"I have not many minutes to stay, only I felt as if I must see you. And we want Leonard to come to us to see all our German purchases, and hear all our German adventures. May he come to-morrow?"
"Yes; thank you. Oh! Jemima, I have heard something—I have got a plan that makes me so happy! I have not told any one yet. But Mr Wynne (the parish doctor, you know) has asked me if I would go out as a sick nurse—he thinks he could find me employment."
"You, a sick nurse!" said Jemima, involuntarily glancing over the beautiful lithe figure, and the lovely refinement of Ruth's face as the light of the rising moon fell upon it. "My dear Ruth, I don't think you are fitted for it!"
"Don't you?" said Ruth, a little disappointed. "I think I am; at least, that I should be very soon. I like being about sick and helpless people; I always feel so sorry for them; and then I think I have the gift of a very delicate touch, which is such a comfort in many cases. And I should try to be very watchful and patient. Mr Wynne proposed it himself."
"It was not in that way I meant you were not fitted for it. I meant that you were fitted for something better. Why, Ruth, you are better educated than I am!"
"But if nobody will allow me to teach?—for that is what I suppose you mean. Besides, I feel as if all my education would be needed to make me a good sick nurse."
"Your knowledge of Latin, for instance," said Jemima, hitting, in her vexation at the plan, on the first acquirement of Ruth she could think of.
"Well!" said Ruth, "that won't come amiss; I can read the prescriptions."
"Which the doctors would rather you did not do."
"Still, you can't say that any knowledge of any kind will be in my way, or will unfit me for my work."
"Perhaps not. But all your taste and refinement will be in your way, and will unfit you."
"You have not thought about this so much as I have, or you would not say so. Any fastidiousness I shall have to get rid of, and I shall be better without; but any true refinement I am sure I shall find of use; for don't you think that every power we have may be made to help us in any right work, whatever that is? Would you not rather be nursed by a person who spoke gently and moved quietly about than by a loud bustling woman?"
"Yes, to be sure; but a person unfit for anything else may move quietly, and speak gently, and give medicine when the doctor orders it, and keep awake at night; and those are the best qualities I ever heard of in a sick nurse."
Ruth was quite silent for some time. At last she said: "At any rate it is work, and as such I am thankful for it. You cannot discourage me—and perhaps you know too little of what my life has been—how set apart in idleness I have been—to sympathise with me fully."
"And I wanted you to come to see us—me in my new home. Walter and I had planned that we would persuade you to come to us very often" (she had planned, and Mr Farquhar had consented); "and now you will have to be fastened up in a sick-room."
"I could not have come," said Ruth quickly. "Dear Jemima! it is like you to have thought of it—but I could not come to your house. It is not a thing to reason about. It is just feeling. But I do feel as if I could not go. Dear Jemima! if you are ill or sorrowful, and want me, I will come—"
"So you would and must to any one, if you take up that calling."
"But I should come to you, love, in quite a different way; I should go to you with my heart full of love—so full that I am afraid I should be too anxious."
"I almost wish I were ill, that I might make you come at once."
"And I am almost ashamed to think how I should like you to be in some position in which I could show you how well I remember that day—that terrible day in the school-room. God bless you for it, Jemima!"
Chapter XXX - The Forged Deed
*
Mr Wynne, the parish surgeon, was right. He could and did obtain employment for Ruth as a sick nurse. Her home was with the Bensons; every spare moment was given to Leonard and to them; but she was at the call of all the invalids in the town. At first her work lay exclusively among the paupers. At first, too, there was a recoil from many circumstances, which impressed upon her the most fully the physical sufferings of those whom she tended. But she tried to lose the sense of these—or rather to lessen them, and make them take their appointed places—in thinking of the individuals themselves, as separate from their decaying frames; and all along she had enough self-command to control herself from expressing any sign of repugnance. She allowed herself no nervous haste of movement or touch that should hurt the feelings of the poorest, most friendless creature, who ever lay a victim to disease. There was no rough getting over of all the disagreeable and painful work of her employment. When it was a lessening of pain to have the touch careful and delicate, and the ministration performed with gradual skill, Ruth thought of her charge, and not of herself. As she had foretold, she found a use for all her powers. The poor patients themselves were unconsciously gratified and soothed by her harmony and refinement of manner, voice, and gesture. If this harmony and refinement had been merely superficial, it would not have had this balmy effect. That arose from its being the true expression of a kind, modest, and humble spirit. By degrees her reputation as a nurse spread upwards, and many sought her good offices who could well afford to pay for them. Whatever remuneration was offered to her, she took it simply and without comment; for she felt that it was not hers to refuse; that it was, in fact, owing to the Bensons for her and her child's subsistence. She went wherever her services were first called for. If the poor bricklayer, who broke both his legs in a fall from the scaffolding, sent for her when she was disengaged, she went and remained with him until he could spare her, let who would be the next claimant. From the happy and prosperous in all but health, she would occasionally beg off, when some one less happy and more friendless wished for her; and sometimes she would ask for a little money from Mr Benson to give to such in their time of need. But it was astonishing how much she was able to do without money.
Her ways were very quiet; she never spoke much. Any one who has been oppressed with the weight of a vital secret for years, and much more any one the character of whose life has been stamped by one event, and that producing sorrow and shame, is naturally reserved. And yet Ruth's silence was not like reserve; it was too gentle and tender for that. It had more the effect of a hush of all loud or disturbing emotions, and out of the deep calm the words that came forth had a beautiful power. She did not talk much about religion; but those who noticed her knew that it was the unseen banner which she was following. The low-breathed sentences which she spoke into the ear of the sufferer and the dying carried them upwards to God.
She gradually became known and respected among the roughest boys of the rough populace of the town. They would make way for her when she passed along the streets with more deference than they used to most; for all knew something of the tender care with which she had attended this or that sick person, and, besides, she was so often in connexion with Death that something of the superstitious awe with which the dead were regarded by those rough boys in the midst of their strong life, surrounded her.
She herself did not feel changed. She felt just as faulty—as far from being what she wanted to be, as ever. She best knew how many of her good actions were incomplete, and marred with evil. She did not feel much changed from the earliest Ruth she could remember. Everything seemed to change but herself. Mr and Miss Benson grew old, and Sally grew deaf, and Leonard was shooting up, and Jemima was a mother. She and the distant hills that she saw from her chamber window, seemed the only things which were the same as when she first came to Eccleston. As she sat looking out, and taking her fill of solitude, which sometimes was her most thorough rest—as she sat at the attic window looking abroad—she saw their next-door neighbour carried out to sun himself in his garden. When she first came to Eccleston, this neighbour and his daughter were often seen taking long and regular walks; by-and-by his walks became shorter, and the attentive daughter would convoy him home, and set out afresh to finish her
own. Of late years he had only gone out in the garden behind his house; but at first he had walked pretty briskly there by his daughter's help—now he was carried, and placed in a large, cushioned easy-chair, his head remaining where it was placed against the pillow, and hardly moving when his kind daughter, who was now middle-aged, brought him the first roses of the summer. This told Ruth of the lapse of life and time.
Mr and Mrs Farquhar were constant in their attentions; but there was no sign of Mr Bradshaw ever forgiving the imposition which had been practised upon him, and Mr Benson ceased to hope for any renewal of their intercourse. Still, he thought that he must know of all the kind attentions which Jemima paid to them, and of the fond regard which both she and her husband bestowed on Leonard. This latter feeling even went so far that Mr Farquhar called one day, and with much diffidence begged Mr Benson to urge Ruth to let him be sent to school at his (Mr Farquhar's) expense.
Mr Benson was taken by surprise, and hesitated. "I do not know. It would be a great advantage in some respects; and yet I doubt whether it would in others. His mother's influence over him is thoroughly good, and I should fear that any thoughtless allusions to his peculiar position might touch the raw spot in his mind."
"But he is so unusually clever, it seems a shame not to give him all the advantages he can have. Besides, does he see much of his mother now?"
"Hardly a day passes without her coming home to be an hour or so with him, even at her busiest times; she says it is her best refreshment. And often, you know, she is disengaged for a week or two, except the occasional services which she is always rendering to those who need her. Your offer is very tempting, but there is so decidedly another view of the question to be considered, that I believe we must refer it to her."
"With all my heart. Don't hurry her to a decision. Let her weigh it well. I think she will find the advantages preponderate."
"I wonder if I might trouble you with a little business, Mr Farquhar, as you are here?"
"Certainly; I am only too glad to be of any use to you."
"Why, I see from the report of the Star Life Assurance Company in the Times, which you are so good as to send me, that they have declared a bonus on the shares; now it seems strange that I have received no notification of it, and I thought that perhaps it might be lying at your office, as Mr Bradshaw was the purchaser of the shares, and I have always received the dividends through your firm."
Mr Farquhar took the newspaper, and ran his eye over the report.
"I've no doubt that's the way of it," said he. "Some of our clerks have been careless about it; or it may be Richard himself. He is not always the most punctual and exact of mortals; but I'll see about it. Perhaps after all it mayn't come for a day or two; they have always such numbers of these circulars to send out."
"Oh! I'm in no hurry about it. I only want to receive it some time before I incur any expenses, which the promise of this bonus may tempt me to indulge in."
Mr Farquhar took his leave. That evening there was a long conference, for, as it happened, Ruth was at home. She was strenuously against the school plan. She could see no advantages that would counterbalance the evil which she dreaded from any school for Leonard; namely, that the good opinion and regard of the world would assume too high an importance in his eyes. The very idea seemed to produce in her so much shrinking affright, that by mutual consent the subject was dropped; to be taken up again, or not, according to circumstances.
Mr Farquhar wrote the next morning, on Mr Benson's behalf, to the Insurance Company, to inquire about the bonus. Although he wrote in the usual formal way, he did not think it necessary to tell Mr Bradshaw what he had done; for Mr Benson's name was rarely mentioned between the partners; each had been made fully aware of the views which the other entertained on the subject that had caused the estrangement; and Mr Farquhar felt that no external argument could affect Mr Bradshaw's resolved disapproval and avoidance of his former minister.
As it happened, the answer from the Insurance Company (directed to the firm) was given to Mr Bradshaw along with the other business letters. It was to the effect that Mr Benson's shares had been sold and transferred above a twelvemonth ago, which sufficiently accounted for the circumstance that no notification of the bonus had been sent to him.
Mr Bradshaw tossed the letter on one side, not displeased to have a good reason for feeling a little contempt at the unbusiness-like forgetfulness of Mr Benson, at whose instance some one had evidently been writing to the Insurance Company. On Mr Farquhar's entrance he expressed this feeling to him.
"Really," he said, "these Dissenting ministers have no more notion of exactitude in their affairs than a child! The idea of forgetting that he has sold his shares, and applying for the bonus, when it seems he has transferred them only a year ago!"
Mr Farquhar was reading the letter while Mr Bradshaw spoke.
"I don't quite understand it," said he. "Mr Benson was quite clear about it. He could not have received his half-yearly dividends unless he had been possessed of these shares; and I don't suppose Dissenting ministers, with all their ignorance of business, are unlike other men in knowing whether or not they receive the money that they believe to be owing to them."
"I should not wonder if they were—if Benson was, at any rate. Why, I never knew his watch to be right in all my life—it was always too fast or too slow; it must have been a daily discomfort to him. It ought to have been. Depend upon it, his money matters are just in the same irregular state; no accounts kept, I'll be bound."
"I don't see that that follows," said Mr Farquhar, half amused. "That watch of his is a very curious one—belonged to his father and grandfather, I don't know how far back."
"And the sentimental feelings which he is guided by prompt him to keep it, to the inconvenience of himself and every one else."
Mr Farquhar gave up the subject of the watch as hopeless.
"But about this letter. I wrote, at Mr Benson's desire, to the Insurance Office, and I am not satisfied with this answer. All the transaction has passed through our hands. I do not think it is likely Mr Benson would write and sell the shares without, at any rate, informing us at the time, even though he forgot all about it afterwards."
"Probably he told Richard, or Mr Watson."
"We can ask Mr Watson at once. I am afraid we must wait till Richard comes home, for I don't know where a letter would catch him."
Mr Bradshaw pulled the bell that rang into the head-clerk's room, saying as he did so,
"You may depend upon it, Farquhar, the blunder lies with Benson himself. He is just the man to muddle away his money in indiscriminate charity, and then to wonder what has become of it."
Mr Farquhar was discreet enough to hold his tongue.
"Mr Watson," said Mr Bradshaw, as the old clerk made his appearance, "here is some mistake about those Insurance shares we purchased for Benson ten or a dozen years ago. He spoke to Mr Farquhar about some bonus they are paying to the shareholders, it seems; and, in reply to Mr Farquhar's letter, the Insurance Company say the shares were sold twelve months since. Have you any knowledge of the transaction? Has the transfer passed through your hands? By the way" (turning to Mr Farquhar), "who kept the certificates? Did Benson or we?"
"I really don't know," said Mr Farquhar. "Perhaps Mr Watson can tell us."
Mr Watson meanwhile was studying the letter. When he had ended it, he took off his spectacles, wiped them, and replacing them, he read it again.
"It seems very strange, sir," he said at length, with his trembling, aged voice, "for I paid Mr Benson the account of the dividends myself last June, and got a receipt in form, and that is since the date of the alleged transfer."
"Pretty nearly twelve months after it took place," said Mr Farquhar.
"How did you receive the dividends? An order on the Bank, along with old Mrs Cranmer's?" asked Mr Bradshaw, sharply.
"I don't know how they came. Mr Richard gave me the money, and desired me to get the receipt."
"It's unlucky Rich
ard is from home," said Mr Bradshaw. "He could have cleared up this mystery for us."
Mr Farquhar was silent.
"Do you know where the certificates were kept, Mr Watson?" said he.
"I'll not be sure, but I think they were with Mrs Cranmer's papers and deeds in box A, 24."
"I wish old Cranmer would have made any other man his executor. She, too, is always coming with some unreasonable request or other."
"Mr Benson's inquiry about his bonus is perfectly reasonable, at any rate."
Mr Watson, who was dwelling in the slow fashion of age on what had been said before, now spoke:
"I'll not be sure, but I am almost certain, Mr Benson said, when I paid him last June, that he thought he ought to give the receipt on a stamp, and had spoken about it to Mr Richard the time before, but that Mr Richard said it was of no consequence. Yes," continued he, gathering up his memory as he went on, "he did—I remember now—and I thought to myself that Mr Richard was but a young man. Mr Richard will know all about it."
"Yes," said Mr Farquhar, gravely.
"I shan't wait till Richard's return," said Mr Bradshaw. "We can soon see if the certificates are in the box Watson points out; if they are there, the Insurance people are no more fit to manage their concern than that cat, and I shall tell them so. If they are not there (as I suspect will prove to be the case), it is just forgetfulness on Benson's part, as I have said from the first."
"You forget the payment of the dividends," said Mr Farquhar, in a low voice.
"Well, sir! what then?" said Mr Bradshaw, abruptly. While he spoke—while his eye met Mr Farquhar's—the hinted meaning of the latter flashed through his mind; but he was only made angry to find that such a suspicion could pass through any one's imagination.