Ruth (35 page)

Ruth cried until she could cry no longer, and felt very much ashamed
of herself as she saw the grave and wondering looks of her pupils,
whose only feeling on leaving home was delight at the idea of
Abermouth, and into whose minds the possibility of death to any of
their beloved ones never entered. Ruth dried her eyes, and spoke
cheerfully as soon as she caught the perplexed expression of their
faces; and by the time they arrived at Abermouth, she was as much
delighted with all the new scenery as they were, and found it hard
work to resist their entreaties to go rambling out on the seashore at
once; but Elizabeth had undergone more fatigue that day than she had
had before for many weeks, and Ruth was determined to be prudent.

Meanwhile, the Bradshaws' house at Eccleston was being rapidly
adapted for electioneering hospitality. The partition-wall between
the unused drawing-room and the school-room was broken down, in order
to admit of folding doors; the "ingenious" upholsterer of the town
(and what town does not boast of the upholsterer full of contrivances
and resources, in opposition to the upholsterer of steady capital and
no imagination, who looks down with uneasy contempt on ingenuity?)
had come in to give his opinion, that "nothing could be easier than
to convert a bathroom into a bedroom, by the assistance of a little
drapery to conceal the shower-bath," the string of which was to be
carefully concealed, for fear that the unconscious occupier of the
bath-bed might innocently take it for a bell-rope. The professional
cook of the town had been already engaged to take up her abode for a
month at Mr Bradshaw's, much to the indignation of Betsy, who became
a vehement partisan of Mr Cranworth, as soon as ever she heard of the
plan of her deposition from sovereign authority in the kitchen, in
which she had reigned supreme for fourteen years. Mrs Bradshaw sighed
and bemoaned herself in all her leisure moments, which were not many,
and wondered why their house was to be turned into an inn for this
Mr Donne, when everybody knew that the George was good enough for
the Cranworths, who never thought of asking the electors to the
Hall;—and they had lived at Cranworth ever since Julius Caesar's
time, and if that was not being an old family, she did not know what
was. The excitement soothed Jemima. There was something to do. It was
she who planned with the upholsterer; it was she who soothed Betsy
into angry silence; it was she who persuaded her mother to lie down
and rest, while she herself went out to buy the heterogeneous things
required to make the family and house presentable to Mr Donne and
his precursor—the friend of the parliamentary agent. This latter
gentleman never appeared himself on the scene of action, but pulled
all the strings notwithstanding. The friend was a Mr Hickson, a
lawyer—a briefless barrister, some people called him; but he himself
professed a great disgust to the law, as a "great sham," which
involved an immensity of underhand action, and truckling, and
time-serving, and was perfectly encumbered by useless forms and
ceremonies, and dead obsolete words. So, instead of putting his
shoulder to the wheel to reform the law, he talked eloquently against
it, in such a high-priest style, that it was occasionally a matter of
surprise how he could ever have made a friend of the parliamentary
agent before mentioned. But, as Mr Hickson himself said, it was the
very corruptness of the law which he was fighting against, in doing
all he could to effect the return of certain members to Parliament;
these certain members being pledged to effect a reform in the law,
according to Mr Hickson. And, as he once observed confidentially, "If
you had to destroy a hydra-headed monster, would you measure swords
with the demon as if he were a gentleman? Would you not rather seize
the first weapon that came to hand? And so do I. My great object in
life, sir, is to reform the law of England, sir. Once get a majority
of Liberal members into the House, and the thing is done. And I
consider myself justified, for so high—for, I may say, so holy—an
end, in using men's weaknesses to work out my purpose. Of course, if
men were angels, or even immaculate—men invulnerable to bribes, we
would not bribe."

"Could you?" asked Jemima, for the conversation took place at Mr
Bradshaw's dinner-table, where a few friends were gathered together
to meet Mr Hickson; and among them was Mr Benson.

"We neither would nor could," said the ardent barrister, disregarding
in his vehemence the point of the question, and floating on over the
bar of argument into the wide ocean of his own eloquence: "As it
is—as the world stands, they who would succeed even in good deeds
must come down to the level of expediency; and therefore, I say once
more, if Mr Donne is the man for your purpose, and your purpose is
a good one, a lofty one, a holy one" (for Mr Hickson remembered the
Dissenting character of his little audience, and privately considered
the introduction of the word "holy" a most happy hit), "then, I say,
we must put all the squeamish scruples which might befit Utopia, or
some such place, on one side, and treat men as they are. If they are
avaricious, it is not we who have made them so; but as we have to
do with them, we must consider their failings in dealing with them;
if they have been careless or extravagant, or have had their little
peccadillos, we must administer the screw. The glorious reform of the
law will justify, in my idea, all means to obtain the end—that law,
from the profession of which I have withdrawn myself from perhaps a
too scrupulous conscience!" he concluded softly to himself.

"We are not to do evil that good may come," said Mr Benson. He was
startled at the deep sound of his own voice as he uttered these
words; but he had not been speaking for some time, and his voice came
forth strong and unmodulated.

"True, sir; most true," said Mr Hickson, bowing. "I honour you for
the observation." And he profited by it, insomuch that he confined
his further remarks on elections to the end of the table, where
he sat near Mr Bradshaw, and one or two equally eager, though not
equally influential partisans of Mr Donne's. Meanwhile, Mr Farquhar
took up Mr Benson's quotation, at the end where he and Jemima sat
near to Mrs Bradshaw and him.

"But in the present state of the world, as Mr Hickson says, it is
rather difficult to act upon that precept."

"Oh, Mr Farquhar!" said Jemima, indignantly, the tears springing to
her eyes with a feeling of disappointment. For she had been chafing
under all that Mr Hickson had been saying, perhaps the more for one
or two attempts on his part at a flirtation with the daughter of
his wealthy host, which she resented with all the loathing of a
pre-occupied heart; and she had longed to be a man, to speak out her
wrath at this paltering with right and wrong. She had felt grateful
to Mr Benson for his one clear, short precept, coming down with a
divine force against which there was no appeal; and now to have Mr
Farquhar taking the side of expediency! It was too bad.

"Nay, Jemima!" said Mr Farquhar, touched, and secretly flattered by
the visible pain his speech had given. "Don't be indignant with me
till I have explained myself a little more. I don't understand myself
yet; and it is a very intricate question, or so it appears to me,
which I was going to put, really, earnestly, and humbly, for Mr
Benson's opinion. Now, Mr Benson, may I ask, if you always find it
practicable to act strictly in accordance with that principle? For
if you do not, I am sure no man living can! Are there not occasions
when it is absolutely necessary to wade through evil to good? I am
not speaking in the careless, presumptuous way of that man yonder,"
said he, lowering his voice, and addressing himself to Jemima more
exclusively; "I am really anxious to hear what Mr Benson will say
on the subject, for I know no one to whose candid opinion I should
attach more weight."

But Mr Benson was silent. He did not see Mrs Bradshaw and Jemima
leave the room. He was really, as Mr Farquhar supposed him,
completely absent, questioning himself as to how far his practice
tallied with his principle. By degrees he came to himself; he found
the conversation still turned on the election; and Mr Hickson, who
felt that he had jarred against the little minister's principles,
and yet knew, from the
carte du pays
which the scouts of the
parliamentary agent had given him, that Mr Benson was a person to be
conciliated, on account of his influence over many of the working
people, began to ask him questions with an air of deferring to
superior knowledge, that almost surprised Mr Bradshaw, who had been
accustomed to treat "Benson" in a very different fashion, of civil
condescending indulgence, just as one listens to a child who can have
had no opportunities of knowing better.

At the end of a conversation that Mr Hickson held with Mr Benson, on
a subject in which the latter was really interested, and on which he
had expressed himself at some length, the young barrister turned to
Mr Bradshaw, and said very audibly,

"I wish Donne had been here. This conversation during the last
half-hour would have interested him almost as much as it has done
me."

Mr Bradshaw little guessed the truth, that Mr Donne was, at that
very moment, coaching up the various subjects of public interest in
Eccleston, and privately cursing the particular subject on which
Mr Benson had been holding forth, as being an unintelligible piece
of Quixotism; or the leading Dissenter of the town need not have
experienced a pang of jealousy at the possible future admiration his
minister might excite in the possible future member for Eccleston.
And if Mr Benson had been clairvoyant, he need not have made an
especial subject of gratitude out of the likelihood that he might
have an opportunity of so far interesting Mr Donne in the condition
of the people of Eccleston as to induce him to set his face against
any attempts at bribery.

Mr Benson thought of this half the night through; and ended by
determining to write a sermon on the Christian view of political
duties, which might be good for all, both electors and member, to
hear on the eve of an election. For Mr Donne was expected at Mr
Bradshaw's before the next Sunday; and, of course, as Mr and Miss
Benson had settled it, he would appear at the chapel with them on
that day. But the stinging conscience refused to be quieted. No
present plan of usefulness allayed the aching remembrance of the evil
he had done that good might come. Not even the look of Leonard, as
the early dawn fell on him, and Mr Benson's sleepless eyes saw the
rosy glow on his firm round cheeks; his open mouth, through which the
soft, long-drawn breath came gently quivering; and his eyes not fully
shut, but closed to outward sight—not even the aspect of the quiet,
innocent child could soothe the troubled spirit.

Leonard and his mother dreamt of each other that night. Her dream of
him was one of undefined terror—terror so great that it wakened her
up, and she strove not to sleep again, for fear that ominous ghastly
dream should return. He, on the contrary, dreamt of her sitting
watching and smiling by his bedside, as her gentle self had been many
a morning; and when she saw him awake (so it fell out in the dream),
she smiled still more sweetly, and bending down she kissed him, and
then spread out large, soft, white-feathered wings (which in no way
surprised her child—he seemed to have known they were there all
along), and sailed away through the open window far into the blue
sky of a summer's day. Leonard wakened up then, and remembered how
far away she really was—far more distant and inaccessible than the
beautiful blue sky to which she had betaken herself in his dream—and
cried himself to sleep again.

In spite of her absence from her child, which made one great and
abiding sorrow, Ruth enjoyed her seaside visit exceedingly. In the
first place, there was the delight of seeing Elizabeth's daily and
almost hourly improvement. Then, at the doctor's express orders,
there were so few lessons to be done, that there was time for the
long exploring rambles, which all three delighted in. And when the
rain came and the storms blew, the house, with its wild sea-views,
was equally delightful.

It was a large house, built on the summit of a rock, which nearly
overhung the shore below; there were, to be sure, a series of zigzag
tacking paths down the face of this rock, but from the house they
could not be seen. Old or delicate people would have considered the
situation bleak and exposed; indeed, the present proprietor wanted to
dispose of it on this very account; but by its present inhabitants,
this exposure and bleakness were called by other names, and
considered as charms. From every part of the rooms they saw the grey
storms gather on the sea-horizon, and put themselves in marching
array; and soon the march became a sweep, and the great dome of the
heavens was covered with the lurid clouds, between which and the
vivid green earth below there seemed to come a purple atmosphere,
making the very threatening beautiful; and by-and-by the house was
wrapped in sheets of rain shutting out sky, and sea, and inland view;
till, of a sudden, the storm was gone by, and the heavy rain-drops
glistened in the sun as they hung on leaf and grass, and the "little
birds sang east, and the little birds sang west," and there was a
pleasant sound of running waters all abroad.

"Oh! if papa would but buy this house!" exclaimed Elizabeth, after
one such storm, which she had watched silently from the very
beginning of the "little cloud no bigger than a man's hand."

"Mamma would never like it, I am afraid," said Mary. "She would call
our delicious gushes of air, draughts, and think we should catch
cold."

"Jemima would be on our side. But how long Mrs Denbigh is! I hope she
was near enough the post-office when the rain came on!"

Ruth had gone to "the shop" in the little village, about half-a-mile
distant, where all letters were left till fetched. She only expected
one, but that one was to tell her of Leonard. She, however, received
two; the unexpected one was from Mr Bradshaw, and the news it
contained was, if possible, a greater surprise than the letter
itself. Mr Bradshaw informed her, that he planned arriving by
dinner-time the following Saturday at Eagle's Crag; and more, that he
intended bringing Mr Donne and one or two other gentlemen with him,
to spend the Sunday there! The letter went on to give every possible
direction regarding the household preparations. The dinner-hour was
fixed to be at six; but, of course, Ruth and the girls would have
dined long before. The (professional) cook would arrive the day
before, laden with all the provisions that could not be obtained
on the spot. Ruth was to engage a waiter from the inn, and this it
was that detained her so long. While she sat in the little parlour,
awaiting the coming of the landlady, she could not help wondering why
Mr Bradshaw was bringing this strange gentleman to spend two days
at Abermouth, and thus giving himself so much trouble and fuss of
preparation.