Ruth (53 page)

Not many weeks after this, the poor old woman whom I have named
as having become a friend of Ruth's, during Leonard's illness
three years ago, fell down and broke her hip-bone. It was a
serious—probably a fatal injury, for one so old; and as soon as
Ruth heard of it she devoted all her leisure time to old Ann Fleming.
Leonard had now outstript his mother's powers of teaching, and Mr
Benson gave him his lessons; so Ruth was a great deal at the cottage
both night and day.

There Jemima found her one November evening, the second after their
return from their prolonged stay on the Continent. She and Mr
Farquhar had been to the Bensons, and had sat there some time; and
now Jemima had come on just to see Ruth for five minutes, before the
evening was too dark for her to return alone. She found Ruth sitting
on a stool before the fire, which was composed of a few sticks on the
hearth. The blaze they gave was, however, enough to enable her to
read; and she was deep in study of the Bible, in which she had read
aloud to the poor old woman, until the latter had fallen asleep.
Jemima beckoned her out, and they stood on the green just before the
open door, so that Ruth could see if Ann awoke.

"I have not many minutes to stay, only I felt as if I must see you.
And we want Leonard to come to us to see all our German purchases,
and hear all our German adventures. May he come to-morrow?"

"Yes; thank you. Oh! Jemima, I have heard something—I have got a
plan that makes me so happy! I have not told any one yet. But Mr
Wynne (the parish doctor, you know) has asked me if I would go out as
a sick nurse—he thinks he could find me employment."

"You, a sick nurse!" said Jemima, involuntarily glancing over the
beautiful lithe figure, and the lovely refinement of Ruth's face as
the light of the rising moon fell upon it. "My dear Ruth, I don't
think you are fitted for it!"

"Don't you?" said Ruth, a little disappointed. "I think I am; at
least, that I should be very soon. I like being about sick and
helpless people; I always feel so sorry for them; and then I think I
have the gift of a very delicate touch, which is such a comfort in
many cases. And I should try to be very watchful and patient. Mr
Wynne proposed it himself."

"It was not in that way I meant you were not fitted for it. I meant
that you were fitted for something better. Why, Ruth, you are better
educated than I am!"

"But if nobody will allow me to teach?—for that is what I suppose
you mean. Besides, I feel as if all my education would be needed to
make me a good sick nurse."

"Your knowledge of Latin, for instance," said Jemima, hitting, in
her vexation at the plan, on the first acquirement of Ruth she could
think of.

"Well!" said Ruth, "that won't come amiss; I can read the
prescriptions."

"Which the doctors would rather you did not do."

"Still, you can't say that any knowledge of any kind will be in my
way, or will unfit me for my work."

"Perhaps not. But all your taste and refinement will be in your way,
and will unfit you."

"You have not thought about this so much as I have, or you would not
say so. Any fastidiousness I shall have to get rid of, and I shall
be better without; but any true refinement I am sure I shall find
of use; for don't you think that every power we have may be made to
help us in any right work, whatever that is? Would you not rather be
nursed by a person who spoke gently and moved quietly about than by a
loud bustling woman?"

"Yes, to be sure; but a person unfit for anything else may move
quietly, and speak gently, and give medicine when the doctor orders
it, and keep awake at night; and those are the best qualities I ever
heard of in a sick nurse."

Ruth was quite silent for some time. At last she said: "At any rate
it is work, and as such I am thankful for it. You cannot discourage
me—and perhaps you know too little of what my life has been—how set
apart in idleness I have been—to sympathise with me fully."

"And I wanted you to come to see us—me in my new home. Walter and I
had planned that we would persuade you to come to us very often" (she
had planned, and Mr Farquhar had consented); "and now you will have
to be fastened up in a sick-room."

"I could not have come," said Ruth quickly. "Dear Jemima! it is like
you to have thought of it—but I could not come to your house. It is
not a thing to reason about. It is just feeling. But I do feel as if
I could not go. Dear Jemima! if you are ill or sorrowful, and want
me, I will come—"

"So you would and must to any one, if you take up that calling."

"But I should come to you, love, in quite a different way; I should
go to you with my heart full of love—so full that I am afraid I
should be too anxious."

"I almost wish I were ill, that I might make you come at once."

"And I am almost ashamed to think how I should like you to be in some
position in which I could show you how well I remember that day—that
terrible day in the school-room. God bless you for it, Jemima!"

Mr Wynne, the parish surgeon, was right. He could and did obtain
employment for Ruth as a sick nurse. Her home was with the Bensons;
every spare moment was given to Leonard and to them; but she was
at the call of all the invalids in the town. At first her work lay
exclusively among the paupers. At first, too, there was a recoil
from many circumstances, which impressed upon her the most fully the
physical sufferings of those whom she tended. But she tried to lose
the sense of these—or rather to lessen them, and make them take
their appointed places—in thinking of the individuals themselves,
as separate from their decaying frames; and all along she had
enough self-command to control herself from expressing any sign of
repugnance. She allowed herself no nervous haste of movement or
touch that should hurt the feelings of the poorest, most friendless
creature, who ever lay a victim to disease. There was no rough
getting over of all the disagreeable and painful work of her
employment. When it was a lessening of pain to have the touch careful
and delicate, and the ministration performed with gradual skill, Ruth
thought of her charge, and not of herself. As she had foretold, she
found a use for all her powers. The poor patients themselves were
unconsciously gratified and soothed by her harmony and refinement of
manner, voice, and gesture. If this harmony and refinement had been
merely superficial, it would not have had this balmy effect. That
arose from its being the true expression of a kind, modest, and
humble spirit. By degrees her reputation as a nurse spread upwards,
and many sought her good offices who could well afford to pay for
them. Whatever remuneration was offered to her, she took it simply
and without comment; for she felt that it was not hers to refuse;
that it was, in fact, owing to the Bensons for her and her child's
subsistence. She went wherever her services were first called for.
If the poor bricklayer, who broke both his legs in a fall from the
scaffolding, sent for her when she was disengaged, she went and
remained with him until he could spare her, let who would be the next
claimant. From the happy and prosperous in all but health, she would
occasionally beg off, when some one less happy and more friendless
wished for her; and sometimes she would ask for a little money
from Mr Benson to give to such in their time of need. But it was
astonishing how much she was able to do without money.

Her ways were very quiet; she never spoke much. Any one who has been
oppressed with the weight of a vital secret for years, and much more
any one the character of whose life has been stamped by one event,
and that producing sorrow and shame, is naturally reserved. And yet
Ruth's silence was not like reserve; it was too gentle and tender
for that. It had more the effect of a hush of all loud or disturbing
emotions, and out of the deep calm the words that came forth had a
beautiful power. She did not talk much about religion; but those
who noticed her knew that it was the unseen banner which she was
following. The low-breathed sentences which she spoke into the ear of
the sufferer and the dying carried them upwards to God.

She gradually became known and respected among the roughest boys of
the rough populace of the town. They would make way for her when she
passed along the streets with more deference than they used to most;
for all knew something of the tender care with which she had attended
this or that sick person, and, besides, she was so often in connexion
with Death that something of the superstitious awe with which the
dead were regarded by those rough boys in the midst of their strong
life, surrounded her.

She herself did not feel changed. She felt just as faulty—as far
from being what she wanted to be, as ever. She best knew how many
of her good actions were incomplete, and marred with evil. She did
not feel much changed from the earliest Ruth she could remember.
Everything seemed to change but herself. Mr and Miss Benson grew old,
and Sally grew deaf, and Leonard was shooting up, and Jemima was
a mother. She and the distant hills that she saw from her chamber
window, seemed the only things which were the same as when she first
came to Eccleston. As she sat looking out, and taking her fill of
solitude, which sometimes was her most thorough rest—as she sat at
the attic window looking abroad—she saw their next-door neighbour
carried out to sun himself in his garden. When she first came to
Eccleston, this neighbour and his daughter were often seen taking
long and regular walks; by-and-by his walks became shorter, and the
attentive daughter would convoy him home, and set out afresh to
finish her own. Of late years he had only gone out in the garden
behind his house; but at first he had walked pretty briskly there
by his daughter's help—now he was carried, and placed in a large,
cushioned easy-chair, his head remaining where it was placed against
the pillow, and hardly moving when his kind daughter, who was now
middle-aged, brought him the first roses of the summer. This told
Ruth of the lapse of life and time.

Mr and Mrs Farquhar were constant in their attentions; but there was
no sign of Mr Bradshaw ever forgiving the imposition which had been
practised upon him, and Mr Benson ceased to hope for any renewal of
their intercourse. Still, he thought that he must know of all the
kind attentions which Jemima paid to them, and of the fond regard
which both she and her husband bestowed on Leonard. This latter
feeling even went so far that Mr Farquhar called one day, and with
much diffidence begged Mr Benson to urge Ruth to let him be sent to
school at his (Mr Farquhar's) expense.

Mr Benson was taken by surprise, and hesitated. "I do not know. It
would be a great advantage in some respects; and yet I doubt whether
it would in others. His mother's influence over him is thoroughly
good, and I should fear that any thoughtless allusions to his
peculiar position might touch the raw spot in his mind."

"But he is so unusually clever, it seems a shame not to give him all
the advantages he can have. Besides, does he see much of his mother
now?"

"Hardly a day passes without her coming home to be an hour or so with
him, even at her busiest times; she says it is her best refreshment.
And often, you know, she is disengaged for a week or two, except the
occasional services which she is always rendering to those who need
her. Your offer is very tempting, but there is so decidedly another
view of the question to be considered, that I believe we must refer
it to her."

"With all my heart. Don't hurry her to a decision. Let her weigh it
well. I think she will find the advantages preponderate."

"I wonder if I might trouble you with a little business, Mr Farquhar,
as you are here?"

"Certainly; I am only too glad to be of any use to you."

"Why, I see from the report of the Star Life Assurance Company in the
Times
, which you are so good as to send me, that they have declared
a bonus on the shares; now it seems strange that I have received no
notification of it, and I thought that perhaps it might be lying at
your office, as Mr Bradshaw was the purchaser of the shares, and I
have always received the dividends through your firm."

Mr Farquhar took the newspaper, and ran his eye over the report.

"I've no doubt that's the way of it," said he. "Some of our clerks
have been careless about it; or it may be Richard himself. He is not
always the most punctual and exact of mortals; but I'll see about it.
Perhaps after all it mayn't come for a day or two; they have always
such numbers of these circulars to send out."

"Oh! I'm in no hurry about it. I only want to receive it some time
before I incur any expenses, which the promise of this bonus may
tempt me to indulge in."

Mr Farquhar took his leave. That evening there was a long conference,
for, as it happened, Ruth was at home. She was strenuously
against the school plan. She could see no advantages that would
counterbalance the evil which she dreaded from any school for
Leonard; namely, that the good opinion and regard of the world would
assume too high an importance in his eyes. The very idea seemed to
produce in her so much shrinking affright, that by mutual consent
the subject was dropped; to be taken up again, or not, according to
circumstances.

Mr Farquhar wrote the next morning, on Mr Benson's behalf, to the
Insurance Company, to inquire about the bonus. Although he wrote
in the usual formal way, he did not think it necessary to tell Mr
Bradshaw what he had done; for Mr Benson's name was rarely mentioned
between the partners; each had been made fully aware of the views
which the other entertained on the subject that had caused the
estrangement; and Mr Farquhar felt that no external argument could
affect Mr Bradshaw's resolved disapproval and avoidance of his former
minister.