Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell [read this if TXT] 📗

heiress; all I was feared on was that some chap or other might marry me for my money, but I’ve managed to keep the fellows off; so I looks mim and grateful, and I thanks Master Thurstan for his offer, and I takes the wages; and what do you think I’ve done?” asked Sally, with an exultant air.

“What have you done?” asked Ruth.

“Why,” replied Sally, slowly and emphatically, “I’ve saved thirty pound! but that’s not it. I’ve getten a lawyer to make me a will; that’s it, wench!” said she, slapping Ruth on the back.

“How did you manage it?” asked Ruth.

“Ay, that was it,” said Sally; “I thowt about it many a night before I hit on the right way. I was afeared the money might be thrown into Chancery if I didn’t make it all safe, and yet I could na’ ask Master Thurstan. At last, and at length, John Jackson, the grocer, had a nephew come to stay a week with him, as was ‘prentice to a lawyer in Liverpool; so now was my time, and here was my lawyer. Wait a minute! I could tell you my story better if I had my will in my hand; and I’ll scomfish you if ever you go for to tell.” She held up her hand, and threatened Ruth as she left the kitchen to fetch the will.

When she came back, she brought a parcel tied up, in a blue pocket-handkerchief; she sat down, squared her knees, untied the handkerchief, and displayed a small piece of parchment.

“Now, do you know what this is?” said she, holding it up. “It’s parchment, and it’s the right stuff to make wills on. People gets into Chancery if they don’t make them o’ this stuff, and I reckon Tom Jackson thowt he’d have a fresh job on it if he could get it into Chancery; for the rascal went and wrote it on a piece of paper at first, and came and read it me out aloud off a piece of paper no better than what one writes letters upon. I were up to him; and, thinks I, Come, come, my lad, I’m not a fool, though you may think so; I know a paper will won’t stand, but I’ll let you run your rig. So I sits and I listens. And would you believe me, he read it out as if it were as clear a business as your giving me that thimble—no more ado, though it were thirty pound I could understand it mysel’—that were no law for me. I wanted summat to consider about, and for th’ meaning to be wrapped up as I wrap up my best gown. So, says I, ‘Tom! it’s not on parchment. I mun have it on parchment.’ ‘This ‘ll do as well,’ says he. ‘We’ll get it witnessed, and it will stand good.’ Well! I liked the notion of having it witnessed, and for a while that soothed me; but after a bit, I felt I should like it done according to law, and not plain out as anybody might ha’ done it; I mysel’, if I could have written. So says I, ‘Tom! I mun have it on parchment.’ ‘Parchment costs money,’ says he, very grave. ‘Oh, oh, my lad! are ye there?’ thinks I. ‘That’s the reason I’m clipped of law. So says I, ‘Tom! I mun have it on parchment. I’ll pay the money and welcome. It’s thirty pound, and what I can lay to it. I’ll make it safe. It shall be on parchment, and I’ll tell thee what, lad! I’ll gie ye sixpence for every good law-word you put in it, sounding like, and not to be caught up as a person runs. Your master had need to be ashamed of you as a ‘prentice, if you can’t do a thing more tradesman-like than this!’ Well! he laughed above a bit, but I were firm, and stood to it. So he made it out on parchment. Now, woman, try and read it!” said she, giving it to Ruth.

Ruth smiled, and began to read; Sally listening with rapt attention. When Ruth came to the word “testatrix,” Sally stopped her.

“That was the first sixpence,” said she. “I thowt he was going to fob me off again wi’ plain language; but when that word came, I out wi’ my sixpence, and gave it to him on the spot. Now, go on.”

Presently Ruth read “accruing.”

“That was the second sixpence. Four sixpences it were in all, besides six-and-eightpence as we bargained at first, and three-and-fourpence parchment. There! that’s what I call a will; witnessed, according to law, and all. Master Thurstan will be prettily taken in when I die, and he finds all his extra wage left back to him. But it will teach him it’s not so easy as he thinks for, to make a woman give up her way.”

The time was now drawing near when little Leonard might be weaned—the time appointed by all three for Ruth to endeavour to support herself in some way more or less independent of Mr. and Miss Benson. This prospect dwelt much in all of their minds, and was in each shaded with some degree of perplexity; but they none of them spoke of it, for fear of accelerating the event. If they had felt clear and determined as to the best course to be pursued, they were none of them deficient in courage to commence upon that course at once. Miss Benson would, perhaps, have objected the most to any alteration in their present daily mode of life; but that was because she had the habit of speaking out her thoughts as they arose, and she particularly disliked and dreaded change. Besides this, she had felt her heart open out, and warm towards the little helpless child, in a strong and powerful manner. Nature had intended her warm instincts to find vent in a mother’s duties; her heart had yearned after children, and made her restless in her childless state, without her well knowing why; but now, the delight she experienced in tending, nursing, and contriving for the little boy,—even contriving to the point of sacrificing many of her cherished whims,—made her happy, and satisfied, and peaceful. It was more difficult to sacrifice her whims than her comforts; but all had been given up when and where required by the sweet lordly baby, who reigned paramount in his very helplessness.

From some cause or other, an exchange of ministers for one Sunday was to be effected with a neighbouring congregation, and Mr. Benson went on a short absence from home. When he returned on Monday, he was met at the house-door by his sister, who had evidently been looking out for him for some time. She stepped out to greet him.

“Don’t hurry yourself, Thurstan! all’s well; only I wanted to tell you something. Don’t fidget yourself—baby is quite well, bless him! It’s only good news. Come into your room, and let me talk a little quietly with you.” She drew him into his study, which was near the outer door, and then she took off his coat, and put his carpet-bag in a corner, and wheeled a chair to the fire, before she would begin.

“Well, now! to think how often things fall out just as we want them, Thurstan! Have not you often wondered what was to be done with Ruth when the time came at which we promised her she should earn her living? I am sure you have, because I have so often thought about it myself. And yet I never dared to speak out my fear because that seemed giving it a shape. And now Mr. Bradshaw has put all to rights. He invited Mr. Jackson to dinner yesterday, just as we were going into chapel; and then he turned to me and asked me if I would come to tea—straight from afternoon chapel, because Mrs. Bradshaw wanted to speak to me. He made it very clear I was not to bring Ruth; and, indeed, she was only too happy to stay at home with baby. And so I went; and Mrs. Bradshaw took me into her bedroom, and shut the doors, and said Mr. Bradshaw had told her, that he did not like Jemima being so much confined with the younger ones while they were at their lessons, and that he wanted some one above a nurse-maid to sit with them while their masters were there—some one who would see about their learning their lessons, and who would walk out with them; a sort of nursery governess, I think she meant, though she did not say so; and Mr. Bradshaw (for, of course, I saw his thoughts and words constantly peeping out, though he had told her to speak to me) believed that our Ruth would be the very person. Now, Thurstan, don’t look so surprised, as if she had never come into your head! I am sure I saw what Mrs. Bradshaw was driving at, long before she came to the point; and I could scarcely keep from smiling, and saying, ‘We’d jump at the proposal’—long before I ought to have known anything about it.”

“Oh, I wonder what we ought to do!” said Mr. Benson. “Or, rather, I believe I see what we ought to do, if I durst but do it.”

“Why, what ought we to do?” asked his sister, in surprise.

“I ought to go and tell Mr. Bradshaw the whole story–-”

“And get Ruth turned out of our house,” said Miss Benson indignantly.

“They can’t make us do that,” said her brother. “I do not think they would try.”

“Yes, Mr. Bradshaw would try; and he would blazon out poor Ruth’s sin, and there would not be a chance for her left. I know him well, Thurstan; and why should he be told now, more than a year ago?”

“A year ago he did not want to put her in a situation of trust about his children.”

“And you think she’ll abuse that trust, do you? You’ve lived a twelvemonth in the house with Ruth, and the end of it is, you think she will do his children harm! Besides, who encouraged Jemima to come to the house so much to see Ruth? Did you not say it would do them both good to see something of each other?” Mr. Benson sat thinking.

“If you had not known Ruth as well as you do—if, during her stay with us, you had marked anything wrong, or forward, or deceitful, or immodest, I would say at once, ‘Don’t allow Mr. Bradshaw to take her into his house’; but still I would say, ‘Don’t tell of her sin and sorrow to so severe a man—so unpitiful a judge.’ But here I ask you, Thurstan, can you or I, or Sally (quick-eyed as she is), say, that in any one thing we have had true, just occasion to find fault with Ruth? I don’t mean that she is perfect—she acts without thinking, her temper is sometimes warm and hasty; but have we any right to go and injure her prospects for life, by telling Mr. Bradshaw all we know of her errors—only sixteen when she did so wrong, and never to escape from it all her many years to come—to have the despair which would arise from its being known, clutching her back into worse sin? What harm do you think she can do? What is the risk to which you think you are exposing Mr. Bradshaw’s children?” She paused, out of breath, her eyes glittering with tears of indignation, and impatient for an answer that she might knock it to pieces.

“I do not see any danger that can arise,” said he at length, and with slow difficulty, as if not fully convinced. “I have watched Ruth, and I believe she is pure and truthful; and the