Ruth (46 page)

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

As Ruth went along the accustomed streets, every sight and every
sound seemed to bear 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.