Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell [read this if TXT] 📗

trembled so even as she stood, that it was evident she could not walk far without falling.

She hesitated—she looked up at him, still with the same dry glittering eyes. At last she whispered (for she could only speak in a whisper), “To Helmsby—I am going to Helmsby.”

“Helmsby! my poor girl—may God have mercy upon you!” for he saw she hardly knew what she was saying. “Where is Helmsby?”

“I don’t know. In Lincolnshire, I think.”

“But why are you going there?”

“Hush! he’s asleep,” said she, as Mr. Benson had unconsciously raised his voice.

“Who is asleep?” asked Mr. Benson.

“That poor little boy,” said she, beginning to quiver and cry.

“Come here!” said he authoritatively, drawing her into the study.

“Sit down in that chair. I will come back directly.”

He went in search of his sister, but she had not returned. Then he had recourse to Sally, who was as busy as ever about her cleaning.

“How long has Ruth been at home?” asked he.

“Ruth! She has never been at home sin’ morning. She and Leonard were to be off for the day somewhere or other with them Bradshaw girls.”

“Then she has had no dinner?”

“Not here, any rate. I can’t answer for what she may have done at other places.”

“And Leonard—where is he?”

“How should I know? With his mother, I suppose. Leastways, that was what was fixed on. I’ve enough to do of my own, without routing after other folks.”

She went on scouring in no very good temper. Mr. Benson stood silent for a moment.

“Sally,” he said, “I want a cup of tea. Will you make it as soon as you can; and some dry toast too? I’ll come for it in ten minutes.”

Struck by something in his voice, she looked up at him for the first time.

“What ha’ ye been doing to yourself, to look so grim and grey? Tiring yourself all to tatters, looking after some naught, I’ll be bound! Well! well! I mun make ye your tea, I reckon; but I did hope as you grew older you’d ha’ grown wiser.”

Mr. Benson made no reply, but went to look for Leonard, hoping that the child’s presence might bring back to his mother the power of self-control. He opened the parlour-door, and looked in, but saw no one. Just as he was shutting it, however, he heard a deep, broken, sobbing sigh; and, guided by the sound, he found the boy lying on the floor, fast asleep, but with his features all swollen and disfigured by passionate crying.

“Poor child! This was what she meant, then,” thought Mr. Benson. “He has begun his share of the sorrows too” he continued pitifully. “No! I will not waken him back to consciousness.” So he returned alone into the study. Ruth sat where he had placed her, her head bent back, and her eyes shut. But when he came in she started up.

“I must be going,” she said in a hurried way.

“Nay, Ruth, you must not go. You must not leave us. We cannot do without you. We love you too much.”

“Love me!” said she, looking at him wistfully. As she looked, her eyes filled slowly with tears. It was a good sign, and Mr. Benson took heart to go on.

“Yes! Ruth. You know we do. You may have other things to fill up your mind just now, but you know we love you; and nothing can alter our love for you. You ought not to have thought of leaving us. You would not, if you had been quite well.”

“Do you know what has happened?” she asked, in a low, hoarse voice.

“Yes. I know all,” he answered. “It makes no difference to us. Why should it?”

“Oh! Mr. Benson, don’t you know that my shame is discovered?” she replied, bursting into tears—“and I must leave you, and leave Leonard, that you may not share in my disgrace.”

“You must do no such thing. Leave Leonard! You have no right to leave Leonard. Where could you go to?”

“To Helmsby,” she said humbly. “It would break my heart to go, but I think I ought, for Leonard’s sake. I know I ought.” She was crying sadly by this time, but Mr. Benson knew the flow of tears would ease her brain. “It will break my heart to go, but I know I must.”

“Sit still here at present,” said he, in a decided tone of command. He went for the cup of tea. He brought it to her without Sally’s being aware for whom it was intended.

“Drink this!” He spoke as you would do to a child, if desiring it to take medicine. “Eat some toast.” She took the tea, and drank it feverishly; but when she tried to eat, the food seemed to choke her. Still she was docile, and she tried.

“I cannot,” said she at last, putting down the piece of toast. There was a return of something of her usual tone in the words. She spoke gently and softly; no longer in the shrill, hoarse voice she had used at first. Mr. Benson sat down by her.

“Now, Ruth, we must talk a little together. I want to understand what your plan was. Where is Helmsby? Why did you fix to go there?”

“It is where my mother lived,” she answered. “Before she was married she lived there; and wherever she lived, the people all loved her dearly; and I thought—I think, that for her sake, some one would give me work. I meant to tell them the truth,” said she, dropping her eyes; “but still they would, perhaps, give me some employment—I don’t care what—for her sake. I could do many things,” said she, suddenly looking up. “I am sure I could weed—I could in gardens—if they did not like to have me in their houses. But perhaps some one, for my mother’s sake—oh! my dear, dear mother!—do you know where and what I am?” she cried out, sobbing afresh.

Mr. Benson’s heart was very sore, though he spoke authoritatively, and almost sternly—

“Ruth! you must be still and quiet. I cannot have this. I want you to listen to me. Your thought of Helmsby would be a good one, if it was right for you to leave Eccleston; but I do not think it is. I am certain of this, that it would be a great sin in you to separate yourself from Leonard. You have no right to sever the tie by which God has bound you together.”

“But if I am here they will all know and remember the shame of his birth; and if I go away they may forget–-”

“And they may not. And if you go away, he may be unhappy or ill; and you, who above all others have—and have from God—remember that, Ruth!—the power to comfort him, the tender patience to nurse him, have left him to the care of strangers. Yes; I know! But we ourselves are as strangers, dearly as we love him, compared to a mother. He may turn to sin, and want the long forbearance, the serene authority of a parent and where are you? No dread of shame, either for yourself, or even for him, can ever make it right for you to shake off your responsibility.” All this time he was watching her narrowly, and saw her slowly yield herself up to the force of what he was saying.

“Besides, Ruth,” he continued, “we have gone on falsely, hitherto. It has been my doing, my mistake, my sin. I ought to have known better. Now, let us stand firm on the truth. You have no new fault to repent of. Be brave and faithful. It is to God you answer, not to men. The shame of having your sin known to the world, should be as nothing to the shame you felt at having sinned. We have dreaded men too much, and God too little, in the course we have taken. But now be of good cheer. Perhaps you will have to find your work in the world very low—not quite working in the fields,” said he, with a gentle smile, to which she, downcast and miserable, could give no response. “Nay, perhaps, Ruth,” he went on, “you may have to stand and wait for some time; no one may be willing to use the services you would gladly render; all may turn aside from you, and may speak very harshly of you. Can you accept all this treatment meekly, as but the reasonable and just penance God has laid upon you—feeling no anger against those who slight you, no impatience for the time to come (and come it surely will—I speak as having the word of God for what I say), when He, having purified you, even as by fire, will make a straight path for your feet? My child, it is Christ the Lord who has told us of this infinite mercy of God. Have you faith enough in it to be brave, and bear on, and do rightly in patience and in tribulation?”

Ruth had been hushed and very still until now, when the pleading earnestness of his question urged her to answer.

“Yes!” said she. “I hope—I believe I can be faithful for myself, for I have sinned and done wrong. But Leonard–-” She looked up at him.

“But Leonard,” he echoed. “Ah! there it is hard, Ruth. I own the world is hard and persecuting to such as he.” He paused to think of the true comfort for this sting. He went on. “The world is not everything, Ruth; nor is the want of men’s good opinion and esteem the highest need which man has. Teach Leonard this. You would not wish his life to be one summer’s day. You dared not make it so, if you had the power. Teach him to bid a noble, Christian welcome to the trials which God sends—and this is one of them. Teach him not to look on a life of struggle, and perhaps of disappointment and incompleteness, as a sad and mournful end, but as the means permitted to the heroes and warriors in the army of Christ, by which to show their faithful following. Tell him of the hard and thorny path which was trodden once by the bleeding feet of One—Ruth! think of the Saviour’s life and cruel death, and of His divine faithfulness. Oh, Ruth!” exclaimed he, “when I look and see what you may be—what you must be to that boy, I cannot think how you could be coward enough, for a moment, to shrink from your work! But we have all been cowards hitherto,” he added, in bitter self-accusation.

“God help us to be so no longer!”

Ruth sat very quiet. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, and she seemed lost in thought. At length she rose up.

“Mr. Benson!” said she, standing before him, and propping herself by the table, as she was trembling sadly from weakness, “I mean to try very, very hard, to do my duty to Leonard—and to God,” she added reverently. “I am only afraid my faith may sometimes fail about Leonard–-”

“Ask, and it shall be given unto you. That is no vain or untried promise, Ruth!”

She sat down again, unable longer to stand. There was another long silence.

“I must never go to Mr. Bradshaw’s again,” she said at last, as if thinking aloud.

“No, Ruth, you shall not,” he answered.

“But I shall earn no money!” added she quickly, for she thought that he did not perceive the difficulty that was troubling her.

“You surely know, Ruth, that, while Faith and I have a roof to shelter us, or bread to eat, you and Leonard share it with us.”

“I know—I know your most tender goodness,” said she, “but it ought not to be.”