Ruth (5 page)

For this time, however, she was spared; but spared for such a reason
that she would have been thankful for some blame in preference to
her impunity. During her absence, Jenny's difficulty of breathing
had suddenly become worse, and the girls had, on their own
responsibility, put her to bed, and were standing round her in
dismay, when Mrs Mason's return home (only a few minutes before Ruth
arrived) fluttered them back into the workroom.

And now, all was confusion and hurry; a doctor to be sent for; a mind
to be unburdened of directions for a dress to a forewoman, who was
too ill to understand; scoldings to be scattered with no illiberal
hand amongst a group of frightened girls, hardly sparing the poor
invalid herself for her inopportune illness. In the middle of all
this turmoil, Ruth crept quietly to her place, with a heavy saddened
heart at the indisposition of the gentle forewoman. She would gladly
have nursed Jenny herself, and often longed to do it, but she could
not be spared. Hands, unskilful in fine and delicate work, would be
well enough qualified to tend the sick, until the mother arrived from
home. Meanwhile, extra diligence was required in the workroom; and
Ruth found no opportunity of going to see little Tom, or to fulfil
the plans for making him and his grandmother more comfortable, which
she had proposed to herself. She regretted her rash promise to Mr
Bellingham, of attending to the little boy's welfare; all that she
could do was done by means of Mrs Mason's servant, through whom she
made inquiries, and sent the necessary help.

The subject of Jenny's illness was the prominent one in the house.
Ruth told of her own adventure, to be sure; but when she was at the
very crisis of the boy's fall into the river, the more fresh and
vivid interest of some tidings of Jenny was brought into the room,
and Ruth ceased, almost blaming herself for caring for anything
besides the question of life or death to be decided in that very
house.

Then a pale, gentle-looking woman was seen moving softly about; and
it was whispered that this was the mother come to nurse her child.
Everybody liked her, she was so sweet-looking, and gave so little
trouble, and seemed so patient, and so thankful for any inquiries
about her daughter, whose illness, it was understood, although its
severity was mitigated, was likely to be long and tedious. While all
the feelings and thoughts relating to Jenny were predominant, Sunday
arrived. Mrs Mason went the accustomed visit to her father's, making
some little show of apology to Mrs Wood for leaving her and her
daughter; the apprentices dispersed to the various friends with whom
they were in the habit of spending the day; and Ruth went to St
Nicholas', with a sorrowful heart, depressed on account of Jenny, and
self-reproachful at having rashly undertaken what she had been unable
to perform.

As she came out of church, she was joined by Mr Bellingham. She had
half hoped that he might have forgotten the arrangement, and yet she
wished to relieve herself of her responsibility. She knew his step
behind her, and the contending feelings made her heart beat hard, and
she longed to run away.

"Miss Hilton, I believe," said he, overtaking her, and bowing
forward, so as to catch a sight of her rose-red face. "How is our
little sailor going on? Well, I trust, from the symptoms the other
day."

"I believe, sir, he is quite well now. I am very sorry, but I have
not been able to go and see him. I am so sorry—I could not help it.
But I have got one or two things through another person. I have put
them down on this slip of paper; and here is your purse, sir, for
I am afraid I can do nothing more for him. We have illness in the
house, and it makes us very busy."

Ruth had been so much accustomed to blame of late, that she almost
anticipated some remonstrance or reproach now, for not having
fulfilled her promise better. She little guessed that Mr Bellingham
was far more busy trying to devise some excuse for meeting her again,
during the silence that succeeded her speech, than displeased with
her for not bringing a more particular account of the little boy, in
whom he had ceased to feel any interest.

She repeated, after a minute's pause:

"I am very sorry I have done so little, sir."

"Oh, yes, I am sure you have done all you could. It was thoughtless
in me to add to your engagements."

"He is displeased with me," thought Ruth, "for what he believes to
have been neglect of the boy, whose life he risked his own to save.
If I told all, he would see that I could not do more; but I cannot
tell him all the sorrows and worries that have taken up my time."

"And yet I am tempted to give you another little commission, if it is
not taking up too much of your time, and presuming too much on your
good-nature," said he, a bright idea having just struck him. "Mrs
Mason lives in Heneage Place, does not she? My mother's ancestors
lived there; and once, when the house was being repaired, she took me
in to show me the old place. There was an old hunting-piece painted
on a panel over one of the chimney-pieces; the figures were portraits
of my ancestors. I have often thought I should like to purchase it,
if it still remained there. Can you ascertain this for me, and bring
me word next Sunday?"

"Oh, yes, sir," said Ruth, glad that this commission was completely
within her power to execute, and anxious to make up for her previous
seeming neglect. "I'll look directly I get home, and ask Mrs Mason to
write and let you know."

"Thank you," said he, only half satisfied; "I think perhaps, however,
it might be as well not to trouble Mrs Mason about it; you see, it
would compromise me, and I am not quite determined to purchase the
picture; if you would ascertain whether the painting is there, and
tell me, I would take a little time to reflect, and afterwards I
could apply to Mrs Mason myself."

"Very well, sir; I will see about it." So they parted.

Before the next Sunday, Mrs Wood had taken her daughter to her
distant home, to recruit in that quiet place. Ruth watched her down
the street from an upper window, and, sighing deep and long, returned
to the workroom, whence the warning voice and the gentle wisdom had
departed.

Mr Bellingham attended afternoon service at St Nicholas' church the
next Sunday. His thoughts had been far more occupied by Ruth than
hers by him, although his appearance upon the scene of her life
was more an event to her than it was to him. He was puzzled by the
impression she had produced on him, though he did not in general
analyse the nature of his feelings, but simply enjoyed them with the
delight which youth takes in experiencing new and strong emotion.

He was old compared to Ruth, but young as a man; hardly
three-and-twenty. The fact of his being an only child had given
him, as it does to many, a sort of inequality in those parts of the
character which are usually formed by the number of years that a
person has lived.

The unevenness of discipline to which only children are subjected;
the thwarting, resulting from over-anxiety; the indiscreet
indulgence, arising from a love centred all in one object; had been
exaggerated in his education, probably from the circumstance that his
mother (his only surviving parent) had been similarly situated to
himself.

He was already in possession of the comparatively small property
he inherited from his father. The estate on which his mother lived
was her own; and her income gave her the means of indulging or
controlling him, after he had grown to man's estate, as her wayward
disposition and her love of power prompted her.

Had he been double-dealing in his conduct towards her, had he
condescended to humour her in the least, her passionate love for him
would have induced her to strip herself of all her possessions to
add to his dignity or happiness. But although he felt the warmest
affection for her, the regardlessness which she had taught him (by
example, perhaps, more than by precept) of the feelings of others,
was continually prompting him to do things that she, for the time
being, resented as mortal affronts. He would mimic the clergyman she
specially esteemed, even to his very face; he would refuse to visit
her schools for months and months; and, when wearied into going
at last, revenge himself by puzzling the children with the most
ridiculous questions (gravely put) that he could imagine.

All these boyish tricks annoyed and irritated her far more than the
accounts which reached her of more serious misdoings at college and
in town. Of these grave offences she never spoke; of the smaller
misdeeds she hardly ever ceased speaking.

Still, at times, she had great influence over him, and nothing
delighted her more than to exercise it. The submission of his will
to hers was sure to be liberally rewarded; for it gave her great
happiness to extort, from his indifference or his affection, the
concessions which she never sought by force of reason, or by appeals
to principle—concessions which he frequently withheld, solely for
the sake of asserting his independence of her control.

She was anxious for him to marry Miss Duncombe. He cared little or
nothing about it—it was time enough to be married ten years hence;
and so he was dawdling through some months of his life—sometimes
flirting with the nothing-loath Miss Duncombe, sometimes plaguing,
and sometimes delighting his mother, at all times taking care to
please himself—when he first saw Ruth Hilton, and a new, passionate,
hearty feeling shot through his whole being. He did not know why he
was so fascinated by her. She was very beautiful, but he had seen
others equally beautiful, and with many more
agaceries
calculated
to set off the effect of their charms.

There was, perhaps, something bewitching in the union of the
grace and loveliness of womanhood with the
naïveté
, simplicity,
and innocence of an intelligent child. There was a spell in the
shyness, which made her avoid and shun all admiring approaches to
acquaintance. It would be an exquisite delight to attract and tame
her wildness, just as he had often allured and tamed the timid fawns
in his mother's park.

By no over-bold admiration, or rash, passionate word, would he
startle her; and, surely, in time she might be induced to look upon
him as a friend, if not something nearer and dearer still.

In accordance with this determination, he resisted the strong
temptation of walking by her side the whole distance home after
church. He only received the intelligence she brought respecting the
panel with thanks, spoke a few words about the weather, bowed, and
was gone. Ruth believed she should never see him again; and, in spite
of sundry self-upbraidings for her folly, she could not help feeling
as if a shadow were drawn over her existence for several days to
come.

Mrs Mason was a widow, and had to struggle for the sake of the six or
seven children left dependent on her exertions; thus there was some
reason, and great excuse, for the pinching economy which regulated
her household affairs.

On Sundays she chose to conclude that all her apprentices had friends
who would be glad to see them to dinner, and give them a welcome
reception for the remainder of the day; while she, and those of
her children who were not at school, went to spend the day at her
father's house, several miles out of the town. Accordingly, no
dinner was cooked on Sundays for the young workwomen; no fires were
lighted in any rooms to which they had access. On this morning they
breakfasted in Mrs Mason's own parlour, after which the room was
closed against them through the day by some understood, though
unspoken prohibition.

What became of such as Ruth, who had no home and no friends in that
large, populous, desolate town? She had hitherto commissioned the
servant, who went to market on Saturdays for the family, to buy her a
bun or biscuit, whereon she made her fasting dinner in the deserted
workroom, sitting in her walking-dress to keep off the cold, which
clung to her in spite of shawl and bonnet. Then she would sit at
the window, looking out on the dreary prospect till her eyes were
often blinded by tears; and, partly to shake off thoughts and
recollections, the indulgence in which she felt to be productive
of no good, and partly to have some ideas to dwell upon during the
coming week beyond those suggested by the constant view of the same
room, she would carry her Bible, and place herself in the window-seat
on the wide landing, which commanded the street in front of the
house. From thence she could see the irregular grandeur of the place;
she caught a view of the grey church-tower, rising hoary and massive
into mid-air; she saw one or two figures loiter along on the sunny
side of the street, in all the enjoyment of their fine clothes and
Sunday leisure; and she imagined histories for them, and tried to
picture to herself their homes and their daily doings.

And before long, the bells swung heavily in the church-tower, and
struck out with musical clang the first summons to afternoon church.

After church was over, she used to return home to the same
window-seat, and watch till the winter twilight was over and gone,
and the stars came out over the black masses of houses. And then she
would steal down to ask for a candle, as a companion to her in the
deserted workroom. Occasionally the servant would bring her up some
tea; but of late Ruth had declined taking any, as she had discovered
she was robbing the kind-hearted creature of part of the small
provision left out for her by Mrs Mason. She sat on, hungry and cold,
trying to read her Bible, and to think the old holy thoughts which
had been her childish meditations at her mother's knee, until one
after another the apprentices returned, weary with their day's
enjoyment, and their week's late watching; too weary to make her in
any way a partaker of their pleasure by entering into details of the
manner in which they had spent their day.