Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell [read this if TXT] 📗

once set out on such a career) by a recollection that Jemima must not feel too secure, as she might become if he dwelt too much on the advantages of her being her father’s daughter. Accordingly, he said, “But you must be aware, Jemima, that you do very little credit to the education I have given you, when you make such an impression as you must have done to-day, before Mr. Farquhar could have said what he did of you!”

“What did he say?” asked Jemima, still in the low, husky tone of suppressed anger.

“Your mother says he remarked to her, ‘What a pity it is that Jemima cannot maintain her opinions without going into a passion; and what a pity it is that her opinions are such as to sanction, rather than curb, these fits of rudeness and anger!’”

“Did he say that?” said Jemima, in a still lower tone, not questioning her father, but speaking rather to herself.

“I have no doubt he did,” replied her father gravely. “Your mother is in the habit of repeating accurately to me what takes place in my absence; besides which, the whole speech is not one of hers; she has not altered a word in the repetition, I am convinced. I have trained her to habits of accuracy very unusual in a woman.”

At another time, Jemima might have been inclined to rebel against this system of carrying constant intelligence to headquarters, which she had long ago felt as an insurmountable obstacle to any free communication with her mother; but now, her father’s means of acquiring knowledge faded into insignificance before the nature of the information he imparted. She stood quite still, grasping the chair-back, longing to be dismissed.

“I have said enough now, I hope, to make you behave in a becoming manner to Mr. Farquhar; if your temper is too unruly to be always under your own control, at least have respect to my injunctions, and take some pains to curb it before him.”

“May I go?” asked Jemima, chafing more and more.

“You may,” said her father. When she left the room be gently rubbed his hands together, satisfied with the effect he had produced, and wondering how it was that one so well brought up as his daughter could ever say or do anything to provoke such a remark from Mr. Farquhar as that which he had heard repeated.

“Nothing can be more gentle and docile than she is when spoken to in the proper manner. I must give Farquhar a hint,” said Mr. Bradshaw to himself. Jemima rushed upstairs and locked herself into her room. She began pacing up and down at first, without shedding a tear; but then she suddenly stopped, and burst out crying with passionate indignation.

“So! I am to behave well, not because it is right—not because it is right—but to show off before Mr. Farquhar. Oh, Mr. Farquhar!” said she, suddenly changing to a sort of upbraiding tone of voice, “I did not think so of you an hour ago. I did not think you could choose a wife in that cold-hearted way, though you did profess to act by rule and line; but you think to have me, do you? because it is fitting and suitable, and you want to be married, and can’t spare time for wooing” (she was lashing herself up by an exaggeration of all her father had said). “And bow often I have thought you were too grand for me! but now I know better. Now I can believe that all you do is done from calculation; you are good because it adds to your business credit—you talk in that high strain about principle because it sounds well, and is respectable—and even these things are better than your cold way of looking out for a wife, just as you would do for a carpet, to add to your comforts, and settle you respectably. But I won’t be that wife. You shall see something of me which shall make you not acquiesce so quietly in the arrangements of the firm.” She cried too vehemently to go on thinking or speaking. Then she stopped, and said—

“Only an hour ago I was hoping—I don’t know what I was hoping—but I thought—oh! how I was deceived!—I thought he had a true, deep, loving manly heart, which God might let me win; but now I know he has only a calm, calculating head–-”

If Jemima had been vehement and passionate before this conversation with her father, it was better than the sullen reserve she assumed now whenever Mr. Farquhar came to the house. He felt it deeply; no reasoning with himself took off the pain he experienced. He tried to speak on the subjects she liked, in the manner she liked, until he despised himself for the unsuccessful efforts. He stood between her and her father once or twice, in obvious inconsistency with his own previously expressed opinions; and Mr. Bradshaw piqued himself upon his admirable management, in making Jemima feel that she owed his indulgence or forbearance to Mr. Farquhar’s interference; but Jemima—perverse, miserable Jemima—thought that she hated Mr. Farquhar all the more. She respected her father inflexible, much more than her father pompously giving up to Mr. Farquhar’s subdued remonstrances on her behalf. Even Mr. Bradshaw was perplexed, and shut himself up to consider how Jemima was to be made more fully to understand his wishes and her own interests. But there was nothing to take hold of as a ground for any further conversation with her. Her actions were so submissive that they were spiritless; she did all her father desired; she did it with a nervous quickness and haste, if she thought that otherwise Mr. Farquhar would interfere in any way. She wished evidently to owe nothing to him. She had begun by leaving the room when he came in, after the conversation she had had with her father; but at Mr. Bradshaw’s first expression of his wish that she should remain, she remained—silent, indifferent, inattentive to all that was going on; at least there was this appearance of inattention. She would work away at her sewing as if she were to earn her livelihood by it; the light was gone out of her eyes as she lifted them up heavily before replying to any question, and the eyelids were often swollen with crying.

But in all this there was no positive fault. Mr. Bradshaw could not have told her not to do this, or to do that, without her doing it; for she had become much more docile of late.

It was a wonderful proof of the influence Ruth had gained in the family, that Mr. Bradshaw, after much deliberation, congratulated himself on the wise determination he had made of requesting her to speak to Jemima, and find out what feeling was at the bottom of all this change in her ways of going on. He rang the bell.

“Is Mrs. Denbigh here?” he inquired of the servant who answered it.

“Yes, sir; she has just come.”

“Beg her to come to me in this room as soon as she can leave the young ladies.” Ruth came.

“Sit down, Mrs. Denbigh; sit down. I want to have a little conversation with you; not about your pupils; they are going on well under your care, I am sure; and I often congratulate myself on the choice I made—I assure you I do. But now I want to speak to you about Jemima. She is very fond of you, and perhaps you could take an opportunity of observing to her—in short, of saying to her, that she is behaving very foolishly—in fact, disgusting Mr. Farquhar (who was, I know, inclined to like her) by the sullen, sulky way she behaves in, when he is by.”

He paused for the ready acquiescence he expected. But Ruth did not quite comprehend what was required of her, and disliked the glimpse she had gained of the task very much.

“I hardly understand, sir. You are displeased with Miss Bradshaw’s manners to Mr. Farquhar.”

“Well, well! not quite that; I am displeased with her manners—they are sulky and abrupt, particularly when he is by—and I want you (of whom she is so fond) to speak to her about it.”

“But I have never had the opportunity of noticing them. Whenever I have seen her, she has been most gentle and affectionate.”

“But I think you do not hesitate to believe me when I say that I have noticed the reverse,” said Mr. Bradshaw, drawing himself up.

“No, sir. I beg your pardon if I have expressed myself so badly as to seem to doubt. But am I to tell Miss Bradshaw that you have spoken of her faults to me?” asked Ruth, a little astonished, and shrinking more than ever from the proposed task.

“If you would allow me to finish what I have got to say, without interruption, I could then tell you what I do wish.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Ruth gently.

“I wish you to join our circle occasionally in an evening; Mrs. Bradshaw shall send you an invitation when Mr. Farquhar is likely to be here. Warned by me, and, consequently, with your observation quickened, you can hardly fail to notice instances of what I have pointed out; and then I will trust to your own good sense” (Mr. Bradshaw bowed to her at this part of his sentence) “to find an opportunity to remonstrate with her.”

Ruth was beginning to speak, but he waved his hand for another minute of silence.

“Only a minute, Mrs. Denbigh. I am quite aware that, in requesting your presence occasionally in the evening, I shall be trespassing upon the time which is, in fact, your money; you may be assured that I shall not forget this little circumstance, and you can explain what I have said on this head to Benson and his sister.”

“I am afraid I cannot do it,” Ruth began; but, while she was choosing words delicate enough to express her reluctance to act as he wished, he had almost bowed her out of the room; and thinking that she was modest in her estimate of her qualifications for remonstrating with his daughter, he added, blandly—

“No one so able, Mrs. Denbigh. I have observed many qualities in you—observed when, perhaps, you have little thought it.”

If he had observed Ruth that morning he would have seen an absence of mind and depression of spirits not much to her credit as a teacher; for she could not bring herself to feel that she had any right to go into the family purposely to watch over and find fault with any one member of it. If she had seen anything wrong in Jemima, Ruth loved her so much that she would have told her of it in private; and with many doubts, how far she was the one to pull out the mote from any one’s eye, even in the most tender manner;—she would have had to conquer reluctance before she could have done even this; but there was something indefinably repugnant to her in the manner of acting which Mr. Bradshaw had proposed, and she determined not to accept the invitations which were to place her in so false a position.

But as she was leaving the house, after the end of the lessons, while she stood in the hall tying on her bonnet, and listening to the last small confidences of her two pupils, she saw Jemima coming in through the garden-door, and was struck by the change in her looks. The large eyes, so brilliant once, were dim and clouded; the complexion sallow and colourless; a lowering expression was on the dark brow, and the corners of her mouth drooped as with sorrowful thoughts. She looked up, and her eyes met Ruth’s.

“Oh! you beautiful creature!” thought Jemima, “with your still, calm,