Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell (well read books .txt) đ
- Author: Elizabeth Gaskell
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âSuppose a delay of a month in requiring payment might save a manâs creditâprevent his becoming a bankrupt?â put in Mr. Farquhar.
âI would not give it him. I would let him have money to set up again as soon as he had passed the Bankruptcy Court; if he never passed, I might, in some cases, make him an allowance; but I would always keep my justice and my charity separate.â
âAnd yet charity (in your sense of the word) degrades; justice, tempered with mercy and consideration, elevates.â
âThat is not justiceâjustice is certain and inflexible. No! Mr. Farquhar, you must not allow any Quixotic notions to mingle with your conduct as a tradesman.â
And so they went on; Jemimaâs face glowing with sympathy in all Mr. Farquhar said; till once, on looking up suddenly with sparkling eyes, she saw a glance of her fatherâs, which told her, as plain as words can say, that he was watching the effect of Mr. Farquharâs speeches upon his daughter. She was chilled thenceforward; she thought her father prolonged the argument, in order to call out those sentiments which he knew would most recommend his partner to his daughter. She would so fain have let herself love Mr. Farquhar; but this constant manoeuvring, in which she did not feel clear that he did not take a passive part, made her sick at heart. She even wished that they might not go through the form of pretending to try to gain her consent to the marriage, if it involved all this premeditated action and speech-makingâsuch moving about of every one into their right places, like pieces at chess. She felt as if she would rather be bought openly, like an Oriental daughter, where no one is degraded in their own eyes by being parties to such a contract. The consequences of all this âadmirable managementâ of Mr. Bradshawâs would have been very unfortunate to Mr. Farquhar (who was innocent of all connivance in any of the plotsâindeed would have been as much annoyed at them as Jemima, had he been aware of them), but that the impression made upon him by Ruth on the evening I have so lately described was deepened by the contrast which her behaviour made to Miss Bradshawâs on one or two more recent occasions.
There was no use, he thought, in continuing attentions so evidently distasteful to Jemima. To her, a young girl hardly out of the schoolroom; he probably appeared like an old man; and he might even lose the friendship with which she used to regard him, and which was, and ever would be, very dear to him, if he persevered in trying to be considered as a lover. He should always feel affectionately towards her; her very faults gave her an interest in his eyes, for which he had blamed himself most conscientiously and most uselessly when he was looking upon her as his future wife, but which the said conscience would learn to approve of when she sank down to the place of a young friend, over whom he might exercise a good and salutary interest. Mrs. Denbigh, if not many months older in years, had known sorrow and cares so early that she was much older in character. Besides, her shy reserve, and her quiet daily walk within the lines of duty, were much in accordance with Mr. Farquharâs notion of what a wife should be. Still, it was a wrench to take his affections away from Jemima. If she had not helped him to do so by every means in her power, he could never have accomplished it.
Yes! by every means in her power had Jemima alienated her lover, her belovedâfor so he was in fact. And now her quick-sighted eyes saw he was gone for everâpast recall: for did not her jealous, sore heart feel, even before he himself was conscious of the fact, that he was drawn towards sweet, lovely, composed, and dignified Ruthâone who always thought before she spoke (as Mr. Farquhar used to bid Jemima do)âwho never was tempted by sudden impulse, but walked the world calm and self-governed. What now availed Jemimaâs reproaches, as she remembered the days when he had watched her with earnest, attentive eyes, as he now watched Ruth; and the times since, when, led astray by her morbid fancy, she had turned away from all his advances!
âIt was only in Marchâlast March, he called me âdear Jemima.â Ah! donât I remember it well? The pretty nosegay of greenhouse flowers that he gave me in exchange for the wild daffodilsâand how he seemed to care for the flowers I gave himâand how he looked at me, and thanked meâthat is all gone and over now.â
Her sisters came in bright and glowing.
âO Jemima, how nice and cool you are, sitting in this shady room!â (she had felt it even chilly). âWe have been such a long walk! We are so tired. It is so hot.â
âWhy did you go, then?â said she.
âOh! we wanted to go. We would not have stayed at home on any account. It has been so pleasant,â said Mary.
âWeâve been to Scaurside Wood, to gather wild strawberries,â said Elizabeth.
âSuch a quantity! Weâve left a whole basketful in the dairy. Mr. Farquhar says heâll teach us how to dress them in the way he learnt in Germany, if we can get him some hock. Do you think papa will let us have some?â
âWas Mr. Farquhar with you?â asked Jemima, a dull light coming into her eyes.
âYes; we told him this morning that mamma wanted us to take some old linen to the lame man at Scaurside Farm, and that we meant to coax Mrs. Denbigh to let us go into the wood and gather strawberries,â said Elizabeth.
âI thought he would make some excuse and come,â said the quick-witted Mary, as eager and thoughtless an observer of one love-affair as of another, and quite forgetting that, not many weeks ago, she had fancied an attachment between him and Jemima.
âDid you? I did not,â replied Elizabeth. âAt least I never thought about it. I was quite startled when I heard his horseâs feet behind us on the road.â
âHe said he was going to the farm, and could take our basket. Was it not kind of him?â Jemima did not answer, so Mary continuedâ
âYou know itâs a great pull up to the farm, and we were so hot already. The road was quite white and baked; it hurt my eyes terribly. I was so glad when Mrs. Denbigh said we might turn into the wood. The light was quite green there, the branches are so thick overhead.â
âAnd there are whole beds of wild strawberries,â said Elizabeth, taking up the tale now Mary was out of breath. Mary fanned herself with her bonnet, while Elizabeth went onâ
âYou know where the grey rock crops out, donât you, Jemima? Well, there was a complete carpet of strawberry-runners. So pretty! And we could hardly step without treading the little bright scarlet berries under foot.â
âWe did so wish for Leonard,â put in Mary.
âYes! but Mrs. Denbigh gathered a great many for him. And Mr. Farquhar gave her all his.â
âI thought you said he bad gone on to Dawsonâs farm,â said Jemima.
âOh yes! he just went up there; and then he left his horse there, like a wise man, and came to us in the pretty, cool, green wood. O Jemima! it was so pretty-little flecks of light coming down here and there through the leaves, and quivering on the ground. You must go with us to-morrow.â
âYes,â said Mary, âweâre going again to-morrow. We could not gather nearly all the strawberries.â
âAnd Leonard is to go too, to-morrow.â
âYes! we thought of such a capital plan. Thatâs to say, Mr. Farquhar thought of itâwe wanted to carry Leonard up the hill in a kingâs cushion, but Mrs. Denbigh would not hear of it.â
âShe said it would tire us so; and yet she wanted him to gather strawberries!â
âAnd so,â interrupted Mary, for by this time the two girls were almost speaking together, âMr. Farquhar is to bring him up before him on his horse.â
âYouâll go with us, wonât you, dear Jemima?â asked Elizabeth: âit will be atâ-â
âNo! I canât go,â said Jemima abruptly. âDonât ask meâI canât.â
The little girls were hushed into silence by her manner; for whatever she might be to those above her in age and position, to those below her Jemima was almost invariably gentle She felt that they were wondering at her.
âGo upstairs and take off your things. You know papa does not like you to come into this room in the shoes in which you have been out.â
She was glad to out her sisters short in the details which they were so mercilessly inflictingâdetails which she must harden herself to, before she could hear them quietly and unmoved. She saw that she had lost her place as the first object in Mr. Farquharâs eyesâa position she had hardly cared for while she was secure in the enjoyment of it; but the charm of it now was redoubled, in her acute sense of how she had forfeited it by her own doing, and her own fault. For if he were the cold, calculating man her father had believed him to be, and had represented him as being to her, would he care for a portionless widow in humble circumstances like Mrs. Denbighâno money, no connection, encumbered with her boy? The very action which proved Mr. Farquhar to be lost to Jemima reinstated him on his throne in her fancy. And she must go on in hushed quietness, quivering with every fresh token of his preference for another? That other, too, one so infinitely more worthy of him than herself; so that she could not have even the poor comfort of thinking that he had no discrimination, and was throwing himself away on a common or worthless person. Ruth was beautiful, gentle, good, and conscientious. The hot colour flushed up into Jemimaâs sallow face as she became aware that, even while she acknowledged these excellences on Mrs. Denbighâs part, she hated her. The recollection of her marble face wearied her even to sickness; the tones of her low voice were irritating from their very softness. Her goodness, undoubted as it was, was more distasteful than many faults which had more savour of human struggle in them.
âWhat was this terrible demon in her heart?â asked Jemimaâs better angel. âWas she, indeed, given up to possession? Was not this the old stinging hatred which had prompted so many crimes? The hatred of all sweet virtues which might win the love denied to us? The old anger that wrought in the elder brotherâs heart, till it ended in the murder of the gentle Abel, while yet the world was young?â
âO God! help me! I did not know I was so wicked,â cried Jemima aloud in her agony. It had been a terrible glimpse into the dark, lurid gulfâthe capability for evil, in her heart. She wrestled with the demon, but he would not depart: it was to be a struggle whether or not she was to be given up to him, in this her time of sore temptation.
All the next day long she sat and pictured the happy strawberry-gathering
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