Lady Good-for-Nothing: A Man's Portrait of a Woman
Page 29
BETROTHED.
Sir Oliver rode back to Boston that same evening. Ruth had stipulatedthat his promise to her folk in the beach cottage still held good; thatwhen the three years were out, and not a day before, she would return tothem and make her announcement. Meanwhile, although the coast wouldsoon be clear of her enemies and he desired to have her near, she beggedoff returning to Sabines. Here at Sweetwater Farm she could ride, withthe large air about her and freedom to think. It was not that sheshirked books and tutors. She would turn to them again, by-and-by.But at Sweetwater she could think things out, and she had great need ofthinking.
He yielded. He was passionately in love and could deny her nothing.He would ride over and pay his respects once a week.
So he took his leave, and Ruth abode with the Corderys and Miss Quiney.Disloyal though she felt it, she caught herself wishing, more than once,that her lord could have taken dear Tatty back with him to Boston.
I desire to depict Ruth Josselin here as the woman she was, not as anangel.
Now Tatty, when Sir Oliver had led Ruth indoors and presented her as hisaffianced wife, had been taken aback; not scandalised, but decidedly--and, for so slight a creature, heavily--taken aback. It is undoubtedthat she loved Ruth dearly; nay, so dearly that in a general way nofortune was too high to befall her darling. What dreams she hadentertained for her I cannot tell. Very likely they had been at oncesplendid and vague. Miss Quiney was not worldly-wise, yet her wisdomdid not transcend what little she knew of the world. She had greatnotions of Family, for example. She had imagined, may be--still in avague way--that Sir Oliver would some day provide his _protegee_ with amate of good, or at least sufficient, Colonial birth. She had beenoutraged by Lady Caroline's suggestions. Now this, while ittriumphantly refuted them, did seem to show that Lady Caroline had notaltogether lacked ground for suspicion.
In fine, the dear creature received a shock, and in her flurry could notdissemble it.
Sir Oliver did not perceive this. In the first flush of conquest allmen are a trifle fatuous, unobservant. No woman is. Miss Quiney's armsdid not suddenly go out to Ruth. Ruth noted it. She was just: sheunderstood. But (I repeat) she was a woman, and women rememberindelibly whatever small thing happens at this crisis of their lives.
In the end Miss Quiney stretched forth her arms; but at first she seemedto shrivel and grow very small in her chair. Nor can her first commentbe called adequate,--
"Dear sir--oh, but excuse me!--this is so sudden!"
Later, when she and Ruth were left alone, she explained, still a littletremulously, "You took me all of a heap, my dear! I can hardly realiseit, even now. . . . Such a splendid position! You will go to London,I doubt not; and be presented at Court; and be called Lady Vyell. . . .Have you thought of the responsibilities?"
She had, and she had not. Her own promised splendours, the command ofwealth and of a great household--this aspect of the future was blank toher as yet. But another presented itself and frightened her: it engagedher conscience in doubts even when she shook it free of fears.The Family--that mysterious shadow of which Lady Caroline no doubtshowed as the ugliest projection! Ruth was conscientious. She divinedthat behind Lady Caroline's aggressiveness the shadow held somethingtruly sacred and worth guarding; something impalpable and yet immenselysolid; something not to be defied or laughed away because inexplicable,but venerable precisely because it could not be explained; something notfashioned hastily upon reason, but built by slow accretion, with theyears for its builders--mortared by sentiments, memories, traditions,decencies, trivialities good and bad, even (may be) by the blood offoolish quarrels--but founded and welded more firmly, massed moreformidably, than any structure of mere reason; and withal a templewherein she, however chastely, might never serve without profaning it.
I do most eagerly desire you, at this point in her story, to be just toRuth Josselin. I wish you to remember what she had suffered, in thestreets, at the hands of self-righteous folk; to understand that it hadkilled all religion in her, with all belief in its rites, but not theessential goodness of her soul.
She at any rate, and according to the light given her, was incurablyjust. Weighing on the one hand her love and Oliver Vyell's, on theother the half-guessed injury their marriage might do to him and toothers of his race; weighing them not hastily but through long hours ofthought: carrying her doubts off to the hills and there considering themin solitude, under the open sky; casting out from the problem all ofself save only her exceeding love; this strange girl--made strange byman's cruelty--decided to give herself in due time, but to exact nomarriage.
Why should she? The blessing of a clergyman meant nothing to her, asshe was sure it meant nothing to her lover. Why should she tie him aday beyond the endurance of his love? Beyond the death of the thingitself what sanctity could live in its husk? And, moreover, in anyevent was she not his slave?
So she reasoned: and let the reader call her reasoning by any name hewill. By some standards it was wicked; by others wrong. It forgot oneof the strongest arguments against itself, as she was in time to prove.But let none call her unchaste.
After certain weeks she brought her arguments to him; standing beforehim, halting in her speech a little, but entreating him with eyes asstraight as they were modest. Her very childishness appealed againsther arguments.
He listened, marvelled, and broke into joyous laughter. He would havenone of it. Why, she was fit to be a queen!--a thousand times too goodfor him. His family? Their prejudices should fall down before her andworship. As little as she did he set store by rites of the Church orbelieve in them: but, as the world went, to neglect them would be tostint her of the chief honour. Was this fair to him, who desired toheap honours upon her and would stretch for them even beyond his power?
His passion, rather than his arguments, overbore her. That passionrejuvenated him. Once or twice it choked his voice, and her heartleapt; for she was a sensible girl and, remembering the dead MargaretDance, had schooled herself to know that what was first love with her,drenching her heart with ecstasy, could never be first love with him.Yet now and again the miracle declared itself and instead of a lord,commanding her, he stood before her a boy: and with a boy's haltingspeech--ah, so much dearer than eloquence!
Beyond a doubt he was over head and ears in love. He was honest, too,in his desire to set her high and make a queen of her. In Boston, Mr.Ned Manley, architect of genius, was sitting up into the small hours ofmorning; now, between potations of brandy, cursing Sir Oliver for aslave-driver, while Batty Langton looked on and criticised with a smilethat tolerated a world of fools for the sake of one or two inspiredones; anon working like a demon and boasting while he worked.Already on a hillside between Boston and Sweetwater Farm--the hillitself could be seen from the farmstead, but not their operations, whichlay on the far side--three hundred labourers were toiling in gangs,levelling, terracing, hewing down forest trees, laying foundations.Already ships were heading for Boston Harbour with statuary and wroughtmarble in their holds, all to beautify a palace meet for Oliver Vyell'sbride. Thus love wrought in him, in a not extraordinary way if we allowfor his extraordinary means. He and Ruth, between them, were beginningto sing the eternal duet of courtship:--
_He_.--Since that I love, this world has grown; Yea, widens all to be possest. _She_--Since that I love, it narrows down Into one little nest.
_He_.--Since that I love, I rage and burn O'erwhelming Nineveh with Rome! _She_.--In vain! in vain! Fond man return-- Such doings be at home!
He had reached an age to know himself in his own despite. He was noboy, to dream of building or overthrowing empires. But he could buildhis love a palace. His friend Batty Langton bore with all this energyand smiled wisely.
Ruth guessed nothing of these preparations. But his vehemence brokedown her scruples, overbore and swept away what she had built in hoursof patient thinking. She yielded: she would be married, since he willedit.
; But the debate had been; and it left Tatty, with her maxims andtaken-for-granted practicalities, hard to endure at times.
"The outfit?" Tatty would suggest. "At this distance from civilisationwe cannot even begin to take it in hand. Yet it should be worthy of theoccasion, and men--speaking with all respect of Sir Oliver--are apt tooverlook these things. Dear Ruth, I do not know if you have thought ofreturning to Sabines. . . . So much handier. . . ."
Ruth, half-wilfully, refused to think of returning to Sabines.
But if Tatty fussed, the Cordery lads made more than recompense for herfussing. From the hour when, at supper-time, Sir Oliver led MissJosselin into the kitchen, his bride affianced, all discord ceasedbetween these young men. He was their master and patron, and theythenceforth were her servants only--her equal champions shouldoccasion ever be given.
Thenceforth too, and until the hour when at nightfall she drove awayfrom Sweetwater Farm, she was their goddess: and as, while Phoebusserved shepherd to Admetus, his fellow swains noted that never hadharvest been so heavy or life so full of sweet and healthy rivalries, sothese young men, who but once or twice saw Ruth Josselin after the hourof her departure, talked in scattered homesteads all their days of thatgood time at Sweetwater, and of the season's wonderful bearings.Undoubtedly the winter was a genial one--so genial that scarcely a daydenied Ruth a bracing ride: the spring that followed seemed to rain andshine almost in obedience to Farmer Cordery's evening prayer (and itnever left the Almighty in doubt of his exact wishes). Summer came, andthe young men, emulous but no longer bickering, scythed down prodigiousswathes; harvest-fall, and they put in their sickles among tall stalkand full ear.
Sir Oliver and Ruth watched the harvest. When all was gathered, theyoung men begged that she would ride home on the last load.They escorted her back to the farmstead, walking two-by-two before thecart, under the young moon.
Next evening at the same hour she bade them farewell and climbed into alight waggon that stood ready, its lamps throwing long shafts of light.Horses had been sent on ahead, with two servants for escort, and wouldawait her at dawn, far on the road; but to-night she would sleep in thewaggon, upon a scented bed of hay. The reason for this belated startSir Oliver kept a secret from her. There was a certain hill upon theway, and he would not have her pass it by daylight. He had returnedthat morning to Boston; Miss Quiney with him.
Ruth's eyes were moist to leave these good folk. Farmer Cordery clearedhis throat and blessed her in parting. She blessed them in return.
The waggon, after following the Boston road for a while, turnednorthward, bearing her by strange ways and through the night towardsPort Nassau.