Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time

Mrs. Skiddy resumed her household duties with as much coolness as if there had been no interregnum, and received the boarders at tea that night, just as if she had parted with them that day at dinner. Skiddy was apparently as devoted as ever; the uninitiated boarders opened their eyes in bewildered wonder; and triumph sat inscribed on the arch of Mrs. Skiddy’s imposing Roman nose.

The domestic horizon still continued cloudless at the next morning’s breakfast. After the boarders had left the table, the market prices of beef, veal, pork, cutlets, chops, and steaks, were discussed as usual, the bill of fare for the day was drawn up by Mrs. Skiddy, and her obedient spouse departed to execute her market orders.

CHAPTER LIII

“Well, I hope you have been comfortable in my absence, Mrs. Hall,” said Mrs. Skiddy, after despatching her husband to market, as she seated herself in the chair nearest the door; “ha! ha! John and I may call it quits now. He is a very good fellow – John; except these little tantrums he gets into once in a while; the only way is, to put a stop to it at once, and let him see who is master. John never will set a river on fire; there’s no sort of use in his trying to take the reins – the man wasn’t born for it. I’m too sharp for him, that’s a fact. Ha! ha! poor Johnny! I must tell you what a trick I played him about two years after our marriage.

“You must know he had to go away on business for Fogg & Co., to collect bills, or something of that sort. Well, he made a great fuss about it, as husbands who like to go away from home always do; and said he should ‘pine for the sight of me, and never know a happy hour till he saw me again,’ and all that; and finally declared he would not go, without I would let him take my Daguerreotype. Of course, I knew that was all humbug; but I consented. The likeness was pronounced ‘good,’ and placed by me in his travelling trunk, when I packed his clothes. Well, he was gone a month, and when he came back, he told me (great fool) what a comfort my Daguerreotype was to him, and how he had looked at it twenty times a day, and kissed it as many more; whereupon I went to his trunk, and opening it, took out the case and showed it to him —without the plate, which I had taken care to slip out of the frame just before he started, and which he had never found out! That’s a specimen of John Skiddy! – and John Skiddy is a fair specimen of the rest of his sex, let me tell you, Mrs. Hall. Well, of course he looked sheepish enough; and now, whenever I want to take the nonsense out of him, all I have to do is to point to that Daguerreotype case, which I keep lying on the mantel on purpose. When a woman is married, Mrs. Hall, she must make up her mind either to manage, or to be managed; I prefer to manage,” said the amiable Mrs. Skiddy; “and I flatter myself John understands it by this time. But, dear me, I can’t stand here prating to you all day. I must look round and see what mischief has been done in my absence, by that lazy-looking red-faced German girl,” and Mrs. Skiddy laughed heartily, as she related how she had sent her spinning through the front door the night before.

Half the forenoon was occupied by Mrs. Skiddy in counting up spoons, forks, towels, and baby’s pinafores, to see if they had sustained loss or damage during her absence.

“Very odd dinner don’t come,” said she, consulting the kitchen clock; “it is high time that beef was on, roasting.”

It was odd – and odder still that Skiddy had not appeared to tell her why the dinner didn’t come. Mrs. Skiddy wasted no time in words about it. No; she seized her bonnet, and went immediately to Fogg & Co., to get some tidings of him; they were apparently quite as much at a loss as herself to account for Skiddy’s non-appearance. She was just departing, when one of the sub-clerks, whom the unfortunate Skiddy had once snubbed, whispered a word in her ear, the effect of which was instantaneous. Did she let the grass grow under her feet till she tracked Skiddy to “the wharf,” and boarded the “Sea-Gull,” bound for California, and brought the crestfallen man triumphantly back to his domicil, amid convulsions of laughter from the amused captain and his crew? No.

“There, now,” said his amiable spouse, untying her bonnet, “there’s another flash in the pan, Skiddy. Anybody who thinks to circumvent Matilda Maria Skiddy, must get up early in the morning, and find themselves too late at that. Now hold this child,” dumping the doomed baby into his lap, “while I comb my hair. Goodness knows you weren’t worth bringing back; but when I set out to have my own way, Mr. Skiddy, Mount Vesuvius shan’t stop me.”

Skiddy tended the baby without a remonstrance; he perfectly understood, that for a probationary time he should be put “on the limits,” the street-door being the boundary line. He heaved no sigh when his coat and hat, with the rest of his wearing apparel, were locked up, and the key buried in the depths of his wife’s pocket. He played with Tommy, and made card-houses for Sammy and Johnny, wound several tangled skeins of silk for “Maria Matilda,” mended a broken button on the closet door, replaced a missing knob on one of the bureau drawers, and appeared to be in as resigned and proper a frame of mind as such a perfidious wretch could be expected to be in.

Two or three weeks passed in this state of incarceration, during which the errand-boy of Fogg & Co. had been repeatedly informed by Mrs. Skiddy, that the doctor hoped Mr. Skiddy would soon be sufficiently convalescent to attend to business. As to Skiddy, he continued at intervals to shed crocodile tears over his past short-comings, or rather his short-goings! In consequence of this apparently submissive frame of mind, he, one fine morning, received total absolution from Mrs. Skiddy, and leave to go to the store; which Skiddy peremptorily declined, desiring, as he said, to test the sincerity of his repentance by a still longer period of probation.

“Don’t be a fool, Skiddy,” said Maria Matilda, pointing to the Daguerreotype case, and then crowding his beaver down over his eyes; “don’t be a fool. Make a B line for the store, now, and tell Fogg you’ve had an attack of room-a-tism;” and Maria Matilda laughed at her wretched pun.

Skiddy obeyed. No Uriah Heep could have out-done him in “’umbleness,” as he crept up the long street, until a friendly corner hid him from the lynx eyes of Maria Matilda. Then “Richard was himself again”! Drawing a long breath, our flying Mercury whizzed past the mile-stones, and, before sun-down of the same day, was under full sail for California.

Just one half hour our Napoleon in petticoats spent in reflection, after being satisfied that Skiddy was really “on the deep blue sea.” In one day she had cleared her house of boarders, and reserving one room for herself and children, filled all the other apartments with lodgers; who paid her good prices, and taking their meals down town, made her no trouble beyond the care of their respective rooms.

About a year after a letter came from Skiddy. He was “disgusted” with ill-luck at gold-digging, and ill-luck everywhere else; he had been “burnt out,” and “robbed,” and everything else but murdered; and “’umbly” requested his dear Maria Matilda to send him the “passage-money to return home.”

Mrs. Skiddy’s picture should have been taken at that moment! My pen fails! Drawing from her pocket a purse well filled with her own honest earnings, she chinked its contents at some phantom shape discernible to her eyes alone; while through her set teeth hissed out, like ten thousand serpents, the word

“N – e – v – e – r!”

CHAPTER LIV

“What is it on the gate? Spell it, mother,” said Katy, looking wistfully through the iron fence at the terraced banks, smoothly-rolled gravel walks, plats of flowers, and grape-trellised arbors; “what is it on the gate, mother?”

“‘Insane Hospital,’ dear; a place for crazy people.”

“Want to walk round, ma’am?” asked the gate-keeper, as Katy poked her little head in; “can, if you like.” Little Katy’s eyes pleaded eloquently; flowers were to her another name for happiness, and Ruth passed in.

“I should like to live here, mamma,” said Katy.

Ruth shuddered, and pointed to a pale face pressed close against the grated window. Fair rose the building in its architectural proportions; the well-kept lawn was beautiful to the eye; but, alas! there was helpless age, whose only disease was too long a lease of life for greedy heirs. There, too, was the fragile wife, to whom love was breath – being! – forgotten by the world and him in whose service her bloom had withered, insane – only in that her love had outlived his patience.

“Poor creatures!” exclaimed Ruth, as they peered out from one window after another. “Have you had many deaths here?” asked she of the gate-keeper.

“Some, ma’am. There is one corpse in the house now; a married lady, Mrs. Leon.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Ruth, “my friend Mary.”

“Died yesterday, ma’am; her husband left her here for her health, while he went to Europe.”

“Can I see the Superintendent,” asked Ruth; “I must speak to him.”

Ruth followed the gate-keeper up the ample steps into a wide hall, and from thence into a small parlor; after waiting what seemed to her an age of time, Mr. Tibbetts, the Superintendent, entered. He was a tall, handsome man, between forty and fifty, with a very imposing air and address.

“I am pained to learn,” said Ruth, “that a friend of mine, Mrs. Leon, lies dead here; can I see the body?”

“Are you a relative of that lady?” asked Mr. Tibbetts, with a keen glance at Ruth.

“No,” replied Ruth, “but she was very dear to me. The last time I saw her, not many months since, she was in tolerable health. Has she been long with you, Sir?”

“About two months,” replied Mr. Tibbetts; “she was hopelessly crazy, refused food entirely, so that we were obliged to force it. Her husband, who is an intimate friend of mine, left her under my care, and went to the Continent. A very fine man, Mr. Leon.”

Ruth did not feel inclined to respond to this remark, but repeated her request to see Mary.

“It is against the rules of our establishment to permit this to any but relatives,” said Mr. Tibbetts.

“I should esteem it a great favor if you would break through your rules in my case,” replied Ruth; “it will be a great consolation to me to have seen her once more;” and her voice faltered.

The appeal was made so gently, yet so firmly, that Mr. Tibbetts reluctantly yielded.

The matron of the establishment, Mrs. Bunce, (whose advent was heralded by the clinking of a huge bunch of keys at her waist,) soon after came in. Mrs. Bunce was gaunt, sallow and bony, with restless, yellowish, glaring black eyes, very much resembling those of a cat in the dark; her motions were quick, brisk, and angular; her voice loud, harsh, and wiry. Ruth felt an instantaneous aversion to her; which was not lessened by Mrs. Bunce asking, as they passed through the parlor-door:

“Fond of looking at corpses, ma’am? I’ve seen a great many in my day; I’ve laid out more’n twenty people, first and last, with my own hands. Relation of Mrs. Leon’s, perhaps?” said she, curiously peering under Ruth’s bonnet. “Ah, only a friend?”

“This way, if you please, ma’am;” and on they went, through one corridor, then another, the massive doors swinging heavily to on their hinges, and fastening behind them as they closed.

“Hark!” said Ruth, with a quick, terrified look, “what’s that?”

“Oh, nothing,” replied the matron, “only a crazy woman in that room yonder, screaming for her child. Her husband ran away from her and carried off her child with him, to spite her, and now she fancies every footstep she hears is his. Visitors always thinks she screams awful. She can’t harm you, ma’am,” said the matron, mistaking the cause of Ruth’s shudder, “for she is chained. She went to law about the child, and the law, you see, as it generally is, was on the man’s side; and it just upset her. She’s a sight of trouble to manage. If she was to catch sight of your little girl out there in the garden, she’d spring at her through them bars like a panther; but we don’t have to whip her very often.”

“Down here,” said the matron, taking the shuddering Ruth by the hand, and descending a flight of stone steps, into a dark passage-way. “Tired arn’t you?”

“Wait a bit, please,” said Ruth, leaning against the stone wall, for her limbs were trembling so violently that she could scarcely bear her weight.

“Now,” said she, (after a pause,) with a firmer voice and step.

“This way,” said Mrs. Bunce, advancing towards a rough deal box which stood on a table in a niche of the cellar, and setting a small lamp upon it; “she didn’t look no better than that, ma’am, for a long while before she died.”

Ruth gave one hurried glance at the corpse, and buried her face in her hands. Well might she fail to recognize in that emaciated form, those sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, the beautiful Mary Leon. Well might she shudder, as the gibbering screams of the maniacs over head echoed through the stillness of that cold, gloomy vault.

“Were you with her at the last?” asked Ruth of the matron, wiping away her tears.

“No,” replied she; “the afternoon she died she said, ‘I want to be alone,’ and, not thinking her near her end, I took my work and sat just outside the door. I looked in once, about half an hour after, but she lay quietly asleep, with her cheek in her hand, – so. By-and-bye I thought I would speak to her, so I went in, and saw her lying just as she did when I looked at her before. I spoke to her, but she did not answer me; she was dead, ma’am.”

O, how mournfully sounded in Ruth’s ears those plaintive words, “I want to be alone.” Poor Mary! aye, better even in death ‘alone,’ than gazed at by careless, hireling eyes, since he who should have closed those drooping lids, had wearied of their faded light.

“Did she speak of no one?” asked Ruth; “mention no one?”

“No – yes; I recollect now that she said something about calling Ruth; I didn’t pay any attention, for they don’t know what they are saying, you know. She scribbled something, too, on a bit of paper; I found it under her pillow, when I laid her out. I shouldn’t wonder if it was in my pocket now; I haven’t thought of it since. Ah! here it is,” said Mrs. Bunce, as she handed the slip of paper to Ruth.

It ran thus: – “I am not crazy, Ruth, no, no – but I shall be; the air of this place stifles me; I grow weaker – weaker. I cannot die here; for the love of heaven, dear Ruth, come and take me away.”

“Only three mourners, – a woman and two little girls,” exclaimed a by-stander, as Ruth followed Mary Leon to her long home.

CHAPTER LV

The sudden change in Mrs. Skiddy’s matrimonial prospects necessitated Ruth to seek other quarters. With a view to still more rigid economy, she hired a room without board, in the lower part of the city.

Mrs. Waters, her new landlady, was one of that description of females, whose vision is bounded by a mop, scrubbing-brush, and dust-pan; who repudiate rainy washing days; whose hearth, Jowler, on the stormiest night, would never venture near without a special permit, and whose husband and children speak under their breath on baking and cleaning days. Mrs. Waters styled herself a female physician. She kept a sort of witch’s cauldron constantly boiling over the fire, in which seethed all sorts of “mints” and “yarbs,” and from which issued what she called a “potecary odor.” Mrs. Waters, when not engaged in stirring this cauldron, or in her various house-keeping duties, alternated her leisure in reading medical books, attending medical lectures, and fondling a pet skull, which lay on the kitchen-dresser.

Various little boxes of brown-bread-looking pills ornamented the upper shelf, beside a row of little dropsical chunky junk bottles, whose labels would have puzzled the most erudite M. D. who ever received a diploma. Mrs. Waters felicitated herself on knowing how the outer and inner man of every son of Adam was put together, and considered the times decidedly “out of joint;” inasmuch that she, Mrs. Waters, had not been called upon by her country to fill some medical professorship.

In person Mrs. Waters was barber-pole-ish and ram-rod-y, and her taste in dress running mostly to stringy fabrics, assisted the bolster-y impression she created; her hands and wrists bore a strong resemblance to the yellow claws of defunct chickens, which children play “scare” with about Thanksgiving time; her feet were of turtle flatness, and her eyes – if you ever provoked a cat up to the bristling and scratching point, you may possibly form an idea of them.

Mrs. Waters condescended to allow Ruth to keep the quart of milk and loaf of bread, (which was to serve for her bill of fare for every day’s three meals,) on a swing shelf in a corner of the cellar. As Ruth’s room was at the top of the house, it was somewhat of a journey to travel up and down, and the weather was too warm to keep it up stairs; to her dismay she soon found that the cellar-floor was generally more or less flooded with water, and the sudden change from the heated air of her attic to the dampness of the cellar, brought on a racking cough, which soon told upon her health. Upon the first symptom of it, Mrs. Waters seized a box of pills and hurried to her room, assuring her that it was “a sure cure, and only three shillings a box.”

“Thank you,” said Ruth; “but it is my rule never to take medicine unless – ”

“Oh, oh,” said Mrs. Waters, bridling up; “I see – unless it is ordered by a physician, you were going to say; perhaps you don’t know that I am a physician – none the worse for being a female. I have investigated things; I have dissected several cats, and sent in an analysis of them to the Medical Journal; it has never been published, owing, probably, to the editor being out of town. If you will take six of these pills every other night,” said the doctress, laying the box on the table, “it will cure your cough; it is only three shillings. I will take the money now, or charge it in your bill.”

“Three shillings!” Ruth was aghast; she might as well have asked her three dollars. If there was anything Ruth was afraid of, it was Mrs. Waters’ style of woman; a loaded cannon, or a regiment of dragoons, would have had few terrors in comparison. But the music must be faced; so, hoping to avoid treading on her landlady’s professional toes, Ruth said, “I think I’ll try first what dieting will do, Mrs. Waters.”

The door instantly banged to with a crash, as the owner and vender of the pills passed out. The next day Mrs. Waters drew off a little superfluous feminine bile, by announcing to Ruth, with a malignity worthy of her sex, “that she forgot to mention when she let her lodgings, that she should expect her to scour the stairs she traveled over, at least once a week.”

CHAPTER LVI

It was a sultry morning in July. Ruth had risen early, for her cough seemed more troublesome in a reclining posture. “I wonder what that noise can be?” said she to herself; whir – whir – whir, it went, all day long in the attic overhead. She knew that Mrs. Waters had one other lodger beside herself, an elderly gentleman by the name of Bond, who cooked his own food, and whom she often met on the stairs, coming up with a pitcher of water, or a few eggs in a paper bag, or a pie that he had bought of Mr. Flake, at the little black grocery-shop at the corner. On these occasions he always stepped aside, and with a deferential bow waited for Ruth to pass. He was a thin, spare man, slightly bent; his hair and whiskers curiously striped like a zebra, one lock being jet black, while the neighboring one was as distinct a white. His dress was plain, but very neat and tidy. He never seemed to have any business out-doors, as he stayed in his room all day, never leaving it at all till dark, when he paced up and down, with his hands behind him, before the house. “Whir – whir – whir.” It was early sunrise; but Ruth had heard that odd noise for two hours at least. What could it mean? Just then a carrier passed on the other side of the street with the morning papers, and slipped one under the crack of the house door opposite.

A thought! why could not Ruth write for the papers? How very odd it had never occurred to her before? Yes, write for the papers – why not? She remembered that while at boarding-school, an editor of a paper in the same town used often to come in and take down her compositions in short-hand as she read them aloud, and transfer them to the columns of his paper. She certainly ought to write better now than she did when an inexperienced girl. She would begin that very night; but where to make a beginning? who would publish her articles? how much would they pay her? to whom should she apply first? There was her brother Hyacinth, now the prosperous editor of the Irving Magazine; oh, if he would only employ her? Ruth was quite sure she could write as well as some of his correspondents, whom he had praised with no niggardly pen. She would prepare samples to send immediately, announcing her intention, and offering them for his acceptance. This means of support would be so congenial, so absorbing. At the needle one’s mind could still be brooding over sorrowful thoughts.

Ruth counted the days and hours impatiently, as she waited for an answer. Hyacinth surely would not refuse her when in almost every number of his magazine he was announcing some new contributor; or, if he could not employ her himself, he surely would be brotherly enough to point out to her some one of the many avenues so accessible to a man of extensive newspaperial and literary acquaintance. She would so gladly support herself, so cheerfully toil day and night, if need be, could she only win an independence; and Ruth recalled with a sigh Katy’s last visit to her father, and then she rose and walked the floor in her impatience; and then, her restless spirit urging her on to her fate, she went again to the post office to see if there were no letter. How long the clerk made her wait! Yes, there was a letter for her, and in her brother’s hand-writing too. Oh, how long since she had seen it!

Ruth heeded neither the jostling of office-boys, porters, or draymen, as she held out her eager hand for the letter. Thrusting it hastily in her pocket, she hurried in breathless haste back to her lodgings. The contents were as follows:

“I have looked over the pieces you sent me, Ruth. It is very evident that writing never can be your forte; you have no talent that way. You may possibly be employed by some inferior newspapers, but be assured your articles never will be heard of out of your own little provincial city. For myself I have plenty of contributors, nor do I know of any of my literary acquaintances who would employ you. I would advise you, therefore, to seek some unobtrusive employment. Your brother,

“Hyacinth Ellet.”

A bitter smile struggled with the hot tear that fell upon Ruth’s cheek. “I have tried the unobtrusive employment,” said Ruth; “the wages are six cents a day, Hyacinth;” and again the bitter smile disfigured her gentle lip.

“No talent!”

“At another tribunal than his will I appeal.”

“Never be heard of out of my own little provincial city!” The cold, contemptuous tone stung her.

“But they shall be heard of;” and Ruth leaped to her feet. “Sooner than he dreams of, too. I can do it, I feel it, I will do it,” and she closed her lips firmly; “but there will be a desperate struggle first,” and she clasped her hands over her heart as if it had already commenced; “there will be scant meals, and sleepless nights, and weary days, and a throbbing brow, and an aching heart; there will be the chilling tone, the rude repulse; there will be ten backward steps to one forward. Pride must sleep! but – ” and Ruth glanced at her children – “it shall be done. They shall be proud of their mother. Hyacinth shall yet be proud to claim his sister.”

“What is it, mamma?” asked Katy, looking wonderingly at the strange expression of her mother’s face.

“What is it, my darling?” and Ruth caught up the child with convulsive energy; “what is it? only that when you are a woman you shall remember this day, my little pet;” and as she kissed Katy’s upturned brow a bright spot burned on her cheek, and her eye glowed like a star.