Ruth (31 page)

"The whole thing is so suitable—the advantages arising from the
connexion are so obvious; besides which, I am quite aware, from many
little speeches of Mr Farquhar's, that he contemplates marriage at
no very distant time; and he seldom leaves Eccleston, and visits
few families besides our own—certainly, none that can compare with
ours in the advantages you have all received in moral and religious
training." But then Mr Bradshaw was checked in his implied praises of
himself (and only himself could be his martingale when he 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 he 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 how 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 is 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
some 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 undefinably 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,
heavenly face, what are you to know of earth's trials! You have lost
your beloved by death—but that is a blessed sorrow; the sorrow I
have pulls me down and down, and makes me despise and hate every
one—not you, though." And, her face changing to a soft, tender look,
she went up to Ruth, and kissed her fondly; as if it were a relief to
be near some one on whose true, pure heart she relied. Ruth returned
the caress; and even while she did so, she suddenly rescinded her
resolution to keep clear of what Mr Bradshaw had desired her to do.
On her way home she resolved, if she could, to find out what were
Jemima's secret feelings; and if (as, from some previous knowledge,
she suspected) they were morbid and exaggerated in any way, to try
and help her right with all the wisdom which true love gives. It
was time that some one should come to still the storm in Jemima's
turbulent heart, which was daily and hourly knowing less and less of
peace. The irritating difficulty was to separate the two characters,
which at two different times she had attributed to Mr Farquhar—the
old one, which she had formerly believed to be true, that he was a
man acting up to a high standard of lofty principle, and acting up
without a struggle (and this last had been the circumstance which
had made her rebellious and irritable once); the new one, which
her father had excited in her suspicious mind, that Mr Farquhar
was cold and calculating in all he did, and that she was to be
transferred by the former, and accepted by the latter, as a sort of
stock-in-trade—these were the two Mr Farquhars who clashed together
in her mind. And in this state of irritation and prejudice, she could
not bear the way in which he gave up his opinions to please her;
that was not the way to win her; she liked him far better when he
inflexibly and rigidly adhered to his idea of right and wrong, not
even allowing any force to temptation, and hardly any grace to
repentance, compared with that beauty of holiness which had never
yielded to sin. He had been her idol in those days, as she found out
now, however much at the time she had opposed him with violence.

As for Mr Farquhar, he was almost weary of himself; no reasoning,
even no principle, seemed to have influence over him, for he saw
that Jemima was not at all what he approved of in woman. He saw her
uncurbed and passionate, affecting to despise the rules of life he
held most sacred, and indifferent to, if not positively disliking
him; and yet he loved her dearly. But he resolved to make a great
effort of will, and break loose from these trammels of sense. And
while he resolved, some old recollection would bring her up, hanging
on his arm, in all the confidence of early girlhood, looking up in
his face with her soft, dark eyes, and questioning him upon the
mysterious subjects which had so much interest for both of them at
that time, although they had become only matter for dissension in
these later days.