A FRIEND IN NEED.
Mrs. Adrian never read the newspaper herself. Her eyes ‘were not what
they used to be,’ and she declined to avail herself of the artificial
aid of glasses. She had tried spectacles at first, but she had always
been laying them down and losing them, or treading on them and breaking
them.
Mrs. Adrian’s spectacles had been a fearful source of trouble to the
whole family. If she lost them, Ruth was started all over the house on
a tour of exploration, and Mrs. Adrian was always quite sure that she
had put them in sueh and such a place, and somebody must have moved
them. As a rule, they were found in close proximity to the owner. She
usually hid them in her lap under her work, or shut in the book she had
been reading. One night the entire household were kept up till two in
the morning. Mrs. Adrian without her spectacles and her temper at the
same time vowed she would not go to bed till the glasses were found.
Under the circumstances, Ruth and Mr. Adrian felt bound to share her
vigil, and they joined the servants in a room-to-room and
corner-to-corner visitation. Mrs. Adrian sat in her easy-chair, and
resolutely refused to budge till her spectacles were found. She
wouldn’t lose them for the world. It was fortunate that she did move at
last, for she had been sitting on the spectacles all the time.
When they were broken and sent to be repaired, they always came back
with glasses that didn’t suit—at least Mrs. Adrian always declared so.
At last, one day, after breaking a pair, which had been lost for nearly
a week and had eventually turned up in the flour-barrel, where Mrs.
Adrian had dropped them while on a tour of inspection through the
larder, the good lady vowed and declared that she’d never wear another
pair as long as she lived, and she did there and then incontinently
fling the damaged pair out of the window in a temper, much to the
astonishment of the vicar of the parish, who was passing at the time,
and who, bowing politely to the mistress of the house, received the
ejected spectacles in the hollow of his hat.
Mrs. Adrian kept her word, and without much sacrifice on her part, for
her eyesight was still fairly good, and she could do her knitting and
her darning without glasses.
But she declared she couldn’t read, and so, for her edification, Ruth
was requested to read the morning paper aloud—that is, such portions of
it as she thought would be interesting to her mother.
Under these circumstances the concealment of the failure of the Great
Blankshire Bank for a time was not so difficult a task as it would
otherwise have been.
Mr. Adrian was loth to let the blow fall upon his wife. He knew that
eventually she would have to know it, but he could not summon up
courage to break it yet.
With all her peculiarities, she had been a loyal and a devoted partner
to him, and, looking back upon their long years of happiness and
comfort, it broke his heart to think that now, in her old age—now, when
infirmity had come upon her—the remaining years of her life might have
to be passed in discomfort and poverty.
He hoped that there might be better news, that the report was
exaggerated, and that the affairs of the bank might not be so
hopelessly involved.
Ruth read the morning paper to her mother, but it was a terrible task.
Over and over again her mind wandered, and her thoughts got mixed up
with the matter she was reading aloud.
Her mother noticed her peculiar manner, and Ruth explained that she had
a bad headache and wasn’t well, and Mr. Adrian also put his haggard
looks down to a sleepless night with the toothache.
It was not a happy little party that sat round the breakfast-table that
morning, for father and daughter had the burden of a terrible secret to
bear, and were denied that greatest of all reliefs in trouble, open
lamentation.
Ruth, like her father, had great hopes that the worst had been made of
the affair. She was anxious to see Marston, and get him to ascertain
for her all particulars.
She was also terribly troubled about Gertie. What could she do with the
child now? If this sudden and complete poverty were coming on them, how
could she burden their straitened resources with another mouth to feed?
A week passed away—a week of terrible anxiety. Every paper teemed with
details of the great bank failure, and harrowing stories of the force
with which the blow would fall upon the unhappy shareholders.
During the week Marston called once or twice, but Gurth never came
near.
Marston heard from Ruth what had happened, but refrained from
mentioning it in the presence of Mrs. Adrian, and he had no opportunity
of seeing the old gentleman alone.
Mr. Adrian noticed the fact that Gurth, who had once been a constant
visitor, now never came near the place.
He imagined that his connection with the collapsed bank was known, and
that the wealthy Mr. Egerton, whose attentions to Ruth had been once so
marked, was afraid to continue the acquaintance, lest he might be asked
for assistance.
It stung the old man’s pride to think that perhaps some such idea was
in the mind of Ruth’s admirer.
He felt really grateful to Marston, whose conduct was in striking
contrast to that of his rival.
From looking forward to his visits, and finding relief in his company,
he began to regard him as a friend in need. He longed for some one to
whom he could unburden himself about the terrible calamity which had
come upon him, some one whose advice he could ask, and whose assistance
he could claim.
One evening Marston and he were left alone. Mrs. Adrian was not very
well, and Ruth had gone upstairs to see if she wanted for anything.
Mrs. Adrian, out of sorts generally, wanted a great many things, but
most of all she needed some one to grumble at, and when she got Ruth
upstairs she was loth to let her go while there was a fault to be found
or a lament to be uttered.
Left alone with Marston, half hesitatingly at first, he introduced the
subject, but, gathering courage as he went on from the sympathetic
attitude of his listener, he gradually poured out the whole story of
his misfortunes, and asked Marston, as a man of business and a man of
the world, what he ought to do under the circumstances.
Marston was delighted at the confidence reposed in him. It showed
conclusively that he had won the esteem of Ruth’s father—that the
object for which he had so patiently toiled was not far distant now.
In anticipation of some such confession, Marston had studied the
subject, and armed himself to the teeth with figures. He was enabled to
present the most hopeful view possible to the old gentleman, and almost
to persuade him that if the worst came to the worst there would still
be something left from the wreck of his estate.
Gradually, beneath his cheery influence John Adrian gathered heart.
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘it does me good to hear you talk like that. If I were
young I believe I could struggle through; but I am old, and my energy
is gone. I have no one to look to for counsel or help. I have no son,
no one but two weak women who look to me for protection.’
Marston shaped his lips for a reply and hesitated.
For the first time in his life his self-possession deserted him.
On the way in which the words he was about to utter were received
depended his whole future destiny.
He recovered himself with an effort, and then, with a slight tremor in
his voice at first, he commenced to plead the cause he had nearest at
heart.
With powerful eloquence and genuine feeling he besought the old man’s
attention while he, too, made a confession. Rapidly he told the
narrative of his adventurous life, painting it in soft colours to
attract the sympathy of his listener. He had led a wild youth, but that
was past. A sober and laborious manhood had atoned for the errors of
those old times. He had struggled on, with one object in view. In the
midst of a thousand temptations he had stood firm, sustained by the
thought of the reward which might be his, and he came to the end of the
narrow path with unstained honour.
He confessed his long love for Ruth. He told how he had determined
after his first repulse to win her yet, for her sake to undo the past
and return to fling himself at her feet, worthy of her at last.
He pleaded so eloquently—he painted his hopes and fears with such
genuine pathos—that the tears came into John Adrian’s eyes more than
once; but he held his peace and let Marston continue his appeal.
Gradually Marston came from the past to the present. With delicacy and
tact he alluded to the present position of Ruth’s father. He would do
his best to extricate him from it. He a friend in need, would not Mr.
Adrian give him the right to act on his behalf as one of the family?
He, Marston, was wealthy; he had a home to offer not only to Ruth, but,
if the worst came, to Ruth’s father and mother. He might not have
spoken so soon had not this calamity occurred. Now it was the duty of
those who loved them to rally round them. Let the first friend to
stretch out a helping hand to Ruth’s father and mother be the man who
loved their daughter as his own life.
Mr. Adrian held out his hand to Marston as he uttered the last words of
his impassioned appeal.
‘Ned,’ he said—‘let me call you by the old name—if the answer to your
prayer rested with me you should have it at once. But there is Ruth to
be consulted. Whatever suitor comes for her—be he rich or be he poor—he
must ask her for her heart ere he comes to me for her hand.’
Marston, his generally emotionless face bright with a new expression of
hope, took John Adrian’s hand and clasped it.
‘Let me go now,’ he said, ‘and leave you to think of what I have said.
Ask Ruth if I have her heart. If her answer be “No,” let me be still
your friend. If her answer be “Yes,” then let me be your son-in-law.’
He smiled a pleasant smile, shook bands with his host, and went out
hurriedly.
He wanted air.
A sensation most terrible had come upon him. In the midst of his joy at
winning the consent of Ruth’s father so easily—just when his heart was
beating quicker at the thought of Ruth’s love, which was to hallow his
manhood after all—the whole tissue of lies he wrapped about his life
was torn away. Hideous, monstrous, and appalling, the story seared
itself in letters of flame upon his brain. What had he done? He had
asked honest old John Adrian for his daughter’s hand. And when this
hand was his, and they stood at God’s altar, the name of Adrian would
be hers no more.
Whose would she bear in its place?
That of Edward Marston—liar, hypocrite, swindler, forger, thief.
‘Great heavens!’ he cried aloud, as he paced the street at a rapid rate
in his excitement; ‘why have I never known this before? Why have I
never seen how vile and loathsome sin was till now—now, when the
greatest stake I ever played for in my life is all but won?’
Answer him, ye moralists—ye who have pried into man’s little life below
with the microscope of your philosophy—ye mental dissectors, who have
laid bare man’s heart and traced each separate agony to its great first
cause. Tell him that the way of transgressors is hard; that it is in
the prize we try most fiercely for, in the treasure we plot and plan to
gain, sacrificing in the mad race for it all that is best and noblest
in life, that we often find our bitterest punishment.
Marston had won Ruth Adrian’s love; it was in the knowledge of
possessing that which he looked upon as the crowning glory of his life
that his chastisement commenced.
And even while he strode through the quiet streets, his brain aflame
with remorse and fear, Ruth lay, happy and blushing, with her sweet
face upon her old father’s shoulder, and confessed her love in a few
artless, womanly words.
‘God bless you, Ruth, my darling!’ said the old man tenderly, as he
raised her face, and bent his lips to hers. ‘God bless you both!’
Can you hear it, Edward Marston? Up to the throne of the Most High,
from the lips of Ruth’s father, there has gone a prayer that God will
bless you both.
Is it not blasphemy to link those names together in a prayer?
Edward Marston and Ruth Adrian!
You have won her. She is yours for better for worse; she is yours, and
will bear your name; her fate is linked with yours, her life bound up
in you, until one of you shall kiss the cold lips of the other for the
last time.
And between you for ever there must hang a veil—a veil that must hide
from the sight of all men, and from her, the ghastly skeletons that lie
in the grave of your sinful past.
Pray God now, as you never prayed before, then, that this grave may not
give up its dead—that no spectre may arise to cry, ‘Thou art the man!’
and drag you down to shame and degradation in the sunniest hours of
your first pure happiness.
From the moment Ruth Adrian links her life with yours you cannot fall
alone.