was in love with her. It annoyed her extremely; it made her reproach herself that she ever should think such a thing possible. She tried to strangle the notion, to drown it, to starve it out by neglect–its existence caused her such pain and distress.
The worst was, he had won Leonard’s heart, who was constantly seeking him out; or, when absent, talking about him. The best was some journey connected with business, which would take him to the Continent for several weeks; and, during that time, surely this disagreeable fancy of his would die away, if untrue; and if true, some way would be opened by which she might put a stop to all increase of predilection on his part, and yet retain him as a friend for Leonard–that darling for whom she was far-seeing and covetous, and miserly of every scrap of love and kindly regard.
Mr. Farquhar would not have been flattered, if he had known how much his departure contributed to Ruth’s rest of mind on the Saturday afternoon on which he set out on his journey. It was a beautiful day; the sky of that intense quivering blue, which seemed as though you could look through it for ever, yet not reach the black, infinite space which is suggested as lying beyond. Now and then, a thin, torn, vaporous cloud floated slowly within the vaulted depth; but the soft air that gently wafted it was not perceptible among the leaves on the trees, which did not even tremble. Ruth sat at her work in the shadow formed by the old grey garden wall; Miss Benson and Sally–the one in the parlour window-seat mending stockings, the other hard at work in her kitchen–were both within talking distance, for it was weather for open doors and windows; but none of the three kept up any continued conversation; and in the intervals Ruth sang low a brooding song, such as she remembered her mother singing long ago. Now and then she stopped to look at Leonard, who was labouring away with vehement energy at digging over a small plot of ground, where he meant to prick out some celery plants that had been given to him. Ruth’s heart warmed at the earnest, spirited way in which he thrust his large spade deep down into the brown soil his ruddy face glowing, his curly hair wet with the exertion; and yet she sighed to think that the days were over when her deeds of skill could give him pleasure. Now, his delight was in acting himself; last year, not fourteen months ago, he had watched her making a daisy-chain for him, as if he could not admire her cleverness enough; this year, this week, when she had been devoting every spare hour to the simple tailoring which she performed for her boy (she had always made every article he wore, and felt almost jealous of the employment), he had come to her with a wistful look, and asked when he might begin to have clothes made by a man?
Ever since the Wednesday when she had accompanied Mary and Elizabeth, at Mrs. Bradshaw’s desire, to be measured for spring clothes by the new Eccleston dress-maker, she had been looking forward to this Saturday afternoon’s pleasure of making summer trousers for Leonard; but the satisfaction of the employment was a little taken away by Leonard’s speech. It was a sign, however, that her life was very quiet and peaceful, that she had leisure to think upon the thing at all; and often she forgot it entirely in her low, chanting song, or in listening to the thrush warbling out his afternoon ditty to his patient mate in the holly-bush below.
The distant rumble of carts through the busy streets (it was market-day) not only formed a low rolling bass to the nearer and pleasanter sounds, but enhanced the sense of peace by the suggestion of the contrast afforded to the repose of the garden by the bustle not far off.
But, besides physical din and bustle, there is mental strife and turmoil. That afternoon, as Jemima was restlessly wandering about the house, her mother desired her to go on an errand to Mrs. Pearson’s, the new dressmaker, in order to give some directions about her sisters’ new frocks. Jemima went, rather than have the trouble of resisting; or else she would have preferred staying at home, moving or being outwardly quiet according to her own fitful will. Mrs. Bradshaw, who, as I have said, had been aware for some time that something was wrong with her daughter, and was very anxious to set it to rights if she only knew how, had rather planned this errand with a view to dispel Jemima’s melancholy.
“And, Mimie dear,” said her mother, “when you are there, look out for a new bonnet for yourself; she has got some very pretty ones, and your old one is so shabby.”
“It does for me, mother,” said Jemima heavily. “I don’t want a new bonnet.”
“But I want you to have one, my lassie. I want my girl to look well and nice.” There was something of homely tenderness in Mrs. Bradshaw’s tone that touched Jemima’s heart. She went to her mother, and kissed her with more of affection than she had shown to any one for weeks before; and the kiss was returned with warm fondness.
“I think you love me, mother,” said Jemima.
“We all love you, dear, if you would but think so. And if you want anything, or wish for anything, only tell me, and with a little patience, I can get your father to give it you, I know. Only be happy, there’s a good girl.”
“Be happy! as if one could by an effort of will!” thought Jemima as she went along the street, too absorbed in herself to notice the bows of acquaintances and friends, but instinctively guiding herself right among the throng and press of carts, and gigs, and market people in High Street.
But her mother’s tones and looks, with their comforting power, remained longer in her recollection than the inconsistency of any words spoken. When she had completed her errand about the frocks, she asked to look at some bonnets, in order to show her recognition of her mother’s kind thought.
Mrs. Pearson was a smart, clever-looking woman of five or six and thirty. She had all the variety of small-talk at her finger-ends, that was formerly needed by barbers to amuse the people who came to be shaved. She had admired the town till Jemima was weary of its praises, sick and oppressed by its sameness, as she had been these many weeks.
“Here are some bonnets, ma’am, that will be just the thing for you–elegant and tasty, yet quite of the simple style, suitable to young ladies. Oblige me by trying on this white silk!”
Jemima looked at herself in the glass; she was obliged to own it was very becoming, and perhaps not the less so for the flush of modest shame which came into her cheeks, as she heard Mrs. Pearson’s open praises of the “rich, beautiful hair,” and the “Oriental eyes” of the wearer.
“I induced the young lady who accompanied your sisters the other day–the governess, is she, ma’am?”
“Yes–Mrs. Denbigh is her name,” said Jemima, clouding over.
“Thank you, ma’am. Well, I persuaded Mrs. Denbigh to try on that bonnet, and you can’t think how charming she looked in it; and yet I don’t think it became her as much as it does you.”
“Mrs. Denbigh is very beautiful,” said Jemima, taking off the bonnet, and not much inclined to try on any other.
“Very, ma’am. Quite a peculiar style of beauty. If I might be allowed, I should say that hers was a Grecian style of loveliness, while yours was Oriental. She reminded me of a young person I once knew in Fordham.” Mrs. Pearson sighed an audible sigh.
“In Fordham!” said Jemima, remembering that Ruth had once spoken of the place as one in which she had spent some time, while the county in which it was situated was the same in which Ruth was born. “In Fordham! Why, I think Mrs. Denbigh comes from that neighbourhood.”
“Oh, ma’am! she cannot be the young person I mean–I am sure, ma’am–holding the position she does in your establishment. I should hardly say I knew her myself; for I only saw her two or three times at my sister’s house; but she was so remarked for her beauty, that I remember her face quite well–the more so, on account of her vicious conduct afterwards.”
“Her vicious conduct!” repeated Jemima, convinced by these words that there could be no identity between Ruth and “young person” alluded to. “Then it could not have been our Mrs. Denbigh.”
“Oh no, ma’am! I am sure I should be sorry to be understood to have suggested anything of the kind. I beg your pardon if I did so. All I meant to say–and perhaps that was a liberty I ought not to have taken, considering what Ruth Hilton was—-“
“Ruth Hilton!” said Jemima, turning suddenly round, and facing Mrs. Pearson.
“Yes, ma’am, that was the name of the young person I allude to.”
“Tell me about her–what did she do?” asked Jemima, subduing her eagerness of tone and look as best she might, but trembling as on the verge of some strange discovery.
“I don’t know whether I ought to tell you, ma’am–it is hardly a fit story for a young lady; but this Ruth Hilton was an apprentice to my sister-in-law, who had a first-rate business in Fordham, which brought her a good deal of patronage from the county families; and this young creature was very artful and bold, and thought sadly too much of her beauty; and, somehow, she beguiled a young gentleman, who took her into keeping (I am sure, ma’am, I ought to apologise for polluting your ears)—-“
“Go on,” said Jemima breathlessly.
“I don’t know much more. His mother followed him into Wales. She was a lady of a great deal of religion, and a very old family, and was much shocked at her son’s misfortune in being captivated by such a person; but she led him to repentance, and took him to Paris, where, I think, she died; but I am not sure, for, owing to family differences, I have not been on terms for some years with my sister-in-law, who was my informant.”
“Who died?” interrupted Jemima–“the young man’s mother, or–or Ruth Hilton?”
“Oh dear, ma’am! pray don’t confuse the two. It was the mother, Mrs. —- I forget the name–something like Billington. It was the lady who died.”
“And what became of the other?” asked Jemima, unable, as her dark suspicion seemed thickening, to speak the name.
“The girl? Why, ma’am, what could become of her? Not that I know exactly–only one knows they can but go from bad to worse, poor creatures! God forgive me, if I am speaking too transiently of such degraded women, who, after all, are a disgrace to our sex.”
“Then you know nothing more about her?” asked Jemima.
“I did hear that she had gone off with another gentleman that she met with in Wales, but I’m sure I can’t tell who told me.”
There was a little pause. Jemima was pondering on all she had heard. Suddenly she felt that Mrs. Pearson’s eyes were upon her, watching her; not with curiosity, but with a newly-awakened intelligence;–and yet she must ask one more question; but she tried to ask it in an indifferent, careless tone, handling the bonnet while she spoke.
“How long is it since all this–all you have been telling me about–happened!” (Leonard was eight years old.)
“Why–let me see. It was before I was married, and I was married three years, and poor dear Pearson has been deceased five–I should say going on for nine years this summer. Blush roses would become your complexion, perhaps, better than these lilacs,” said she, as with superficial observation she watched Jemima turning the bonnet round and round on her hand–the bonnet that her dizzy eyes did not see.
“Thank you. It is very pretty. But I don’t want a bonnet. I beg your pardon for taking up your time.” And with an abrupt bow to the discomfited Mrs. Pearson, she was out and away in the open air, threading her way with instinctive energy along the crowded street. Suddenly she turned round, and went back to Mrs. Pearson’s with even more rapidity than she had been walking away from the house.
“I have changed my mind,” said she, as she came, breathless, up into the show-room. “I will take the bonnet. How much is it?”
“Allow me to change the flowers; it can be done in an instant, and then you can see if you would not prefer the roses; but with either foliage it is a lovely little bonnet,” said Mrs. Pearson, holding it up admiringly on her hand.
“Oh! never mind the flowers–yes! change them to the roses.” And she stood by, agitated (Mrs. Pearson thought with impatience), all the time the milliner was making the alteration with skilful, busy haste.
“By the way,” said Jemima, when she saw the last touches were being given, and that she must not delay executing the purpose which was the real cause of her return–“Papa, I am sure, would not like your connecting Mrs. Denbigh’s name with such a–story as you have been telling me.”
“Oh dear! ma’am, I have too much respect for you all to think of doing such a thing! Of course I know, ma’am, that it is not to be cast up to any lady that she is like any-body disreputable.”
“But I would rather you did not name the likeness to any one,” said Jemima; “not to any one. Don’t tell any one the story you have told me this morning.”
“Indeed, ma’am, I should never think of such a thing! My poor husband could have borne witness that I am as close as the grave where there is anything to conceal.”
“Oh dear!” said Jemima, “Mrs. Pearson, there is nothing to conceal; only you must not speak about it.”
“I certainly shall not do it, ma’am; you may rest assured of me.”
This time Jemima did not go towards home, but in the direction of the outskirts of the town, on the hilly side. She had some dim recollection of hearing her sisters ask if they might not go and invite Leonard and his mother to tea; and how could she face Ruth, after the conviction had taken possession of her heart that she, and the sinful creature she bad just heard of, were one and the same? It was yet only the middle of the afternoon; the hours were early in the old-fashioned town of Eccleston. Soft white clouds had come slowly sailing up out of the west; the plain was flecked with thin floating shadows, gently borne along by the westerly wind that was waving the long grass in the hay-fields into alternate light and shade. Jemima went into one of these fields, lying by the side of the upland road. She was stunned by the shock she had received. The diver leaving the green sward, smooth and known, where his friends stand with their familiar smiling faces, admiring his glad bravery–the diver, down in an instant in the horrid depths of the sea, close to some strange, ghastly, lidless-eyed monster, can hardly more feel his blood curdle at the near terror than did Jemima now. Two hours ago–but a point of time on her mind’s dial–she had never Imagined that she should ever come in contact with any one who had committed open sin; she had never shaped her conviction into words and sentences, but still it was there, that all the respectable, all the family and religious circumstances of her life, would hedge her in, and guard her from ever encountering the great shock of coming face to face with Vice. Without being pharisaical in her estimation of herself, she had all a Pharisee’s dread of publicans and sinners, and all a child’s cowardliness–that cowardliness which prompts it to shut its eyes against the object of terror, rather than acknowledge its existence with brave faith. Her father’s often reiterated speeches had not been without their effect. He drew a clear line of partition, which separated mankind into two great groups, to one of which, by the grace of God, he and his belonged; while the other was composed of those whom it was his duty to try and reform, and bring the whole force of his morality to bear upon, with lectures, admonitions, and exhortations–a duty to be performed, because it was a duty–but with very little of that Hope and Faith which is the Spirit that maketh alive. Jemima had rebelled against these hard doctrines of her father’s, but their frequent repetition had had its effect, and led her to look upon those who had gone astray with shrinking, shuddering recoil, instead of with a pity so Christ-like as to have both wisdom and tenderness in it.
And now she saw among her own familiar associates one, almost her house-fellow, who had been stained with that evil most repugnant to her womanly modesty, that would fain have ignored its existence altogether. She loathed the thought of meeting Ruth again. She wished that she could take her up, and put her down at a distance somewhere–anywhere–where she might never see or hear of her more; never be reminded, as she must be whenever she saw her, that such things were in this sunny, bright, lark-singing earth, over which the blue dome of heaven bent softly down as Jemima sat in the hay-field that June afternoon; her cheeks flushed and red, but her lips pale and compressed, and her eyes full of a heavy, angry sorrow. It was Saturday, and the people in that part of the country left their work an hour earlier on that day. By this, Jemima knew it must be growing time for her to be at home. She had had so much of conflict in her own mind of late, that she had grown to dislike struggle, or speech, or explanation; and so strove to conform to times and hours much more than she had done in happier days. But oh! how full of hate her heart was growing against the world! And oh! how she sickened at the thought of seeing Ruth! Who was to be trusted more, if Ruth–calm, modest, delicate, dignified Ruth–had a memory blackened by sin? As she went heavily along, the thought of Mr. Farquhar came into her mind. It showed how terrible had been the stun, that he had been forgotten until now. With the thought of him came in her first merciful feeling towards Ruth. This would never have been, had there been the least latent suspicion in Jemima’s jealous mind that Ruth had purposely done aught–looked a look–uttered a word–modulated a tone–for the sake of attracting. As Jemima recalled all the passages of their intercourse, she slowly confessed to herself how pure and simple had been all Ruth’s ways in relation to Mr. Farquhar. It was not merely that there had been no coquetting, but there had been simple unconsciousness on Ruth’s part, for so long a time after Jemima bad discovered Mr. Farquhar’s inclination for her; and, when at length she had slowly awakened to some perception of the state of his feelings, there had been a modest, shrinking dignity of manner, not startled, or emotional, or even timid, but pure, grave, and quiet; and this conduct of Ruth’s Jemima instinctively acknowledged to be of necessity transparent and sincere. Now, and here, there was no hypocrisy; but some time, somewhere, on the part of somebody, what hypocrisy, what lies must have been acted, if not absolutely spoken, before Ruth could have been received by them all as the sweet, gentle, girlish widow, which she remembered they had all believed Mrs. Denbigh to be when first she came among them! Could Mr. and Miss Benson know? Could they be a party to the deceit? Not sufficiently acquainted with the world to understand how strong had been the temptation to play the part they did, if they wished to give Ruth a chance, Jemima could not believe them guilty of such deceit as the knowledge of Mrs. Denbigh’s previous conduct would imply; and yet how it darkened the latter into a treacherous hypocrite, with a black secret shut up in her soul for years–living in apparent confidence, and daily household familiarity with the Bensons for years, yet never telling the remorse that ought to be corroding her heart! Who was true? Who was not? Who was good and pure? Who was not? The very foundations of Jemima’s belief in her mind were shaken.
Could it be false? Could there be two Ruth Hiltons? She went over every morsel of evidence. It could not be. She knew that Mrs. Denbigh’s former name had been Hilton. She had heard her speak casually, but charily, of having lived in Fordham. She knew she had been in Wales but a short time before she made her appearance in Eccleston. There was no doubt of the identity. Into the middle of Jemima’s pain and horror at the afternoon’s discovery, there came a sense of the power which the knowledge of this secret gave her over Ruth; but this was no relief, only an aggravation of the regret with which Jemima looked back on her state of ignorance. It was no wonder that when she arrived at home, she was so oppressed with headache that she had to go to bed directly.
“Quiet, mother! quiet, dear, dear mother” (for she clung to the known and tried goodness of her mother more than ever now), “that is all I want.” And she was left to the stillness of her darkened room, the blinds idly flapping to and fro in the soft evening breeze, and letting in the rustling sound of the branches which waved close to her window, and the thrush’s gurgling warble, and the distant hum of the busy town.
Her jealousy was gone–she knew not how or where. She might shun and recoil from Ruth, but she now thought that she could never more be jealous of her. In her pride of innocence, she felt almost ashamed that such a feeling could have had existence. Could Mr. Farquhar hesitate between her own self and one who—- No! she could not name what Ruth had been, even in thought. And yet he might never know, so fair a seeming did her rival wear. Oh! for one ray of God’s holy light to know what was seeming, and what was truth, in this traitorous hollow earth! It might be–she used to think such things possible, before sorrow had embittered her–that Ruth had worked her way through the deep purgatory of repentance up to something like purity again; God only knew! If her present goodness was real–if, after having striven back thus far on the heights, a fellow-woman was to throw her down into some terrible depth with her unkind, incontinent tongue, that would be too cruel! And yet, if–there was such woeful uncertainty and deceit somewhere–if Ruth—-No! that, Jemima with noble candour admitted, was impossible. Whatever Ruth had been, she was good, and to be respected as such, now. It did not follow that Jemima was to preserve the secret always; she doubted her own power to do so, if Mr. Farquhar came home again, and were still constant in his admiration of Mrs. Denbigh, and if Mrs. Denbigh gave him any–the least encouragement. But this last she thought, from what she knew of Ruth’s character, was impossible. Only, what was impossible after this afternoon’s discovery? At any rate, she would watch and wait. Come what might, Ruth was in her power. And, strange to say, this last certainty gave Jemima a kind of protecting, almost pitying, feeling for Ruth. Her horror at the wrong was not diminished; but, the more she thought of the struggles that the wrong-doer must have made to extricate herself, the more she felt how cruel it would be to baffle all by revealing what had been. But for her sisters’ sake she had a duty to perform; she must watch Ruth. For her lover’s sake she could not have helped watching; but she was too much stunned to recognise the force of her love, while duty seemed the only stable thing to cling to. For the present she would neither meddle nor mar in Ruth’s course of life.
CHAPTER XXVI
MR. BRADSHAW’S VIRTUOUS INDIGNATION
So it was that Jemima no longer avoided Ruth, nor manifested by word or look the dislike which for a long time she had been scarce concealing. Ruth could not help noticing that Jemima always sought to be in her presence while she was at Mr. Bradshaw’s house; either when daily teaching Mary and Elizabeth, or when she came as an occasional visitor with Mr. and Miss Benson, or by herself. Up to this time Jemima had used no gentle skill to conceal the abruptness with which she would leave the room rather than that Ruth and she should be brought into contact–rather than that it should fall to her lot to entertain Ruth during any part of the evening. It was months since Jemima had left off sitting in the schoolroom, as had been her wont during the first few years of Ruth’s governess-ship. Now, each morning Miss Bradshaw seated herself at a little round table in the window, at her work, or at her writing; but, whether she sewed, or wrote, or read, Ruth felt that she was always watching–watching. At first Ruth had welcomed all these changes in habit and behaviour, as giving her a chance, she thought, by some patient waiting or some opportune show of enduring, constant love, to regain her lost friend’s regard; but by-and-by the icy chillness, immovable and grey, struck more to her heart than many sudden words of unkindness could have done. They might be attributed to the hot impulses of a hasty temper–to the vehement anger of an accuser; but this measured manner was the conscious result of some deep-seated feeling; this cold sternness befitted the calm implacability of some severe judge. The watching, which Ruth felt was ever upon her, made her unconsciously shiver, as you would if you saw that the passionless eyes of the dead were visibly gazing upon you. Her very being shrivelled and parched up in Jemima’s presence, as if blown upon by a bitter, keen east wind.
Jemima bent every power she possessed upon the one object of ascertaining what Ruth really was. Sometimes the strain was very painful; the constant tension made her soul weary; and she moaned aloud, and upbraided circumstance (she dared not go higher–to the Maker of circumstance) for having deprived her of her unsuspicious, happy ignorance.
Things were in this state when Mr. Richard Bradshaw came on his annual home visit. He was to remain another year in London, and then to return and be admitted into the firm. After he had been a week at home he grew tired of the monotonous regularity of his father’s household, and began to complain of it to Jemima.
“I wish Farquhar were at home. Though he is such a stiff, quiet old fellow, his coming in in the evenings makes a change. What has become of the Millses? They used to drink tea with us sometimes, formerly.”
“Oh! papa and Mr. Mills took opposite sides at the election, and we have never visited since. I don’t think they are any great loss.” Anybody is a loss–the stupidest bore that ever was would be a blessing, if he only would come in sometimes.”
“Mr. and Miss Benson have drunk tea here twice since you came.”
“Come, that’s capital! Apropos of stupid bores, you talk of the Bensons. I did not think you had so much discrimination, my little sister.”
Jemima looked up in surprise; and then reddened angrily.
“I never meant to say a word against Mr. or Miss Benson, and that you know quite well, Dick.”
“Never mind! I won’t tell tales. They are stupid old fogeys, but they are better than nobody, especially as that handsome governess of the girls always comes with them to be looked at.”
There was a little pause; Richard broke it by saying–
“Do you know, Mimie, I’ve a notion, if she plays her cards well, she may hook Farquhar!”
“Who?” asked Jemima shortly, though she knew quite well.
“Mrs. Denbigh, to be sure. We were talking of her, you know. Farquhar asked me to dine with him at his hotel as he passed through town, and–I’d my own reasons for going and trying to creep up his sleeve–I wanted him to tip me, as he used to do.”
“For shame! Dick,” burst in Jemima.
“Well, well! not tip me exactly, but lend me some money. The governor keeps me deucedly short.”
“Why! it was only yesterday, when my father was speaking about your expenses, and your allowance, I heard you say that you’d more than you knew how to spend.”
“Don’t you see that was the perfection of art? If my father had thought me extravagant, he would have kept me in with a tight rein; as it is, I’m in great hopes of a handsome addition, and I can tell you it’s needed. If my father had given me what I ought to have had at first, I should not have been driven to the speculations and messes I’ve got into.”
“What speculations? What messes?” asked Jemima, with anxious eagerness.
“Oh! messes was not the right word. Speculations hardly was; for they are sure to turn out well, and then I shall surprise my father with my riches.” He saw that he had gone a little too far in his confidence, and was trying to draw in. “But what do you mean? Do explain it to me.”
“Never you trouble your head about my business, my dear. Women can’t understand the share-market, and such things. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the awful blunders you made when you tried to read the state of the money-market aloud to my father that night when he had lost his spectacles. What were we talking of? Oh! of Farquhar and pretty Mrs. Denbigh. Yes! I soon found out that was the subject my gentleman liked me to dwell on. He did not talk about her much himself, but his eyes sparkled when I told him what enthusiastic letters Polly and Elizabeth wrote about her. How old do you think she is?”
“I know!” said Jemima. “At least I heard her age spoken about, amongst other things, when first she came. She will be five-and-twenty this autumn.”
“And Farquhar is forty, if he is a day. She’s young, too, to have such a boy as Leonard; younger-looking, or full as young-looking as she is! I tell you what, Mimie, she looks younger than you. How old are you? Three-and-twenty, ain’t it?”
“Last March,” replied Jemima.
“You’ll have to make haste and pick up somebody, if you’re losing your good looks at this rate. Why, Jemima, I thought you had a good chance of Farquhar a year or two ago. How come you to have lost him? I’d far rather you’d had him than that proud, haughty Mrs. Denbigh, who flashes her great grey eyes upon me if ever I dare to pay her a compliment. She ought to think it an honour that I take that much notice of her. Besides, Farquhar is rich, and it’s keeping the business of the firm in one’s own family; and if he marries Mrs. Denbigh she will be sure to be wanting Leonard in when he’s of age, and I won’t have that. Have a try for Farquhar, Mimie! Ten to one it’s not too late. I wish I’d brought you a pink bonnet down. You go about ‘so dowdy–so careless of how you look.”
“If Mr. Farquhar has not liked me as I am,” said Jemima, choking, “I don’t want to owe him to a pink bonnet.”
“Nonsense! I don’t like to have my sisters’ governess stealing a march on my sister. I tell you Farquhar is worth trying for. If you’ll wear the pink bonnet I’ll give it to you, and I’ll back you against Mrs. Denbigh. I think you might have done something with ‘our member,’ as my father calls him, when you had him so long in the house. But, altogether, I should like Farquhar best for a brother-in-law. By the way, have you heard down here that Donne is going to be married? I heard of it in town, just before I left, from a man that was good authority. Some Sir Thomas Campbell’s seventh daughter: a girl without a penny; father ruined himself by gambling, and obliged to live abroad. But Donne is not a man to care for any obstacle, from all accounts, when once he has taken a fancy. It was love at first sight, they say. I believe he did not know of her existence a month ago.”
“No! we have not heard of it,” replied Jemima. “My father will like to know; tell it him;” continued she, as she was leaving the room, to be alone, in order to still her habitual agitation whenever she heard Mr. Farquhar and Ruth coupled together.
Mr. Farquhar came home the day before Richard Bradshaw left for town. He dropped in after tea at the Bradshaws’; he was evidently disappointed to see none but the family there, and looked round whenever the door opened.
“Look! look!” said Dick to his sister. “I wanted to make sure of his coming in to-night, to save me my father’s parting exhortations against the temptations of the world (as if I did not know much more of the world than he does!), so I used a spell I thought would prove efficacious; I told him that we should be by ourselves, with the exception of Mrs. Denbigh, and look how he is expecting her to come in!”
Jemima did see; did understand. She understood, too, why certain packets were put carefully on one side, apart from the rest of the purchases of Swiss toys and jewellery, by which Mr. Farquhar proved that none of Mr. Bradshaw’s family had been forgotten by him during his absence. Before the end of the evening, she was very conscious that her sore heart had not forgotten how to be jealous. Her brother did not allow a word, a look, or an incident, which might be supposed on Mr. Farquhar’s side to refer to Ruth to pass unnoticed; he pointed out all to his sister, never dreaming of the torture he was inflicting, only anxious to prove his own extreme penetration. At length Jemima could stand it no longer, and left the room. She went into the schoolroom, where the shutters were not closed, as it only looked into the garden. She opened the window, to let the cool night air blow in on her hot cheeks. The clouds were hurrying over the moon’s face in a tempestuous and unstable manner, making all things seem unreal; now clear out in its bright light, now trembling and quivering in shadow. The pain at her heart seemed to make Jemima’s brain grow dull; she laid her head on her arms, which rested on the window-sill, and grew dizzy with the sick weary notion that the earth was wandering lawless and aimless through the heavens, where all seemed one tossed and whirling wrack of clouds. It was a waking nightmare, from the uneasy heaviness of which she was thankful to be roused by Dick’s entrance.
“What, you are here, are you? I have been looking everywhere for you. I wanted to ask you if you have any spare money you could lend me for a few weeks?”
“How much do you want?” asked Jemima, in a dull, hopeless voice.
“Oh! the more the better. But I should be glad of any trifle, I am kept so confoundedly short.”
When Jemima returned with her little store, even her careless, selfish brother was struck by the wanness of her face, lighted by the bed-candle she carried.
“Come, Mimie, don’t give it up. If I were you, I would have a good try against Mrs. Denbigh. I’ll send you the bonnet as soon as ever I get back to town, and you pluck up a spirit, and I’ll back you against her even yet.”
It seemed to Jemima strange–and yet only a fitting part of this strange, chaotic world–to find that her brother, who was the last person to whom she could have given her confidence in her own family, and almost the last person of her acquaintance to whom she could look for real help and sympathy, should have been the only one to hit upon the secret of her love. And the idea passed away from his mind as quickly as all ideas not bearing upon his own self-interests did.
The night, the sleepless night, was so crowded and haunted by miserable images, that she longed for day; and when day came, with its stinging realities, she wearied and grew sick for the solitude of night. For the next week, she seemed to see and hear nothing but what confirmed the idea of Mr. Farquhar’s decided attachment to Ruth. Even her mother spoke of it as a thing which was impending, and which she wondered how Mr. Bradshaw would like; for his approval or disapproval was the standard by which she measured all things.
“Oh! merciful God,” prayed Jemima, in the dead silence of the night, “the strain is too great–I cannot bear it longer–my life–my love–the very essence of me, which is myself through time and eternity; and on the other side there is all-pitying Charity. If she had not been what she is–if she had shown any sign of triumph–any knowledge of her prize–if she had made any effort to gain his dear heart, I must have given way long ago, and taunted her, even if I did not tell others–taunted her, even though I sank down to the pit the next moment.
“The temptation is too strong for me. O Lord! where is Thy peace that I believed in, in my childhood?–that I hear people speaking of now as if it hushed up the troubles of life, and had not to be sought for–sought for, as with tears of blood!”
There was no sound nor answer to this wild imploring cry, which Jemima half thought must force out a sign from Heaven. But there was a dawn stealing on through the darkness of her night.
It was glorious weather for the end of August. The nights were as full of light as the days–everywhere, save in the low dusky meadows by the river-side, where the mists rose and blended the pale sky with the lands below. Unknowing of the care and trouble around them, Mary and Elizabeth exulted in the weather, and saw some new glory in every touch of the year’s decay. They were clamorous for an expedition to the hills, before the calm stillness of the autumn should be disturbed by storms. They gained permission to go on the next Wednesday–the next half-holiday. They had won their mother over to consent to a full holiday, but their father would not hear of it. Mrs. Bradshaw had proposed an early dinner, but the idea was scouted at by the girls. What would the expedition be worth if they did not carry their dinners with them in baskets? Anything out of a basket, and eaten in the open air, was worth twenty times as much as the most sumptuous meal in the house. So the baskets were packed up, while Mrs. Bradshaw wailed over probable colds to be caught from sitting on the damp ground. Ruth and Leonard were to go, they four. Jemima had refused all invitations to make one of the party; and yet she had a half-sympathy with her sisters’ joy–a sort of longing, lingering look back to the time when she too would have revelled in the prospect that lay before them. They, too, would grow up, and suffer; though now they played, regardless of their doom.
The morning was bright and glorious; just cloud enough, as some one said, to make the distant plain look beautiful from the hills, with its floating shadows passing over the golden corn-fields. Leonard was to join them at twelve, when his lessons with Mr. Benson, and the girls’ with their masters, should be over. Ruth took off her bonnet, and folded her shawl with her usual dainty, careful neatness, and laid them aside in a corner of the room to be in readiness. She tried to forget the pleasure she always anticipated from a long walk towards the hills while the morning’s work went on; but she showed enough of sympathy to make the girls cling round her with many a caress of joyous love. Everything was beautiful in their eyes; from the shadows of the quivering leaves on the wall to the glittering beads of dew, not yet absorbed by the sun, which decked the gossamer web in the vine outside the window. Eleven o’clock struck. The Latin master went away, wondering much at the radiant faces of his pupils, and thinking that it was only very young people who could take such pleasure in the “Delectus.” Ruth said, “Now do let us try to be very steady this next hour,” and Mary pulled back Ruth’s head, and gave the pretty budding mouth a kiss. They sat down to work, while Mrs. Denbigh read aloud. A fresh sun-gleam burst into the room, and they looked at each other with glad, anticipating eyes.
Jemima came in, ostensibly to seek for a book, but really from that sort of restless weariness of any one place or employment which had taken possession of her since Mr. Farquhar’s return. She stood before the bookcase in the recess, languidly passing over the titles in search of the one she wanted. Ruth’s voice lost a tone or two of its peacefulness, and her eyes looked more dim and anxious at Jemima’s presence. She wondered in her heart if she dared to ask Miss Bradshaw to accompanying them in their expedition. Eighteen months ago she would have urged it on her friend with soft, loving entreaty; now she was afraid even to propose it as a hard possibility; everything she did or said was taken so wrongly–seemed to add to the old dislike, or the later stony contempt with which Miss Bradshaw had regarded her. While they were in this way Mr. Bradshaw came into the room. His entrance–his being at home at all at this time–was so unusual a thing, that the reading was instantly stopped; and all four involuntarily looked at him, as if expecting some explanation of his unusual proceeding.
His face was almost purple with suppressed agitation.
“Mary and Elizabeth, leave the room. Don’t stay to pack up your books. Leave the room, I say!” He spoke with trembling anger, and the frightened girls obeyed without a won A cloud passing over the sun cast a cold gloom into the room which was late so bright and beaming; but, by equalising the light, it took away the dark shadow from the place where Jemima had been standing, and her figure caught her father’s eye.
“Leave the room, Jemima,” said he.
“Why, father?” replied she, in an opposition that was strange even to herself, but which was prompted by the sullen passion which seethed below the stagnant surface of her life, and which sought a vent in defiance. She maintained her ground, facing round upon her father, and Ruth–Ruth, who had risen, and stood trembling, shaking, a lightning-fear having shown her the precipice on which she stood. It was of no use; no quiet, innocent life–no profound silence, even to her own heart, as to the Past; the old offence could never be drowned in the Deep; but thus, when all was calm on the great, broad, sunny sea, it rose to the surface, and faced her with its unclosed eyes and its ghastly countenance. The blood bubbled up to her brain, and made such a sound there, as of boiling waters, that she did not hear the words which Mr. Bradshaw first spoke; indeed, his speech was broken and disjointed by intense passion. But she needed not to hear; she knew. As she rose up at first, so she stood now–numb and helpless. When her ears heard again (as if the sounds were drawing nearer, and becoming more distinct, from some faint, vague distance of space), Mr. Bradshaw was saying, “If there be one sin I hate–I utterly loathe–more than all others, it is wantonness. It includes all other sins. It is but of a piece that you should have come with your sickly, hypocritical face imposing upon us all. I trust Benson did not know of it–for his own sake, I trust not. Before God, if he got you into my house on false pretences, he shall find his charity at other men’s expense shall cost him dear–you–the common talk of Eccleston for your profligacy—-” He was absolutely choked by his boiling indignation. Ruth stood speechless, motionless. Her head drooped a little forward; her eyes were more than half veiled by the large quivering lids; her arms hung down straight and heavy. At last she heaved the weight off her heart enough to say, in a faint, moaning voice, speaking with infinite difficulty–
“I was so young.”
“The more depraved, the more disgusting you,” Mr. Bradshaw exclaimed, almost glad that the woman, unresisting so long, should now begin to resist. But, to his surprise (for in his anger he had forgotten her presence), Jemima moved forwards and said, “Father!”
“You hold your tongue, Jemima. You have grown more and more insolent–more and more disobedient every day. I now know who to thank for it. When such a woman came into my family there is no wonder at any corruption–any evil–any defilement—-“
“Father!”
“Not a word! If, in your disobedience, you choose to stay and hear what no modest young woman would put herself in the way of hearing, you shall be silent when I bid you. The only good you can gain is in the way of warning. Look at that woman” (indicating Ruth, who moved her drooping head a little on one side, as if by such motion she could avert the pitiless pointing–her face growing whiter and whiter still every instant)–“Look at that woman, I say–corrupt long before she was your age–hypocrite for years! If ever you, or any child of mine, cared for her, shake her off from you, as St. Paul shook off the viper–even into the fire.” He stopped for very want of breath. Jemima, all flushed and panting, went up and stood side by side with wan Ruth. She took the cold, dead hand which hung next to her in her warm convulsive grasp, and, holding it so tight that it was blue and discoloured for days, she spoke out beyond all power of restraint from her father.
“Father! I will speak. I will not keep silence. I will bear witness to Ruth. I have hated her–so keenly, may God forgive me–but you may know, from that, that my witness is true. I have hated her, and my hatred was only quenched into contempt–not contempt now, dear Ruth–dear Ruth”–(this was spoken with infinite softness and tenderness, and in spite of her father’s fierce eyes and passionate gesture)–“I heard what you have learnt now, father, weeks and weeks ago–a year it may be, all time of late has been so long; and I shuddered up from her and from her sin; and I might have spoken of it, and told it there and then, if I had not been afraid that it was from no good motive I should act in so doing, but to gain a way to the desire of my own jealous heart. Yes, father, to show you what a witness I am for Ruth, I will own that I was stabbed to the heart with jealousy; some one–some one cared for Ruth that–oh father! spare me saying all.” Her face was double-dyed with crimson blushes, and she paused for one moment–no more.
“I watched her, and I watched her with my wild-beast eyes. If I had seen one paltering with duty–if I had witnessed one flickering shadow of untruth in word or action–if, more than all things, my woman’s instinct had ever been conscious of the faintest speck of impurity in thought, or word, or look, my old hate would have flamed out with the flame of hell! my contempt would have turned to loathing disgust, instead of my being full of pity, and the stirrings of new-awakened love, and most true respect. Father, I have borne my witness!”
“And I will tell you how much your witness is worth,” said her father, beginning low, that his pent-up wrath might have room to swell out. “It only convinces me more and more how deep is the corruption this wanton has spread in my family. She has come amongst us with her innocent seeming, and spread her nets well and skilfully. She has turned right into wrong, and wrong into right, and taught you all to be uncertain whether there be any such thing as Vice in the world, or whether it ought not to be looked upon as Virtue. She has led you to the brink of the deep pit, ready for the first chance circumstance to push you in. And I trusted–I trusted her–I welcomed her.”
“I have done very wrong,” murmured Ruth, but so low, that perhaps he did not hear her, for he went on lashing himself up.
“I welcomed her. I was duped into allowing her bastard–(I sicken at the thought of it)—-“
At the mention of Leonard, Ruth lifted up her eyes for the first time since the conversation began, the pupils dilating, as if she were just becoming aware of some new agony in store for her. I have seen such a look of terror on a poor dumb animal’s countenance, and once or twice on human faces; I pray I may never see it again on either! Jemima felt the hand she held in her strong grasp writhe itself free. Ruth spread her arms before her, clasping and lacing her fingers together, her head thrown a little back as if in intensest suffering.
Mr. Bradshaw went on–
“That very child and heir of shame to associate with my own innocent children! I trust they are not contaminated.”
“I cannot bear it–I cannot bear it!” were the words wrung out of Ruth.
“Cannot bear it! cannot bear it!” he repeated. “You must bear it, madam. Do you suppose your child is to be exempt from the penalties of his birth? Do you suppose that he alone is to be saved from the upbraiding scoff? Do you suppose that he is ever to rank with other boys, who are not stained and marked with sin from their birth? Every creature in Eccleston may know what he is; do you think they will spare him their scorn? ‘Cannot bear it,’ indeed! Before you went into your sin, you should have thought whether you could bear the consequences or not–have had some idea how far your offspring would be degraded and scouted, till the best thing that could happen to him would be for him to be lost to all sense of shame, dead to all knowledge of guilt, for his mother’s sake.”
Ruth spoke out. She stood like a wild creature at bay, past fear now. “I appeal to God against such a doom for my child. I appeal to God to help me. I am a mother, and as such I cry to God for help–for help to keep my boy in His pitying sight, and to bring him up in His holy fear. Let the shame fall on me! I have deserved it, but he–he is so innocent and good.”
Ruth had caught up her shawl, and was tying on her bonnet with her trembling hands. What if Leonard was hearing of her shame from common report? What would be the mysterious shock of the intelligence? She must face him, and see the look in his eyes, before she knew whether he recoiled from her; he might have his heart turned to hate her, by their cruel jeers.
Jemima stood by, dumb and pitying. Her sorrow was past her power. She helped in arranging the dress, with one or two gentle touches, which were hardly felt by Ruth, but which called out all Mr. Bradshaw’s ire afresh; he absolutely took her by the shoulders and turned her by force out of the room. In the hall, and along the stairs, her passionate woeful crying was heard. The sound only concentrated Mr. Bradshaw’s anger on Ruth. He held the street-door open wide, and said, between his teeth, “If ever you, or your bastard, darken this door again, I will have you both turned out by the police!”
He needed not have added this if he had seen Ruth’s face.
CHAPTER XXVII
PREPARING TO STAND ON THE TRUTH
As Ruth went along the accustomed streets, every sight and every sound seemed to hear a new meaning, and each and all to have some reference to her boy’s disgrace. She held her head down, and scudded along dizzy with fear, lest some word should have told him what she had been, and what he was, before she could reach him. It was a wild, unreasoning fear, but it took hold of her as strongly as if it had been well founded. And, indeed, the secret whispered by Mrs. Pearson, whose curiosity and suspicion had been excited by Jemima’s manner, and confirmed since by many a little corroborating circumstance, had spread abroad, and was known to most of the gossips in Eccleston before it reached Mr. Bradshaw’s ears.
As Ruth came up to the door of the Chapel-house, it was opened, and Leonard came out, bright and hopeful as the morning, his face radiant at the prospect of the happy day before him. He was dressed in the clothes it had been such a pleasant pride to her to make for him. He had the dark-blue ribbon tied round his neck that she had left out for him that very morning, with a smiling thought of how it would set off his brown, handsome face. She caught him by the hand as they met, and turned him, with his face homewards, without a word. Her looks, her rushing movement, her silence, awed him; and although he wondered, he did not stay to ask why she did so. The door was on the latch; she opened it, and only said, “Upstairs,” in a hoarse whisper. Up they went into her own room. She drew him in, and bolted the door; and then, sitting down, she placed him (she had never let go of him) before her, holding him with her hands on each of his shoulders, and gazing into his face with a woeful look of the agony that could not find vent in words. At last she tried to speak: she tried with strong bodily effort, almost amounting to convulsion. But the words would not come; it was not till she saw the absolute terror depicted on his face that she found utterance; and then the sight of that terror changed the words from what she meant them to have been. She drew him to her, and laid her head upon his shoulder; hiding her face even there.
“My poor, poor boy! my poor, poor darling! Oh! would that I had died–I had died, in my innocent girlhood!”
“Mother! mother!” sobbed Leonard. “What is the matter? Why do you look so wild and ill? Why do you call me your ‘poor boy’? Are we not going to Scaurside Hill? I don’t much mind it, mother; only please don’t gasp and quiver so. Dearest mother, are you ill? Let me call Aunt Faith!”
Ruth lifted herself up, and put away the hair that had fallen over and was blinding her eyes. She looked at him with intense wistfulness.
“Kiss me, Leonard!” said she–“kiss me, my darling, once more in the old way!” Leonard threw himself into her arms and hugged her with all his force, and their lips clung together as in the kiss given to the dying.
“Leonard!” said she at length, holding him away from her, and nerving herself up to tell him all by one spasmodic effort–“listen to me.” The boy stood breathless and still, gazing at her. On her impetuous transit from Mr. Bradshaw’s to the Chapel-house her wild, desperate thought had been that she would call herself by every violent, coarse name which the world might give her–that Leonard should hear those words applied to his mother first from her own lips; but the influence of his presence–for he was a holy and sacred creature in her eyes, and this point remained steadfast, though all the rest were upheaved–subdued her; and now it seemed as if she could not find words fine enough, and pure enough, to convey the truth that he must learn, and should learn from no tongue but hers.
“Leonard! when I was very young I did very wrong. I think God, who knows all, will judge me more tenderly than men–but I did wrong in a way which you cannot understand yet” (she saw the red flush come into his cheek, and it stung her as the first token of that shame which was to be his portion through life)–“in a way people never forget, never forgive. You will hear me called the hardest names that ever can be thrown at women–I have been to-day; and, my child, you must bear it patiently, because they will be partly true. Never get confused, by your love for me, into thinking that what I did was right.–Where was I?” said she, suddenly faltering, and forgetting all she had said and all she had got to say; and then, seeing Leonard’s face of wonder, and burning shame and indignation, she went on more rapidly, as fearing lest her strength should fail before she had ended.
“And, Leonard,” continued she, in a trembling, sad voice, “this is not all. The punishment of punishments lies awaiting me still. It is to see you suffer from my wrongdoing. Yes, darling! they will speak shameful things of you, poor innocent child! as well as of me, who am guilty. They will throw it in your teeth through life, that your mother was never married–was not married when you were born—-“
“Were not you married? Are not you a widow?” asked he abruptly, for the first time getting anything like a clear idea of the real state of the case.
“No! May God forgive me, and help me!” exclaimed she, as she saw a strange look of repugnance cloud over the boy’s face, and felt a slight motion on his part to extricate himself from her hold. It was as slight, as transient as it could be–over in an instant. But she had taken her hands away, and covered up her face with them as quickly–covered up her face in shame before her child; and in the bitterness of her heart she was wailing out, “Oh! would to God I had died–that I had died as a baby–that I had died as a little baby hanging at my mother’s breast!”
“Mother,” said Leonard, timidly putting his hand on her arm; but she shrank from him, and continued her low, passionate wailing. “Mother,” said he, after a pause coming nearer, though she saw it not–“mammy darling,” said he, using the caressing name, which he had been trying to drop as not sufficiently manly, “mammy, my own, own dear, dear darling mother, I don’t believe them; I don’t, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t!” He broke out into a wild burst of crying as he said this. In a moment her arms were round the boy, and she was hushing him up like a baby on her bosom. “Hush, Leonard! Leonard, be still, my child! I have been too sudden with you!–I have done you harm–oh! I have done you nothing but harm,” cried she, in a tone of bitter self-reproach.
“No, mother,” said he, stopping his tears, and his eyes blazing out with earnestness; “there never was such a mother as you have been to me, and I won’t believe any one who says it. I won’t; and I’ll knock them down if they say it again, I will!” He clenched his fist, with a fierce, defiant look on his face.
“You forget, my child,” said Ruth, in the sweetest, saddest tone that ever was heard, “I said it of myself; I said it because it was true.” Leonard threw his arms tight round her and hid his face against her bosom. She felt him pant there like some hunted creature. She had no soothing comfort to give him. “Oh, that she and he lay dead!”
At last, exhausted, he lay so still and motionless, that she feared to look. She wanted him to speak, yet dreaded his first words. She kissed his hair, his head, his very clothes; murmuring low, inarticulate, and moaning sounds.
“Leonard,” said she, “Leonard, look up at me! Leonard, look up!” But he only clung the closer, and hid his face the more.
“My boy!” said she, “what can I do or say? If I tell you never to mind it–that it is nothing–I tell you false. It is a bitter shame and a sorrow that I have drawn down upon you. A shame, Leonard, because of me, your mother; but, Leonard, it is no disgrace or lowering of you in the eyes of God.” She spoke now as if she had found the clue which might lead him to rest and strength at last.
“Remember that, always. Remember that, when the time of trial comes–and it seems a hard and cruel thing that you should be called reproachful names by men, and all for what was no fault of yours–remember God’s pity and God’s justice; and, though my sin shall have made you an outcast in the world–oh, my child, my child”–(she felt him kiss her, as if mutually trying to comfort her–it gave her strength to go on)–“remember, darling of my heart, it is only your own sin that can make you an outcast from God.”
She grew so faint that her hold of him relaxed. He looked up affrighted. He brought her water–he threw it over her; in his terror at the notion that she was going to die and leave him, he called her by every fond name, imploring her to open her eyes.
When she partially recovered he helped her to the bed, on which she lay still, wan, and death-like. She almost hoped the swoon that hung around her might be Death, and in that imagination she opened her eyes to take a last look at her boy. She saw him pale and terror-stricken; and pity for his affright roused her, and made her forget herself in the wish that he should not see her death, if she were indeed dying.
“Go to Aunt Faith!” whispered she; “I am weary, and want sleep.”
Leonard arose slowly and reluctantly. She tried to smile upon him, that what she thought would be her last look might dwell in his remembrance as tender and strong; she watched him to the door; she saw him hesitate, and return to her. He came back to her, and said in a timid, apprehensive tone,
“Mother–will they speak to me about—-it?”
Ruth closed her eyes, that they might not express the agony she felt, like a sharp knife, at this question. Leonard had asked it with a child’s desire of avoiding painful and mysterious topics,–for no personal sense of shame as she understood it, shame beginning thus early, thus instantaneously.
“No,” she replied. “You may be sure they will not.”
So he went. But now she would have been thankful for the unconsciousness of fainting; that one little speech bore so much meaning to her hot, irritable brain. Mr. and Miss Benson, all in their house, would never speak to the boy–but in his home alone would he be safe from what he had already learned to dread. Every form in which shame and opprobrium could overwhelm her darling haunted her. She had been exercising strong self-control for his sake ever since she had met him at the house-door; there was now a reaction. His presence had kept her mind on its perfect balance. When that was withdrawn the effect of the strain of power was felt. And athwart the fever-mists that arose to obscure her judgment, all sorts of will-o’-the-wisp plans flittered before her; tempting her to this and that course of action–to anything rather than patient endurance–to relieve her present state of misery by some sudden spasmodic effort, that took the semblance of being wise and right. Gradually all her desires, all her longing, settled themselves on one point. What had she done–what could she do, to Leonard but evil? If she were away, and gone no one knew where–lost in mystery, as if she were dead–perhaps the cruel hearts might relent, and show pity on Leonard; while her perpetual presence would but call up the remembrance of his birth. Thus she reasoned in her hot, dull brain; and shaped her plans in accordance.
Leonard stole downstairs noiselessly. He listened to find some quiet place where he could hide himself. The house was very still. Miss Benson thought the purposed expedition had taken place, and never dreamed but that Ruth and Leonard were on distant, sunny Scaurside Hill; and, after a very early dinner, she had set out to drink tea with a farmer’s wife, who lived in the country two or three miles off. Mr. Benson meant to have gone with her; but, while they were at dinner, he had received an unusually authoritative note from Mr. Bradshaw desiring to speak with him, so he went to that gentleman’s house instead. Sally was busy in her kitchen, making a great noise (not unlike a groom rubbing down a horse) over her cleaning. Leonard stole into the sitting-room, and crouched behind the large old-fashioned sofa to ease his sore, aching heart, by crying with all the prodigal waste and abandonment of childhood.
Mr. Benson was shown into Mr. Bradshaw’s own particular room. The latter gentleman was walking up and down, and it was easy to perceive that something had occurred to chafe him to great anger.
“Sit down, sir!” said he to Mr. Benson, nodding to a chair.
Mr. Benson sat down. But Mr. Bradshaw continued his walk for a few minutes longer without speaking. Then he stopped abruptly, right in front of Mr. Benson; and in a voice which he tried to render calm, but which trembled with passion–with a face glowing purple as he thought of his wrongs (and real wrongs they were), he began–
“Mr. Benson, I have sent for you to ask–I am almost too indignant at the bare suspicion to speak as becomes me–but did you—-I really shall be obliged to beg your pardon, if you are as much in the dark as I was yesterday as to the character of the woman who lives under your roof?”
There was no answer from Mr. Benson. Mr. Bradshaw looked at him very earnestly. His eyes were fixed on the ground–he made no inquiry–he uttered no expression of wonder or dismay. Mr. Bradshaw ground his foot on the floor with gathering rage; but just as he was about to speak Mr. Benson rose up–a poor deformed old man–before the stern and portly figure that was swelling and panting with passion.
“Hear me, sir!” (stretching out his hand as if to avert the words which were impending). “Nothing you can say can upbraid me like my own conscience; no degradation you can inflict, by word or deed, can come up to the degradation I have suffered for years, at being a party to a deceit, even for a good end—-“
“For a good end!–Nay! what next?”
The taunting contempt with which Mr. Bradshaw spoke these words almost surprised himself by what he imagined must be its successful power of withering; but in spite of it Mr. Benson lifted his grave eyes to Mr. Bradshaw’s countenance, and repeated–
“For a good end. The end was not, as perhaps you consider it to have been, to obtain her admission into your family–nor yet to put her in the way of gaining her livelihood; my sister and I would willingly have shared what we have with her; it was our intention to do so at first, if not for any length of time, at least as long as her health might require it. Why I advised (perhaps I only yielded to advice) a change of name–an assumption of a false state of widowhood–was because I earnestly desired to place her in circumstances in which she might work out her self-redemption; and you, sir, know how terribly the world goes against all such as have sinned as Ruth did. She was so young, too.”
“You mistake, sir; my acquaintance has not lain so much among that class of sinners as to give me much experience of the way in which they are treated. But, judging from what I have seen, I should say they meet with full as much leniency as they deserve; and supposing they do not–I know there are plenty of sickly sentimentalists just now who reserve all their interest and regard for criminals–why not pick out one of these to help you in your task of washing the blackamoor white? Why choose me to be imposed upon–my household into which to intrude your protegee? Why were my innocent children to be exposed to corruption? I say,” said Mr. Bradshaw, stamping his foot, “how dared you come into this house, where you were looked upon as a minister of religion, with a lie in your mouth? How dared you single me out, of all people, to be gulled, and deceived, and pointed at through the town as the person who had taken an abandoned woman into his house to teach his daughters?”
“I own my deceit was wrong and faithless.”
“Yes! you can own it, now it is found out! There is small merit in that, I think!”
“Sir! I claim no merit. I take shame to myself. I did not single you out. You applied to me with your proposal that Ruth should be your children’s governess.”
“Pah!”
“And the temptation was too great–no! I will not say that–but the temptation was greater than I could stand–it seemed to open out a path of usefulness.”
“Now, don’t let me hear you speak so,” said Mr. Bradshaw, blazing up. “I can’t stand it. It is too much to talk in that way when the usefulness was to consist in contaminating my innocent girls.”
“God knows that if I had believed there had been any danger of such contamination–God knows how I would have died sooner than have allowed her to enter your family. Mr. Bradshaw, you believe me, don’t you?” asked Mr. Benson earnestly.
“I really must be allowed the privilege of doubting what you say in future,” said Mr. Bradshaw, in a cold, contemptuous manner.
“I have deserved this,” Mr. Benson replied. “But,” continued he, after a moment’s pause, “I will not speak of myself, but of Ruth. Surely, sir, the end I aimed at (the means I took to obtain it were wrong; you cannot feel that more than I do) was a right one; and you will not–you cannot say that your children have suffered from associating with her. I had her in my family, under the watchful eyes of three anxious persons for a year or more; we saw faults–no human being is without them–and poor Ruth’s were but slight venial errors; but we saw no sign of a corrupt mind–no glimpse of boldness or forwardness–no token of want of conscientiousness; she seemed, and was, a young and gentle girl, who had been led astray before she fairly knew what life was.”
“I suppose most depraved women have been innocent in their time,” said Mr. Bradshaw, with bitter contempt.
“Oh, Mr. Bradshaw! Ruth was not depraved, and you know it. You cannot have seen her–have known her daily, all these years, without acknowledging that!” Mr. Benson was almost breathless, awaiting Mr. Bradshaw’s answer. The quiet self-control which he had maintained so long was gone now.
“I saw her daily–I did not know her. If I had known her, I should have known she was fallen and depraved, and consequently not fit to come into my house, nor to associate with my pure children.”
“Now I wish God would give me power to speak out convincingly what I believe to be His truth, that not every woman who has fallen is depraved; that many–how many the Great Judgment Day will reveal to those who have shaken off the poor, sore, penitent hearts on earth–many, many crave and hunger after a chance of virtue–the help which no man gives to them–help–that gentle, tender help which Jesus gave once to Mary Magdalen.” Mr. Benson was almost choked by his own feelings.
“Come, come, Mr. Benson, let us have no more of this morbid way of talking. The world has decided how such women are to be treated; and, you may depend upon it, there is so much practical wisdom in the world, that its way of acting is right in the long-run, and that no one can fly in its face with impunity, unless, indeed, they stoop to deceit and imposition.”
“I take my stand with Christ against the world,” said Mr. Benson solemnly, disregarding the covert allusion to himself. “What have the world’s ways ended in? Can we be much worse than we are?”
“Speak for yourself, if you please.”
“Is it not time to change some of our ways of thinking and acting? I declare before God, that if I believe in any one human truth, it is this–that to every woman who, like Ruth, has sinned should be given a chance of self-redemption–and that such a chance should be given in no supercilious or contemptuous manner, but in the spirit of the holy Christ.”
“Such as getting her into a friend’s house under false colours.”
“I do not argue on Ruth’s case. In that I have acknowledged my error. I do not argue on any case. I state my firm belief, that it is God’s will that we should not dare to trample any of His creatures down to the hopeless dust; that it is God’s will that the women who have fallen should be numbered among those who have broken hearts to be bound up, not cast aside as lost beyond recall. If this be God’s will, as a thing of God it will stand; and He will open a way.”
“I should have attached much more importance to all your exhortation on this point if I could have respected your conduct in other matters. As it is, when I see a man who has deluded himself into considering falsehood right, I am disinclined to take his opinion on subjects connected with morality; and I can no longer regard him as a fitting exponent of the will of God. You perhaps understand what I mean, Mr. Benson. I can no longer attend your chapel.”
If Mr. Benson had felt any hope of making Mr. Bradshaw’s obstinate mind receive the truth, that he acknowledged and repented of his connivance at the falsehood by means of which Ruth had been received into the Bradshaw family, this last sentence prevented his making the attempt. He simply bowed and took his leave–Mr. Bradshaw attending him to the door with formal ceremony.
He felt acutely the severance of the tie which Mr. Bradshaw had just announced to him. He had experienced many mortifications in his intercourse with that gentleman, but they had fallen off from his meek spirit like drops of water from a bird’s plumage; and now he only remembered the acts of substantial kindness rendered (the ostentation all forgotten)–many happy hours and pleasant evenings–the children whom he had loved dearer than he thought till now–the young people about whom he had cared, and whom he had striven to lead aright. He was but a young man when Mr. Bradshaw first came to his chapel; they had grown old together; he had never recognised Mr. Bradshaw as an old familiar friend so completely as now when they were severed.
It was with a heavy heart that he opened his own door. He went to his study immediately; he sat down to steady himself into his position.
How long he was there–silent and alone–reviewing his life–confessing his sins–he did not know; but he heard some unusual sound in the house that disturbed him–roused him to present life. A slow, languid step came along the passage to the front door–the breathing was broken by many sighs.
Ruth’s hand was on the latch when Mr. Benson came out. Her face was very white, except two red spots on each cheek–her eyes were deep-sunk and hollow, but glittered with feverish lustre. “Ruth!” exclaimed he. She moved her lips, but her throat and mouth were too dry for her to speak.
“Where are you going?” asked he; for she had all her walking things on, yet trembled so even as she stood, that it was evident she could not walk far without falling.
She hesitated–she looked up at him, still with the same dry glittering eyes. At last she whispered (for she could only speak in a whisper), “To Helmsby–I am going to Helmsby.”
“Helmsby! my poor girl–may God have mercy upon you!” for he saw she hardly knew what she was saying. “Where is Helmsby?”
“I don’t know. In Lincolnshire, I think.”
“But why are you going there?”
“Hush! he’s asleep,” said she, as Mr. Benson had unconsciously raised his voice.
“Who is asleep?” asked Mr. Benson.
“That poor little boy,” said she, beginning to quiver and cry.
“Come here!” said he authoritatively, drawing her into the study.
“Sit down in that chair. I will come back directly.”
He went in search of his sister, but she had not returned. Then he had recourse to Sally, who was as busy as ever about her cleaning.
“How long has Ruth been at home?” asked he.
“Ruth! She has never been at home sin’ morning. She and Leonard were to be off for the day somewhere or other with them Bradshaw girls.”
“Then she has had no dinner?”
“Not here, any rate. I can’t answer for what she may have done at other places.”
“And Leonard–where is he?”
“How should I know? With his mother, I suppose. Leastways, that was what was fixed on. I’ve enough to do of my own, without routing after other folks.”
She went on scouring in no very good temper. Mr. Benson stood silent for a moment.
“Sally,” he said, “I want a cup of tea. Will you make it as soon as you can; and some dry toast too? I’ll come for it in ten minutes.”
Struck by something in his voice, she looked up at him for the first time.
“What ha’ ye been doing to yourself, to look so grim and grey? Tiring yourself all to tatters, looking after some naught, I’ll be bound! Well! well! I mun make ye your tea, I reckon; but I did hope as you grew older you’d ha’ grown wiser.”
Mr. Benson made no reply, but went to look for Leonard, hoping that the child’s presence might bring back to his mother the power of self-control. He opened the parlour-door, and looked in, but saw no one. Just as he was shutting it, however, he heard a deep, broken, sobbing sigh; and, guided by the sound, he found the boy lying on the floor, fast asleep, but with his features all swollen and disfigured by passionate crying.
“Poor child! This was what she meant, then,” thought Mr. Benson. “He has begun his share of the sorrows too” he continued pitifully. “No! I will not waken him back to consciousness.” So he returned alone into the study. Ruth sat where he had placed her, her head bent back, and her eyes shut. But when he came in she started up.
“I must be going,” she said in a hurried way.
“Nay, Ruth, you must not go. You must not leave us. We cannot do without you. We love you too much.”
“Love me!” said she, looking at him wistfully. As she looked, her eyes filled slowly with tears. It was a good sign, and Mr. Benson took heart to go on.
“Yes! Ruth. You know we do. You may have other things to fill up your mind just now, but you know we love you; and nothing can alter our love for you. You ought not to have thought of leaving us. You would not, if you had been quite well.”
“Do you know what has happened?” she asked, in a low, hoarse voice.
“Yes. I know all,” he answered. “It makes no difference to us. Why should it?”
“Oh! Mr. Benson, don’t you know that my shame is discovered?” she replied, bursting into tears–“and I must leave you, and leave Leonard, that you may not share in my disgrace.”
“You must do no such thing. Leave Leonard! You have no right to leave Leonard. Where could you go to?”
“To Helmsby,” she said humbly. “It would break my heart to go, but I think I ought, for Leonard’s sake. I know I ought.” She was crying sadly by this time, but Mr. Benson knew the flow of tears would ease her brain. “It will break my heart to go, but I know I must.”
“Sit still here at present,” said he, in a decided tone of command. He went for the cup of tea. He brought it to her without Sally’s being aware for whom it was intended.
“Drink this!” He spoke as you would do to a child, if desiring it to take medicine. “Eat some toast.” She took the tea, and drank it feverishly; but when she tried to eat, the food seemed to choke her. Still she was docile, and she tried.
“I cannot,” said she at last, putting down the piece of toast. There was a return of something of her usual tone in the words. She spoke gently and softly; no longer in the shrill, hoarse voice she had used at first. Mr. Benson sat down by her.
“Now, Ruth, we must talk a little together. I want to understand what your plan was. Where is Helmsby? Why did you fix to go there?”
“It is where my mother lived,” she answered. “Before she was married she lived there; and wherever she lived, the people all loved her dearly; and I thought–I think, that for her sake, some one would give me work. I meant to tell them the truth,” said she, dropping her eyes; “but still they would, perhaps, give me some employment–I don’t care what–for her sake. I could do many things,” said she, suddenly looking up. “I am sure I could weed–I could in gardens–if they did not like to have me in their houses. But perhaps some one, for my mother’s sake–oh! my dear, dear mother!–do you know where and what I am?” she cried out, sobbing afresh.
Mr. Benson’s heart was very sore, though he spoke authoritatively, and almost sternly–
“Ruth! you must be still and quiet. I cannot have this. I want you to listen to me. Your thought of Helmsby would be a good one, if it was right for you to leave Eccleston; but I do not think it is. I am certain of this, that it would be a great sin in you to separate yourself from Leonard. You have no right to sever the tie by which God has bound you together.”
“But if I am here they will all know and remember the shame of his birth; and if I go away they may forget—-“
“And they may not. And if you go away, he may be unhappy or ill; and you, who above all others have–and have from God–remember that, Ruth!–the power to comfort him, the tender patience to nurse him, have left him to the care of strangers. Yes; I know! But we ourselves are as strangers, dearly as we love him, compared to a mother. He may turn to sin, and want the long forbearance, the serene authority of a parent and where are you? No dread of shame, either for yourself, or even for him, can ever make it right for you to shake off your responsibility.” All this time he was watching her narrowly, and saw her slowly yield herself up to the force of what he was saying.
“Besides, Ruth,” he continued, “we have gone on falsely, hitherto. It has been my doing, my mistake, my sin. I ought to have known better. Now, let us stand firm on the truth. You have no new fault to repent of. Be brave and faithful. It is to God you answer, not to men. The shame of having your sin known to the world, should be as nothing to the shame you felt at having sinned. We have dreaded men too much, and God too little, in the course we have taken. But now be of good cheer. Perhaps you will have to find your work in the world very low–not quite working in the fields,” said he, with a gentle smile, to which she, downcast and miserable, could give no response. “Nay, perhaps, Ruth,” he went on, “you may have to stand and wait for some time; no one may be willing to use the services you would gladly render; all may turn aside from you, and may speak very harshly of you. Can you accept all this treatment meekly, as but the reasonable and just penance God has laid upon you–feeling no anger against those who slight you, no impatience for the time to come (and come it surely will–I speak as having the word of God for what I say), when He, having purified you, even as by fire, will make a straight path for your feet? My child, it is Christ the Lord who has told us of this infinite mercy of God. Have you faith enough in it to be brave, and bear on, and do rightly in patience and in tribulation?”
Ruth had been hushed and very still until now, when the pleading earnestness of his question urged her to answer.
“Yes!” said she. “I hope–I believe I can be faithful for myself, for I have sinned and done wrong. But Leonard—-” She looked up at him.
“But Leonard,” he echoed. “Ah! there it is hard, Ruth. I own the world is hard and persecuting to such as he.” He paused to think of the true comfort for this sting. He went on. “The world is not everything, Ruth; nor is the want of men’s good opinion and esteem the highest need which man has. Teach Leonard this. You would not wish his life to be one summer’s day. You dared not make it so, if you had the power. Teach him to bid a noble, Christian welcome to the trials which God sends–and this is one of them. Teach him not to look on a life of struggle, and perhaps of disappointment and incompleteness, as a sad and mournful end, but as the means permitted to the heroes and warriors in the army of Christ, by which to show their faithful following. Tell him of the hard and thorny path which was trodden once by the bleeding feet of One–Ruth! think of the Saviour’s life and cruel death, and of His divine faithfulness. Oh, Ruth!” exclaimed he, “when I look and see what you may be–what you must be to that boy, I cannot think how you could be coward enough, for a moment, to shrink from your work! But we have all been cowards hitherto,” he added, in bitter self-accusation.
“God help us to be so no longer!”
Ruth sat very quiet. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, and she seemed lost in thought. At length she rose up.
“Mr. Benson!” said she, standing before him, and propping herself by the table, as she was trembling sadly from weakness, “I mean to try very, very hard, to do my duty to Leonard–and to God,” she added reverently. “I am only afraid my faith may sometimes fail about Leonard—-“
“Ask, and it shall be given unto you. That is no vain or untried promise, Ruth!”
She sat down again, unable longer to stand. There was another long silence.
“I must never go to Mr. Bradshaw’s again,” she said at last, as if thinking aloud.
“No, Ruth, you shall not,” he answered.
“But I shall earn no money!” added she quickly, for she thought that he did not perceive the difficulty that was troubling her.
“You surely know, Ruth, that, while Faith and I have a roof to shelter us, or bread to eat, you and Leonard share it with us.”
“I know–I know your most tender goodness,” said she, “but it ought not to be.”
“It must be at present,” he said, in a decided manner. “Perhaps, before long you may have some employment; perhaps it may be some time before an opportunity occurs.”
“Hush,” said Ruth; “Leonard is moving about in the parlour. I must go to him.” But when she stood up, she turned so dizzy, and tottered so much, that she was glad to sit down again immediately.
“You must rest here. I will go to him,” said Mr. Benson. He left her; and when he was gone, she leaned her head on the back of the chair, and cried quietly and incessantly; but there was a more patient, hopeful, resolved feeling in the heart, which all along, through all the tears she shed, bore her onwards to higher thoughts, until at last she rose to prayers.
Mr. Benson caught the new look of shrinking shame in Leonard’s eye, as it first sought, then shunned, meeting his. He was pained, too, by the sight of the little sorrowful, anxious face, on which, until now, hope and joy had been predominant. The constrained voice, the few words the boy spoke, when formerly there would have been a glad and free utterance–all this grieved Mr. Benson inexpressibly, as but the beginning of an unwonted mortification, which must last for years. He himself made no allusion to any unusual occurrence; he spoke of Ruth as sitting, overcome by headache, in the study for quietness: he hurried on the preparations for tea, while Leonard sat by in the great arm-chair, and looked on with sad, dreamy eyes. He strove to lessen the shock which he knew Leonard had received, by every mixture of tenderness and cheerfulness that Mr. Benson’s gentle heart prompted; and now and then a languid smile stole over the boy’s face. When his bedtime came, Mr. Benson told him of the hour, although he feared that Leonard would have but another sorrowful crying of himself to sleep; but he was anxious to accustom the boy to cheerful movement within the limits of domestic law, and by no disobedience to it to weaken the power of glad submission to the Supreme; to begin the new life that lay before him, where strength to look up to God as the Law-giver and Ruler of events would be pre-eminently required. When Leonard had gone upstairs, Mr. Benson went immediately to Ruth, and said–
“Ruth! Leonard is just gone up to bed,” secure in the instinct which made her silently rise, and go up to the boy–certain, too, that they would each be the other’s best comforter, and that God would strengthen each through the other. Now, for the first time, he had leisure to think of himself; and to go over all the events of the day. The half-hour of solitude in his study, that he had before his sister’s return, was of inestimable value; he had leisure to put events in their true places, as to importance and eternal significance. Miss Faith came in laden with farm produce. Her kind entertainers had brought her in their shandry to the opening of the court in which the Chapel-house stood; but she was so heavily burdened with eggs, mushrooms, and plums, that, when her brother opened the door, she was almost breathless.
“Oh, Thurstan! take this basket–it is such a weight? Oh, Sally, is that you? Here are some magnum-bonums which we must preserve to-morrow. There are guinea-fowl eggs in that basket.”
Mr. Benson let her unburden her body, and her mind too, by giving charges to Sally respecting her housekeeping treasures, before he said a word; but when she returned into the study, to tell him the small pieces of intelligence respecting her day at the farm, she stood aghast.
“Why, Thurstan, dear! What’s the matter? Is your back hurting you?”
He smiled to reassure her; but it was a sickly and forced smile.
“No, Faith! I am quite well, only rather out of spirits, and wanting to talk to you to cheer me.”
Miss Faith sat down, straight, sitting bolt-upright to listen the better.
“I don’t know how, but the real story about Ruth is found out.”
“Oh, Thurstan!” exclaimed Miss Benson, turning quite white.
For a moment, neither of them said another word. Then she went on–
“Does Mr. Bradshaw know?”
“Yes! He sent for me, and told me.”
“Does Ruth know that it has all come out?”
“Yes. And Leonard knows.”
“How? Who told him?”
“I do not know. I have asked no questions. But of course it was his mother.”
“She was very foolish and cruel, then,” said Miss Benson, her eyes blazing, and her lips trembling, at the thought of the suffering her darling boy must have gone through.
“I think she was wise. I am sure it was not cruel. He must have soon known that there was some mystery, and it was better that it should be told him openly and quietly by his mother than by a stranger.”
“How could she tell him quietly?” asked Miss Benson still indignant.
“Well! perhaps I used the wrong word–of course no one was by–and I don’t suppose even they themselves could now tell how it was told, or in what spirit it was borne.”
Miss Benson was silent again.
“Was Mr. Bradshaw very angry?”
“Yes, very; and justly so. I did very wrong in making that false statement at first.”
“No! I am sure you did not,” said Miss Faith. “Ruth has had some years of peace, in which to grow stronger and wiser, so that she can bear her shame now in a way she never could have done at first.”
“All the same it was wrong in me to do what I did.”
“I did it too, as much or more than you. And I don’t think it wrong. I’m certain it was quite right, and I would do just the same again.”
“Perhaps it has not done you the harm it has done me.”
“Nonsense! Thurstan. Don’t be morbid. I’m sure you are as good–and better than ever you were.”
“No, I am not. I have got what you call morbid, just in consequence of the sophistry by which I persuaded myself that wrong could be right. I torment myself. I have lost my clear instincts of conscience. Formerly, if I believed that such or such an action was according to the will of God, I went and did it, or at least I tried to do it, without thinking of consequences. Now, I reason and weigh what will happen if I do so and so–I grope where formerly I saw. Oh, Faith! it is such a relief to me to have the truth known, that I am afraid I have not been sufficiently sympathising with Ruth.”
“Poor Ruth!” said Miss Benson. “But at any rate our telling a lie has been the saving of her. There is no fear of her going wrong now.”
“God’s omnipotence did not need our sin.”
They did not speak for some time.
“You have not told me what Mr. Bradshaw said.”
“One can’t remember the exact words that are spoken on either side in moments of such strong excitement. He was very angry, and said some things about me that were very just, and some about Ruth that were very hard. His last words were that he should give up coming to chapel.”
“Oh, Thurstan! did it come to that?”
“Yes.”
“Does Ruth know all he said?”
“No! Why should she? I don’t know if she knows he has spoken to me at all. Poor creature! she had enough to craze her almost without that! She was for going away and leaving us, that we might not share in her disgrace. I was afraid of her being quite delirious. I did so want you, Faith! However, I did the best I could; I spoke to her very coldly, and almost sternly, all the while my heart was bleeding for her. I dared not give her sympathy; I tried to give her strength. But I did so want you, Faith.”
“And I was so full of enjoyment, I am ashamed to think of it. But the Dawsons are so kind–and the day was so fine—-Where is Ruth now?”
“With Leonard. He is her great earthly motive–I thought that being with him would be best. But he must be in bed and asleep now.”
“I will go up to her,” said Miss Faith.
She found Ruth keeping watch by Leonard’s troubled sleep; but when she saw Miss Faith she rose up, and threw herself on her neck and clung to her, without speaking. After a while Miss Benson said–
“You must go to bed, Ruth!” So, after she had kissed the sleeping boy, Miss Benson led her away, and helped to undress her, and brought her up a cup of soothing violet-tea–not so soothing as tender actions and soft, loving tones.
CHAPTER XXVIII
AN UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN LOVERS
It was well they had so early and so truly strengthened the spirit to bear, for the events which had to be endured soon came thick and threefold.
Every evening Mr. and Miss Benson thought the worst must be over; and every day brought some fresh occurrence to touch upon the raw place. They could not be certain, until they had seen all their acquaintances, what difference it would make in the cordiality of their reception: in some cases it made much; and Miss Benson was proportionably indignant. She felt this change in behaviour more than her brother. His great pain arose from the coolness of the Bradshaws. With all the faults which had at times grated on his sensitive nature (but which he now forgot, and remembered only their kindness), they were his old familiar friends–his kind, if ostentatious, patrons–his great personal interest, out of his own family; and he could not get over the suffering he experienced from seeing their large square pew empty on Sundays–from perceiving how Mr. Bradshaw, though he bowed in a distant manner when he and Mr. Benson met face to face, shunned him as often as he possibly could. All that happened in the household, which once was as patent to him as his own, was now a sealed book; he heard of its doings by chance, if he heard at all. Just at the time when he was feeling the most depressed from this cause, he met Jemima at a sudden turn of the street. He was uncertain for a moment how to accost her, but she saved him all doubt; in an instant she had his hand in both of hers, her face flushed with honest delight.
“Oh, Mr. Benson, I am so glad to see you! I have so wanted to know all about you. How is poor Ruth? dear Ruth! I wonder if she has forgiven me my cruelty to her? And I may not go to her now, when I should be so glad and thankful to make up for it.”
“I never heard you had been cruel to her. I am sure she does not think so.”
“She ought; she must. What is she doing? Oh! I have so much to ask, I can never hear enough; and papa says”–she hesitated a moment, afraid of giving pain, and then, believing that they would understand the state of affairs, and the reason for her behaviour better if she told the truth, she went on–“Papa says I must not go to your house–I suppose it’s right to obey him?”
“Certainly, my dear. It is your clear duty. We know how you feel towards us.”
“Oh! but if I could do any good–if I could be of any use or comfort to any of you–especially to Ruth, I should come, duty or not. I believe it would be my duty,” said she, hurrying on to try and stop any decided prohibition from Mr. Benson. “No! don’t be afraid; I won’t come till I know I can do some good. I hear bits about you through Sally every now and then, or I could not have waited so long. Mr. Benson,” continued she, reddening very much, “I think you did quite right about poor Ruth.”
“Not in the falsehood, my dear.”
“No! not perhaps in that. I was not thinking of that. But I have been thinking a great deal about poor Ruth’s—-you know I could not help it when everybody was talking about it–and it made me think of myself, and what I am. With a father and mother, and home and careful friends, I am not likely to be tempted like Ruth; but oh! Mr. Benson,” said she, lifting her eyes, which were full of tears, to his face, for the first time since she began to speak, “if you knew all I have been thinking and feeling this last year, you would see how I have yielded to every temptation that was able to come to me; and, seeing how I have no goodness or strength in me, and how I might just have been like Ruth, or rather worse than she ever was, because I am more headstrong and passionate by nature, I do so thank you and love you for what you did for her! And will you tell me really and truly now if I can ever do anything for Ruth? If you’ll promise me that, I won’t rebel unnecessarily against papa; but if you don’t, I will, and come and see you all this very afternoon. Remember! I trust you!” said she, breaking away. Then turning back, she came to ask after Leonard.
“He must know something of it,” said she. “Does he feel it much?”
“Very much,” said Mr. Benson. Jemima shook her head sadly.
“It is hard upon him,” said she.
“It is,” Mr. Benson replied.
For in truth, Leonard was their greatest anxiety indoors. His health seemed shaken, he spoke half sentences in his sleep, which showed that in his dreams he was battling on his mother’s behalf against an unkind and angry world. And then he would wail to himself, and utter sad words of shame, which they never thought had reached his ears. By day, he was in general grave and quiet; but his appetite varied, and he was evidently afraid of going into the streets, dreading to be pointed at as an object of remark. Each separately in their hearts longed to give him change of scene; but they were all silent, for where was the requisite money to come from?
His temper became fitful and variable. At times he would be most sullen against his mother; and then give way to a passionate remorse. When Mr. Benson caught Ruth’s look of agony at her child’s rebuffs, his patience failed; or rather, I should say, he believed that a stronger, severer hand than hers was required for the management of the lad. But, when she heard Mr. Benson say so, she pleaded with him.
“Have patience with Leonard,” she said. “I have deserved the anger that is fretting in his heart. It is only I who can reinstate myself in his love and respect. I have no fear. When he sees me really striving hard and long to do what is right, he must love me. I am not afraid.”
Even while she spoke, her lips quivered, and her colour went and came with eager anxiety. So Mr. Benson held his peace, and let her take her course. It was beautiful to see the intuition by which she divined what was passing in every fold of her child’s heart, so as to be always ready with the right words to soothe or to strengthen him. Her watchfulness was unwearied, and with no thought of self-tainting in it, or else she might have often paused to turn aside and weep at the clouds of shame which came over Leonard’s love for her, and hid it from all but her faithful heart; she believed and knew that he was yet her own affectionate boy, although he might be gloomily silent, or apparently hard and cold. And in all this, Mr. Benson could not choose but admire the way in which she was insensibly teaching Leonard to conform to the law of right, to recognise duty in the mode in which every action was performed. When Mr. Benson saw this, he knew that all goodness would follow, and that the claims which his mother’s infinite love had on the boy’s heart would be acknowledged at last, and all the more fully because she herself never urged them, but silently admitted the force of the reason that caused them to be for a time forgotten. By and-by Leonard’s remorse at his ungracious and sullen ways to his mother–ways that alternated with passionate, fitful bursts of clinging love–assumed more the character of repentance, he tried to do so no more. But still his health was delicate; he was averse to going out-of-doors; he was much graver and sadder than became his age. It was what must be an inevitable consequence of what had been; and Ruth had to be patient, and pray in secret, and with many tears, for the strength she needed.
She knew what it was to dread the going out into the streets after her story had become known. For days and days she had silently shrunk from this effort. But, one evening towards dusk, Miss Benson was busy, and asked her to go an errand for her; and Ruth, got up and silently obeyed her. That silence as to inward suffering was only one part of her peculiar and exquisite