“Oh, Miss Benson! I never saw a christening; papa says I may go, if you think Mr Benson and Mrs Denbigh would not dislike it; and I will be quite quiet, and sit up behind the door, or anywhere; and that sweet little baby! I should so like to see him christened; is he to be called Leonard, did you say? After Mr Denbigh, is it?”
“No — not exactly,” said Miss Benson, rather discomfited.
“Was not Mr Denbigh’s name Leonard, then? Mamma thought it would be sure to be called after him, and so did I. But I may come to the christening, may I not, dear Miss Benson?”
Miss Benson gave her consent with a little inward reluctance. Both her brother and Ruth shared in this feeling, although no one expressed it; and it was presently forgotten.
Jemima stood grave and quiet in the old-fashioned vestry adjoining the chapel, as they entered with steps subdued to slowness. She thought Ruth looked so pale and awed because she was left a solitary parent; but Ruth came to the presence of God, as one who had gone astray, and doubted her own worthiness to be called His child; she came as a mother who had incurred a heavy responsibility, and who entreated His almighty aid to enable her to discharge it; full of passionate, yearning love which craved for more faith in God, to still her distrust and fear of the future that might hang over her darling. When she thought of her boy, she sickened and trembled; but when she heard of God’s loving-kindness, far beyond all tender mother’s love, she was hushed into peace and prayer. There she stood, her fair pale cheek resting on her baby’s head, as he slumbered on her bosom; her eyes went slanting down under their half-closed white lids; but their gaze was not on the primitive cottage-like room, it was earnestly fixed on a dim mist, through which she fain would have seen the life that lay before her child; but the mist was still and dense, too thick a veil for anxious human love to penetrate. The future was hid with God.
Mr Benson stood right under the casement window that was placed high up in the room; he was almost in shade, except for one or two marked lights which fell on hair already silvery white; his voice was always low and musical when he spoke to few; it was too weak to speak so as to be heard by many without becoming harsh and strange; but now it filled the little room with a loving sound, like the stock-dove’s brooding murmur over her young. He and Ruth forgot all in their earnestness of thought; and when he said “Let us pray,” and the little congregation knelt down, you might have heard the baby’s faint breathing, scarcely sighing out upon the stillness, so absorbed were all in the solemnity. But the prayer was long; thought followed thought, and fear crowded upon fear, and all were to be laid bare before God, and His aid and counsel asked. Before the end Sally had shuffled quietly out of the vestry into the green chapel-yard, upon which the door opened. Miss Benson was alive to this movement, and so full of curiosity as to what it might mean that she could no longer attend to her brother, and felt inclined to rush off and question Sally the moment all was ended. Miss Bradshaw hung about the babe and Ruth, and begged to be allowed to carry the child home, but Ruth pressed him to her, as if there was no safe harbour for him but in his mother’s breast. Mr Benson saw her feeling, and caught Miss Bradshaw’s look of disappointment.
“Come home with us,” said he, “and stay to tea. You have never drank tea with us since you went to school.”
“I wish I might,” said Miss Bradshaw, colouring with pleasure. “But I must ask papa. May I run home and ask?”
“To be sure, my dear!”
Jemima flew off; and fortunately her father was at home; for her mother’s permission would have been deemed insufficient. She received many directions about her behaviour.
“Take no sugar in your tea, Jemima. I am sure the Bensons ought not to be able to afford sugar, with their means. And do not eat much; you can have plenty at home on your return; remember Mrs Denbigh’s keep must cost them a great deal.”
So Jemima returned considerably sobered, and very much afraid of her hunger leading her to forget Mr Benson’s poverty. Meanwhile Miss Benson and Sally, acquainted with Mr Benson’s invitation to Jemima, set about making some capital tea-cakes on which they piqued themselves. They both enjoyed the offices of hospitality; and were glad to place some home-made tempting dainty before their guests.
“What made ye leave the chapel-vestry before my brother had ended?” inquired Miss Benson.
“Indeed, ma’am, I thought master had prayed so long he’d be drouthy. So I just slipped out to put on the kettle for tea.”
Miss Benson was on the point of reprimanding her for thinking of anything besides the object of the prayer, when she remembered how she herself had been unable to attend after Sally’s departure for wondering what had become of her; so she was silent.
It was a disappointment to Miss Benson’s kind and hospitable expectation when Jemima, as hungry as a hound, confined herself to one piece of the cake which her hostess had had such pleasure in making. And Jemima wished she had not a prophetic feeling all tea-time of the manner in which her father would inquire into the particulars of the meal, elevating his eyebrows at every viand named beyond plain bread-and-butter, and winding up with some such sentence as this: “Well, I marvel how, with Benson’s salary, he can afford to keep such a table.” Sally could have told of self-denial when no one was by, when the left hand did not know what the right hand did, on the part of both her master and mistress, practised without thinking even to themselves that it was either a sacrifice or a virtue, in order to enable them to help those who were in need, or even to gratify Miss Benson’s kind, old-fashioned feelings on such occasions as the present, when a stranger came to the house. Her homely, affectionate pleasure in making others comfortable, might have shown that such little occasional extravagances were not waste, but a good work; and were not to be gauged by the standard of money-spending. This evening her spirits were damped by Jemima’s refusal to eat. Poor Jemima! the cakes were so good, and she was so hungry; but still she refused.
While Sally was clearing away the tea-things, Miss Benson and Jemima accompanied Ruth upstairs, when she went to put little Leonard to bed.
“A christening is a very solemn service,” said Miss Bradshaw; “I had no idea it was so solemn. Mr Benson seemed to speak as if he had a weight of care on his heart that God alone could relieve or lighten.”
“My brother feels these things very much,” said Miss Benson, rather wishing to cut short the conversation, for she had been aware of several parts in the prayer which she knew were suggested by the peculiarity and sadness of the case before him.
“I could not quite follow him all through,” continued Jemima; “what did he mean by saying, ‘This child, rebuked by the world and bidden to stand apart, Thou wilt not rebuke, but wilt suffer it to come to Thee and be blessed with Thine almighty blessing’? Why is this little darling to be rebuked? I do not think I remember the exact words, but he said something like that.”
“My dear! your gown is dripping wet! it must have dipped into the tub; let me wring it out.”
“Oh, thank you! Never mind my gown!” said Jemima, hastily, and wanting to return to her question; but just then she caught the sight of tears falling fast down the cheeks of the silent Ruth as she bent over her child, crowing and splashing away in his tub. With a sudden consciousness that unwittingly she had touched on some painful chord, Jemima rushed into another subject, and was eagerly seconded by Miss Benson. The circumstance seemed to die away, and leave no trace; but in after-years it rose, vivid and significant, before Jemima’s memory. At present it was enough for her, if Mrs Denbigh would let her serve her in every possible way. Her admiration for beauty was keen, and little indulged at home; and Ruth was very beautiful in her quiet mournfulness; her mean and homely dress left herself only the more open to admiration, for she gave it a charm by her unconscious wearing of it that made it seem like the drapery of an old Greek statue — subordinate to the figure it covered, yet imbued by it with an unspeakable grace. Then the pretended circumstances of her life were such as to catch the imagination
of a young romantic girl. Altogether, Jemima could have kissed her hand and professed herself Ruth’s slave. She moved away all the articles used at this little coucher; she folded up Leonard’s day-clothes; she felt only too much honoured when Ruth trusted him to her for a few minutes — only too amply rewarded when Ruth thanked her with a grave, sweet smile, and a grateful look of her loving eyes.
When Jemima had gone away with the servant who was sent to fetch her, there was a little chorus of praise.
“She’s a warm-hearted girl,” said Miss Benson. “She remembers all the old days before she went to school. She is worth two of Mr Richard. They’re each of them just the same as they were when they were children, when they broke that window in the chapel, and he ran away home, and she came knocking at our door, with a single knock, just like a beggar’s, and I went to see who it was, and was quite startled to see her round, brown, honest face looking up at me, half-frightened, and telling me what she had done, and offering me the money in her savings bank to pay for it. We never should have heard of Master Richard’s share in the business if it had not been for Sally.”
“But remember,” said Mr Benson, “how strict Mr Bradshaw has always been with his children. It is no wonder if poor Richard was a coward in those days.”
“He is now, or I’m much mistaken,” answered Miss Benson. “And Mr Bradshaw was just as strict with Jemima, and she’s no coward. But I’ve no faith in Richard. He has a look about him that I don’t like. And when Mr Bradshaw was away on business in Holland last year, for those months my young gentleman did not come half as regularly to chapel, and I always believe that story of his being seen out with the hounds at Smithiles.”
“Those are neither of them great offences in a young man of twenty,” said Mr Benson, smiling.
“No! I don’t mind them in themselves; but when he could change back so easily to being regular and mim when his father came home, I don’t like that.”
“Leonard shall never be afraid of me,” said Ruth, following her own train of thought. “I will be his friend from the very first; and I will try and learn how to be a wise friend, and you will teach me, won’t you, sir?”
“What made you wish to call him Leonard, Ruth?” asked Miss Benson.
“It was my mother’s father’s name; and she used to tell me about him and his goodness, and I thought if Leonard could be like him — ”
“Do you remember the discussion there was about Miss Bradshaw’s name, Thurstan? Her father wanting her to be called Hepzibah, but insisting that she was to have a Scripture name at any rate; and Mrs Bradshaw wanting her to be Juliana, after some novel she had read not long before; and at last Jemima was fixed upon, because it would do either for a Scripture name or a name for a heroine out of a book.”
“I did not know Jemima was a Scripture name,” said Ruth.
“Oh yes, it is. One of Job’s daughters; Jemima, Kezia, and Keren-Happuch. There are a good many Jemimas in the world, and some Kezias, but I never heard of a Keren-Happuch; and yet we know just as much of one as of another. People really like a pretty name, whether in Scripture or out of it.”
“When there is no particular association with the name,” said Mr Benson.
“Now, I was called Faith after the cardinal virtue; and I like my name, though many people would think it too Puritan; that was according to our gentle mother’s pious desire. And Thurstan was called by his name because my father wished it; for, although he was what people called a radical and a democrat in his ways of talking and thinking, he was very proud in his heart of being descended from some old Sir Thurstan, who figured away in the French wars.”
“The difference between theory and practice, thinking and being,” put in Mr Benson, who was in a mood for allowing himself a little social enjoyment. He leant back in his chair, with his eyes looking at, but not seeing the ceiling. Miss Benson was clicking away with her eternal knitting-needles, looking at her brother, and seeing him, too. Ruth was arranging her child’s clothes against the morrow. It was but their usual way of spending an evening; the variety was given by the different tone which the conversation assumed on the different nights. Yet, somehow, the peacefulness of the time, the window open into the little garden, the scents that came stealing in, and the clear summer heaven above, made the time be remembered as a happy festival by Ruth. Even Sally seemed more placid than usual when she came in to prayers; and she and Miss Benson followed Ruth to her bedroom, to look at the beautiful sleeping Leonard.
“God bless him!” said Miss Benson, stooping down to kiss his little dimpled hand, which lay outside the coverlet, tossed abroad in the heat of the evening.
“Now, don’t get up too early, Ruth! Injuring your health will be short-sighted wisdom and poor economy. Good night!”
“Good night, dear Miss Benson. Good night, Sally.” When Ruth had shut her door, she went again to the bed, and looked at her boy till her eyes filled with tears.
“God bless thee, darling! I only ask to be one of His instruments, and not thrown aside as useless — or worse than useless.”
So ended the day of Leonard’s christening.
Mr Benson had sometimes taught the children of different people as an especial favour, when requested by them. But then his pupils were only children, and by their progress he was little prepared for Ruth’s. She had had early teaching, of that kind which need never be unlearnt, from her mother; enough to unfold many of her powers; they had remained inactive now for several years, but had grown strong in the dark and quiet time. Her tutor was surprised at the bounds by which she surmounted obstacles, the quick perception and ready adaptation of truths and first principles, and her immediate sense of the fitness of things. Her delight in what was strong and beautiful called out her master’s sympathy; but, most of all, he admired the complete unconsciousness of uncommon power, or unusual progress. It was less of a wonder than he considered it to be, it is true, for she never thought of comparing what she was now with her former self, much less with another. Indeed, she did not think of herself at all, but of her boy, and what she must learn in order to teach him to be and to do as suited her hope and her prayer. If any one’s devotion could have flattered her into self-consciousness, it was Jemima’s. Mr Bradshaw never dreamed that his daughter could feel herself inferior to the minister’s protegée, but so it was; and no knight-errant of old could consider himself more honoured by his ladye’s commands than did Jemima, if Ruth allowed her to do anything for her or for her boy. Ruth loved her heartily, even while she was rather annoyed at the open expressions Jemima used of admiration.
“Please, I really would rather not be told if people do think me pretty.”
“But it was not merely beautiful; it was sweet-looking and good, Mrs Postlethwaite called you,” replied Jemima.
“All the more I would rather not hear it. I may be pretty, but I know I am not good. Besides, I don’t think we ought to hear what is said of us behind our backs.”
Ruth spoke so gravely, that Jemima feared lest she was displeased.
“Dear Mrs Denbigh, I never will admire or praise you again. Only let me love you.”
“And let me love you!” said Ruth, with a tender kiss.
Jemima would not have been allowed to come so frequently if Mr Bradshaw had not been possessed with the idea of patronising Ruth. If the latter had chosen, she might have gone dressed from head to foot in the presents which he wished to make her, but she refused them constantly; occasionally to Miss Benson’s great annoyance. But if he could not load her with gifts, he could show his approbation by asking her to his house; and after some deliberation, she consented to accompany Mr and Miss Benson there. The house was square and massy-looking, with a great deal of drab-colour about the furniture. Mrs Bradshaw, in her lackadaisical, sweet-tempered way, seconded her husband in his desire of being kind to Ruth; and as she cherished privately a great taste for what was beautiful or interesting, as opposed to her husband’s love of the purely useful, this taste of hers had rarely had s
o healthy and true a mode of gratification as when she watched Ruth’s movements about the room, which seemed in its unobtrusiveness and poverty of colour to receive the requisite ornament of light and splendour from Ruth’s presence. Mrs Bradshaw sighed, and wished she had a daughter as lovely, about whom to weave a romance; for castle-building, after the manner of the Minerva press, was the outlet by which she escaped from the pressure of her prosaic life, as Mr Bradshaw’s wife. Her perception was only of external beauty, and she was not always alive to that, or she might have seen how a warm, affectionate, ardent nature, free from all envy or carking care of self, gave an unspeakable charm to her plain, bright-faced daughter Jemima, whose dark eyes kept challenging admiration for her friend. The first evening spent at Mr Bradshaw’s passed like many succeeding visits there. There was tea, the equipage for which was as handsome and as ugly as money could purchase. Then the ladies produced their sewing, while Mr Bradshaw stood before the fire, and gave the assembled party the benefit of his opinions on many subjects. The opinions were as good and excellent as the opinions of any man can be who sees one side of a case very strongly, and almost ignores the other. They coincided in many points with those held by Mr Benson, but he once or twice interposed with a plea for those who might differ; and then he was heard by Mr Bradshaw with a kind of evident and indulgent pity, such as one feels for a child who unwittingly talks nonsense. By-and-by, Mrs Bradshaw and Miss Benson fell into one tête à tête, and Ruth and Jemima into another. Two well-behaved but unnaturally quiet children were sent to bed early in the evening, in an authoritative voice, by their father, because one of them had spoken too loud while he was enlarging on an alteration in the tariff. Just before the supper-tray was brought in, a gentleman was announced whom Ruth had never previously seen, but who appeared well known to the rest of the party. It was Mr Farquhar, Mr Bradshaw’s partner; he had been on the Continent for the last year, and had only recently returned. He seemed perfectly at home, but spoke little. He leaned back in his chair, screwed up his eyes, and watched everybody; yet there was nothing unpleasant or impertinent in his keenness of observation. Ruth wondered to hear him contradict Mr Bradshaw, and almost expected some rebuff; but Mr Bradshaw, if he did not yield the point, admitted, for the first time that evening, that it was possible something might be said on the other side. Mr Farquhar differed also from Mr Benson, but it was in a more respectful manner than Mr Bradshaw had done. For these reasons, although Mr Farquhar had never spoken to Ruth, she came away with the impression that he was a man to be respected, and perhaps liked.
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 87