Ruth (44 page)

"Very, ma'am. Quite a peculiar style of beauty. If I might be
allowed, I should say that hers was a Grecian style of loveliness,
while yours was Oriental. She reminded me of a young person I once
knew in Fordham." Mrs Pearson sighed an audible sigh.

"In Fordham!" said Jemima, remembering that Ruth had once spoken of
the place as one in which she had spent some time, while the county
in which it was situated was the same in which Ruth was born. "In
Fordham! Why, I think Mrs Denbigh comes from that neighbourhood."

"Oh, ma'am! she cannot be the young person I mean—I am sure,
ma'am—holding the position she does in your establishment. I should
hardly say I knew her myself; for I only saw her two or three times
at my sister's house; but she was so remarked for her beauty, that I
remember her face quite well—the more so, on account of her vicious
conduct afterwards."

"Her vicious conduct!" repeated Jemima, convinced by these words
that there could be no identity between Ruth and the "young person"
alluded to. "Then it could not have been our Mrs Denbigh."

"Oh, no, ma'am! I am sure I should be sorry to be understood to have
suggested anything of the kind. I beg your pardon if I did so. All
I meant to say—and perhaps that was a liberty I ought not to have
taken, considering what Ruth Hilton was—"

"Ruth Hilton!" said Jemima, turning suddenly round, and facing Mrs
Pearson.

"Yes, ma'am, that was the name of the young person I allude to."

"Tell me about her—what did she do?" asked Jemima, subduing her
eagerness of tone and look as best she might, but trembling as on the
verge of some strange discovery.

"I don't know whether I ought to tell you, ma'am—it is hardly a fit
story for a young lady; but this Ruth Hilton was an apprentice to
my sister-in-law, who had a first-rate business in Fordham, which
brought her a good deal of patronage from the county families; and
this young creature was very artful and bold, and thought sadly too
much of her beauty; and, somehow, she beguiled a young gentleman, who
took her into keeping (I am sure, ma'am, I ought to apologise for
polluting your ears—)"

"Go on," said Jemima, breathlessly.

"I don't know much more. His mother followed him into Wales. She was
a lady of a great deal of religion, and of a very old family, and
was much shocked at her son's misfortune in being captivated by
such a person; but she led him to repentance, and took him to Paris,
where, I think, she died; but I am not sure, for, owing to family
differences, I have not been on terms for some years with my
sister-in-law, who was my informant."

"Who died?" interrupted Jemima—"the young man's mother, or—or Ruth
Hilton?"

"Oh dear, ma'am! pray don't confuse the two. It was the mother, Mrs—
I forget the name—something like Billington. It was the lady who
died."

"And what became of the other?" asked Jemima, unable, as her dark
suspicion seemed thickening, to speak the name.

"The girl? Why, ma'am, what could become of her? Not that I know
exactly—only one knows they can but go from bad to worse, poor
creatures! God forgive me, if I am speaking too transiently of such
degraded women, who, after all, are a disgrace to our sex."

"Then you know nothing more about her?" asked Jemima.

"I did hear that she had gone off with another gentleman that she met
with in Wales, but I'm sure I can't tell who told me."

There was a little pause. Jemima was pondering on all she had heard.
Suddenly she felt that Mrs Pearson's eyes were upon her, watching
her; not with curiosity, but with a newly-awakened intelligence;—and
yet she must ask one more question; but she tried to ask it in an
indifferent, careless tone, handling the bonnet while she spoke.

"How long is it since all this—all you have been telling me
about—happened?" (Leonard was eight years old.)

"Why—let me see. It was before I was married, and I was married
three years, and poor dear Pearson has been deceased five—I should
say going on for nine years this summer. Blush roses would become
your complexion, perhaps, better than these lilacs," said she, as
with superficial observation she watched Jemima turning the bonnet
round and round on her hand—the bonnet that her dizzy eyes did not
see.

"Thank you. It is very pretty. But I don't want a bonnet. I beg
your pardon for taking up your time." And with an abrupt bow to
the discomfited Mrs Pearson, she was out and away in the open air,
threading her way with instinctive energy along the crowded street.
Suddenly she turned round, and went back to Mrs Pearson's with even
more rapidity than she had been walking away from the house.

"I have changed my mind," said she, as she came, breathless, up into
the show-room. "I will take the bonnet. How much is it?"

"Allow me to change the flowers; it can be done in an instant, and
then you can see if you would not prefer the roses; but with either
foliage it is a lovely little bonnet," said Mrs Pearson, holding it
up admiringly on her hand.

"Oh! never mind the flowers—yes! change them to roses." And she
stood by, agitated (Mrs Pearson thought with impatience), all the
time the milliner was making the alteration with skilful, busy haste.

"By the way," said Jemima, when she saw the last touches were being
given, and that she must not delay executing the purpose which was
the real cause of her return—"Papa, I am sure, would not like your
connecting Mrs Denbigh's name with such a—story as you have been
telling me."

"Oh dear! ma'am, I have too much respect for you all to think of
doing such a thing! Of course I know, ma'am, that it is not to be
cast up to any lady that she is like anybody disreputable."

"But I would rather you did not name the likeness to any one," said
Jemima; "not to any one. Don't tell any one the story you have told
me this morning."

"Indeed, ma'am, I should never think of such a thing! My poor husband
could have borne witness that I am as close as the grave where there
is anything to conceal."

"Oh dear!" said Jemima, "Mrs Pearson, there is nothing to conceal;
only you must not speak about it."

"I certainly shall not do it, ma'am; you may rest assured of me."

This time Jemima did not go towards home, but in the direction of
the outskirts of the town, on the hilly side. She had some dim
recollection of hearing her sisters ask if they might not go and
invite Leonard and his mother to tea; and how could she face Ruth,
after the conviction had taken possession of her heart that she, and
the sinful creature she had just heard of, were one and the same?

It was yet only the middle of the afternoon; the hours were early
in the old-fashioned town of Eccleston. Soft white clouds had come
slowly sailing up out of the west; the plain was flecked with thin
floating shadows, gently borne along by the westerly wind that was
waving the long grass in the hay-fields into alternate light and
shade. Jemima went into one of these fields, lying by the side of
the upland road. She was stunned by the shock she had received.
The diver, leaving the green sward, smooth and known, where his
friends stand with their familiar smiling faces, admiring his glad
bravery—the diver, down in an instant in the horrid depths of the
sea, close to some strange, ghastly, lidless-eyed monster, can hardly
more feel his blood curdle at the near terror than did Jemima now.
Two hours ago—but a point of time on her mind's dial—she had never
imagined that she should ever come in contact with any one who had
committed open sin; she had never shaped her conviction into words
and sentences, but still it was
there
, that all the respectable,
all the family and religious circumstances of her life, would hedge
her in, and guard her from ever encountering the great shock of
coming face to face with vice. Without being pharisaical in her
estimation of herself, she had all a Pharisee's dread of publicans
and sinners, and all a child's cowardliness—that cowardliness which
prompts it to shut its eyes against the object of terror, rather
than acknowledge its existence with brave faith. Her father's often
reiterated speeches had not been without their effect. He drew a
clear line of partition, which separated mankind into two great
groups, to one of which, by the grace of God, he and his belonged;
while the other was composed of those whom it was his duty to try and
reform, and bring the whole force of his morality to bear upon, with
lectures, admonitions, and exhortations—a duty to be performed,
because it was a duty—but with very little of that Hope and Faith
which is the Spirit that maketh alive. Jemima had rebelled against
these hard doctrines of her father's, but their frequent repetition
had had its effect, and led her to look upon those who had gone
astray with shrinking, shuddering recoil, instead of with a pity so
Christ-like as to have both wisdom and tenderness in it.

And now she saw among her own familiar associates one, almost her
housefellow, who had been stained with that evil most repugnant to
her womanly modesty, that would fain have ignored its existence
altogether. She loathed the thought of meeting Ruth again. She
wished that she could take her up, and put her down at a distance
somewhere—anywhere—where she might never see or hear of her more;
never be reminded, as she must be whenever she saw her, that such
things were in this sunny, bright, lark-singing earth, over which the
blue dome of heaven bent softly down as Jemima sat in the hayfield
that June afternoon; her cheeks flushed and red, but her lips pale
and compressed, and her eyes full of a heavy, angry sorrow. It was
Saturday, and the people in that part of the country left their work
an hour earlier on that day. By this, Jemima knew it must be growing
time for her to be at home. She had had so much of conflict in her
own mind of late, that she had grown to dislike struggle, or speech,
or explanation; and so strove to conform to times and hours much
more than she had done in happier days. But oh! how full of hate her
heart was growing against the world! And oh! how she sickened at the
thought of seeing Ruth! Who was to be trusted more, if Ruth—calm,
modest, delicate, dignified Ruth—had a memory blackened by sin?

As she went heavily along, the thought of Mr Farquhar came into
her mind. It showed how terrible had been the stun, that he had
been forgotten until now. With the thought of him came in her first
merciful feeling towards Ruth. This would never have been, had there
been the least latent suspicion in Jemima's jealous mind that Ruth
had purposely done aught—looked a look—uttered a word—modulated a
tone—for the sake of attracting. As Jemima recalled all the passages
of their intercourse, she slowly confessed to herself how pure and
simple had been all Ruth's ways in relation to Mr Farquhar. It was
not merely that there had been no coquetting, but there had been
simple unconsciousness on Ruth's part, for so long a time after
Jemima had discovered Mr Farquhar's inclination for her; and when at
length she had slowly awakened to some perception of the state of his
feelings, there had been a modest, shrinking dignity of manner, not
startled, or emotional, or even timid, but pure, grave, and quiet;
and this conduct of Ruth's, Jemima instinctively acknowledged to be
of necessity transparent and sincere. Now, and here, there was no
hypocrisy; but some time, somewhere, on the part of somebody, what
hypocrisy, what lies must have been acted, if not absolutely spoken,
before Ruth could have been received by them all as the sweet,
gentle, girlish widow, which she remembered they had all believed
Mrs Denbigh to be when first she came among them! Could Mr and Miss
Benson know? Could they be a party to the deceit? Not sufficiently
acquainted with the world to understand how strong had been the
temptation to play the part they did, if they wished to give Ruth a
chance, Jemima could not believe them guilty of such deceit as the
knowledge of Mrs Denbigh's previous conduct would imply; and yet how
it darkened the latter into a treacherous hypocrite, with a black
secret shut up in her soul for years—living in apparent confidence,
and daily household familiarity with the Bensons for years, yet never
telling the remorse that ought to be corroding her heart! Who was
true? Who was not? Who was good and pure? Who was not? The very
foundations of Jemima's belief in her mind were shaken.

Could it be false? Could there be two Ruth Hiltons? She went over
every morsel of evidence. It could not be. She knew that Mrs
Denbigh's former name had been Hilton. She had heard her speak
casually, but charily, of having lived in Fordham. She knew she had
been in Wales but a short time before she made her appearance in
Eccleston. There was no doubt of the identity. Into the middle of
Jemima's pain and horror at the afternoon's discovery, there came a
sense of the power which the knowledge of this secret gave her over
Ruth; but this was no relief, only an aggravation of the regret with
which Jemima looked back on her state of ignorance. It was no wonder
that when she arrived at home, she was so oppressed with headache
that she had to go to bed directly.

"Quiet, mother! quiet, dear, dear mother" (for she clung to the known
and tried goodness of her mother more than ever now), "that is all
I want." And she was left to the stillness of her darkened room,
the blinds idly flapping to and fro in the soft evening breeze, and
letting in the rustling sound of the branches which waved close to
her window, and the thrush's gurgling warble, and the distant hum of
the busy town.

Her jealousy was gone—she knew not how or where. She might shun and
recoil from Ruth, but she now thought that she could never more be
jealous of her. In her pride of innocence, she felt almost ashamed
that such a feeling could have had existence. Could Mr Farquhar
hesitate between her own self and one who— No! she could not name
what Ruth had been, even in thought. And yet he might never know,
so fair a seeming did her rival wear. Oh! for one ray of God's
holy light to know what was seeming, and what was truth, in this
traitorous hollow earth! It might be—she used to think such things
possible, before sorrow had embittered her—that Ruth had worked her
way through the deep purgatory of repentance up to something like
purity again; God only knew! If her present goodness was real—if,
after having striven back thus far on the heights, a fellow-woman
was to throw her down into some terrible depth with her unkind,
incontinent tongue, that would be too cruel! And yet, if—there was
such woeful uncertainty and deceit somewhere—if Ruth— No! that
Jemima, with noble candour, admitted was impossible. Whatever Ruth
had been, she was good, and to be respected as such, now. It did not
follow that Jemima was to preserve the secret always; she doubted her
own power to do so, if Mr Farquhar came home again, and were still
constant in his admiration of Mrs Denbigh, and if Mrs Denbigh gave
him any—the least encouragement. But this last she thought, from
what she knew of Ruth's character, was impossible. Only, what was
impossible after this afternoon's discovery? At any rate, she would
watch and wait. Come what might, Ruth was in her power. And, strange
to say, this last certainty gave Jemima a kind of protecting,
almost pitying, feeling for Ruth. Her horror at the wrong was not
diminished; but the more she thought of the struggles that the
wrong-doer must have made to extricate herself, the more she felt how
cruel it would be to baffle all by revealing what had been. But for
her sisters' sake she had a duty to perform; she must watch Ruth. For
her love's sake she could not have helped watching; but she was too
much stunned to recognise the force of her love, while duty seemed
the only stable thing to cling to. For the present she would neither
meddle nor mar in Ruth's course of life.