Ruth (57 page)

When Mr Farquhar at last returned to bring the news of Dick's perfect
convalescence, he resolved to tell Mr Bradshaw all that he had done
and arranged for his son's future career; but, as Mr Farquhar told
Mr Benson afterwards, he could not really say if Mr Bradshaw had
attended to one word that he said.

"Rely upon it," said Mr Benson, "he has not only attended to it, but
treasured up every expression you have used."

"Well, I tried to get some opinion, or sign of emotion, out of him. I
had not much hope of the latter, I must own; but I thought he would
have said whether I had done wisely or not in procuring that Glasgow
situation for Dick—that he would, perhaps, have been indignant
at my ousting him from the partnership so entirely on my own
responsibility."

"How did Richard take it?"

"Oh, nothing could exceed his penitence. If one had never heard of
the proverb, 'When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be,' I
should have had greater faith in him; or if he had had more strength
of character to begin with, or more reality and less outward
appearance of good principle instilled into him. However, this
Glasgow situation is the very thing; clear, defined duties, no great
trust reposed in him, a kind and watchful head, and introductions to
a better class of associates than I fancy he has ever been thrown
amongst before. For, you know, Mr Bradshaw dreaded all intimacies
for his son, and wanted him to eschew all society beyond his own
family—would never allow him to ask a friend home. Really, when I
think of the unnatural life Mr Bradshaw expected him to lead, I get
into charity with him, and have hopes. By the way, have you ever
succeeded in persuading his mother to send Leonard to school? He
may run the same risk from isolation as Dick: not be able to choose
his companions wisely when he grows up, but be too much overcome
by the excitement of society to be very discreet as to who are his
associates. Have you spoken to her about my plan?"

"Yes! but to no purpose. I cannot say that she would even admit an
argument on the subject. She seemed to have an invincible repugnance
to the idea of exposing him to the remarks of other boys on his
peculiar position."

"They need never know of it. Besides, sooner or later, he must step
out of his narrow circle, and encounter remark and scorn."

"True," said Mr Benson, mournfully. "And you may depend upon it,
if it really is the best for Leonard, she will come round to it
by-and-by. It is almost extraordinary to see the way in which her
earnest and most unselfish devotion to this boy's real welfare leads
her to right and wise conclusions."

"I wish I could tame her so as to let me meet her as a friend. Since
the baby was born, she comes to see Jemima. My wife tells me, that
she sits and holds it soft in her arms, and talks to it as if her
whole soul went out to the little infant. But if she hears a strange
footstep on the stair, what Jemima calls the 'wild-animal look'
comes back into her eyes, and she steals away like some frightened
creature. With all that she has done to redeem her character, she
should not be so timid of observation."

"You may well say 'with all that she has done!' We of her own
household hear little or nothing of what she does. If she wants help,
she simply tells us how and why; but if not—perhaps because it is
some relief to her to forget for a time the scenes of suffering in
which she has been acting the part of comforter, and perhaps because
there always was a shy, sweet reticence about her—we never should
know what she is and what she does, except from the poor people
themselves, who would bless her in words if the very thought of her
did not choke them with tears. Yet, I do assure you, she passes out
of all this gloom, and makes sunlight in our house. We are never so
cheerful as when she is at home. She always had the art of diffusing
peace, but now it is positive cheerfulness. And about Leonard; I
doubt if the wisest and most thoughtful schoolmaster could teach half
as much directly, as his mother does unconsciously and indirectly
every hour that he is with her. Her noble, humble, pious endurance of
the consequences of what was wrong in her early life, seems expressly
fitted to act upon him, whose position is (unjustly, for he has done
no harm) so similar to hers."

"Well! I suppose we must leave it alone for the present. You will
think me a hard practical man when I own to you, that all I expect
from Leonard's remaining a home-bird is that, with such a mother, it
will do him no harm. At any rate, remember my offer is the same for a
year—two years hence, as now. What does she look forward to making
him into, finally?"

"I don't know. The wonder comes into my mind sometimes; but never
into hers, I think. It is part of her character—part perhaps of that
which made her what she was—that she never looks forward, and seldom
back. The present is enough for her."

And so the conversation ended. When Mr Benson repeated the substance
of it to his sister, she mused awhile, breaking out into an
occasional whistle (although she had cured herself of this habit in a
great measure), and at last she said:

"Now, do you know, I never liked poor Dick; and yet I'm angry with
Mr Farquhar for getting him out of the partnership in such a summary
way. I can't get over it, even though he has offered to send Leonard
to school. And here he's reigning lord-paramount at the office! As if
you, Thurstan, weren't as well able to teach him as any schoolmaster
in England! But I should not mind that affront, if I were not sorry
to think of Dick (though I never could abide him) labouring away
in Glasgow for a petty salary of nobody knows how little, while Mr
Farquhar is taking halves, instead of thirds, of the profits here!"

But her brother could not tell her—and even Jemima did not know,
till long afterwards—that the portion of income which would have
been Dick's as a junior partner, if he had remained in the business,
was carefully laid aside for him by Mr Farquhar; to be delivered up,
with all its accumulated interest, when the prodigal should have
proved his penitence by his conduct.

When Ruth had no call upon her time, it was indeed a holiday at
Chapel-house. She threw off as much as she could of the care and
the sadness in which she had been sharing; and returned fresh and
helpful, ready to go about in her soft, quiet way, and fill up every
measure of service, and heap it with the fragrance of her own sweet
nature. The delicate mending, that the elder women could no longer
see to do, was put by for Ruth's swift and nimble fingers. The
occasional copying, or patient writing to dictation, that gave rest
to Mr Benson's weary spine, was done by her with sunny alacrity. But,
most of all, Leonard's heart rejoiced when his mother came home.
Then came the quiet confidences, the tender exchange of love, the
happy walks from which he returned stronger and stronger—going from
strength to strength as his mother led the way. It was well, as they
saw now, that the great shock of the disclosure had taken place when
it did. She, for her part, wondered at her own cowardliness in having
even striven to keep back the truth from her child—the truth that
was so certain to be made clear, sooner or later, and which it was
only owing to God's mercy that she was alive to encounter with him,
and, by so encountering, shield and give him good courage. Moreover,
in her secret heart, she was thankful that all occurred while he
was yet too young to have much curiosity as to his father. If an
unsatisfied feeling of this kind occasionally stole into his mind,
at any rate she never heard any expression of it; for the past was
a sealed book between them. And so, in the bright strength of good
endeavour, the days went on, and grew again to months and years.

Perhaps one little circumstance which occurred during this time had
scarcely external importance enough to be called an event; but in
Mr Benson's mind it took rank as such. One day, about a year after
Richard Bradshaw had ceased to be a partner in his father's house, Mr
Benson encountered Mr Farquhar in the street, and heard from him of
the creditable and respectable manner in which Richard was conducting
himself in Glasgow, where Mr Farquhar had lately been on business.

"I am determined to tell his father of this," said he; "I think his
family are far too obedient to his tacit prohibition of all mention
of Richard's name."

"Tacit prohibition?" inquired Mr Benson.

"Oh! I dare say I use the words in a wrong sense for the correctness
of a scholar; but what I mean is, that he made a point of immediately
leaving the room if Richard's name was mentioned; and did it in so
marked a manner, that by degrees they understood that it was their
father's desire that he should never be alluded to; which was all
very well as long as there was nothing pleasant to be said about him;
but to-night I am going there, and shall take good care he does not
escape me before I have told him all I have heard and observed about
Richard. He will never be a hero of virtue, for his education has
drained him of all moral courage; but with care, and the absence of
all strong temptation for a time, he will do very well; nothing to
gratify paternal pride, but certainly nothing to be ashamed of."

It was on the Sunday after this that the little circumstance to which
I have alluded took place.

During the afternoon service, Mr Benson became aware that the large
Bradshaw pew was no longer unoccupied. In a dark corner Mr Bradshaw's
white head was to be seen, bowed down low in prayer. When last he had
worshipped there, the hair on that head was iron-grey, and even in
prayer he had stood erect, with an air of conscious righteousness
sufficient for all his wants, and even some to spare with which to
judge others. Now, that white and hoary head was never uplifted;
part of his unobtrusiveness might, it is true, be attributed to the
uncomfortable feeling which was sure to attend any open withdrawal of
the declaration he had once made, never to enter the chapel in which
Mr Benson was minister again; and as such a feeling was natural to
all men, and especially to such a one as Mr Bradshaw, Mr Benson
instinctively respected it, and passed out of the chapel with his
household, without ever directing his regards to the obscure place
where Mr Bradshaw still remained immovable.

From this day Mr Benson felt sure that the old friendly feeling
existed once more between them, although some time might elapse
before any circumstance gave the signal for a renewal of their
intercourse.

Old people tell of certain years when typhus fever swept over the
country like a pestilence; years that bring back the remembrance of
deep sorrow—refusing to be comforted—to many a household; and which
those whose beloved passed through the fiery time unscathed, shrink
from recalling: for great and tremulous was the anxiety—miserable
the constant watching for evil symptoms; and beyond the threshold
of home a dense cloud of depression hung over society at large.
It seemed as if the alarm was proportionate to the previous
light-heartedness of fancied security—and indeed it was so; for,
since the days of King Belshazzar, the solemn decrees of Doom have
ever seemed most terrible when they awe into silence the merry
revellers of life. So it was this year to which I come in the
progress of my story.

The summer had been unusually gorgeous. Some had complained of the
steaming heat, but others had pointed to the lush vegetation, which
was profuse and luxuriant. The early autumn was wet and cold, but
people did not regard it, in contemplation of some proud rejoicing
of the nation, which filled every newspaper and gave food to every
tongue. In Eccleston these rejoicings were greater than in most
places; for, by the national triumph of arms, it was supposed that a
new market for the staple manufacture of the place would be opened;
and so the trade, which had for a year or two been languishing, would
now revive with redoubled vigour. Besides these legitimate causes
of good spirits, there was the rank excitement of a coming election,
in consequence of Mr Donne having accepted a Government office,
procured for him by one of his influential relations. This time,
the Cranworths roused themselves from their magnificent torpor of
security in good season, and were going through a series of pompous
and ponderous hospitalities, in order to bring back the Eccleston
voters to their allegiance.

While the town was full of these subjects by turns—now thinking and
speaking of the great revival of trade—now of the chances of the
election, as yet some weeks distant—now of the balls at Cranworth
Court, in which Mr Cranworth had danced with all the belles of the
shopocracy of Eccleston—there came creeping, creeping, in hidden,
slimy courses, the terrible fever—that fever which is never utterly
banished from the sad haunts of vice and misery, but lives in such
darkness, like a wild beast in the recesses of his den. It had begun
in the low Irish lodging-houses; but there it was so common it
excited little attention. The poor creatures died almost without the
attendance of the unwarned medical men, who received their first
notice of the spreading plague from the Roman Catholic priests.

Before the medical men of Eccleston had had time to meet together
and consult, and compare the knowledge of the fever which they had
severally gained, it had, like the blaze of a fire which had long
smouldered, burst forth in many places at once—not merely among the
loose-living and vicious, but among the decently poor—nay, even
among the well-to-do and respectable. And to add to the horror, like
all similar pestilences, its course was most rapid at first, and was
fatal in the great majority of cases—hopeless from the beginning.
There was a cry, and then a deep silence, and then rose the long wail
of the survivors.