Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell (i read book .txt) 📕

AN ACCIDENT TO THE DOVER COACH

While Mr. Benson lay awake for fear of oversleeping himself, and so being late at Mr. Farquhar’s (it was somewhere about six o’clock—dark as an October morning is at that time), Sally came to his door and knocked. She was always an early riser; and if she had not been gone to bed long before Mr. Bradshaw’s visit last night, Mr. Benson might safely have trusted to her calling him.

“Here’s a woman down below as must see you directly. She’ll be upstairs after me if you’re not down quick.”

“Is it any one from Clarke’s?”

“No, no! not it, master,” said she through the keyhole; “I reckon it’s Mrs. Bradshaw, for all she’s muffled up.”

He needed no other word. When he went down, Mrs. Bradshaw sat in his easy-chair, swaying her body to and fro, and crying without restraint. Mr. Benson came up to her, before she was aware that he was there.

“Oh! sir,” said she, getting up and taking hold of both his hands, “you won’t be so cruel, will you? I have got some money somewhere—some money my father settled on me, sir; I don’t know how much, but I think it’s more than two thousand pounds, and you shall have it all. If I can’t give it you now, I’ll make a will, sir. Only be merciful to poor Dick—don’t go and prosecute him, sir.”

“My dear Mrs. Bradshaw, don’t you agitate yourself in this way. I never meant to prosecute him.”

“But Mr. Bradshaw says that you must.”

“I shall not, indeed. I have told Mr. Bradshaw so.”

“Has he been here? Oh! is not he cruel? I don’t care. I have been a good wife till now. I know I have. I have done all he bid me, ever since we were married. But now I will speak my mind, and say to everybody how cruel he is—how hard to his own flesh and blood! If he puts poor Dick in prison, I will go too. If I’m to choose between my husband and my son, I choose my son; for he will have no friends, unless I am with him.”

“Mr. Bradshaw will think better of it. You will see that, when his first anger and disappointment are over, he will not be hard or cruel.”

“You don’t know Mr. Bradshaw,” said she mournfully, “if you think he’ll change. I might beg and beg—I have done many a time, when we had little children, and I wanted to save them a whipping—but no begging ever did any good. At last I left it off. He’ll not change.”

“Perhaps not for human entreaty. Mrs. Bradshaw, is there nothing more powerful?”

The tone of his voice suggested what he did not say.

“If you mean that God may soften his heart,” replied she humbly, “I’m not going to deny God’s power—I have need to think of Him,” she continued, bursting into fresh tears, “for I am a very miserable woman. Only think! he cast it up against me last night, and said, if I had not spoilt Dick this never would have happened.”

“He hardly knew what he was saying last night. I will go to Mr. Farquhar’s directly, and see him; and you had better go home, my dear Mrs. Bradshaw; you may rely upon our doing all that we can.”

With some difficulty he persuaded her not to accompany him to Mr. Farquhar’s; but he had, indeed, to take her to her own door, before he could convince her that, at present, she could do nothing but wait the result of the consultations of others.

It was before breakfast, and Mr. Farquhar was alone; so Mr. Benson had a quiet opportunity of telling the whole story to the husband before the wife came down. Mr. Farquhar was not much surprised, though greatly distressed. The general opinion he had always entertained of Richard’s character had predisposed him to fear, even before the inquiry respecting the Insurance shares. But it was still a shock when it came, however much it might have been anticipated.

“What can we do?” said Mr. Benson, as Mr. Farquhar sat gloomily silent.

“That is just what I was asking myself. I think I must see Mr. Bradshaw, and try and bring him a little out of this unmerciful frame of mind. That must be the first thing. Will you object to accompany me at once? It seems of particular consequence that we should subdue its obduracy before the affair gets wind.”

“I will go with you willingly. But I believe I rather serve to irritate Mr. Bradshaw; he is reminded of things he has said to me formerly, and which he thinks he is bound to act up to. However, I can walk with you to the door, and wait for you (if you’ll allow me) in the street. I want to know how he is to-day, both bodily and mentally; for indeed, Mr. Farquhar, I should not have been surprised last night if he had dropped down dead, so terrible was his strain upon himself.”

Mr. Benson was left at the door as he had desired, while Mr. Farquhar went in.

“Oh, Mr. Farquhar, what is the matter?” exclaimed the girls, running to him.

“Mamma sits crying in the old nursery. We believe she has been there all night. She will not tell us what it is, nor let us be with her; and papa is locked up in his room, and won’t even answer us when we speak, though we know he is up and awake, for we heard him tramping about all night.”

“Let me go up to him,” said Mr. Farquhar.

“He won’t let you in. It will be of no use.” But in spite of what they said, he went up; and to their surprise, after hearing who it was, their father opened the door, and admitted their brother-in-law. He remained with Mr. Bradshaw about half-an-hour, and then came into the dining-room, where the two girls stood huddled over the fire, regardless of the untasted breakfast behind them; and, writing a few lines, he desired them to take his note up to their mother, saying that it would comfort her a little, and that he should send Jemima, in two or three hours, with the baby—perhaps to remain some days with them. He had no time to tell them more; Jemima would.

He left them, and rejoined Mr. Benson. “Come home and breakfast with me. I am off to London in an hour or two, and must speak with you first.”

On reaching his house, he ran upstairs to ask Jemima to breakfast alone in her dressing-room, and returned in five minutes or less.

“Now I can tell you about it,” said he. “I see my way clearly to a certain point. We must prevent Dick and his father meeting just now, or all hope of Dick’s reformation is gone for ever. His father is as hard as the nether millstone. He has forbidden me his house.”

“Forbidden you!”

“Yes; because I would not give up Dick as utterly lost and bad; and because I said I should return to London with the clerk, and fairly tell Dennison (he’s a Scotchman, and a man of sense and feeling) the real state of the case. By the way, we must not say a word to the clerk; otherwise he will expect an answer, and make out all sorts of inferences for himself, from