A Ring of Rubies

“Buy anything else that is necessary,” I said. “I am going away immediately, but shall be back on Monday afternoon.”

My five minutes were up by this time, and I stole into Jack’s sick-room. He was stretched flat out in bed; his cheeks were wet as if tears had touched them, and one great muscular arm was flung round my mother’s neck. She was kneeling by him, and holding his hand.

The moment I entered she looked round at me.

“My dear love,” she said, “you are perfectly right; Hetty must not be left a moment longer than can be helped. Hush, Jack, you need have no anxiety for your wife. I – I will go to see her myself if it is necessary.”

“No, mother, you must stay with me. You are so pretty and so gentle, and your hand is so soft. Hetty’s hands aren’t as soft as yours.”

Here he began to wander again. My mother followed me out of the room, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Oh, Rose,” she said, “the poor, poor boy. And you thought, both of you, to hide it from your mother?”

“No, mother, I longed for you to know; I am sure that telling you his story has given Jack the greatest relief. And weren’t you a bit angry with him, mother?”

“Angry, Rosamund? Was this a time to be angry? and do mothers as a rule turn away from repentant sons?”

“Not mothers such as you,” I replied. “Mothers worthy of the name would never do such a thing,” she replied. “Why, Rosamund, a mother – I say it in all reverence – stands something in the place of God. When we are truly repentant we never feel nearer to God, and so a boy is never truly nearer to his mother than when he has done something wrong, and is sorry for it. Come up-stairs with me at once, I must help you to make your preparations. You have not an hour to lose in going to Jack’s Hetty.” My mother was so excited, so enthusiastic, that she would scarcely give me breathing-time to put my things together.

“You must not delay,” she kept on saying. “You have told me how careless the landlady is, and that poor child has had no one to do anything for her since early morning. Rose, dear, how is she off for little comforts, and clothes and those sort of things?”

“I should say, very badly off, mother. Hetty is as poor as poor can be.”

“I have one or two night-dresses,” began my mother.

“Now, mother, you are not going to deprive yourself.”

“Don’t talk of it in that light, Rose. Hetty is my daughter, remember.”

I felt a fierce pang of jealousy at this. My mother left the room, and presently returned with a neatly-made-up parcel.

“You will find some small necessaries for the poor child here,” she said. “And now go, my darling, and God bless you. One word first, however. How are you off for money, Rose?”

“I have plenty, mother. Don’t worry yourself on that point.”

“I have a little pearl ring up-stairs, which I could sell, if necessary.”

The tears rushed to my eyes when my mother said this. The pearl ring was her sole adornment, and she had worn it on Sunday ever since we were children.

“You shall never sell your dear ring,” I said.

I rushed up to her, kissed her frantically, and left the house.

Hetty and I spent a quiet Sunday together. She was much better, and she looked very pretty in the warm, softly-coloured dressing-jacket which mother had sent her. She told me her little story, which was simple as story could be. She had no parents, nor any near relatives living. Even a distant cousin, who had paid for her education, had died two years previously. She thought herself very lucky when she secured the post of English teacher at Miss West’s Select Seminary for young ladies. She made Jack’s acquaintance early in the spring; no one else had ever been specially kind to her, and when he asked her to marry him, she said “Yes,” in a burst of delight and gratitude.

“I didn’t know he was so grand as he has turned out to be, miss,” said Hetty, in conclusion.

“Now, Hetty, what did I say about miss?”

“It seems so queer and forward to say Rose,” she answered. “I never had any one to love until Jack married me. Oh, don’t I love him just, and don’t I love you —Rose!”

“I know you do,” I said, “and when you see my mother you will love her. We will try to be good to you, poor little Hetty, and you will try to learn to be a real lady for my mother’s sake.”

“And for Jack’s sake,” she answered, an eager flush coming into her cheeks.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Will you show me how to be a lady, Rose?”

“Oh, Hetty, no one can show you. You must find out the way yourself. You will, too, if you are in earnest, and if you love my mother as she deserves to be loved. Hetty, my mother is the gentlest of women, and yet no queen could be more dignified, more ladylike.”

“Would she frighten me awfully?” whispered Hetty.

“Oh, you poor child! There, I won’t talk any more. Wait until you see her!”

Hetty was rather under than over educated for her station; but there was a certain sweetness, and even refined charm about her, which gave me a sense of almost pain as I looked at her. Was Jack worthy of this passionate, loving heart?

Sunday passed peacefully, but I did not forget what lay before me on Monday morning. The real crucial turn in Jack’s affairs would come then.

I went early to town, and saw Mr Chillingfleet, the head of Jack’s firm, about eleven o’clock. Jack had told me that twelve was the hour when the money was generally collected and sent to the bank. I don’t know how I managed to inveigle a young clerk to coax Mr Chillingfleet to see me, but I did, and at eleven o’clock I stood before him.

I looked into his face. I knew that a great deal hung upon that interview; I knew that my mother’s future happiness in life, that all poor Hetty’s bliss or undoing depended on what sort of face Mr Chillingfleet possessed. I was a good reader of physiognomy, and I studied his with an eager flash.

It was a firm face: the lips thin, the chin both long and square, the check-bones high; the eyes, however, were kind, honest, straightforward. I looked into Mr Chillingfleet’s eyes, and took courage.

“You want to see me, young lady?” said the chief of the great house.

“I do, sir,” I said, “I have come about my brother Jack.”

“Young Lindley – you are young Lindley’s sister? I am sorry he is ill.”

Mr Chillingfleet’s tone was kind, but not enthusiastic. The young clerk’s services were evidently not greatly missed.

“I have a story to tell you,” I said. And then I began to speak.

My tone was eager, but I saw at once that I did not make a deep impression. Mr Chillingfleet was only languidly attentive. I could read his face, and I was absolutely certain that the thought expressed on it was the earnest hope that my story would be brief. I felt certain that he considered me a worry, that he felt it truly unreasonable of the sisters of sick clerks to come to worry him before noon on Monday morning.

He was a true gentleman, however, and as such could not bring himself to be rude to a woman.

“I can give you ten minutes,” he said, in a courteous tone.

All this time I had been toying with my subject. I now looked in agony at a boy clerk who was perched on a high stool by a desk at the other end of the room.

“If I could see you by yourself,” I said, almost in a whisper.

“Dawson, you can go,” said Mr Chillingfleet.

The boy glided off the high stool, and vanished. The moment the door was shut I took out my purse, and removing four five-pound notes, laid them on the desk beside the chief of the great house.