Ruth (9 page)

"Will you not come with me? Do you not love me enough to trust me?
Oh, Ruth," (reproachfully), "can you not trust me?"

She had stopped crying, but was sobbing sadly.

"I cannot bear this, love. Your sorrow is absolute pain to me; but it
is worse to feel how indifferent you are—how little you care about
our separation."

He dropped her hand. She burst into a fresh fit of crying.

"I may have to join my mother in Paris; I don't know when I shall see
you again. Oh, Ruth!" said he, vehemently, "do you love me at all?"

She said something in a very low voice; he could not hear it, though
he bent down his head—but he took her hand again.

"What was it you said, love? Was it not that you did love me? My
darling, you do! I can tell it by the trembling of this little hand;
then you will not suffer me to go away alone and unhappy, most
anxious about you? There is no other course open to you; my poor girl
has no friends to receive her. I will go home directly, and return
in an hour with a carriage. You make me too happy by your silence,
Ruth."

"Oh, what can I do!" exclaimed Ruth. "Mr Bellingham, you should help
me, and instead of that you only bewilder me."

"How, my dearest Ruth? Bewilder you! It seems so clear to me. Look
at the case fairly! Here you are, an orphan, with only one person
to love you, poor child!—thrown off, for no fault of yours, by the
only creature on whom you have a claim, that creature a tyrannical,
inflexible woman; what is more natural (and, being natural, more
right) than that you should throw yourself upon the care of the
one who loves you dearly—who would go through fire and water for
you—who would shelter you from all harm? Unless, indeed, as I
suspect, you do not care for him. If so, Ruth! if you do not care for
me, we had better part—I will leave you at once; it will be better
for me to go, if you do not care for me."

He said this very sadly (it seemed so to Ruth, at least), and made as
though he would have drawn his hand from hers, but now she held it
with soft force.

"Don't leave me, please, sir. It is very true I have no friend but
you. Don't leave me, please. But, oh! do tell me what I must do!"

"Will you do it if I tell you? If you will trust me, I will do my
very best for you. I will give you my best advice. You see your
position. Mrs Mason writes and gives her own exaggerated account to
your guardian; he is bound by no great love to you, from what I have
heard you say, and throws you off; I, who might be able to befriend
you—through my mother, perhaps—I, who could at least comfort you
a little (could not I, Ruth?), am away, far away, for an indefinite
time; that is your position at present. Now, what I advise is this.
Come with me into this little inn; I will order tea for you—(I am
sure you require it sadly)—and I will leave you there, and go home
for the carriage. I will return in an hour at the latest. Then we
are together, come what may; that is enough for me; is it not for
you, Ruth? Say, yes—say it ever so low, but give me the delight of
hearing it. Ruth, say yes."

Low and soft, with much hesitation, came the "Yes;" the fatal word of
which she so little imagined the infinite consequences. The thought
of being with him was all and everything.

"How you tremble, my darling! You are cold, love! Come into the
house, and I'll order tea directly and be off."

She rose, and, leaning on his arm, went into the house. She was
shaking and dizzy with the agitation of the last hour. He spoke to
the civil farmer-landlord, who conducted them into a neat parlour,
with windows opening into the garden at the back of the house. They
had admitted much of the evening's fragrance through their open
casements, before they were hastily closed by the attentive host.

"Tea, directly, for this lady!" The landlord vanished.

"Dearest Ruth, I must go; there is not an instant to be lost; promise
me to take some tea, for you are shivering all over, and deadly pale
with the fright that abominable woman has given you. I must go; I
shall be back in half an hour—and then no more partings, darling."

He kissed her pale cold face, and went away. The room whirled round
before Ruth; it was a dream—a strange, varying, shifting dream—with
the old home of her childhood for one scene, with the terror of Mrs
Mason's unexpected appearance for another; and then, strangest,
dizziest, happiest of all, there was the consciousness of his love,
who was all the world to her; and the remembrance of the tender
words, which still kept up their low soft echo in her heart.

Her head ached so much that she could hardly see; even the dusky
twilight was a dazzling glare to her poor eyes; and when the daughter
of the house brought in the sharp light of the candles, preparatory
for tea, Ruth hid her face in the sofa pillows with a low exclamation
of pain.

"Does your head ache, miss?" asked the girl, in a gentle,
sympathising voice. "Let me make you some tea, miss, it will do you
good. Many's the time poor mother's headaches were cured by good
strong tea."

Ruth murmured acquiescence; the young girl (about Ruth's own age,
but who was the mistress of the little establishment, owing to her
mother's death) made tea, and brought Ruth a cup to the sofa where
she lay. Ruth was feverish and thirsty, and eagerly drank it off,
although she could not touch the bread and butter which the girl
offered her. She felt better and fresher, though she was still faint
and weak.

"Thank you," said Ruth. "Don't let me keep you; perhaps you are busy.
You have been very kind, and the tea has done me a great deal of
good."

The girl left the room. Ruth became as hot as she had previously been
cold, and went and opened the window, and leant out into the still,
sweet, evening air. The bush of sweetbrier, underneath the window,
scented the place, and the delicious fragrance reminded her of her
old home. I think scents affect and quicken the memory more than
either sights or sounds; for Ruth had instantly before her eyes the
little garden beneath the window of her mother's room, with the old
man leaning on his stick, watching her, just as he had done, not
three hours before, on that very afternoon.

"Dear old Thomas! He and Mary would take me in, I think; they would
love me all the more if I were cast off. And Mr Bellingham would,
perhaps, not be so very long away; and he would know where to find
me if I stayed at Milham Grange. Oh, would it not be better to go to
them? I wonder if he would be very sorry! I could not bear to make
him sorry, so kind as he has been to me; but I do believe it would
be better to go to them, and ask their advice, at any rate. He would
follow me there; and I could talk over what I had better do, with the
three best friends I have in the world—the only friends I have."

She put on her bonnet, and opened the parlour-door; but then she saw
the square figure of the landlord standing at the open house-door,
smoking his evening pipe, and looming large and distinct against the
dark air and landscape beyond. Ruth remembered the cup of tea that
she had drank; it must be paid for, and she had no money with her.
She feared that he would not let her quit the house without paying.
She thought that she would leave a note for Mr Bellingham, saying
where she was gone, and how she had left the house in debt, for
(like a child) all dilemmas appeared of equal magnitude to her; and
the difficulty of passing the landlord while he stood there, and
of giving him an explanation of the circumstances (as far as such
explanation was due to him), appeared insuperable, and as awkward,
and fraught with inconvenience, as far more serious situations.
She kept peeping out of her room, after she had written her little
pencil-note, to see if the outer door was still obstructed. There
he stood, motionless, enjoying his pipe, and looking out into the
darkness which gathered thick with the coming night. The fumes of
the tobacco were carried by the air into the house, and brought back
Ruth's sick headache. Her energy left her; she became stupid and
languid, and incapable of spirited exertion; she modified her plan
of action, to the determination of asking Mr Bellingham to take her
to Milham Grange, to the care of her humble friends, instead of to
London. And she thought, in her simplicity, that he would instantly
consent when he had heard her reasons.

She started up. A carriage dashed up to the door. She hushed her
beating heart, and tried to stop her throbbing head to listen. She
heard him speaking to the landlord, though she could not distinguish
what he said; heard the jingling of money, and, in another moment, he
was in the room, and had taken her arm to lead her to the carriage.

"Oh, sir! I want you to take me to Milham Grange," said she, holding
back. "Old Thomas would give me a home."

"Well, dearest, we'll talk of all that in the carriage; I am sure
you will listen to reason. Nay, if you will go to Milham you must go
in the carriage," said he, hurriedly. She was little accustomed to
oppose the wishes of any one—obedient and docile by nature, and
unsuspicious and innocent of any harmful consequences. She entered
the carriage, and drove towards London.

The June of 18— had been glorious and sunny, and full of flowers;
but July came in with pouring rain, and it was a gloomy time for
travellers and for weather-bound tourists, who lounged away the days
in touching up sketches, dressing flies, and reading over again for
the twentieth time the few volumes they had brought with them. A
number of the
Times
, five days old, had been in constant demand in
all the sitting-rooms of a certain inn in a little mountain village
of North Wales, through a long July morning. The valleys around were
filled with thick cold mist, which had crept up the hillsides till
the hamlet itself was folded in its white dense curtain, and from the
inn-windows nothing was seen of the beautiful scenery around. The
tourists who thronged the rooms might as well have been "wi' their
dear little bairnies at hame;" and so some of them seemed to think,
as they stood, with their faces flattened against the window-panes,
looking abroad in search of an event to fill up the dreary time.
How many dinners were hastened that day, by way of getting through
the morning, let the poor Welsh kitchen-maid say! The very village
children kept indoors; or if one or two more adventurous stole out
into the land of temptation and puddles, they were soon clutched back
by angry and busy mothers.

It was only four o'clock, but most of the inmates of the inn thought
it must be between six and seven, the morning had seemed so long—so
many hours had passed since dinner—when a Welsh car, drawn by two
horses, rattled briskly up to the door. Every window of the ark was
crowded with faces at the sound; the leathern curtains were undrawn
to their curious eyes, and out sprang a gentleman, who carefully
assisted a well-cloaked-up lady into the little inn, despite the
landlady's assurances of not having a room to spare.

The gentleman (it was Mr Bellingham) paid no attention to the
speeches of the hostess, but quietly superintended the unpacking of
the carriage, and paid the postillion; then, turning round with his
face to the light, he spoke to the landlady, whose voice had been
rising during the last five minutes:

"Nay, Jenny, you're strangely altered, if you can turn out an old
friend on such an evening as this. If I remember right, Pen trê
Voelas is twenty miles across the bleakest mountain road I ever saw."

"Indeed, sir, and I did not know you; Mr Bellingham, I believe.
Indeed, sir, Pen trê Voelas is not above eighteen miles—we only
charge for eighteen; it may not be much above seventeen; and we're
quite full, indeed, more's the pity."

"Well, but Jenny, to oblige me, an old friend, you can find lodgings
out for some of your people—the house across, for instance."

"Indeed, sir, and it's at liberty; perhaps you would not mind lodging
there yourself; I could get you the best rooms, and send over a
trifle or so of furniture, if they wern't as you'd wish them to be."

"No, Jenny! here I stay. You'll not induce me to venture over into
those rooms, whose dirt I know of old. Can't you persuade some one
who is not an old friend to move across? Say, if you like, that I had
written beforehand to bespeak the rooms. Oh! I know you can manage
it—I know your good-natured ways."

"Indeed, sir—well! I'll see, if you and the lady will just step into
the back parlour, sir—there's no one there just now; the lady is
keeping her bed to-day for a cold, and the gentleman is having a
rubber at whist in number three. I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you, thank you. Is there a fire? if not, one must be lighted.
Come, Ruthie, come."

He led the way into a large, bow-windowed room, which looked gloomy
enough that afternoon, but which I have seen bright and buoyant with
youth and hope within, and sunny lights creeping down the purple
mountain slope, and stealing over the green, soft meadows, till they
reached the little garden, full of roses and lavender-bushes, lying
close under the window. I have seen—but I shall see no more.

"I did not know you had been here before," said Ruth, as Mr
Bellingham helped her off with her cloak.

"Oh, yes; three years ago I was here on a reading party. We were here
above two months, attracted by Jenny's kind heart and oddities; but
driven away finally by the insufferable dirt. However, for a week or
two it won't much signify."

"But can she take us in, sir? I thought I heard her saying her house
was full."

"Oh, yes—I dare say it is; but I shall pay her well; she can easily
make excuses to some poor devil, and send him over to the other side;
and, for a day or two, so that we have shelter, it does not much
signify."

"Could not we go to the house on the other side, sir?"