Ruthita

“ When we had reached the black flint house and the door had shut, Ruthita snuggled close to me with a relieved little sigh. Ever since my return from Woadley she had been waiting for this moment of privacy. With a sweet sisterly air of proprietorship she slipped her arm through mine. We turned down a score and struck out across the denes to the north beach, where we could be quiet. A wet wind from the sea pattered about our faces, giving Ruthita an excuse to cling yet more closely.
You would not have called Ruthita beautiful in those days. She lacked the fire that goes with beauty. ”

“ I had never known much of Ruthita’s secret thoughts.
“Dante,” she cried, “why did they leave us to find out everything?”
I slowed the horse down to a walk. “I know what you mean, Ruthie. They brought us up on fables. They left us to fight with all kinds of fantastic imaginings. They allowed us to infer that so many things were shameful. D’you remember what a fuss they made when they found that the Bantam had kissed you?”
She nodded, casting down her eyes. “I’ve never got over it. It’s made me awkward with men—self-conscious and afraid of...” ”

“ I was allowed to sit up quite late, watching her pretty fingers flashing the needle in and out the flannel that grew into shirts for me to wear. Ruthita would snuggle up beside me, her long black curls tickling my cheek. There were lengthy silences. Then Ruthita would look up at her mother and say, “Mumsie, I don’t know whatever we shall do without him.” And sometimes, when she said it, the Snow Lady would laugh in her Frenchy way and answer, “Why, Ruthita, what’s one little boy? He’s so tiny; he won’t leave much empty space.” ”

“ CHAPTER V—THE AWAKENING At a distance I had been sorry for the Bantam, but at close quarters his hopeless passion for Ruthita bored me. On my return to the Red House he overwhelmed me with a flood of maudlin confessions. There was nothing pleased him better than to get me alone, so that he could outline to me his impossible plans for an early marriage. He talked of running away to sea and making his fortune in a distant land. It sounded all very easy. His only fear was that in his long absence Ruthita might be forced to marry some other fellow. ”

“ It occurred to me that it might be just possible that he really was Ruthita’s father. I had no idea what dying meant. I had been told that the dead were not really dead—only gone. So I thought that death might mean not being with your friends in the garden. I half expected to find my mother in the forest, just as I had hoped to bring her back on the magic carpet. ”

“ But we were in hero-land, and Dot-and-Carry-One was our giant-killer.
When Ruthita got tired, he hoisted her on to his shoulders, where she rode straddling his neck, with her hands clasped about his forehead. The forest, like a green silent army, with its flags unfurled marched nearer. The sun sank lower behind us; our long lean shadows ran on before us till they lay across the backs of the sheep. ”

“ Poor little Ruthita, with her mouse-like timidity! She had lived all her days in a walled-in garden, treading the dull monotonous round of self-sacrificing duties. No one ever credited her with a career of her own. ”

“ I see Ruthita unsubdued and bare-legged, plunging shoulder-high into golden bracken, shouting with natural gladness, followed by the gipsy boys and girls. We tasted life in its fullness for the first time, she and I, on that fantastic honeymoon of ours. We felt in our bones and flesh the simple ecstasy of being alive—the wide, sweet cleanness of the open world. And remembering, I wonder now, as I wondered then, why men have toiled to learn everything except to be happy, and have labored with so much heaviness to build cities when the tent and the camp-fire might be theirs. ”

“ Ruthita persisted. “I’ve always seen him off. I used to run beside the trap till I was ready to drop when Uncle Obad drove him away to the Red House. He’s only making fun.”
“No, really, Ruthie, I’d much rather say good-by to you here in the shop.”
“If you’re going to catch the six-thirty-eight, you’ll have to run,” said my grandmother.
Ruthita looked hurt. She could not understand me. She felt that something was wrong. I picked up my bag. They hurriedly embraced and followed me out on to the pavement to watch me down the road. I looked back. ”

“ Out of this guess Ruthita wove for me a romantic future, opening to my astonished imagination a career more congenial than any I had dreamt in my boldest moments. Up to this time, save for whispered hints from my grandmother Cardover, no mention had been made of my mother’s family. My father’s plebeian pride had never recovered from the shock and humiliation of his early years. At first out of jealous purpose, latterly from force of habit and the delicacy which men feel after re-marriage, he had allowed me to grow up in almost entire ignorance of my maternal traditions. ”

“ Ruthita and I had taken the honeymoon, and our parents were married. If Uncle Obad hadn’t given me the white hen, and the hen hadn’t flown over the wall, and I hadn’t followed, these things would never have happened.
I grew to admire the Snow Lady immensely. She always called me her little lover. She never ordered me to do anything or played the mother, but flirted with me and trusted to my chivalry to recognize her wants. We played a game of pretending. It had only one disadvantage, that it shut Ruthita out from our game, for one couldn’t court two ladies at once. ”

“ When the gowns came home, even Ruthita was surprised at the prettiness that filmy muslins and French laces accentuated in her.
“My word, Ruthie, you’re a dainty little armful. You won’t have to wait long for that lover now,” I told her, when she came down into the keeping-room to show herself to me.
She pouted and made a face at me like a child. “I don’t want lovers,” she laughed. “I only want my big brother.”
When she had gone upstairs my grandmother turned to me. “You can go too far with her, Dannie.” She only called me Dannie when she was saying something serious or a little wounding. ”

“ Ruthita stared at her too surprised to say a word. The woman herself, for the moment, was too infuriated to express herself. All the bitterness of a deserted mistress, the pent-up resentment against years of contempt and the false pride with which she had brazened out her shame among her fellow-townsmen, came to the surface and found an excuse for utterance. People nearest to us halted in their promenade and, gathering round, began to form the nucleus of an audience. An audience for her oratory was what “Lady Halloway” most desired. ”

“ He spoke stiffly. “You’ll inherit Sir Charles’s money. When I married a first and a second time, I didn’t consult his convenience, and the responsibilities I undertook are mine. Ruthita’s only your sister by accident; already you’ve been too much together. We must consider this offer apart from sentiment. He’s sowed his wild oats—well, he’s sorry. And he’ll be the Earl of Lovegrove by and by. To stand in her way would be selfishness.”
His argument took me by surprise. “Is Ruthita anxious for it? What does she say?”
“She knows nothing of the world. She takes her coloring from you. ”

“ You wanted me to say all that half-an-hour ago in the playground; now I’ve said it. I can think she’s pretty, can’t I, and still love Ruthita best?”
“But you oughtn’t to love her at all,” I expostulated with a growing sense of indignant proprietorship.
“Look here,” explained the Bantam seriously, “you’re jealous. That’s the way I felt about you when you told me that you weren’t Ruthita’s brother; I quite understand. But if I’m to marry Ruthita, I shall be your brother-in-law. Sha’n’t I? And if you marry Fiesole, she’ll be my sister-inlaw. Won’t she? ”

“ For years I’ve had to struggle to make ends meet. I’m about done—I’m tired. If Ruthita were settled, I could lie down with an easy mind. There’s enough saved to see me and her mother to our journey’s end. ”

“ A tap at my door made me jump up conscience-stricken. “It’s only Ruthita,” a low voice said.
She crept in noiselessly as a shadow. Her warm arms went about my neck, drawing my face down to hers. “Oh, Dannie, I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered.
“What about?”
“Because I’ve never missed welcoming you home ever since you went to school, and you needed me most of all this evening—and because you’ve got to go to work.”
“That doesn’t matter, Ruthie. If I go to work I’ll earn money, and then I’ll be able to do things for you.” ”

“ Ruthita spent a lot of her time in searching for Lilith’s baby. She wanted so badly to hold it. We felt quite certain that she had hidden it somewhere, as she had our clothes. Even if it was a dead’un, it was absurd to suppose that a person so clever as to tell fortunes should not know where it might be found. We determined to watch her. We thought that if her baby was really dead and she went to it by stealth, then by following her we should be able to find my mother and, perhaps, Ruthita’s father. ”

“ She wanted to run out into the streets and tell everybody. She began with the maid in the kitchen, and would have gone on to the men in the bake-house if I hadn’t stopped her by appealing to her curiosity, saying there was more to tell. As for Ruthita, she just put her arms about me and laid her head on my shoulder, crying for sheer gladness. Little Bee’s Knee looked on open-mouthed, shocked that grownups should behave so foolishly. Vi gazed at me with a far-away stare in her eyes, picturing the might-have-beens, and I gazed back at her across the gulf that widened between us. ”

“ Vi was not only exquisite in herself, but as expensively exquisite as fine clothes could make her. Ruthita, on the other hand, had the appearance of making the most genteel impression at the minimum expenditure of money. My father’s means were narrow, and she was not his daughter; therefore the Snow Lady insisted on making most of her own and Ruthita’s dresses. Rigid economies had been exercised ”

“ I’ve often thought you should be happy with Ruthita; you love her already. After you had had children, you’d soon forget me. You’d be able to smile about it. Then it would be easier for me to forget.”
My answer was a tortured whisper. “It’s impossible; I’m not made like that. For my own peace of mind I almost wish I were.”
We came to the gate of her house. Across the snow, beneath the gloom of elms lighted windows smote the darkness with bars of gold. Within one of the rooms a man was stirring; he came to the panes and looked out, watching for her return.
“He’s always like that ”

“ I replied. “At heart she’s only a child.”
“All I can say is you’re going the right way to work to make her a woman,” my grandmother said shortly.
That afternoon I persuaded Ruthita to put on all her finery and come for a walk on the esplanade. I wanted her to lose her timidity and to discover for herself that she was as good as anybody. I felt a boyish pride in walking beside her; she was my creation—I had dressed her. ”

“ In the cup of the valley, with the river sweeping round it, lay Oxford with its glistening towers and church spires. Little pin-points of fire sprang up, shining hard and frosty through the winter’s shadows. They raced through the city, as though a hundred lamp-lighters had wakened at once and were making up for lost time. Soon the somber mass was a blazing jewel, flinging up a golden blur into the night.
Ruthita hugged my arm. “Doesn’t it make you glad to be alive? I’m never so happy as when I’m alone with you, Dante. It isn’t what we say that does it. It’s just being near one another.” ”

“ Ruthita took her by the hand. “You didn’t talk to me that way once, Hetty. I’m just Ruthie to you always, and Sir Dante is plain Dannie.”
She looked up and met the laughing reproach in our eyes. Her apron went to her face and her bodice commenced to quiver. “Little did I think when I washed and dressed yer little bodies that I should ever see this day,” she sobbed. “It’s breakin’ me ’eart, that’s what it is, all this quarrelin’. Why shouldn’t I speak to ’im if I wants ter? Why shouldn’t ’e kiss ’is own sister if he likes? Wot’s it matter if all the neighbors was lookin’? ”

“ The country lay windswept and golden in the sunshine. The air had the sharp tang of autumn—the acrid fragrance which foretells the decay of foliage. A pleasant melancholy lurked in the reds and yellows of woods and hedges. Tops of trees were already growing thin of leaves where the gales had harried them. Pasturing in harvested fields, flocks of sheep lent a touch of grayness to the landscape. Here and there overhead gulls hovered, or slid down the sky on poised wings, as though brooding on the summer that was gone.
Ruthita and I spoke of Lilith, recalling childhood’s days. ”

“ Ruthita’s eyes filled with tears of indignation when she saw it. She stamped her little foot and insisted that he should not do it. The man pushed back his battered hat and scratched his forehead, staring at her. He seemed embarrassed and tried to excuse himself. “Humans is humans, miss, and sheep is sheep. It makes an old chap, made in Gawd’s h’image, kind o’ bitter to ’ave to spend his days a-scampering after a crowd o’ silly quadrupeds. ”

“ Another bright flash of lightning and she distinctly saw the lovely Ruth all in gauzy, fluffy, shimmering, pure white, her robes full of light, too—by Cresto’s side, smiling.
“O! I never saw such dazzling, clinging, beautiful golden white robes on any one as Ruth now wore. She looked like a fairy bride, much smaller than she looked yesterday. I wondered if any angel in Heaven could dress more beautiful? It is worth a fortune just to see this wonderful sight! I am glad I came to see this resurrection of Ruth. I thank God for my clairvoyance now. O! how lovely to know there is no death! ”