Ruth

"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 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 d.i.c.k 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 pa.s.s 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 d.i.c.k"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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d," 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. Oh 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 sight in 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 pa.s.sing 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 antic.i.p.ated 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, antic.i.p.ating 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 pa.s.sing over the t.i.tles 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 accompany 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 word. A cloud pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion. 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 s.p.a.ce), 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sionate 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 h.e.l.l! 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 circ.u.mstance to push you in. And I trusted her--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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d--(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 a.s.sociate 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 G.o.d against such a doom for my child. I appeal to G.o.d to help me. I am a mother, and as such I cry to G.o.d 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 pa.s.sionate 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d, darken this door again, I will have you both turned out by the police!"

He need not have added this, if he had seen Ruth"s face.

CHAPTER XXVII

Preparing to Stand on the Truth