying still and
peaceful in its afternoon shadows. It was a house of
after-thoughts; building materials were plentiful in the
neighbourhood, and every successive owner had found a necessity
for some addition or projection, till it was a picturesque mass
of irregularity--of broken light and shadow--which, as a whole,
gave a full and complete idea of a "Home." All its gables and
nooks were blended and held together by the tender green of the
climbing roses and young creepers. An old couple were living in
the house until it should be let, but they dwelt in the back
part, and never used the front door; so the little birds had
grown tame and familiar, and perched upon the window-sills and
porch, and on the old stone cistern which caught the water from
the roof.
They went silently through the untrimmed garden, full of the
pale-coloured flowers of spring. A spider had spread her web over
the front door. The sight of this conveyed a sense of desolation
to Ruth's heart; she thought it was possible the state-entrance
had never been used since her father's dead body had been borne
forth, and without speaking a word, she turned abruptly away, and
went round the house to another door. Mr. Bellingham followed
without questioning, little understanding her feelings, but full
of admiration for the varying expression called out upon her
face.
The old woman had not yet returned from church, or from the
weekly gossip or neighbourly tea which succeeded. The husband sat
in the kitchen, spelling the psalms for the day in his
Prayer-book, and reading the words out aloud--a habit he had
acquired from the double solitude of his life, for he was deaf.
He did not hear the quiet entrance of the pair, and they were
struck with the sort of ghostly echo which seems to haunt
half-furnished and uninhabited houses. The verses he was reading
were the following:--
"Why art thou so vexed, O my soul: and why art thou so disquieted
within me? "O put thy trust in God: for I will yet thank him,
which is the help of my countenance, and my God."
And when he had finished he shut the book, and sighed with the
satisfaction of having done his duty. The words of holy trust,
though, perhaps, they were not fully understood, carried a
faithful peace down into the depths of his soul. As he looked up,
he saw the young couple standing in the middle of the floor. He
pushed his iron-rimmed spectacles. on to his forehead, and rose
to greet the daughter of his old master and ever-honoured
mistress.
"God bless thee, lass! God bless thee! My old eyes are glad to
see thee again."
Ruth sprang forward to shake the horny hand stretched forward in
the action of blessing. She pressed it between both of hers, as
she rapidly poured out questions. Mr. Bellingham was not
altogether comfortable at seeing one whom he had already begun to
appropriate as his own, so tenderly familiar with a
hard-featured, meanly-dressed day-labourer. He sauntered to the
window, and looked out into the grass-grown farmyard; but he
could not help overhearing some of the conversation, which seemed
to him carried on too much in the tone of equality. "And who's
yon?" asked the old labourer at last. "Is he your sweetheart?
Your missis's son, I reckon. He's a spruce young chap, anyhow."
Mr. Bellingham's "blood of all the Howards" rose and tingled
about his ears, so that he could not hear Ruth's answer. It began
by "Hush, Thomas; pray hush!" but how it went on he did not
catch. The idea of his being Mrs. Mason's son! It was really too
ridiculous; but, like most things which are "too ridiculous," it
made him very angry. He was hardly himself again when Ruth shyly
came to the window-recess and asked him if he would like to see
the house-place, into which the front-door entered; many people
thought it very pretty, she said, half-timidly, for his face had
unconsciously assumed a hard and haughty expression, which he
could not instantly soften down. He followed her, however; but
before he left the kitchen he saw the old man standing, looking
at Ruth's companion with a strange, grave air of dissatisfaction.
They went along one or two zig-zag damp-smelling stone passages,
and then entered the house-place, or common sitting-room for a
farmer's family in that part of the country. The front door
opened into it, and several other apartments issued out of it,
such as the dairy, the state bedroom (which was half-parlour as
well), and a small room which had been appropriated to the late
Mrs. Hilton, where she sat, or more frequently lay, commanding
through the open door the comings and goings of her household. In
those days the house-place had been a cheerful room, full of
life, with the passing to and fro of husband, child, and
servants; with a great merry wood-fire crackling and blazing away
every evening, and hardly let out in the very heat of summer; for
with the thick stone walls, and the deep window-seats, and the
drapery of vine-leaves and ivy, that room, with its flag-floor,
seemed always to want the sparkle and cheery warmth of a fire.
But now the green shadows from without seemed to have become
black in the uninhabited desolation. The oaken shovel-board, the
heavy dresser, and the carved cupboards, were now dull and damp,
which were formerly polished up to the brightness of a
looking-glass where the fire-blaze was for ever glinting; they
only added to. the oppressive gloom; the flag-floor was wet with
heavy moisture. Ruth stood gazing into the room, seeing nothing
of what was present. She saw a vision of former days--an evening
in the days of her childhood; her father sitting in the "master's
corner" near the fire, sedately smoking his pipe, while he
dreamily watched his wife and child; her mother reading to her,
as she sat on a little stool at her feet. It was gone--all gone
into the land of shadows; but for the moment it seemed so present
in the old room, that Ruth believed her actual life to be the
dream. Then, 'still silent, she went on into her mother's
parlour. But there, the bleak look of what had once been full of
peace and mother's love, struck cold on her heart. She uttered a
cry, and threw herself down by the sofa, hiding her face in her
hands, while her frame quivered with her repressed sobs.
"Dearest Ruth, don't give way so. It can do no good; it cannot
bring back the dead," said Mr. Bellingham, distressed at
witnessing her distress.
"I know it cannot," murmured Ruth; "and that is why I cry. I cry
because nothing will ever bring them hack again." She sobbed
afresh, but more gently, for his kind words soothed her, and
softened, if they could not take away, her sense of desolation.
"Come away; I cannot have you stay here, full of painful
associations as these rooms must be. Come"--raising her with
gentle violence--"show me your little garden you have often told
me about. Near the window of this very room, is it not? See how
well I remember everything you tell me."
He led her round through the back part of the house into the
pretty old-fashioned garden. There was a sunny border just under
the windows, and clipped box and yew-trees by the grass-plat,
further away from the house; and she prattled again of her
childish adventures and solitary plays. When they turned round
they saw the old man, who had hobbled out with the help of his
stick, and was looking at them with the same grave, sad look of
anxiety. Mr. Bellingham spoke rather sharply--
"Why does that old man follow us about in that way? It is
excessively impertinent of him, I think."
"Oh, don't call old Thomas impertinent. He is so good and kind,
he is like a father to me. I remember sitting on his knee many
and many a time when I was a child, whilst he told me stories out
of the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' He taught me to suck up milk through
a straw. Mamma was very fond of him, too. He used to sit with us
always in the evenings when papa was away at market, for mamma
was rather afraid of having no man in the house, and used to beg
old Thomas to stay; and he would take me on his knee, and listen
just as attentively as I did while mamma read aloud."
"You don't mean to say you have sat upon that old fellow's knee?"
"Oh, yes! many and many a time."
Mr. Bellingham looked graver than he had done while witnessing
Ruth's passionate emotion in her mother's room. But he lost his
sense of indignity in admiration of his companion as she wandered
among the flowers, seeking for favourite bushes or plants, to
which some history or remembrance was attached. She wound in and
out in natural, graceful, wavy lines between the luxuriant and
overgrown shrubs, which were fragrant with a leafy smell of
spring growth; she went on, careless of watching eyes, indeed
unconscious, for the time, of their existence. Once she stopped
to take hold of a spray of jessamine, and softly kiss it; it had
been her mother's favourite flower.
Old Thomas was standing by the horse-mount, and was also an
observer of all her goings-on. But, while Mr. Bellingham's
feeling was that of passionate admiration mingled with a selfish
kind of love, the old man gazed with tender anxiety, and his lips
moved in words of blessing--
"She's a pretty creature, with a glint of her mother about her;
and she's the same kind lass as ever. Not a bit set up with yon
fine manty-maker's shop she's in. I misdoubt that young fellow
though, for all she called him a real gentleman, and checked me
when I asked if he was her sweetheart. If his are not
sweetheart's looks, I've forgotten all my young days. Here!
they're going, I suppose. Look! he wants her to go without a word
to the old man; but she is none so changed as that, I reckon."
Not Ruth, indeed! She never perceived the dissatisfied expression
of Mr. Bellingham's countenance, visible to the old man's keen
eye; but came running up to Thomas to send her love to his wife,
and to shake him many times by the hand.
"Tell Mary I'll make her such a fine gown, as soon as ever I set
up for myself; it shall be all in the fashion, big gigot sleeves,
that she shall not know herself in them! Mind you tell her that,
Thomas, will you?"
"Ay, that I will, lass; and I reckon she'll be pleased to hear
thou hast not forgotten thy old merry ways. The Lord bless
thee--the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon thee."
Ruth was half-way towards the impatient Mr. Bellingham when her
old friend called her back. He longed to give her a warning of
the danger that he thought she was in, and yet he did not know
how. When she came up, all he could think of to say was a text;
indeed, the language of the Bible was the language in which he
thought, whenever his ideas went beyond practical everyday life
into expressions of emotion or feeling. "My dear, remember the
devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour;
remember that, Ruth."
The words fell on her ear, but gave no definite idea. The utmost
they suggested was the remembrance of the dread she felt as a
child when this verse came into her mind, and how she used to
imagine a lion's head with glaring eyes peering out of the bushes
in a dark shady part of the wood, which, for this reason, she had
always avoided, and even now could hardly think of without a
shudder. She never imagined that the grim warning related to the
handsome young man who awaited her with a countenance beaming
with love, and tenderly drew her hand within his arm.
The old man sighed as he watched them away. "The Lord may help
her to guide her steps aright. He may. But I'm afeard she's
treading in perilous places. I'll put my missis up to going to
the town and getting speech of her, and telling her a bit of her
danger. An old motherly woman like our Mary will set about it
better nor a stupid fellow like me."
The poor old labourer prayed long and earnestly that night for
Ruth. He called it "wrestling for her soul;" and I think that his
prayers were heard, for "God judgeth not as man judgeth."
Ruth went on her way, all unconscious of the dark phantoms of the
future that were gathering around her; her melancholy turned,
with the pliancy of childish years, at sixteen not yet lost, into
a softened manner which was infinitely charming. By-and-by she
cleared up into sunny happiness. The evening was still and full
of mellow light, and the new-born summer was so delicious that,
in common with all young creatures, she shared its influence and
was glad. They stood together at the top of a steep ascent, "the
hill" of the hundred. At the summit there was a level space,
sixty or seventy yards square, of unenclosed and broken ground,
over which the golden bloom of the gorse cast a rich hue, while
its delicious scent perfumed the fresh and nimble air. On one
side of this common, the ground sloped down to a clear bright
pond, in which were mirrored the rough sand-cliffs that rose
abrupt on the opposite bank; hundreds of martens found a home
there, and were now wheeling over the transparent water, and
dipping in their wings in their evening sport. Indeed, all sorts
of birds seemed to haunt the lonely pool; the water-wagtails were
scattered around its margin, the linnets perched on the topmost
sprays of the gorse-bushes, and other hidden warblers sang their
vespers on the uneven ground beyond. On the far side of the green
waste, close by the road, and well placed for the requirements of
horses or their riders who might be weary with the ascent of the
hill, there was a public-house, which was more of a farm than an
inn. It was a long, low building, rich in dormer-windows on the
weather side, which were necessary in such an exposed situation,
and with odd projections and unlooked-for gables on every side;
there was a deep porch in front, on whose hospitable benches a
dozen persons might sit and enjoy the balmy air. A noble sycamore
grew right before the house, with seats all round it ("such tents
the patriarchs loved"); and a nondescript sign hung from a branch
on the side next to the road, which, being wisely furnished with
an interpretation, was found to mean King Charles in the oak.
Near this comfortable, quiet, unfrequented inn, there was another
pond, for household and farmyard purposes, from which the cattle
were drinking, before returning to the fields after they had been
milked. Their very motions were so lazy and slow, that they
served to fill up the mind with the sensation of dreamy rest.
Ruth and Mr. Bellingham plunged through the broken ground to
regain the road near the wayside inn. Hand-in-hand, now pricked
by the far-spreading gorse, now ankle-deep in sand; now pressing
the soft, thick heath, which should make so brave an autumn show;
and now over wild thyme and other fragrant herbs, they made their
way, with many a merry laugh. Once on the road, at the summit,
Ruth stood silent, in breathless delight at the view before her.
The hill fell suddenly down into the plain, extending for a dozen
miles or more. There was a clump of dark Scotch firs close to
them, which cut clear against the western sky, and threw back the
nearest levels into distance. The plain below them was richly
wooded, and was tinted by the young tender hues of the earliest
summer, for all the trees of the wood had donned their leaves
except the cautious ash, which here and there gave a soft,
pleasant greyness to the landscape. Far away in the champaign
were spires, and towers, and stacks of chimneys belonging to some
distant hidden farmhouse, which were traced downwards through the
golden air by the thin columns of blue smoke sent up from the
evening fires. The view was bounded by some rising ground in deep
purple shadow against the sunset sky. When first they stopped,
silent with sighing pleasure, the air seemed full of pleasant
noises; distant church-bells made harmonious music with the
little singing-birds near at hand; nor were the lowings of the
cattle nor the calls of the farm-servants discordant, for the
voices seemed to be hushed by the brooding consciousness of the
Sabbath. They stood loitering before the house, quietly enjoying
the view. The clock in the little inn struck eight, and it
sounded clear and sharp in the stillness.
"Can it be so late?" asked Ruth.
"I should not have thought it possible," answered Mr. Bellingham.
"But, never mind, you will be at home long before nine. Stay,
there is a shorter road, I know, through the fields; just wait a
moment, while I go in and ask the exact way." He dropped Ruth's
arm, and went into the public-house.
A gig had been slowly toiling up the sandy hill behind,
unperceived by the young couple, and now it reached the
tableland, and was close upon them as they separated. Ruth turned
round, when the sound of the horse's footsteps came distinctly as
he reached the level. She faced Mrs. Mason!
They were not ten--no, not five yards apart. At the same moment
they recognised each other, and, what was worse, Mrs. Mason had
clearly seen, with her sharp, needle-like eyes, the attitude in
which Ruth had stood with the young man who had just quitted her.
Ruth's hand had been lying in his arm, and fondly held there by
his other hand.
Mrs. Mason was careless about the circumstances of temptation
into which the girls entrusted to her as apprentices were thrown,
but severely intolerant if their conduct was in any degree
influenced by the force of these temptations. She called this
intolerance "keeping up the character of her establishment." It
would have been a better and more Christian thing if she had kept
up the character of her girls by tender vigilance and maternal
care.
This evening, too, she was in an irritated state of temper. Her
brother had undertaken to drive her round by Henbury, in order to
give her the unpleasant information of the misbehaviour of her
eldest son, who was an assistant in a draper's shop in a
neighbouring town. She was full of indignation against want of
steadiness, though not willing to direct her indignation against
the right object--her ne'er-do-well darling. While she was thus
charged with anger (for her brother justly defended her son's
master and companions from her attacks), she saw Ruth standing
with a lover, far away from home, at such a time in the evening,
and she boiled over with intemperate displeasure.
"Come here directly, Miss Hilton," she exclaimed sharply. Then,
dropping her voice to low, bitter tones of concentrated wrath;
she said to the trembling, guilty Ruth--
"Don't attempt to show your face at my house again after this
conduct. I saw you, and your spark too. I'll have no slurs on the
character of my apprentices. Don't say a word. I saw enough. I
shall write and tell your guardian to-morrow. The horse started
away, for he was impatient to be off; and Ruth was left standing
there, stony, sick, and pale, as if the lightning had tom up the
ground beneath her feet. She could not go on standing, she was so
sick and faint; she staggered back to the broken sand-bank, and
sank down, and covered her face with her hands.
"My dearest Ruth! are you ill? Speak, darling! My love, my love,
do speak to me!"
What tender words after such harsh ones! They loosened the
fountain of Ruth's tears, and she cried bitterly.
"Oh! did you see her--did you hear what she said?"
"She! Who, my darling? Don't sob so, Ruth; tell me what it is.
Who has been near you?--who has been speaking to you to make you
cry so?"
"Oh, Mrs. Mason." And there was a fresh burst of sorrow.
"You don't say so! are you sure? I was not away five minutes."
"Oh, yes, sir, I'm quite sure. She was so angry; she said I must
never show my face there again. Oh, dear! what shall I do?"
It seemed to the poor child as if Mrs. Mason's words were
irrevocable, and, that being so, she was shut out from every
house. She saw how much she had done that was deserving of blame,
now when it was too late to undo it. She knew with what severity
and taunts Mrs. Mason had often treated her for involuntary
fallings, of which she had been quite unconscious; and now she
had really done wrong, and shrank with terror from the
consequences. Her eyes were so blinded by the fast-falling tears,
she did not see (nor, had she seen, would she have been able to
interpret) the change in Mr. Bellingham's countenance, as he
stood silently watching her. He was silent so long, that even in
her sorrow she began to wonder that he did not speak, and to wish
to hear his soothing words once more.
"It is very unfortunate," he began, at last; and then he stopped;
then he began again: "It is very unfortunate; for, you see, I did
not like to name it to you before, but, I believe--I have
business, in fact, which obliges me to go to town to-morrow--to
London, I mean; and I don't know when I shall be able to return."
"To London!" cried Ruth; "are you going away? Oh, Mr.
Bellingham!" She wept afresh, giving herself up to the desolate
feeling of sorrow, which absorbed all the terror she had been
experiencing at the idea of Mrs. Mason's anger. It seemed to her
at this moment as though she could have borne everything but his
departure; but she did not speak again; and, after two or three
minutes had elapsed, he spoke--not in his natural careless voice,
but in a sort of constrained, agitated tone.
"I can hardly bear the idea of leaving you, my own Ruth. In such
distress, too; for where you can go I do not know at all. From
all you have told me of Mrs. Mason, I don't think she is likely
to mitigate her severity in your case."
No answer, but tears quietly, incessantly flowing. Mrs. Mason's
displeasure seemed a distant thing; his going away was the present
distress. He went on--
"Ruth, would you go with me to London? My darling, I cannot
leave you here without a home; the thought of leaving you at all
is pain enough, but in these circumstances--so friendless, so
homeless--it is impossible. You must come with me, love, and
trust to me."
Still she did not speak. Remember how young, and innocent, and
motherless she was! It seemed to her as if it would be happiness
enough to be with him; and as for the future, he would arrange
and decide for that. The future lay wrapped in a golden mist,
which she did not care to penetrate; but if he, her sun, was out
of sight and gone, the golden mist became dark heavy gloom,
through which no hope could come. He took her hand.
"Will you not come with me? Do you not love me enough to trust
me? Oh, Ruth (reproachfully), can you not trust me?"
She had stopped crying, but was sobbing sadly.
"I cannot bear this, love. Your sorrow is absolute pain to me;
but it is worse to feel how indifferent you are--how little you
care about our separation."
He dropped her hand. She burst into a fresh fit of crying.
"I may have to join my mother in Paris; I don't know when I shall
see you again. Oh, Ruth!" said he vehemently, "do you love me at
all?"
She said something in a very low voice; he could not hear it,
though he bent down his head--but he took her hand again.
"What was it you said, love? Was it not that you did love me? My
darling, you do! I can tell it by the trembling of this little
hand; then you will not suffer me to go away alone and unhappy,
most anxious about you? There is no other course open to you; my
poor girl has no friends to receive her. I will go home directly,
and return in an hour with a carriage. You make me too happy by
your silence, Ruth."
"Oh, what can I do?" exclaimed Ruth. "Mr. Bellingham, you should
help me, and instead of that you only bewilder me."
"How, my dearest Ruth? Bewilder you! It seems so clear to me.
Look at the case fairly! Here you are, an orphan, with only one
person to love you, poor child!--thrown off, for no fault of
yours, by the only creature on whom you have a claim, that
creature a tyrannical, inflexible woman; what is more natural
(and, being natural, more right) than that you should throw
yourself upon the care of the one who loves you dearly--who would
go through fire and water for you--who would shelter you from all
harm? Unless, indeed, as I suspect, you do not care for him. If
so, Ruth, if you do not care for me, we had better part--I will
leave you at once; it will be better for me to go, if you do not
care for me."
He said this very sadly (it seemed so to Ruth, at least), and
made as though he would have drawn his hand from hers; but now
she held it with soft force.
"Don't leave me, please, sir. It is very true I have no friend
but you. Don't leave me, please. But, oh! do tell me what I must
do!"
"Will you do it if I tell you? If you will trust me, I will do my
very best for you. I will give you my best advice. You see your
position Mrs. Mason writes and gives her own exaggerated account
to your guardian; he is bound by no great love to you, from what
I have heard you say, and throws you off; I, who might be able to
befriend you--through my mother, perhaps--I, who could at least
comfort you a little (could not I, Ruth?), am away, far away, for
an indefinite time; that is your position at present. Now, what I
advise is this. Come with me into this little inn; I will order
tea for you--(I am sure you require it sadly)--and I will leave
you there, and go home for the carriage. I will return in an hour
at the latest. Then we are together, come what may; that is
enough for me; is it not for you, Ruth? Say yes--say it ever so
low, but give me the delight of hearing it. Ruth, say yes."
Low and soft, with much hesitation, came the "Yes;" the fatal
word of which she so little imagined the infinite consequences.
The thought of being with him was all and everything.
"How you tremble, my darling! You are cold, love! Come into the
house, and I'll order tea, directly, and be off."
She rose, and, leaning on his arm, went into the house. She was
shaking and dizzy with the agitation of the last hour. He spoke
to the civil farmer-landlord, who conducted them into a neat
parlour, with windows opening into the garden at the back of the
house. They had admitted much of the evening's fragrance through
their open casements before they were hastily closed by the
attentive host.
"Tea, directly, for this lady!" The landlord vanished.
"Dearest Ruth, I must go; there is not an instant to be lost.
Promise me to take some tea, for you are shivering all over, and
deadly pale with the fright that abominable woman has given you.
I must go; I shall be back in half an hour--and then no more
partings, darling."
He kissed her pale cold face, and went away. The room whirled
round before Ruth; it was a dream--a strange, varying, shifting
dream--with the old home of her childhood for one scene, with the
terror of Mrs. Mason's unexpected appearance for another; and
then, strangest, dizziest, happiest of all, there was the
consciousness of his love, who was all the world to her, and the
remembrance of the tender words, which still kept up their low
soft echo in her heart. Her head ached so much that she could
hardly see; even the dusky twilight was a dazzling glare to her
poor eyes; and when the daughter of the house brought in the
sharp light of the candles, preparatory for tea, Ruth hid her
face in the sofa pillows with a low exclamation of pain.
"Does your head ache, miss?" asked the girl, in a gentle,
sympathising voice.
"Let me make you some tea, miss, it will do you good. Many's the
time poor mother's headaches were cured by good strong tea."
Ruth murmured acquiescence; the young girl (about Ruth's own age,
but who was the mistress of the little establishment owing to her
mother's death) made tea, and brought Ruth a cup to the sofa
where she lay. Ruth was feverish and thirsty, and eagerly drank
it off, although she could not touch the bread and butter which
the girl offered her. She felt better and fresher, though she was
still faint and weak.
"Thank you," said Ruth. "Don't let me keep you, perhaps you are
busy. You have been very kind, and the tea has done me a great
deal of good."
The girl left the room. Ruth became as hot as she had previously
been cold, and went and opened the window, and leant out into the
still, sweet, evening air, The bush of sweet-brier underneath the
window scented the place, and the delicious fragrance reminded
her of her old home. I think scents affect and quicken the memory
more than either sights or sound; for Ruth had instantly before
her eyes the little garden beneath the window of her mother's
room with the old man leaning on his stick watching her, just as
he had done not three hours before on that very afternoon.
"Dear old Thomas! he and Mary would take me in, I think; they
would love me all the more if I were cast off. And Mr. Bellingham
would, perhaps, not be so very long away; and he would know where
to find me if I stayed at Milham Grange. Oh, would it not be
better to go to them? I wonder if he would be very sorry! I could
not bear to make him sorry, so kind as he has been to me; but I
do believe it would be better to go to them, and ask their
advice, at any rate. He would follow me there; and I could talk
over what I had better do, with the three best friends I have in
the world--the only friends I have."
She put on her bonnet, and opened the parlour-door; but then she
saw the square figure of the landlord standing at the open
house-door, smoking his evening pipe, and looming large and
distinct against the dark air and landscape beyond. Ruth
remembered the cup of tea she had drunk; it must be paid for, and
she had no money with her. She feared that he would not let her
quit the house without paying. She thought that she would leave a
note for Mr. Bellingham, saying where she was gone, and how she
had left the house in debt, for (like a child) all dilemmas
appeared of equal magnitude to her; and the difficulty of passing
the landlord while he stood there, and of giving him an
explanation of the circumstances (as far as such explanation was
due to him), appeared insuperable, and as awkward and fraught
with inconvenience as far more serious situations. She kept
peeping out of her room, after she had written her little
pencil-note, to see if the outer door was still obstructed. There
he stood, motionless, enjoying his pipe, and looking out into the
darkness which gathered thick with the coming night. The fumes of
the tobacco were carried by the air into the house, and brought
back Ruth's sick headache. Her energy left her; she became stupid
and languid, and incapable of spirited exertion; she modified her
plan of action, to the determination of asking Mr. Bellingham to
take her to Milham Grange, to the care of her humble friends,
instead of to London. And she thought, in her simplicity, that he
would instantly consent when he had heard her reasons.
She started up. A carriage dashed up to the door. She hushed her
beating heart, and tried to stop her throbbing head, to listen.
She heard him speaking to the landlord, though she could not
distinguish what he said heard the jingling of money, and in
another moment he was in the room, and had taken her arm to lead
her to the carriage.
"Oh, sir, I want you to take me to Milham Grange," said she,
holding back; "old Thomas would give me a home."
"Well, dearest, we'll talk of all that in the carriage; I am sure
you will listen to reason. Nay, if you will go to Milham, you
must go in the carriage," said he hurriedly. She was little
accustomed to oppose the wishes of any one; obedient and docile
by nature, and unsuspicious and innocent of any harmful
consequences. She entered the carriage, and drove towards London.
CHAPTER V
IN NORTH WALES
The June of 18-- had been glorious and sunny, and full of
flowers; but July came in with pouring rain, and it was a gloomy
time for travellers and for weather-bound tourists, who lounged
away the days in touching up sketches, dressing flies, and
reading over again, for the twentieth time, the few volumes they
had brought with them. A number of the Times, five days old, had
been in constant demand in all the sitting-rooms of a certain inn
in a little mountain village of North Wales, through a long July
morning. The valleys around were filled with thick, cold mist,
which had crept up the hillsides till the hamlet itself was
folded in its white, dense curtain, and from the inn-windows
nothing was seen of the beautiful scenery around. The tourists
who thronged the rooms might as well have been "wi' their dear
little bairnies at hame;" and so some of them seemed to think, as
they stood, with their faces flattened against the windowpanes,
looking abroad in search of an event to fill up the dreary time.
How many dinners were hastened that day, by way of getting
through the morning, let the poor Welsh kitchen-maid say! The
very village children kept indoors; or, if one or two more
adventurous stole out into the land of temptation and puddles,
they were soon clutched back by angry and busy mothers.
It was only four o'clock, but most of the inmates of the inn
thought it must be between six and seven, the morning had seemed
so long--so many hours had passed since dinner--when a Welsh car,
drawn by two horses, rattled briskly up to the door. Every window
of the ark was crowded with faces at the sound; the leathern
curtains were undrawn to their curious eyes, and out sprang a
gentleman, who carefully assisted a well-cloaked-up lady into the
little inn, despite the landlady's assurances of not having a
room to spare.
The gentleman (it was Mr. Bellingham) paid no attention to the
speeches of the hostess, but quietly superintended the unpacking
of the carriage, and paid the postillion; then, turning round,
with his face to the light, he spoke to the landlady, whose voice
had been rising during the last five minutes--
"Nay, Jenny, you're strangely altered, if you can turn out an old
friend on such an evening as this. If I remember right, Pen tre
Voelas is twenty miles across the bleakest mountain-road I ever
saw."
"Indeed, sir, and I did not know you; Mr. Bellingham, I believe.
Indeed, sir, Pen tre Voelas is not above eighteen miles--we only
charge for eighteen; it may not be much above seventeen,--and
we're quite full, indeed, more's the pity."
"Well, but, Jenny, to oblige me, an old friend, you can find
lodgings out for some of your people--that house across, for
instance."
"Indeed, sir, and it's at liberty; perhaps you would not mind
lodging there yourself. I could get you the best rooms, and send
over a trifle or so of furniture, if they weren't as you'd wish
them to be."
"No, Jenny, here I stay. You'll not induce me to venture over
into those rooms, whose dirt I know of old. Can't you persuade
some one who is not an old friend to move across? Say, if you
like, that I had written beforehand to bespeak the rooms. Oh, I
know you can manage it--I know your good-natured ways."
"Indeed, sir! Well, I'll see, if you and the lady will just step
into the back-parlour, sir--there's no one there just now; the
lady is keeping her bed to-day for a cold, and the gentleman is
having a rubber at whist in number three. I'll see what I can
do."
"Thank you--thank you! Is there a fire? if not, one must be
lighted. Come, Ruthie, come!"
He led the way into a large bow-windowed room, which looked
gloomy enough that afternoon, but which I have seen bright and
buoyant with youth and hope within, and sunny lights creeping
down the purple mountain slope, and stealing over the green, soft
meadows, till they reached the little garden, full of roses and
lavender-bushes, lying close under the window. I have seen--but I
shall see no more.
"I did not know you had been here before," said Ruth, as Mr.
Bellingham helped her off with her cloak.
"Oh, yes; three years ago I was here on a reading party. We were
here above two months, attracted by Jenny's kind heart and
oddities, but driven away finally by the insufferable dirt.
However, for a week or two it won't much signify."
"But can she take us in? I thought I heard her saying her house
was full."
"Oh, yes, I dare say it is; but I shall pay her well. She can
easily make excuses to some poor devil, and send him over to the
other side; and for a day or two, so that we have shelter, it
does not much signify."
"Could not we go to the house on the other side?"
"And have our meals carried across to us in a half-warm state, to
say nothing of having no one to scold for bad cooking! You don't
know these out-of-the-way Welsh inns yet, Ruthie."
"No, I only thought it seemed rather unfair," said Ruth gently;
but she did not end her sentence, for Mr. Bellingham formed his
lips into a whistle, and walked to the window to survey the rain.
The remembrance of his former good payment prompted many little
lies of which Mrs. Morgan was guilty that afternoon, before she
succeeded in turning out a gentleman and lady, who were only
planning to remain till the ensuing Saturday at the outside; so,
if they did fulfil their threat, and leave on the next day, she
would be no very great loser.
These household arrangements complete, she solaced herself with
tea in her own little parlour, and shrewdly reviewed the
circumstances of Mr. Bellingham's arrival.
"Indeed! and she's not his wife," thought Jenny, that's clear as
day. His wife would have brought her maid, and given herself
twice as many airs about the sitting-rooms; while this poor miss
never spoke, but kept as still as a mouse. Indeed, and young men
will be young men; and as long as their fathers and mothers shut
their eyes, it's none of my business to go about asking
questions."
In this manner they settled down to a week's enjoyment of that
Alpine country. It was most true enjoyment to Ruth. It was
opening a new sense; vast ideas of beauty and grandeur filled her
mind at the sight of the mountains, now first beheld in full
majesty. She was almost overpowered by the vague and solemn
delight; but by-and-by her love for them equalled her awe, and in
the night-time she would softly rise, and steal to the window to
see the white moon-light, which gave a new aspect to the
everlasting hills that girdle the mountain village.
Their breakfast-hour was late, in accordance with Mr.
Bellingham's tastes and habits; but Ruth was up betimes, and out
and away, brushing the dewdrops from the short crisp grass; the
lark sung high above her head, and she knew not if she moved or
stood still, for the grandeur of this beautiful earth absorbed
all idea of separate and individual existence. Even rain was a
pleasure to her. She sat in the window-seat of their parlour (she
would have gone out gladly, but that such a proceeding annoyed
Mr. Bellingham, who usually at such times lounged away the
listless hours on a sofa, and relieved himself by abusing the
weather); she saw the swift-fleeting showers come athwart the
sunlight like a rush of silver arrows; she watched the purple
darkness on the heathery mountain-side, and then the pale golden
gleam which succeeded. There was no change or alteration of
nature that had not its own peculiar beauty in the eyes of Ruth;
but if she had complained of the changeable climate, she would
have pleased Mr. Bellingham more: her admiration and her content
made him angry, until her pretty motions and loving eyes soothed
down his impatience.
"Really, Ruth," he exclaimed one day, when they had been
imprisoned by rain a whole morning, "one would think you had
never seen a shower of rain before; it quite wearies me to see
you sitting there watching this detestable weather with such a
placid countenance; and for the last two hours you have said
nothing more amusing or interesting than--'Oh, how beautiful!'
or, 'There's another cloud coming across Moel Wynn.'"
Ruth left her seat very gently, and took up her work. She wished
she had the gift of being amusing; it must be dull for a man
accustomed to all kinds of active employments to be shut up in
the house. She was recalled from her absolute self-forgetfulness.
What could she say to interest Mr. Bellingham? While she thought,
he spoke again--
"I remember when we were reading here three years ago, we had a
week of just such weather as this; but Howard and Johnson were
capital whist-players, and Wilbraham not bad, so we got through
the days famously. Can you play ecarte, Ruth, or picquet?"
"No, sir; I have sometimes played at beggar-my-neighbour,"
answered Ruth humbly, regretting her own deficiencies.
He murmured impatiently, and there was silence for another
half-hour. Then he sprang up, and rang the bell violently. "Ask
Mrs. Morgan for a pack of cards. Ruthie, I'll teach you ecarte,"
said he.
But Ruth was stupid, not so good as a dummy, he said; and it was
no fun betting against himself. So the cards were flung across
the table--on the floor--anywhere. Ruth picked them up. As she
rose, she sighed a little with the depression of spirits
consequent upon her own want of power to amuse and occupy him she
loved.
"You're pale, love!" said he, half repenting of his anger at her
blunders over the cards. "Go out before dinner; you know you
don't mind this cursed weather; and see that you come home full
of adventures to relate. Come, little blockhead! give me a kiss,
and begone."
She left the room with a feeling of relief; for if he were dull
without her, she should not feel responsible, and unhappy at her
own stupidity. The open air, that kind of soothing balm which
gentle mother Nature offers to us all in our seasons of
depression, relieved her. The rain had ceased, though every leaf
and blade was loaded with trembling glittering drops. Ruth went
down to the circular dale, into which the brown foaming mountain
river fell and made a deep pool, and, after resting there for a
while, ran on between broken rocks down to the valley below. The
water-fall was magnificent, as she had anticipated; she longed to
extend her walk to the other side of the stream, so she sought
the stepping-stones, the usual crossing-place, which were
overshadowed by trees, a few yards from the pool. The waters ran
high and rapidly, as busy as life, between the pieces of grey
rock; but Ruth had no fear, and went lightly and steadily on.
About the middle, however, there was a great gap; either one of
the stones was so covered with water as to be invisible, or it
had been washed lower down; at any rate, the spring from stone to
stone was long, and Ruth hesitated for a moment before taking it.
The sound of rushing waters was in her ears to the exclusion of
every other noise; her eyes were on the current running swiftly
below her feet; and thus she was startled to see a figure close
before her on one of the stones, and to hear a voice offering
help.
She looked up and saw a man, who was apparently long past middle
life, and of the stature of a dwarf; a second glance accounted
for the low height of the speaker, for then she saw he was
deformed. As the consciousness of this infirmity came into her
mind, it must have told itself in her softened eyes; for a faint
flush of colour came into the pale face of the deformed
gentleman, as he repeated his words--
"The water is very rapid; will you take my hand? perhaps I can
help you." Ruth accepted the offer, and with this assistance she
was across in a moment. He made way for her to precede him in the
narrow wood path, and then silently followed her up the glen.
When they had passed out of the wood into the pasture-land
beyond, Ruth once more turned to mark him. She was struck afresh
with the mild beauty of the face, though there was something in
the countenance which told of the body's deformity, something
more and beyond the pallor of habitual ill-health, something of a
quick spiritual light in the deep-set eyes, a sensibility about
the mouth; but altogether, though a peculiar, it was a most
attractive face. "Will you allow me to accompany you if you are
going the round by Cwm Dhu, as I imagine you are? The handrail is
blown away from the little wooden bridge by the storm last night,
and the rush of waters below may make you dizzy; and it is really
dangerous to fall there, the stream is so deep."
They walked on without much speech. She wondered who her
companion might be. She should have known him, if she had seen
him among the strangers at the inn; and yet he spoke English too
well to be a Welshman; he knew the country and the paths so
perfectly, he must be a resident; and so she tossed him from
England to Wales, and back again, in her imagination.
"I only came here yesterday," said he, as a widening in the path
permitted them to walk abreast. "Last night I went to the higher
waterfalls; they are most splendid."
"Did you go out in all that rain?" asked Ruth timidly.
"Oh, yes. Rain never hinders me from walking. Indeed, it gives a
new beauty to such a country as this. Besides, my time for my
excursion is so short, I cannot afford to waste a day."
"Then you do not live here?" asked Ruth.
"No! my home is in a very different place. I live in a busy town,
where at times it is difficult to feel the truth that
'There are in this loud stunning tide Of human care and crime,
With whom the melodies abide Of th' everlasting chime; Who carry
music in their heart Through dusky lane and crowded mart, Plying
their task with busier feet, Because their secret souls a holy
strain repeat.'
I have an annual holiday, which I generally spend in Wales; and
often in this immediate neighbourhood."
"I do not wonder at your choice," replied Ruth. "It is a
beautiful country."
"It is, indeed; and I have been inoculated by an old inn-keeper
at Conway with a love for its people, and history, and
traditions. I have picked up enough of the language to understand
many of their legends; and some are very fine and awe-inspiring,
others very poetic and fanciful."
Ruth was too shy to keep up the conversation by any remark of her
own, although his gentle, pensive manner was very winning.
"For instance," said he, touching a long bud-laden stem of
foxglove in the hedge-aide, at the bottom of which one or two
crimson-speckled flowers were bursting from their green sheaths,
"I dare say, you don't know what makes this fox-glove bend and
sway so gracefully. You think it is blown by the wind, don't
you?" He looked at her with a grave smile, which did not enliven
his thoughtful eyes, but gave an inexpressible sweetness to his
face.
"I always thought it was the wind. What is it?" asked Ruth
innocently.
"Oh, the Welsh tell you that this flower is sacred to the
fairies, and that it has the power of recognising them, and all
spiritual beings who pass by, and that it bows in deference to
them as they waft along. Its Welsh name is Maneg Ellyllyn--the
good people's glove; and hence, I imagine, our folk's-glove or
fox-glove."
"It's a very pretty fancy," said Ruth, much interested, and
wishing that he would go on, without expecting her to reply. But
they were already at the wooden bridge; he led her across, and
then, bowing his adieu, he had taken a different path even before
Ruth had thanked him for his attention.
It was an adventure to tell Mr. Bellingham, however; and it
aroused and amused him till dinner-time came, after which he
sauntered forth with a cigar.
"Ruth," said he, when he returned, "I've seen your little
hunchback. He looks like Riquet-with-the-Tuft. He's not a
gentleman, though. If it had not been for his deformity, I should
not have made him out from your description; you called him a
gentleman."
"And don't you?" asked Ruth, surprised.
"Oh, no! he's regularly shabby and seedy in his appearance;
lodging, too, the ostler told me, over that horrible
candle-and-cheese shop, the smell of which is insufferable twenty
yards off--no gentleman could endure it; he must be a traveller
or artist, or something of that kind."
"Did you see his face?" asked Ruth.
"No; but a man's back--his tout ensemble has character enough in
it to decide his rank."
"His face was very singular; quite beautiful!" said she softly;
but the subject did not interest Mr. Bellingham, and he let it
drop.
CHAPTER VI
TROUBLES GATHER ABOUT RUTH
The next day the weather was brave and glorious; a perfect
"bridal of the earth and sky;" and every one turned out of the
inn to enjoy the fresh beauty of nature. Ruth was quite
unconscious of being the object of remark; and, in her light,
rapid passings to and fro, had never looked at the doors and
windows, where many watchers stood observing her, and commenting
upon her situation or her appearance.
"She's a very lovely creature," said one gentleman, rising from
the breakfast-table to catch a glimpse of her as she entered from
her morning's ramble. "Not above sixteen I should think. Very
modest and innocent-looking in her white gown!"
His wife, busy administering to the wants of a fine little boy,
could only say (without seeing the young girl's modest ways, and
gentle, downcast countenance)--
"Well! I do think it's a shame such people should be allowed to
come here. To think of such wickedness under the same roof! Do
come away, my dear, and don't flatter her by such notice."
The husband returned to the breakfast-table; he smelt the broiled
ham and eggs, and he heard his wife's commands. Whether smelling
or hearing had most to do in causing his obedience, I cannot
tell; perhaps you can.
"Now, Harry, go and see if nurse and baby are ready to go out
with you. You must lose no time this beautiful morning."
Ruth found Mr. Bellingham was not yet come down; so she sallied
out for an additional half-hour's ramble. Flitting about through
the village, trying to catch all the beautiful sunny peeps at the
scenery between the cold stone houses, which threw the radiant
distance into aerial perspective far away, she passed by the
little shop; and, just issuing from it, came the nurse and baby,
and little boy. The baby sat in placid dignity in her nurse's
arms, with a face of queenly calm. Her fresh, soft, peachy
complexion was really tempting; and Ruth, who was always fond of
children, went up to coo and to smile at the little thing, and
after some "peep-boing," she was about to snatch a kiss, when
Harry, whose face had been reddening ever since the play began,
lifted up his sturdy little right arm and hit Ruth a great blow
on the face.
"Oh, for shame, sir!" said the nurse, snatching back his hand;
"how dare you do that to the lady who is so kind as to speak to
Sissy!"
"She's not a lady!" said he indignantly. "She's a bad, naughty
girl--mamma; said so, she did; and she shan't kiss our baby."
The nurse reddened in her turn. She knew what he must have heard;
but it was awkward to bring it out, standing face to face with
the elegant young lady.
"Children pick up such notions, ma'am," said she at last,
apologetically, to Ruth, who stood, white and still, with a new
idea running through her mind.
"It's no notion; it's true, nurse; and I heard you say it
yourself. Go away, naughty woman!" said the boy, in infantile
vehemence of passion to Ruth. To the nurse's infinite relief,
Ruth turned away, humbly and meekly, with bent head, and slow,
uncertain steps. But as she turned, she saw the mild sad face of
the deformed gentleman, who was sitting at the open window above
the shop; he looked sadder and graver than ever; and his eyes met
her glance with an expression of deep sorrow. And so, condemned
alike by youth and age, she stole with timid step into the house.
Mr. Bellingham was awaiting her in the sitting-room. The glorious
day restored all his buoyancy of spirits. He talked gaily away,
without pausing for a reply; while Ruth made tea, and tried to
calm her heart, which was yet beating with the agitation of the
new ideas she had received from the occurrence of the morning.
Luckily for her, the only answers required for some time were
mono-syllables; but those few words were uttered in so depressed
and mournful a tone, that at last they struck Mr. Bellingham with
surprise and displeasure, as the condition of mind they
unconsciously implied did not harmonise with his own.
"Ruth, what is the matter this morning? You really are very
provoking. Yesterday, when everything was gloomy, and you might
have been aware that I was out of spirits, I heard nothing but
expressions of delight; to-day, when every creature under heaven
is rejoicing, you look most deplorable and woe-begone. You really
should learn to have a little sympathy."
The tears fell quickly down Ruth's cheeks, but she did not speak.
She could not put into words the sense she was just beginning to
entertain of the estimation in which she was henceforward to be
held. She thought he would be as much grieved as she was at what
had taken place that morning; she fancied she should sink in his
opinion if she told him how others regarded her; besides, it
seemed ungenerous to dilate upon the suffering of which he was
the cause.
"I will not," thought she, "embitter his life; I will try and be
cheerful. I must not think of myself so much. If I can but make
him happy, what need I care for chance speeches?"
Accordingly, she made every effort possible to be as
light-hearted as he was; but, somehow, the moment she relaxed,
thoughts would intrude, and wonders would force themselves upon
her mind: so that altogether she was not the gay and bewitching
companion Mr. Bellingham had previously found her.
They sauntered out for a walk. The path they chose led to a wood
on the side of a hill, and they entered, glad of the shade of the
trees. At first it appeared like any common grove, but they soon
came to a deep descent, on the summit of which they stood,
looking down on the tree-tops, which were softly waving far
beneath their feet. There was a path leading sharp down, and they
followed it; the ledge of rock made it almost like going down
steps, and their walk grew into a bounding, and their bounding
into a run, before they reached the lowest plane. A green gloom
reigned there; it was the still hour of noon; the little birds
were quiet in some leafy shade. They went on a few yards, and
then they came to a circular pool overshadowed by the trees,
whose highest boughs had been beneath their feet a few minutes
before. The pond was hardly below the surface of the ground, and
there was nothing like a bank on any side. A heron was standing
there motionless, but when he saw them he flapped his wings and
slowly rose; and soared above the green heights of the wood up
into the very sky itself, for at that depth the trees appeared to
touch the round white clouds which brooded over the earth. The
speedwell grew in the shallowest water of the pool, and all
around its margin, but the flowers were hardly seen at first, so
deep was the green shadow cast by the trees. In the very middle
of the pond the sky was mirrored clear and dark, a blue which
looked as if a black void lay behind.
"Oh, there are water-lilies!" said Ruth, her eye catching on the
farther side. "I must go and get some."
"No; I will get them for you. The ground is spongy all round
there. Sit still, Ruth; this heap of grass will make a capital
seat."
He went round, and she waited quietly for his return. When he
came back he took off her bonnet, without speaking, and began to
place his flowers in her hair. She was quite still while he
arranged her coronet, looking up in his face with loving eyes,
with a peaceful composure. She knew that he was pleased from his
manner, which had the joyousness of a child playing with a new
toy, and she did not think twice of his occupation. It was
pleasant to forget everything except his pleasure. When he had
decked her out, he said--
"There, Ruth! now you'll do. Come and look at yourself in the
pond. Here, where there are no weeds. Come."
She obeyed, and could not help seeing her own loveliness; it gave
her a sense of satisfaction for an instant, as the sight of any
other beautiful object would have done, but she never thought of
associating it with herself. She knew that she was beautiful; but
that seemed abstract, and removed from herself. Her existence was
in feeling and thinking, and loving.
Down in that green hollow they were quite in harmony. Her beauty
was all that Mr. Bellingham cared for, and it was supreme. It was
all he recognised of her, and he was proud of it. She stood in
her white dress against the trees which grew around; her face was
flushed into a brilliancy of colour which resembled that of a
rose in June; the great, heavy, white flowers drooped on either
side of her beautiful head, and if her brown hair was a little
disordered, the very disorder only seemed to add a grace. She
pleased him more by looking so lovely than by all her tender
endeavours to fall in with his varying humour.
But when they left the wood, and Ruth had taken out her flowers,
and resumed her bonnet, as they came near the inn, the simple
thought of giving him pleasure was not enough to secure Ruth's
peace. She became pensive and sad, and could not rally into
gaiety.
"Really, Ruth," said he, that evening, "you must not encourage
yourself in this habit of falling into melancholy reveries
without any cause. You have been sighing twenty times during the
last half-hour. Do be a little cheerful. Remember, I have no
companion but you in this out-of-the-way place."
"I am very sorry," said Ruth, her eyes filling with tears; and
then she remembered that it was very dull for him to be alone
with her, heavy-hearted as she had been all day. She said in a
sweet, penitent tone--
"Would you be so kind as to teach me one of those games at cards
you were speaking about yesterday? I would do my best to learn."
Her soft, murmuring voice won its way. They rang for the cards,
and he soon forgot that there was such a thing as depression or
gloom in the world, in the pleasure of teaching such a beautiful
ignoramus the mysteries of card-playing.
"There!" said he, at last, "that's enough for one lesson. Do you
know, little goose, your blunders have made me laugh myself into
one of the worst headaches I have had for years.
He threw himself on the sofa, and in an instant she was by his
side.
"Let me put my cool hands on your forehead," she begged; "that
used to do mamma good."
He lay still, his face away from the light, and not speaking.
Presently he fell asleep. Ruth put out the candles, and sat
patiently by him for a long time, fancying he would awaken
refreshed. The room grew cold in the night air; but Ruth dared
not rouse him from what appeared to be sound, restoring slumber.
She covered him with her shawl, which she had thrown over a chair
on coming in from their twilight ramble. She had ample time to
think; but she tried to banish thought. At last, his breathing
became: quick and oppressed, and, after listening to it for some
minutes with increasing affright, Ruth ventured to awaken him. He
seemed stupefied and shivery. Ruth became more and more
terrified; all the household were asleep except one servant-girl,
who was wearied out of what little English she had knowledge of
in more waking hours, and could only answer, "Iss, indeed,
ma'am," to any question put to her by Ruth.
She sat by the bedside all night long. He moaned and tossed, but
never spoke sensibly. It was a new form of illness to the
miserable Ruth. Her yesterday's suffering went into the black
distance of long-past years. The present was all in all. When she
heard people stirring, she went in search of Mrs. Morgan, whose
shrewd, sharp manners, unsoftened by inward respect for the poor
girl, had awed Ruth even when Mr. Bellingham was by to protect
her.
"Mrs. Morgan," she said, sitting down in the little parlour
appropriated to the landlady, for she felt her strength suddenly
desert her--"Mrs. Morgan, I'm afraid Mr. Bellingham is very
ill;"--here she burst into tears, but instantly checking herself,
"Oh, what must I do?" continued she; "I don't think he has known
anything all through the night, and he looks so strange and wild
this morning."
She gazed up into Mrs. Morgan's face, as if reading an oracle.
"Indeed, miss, ma'am, and it's a very awkward thing. But don't
cry, that can do no good; 'deed it can't. I'll go and see the
poor young man myself, and then I can judge if a doctor is
wanting."
Ruth followed Mrs. Morgan upstairs. When they entered the
sick-room Mr. Bellingham was sitting up in bed, looking wildly
about him, and as he saw them, he exclaimed--
"Ruth! Ruth! come here; I won't be left alone!" and then he fell
down exhausted on the pillow. Mrs. Morgan went up and spoke to
him, but he did not answer or take any notice.
"I'll send for Mr. Jones, my dear, 'deed and I will; we'll have
him here in a couple of hours, please God."
"Oh, can't he come sooner?" asked Ruth, wild with terror.
"'Deed no! he lives at Llanglas when he's at home, and that's
seven mile away, and he may be gone a round eight or nine mile on
the other side Llanglas; but I'll send a boy on the pony
directly."
Saying this, Mrs. Morgan left Ruth alone. There was nothing to be
done, for Mr. Bellingham had again fallen into heavy sleep.
Sounds of daily life began, bells rang, break-fast-services
clattered up and down the passages, and Ruth sat on shivering by
the bedside in that darkened room. Mrs. Morgan sent her breakfast
upstairs by a chambermaid; but Ruth motioned it away in her sick
agony, and the girl had no right to urge her to partake of it.
That alone broke the monotony of the long morning. She heard the
sound of merry parties setting out on excursions, on horseback or
in carriages; and once, stiff and wearied, she stole to the
window, and looked out on one side of the blind; but the day
looked bright and discordant to her aching, anxious heart. The
gloom of the darkened room was better and more befitting.
It was some hours after he was summoned before the doctor made
his appearance. He questioned his patient, and, receiving no
coherent answer, he asked Ruth concerning the symptoms; but when
she questioned him in turn he only shook his head and looked
grave. He made a sign to Mrs. Morgan to follow him out of the
room, and they went down to her parlour, leaving Ruth in a depth
of despair, lower than she could have thought it possible there
remained for her to experience, an hour before.
"I am afraid this is a bad case," said Mr. Jones to Mrs. Morgan
in Welsh. "A brain-fever has evidently set in."
"Poor young gentleman! poor young man! He looked the very picture
of health!"
"That very appearance of robustness will, in all probability,
make his disorder more violent. However, we must hope for the
best, Mrs. Morgan. Who is to attend upon him? He will require
careful nursing. Is that young lady his sister? She looks too
young to be his wife?"
"No, indeed! Gentlemen like you must know, Mr. Jones, that we
can't always look too closely into the ways of young men who come
to our houses. Not but what I am sorry for her, for she's an
innocent, inoffensive young creature. I always think it right,
for my own morals, to put a little scorn into my manners when
such as her come to stay here; but indeed, she's so gentle, I've
found it hard work to show the proper contempt."
She would have gone on to her inattentive listener if she had not
heard a low tap at the door, which recalled her from her
morality, and Mr. Jones from his consideration of the necessary
prescriptions.
"Come in!" said Mrs. Morgan sharply. And Ruth came in. She was
white and trembling; but she stood in that dignity which strong
feeling, kept down by self-command, always imparts.
"I wish you, sir, to be so kind as to tell me, clearly and
distinctly, what I must do for Mr. Bellingham. Every direction
you give me shall be most carefully attended to. You spoke about
leeches--I can put them on, and see about them. Tell me
everything, sir, that you wish to have done!"
Her manner was calm and serious, and her countenance and
deportment showed that the occasion was calling out strength
sufficient to meet it. Mr. Jones spoke with a deference which he
had not thought of using upstairs, even while he supposed her to
be the sister of the invalid. Ruth listened gravely; she repeated
some of the injunctions, in order that she might be sure that she
fully comprehended them, and then, bowing, left the room.
"She is no common person," said Mr. Jones. "Still she is too
young to have the responsibility of such a serious case. Have you
any idea where his friends live, Mrs. Morgan?"
"Indeed and I have. His mother, as haughty a lady as you would
wish to see, came travelling through Wales last year; she stopped
here, and, I warrant you, nothing was good enough for her; she
was real quality. She left some clothes and hooks behind her (for
the maid was almost as fine as the mistress, and little thought
of seeing after her lady's clothes, having a taste for going to
see scenery along with the man-servant), and we had several
letters from her. I have them locked in the drawers in the bar,
where I keep such things."
"Well, I should recommend your writing to the lady, and telling
her her son's state."
"It would be a favour, Mr. Jones, if you would just write it
yourself. English writing comes so strange to my pen."
The letter was written, and, in order to save time, Mr. Jones
took it to the Llanglas post-office.
CHAPTER VII
THE CRISIS---WATCHING AND WAITING
Ruth put away every thought of the past or future; everything
that could unfit her for the duties of the present. Exceeding
love supplied the place of experience. She never left the room
after the first day; she forced herself to eat, because his
service needed her strength. She did not indulge in any tears,
because the weeping she longed for would make her less able to
attend upon him. She watched, and waited, and prayed; prayed with
an utter forgetfulness of self, only with a consciousness that
God was all-powerful, and that he, whom she loved so much, needed
the aid of the Mighty One.
Day and night, the summer night, seemed merged into one. She lost
count of time in the hushed and darkened room. One morning Mrs.
Morgan beckoned her out; and she stole on tiptoe into the
dazzling gallery, on one side of which the bedrooms opened.
"She's come," whispered Mrs. Morgan, looking very much excited,
and forgetting that Ruth had never heard that Mrs. Bellingham had
been summoned.
"Who is come?" asked Ruth. The idea of Mrs. Mason flashed through
her mind--but with a more terrible, because a more vague, dread
she heard that it was his mother; the mother of whom he had
always spoken as a person whose opinion was to be regarded more
than that of any other individual.
"What must I do? Will she be angry with me?" said she, relapsing
into her child-like dependence on others; and feeling that even
Mrs. Morgan was some one to stand between her and Mrs.
Bellingham.
Mrs. Morgan herself was a little perplexed. Her morality was
rather shocked at the idea of a proper real lady like Mrs.
Bellingham discovering that she had winked at the connection
between her son and Ruth. She was quite inclined to encourage
Ruth in her inclination to shrink out of Mrs. Bellingham's
observation, an inclination which arose from no definite
consciousness of having done wrong, but principally from the
representations she had always heard of the lady's awfulness.
Mrs. Bellingham swept into her son's room as if she were
unconscious what poor young creature had lately haunted it; while
Ruth hurried into some unoccupied bedroom, and, alone there, she
felt her self-restraint suddenly give way, and burst into the
saddest, most utterly wretched weeping she had ever known. She
was worn out with watching, and exhausted by passionate crying,
and she lay down on the bed and fell asleep. The day passed on;
she slumbered unnoticed and unregarded; she awoke late in the
evening with a sense of having done wrong in sleeping so long;
the strain upon her responsibility had not yet left her. Twilight
was closing fast around; she waited until it had become night,
and then she stole down to Mrs. Morgan's parlour.
"If you please, may I come in?" asked she.
Jenny Morgan was doing up the hieroglyphics which she called her
accounts; she answered sharp enough, but it was a permission to
enter, and Ruth was thankful for it.
"Will you tell me how he is? Do you think I may go back to him?"
"No, indeed, that you may not. Nest, who has made his room tidy
these many days, is not fit to go in now. Mrs. Bellingham has
brought her own maid, and the family nurse and Mr. Bellingham's
man; such a tribe of servants, and no end to packages; water-beds
coming by the carrier, and a doctor from London coming down
to-morrow, as if feather-beds and Mr. Jones was not good enough.
Why, she won't let a soul of us into the room; there's no chance
for you!"
Ruth sighed. "How is he?" she inquired, after a pause.
"How can I tell, indeed, when I am not allowed to go near him?
Mr. Jones said to-night was a turning-point; but I doubt it, for
it is four days since he was taken ill, and who ever heard of a
sick person taking a turn on an even number of days? It's alway
on the third, or the fifth, or seventh, or so on. He'll not turn
till to-morrow night, take my word for it, and their fine London
doctor will get all the credit, and honest Mr. Jones will be
thrown aside. I don't think he will get better myself,
though--Gelert does not howl for nothing. My patience what's the
matter with the girl?--Lord, child, you're never going to faint,
and be ill on my hands?" Her sharp voice recalled Ruth from the
sick unconsciousness that had been creeping over her as she
listened to the latter part of this speech. She sat down and
could not speak--the room whirled round and round--her white
feebleness touched Mrs. Morgan's heart.
"You've had no tea, I guess. Indeed, and the girls are very
careless." She rang the bell with energy, and seconded her pull
by going to the door and shouting out sharp directions, in Welsh,
to Nest and Gwen, and three or four other rough, kind, slatternly
servants.
They brought her tea, which was comfortable, according to the
idea of comfort prevalent in that rude hospitable place; there
was plenty to eat; too much indeed, for it revolted the appetite
it was intended to provoke. But the heartiness with which the
kind rosy waiter pressed her to eat, and the scolding Mrs. Morgan
gave her when she found the buttered toast untouched (toast on
which she had herself desired that the butter might not be
spared), did Ruth more good than the tea. She began to hope, and
to long for the morning when hope might have become certainty. It
was all in vain that she was told that the room she had been in
all day was at her service; she did not say a word, but she was
not going to bed that night of all nights in the year, when life
or death hung trembling in the balance. She went into the bedroom
till the bustling house was still, and heard busy feet passing to
and fro into the room she might not enter; and voices, imperious,
though hushed down to a whisper, ask for innumerable things. Then
there was silence: and when she thought that all were dead
asleep, except the watchers, she stole out into the gallery. On
the other side were two windows, cut into the thick stone wall,
and flower-pots were placed on the shelves thus formed, where
great untrimmed, straggling geraniums grew, and strove to reach
the light. The window near Mr. Bellingham's door was open; the
soft, warm-scented night-air came sighing in in faint gusts, and
then was still. It was summer; there was no black darkness in the
twenty-four hours; only the light grew dusky, and colour
disappeared from objects, of which the shape and form remained
distinct. A soft grey oblong of barred light fell on the flat
wall opposite to the windows, and deeper grey shadows marked out
the tracery of the plants, more graceful thus than in reality.
Ruth crouched where no light fell. She sat on the ground close by
the door; her whole existence was absorbed in listening: all was
still; it was only her heart beating with the strong, heavy,
regular sound of a hammer. She wished she could stop its rushing,
incessant clang. She heard a rustle of a silken gown, and knew it
ought not to have been worn in a sick-room; for her senses seemed
to have passed into the keeping of the invalid, and to feel only
as he felt. The noise was probably occasioned by some change of
posture in the watcher inside, for it was once more dead-still.
The soft wind outside sank with a low, long, distant moan among
the windings of the hills, and lost itself there, and came no
more again. But Ruth's heart beat loud. She rose with as little
noise as if she were a vision, and crept to the open window to
try and lose the nervous listening for the ever-recurring sound.
Out beyond, under the calm sky, veiled with a mist rather than
with a cloud, rose the high, dark outlines of the mountains,
shutting in that village as if it lay in a nest. They stood, like
giants, solemnly watching for the end of Earth and Time. Here and
there a black round shadow reminded Ruth of some "Cwm," or
hollow, where she and her lover had rambled in sun and in
gladness. She then thought the land enchanted into everlasting
brightness and happiness; she fancied, then, that into a region
so lovely no bale or woe could enter, but would be charmed away
and disappear before the sight of the glorious guardian
mountains. Now she knew the truth, that earth has no barrier
which avails against agony. It comes lightning-like down from
heaven, into the mountain house and the town garret; into the
palace and into the cottage. The garden lay close under the
house; a bright spot enough by day; for in that soil, whatever
was planted grew and blossomed in spite of neglect. The white
roses glimmered out in the dusk all the night through; the red
were lost in shadow. Between the low boundary of the garden and
the hills swept one or two green meadows; Ruth looked into the
grey darkness till she traced each separate wave of outline. Then
she heard a little restless bird chirp out its wakefulness from a
nest in the ivy round the walls of the house. But the mother-bird
spread her soft feathers, and hushed it into silence. Presently,
however, many little birds began to scent the coming dawn, and
rustled among the leaves, and chirruped loud and clear. Just
above the horizon, too, the mist became a silvery grey cloud
hanging on the edge of the world; presently it turned shimmering
white; and then, in an instant, it flushed into rose, and the
mountain-tops sprang into heaven, and bathed in the presence of
the shadow of God. With a bound, the sun of a molten fiery red
came above the horizon, and immediately thousands of little birds
sang out for joy, and a soft chorus of mysterious, glad murmurs
came forth from the earth; the low whispering wind left its
hiding-place among the clefts and hollows of the hills, and
wandered among the rustling herbs and trees, waking the
flower-buds to the life of another day. Ruth gave a sigh of
relief that the night was over and gone; for she knew that soon
suspense would be ended, and the verdict known, whether for life
or for death. She grew faint and sick with anxiety; it almost
seemed as if she must go into the room and learn the truth. Then
she heard movements, but they were not sharp nor rapid, as if
prompted by any emergency; then, again, it was still. She sat
curled up upon the floor, with her head thrown back against the
wall, and her hands clasped round her knees. She had yet to wait.
Meanwhile, the invalid was slowly rousing himself from a long,
deep, sound, health-giving sleep. His mother had sat by him the
night through, and was now daring to change her position for the
first time; she was even venturing to give directions in a low
voice to the old nurse, who had dozed away in an arm-chair, ready
to obey any summons of her mistress. Mrs. Bellingham went on
tiptoe towards the door, and chiding herself because her stiff,
weary limbs made some slight noise. She had an irrepressible
longing for a few minutes' change of scene after her night of
watching. She felt that the crisis was over; and the relief to
her mind made her conscious of every bodily feeling and
irritation, which had passed unheeded as long as she had been in
suspense.
She slowly opened the door. Ruth sprang upright at the first
sound of the creaking handle. Her very lips were stiff and
unpliable with the force of the blood which rushed to her head.
It seemed as if she could not form words. She stood right before
Mrs. Bellingham. "How is he, madam?"
Mrs. Bellingham was for a moment surprised at the white
apparition which seemed to rise out of the ground. But her quick,
proud mind understood it all in an instant. This was the girl,
then, whose profligacy had led her son astray; had raised up
barriers in the way of her favourite scheme of his marriage with
Miss Duncombe; nay, this was the real cause of his illness, his
mortal danger at this present time, and of her bitter, keen
anxiety. If, under any circumstances, Mrs. Bellingham could have
been guilty of the ill-breeding of not answering a question, it
was now; and for a moment she was tempted to pass on in silence.
Ruth could not wait; she spoke again--
"For the love of God, madam, speak! How is he? Will he live?" If
she did not answer her, she thought the creature was desperate
enough to force her way into his room. So she spoke--
"He has slept well: he is better."
"Oh! my God, I thank thee," murmured Ruth, sinking back against
the wall. It was too much to hear this wretched girl thanking God
for her son's life; as if, in fact, she had any lot or part in
him. And to dare to speak to the Almighty on her son's behalf!
Mrs. Bellingham looked at her with cold, contemptuous eyes, whose
glances were like ice-bolts, and made Ruth shiver up away from
them.
"Young woman, if you have any propriety or decency left, I trust
that you will not dare to force yourself into his room."
She stood for a moment as if awaiting an answer, and half
expecting it to be a defiance. But she did not understand Ruth.
She did not imagine the faithful trustfulness of her heart. Ruth
believed that, if Mr. Bellingham was alive and likely to live,
all was well. When he wanted her, he would send for her, ask for
her, yearn for her, till every one would yield before his
steadfast will. At present she imagined that he was probably too
weak to care or know who was about him; and though it would have
been an infinite delight to her to hover and brood around him,
yet it was of him she thought and not of herself. She gently drew
herself on one side to make way for Mrs. Bellingham to pass.
By and by Mrs. Morgan came up. Ruth was still near the door, from
which it seemed as if she could not tear herself away.
"Indeed, miss, and you must not hang about the door in this way;
it is not pretty manners. Mrs. Bellingham has been speaking very
sharp and cross about it, and I shall lose the character of my
inn if people take to talking as she does. Did I not give you a
room last night to keep in, and never be seen or heard of; and
did I not tell you what a particular lady Mrs. Bellingham was,
but you must come out here right in her way? Indeed, it was not
pretty, nor grateful to me, Jenny Morgan, and that I must say."
Ruth turned away like a chidden child. Mrs. Morgan followed her
to her room, scolding as she went; and then, having cleared her
heart after her wont by uttering hasty words, her real kindness
made her add, in a softened tone--
"You stop up here like a good girl. I'll send you your breakfast
by-and-by, and let you know from time to time how he is; and you
can go out for a walk, you know: but if you do, I'll take it as a
favour if you'll go out by the side-door. It will, maybe, save
scandal."
All that day long, Ruth kept herself close prisoner in the room
to which Mrs. Morgan accorded her; all that day, and many
succeeding days. But at nights, when the house was still, and
even the little brown mice had gathered up the crumbs, and darted
again to their holes, Ruth stole out, and crept to his door to
catch, if she could, the sound of his beloved voice. She could
tell by its tones how he felt, and how he was getting on, as well
as any of the watchers in the room. She yearned and pined to see
him once more; but she had reasoned herself down into something
like patience. When he was well enough to leave his room, when he
had not always one of the nurses with him, then he would send for
her, and she would tell him how very patient she had been for his
dear sake. But it was long to wait, even with this thought of the
manner in which the waiting would end. Poor Ruth! her faith was
only building up vain castles in the air; they towered up into
heaven, it is true; but, after all, they were but visions.
CHAPTER VIII
MRS. BELLINGHAM "DOES THE THING HANDSOMELY"
If Mr. Bellingham did not get rapidly well, it was more owing to
the morbid querulous fancy attendant on great weakness than from
any unfavourable medical symptom. But he turned away with peevish
loathing from the very sight of food, prepared in the slovenly
manner which had almost disgusted him when he was well. It was of
no use telling him that Simpson, his mother's maid, had
superintended the preparation at every point. He offended her by
detecting something offensive and to be avoided in her daintiest
messes, and made Mrs. Morgan mutter many a hasty speech, which,
however, Mrs. Bellingham thought it better not to hear until her
son should be strong enough to travel.
"I think you are better to-day," said she, as his man wheeled his
sofa to the bedroom window. "We shall get you downstairs
to-morrow."
"If you were to get away from this abominable place, I could go
down to-day; but I believe I'm to be kept prisoner here for ever.
I shall never get well here, I'm sure."
He sank back on his sofa in impatient despair. The surgeon was
announced, and eagerly questioned by Mrs. Bellingham as to the
possibility of her son's removal; and he, having heard the same
anxiety for the same end expressed by Mrs. Morgan in the regions
below, threw no great obstacles in the way. After the doctor had
taken his departure, Mrs. Bellingham cleared her throat several
times. Mr. Bellingham knew the prelude of old, and winced with
nervous annoyance.
"Henry, there is something I must speak to you about; an
unpleasant subject, certainly, but one which has been forced upon
me by the very girl herself; you must be aware to what I refer
without giving me the pain of explaining myself." Mr. Bellingham
turned himself sharply round to the wall, and prepared himself
for a lecture by concealing his face from her notice; but she
herself was in too nervous a state to be capable of observation.
"Of course," she continued, "it was my wish to be as blind to the
whole affair as possible, though you can't imagine how Mrs. Mason
has blazoned it abroad; all Fordham rings with it but of course
it could not be pleasant, or, indeed, I may say correct, for me
to be aware that a person of such improper character was under
the same--I beg your pardon, dear Henry, what do you say?"
"Ruth is no improper character, mother; you do her injustice!"
"My dear boy, you don't mean to uphold her as a paragon of
virtue!"
"No, mother, but I led her wrong; I----"
"We will let all discussions into the cause or duration of her
present character drop, if you please," said Mrs. Bellingham,
with the sort of dignified authority which retained a certain
power over her son--a power which originated in childhood, and
which he only defied when he was roused into passion. He was too
weak in body to oppose himself to her, and fight the ground inch
by inch. "As I have implied, I do not wish to ascertain your
share of blame; from what I saw of her one morning, I am
convinced of her forward, intrusive manners, utterly without
shame, or even common modesty."
"What are you referring to?" asked Mr. Bellingham sharply.
"Why, when you were at the worst, and I had been watching you all
night, and had just gone out in the morning for a breath of fresh
air, this girl pushed herself before me, and insisted upon
speaking to me. I really had to send Mrs. Morgan to her before I
could return to your room. A more impudent, hardened manner, I
never saw."
"Ruth was neither impudent nor hardened; she was ignorant enough,
and might offend from knowing no better."
He was getting weary of the discussion, and wished it had never
been begun. From the time he had become conscious of his mother's
presence he had felt the dilemma he was in, in regard to Ruth,
and various plans had directly crossed his brain; but it had been
so troublesome to weigh and consider them all properly, that they
had been put aside to be settled when he grew stronger. But this
difficulty in which he was placed by his connection with Ruth,
associated the idea of her in his mind with annoyance and angry
regret at the whole affair. He wished, in the languid way in
which he wished and felt everything not immediately relating to
his daily comfort, that he had never seen her. It was a most
awkward, a most unfortunate affair. Notwithstanding this
annoyance connected with and arising out of Ruth, he would not
submit to hear her abused; and something in his manner impressed
this on his mother, for she immediately changed her mode of
attack.
"We may as well drop all dispute as to the young woman's manners;
but I suppose you do not mean to defend your connection with her;
I suppose you are not so lost to all sense of propriety as to
imagine it fit or desirable that your mother and this degraded
girl should remain under the same roof, liable to meet at any
hour of the day?" She waited for an answer, but no answer came.
"I ask you a simple question; is it, or is it not, desirable?"
"I suppose it is not," he replied gloomily.
"And I suppose, from your manner, that you think the difficulty
would be best solved by my taking my departure, and leaving you
with your vicious companion?" Again no answer, but inward and
increasing annoyance, of which Mr. Bellingham considered Ruth the
cause. At length he spoke--
"Mother, you are not helping me in my difficulty. I have no
desire to banish you, nor to hurt you, after all your care for
me. Ruth has not been so much to blame as you imagine, that I
must say; but I do not wish to see her again, if you can tell me
how to arrange it otherwise, without behaving unhandsomely. Only
spare me all this worry a while, I am so weak. I put myself in
your hands. Dismiss her, as you wish it; but let it be done
handsomely, and let me hear no more about it; I cannot bear it;
let me have a quiet life, without being lectured, while I am pent
up here, and unable to shake off unpleasant thoughts."
"My dear Henry, rely upon me."
"No more, mother; it's a bad business, and I can hardly avoid
blaming myself in the matter. I don't want to dwell upon it."
"Don't be too severe in your self-reproaches while you are so
feeble, dear Henry; it is right to repent, but I have no doubt
in. my own mind she led you wrong with her artifices. But, as you
say, everything should be done handsomely. I confess I was deeply
grieved when I first heard of the affair, but since I have seen
the girl----Well! I'll say no more about her, since I see it
displeases you; but I am thankful to God that you see the error
of your ways. She sat silent, thinking for a little while, and
then sent for her writing-case and began to write. Her son became
restless, and nervously irritated.
"Mother," he said, "this affair worries me to death. I cannot
shake off the thoughts of it."
"Leave it to me, I'll arrange it satisfactorily."
"Could we not leave to-night? I should not be so haunted by this
annoyance in another place. I dread seeing her again, because I
fear a scene; and yet I believe I ought to see her in order to
explain."
"You must not think of such a thing, Henry," said she, alarmed at
the very idea.
"Sooner than that, we will leave in half-an-hour, and try to get
to Pen tre Voelas to-night. It is not yet three, and the evenings
are very long. Simpson should stay and finish the packing; she
could go straight to London and meet us there. Macdonald and
nurse could go with us. Could you bear twenty miles, do you
think?"
Anything to get rid of his uneasiness. He felt that he was not
behaving as he should do to Ruth, though the really right never
entered his head. But it would extricate him from his present
dilemma, and save him many lectures; he knew that his mother,
always liberal where money was concerned, would "do the thing
handsomely"; and it would always be easy to write and give Ruth
what explanation he felt inclined, in a day or two; so he
consented, and soon lost some of his uneasiness in watching the
bustle of the preparation for their departure. All this time Ruth
was quietly spending in her room, beguiling the waiting, weary
hours, with pictures of the meeting at the end. Her room looked
to the back, and was in a side-wing away from the principal state
apartments, consequently she was not roused to suspicion by any
of the commotion; but, indeed, if she had heard the banging of
doors, the sharp directions, the carriage-wheels, she would still
not have suspected the truth; her own love was too faithful.
It was four o'clock and past, when some one knocked at her door,
and, on entering, gave her a note, which Mrs. Bellingham had
left. That lady had found some difficulty in wording it so as to
satisfy herself, but it was as follows:--
"My son, on recovering from his illness, is, I thank God, happily
conscious of the sinful way in which he has been living with you.
By his earnest desire, and in order to avoid seeing you again, we
are on the point of leaving this place; but, before I go, I wish
to exhort you to repentance, and to remind you that you will not
have your own guilt alone upon your head, but that of any young
man whom you may succeed in entrapping into vice. I shall pray
that you may turn to an honest life, and I strongly recommend
you, if indeed you are not 'dead in trespasses and sins,' to
enter some penitentiary. In accordance with my son's wishes, I
forward you in this envelope a bank-note of fifty pounds.
"MARGARET BELLINGHAM."
Was this the end of all? Had he, indeed, gone? She started up,
and asked this last question of the servant, who, half guessing
at the purport of the note, had lingered about the room, curious
to see the effect produced.
"Iss, indeed, miss; the carriage drove from the door as I came
upstairs. You'll see it now on the Yspytty road, if you'll please
to come to the window of No. 24."
Ruth started up and followed the chambermaid. Ay, there it was,
slowly winding up the steep, white road, on which it seemed to
move at a snail's pace.
She might overtake him--she might--she might speak one farewell
word to him, print his face on her heart with a last look--nay,
when he saw her he might retract, and not utterly, for ever,
leave her. Thus she thought; and she flew back to her room, and
snatching up her bonnet, ran, tying the strings with her
trembling hands as she went down the stairs, out at the nearest
door, little heeding the angry words of Mrs. Morgan; for the
hostess, more irritated at Mrs. Bellingham's severe upbraiding at
parting, than mollified by her ample payment, was offended by the
circumstance of Ruth, in her wild haste, passing through the
prohibited front door.
But Ruth was away before Mrs. Morgan had finished her speech, out
and away, scudding along the road, thought-lost in the breathless
rapidity of her motion. Though her heart and head beat almost to
bursting, what did it signify if she could but overtake the
carriage? It was a nightmare, constantly evading the most
passionate wishes and endeavours, and constantly gaining ground.
Every time it was visible it was in fact more distant, but Ruth
would not believe it. If she could but gain the summit of that
weary everlasting hill, she believed that she could run again,
and would soon be nigh upon the carriage. As she ran she prayed
with wild eagerness; she prayed that she might see his face once
more, even if she died on the spot before him. It was one of
those prayers which God is too merciful to grant; but, despairing
and wild as it was, Ruth put her soul into it, and prayed it
again, and yet again.
Wave above wave of the ever-rising hills were gained, were
crossed, and at last Ruth struggled up to the very top and stood
on the bare table of moor, brown and purple, stretching far away
till it was lost in the haze of the summer afternoon; the white
road was all flat before her, but the carriage she sought, and
the figure she sought, had disappeared. There was no human being
there; a few wild, black-faced mountain sheep, quietly grazing
near the road as if it were long since they had been disturbed,
by the passing of any vehicle, was all the life she saw on the
bleak moorland.
She threw herself down on the ling by the side of the road, in
despair. Her only hope was to die, and she believed she was
dying. She could not think; she could believe anything. Surely
life was a horrible dream, and God would mercifully awaken her
from it? She had no penitence, no consciousness of error or
offence no knowledge of any one circumstance but that he was
gone. Yet afterwards--long afterwards--she remembered the exact
motion of a bright green beetle busily meandering among the wild
thyme near her, and she recalled the musical, balanced, wavering
drop of a skylark into her nest, near the heather-bed where she
lay. The sun was sinking low, the hot air had ceased to quiver
near the hotter earth, when she bethought her once more of the
note which she had impatiently thrown down before half mastering
its contents. "Oh, perhaps," she thought, "I have been too hasty.
There may be some words of explanation from him on the other side
of the page, to which, in my blind anguish, I never turned. I
will go and find it."
She lifted herself heavily and stiffly from the crushed heather.
She stood dizzy and confused with her change of posture; and was
so unable to move at first, that her walk was but slow and
tottering; but, by-and-by, she was tasked and goaded by thoughts
which forced her into rapid motion, as if, by it, she could
escape from her agony. She came down on the level ground, just as
many gay or peaceful groups were sauntering leisurely home with
hearts at ease; with low laughs and quiet smiles, and many an
exclamation at the beauty of the summer evening.
Ever since her adventure with the little boy and his sister, Ruth
had habitually avoided encountering these happy--innocents, may I
call them?--these happy fellow-mortals! And even now, the habit
grounded on sorrowful humiliation had power over her; she paused,
and then, on looking back, she saw more people who had come into
the main road from a side-path. She opened a gate into a
pasture-field, and crept up to the hedge-bank until all should
have passed by, and she could steal into the inn unseen. She sat
down on the sloping turf by the roots of an old hawthorn tree
which grew in the hedge; she was still tearless, with hot burning
eyes; she heard the merry walkers pass by; she heard the
footsteps of the village children as they ran along to their
evening play; she saw the small black cows come into the fields
after being milked; and life seemed yet abroad. When would the
world be still and dark, and fit for such a deserted, desolate
creature as she was? Even in her hiding-place she was not long at
peace. The little children, with their curious eyes peering here
and there, had peeped through the hedge, and through the gate,
and now they gathered from all the four corners of the hamlet,
and crowded round the gate; and one more adventurous than the
rest had run into the field to cry, "Gi' me a halfpenny," which
set the example to every little one, emulous of his boldness; and
there, where she sat, low on the ground, and longing for the sure
hiding-place earth gives to the weary, the children kept running
in, and pushing one another forwards and laughing. Poor things!
their time had not come for understanding what sorrow is. Ruth
would have begged them to leave her alone, and not madden her
utterly; but they knew no English save the one eternal "Gi' me a
halfpenny." She felt in her heart that there was no pity
anywhere. Suddenly, while she thus doubted God, a shadow fell
across her garments, on which her miserable eyes were bent. She
looked up. The deformed gentleman she had twice before seen stood
there. He had been attracted by the noisy little crowd, and had
questioned them in Welsh; but, not understanding enough of the
language to comprehend their answers, he had obeyed their signs,
and entered the gate to which they pointed. There he saw the
young girl whom he had noticed at first for her innocent beauty,
and the second time for the idea he had gained respecting her
situation; there he saw her, crouched up like some hunted
creature, with a wild, scared look of despair, which almost made
her lovely face seem fierce; he saw her dress soiled and dim, her
bonnet crushed and battered with her tossings to and fro on the
moorland bed; he saw the poor, lost wanderer, and when he saw her
he had compassion on her.
There was some look of heavenly pity In his eyes, as gravely and
sadly they met her upturned gaze, which touched her stony heart.
Still looking at him, as if drawing some good influence from him,
she said low and mournfully, "He has left me, sir!--sir, he has
indeed!--he has gone and left me!"
Before he could speak a word to comfort her, she had burst into
the wildest, dreariest crying ever mortal cried. The settled form
of the event, when put into words, went sharp to her heart; her
moans and sobs wrung his soul; but, as no speech of his could be
heard, if he had been able to decide what best to say, he stood
by her in apparent calmness, while she, wretched, wailed and
uttered her woe. But when she lay worn out, and stupefied into
silence, she heard him say to himself in a low voice--
"Oh, my God! for Christ's sake, pity her I"
Ruth lifted up her eyes, and looked at him with a dim perception
of the meaning of his words. She regarded him fixedly in a dreamy
way, as if they struck some chord in her heart, and she were
listening to its echo; and so it was. His pitiful look, or his
words, reminded her of the childish days when she knelt at her
mother's knee; and she was only conscious of a straining, longing
desire to recall it all.
He let her take her time, partly because he was powerfully
affected himself by all the circumstances, and by the sad pale
face upturned to his; and partly by an instinctive consciousness
that the softest patience was required. But suddenly she startled
him, as she herself was startled into a keen sense of the
suffering agony of the present; she sprang up and pushed him
aside, and went rapidly towards the gate of the field. He could
not move as quickly as most men, but he put forth his utmost
speed. He followed across the road, on to the rocky common; but,
as he went along, with his uncertain gait, in the dusk gloaming,
he stumbled, and fell over some sharp projecting stone. The acute
pain which shot up his back forced a short cry from him; and,
when bird and beast are hushed into rest and the stillness of
night is over all, a high-pitched sound, like the voice of pain,
is carried far in the quiet air. Ruth, speeding on in her
despair, heard the sharp utterance, and stopped suddenly short.
It did what no remonstrance could have done; it called her out of
herself. The tender nature was in her still, in that hour when
all good angels seemed to have abandoned her. In the old days she
could never bear to hear or see bodily suffering in any of God's
meanest creatures, without trying to succour them; and now, in
her rush to the awful death of the suicide, she stayed her wild
steps, and turned to find from whom that sharp sound of anguish
had issued.
He lay among the white stones, too faint with pain to move, but
with an agony in his mind far keener than any bodily pain, as he
thought that by his unfortunate fall he had lost all chance of
saving her. He was almost over-powered by his intense
thankfulness when he saw her white figure pause, and stand
listening, and turn again with slow footsteps, as if searching
for some lost thing. He could hardly speak, but he made a sound
which, though his heart was inexpressibly glad, was like a groan.
She came quickly towards him.
"I am hurt," said he; "do not leave me;" his disabled and tender
frame was overcome by the accident and the previous emotions, and
he fainted away. Ruth flew to the little mountain stream, the
dashing sound of whose waters had been tempting her, but a moment
before, to seek forgetfulness in the deep pool into which they
fell. She made a basin of her joined hands, and carried enough of
the cold fresh water back to dash into his face and restore him
to consciousness. While he still kept silence, uncertain what to
say best fitted to induce her to listen to him, she said softly--
"Are you better, sir?--are you very much hurt?"
"Not very much; I am better. Any quick movement is apt to cause
me a sudden loss of power in my back, and I believe I stumbled
over some of these projecting stones. It will soon go off; and
you will help me to go home, I am sure."
"Oh, yes! Can you go now? I am afraid of your lying too long on
this heather; there is a heavy dew."
He was so anxious to comply with her wish, and not weary out her
thought for him, and so turn her back upon herself, that he tried
to rise. The pain was acute, and this she saw.
"Don't hurry yourself, sir; I can wait."
Then came across her mind the recollection of the business that
was thus deferred; but the few homely words which had been
exchanged between them seemed to have awakened her from her
madness. She sat down by him, and covering her face with her
hands, cried mournfully and unceasingly. She forgot his presence,
and yet she had a consciousness that some one looked for her kind
offices, that she was wanted in the world, and must not rush
hastily out of it. The consciousness did not 'take this definite
form, it did not become a thought, but it kept her still, and it
was gradually soothing her.
"Can you help me to rise now?" said he, after a while. She did
not speak, but she helped him up, and then he took her arm, and
she led him tenderly through all the little velvet paths, where
the turf grew short and soft between the rugged stones. Once more
on the highway, they slowly passed along in the moonlight. He
guided her by a slight motion of the arm, through the more
unfrequented lanes, to his lodgings at the shop; for he thought
for her, and conceived the pain she would have in seeing the
lighted windows of the inn. He leant more heavily on her arm, as
they awaited the opening of the door.
"Come in," said he, not relaxing his hold, and yet dreading to
tighten it, lest she should defy restraint, and once more rush
away.
They went slowly into the little parlour behind the shop. The
bonny-looking hostess, Mrs. Hughes by name, made haste to light
the candle, and then they saw each other, face to face. The
deformed gentleman looked very pale, but Ruth looked as if the
shadow of death was upon her.
CHAPTER IX
THE STORM-SPIRIT SUBDUED
Mrs. Hughes bustled about with many a sympathetic exclamation,
now in pretty broken English, now in more fluent Welsh, which
sounded as soft as Russian or Italian, in her musical voice. Mr.
Benson, for that was the name of the hunchback, lay on the sofa
thinking; while the tender Mrs. Hughes made every arrangement for
his relief from pain. He had lodged with her for three successive
years, and she knew and loved him.
Ruth stood in the little bow-window, looking out. Across the
moon, and over the deep blue heavens, large, torn,
irregular-shaped clouds went hurrying, as if summoned by some
storm-spirit. The work they were commanded to do was not here;
the mighty gathering-place lay eastward, immeasurable leagues;
and on they went, chasing each other over the silent earth, now
black, now silver-white at one transparent edge, now with the
moon shining like Hope through their darkest centre, now again
with a silver lining; and now, utterly black, they sailed lower
in the lift, and disappeared behind the immovable mountains; they
were rushing in the very direction in which Ruth had striven and
struggled to go that afternoon; they, in their wild career, would
soon pass over the very spot where he (her world's he) was lying
sleeping, or perhaps not sleeping, perhaps thinking of her. The
storm was in her mind, and rent and tore her purposes into forms
as wild and irregular as the heavenly shapes she was looking at.
If, like them, she could pass the barrier horizon in the night,
she might overtake him. Mr. Benson saw her look, and read it
partially. He saw her longing gaze outwards upon the free, broad
world, and thought that the siren waters, whose deadly music yet
rang in his ears, were again tempting her. He called her to him
praying that his feeble voice might have power.
"My dear young lady, I have much to say to you; and God has taken
my strength from me now when I most need--Oh, I sin to speak
so--but, for His sake, I implore you to be patient here, if only
till to-morrow morning." He looked at her, but her face was
immovable, and she did not speak. She could not give up her hope,
her chance, her liberty, till to-morrow.
"God help me," said he mournfully, "my words do not touch her;"
and, still holding her hand, he sank back on the pillows. Indeed,
it was true that his words did not vibrate in her atmosphere. The
storm-spirit raged there, and filled her heart with the thought
that she was an outcast; and the holy words, "for His sake," were
answered by the demon, who held possession, with a blasphemous
defiance of the merciful God--
"What have I to do with Thee?"
He thought of every softening influence of religion which over
his own disciplined heart had power, but put them aside as
useless. Then the still small voice whispered, and he spake--
"In your mother's name, whether she be dead or alive, I command
you to stay here until I am able to speak to you."
She knelt down at the foot of the sofa, and shook it with her
sobs. Her heart was touched, and he hardly dared to speak again.
At length he said--
"I know you will not go--you could not--for her sake. You will
not, will you?"
"No," whispered Ruth; and then there was a great blank in her
heart. She had given up her chance. She was calm, in the utter
absence of all hope.
"And now you will do what I tell you?" said he gently, but
unconsciously to himself, in the tone of one who has found the
hidden spell by which to rule spirits.
She slowly said, "Yes." But she was subdued.
He called Mrs. Hughes. She came from her adjoining shop.
"You have a bedroom within yours, where your daughter used to
sleep, I think? I am sure you will oblige me, and I shall
consider it as a great favour, if you will allow this young lady
to sleep there to-night. Will you take her there now? Go, my
dear. I have full trust in your promise not to leave until I can
speak to you." His voice died away to silence; but as Ruth rose
from her knees at his bidding, she looked at his face through her
tears. His lips were moving in earnest, unspoken prayer, and she
knew it was for her.
That night, although his pain was relieved by rest, he could not
sleep; and, as in fever, the coming events kept unrolling
themselves before him in every changing and fantastic form. He
met Ruth in all possible places and ways, and addressed her in
every manner he could imagine most calculated to move and affect
her to penitence and virtue. Towards morning he fell asleep, but
the same thoughts haunted his dreams; he spoke, but his voice
refused to utter aloud; and she fled, relentless, to the deep,
black pool.
But God works in His own way.
The visions melted into deep, unconscious sleep. He was awakened
by a knock at the door, which seemed a repetition of what he had
heard in his last sleeping moments.
It was Mrs. Hughes. She stood at the first word of permission
within the room.
"Please, sir, I think the young lady is very ill indeed, sir;
perhaps you would please to come to her."
"How is she ill?" said he, much alarmed.
"Quite quiet-like, sir; but I think she is dying, that's all,
indeed, sir."
"Go away, I will be with you directly," he replied, his heart
sinking within him.
In a very short time he was standing with Mrs. Hughes by Ruth's
bedside. She lay as still as if she were dead, her eyes shut, her
wan face numbed into a fixed anguish of expression. She did not
speak when they spoke, though after a while they thought she
strove to do so. But all power of motion and utterance had left
her. She was dressed in everything, except her bonnet, as she had
been the day before; although sweet, thoughtful Mrs. Hughes had
provided her with nightgear, which lay on the little chest of
drawers that served as a dressing-table. Mr. Benson lifted up her
arm to feel her feeble, fluttering pulse; and when he let go her
hand, it fell upon the bed in a dull, heavy way, as if she were
already dead.
"You gave her some food?" said he anxiously, to Mrs. Hughes.
"Indeed, and I offered her the best in the house, but she shook
her poor pretty head, and only asked if I would please to get her
a cup of water. I brought her some milk though; and, 'deed, I
think she'd rather have had the water; but, not to seem sour and
cross, she took some milk." By this time Mrs. Hughes was fairly
crying.
"When does the doctor come up here?"
"Indeed, sir, and he's up nearly every day now, the inn is so
full."
"I'll go for him. And can you manage to undress her and lay her
in bed? Open the window too, and let in the air; if her feet are
cold, put bottles of hot water to them."
It was a proof of the true love, which was the nature of both,
that it never crossed their minds to regret that this poor young
creature had been thus thrown upon their hands. On the contrary,
Mrs. Hughes called it "a blessing."
"It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."
CHAPTER X
A NOTE AND THE ANSWER
At the inn everything was life and bustle. Mr. Benson had to wait
long in Mrs. Morgan's little parlour before she could come to
him, and he kept growing more and more impatient. At last she
made her appearance and heard his story. People may talk as they
will about the little respect that is paid to virtue,
unaccompanied by the outward accidents of wealth or station; but
I rather think it will be found that, in the long run, true and
simple virtue always has its proportionate reward in the respect
and reverence of every one whose esteem is worth having. To be
sure, it is not rewarded after the way of the world, as mere
worldly possessions are, with low obeisance and lip-service; but
all the better and more noble qualities in the hearts of others
make ready and go forth to meet it on its approach, provided only
it be pure, simple, and unconscious of its own existence.
Mr. Benson had little thought for outward tokens of respect just
then, nor had Mrs. Morgan much time to spare; but she smoothed
her ruffled brow, and calmed her bustling manner, as soon as ever
she saw who it was that awaited her; for Mr. Benson was well
known in the village, where he had taken up his summer holiday
among the mountains year after year, always a resident at the
shop, and seldom spending a shilling at the inn.
Mrs. Morgan listened patiently--for her.
"Mr. Jones will come this afternoon. But it is a shame you should
be troubled with such as her. I had but little time yesterday,
but I guessed there was something wrong, and Gwen has just been
telling me her bed has not been slept in. They were in a pretty
hurry to be gone yesterday, for all that the gentleman was not
fit to travel, to my way of thinking; indeed, William Wynn, the
post-boy, said he was weary enough before he got to the end of
that Yspytty road; and he thought they would have to rest there a
day or two before they could go further than Pen tre Voelas.
Indeed, and anyhow, the servant is to follow them with the
baggage this very morning; and now I remember, William Wynn said
they would wait for her. You'd better write a note, Mr. Benson,
and tell them her state."
It was sound, though unpalatable advice. It came from one
accustomed to bring excellent, if unrefined sense, to bear
quickly upon any emergency, and to decide rapidly. She was, in
truth, so little accustomed to have her authority questioned,
that, before Mr. Benson had made up his mind, she had produced
paper, pens, and ink from the drawer in her bureau, placed them
before him, and was going to leave the room.
"Leave the note on this shelf, and trust me that it goes by the
maid. The boy that drives her there in the car shall bring you an
answer back." She was gone before he could rally his scattered
senses enough to remember that he had not the least idea of the
name of the person to whom he was to write. The quiet leisure and
peace of his little study at home favoured his habit of reverie
and long deliberation, just as her position as mistress of an inn
obliged her to quick, decisive ways.
Her advice, though good in some points, was unpalatable in
others. It was true that Ruth's condition ought to be known by
those who were her friends; but were these people to whom he was
now going to write friends? He knew there was a rich mother, and
a handsome, elegant son; and he had also some idea of the
circumstances which might a little extenuate their mode of
quitting Ruth. He had wide-enough sympathy to understand that it
must have been a most painful position in which the mother had
been placed, on finding herself under the same roof with a girl
who was living with her son, as Ruth was. And yet he did not like
to apply to her; to write to the son was still more out of the
question, as it seemed like asking him to return. But through one
or the other lay the only clue to her friends, who certainly
ought to be made acquainted with her position. At length he
wrote--
"MADAM,--I write to tell you of the condition of the poor young
woman"--(here came a long pause of deliberation)--"who
accompanied your son on his arrival here, and who was left behind
on your departure yesterday. She is lying (as it appears to me)
in a very dangerous state at my lodgings; and, if I may suggest,
it would be kind to allow your maid to return and attend upon her
until she is sufficiently recovered to be restored to her
friends, if, indeed, they could not come to take charge of her
themselves.--I remain, madam, your obedient servant
THURSTAN BENSON."
The note was very unsatisfactory after all his consideration, but
it was the best he could do. He made inquiry of a passing servant
as to the lady's name, directed the note, and placed it on the
indicated shelf. He then returned to his lodgings, to await the
doctor's coming and the postboy's return. There was no alteration
in Ruth; she was as one stunned into unconsciousness; she did not
move her posture, she hardly breathed. From time to time Mrs.
Hughes wetted her mouth with some liquid, and there was a little
mechanical motion of the lips; that was the only sign of life she
gave. The doctor came and shook his head,--"a thorough
prostration of strength, occasioned by some great shock on the
nerves,"--and prescribed care and quiet, and mysterious
medicines, but acknowledged that the result was doubtful, very
doubtful. After his departure, Mr. Benson took his Welsh grammar
and tried again to master the ever-puzzling rules for the
mutations of letters; but it was of no use, for his thoughts were
absorbed by the life-in-death condition of the young creature,
who was lately bounding and joyous.
The maid and the luggage, the car and the driver; bad arrived
before noon at their journey's end, and the note had been
delivered. It annoyed Mrs. Bellingham exceedingly. It was the
worst of these kind of connections,--there was no calculating the
consequences; they were never-ending. All sorts of claims seemed
to be established, and all sorts of people to step in to their
settlement. The idea of sending her maid! Why, Simpson would not
go if she asked her. She soliloquised thus while reading the
letter; and then, suddenly turning round to the favourite
attendant, who had been listening to her mistress's remarks with
no inattentive ear, she asked--
"Simpson, would you go and nurse this creature, as this----" she
looked at the signature--"Mr. Benson, who ever he is, proposes?"
"Me! no, indeed, ma'am," said the maid, drawing herself up, stiff
in her virtue.
"I'm sure, ma'am, you: would not expect it of me; I could never
have the face to dress a lady of character again."
"Well, well! don't be alarmed; I cannot spare you: by the way,
just attend to the strings on my dress; the chambermaid here
pulled them into knots, and broke them terribly, last night. It
is awkward, though, very," said she, relapsing into a musing fit
over the condition of Ruth.
"If you'll allow me, ma'am, I think I might say some thing that
would alter the case. I believe, ma'am, you put a bank-note into
the letter to the young woman yesterday?"
Mrs. Bellingham bowed acquiescence, and the maid went on--
"Because, ma'am, when the little deformed man wrote that note
(he's Mr. Benson, ma'am), I have reason to believe neither he nor
Mrs. Morgan knew of any provision being made for the young woman.
Me and the chambermaid found your letter and the bank-note lying
quite promiscuous, like waste paper, on the floor of her room;
for I believe she rushed out like mad after you left."
"That, as you say, alters the case. This letter, then, is
principally a sort of delicate hint that some provision ought to
have been made; which is true enough, only it has been attended
to already. What became of the money?"
"Law, ma'am! do you ask? Of course, as soon as I saw it, I picked
it up and took it to Mrs. Morgan, in trust for the young person."
"Oh, that's right. What friends has she? Did you ever hear from
Mason?--perhaps they ought to know where she is."
"Mrs. Mason did tell me, ma'am, she was an orphan; with a
guardian who was noways akin, and who washed his hands of her
when she ran off. But Mrs. Mason was sadly put out, and went into
hysterics, for fear you would think she had not seen after her
enough, and that she might lose your custom; she said it was no
fault of hers, for the girl was always a forward creature,
boasting of her beauty, and saying how pretty she was, and
striving to get where her good looks could be seen and
admired,--one night in particular, ma'am, at a county ball; and
how Mrs. Mason had found out she used to meet Mr. Bellingham at
an old woman's house, who was a regular old witch, ma'am, and
lives in the lowest part of the town, where all the bad
characters haunt."
"There! that's enough," said Mrs. Bellingham sharply, for the
maid's chattering had outrun her tact; and in her anxiety to
vindicate the character of her friend Mrs. Mason by blackening
that of Ruth, she had forgotten that she a little implicated her
mistress's son, whom his proud mother did not like to imagine as
ever passing through a low and degraded part of the town.
"If she has no friends, and is the creature you describe (which
is confirmed by my own observation), the best place for her is,
as I said before, the Penitentiary. Her fifty pounds will keep
her a week or so, if she is really unable to travel, and pay for
her journey; and if on her return to Fordham she will let me
know, I will undertake to obtain her admission immediately."
"I'm sure it's well for her she has to do with a lady who will
take any interest in her, after what has happened."
Mrs. Bellingham called for her writing-desk, and wrote a few
hasty lines to be sent by the post-boy, who was on the point of
starting--
"Mrs. Bellingham presents her compliments to her unknown
correspondent, Mr. Benson, and begs to inform him of a
circumstance of which she believes he was ignorant when he wrote
the letter with which she has been favoured; namely, that
provision to the amount of L 50 was left for the unfortunate young
person who is the subject of Mr. Benson's letter. This sum is in
the hands of Mrs. Morgan, as well as a note from Mrs. Bellingham
to the miserable girl, in which she proposes to procure her
admission into the Fordham Penitentiary, the best place for such
a character, as by this profligate action she has forfeited the
only friend remaining to her in the world. This proposition Mrs.
Bellingham repeats; and they are the young woman's best friends
who most urge her to comply with the course now pointed out."
"Take care Mr. Bellingham hears nothing of this Mr. Benson's
note," said Mrs. Bellingham, as she delivered the answer to her
maid; "he is so sensitive just now that it would annoy him sadly,
I am sure."
CHAPTER XI
THURSTAN AND FAITH BENSON
You have now seen the note which was delivered into Mr. Benson's
hands, as the cool shades of evening stole over the glowing
summer sky. When he had read it, he again prepared to write a few
hasty lines before the post went out. The post-boy was even now
sounding his horn through the village as a signal for letters to
be ready; and it was well that Mr. Benson, in his long morning's
meditation, had decided upon the course to be pursued, in case of
such an answer as that which he had received from Mrs.
Bellingham. His present note was as follows;--
"DEAR FAITH,--You must come to this place directly, where I
earnestly desire you and your advice. I am well myself, so do not
be alarmed. I have no time for explanation, but I am sure you
will not refuse me; let me trust that I shall see you on Saturday
at the latest. You know the mode by which I came; it is the best
both for expedition and cheapness. Dear Faith, do not fail me.--
"Your affectionate brother. THURSTAN BENSON.
"P.S.--I am afraid the money I left may be running short. Do not
let this stop you. Take my Facciolati to Johnson's, he will
advance upon it; it is the third row, bottom shelf. Only come."
When this letter was despatched he had done all he could; and the
next two days passed like a long monotonous dream of watching,
thought, and care, undisturbed by any event, hardly by the change
from day to night, which, now the harvest moon was at her full,
was scarcely perceptible. On Saturday morning the answer came--
"DEAREST THURSTAN,--Your incomprehensible summons has just
reached me, and I obey, thereby proving my right to my name of
Faith. I shall be with you almost as soon as this letter. I
cannot help feeling anxious, as well as curious. I have money
enough, and it is well I have; for Sally, who guards your room
like a dragon, would rather see me walk the whole way, than have
any of your things disturbed.--Your affectionate sister,"
It was a great relief to Mr. Benson to think that his sister
would so soon be with him. He had been accustomed from childhood
to rely on her prompt judgment and excellent sense; and to her
care he felt that Ruth ought to be consigned, as it was too much
to go on taxing good Mrs. Hughes with night watching and sick
nursing, with all her other claims on her time. He asked her once
more to sit by Ruth, while he went to meet his sister.
The coach passed by the foot of the steep ascent which led up to
Llan-dhu. He took a boy to carry his sister's luggage when they
arrived; they were too soon at the bottom of the hill; and the
boy began to make ducks and drakes in the shallowest part of the
stream, which there flowed glassy and smooth, while Mr. Benson
sat down on a great stone, under the shadow of an alderbush which
grew where the green flat meadow skirted the water. It was
delightful to be once more in the open air, and away from the
scenes and thoughts which had been pressing on him for the last
three days. There was a new beauty in everything from the blue
mountains which glimmered in the distant sunlight, down to the
flat, rich, peaceful vale, with its calm round shadows, where he
sat. The very margin of white pebbles which lay on the banks of
the stream had a sort of cleanly beauty about it. He felt calmer
and more at ease than he had done for some days; and yet, when he
began to think, it was rather a strange story which he had to
tell his sister, in order to account for his urgent summons. Here
was he, sole friend and guardian of a poor sick girl, whose very
name he did not know; about whom all that he did know was, that
she had been the mistress of a man who had deserted her, and that
he feared--he believed--she had contemplated suicide. The
offence, too, was one for which his sister, good and kind as she
was, had little compassion. Well, he must appeal to her love for
him, which was a very unsatisfactory mode of proceeding, as he
would far rather have had her interest in the girl founded on
reason, or some less personal basis, than showing it merely
because her brother wished it.
The coach came slowly rumbling over the stony road. His sister
was outside, but got down in a brisk active way, and greeted her
brother heartily and affectionately. She was considerably taller
than he was, and must have been very handsome; her black hair was
parted plainly over her forehead, and her dark expressive eyes
and straight nose still retained the beauty of her youth. I do
not know whether she was older than her brother; but, probably
owing to his infirmity requiring her care, she had something of a
mother's manner towards him.
"Thurstan, you are looking pale! I do not believe you are well,
whatever you may say. Have you had the old pain in your back?"
"No--a little--never mind that, dearest Faith. Sit down here,
while I send the boy up with your box." And then, with some
little desire to show his sister how well he was acquainted with
the language, he blundered out his directions in very grammatical
Welsh; so grammatical, in fact, and so badly pronounced, that the
boy, scratching his head, made answer--
"Dim Saesoneg."
So he had to repeat it in English.
"Well, now, Thurstan, here I sit as you bid me. But don't try me
too long; tell me why you sent for me."
Now came the difficulty, and oh! for a seraph's tongue, and a
seraph's powers of representation! But there was no seraph at
hand, only the soft running waters singing a quiet tune, and
predisposing Miss Benson to listen with a soothed spirit to any
tale, not immediately involving her brother's welfare, which had
been the cause of her seeing that lovely vale.
"It is an awkward story to tell, Faith, but there is a young
woman lying ill at my lodgings whom I wanted you to nurse."
He thought he saw a shadow on his sister's face, and detected a
slight change in her voice as she spoke.
"Nothing very romantic, I hope, Thurstan. Remember, I cannot
stand much romance; I always distrust it."
"I don't know what you mean by romance. The story is real enough,
and not out of the common way, I'm afraid."
He paused; he did not get over the difficulty.
"Well, tell it me at once, Thurstan. I am afraid you have let
some one, or perhaps only your own imagination, impose upon you;
but don't try my patience too much; you know I've no great
stock."
"Then I'll tell you. The young girl was brought to the inn here
by a gentleman, who has left her; she is very ill, and has no one
to see after her."
Miss Benson had some masculine tricks, and one was whistling a
long, low whistle when surprised or displeased. She had often
found it a useful vent for feelings, and she whistled now. Her
brother would rather she had spoken.
"Have you sent for her friends?" she asked, at last.
"She has none."
Another pause and another whistle, but rather softer and more
wavering than the last.
"How is she ill?"
"Pretty nearly as quiet as if she were dead. She does not speak,
or move, or even sigh."
"It would be better for her to die at once, I think."
"Faith!"
That one word put them right. It was spoken in the tone which had
authority over her; it was so full of grieved surprise and
mournful upbraiding. She was accustomed to exercise a sway over
him, owing to her greater decision of character, and, probably,
if everything were traced to its cause, to her superior vigour of
constitution; but at times she was humbled before his pure,
childlike nature, and felt where she was inferior. She was too
good and; true to conceal this feeling, or to resent its being
forced upon her. After a time she said--
"Thurstan dear, let us go to her."
She helped him with tender care, and gave him her arm up the long
and tedious hill; but when they approached the village, without
speaking a word on the subject, they changed their position, and
she leant (apparently) on him. He stretched himself up into as
vigorous a gait as he could, when they drew near to the abodes of
men.
On the way they had spoken but little. He had asked after various
members of his congregation, for he was a Dissenting minister in
a country town, and she had answered; but they neither of them
spoke of Ruth, though their minds were full of her.
Mrs. Hughes had tea ready for the traveller on her arrival. Mr.
Benson chafed a little internally at the leisurely way in which
his sister sipped and sipped, and paused to tell him some
trifling particular respecting home affairs, which she had
forgotten before.
"Mr. Bradshaw has refused to let the children associate with the
Dixons any longer, because one evening they played at acting
charades."
"Indeed! A little more bread and butter, Faith?"
"Thank you this Welsh air does make one hungry. Mrs. Bradshaw is
paying poor old Maggie's rent, to save her from being sent into
the workhouse.
"That's right. Won't you have another cup of tea?"
"I have had two. However, I think I'll take another."
Mr. Benson could not refrain from a little sigh as he poured it
out. He thought he had never seen his sister so deliberately
hungry and thirsty before. He did not guess that she was feeling
the meal rather a respite from a distasteful interview, which she
was aware was awaiting her at its conclusion. But all things come
to an end, and so did Miss Benson's tea.
"Now, will you go and see her?"
"Yes."
And so they went. Mrs. Hughes had pinned up a piece of green
calico, by way of a Venetian blind, to shut out the afternoon
sun; and in the light thus shaded lay Ruth--still, and wan, and
white. Even with her brother's account of Ruth's state, such
death-like quietness startled Miss Benson--startled her into pity
for the poor lovely creature who lay thus stricken and felled.
When she saw her, she could no longer imagine her to be an
impostor, or a hardened sinner; such prostration of woe belonged
to neither. Mr. Benson looked more at his sister's face than at
Ruth's; he read her countenance as a book.
Mrs. Hughes stood by, crying.
Mr. Benson touched his sister, and they left the room together.
"Do you think she will live?" asked he.
"I cannot tell," said Miss Benson, in a softened voice. "But how
young she looks! quite a child, poor creature! When will the
doctor come, Thurstan? Tell me all about her; you have never told
me the particulars."
Mr. Benson might have said she had never cared to hear them
before, and had rather avoided the subject; but he was too happy
to see this awakening of interest in his sister's warm heart to
say anything in the least reproachful. He told her the story as
well as he could, and, as he felt it deeply, he told it with
heart's eloquence; and as he ended, and looked at her, there were
tears in the eyes of both.
"And what does the doctor say?" asked she, after a pause.
"He insists upon quiet; he orders medicines and strong broth. I
cannot tell you all; Mrs. Hughes can. She has been so truly good.
'Doing good, hoping for nothing again.'"
"She looks very sweet and gentle. I shall sit up to night, and
watch her myself; and I shall send you and Mrs. Hughes early to
bed, for you have both a worn look about you I don't like. Are
you sure the effect of that fall has gone off? Do you feel
anything of it in your back still? After all, I owe her something
for turning back to your help. Are you sure she was going to
drown herself?"
"I cannot be sure, for I have not questioned her. She has not
been in a state to be questioned; but I have no doubt whatever
about it. But you must not think of sitting up after your
journey, Faith."
"Answer me, Thurstan. Do you feel any bad effect from that fall?"
"No, hardly any. Don't sit up, Faith, to-night!"
"Thurstan, it's no use talking, for I shall; and, if you go on
opposing me, I dare say I shall attack your back, and, put a
blister on it. Do tell me what that 'hardly any' means. Besides,
to set you quite at ease, you know I have never seen mountains
before, and they fill me and oppress me so much that I could not
sleep; I must keep awake this first night, and see that they
don't fall on the earth and overwhelm it. And now answer my
questions about yourself."
Miss Benson had the power, which some people have, of carrying
her wishes through to their fulfilment; her will was strong, her
sense was excellent, and people yielded to her--they did not know
why. Before ten o'clock she reigned sole power and potentate in
Ruth's little chamber. Nothing could have been better devised for
giving her an interest in the invalid. The very dependence of one
so helpless upon her care inclined her heart towards her. She
thought she perceived a slight improvement in the symptoms during
the night, and she was a little pleased that this progress should
have been made while she reigned monarch of the sick-room. Yes,
certainly there was an improvement. There was more consciousness
in the look of the eyes, although the whole countenance still
retained its painful traces of acute suffering, manifested in an
anxious, startled uneasy aspect. It was broad morning light,
though barely five o'clock, when Miss Benson caught the sight of
Ruth's lips moving, as if in speech. Miss Benson stooped down to
listen.
"Who are you?" asked Ruth, in the faintest of whispers.
"Miss Benson--Mr. Benson's sister," she replied.
The words conveyed no knowledge to Ruth; on the contrary, weak as
a babe in mind and body as she was, her lips began to quiver, and
her eyes to show a terror similar to that of any little child who
wakens in the presence of a stranger, and sees no dear, familiar
face of mother or nurse to reassure its trembling heart.
Miss Benson took her hand in hers, and began to stroke it
caressingly.
"Don't be afraid, dear; I'm a friend come to take care of you.
Would you like some tea now, my love ?"
The very utterance of these gentle words was unlocking Miss
Benson's heart. Her brother was surprised to see her so full of
interest when he came to inquire later on in the morning. It
required Mrs. Hughes's persuasions, as well as his own, to induce
her to go to bed for an hour or two after breakfast; and, before
she went, she made them promise that she should be called when
the doctor came. He did not come until late in the afternoon. The
invalid was rallying fast, though rallying to a consciousness of
sorrow, as was evinced by the tears which came slowly rolling
down her pale sad cheeks--tears which she had not the power to
wipe away.
Mr. Benson had remained in the house all day to hear the doctor's
opinion; and, now that he was relieved from the charge of Ruth by
his sister's presence, he had the more time to dwell upon the
circumstances of her case--so far as they were known to him. He
remembered his first sight of her; her lithe figure swaying to
and fro as she balanced herself on the slippery stones, half
smiling at her own dilemma, with a bright, happy light in the
eyes, that seemed like a reflection from the glancing waters
sparkling below. Then he recalled the changed, affrighted look of
those eyes as they met his, after the child's rebuff of her
advances; how that little incident filled up the tale at which
Mrs. Hughes had hinted, in a kind of sorrowful way, as if loath
(as a Christian should be) to believe evil. Then that fearful
evening, when he had only just saved her from committing suicide,
and that nightmare sleep! And now--lost, forsaken, and but just
delivered from the jaws of death, she lay dependent for
everything on his sister and him--utter strangers a few weeks
ago. Where was her lover? Could he be easy and happy? Could he
grow into perfect health, with these great sins pressing on his
conscience with a strong and hard pain? Or had he a conscience?
Into whole labyrinths of social ethics Mr. Benson's thoughts
wandered, when his sister entered suddenly and abruptly.
"What does the doctor say? Is she better?"
"Oh, yes! she's better," answered Miss Benson, sharp and short.
Her brother looked at her in dismay. She bumped down into a chair
in a cross, disconcerted manner. They were both silent for a few
minutes, only Miss Benson whistled and clucked alternately.
"What is the matter, Faith? You say she is better."
"Why, Thurstan, there is something so shocking the matter, that I
cannot tell you."
Mr. Benson changed colour with affright. All things possible and
impossible crossed his mind but the right one. I said, "all
things possible"; I made a mistake. He never believed Ruth to be
more guilty than she seemed.
"Faith, I wish you would tell me, and not bewilder me with those
noises of yours," said he nervously.
"I beg your pardon; but something so shocking has just been
discovered--I don't know how to word it--she will have a child.
The doctor says so." She was allowed to make noises unnoticed for
a few minutes. Her brother did not speak. At last she wanted his
sympathy.
"Isn't it shocking, Thurstan? You might have knocked me down with
a straw when he told me."
"Does she know?"
"Yes; and I am not sure that that isn't the worst part of all."
"How?--what do you mean?"
"Oh, I was just beginning to have a good opinion of her; but I'm
afraid she is very depraved. After the doctor was gone, she
pulled the bed-curtain aside, and looked as if she wanted to
speak to me. (I can't think how she heard, for we were close to
the window, and spoke very low.) Well, I went to her, though I
really had taken quite a turn against her. And she whispered,
quite eagerly, 'Did he say I should have a baby?' Of course I
could not keep it from her; but I thought it my duty to look as
cold and severe as I could. She did not seem to understand how it
ought to be viewed, but took it just as if she had a right to
have a baby. She said, 'Oh, my God, I thank Thee! Oh, I will be
so good!' I had no patience with her then, so I left the room."
"Who is with her?"
"Mrs. Hughes. She is not seeing the thing in a moral light, as I
should have expected."
Mr. Benson was silent again. After some time he began--
"Faith, I don't see this affair quite as you do. I believe I am
right."
"You surprise me, brother! I don't understand you."
"Wait awhile! I want to make my feelings very clear to you, but I
don't know where to begin, or how to express myself."
"It is, indeed, an extraordinary subject for us to have to talk
about; but, if once I get clear of this girl, I'll wash my hands
of all such cases again." Her brother was not attending to her;
he was reducing his own ideas to form. "Faith, do you know I
rejoice in this child's advent?"
"May God forgive you, Thurstan!--if you know what you are saying.
But, surely, it is a temptation, dear Thurstan."
"I do not think it is a delusion. The sin appears to me to be
quite distinct from its consequences."
"Sophistry--and a temptation," said Miss Benson decidedly.
"No, it is not," said her brother, with equal decision. "In the
eye of God, she is exactly the same as if the life she has led
had left no trace behind. We knew her errors before, Faith."
"Yes, but not this disgrace--this badge of her shame!"
"Faith, Faith! let me beg of you not to speak so of the little
innocent babe, who may be God's messenger to lead her back to
Him. Think again of her first words--the burst of nature from her
heart! Did she not turn to God, and enter into a covenant with
Him--'I will be so good'? Why, it draws her out of herself! If
her life has hitherto been self-seeking and wickedly thoughtless,
here is the very instrument to make her forget herself, and be
thoughtful for another. Teach her (and God will teach her, if man
does not come between) to reverence her child; and this reverence
will shut out sin,--will be purification."
He was very much excited; he was even surprised at his own
excitement; but his thoughts and meditations through the long
afternoon had prepared his mind for this manner of viewing the
subject.
"These are quite new ideas to me," said Miss Benson coldly. "I
think you, Thurstan, are the first person I ever heard rejoicing
over the birth of an illegitimate child. It appears to me, I must
own, rather questionable morality."
"I do not rejoice. I have been all this afternoon mourning over
the sin which has blighted this young creature; I have been
dreading lest, as she recovered consciousness, there should be a
return of her despair. I have been thinking of every holy word,
every promise to the penitent--of the tenderness which led the
Magdalen aright. I have been feeling, severely and reproachfully,
the timidity which has hitherto made me blink all encounter with
evils of this particular kind. O Faith! once for all, do not
accuse me of questionable morality, when I am trying more than
ever I did in my life to act as my blessed Lord would have done."
He was very much agitated. His sister hesitated, and then she
spoke more softly than before--
"But, Thurstan, everything might have been done to 'lead her
right' (as you call it), without this child, this miserable
offspring of sin."
"The world has, indeed, made such children miserable, innocent as
they are; but I doubt if this be according to the will of God,
unless it be His punishment for the parents' guilt; and even then
the world's way of treatment is too apt to harden the mother's
natural love into something like hatred. Shame, and the terror of
friends' displeasure, turn her mad--defile her holiest instincts;
and, as for the fathers--God forgive them! I cannot--at least,
not just now." Miss Benson thought on what her brother said. At
length she asked, "Thurstan (remember I'm not convinced), how
would you have this girl treated according to your theory?"
"It will require some time, and much Christian love, to find out
the best way. I know I'm not very wise; but the way I think it
would be right to act in, would be this----" He thought for some
time before he spoke, and then said--
"She has incurred a responsibility--that we both acknowledge. She
is about to become a mother, and have the direction and guidance
of a little tender life. I fancy such a responsibility must be
serious and solemn enough, without making it into a heavy and
oppressive burden, so that human nature recoils from bearing it.
While we do all we can to strengthen her sense of responsibility,
I would likewise do all we can to make her feel that it is
responsibility for what may become a blessing."
"Whether the children are legitimate or illegitimate?" asked Miss
Benson dryly.
"Yes!" said her brother firmly. "The more I think, the more I
believe I am right. No one," said he, blushing faintly as he
spoke, "can have a greater recoil from proffigacy than I have.
You yourself have not greater sorrow over this young creature's
sin than I have the difference is this, you confuse the
consequences with the sin."
"I don't understand metaphysics."
"I am not aware that I am talking metaphysics. I can imagine that
if the present occasion be taken rightly, and used well, all that
is good in her may be raised to a height unmeasured but by God;
while all that is evil and dark may, by His blessing, fade and
disappear in the pure light of her child's presence.--Oh, Father!
listen to my prayer, that her redemption may date from this time.
Help us to speak to her in the loving spirit of thy Holy Son!"
The tears were full in his eyes; he almost trembled in his
earnestness. He was faint with the strong power of his own
conviction, and with his inability to move his sister. But she
was shaken. She sat very still for a quarter of an hour or more
while he leaned back, exhausted by his own feelings.
"The poor child!" said she at length--"the poor, poor child! what
it will have to struggle through and endure! Do you remember
Thomas Wilkins, and the way he threw the registry of his birth
and baptism back in your face? Why, he would not have the
situation; he went to sea, and was drowned, rather than present
the record of his shame."
"I do remember it all. It has often haunted me. She must
strengthen her child to look to God, rather than to man's
opinion. It will be the discipline, the penance, she has
incurred. She must teach it to be (humanly speaking)
self-dependent."
"But after all," said Miss Benson (for she had known and esteemed
poor Thomas Wilkins, and had mourned over his untimely death, and
the recollection thereof softened her)--"after all, it might be
concealed. The very child need never know its illegitimacy."
"How?" asked her brother.
"Why--we know so little about her yet; but in that letter, it
said she had no friends;--now, could she not go into quite a
fresh place, and be passed off as a widow?"
Ah, tempter! unconscious tempter! Here was a way of evading the
trials for the poor little unborn child, of which Mr. Benson had
never thought. It was the decision--the pivot, on which the fate
of years moved; and he turned it the wrong way. But it was not
for his own sake. For himself, he was brave enough to tell the
truth; for the little helpless baby, about to enter a cruel,
biting world, he was tempted to evade the difficulty. He forgot
what he had just said, of the discipline and the penance to the
mother consisting in strengthening her child to meet, trustfully
and bravely, the consequences of her own weakness. He remembered
more clearly the wild fierceness, the Cain-like look, of Thomas
Wilkins, as the obnoxious word in the baptismal registry told him
that he must go forth branded into the world, with his hand
against every man's, and every man's against him.
"How could it be managed, Faith?"
"Nay, I must know much more, which she alone can tell us, before
I can see how it is to be managed. It is certainly the best
plan."
"Perhaps it is," said her brother thoughtfully, but no longer
clearly or decidedly; and so the conversation dropped.
Ruth moved the bed-curtain aside, in her soft manner, when Miss
Benson re-entered the room; she did not speak, but she looked at
her as if she wished her to come near. Miss Benson went and stood
by her. Ruth took her hand in hers and kissed it; as if fatigued
even by this slight movement, she fell asleep. Miss Benson took
up her work, and thought over her brother's speeches. She was not
convinced, but she was softened and bewildered.
CHAPTER XII
LOSING SIGHT OF THE WELSH MOUNTAINS
Miss Benson continued in an undecided state of mind for the two
next days; but on the third, as they sat at breakfast, she began
to speak to her brother.
"That young creature's name is Ruth Hilton."
"Indeed! how did you find it out?"
"From herself, of course. She is much stronger. I slept with her
last night, and I was aware she was awake long before I liked to
speak, but at last I began. I don't know what I said, or how it
went on, but I think it was a little relief to her to tell me
something about herself. She sobbed and cried herself to sleep; I
think she is asleep now.
"Tell me what she said about herself."
"Oh, it was really very little; it was evidently a most painful
subject. She is an orphan, without brother or sister, and with a
guardian, whom, I think she said, she never saw but once. He
apprenticed her (after her father's death) to a dressmaker. This
Mr. Bellingham got acquainted with her, and they used to meet on
Sunday afternoons. One day they were late, lingering on the road,
when the dressmaker came up by accident. She seems to have been
very angry, and not unnaturally so. The girl took fright at her
threats, and the lover persuaded her to go off with him to
London, there and then. Last May, I think it was. That's all."
"Did she express any sorrow for her error?"
"No, not in words; but her voice was broken with sobs, though she
tried to make it steady. After a while she began to talk about
her baby, but shyly, and with much hesitation. She asked me, how
much I thought she could earn as a dressmaker, by working very,
very hard; and that brought us round to her child. I thought of
what you had said, Thurstan, and I tried to speak to her as you
wished me. I am not sure if it was right; I am doubtful in my own
mind still."
"Don't be doubtful, Faith! Dear Faith, I thank you for your
kindness."
"There is really nothing to thank me for. It is almost impossible
to help being kind to her; there is something so meek and gentle
about her, so patient, and so grateful!"
"What does she think of doing?"
"Poor child! she thinks of taking lodgings--very cheap ones, she
says; there she means to work night and day to earn enough for
her child. For she said to me; with such pretty earnestness, 'It
must never know want, whatever I do. I have deserved suffering,
but it will be such a little innocent darling!' Her utmost
earnings would not be more than seven or eight shillings a week,
I'm afraid; and then she is so young and so pretty!"
"There is that fifty pounds Mrs. Morgan brought me, and those two
letters. Does she know about them yet?"
"No; I did not like to tell her till she is a little stronger.
Oh, Thurstan! I wish there was not this prospect of a child. I
cannot help it. I do--I could see a way in which we might help
her, if it were not for that."
"How do you mean?"
"Oh, it's no use thinking of it, as it is! Or else we might have
taken her home with us, and kept her till she had got a little
dressmaking in the congregation, but for this meddlesome child;
that spoils everything. You must let me grumble to you, Thurstan.
I was very good to her, and spoke as tenderly and respectfully of
the little thing as if it were the Queen's, and born in lawful
matrimony."
"That's right, my dear Faith! Grumble away to me, if you like.
I'll forgive you, for the kind thought of taking her home with
us. But do you think her situation is an insuperable objection?"
"Why, Thurstan!--it's so insuperable, it puts it quite out of the
question."
"How?--that's only repeating your objection. Why is it out of the
question?"
"If there had been no child coming, we might have called her by
her right name--Miss Hilton; that's one thing. Then, another is,
the baby in our house. Why, Sally would go distraught!"
"Never mind Sally. If she were an orphan relation of our own,
left widowed," said he, pausing as if in doubt. "You yourself
suggested she should be considered as a widow, for the child's
sake. I'm only taking up your ideas, dear Faith. I respect you
for thinking of taking her home; it is just what we ought to do.
Thank you for reminding me of my duty."
"Nay, it was only a passing thought. Think of Mr. Bradshaw. Oh! I
tremble at the thought of his grim displeasure."
"We must think of a higher than Mr. Bradshaw. I own I should be a
very coward if he knew. He is so severe, so inflexible. But after
all he sees so little of us; he never comes to tea, you know, but
is always engaged when Mrs. Bradshaw comes. I don't think he
knows of what our household consists."
"Not know Sally? Oh yes, but he does. He asked Mrs. Bradshaw one
day if she knew what wages we gave her, and said we might get a
far more efficient and younger servant for the money. And,
speaking about money, think what our expenses would be if we took
her home for the next six months."
That consideration was a puzzling one; and both sat silent and
perplexed for a time. Miss Benson was as sorrowful as her
brother, for she was becoming as anxious as he was to find it
possible that her plan could be carried out
"There's the fifty pounds," said he, with a sigh of reluctance at
the idea.
"Yes, there's the fifty pounds," echoed his sister, with the same
sadness in her tone. "I suppose it is hers."
"I suppose it is; and, being so, we must not think who gave it to
her. It will defray her expenses. I am very sorry, but I think we
must take it."
"It would never do to apply to him under the present
circumstances," said Miss Benson, in a hesitating manner.
"No, that we won't," said her brother decisively. "If she
consents to let us take care of her, we will never let her stoop
to request anything from him, even for his child. She can live on
bread and water--we can all live on bread and water--rather than
that."
"Then I will speak to her and propose the plan. Oh, Thurstan!
from a child you could persuade me to anything! I hope I am doing
right. However much I oppose you at first, I am sure to yield
soon; almost in proportion to my violence at first. I think I am
very weak."
"No, not in this instance. We are both right: I, in the way in
which the child ought to be viewed; you, dear good Faith, for
thinking of taking her home with us. God bless you, dear, for
it!"
When Ruth began to sit up (and the strange, new, delicious
prospect of becoming a mother seemed to give her some mysterious
source of strength, so that her recovery was rapid and swift from
that time), Miss Benson brought her the letters and the
bank-note.
"Do you recollect receiving this letter, Ruth?" asked she, with
grave gentleness. Ruth changed colour, and took it and read it
again without making any reply to Miss Benson. Then she sighed,
and thought a while; and then took up and read the second
note--the note which Mrs. Bellingham had sent to Mr. Benson in
answer to his. After that she took up the bank-note and turned it
round and round, but not as if she saw it. Miss Benson noticed
that her fingers trembled sadly, and that her lips were quivering
for some time before she spoke.
"If you please, Miss Benson, I should like to return this money."
"Why, my dear?"
"I have a strong feeling against taking it. While he," said she,
deeply blushing, and letting her large white lids drop down and
veil her eyes, "loved me, he gave me many things--my watch--oh,
many things; and I took them from him gladly and thankfully,
because he loved me--for I would have given him anything--and I
thought of them as signs of love. But this money pains my heart.
He has left off loving me, and has gone away. This money
seems--oh, Miss Benson--it seems as if he could comfort me, for
being forsaken, by money." And at that word the tears, so long
kept back and repressed, forced their way like rain.
She checked herself, however, in the violence of her emotion, for
she thought of her child.
"So, will you take the trouble of sending it back to Mrs.
Bellingham?"
"That I will, my dear. I am glad of it, that I am! They don't
deserve to have the power of giving: they don't deserve that you
should take it." Miss Benson went and enclosed it up there and
then; simply writing these words in the envelope, "From Ruth
Hilton."
"And now we wash our hands of these Bellinghams," said she
triumphantly. But Ruth looked tearful and sad; not about
returning the note, but from the conviction that the reason she
had given for the ground of her determination was true--he no
longer loved her.
To cheer her, Miss Benson began to speak of the future. Miss
Benson was one of those people who, the more she spoke of a plan
in its details, and the more she realised it in her own mind, the
more firmly she became a partisan of the project. Thus she grew
warm and happy in the idea of taking Ruth home; but Ruth remained
depressed and languid under the conviction that he no longer
loved her. No home, no future, but the thought of her child,
could wean her from this sorrow. Miss Benson was a little piqued;
and this pique showed itself afterwards in talking to her brother
of the morning's proceedings in the sick chamber.
"I admired her at the time for sending away her fifty pounds so
proudly; but I think she has a cold heart: she hardly thanked me
at all for my proposal of taking her home with us."
"Her thoughts are full of other things just now; and people have
such different ways of showing feeling: some by silence, some by
words. At any rate, it is unwise to expect gratitude."
"What do you expect--not indifference or ingratitude?"
"It is better not to expect or calculate consequences. The longer
I live, the more fully I see that. Let us try simply to do right
actions, without thinking of the feelings they are to call out in
others. We know that no holy or self-denying effort can fall to
the ground vain and useless; but the sweep of eternity is large,
and God alone knows when the effect is to be produced. We are
trying to do right now, and to feel right; don't let us perplex
ourselves with endeavouring to map out how she should feel, or
how she should show her feelings."
"That's all very fine, and I dare say very true," said Miss
Benson, a little chagrined. "But 'a bird in the hand is worth two
in the bush;' and I would rather have had one good, hearty,
'Thank you,' now, for all I have been planning to do for her,
than the grand effects you promise me in the 'sweep of eternity.'
Don't be grave and sorrowful, Thurstan, or I'll go out of the
room. I can stand Sally's scoldings, but I can't bear your look
of quiet depression whenever I am a little hasty or impatient. I
had rather you would give me a good box on the ear."
"And I would often rather you would speak, if ever so hastily,
instead of whistling. So, if I box your ears when I am vexed with
you, will you promise to scold me when you are put out of the
way, instead of whistling?"
"Very well! that's a bargain. You box, and I scold. But,
seriously, I began to calculate our money when she so cavalierly
sent off the fifty-pound note (I can't help admiring her for
it!), and I am very much afraid we shall not have enough to pay
the doctor's bill, and take her home with us."
"She must go inside the coach, whatever we do," said Mr. Benson
decidedly.
"Who's there? Come in! Oh! Mrs. Hughes! Sit down."
"Indeed, sir, and I cannot stay; but the young lady has just made
me find up her watch for her, and asked me to get it sold to pay
the doctor, and the little things she has had since she came; and
please, sir, indeed I don't know where to sell it nearer than
Caernarvon."
"That is good of her," said Miss Benson, her sense of justice
satisfied; and, remembering the way in which Ruth had spoken of
the watch, she felt what a sacrifice it must have been to resolve
to part with it.
"And her goodness just helps us out of our dilemma," said her
brother; who was unaware of the feelings with which Ruth regarded
her watch, or, perhaps, he might have parted with his Facciolati.
Mrs. Hughes patiently awaited their leisure for answering her
practical question. Where could the watch be sold? Suddenly her
face brightened.
"Mr. Jones, the doctor, is just going to be married, perhaps he
would like nothing better than to give this pretty watch to his
bride; indeed, and I think it's very likely; and he'll pay money
for it as well as letting alone his bill. I'll ask him, sir, at
any rate."
Mr. Jones was only too glad to obtain possession of so elegant a
present at so cheap a rate. He even, as Mrs. Hughes had foretold,
"paid money for it;" more than was required to defray the
expenses of Ruth's accommodation, as most of the articles of food
she had were paid for at the time by Mr. or Miss Benson, but they
strictly forbade Mrs. Hughes to tell Ruth of this.
"Would you object to my buying you a black gown?" said Miss
Benson to her, the day after the sale of the watch. She hesitated
a little, and then went on--
"My brother and I think it would be better to call you--as if in
fact you were--a widow. It will save much awkwardness, and it
will spare your child much"----mortification, she was going to
have added; but that word did not exactly do. But, at the mention
of her child, Ruth started, and turned ruby-red; as she always
did when allusion was made to it.
"Oh, yes! certainly. Thank you much for thinking of it. Indeed,"
said she, very low, as if to herself, "I don't know how to thank
you for all you are doing; but I do love you, and will pray for
you, if I may."
"If you may, Ruth" repeated Miss Benson, in a tone of surprise.
"Yes, if I may. If you will let me pray for you."
"Certainly, my dear. My dear Ruth, you don't know how often I
sin; I do so wrong, with my few temptations. We are both of us
great sinners in the eyes of the Most Holy; let us pray for each
other. Don't speak so again, my dear; at least, not to me."
Miss Benson was actually crying. She had always looked upon
herself as so inferior to her brother in real goodness, had seen
such heights above her, that she was distressed by Ruth's
humility. After a short time she resumed the subject.
"Then I may get you a black gown?--and we may call you Mrs.
Hilton?"
"No; not Mrs. Hilton!" said Ruth hastily.
Miss Benson, who had hitherto kept her eyes averted from Ruth's
face from a motive of kindly delicacy, now looked at her with
surprise.
"Why not?" asked she.
"It was my mother's name," said Ruth, in a low voice. "I had
better not be called by it."
"Then let us call you by my mother's name," said Miss Benson
tenderly. "She would have----But I'll talk to you about my
mother some other time. Let me call you Mrs. Denbigh. It will do
very well, too. People will think you are a distant relation."
When she told Mr. Benson of this choice of name, he was rather
sorry; it was like his sister's impulsive kindness--impulsive in
everything--and he could imagine how Ruth's humility had touched
her. He was sorry, but he said nothing. And now the letter was
written home, announcing the probable arrival of the brother and
sister on a certain day, "with a distant relation, early left a
widow," as Miss Benson expressed it. She desired the spare room
might be prepared, and made every provision she could think of
for Ruth's comfort; for Ruth still remained feeble and weak.
When the black gown, at which she had stitched away incessantly,
was finished--when nothing remained, but to rest for the next
day's journey--Ruth could not sit still. She wandered from window
to window, learning off each rock and tree by heart. Each had its
tale, which it was agony to remember; but which it would have
been worse agony to forget. The sound of running waters she heard
that quiet evening was in her ears as she lay on her death-bed;
so well had she learnt their tune.
And now all was over. She had driven in to Llan-dhu, sitting by
her lover's side, living in the bright present, and strangely
forgetful of the past or the future; she had dreamed out her
dream, and she had awakened from the vision of love. She walked
slowly and sadly down the long hill, her tears fast falling, but
as quickly wiped away; while she strove to make steady the low
quivering voice which was often called. upon to answer some
remark of Miss Benson's. They had to wait for the coach. Ruth
buried her face in some flowers which Mrs. Hughes had given her
on parting; and was startled when the mail drew up with a sudden
pull, which almost threw the horses on their haunches. She was
placed inside, and the coach had set off again, before she was
fully aware that Mr. and Miss Benson were travelling on the
outside; but it was a relief to feel she might now cry without
exciting their notice. The shadow of a heavy thunder-cloud was on
the valley, but the little upland village-church (that showed the
spot in which so much of her life was passed) stood out clear in
the sunshine. She grudged the tears that blinded her as she
gazed. There was one passenger, who tried after a while to
comfort her.
"Don't cry, miss," said the kind-hearted woman. "You're parting
from friends, maybe? Well, that's bad enough; but, when you come
to my age, you'll think none of it. Why, I've three sons, and
they're soldiers and sailors, all of them--here, there, and
everywhere. One is in America, beyond the seas; another is in
China, making tea; and another is at Gibraltar, three miles from
Spain; and yet, you see, I can laugh and eat and enjoy myself. I
sometimes think I'll try and fret a bit, just to make myself a
better figure: but, Lord! it's no use, it's against my nature; so
I laugh and grow fat again. I'd be quite thankful for a fit of
anxiety as would make me feel easy in my clothes, which them
manty-makers will make so tight I'm fairly throttled."
Ruth durst cry no more; it was no relief, now she was watched and
noticed, and plied with a sandwich or a ginger-bread each time
she looked sad. She lay back with her eyes shut, as if asleep,
and went on, and on, the sun never seeming to move from his high
place in the sky, nor the bright hot day to show the least sign
of waning. Every now and then Miss Benson scrambled down, and
made kind inquiries of the pale, weary Ruth; and once they
changed coaches, and the fat old lady left her with a hearty
shake of the hand.
"It is not much further now," said Miss Benson, apologetically,
to Ruth. "See! we are losing sight of the Welsh mountains. We
have about eighteen miles of plain, and then we come to the moors
and the rising ground, amidst which Eccleston lies. I wish we
were there, for my brother is sadly tired." The first wonder in
Ruth's mind was, why then, if Mr. Benson was so tired, did they
not stop where they were for the night; for she knew little of
the expenses of a night at an inn. The next thought was, to beg
that Mr. Benson would take her place inside the coach, and allow
her to mount up by Miss Benson. She proposed this, and Miss
Benson was evidently pleased.
"Well, if you're not tired, it would be a rest and a change for
him, to be sure; and if you were by me I could show you the first
sight of Eccleston, if we reach there before it is quite dark."
So Mr. Benson got down, and changed places with Ruth.
She hardly yet understood the numerous small economies which he
and his sister had to practise--the little daily
self-denials--all endured so cheerfully and simply, that they had
almost ceased to require an effort, and it had become natural to
them to think of others before themselves. Ruth had not
understood that it was for economy that their places had been
taken on the outside of the coach, while hers, as an invalid
requiring rest, was to be the inside; and that the biscuits which
supplied the place of a dinner were, in fact, chosen because the
difference in price between the two would go a little way towards
fulfilling their plan for receiving her as an inmate. Her thought
about money had been hitherto a child's thought; the subject had
never touched her; but afterwards, when she had lived a little
while with the Bensons, her eyes were opened, and she remembered
their simple kindness on the journey, and treasured the
remembrance of it in her heart.
A low grey cloud was the first sign of Eccleston; it was the
smoke of the town hanging over the plain. Beyond the place where
she was expected to believe it existed, arose round, waving
uplands; nothing to the fine outlines of the Welsh mountains, but
still going up nearer to heaven than the rest of the flat world
into which she had now entered. Rumbling stones, lamp-posts, a
sudden stop, and they were in the town of Eccleston; and a
strange, uncouth voice, on the dark side of the coach, was heard
to say--
"Be ye there, measter?"
"Yes, yes!" said Miss Benson quickly. "Did Sally send you, Ben?
Get the ostler's lantern, and look out the luggage."
CHAPTER XIII
THE DISSENTING MINISTER'S HOUSEHOLD
Miss Benson had resumed every morsel of the briskness which she
had rather lost in the middle of the day; her foot was on her
native stones, and a very rough set they were, and she was near
her home and among known people. Even Mr. Benson spoke very
cheerfully to Ben, and made many inquiries of him respecting
people whose names were strange to Ruth. She was cold, and
utterly weary. She took Miss Benson's offered arm, and could
hardly drag herself as far as the little quiet street in which
Mr. Benson's house was situated. The street was so quiet that
their footsteps sounded like a loud disturbance, and announced
their approach as effectually as the "trumpet's lordly blare" did
the coming of Abdallah. A door flew open, and a lighted passage
stood before them. As soon as they had entered, a stout elderly
servant emerged from behind the door, her face radiant with
welcome.
"Eh, bless ye! are ye hack again? I thought I should ha' been
lost without ye." She gave Mr. Benson a hearty shake of the hand,
and kissed Miss Benson warmly; then, turning to Ruth, she said,
in a loud whisper--
"Who's yon?"
Mr. Benson was silent, and walked a step onwards. Miss Benson
said boldly out--
"The lady I named in my note, Sally--Mrs. Denbigh, a distant
relation."
"Ay, but you said hoo was a widow. Is this chit a widow?"
"Yes, this is Mrs. Denbigh," answered Miss Benson.
"If I'd been her mother, I'd ha' given her a lollypop instead on
a husband. Hoo looks fitter for it."
"Hush! Sally, Sally! Look, there's your master trying to move
that heavy box." Miss Benson calculated well when she called
Sally's attention to her master; for it was believed by every
one, and by Sally herself, that his deformity was owing to a fall
he had had when he was scarcely more than a baby, and intrusted
to her care--a little nurse-girl, as she then was, not many years
older than himself. For years the poor girl had cried herself to
sleep on her pallet bed, moaning over the blight her carelessness
had brought upon her darling; nor was this self-reproach
diminished by the forgiveness of the gentle mother, from whom
Thurstan Benson derived so much of his character. The way in
which comfort stole into Sally's heart was in the
gradually-formed resolution that she would never leave him nor
forsake him, but serve him faithfully all her life long; and she
had kept to her word. She loved Miss Benson, but she almost
worshipped the brother. The reverence for him was in her heart,
however, and did not always show itself in her manners. But if
she scolded him herself, she allowed no one else that privilege.
If Miss Benson differed from her brother, and ventured to think
his sayings or doings might have been improved, Sally came down
upon her like a thunder-clap.
"My goodness gracious, Master Thurstan, when will you learn to
leave off meddling with other folks' business? Here, Ben! help me
up with these trunks." The little narrow passage was cleared, and
Miss Benson took Ruth into the sitting-room. There were only two
sitting-rooms on the ground-floor, one behind the other. Out of
the back room the kitchen opened, and for this reason the back
parlour was used as the family sitting-room; or else, being, with
its garden aspect, so much the pleasanter of the two, both Sally
and Miss Benson would have appropriated it for Mr. Benson's
study. As it was, the front room, which looked to the street, was
his room; and many a person coming for help--help of which giving
money was the lowest kind--was admitted, and let forth by Mr.
Benson, unknown to any one else in the house. To make amends for
his having the least cheerful room on the ground-floor, he had
the garden bedroom, while his sister slept over his study. There
were two more rooms again over these, with sloping ceilings,
though otherwise large and airy. The attic looking into the
garden was the spare bedroom; while the front belonged to Sally.
There was no room over the kitchen, which was, in fact, a
supplement to the house. The sitting-room was called by the
pretty, old-fashioned name of the parlour, while Mr. Benson's
room was styled the study.
The curtains were drawn in the parlour; there was a bright fire
and a clean hearth; indeed, exquisite cleanliness seemed the very
spirit of the household, for the door which was open to the
kitchen showed a delicately-white and spotless floor, and bright
glittering tins, on which the ruddy firelight danced.
From the place in which Ruth sat she could see all Sally's
movements; and though she was not conscious of close or minute
observation at the time (her body being weary, and her mind full
of other thoughts), yet it was curious how faithfully that scene
remained depicted on her memory in after years. The warm light
filled every corner of the kitchen, in strong distinction to the
faint illumination of the one candle in the parlour, whose
radiance was confined, and was lost in the dead folds of
window-curtains, carpet, and furniture. The square, stout,
bustling figure, neat and clean in every respect, but dressed in
the peculiar, old-fashioned costume of the county, namely, a
dark-striped linsey-woolsey petticoat, made very short,
displaying sturdy legs in woollen stockings beneath; a loose kind
of jacket, called there a "bedgown," made of pink print, a
snow-white apron and cap, both of linen, and the latter made in
the shape of a "mutch";--these articles completed Sally's
costume, and were painted on Ruth's memory. Whilst Sally was
busied in preparing tea, Miss Benson took off Ruth's things; and
the latter instinctively felt that Sally, in the midst of her
movements, was watching their proceedings. Occasionally she also
put in a word in the conversation, and these little sentences
were uttered quite in the tone of an equal, if not of a superior.
She had dropped the more formal "you," with which at first she
had addressed Miss Benson, and thou'd her quietly and habitually.
All these particulars sank unconsciously into Ruth's mind, but
they did not rise to the surface, and become perceptible, for a
length of time. She was weary and much depressed. Even the very
kindness that ministered to her was overpowering. But over the
dark, misty moor a little light shone--a beacon; and on that she
fixed her eyes, and struggled out of her present deep
dejection--the little child that was coming to her!
Mr. Benson was as languid and weary as Ruth, and was silent
during all this bustle and preparation. His silence was more
grateful to Ruth than Miss Benson's many words, although she felt
their kindness. After tea, Miss Benson took her upstairs to her
room. The white dimity bed, and the walls, stained green, had
something of the colouring and purity of effect of a snowdrop;
while the floor, rubbed with a mixture that turned it into a rich
dark-brown, suggested the idea of the garden-mould out of which
the snowdrop grows. As Miss Benson helped the pale Ruth to
undress, her voice became less full-toned and hurried; the hush
of approaching night subdued her into a softened, solemn kind of
tenderness, and the murmured blessing sounded like granted
prayer.
When Miss Benson came downstairs, she found her brother reading
some letters which had been received during his absence. She went
and softly shut the door of communication between the parlour and
the kitchen; and then, fetching a grey worsted stocking which she
was knitting, sat down near him, her eyes not looking at her work
but flied on the fire; while the eternal rapid click of the
knitting-needles broke the silence of the room, with a sound as
monotonous and incessant as the noise of a hand-loom. She
expected him to speak, but he did not. She enjoyed an examination
into, and discussion of, her feelings; it was an interest and
amusement to her, while he dreaded and avoided all such
conversation. There were times when his feelings, which were
always earnest, and sometimes morbid, burst forth, and defied
control, and overwhelmed him; when a force was upon him
compelling him to speak. But he, in general, strove to preserve
his composure, from a fear of the compelling pain of such times,
and the consequent exhaustion. His heart had been very full of
Ruth all day long, and he was afraid of his sister beginning the
subject; so he read on, or seemed to do so, though he hardly saw
the letter he held before him. It was a great relief to him when
Sally threw open the middle door with a bang, which did not
indicate either calmness of mind or sweetness of temper.
"Is yon young woman going to stay any length o' time with us?"
asked she of Miss Benson.
Mr. Benson put his hand gently on his sister's arm, to check her
from making any reply, while he said--
"We cannot exactly tell, Sally. She will remain until after her
confinement."
"Lord bless us and save us!--a baby in the house! Nay, then my
time's come, and I'll pack up and begone. I never could abide
them things. I'd sooner have rats in the house."
Sally really did look alarmed.
"Why, Sally!" said Mr. Benson, smiling, "I was not much more than
a baby when you came to take care of me."
"Yes, you were, Master Thurstan; you were a fine bouncing lad of
three year old and better."
Then she remembered the change she had wrought in the "fine
bouncing lad," and her eyes filled with tears, which she was too
proud to wipe away with her apron; for, as she sometimes said to
herself, "she could not abide crying before folk."
"Well, it's no use talking, Sally," said Miss Benson, too anxious
to speak to be any longer repressed. "We've promised to keep her,
and we must do it; you'll have none of the trouble, Sally, so
don't be afraid."
"Well, I never! as if I minded trouble! You might ha' known me
better nor that. I've scoured master's room twice over, just to
make the boards look white, though the carpet is to cover them,
and now you go and cast up about me minding my trouble. If them's
the fashions you've learnt in Wales, I'm thankful I've never been
there."
Sally looked red, indignant, and really hurt. Mr. Benson came in
with his musical voice and soft words of healing.
"Faith knows you don't care for trouble, Sally; she is only
anxious about this poor young woman, who has no friends but
ourselves. We know there will be more trouble in consequence of
her coming to stay with us; and I think, though we never spoke
about it, that in making our plans we reckoned on your kind help,
Sally, which has never failed us yet when we needed it."
"You've twice the sense of your sister, Master Thurstan, that you
have. Boys always has. It's truth there will be more trouble, and
I shall have my share on't, I reckon. I can face it if I'm told
out and out, but I cannot abide the way some folk. has of denying
there's trouble or pain to be met; just as if their saying there
was none, would do away with it. Some folk treats one like a
babby, and I don't like it. I'm not meaning you, Master
Thurstan."
"No, Sally, you need not say that. I know well enough who you
moan when you say 'some folk.' However, I admit I was wrong in
speaking as if you minded trouble, for there never was a creature
minded it less. But I want you to like Mrs. Denbigh," said Miss
Benson.
"I dare say I should, if you'd let me alone. I did na like her
sitting down in master's chair. Set her up, indeed, in an
arm-chair wi' cushions! Wenches in my day were glad enough of
stools."
"She was tired to-night," said Mr. Benson. "We are all tired; so
if you have done your work, Sally, come in to reading."
The three quiet people knelt down side by side, and two of them
prayed earnestly for "them that had gone astray." Before ten
o'clock, the household were in bed. Ruth, sleepless, weary,
restless with the oppression of a sorrow which she dared not face
and contemplate bravely, kept awake all the early part of the
night. Many a time did she rise, and go to the long casement
window, and looked abroad over the still and quiet town--over the
grey stone walls, and chimneys, and old high-pointed roofs--on to
the far-away hilly line of the horizon, lying calm under the
bright moonshine. It was late in the morning when she woke from
her long-deferred slumbers; and when she went downstairs, she
found Mr. and Miss Benson awaiting her in the parlour. That
homely, pretty, old-fashioned little room! How bright and still
and clean it looked! The window (all the windows at the hack of
the house were casements) was open, to let in the sweet morning
air, and streaming eastern sunshine. The long jessamine sprays,
with their white-scented stars, forced themselves almost into the
room. The little square garden beyond, with grey stone walls all
round, was rich and mellow in its autumnal colouring, running
from deep crimson hollyhocks up to amber and gold nasturtiums,
and all toned down by the clear and delicate air. It was so
still, that the gossamer-webs, laden with dew, did not tremble or
quiver in the least; but the sun was drawing to himself the sweet
incense of many flowers, and the parlour was scented with the
odours of mignonette and stocks. Miss Benson was arranging a
bunch of China and damask roses in an old-fashioned jar; they
lay, all dewy and fresh, on the white breakfast-cloth when Ruth
entered. Mr. Benson was reading in some large folio. With gentle
morning speech they greeted her; but the quiet repose of the
scene was instantly broken by Sally popping in from the kitchen,
and glancing at Ruth with sharp reproach. She said--
"I reckon I may bring in breakfast, now?" with a strong emphasis
on the last word.
"I am afraid I am very late," said Ruth.
"Oh, never mind," said Mr. Benson gently. "It was our fault for
not telling you our breakfast hour. We always have prayers at
half-past seven; and for Sally's sake, we never vary from that
time; for she can so arrange her work, if she knows the hour of
prayers, as to have her mind calm and untroubled."
"Ahem!" said Miss Benson, rather inclined to "testify" against
the invariable calmness of Sally's mind at any hour of the day;
but her brother went on as if he did not hear her.
"But the breakfast does not signify being delayed a little; and I
am sure you were sadly tired with your long day yesterday."
Sally came slapping in, and put down some withered, tough, dry
toast, with--
"It's not my doing if it is like leather"; but as no one appeared
to hear her, she withdrew to her kitchen, leaving Ruth's cheeks
like crimson at the annoyance she had caused.
All day long, she had that feeling common to those who go to stay
at a fresh house among comparative strangers: a feeling of the
necessity that she should become accustomed to the new atmosphere
in which she was placed, before she could move and act freely; it
was, indeed, a purer ether, a diviner air, which she was
breathing in now, than what she had been accustomed to for long
months. The gentle, blessed mother, who had made her childhood's
home holy ground, was in her very nature so far removed from any
of earth's stains and temptation, that she seemed truly one of
those
"Who ask not if Thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth."
In the Bensons' house there was the same unconsciousness of
individual merit, the same absence of introspection and analysis
of motive, as there had been in her mother; but it seemed that
their lives were pure and good, not merely from a lovely and
beautiful nature, but from some law, the obedience to which was,
of itself, harmonious peace, and which governed them almost
implicitly, and with as little questioning on their part, as the
glorious stars which haste not, rest not, in their eternal
obedience. This household had many failings: they were but human,
and, with all their loving desire to bring their lives into
harmony with the will of God, they often erred and fell short;
but, somehow, the very errors and faults of one individual served
to call out higher excellences in another, and so they reacted
upon each other, and the result of short discords was exceeding
harmony and peace. But they had themselves no idea of the real
state of things; they did not trouble themselves with marking
their progress by self-examination; if Mr. Benson did sometimes,
in hours of sick incapacity for exertion, turn inwards, it was to
cry aloud with almost morbid despair, "God be merciful to me a
sinner!" But he strove to leave his life in the hands of God, and
to forget himself.
Ruth sat still and quiet through the long first day. She was
languid and weary from her journey; she was uncertain what help
she might offer to give in the household duties, and what she
might not. And, in her languor and in her uncertainty, it was
pleasant to watch the new ways of the people among whom she was
placed. After breakfast, Mr. Benson withdrew to his study, Miss
Benson took away the cups and saucers, and leaving the
kitchen-door open, talked sometimes to Ruth, sometimes to Sally,
while she washed them up. Sally had upstairs duties to perform,
for which Ruth was thankful, as she kept receiving rather angry
glances for her unpunctuality as long as Sally remained
downstairs. Miss Benson assisted in the preparation for the early
dinner, and brought some kidney-beans to shred into a basin of
bright, pure spring-water, which caught and danced in the
sunbeams as she sat near the open casement of the parlour,
talking to Ruth of things and people which as yet the latter did
not understand, and could not arrange and comprehend. She was
like a child who gets a few pieces of a dissected map, and is
confused until a glimpse of the whole unity is shown him. Mr. and
Mrs. Bradshaw were the centre pieces in Ruth's map; their
children, their servants, were the accessories; and one or two
other names were occasionally mentioned. Ruth wondered and almost
wearied at Miss Benson's perseverance in talking to her about
people whom she did not know; but, in truth, Miss Benson heard
the long-drawn, quivering sighs which came from the poor heavy
heart, when it was left to silence, and had leisure to review the
past; and her quick accustomed ear caught also the low mutterings
of the thunder in the distance, in the shape of Sally's
soliloquies, which, like the asides at a theatre, were intended
to be heard. Suddenly, Miss Benson called Ruth out of the room
upstairs into her own bed-chamber, and then began rummaging in
little old-fashioned boxes, drawn out of an equally old-fashioned
bureau, half-desk, half-table, and wholly drawers.
"My dear, I've been very stupid and thoughtless. Oh! I'm so glad
I thought of it before Mrs. Bradshaw came to call. Here it is!"
and she pulled out an old wedding-ring, and hurried it on Ruth's
finger. Ruth hung down her head, and reddened deep with shame;
her eyes smarted with the hot tears that filled them. Miss Benson
talked on, in a nervous hurried way--
"It was my grandmother's; it's very broad; they made them so
then, to hold a posy inside: there's one in that--
'Thine own sweetheart Till death doth part,'
I think it is. There, there! Run away, and look as if you'd
always worn it." Ruth went up to her room, and threw herself down
on her knees by the bedside, and cried as if her heart would
break; and then, as if a light had come down into her soul, she
calmed herself and prayed--no words can tell how humbly, and with
what earnest feeling. When she came down, she was tearstained and
wretchedly pale; but even Sally looked at her with new eyes,
because of the dignity with which she was invested by an
earnestness of purpose which had her child for its object. She
sat and thought, but she no longer heaved those bitter sighs
which had wrung Miss Benson's heart in the morning. In this way
the day wore on; early dinner, early tea seemed to make it
preternaturally long to Ruth; the only event was some unexplained
absence of Sally's, who had disappeared out of the house in the
evening, much to Miss Benson's surprise, and somewhat to her
indignation.
At night, after Ruth had gone up to her room, this absence was343
explained to her at least. She had let down her long waving
glossy hair, and was standing absorbed in thought in the middle
of the room, when she heard a round clumping knock at her door,
different from that given by the small knuckles of delicate
fingers, and in walked Sally, with a judge-like severity of
demeanour, holding in her hand two widow's caps of commonest make
and coarsest texture. Queen Eleanor herself, when she presented
the bowl to Fair Rosamond, had not a more relentless purpose
stamped on her demeanour than had Sally at this moment. She
walked up to the beautiful, astonished Ruth, where she stood in
her long, soft, white dressing-gown, with all her luxuriant brown
hair hanging dishevelled down her figure, and thus Sally spoke--
"Missus--or miss, as the case may be--I've my doubts as to you.
I'm not going to have my master and Miss Faith put upon, or shame
come near them. Widows wears these sort o' caps, and has their
hair cut off; and whether widows wears wedding-rings or not, they
shall have their hair cut off--they shall. I'll have no half work
in this house. I've lived with the family forty-nine year come
Michaelmas, and I'll not see it disgraced by any one's fine long
curls. Sit down and let me snip off your hair; and let me see you
sham decently in a widow's cap to-morrow, or I'll leave the
house. Whatten's come over Miss Faith, as used to be as mim a
lady as ever was, to be taken by such as you, I dunnot know. Here
I sit down with ye, and let me crop you."
She laid no light hand on Ruth's shoulder; and the latter, partly
intimidated by the old servant, who had hitherto only turned her
vixen lining to observation, and partly because she was
broken-spirited enough to be indifferent to the measure proposed,
quietly sat down. Sally produced the formidable pair of scissors
that always hung at her side, and began to cut in a merciless
manner. She expected some remonstrance or some opposition, and
had a torrent of words ready to flow forth at the least sign of
rebellion; but Ruth was still and silent, with meekly-bowed head,
under the strange hands that were shearing her beautiful hair
into the clipped shortness of a boy's. Long before she had
finished, Sally had some slight misgivings as to the fancied
necessity of her task; but it was too late, for half the curls
were gone, and the rest must now come off. When she had done, she
lifted up Ruth's face by placing her hand under the round white
chin. She gazed into the countenance, expecting to read some
anger there, though it had not come out in words; but' she only
met the large, quiet eyes, that looked at her with sad gentleness
out of their finely-hollowed orbits. Ruth's soft, yet dignified
submission, touched Sally with compunction, though she did not
choose to show the change in her feelings. She tried to hide it
indeed, by stooping to pick up the long bright tresses; and,
holding them up admiringly, and letting them drop down and float
on the air (like the pendent branches of the weeping birch) she
said: "I thought we should ha' had some crying--I did. They're
pretty curls enough; you've not been so bad to let them be cut
off neither. You see, Master Thurstan is no wiser than a babby in
some things; and Miss Faith just lets him have his own way; so
it's all left to me to keep him out of scrapes. I'll wish you a
very good night. I've heard many a one say as long hair was not
wholesome. Good night."
But in a minute she popped her head into Ruth's room once more--
"You'll put on them caps to-morrow morning. I'll make you a
present on them."
Sally had carried away the beautiful curls, and she could not
find it in her heart to throw such lovely chestnut tresses away,
so she folded them up carefully in paper, and placed them in a
safe corner of her drawer.
CHAPTER XIV
RUTH'S FIRST SUNDAY AT ECCLESTON
Ruth felt very shy when she came down (at half-past seven) the
next morning, in her widow's cap. Her smooth, pale face, with its
oval untouched by time, looked more young and childlike than
ever, when contrasted with the head-gear usually associated with
ideas of age. She blushed very deeply as Mr. and Miss Benson
showed the astonishment, which they could not conceal, in their
looks. She said in a low voice to Miss Benson--
"Sally thought I had better wear it."
Miss Benson made no reply; but was startled at the intelligence,
which she thought was conveyed in this speech, of Sally's
acquaintance with Ruth's real situation. She noticed Sally's
looks particularly this morning. The manner in which the old
servant treated Ruth had in it far more of respect than there had
been the day before; but there was a kind of satisfied way of
braving out Miss Benson's glances which made the latter uncertain
and uncomfortable. She followed her brother into his study.
"Do you know, Thurstan, I am almost certain Sally suspects."
Mr. Benson sighed. That deception grieved him, and yet he thought
he saw its necessity.
"What makes you think so?" asked he.
"Oh! many little things. It was her odd way of ducking her head
about, as if to catch a good view of Ruth's left hand, that made
me think of the wedding-ring; and once, yesterday, when I thought
I had made up quite a natural speech, and was saying how sad it
was for so young a creature to be left a widow she broke in with
'widow be farred!' in a very strange, contemptuous kind of
manner."
"If she suspects, we had far better tell her the truth at once.
She will never rest till she finds it out, so we must make a
virtue of necessity."
"Well, brother, you shall tell her then, for I am sure I daren't.
I don't mind doing the thing, since you talked to me that day,
and since I have got to know Ruth; but I do mind all the clatter
people will make about it."
"But Sally is not 'people.'"
"Oh, I see it must be done; she'll talk as much as all the other
persons put together, so that's the reason I call her 'people.'
Shall I call her?" (For the house was too homely and primitive to
have bells.)
Sally came, fully aware of what was now going to be told her, and
determined not to help them out in telling their awkward secret,
by understanding the nature of it before it was put into the
plainest language. In every pause, when they hoped she had caught
the meaning they were hinting at, she persisted in looking stupid
and perplexed, and in saying, "Well," as if quite unenlightened
as to the end of the story. When it was all complete and before
her, she said, honestly enough--
"It's just as I thought it was; and I think you may thank me for
having had the sense to put her into widow's caps, and clip off
that bonny brown hair that was fitter for a bride in lawful
matrimony than for such as her. She took it very well, though.
She was as quiet as a lamb, and I clipped her pretty roughly at
first. I must say, though, if I'd ha' known who your visitor was,
I'd ha' packed up my things and cleared myself out of the house
before such as her came into it. As it's done, I suppose I must
stand by you, and help you through with it; I only hope I sha'n't
lose my character--and me a parish-clerk's daughter!"
"O Sally! people know you too well to think any ill of you," said
Miss Benson, who was pleased to find the difficulty so easily got
over; for, in truth, Sally had been much softened by the
unresisting gentleness with which Ruth had submitted to the
"clipping" of the night before.
"If I'd been with you, Master Thurstan, I'd ha' seen sharp after
you, for you're always picking up some one or another as nobody
else would touch with a pair of tongs. Why, there was that Nelly
Brandon's child as was left at our door, if I hadn't gone to th'
overseer we should have had that Irish tramp's babby saddled on
us for life; but I went off and told th' overseer, and the mother
was caught."
"Yes," said Mr. Benson sadly, "and I often lie awake and wonder
what is the fate of that poor little thing, forced back on the
mother who tried to get quit of it. I often doubt whether I did
right; but it's no use thinking about it now."
"I'm thankful it isn't," said Sally; "and now, if we've talked
doctrine long enough, I'll make th' beds. Yon girl's secret is
safe enough for me."
Saying this she left the room, and Miss Benson followed. She
found Ruth busy washing the breakfast things; and they were done
in so quiet and orderly a manner, that neither Miss Benson nor
Sally, both particular enough, had any of their little fancies or
prejudices annoyed. She seemed to have an instinctive knowledge
of the exact period when her help was likely to become a
hindrance, and withdrew from the busy kitchen just at the right
time.
That afternoon, as Miss Benson and Ruth sat at their work, Mrs.
and Miss Bradshaw called. Miss Benson was so nervous as to
surprise Ruth, who did not understand the probable and possible
questions which might be asked respecting any visitor at the
minister's house. Ruth went on sewing, absorbed in her own
thoughts, and glad that the conversation between the two elder
ladies and the silence of the younger one, who sat at some
distance from her, gave her an opportunity of retreating into the
haunts of memory; and soon the work fell from her hands, and her
eyes were fixed on the little garden beyond, but she did not see
its flowers or its walls; she saw the mountains which girdled
Llan-dhu, and saw the sun rise from behind their iron outline,
just as it had done--how long ago? was it months or was it
years?--since she had watched the night through, crouched up at
his door. Which was the dream and which the reality? that distant
life or this? His moans rang more clearly in her ears than the
buzzing of the conversation between Mrs. Bradshaw and Miss
Benson.
At length the subdued, scared-looking little lady and her
bright-eyed silent daughter rose to take leave; Ruth started into
the present, and stood up and curtseyed, and turned sick at heart
with sudden recollection.
Miss Benson accompanied Mrs. Bradshaw to the door; and in the
passage gave her a long explanation of Ruth's (fictitious)
history. Mrs. Bradshaw looked so much interested and pleased,
that Miss Benson enlarged a little more than was necessary, and
rounded off her invention with one or two imaginary details,
which, she was quite unconscious, were overheard by her brother
through the half-open study door.
She was rather dismayed when he called her into his room after
Mrs. Bradshaw's departure, and asked her what she had been saying
about Ruth?
"Oh! I thought it was better to explain it thoroughly--I mean, to
tell the story we wished to have believed once for all--you know
we agreed about that, Thurstan?" deprecatingly.
"Yes; but I heard you saying you believed her husband had been a
young surgeon, did I not?"
"Well, Thurstan, you know he must have been something; and young
surgeons are so in the way of dying, it seemed very natural.
Besides," said she with sudden boldness, "I do think I've a
talent for fiction, it is so pleasant to invent, and make the
incidents dovetail together; and after all, if we are to tell a
lie, we may as well do it thoroughly, or else it's of no use. A
bungling lie would be worse than useless. And, Thurstan--it may
be very wrong--but I believe--I am afraid I enjoy not being
fettered by truth. Don't look so grave. You know it is necessary,
if ever it was, to tell falsehoods now; and don't be angry with
me because I do it well."
He was shading his eyes with his hand, and did not speak for some
time. At last he said--
"If it were not for the child, I would tell all; but the world is
so cruel. You don't know how this apparent necessity for
falsehood pains me, Faith, or you would not invent all these
details, which are so many additional lies."
"Well, well! I will restrain myself if I have to talk about Ruth
again. But Mrs. Bradshaw will tell every one who need to know.
You don't wish me to contradict it, Thurstan, surely--it was such
a pretty, probable story."
"Faith! I hope God will forgive us if we are doing wrong; and
pray, dear, don't add one unnecessary word that is not true."
Another day elapsed, and then it was Sunday: and the house seemed
filled with a deep peace. Even Sally's movements were less hasty
and abrupt. Mr. Benson seemed invested with a new dignity, which
made his bodily deformity be forgotten in his calm, grave
composure of spirit. Every trace of week-day occupation was put
away; the night before, a bright new handsome tablecloth had been
smoothed down over the table, and the jars had been freshly
filled with flowers. Sunday was a festival and a holyday in the
house. After the very early breakfast, little feet pattered into
Mr. Benson's study, for he had a class for boys--a sort of
domestic Sunday-school, only that there was more talking between
teachers and pupils, than dry, absolute lessons going on. Miss
Benson, too, had her little, neat-tippeted maidens sitting with
her in the parlour; and she was far more particular in keeping
them to their reading and spelling than her brother was with his
boys. Sally, too, put in her word of instruction from the
kitchen, helping, as she fancied, though her assistance was often
rather malapropos; for instance, she called out, to a little fat,
stupid, roly-poly girl, to whom Miss Benson was busy explaining
the meaning of the word quadruped--
"Quadruped, a thing wi' four legs, Jenny; a chair is a quadruped,
child!"
But Miss Benson had a deaf manner sometimes when her patience was
not too severely tried, and she put it on now. Ruth sat on a low
hassock, and coaxed the least of the little creatures to her, and
showed it pictures till it fell asleep in her arms, and sent a
thrill through her, at the thought of the tiny darling who would
lie on her breast before long, and whom she would have to cherish
and to shelter from the storms of the world.
And then she remembered, that she was once white and sinless as
the wee lassie who lay in her arms; and she knew that she had
gone astray. By-and-by the children trooped away, and Miss Benson
summoned her to put on he? things for chapel.
The chapel was up a narrow street, or rather cul-de-sac, close
by. It stood on the outskirts of the town, almost in fields. It
was built about the time of Matthew and Philip Henry, when the
Dissenters were afraid of attracting attention or observation,
and hid their places of worship in obscure and out-of-the-way
parts of the towns in which they were built. Accordingly, it
often happened, as in the present case, that the buildings
immediately surrounding, as well as the chapels themselves,
looked as if they carried you back to a period a hundred and
fifty years ago. The chapel had a picturesque and old-world look,
for luckily the congregation had been too poor to rebuild it, or
new-face it, in George the Third's time. The staircases which led
to the galleries were outside, at each end of the building, and
the irregular roof and worn stone steps looked grey and stained
by time and weather. The grassy hillocks, each with a little
upright headstone, were shaded by a grand old wych-elm. A
lilac-bush or two, a white rose-tree, and a few laburnums, all
old and gnarled enough, were planted round the chapel yard; and
the casement windows of the chapel were made of heavy-leaded,
diamond-shaped panes, almost covered with ivy, producing a green
gloom, not without its solemnity, within. This ivy was the home
of an infinite number of little birds, which twittered and
warbled, till it might have been thought that they were emulous
of the power of praise possessed by the human creatures within,
with such earnest, long-drawn strains did this crowd of winged
songsters rejoice and be glad in their beautiful gift of life.
The interior of the building was plain and simple as plain and
simple could be. When it was fitted up, oak-timber was much
cheaper than it is now, so the wood-work was all of that
description; but roughly hewed, for the early builders had not
much wealth to spare. The walls were whitewashed, and were
recipients of the shadows of the beauty without; on their "white
plains" the tracery of the ivy might be seen, now still, now
stirred by the sudden flight of some little bird. The
congregation consisted of here and there a farmer with his
labourers, who came down from the uplands beyond the town to
worship where their fathers worshipped, and who loved the place
because they knew how much those fathers had suffered for it,
although they never troubled themselves with the reason why they
left the parish church; and of a few shopkeepers, far more
thoughtful and reasoning, who were Dissenters from conviction,
unmixed with old. ancestral association; and of one or two
families of still higher worldly station. With many poor, who
were drawn there by love for Mr. Benson's character, and by a
feeling that the faith which made him what he was could not be
far wrong, for the base of the pyramid, and with Mr. Bradshaw for
its apex, the congregation stood complete.
The country people came in sleeking down their hair, and treading
with earnest attempts at noiseless lightness of step over the
floor of the aisle; and, by-and-by, when all were assembled, Mr.
Benson followed, unmarshalled and unattended. When he had closed
the pulpit-door, and knelt in prayer for an instant or two, he
gave out a psalm from the dear old Scottish paraphrase, with its
primitive inversion of the simple perfect Bible words; and a kind
of precentor stood up, and, having sounded the note on a
pitch-pipe, sang a couple of lines by way of indicating the tune;
then all the congregation stood up, and sang aloud, Mr.
Bradshaw's great bass voice being half a note in advance of the
others, in accordance with his place of precedence as principal
member of the congregation. His powerful voice was like an organ
very badly played, and very much out of tune; but as he had no
ear, and no diffidence, it pleased him very much to hear the fine
loud sound. He was a tall, large-boned, iron man; stern,
powerful, and authoritative in appearance; dressed in clothes of
the finest broadcloth, and scrupulously ill-made, as if to show
that he was indifferent to all outward things. His wife was sweet
and gentle-looking, but as if she was thoroughly broken into
submission.
Ruth did not see this, or hear aught but the words which were
reverently--oh, how reverently!--spoken by Mr. Benson. He had had
Ruth present in his thoughts all the time he had been preparing
for his Sunday duty; and he had tried carefully to eschew
everything which she might feel as an allusion to her own case.
He remembered how the Good Shepherd, in Poussin's beautiful
picture, tenderly carried the lambs which had wearied themselves
by going astray, and felt how like tenderness was required
towards poor Ruth. But where is the chapter which does not
contain something which a broken and contrite spirit may not
apply to itself? And so it fell out that, as he read, Ruth's
heart was smitten, and she sank down, and down, till she was
kneeling on the floor of the pew, and speaking to God in the
spirit, if not in the words, of the Prodigal Son: "Father! I have
sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to
be called Thy child!" Miss Benson was thankful (although she
loved Ruth the better for this self-abandonment) that the
minister's seat was far in the shade of the gallery. She tried to
look most attentive to her brother, in order that Mr. Bradshaw
might not suspect anything unusual, while she stealthily took
hold of Ruth's passive hand, as it lay helpless on the cushion,
and pressed it softly and tenderly. But Ruth sat on the ground,
bowed down and crushed in her sorrow, till all was ended.
Miss Benson loitered in her seat, divided between the
consciousness that she, as locum tenens for the minister's wife,
was expected to be at the door to receive the kind greetings of
many after her absence from home, and her unwillingness to
disturb Ruth, who was evidently praying, and, by her quiet
breathing, receiving grave and solemn influences into her soul.
At length she rose up, calm and composed even to dignity. The
chapel was still and empty; but Miss Benson heard the buzz of
voices in the chapel-yard without. They were probably those of
people waiting for her; and she summoned courage, and taking
Ruth's arm in hers, and holding her hand affectionately, they
went out into the broad daylight. As they issued forth, Miss
Benson heard Mr. Bradshaw's strong bass voice speaking to her
brother, and winced, as she knew he would be wincing, under the
broad praise, which is impertinence, however little it may be
intended or esteemed as such.
"Oh, yes!--my wife told me yesterday about her--her husband was a
surgeon; my father was a surgeon too, as I think you have heard.
Very much to your credit, I must say, Mr. Benson, with your
limited means, to burden yourself with a poor relation. Very
creditable indeed."
Miss Benson glanced at Ruth; she either did not hear or did not
understand, but passed on into the awful sphere of Mr. Bradshaw's
observation unmoved. He was in a bland and condescending humour
of universal approval, and when he saw Ruth he nodded his head in
token of satisfaction. That ordeal was over, Miss Benson thought,
and in the thought rejoiced.
"After dinner, you must go and lie down, my dear," said she,
untying Ruth's bonnet-strings, and kissing her. "Sally goes to
church again, but you won't mind staying alone in the house. I am
sorry we have so many people to dinner; but my brother will
always have enough on Sundays for any old or weak people, who may
have come from a distance, to stay and dine with us; and to-day
they all seem to have come, because it is his first Sabbath at
home."
In this way Ruth's first Sunday passed over.
CHAPTER XV
MOTHER AND CHILD
"Here is a parcel for you, Ruth!" said Miss Benson on the Tuesday
morning.
"For me!" said Ruth, all sorts of rushing thoughts and hopes
filling her mind, and turning her dizzy with expectation. If it
had been from "him," the new-born resolutions would have had a
bard struggle for existence.
"It is directed 'Mrs. Denbigh,'" said Miss Benson, before giving
it up. "It is in Mrs. Bradshaw's handwriting;" and, far more
curious than Ruth, she awaited the untying of the close-knotted
string. When the paper was opened, it displayed a whole piece of
delicate cambric muslin; and there was a short note from Mrs.
Bradshaw to Ruth, saying her husband had wished her to send this
muslin in aid of any preparations Mrs. Denbigh might have to
make. Ruth said nothing, but coloured up, and sat down again to
her employment.
"Very fine muslin, indeed," said Miss Benson, feeling it, and
holding it up against the light, with the air of a connoisseur;
yet all the time she was glancing at Ruth's grave face. The
latter kept silence, and showed no wish to inspect her present
further. At last she said, in a low voice--
"I suppose I may send it back again?"
"My dear child! send it back to Mr. Bradshaw! You'd offend him
for life. You may depend upon it, he means it as a mark of high
favour!"
"What right had he to send it me?" asked Ruth, still in her quiet
voice.
"What right? Mr. Bradshaw thinks----I don't know exactly what
you mean by 'right.'"
Ruth was silent for a moment, and then said--
"There are people to whom I love to feel that I owe
gratitude--gratitude which I cannot express, and had better not
talk about--but I cannot see why a person whom I do not know
should lay me under an obligation. Oh! don't say I must take this
muslin, please, Miss Benson!"
What Miss Benson might have said if her brother had not just then
entered the room, neither he nor any other person could tell; but
she felt his presence was most opportune, and called him in as
umpire. He had come hastily, for he had much to do; but he no
sooner heard the case than he sat down, and tried to draw some
more explicit declaration of her feeling from Ruth, who had
remained silent during Miss Benson's explanation.
"You would rather send this present back?" said he.
"Yes," she answered softly. "Is it wrong?"
"Why do you want to return it?"
"Because I feel as if Mr. Bradshaw had no right to offer it me."
Mr. Benson was silent.
"It's beautifully fine," said Miss Benson, still examining the
piece.
"You think that it is a right which must be earned?"
"Yes," said she, after a minute's pause. "Don't you?"
"I understand what you mean. It is a delight to have gifts made
to you by those whom you esteem and love, because then such gifts
are merely to be considered as fringes to the garment--as
inconsiderable additions to the mighty treasure of their
affection, adding a grace, but no additional value, to what
before was precious, and proceeding as naturally out of that as
leaves burgeon out upon the trees; but you feel it to be
different when there is no regard for the giver to idealise the
gift--when it simply takes its stand among your property as so
much money's value. Is this it, Ruth?"
"I think it is. I never reasoned why I felt as I did; I only knew
that Mr. Bradshaw's giving me a present hurt me, instead of
making me glad."
"Well, but there is another side of the case we have not looked
at yet--we must think of that, too. You know who said, 'Do unto
others as ye would that they should do unto you'? Mr. Bradshaw
may not have had that in his mind when he desired his wife to
send you this; he may have been self-seeking, and only anxious to
gratify his love of patronising--that is the worst motive we can
give him; and that would be no excuse for your thinking only of
yourself, and returning his present."
"But you would not have me pretend to be obliged?" asked Ruth.
"No, I would not. I have often been similarly situated to you,
Ruth; Mr. Bradshaw has frequently opposed me on the points on
which I feel the warmest--am the most earnestly convinced. He, no
doubt, thinks me Quixotic, and often speaks of me, and to me,
with great contempt when he is angry. I suppose he has a little
fit of penitence afterwards, or perhaps he thinks he can pay for
ungracious speeches by a present; so, formerly, he invariably
sent me something after these occasions. It was a time, of all
others, to feel as you are doing now; but I became convinced it
would be right to accept them, giving only the very cool thanks
which I felt. This omission of all show of much gratitude had the
best effect--the presents have much diminished; but, if the gifts
have lessened, the unjustifiable speeches have decreased in still
greater proportion, and I am sure we respect each other more.
Take this muslin, Ruth, for the reason I named; and thank him as
your feelings prompt you. Overstrained expressions of gratitude
always seem like an endeavour to place the receiver of these
expressions in the position of debtor for future favours. But you
won't fall into this error."
Ruth listened to Mr. Benson; but she had not yet fallen
sufficiently into the tone of his mind to understand him fully.
She only felt that he comprehended her better than Miss Benson,
who once more tried to reconcile her to her present, by calling
her attention to the length and breadth thereof.
"I will do what you wish me," she said, after a little pause of
thoughtfulness.
"May we talk of something else?"
Mr. Benson saw that his sister's frame of mind was not
particularly congenial with Ruth's, any more than Ruth's was with
Miss Benson's; and, putting aside all thought of returning to the
business which had appeared to him so important when he came into
the room (but which principally related to himself), he remained
above an hour in the parlour, interesting them on subjects far
removed from the present, and left them at the end of that time
soothed and calm.
But the present gave a new current to Ruth's ideas. Her heart was
as yet too sore to speak, but her mind was crowded with plans.
She asked Sally to buy her (with the money produced by the sale
of a ring or two) the coarsest linen, the homeliest dark blue
print, and similar materials; on which she set busily to work to
make clothes for herself; and as they were made, she put them on;
and as she put them on, she gave a grace to each, which such
homely material and simple shaping had never had before. Then the
fine linen and delicate soft white muslin, which she had chosen
in preference to more expensive articles of dress when Mr.
Bellingham had given her carte blanche in London, were cut into
small garments, most daintily stitched and made ready for the
little creature, for whom in its white purity of soul nothing
could be too precious.
The love which dictated this extreme simplicity and coarseness of
attire, was taken for stiff, hard economy by Mr. Bradshaw, when
he deigned to observe it. And economy by itself, without any soul
or spirit in it to make it living and holy, was a great merit in
his eyes. Indeed, Ruth altogether found favour with him. Her
quiet manner, subdued by an internal consciousness of a deeper
cause for sorrow than he was aware of, he interpreted into a very
proper and becoming awe of him. He looked off from his own
prayers to observe how well she attended to hers at chapel; when
he came to any verse in the hymn relating to immortality or a
future life, he sung it unusually loud, thinking he should thus
comfort her in her sorrow for her deceased husband. He desired
Mrs. Bradshaw to pay her every attention she could; and even once
remarked, that he thought her so respectable a young person that
he should. not object to her being asked to tea the next time Mr.
and Miss Benson came. He added, that he thought, indeed, Benson
had looked last Sunday as if he rather hoped to get an
invitation; and it was right to encourage the ministers, and to
show them respect, even though their salaries were small. The
only thing against this Mrs. Denbigh was the circumstance of her
having married too early, and without any provision for a family.
Though Ruth pleaded delicacy of health, and declined accompanying
Mr. and Miss Benson on their visit to Mr. Bradshaw, she still
preserved her place in his esteem; and Miss Benson had to call a
little upon her "talent for fiction" to spare Ruth from the
infliction of further presents, in making which his love of
patronising delighted.
The yellow and crimson leaves came floating down on the still
October air; November followed, bleak and dreary; it was more
cheerful when the earth put on her beautiful robe of white, which
covered up all the grey naked stems, and loaded the leaves of the
hollies and evergreens each with its burden of feathery snow.
When Ruth sat down to languor and sadness, Miss Benson trotted
upstairs, and rummaged up every article of spare or worn-out
clothing, and bringing down a variety of strange materials, she
tried to interest Ruth in making them up into garments for the
poor. But, though Ruth's fingers flew through the work, she still
sighed with thought and remembrance. Miss Benson was at first
disappointed, and then she was angry. When she heard the low,
long sigh, and saw the dreamy eyes filling with glittering tears,
she would say, "What is the matter, Ruth?" in a half-reproachful
tone, for the sight of suffering was painful to her; she had done
all in her power to remedy it; and, though she acknowledged a
cause beyond her reach for Ruth's deep sorrow, and, in fact,
loved and respected her all the more for these manifestations of
grief, yet at the time they irritated her. Then Ruth would snatch
up the dropped work, and stitch away with drooping eyes, from
which the hot tears fell fast; and Miss Benson was then angry
with herself, yet not at all inclined to agree with Sally when
she asked her mistress "why she kept 'mithering' the poor lass
with asking her for ever what was the matter, as if she did not
know well enough." Some element of harmony was wanting--some
little angel of peace, in loving whom all hearts and natures
should be drawn together, and their discords hushed. The earth
was still "hiding her guilty front with innocent snow," when a
little baby was laid by the side of the pale, white mother. It
was a boy; beforehand she had wished for a girl, as being less
likely to feel the want of a father--as being what a mother,
worse than widowed, could most effectually shelter. But now she
did not think or remember this. What it was, she would not have
exchanged for a wilderness of girls. It was her own, her darling,
her individual baby, already, though not an hour old, separate
and sole in her heart, strangely filling up its measure with love
and peace, and even hope. For here was a new, pure, beautiful,
innocent life, which she fondly imagined, in that early passion
of maternal love, she could guard from every touch of corrupting
sin by ever watchful and most tender care. And her mother had
thought the same, most probably; and thousands of others think
the same, and pray to God to purify and cleanse their souls, that
they may be fit guardians for their little children. Oh, how Ruth
prayed, even while she was yet too weak to speak; and how she
felt the beauty and significance of the words, "Our Father!"
She was roused from this holy abstraction by the sound of Miss
Benson's voice. It was very much as if she had been crying.
"Look, Ruth!" it said softly, "my brother sends you these. They
are the first snowdrops in the garden." And she put them on the
pillow by Ruth; the baby lay on the opposite side.
"Won't you look at him?" said Ruth; "he is so pretty!"
Miss Benson had a strange reluctance to see him. To Ruth, in
spite of all that had come and gone, she was reconciled--nay,
more, she was deeply attached; but over the baby there hung a
cloud of shame and disgrace. Poor little creature! her heart was
closed against it--firmly, as she thought. But she could not
resist Ruth's low faint voice, nor her pleading eyes, and she
went round to peep at him as he lay on his mother's arm, as yet
his shield and guard.
"Sally says he will have black hair, she thinks," said Ruth. "His
little hand is quite a man's, already. Just feel how firmly he
closes it;" and with her own weak fingers she opened his little
red fist, and taking Miss Benson's reluctant hand, placed one of
her fingers in his grasp. That baby-touch called out her love;
the doors of her heart were thrown open wide for the little
infant to go in and take possession.
"Ah, my darling!" said Ruth, failing back weak and weary. "If God
will but spare you to me, never mother did more than I will. I
have done you a grievous wrong--but, if I may but live, I will
spend my life in serving you!"
"And in serving God!" said Miss Benson, with tears in her eyes.
"You must not make him into an idol, or God will, perhaps, punish
you through him."
A pang of affright shot through Ruth's heart at these words; had
she already sinned and made her child into an idol, and was there
punishment already in store for her through him? But then the
internal voice whispered that God was "Our Father," and that He
knew our frame, and knew how natural was the first outburst of a
mother's love; so, although she treasured up the warning, she
ceased to affright herself for what had already gushed forth.
"Now go to sleep, Ruth," said Miss Benson, kissing her, and
darkening the room. But Ruth could not sleep; if her heavy eyes
closed, she opened them again with a start, for sleep seemed to
be an enemy stealing from her the consciousness of being a
mother. That one thought excluded all remembrance and all
anticipation, in those first hours of delight.
But soon remembrance and anticipation came. There was the natural
want of the person, who alone could take an interest similar in
kind, though not in amount, to the mother's. And sadness grew
like a giant in the still watches of the night, when she
remembered that there would be no father to guide and strengthen
the child, and place him in a favourable position for fighting
the hard "Battle of Life." She hoped and believed that no one
would know the sin of his parents; and that that struggle might
be spared to him. But a father's powerful care and mighty
guidance would never be his; and then, in those hours of
spiritual purification, came the wonder and the doubt of how far
the real father would be the one to whom, with her desire of
heaven for her child, whatever might become of herself, she would
wish to intrust him. Slight speeches, telling of a selfish,
worldly nature, unnoticed at the time, came back upon her ear,
having a new significance. They told of a low standard, of
impatient self-indulgence, of no acknowledgment of things
spiritual and heavenly. Even while this examination was forced
upon her, by the new spirit of maternity that had entered into
her and made her child's welfare supreme, she hated and
reproached herself for the necessity there seemed upon her of
examining and judging the absent father of her child. And so the
compelling presence that had taken possession of her wearied her
into a kind of feverish slumber; in which she dreamt that the
innocent babe that lay by her side in soft ruddy slumber, had
started up into man's growth, and, instead of the pure and noble
being whom she had prayed to present as her child to "Our Father
in heaven," he was a repetition of his father; and, like him,
lured some maiden (who in her dream seemed strangely like
herself, only more utterly sad and desolate even than she) into
sin, and left her there to even a worse fate than that of
suicide. For Ruth believed there was a worse. She dreamt she saw
the girl, wandering, lost; and that she saw her son in high
places, prosperous--but with more than blood on his soul. She saw
her son dragged down by the clinging girl into some pit of
horrors into which she dared not look, but from whence his
father's voice was heard, crying aloud, that in his day and
generation he had not remembered the words of God, and that now
he was "tormented in this flame." Then she started in sick
terror, and saw, by the dim rushlight, Sally, nodding in an
armchair by the fire; and felt her little soft warm babe, nestled
up against her breast, rocked by her heart, which yet beat hard
from the effects of the evil dream. She dared not go to sleep
again, but prayed. And, every time she prayed, she asked with a
more complete wisdom, and a more utter and self-forgetting faith.
Little child! thy angel was with God, and drew her nearer and
nearer to Him, whose face is continually beheld by the angels of
little children.
CHAPTER XVI
SALLY TELLS OF HER SWEETHEARTS, AND DISCOURSES ON THE DUTIES OF
LIFE
Sally and Miss Benson took it in turns to sit up, or rather, they
took it in turns to nod by the fire; for if Ruth was awake she
lay very still in the moonlight calm of her sick bed. That time
resembled a beautiful August evening, such as I have seen. The
white, snowy rolling mist covers up under its great sheet all
trees and meadows, and tokens of earth; but it cannot rise high
enough to shut out the heavens, which on such nights seem bending
very near, and to be the only real and present objects; and so
near, so real and present, did heaven, and eternity, and God seem
to Ruth, as she lay encircling her mysterious holy child.
One night Sally found out she was not asleep.
"I'm a rare hand at talking folks to sleep," said she. "I'll try
on thee, for thou must get strength by sleeping and eating. What
must I talk to thee about, I wonder. Shall I tell thee a love
story or a fairy story, such as I've telled Master Thurstan many
a time and many a time, for all his father set his face again
fairies, and called it vain talking; or shall I tell you the
dinner I once cooked, when Mr. Harding, as was Miss Faith's
sweetheart, came unlooked for, and we'd nought in the house but a
neck of mutton, out of which I made seven dishes, all with a
different name?"
"Who was Mr. Harding?" asked Ruth.
"Oh, he was a grand gentleman from Lunnon, as had seen Miss
Faith, and been struck by her pretty looks when she was out on a
visit, and came here to ask her to marry him. She said, 'No, she
would never leave Master Thurstan, as could never marry;' but she
pined a deal at after he went away. She kept up afore Master
Thurstan, but I seed her fretting, though I never let on that I
did, for I thought she'd soonest get over it and be thankful at
after she'd the strength to do right. However, I've no business
to be talking of Miss Benson's concerns. I'll tell you of my own
sweethearts and welcome, or I'll tell you of the dinner, which
was the grandest thing I ever did in my life, but I thought a
Lunnoner should never think country folks knew nothing; and, my
word, I puzzled him with his dinner. I'm doubting whether to this
day he knows whether what he was eating was fish, flesh, or fowl.
Shall I tell you how I managed?"
But Ruth said she would rather hear about Sally's sweethearts;
much to the disappointment of the latter, who considered the
dinner by far the greatest achievement.
"Well, you see, I don't know as I should call them sweethearts;
for excepting John Rawson, who was shut up in a mad-house the
next week, I never had what you may call a downright offer of
marriage but once. But I had once; and so I may say I had a
sweetheart. I was beginning to be afeard though, for one likes to
be axed; that's but civility; and I remember, after I had turned
forty, and afore Jeremiah Dixon had spoken, I began to think John
Rawson had perhaps not been so very mad, and that I'd done ill to
lightly his offer, as a madman's, if it was to be the only one I
was ever to have; I don't mean as I'd have had him, but I
thought, if it was to come o'er again, I'd speak respectful of
him to folk, and say it were only his way to go about on
all-fours, but that he was a sensible man in most things. However
I'd had my laugh, and so had others, at my crazy lover, and it
was late now to set him up as a Solomon. However, I thought it
would be no bad thing to be tried again; but I little thought the
trial would come when it did. You see, Saturday night is a
leisure night in counting-houses and such-like places, while it's
the busiest of all for servants. Well! it was a Saturday night,
and I'd my baize apron on, and the tails of my bed-gown pinned
together behind, down on my knees, pipeclaying the kitchen, when
a knock comes to the back door. 'Come in!' says I; but it knocked
again, as if it were too stately to open the door for itself; so
I got up rather cross, and opened the door; and there stood Jerry
Dixon, Mr. Holt's head-clerk; only he was not head-clerk then. So
I stood, stopping up the door, fancying he wanted to speak to
master; but he kind of pushed past me, and telling me summut
about the weather (as if I could not see it for myself), he took
a chair, and sat down by the oven. 'Cool and easy!' thought I;
meaning hisself, not his place, which I knew must be pretty hot.
Well! it seemed no use standing waiting for my gentleman to go;
not that he had much to say either; but he kept twirling his hat
round and round, and smoothing the nap on't with the back of his
hand. So at last I squatted down to my work, and thinks I, I
shall be on my knees all ready if he puts up a prayer, for I knew
he was a Methodee by bringing-up, and had only lately turned to
master's way of thinking; and them Methodees are terrible hands
at unexpected prayers when one least looks for 'em. I can't say I
like their way of taking one by surprise, as it were; but then
I'm a parish-clerk's daughter, and could never demean myself to
dissenting fashions, always save and except Master Thurstan's,
bless him. However, I'd been caught once or twice unawares, so
this time I thought I'd be up to it, and I moved a dry duster
wherever I went, to kneel upon in case he began when I were in a
wet place. By-and-by I thought, if the man would pray it would be
a blessing, for it would prevent his sending his eyes after me
wherever I went; for when they takes to praying they shuts their
eyes, and quivers th' lids in a queer kind o' way--them
Dissenters does. I can speak pretty plain to you, for you're bred
in the Church like mysel', and must find it as out o' the way as
I do to be among dissenting folk. God forbid I should speak
disrespectful of Master Thurstan and Miss Faith, though; I never
think on them as Church or Dissenters, but just as Christians.
But to come back to Jerry. First, I tried always to be cleaning
at his back; but when he wheeled round, so as always to face me,
I thought I'd try a different game. So, says I, 'Master Dixon, I
ax your pardon, but I must pipeclay under your chair. Will you
please to move?' Well, he moved; and by-and-by I was at him again
with the same words; and at after that, again and again, till he
were always moving about wi' his chair behind him, like a snail
as carries its house on its back. And the great gaupus never seed
that I were pipeclaying the same places twice over. At last I got
desperate cross, he were so in my way; so I made two big crosses
on the tails of his brown coat; for you see, wherever he went, up
or down, he drew out the tails of his coat from under him, and
stuck them through the bars of the chair; and flesh and blood
could not resist pipeclaying them for him; and a pretty brushing
he'd have, I reckon, to get it off again. Well! at length he
clears his throat uncommon loud; so I spreads my duster, and
shuts my eyes all ready; but when nought comed of it, I opened my
eyes a little bit to see what he were about. My word! if there he
wasn't down on his knees right facing me, staring as bard as he
could. Well! I thought it would be hard work to stand that, if he
made a long ado; so I shut my eyes again, and tried to think
serious, as became what I fancied were coming; but forgive me!
but I thought why couldn't the fellow go in and pray wi' Master
Thurstan, as had always a calm spirit ready for prayer, instead
o' me who had my dresser to scour, let alone an apron to iron. At
last he says, says he, 'Sally! will you oblige me with your
hand?' So I thought it were, maybe, Methodee fashion to pray hand
in hand; and I'll not deny but I wished I'd washed it better
after blackleading the kitchen fire. I thought I'd better tell
him it were not so clean as I could wish, so says I, 'Master
Dixon, you shall have it, and welcome, if I may just go and wash
'em first.' But, says he, 'My dear Sally, dirty or clean, it's
all the same to me, seeing I'm only speaking in a figuring way.
What I'm asking on my bended knees is, that you'd please to be so
kind as to be my wedded wife; week after next will suit me, if
it's agreeable to you!' My word! I were up on my feet in an
instant! It were odd now, weren't it? I never thought of taking
the fellow, and getting married; for all, I'll not deny, I had
been thinking it would be agreeable to be axed. But all at once,
I couldn't abide the chap. 'Sir,' says I, trying to look
shamefaced as became the occasion, but for all that feeling a
twittering round my mouth that I were afeard might end in a
laugh--'Master Dixon, I'm obleeged to you for the compliment, and
thank ye all the same, but I think I'd prefer a single life.' He
looked mighty taken aback; but in a minute he cleared up, and was
as sweet as ever. He still kept on his knees, and I wished he'd
take himself up; but, I reckon, he thought it would give force to
his words; says he, 'Think again, my dear Sally. I've a
four-roomed house, and furniture conformable; and eighty pound a
year. You may never have such a chance again.' There were truth
enough in that, but it was not pretty in the man to say it; and
it put me up a bit. 'As for that, neither you nor I can tell,
Master Dixon. You're not the first chap as I've had down on his
knees afore me, axing me to marry him (you see I were thinking of
John Rawson, only I thought there were no need to say he were on
all-fours--it were truth he were on his knees, you know), and
maybe you'll not be the last. Anyhow, I've no wish to change my
condition just now.' 'I'll wait till Christmas,' says he. 'I've a
pig as will be ready for killing then, so I must get married
before that.' Well now! would you believe it? the pig was a
temptation. I'd a receipt for curing hams, as Miss Faith would
never let me try, saying the old way were good enough. However, I
resisted. Says I, very stern, because I felt I'd been wavering,
'Master Dixon, once for all, pig or no pig, I'll not marry you.
And if you'll take my advice, you'll get up off your knees. The
flags is but damp yet, and it would be an awkward thing to have
rheumatiz just before winter.' With that he got up, stiff enough.
He looked as sulky a chap as ever I clapped eyes on. And as he
were so black and cross, I thought I'd done well (whatever came
of the pig) to say 'No' to him. 'You may live to repent this,'
says he, very red. 'But I'll not be hard upon ye, I'll give you
another chance. I'll let you have the night to think about it,
and I'll just call in to hear your second thoughts, after chapel,
to-morrow.' Well now! did ever you hear the like! But that is the
way with all of them men, thinking so much of theirselves, and
that it's but ask and have. They've never had me, though; and I
shall be sixty-one next Martinmas, so there's not much time left
for them to try me, I reckon. Well! when Jeremiah said that he
put me up more than ever, and I says, 'My first thoughts, second
thoughts, and third thoughts is all one and the same; you've but
tempted me once, and that was when you spoke of your pig. But of
yoursel' you're nothing to boast on, and so I'll bid you good
night, and I'll keep my manners, or else, if I told the truth, I
should say it had been a great loss of time listening to you. But
I'll be civil--so good night.' He never said a word, but went off
as black as thunder, slamming the door after him. The master
called me in to prayers, but I can't say I could put my mind to
them, for my heart was beating so. However, it was a comfort to
have had an offer of holy matrimony; and though it flustered me,
it made me think more of myself. In the night, I began to wonder
if I'd not been cruel and hard to him. You see, I were
feverish-like; and the old song of Barbary Allen would keep
running in my head, and I thought I were Barbary, and he were
young Jemmy Gray, and that maybe he'd die for love of me; and I
pictured him to mysel', lying on his death-bed, with his face
turned to the wall 'wi' deadly sorrow sighing,' and I could ha'
pinched mysel' for having been so like cruel Barbary Allen. And
when I got up next day, I found it hard to think on the real
Jerry Dixon I had seen the night before, apart from the sad and
sorrowful Jerry I thought on a-dying, when I were between
sleeping and waking. And for many a day I turned sick, when I
heard the passing bell, for I thought it were the bell
loud-knelling which were to break my heart wi' a sense of what
I'd missed in saying 'No' to Jerry, and so Idling him with
cruelty. But in less than a three week, I heard parish bells
a-ringing merrily for a wedding; and in the course of the
morning, some one says to me, 'Hark! how the bells is ringing for
Jerry Dixon's wedding!' And, all on a sudden, he changed back
again from a heart-broken young fellow, like Jemmy Gray, into a
stout, middle-aged man, ruddy-complexioned, with a wart on his
left cheek like life!"
Sally waited for some exclamation at the conclusion of her tale;
but receiving none, she stepped softly to the bedside, and there
lay Ruth, peaceful as death, with her baby on her breast.
"I thought I'd lost some of my gifts if I could not talk a body
to sleep," said Sally, in a satisfied and self-complacent tone.
Youth is strong and powerful, and makes a hard battle against
sorrow. So Ruth strove and strengthened, and her baby flourished
accordingly; and before the little celandines were out on the
hedge-banks, or the white violets had sent forth their fragrance
from the border under the south wall of Miss Benson's small
garden, Ruth was able to carry her baby into that sheltered place
on sunny days.
She often wished to thank Mr. Benson and his sister, but she did
not know how to tell the deep gratitude she felt, and therefore
she was silent. But they understood her silence well. One day, as
she watched her sleeping child, she spoke to Miss Benson, with
whom she happened to be alone.
"Do you know of any cottage where the people are clean, and where
they would not mind taking me in?" asked she.
"Taking you in! What do you mean?" said Miss Benson, dropping her
knitting, in order to observe Ruth more closely.
"I mean," said Ruth, "where I might lodge with my baby--any very
poor place would do, only it must be clean, or he might be ill."
"And what in the world do you want to go and lodge in a cottage
for?" said Miss Benson indignantly.
Ruth did not lift up her eyes, but she spoke with a firmness
which showed that she had considered the subject.
"I think I could make dresses. I know I did not learn as much as
I might, but perhaps I might do for servants and people who are
not particular."
"Servants are as particular as any one," said Miss Benson, glad
to lay hold of the first objection that she could.
"Well! somebody who would be patient with me," said Ruth.
"Nobody is patient over an ill-fitting gown," put in Miss Benson.
"There's the stuff spoilt, and what not!"
"Perhaps I could find plain work to do," said Ruth, very meekly.
"That I can do very well; mamma taught me, and I liked to learn
from her. If you would be so good, Miss Benson, you might tell
people I could do plain work very neatly, and punctually, and
cheaply."
"You'd get sixpence a day, perhaps," said Miss Benson "and who
would take care of baby, I should like to know? Prettily he'd be
neglected, would not he? Why, he'd have the croup and the typhus
fever in no time, and be burnt to ashes after."
"I have thought of all. Look how he sleeps! Hush, darling;" for
just at this point he began to cry, and to show his determination
to be awake, as if in contradiction to his mother's words. Ruth
took him up, and carried him about the room while she went on
speaking.
"Yes, just now I know he will not sleep; but very often he will,
and in the night he always does."
"And so you'd work in the night and kill yourself, and leave your
poor baby an orphan. Ruth! I'm ashamed of you. Now, brother" (Mr.
Benson had just come in), "is not this too bad of Ruth? here she
is planning to go away and leave us, just as we--as I, at
least--have grown so fond of baby, and he's beginning to know
me."
"Where were you thinking of going to, Ruth?" interrupted Mr.
Benson, with mild surprise.
"Anywhere to be near you and Miss Benson; in any poor cottage
where I might lodge very cheaply, and earn my livelihood by
taking in plain sewing, and perhaps a little dressmaking; and
where I could come and see you and dear Miss Benson sometimes and
bring baby."
"If he was not dead before then of some fever, or burn, or scald,
poor neglected child, or you had not worked yourself to death
with never sleeping" said Miss Benson.
Mr. Benson thought a minute or two, and then he spoke to Ruth--
"Whatever you may do when this little fellow is a year old, and
able to dispense with some of a mother's care, let me beg you,
Ruth, as a favour to me--as a still greater favour to my sister,
is it not, Faith?"
"Yes; you may put it so if you like."
"To stay with us," continued he, "till then. When baby is twelve
months old, we'll talk about it again, and very likely before
then some opening may be shown us. Never fear leading an idle
life, Ruth. We'll treat you as a daughter, and set you all the
household tasks; and it is not for your sake that we ask you to
stay, but for this little dumb helpless child's: and it is not
for our sake that you must stay, but for his."
Ruth was sobbing.
"I do not deserve your kindness," said she, in a broken voice; "I
do not deserve it."
Her tears fell fast and soft like summer rain, but no further
word was spoken. Mr. Benson quietly passed on to make the inquiry
for which he had entered the room.
But when there was nothing to decide upon, and no necessity for
entering upon any new course of action, Ruth's mind relaxed from
its strung-up state. She fell into trains of reverie, and
mournful regretful recollections which rendered her languid and
tearful. This was noticed both by Miss Benson and Sally, and as
each had kind sympathies, and felt depressed when they saw any
one near them depressed, and as each, without much reasoning on
the cause or reason for such depression, felt irritated at the
uncomfortable state into which they themselves were thrown, they
both resolved to speak to Ruth on the next fitting occasion.
Accordingly, one afternoon--the morning of that day had been
spent by Ruth in house-work, for she had insisted on Mr. Benson's
words, and had taken Miss Benson's share of the more active and
fatiguing household duties, but she went through them heavily,
and as if her heart was far away--in the afternoon when she was
nursing her child, Sally, on coming into the back parlour, found
her there alone, and easily detected the fact that she was
crying.
"Where's Miss Benson?" asked Sally gruffly.
"Gone out with Mr. Benson," answered Ruth, with an absent sadness
in her voice and manner. Her tears, scarce checked while she
spoke, began to fall afresh; and as Sally stood and gazed she saw
the babe look hack in his mother's face, and his little lip begin
to quiver, and his open blue eye to grow overclouded, as with
some mysterious sympathy with the sorrowful face bent over him.
Sally took him briskly from his mother's arms; Ruth looked up in
grave surprise, for in truth she had forgotten Sally's presence,
and the suddenness of the motion startled her.
"My bonny boy! are they letting the salt tears drop on thy sweet
face before thou'rt weaned! Little somebody knows how to be a
mother--I could make a better myself. 'Dance, thumbkin,
dance--dance, ye merry men every one.' Ay, that's it! smile, my
pretty. Any one but a child like thee," continued she, turning to
Ruth, "would have known better than to bring ill-luck on thy
babby by letting tears fall on its face before it was weaned. But
thou'rt not fit to have a babby, and so I've said many a time.
I've a great mind to buy thee a doll, and take thy babby mysel'."
Sally did not look at Ruth, for she was too much engaged in
amusing the baby with the tassel of the string to the
window-blind, or else she would have seen the dignity which the
mother's soul put into Ruth at that moment. Sally was quelled
into silence by the gentle composure, the self-command over her
passionate sorrow, which gave to Ruth an unconscious grandeur of
demeanour as she came up to the old servant.
"Give him back to me, please. I did not know it brought ill-luck,
or if my heart broke I would not have let a tear drop on his
face--I never will again. Thank you, Sally," as the servant
relinquished him to her who came in the name of a mother. Sally
watched Ruth's grave, sweet smile, as she followed up Sally's
play with the tassel, and imitated, with all the docility
inspired by love, every movement and sound which had amused her
babe.
"Thou'lt be a mother, after all," said Sally, with a kind of
admiration of the control which Ruth was exercising over herself.
"But why talk of thy heart breaking? I don't question thee about
what's past and gone; but now thou'rt wanting for nothing, nor
thy child either; the time to come is the Lord's and in His
hands; and yet thou goest about a-sighing and a-moaning in a way
that I can't stand or thole."
"What do I do wrong?" said Ruth; "I try to do all I can."
"Yes, in a way," said Sally, puzzled to know how to describe her
meaning. "Thou dost it--but there's a, right and a wrong way of
setting about everything--and to my thinking, the right way is to
take a thing up heartily, if it is only making a bed. Why! dear
ah me, making a bed may be done after a Christian fashion, I take
it, or else what's to come of such as me in heaven, who've had
little enough time on earth for clapping ourselves down on our
knees for set prayers? When I was a girl, and wretched enough
about Master Thurstan, and the crook on his back which came of
the fall I gave him, I took to praying and sighing, and giving up
the world; and I thought it were wicked to care for the flesh, so
I made heavy puddings, and was careless about dinner and the
rooms, and thought I was doing my duty, though I did call myself
a miserable sinner. But one night, the old missus (Master
Thurstan's mother) came in, and sat down by me, as I was
a-scolding myself, without thinking of what I was saying; and,
says she, 'Sally! what are you blaming yourself about, and
groaning over? We hear you in the parlour every night, and it
makes my heart ache.' 'Oh, ma'am,' says I, 'I'm a miserable
sinner, and I'm travailing in the new birth.' 'Was that the
reason,' says she, 'why the pudding was so heavy to-day?' 'Oh,
ma'am, ma'am,' said I, 'if you would not think of the things of
the flesh, but trouble yourself about your immortal soul.' And I
sat a-shaking my head to think about her soul. 'But,' says she,
in her sweet dropping voice, 'I do try to think of my soul every
hour of the day, if by that you mean trying to do the will of
God, but we'll talk now about the pudding; Master Thurstan could
not eat it, and I know you'll be sorry for that.' Well! I was
sorry, but I didn't choose to say so, as she seemed to expect me;
so says I, 'It's a pity to see children brought up to care for
things of the flesh;' and then I could have bitten my tongue out,
for the missus looked so grave, and I thought of my darling
little lad pining for want of his food. At last, says she,
'Sally, do you think God has put us into the world just to be
selfish, and do nothing but see after our own souls? or to help
one another with heart and hand, as Christ did to all who wanted
help?' I was silent, for, you see, she puzzled me. So she went
on, 'What is that beautiful answer in your Church catechism,
Sally?' I were pleased to hear a Dissenter, as I did not think
would have done it, speak so knowledgeably about the catechism,
and she went on: '"to do my duty in that station of life unto
which it shall please God to call me;" well, your station is a
servant and it is as honourable as a king's, if you look at it
right; you are to help and serve others in one way, just as a
king is to help others in another. Now what way are you to help
and serve, or to do your duty, in that station of life unto which
it has pleased God to call you? Did it answer God's purpose, and
serve Him, when the food was unfit for a child to eat, and
unwholesome for any one?' Well! I would not give it up, I was so
pig-headed about my soul; so says I, 'I wish folks would be
content with locusts and wild honey, and leave other folks in
peace to work out their salvation;' and I groaned out pretty loud
to think of missus's soul. I often think since she smiled a bit
at me; but she said, 'Well, Sally, to-morrow, you shall have time
to work out your salvation; but as we have no locusts in England,
and I don't think they'd agree with Master Thurstan if we had, I
will come and make the pudding; but I shall try and do it well,
not only for him to like it, but because everything may be done
in a right way or a wrong; the right way is to do it as well as
we can, as in God's sight; the wrong is to do it in a
self-seeking spirit, which either leads us to neglect it to
follow out some device of our own for our own ends, or to give up
too much time and thought to it both before and after the doing.'
Well! I thought of old missus's words this morning, when I saw
you making the beds. You sighed so, you could not half shake the
pillows; your heart was not in your work; and yet it was the duty
God had set you, I reckon; I know it's not the work parsons
preach about; though I don't think they go so far off the mark
when they read, 'whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, that do with
all thy might.' Just try for a day to think of all the odd jobs
as to be done well and truly as in God's sight, not just slurred
over anyhow, and you'll go through them twice as cheerfully, and
have no thought to spare for sighing or crying."
Sally bustled off to set on the kettle for tea, and felt half
ashamed, in the quiet of the kitchen, to think of the oration she
had made in the parlour. But she saw with much satisfaction, that
henceforward Ruth nursed her boy with a vigour and cheerfulness
that were reflected back from him; and the household work was no
longer performed with a languid indifference, as if life and duty
were distasteful. Miss Benson had her share in this improvement,
though Sally placidly took all the credit to herself. One day as
she and Ruth sat together, Miss Benson spoke of the child, and
thence went on to talk about her own childhood. By' degrees they
spoke of education, and the book-learning that forms one part of
it; and the result was that Ruth determined to get up early all
through the bright summer mornings, to acquire the knowledge
hereafter to be given to her child. Her mind was uncultivated,
her reading scant; beyond the mere mechanical arts of education
she knew nothing; but she had a refined taste, and excellent
sense and judgment to separate the true from the false. With
these qualities, she set to work under Mr. Benson's directions.
She read in the early morning the books that he marked out; she
trained herself with strict perseverance to do all thoroughly;
she did not attempt to acquire any foreign language, although her
ambition was to learn Latin, in order to teach it to her boy.
Those summer mornings were happy, for she was learning neither to
look backwards nor forwards, but to live faithfully and earnestly
in the present. She rose while the hedge-sparrow was yet singing
his reveil to his mate; she dressed and opened her window,
shading the soft-blowing air and the sunny eastern light from her
baby. If she grew tired, she went and looked at him, and all her
thoughts were holy prayers for him. Then she would gaze awhile
out of the high upper window on to the moorlands, that swelled in
waves one behind the other, in the grey, cool morning light.
These were her occasional. relaxations, and after them she
returned with strength to her work.
CHAPTER XVII
LEONARD'S CHRISTENING
In that body of Dissenters to which Mr. Benson belonged, it is
not considered necessary to baptize infants as early as the
ceremony can be performed; and many circumstances concurred to
cause the solemn thanksgiving and dedication of the child (for so
these Dissenters looked upon christenings) to be deferred until
it was probably somewhere about six months old. There had been
many conversations in the little sitting-room between the brother
and sister and their protegee, which had consisted of questions
betraying a thoughtful wondering kind of ignorance on the part of
Ruth, and answers more suggestive than explanatory from Mr.
Benson; while Miss Benson kept up a kind of running commentary,
always simple and often quaint, but with that intuition into the
very heart of all things truly religious which is often the gift
of those who seem, at first sight, to be only affectionate and
sensible. When Mr. Benson had explained his own views of what a
christening ought to be considered, and, by calling out Ruth's
latent feelings into pious earnestness, brought her into a right
frame of mind, he felt that he had done what he could to make the
ceremony more than a mere form, and to invest it, quiet, humble,
and obscure as it must necessarily be in outward shape--mournful
and anxious as many of its antecedents had rendered it--with the
severe grandeur of an act done in faith and truth. It was not far
to carry the little one, for, as I said, the chapel almost
adjoined the minister's house. The whole procession was to have
consisted of Mr. and Miss Benson, Ruth carrying her babe, and
Sally, who felt herself, as a Church-of-England woman, to be
condescending and kind in requesting leave to attend a baptism
among "them Dissenters" but unless she had asked permission, she
would not have been desired to attend, so careful was the habit
of her master and mistress that she should be allowed that
freedom which they claimed for themselves. But they were glad she
wished to go; they liked the feeling that all were of one
household, and that the interests of one were the interests of
all. It produced a consequence, however, which they did not
anticipate. Sally was full of the event which her presence was to
sanction, and, as it were, to redeem from the character of being
utterly schismatic; she spoke about it with an air of patronage
to three or four, and among them to some of the servants at Mr.
Bradshaw's.
Miss Benson was rather surprised to receive a call from Jemima
Bradshaw, on the very morning of the day on which little Leonard
was to be baptized; Miss Bradshaw was rosy and breathless with
eagerness. Although the second in the family, she had been at
school when her younger sisters had been christened, and she was
now come, in the full warmth of a girl's fancy, to ask if she
might be present at the afternoon's service. She had been struck
with Mrs. Denbigh's grace and beauty at the very first sight,
when she had accompanied her mother to call upon the Bensons on
their return from Wales; and had kept up an enthusiastic interest
in the widow only a little older than herself, whose very reserve
and retirement but added to her unconscious power of enchantment.
"Oh, Miss Benson! I never saw a christening; papa says I may go,
if you think Mr. Benson and Mrs. Denbigh would not dislike it;
and I will be quite quiet, and sit up behind the door, or
anywhere; and that sweet little baby! I should so like to see him
christened; is he to be called Leonard, did you say? After Mr.
Denbigh, is it?"
"No--not exactly," said Miss Benson, rather discomfited.
"Was not Mr. Denbigh's name Leonard, then? Mamma thought it would
be sure to be called after him, and so did I. But I may come to
the christening, may I not, dear Miss Benson?"
Miss Benson gave her consent with a little inward reluctance.
Both her brother and Ruth shared in this feeling, although no one
expressed it; and it was presently forgotten.
Jemima stood grave and quiet in the old-fashioned vestry
adjoining the chapel, as they entered with steps subdued to
slowness. She thought Ruth looked so pale and awed because she
was left a solitary parent; but Ruth came to the presence of God,
as one who had gone astray, and doubted her own worthiness to be
called His child; she came as a mother who had incurred a heavy
responsibility, and who entreated His almighty aid to enable her
to discharge it; full of passionate, yearning love which craved
for more faith in God, to still her distrust and fear of the
future that might hang over her darling. When she thought of her
boy, she sickened and trembled: but when she heard of God's
loving-kindness, far beyond all tender mother's love, she was
hushed into peace and prayer. There she stood, her fair pale
cheek resting on her baby's head, as he slumbered on her bosom;
her eyes went slanting down under their half-closed white lids;
but their gaze was not on the primitive cottage-like room, it was
earnestly fixed on a dim mist, through which she fain would have
seen the life that lay before her child; but the mist was still
and dense, too thick a veil for anxious human love to penetrate.
The future was hid with God.
Mr. Benson stood right under the casement window that was placed
high up in the room; he was almost in shade, except for one or
two marked lights which fell on hair already silvery white; his
voice was always low and musical when he spoke to few; it was too
weak to speak so as to be heard by many without becoming harsh
and strange; but now it filled the little room with a loving
sound, like the stock-dove's brooding murmur over her young. He
and Ruth forgot all in their earnestness of thought; and when he
said "Let us pray," and the little congregation knelt down you
might have heard the baby's faint breathing, scarcely sighing out
upon the stillness, so absorbed were all in the solemnity. But
the prayer was long; thought followed thought, and fear crowded
upon fear, and all were to be laid bare before God, and His aid
and counsel asked. Before the end, Sally had shuffled quietly out
of the vestry into the green chapel-yard, upon which the door
opened. Miss Benson was alive to this movement, and so full of
curiosity as to what it might mean that she could no longer
attend to her brother, and felt inclined to rush off and question
Sally, the moment all was ended. Miss Bradshaw hung about the
babe and Ruth, and begged to be allowed to carry the child home,
but Ruth pressed him to her, as if there was no safe harbour for
him but in his mother's breast. Mr. Benson saw her feeling, and
caught Miss Bradshaw's look of disappointment.
"Come home with us," said he, "and stay to tea. You have never
drunk tea with us since you went to school."
"I wish I might," said Miss Bradshaw, colouring with pleasure.
"But I must ask papa. May I run home and ask?"
"To be sure, my dear!"
Jemima flew off; and fortunately her father was at home; for her
mother's permission would have been deemed insufficient. She
received many directions about her behaviour.
"Take no sugar in your tea, Jemima. I am sure the Bensons ought
not to be able to afford sugar, with their means. And do not eat
much; you can have plenty at home on your return; remember Mrs.
Denbigh's keep must cost them a great deal." So Jemima returned
considerably sobered, and very much afraid of her hunger leading
her to forget Mr. Benson's poverty. Meanwhile Miss Benson and
Sally, acquainted with Mr. Benson's invitation to Jemima, set
about making some capital tea-cakes on which they piqued
themselves. They both enjoyed the offices of hospitality; and
were glad to place some home-made tempting dainty before their
guests.
"What made ye leave the chapel-vestry before my brother had
ended?" inquired Miss Benson.
"Indeed, ma'am, I thought master had prayed so long he'd be
drouthy. So I just slipped out to put on the kettle for tea."
Miss Benson was on the point of reprimanding her for thinking of
anything besides the object of the prayer, when she remembered
how she herself had been unable to attend after Sally's departure
for wondering what had become of her; so she was silent.
It was a disappointment to Miss Benson's kind and hospitable
expectation when Jemima, as hungry as a hound, confined herself
to one piece of the cake which her hostess had had such pleasure
in making. And Jemima wished she had not a prophetic feeling all
tea-time of the manner in which her father would inquire into the
particulars of the meal, elevating his eyebrows at every viand
named beyond plain bread-and-butter, and winding up with some
such sentence as this:
"Well, I marvel how, with Benson's salary, he can afford to keep
such a table."
Sally could have told of self-denial when no one was by, when the
left hand did not know what the right hand did, on the part of
both her master and mistress, practised without thinking even to
themselves that it was either a sacrifice or a virtue, in order
to enable them to help those who were in need, or even to gratify
Miss Benson's kind, old-fashioned feelings on such occasions as
the present, when a stranger came to the house. Her homely,
affectionate pleasure in making others comfortable, might have
shown that such little occasional extravagances were not waste,
but a good work; and were not to be gauged by the standard of
money-spending. This evening her spirits were damped by Jemima's
refusal to eat! Poor Jemima! the cakes were so good, and she was
so hungry; but still she refused.
While Sally was clearing away the tea-things, Miss Benson and
Jemima accompanied Ruth upstairs, when she went to put little
Leonard to bed.
"A christening is a very solemn service," said Miss Bradshaw; "I
had no idea it was so solemn. Mr. Benson seemed to speak as if he
had a weight of care on his heart that God alone could relieve or
lighten."
"My brother feels these things very much," said Miss Benson,
rather wishing to cut short the conversation, for she had been
aware of several parts in the prayer which she knew were
suggested by the peculiarity and sadness of the case before him.
"I could not quite follow him all through," continued Jemima.
"What did he mean by saying, 'This child, rebuked by the world
and bidden to stand apart, Thou wilt not rebuke, but wilt suffer
it to come to Thee and be blessed with Thine almighty blessing'?
Why is this little darling to be rebuked? I do not think I
remember the exact words, but he said something like that."
"My dear! your gown is dripping wet! it must have dipped into the
tub; let me wring it out."
"Oh, thank you! Never mind my gown!" said Jemima hastily, and
wanting to return to her question; but just then she caught the
sight of tears falling fast down the cheeks of the silent Ruth as
she bent over her child, crowing and splashing away in his tub.
With a sudden consciousness that unwittingly she had touched on
some painful chord, Jemima rushed into another subject, and was
eagerly seconded by Miss Benson. The circumstance seemed to die
away, and leave no trace; but in after years it rose, vivid and
significant, before Jemima's memory. At present it was enough for
her, if Mrs. Denbigh would let her serve her in every possible
way. Her admiration for beauty was keen, and little indulged at
home; and Ruth was very beautiful in her quiet mournfulness; her
mean and homely dress left herself only the more open to
admiration, for she gave it a charm by her unconscious wearing of
it that made it seem like the drapery of an old Greek
statue--subordinate to the figure it covered, yet imbued by it
with an unspeakable grace. Then the pretended circumstances of
her life were such as to catch the imagination of a young
romantic girl. Altogether, Jemima could have kissed her hand and
professed herself Ruth's slave. She moved away all the articles
used at this little coucher; she folded up Leonard's day-clothes;
she felt only too much honoured when Ruth trusted him to her for
a few minutes--only too amply rewarded when Ruth thanked her with
a grave, sweet smile, and a grateful look of her loving eyes.
When Jemima had gone away with the servant who was sent to fetch
her, there was a little chorus of praise.
"She's a warm-hearted girl," said Miss Benson. "She remembers all
the old days before she went to school. She is worth two of Mr.
Richard. They're each of them just the same as they were when
they were children, when they broke that window in the chapel,
and he ran away home, and she came knocking at our door with a
single knock, just like a beggar's, and I went to see who it was,
and was quite startled to see her round, brown honest face
looking up at me, hall-frightened, and telling me what she had
done, and offering me the money in her savings bank to pay for
it. We never should have heard of Master Richard's share in the
business if it had not been for Sally."
"But remember," said Mr. Benson, "how strict Mr. Bradshaw has
always been with his children. It is no wonder if poor Richard
was a coward in those days."
"He is now, or I'm much mistaken," answered Miss Benson. "And Mr.
Bradshaw was just as strict with Jemima, and. she's no coward.
But I've no faith in Richard. He has a look about him that I
don't like. And when Mr. Bradshaw was away on business in Holland
last year, for those months my young gentleman did not come hall
as regularly to chapel, and I always believe that story of his
being seen out with the hounds at Smithiles."
"Those are neither of them great offences in a young man of
twenty," said Mr. Benson, smiling.
"No! I don't mind them in themselves; but when he could change
back so easily to being regular and mim when his father came
home, I don't like that."
"Leonard shall never be afraid of me," said Ruth, following her
own train of thought. "I will be his friend from the very first;
and I will try and learn how to be a wise friend, and you will
teach me; won't you, sir?"
"What made you wish to call him Leonard, Ruth?" asked Miss
Benson.
"It was my mother's father's name; and she used to tell me about
him and his goodness, and I thought if Leonard could be like
him----"
"Do you remember the discussion there was about Miss Bradshaw's
name, Thurstan? Her father wanting her to be called Hephzibah,
but insisting that she was to have a Scripture name at any rate;
and Mrs. Bradshaw wanting her to be Juliana, after some novel she
had read not long before; and at last Jemima was fixed upon,
because it would do either for a Scripture name or a name for a
heroine out of a book."
"I did not know Jemima was a Scripture name," said Ruth.
"Oh yes, it is. One of Job's daughters; Jemima, Kezia, and
Keren-Happuch. There are a good many Jemimas in the world, and
some Kezias, but I never heard of a Keren-Happuch; and yet we
know just as much of one as of another. People really like a
pretty name, whether in Scripture or out of it."
"When there is no particular association with the name," said Mr.
Benson.
"Now, I was called Faith after the cardinal virtue; and I like my
name, though many people would think it too Puritan; that was
according to our gentle mother's pious desire. And Thurstan was
called by his name because my father wished it; for, although he
was what people called a radical and a democrat in his ways of
talking and thinking, he was very proud in his heart of being
descended from some old Sir Thurstan, who figured away in the
French wars."
"The difference between theory and practice, thinking and being,"
put in Mr. Benson, who was in a mood for allowing himself a
little social enjoyment. He leaned back in his chair, with his
eyes looking at, but not seeing, the ceiling. Miss Benson was
clicking away with her eternal knitting-needles, looking at her
brother, and seeing him too. Ruth was arranging her child's
clothes against the morrow. It was but their usual way of
spending an evening; the variety was given by the different tone
which the conversation assumed on the different nights. Yet,
somehow, the peacefulness of the time, the window open into the
little garden, the scents that came stealing in, and the clear
summer heaven above, made the time be remembered as a happy
festival by Ruth. Even Sally seemed more placid than usual when
she came in to prayers; and she and Miss Benson followed Ruth to
her bedroom, to look at the beautiful sleeping Leonard.
"God bless him!" said Miss Benson, stooping down to kiss his
little dimpled hand, which lay outside the coverlet, tossed
abroad in the heat of the evening.
"Now, don't get up too early, Ruth! Injuring your health will be
short-sighted wisdom and poor economy. Good night!"
"Good night, dear Miss Benson. Good night, Sally." When Ruth had
shut her door, she went again to the bed, and looked at her boy
till her eyes filled with tears.
"God bless thee, darling! I only ask to be one of His
instruments, and not thrown aside as useless--or worse than
useless."
So ended the day of Leonard's christening.
Mr. Benson had sometimes taught the children of different people
as an especial favour, when requested by them. But then his
pupils were only children, and by their progress he was little
prepared for Ruth's. She had had early teaching, of that kind
which need never be unlearnt, from her mother; enough to unfold
many of her powers; they had remained inactive now for several
years, but had grown strong in the dark and quiet time. Her tutor
was surprised at the bounds by which she surmounted obstacles,
the quick perception and ready adaptation of truths and first
principles, and her immediate sense of the fitness of things. Her
delight in what was strong and beautiful called out her master's
sympathy; but, most of all, he admired the complete
unconsciousness of uncommon power, or unusual progress. It was
less of a wonder than he considered it to be, it is true, for she
never thought of comparing what she was now with her former self,
much less with another. Indeed, she did not think of herself at
all, but of her boy, and what she must learn in order to teach
him to be and to do as suited her hope and her prayer. If any
one's devotion could have flattered her into self-consciousness,
it was Jemima's. Mr. Bradshaw never dreamed that his daughter
could feel herself inferior to the minister's protegee, but so it
was; and no knight-errant of old could consider himself more
honoured by his ladye's commands than did Jemima, if Ruth allowed
her to do anything for her, or for her boy. Ruth loved her
heartily, even while she was rather annoyed at the open
expression Jemima used of admiration.
"Please, I really would rather not be told if people do think me
pretty."
"But it was not merely beautiful; it was sweet-looking and good,
Mrs. Postlethwaite called you," replied Jemima.
"All the more I would rather not hear it. I may be pretty, but I
know I am not good. Besides, I don't think we ought to hear what
is said of us behind our backs."
Ruth spoke so gravely, that Jemima feared lest she was
displeased.
"Dear Mrs. Denbigh, I never will admire or praise you again. Only
let me love you."
"And let me love you!" said Ruth, with a tender kiss.
Jemima would not have been allowed to come so frequently if Mr.
Bradshaw had not been possessed with the idea of patronising
Ruth. If the latter had chosen, she might have gone dressed from
head to foot in the presents which he wished to make her, but she
refused them constantly; occasionally to Miss Benson's great
annoyance. But if he could not load her with gifts, he could show
his approbation by asking her to his house; and after some
deliberation, she consented to accompany Mr. and Miss Benson
there. The house was square and massy-looking, with a great deal
of drab-colour about the furniture. Mrs. Bradshaw, in her
lackadaisical, sweet-tempered way, seconded her husband in his
desire of being kind to Ruth; and as she cherished privately a
great taste for what was beautiful or interesting, as opposed to
her husband's love of the purely useful, this taste of hers had
rarely had so healthy and true a mode of gratification as when
she watched Ruth's movements about the room, which seemed in its
unobtrusiveness and poverty of colour to receive the requisite
ornament of light and splendour from Ruth's presence. Mrs.
Bradshaw sighed, and wished she had a daughter as lovely, about
whom to weave a romance; for castle-building, after the manner of
the Minerva Press, was the outlet by which she escaped from the
pressure of her prosaic life, as Mr. Bradshaw's wife. Her
perception was only of external beauty, and she was not always
alive to that, or she might have seen how a warm, affectionate,
ardent nature, free from all envy or carking care of self, gave
an unspeakable charm to her plain, bright-faced daughter Jemima,
whose dark eyes kept challenging admiration for her friend. The
first evening spent at Mr. Bradshaw's passed like many succeeding
visits there. There was tea, the equipage for which was as
handsome and as ugly as money could purchase. Then the ladies
produced their sewing, while Mr. Bradshaw stood before the fire,
and gave the assembled party the benefit of his opinions on many
subjects. The opinions were as good and excellent as the opinions
of any man can be who sees one side of a case very strongly, and
almost ignores the other. They coincided in many points with
those held by Mr. Benson, but he once or twice interposed with a
plea for those who might differ; and then he was heard by Mr.
Bradshaw with a kind of evident and indulgent pity, such as one
feels for a child who unwittingly talks nonsense. By-and-by Mrs.
Bradshaw and Miss Benson fell into one tete-a-tete, and Ruth and
Jemima into another. Two well-behaved but unnaturally quiet
children were sent to bed early in the evening, in an
authoritative voice, by their father, because one of them had
spoken too loud while he was enlarging on an alteration in the
tariff. Just before the supper-tray was brought in, a gentleman
was announced whom Ruth had never previously seen, but who
appeared well known to the rest of the party. It was Mr.
Farquhar, Mr. Bradshaw's partner; he had been on the Continent
for the last year, and had only recently returned. He seemed
perfectly at home, but spoke little. He leaned back in his chair,
screwed up his eyes, and watched everybody; yet there was nothing
unpleasant or impertinent in his keenness of observation. Ruth
wondered to hear him contradict Mr. Bradshaw, and almost expected
some rebuff; but Mr. Bradshaw, if he did not yield the point,
admitted, for the first time that evening, that it was possible
something might be said on the other side. Mr. Farquhar differed
also from Mr. Benson, but it was in a more respectful manner than
Mr. Bradshaw had done. For these reasons, although Mr. Farquhar
had never spoken to Ruth, she came away with the impression that
he was a man to be respected and perhaps liked.
Sally would have thought herself mightily aggrieved if, on their
return, she had not heard some account of the evening. As soon as
Miss Benson came in, the old servant began--
"Well, and who was there? and what did they give you for supper?"
"Only Mr. Farquhar besides ourselves: and sandwiches,
sponge-cake, and wine there was no occasion for anything more,"
replied Miss Benson, who was tired and preparing to go upstairs.
"Mr. Farquhar! Why, they do say he's thinking of Miss Jemima!"
"Nonsense, Sally! why, he's old enough to be her father!" said
Miss Benson, halfway up the first flight.
"There's no need for it to be called nonsense, though he may be
ten year older," muttered Sally, retreating towards the kitchen.
"Bradshaw's Betsy knows what she's about, and wouldn't have said
it for nothing."
Ruth wondered a little about it. She loved Jemima well enough to
be interested in what related to her; but, after thinking for a
few minutes, she decided that such a marriage was, and would ever
be, very unlikely.
CHAPTER XVIII
RUTH BECOMES A GOVERNESS IN MR. BRADSHAW'S FAMILY
One afternoon, not long after this, Mr. and Miss Benson set off
to call upon a farmer, who attended the chapel, but lived at some
distance from the town. They intended to stay to tea if they were
invited, and Ruth and Sally were left to spend a long afternoon
together. At first, Sally was busy in her kitchen, and Ruth
employed herself in carrying her baby out into the garden. It was
now nearly a year since she came to the Bensons'; it seemed like
yesterday, and yet as if a lifetime had gone between. The flowers
were budding now, that were all in bloom when she came down, on
the first autumnal morning, into the sunny parlour. The yellow
jessamine that was then a tender plant, had now taken firm root
in the soil, and was sending out strong shoots; the wall-flowers,
which Miss Benson had sown on the wall a day or two after her
arrival, were scenting the air with their fragrant flowers. Ruth
knew every plant now; it seemed as though she had always lived
here, and always known the inhabitants of the house. She heard
Sally singing her accustomed song in the kitchen, a song she
never varied, over her afternoon's work. It began--
"As I was going to Derby, sir, Upon a market-day."
And, if music is a necessary element in a song, perhaps I had
better call it by some other name.
But the strange change was in Ruth herself. She was conscious of
it, though she could not define it, and did not dwell upon it.
Life had become significant and full of duty to her. She
delighted in the exercise of her intellectual powers, and liked
the idea of the infinite amount of which she was ignorant; for it
was a grand pleasure to learn,--to crave, and be satisfied. She
strove to forget what had gone before this last twelve months.
She shuddered up from contemplating it; it was like a bad, unholy
dream. And yet, there was a strange yearning kind of love for the
father of the child whom she pressed to her heart, which came,
and she could not bid it begone as sinful, it was so pure and
natural, even when thinking of it as in the sight of God. Little
Leonard cooed to the flowers, and stretched after their bright
colours; and Ruth laid him on the dry turf, and pelted him with
the gay petals. He chinked and crowed with laughing delight, and
clutched at her cap, and pulled it off. Her short rich curls were
golden-brown in the slanting sun-light, and by their very
shortness made her more childlike. She hardly seemed as if she
could be the mother of the noble babe over whom she knelt, now
snatching kisses, now matching his cheek with rose-leaves. All at
once, the bells of the old church struck the hour, and far away,
high up in the air, began slowly to play the old tune of "Life,
let us cherish;" they had played it for years--for the life of
man--and it always sounded fresh, and strange, and aerial. Ruth
was still in a moment, she knew not why; and the tears came into
her eyes as she listened. When it was ended, she kissed her baby,
and bade God bless him.
Just then Sally came out, dressed for the evening, with a
leisurely look about her. She had done her work, and she and Ruth
were to drink tea together in the exquisitely clean kitchen; but
while the kettle was boiling, she came out to enjoy the flowers.
She gathered a piece of southern-wood, and stuffed it up her
nose, by way of smelling it.
"Whatten you call this in your country?" asked she.
"Old-man," replied Ruth.
"We call it here lad's-love. It and peppermint drops always
reminds me of going to church in the country. Here! I'll get you
a black-currant leaf to put in the teapot. It gives it a flavour.
We had bees once against this wall; but when missus died, we
forgot to tell 'em and put 'em in mourning, and, in course, they
swarmed away without our knowing, and the next winter came a hard
frost, and they died. Now, I dare say, the water will be boiling;
and it's time for little master there to come in, for the dew is
falling. See, all the daisies is shutting themselves up."
Sally was most gracious as a hostess. She quite put on her
company manners to receive Ruth in the kitchen. They laid Leonard
to sleep on the sofa in the parlour, that they might hear him the
more easily, and then they sat quietly down to their sewing by
the bright kitchen fire. Sally was, as usual, the talker; and, as
usual, the subject was the family of whom for so many years she
had formed a part.
"Ay! things was different when I was a girl," quoth she. "Eggs
was thirty for a shilling, and butter only sixpence a pound. My
wage when I came here was but three pound, and I did on it, and
was always clean and tidy, which is more than many a lass can say
now who gets seven and eight pound a year; and tea was kept for
an afternoon drink, and pudding was eaten afore meat in them
days, and the upshot was, people paid their debts better; ay, ay!
we'n gone backwards, and we thinken we'n gone forrards."
After shaking her head a little over the degeneracy of the times,
Sally returned to a part of the subject on which she thought she
had given Ruth a wrong idea. "You'll not go for to think now that
I've not more than three pound a year. I've a deal above that
now. First of all, old missus gave me four pound, for she said I
were worth it, and I thought in my heart that I were; so I took
it without more ado; but after her death, Master Thurstan and
Miss Faith took a fit of spending, and says they to me, one day
as I carried tea in, 'Sally, we think your wages ought to be
raised.' 'What matter what you think!' said I, pretty sharp, for
I thought they'd ha' shown more respect to missus, if they'd let
things stand as they were in her time; and they'd gone and moved
the sofa away from the wall to where it stands now, already that
very day. So I speaks up sharp, and says I, 'As long as I'm
content, I think it's no business of yours to be meddling wi' me
and my money matters.' 'But,' says Miss Faith (she's always the
one to speak first if you'll notice, though it's master that
comes in and clinches the matter with some reason she'd never ha'
thought of--he were always a sensible lad), 'Sally, all the
servants in the town have six pound and better, and you have as
hard a place as any of 'em.' 'Did you ever hear me grumble about
my work that you talk about it in that way? wait till I grumble,'
says I, 'but don't meddle wi' me till then.' So I flung off in a
huff; but in the course of the evening, Master Thurstan came in
and sat down in the kitchen, and he's such winning ways he wiles
one over to anything; and besides, a notion had come into my
head--now you'll not tell," said she, glancing round the room,
and hitching her chair nearer to Ruth in a confidential manner;
Ruth promised, and Sally went on--
"I thought I should like to be an heiress wi' money, and leave it
all to Master and Miss Faith; and I thought if I'd six pound a
year, I could, may be, get to be an heiress; all I was feared on
was that some chap or other might marry me for my money, but I've
managed to keep the fellows off; so I looks mim and grateful, and
I thanks Master Thurstan for his offer, and I takes the wages;
and what do you think I've done?" asked Sally, with an exultant
air.
"What have you done?" asked Ruth.
"Why," replied Sally, slowly and emphatically, "I've saved thirty
pound! but that's not it. I've getten a lawyer to make me a will;
that's it, wench!" said she, slapping Ruth on the back.
"How did you manage it?" asked Ruth.
"Ay, that was it," said Sally; "I thowt about it many a night
before I hit on the right way. I was afeared the money might be
thrown into Chancery if I didn't make it all safe, and yet I
could na' ask Master Thurstan. At last, and at length, John
Jackson, the grocer, had a nephew come to stay a week with him,
as was 'prentice to a lawyer in Liverpool; so now was my time,
and here was my lawyer. Wait a minute! I could tell you my story
better if I had my will in my hand; and I'll scomfish you if ever
you go for to tell." She held up her hand, and threatened Ruth as
she left the kitchen to fetch the will.
When she came back, she brought a parcel tied up, in a blue
pocket-handkerchief; she sat down, squared her knees, untied the
handkerchief, and displayed a small piece of parchment.
"Now, do you know what this is?" said she, holding it up. "It's
parchment, and it's the right stuff to make wills on. People gets
into Chancery if they don't make them o' this stuff, and I reckon
Tom Jackson thowt he'd have a fresh job on it if he could get it
into Chancery; for the rascal went and wrote it on a piece of
paper at first, and came and read it me out aloud off a piece of
paper no better than what one writes letters upon. I were up to
him; and, thinks I, Come, come, my lad, I'm not a fool, though
you may think so; I know a paper will won't stand, but I'll let
you run your rig. So I sits and I listens. And would you believe
me, he read it out as if it were as clear a business as your
giving me that thimble--no more ado, though it were thirty pound
I could understand it mysel'--that were no law for me. I wanted
summat to consider about, and for th' meaning to be wrapped up as
I wrap up my best gown. So, says I, 'Tom! it's not on parchment.
I mun have it on parchment.' 'This 'll do as well,' says he.
'We'll get it witnessed, and it will stand good.' Well! I liked
the notion of having it witnessed, and for a while that soothed
me; but after a bit, I felt I should like it done according to
law, and not plain out as anybody might ha' done it; I mysel', if
I could have written. So says I, 'Tom! I mun have it on
parchment.' 'Parchment costs money,' says he, very grave. 'Oh,
oh, my lad! are ye there?' thinks I. 'That's the reason I'm
clipped of law. So says I, 'Tom! I mun have it on parchment. I'll
pay the money and welcome. It's thirty pound, and what I can lay
to it. I'll make it safe. It shall be on parchment, and I'll tell
thee what, lad! I'll gie ye sixpence for every good law-word you
put in it, sounding like, and not to be caught up as a person
runs. Your master had need to be ashamed of you as a 'prentice,
if you can't do a thing more tradesman-like than this!' Well! he
laughed above a bit, but I were firm, and stood to it. So he made
it out on parchment. Now, woman, try and read it!" said she,
giving it to Ruth.
Ruth smiled, and began to read; Sally listening with rapt
attention. When Ruth came to the word "testatrix," Sally stopped
her.
"That was the first sixpence," said she. "I thowt he was going to
fob me off again wi' plain language; but when that word came, I
out wi' my sixpence, and gave it to him on the spot. Now, go on."
Presently Ruth read "accruing."
"That was the second sixpence. Four sixpences it were in all,
besides six-and-eightpence as we bargained at first, and
three-and-fourpence parchment. There! that's what I call a will;
witnessed, according to law, and all. Master Thurstan will be
prettily taken in when I die, and he finds all his extra wage
left back to him. But it will teach him it's not so easy as he
thinks for, to make a woman give up her way."
The time was now drawing near when little Leonard might be
weaned--the time appointed by all three for Ruth to endeavour to
support herself in some way more or less independent of Mr. and
Miss Benson. This prospect dwelt much in all of their minds, and
was in each shaded with some degree of perplexity; but they none
of them spoke of it, for fear of accelerating the event. If they
had felt clear and determined as to the best course to be
pursued, they were none of them deficient in courage to commence
upon that course at once. Miss Benson would, perhaps, have
objected the most to any alteration in their present daily mode
of life; but that was because she had the habit of speaking out
her thoughts as they arose, and she particularly disliked and
dreaded change. Besides this, she had felt her heart open out,
and warm towards the little helpless child, in a strong and
powerful manner. Nature had intended her warm instincts to find
vent in a mother's duties; her heart had yearned after children,
and made her restless in her childless state, without her well
knowing why; but now, the delight she experienced in tending,
nursing, and contriving for the little boy,--even contriving to
the point of sacrificing many of her cherished whims,--made her
happy, and satisfied, and peaceful. It was more difficult to
sacrifice her whims than her comforts; but all had been given up
when and where required by the sweet lordly baby, who reigned
paramount in his very helplessness.
From some cause or other, an exchange of ministers for one Sunday
was to be effected with a neighbouring congregation, and Mr.
Benson went on a short absence from home. When he returned on
Monday, he was met at the house-door by his sister, who had
evidently been looking out for him for some time. She stepped out
to greet him.
"Don't hurry yourself, Thurstan! all's well; only I wanted to
tell you something. Don't fidget yourself--baby is quite well,
bless him! It's only good news. Come into your room, and let me
talk a little quietly with you." She drew him into his study,
which was near the outer door, and then she took off his coat,
and put his carpet-bag in a corner, and wheeled a chair to the
fire, before she would begin.
"Well, now! to think how often things fall out just as we want
them, Thurstan! Have not you often wondered what was to be done
with Ruth when the time came at which we promised her she should
earn her living? I am sure you have, because I have so often
thought about it myself. And yet I never dared to speak out my
fear because that seemed giving it a shape. And now Mr. Bradshaw
has put all to rights. He invited Mr. Jackson to dinner
yesterday, just as we were going into chapel; and then he turned
to me and asked me if I would come to tea--straight from
afternoon chapel, because Mrs. Bradshaw wanted to speak to me. He
made it very clear I was not to bring Ruth; and, indeed, she was
only too happy to stay at home with baby. And so I went; and Mrs.
Bradshaw took me into her bedroom, and shut the doors, and said
Mr. Bradshaw had told her, that he did not like Jemima being so
much confined with the younger ones while they were at their
lessons, and that he wanted some one above a nurse-maid to sit
with them while their masters were there--some one who would see
about their learning their lessons, and who would walk out with
them; a sort of nursery governess, I think she meant, though she
did not say so; and Mr. Bradshaw (for, of course, I saw his
thoughts and words constantly peeping out, though he had told her
to speak to me) believed that our Ruth would be the very person.
Now, Thurstan, don't look so surprised, as if she had never come
into your head! I am sure I saw what Mrs. Bradshaw was driving
at, long before she came to the point; and I could scarcely keep
from smiling, and saying, 'We'd jump at the proposal'--long
before I ought to have known anything about it."
"Oh, I wonder what we ought to do!" said Mr. Benson. "Or, rather,
I believe I see what we ought to do, if I durst but do it."
"Why, what ought we to do?" asked his sister, in surprise.
"I ought to go and tell Mr. Bradshaw the whole story----"
"And get Ruth turned out of our house," said Miss Benson
indignantly.
"They can't make us do that," said her brother. "I do not think
they would try."
"Yes, Mr. Bradshaw would try; and he would blazon out poor Ruth's
sin, and there would not be a chance for her left. I know him
well, Thurstan; and why should he be told now, more than a year
ago?"
"A year ago he did not want to put her in a situation of trust
about his children."
"And you think she'll abuse that trust, do you? You've lived a
twelvemonth in the house with Ruth, and the end of it is, you
think she will do his children harm! Besides, who encouraged
Jemima to come to the house so much to see Ruth? Did you not say
it would do them both good to see something of each other?" Mr.
Benson sat thinking.
"If you had not known Ruth as well as you do--if, during her stay
with us, you had marked anything wrong, or forward, or deceitful,
or immodest, I would say at once, Don't allow Mr. Bradshaw to
take her into his house; but still I would say, Don't tell of her
sin and sorrow to so severe a man--so unpitiful a judge. But here
I ask you, Thurstan, can you or I, or Sally (quick-eyed as she
is), say, that in any one thing we have had true, just occasion
to find fault with Ruth? I don't mean that she is perfect--she
acts without thinking, her temper is sometimes warm and hasty;
but have we any right to go and injure her prospects for life, by
telling Mr. Bradshaw all we know of her errors--only sixteen when
she did so wrong, and never to escape from it all her many years
to come--to have the despair which would arise from its being
known, clutching her back into worse sin? What harm do you think
she can do? What is the risk to which you think you are exposing
Mr. Bradshaw's children?" She paused, out of breath, her eyes
glittering with tears of indignation, and impatient for an answer
that she might knock it to pieces.
"I do not see any danger that can arise," said he at length, and
with slow difficulty, as if not fully convinced. "I have watched
Ruth, and I believe she is pure and truthful; and the very sorrow
and penitence she has felt--the very suffering she has gone
through--has given her a thoughtful conscientiousness beyond her
age."
"That and the care of her baby," said Miss Benson, secretly
delighted at the tone of her brother's thoughts.
"Ah, Faith! that baby you so much dreaded once, is turning out a
blessing, you see," said Thurstan, with a faint, quiet smile.
"Yes! any one might be thankful, and better too, for Leonard; but
how could I tell that it would be like him?"
"But to return to Ruth and Mr. Bradshaw. What did you say?"
"Oh! with my feelings, of course, I was only too glad to accept
the proposal, and so I told Mrs. Bradshaw, then; and I afterwards
repeated it to Mr. Bradshaw, when he asked me if his wife had
mentioned their plans. They would understand that I must consult
you and Ruth, before it could be considered as finally settled."
"And have you named it to her?"
"Yes," answered Miss Benson, half afraid lest he should think she
had been too precipitate.
"And what did she say?" asked he, after a little pause of grave
silence.
"At first she seemed very glad, and fell into my mood of planning
how it should all be managed; how Sally and I should take care of
the baby the hours that she was away at Mr. Bradshaw's; but
by-and-by she became silent and thoughtful, and knelt down by me
and hid her face in my lap, and shook a little as if she was
crying; and then I heard her speak in a very low smothered voice,
for her head was still bent down--quite hanging down, indeed, so
that I could not see her face, so I stooped to listen, and I
heard her say, 'Do you think I should be good enough to teach
little girls, Miss Benson?' She said it so humbly and fearfully
that all I thought of was how to cheer her, and I answered and
asked her if she did not hope to be good enough to bring up her
own darling to be a brave Christian man? And she lifted up her
head, and I saw her eyes looking wild and wet and earnest, and
she said, 'With God's help, that will I try to make my child.'
And I said then, 'Ruth, as you strive and as you pray for your
own child, so you must strive and pray to make Mary and Elizabeth
good, if you are trusted with them.' And she said out quite
clear, though her face was hidden from me once more, 'I will
strive and I will pray.' You would not have had any fears,
Thurstan, if you could have heard and seen her last night."
"I have no fear," said he decidedly. "Let the plan go on." After
a minute, he added, "But I am glad it was so far arranged before
I heard of it. My indecision about right and wrong--my perplexity
as to how far we are to calculate consequences--grows upon me, I
fear."
"You look tired and weary, dear. You should blame your body
rather than your conscience at these times."
"A very dangerous doctrine."
The scroll of Fate was closed, and they could not foresee the
Future; and yet, if they could have seen it, though they might
have shrunk fearfully at first, they would have smiled and
thanked God when all was done and said.
CHAPTER XIX
AFTER FIVE YEARS
The quiet days grew into weeks and months, and even years,
without any event to startle the little circle into the
consciousness of the lapse of time. One who had known them at the
date of Ruth's becoming a governess in Mr. Bradshaw's family, and
had been absent until the time of which I am now going to tell
you, would have noted some changes which had imperceptibly come
over all; but he, too, would have thought, that the life which
had brought so little of turmoil and vicissitude must have been
calm and tranquil, and in accordance with the bygone activity of
the town in which their existence passed away.
The alterations that he would have perceived were those caused by
the natural progress of time. The Benson home was brightened into
vividness by the presence of the little Leonard, now a noble boy
of six, large and grand in limb and stature, and with a face of
marked beauty and intelligence. Indeed, he might have been
considered by many as too intelligent for his years; and often
the living with old and thoughtful people gave him, beyond most
children, the appearance of pondering over the mysteries which
meet the young on the threshold of life, but which fade away as
advancing years bring us more into contact with the practical and
tangible--fade away and vanish, until it seems to require the
agitation of some great storm of the soul before we can again
realise spiritual things.
But, at times, Leonard seemed oppressed and bewildered, after
listening intent, with grave and wondering eyes, to the
conversation around him; at others, the bright animal life shone
forth radiant, and no three months' kitten--no foal, suddenly
tossing up its heels by the side of its sedate dam, and careering
around the pasture in pure mad enjoyment--no young creature of
any kind, could show more merriment and gladness of heart.
"For ever in mischief," was Sally's account of him at such times;
but it was not intentional mischief; and Sally herself would have
been the first to scold any one else who had used the same words
in reference to her darling. Indeed, she was once nearly giving
warning, because she thought the boy was being ill-used. The
occasion was this: Leonard had for some time shown a strange, odd
disregard of truth; he invented stories, and told them with so
grave a face, that unless there was some internal evidence of
their incorrectness (such as describing a cow with a bonnet on)
he was generally believed, and his statements, which were given
with the full appearance of relating a real occurrence, had once
or twice led to awkward results. All the three, whose hearts were
pained by this apparent unconsciousness of the difference between
truth and falsehood, were unaccustomed to children, or they would
have recognised this as a stage through which most infants, who
would have lively imaginations, pass; and, accordingly, there was
a consultation in Mr. Benson's study one morning. Ruth was there,
quiet, very pale, and with compressed lips, sick at heart as she
heard Miss Benson's arguments for the necessity of whipping, in
order to cure Leonard of his story-telling. Mr. Benson looked
unhappy and uncomfortable. Education was but a series of
experiments to them all, and they all had a secret dread of
spoiling the noble boy, who was the darling of their hearts. And,
perhaps, this very intensity of love begot an impatient,
unnecessary anxiety, and made them resolve on sterner measures
than the parent of a large family (where love was more spread
abroad) would have dared to use. At any rate, the vote for
whipping carried the day; and even Ruth, trembling and cold,
agreed that it must be done; only she asked, in a meek, sad
voice, if she need be present (Mr. Benson was to be the
executioner--the scene, the study), and, being instantly told
that she had better not, she went slowly and languidly up to her
room, and kneeling down, she closed her ears, and prayed.
Miss Benson, having carried her point, was very sorry for the
child, and would have begged him off; but Mr. Benson had listened
more to her arguments than now to her pleadings, and, only
answered, "If it is right, it shall be done!" He went into the
garden, and deliberately, almost as if he wished to gain time,
chose and cut off a little switch from the laburnum-tree. Then he
returned through the kitchen, and gravely taking the awed and
wondering little fellow by the hand, he led him silently into the
study, and placing him before him, began an admonition on the
importance of truthfulness, meaning to conclude with what he
believed to be the moral of all punishment: "As you cannot
remember this of yourself, I must give you a little pain to make
you remember it. I am sorry it is necessary, and that you cannot
recollect without my doing so."
But before he had reached this very proper and desirable
conclusion, and while he was yet working his way, his heart
aching with the terrified look of the child at the solemnly sad
face and words of upbraiding, Sally burst in--
"And what may ye be going to do with that fine switch I saw ye
gathering, Master Thurstan?" asked she, her eyes gleaming with
anger at the answer she knew must come, if answer she had at all.
"Go away, Sally," said Mr. Benson, annoyed at the fresh
difficulty in his path.
"I'll not stir never a step till you give me that switch, as
you've got for some mischief, I'll be bound."
"Sally! remember where it is said, 'He that spareth the rod,
spoileth the child,'" said Mr. Benson austerely.
"Ay, I remember; and I remember a bit more than you want me to
remember, I reckon. It were King Solomon as spoke them words, and
it were King Solomon's son that were King Rehoboam, and no great
shakes either. I can remember what is said on him, 2 Chronicles,
xii. chapter, 14th v.: 'And he'--that's King Rehoboam, the lad
that tasted the rod--'did evil, because he prepared not his heart
to seek the Lord.' I've not been reading my chapters every night
for fifty year to be caught napping by a Dissenter, neither!"
said she triumphantly. "Come along, Leonard." She stretched out
her hand to the child, thinking that she had conquered.
But Leonard did not stir. He looked wistfully at Mr. Benson.
"Come!" said she impatiently. The boy's mouth quivered.
"If you want to whip me, uncle, you may do it. I don't much
mind."
Put in this form, it was impossible to carry out his intentions;
and so Mr. Benson told the lad he might go--that he would speak
to him another time. Leonard went away, more subdued in spirit
than if he had been whipped. Sally lingered a moment. She stopped
to add: "I think it's for them without sin to throw stones at a
poor child, and cut up good laburnum-branches to whip him. I only
do as my betters do, when I call Leonard's mother Mrs. Denbigh."
The moment she had said this she was sorry; it was an ungenerous
advantage after the enemy had acknowledged himself defeated. Mr.
Benson dropped his head upon his hands and bid his face, and
sighed deeply.
Leonard flew in search of his mother, as in search of a refuge.
If he had found her calm, he would have burst into a passion of
crying after his agitation; as it was, he came upon her kneeling
and sobbing, and he stood quite still. Then he threw his arms
round her neck, and said, "Mamma! mamma! I will be good--I make a
promise; I will speak true--I make a promise." And he kept his
word.
Miss Benson piqued herself upon being less carried away by her
love for this child than any one else in the house; she talked
severely, and had capital theories; but her severity ended in
talk, and her theories would not work.
However, she read several books on education, knitting socks for
Leonard all the while; and, upon the whole, I think, the hands
were more usefully employed than the head, and the good honest
heart better than either. She looked older than when we first
knew her, but it was a ripe, kindly age that was coming over her.
Her excellent practical sense, perhaps, made her a more masculine
character than her brother. He was often so much perplexed by the
problems of life, that he let the time for action go by; but she
kept him in check by her clear, pithy talk, which brought back
his wandering thoughts to the duty that lay straight before him,
waiting for action; and then he remembered that it was the
faithful part to "wait patiently upon God," and leave the ends in
His hands, who alone knows why Evil exists in this world, and why
it ever hovers on either side of Good. In this respect, Miss
Benson had more faith than her brother--or so it seemed; for
quick, resolute action in the next step of Life was all she
required, while he deliberated and trembled, and often did wrong
from his very deliberation, when his first instinct would have
led him right.
But, although decided and prompt as ever, Miss Benson was grown
older since the summer afternoon when she dismounted from the
coach at the foot of the long Welsh hill that led to Llan-dhu,
where her brother awaited her to consult her about Ruth. Though
her eye was as bright and straight-looking as ever, quick and
brave in its glances, her hair had become almost snowy white; and
it was on this point she consulted Sally, soon after the date of
Leonard's last untruth. The two were arranging Miss Benson's room
one morning, when, after dusting the looking-glass, she suddenly
stopped in her operation, and after a close inspection of
herself, startled Sally by this speech--
"Sally! I'm looking a great deal older than I used to do!"
Sally, who was busy dilating on the increased price of flour,
considered this remark of Miss Benson's as strangely irrelevant
to the matter in hand, and only noticed it by a--
"To be sure! I suppose we all on us do. But two-and-fourpence a
dozen is too much to make us pay for it."
Miss Benson went on with her inspection of herself, and Sally
with her economical projects.
"Sally!" said Miss Benson, "my hair is nearly white. The last
time I looked it was only pepper-and-salt. What must I do?"
"Do--why, what would the wench do?" asked Sally contemptuously.
"Ye're never going to be taken in, at your time of life, by
hair-dyes and such gimcracks, as can only take in young girls
whose wisdom-teeth are not cut."
"And who are not very likely to want them," said Miss Benson
quietly. "No! but you see, Sally, it's very awkward having such
grey hair, and feeling so young. Do you know, Sally, I've as
great a mind for dancing, when I hear a lively tune on the
street-organs, as ever; and as great a mind to sing when I'm
happy--to sing in my old way, Sally, you know."
"Ay, you had it from a girl," said Sally; "and many a time, when
the door's been shut, I did not know if it was you in the
parlour, or a big bumble-bee in the kitchen, as was making that
drumbling noise. I heard you at it yesterday."
"But an old woman with grey hair ought not to have a fancy for
dancing or singing," continued Miss Benson.
"Whatten nonsense are ye talking?" said Sally, roused to
indignation. "Calling yoursel' an old woman when you're better
than ten years younger than me; and many a girl has grey hair at
five-and-twenty."
"But I'm more than five-and-twenty, Sally--I'm fifty-seven next
May!"
"More shame for ye, then, not to know better than to talk of
dyeing your hair. I cannot abide such vanities!"
"Oh dear! Sally, when will you understand what I mean? I want to
know how I'm to keep remembering how old I am, so as to prevent
myself from feeling so young? I was quite startled just now to
see my hair in the glass, for I can generally tell if my cap is
straight by feeling. I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll cut off a
piece of my grey hair, and plait it together for a marker in my
Bible!" Miss Benson expected applause for this bright idea, but
Sally only made answer--
"You'll be taking to painting your cheeks next, now you've once
thought of dyeing your hair." So Miss Benson plaited her grey
hair in silence and quietness, Leonard holding one end of it
while she wove it, and admiring the colour and texture all the
time, with a sort of implied dissatisfaction at the auburn colour
of his own curls, which was only half-comforted away by Miss
Benson's information, that, if he lived long enough, his hair
would be like hers.
Mr. Benson, who had looked old and frail while he was yet but
young, was now stationary as to the date of his appearance. But
there was something more of nervous restlessness in his voice and
ways than formerly; that was the only change five years had
brought to him. And as for Sally, she chose to forget age and the
passage of years altogether, and had as much work in her, to use
her own expression, as she had at sixteen; nor was her appearance
very explicit as to the flight of time. Fifty, sixty, or seventy,
she might be--not more than the last, not less than the
first--though her usual answer to any circuitous inquiry as to
her age was now (what it had been for many years past), "I'm
feared I shall never see thirty again."
Then as to the house. It was not one where the sitting-rooms are
refurnished every two or three years; not now, even (since Ruth
came to share their living) a place where, as an article grew
shabby or worn, a new one was purchased. The furniture looked
poor, and the carpets almost threadbare; but there was such a
dainty spirit of cleanliness abroad, such exquisite neatness of
repair, and altogether so bright and cheerful a look about the
rooms--everything so above-board--no shifts to conceal poverty
under flimsy ornament--that many a splendid drawing-room would
give less pleasure to those who could see evidences of character
in inanimate things. But whatever poverty there might be in the
house, there was full luxuriance in the little square
wall-encircled garden, on two sides of which the parlour and
kitchen looked. The laburnum-tree, which when Ruth came was like
a twig stuck into the ground, was now a golden glory in spring,
and a pleasant shade in summer. The wild hop, that Mr. Benson had
brought home from one of his country rambles, and planted by the
parlour-window, while Leonard was yet a baby in his mother's
arms, was now a garland over the casement, hanging down long
tendrils, that waved in the breezes, and threw pleasant shadows
and traceries, like some old Bacchanalian carving, on the
parlour-walls, at "morn or dusky eve." The yellow rose had
clambered up to the window of Mr. Benson's bedroom, and its
blossom-laden branches were supported by a jargonelle pear-tree
rich in autumnal fruit.
But, perhaps, in Ruth herself there was the greatest external
change; for of the change which had gone on in her heart, and
mind, and soul, or if there had been any, neither she nor any one
around her was conscious; but sometimes Miss Benson did say to
Sally, "How very handsome Ruth is grown!" To which Sally made
ungracious answer, "Yes, she's well enough. Beauty is deceitful,
and favour a snare, and I'm thankful the Lord has spared me from
such man-traps and spring-guns." But even Sally could not help
secretly admiring Ruth. If her early brilliancy of colouring was
gone, a clear ivory skin, as smooth as satin, told of complete
and perfect health, and was as lovely, if not so striking in
effect, as the banished lilies and roses. Her hair had grown
darker and deeper, in the shadow that lingered in its masses; her
eyes, even if you could have guessed that they had shed bitter
tears in their day, had a thoughtful, spiritual look about them,
that made you wonder at their depth, and look--and look again.
The increase of dignity in her face had been imparted to her
form. I do not know if she had grown taller since the birth of
her child, but she looked as if she had. And although she had
lived in a very humble home, yet there was something about either
it or her, or the people amongst whom she had been thrown during
the last few years, which had so changed her, that whereas, six
or seven years ago, you would have perceived that she was not
altogether a lady by birth and education, yet now she might have
been placed among the highest in the land, and would have been
taken by the most critical judge for their equal, although
ignorant of their conventional etiquette--an ignorance which she
would have acknowledged in a simple, child-like way, being
unconscious of any false shame.
Her whole heart was in her boy. She often feared that she loved
him too much--more than God Himself--yet she could not bear to
pray to have her love for her child lessened. But she would kneel
down by his little bed at night--at the deep, still
midnight--with the stars that kept watch over Rizpah shining down
upon her, and tell God what I have now told you, that she feared
she loved her child too much, yet could not, would not, love him
less; and speak to Him of her one treasure as she could speak to
no earthly friend. And so, unconsciously, her love for her child
led her up to love to God, to the All-knowing, who read her
heart.
It might be superstition--I dare say it was--but, some-how, she
never lay down to rest without saying, as she looked her last on
her boy, "Thy will, not mine, be done"; and even while she
trembled and shrank with infinite dread from sounding the depths
of what that will might be, she felt as if her treasure were more
secure to waken up rosy and bright in the morning, as one over
whose slumbers God's holy angels had watched, for the very words
which she had turned away in sick terror from realising the night
before.
Her daily absence at her duties to the Bradshaw children only
ministered to her love for Leonard. Everything does minister to
love when its foundation lies deep in a true heart, and it was
with an exquisite pang of delight that, after a moment of vague
fear,
("Oh, mercy! to myself I said, If Lucy should be dead!")
she saw her child's bright face of welcome as he threw open the
door every afternoon on her return home. For it was his
silently-appointed work to listen for her knock, and rush
breathless to let her in. If he were in the garden, or upstairs
among the treasures of the lumber-room, either Miss Benson, or
her brother, or Sally would fetch him to his happy little task;
no one so sacred as he to the allotted duty. And the joyous
meeting was not deadened by custom, to either mother or child.
Ruth gave the Bradshaws the highest satisfaction, as Mr. Bradshaw
often said both to her and to the Bensons; indeed, she rather
winced under his pompous approbation. But his favourite
recreation was patronising; and when Ruth saw how quietly and
meekly Mr. Benson submitted to gifts and praise, when an honest
word of affection, or a tacit, implied acknowledgment of
equality, would have been worth everything said and done, she
tried to be more meek in spirit, and to recognise the good that
undoubtedly existed in Mr. Bradshaw. He was richer and more
prosperous than ever;--a keen, far-seeing man of business, with
an undisguised contempt for all who failed in the success which
he had achieved. But it was not alone those who were less
fortunate in obtaining wealth than himself that he visited with
severity of judgment; every moral error or delinquency came under
his unsparing comment. Stained by no vice himself, either in his
own eyes or in that of any human being who cared to judge him,
having nicely and wisely proportioned and adapted his means to
his ends, he could afford to speak and act with a severity which
was almost sanctimonious in its ostentation of thankfulness as to
himself. Not a misfortune or a sin was brought to light but Mr.
Bradshaw could trace to its cause in some former mode of action,
which he had long ago foretold would lead to shame. If another's
son turned out wild or bad, Mr. Bradshaw had little sympathy; it
might have been prevented by a stricter rule, or more religious
life at home; young Richard Bradshaw was quiet and steady, and
other fathers might have had sons like him if they had taken the
same pains to enforce obedience. Richard was an only son, and yet
Mr. Bradshaw might venture to say he had never had his own way in
his life. Mrs. Bradshaw was, he confessed (Mr. Bradshaw did not
dislike confessing his wife's errors), rather less firm than he
should have liked with the girls; and with some people, he
believed, Jemima was rather headstrong; but to his wishes she had
always shown herself obedient. All children were obedient if
their parents were decided and authoritative; and every one would
turn out well, if properly managed. If they did not prove good,
they might take the consequences of their errors.
Mrs. Bradshaw murmured faintly at her husband when his back was
turned; but if his voice was heard, or his foot-steps sounded in
the distance, she was mute, and hurried her children into the
attitude or action most pleasing to their father. Jemima, it is
true, rebelled against this manner of proceeding, which savoured
to her a little of deceit; but even she had not, as yet, overcome
her awe of her father sufficiently to act independently of him,
and according to her own sense of right--or rather, I should say,
according to her own warm, passionate impulses. Before him the
wilfulness which made her dark eyes blaze out at times was hushed
and still; he had no idea of her self-tormenting, no notion of
the almost southern jealousy which seemed to belong to her
brunette complexion. Jemima was not pretty; the flatness and
shortness of her face made her almost plain; yet most people
looked twice at her expressive countenance, at the eyes which
flamed or melted at every trifle, at the rich colour which came
at every expressed emotion into her usually sallow face, at the
faultless teeth which made her smile like a sunbeam. But then,
again, when she thought she was not kindly treated, when a
suspicion crossed her mind, or when she was angry with herself,
her lips were tight-pressed together, her colour was wan and
almost livid, and a stormy gloom clouded her eyes as with a film.
But before her father her words were few, and he did not notice
looks or tones.
Her brother Richard had been equally silent before his father in
boyhood and early youth; but since he had gone to be a clerk in a
London house, preparatory to assuming his place as junior partner
in Mr. Bradshaw's business, he spoke more on his occasional
visits at home. And very proper and highly moral was his
conversation; set sentences of goodness, which were like the
flowers that children stick in the ground, and that have not
sprung upwards from roots--deep down in the hidden life and
experience of the heart. He was as severe a judge as his father
of other people's conduct, but you felt that Mr. Bradshaw was
sincere in his condemnation of all outward error and vice, and
that he would try himself by the same laws as he tried others;
somehow, Richard's words were frequently heard with a lurking
distrust, and many shook their heads over the pattern son; but
then it was those whose sons had gone astray, and been condemned,
in no private or tender manner, by Mr. Bradshaw, so it might be
revenge in them. Still, Jemima felt that all was not right; her
heart sympathised in the rebellion against his father's commands,
which her brother had confessed to her in an unusual moment of
confidence, but her uneasy conscience condemned the deceit which
he had practised.
The brother and sister were sitting alone over a blazing
Christmas fire, and Jemima held an old newspaper in her hand to
shield her face from the hot light. They were talking of family
events, when, during a pause, Jemima's eye caught the name of a
great actor, who had lately given prominence and life to a
character in one of Shakespeare's plays. The criticism in the
paper was fine, and warmed Jemima's heart.
"How I should like to see a play!" exclaimed she.
"Should you?" said her brother listlessly.
"Yes, to be sure! Just hear this!" and she began to read a fine
passage of criticism.
"Those newspaper people can make an article out of anything,"
said he, yawning.
"I've seen the man myself, and it was all very well, but nothing
to make such a fuss about."
"You! you seen----! Have you seen a play, Richard? Oh, why did
you never tell me before? Tell me all about it! Why did you never
name seeing----in your letters?"
He half smiled, contemptuously enough. "Oh! at first it strikes
one rather, but after a while one cares no more for the theatre
than one does for mince-pies."
"Oh, I wish I might go to London!" said Jemima impatiently. "I've
a great mind to ask papa to let me go to the George Smiths', and
then I could see----. I would not think him like mince-pies."
"You must not do any such thing!" said Richard, now neither
yawning nor contemptuous. "My father would never allow you to go
to the theatre; and the George Smiths are such old fogeys--they
would be sure to tell."
"How do you go, then? Does my father give you leave?"
"Oh! many things are right for men which are not for girls."
Jemima sat and pondered. Richard wished he had not been so
confidential.
"You need not name it," said he, rather anxiously.
"Name what?" said she, startled, for her thoughts had gone far
afield.
"Oh, name my going once or twice to the theatre!"
"No, I shan't name it!" said she. "No one here would care to hear
it."
But it was with some little surprise, and almost with a feeling
of disgust, that she heard Richard join with her father in
condemning some one, and add to Mr. Bradshaw's list of offences,
by alleging that the young man was a playgoer. He did not think
his sister heard his words. Mary and Elizabeth were the two girls
whom Ruth had in charge; they resembled Jemima more than their
brother in character. The household rules were occasionally a
little relaxed in their favour, for Mary, the elder, was nearly
eight years younger than Jemima, and three intermediate children
had died. They loved Ruth dearly, made a great pet of Leonard,
and had many profound secrets together, most of which related to
their wonders if Jemima and Mr. Farquhar would ever be married.
They watched their sister closely; and every day had some fresh
confidence to make to each other, confirming or discouraging to
their hopes.
Ruth rose early, and shared the household work with Sally and
Miss Benson till seven; and then she helped Leonard to dress, and
had a quiet time alone with him till prayers and breakfast. At
nine she was to be at Mr. Bradshaw's house. She sat in the room
with Mary and Elizabeth during the Latin, the writing, and
arithmetic lessons, which they received from masters; then she
read, and walked with them, clinging to her as to an elder
sister; she dined with her pupils at the family lunch, and
reached home by four. That happy home--those quiet days! And so
the peaceful days passed on into weeks, and months, and years,
and Ruth and Leonard grew and strengthened into the riper beauty
of their respective ages; while as yet no touch of decay had come
on the quaint, primitive elders of the household.
CHAPTER XX
JEMIMA REFUSES TO BE MANAGED
It was no wonder that the lookers-on were perplexed as to the
state of affairs between Jemima and Mr. Farquhar, for they two
were sorely puzzled themselves at the sort of relationship
between them. Was it love, or was it not? that was the question
in Mr. Farquhar's mind. He hoped it was not; he believed it was
not; and yet he felt as if it were. There was something
preposterous, he thought, in a man nearly forty years of age
being in love with a girl of twenty. He had gone on reasoning,
through all the days of his manhood, on the idea of a staid,
noble-minded wife, grave and sedate, the fit companion in
experience of her husband. He had spoken with admiration of
reticent characters, full of self-control and dignity; and he
hoped--he trusted, that all this time he had not been allowing
himself unconsciously to fall in love with a wild-hearted,
impetuous girl, who knew nothing of life beyond her father's
house, and who chafed under the strict discipline enforced there.
For it was rather a suspicious symptom of the state of Mr.
Farquhar's affections, that he had discovered the silent
rebellion which continued in Jemima's heart, unperceived by any
of her own family, against the severe laws and opinions of her
father. Mr. Farquhar shared in these opinions; but in him they
were modified, and took a milder form. Still, he approved of much
that Mr. Bradshaw did and said; and this made it all the more
strange that he should wince so for Jemima, whenever anything
took place which he instinctively knew that she would dislike.
After an evening at Mr. Bradshaw's, when Jemima had gone to the
very verge of questioning or disputing some of her father's
severe judgments, Mr. Farquhar went home in a dissatisfied,
restless state of mind, which he was almost afraid to analyse. He
admired the inflexible integrity--and almost the pomp of
principle--evinced by Mr. Bradshaw on every occasion; he wondered
how it was that Jemima could not see how grand a life might be,
whose every action was shaped in obedience to some eternal law;
instead of which, he was afraid she rebelled against every law,
and was only guided by impulse. Mr. Farquhar had been taught to
dread impulses as promptings of the devil. Sometimes, if he tried
to present her father's opinion before her in another form, so as
to bring himself and her rather more into that state of agreement
he longed for, she flashed out upon him with the indignation of
difference that she dared not show to, or before, her father, as
if she had some diviner instinct which taught her more truly than
they knew, with all their experience; at least, in her first
expressions there seemed something good and fine; but opposition
made her angry and irritable, and the arguments which he was
constantly provoking (whenever he was with her in her father's
absence) frequently ended in some vehemence of expression on her
part that offended Mr. Farquhar, who did not see how she expiated
her anger in tears and self-reproaches when alone in her chamber.
Then he would lecture himself severely on the interest he could
not help feeling in a wilful girl; he would determine not to
interfere with her opinions in future, and yet, the very next
time they differed, he strove to argue her into harmony with
himself, in spite of all resolutions to the contrary.
Mr. Bradshaw saw just enough of this interest which Jemima had
excited in his partner's mind, to determine him in considering
their future marriage as a settled affair. The fitness of the
thing had long ago struck him; her father's partner--so the
fortune he meant to give her might continue in the business; a
man of such steadiness of character, and such a capital eye for a
desirable speculation, as Mr. Farquhar--just the right age to
unite the paternal with the conjugal affection, and consequently
the very man for Jemima, who had something unruly in her, which
might break out under a regime less wisely adjusted to the
circumstances than was Mr. Bradshaw's (in his own opinion)--a
house ready furnished, at a convenient distance from her home--no
near relations on Mr. Farquhar's side, who might be inclined to
consider his residence as their own for an indefinite time, and
so add to the household expenses--in short, what could be more
suitable in every way? Mr. Bradshaw respected the very
self-restraint he thought he saw in Mr. Farquhar's demeanour,
attributing it to a wise desire to wait until trade should be
rather more slack, and the man of business more at leisure to
become the lover.
As for Jemima, at times she thought she almost hated Mr.
Farquhar.
"What business has he," she would think, "to lecture me? Often I
can hardly bear it from papa, and I will not bear it from him. He
treats me just like a child, and as if I should lose all my
present opinions when I know more of the world. I am sure I
should like never to know the world, if it was to make me think
as he does, hard man that he is! I wonder what made him take Jem
Brown on as gardener again, if he does not believe that above one
criminal in a thousand is restored to goodness. I'll ask him,
some day, if that was not acting on impulse rather than
principle. Poor impulse! how you do get abused! But I will tell
Mr. Farquhar I will not let him interfere with me. If I do what
papa bids me, no one has a right to notice whether I do it
willingly or not."
So then she tried to defy Mr. Farquhar, by doing and saying
things that she knew he would disapprove. She went so far that he
was seriously grieved, and did not even remonstrate and
"lecture," and then she was disappointed and irritated; for,
somehow, with all her indignation at interference, she liked to
be lectured by him; not that she was aware of this liking of
hers, but still it would have been more pleasant to be scolded
than so quietly passed over. Her two little sisters, with their
wide-awake eyes, had long ago put things together, and
conjectured. Every day they had some fresh mystery together, to
be imparted in garden walks and whispered talks.
"Lizzie, did you see how the tears came into Mimie's eyes when
Mr. Farquhar looked so displeased when she said good people were
always dull? I think she's in love." Mary said the last words
with grave emphasis, and felt like an oracle of twelve years of
age.
"I don't," said Lizzie. "I know I cry often enough when papa is
cross, and I'm not in love with him."
"Yes! but you don't look as Mimie did."
"Don't call her Mimie--you know papa does not like it?"
"Yes; but there are so many things papa does not like I can never
remember them all. Never mind about that; but listen to something
I've got to tell you, if you'll never, never tell."
"No, indeed I won't, Mary. What is it?"
"Not to Mrs. Denbigh?"
"No, not even to Mrs. Denbigh."
"Well, then, the other day--last Friday, Mimie----"
"Jemima!" interrupted the more conscientious Elizabeth.
"Jemima, if it must be so," jerked out Mary, "sent me to her desk
for an envelope, and what do you. think I saw?"
"What?" asked Elizabeth, expecting nothing else than a red-hot
Valentine, signed Walter Farquhar, pro Bradshaw, Farquhar, & Co.,
in full.
"Why, a piece of paper, with dull-looking lines upon it, just
like the scientific dialogues; and I remember all about it. It
was once when Mr. Farquhar had been telling us that a bullet does
not go in a straight line, but in a something curve, and he drew
some lines on a piece of paper; and Mimie----"
"Jemima!" put in Elizabeth.
"Well, well! She had treasured it up, and written in corner, 'W.
F., April 3rd.' Now, that's rather like love, is not it? For
Jemima hates useful information just as much as I do, and that's
saying a great deal; and yet she had kept this paper, and dated
it."
"If that's all, I know Dick keeps a paper with Miss Benson's name
written on it, and yet he's not in love with her; and perhaps
Jemima may like Mr. Farquhar, and he may not like her. It seems
such a little while since her hair was turned up, and he has
always been a grave, middle-aged man ever since I can recollect;
and then, have you never noticed how often he finds fault with
her--almost lectures her?"
"To be sure," said Mary; "but he may be in love, for all that.
Just think how often papa lectures mamma; and yet, of course,
they're in love with each other."
"Well! we shall see," said Elizabeth.
Poor Jemima little thought of the four sharp eyes that watched
her daily course while she sat alone, as she fancied, with her
secret in her own room. For, in a passionate fit of grieving, at
the impatient, hasty temper which had made her so seriously
displease Mr. Farquhar that he had gone away without
remonstrance, without more leave-taking than a distant bow, she
had begun to suspect that, rather than not be noticed at all by
him, rather than be an object of indifference to him--oh! far
rather would she be an object of anger and upbraiding; and the
thoughts that followed this confession to herself stunned and
bewildered her; and for once that they made her dizzy with hope,
ten times they made her sick with fear. For an instant she
planned to become and to be all he could wish her; to change her
very nature for him. And then a great gush of pride came over
her, and she set her teeth tight together, and determined that he
should either love her as she was or not at all. Unless he could
take her with all her faults, she would not care for his regard;
"love" was too noble a word to call such cold, calculating
feeling as his must be, who went about with a pattern idea in his
mind, trying to find a wife to match. Besides, there was
something degrading, Jemima thought, in trying to alter herself
to gain the love of any human creature. And yet, if he did not
care for her, if this late indifference were to last, what a
great shroud was drawn over life! Could she bear it?
From the agony she dared not look at, but which she was going to
risk encountering, she was aroused by the presence of her mother.
"Jemima! your father wants to speak to you in the dining-room."
"What for?" asked the girl.
"Oh! he is fidgeted by something Mr. Farquhar said to me and
which I repeated. I am sure I thought there was no harm in it,
and your father always likes me to tell him what everybody says
in his absence."
Jemima went with a heavy heart into her father's presence.
He was walking up and down the room, and did not see her at
first.
"O Jemima! is that you? Has your mother told you what I want to
speak to you about?"
"No!" said Jemima. "Not exactly."
"She has been telling me what proves to me how very seriously you
must have displeased and offended Mr. Farquhar, before he could
have expressed himself to her as he did, when he left the house.
You know what he said?"
"No!" said Jemima, her heart swelling within her. "He has no
right to say anything about me." She was desperate, or she durst
not have said this before her father.
"No right!--what do you mean, Jemima?" said Mr. Bradshaw, turning
sharp round. "Surely you must know that I hope he may one day be
your husband; that is to say, if you prove yourself worthy of the
excellent training I have given you. I cannot suppose Mr.
Farquhar would take any undisciplined girl as a wife." Jemima
held tight by a chair near which she was standing. She did not
speak; her father was pleased by her silence--it was the way in
which he liked his projects to be received.
"But you cannot suppose," he continued, "that Mr. Farquhar will
consent to marry you----"
"Consent to marry me!" repeated Jemima, in a low tone of brooding
indignation; were those the terms upon which her rich woman's
heart was to be given, with a calm consent of acquiescent
acceptance, but a little above resignation on the part of the
receiver?--
"If you give way to a temper which, although you have never dared
to show it to me, I am well aware exists, although I hoped the
habits of self-examination I had instilled had done much to cure
you of manifesting it. At one time, Richard promised to be the
more headstrong of the two; now, I must desire you to take
pattern by him. Yes," he continued, falling into his old train of
thought, "it would be a most fortunate connection for you in
every way. I should have you under my own eye, and could still
assist you in the formation of your character, and I should be at
hand to strengthen and confirm your principles. Mr. Farquhar's
connection with the firm would be convenient and agreeable to me
in a pecuniary point of view. He----" Mr. Bradshaw was going on
in his enumeration of the advantages which he in particular, and
Jemima in the second place, would derive from this marriage, when
his daughter spoke, at first so low that he could not hear her,
as he walked up and down the room with his creaking boots, and he
had to stop to listen.
"Has Mr. Farquhar ever spoken to you about it?" Jemima's cheek
was flushed as she asked the question; she wished that she might
have been the person to whom he had first addressed himself.
Mr. Bradshaw answered--
"No, not spoken. It has been implied between us for some time. At
least, I have been so aware of his intentions that I have made
several allusions, in the course of business, to it, as a thing
that might take place. He can hardly have misunderstood; he must
have seen that I perceived his design, and approved of it," said
Mr. Bradshaw, rather doubtfully; as he remembered how very
little, in fact, passed between him and his partner which could
have reference to the subject, to any but a mind prepared to
receive it. Perhaps Mr. Farquhar had not really thought of it;
but then again, that would imply that his own penetration had
been mistaken, a thing not impossible certainly, but quite beyond
the range of probability. So he reassured himself, and (as he
thought) his daughter, by saying--
"The whole thing is so suitable--the advantages arising from the
connection are so obvious; besides which, I am quite aware, from
many little speeches of Mr. Farquhar's, that he contemplates
marriage at no very distant time; and he seldom leaves Eccleston,
and visits few families besides our own--certainly, none that can
compare with ours in the advantages you have all received in
moral and religious training." But then Mr. Bradshaw was checked
in his implied praises of himself (and only himself could be his
martingale when he once set out on such a career) by a
recollection that Jemima must not feel too secure, as she might
become if he dwelt too much on the advantages of her being her
father's daughter. Accordingly, he said, "But you must be aware,
Jemima, that you do very little credit to the education I have
given you, when you make such an impression as you must have done
to-day, before Mr. Farquhar could have said what. he did of you!"
"What did he say?" asked Jemima, still in the low, husky tone of
suppressed anger.
"Your mother says he remarked to her, 'What a pity it is that
Jemima cannot maintain her opinions without going into a passion;
and what a pity it is that her opinions are such as to sanction,
rather than curb, these fits of rudeness and anger!'"
"Did he say that?" said Jemima, in a still lower tone, not
questioning her father, but speaking rather to herself.
"I have no doubt he did," replied her father gravely. "Your
mother is in the habit of repeating accurately to me what takes
place in my absence; besides which, the whole speech is not one
of hers; she has not altered a word in the repetition, I am
convinced. I have trained her to habits of accuracy very unusual
in a woman."
At another time, Jemima might have been inclined to rebel against
this system of carrying constant intelligence to headquarters,
which she had long ago felt as an insurmountable obstacle to any
free communication with her mother; but now, her father's means
of acquiring knowledge faded into insignificance before the
nature of the information he imparted. She stood quite still,
grasping the chair-back, longing to be dismissed.
"I have said enough now, I hope, to make you behave in a becoming
manner to Mr. Farquhar; if your temper is too unruly to be always
under your own control, at least have respect to my injunctions,
and take some pains to curb it before him."
"May I go?" asked Jemima, chafing more and more.
"You may," said her father. When she left the room be gently
rubbed his hands together, satisfied with the effect he had
produced, and wondering how it was that one so well brought up as
his daughter could ever say or do anything to provoke such a
remark from Mr. Farquhar as that which he had heard repeated.
"Nothing can be more gentle and docile than she is when spoken to
in the proper manner. I must give Farquhar a hint," said Mr.
Bradshaw to himself. Jemima rushed upstairs and locked herself
into her room. She began pacing up and down at first, without
shedding a tear; but then she suddenly stopped, and burst out
crying with passionate indignation.
"So! I am to behave well, not because it is right--not because it
is right--but to show off before Mr. Farquhar. Oh, Mr. Farquhar!"
said she, suddenly changing to a sort of upbraiding tone of
voice, "I did not think so of you an hour ago. I did not think
you could choose a wife in that cold-hearted way, though you did
profess to act by rule and line; but you think to have me, do
you? because it is fitting and suitable, and you want to be
married, and can't spare time for wooing" (she was lashing
herself up by an exaggeration of all her father had said). "And
bow often I have thought you were too grand for me! but now I
know better. Now I can believe that all you do is done from
calculation; you are good because it adds to your business
credit--you talk in that high strain about principle because it
sounds well, and is respectable--and even these things are better
than your cold way of looking out for a wife, just as you would
do for a carpet, to add to your comforts, and settle you
respectably. But I won't be that wife. You shall see something of
me which shall make you not acquiesce so quietly in the
arrangements of the firm." She cried too vehemently to go on
thinking or speaking. Then she stopped, and said--
"Only an hour ago I was hoping--I don't know what I was
hoping--but I thought--oh! how I was deceived!--I thought he had
a true, deep, loving manly heart, which God might let me win; but
now I know he has only a calm, calculating head----"
If Jemima had been vehement and passionate before this
conversation with her father, it was better than the sullen
reserve she assumed now whenever Mr. Farquhar came to the house.
He felt it deeply; no reasoning with himself took off the pain he
experienced. He tried to speak on the subjects she liked, in the
manner she liked, until he despised himself for the unsuccessful
efforts. He stood between her and her father once or twice, in
obvious inconsistency with his own previously expressed opinions;
and Mr. Bradshaw piqued himself upon his admirable management, in
making Jemima feel that she owed his indulgence or forbearance to
Mr. Farquhar's interference; but Jemima--perverse, miserable
Jemima--thought that she hated Mr. Farquhar all the more. She
respected her father inflexible, much more than her father
pompously giving up to Mr. Farquhar's subdued remonstrances on
her behalf. Even Mr. Bradshaw was perplexed, and shut himself up
to consider how Jemima was to be made more fully to understand
his wishes and her own interests. But there was nothing to take
hold of as a ground for any further conversation with her. Her
actions were so submissive that they were spiritless; she did all
her father desired; she did it with a nervous quickness and
haste, if she thought that otherwise Mr. Farquhar would interfere
in any way. She wished evidently to owe nothing to him. She had
begun by leaving the room when he came in, after the conversation
she had had with her father; but at Mr. Bradshaw's first
expression of his wish that she should remain, she
remained--silent, indifferent, inattentive to all that was going
on; at least there was this appearance of inattention. She would
work away at her sewing as if she were to earn her livelihood by
it; the light was gone out of her eyes as she lifted them up
heavily before replying to any question, and the eyelids were
often swollen with crying.
But in all this there was no positive fault. Mr. Bradshaw could
not have told her not to do this, or to do that, without her
doing it; for she had become much more docile of late.
It was a wonderful proof of the influence Ruth had gained in the
family, that Mr. Bradshaw, after much deliberation, congratulated
himself on the wise determination he had made of requesting her
to speak to Jemima, and find out what feeling was at the bottom
of all this change in her ways of going on. He rang the bell.
"Is Mrs. Denbigh here?" he inquired of the servant who answered
it.
"Yes, sir; she has just come."
"Beg her to come to me in this room as soon as she can leave the
young ladies." Ruth came.
"Sit down, Mrs. Denbigh; sit down. I want to have a little
conversation with you; not about your pupils; they are going on
well under your care, I am sure; and I often congratulate myself
on the choice I made--I assure you I do. But now I want to speak
to you about Jemima. She is very fond of you, and perhaps you
could take an opportunity of observing to her--in short, of
saying to her, that she is behaving very foolishly--in fact,
disgusting Mr. Farquhar (who was, I know, inclined to like her)
by the sullen, sulky way she behaves in, when he is by."
He paused for the ready acquiescence he expected. But Ruth did
not quite comprehend what was required of her, and disliked the
glimpse she had gained of the task very much.
"I hardly understand, sir. You are displeased with Miss
Bradshaw's manners to Mr. Farquhar."
"Well, well! not quite that; I am displeased with her
manners--they are sulky and abrupt, particularly when he is
by--and I want you (of whom she is so fond) to speak to her about
it."
"But I have never had the opportunity of noticing them. Whenever
I have seen her, she has been most gentle and affectionate."
"But I think you do not hesitate to believe me when I say that I
have noticed the reverse," said Mr. Bradshaw, drawing himself up.
"No, sir. I beg your pardon if I have expressed myself so badly
as to seem to doubt. But am I to tell Miss Bradshaw that you have
spoken of her faults to me?" asked Ruth, a little astonished, and
shrinking more than ever from the proposed task.
"If you would allow me to finish what I have got to say, without
interruption, I could then tell you what I do wish."
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Ruth gently.
"I wish you to join our circle occasionally in an evening; Mrs.
Bradshaw shall send you an invitation when Mr. Farquhar is likely
to be here. Warned by me, and, consequently, with your
observation quickened, you can hardly fail to notice instances of
what I have pointed out; and then I will trust to your own good
sense" (Mr. Bradshaw bowed to her at this part of his sentence)
"to find an opportunity to remonstrate with her."
Ruth was beginning to speak, but he waved his hand for another
minute of silence.
"Only a minute, Mrs. Denbigh. I am quite aware that, in
requesting your presence occasionally in the evening, I shall be
trespassing upon the time which is, in fact, your money; you may
be assured that I shall not forget this little circumstance, and
you can explain what I have said on this head to Benson and his
sister."
"I am afraid I cannot do it," Ruth began; but, while she was
choosing words delicate enough to express her reluctance to act
as he wished, he had almost bowed her out of the room; and
thinking that she was modest in her estimate of her
qualifications for remonstrating with his daughter, he added,
blandly--
"No one so able, Mrs. Denbigh. I have observed many qualities in
you--observed when, perhaps, you have little thought it."
If he had observed Ruth that morning he would have seen an
absence of mind and depression of spirits not much to her credit
as a teacher; for she could not bring herself to feel that she
had any right to go into the family purposely to watch over and
find fault with any one member of it. If she had seen anything
wrong in Jemima, Ruth loved her so much that she would have told
her of it in private; and with many doubts, how far she was the
one to pull out the mote from any one's eye, even in the most
tender manner;--she would have had to conquer reluctance before
she could have done even this; but there was something
indefinably repugnant to her in the manner of acting which Mr.
Bradshaw had proposed, and she determined not to accept the
invitations which were to place her in so false a position.
But as she was leaving the house, after the end of the lessons,
while she stood in the hall tying on her bonnet, and listening to
the last small confidences of her two pupils, she saw Jemima
coming in through the garden-door, and was struck by the change
in her looks. The large eyes, so brilliant once, were dim and
clouded; the complexion sallow and colourless; a lowering
expression was on the dark brow, and the corners of her mouth
drooped as with sorrowful thoughts. She looked up, and her eyes
met Ruth's.
"Oh! you beautiful creature!" thought Jemima, "with your still,
calm, heavenly face, what are you to know of earth's trials? You
have lost your beloved by death--but that is a blessed sorrow;
the sorrow I have pulls me down and down, and makes me despise
and hate every one--not you, though." And, her face changing to a
soft, tender look, she went up to Ruth and kissed her fondly; as
if it were a relief to be near some one on whose true, pure heart
she relied. Ruth returned the caress; and even while she did so,
she suddenly rescinded her resolution to keep clear of what Mr.
Bradshaw had desired her to do. On her way home she resolved, if
she could, to find out what were Jemima's secret feelings; and if
(as, from some previous knowledge, she suspected) they were
morbid and exaggerated in any way, to try and help her right with
all the wisdom which true love gives. It was time that some one
should come to still the storm in Jemima's turbulent heart, which
was daily and hourly knowing less and less of peace. The
irritating difficulty was to separate the two characters, which
at two different times she had attributed to Mr. Farquhar--the
old one, which she had formerly believed to be true, that he was
a man acting up to a high standard of lofty principle, and acting
up without a struggle (and this last had been the circumstance
which had made her rebellious and irritable once); the new one,
which her father had excited in her suspicious mind, that Mr.
Farquhar was cold and calculating in all he did, and that she was
to be transferred by the former, and accepted by the latter, as a
sort of stock-in-trade--these were the two Mr. Farquhars who
clashed together in her mind. And in this state of irritation and
prejudice, she could not bear the way in which he gave up his
opinions to please her; that was not the way to win her; she
liked him far better when he inflexibly and rigidly adhered to
Ills idea of right and wrong, not even allowing any force to
temptation, and hardly any grace to repentance, compared with
that beauty of holiness which had never yielded to sin. He had
been her idol in those days, as she found out now, however much
at the time she had opposed him with violence.
As for Mr. Farquhar, he was almost weary of himself; no
reasoning, even no principle, seemed to have influence over him,
for he saw that Jemima was not at all what he approved of in
woman. He saw her uncurbed and passionate, affecting to despise
the rules of life he held most sacred, and indifferent to, if not
positively disliking, him; and yet he loved her dearly. But he
resolved to make a great effort of will, and break loose from
these trammels of sense. And while he resolved, some old
recollection would bring her up, hanging on his arm, in all the
confidence of early girlhood, looking up in his face with her
soft, dark eyes, and questioning him upon the mysterious subjects
which had so much interest for both of them at that time,
although they had become only matter for dissension in these
later days.
It was also true, as Mr. Bradshaw had said, Mr. Farquhar wished
to marry, and had not much choice in the small town of Eccleston.
He never put this so plainly before himself, as a reason for
choosing Jemima, as her father had done to her; but it was an
unconscious motive all the same. However, now he had lectured
himself into the resolution to make a pretty long absence from
Eccleston, and see if, amongst his distant friends, there was no
woman more in accordance with his ideal, who could put the
naughty, wilful, plaguing Jemima Bradshaw out of his head, if he
did not soon perceive some change in her for the better. A few
days after Ruth's conversation with Mr. Bradshaw the invitation
she had been expecting, yet dreading, came. It was to her alone.
Mr. and Miss Benson were pleased at the compliment to her, and
urged her acceptance of it. She wished that they had been
included; she had not thought it right, or kind to Jemima, to
tell them why she was going, and she feared now lest they should
feel a little hurt that they were not asked too. But she need not
have been afraid. They were glad and proud of the attention to
her, and never thought of themselves.
"Ruthie, what gown shall you wear to-night? Your dark-grey one, I
suppose?" asked Miss Benson.
"Yes, I suppose so. I never thought of it; but that is my best."
"Well; then, I shall quill up a ruff for you. You know I am a
famous quiller of net."
Ruth came downstairs with a little flush on her cheeks when she
was ready to go. She held her bonnet and shawl in her hand, for
she knew Miss Benson and Sally would want to see her dressed.
"Is not mamma pretty?" asked Leonard, with a child's pride.
"She looks very nice and tidy," said Miss Benson, who had an idea
that children should not talk or think about beauty.
"I think my ruff looks so nice," said Ruth, with gentle pleasure.
And, indeed, it did look nice, and set off the pretty round
throat most becomingly. Her hair, now grown long and thick, was
smoothed as close to her head as its waving nature would allow,
and plaited up in a great rich knot low down behind. The grey
gown was as plain as plain could be.
"You should have light gloves, Ruth," said Miss Benson. She went
upstairs, and brought down a delicate pair of Limerick ones,
which had been long treasured up in a walnut-shell.
"They say them gloves is made of chickens'-skins," said Sally,
examining them curiously. "I wonder how they set about skinning
'em."
"Here, Ruth," said Mr. Benson, coming in from the garden, "here's
a rose or two for you. I am sorry there are no more; I hoped I
should have had my yellow rose out by this time, but the damask
and the white are in a warmer corner, and have got the start."
Miss Benson and Leonard stood at the door, and watched her down
the little passage-street till she was out of sight.
She had hardly touched the bell at Mr. Bradshaw's door, when Mary
and Elizabeth opened it with boisterous glee.
"We saw you coming--we've been watching for you--we want you to
come round the garden before tea; papa is not come in yet. Do
come!"
She went round the garden with a little girl clinging to each
arm. It was full of sunshine and flowers, and this made the
contrast between it and the usual large family room (which
fronted the north-east, and therefore had no evening sun to light
up its cold, drab furniture) more striking than usual. It looked
very gloomy. There was the great dining-table, heavy and square;
the range of chairs, straight and square; the work-boxes, useful
and square; the colouring of walls, and carpets, and curtains,
all of the coldest description; everything was handsome, and
everything was ugly. Mrs. Bradshaw was asleep in her easy-chair
when they came in. Jemima had just put down her work, and, lost
in thought, she leaned her cheek on her hand. When she saw Ruth
she brightened a little, and went to her and kissed her. Mrs.
Bradshaw jumped up at the sound of their entrance, and was wide
awake in a moment.
"Oh! I thought your father was here," said she, evidently
relieved to find that he had not come in and caught her sleeping.
"Thank you, Mrs. Denbigh, for coming to us to-night," said she,
in the quiet tone in which she generally spoke in her husband's
absence. When he was there, a sort of constant terror of
displeasing him made her voice sharp and nervous; the children
knew that many a thing passed over by their mother when their
father was away was sure to be noticed by her when he was
present, and noticed, too, in a cross and querulous manner, for
she was so much afraid of the blame which on any occasion of
their misbehaviour fell upon her. And yet she looked up to her
husband with a reverence and regard, and a faithfulness of love,
which his decision of character was likely to produce on a weak
and anxious mind. He was a rest and a support to her, on whom she
cast all her responsibilities; she was an obedient,
unremonstrating wife to him; no stronger affection had ever
brought her duty into conflict with any desire of her heart. She
loved her children dearly, though they all perplexed her very
frequently. Her son was her especial darling, because he very
seldom brought her into any scrapes with his father; he was so
cautious and prudent, and had the art of "keeping a calm sough"
about any difficulty he might be in. With all her dutiful sense
of the obligation, which her husband enforced upon her, to notice
and tell him everything that was going wrong in the household,
and especially among his children, Mrs. Bradshaw, somehow,
contrived to be honestly blind to a good deal that was not
praiseworthy in Master Richard.
Mr. Bradshaw came in before long, bringing with him Mr. Farquhar.
Jemima had been talking to Ruth with some interest before then;
but, on seeing Mr. Farquhar, she bent her head down over her
work, went a little paler; and turned obstinately silent. Mr.
Bradshaw longed to command her to speak; but even he had a
suspicion that what she might say, when so commanded, might be
rather worse in its effect than her gloomy silence; so he held
his peace, and a discontented, angry kind of peace it was. Mrs.
Bradshaw saw that something was wrong, but could not tell what;
only she became every moment more trembling, and nervous, and
irritable, and sent Mary and Elizabeth off on all sorts of
contradictory errands to the servants, and made the tea twice as
strong, and sweetened it twice as much as--usual, in hopes of
pacifying her husband with good things. Mr. Farquhar had gone for
the last time, or so he thought. He had resolved (for the fifth
time) that he would go and watch Jemima once more, and if her
temper got the better of her, and she showed the old sullenness
again, and gave the old proofs of indifference to his good
opinion, he would give her up altogether, and seek a wife
elsewhere. He sat watching her with folded arms, and in silence.
Altogether they were a pleasant family party!
Jemima wanted to wind a skein of wool. Mr. Farquhar saw it, and
came to her, anxious to do her this little service. She turned
away pettishly, and asked Ruth to hold it for her.
Ruth was hurt for Mr. Farquhar, and looked sorrowfully at Jemima;
but Jemima would not see her glance of upbraiding, as Ruth,
hoping that she would relent, delayed a little to comply with her
request. Mr. Farquhar did; and went back to his seat to watch
them both. He saw Jemima turbulent and stormy in look; he saw
Ruth, to all appearance heavenly calm as the angels, or with only
that little tinge of sorrow which her friend's behaviour had
called forth. He saw the unusual beauty of her face and form,
which he had never noticed before; and he saw Jemima, with all
the brilliancy she once possessed in eyes and complexion, dimmed
and faded. He watched Ruth, speaking low and soft to the little
girls, who seemed to come to her in every difficulty, and he
remarked her gentle firmness when their bed-time came, and they
pleaded to stay up longer (their father was absent in his
counting-house, or th |
