Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell [read this if TXT] 📗

MRS. BELLINGHAM “DOES THE THING HANDSOMELY”

If Mr. Bellingham did not get rapidly well, it was more owing to the morbid querulous fancy attendant on great weakness than from any unfavourable medical symptom. But he turned away with peevish loathing from the very sight of food, prepared in the slovenly manner which had almost disgusted him when he was well. It was of no use telling him that Simpson, his mother’s maid, had superintended the preparation at every point. He offended her by detecting something offensive and to be avoided in her daintiest messes, and made Mrs. Morgan mutter many a hasty speech, which, however, Mrs. Bellingham thought it better not to hear until her son should be strong enough to travel.

“I think you are better to-day,” said she, as his man wheeled his sofa to the bedroom window. “We shall get you downstairs to-morrow.”

“If you were to get away from this abominable place, I could go down to-day; but I believe I’m to be kept prisoner here for ever. I shall never get well here, I’m sure.”

He sank back on his sofa in impatient despair. The surgeon was announced, and eagerly questioned by Mrs. Bellingham as to the possibility of her son’s removal; and he, having heard the same anxiety for the same end expressed by Mrs. Morgan in the regions below, threw no great obstacles in the way. After the doctor had taken his departure, Mrs. Bellingham cleared her throat several times. Mr. Bellingham knew the prelude of old, and winced with nervous annoyance.

“Henry, there is something I must speak to you about; an unpleasant subject, certainly, but one which has been forced upon me by the very girl herself; you must be aware to what I refer without giving me the pain of explaining myself.” Mr. Bellingham turned himself sharply round to the wall, and prepared himself for a lecture by concealing his face from her notice; but she herself was in too nervous a state to be capable of observation.

“Of course,” she continued, “it was my wish to be as blind to the whole affair as possible, though you can’t imagine how Mrs. Mason has blazoned it abroad; all Fordham rings with it but of course it could not be pleasant, or, indeed, I may say correct, for me to be aware that a person of such improper character was under the same—I beg your pardon, dear Henry, what do you say?”

“Ruth is no improper character, mother; you do her injustice!”

“My dear boy, you don’t mean to uphold her as a paragon of virtue!”

“No, mother, but I led her wrong; I–-”

“We will let all discussions into the cause or duration of her present character drop, if you please,” said Mrs. Bellingham, with the sort of dignified authority which retained a certain power over her son—a power which originated in childhood, and which he only defied when he was roused into passion. He was too weak in body to oppose himself to her, and fight the ground inch by inch. “As I have implied, I do not wish to ascertain your share of blame; from what I saw of her one morning, I am convinced of her forward, intrusive manners, utterly without shame, or even common modesty.”

“What are you referring to?” asked Mr. Bellingham sharply.

“Why, when you were at the worst, and I had been watching you all night, and had just gone out in the morning for a breath of fresh air, this girl pushed herself before me, and insisted upon speaking to me. I really had to send Mrs. Morgan to her before I could return to your room. A more impudent, hardened manner, I never saw.”

“Ruth was neither impudent nor hardened; she was ignorant enough, and might offend from knowing no better.”

He was getting weary of the discussion, and wished it had never been begun. From the time he had become conscious of his mother’s presence he had felt the dilemma he was in, in regard to Ruth, and various plans had directly crossed his brain; but it had been so troublesome to weigh and consider them all properly, that they had been put aside to be settled when he grew stronger. But this difficulty in which he was placed by his connection with Ruth, associated the idea of her in his mind with annoyance and angry regret at the whole affair. He wished, in the languid way in which he wished and felt everything not immediately relating to his daily comfort, that he had never seen her. It was a most awkward, a most unfortunate affair. Notwithstanding this annoyance connected with and arising out of Ruth, he would not submit to hear her abused; and something in his manner impressed this on his mother, for she immediately changed her mode of attack.

“We may as well drop all dispute as to the young woman’s manners; but I suppose you do not mean to defend your connection with her; I suppose you are not so lost to all sense of propriety as to imagine it fit or desirable that your mother and this degraded girl should remain under the same roof, liable to meet at any hour of the day?” She waited for an answer, but no answer came.

“I ask you a simple question; is it, or is it not, desirable?”

“I suppose it is not,” he replied gloomily.

“And I suppose, from your manner, that you think the difficulty would be best solved by my taking my departure, and leaving you with your vicious companion?” Again no answer, but inward and increasing annoyance, of which Mr. Bellingham considered Ruth the cause. At length he spoke—

“Mother, you are not helping me in my difficulty. I have no desire to banish you, nor to hurt you, after all your care for me. Ruth has not been so much to blame as you imagine, that I must say; but I do not wish to see her again, if you can tell me how to arrange it otherwise, without behaving unhandsomely. Only spare me all this worry a while, I am so weak. I put myself in your hands. Dismiss her, as you wish it; but let it be done handsomely, and let me hear no more about it; I cannot bear it; let me have a quiet life, without being lectured, while I am pent up here, and unable to shake off unpleasant thoughts.”

“My dear Henry, rely upon me.”

“No more, mother; it’s a bad business, and I can hardly avoid blaming myself in the matter. I don’t want to dwell upon it.”

“Don’t be too severe in your self-reproaches while you are so feeble, dear Henry; it is right to repent, but I have no doubt in my own mind she led you wrong with her artifices. But, as you say, everything should be done handsomely. I confess I was deeply grieved when I first heard of the affair, but since I have seen the girl–-Well! I’ll say no more about her, since I see it displeases you; but I am thankful to God that you see the error of your ways. She sat silent, thinking for a little while, and then sent for her writing-case and began to write. Her son became restless, and nervously irritated.

“Mother,” he said, “this affair worries me to death. I cannot shake off the thoughts of it.”

“Leave it to me, I’ll arrange it satisfactorily.”

“Could we not leave to-night? I should not be so haunted by this annoyance in another place. I dread seeing her again, because I fear a scene; and yet I believe I ought to see her in order to explain.”

“You must not think of such a thing, Henry,” said she, alarmed at the very idea.

“Sooner than that, we will leave in half-an-hour, and try to get to Pen tre Voelas to-night. It is not yet three, and the evenings are very long. Simpson should stay and finish the packing; she could go straight to London and meet us there. Macdonald and nurse could go with us. Could you bear twenty miles, do you think?”

Anything to get rid of his uneasiness. He felt that he was not behaving as he should do to Ruth, though the really right never entered his head. But it would extricate him from his present dilemma, and save him many lectures; he knew that his mother, always liberal where money was concerned, would “do the thing handsomely”; and it would always be easy to write and give Ruth what explanation he felt inclined, in a day or two; so he consented, and soon lost some of his uneasiness in watching the bustle of the preparation for their departure. All this time Ruth was quietly spending in her room, beguiling the waiting, weary hours, with pictures of the meeting at the end. Her room looked to the back,