WILLIAM MENIRE'S RED-LETTER DAY
The crowd pressed close to the door of William's shop, but no one dared to enter. Ralph followed close upon his heels, still wondering and fearing. William lifted the flap of his counter and opened the door of the living-room beyond. No sooner had he done so than his heart gave a sudden bound. Ruth Penlogan came forward with pale face and eyes full of tears.
William's little plan had succeeded. Ruth was present to receive her brother. William tried to speak, but his voice failed him, and with a sudden rush of tears he turned back into the shop, closing the door behind him.
Ruth fell on her brother's neck, and began to sob. He led her to a large, antiquated sofa, and sat down by her side. He did not speak. He could wait till she had recovered herself. She dried her eyes at length and looked up into his face.
"You did not expect to see me here?" she questioned.
"No, I did not, Ruth; but where is mother?"
"Has he not told you?"
"Told me? She is not dead, is she?"
"No, no. She would be happier if she were. Oh, Ralph, it breaks my heart. I wish we had all died when father was taken."
"But where is she, Ruth? What has happened? Do tell me."
"She is in the workhouse, Ralph."
He sprang to his feet as though he had been shot.
"Ruth, you lie!" he said, almost in a whisper.
She began to sob again, and he stood looking at her with white, drawn face, and a fierce, passionate gleam in his eyes.
For several moments no other word passed between them. Then he sat down by her side again.
"There was no help for it," she sobbed at length. "And mother was quite content and eager to go."
"And you allowed it, Ruth," he said, in a tone of reproach.
"What could I do, Ralph?" she questioned plaintively. "We had spent all, and the landlord stopped us from selling any more furniture. The parish would allow her half a crown a week, which would not pay the rent, and I could get nothing to do."
He gulped down a lump that had risen in his throat, and clenched his hands, but he did not speak.
"She said there was no disgrace in going into the House," Ruth went on; "that father had paid rates for more than five-and-twenty years, and that she had a right to all she would get, and a good deal more."
"Rights go for nothing in this world," he said bitterly. "It is the strong who win."
"Mrs. Menire told me this morning that her son would have trusted us to any amount and for any length of time if he had only known."
"You did not ask him?"
"Mother would never consent," she replied. "Besides, Mr. Menire is a comparative stranger to us."
"That is true, and yet he has been a true friend to me to-day."
"I hesitated about accepting his hospitality," Ruth answered, with her eyes upon the floor. "He sent word yesterday that he had learned you were to be liberated this morning, and that he was going to Bodmin to meet you and bring you back, and that his mother would be glad to offer me hospitality if I would like to meet you here."
"It was very kind of him, Ruth; but where are you living?"
"I am in service, Ralph."
"No!"
"It is quite true. I was bound to earn my living somehow."
He laughed a bitter laugh.
"Prison, workhouse, and domestic service! What may we get to next, do you think?"
"But we have not gone into debt or cheated anybody, and we've kept our consciences clean, Ralph."
"Yes, ours is a case of virtue rewarded," he answered cynically. "Honesty sent to prison, and thrift to the workhouse."
"But we haven't done with life and the world yet."
"You think there are lower depths in store for us?"
"I hope not. We may begin to rise now. Let us not despair, Ralph. Suffering should purify and strengthen us."
"I don't see how suffering wrongly or unjustly can do anybody any good," he answered moodily.
"Nor can I at present. Perhaps we shall see later on. There is one great joy amid all our grief. Your name has been cleared."
"Yes, that is something—better than a verdict of acquittal, eh?" and a softer light came into his eyes.
"I would rather be in our place, Ralph, bitter and humiliating as it is, than take the place of the oppressor."
"You are thinking of Sir John Hamblyn?" he questioned.
"They say he is being oppressed now," she answered, after a pause.
"By whom?"
"The money-lenders. Rumour says that he has lost heavily on the Turf and on the Stock Exchange—whatever that may be—and that he is hard put to it to keep his creditors at bay."
"That may account in some measure for his hardness to others."
"He hoped to retrieve his position, it is said, by marrying his daughter to Lord Probus," Ruth went on, "but she refuses to keep her promise."
"What?" he exclaimed, with a sudden gasp.
"How much of the gossip is true, of course, nobody knows, or rather how much of it isn't true—for it is certain she has refused to marry him; and Lord Probus is so mad that he refused to speak to Sir John or have anything to do with him."
Ralph smiled broadly.
"What has become of Miss Dorothy is not quite clear. Some people say that Sir John has sent her to a convent school in France. Others say that she has gone off of her own free will, and taken a situation as a governess under an assumed name."
"Are you sure she isn't at the Manor?" he questioned eagerly.
"Quite sure. The servants talk very freely about it. Sir John stormed and swore, and threatened all manner of things, but she held her own. He shouted so loudly sometimes that they could not help hearing what he said. Miss Dorothy was very calm, but very determined. He taunted her with being in love with somebody else——"
"No!"
"She must have had a very hard time of it by what the servants say. It is to be hoped she has peace now she has got away."
"Sir John is a brute," Ralph said bitterly. "He has no mercy on anybody, not even on his own flesh and blood."
"Isn't it always true that 'with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again'?" Ruth questioned, looking up into his face.
"It may be," he answered, "and yet many people suffer injustice who have never meted it out to others."
For a while silence fell between them, then looking up into his face she said—
"Have you any plans for the future, Ralph?"
"A good many, Ruth, but the chances are they will come to nothing. One thing my prison experience has allowed me, and that is time to think. If I can work out half my dreams there will be topsy-turvydom in St. Goram." And he smiled again.
"Then you have not given up hope?"
"Not quite, Ruth. But first of all I must see mother and get her out of the workhouse."
"You will have to earn some money and take a house first. You see, everything has gone, Ralph."
"Which means an absolutely fresh start, and from the bottom," he answered. "But never mind, when you build from the bottom you are pretty sure of your foundation."
"Oh, it does me good to hear you talk like that," she said, the tears coming into her eyes again.
"I hope I'm not altogether a coward, sis," he said, with a smile. "It'll be a hard struggle, I know; but, at any rate, I have something to live for."
"That's bravely said." And she leant over and kissed him.
"Now we must stop talking, and act," he went on. "I must get William Menire to lend me his trap, and I must drive over to see mother."
"That will be lovely, for then I can ride with you, for I must be in by seven o'clock."
"What?"
"This is an extra day off, you know."
"Are you cook, or housemaid, or what?"
"I am sewing maid," she answered. "The Varcoes have a big family of children, you know, and I have really as much as I can do with the making and mending."
"What, Varcoes the Quakers?"
"Yes. And they have really been exceedingly kind to me. They took me without references, and have done their best to make me comfortable. There are some good people in the world, Ralph."
"It would be a sorry world if there weren't," he answered. And then William Menire and his mother entered.
A few minutes later a substantial dinner was served, and for the next hour William fluttered about his guests unmindful of how his customers fared.
Had not Ralph been so busy with his own thoughts, and Ruth so taken up with her brother, they would have both seen in what direction William's inclinations lay. He would gladly have kept them both if he could, and hailed their presence as a dispensation of Providence. Ruth looked lovelier in William's eyes than she had ever done, and to be her friend was the supreme ambition of his life.
He insisted on driving them to St. Hilary, but demanded as a first condition that Ralph should return with him to St. Goram.
"You can stay here," he said, "until you can get work or suit yourself with better lodgings. You can't sleep in the open air, and you may as well stay with me as with anybody else."
This, on the face of it, seemed a reasonable enough proposition, and with this understanding Ralph climbed into the back of the trap, Ruth riding on the front seat with William.
Never did a driver feel more proud than William felt that afternoon. It was not that he was doing a kindly and neighbourly deed; there was much more in his jubilation than that. He had by his side, so he believed, the fairest girl in the three parishes. William watched with no ordinary interest and curiosity the face of everyone they met, and when he saw some admiring pairs of eyes resting upon his companion, his own eyes sparkled with a brighter light.
William thought very little of Ralph, who was sitting at his back, and who kept up a conversation with Ruth over his left shoulder. It was Ruth who filled his thoughts and awakened in his heart a new and strange sensation. He did not talk himself. He was content to listen, content to catch the sweet undertone of a voice that was sweeter and softer than St. Goram bells on a stormy night; content to feel, when the trap lurched, the pressure of Ruth's arm against his own.
He did not drive rapidly. Why should he? This was a red-letter day in the grey monotony of his life, a day to be remembered when business was bad and profits small, and his mother's temper had more rough edges in it than usual.
So he let his horse amble along at its own sweet will. They would return at a much smarter pace.
William pulled up slowly at the workhouse gates. He would have helped Ruth down if there had been any excuse or opportunity. He was sorry the journey had come to an end. It might be long before he looked into those soft brown eyes again. He suppressed a sigh with difficulty when Ralph sprang out behind and helped his sister down. How much less clumsily he could have done it himself, and how he would have enjoyed the privilege!
"I'll put the horse up at the Star and Garter," he said, adjusting the seat to the lighter load, "and will be waiting round there till you're ready."
Then Ruth came up and stood by the shafts.
"I shall not see you again," she said, raising grateful eyes to his. "But I should like to thank you very much for your kindness."
"Please don't say a word about it," he answered, blushing painfully. "The pleasure's been on my side." And he reached down and grasped Ruth's extended hand with a vigour that left no doubt as to his sincerity.
He did not drive away at once. He waited till Ralph and Ruth had disappeared within the gloomy building, then, heaving a long-drawn sigh, he touched his horse with his whip, and drove slowly down the hill toward the Star and Garter.
"It's very foolish of me to think about women at all," he mused, "especially about one woman in particular. I'm not a woman's man, and never was, and never shall be. Besides, she's good enough for the best in the land."
And he plucked at the reins and started the horse into a trot.
"If I were ten years younger and handsome," he went on, "and didn't keep a shop, and hadn't my mother to keep, and—and——But there, what's the use of saying 'if' this and 'if' that? I'm just William Menire, and nobody else, and there ain't her equal in the three parishes. No, I'd better be content to jog along quietly as I've been doing for years past. It's foolish to dream at my time of life—foolish—foolish!" And with another sigh he let the reins slacken.
But, foolish or not, William continued to dream, until his dreams seemed to him the larger part of his life.