Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  The tears were full in his eyes; he almost trembled in his earnestness. He was faint with the strong power of his own conviction, and with his inability to move his sister. But she was shaken. She sat very still for a quarter of an hour or more, while he leaned back, exhausted by his own feelings.

  “The poor child!” said she, at length — ”the poor, poor child! what it will have to struggle through and endure! Do you remember Thomas Wilkins, and the way he threw the registry of his birth and baptism back in your face? Why, he would not have the situation; he went to sea and was drowned, rather than present the record of his shame.”

  “I do remember it all. It has often haunted me. She must strengthen her child to look to God, rather than to man’s opinion. It will be the discipline, the penance, she has incurred. She must teach it to be (humanly speaking) self-dependent.”

  “But after all,” said Miss Benson (for she had known and esteemed poor Thomas Wilkins, and had mourned over his untimely death, and the recollection thereof softened her) — ”after all, it might be concealed. The very child need never know its illegitimacy.”

  “How?” asked her brother.

  “Why — we know so little about her yet; but in that letter, it said she had no friends; — now, could she not go into quite a fresh place, and be passed off as a widow?”

  Ah, tempter! unconscious tempter! Here was a way of evading the trials for the poor little unborn child, of which Mr Benson had never thought. It was the decision — the pivot, on which the fate of years moved; and he turned it the wrong way. But it was not for his own sake. For himself, he was brave enough to tell the truth; for the little helpless baby, about to enter a cruel, biting world, he was tempted to evade the difficulty. He forgot what he had just said, of the discipline and penance to the mother consisting in strengthening her child to meet, trustfully and bravely, the consequences of her own weakness. He remembered more clearly the wild fierceness, the Cain-like look, of Thomas Wilkins, as the obnoxious word in the baptismal registry told him that he must go forth branded into the world, with his hand against every man’s, and every man’s against him.

  “How could it be managed, Faith?”

  “Nay, I must know much more, which she alone can tell us, before I can see how it is to be managed. It is certainly the best plan.”

  “Perhaps it is,” said her brother, thoughtfully, but no longer clearly or decidedly; and so the conversation dropped.

  Ruth moved the bed-curtain aside, in her soft manner, when Miss Benson re-entered the room; she did not speak, but she looked at her as if she wished her to come near. Miss Benson went and stood by her. Ruth took her hand in hers and kissed it; then, as if fatigued even by this slight movement, she fell asleep.

  Miss Benson took up her work, and thought over her brother’s speeches. She was not convinced, but she was softened and bewildered.

  CHAPTER XII

  Losing Sight of the Welsh Mountains

  Miss Benson continued in an undecided state of mind for the two next days; but on the third, as they sat at breakfast, she began to speak to her brother.

  “That young creature’s name is Ruth Hilton.”

  “Indeed! how did you find it out?”

  “From herself, of course. She is much stronger. I slept with her last night, and I was aware she was awake long before I liked to speak, but at last I began. I don’t know what I said, or how it went on, but I think it was a little relief to her to tell me something about herself. She sobbed and cried herself to sleep; I think she is asleep now.”

  “Tell me what she said about herself.”

  “Oh, it was really very little; it was evidently a most painful subject. She is an orphan, without brother or sister, and with a guardian, whom, I think she said, she never saw but once. He apprenticed her (after her father’s death) to a dressmaker. This Mr Bellingham got acquainted with her, and they used to meet on Sunday afternoons. One day they were late, lingering on the road, when the dressmaker came up by accident. She seems to have been very angry, and not unnaturally so. The girl took fright at her threats, and the lover persuaded her to go off with him to London, there and then. Last May, I think it was. That’s all.”

  “Did she express any sorrow for her error?”

  “No, not in words, but her voice was broken with sobs, though she tried to make it steady. After a while she began to talk about her baby, but shyly, and with much hesitation. She asked me how much I thought she could earn as a dressmaker, by working very, very hard; and that brought us round to her child. I thought of what you had said, Thurstan, and I tried to speak to her as you wished me. I am not sure if it was right; I am doubtful in my own mind still.”

  “Don’t be doubtful, Faith! Dear Faith, I thank you for your kindness.”

  “There is really nothing to thank me for. It is almost impossible to help being kind to her; there is something so meek and gentle about her, so patient, and so grateful!”

  “What does she think of doing?”

  “Poor child! she thinks of taking lodgings — very cheap ones, she says; there she means to work night and day to earn enough for her child. For, she said to me, with such pretty earnestness, ‘It must never know want, whatever I do. I have deserved suffering, but it will be such a little innocent darling!’ Her utmost earnings would not be more than seven or eight shillings a week, I’m afraid; and then she is so young and so pretty!”

  “There is that fifty pounds Mrs Morgan brought me, and those two letters. Does she know about them yet?”

  “No; I did not like to tell her till she is a little stronger. Oh, Thurstan! I wish there was not this prospect of a child. I cannot help it. I do — I could see a way in which we might help her, if it were not for that.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Oh, it’s no use thinking of it, as it is! Or else we might have taken her home with us, and kept her till she had got a little dress-making in the congregation, but for this meddlesome child; that spoils everything. You must let me grumble to you, Thurstan. I was very good to her, and spoke as tenderly and respectfully of the little thing as if it were the Queen’s, and born in lawful matrimony.”

  “That’s right, my dear Faith! Grumble away to me, if you like. I’ll forgive you, for the kind thought of taking her home with us. But do you think her situation is an insuperable objection?”

  “Why, Thurstan! — it’s so insuperable, it puts it quite out of the question.”

  “How? — that’s only repeating your objection. Why is it out of the question?”

  “If there had been no child coming, we might have called her by her right name — Miss Hilton; that’s one thing. Then, another is, the baby in our house. Why, Sally would go distraught!”

  “Never mind Sally. If she were an orphan relation of our own, left widowed,” said he, pausing, as if in doubt. “You yourself suggested she should be considered as a widow, for the child’s sake. I’m only taking up your ideas, dear Faith. I respect you for thinking of taking her home; it is just what we ought to do. Thank you for reminding me of my duty.”

  “Nay, it was only a passing thought. Think of Mr Bradshaw. Oh! I tremble at the thought of his grim displeasure.”

  “We must think of a higher than Mr Bradshaw. I own I should be a very coward, if he knew. He is so severe, so inflexible. But after all he sees so little of us; he never comes to tea, you know, but is always engaged when Mrs Bradshaw comes. I don’t think he knows of what our household consists.”

  “Not know Sally? Oh yes, but he does. He asked Mrs Bradshaw one day, if she knew what wages we gave her, and said we might get a far more efficient and younger servant for the money. And, speaking about money, think what our expenses would be if we took her home for the next six months.”

  That consideration was a puzzling one; and both sat silent and perplexed for a time. Miss Benson was as sorrowful as her brother, for she was becoming as anxious as he was to find it possible that her plan could be carried out.

  “There’s the f
ifty pounds,” said he, with a sigh of reluctance at the idea.

  “Yes, there’s the fifty pounds,” echoed his sister, with the same sadness in her tone. “I suppose it is hers.”

  “I suppose it is; and being so, we must not think who gave it to her. It will defray her expenses. I am very sorry, but I think we must take it.”

  “It would never do to apply to him under the present circumstances,” said Miss Benson, in a hesitating manner.

  “No, that we won’t,” said her brother, decisively. “If she consents to let us take care of her, we will never let her stoop to request anything from him, even for his child. She can live on bread and water. We can all live on bread and water rather than that.”

  “Then I will speak to her and propose the plan. Oh, Thurstan! from a child you could persuade me to anything! I hope I am doing right. However much I oppose you at first, I am sure to yield soon; almost in proportion to my violence at first. I think I am very weak.”

  “No, not in this instance. We are both right: I, in the way in which the child ought to be viewed; you, dear good Faith, for thinking of taking her home with us. God bless you, dear, for it!”

  When Ruth began to sit up (and the strange, new, delicious prospect of becoming a mother seemed to give her some mysterious source of strength, so that her recovery was rapid and swift from that time), Miss Benson brought her the letters and the bank-note.

  “Do you recollect receiving this letter, Ruth?” asked she, with grave gentleness. Ruth changed colour, and took it and read it again without making any reply to Miss Benson. Then she sighed, and thought a while; and then took up and read the second note — the note which Mrs Bellingham had sent to Mr Benson in answer to his. After that she took up the bank-note and turned it round and round, but not as if she saw it. Miss Benson noticed that her fingers trembled sadly, and that her lips were quivering for some time before she spoke.

  “If you please, Miss Benson, I should like to return this money.”

  “Why, my dear?”

  “I have a strong feeling against taking it. While he,” said she, deeply blushing, and letting her large white lids drop down and veil her eyes, “loved me, he gave me many things — my watch — oh, many things; and I took them from him gladly and thankfully because he loved me — for I would have given him anything — and I thought of them as signs of love. But this money pains my heart. He has left off loving me, and has gone away. This money seems — oh, Miss Benson — it seems as if he could comfort me, for being forsaken, by money.” And at that word the tears, so long kept back and repressed, forced their way like rain.

  She checked herself, however, in the violence of her emotion, for she thought of her child.

  “So, will you take the trouble of sending it back to Mrs Bellingham?”

  “That I will, my dear. I am glad of it, that I am! They don’t deserve to have the power of giving: they don’t deserve that you should take it.”

  Miss Benson went and enclosed it up, there and then; simply writing these words in the envelope, “From Ruth Hilton.”

  “And now we wash our hands of these Bellinghams,” said she, triumphantly. But Ruth looked tearful and sad; not about returning the note, but from the conviction that the reason she had given for the ground of her determination was true — he no longer loved her.

  To cheer her, Miss Benson began to speak of the future. Miss Benson was one of those people who, the more she spoke of a plan in its details, and the more she realised it in her own mind, the more firmly she became a partisan of the project. Thus she grew warm and happy in the idea of taking Ruth home; but Ruth remained depressed and languid under the conviction that he no longer loved her. No home, no future, but the thought of her child, could wean her from this sorrow. Miss Benson was a little piqued; and this pique showed itself afterwards in talking to her brother of the morning’s proceedings in the sick-chamber.

  “I admired her at the time for sending away her fifty pounds so proudly; but I think she has a cold heart: she hardly thanked me at all for my proposal of taking her home with us.”

  “Her thoughts are full of other things just now; and people have such different ways of showing feeling: some by silence, some by words. At any rate, it is unwise to expect gratitude.”

  “What do you expect — not indifference or ingratitude?”

  “It is better not to expect or calculate consequences. The longer I live, the more fully I see that. Let us try simply to do right actions, without thinking of the feelings they are to call out in others. We know that no holy or self-denying effort can fall to the ground vain and useless; but the sweep of eternity is large, and God alone knows when the effect is to be produced. We are trying to do right now, and to feel right; don’t let us perplex ourselves with endeavouring to map out how she should feel, or how she should show her feelings.”

  “That’s all very fine, and I dare say very true,” said Miss Benson, a little chagrined. “But ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush;’ and I would rather have had one good, hearty ‘Thank you,’ now, for all I have been planning to do for her, than the grand effects you promise me in the ‘sweep of eternity.’ Don’t be grave and sorrowful, Thurstan, or I’ll go out of the room. I can stand Sally’s scoldings, but I can’t bear your look of quiet depression whenever I am a little hasty or impatient. I had rather you would give me a good box on the ear.”

  “And I would often rather you would speak, if ever so hastily, instead of whistling. So, if I box your ears when I am vexed with you, will you promise to scold me when you are put out of the way, instead of whistling?”

  “Very well! that’s a bargain. You box, and I scold. But, seriously, I began to calculate our money when she so cavalierly sent off the fifty-pound note (I can’t help admiring her for it), and I am very much afraid we shall not have enough to pay the doctor’s bill, and take her home with us.”

  “She must go inside the coach whatever we do,” said Mr Benson, decidedly. “Who’s there? Come in! Oh! Mrs Hughes! Sit down.”

  “Indeed, sir, and I cannot stay; but the young lady has just made me find up her watch for her, and asked me to get it sold to pay the doctor, and the little things she has had since she came; and please, sir, indeed, I don’t know where to sell it nearer than Carnarvon.”

  “That is good of her,” said Miss Benson, her sense of justice satisfied; and, remembering the way in which Ruth had spoken of the watch, she felt what a sacrifice it must have been to resolve to part with it.

  “And her goodness just helps us out of our dilemma,” said her brother, who was unaware of the feelings with which Ruth regarded her watch, or, perhaps, he might have parted with his Facciolati.

  Mrs Hughes patiently awaited their leisure for answering her practical question. Where could the watch be sold? Suddenly her face brightened.

  “Mr Jones, the doctor, is going to be married, perhaps he would like nothing better than to give this pretty watch to his bride; indeed, and I think it’s very likely; and he’ll pay money for it as well as letting alone his bill. I’ll ask him, sir, at any rate.”

  Mr Jones was only too glad to obtain possession of so elegant a present at so cheap a rate. He even, as Mrs Hughes had foretold, “paid money for it;” more than was required to defray the expenses of Ruth’s accommodation; as the most of the articles of food she had were paid for at the time by Mr or Miss Benson, but they strictly forbade Mrs Hughes to tell Ruth of this.

  “Would you object to my buying you a black gown?” said Miss Benson to her the day after the sale of the watch. She hesitated a little, and then went on:

  “My brother and I think it would be better to call you — as if in fact you were — a widow. It will save much awkwardness, and it will spare your child much — ” Mortification she was going to have added, but that word did not exactly do. But, at the mention of her child, Ruth started and turned ruby-red; as she always did when allusion was made to it.

  “Oh, yes! certainly. Thank you much for thinking of i
t. Indeed,” said she, very low, as if to herself, “I don’t know how to thank you for all you are doing; but I do love you, and will pray for you, if I may.”

  “If you may, Ruth!” repeated Miss Benson, in a tone of surprise.

  “Yes, if I may. If you will let me pray for you.”

  “Certainly, my dear. My dear Ruth, you don’t know how often I sin; I do so wrong, with my few temptations. We are both of us great sinners in the eyes of the Most Holy; let us pray for each other. Don’t speak so again, my dear; at least, not to me!”

  Miss Benson was actually crying. She had always looked upon herself as so inferior to her brother in real goodness; had seen such heights above her, that she was distressed by Ruth’s humility. After a short time she resumed the subject.

  “Then I may get you a black gown? — and we may call you Mrs Hilton?”

  “No; not Mrs Hilton!” said Ruth, hastily.

  Miss Benson, who had hitherto kept her eyes averted from Ruth’s face from a motive of kindly delicacy, now looked at her with surprise.

  “Why not?” asked she.

  “It was my mother’s name,” said Ruth, in a low voice. “I had better not be called by it.”

  “Then, let us call you by my mother’s name,” said Miss Benson, tenderly. “She would have — But I’ll talk to you about my mother some other time. Let me call you Mrs Denbigh. It will do very well, too. People will think you are a distant relation.”

  When she told Mr Benson this choice of name, he was rather sorry; it was like his sister’s impulsive kindness — impulsive in everything — and he could imagine how Ruth’s humility had touched her. He was sorry, but he said nothing.

  And now the letter was written home, announcing the probable arrival of the brother and sister on a certain day, “with a distant relation, early left a widow,” as Miss Benson expressed it. She desired the spare room might be prepared, and made every provision she could think of for Ruth’s comfort; for Ruth still remained feeble and weak.