Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell [read this if TXT] 📗

was very still. Miss Benson thought the purposed expedition had taken place, and never dreamed but that Ruth and Leonard were on distant, sunny Scaurside Hill; and, after a very early dinner, she had set out to drink tea with a farmer’s wife, who lived in the country two or three miles off. Mr. Benson meant to have gone with her; but, while they were at dinner, he had received an unusually authoritative note from Mr. Bradshaw desiring to speak with him, so he went to that gentleman’s house instead. Sally was busy in her kitchen, making a great noise (not unlike a groom rubbing down a horse) over her cleaning. Leonard stole into the sitting-room, and crouched behind the large old-fashioned sofa to ease his sore, aching heart, by crying with all the prodigal waste and abandonment of childhood.

Mr. Benson was shown into Mr. Bradshaw’s own particular room. The latter gentleman was walking up and down, and it was easy to perceive that something had occurred to chafe him to great anger.

“Sit down, sir!” said he to Mr. Benson, nodding to a chair.

Mr. Benson sat down. But Mr. Bradshaw continued his walk for a few minutes longer without speaking. Then he stopped abruptly, right in front of Mr. Benson; and in a voice which he tried to render calm, but which trembled with passion—with a face glowing purple as he thought of his wrongs (and real wrongs they were), he began—

“Mr. Benson, I have sent for you to ask—I am almost too indignant at the bare suspicion to speak as becomes me—but did you–-I really shall be obliged to beg your pardon, if you are as much in the dark as I was yesterday as to the character of the woman who lives under your roof?”

There was no answer from Mr. Benson. Mr. Bradshaw looked at him very earnestly. His eyes were fixed on the ground—he made no inquiry—he uttered no expression of wonder or dismay. Mr. Bradshaw ground his foot on the floor with gathering rage; but just as he was about to speak Mr. Benson rose up—a poor deformed old man—before the stern and portly figure that was swelling and panting with passion.

“Hear me, sir!” (stretching out his hand as if to avert the words which were impending). “Nothing you can say can upbraid me like my own conscience; no degradation you can inflict, by word or deed, can come up to the degradation I have suffered for years, at being a party to a deceit, even for a good end–-”

“For a good end!—Nay! what next?”

The taunting contempt with which Mr. Bradshaw spoke these words almost surprised himself by what he imagined must be its successful power of withering; but in spite of it Mr. Benson lifted his grave eyes to Mr. Bradshaw’s countenance, and repeated—

“For a good end. The end was not, as perhaps you consider it to have been, to obtain her admission into your family—nor yet to put her in the way of gaining her livelihood; my sister and I would willingly have shared what we have with her; it was our intention to do so at first, if not for any length of time, at least as long as her health might require it. Why I advised (perhaps I only yielded to advice) a change of name—an assumption of a false state of widowhood—was because I earnestly desired to place her in circumstances in which she might work out her self-redemption; and you, sir, know how terribly the world goes against all such as have sinned as Ruth did. She was so young, too.”

“You mistake, sir; my acquaintance has not lain so much among that class of sinners as to give me much experience of the way in which they are treated. But, judging from what I have seen, I should say they meet with full as much leniency as they deserve; and supposing they do not—I know there are plenty of sickly sentimentalists just now who reserve all their interest and regard for criminals—why not pick out one of these to help you in your task of washing the blackamoor white? Why choose me to be imposed upon—my household into which to intrude your protegee? Why were my innocent children to be exposed to corruption? I say,” said Mr. Bradshaw, stamping his foot, “how dared you come into this house, where you were looked upon as a minister of religion, with a lie in your mouth? How dared you single me out, of all people, to be gulled, and deceived, and pointed at through the town as the person who had taken an abandoned woman into his house to teach his daughters?”

“I own my deceit was wrong and faithless.”

“Yes! you can own it, now it is found out! There is small merit in that, I think!”

“Sir! I claim no merit. I take shame to myself. I did not single you out. You applied to me with your proposal that Ruth should be your children’s governess.”

“Pah!”

“And the temptation was too great—no! I will not say that—but the temptation was greater than I could stand—it seemed to open out a path of usefulness.”

“Now, don’t let me hear you speak so,” said Mr. Bradshaw, blazing up. “I can’t stand it. It is too much to talk in that way when the usefulness was to consist in contaminating my innocent girls.”

“God knows that if I had believed there had been any danger of such contamination—God knows how I would have died sooner than have allowed her to enter your family. Mr. Bradshaw, you believe me, don’t you?” asked Mr. Benson earnestly.

“I really must be allowed the privilege of doubting what you say in future,” said Mr. Bradshaw, in a cold, contemptuous manner.

“I have deserved this,” Mr. Benson replied. “But,” continued he, after a moment’s pause, “I will not speak of myself, but of Ruth. Surely, sir, the end I aimed at (the means I took to obtain it were wrong; you cannot feel that more than I do) was a right one; and you will not—you cannot say that your children have suffered from associating with her. I had her in my family, under the watchful eyes of three anxious persons for a year or more; we saw faults—no human being is without them—and poor Ruth’s were but slight venial errors; but we saw no sign of a corrupt mind—no glimpse of boldness or forwardness—no token of want of conscientiousness; she seemed, and was, a young and gentle girl, who had been led astray before she fairly knew what life was.”

“I suppose most depraved women have been innocent in their time,” said Mr. Bradshaw, with bitter contempt.

“Oh, Mr. Bradshaw! Ruth was not depraved, and you know it. You cannot have seen her—have known her daily, all these years, without acknowledging that!” Mr. Benson was almost breathless, awaiting Mr. Bradshaw’s answer. The quiet self-control which he had maintained so long was gone now.

“I saw her daily—I did not know her. If I had known her, I should have known she was fallen and depraved, and consequently not fit to come into my house, nor to associate with my pure children.”

“Now I wish God would give me power to speak out convincingly what I believe to be His truth, that not every woman who has fallen is depraved; that many—how many the Great Judgment Day will reveal to those who have shaken off the poor, sore, penitent hearts on earth—many, many crave and hunger after a chance of virtue—the help which no man gives to them—help—that gentle, tender help which Jesus gave once to Mary Magdalen.” Mr. Benson was almost choked by his own feelings.

“Come, come, Mr. Benson, let us have no more of this morbid way of talking. The world has decided how such women are to be treated; and, you may depend upon it, there is so much practical wisdom in the world, that its way of acting is right in the long-run, and that no one can fly in its face with impunity, unless, indeed, they stoop to deceit and imposition.”

“I take my stand with Christ against the world,” said Mr. Benson solemnly, disregarding the covert allusion to himself. “What have the world’s ways ended in? Can we be much worse than we are?”

“Speak for yourself, if you please.”

“Is it not time to change some of our ways of thinking and acting? I declare before God, that if I believe in any one human truth, it is this—that to every woman who, like Ruth, has sinned should be given a chance of self-redemption—and that such a chance should be given in no supercilious or contemptuous manner, but in the spirit of the holy Christ.”

“Such as getting her into a friend’s house under false colours.”

“I do not argue on Ruth’s case. In that I have acknowledged my error. I do not argue on any case. I state my firm belief, that it is God’s will that we should not dare to trample any of His creatures down to the hopeless dust; that it is God’s will that the women who have fallen should be numbered among those who have broken hearts to be bound up, not cast aside as lost beyond recall. If this be God’s will, as a thing of God it will stand; and He will open a way.”

“I should have attached much more importance to all your exhortation on this point if I could have respected your conduct in other matters. As it is, when I see a man who has deluded himself into considering falsehood right, I am disinclined to take his opinion on subjects connected with morality; and I can no longer regard him as a fitting exponent of the will of God. You perhaps understand what I mean, Mr. Benson. I can no longer attend your chapel.”

If Mr. Benson had felt any hope of making Mr. Bradshaw’s obstinate mind receive the truth, that he acknowledged and repented of his connivance at the falsehood by means of which Ruth had been received into the Bradshaw family, this last sentence prevented his making the attempt. He simply bowed and took his leave—Mr. Bradshaw attending him to the door with formal ceremony.

He felt acutely the severance of the tie which Mr. Bradshaw had just announced to him. He had experienced many mortifications in his intercourse with that gentleman, but they had fallen off from his meek spirit like drops of water from a bird’s plumage; and now he only remembered the acts of substantial kindness rendered (the ostentation all forgotten)—many happy hours and pleasant evenings—the children whom he had loved dearer than he thought till now—the young people about whom he had cared, and whom he had striven to lead aright. He was but a young man when Mr. Bradshaw first came to his chapel; they had grown old together; he had never recognised Mr. Bradshaw as an old familiar friend so completely as now when they were severed.

It was with a heavy heart that he opened his own door. He went to his study immediately; he sat down to steady himself into his position.

How long he was there—silent and alone—reviewing his life—confessing his sins—he did not know; but he heard some unusual sound in the house that disturbed him—roused him to present life. A slow, languid step came along the passage to the front door—the breathing was broken by many sighs.

Ruth’s hand was on the latch when Mr. Benson came out. Her face was very white, except two red spots on each cheek—her eyes were deep-sunk and hollow, but glittered with feverish lustre. “Ruth!” exclaimed he. She moved her lips, but her throat and mouth were too dry for her to speak.

“Where are you going?” asked he; for she had all her walking things on, yet