It was the year 1812. I had lived for ten years as a brother in my
adopted brother's house, whither he had brought me on the day of my
father's funeral; entreating that I should never leave it again. For,
as was shortly afterwards made clear, fate--say Providence--was now
inevitably releasing him from a bond, from which, so long as my poor
father lived, John would never have released himself. It was
discovered that the profits of the tanning trade had long been merely
nominal--that of necessity, for the support of our two families, the
tan-yard must be sold, and the business confined entirely to the
flour-mill.
At this crisis, as if the change of all things broke her stout old
heart, which never could bend to any new ways--Jael died. We laid her
at my father's and mother's feet--poor old Jael! and that grave-yard in
St. Mary's Lane now covered over all who loved me, all who were of my
youth day--my very own.
So thought I--or might have thought--but that John and Ursula then
demanded with one voice, "Brother, come home."
I resisted long: for it is one of my decided opinions that married
people ought to have no one, be the tie ever so close and dear, living
permanently with them, to break the sacred duality--no, let me say the
unity of their home.
I wished to try and work for my living, if that were possible--if not,
that out of the wreck of my father's trade might be found enough to
keep me, in some poor way. But John Halifax would not hear of that.
And Ursula--she was sitting sewing, while the little one lay on her
lap, cooing softly with shut eyes--Ursula took my hand to play with
Muriel's. The baby fingers closed over mine--"See there, Phineas; SHE
wants you too." So I stayed.
Perhaps it was on this account that better than all his other children,
better than anything on earth except himself, I loved John's eldest
daughter, little blind Muriel.
He had several children now. The dark old house, and the square town
garden, were alive with their voices from morning till night. First,
and loudest always, was Guy--born the year after Muriel. He was very
like his mother, and her darling. After him came two more, Edwin and
Walter. But Muriel still remained as "sister"--the only sister either
given or desired.
If I could find a name to describe that child it would be not the one
her happy mother gave her at her birth, but one more sacred, more
tender. She was better than Joy--she was an embodied Peace.
Her motions were slow and tranquil--her voice soft--every expression of
her little face extraordinarily serene. Whether creeping about the
house, with a foot-fall silent as snow, or sitting among us, either
knitting busily at her father's knee, or listening to his talk and the
children's play, everywhere and always Muriel was the same. No one ever
saw her angry, restless, or sad. The soft dark calm in which she lived
seemed never broken by the troubles of this our troublous world.
She was, as I have said, from her very babyhood a living peace. And
such she was to us all, during those ten struggling years, when our
household had much to contend with, much to endure. If at night her
father came home jaded and worn, sickened to the soul by the hard
battle he had to fight daily, hourly, with the outside world, Muriel
would come softly and creep into his bosom, and he was comforted. If,
busying herself about, doing faithfully her portion too, that the
husband when he came in of evenings might find all cheerful and never
know how heavy had been the household cares during the day--if, at
times, Ursula's voice took too sharp a tone, at sight of Muriel it
softened at once. No one could speak any but soft and sweet words when
the blind child was by.
Yet, I think either parent would have looked amazed had any one pitied
them for having a blind child. The loss--a loss only to them, and not
to her, the darling!--became familiar, and ceased to wound; the
blessedness was ever new. "Ay, and she shall be blessed," had said my
dear father. So she was. From her, or for her, her parents never had
to endure a single pain. Even the sicknesses of infancy and childhood,
of which the three others had their natural share, always passed her
by, as if in pity. Nothing ever ailed Muriel.
The spring of 1812 was an era long remembered in our family. Scarlet
fever went through the house--safely, but leaving much care behind.
When at last they all came round, and we were able to gather our pale
little flock to a garden feast, under the big old pear-tree, it was
with the trembling thankfulness of those who have gone through great
perils, hardly dared to be recognized as such till they were over.
"Ay, thank God it is over!" said John, as he put his arm round his
wife, and looked in her worn face, where still her own smile
lingered--her bright, brave smile, that nothing could ever drive away.
"And now we must try and make a little holiday for you."
"Nonsense! I am as well as possible. Did not Dr. Jessop tell me, this
morning, I was looking younger than ever? I--a mother of a family,
thirty years old? Pray, Uncle Phineas, do I look my age?"
I could not say she did not--especially now. But she wore it so
gracefully, so carelessly, that I saw--ay, and truly her husband saw--a
sacred beauty about her jaded cheek, more lovely and lovable than all
the bloom of her youth. Happy woman! who was not afraid of growing old.
"Love"--John usually called her "Love"--putting it at the beginning of
a sentence, as if it had been her natural Christian name--which, as in
all infant households, had been gradually dropped or merged into the
universal title of "Mother." My name for her was always emphatically
"The Mother"--the truest type of motherhood I ever knew.
"Love," her husband began again, after a long look in her face--ah,
John, thine was altered too, but himself was the last thing he thought
of--"say what you like--I know what we'll do: for the children's sake.
Ah, that's her weak point;--see, Phineas, she is yielding now. We'll
go for three months to Longfield."
Now Longfield was the Utopia of our family, old and young. A very
simple family we must have been--for this Longfield was only a small
farm-house, about six miles off, where once we had been to tea, and
where ever since we had longed to live. For, pretty as our domain had
grown, it was still in the middle of a town, and the children, like all
naturally-reared children, craved after the freedom of the
country--after corn-fields, hay-fields, nuttings,
blackberryings--delights hitherto known only at rare intervals, when
their father could spare a whole long day, and be at once the sun and
the shield of the happy little band.
"Hearken, children! father says we shall go for three whole months to
live at Longfield."
The three boys set up a shout of ecstacy.
"I'll swim boats down the stream, and catch and ride every one of the
horses. Hurrah!" shouted Guy.
"And I'll see after the ducks and chickens, and watch all the threshing
and winnowing," said Edwin, the practical and grave.
"And I'll get a 'ittle 'amb to p'ay wid me," lisped Walter--still "the
baby"--or considered such, and petted accordingly.
"But what does my little daughter say?" said the father, turning--as he
always turned, at the lightest touch of those soft, blind fingers,
creeping along his coat sleeve. "What will Muriel do at Longfield?"
"Muriel will sit all day and hear the birds sing."
"So she shall, my blessing!" He often called her his "blessing," which
in truth she was. To see her now leaning her cheek against his--the
small soft face, almost a miniature of his own, the hair, a paler shade
of the same bright colour, curling in the same elastic rings--they
looked less like ordinary father and daughter, than like a man and his
good angel; the visible embodiment of the best half of his soul. So
she was ever to him, this child of his youth--his first-born and his
dearest.
The Longfield plan being once started, father and mother and I began to
consult together as to ways and means; what should be given up, and
what increased, of our absolute luxuries, in order that the children
might this summer--possibly every summer--have the glory of "living in
the country." Of these domestic consultations there was never any
dread, for they were always held in public. There were no secrets in
our house. Father and mother, though sometimes holding different
opinions, had but one thought, one aim--the family good. Thus, even in
our lowest estate there had been no bitterness in our poverty; we met
it, looked it in the face, often even laughed at it. For it bound us
all together, hand in hand; it taught us endurance, self-dependence,
and, best of all lessons, self-renunciation. I think, one's whole
after-life is made easier and more blessed by having known what it was
to be very poor when one was young.
Our fortunes were rising now, and any little pleasure did not take near
so much contrivance. We found we could manage the Longfield visit--ay,
and a horse for John to ride to and fro--without any worse sacrifice
than that of leaving Jenny--now Mrs. Jem Watkins, but our cook
still--in the house at Norton Bury, and doing with one servant instead
of two. Also, though this was not publicly known till afterwards, by
the mother's renouncing a long-promised silk dress--the only one since
her marriage, in which she had determined to astonish John by choosing
the same colour as that identical grey gown he had seen hanging up in
the kitchen at Enderley.
"But one would give up anything," she said, "that the children might
have such a treat, and that father might have rides backwards and
forwards through green lanes all summer. Oh, how I wish we could
always live in the country!"
"Do you?" And John looked--much as he had looked at long-tailed grey
ponies in his bridegroom days--longing to give her every thing she
desired. "Well, perhaps, we may manage it some time."
"When our ship comes in--namely, that money which Richard Brithwood
will not pay, and John Halifax will not go to law to make him. Nay,
father dear, I am not going to quarrel with any one of your crotchets."
She spoke with a fond pride, as she did always, even when arguing
against the too Quixotic carrying out of the said crotchets. "Perhaps,
as the reward of forbearance, the money will come some day when we
least expect it; then John shall have his heart's desire, and start the
cloth-mills at Enderley."
John smiled, half-sadly. Every man has a hobby--this was his, and had
been for fifteen years. Not merely the making a fortune, as he still
firmly believed it could be made, but the position of useful power, the
wide range of influence, the infinite opportunities of doing good.
"No, love; I shall never be 'patriarch of the valley,' as Phineas used
to call it. The yew-hedge is too thick for me, eh, Phineas?"
"No!" cried Ursula--we had told her this little incident of our
boyhood--"you have got half through it already. Everybody in Norton
Bury knows and respects you. I am sure, Phineas, you might have heard
a pin fall at the meeting last night when he spoke against hanging the
Luddites. And such a shout as rose when he ended--oh, how proud I was!"
"Of the shout, love?"
"Nonsense!--but of the cause of it. Proud to see my husband defending
the poor and the oppressed--proud to see him honoured and looked up to,
more and more every year, till--"
"Till it may come at last to the prophecy in your birthday verse--'Her
husband is known in the gates; he sitteth among the elders of the
land.'"
Mrs. Halifax laughed at me for reminding her of this, but allowed that
she would not dislike its being fulfilled.
"And it will be too. He is already 'known in the gates'; known far and
near. Think how many of our neighbours come to John to settle their
differences, instead of going to law! And how many poachers has he not
persuaded out of their dishonest--"
"Illegal," corrected John.
"Well, their illegal ways, and made decent, respectable men of them!
Then, see how he is consulted, and his opinion followed, by rich folk
as well as poor folk, all about the neighbourhood. I am sure John is
as popular, and has as much influence, as many a member of parliament."
John smiled with an amused twitch about his mouth, but he said nothing.
He rarely did say anything about himself--not even in his own
household. The glory of his life was its unconsciousness--like our own
silent Severn, however broad and grand its current might be, that
course seemed the natural channel into which it flowed.
"There's Muriel," said the father, listening.
Often thus the child slipped away, and suddenly we heard all over the
house the sweet sounds of "Muriel's voice," as some one had called the
old harpsichord. When almost a baby she would feel her way to it, and
find out first harmonies, then tunes, with that quickness and delicacy
of ear peculiar to the blind.
"How well she plays! I wish I could buy her one of those new
instruments they call 'pianofortes;' I was looking into the mechanism
of one the other day."
"She would like an organ better. You should have seen her face in the
Abbey church this morning."
"Hark! she has stopped playing. Guy, run and bring your sister here,"
said the father, ever yearning after his darling.
Guy came back with a wonderful story of two gentlemen in the parlour,
one of whom had patted his head--"Such a grand gentleman, a great deal
grander than father!"
That was true, as regarded the bright nankeens, the blue coat with gold
buttons, and the showiest of cambric kerchiefs swathing him up to the
very chin. To this "grand" personage John bowed formally, but his wife
flushed up in surprised recognition.
"It is so long since I had the happiness of meeting Miss March, that I
conclude Mrs. Halifax has forgotten me?"
"No, Lord Luxmore, allow me to introduce my husband."
And, I fancied, some of Miss March's old hauteur returned to the
mother's softened and matronly mien;--pride, but not for herself or in
herself, now. For, truly, as the two men stood together--though Lord
Luxmore had been handsome in his youth, and was universally said to
have as fine manners as the Prince Regent himself--any woman might well
have held her head loftily, introducing John Halifax as "my husband."
Of the two, the nobleman was least at his ease, for the welcome of both
Mr. and Mrs. Halifax, though courteous, was decidedly cold. They did
not seem to feel--and, if rumour spoke true, I doubt if any honest,
virtuous, middle-class fathers and mothers would have felt--that their
house was greatly honoured or sanctified by the presence of the Earl of
Luxmore.
But the nobleman was, as I have said, wonderfully fine-mannered. He
broke the ice at once.
"Mr. Halifax, I have long wished to know you. Mrs. Halifax, my
daughter encouraged me to pay this impromptu visit."
Here ensued polite inquiries after Lady Caroline Brithwood; we learned
that she was just returned from abroad, and was entertaining, at the
Mythe House, her father and brother.
"Pardon--I was forgetting my son--Lord Ravenel."
The youth thus presented merely bowed. He was about eighteen or so,
tall and spare, with thin features and large soft eyes. He soon
retreated to the garden-door, where he stood, watching the boys play,
and shyly attempting to make friends with Muriel.
"I believe Ravenel has seen you years ago, Mrs. Halifax. His sister
made a great pet of him as a child. He has just completed his
education--at the College of St. Omer, was it not, William?"
"The Catholic college of St. Omer," repeated the boy.
"Tut--what matters!" said the father, sharply. "Mr. Halifax, do not
imagine we are a Catholic family still. I hope the next Earl of
Luxmore will be able to take the oaths and his seat, whether or no we
get Emancipation. By the by, you uphold the Bill?"
John assented; expressing his conviction, then unhappily a rare one,
that every one's conscience is free; and that all men of blameless life
ought to be protected by, and allowed to serve, the state, whatever be
their religious opinions.
"Mr. Halifax, I entirely agree with you. A wise man esteems all faiths
alike worthless."
"Excuse me, my lord, that was the very last thing I meant to say. I
hold every man's faith so sacred, that no other man has a right to
interfere with it, or to question it. The matter lies solely between
himself and his Maker."
"Exactly! What facility of expression your husband has, Mrs. Halifax!
He must be--indeed, I have heard he is--a first-rate public speaker."
The wife smiled, wife-like; but John said, hurriedly:
"I have no pretention or ambition of the kind. I merely now and then
try to put plain truths, or what I believe to be such, before the
people, in a form they are able to understand."
"Ay, that is it. My dear sir, the people have no more brains than the
head of my cane (his Royal Highness's gift, Mrs. Halifax); they must be
led or driven, like a flock of sheep. We"--a lordly "we!"--"are their
proper shepherds. But, then, we want a middle class--at least, an
occasional voice from it, a--"
"A shepherd's dog, to give tongue," said John, dryly. "In short, a
public orator. In the House, or out of it?"
"Both." And the earl tapped his boot with that royal cane, smiling.
"Yes; I see you apprehend me. But, before we commence that somewhat
delicate subject, there was another on which I desired my agent, Mr.
Brown, to obtain your valuable opinion."
"You mean, when, yesterday, he offered me, by your lordship's express
desire, the lease, lately fallen in, of your cloth-mills at Enderley?"
Now, John had not told us that!--why, his manner too plainly showed.
"And all will be arranged, I trust? Brown says you have long wished to
take the mills; I shall be most happy to have you for a tenant."
"My lord, as I told your agent, it is impossible. We will say no more
about it."
John crossed over to his wife with a cheerful air. She sat looking
grave and sad.
Lord Luxmore had the reputation of being a keen-witted, diplomatic
personage; undoubtedly he had, or could assume, that winning charm of
manner which had descended in perfection to his daughter. Both
qualities it pleased him to exercise now. He rose, addressing with
kindly frankness the husband and wife.
"If I may ask--being a most sincere well-wisher of yours, and a sort of
connection of Mrs. Halifax's, too--why is it impossible?"
"I have no wish to disguise the reason: it is because I have no
capital."
Lord Luxmore looked surprised. "Surely--excuse me, but I had the
honour of being well acquainted with the late Mr. March--surely, your
wife's fortune--"
Ursula rose, in her old impetuous way--"His wife's fortune! (John, let
me say it!--I will, I must!)--of his wife's fortune, Lord Luxmore, he
has never received one farthing. Richard Brithwood keeps it back; and
my husband would work day and night for me and our children rather than
go to law."
"Oh! on principle, I suppose? I have heard of such opinions," said the
earl, with the slightest perceptible sneer. "And you agree with him?"
"I do, heartily. I would rather we lived poor all our days than that
he should wear his life out, trouble his spirit, perhaps even soil his
conscience, by squabbling with a bad man over money matters."
It was good to see Ursula as she spoke; good to see the look that
husband and his wife interchanged--husband and wife, different in many
points, yet so blessedly, so safely ONE! Then John said, in his quiet
way,
"Love, perhaps another subject than our own affairs would be more
interesting to Lord Luxmore."
"Not at all--not at all!" And the earl was evidently puzzled and
annoyed. "Such extraordinary conduct," he muttered: "so
very--ahem!--unwise. If the matter were known--caught up by those
newspapers--I must really have a little conversation with Brithwood."
The conversation paused, and John changed it entirely by making some
remarks on the present minister, Mr. Perceval.
"I liked his last speech much. He seems a clear-headed, honest man,
for all his dogged opposition to the Bill."
"He will never oppose it more."
"Nay, I think he will, my lord--to the death."
"That may be--and yet--" his lordship smiled. "Mr. Halifax, I have
just had news by a carrier pigeon--my birds fly well--most important
news for us and our party. Yesterday, in the lobby of the House of
Commons, Mr. Perceval was shot."
We all started. An hour ago we had been reading his speech. Mr.
Perceval shot!
"Oh, John," cried the mother, her eyes full of tears; "his poor
wife--his fatherless children!"
And for many minutes they stood, hearing the lamentable history, and
looking at their little ones at play in the garden; thinking, as many
an English father and mother did that day, of the stately house in
London, where the widow and orphans bewailed their dead. He might or
might not be a great statesman, but he was undoubtedly a good man; many
still remember the shock of his untimely death, and how, whether or not
they liked him living, all the honest hearts of England mourned for Mr.
Perceval.
Possibly that number did not include the Earl of Luxmore.
"Requiescat in pace! I shall propose the canonization of poor
Bellingham. For now Perceval is dead there will be an immediate
election; and on that election depends Catholic Emancipation. Mr.
Halifax," turning quickly round to him, "you would be of great use to
us in parliament."
"Should I?"
"Will you--I like plain speaking--will you enter it?"
Enter parliament! John Halifax in parliament! His wife and I were
both astounded by the suddenness of the possibility; which, however,
John himself seemed to receive as no novel idea.
Lord Luxmore continued. "I assure you nothing is more easy; I can
bring you in at once, for a borough near here--my family borough."
"Which you wish to be held by some convenient person till Lord Ravenel
comes of age? So Mr. Brown informed me yesterday."
Lord Luxmore slightly frowned. Such transactions, as common then in
the service of the country as they still are in the service of the
Church, were yet generally glossed over, as if a certain discredit
attached to them. The young lord seemed to feel it; at sound of his
name he turned round to listen, and turned back again, blushing
scarlet. Not so the earl, his father.
"Brown is--(may I offer you a pinch, Mr. Halifax?--what, not the Prince
Regent's own mixture?)--is indeed a worthy fellow, but too hasty in his
conclusions. As it happens, my son is yet undecided between the
Church--that is, the priesthood, and politics. But to our
conversation--Mrs. Halifax, may I not enlist you on my side? We could
easily remove all difficulties, such as qualification, etc. Would you
not like to see your husband member for the old and honourable borough
of Kingswell?"
"Kingswell!" It was a tumble-down village, where John held and managed
for me the sole remnant of landed property which my poor father had
left me. "Kingswell! why there are not a dozen houses in the place."
"The fewer the better, my dear madam. The election would cost me
scarcely any--trouble; and the country be vastly the gainer by your
husband's talents and probity. Of course he will give up the--I forget
what is his business now--and live independent. He is made to shine as
a politician: it will be both happiness and honour to myself to have
in some way contributed to that end. Mr. Halifax, you will accept my
borough?"
"Not on any consideration your lordship could offer me."
Lord Luxmore scarcely credited his ears. "My dear sir--you are the
most extraordinary--may I again inquire your reasons?"
"I have several; one will suffice. Though I wish to gain
influence--power perhaps; still the last thing I should desire would be
political influence."
"You might possibly escape that unwelcome possession," returned the
earl. "Half the House of Commons is made up of harmless dummies, who
vote as we bid them."
"A character, my lord, for which I am decidedly unfitted. Until
political conscience ceases to be a thing of traffic, until the people
are allowed honestly to choose their own honest representatives, I must
decline being of that number. Shall we dismiss the subject?"
"With pleasure, sir."
And courtesy being met by courtesy, the question so momentous was
passed over, and merged into trivialities. Perhaps the earl, who, as
his pleasures palled, was understood to be fixing his keen wits upon
the pet profligacy of old age, politics--saw, clearly enough, that in
these chaotic days of contending parties, when the maddened outcry of
the "people" was just being heard and listened to, it might be as well
not to make an enemy of this young man, who, with a few more, stood as
it were midway in the gulf, now slowly beginning to narrow, between the
commonalty and the aristocracy. He stayed some time longer, and then
bowed himself away with a gracious condescension worthy of the Prince
of Wales himself, carrying with him the shy, gentle Lord Ravenel, who
had spoken scarcely six words the whole time.
When he was gone the father and mother seemed both relieved.
"Truly, John, he has gained little by his visit, and I hope it may be
long before we see an earl in our quiet house again. Come in to
dinner, my children."
But his lordship had left an uncomfortable impression behind him. It
lasted even until that quiet hour--often the quietest and happiest of
our day--when, the children being all in bed, we elders closed in round
the fire.
Ursula and I sat there, longer alone than usual.
"John is late to-night," she said more than once; and I could see her
start, listening to every foot under the window, every touch at the
door-bell; not stirring, though: she knew his foot and his ring quite
well always.
"There he is!" we both said at once--much relieved; and John came in.
Brightness always came in with him. Whatever cares he had without--and
they were heavy enough, God knows--they always seemed to slip off the
moment he entered his own door; and whatever slight cares we had at
home, we put them aside; as they could not but be put aside, nay,
forgotten--at the sight of him.
"Well, Uncle Phineas! Children all right, my darling? A fire! I'm
glad of it. Truly to-night is as cold as November."
"John, if you have a weakness, it is for fire. You're a regular
salamander."
He laughed--warming his hands at the blaze. "Yes, I would rather be
hungry than cold, any day. Love, our one extravagance is certainly
coals. A grand fire this! I do like it so!"
She called him "foolish;" but smoothed down with a quiet kiss the
forehead he lifted up to her as she stood beside him, looking as if she
would any day have converted the whole house into fuel for his own
private and particular benefit.
"Little ones all in bed, of course?"
"Indeed, they would have lain awake half the night--those naughty
boys--talking of Longfield. You never saw children so delighted."
"Are they?" I thought the tone was rather sad, and that the father sat
listening with less interest than usual to the pleasant little
household chronicle, always wonderful and always new, which it was his
custom to ask for and have, night after night, when he came
home,--saying it was to him, after his day's toil, like a "babbling o'
green fields." Soon it stopped.
"John dear, you are very tired?"
"Rather."
"Have you been very busy all day?"
"Very busy."
I understood, almost as well as his wife did, what those brief answers
indicated; so, stealing away to the table where Guy's blurred copy-book
and Edwin's astonishing addition sums were greatly in need of Uncle
Phineas, I left the fire-side corner to those two. Soon John settled
himself in my easy chair, and then one saw how very weary he was--weary
in body and soul alike--weary as we seldom beheld him. It went to my
heart to watch the listless stretch of his large, strong frame--the
sharp lines about his mouth--lines which ought not to have come there
in his two-and-thirty years. And his eyes--they hardly looked like
John's eyes, as they gazed in a sort of dull quietude, too anxious to
be dreamy, into the red coals--and nowhere else.
At last he roused himself, and took up his wife's work.
"More little coats! Love, you are always sewing."
"Mothers must--you know. And I think never did boys outgrow their
things like our boys. It is pleasant, too. If only clothes did not
wear out so fast."
"Ah!" A sigh--from the very depths of the father's heart.
"Not a bit too fast for my clever fingers, though," said Ursula,
quickly. "Look, John, at this lovely braiding. But I'm not going to
do any more of it. I shall certainly have no time to waste over
fineries at Longfield."
Her husband took up the fanciful work, admired it, and laid it down
again. After a pause he said:
"Should you be very much disappointed if--if we do not go to Longfield
after all?"
"Not go to Longfield!" The involuntary exclamation showed how deep her
longing had been.
"Because I am afraid--it is hard, I know--but I am afraid we cannot
manage it. Are you very sorry?"
"Yes," she said frankly and truthfully. "Not so much for myself,
but--the children."
"Ay, the poor children."
Ursula stitched away rapidly for some moments, till the grieved look
faded out of her face; then she turned it, all cheerful once more, to
her husband. "Now, John, tell me. Never mind about the children. Tell
me."
He told her, as was his habit at all times, of some losses which had
to-day befallen him--bad debts in his business--which would make it, if
not impracticable, at least imprudent, to enter on any new expenses
that year. Nay, he must, if possible, retrench a little. Ursula
listened, without question, comment, or complaint.
"Is that all?" she said at last, very gently.
"All."
"Then never mind. I do not. We will find some other pleasures for the
children. We have so many pleasures, ay, all of us. Husband, it is
not so hard to give up this one."
He said, in a whisper, low almost as a lover's, "I could give up
anything in the world but them and thee."
So, with a brief information to me at supper-time--"Uncle Phineas, did
you hear? we cannot go to Longfield,"--the renunciation was made, and
the subject ended. For this year, at least, our Arcadian dream was
over.
But John's troubled looks did not pass away. It seemed as if this
night his long toil had come to that crisis when the strongest man
breaks down--or trembles within a hair's breadth of breaking down;
conscious too, horribly conscious, that if so, himself will be the
least part of the universal ruin. His face was haggard, his movements
irritable and restless; he started nervously at every sound. Sometimes
even a hasty word, an uneasiness about trifles, showed how strong was
the effort he made at self-control. Ursula, usually by far the most
quick-tempered of the two, became to-night mild and patient. She
neither watched nor questioned him--wise woman as she was; she only sat
still, busying herself over her work, speaking now and then of little
things, lest he should notice her anxiety about him. He did at last.
"Nay, I am not ill, do not be afraid. Only my head aches so--let me
lay it here as the children do."
His wife made a place for it on her shoulder; there it rested--the poor
tired head, until gradually the hard and painful expression of the
features relaxed, and it became John's own natural face--as quiet as
any of the little faces on their pillows up-stairs, whence, doubtless,
slumber had long banished all anticipation of Longfield. At last he too
fell asleep.
Ursula held up her finger, that I might not stir. The clock in the
corner, and the soft sobbing of the flame on the hearth, were the only
sounds in the parlour. She sewed on quietly, to the end of her work;
then let it drop on her lap, and sat still. Her cheek leaned itself
softly against John's hair, and in her eyes, which seemed so intently
contemplating the little frock, I saw large bright tears gather--fall.
But her look was serene, nay, happy; as if she thought of these beloved
ones, husband and children--her very own--preserved to her in health
and peace,--ay, and in that which is better than either, the unity of
love. For that priceless blessing, for the comfort of being HIS
comfort, for the sweetness of bringing up these his children in the
fear of God and in the honour of their father--she, true wife and
mother as she was, would not have exchanged the wealth of the whole
world.
"What's that?" We all started, as a sudden ring at the bell pealed
through the house, waking John, and frightening the very children in
their beds. All for a mere letter too, brought by a lacquey of Lord
Luxmore's. Having--somewhat indignantly--ascertained this fact, the
mother ran upstairs to quiet her little ones. When she came down, John
still stood with the letter in his hand. He had not told me what it
was; when I chanced to ask he answered in a low tone--"Presently!" On
his wife's entrance he gave her the letter without a word.
Well might it startle her into a cry of joy. Truly the dealings of
heaven to us were wonderful!
"Mr. John Halifax.
"SIR,
"Your wife, Ursula Halifax, having some time since attained
the age fixed by her late father as her majority, I will, within a
month after date, pay over to your order all moneys, principal and
interest, accruing to her, and hitherto left in my hands, as trustee,
according to the will of the late Henry March, Esquire.
"I am, sir,
"Yours, etc.,
"RICHARD BRITHWOOD."
"Wonderful--wonderful!"
It was all I could say. That one bad man, for his own purposes, should
influence another bad man to an act of justice--and that their double
evil should be made to work out our good! Also, that this should come
just in our time of need--when John's strength seemed ready to fail.
"Oh John--John! now you need not work so hard!"
That was his wife's first cry, as she clung to him almost in tears.
He too was a good deal agitated. This sudden lifting of the burthen
made him feel how heavy it had been--how terrible the
responsibility--how sickening the fear.
"Thank God! In any case, you are quite safe now--you and the children!"
He sat down, very pale. His wife knelt beside him, and put her arms
around his neck--I quietly went out of the room.
When I came in again, they were standing by the fire-side--both
cheerful, as two people to whom had happened such unexpected good
fortune might naturally be expected to appear. I offered my
congratulations in rather a comical vein than otherwise; we all of us
had caught John's habit of putting things in a comic light whenever he
felt them keenly.
"Yes, he is a rich man now--mind you treat your brother with extra
respect, Phineas."
"And your sister too.
'For she sall walk in silk attire,
And siller hae to spare.'
She's quite young and handsome still--isn't she? How magnificent
she'll look in that grey silk gown!"
"John, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! you--the father of a
family! you--that are to be the largest mill-owner at Enderley--"
He looked at her fondly, half deprecatingly. "Not till I have made you
and the children all safe--as I said."
"We are safe--quite safe--when we have you. Oh, Phineas! make him see
it as I do. Make him understand that it will be the happiest day in
his wife's life when she knows him happy in his heart's desire."
We sat a little while longer, talking over the strange change in our
fortunes--for they wished to make me feel that now, as ever, what was
theirs was mine; then Ursula took her candle to depart.
"Love!" John cried, calling her back as she shut the door, and watching
her stand there patient--watching with something of the old mischievous
twinkle in his eyes. "Mrs. Halifax, when shall I have the honour of
ordering your long-tailed grey ponies?"