Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell [read this if TXT] 📗

“Why, my dear?”

“I have a strong feeling against taking it. While he,” said she, deeply blushing, and letting her large white lids drop down and veil her eyes, “loved me, he gave me many things—my watch—oh, many things; and I took them from him gladly and thankfully, because he loved me—for I would have given him anything—and I thought of them as signs of love. But this money pains my heart. He has left off loving me, and has gone away. This money seems—oh, Miss Benson—it seems as if he could comfort me, for being forsaken, by money.” And at that word the tears, so long kept back and repressed, forced their way like rain.

She checked herself, however, in the violence of her emotion, for she thought of her child.

“So, will you take the trouble of sending it back to Mrs. Bellingham?”

“That I will, my dear. I am glad of it, that I am! They don’t deserve to have the power of giving: they don’t deserve that you should take it.” Miss Benson went and enclosed it up there and then; simply writing these words in the envelope, “From Ruth Hilton.”

“And now we wash our hands of these Bellinghams,” said she triumphantly. But Ruth looked tearful and sad; not about returning the note, but from the conviction that the reason she had given for the ground of her determination was true—he no longer loved her.

To cheer her, Miss Benson began to speak of the future. Miss Benson was one of those people who, the more she spoke of a plan in its details, and the more she realised it in her own mind, the more firmly she became a partisan of the project. Thus she grew warm and happy in the idea of taking Ruth home; but Ruth remained depressed and languid under the conviction that he no longer loved her. No home, no future, but the thought of her child, could wean her from this sorrow. Miss Benson was a little piqued; and this pique showed itself afterwards in talking to her brother of the morning’s proceedings in the sick chamber.

“I admired her at the time for sending away her fifty pounds so proudly; but I think she has a cold heart: she hardly thanked me at all for my proposal of taking her home with us.”

“Her thoughts are full of other things just now; and people have such different ways of showing feeling: some by silence, some by words. At any rate, it is unwise to expect gratitude.”

“What do you expect—not indifference or ingratitude?”

“It is better not to expect or calculate consequences. The longer I live, the more fully I see that. Let us try simply to do right actions, without thinking of the feelings they are to call out in others. We know that no holy or self-denying effort can fall to the ground vain and useless; but the sweep of eternity is large, and God alone knows when the effect is to be produced. We are trying to do right now, and to feel right; don’t let us perplex ourselves with endeavouring to map out how she should feel, or how she should show her feelings.”

“That’s all very fine, and I dare say very true,” said Miss Benson, a little chagrined. “But ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush;’ and I would rather have had one good, hearty, ‘Thank you,’ now, for all I have been planning to do for her, than the grand effects you promise me in the ‘sweep of eternity.’ Don’t be grave and sorrowful, Thurstan, or I’ll go out of the room. I can stand Sally’s scoldings, but I can’t bear your look of quiet depression whenever I am a little hasty or impatient. I had rather you would give me a good box on the ear.”

“And I would often rather you would speak, if ever so hastily, instead of whistling. So, if I box your ears when I am vexed with you, will you promise to scold me when you are put out of the way, instead of whistling?”

“Very well! that’s a bargain. You box, and I scold. But, seriously, I began to calculate our money when she so cavalierly sent off the fifty-pound note (I can’t help admiring her for it!), and I am very much afraid we shall not have enough to pay the doctor’s bill, and take her home with us.”

“She must go inside the coach, whatever we do,” said Mr. Benson decidedly.

“Who’s there? Come in! Oh! Mrs. Hughes! Sit down.”

“Indeed, sir, and I cannot stay; but the young lady has just made me find up her watch for her, and asked me to get it sold to pay the doctor, and the little things she has had since she came; and please, sir, indeed I don’t know where to sell it nearer than Caernarvon.”

“That is good of her,” said Miss Benson, her sense of justice satisfied; and, remembering the way in which Ruth had spoken of the watch, she felt what a sacrifice it must have been to resolve to part with it.

“And her goodness just helps us out of our dilemma,” said her brother; who was unaware of the feelings with which Ruth regarded her watch, or, perhaps, he might have parted with his Facciolati.

Mrs. Hughes patiently awaited their leisure for answering her practical question. Where could the watch be sold? Suddenly her face brightened.

“Mr. Jones, the doctor, is just going to be married, perhaps he would like nothing better than to give this pretty watch to his bride; indeed, and I think it’s very likely; and he’ll pay money for it as well as letting alone his bill. I’ll ask him, sir, at any rate.”

Mr. Jones was only too glad to obtain possession of so elegant a present at so cheap a rate. He even, as Mrs. Hughes had foretold, “paid money for it;” more than was required to defray the expenses of Ruth’s accommodation, as most of the articles of food she had were paid for at the time by Mr. or Miss Benson, but they strictly forbade Mrs. Hughes to tell Ruth of this.

“Would you object to my buying you a black gown?” said Miss Benson to her, the day after the sale of the watch. She hesitated a little, and then went on—

“My brother and I think it would be better to call you—as if in fact you were—a widow. It will save much awkwardness, and it will spare your child much”–-mortification, she was going to have added; but that word did not exactly do. But, at the mention of her child, Ruth started, and turned ruby-red; as she always did when allusion was made to it.

“Oh, yes! certainly. Thank you much for thinking of it. Indeed,” said she, very low, as if to herself, “I don’t know how to thank you for all you are doing; but I do love you, and will pray for you, if I may.”

“If you may, Ruth” repeated Miss Benson, in a tone of surprise.

“Yes, if I may. If you will let me pray for you.”

“Certainly, my dear. My dear Ruth, you don’t know how often I sin; I do so wrong, with my few temptations. We are both of us great sinners in the eyes of the Most Holy; let us pray for each other. Don’t speak so again, my dear; at least, not to me.”

Miss Benson was actually crying. She had always looked upon herself as so inferior to her brother in real goodness, had seen such heights above her, that she was distressed by Ruth’s humility. After a short time she resumed the subject.

“Then I may get you a black gown?—and we may call you Mrs. Hilton?”

“No; not Mrs. Hilton!” said Ruth hastily.

Miss Benson, who had hitherto kept her eyes averted from Ruth’s face from a motive of kindly delicacy, now looked at her with surprise.

“Why not?” asked she.

“It was my mother’s name,” said Ruth, in a low voice. “I had better not be called by it.”

“Then let us call you by my mother’s name,” said Miss Benson tenderly. “She would have–-But I’ll talk to you about my mother some other time. Let me call you Mrs. Denbigh. It will do very well, too. People will think you are a distant relation.”

When she told Mr. Benson of this choice of name, he was rather sorry; it was like his sister’s impulsive kindness—impulsive in everything—and he could imagine how Ruth’s humility had touched her. He was sorry, but he said nothing. And now the letter was written home, announcing the probable arrival of the brother and sister on a certain day, “with a distant relation, early left a widow,” as Miss Benson expressed it. She desired the spare room might be prepared, and made every provision she could think of for Ruth’s comfort; for Ruth still remained feeble and weak.

When the black gown, at which she had stitched away incessantly, was finished—when nothing remained, but to rest for the next day’s journey—Ruth could not sit still. She wandered from window to window, learning off each rock and tree by heart. Each had its tale, which it was agony to remember; but which it would have been worse agony to forget. The sound of running waters she heard that quiet evening was in her ears as she lay on her death-bed; so well had she learnt their tune.

And now all was over. She had driven in to Llan-dhu, sitting by her lover’s side, living in the bright present, and strangely forgetful of the past or the future; she had dreamed out her dream, and she had awakened from the vision of love. She walked slowly and sadly down the long hill, her tears fast falling, but as quickly wiped away; while she strove to make steady the low quivering voice which was often called upon to answer some remark of Miss Benson’s. They had to wait for the coach. Ruth buried her face in some flowers which Mrs. Hughes had given her on parting; and was startled when the mail drew up with a sudden pull, which almost threw the horses on their haunches. She was placed inside, and the coach had set off again, before she was fully aware that Mr. and Miss Benson were travelling on the outside; but it was a relief to feel she might now cry without exciting their notice. The shadow of a heavy thunder-cloud was on the valley, but the little upland village-church (that showed the spot in which so much of her life was passed) stood out clear in the sunshine. She grudged the tears that blinded her as she gazed. There was one passenger, who tried after a while to comfort her.

“Don’t cry, miss,” said the kind-hearted woman. “You’re parting from friends, maybe? Well, that’s bad enough; but, when you come to my age, you’ll think none of it. Why, I’ve three sons, and they’re soldiers and sailors, all of them—here, there, and everywhere. One is in America, beyond the seas; another is in China, making tea; and another is at Gibraltar, three miles from Spain; and yet, you see, I can laugh and eat and enjoy myself. I sometimes think I’ll try and fret a bit, just to make myself a better figure: but, Lord! it’s no use, it’s against my nature; so I laugh and grow fat again. I’d be quite thankful for a fit of anxiety as would make me feel easy in my clothes, which them manty-makers will make so tight I’m fairly throttled.”

Ruth durst cry no more; it was no relief, now she was watched and noticed, and plied with a sandwich or a ginger-bread each time she looked sad. She lay back with her eyes shut,