Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time

One o’clock! The effect of the sleeping potion administered to Ruth had passed away. Slowly she unclosed her eyes and gazed about her. The weary nurse, forgetful of her charge, had sunk into heavy slumber.

Where was Harry?

Ruth presses her hands to her temples. Oh God! the consciousness that would come! the frantic out-reaching of the arms to clasp – a vain shadow!

Where had they lain him?

She crossed the hall to Harry’s sick room; the key was in the lock; she turned it with trembling fingers. Oh God! the dreadful stillness of that outlined form! the calm majesty of that marble brow, on which the moonbeams fell as sweetly as if that peaceful sleep was but to restore him to her widowed arms. That half filled glass, from which his dying lips had turned away; – those useless phials; – that watch —his watch – moving – and he so still! – the utter helplessness of human aid; – the dreadful might of Omnipotence!

“Harry!”

Oh, when was he ever deaf before to the music of that voice? Oh, how could Ruth (God forgive her!) look upon those dumb lips and say, “Thy will be done!”

“Horrible!” muttered Hyacinth, as the undertaker passed him on the stairs with Harry’s coffin. “These business details are very shocking to a sensitive person. I beg your pardon; did you address me?” said he, to a gentleman who raised his hat as he passed.

“I wished to do so, though an entire stranger to you,” said the gentleman, with a sympathizing glance, which was quite thrown away on Hyacinth. “I have had the pleasure of living under the same roof, this summer, with your afflicted sister and her noble husband, and have become warmly attached to both. In common with several warm friends of your brother-in-law, I am pained to learn that, owing to the failure of parties for whom he had become responsible, there will be little or nothing for the widow and her children, when his affairs are settled. It is our wish to make up a purse, and request her acceptance of it, through you, as a slight token of the estimation in which we held her husband’s many virtues. I understand you are to leave before the funeral, which must be my apology for intruding upon you at so unseasonable an hour.”

With the courtliest of bows, in the blandest of tones, Hyacinth assured, while he thanked Mr. Kendall, that himself, his father, and, indeed, all the members of the family, were abundantly able, and most solicitous, to supply every want, and anticipate every wish of Ruth and her children; and that it was quite impossible she should ever suffer for anything, or be obliged in any way, at any future time, to exert herself for her own, or their support; all of which good news for Ruth highly gratified Mr. Kendall, who grasped the velvet palm of Hyacinth, and dashed away a grateful tear, that the promise to the widow and fatherless was remembered in heaven.

CHAPTER XXX

“They are very attentive to us here,” remarked the doctor, as one after another of Harry’s personal friends paid their respects, for his sake, to the old couple at No. 20. “Very attentive, and yet, Mis. Hall, I only practiced physic in this town six months, five years ago. It is really astonishing how long a good physician will be remembered,” and the doctor crossed his legs comfortably, and tapped on his snuff-box.

“Ruth’s brother, Hyacinth, leaves before the funeral, doctor,” said the old lady. “I suppose you see through that. He intends to be off and out of the way, before the time comes to decide where Ruth shall put her head, after Harry is buried; and there’s her father, just like him; he has been as uneasy as an eel in a frying-pan, ever since he came, and this morning he went off, without asking a question about Harry’s affairs. I suppose he thinks it is our business, and he owning bank stock. I tell you, doctor, that Ruth may go a-begging, for all the help she’ll get from her folks.”

“Or from me, either,” said the doctor, thrusting his thumbs into the arm-holes of his vest, and striding across the room. “She has been a spoiled baby long enough; she will find earning her living a different thing from sitting with her hands folded, with Harry chained to her feet.”

“What did you do with that bottle of old wine, Mis. Hall, which I told you to bring out of Harry’s room? He never drank but one glass of it, after that gentleman sent it to him, and we might as well have it as to let those lazy waiters drink it up. There were two or three bunches of grapes, too, he didn’t eat; you had better take them, too, while you are about it.”

“Well, it don’t seem, after all, as if Harry was dead,” said the doctor, musingly; “but the Lord’s will be done. Here comes your dress-maker, Mis. Hall.”

“Good afternoon, ma’am, good afternoon, sir,” said Miss Skinlin, with a doleful whine, drawing down the corners of her mouth and eyes to suit the occasion. “Sad affliction you’ve met with. As our minister says, ‘man is like the herb of the field; blooming to-day, withered to-morrow.’ Life is short: will you have your dress gathered or biased, ma’am?”

“Quite immaterial,” said the old lady, anxious to appear indifferent; “though you may as well, I suppose, do it the way which is worn the most.”

“Well, some likes it one way, and then again, some likes it another. The doctor’s wife in the big, white house yonder – do you know the doctor’s wife, ma’am?”

“No,” said the old lady.

“Nice folks, ma’am; open-handed; never mind my giving ’em back the change, when they pay me. She was a Skefflit. Do you know the Skefflits? Possible? why they are our first folks. Well, la, where was I? Oh! the doctor’s wife has her gowns biased; but then she’s getting fat, and wants to look slender. I’d advise you to have yourn gathered. Dreadful affliction you’ve met with, ma’am. Beautiful corpse your son is. I always look at corpses to remind me of my latter end. Some corpses keep much longer than others; don’t you think so, ma’am? They tell me your son’s wife is most crazy, because they doted on one another so.”

The doctor and his wife exchanged meaning looks.

“Do tell?” said Miss Skinlin, dropping her shears. “Well, I never! ‘How desaitful the heart is,’ as our minister says. Why, everybody about here took ’em for regular turtle-doves.”

“‘All is not gold that glitters,’” remarked the old lady. “There is many a heart-ache that nobody knows anything about, but He who made the heart. In my opinion our son was not anxious to continue in this world of trial longer.”

“You don’t?” said Miss Skinlin. “Pious?”

“Certainly,” said the doctor. “Was he not our son? Though, since his marriage, his wife’s influence was very worldly.”

“Pity,” whined Miss Skinlin; “professors should let their light shine. I always try to drop a word in season, wherever business calls me. Will you have a cross-way fold on your sleeve, ma’am? I don’t think it would be out of place, even on this mournful occasion. Mrs. Tufts wore one when her eldest child died, and she was dreadful grief-stricken. I remember she gave me (poor dear!) a five-dollar note, instead of a two; but that was a thing I hadn’t the heart to harass her about at such a time. I respected her grief too much, ma’am. Did I understand you that I was to put the cross-way folds on your sleeve, ma’am?”

“You may do as you like,” whined the old lady; “people do dress more at hotels.”

“Yes,” said Miss Skinlin; “and I often feel reproved for aiding and abetting such foolish vanities; and yet, if I refused, from conscientious scruples, to trim dresses, I suppose somebody else would; so you see, it wouldn’t do any good. Your daughter-in-law is left rich, I suppose. I always think that’s a great consolation to a bereaved widow.”

“You needn’t suppose any such thing,” said the doctor, facing Miss Skinlin; “she hasn’t the first red cent.”

“Dreadful!” shrieked Miss Skinlin. “What is she going to do?”

“That tells the whole story,” said the doctor; “sure enough, what is she going to do?”

“I suppose she’ll live with you,” said Miss Skinlin, suggestively.

“You needn’t suppose that, either,” retorted the doctor. “It isn’t every person, Miss Skinlin, who is agreeable enough to be taken into one’s house; besides, she has got folks of her own.”

“Oh, – ah!” – said Miss Skinlin; “rich?”

“Yes, very,” said the doctor; “unless some of their poor relatives turn up, in which case, they are always dreadfully out of pocket.”

“I un-der-stand,” said Miss Skinlin, with a significant nod. “Well; I don’t see anything left for her to do, but to earn her living, like some other folks.”

“P-r-e-c-i-s-e-l-y,” said the doctor.

“Oh – ah,” – said Miss Skinlin, who had at last possessed herself of “the whole story.”

“I forgot to ask you how wide a hem I should allow on your black crape veil,” said Miss Skinlin, tying on her bonnet to go. “Half a yard width is not considered too much for the deepest affliction. Your daughter, the widow, will probably have that width,” said the crafty dress-maker.

“In my opinion, Ruth is in no deeper affliction than we are,” said the doctor, growing very red in the face; “although she makes more fuss about it; so you may just make the hem of Mis. Hall’s veil half-yard deep too, and send the bill into No. 20, where it will be footed by Doctor Zekiel Hall, who is not in the habit of ordering what he can’t pay for. That tells the whole story.”

“Good morning,” said Miss Skinlin, with another doleful whine. “May the Lord be your support, and let the light of His countenance shine upon you, as our minister says.”

CHAPTER XXXI

Slowly the funeral procession wound along. The gray-haired gate-keeper of the cemetery stepped aside, and gazed into the first carriage as it passed in. He saw only a pale woman veiled in sable, and two little wondering, rosy faces gazing curiously out the carriage window. All about, on either side, were graves; some freshly sodded, others green with many a summer’s verdure, and all treasuring sacred ashes, while the mourners went about the streets.

“Dust to dust.”

Harry’s coffin was lifted from the hearse, and laid upon the green sward by the side of little Daisy. Over him waved leafy trees, of his own planting; while through the branches the shifting shadows came and went, lending a mocking glow to the dead man’s face. Little Katy came forward, and gazed into the yawning grave till her golden curls fell like a veil over her wondering eyes. Ruth leaned upon the arm of her cousin, a dry, flinty, ossified man of business; a man of angles – a man of forms – a man with veins of ice, who looked the Almighty in the face complacently, “thanking God he was not as other men are;” who gazed with stony eyes upon the open grave, and the orphan babes, and the bowed form at his side, which swayed to and fro like the young tree before the tempest blast.

“Dust to dust!”

Ruth shrinks trembling back, then leans eagerly forward; now she takes the last lingering look at features graven on her memory with lines of fire; and now, as the earth falls with a hard, hollow sound upon the coffin, a lightning thought comes with stunning force to little Katy, and she sobs out, “Oh, they are covering my papa up; I can’t ever see papa any more.”

“Dust to dust!”

The sexton smooths the moist earth carefully with his reversed spade; Ruth’s eyes follow his movements with a strange fascination. Now the carriages roll away one after another, and the wooden man turns to Ruth and says, “Come.” She looks into his stony face, then at the new-made mound, utters a low, stifled cry, and staggers forth with her crushing sorrow.

Oh, Earth! Earth! with thy mocking skies of blue, thy placid silver streams, thy myriad, memory-haunting odorous flowers, thy wheels of triumph rolling – rolling on, over breaking hearts and prostrate forms – maimed, tortured, crushed, yet not destroyed. Oh, mocking Earth! snatching from our frenzied grasp the life-long coveted treasure! Most treacherous Earth! are these thy unkept promises?

Oh, hadst thou no Gethsemane – no Calvary – no guarded tomb – no risen Lord!

CHAPTER XXXII

“And is it because Biddy M’Pherson don’t suit yer, that ye’d be afther sending her away?” said Ruth’s nursery maid.

“No, Biddy,” replied Ruth; “you have been respectful to me, and kind and faithful to the children, but I cannot afford to keep you now since – ” and Ruth’s voice faltered.

“If that is all, my leddy,” said Biddy, brightening up, “then I’ll not be afther laving, sure.”

“Thank you,” said Ruth, quite moved by her devotion; “but you must not work for me without wages. Besides, Biddy, I could not even pay your board.”

“And the tears not dry on your cheek; and the father of him and you with plenty of the siller. May the divil fly away wid ’em! Why, Nettie is but a babby yet, and Masther used to say you must walk every day, to keep off the bad headaches; and it’s coming could weather, and you can’t take Nettie out, and you can’t lave her with Katy; and anyhow it isn’t Biddy M’Pherson that’ll be going away intirely.”

The allusion to Harry’s tender care of Ruth’s health opened the wound afresh, and she wept convulsively.

“I say it’s a shame,” said Biddy, becoming more excited at the sight of her tears; “and you can’t do it, my leddy; you are as white as a sheet of paper.”

“I must,” said Ruth, controlling herself with a violent effort; “say no more, Biddy. I don’t know where I am going; but wherever it may be I shall always be glad to see you. Katy and Nettie shall not forget their kind nurse; now, go and pack your trunk,” said Ruth, assuming a composure she was far from feeling. “I thank you for your kind offer, though I cannot accept it.”

“May the sowls of ’em niver get out of purgatory; that’s Biddy’s last word to ’em,” said the impetuous Irish girl; “and if the priest himself should say that St. Peter wouldn’t open the gate for your leddyship, I wouldn’t believe him.” And unclasping little Nettie’s clinging arms from her neck, and giving a hurried kiss to little Katy, Biddy went sobbing through the door, with her check apron over her broad Irish face.

CHAPTER XXXIII

“Who’s that coming up the garden-walk, doctor?” said the old lady; “Ruth’s father, as true as the world. Ah! I understand, we shall see what we shall see; mind you keep a stiff upper lip, doctor.”

“Good morning, doctor,” said Mr. Ellet.

“Good morning, sir,” said the doctor, stiffly.

“Fine place you have here, doctor.”

“Very,” replied the doctor.

“I have just come from a visit to Ruth,” said Mr. Ellet.

The imperturbable doctor slightly nodded to his visitor, as he took a pinch of snuff.

“She seems to take her husband’s death very hard.”

“Does she?” replied the doctor.

“I’m sorry to hear,” remarked Mr. Ellet, fidgeting in his chair, “that there is nothing left for the support of the family.”

“So am I,” said the doctor.

“I suppose the world will talk about us, if nothing is done for her,” said the non-committal Mr. Ellet.

“Very likely,” replied the doctor.

“Harry was your child,” said Mr. Ellet, suggestively.

“Ruth is yours,” said the doctor.

“Yes, I know,” said Mr. Ellet; “but you are better off than I am, doctor.”

“I deny it – I deny it,” retorted the doctor, fairly roused; “you own the house you live in, and have a handsome income, or ought to have,” said he, sneeringly, “at the rate you live. If you have brought up your daughter in extravagance, so much the worse for her; you and Ruth must settle that between you. I wash my hands of her. I have no objection to take Harry’s children, and try to bring them up in a sensible manner; but, in that case, I’ll have none of the mother’s interference. Then her hands will be free to earn her own living, and she’s none too good for it, either. I don’t believe in your doll-baby women; she’s proud, you are all proud, all your family – that tells the whole story.”

This was rather plain Saxon, as the increased redness of Mr. Ellet’s ears testified; but pecuniary considerations helped him to swallow the bitter pill without making a wry face.

“I don’t suppose Ruth could be induced to part with her children,” said Mr. Ellet, meditatively.

“Let her try to support them then, till she gets starved out,” replied the doctor. “I suppose you know, if the mother’s inability to maintain them is proved, the law obliges each of the grand-parents to take one.”

This was a new view of the case, and one which immediately put to flight any reluctance Mr. Ellet might have had to force Ruth to part with her children; and remarking that he thought upon reflection, that the children would be better off with the doctor, Mr. Ellet took his leave.

“I thought that stroke would tell,” said the doctor, laughing, as Mr. Ellet closed the door.

“Yes, you hit the right nail on the head that time,” remarked the old lady; “but those children will be a sight of trouble. They never sat still five minutes at a time, since they were born; but I’ll soon cure them of that. I’m determined Ruth shan’t have them, if they fret me to fiddling-strings; but what an avaricious old man Mr. Ellet is. We ought to be thankful we have more of the gospel spirit. But the clock has struck nine, doctor. It is time to have prayers, and go to bed.”

CHAPTER XXXIV

The day was dark and gloomy. Incessant weeping and fasting had brought on one of Ruth’s most violent attacks of nervous headache. Ah! where was the hand which had so lately charmed that pain away? where was the form that, with uplifted finger and tiptoe tread, hushed the slightest sound, excluded the torturing light, changed the heated pillow, and bathed the aching temples? Poor Ruth! nature had been tasked its utmost with sad memories and weary vigils, and she sank fainting to the floor.

Well might the frightened children huddle breathless in the farther corner. The coffin, the shroud, and the grave, were all too fresh in their childish memory. Well might the tearful prayer go up to the only Friend they knew, – “Please God, don’t take away our mamma, too.”

Ruth heard it not; well had she never woke, but the bitter cup was not yet drained.

“Good morning, Ruth,” said her father, (a few hours after,) frowning slightly as Ruth’s pale face, and the swollen eyes of her children, met his view. “Sick?”

“One of my bad headaches,” replied Ruth, with a quivering lip.

“Well, that comes of excitement; you shouldn’t get excited. I never allow myself to worry about what can’t be helped; this is the hand of God, and you ought to see it. I came to bring you good news. The doctor has very generously offered to take both your children and support them. It will be a great burden off your hands; all he asks in return is, that he shall have the entire control of them, and that you keep away. It is a great thing, Ruth, and what I didn’t expect of the doctor, knowing his avaricious habits. Now you’ll have something pleasant to think about, getting their things ready to go; the sooner you do it the better. How soon, think?”

“I can never part with my children,” replied Ruth, in a voice which, though low, was perfectly clear and distinct.

“Perfect madness,” said her father, rising and pacing the floor; “they will have a good home, enough to eat, drink, and wear, and be taught – ”

“To disrespect their mother,” said Ruth, in the same clear, low tone.

“Pshaw,” said her father impatiently; “do you mean to let such a trifle as that stand in the way of their bread and butter? I’m poor, Ruth, or at least I may be to-morrow, who knows? so you must not depend on me; I want you to consider that, before you refuse. Perhaps you expect to support them yourself; you can’t do it, that’s clear, and if you should refuse the doctor’s offer, and then die and leave them, he wouldn’t take them.”

“Their Father in Heaven will,” said Ruth. “He says, ‘Leave thy fatherless children with me.’”

“Perversion of Scripture, perversion of Scripture,” said Mr. Ellet, foiled with his own weapons.

Ruth replied only with her tears, and a kiss on each little head, which had nestled up to her with an indistinct idea that she needed sympathy.

“It is of no use getting up a scene, it won’t move me, Ruth,” said Mr. Ellet, irritated by the sight of the weeping group before him, and the faint twinges of his own conscience; “the doctor must take the children, there’s nothing else left.”

“Father,” said Ruth, rising from her couch and standing before him; “my children are all I have left to love; in pity do not distress me by urging what I can never grant.”

“As you make your bed, so lie in it,” said Mr. Ellet, buttoning up his coat, and turning his back upon his daughter.

It was a sight to move the stoutest heart to see Ruth that night, kneeling by the side of those sleeping children, with upturned eyes, and clasped hands of entreaty, and lips from which no sound issued, though her heart was quivering with agony; and yet a pitying Eye looked down upon those orphaned sleepers, a pitying Ear bent low to list to the widow’s voiceless prayer.

CHAPTER XXXV

“Well, Mis. Hall, you have got your answer. Ruth won’t part with the children,” said the doctor, as he refolded Mr. Ellet’s letter.

“I believe you have lived with me forty years, come last January, haven’t you, doctor?” said his amiable spouse.

“What of that? I don’t see where that remark is going to fetch up, Mis. Hall,” said the doctor. “You are not as young as you might be, to be sure, but I’m no boy myself.”

“There you go again, off the track. I didn’t make any allusion to my age. It’s a thing I never do. It’s a thing I never wish you to do. I repeat, that I have lived with you these forty years; well, did you ever know me back out of anything I undertook? Did you ever see me foiled? That letter makes no difference with me; Harry’s children I’m determined to have, sooner or later. What can’t be had by force, must be had by stratagem. I propose, therefore, a compromise, (pro-tem.) You and Mr. Ellet had better agree to furnish a certain sum for awhile, for the support of Ruth and her children, giving her to understand that it is discretionary, and may stop at any minute. That will conciliate Ruth, and will look better, too.

“The fact is, Miss Taffety told me yesterday that she heard some hard talking about us down in the village, between Mrs. Rice and Deacon Gray (whose child Ruth watched so many nights with, when it had the scarlet fever). Yes, it will have a better look, doctor, and we can withdraw the allowance whenever the ‘nine days’ wonder’ is over. These people have something else to do than to keep track of poor widows.”

“I never supposed a useless, fine lady, like Ruth, would rather work to support her children than to give them up; but I don’t give her any credit for it now, for I’m quite sure it’s all sheer obstinacy, and only to spite us,” continued the old lady.

“Doctor!” and the old lady cocked her head on one side, and crossed her two forefingers, “whenever – you – see – a – blue-eyed – soft-voiced – gentle – woman, – look – out – for – a – hurricane. I tell you that placid Ruth is a smouldering volcano.”

“That tells the whole story,” said the doctor. “And speaking of volcanoes, it won’t be so easy to make Mr. Ellet subscribe anything for Ruth’s support; he thinks more of one cent than of any child he ever had. I am expecting him every moment, Mis. Hall, to talk over our proposal about Ruth. Perhaps you had better leave us alone; you know you have a kind of irritating way if anything comes across you, and you might upset the whole business. As to my paying anything towards Ruth’s board unless he does his full share, you needn’t fear.”

“Of course not; well, I’ll leave you,” said the old lady, with a sly glance at the china closet, “though I doubt if you understand managing him alone. Now I could wind him round my little finger in five minutes if I chose, but I hate to stoop to it, I so detest the whole family.”

“I’ll shake hands with you there,” said the doctor; “but that puppy of a Hyacinth is my especial aversion, though Ruth is bad enough in her way; a mincing, conceited, tip-toeing, be-curled, be-perfumed popinjay – faugh! Do you suppose, Mis. Hall, there can be anything in a man who wears fancy neck-ties, a seal ring on his little finger, and changes his coat and vest a dozen times a day? No; he’s a sensuous fop, that tells the whole story; ought to be picked up with a pair of sugar-tongs, and laid carefully on a rose-leaf. Ineffable puppy!”