Father and son--a goodly sight, as they paced side by side up and down
the gravel walk--(alas! the pretty field-path belonged to days that
were!)--up and down the broad, sunshiny walk, in front of the
breakfast-room windows of Beechwood Hall.
It was early--little past eight o'clock; but we kept Longfield hours
and Longfield ways still. And besides, this was a grand day--the day
of Guy's coming of age. Curious it seemed to watch him, as he walked
along by his father, looking every inch "the young heir;" and perhaps
not unconscious that he did so;--curious enough, remembering how meekly
the boy had come into the world, at a certain old house at Norton Bury,
one rainy December morning, twenty-one years ago.
It was a bright day to-day--bright as all our faces were, I think, as
we gathered round the cosy breakfast-table. There, as heretofore, it
was the mother's pride and the father's pleasure that not one face
should be missing--that, summer and winter, all should assemble for an
hour of family fun and family chat, before the busy cares of the day;
and by general consent, which had grown into habit, every one tried to
keep unclouded this little bit of early sunshine, before the father and
brothers went away. No sour or dreary looks, no painful topics, were
ever brought to the breakfast-table.
Thus it was against all custom when Mr. Halifax, laying down his paper
with a grave countenance, said:
"This is very ill news. Ten Bank failures in the Gazette to-day."
"But it will not harm us, father."
"Edwin is always thinking of 'us,' and 'our business,'" remarked Guy,
rather sharply. It was one of the slight--the very slight--jars in our
household, that these two lads, excellent lads both, as they grew into
manhood did not exactly "pull together."
"Edwin is scarcely wrong in thinking of 'us,' since upon us depend so
many," observed the father, in that quiet tone with which, when he did
happen to interfere between his sons, he generally smoothed matters
down and kept the balance even. "Yet though we are ourselves secure, I
trust the losses everywhere around us make it the more necessary that
we should not parade our good fortune by launching out into any of
Guy's magnificences--eh, my boy?"
The youth looked down. It was well known in the family that since we
came to Beechwood his pleasure-loving temperament had wanted all sorts
of improvements on our style of living--fox-hounds, dinner-parties,
balls; that the father's ways, which, though extended to liberal
hospitalities, forbade outward show, and made our life a thorough
family life still--were somewhat distasteful to that most fascinating
young gentleman, Guy Halifax, Esquire, heir of Beechwood Hall.
"You may call it 'magnificence,' or what you choose; but I know I
should like to live a little more as our neighbours do. And I think we
ought too--we that are known to be the wealthiest family--"
He stopped abruptly--for the door opened; and Guy had too much good
taste and good feeling to discuss our riches before Maud's poor
governess--the tall, grave, sad-looking, sad-clothed Miss Silver; the
same whom John had seen at Mr. Jessop's bank; and who had been with us
four months--ever since we came to Beechwood.
One of the boys rose and offered her a chair; for the parents set the
example of treating her with entire respect--nay, would gladly have
made her altogether one of the family, had she not been so very
reserved.
Miss Silver came forward with the daily nosegay which Mrs. Halifax had
confided to her superintendence.
"They are the best I can find, madam--I believe Watkins keeps all his
greenhouse flowers for to-night."
"Thank you, my dear. These will do very well.--Yes, Guy, persuade Miss
Silver to take your place by the fire. She looks so cold."
But Miss Silver, declining the kindness, passed on to her own seat
opposite.
Ursula busied herself over the breakfast equipage rather nervously.
Though an admirable person, Miss Silver in her extreme and all but
repellant quietness was one whom the mother found it difficult to get
on with. She was scrupulously kind to her; and the governess was as
scrupulously exact in all courtesy and attention; still that
impassible, self-contained demeanour, that great reticence--it might be
shyness, it might be pride--sometimes, Ursula privately admitted,
"fidgeted" her.
To-day was to be a general holiday for both masters and servants; a
dinner at the mills; and in the evening something which, though we call
it a tea-drinking, began to look, I was amused to see, exceedingly like
"a ball." But on this occasion both parents had yielded to their young
people's wishes, and half the neighbourhood had been invited, by the
universally-popular Mr. Guy Halifax to celebrate his coming of age.
"Only once in a way," said the mother, half ashamed of herself for thus
indulging the boy--as, giving his shoulder a fond shake, she called him
"a foolish fellow."
Then we all dispersed; Guy and Walter to ride to the manor-house, Edwin
vanishing with his sister, to whom he was giving daily Latin lessons in
the school-room.
John asked me to take a walk on the hill with him.
"Go, Phineas," whispered his wife--"it will do him good. And don't let
him talk too much of old times. This is a hard week for him."
The mother's eyes were mournful, for Guy and "the child" had been born
within a year and three days of each other; but she never hinted--it
never would have struck her to hint--"this is a hard week for ME."
That grief--the one great grief of their life, had come to her more
wholesomely than to her husband: either because men, the very best of
men, can only suffer, while women can endure; or because in the
mysterious ordinance of nature Maud's baby lips had sucked away the
bitterness of the pang from the bereaved mother, while her loss was yet
new. It had never been left to rankle in that warm heart, which had
room for every living child, while it cherished, in tenderness above
all sorrow, the child that was no more.
John and I, in our walk, stood a moment by the low churchyard wall, and
looked over at that plain white stone, where was inscribed her name,
"Muriel Joy Halifax,"--a line out of that New Testament miracle-story
she delighted in, "WHEREAS I WAS BLIND, NOW I SEE,"--and the date when
SHE SAW. Nothing more: it was not needed.
"December 5, 1813," said the father, reading the date. "She would have
been quite a woman now. How strange! My little Muriel!"
And he walked thoughtfully along, almost in the same footprints where
he had been used to carry his darling up the hillside to the brow of
Enderley Flat. He seemed in fancy to bear her in his arms still--this
little one, whom, as I have before said, Heaven in its compensating
mercy, year by year, through all changes, had made the one treasure
that none could take away--the one child left to be a child for ever.
I think, as we rested in the self-same place, the sunshiny nook where
we used to sit with her for hours together, the father's heart took
this consolation so closely and surely into itself that memory
altogether ceased to be pain. He began talking about the other
children--especially Maud--and then of Miss Silver, her governess.
"I wish she were more likeable, John. It vexes me sometimes to see how
coldly she returns the mother's kindness."
"Poor thing!--she has evidently not been used to kindness. You should
have seen how amazed she looked yesterday when we paid her a little
more than her salary, and my wife gave her a pretty silk dress to wear
to-night. I hardly knew whether she would refuse it, or burst out
crying--in girlish fashion."
"Is she a girl? Why, the boys say she looks thirty at least. Guy and
Walter laugh amazingly at her dowdy dress and her solemn, haughty ways."
"That will not do, Phineas. I must speak to them. They ought to make
allowance for poor Miss Silver, of whom I think most highly."
"I know you do; but do you heartily like her?"
"For most things, yes. And I sincerely respect her, or, of course, she
would not be here. I think people should be as particular over
choosing their daughter's governess as their son's wife; and having
chosen, should show her almost equal honour."
"You'll have your sons choosing themselves wives soon, John. I fancy
Guy has a soft place in his heart for that pretty Grace Oldtower."
But the father made no answer. He was always tenacious over the
slightest approach to such jests as these. And besides, just at this
moment Mr. Brown, Lord Luxmore's steward, passed--riding solemnly
along. He barely touched his hat to Mr. Halifax.
"Poor Mr. Brown! He has a grudge against me for those Mexican
speculations I refused to embark in; he did, and lost everything but
what he gets from Lord Luxmore. I do think, Phineas, the country has
been running mad this year after speculation. There is sure to come a
panic afterwards, and indeed it seems already beginning."
"But you are secure? You have not joined in the mania, the crash
cannot harm you? Did I not hear you say that you were not afraid of
losing a single penny?"
"Yes--unfortunately," with a troubled smile.
"John, what do you mean?"
"I mean, that to stand upright while one's neighbours are falling on
all sides is a most trying position. Misfortune makes people unjust.
The other day at the sessions I got cold looks enough from my brother
magistrates--looks that would have set my blood boiling twenty years
ago. And--you saw in the Norton Bury Mercury that article about
'grasping plebeian millionaires'--'wool-spinners, spinning out of their
country's vitals.' That's meant for me, Phineas. Don't look
incredulous. Yes--for me."
"How disgraceful!"
"Perhaps so--but to them more than to me. I feel sorry, because of the
harm it may do me--especially among working people, who know nothing
but what they hear, and believe everything that is told them. They see
I thrive and others fail--that my mills are the only cloth mills in
full work, and I have more hands than I can employ. Every week I am
obliged to send new-comers away. Then they raise the old cry--that my
machinery has ruined labour. So, you see, for all that Guy says about
our prosperity, his father does not sleep exactly upon a bed of roses."
"It is wicked--atrocious!"
"Not at all. Only natural--the penalty one has to pay for success. It
will die out most likely; meantime, we will mind it as little as we
can."
"But are you safe?--your life--" For a sudden fear crossed me--a fear
not unwarranted by more than one event of this year--this terrible 1825.
"Safe?--Yes--" and his eyes were lifted, "I believe my life is safe--if
I have work to do. Still, for others' sake, I have carried this month
past whenever I go to and from the Coltham bank, besides my
cash-box--this."
He showed me, peering out of his breast-pocket, a small pistol.
I was greatly startled.
"Does your wife know?"
"Of course. But she knows too that nothing but the last extremity
would force me to use it: also that my carrying it, and its being
noised about that I do so, may prevent my ever having occasion to use
it. God grant I never may! Don't let us talk about this."
He stopped, gazing with a sad abstraction down the sunshiny
valley--most part of which was already his own property. For whatever
capital he could spare from his business he never sunk in speculation,
but took a patriarchal pleasure in investing it in land, chiefly for
the benefit of his mills and those concerned therein.
"My poor people--they might have known me better! But I suppose one
never attains one's desire without its being leavened with some
bitterness. If there was one point I was anxious over in my youth, it
was to keep up through life a name like the Chevalier Bayard--how folk
would smile to hear of a tradesman emulating Bayard--'sans peur et sans
reproche!' And so things might be--ought to be. So perhaps they shall
be yet, in spite of this calumny."
"How shall you meet it? What shall you do?"
"Nothing. Live it down."
He stood still, looking across the valley to where the frosty line of
the hill-tops met the steel-blue, steadfast sky. Yes, I felt sure he
WOULD 'live it down.'
We dismissed the subject, and spent an hour more in pleasant chat,
about many things. Passing homeward through the beech-wood, where
through the bare tree-tops a light snow was beginning to fall, John
said, musingly:
"It will be a hard winter--we shall have to help our poor people a
great deal. Christmas dinners will be much in request."
"There's a saying, that the way to an Englishman's heart is through his
stomach. So, perhaps, you'll get justice by spring."
"Don't be angry, Phineas. As I tell my wife, it is not worth while.
Half the wrongs people do to us are through sheer ignorance. We must
be patient. 'IN YOUR PATIENCE POSSESS YE YOUR SOULS.'"
He said this, more to himself than aloud, as if carrying out the thread
of his own thought. Mine following it, and observing him,
involuntarily turned to another passage in our Book of books, about the
blessedness of some men, even when reviled and persecuted.
Ay, and for all his many cares, John Halifax looked like a man who was
"blessed."
Blessed, and happy too, throughout that day, especially in the midst of
the mill-yard dinner--which reminded me forcibly of that feast at which
guests were gathered out of the highways and hedges--guests such as
John Halifax liked to have--guests who could not, by any possibility,
"recompense"' him. Yet it did one's heart good to hear the cheer that
greeted the master, ay, and the young master too, who was to-day for
the first time presented as such: as the firm henceforward was to be,
"Halifax and Son."
And full of smiling satisfaction was the father's look, when in the
evening he stood in the midst of his children waiting for "Guy's
visitors," as he pertinaciously declared them to be--these fine people,
for whose entertainment our house had been these three days turned
upside down; the sober old dining-room converted into a glittering
ball-room, and the entrance-hall a very "bower of bliss"--all green
boughs and Chinese lanterns. John protested he should not have known
his own study again; and that, if these festive transformations were to
happen frequently he should soon not even know himself!
Yet for all that, and in spite of the comical horror he testified at
this first bouleversement of our quiet home ways, I think he had a real
pleasure in his children's delight; in wandering with them through the
decorated rooms, tapestried with ivy and laurel, and arbor vitae; in
making them all pass in review before him, and admiring their handiwork
and themselves.
A goodly group they made--our young folk; there were no "children"
now--for even Maud, who was tall and womanly for her age, had bloomed
out in a ball dress, all white muslin and camellias, and appeared every
inch "Miss Halifax." Walter, too, had lately eschewed jackets, and
began to borrow razors; while Edwin, though still small, had a keen,
old-man-like look, which made him seem--as he was, indeed, in
character--the eldest of the three. Altogether, they were "a fine
family," such as any man might rejoice to see growing, or grown up,
around him.
But my eyes naturally sought the father as he stood among his boys,
taller than any of them, and possessing far more than they that quality
for which John Halifax had always been remarkable--dignity. True,
Nature had favoured him beyond most men, giving him the stately,
handsome presence, befitting middle age, throwing a kind of apostolic
grace over the high, half-bald crown, and touching with a softened grey
the still curly locks behind. But these were mere accidents; the true
dignity lay in himself and his own personal character, independent of
any exterior.
It was pleasant to watch him, and note how advancing years had given
rather than taken away from his outward mien. As ever, he was
distinguishable from other men, even to his dress--which had something
of the Quaker about it still, in its sober colour, its rarely-changed
fashion, and its exceeding neatness. Mrs. Halifax used now and then to
laugh at him for being so particular over his daintiest of cambric and
finest of lawn--but secretly she took the greatest pride in his
appearance.
"John looks well to-night," she said, coming in and sitting down by me,
her eyes following mine. One would not have guessed from her quiet
gaze that she knew--what John had told me she knew, this morning. But
these two in their perfect union had a wonderful strength--a wonderful
fearlessness. And she had learned from him--what perhaps originally
was foreign to her impressible and somewhat anxious mind--that
steadfast faith, which, while ready to meet every ill when the time
comes, until the time waits cheerfully, and will not disquiet itself in
vain.
Thus, for all their cares, her face as well as his, was calm and
bright. Bright, even with the prettiest girlish blush, when John came
up to his wife and admired her--as indeed was not surprising.
She laughed at him, and declared she always intended to grow lovely in
her old age. "I thought I ought to dress myself grandly, too, on Guy's
birthday. Do you like me, John?"
"Very much: I like that black velvet gown, substantial, soft, and
rich, without any show. And that lace frill round your throat--what
sort of lace is it?"
"Valenciennes. When I was a girl, if I had a weakness it was for black
velvet and Valenciennes."
John smiled, with visible pleasure that she had even a "weakness"
gratified now. "And you have put on my brooch at last, I see."
"Yes; but--" and she shook her head--"remember your promise!"
"Phineas, this wife of mine is a vain woman. She knows her own price
is 'far above rubies'--or diamonds either. No, Mrs. Halifax, be not
afraid; I shall give you no more jewels."
She did not need them. She stood amidst her three sons with the smile
of a Cornelia. She felt her husband's eyes rest on her, with that
quiet perfectness of love--better than any lover's love--
"The fulness of a stream that knew no fall"--
the love of a husband who has been married nearly twenty-five years.
Here a troop of company arrived, and John left me to assume his duty as
host.
No easy duty, as I soon perceived; for times were hard, and men's minds
troubled. Every one, except the light-heeled, light-hearted
youngsters, looked grave.
Many yet alive remember this year--1825--the panic year. War having
ceased, commerce, in its worst form, started into sudden and unhealthy
overgrowth. Speculations of all kinds sprung up like fungi, out of
dead wood, flourished a little, and dropped away. Then came ruin, not
of hundreds, but thousands, of all ranks and classes. This year, and
this month in this year, the breaking of many established firms,
especially bankers, told that the universal crash had just begun.
It was felt even in our retired country neighbourhood, and among our
friendly guests this night, both gentle and simple--and there was a
mixture of both, as only a man in Mr. Halifax's position could mix such
heterogeneous elements--towns-people and country-people, dissenters and
church-folk, professional men and men of business. John dared to do
it--and did it. But though through his own personal influence many of
different ranks whom he liked and respected, meeting in his own house,
learned to like and respect one another, still, even to-night, he could
not remove the cloud which seemed to hang over all--a cloud so heavy
that none present liked referring to it. They hit upon all sorts of
extraneous subjects, keeping far aloof from the one which evidently
pressed upon all minds--the universal distress abroad, the fear that
was knocking at almost every man's door but ours.
Of course the talk fell on our neighbours--country talk always does. I
sat still, listening to Sir Herbert Oldtower, who was wondering that
Lord Luxmore suffered the Hall to drop into disgraceful decay, and had
begun cutting down the pine-woods round it.
"Woods, older than his title by many a century--downright sacrilege!
And the property being entailed, too--actual robbery of the heir! But I
understand anybody may do anything with Lord Ravenel--a mere selfish,
cynical, idle voluptuary!"
"Indeed you are mistaken, Sir Herbert!" cried Mr. Jessop of Norton
Bury--a very honest fellow was Josiah Jessop. "He banks with me--that
is, there are some poor Catholics in this neighbourhood whom I pay--but
bless me! he told me not to tell. No, indeed. Cynical he may be;
idle, perhaps--most men of fashion are--but Lord Ravenel is not the
least like his father--is he, Mr. Halifax?"
"I have not seen Lord Ravenel for many years."
And as if, even to this day, the mention of the young man's name
brought back thoughts of the last day we had seen him--a day which, its
sadness having gone by, still kept its unspoken sacredness, distinct
from all other days--John moved away and went and talked to a girl whom
both he and the mother liked above most young girls we knew--simple,
sunny-faced Grace Oldtower.
Dancing began. Spite of my Quaker education, or perhaps for that very
reason, I delighted to see dancing. Dancing, such as it was then, when
young folk moved breezily and lightly, as if they loved it; skimming
like swallows down the long lines of the Triumph--gracefully winding in
and out through the graceful country dance--lively always, but always
decorous. In those days people did not think it necessary to the
pleasures of dancing that any stranger should have liberty to snatch a
shy, innocent girl round the waist, and whirl her about in mad waltz or
awkward polka, till she stops, giddy and breathless, with burning cheek
and tossed hair, looking,--as I would not have liked to see our pretty
Maud look.
No; though while watching the little lady to-night, I was inclined to
say to her:
"When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that."
And in her unwearied spirits she seemed as if she would readily have
responded to the wish.
We did not see Guy among the dancers, who were now forming in a
somewhat confused square, in order to execute a new dance called
quadrilles, of which Miss Grace Oldtower was to be the instructress.
"Where is Guy?" said the mother, who would have missed him among a room
full of people. "Have you seen Guy anywhere, Miss Silver?"
Miss Silver, who sat playing tunes--she had declined dancing--turned,
colouring visibly.
"Yes, I have seen him; he is in the study."
"Would you be so kind as to fetch him?"
The governess rose and crossed the room, with a stately walk--statelier
than usual. Her silk gown, of some rich soft colour, fashioned after
Mrs. Halifax's taste, and the chaplet of bay-leaves, which Maud had
insisted upon putting in her dark hair, made an astonishing change in
Miss Silver. I could not help noticing it to Mrs. Halifax.
"Yes, indeed, she looks well. John says her features are fine; but for
my part, I don't care for your statuesque faces; I like
colour--expression. See that bright little Grace Oldtower!--a
thoroughly English rose;--I like HER. Poor Miss Silver! I wish--"
What, out of compunction for a certain sharpness with which she had
spoken, Mrs. Halifax was about to wish, remained undeclared. For, just
this minute, Guy entered, and leaning his handsome head and his tender
petits soins over the "English rose," as his mother called her, led her
out to the dancing.
We sat down and looked on.
"Guy dances lazily; he is rather pale too, I fancy."
"Tired, probably. He was out far too long on the ice to-day, with Maud
and Miss Silver. What a pretty creature his partner is!" added Ursula,
thoughtfully.
"The children are growing up fast," I said.
"Ay, indeed. To think that Guy is actually twenty-one--the age when
his father was married!"
"Guy will be reminding you of that fact some day soon."
Mrs. Halifax smiled. "The sooner the better, if only he makes a worthy
choice--if only he brings me a daughter whom I can love."
And I fancied there was love--motherly love--in the eyes that followed
through the graceful mazes of her dancing, the bonny English rose.
Guy and his partner sat down beside us. His mother noticed that he had
turned very pale again, and the lad owned to be in some pain: he had
twisted his foot that morning, in helping Maud and Miss Silver across
the ice; but it was a mere trifle--not worth mentioning.
It passed over, with one or two anxious inquiries on the mother's part,
and a soft, dewy shadow over the down-dropped cheek of the little rose,
who evidently did not like to think of any harm coming to her old
play-fellow. Then Sir Herbert appeared to lead Mrs. Halifax in to
supper, Guy limped along with pretty Grace on his arm, and all the
guests, just enough to fill our longest table in John's study, came
thronging round in a buzz of mirthfulness.
Either the warm, hospitable atmosphere, or the sight of the merry
youngsters, or the general influence of social pleasantness, had for
the time being dispelled the cloud. But certainly it was dispelled.
The master of the feast looked down two long lines of happy faces--his
own as bright as theirs--down to where, at the foot of the table, the
mother and mistress sat. She had been slightly nervous at times during
the evening, but now she appeared thoroughly at ease and glad--glad to
see her husband take his place at the head of his own hospitable board,
in the midst of his own friends and his own people honoured and
beloved. It seemed a good omen--an omen that the bitter things outside
would pass away.
How bitter they had been, and how sore the wife's heart still felt, I
could see from the jealous way in which, smiling and cheerful as her
demeanour was, she caught every look, every word of those around her
which might chance to bear reference to her husband; in her quick
avoidance of every topic connected with these disastrous times, and,
above all, in her hurried grasp of a newspaper that some careless
servant brought in fresh from the night-mail, wet with sleet and snow.
"Do you get your country paper regularly?" asked some one at table. And
then some others appeared to recollect the Norton Bury Mercury, and its
virulent attacks on their host--for there ensued an awkward pause,
during which I saw Ursula's face beginning to burn. But she conquered
her wrath.
"There is often much interest in our provincial papers, Sir Herbert. My
husband makes a point of taking them all in--bad and good--of every
shade of politics. He believes it is only by hearing all sides that
you can truly judge of the state of the country."
"Just as a physician must hear all symptoms before he decides on the
patient's case. At least, so our good old friend Doctor Jessop used to
say."
"Eh?" said Mr. Jessop the banker, catching his own name, and waking up
from a brown study, in which he had seemed to see nothing--except,
perhaps, the newspaper, which, in its printed cover, lay between
himself and Mrs. Halifax. "Eh? did any one--Oh, I beg pardon--beg
pardon--Sir Herbert," hastily added the old man; who was a very meek
and worthy soul, and had been perhaps more subdued than usual this
evening.
"I was referring," said Sir Herbert, with his usual ponderous civility,
"to your excellent brother, who was so much respected among us,--for
which respect, allow me to say, he did not leave us without an
inheritor."
The old banker answered the formal bow with a kind of nervous hurry;
and then Sir Herbert, with a loud premise of his right as the oldest
friend of our family, tried to obtain silence for the customary speech,
prefatory to the customary toast of "Health and prosperity to the heir
of Beechwood."
There was great applause and filling of glasses; great smiling and
whispering; everybody glancing at poor Guy, who turned red and white,
and evidently wished himself a hundred miles off. In the confusion I
felt my sleeve touched, and saw leaning towards me, hidden by Maud's
laughing happy face, the old banker. He held in his hand the newspaper
which seemed to have so fascinated him.
"It's the London Gazette. Mr. Halifax gets it three hours before any
of us. I may open it? It is important to me. Mrs. Halifax would
excuse, eh?"
Of course she would. Especially if she had seen the old man's look, as
his trembling fingers vainly tried to unfold the sheet without a single
rustle's betraying his surreptitious curiosity.
Sir Herbert rose, cleared his throat, and began:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I speak as a father myself, and as son of a
father whom--whom I will not refer to here, except to say that his good
heart would have rejoiced to see this day. The high esteem in which
Sir Ralph always held Mr. Halifax, has descended, and will descend--"
Here some one called out:
"Mr. Jessop! Look at Mr. Jessop!"
The old man had suddenly sank back, with a sort of choking groan. His
eyes were staring blankly, his cheek was the colour of ashes. But when
he saw every one looking at him he tried desperately to recover himself.
"'Tis nothing. Nothing of the slightest moment. Eh?" clutching
tightly at the paper which Mrs. Halifax was kindly removing out of his
hand. "There's no news in it--none, I assure you."
But from his agitation--from the pitiful effort he made to disguise
it--it was plain enough that there was news. Plain also, as in these
dangerous and critical times men were only too quick to divine, in what
that news consisted. Tidings, which now made every newspaper a sight
of fear,--especially this--the London Gazette.
Edwin caught and read the fatal page--the fatal column--known only too
well.
"W----'s have stopped payment."
W----'s was a great London house, the favourite banking-house in our
country, with which many provincial banks, and Jessop's especially,
were widely connected, and would be no one knew how widely involved.
"W----'s stopped payment!"
A murmur--a hush of momentary suspense, as the Gazette was passed
hurriedly from hand to hand; and then our guests, one and all, sat
looking at one another in breathless fear, suspicion, or assured
dismay. For, as every one was aware (we knew our neighbours' affairs
so well about innocent Enderley), there was not a single household of
that merry little company upon whom, near or remote, the blow would not
fall--except ours.
No polite disguise could gloss over the general consternation. Few
thought of Jessop--only of themselves. Many a father turned pale; many
a mother melted into smothered tears. More than one honest countenance
that five minutes before had beamed like the rising sun, all
friendliness and jocularity, I saw shrink into a wizened, worldly face
with greedy selfishness peering out of the corners of its eyes, eager
to conceal its own alarms and dive as far as possible into the terrors
of its neighbours.
"There will be a run on Jessop's bank to-morrow," I heard one person
saying; glancing to where the poor old banker still sat, with a vacant,
stupefied smile, assuring all around him that "nothing had happened;
really, nothing."
"A run? I suppose so. Then it will be 'Sauve qui peut,' and the devil
take the hindmost."
"What say you to all this, Mr. Halifax?"
John still kept his place. He sat perfectly quiet, and had never
spoken a syllable.
When Sir Herbert, who was the first to recover from the shock of these
ill-tidings, called him by his name, Mr. Halifax looked quickly up. It
was to see, instead of those two lines of happy faces, faces already
gathering in troubled groups, faces angry, sullen, or miserable, all of
which, with a vague distrust, seemed instinctively turned upon him.
"Mr. Halifax," said the baronet, and one could see how, in spite of his
steadfast politeness, he too was not without his anxieties--"this is an
unpleasant breaking-in upon your kindly hospitalities. I suppose,
through this unpropitious event, each of us must make up our minds to
some loss. Let me hope yours will be trifling."
John made no answer.
"Or, perhaps--though I can hardly hope anything so fortunate--perhaps
this failure will not affect you at all?"
He waited--as did many others, for Mr. Halifax's reply; which was long
in coming. However, since all seemed to expect it, it did come at
last; but grave and sad as if it were the announcement of some great
misfortune.
"No, Sir Herbert; it will not affect me at all."
Sir Herbert, and not he alone--looked surprised--uneasily surprised.
Some mutters there were of "congratulation." Then arose a troubled
murmur of talking, in which the master of the house was forgotten;
until the baronet said, "My friends, I think we are forgetting our
courtesy. Allow me to give you without more delay--the toast I was
about to propose,--'Health, long life, and happiness to Mr. Guy
Halifax.'"
And so poor Guy's birthday toast was drunk; almost in silence; and the
few words he said in acknowledgment were just listened to, scarcely
heard. Every one rose from table, and the festivities were over.
One by one all our guests began to make excuse. One by one,
involuntarily perhaps, yet not the less painfully and plainly, they all
shrunk away from us, as if in the universal trouble we, who had nothing
to fear, had no part nor lot. Formal congratulations, given with pale
lips and wandering eyes; brusque adieux, as some of the more honest or
less courteous showed but too obviously how cruelly, even resentfully,
they felt the inequalities of fortune; hasty departures, full of a
dismay that rejected angrily every shadow of consolation;--all these
things John had to meet and to bear.
He met them with composure; scarcely speaking a word, as indeed what
was there to say? To all the friendly speeches, real or pretended, he
listened with a kind of sad gravity: of all harsher words than
these--and there were not a few--he took not the least notice, but held
his place as master of the house; generously deaf and blind to
everything that it were as well the master of the house should neither
hear nor see.
At last he was left, a very Pariah of prosperity, by his own hearth,
quite alone.
The last carriage had rolled away; the tired household had gone to bed;
there was no one in the study but me. John came in and stood leaning
with both his arms against the fireplace, motionless and silent. He
leant there so long, that at last I touched him.
"Well, Phineas!"
I saw this night's events had wounded him to the core.
"Are you thinking of these honest, friendly, disinterested guests of
ours? Don't! They are not worth a single thought."
"Not an angry thought, certainly." And he smiled at my wrath--a sad
smile.
"Ah, Phineas! now I begin to understand what is meant by the curse of
prosperity."