and her quick, distrustful glance at Lord Ravenel, what she imagined it was–that the boy had confessed to his father. With an instinct of concealment–the mother’s instinct–for the moment she asked no questions.
We were all still standing at the hall-door. Unresisting, she suffered her husband to take her arm in his and bring her into the study.
“Now–the letter, please! Children, go away; I want to speak to your father. The letter, John?”
Her hand, which she held out, shook much. She tried to unfold the paper–stopped, and looked up piteously.
“It is not to tell me he is not coming home? I can bear anything, you know–but he MUST come.”
John only answered, “Read,”–and took firm hold of her hand while she read–as we hold the hand of one undergoing great torture,–which must be undergone, and which no human love can either prepare for, or remove, or alleviate.
The letter, which I saw afterwards, was thus;
“DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,
“I have disgraced you all. I have been drunk–in a gaming- house. A man insulted me–it was about my father–but you will hear- -all the world will hear presently. I struck him–there was something in my hand, and–the man was hurt.
“He may be dead by this time. I don’t know.
“I am away to America to-night. I shall never come home any more. God bless you all.
“GUY HALIFAX.
“P.S. I got my mother’s letter to-day. Mother–I was not in my right senses, or I should not have done it. Mother, darling! forget me. Don’t let me have broken your heart.”
Alas, he had broken it!
“Never come home any more!–Never come home any more!”
She repeated this over and over again, vacantly: nothing but these five words.
Nature refused to bear it; or rather, Nature mercifully helped her to bear it. When John took his wife in his arms she was insensible; and remained so, with intervals, for hours.
This was the end of Edwin’s wedding-day.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Lord Ravenel knew–as all Paris did by this time–the whole story. Though, as he truly said, he had not seen Guy. The lad was hurried off immediately, for fear of justice: but he had written from shipboard to Lord Ravenel, begging him himself to take the letter and break the news to us at Beechwood.
The man he had struck was not one of Lord Luxmore’s set–though it was through some of his “noble” friends Guy had fallen into his company. He was an Englishman, lately succeeded to a baronetcy and estate; his name–how we started to hear it, though by Lord Ravenel and by us, for his sake, it was both pronounced and listened to, as if none of us had ever heard it before–Sir Gerard Vermilye.
As soon as Ursula recovered, Mr. Halifax and Lord Ravenel went to Paris together. This was necessary, not only to meet justice, but to track the boy–to whose destination we had no clue but the wide world, America. Guy’s mother hurried them away–his mother, who rose from her bed, and moved about the house like a ghost–up-stairs and down-stairs–everywhere–excepting in that room, which was now once more locked, and the outer blind drawn down, as if Death himself had taken possession there.
Alas! we learned now that there may be sorrows bitterer even than death.
Mr. Halifax went away. Then followed a long season of torpid gloom– days or weeks, I hardly remember–during which we, living shut up at Beechwood, knew that our name–John’s stainless, honourable name–was in everybody’s mouth–parrotted abroad in every society–canvassed in every newspaper. We tried, Walter and I, to stop them at first, dreading lest the mother might read in some foul print or other scurrilous tales about her boy; or, as long remained doubtful, learn that he was proclaimed through France and England as a homicide–an assassin. But concealments were idle–she would read everything– hear everything–meet everything–even those neighbours who out of curiosity or sympathy called at Beechwood. Not many times, though; they said they could not understand Mrs. Halifax. So, after a while, they all left her alone, except good little Grace Oldtower.
“Come often,” I heard her say to this girl, whom she was fond of: they had sat talking a whole morning–idly and pensively; of little things around them, never once referring to things outside. “Come often, though the house is dull. Does it not feel strange, with Mr. Halifax away?”
Ay, this was the change–stranger at first than what had befallen Guy–for that long seemed a thing we could not realise; like a story told of some other family than ours. The present tangible blank was the house with its head and master away.
Curiously enough, but from his domestic habits easily accountable, he had scarcely ever been more than a few days absent from home before. We missed him continually; in his place at the head of the table; in his chair by the fire; his quick ring at the hall bell, when he came up from the mills–his step–his voice–his laugh. The life and soul of the house seemed to have gone out of it from the hour the father went away.
I think in the wonderful workings of things–as we know all things do work together for good–this fact was good for Ursula. It taught her that, in losing Guy, she had not lost all her blessings. It showed her what in the passion of her mother-love she might have been tempted to forget–many mothers do–that beyond all maternal duty, is the duty that a woman owes to her husband: beyond all loves, is the love that was hers before any of them were born.
So, gradually, as every day John’s letters came,–and she used to watch for them and seize them as if they had been love-letters; as every day she seemed to miss him more, and count more upon his return; referring all decisions, and all little pleasures planned for her, to the time “when your father comes home;”–hope and comfort began to dawn in the heart of the mourning mother.
And when at last John fixed the day of his coming back, I saw Ursula tying up the small bundle of his letters–his letters, of which in all her happy life she had had so few–his tender, comforting, comfortable letters.
“I hope I shall never need to have any more,” she said, half-smiling- -the faint smile which began to dawn in her poor face, as if she must accustom it to look bright again in time for her husband’s coming.
And when the day arrived, she put all the house in trim order, dressed herself in her prettiest gown, sat patient while Maud brushed and curled her hair–how white it had turned of late!–and then waited, with a flush on her cheek–like that of a young girl waiting for her lover–for the sound of carriage-wheels.
All that had to be told about Guy–and it was better news than any one of us had hoped for–John had already told in his letters. When he came back, therefore, he was burthened with no trouble undisclosed–greeted with no anguish of fear or bitter remembrance. As he sprang out of the post-chaise, it was to find his wife standing at the door, and his home smiling for him its brightest welcome. No blessing on earth could be like the blessing of the father’s return.
John looked pale, but not paler than might have been expected. Grave, too–but it was a soft seriousness altogether free from the restlessness of keen anxiety. The first shock of this heavy misfortune was over. He had paid all his son’s debts; he had, as far as was possible, saved his good name; he had made a safe home for the lad, and heard of his safely reaching it, in the New World. Nothing more was left but to cover over the inevitable grief, and hope that time would blot out the intolerable shame. That since Guy’s hand was clear of blood–and, since his recovery, Sir Gerard Vermilye had risen into a positive hero of society–men’s minds would gradually lose the impression of a deed committed in heat of youth, and repented of with such bitter atonement.
So the father took his old place, and looked round on the remnant of his children, grave indeed, but not weighed down by incurable suffering. Something, deeper even than the hard time he had recently passed through, seemed to have made his home more than ever dear to him. He sat in his arm-chair, never weary of noticing everything pleasant about him, of saying how pretty Beechwood looked, and how delicious it was to be at home. And perpetually, if any chance unlinked it, his hand would return to its clasp of Ursula’s; the minute she left her place by his side, his restless “Love, where are you going?” would call her back again. And once, when the children were out of the room, and I, sitting in a dark corner, was probably thought absent likewise, I saw John take his wife’s face between his two hands, and look in it–the fondest, most lingering, saddest look!–then fold her tightly to his breast.
“I must never be away from her again. Mine–for as long as I live, mine–MY wife, MY Ursula!”
She took it all naturally, as she had taken every expression of his love these nine-and-twenty years. I left them, standing eye to eye, heart to heart, as if nothing in this world could ever part them.
Next morning was as gay as any of our mornings used to be, for, before breakfast, came Edwin and Louise. And after breakfast, the father and mother and I walked up and down the garden for an hour, talking over the prospects of the young couple. Then the post came– but we had no need to watch for it now. It only brought a letter from Lord Ravenel.
John read it, somewhat more seriously than he had been used to read these letters–which for the last year or so had come often enough– the boys usually quizzing, and Mistress Maud vehemently defending, the delicate small hand-writing, the exquisite paper, the coronetted seal, and the frank in the corner. John liked to have them, and his wife also–she being not indifferent to the fact, confirmed by many other facts, that if there was one man in the world whom Lord Ravenel honoured and admired, it was John Halifax of Beechwood. But this time her pleasure was apparently damped; and when Maud, claiming the letter as usual, spread abroad, delightedly, the news that “her” Lord Ravenel was coming shortly, I imagined this visit was not so welcome as usual to the parents.
Yet still, as many a time before, when Mr. Halifax closed the letter, he sighed, looked sorrowful, saying only, “Poor Lord Ravenel!”
“John,” asked his wife, speaking in a whisper, for by tacit consent all public allusion to his doings at Paris was avoided in the family- -“did you, by any chance, hear anything of–You know whom I mean?”
“Not one syllable.”
“You inquired?” He assented. “I knew you would. She must be almost an old woman now, or perhaps she is dead. Poor Caroline!”
It was the first time for years and years that this name had been breathed in our household. Involuntarily it carried me back–perhaps others besides me–to the day at Longfield when little Guy had devoted himself to his “pretty lady;” when we first heard that other name, which by a curious conjuncture of circumstances had since become so fatally familiar, and which would henceforward be like the sound of a death-bell in our family–Gerard Vermilye.
On Lord Ravenel’s re-appearance at Beechwood–and he seemed eager and glad to come–I was tempted to wish him away. He never crossed the threshold but his presence brought a shadow over the parents’ looks– and no wonder. The young people were gay and friendly as ever; made him always welcome with us; and he rode over daily from desolate, long-uninhabited Luxmore, where, in all its desolation, he appeared so fond of abiding.
He wanted to take Maud and Walter over there one day, to see some magnificent firs that were being cut down in a wholesale massacre, leaving the grand old Hall as bare as a workhouse front. But the father objected; he was clearly determined that all the hospitalities between Luxmore and Beechwood should be on the Beechwood side.
Lord Ravenel apparently perceived this. “Luxmore is not Compiegne,” he said to me, with his dreary smile, half-sad, half-cynical. “Mr. Halifax might indulge me with the society of his children.”
And as he lay on the grass–it was full summer now–watching Maud’s white dress flit about under the trees, I saw, or fancied I saw, something different to any former expression that had ever lighted up the soft languid mien of William Lord Ravenel.
“How tall that child has grown lately! She is about nineteen, I think?”
“Not seventeen till December.”
“Ah, so young?–Well, it is pleasant to be young!–Dear little Maud!”
He turned on one side, hiding the sun from his eyes with those delicate ringed hands–which many a time our boys had laughed at, saying they were mere lady’s hands, fit for no work at all.
Perhaps Lord Ravenel felt the cloud that had come over our intercourse with him; a cloud which, considering late events, was scarcely unnatural: for when evening came, his leave-taking, always a regret, seemed now as painful as his blase indifference to all emotions, pleasant or unpleasant, could allow. He lingered–he hesitated–he repeated many times how glad he should be to see Beechwood again; how all the world was to him “flat, stale, and unprofitable,” except Beechwood.
John made no special answer; except that frank smile not without a certain kindly satire, under which the young nobleman’s Byronic affectations generally melted away like mists in the morning. He kindled up into warmth and manliness.
“I thank you, Mr. Halifax–I thank you heartily for all you and your household have been to me. I trust I shall enjoy your friendship for many years. And if, in any way, I might offer mine, or any small influence in the world–“
“Your influence is not small,” John returned earnestly. “I have often told you so. I know no man who has wider opportunities than you have.”
“But I have let them slip–for ever.”
“No, not for ever. You are young still; you have half a lifetime before you.”
“Have I?” And for the moment one would hardly have recognized the sallow, spiritless face, that with all the delicacy of boyhood still, at times looked so exceedingly old. “No, no, Mr. Halifax, who ever heard of a man beginning life at seven-and-thirty?”
“Are you really seven-and-thirty?” asked Maud.
“Yes–yes, my girl. Is it so very old?”
He patted her on the shoulder, took her hand, gazed at it–the round, rosy, girlish hand–with a melancholy tenderness; then bade “Good-bye” to us all generally, and rode off.
It struck me then, though I hurried the thought away–it struck me afterwards, and does now with renewed surprise–how strange it was that the mother never noticed or took into account certain possibilities that would have occurred naturally to any worldly mother. I can only explain it by remembering the unworldliness of our lives at Beechwood, the heavy cares which now pressed upon us from without, and the notable fact–which our own family experience ought to have taught us, yet did not–that in cases like this, often those whom one would have expected to be most quick-sighted, are the most strangely, irretrievably, mournfully blind.
When, the very next day, Lord Ravenel, not on horse-back but in his rarely-used luxurious coronetted carriage, drove up to Beechwood, every one in the house except myself was inconceivably astonished to see him back again.
He said that he had delayed his journey to Paris, and gave no explanation of that delay. He joined as usual in our midday dinner; and after dinner, still as usual, took a walk with me and Maud. It happened to be through the beech-wood, almost the identical path that I remembered taking, years and years ago, with John and Ursula. I was surprised to hear Lord Ravenel allude to the fact, a well-known fact in our family; for I think all fathers and mothers like to relate, and all children to hear, the slightest incidents of the parents’ courting days.
“You did not know father and mother when they were young?” said Maud, catching our conversation and flashing back her innocent, merry face upon us.
“No, scarcely likely.” And he smiled. “Oh, yes–it might have been- -I forget, I am not a young man now. How old were Mr. and Mrs. Halifax when they married?”
“Father was twenty-one and mother was eighteen–only a year older than I.” And Maud, half ashamed of this suggestive remark, ran away. Her gay candour proved to me–perhaps to others besides me–the girl’s entire free-heartedness. The frank innocence of childhood was still hers.
Lord Ravenel looked after her and sighed. “It is good to marry early; do you not think so, Mr. Fletcher?”
I told him–(I was rather sorry after I had said it, if one ought to be sorry for having, when questioned, given one’s honest opinion)–I told him that I thought those happiest who found their happiness early, but that I did not see why happiness should be rejected because it was the will of Providence that it should not be found till late.
“I wonder,” he said, dreamily, “I wonder whether I shall ever find it.”
I asked him–it was by an impulse irresistible–why he had never married?
“Because I never found any woman either to love or to believe in. Worse,” he added, bitterly, “I did not think there lived the woman who could be believed in.”
We had come out of the beech-wood and were standing by the low churchyard wall; the sun glittered on the white marble head-stone on which was inscribed, “Muriel Joy Halifax.”
Lord Ravenel leaned over the wall, his eyes fixed upon that little grave. After a while, he said, sighing:
“Do you know, I have thought sometimes that, had she lived, I could have loved–I might have married–that child!”
Here Maud sprang towards us. In her playful tyranny, which she loved to exercise and he to submit to, she insisted on knowing what Lord Ravenel was talking about.
“I was saying,” he answered, taking both her hands and looking down into her bright, unshrinking eyes, “I was saying, how dearly I loved your sister Muriel.”
“I know that,” and Maud became grave at once. “I know you care for me because I am like my sister Muriel.”
“If it were so, would you be sorry or glad?”
“Glad, and proud too. But you said, or you were going to say, something more. What was it?”
He hesitated long, then answered:
“I will tell you another time.”
Maud went away, rather cross and dissatisfied, but evidently suspecting nothing. For me, I began to be seriously uneasy about her and Lord Ravenel.
Of all kinds of love, there is one which common sense and romance have often combined to hold obnoxious, improbable, or ridiculous, but which has always seemed to me the most real and pathetic form that the passion ever takes–I mean, love in spite of great disparity of age. Even when this is on the woman’s side, I can imagine circumstances that would make it far less ludicrous and pitiful; and there are few things to me more touching, more full of sad earnest, than to see an old man in love with a young girl.
Lord Ravenel’s case would hardly come under this category; yet the difference between seventeen and thirty-seven was sufficient to warrant in him a trembling uncertainty, and eager catching at the skirts of that vanishing youth whose preciousness he never seemed to have recognized till now. It was with a mournful interest that all day I watched him follow the child about, gather her posies, help her to water her flowers, and accommodate himself to those whims and fancies, of which, as the pet and the youngest, Mistress Maud had her full share.
When, at her usual hour of half-past nine, the little lady was summoned away to bed, “to keep up her roses,” he looked half resentful of the mother’s interference.
“Maud is not a child now; and this may be my last night–” he stopped, sensitively, at the involuntary foreboding.
“Your last night? Nonsense! you will come back soon again. You must–you shall!” said Maud, decisively.
“I hope I may–I trust in Heaven I may!”
He spoke low, holding her hand distantly and reverently, not attempting to kiss it, as in all his former farewells he had invariably done.
“Maud, remember me! However or whenever I come back, dearest child, be faithful, and remember me!”
Maud fled away with a sob of childish pain–partly anger, the mother thought–and slightly apologized to the guest for her daughter’s “naughtiness.”
Lord Ravenel sat silent for a long, long time.
Just when we thought he purposed leaving, he said, abruptly, “Mr. Halifax, may I have five minutes’ speech with you in the study?”
The five minutes extended to half an hour. Mrs. Halifax wondered what on earth they were talking about. I held my peace. At last the father came in alone.
“John, is Lord Ravenel gone?”
“Not yet.”
“What could he have wanted to say to you?”
John sat down by his wife, picked up the ball of her knitting, rolled and unrolled it. She saw at once that something had grieved and perplexed him exceedingly. Her heart shrunk back–that still sore heart!–recoiled with a not unnatural fear.
“Oh, husband, is it any new misfortune?”
“No, love,” cheering her with a smile; “nothing that fathers and mothers in general would consider as such. He has asked me for our Maud.”
“What for?” was the mother’s first exceedingly simple question–and then she guessed its answer. “Impossible! Ridiculous–absolutely ridiculous! She is only a child.”
“Nevertheless, Lord Ravenel wishes to marry our little Maud!”
“Lord Ravenel wishes to marry our Maud!”
Mrs. Halifax repeated this to herself more than once before she was able to entertain it as a reality. When she did, the first impression it made upon her mind was altogether pain.
“Oh, John! I hoped we had done with these sort of things; I thought we should have been left in peace with the rest of our children.”
John smiled again; for, indeed, there was a comical side to her view of the subject; but its serious phase soon returned; doubly so, when, looking up, they both saw Lord Ravenel standing before them. Firm his attitude was, firmer than usual; and it was with something of his father’s stately air, mingled with a more chivalric and sincerer grace, that he stooped forward and kissed the hand of Maud’s mother.
“Mr. Halifax has told you all, I believe?”
“He has.”
“May I then, with entire trust in you both, await my answer?”
He waited it, patiently enough, with little apparent doubt as to what it would be. Besides, it was only the prior question of parental consent, not the vital point of Maud’s preference. And, with all his natural humility, Lord Ravenel might be forgiven if, brought up in the world, he was aware of his position therein–nor quite unconscious that it was not merely William Ravenel, but the only son and heir of the Earl of Luxmore, who came a-wooing.
Not till after a long pause, and even a whispered word or two between the husband and wife, who knew each other’s minds so well that no more consultation was needed–did the suitor again, with a more formal air, ask for an answer.
“It is difficult to give. I find that my wife, like myself, had no idea of your feelings. The extreme suddenness–“
“Pardon me; my intention has not been sudden. It is the growth of many months–years, I might almost say.”
“We are the more grieved.”
“Grieved?”
Lord Ravenel’s extreme surprise startled him from the mere suitor into the lover; he glanced from one to the other in undisguised alarm. John hesitated: the mother said something about the “great difference between them.”
“In age, do you mean? I am aware of that,” he answered, with some sadness. “But twenty years is not an insuperable bar in marriage.”
“No,” said Mrs. Halifax, thoughtfully.
“And for any other disparity–in fortune–or rank–“
“I think, Lord Ravenel,”–and the mother spoke with her “dignified” air–“you know enough of my husband’s character and opinions to be assured how lightly he would hold such a disparity–if you allude to that supposed to exist between the son of the Earl of Luxmore and the daughter of John Halifax.”
The young nobleman coloured, as if with ingenuous shame at what he had been implying. “I am glad of it. Let me assure you there will be no impediments on the side of my family. The earl has long wished me to marry. He knows well enough that I can marry whom I please– and shall marry for love only. Give me your leave to win your little Maud.”
A dead silence.
“Again pardon me,” Lord Ravenel said with some hauteur; “I cannot have clearly explained myself. Let me repeat, Mr. Halifax, that I ask your permission to win your daughter’s affection, and, in due time, her hand.”
“I would that you had asked of me anything that it could be less impossible to give you.”
“Impossible! What do you mean?–Mrs. Halifax–” He turned instinctively to the woman–the mother.
Ursula’s eyes were full of a sad kindness–the kindness any mother must feel towards one who worthily woos her daughter–but she replied distinctly–
“I feel, with my husband, that such a marriage would be impossible.”
Lord Ravenel grew scarlet–sat down–rose again, and stood facing them, pale and haughty.
“If I may ask–your reasons?”
“Since you ask–certainly,” John replied. “Though, believe me, I give them with the deepest pain. Lord Ravenel, do you not yourself see that our Maud–“
“Wait one moment,” he interrupted. “There is not, there cannot be, any previous attachment?”
The supposition made the parents smile. “Indeed, nothing of the kind: she is a mere child.”
“You think her too young for marriage, then?” was the eager answer. “Be it so. I will wait, though my youth, alas! is slipping from me; but I will wait–two years, three–any time you choose to name.”
John needed not to reply. The very sorrow of his decision showed how inevitable and irrevocable it was.
Lord Ravenel’s pride rose against it.
“I fear in this my novel position I am somewhat slow of comprehension. Would it be so great a misfortune to your daughter if I made her Viscountess Ravenel, and in course of time Countess of Luxmore?”
“I believe it would. Her mother and I would rather see our little Maud lying beside her sister Muriel than see her Countess of Luxmore.”
These words, hard as they were, John uttered so softly and with such infinite grief and pain, that they struck the young man, not with anger, but with an indefinite awe, as if a ghost from his youth–his wasted youth–had risen up to point out that truth, and show him that what seemed insult or vengeance was only a bitter necessity.
All he did was to repeat, in a subdued manner–“Your reasons?”
“Ah, Lord Ravenel!” John answered sadly, “do you not see yourself that the distance between us and you is wide as the poles? Not in worldly things, but in things far deeper;–personal things, which strike at the root of love, home–nay, honour.”
Lord Ravenel started. “Would you imply that anything in my past life, aimless and useless as it may have been, is unworthy of my honour–the honour of our house?”
Saying this he stopped–recoiled–as if suddenly made aware by the very words himself had uttered, what–contrasted with the unsullied dignity of the tradesman’s life, the spotless innocence of the tradesman’s daughter–what a foul tattered rag, fit to be torn down by an honest gust, was that flaunting emblazonment, the so-called “honour” of Luxmore!
“I understand you now. ‘The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children,’ as your Bible says–your Bible, that I had half begun to believe in. Be it so. Mr. Halifax, I will detain you no longer.
John intercepted the young man’s departure.
“No, you do NOT understand me. I hold no man accountable for any errors, any shortcomings, except his own.”
“I am to conclude, then, that it is to myself you refuse your daughter?”
“It is.”
Lord Ravenel once more bowed, with sarcastic emphasis.
“I entreat you not to mistake me,” John continued, most earnestly. “I know nothing of you that the world would condemn, much that it would even admire; but your world is not our world, nor your aims our aims. If I gave you my little Maud, it would confer on you no lasting happiness, and it would be thrusting my child, my own flesh and blood, to the brink of that whirlpool where, soon or late, every miserable life must go down.”
Lord Ravenel made no answer. His new-born energy, his pride, his sarcasm, had successively vanished; dead, passive melancholy resumed its empire over him. Mr. Halifax regarded him with mournful compassion.
“Oh, that I had foreseen this! I would have placed the breadth of all England between you and my child.”
“Would you?”
“Understand me. Not because you do not possess our warm interest, our friendship: both will always be yours. But these are external ties, which may exist through many differences. In marriage there must he perfect unity; one aim, one faith, one love, or the marriage is incomplete, unholy–a mere civil contract and no more.”
Lord Ravenel looked up amazed at this doctrine, then sat awhile pondering drearily.
“Yes, you may be right,” at last he said. “Your Maud is not for me, nor those like me. Between us and you is that ‘great gulf fixed;’– what did the old fable say? I forget.–Che sara sara! I am but as others: I am but what I was born to be.”
“Do you recognize what you were born to be? Not only a nobleman, but a gentleman; not only a gentleman, but a man–man, made in the image of God. How can you, how dare you, give the lie to your Creator?”
“What has He given me? What have I to thank Him for?”
“First, manhood; the manhood His Son disdained not to wear; worldly gifts, such as rank, riches, influence, things which others have to spend half an existence in earning; life in its best prime, with much of youth yet remaining–with grief endured, wisdom learnt, experience won. Would to Heaven, that by any poor word of mine I could make you feel all that you are–all that you might be!”
A gleam, bright as a boy’s hope, wild as a boy’s daring, flashed from those listless eyes–then faded.
“You mean, Mr. Halifax, what I might have been. Now it is too late.”
“There is no such word as ‘too late,’ in the wide world–nay, not in the universe. What! shall we, whose atom of time is but a fragment out of an ever-present eternity–shall we, so long as we live, or even at our life’s ending, dare to cry out to the Eternal One, ‘It is too late!'”
As John spoke, in much more excitement than was usual to him, a sudden flush or rather spasm of colour flushed his face, then faded away, leaving him pallid to the very lips. He sat down hastily, in his frequent attitude, with the left arm passed across his breast.
“Lord Ravenel.” His voice was faint, as though speech was painful to him.
The other looked up, the old look of reverent attention, which I remembered in the boy-lord who came to see us at Norton Bury; in the young “Anselmo,” whose enthusiastic hero-worship had fixed itself, with an almost unreasoning trust, on Muriel’s father,
“Lord Ravenel, forgive anything I have said that may have hurt you. It would grieve me inexpressibly if we did not part as friends.”
“Part?”
“For a time, we must. I dare not risk further either your happiness or my child’s.”
“No, not hers. Guard it. I blame you not. The lovely, innocent child! God forbid she should ever have a life like mine!”
He sat silent, his clasped hands listlessly dropping, his countenance dreamy; yet, it seemed to me, less hopelessly sad: then with a sudden effort he rose.
“I must go now.”
Crossing over to Mrs. Halifax, he thanked her, with much emotion, for all her kindness.
“For your husband, I owe him more than kindness, as perhaps I may prove some day. If not, try to believe the best of me you can. Good-bye.”
They both said good-bye, and bade God bless him; with scarcely less tenderness than if things had ended as he desired, and, instead of this farewell, sad and indefinite beyond most farewells, they were giving the parental welcome to a newly-chosen son.
Ere finally quitting us, Lord Ravenel turned back to speak to John once more, hesitatingly and mournfully.
“If she–if the child should ask or wonder about my absence–she likes me in her innocent way you know–you will tell her–What shall you tell her?”
“Nothing. It is best not.”
“Ay, it is, it is.”
He shook hands with us all three, without saying anything else; then the carriage rolled away, and we saw his face–that pale, gentle, melancholy face–no more.
It was years and years before any one beyond ourselves knew what a near escape our little Maud had had of becoming Viscountess Ravenel– future Countess of Luxmore.
CHAPTER XXXVII
It was not many weeks after this departure of Lord Ravenel’s–the pain of which was almost forgotten in the comfort of Guy’s first long home letter, which came about this time–that John one morning, suddenly dropping his newspaper, exclaimed:
“Lord Luxmore is dead.”
Yes, he had returned to his dust, this old bad man; so old, that people had begun to think he would never die. He was gone; the man who, if we owned an enemy in the world, had certainly proved himself that enemy. Something peculiar is there in a decease like this–of one whom, living, we have almost felt ourselves justified in condemning, avoiding–perhaps hating. Until Death, stepping in between, removes him to another tribunal than this petty justice of ours, and laying a solemn finger on our mouths, forbids us either to think or utter a word of hatred against that which is now–what?–a disembodied spirit–a handful of corrupting clay.
Lord Luxmore was dead. He had gone to his account; it was not ours to judge him. We never knew–I believe no one except his son ever fully knew–the history of his death-bed.
John sat in silence, the paper before him, long after we had passed the news and discussed it, not without awe, all round the breakfast- table.
Maud stole up–hesitatingly, and asked to see the announcement of the earl’s decease.
“No, my child; but you shall hear it read aloud, if you choose.”
I guessed the reason of his refusal; when, looking over him as he read, I saw, after the long list of titles owned by the new Earl of Luxmore, one bitter line; how it must have cut to the heart of him whom we first heard of as “poor William!”
“HAD LIKEWISE ISSUE, CAROLINE, MARRIED IN 17–, TO RICHARD BRITHWOOD, ESQUIRE, AFTERWARDS DIVORCED.”
And by a curious coincidence, about twenty lines further down I read among the fashionable marriages:
“AT THE BRITISH EMBASSY, PARIS, SIR GERARD VERMILYE, BART., TO THE YOUTHFUL AND BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER OF–“
I forget who. I only saw that the name was not her name, of whom the “youthful and beautiful” bride had most likely never heard. He had not married Lady Caroline.
This morning’s intelligence brought the Luxmore family so much to our thoughts, that driving out after breakfast, John and I involuntarily recurred to the subject. Nay, talking on, in the solitude of our front seat–for Mrs. Halifax, Miss Halifax, and Mrs. Edwin Halifax, in the carriage behind, were deep in some other subject–we fell upon a topic which by tacit consent had been laid aside, as in our household we held it good to lay aside any inevitable regret.
“Poor Maud! how eager she was to hear the news to-day. She little thinks how vitally it might have concerned her.”
“No,” John answered thoughtfully; then asked me with some abruptness, “Why did you say ‘poor Maud’?”
I really could not tell; it was a mere accident, the unwitting indication of some crotchets of mine, which had often come into my mind lately. Crotchets, perhaps peculiar to one, who, never having known a certain possession, found himself rather prone to over-rate its value. But it sometimes struck me as hard, considering how little honest and sincere love there is in the world, that Maud should never have known of Lord Ravenel’s.
Possibly, against my will, my answer implied something of this; for John was a long time silent. Then he began to talk of various matters; telling me of many improvements he was planning and executing, on his property, and among his people. In all his plans, and in the carrying out of them, I noticed one peculiarity, strong in him throughout his life, but latterly grown stronger than ever– namely, that whatever he found to do, he did immediately. Procrastination had never been one of his faults; now, he seemed to have a horror of putting anything off even for a single hour. Nothing that could be done did he lay aside until it was done; his business affairs were kept in perfect order, each day’s work being completed with the day. And in the thousand-and-one little things that were constantly arising, from his position as magistrate and land-owner, and his general interest in the movements of the time, the same system was invariably pursued. In his relations with the world outside, as in his own little valley, he seemed determined to “work while it was day.” If he could possibly avoid it, no application was ever unattended to; no duty left unfinished; no good unacknowledged; no evil unremedied, or at least unforgiven.
“John,” I said, as to-day this peculiarity of his struck me more than usual, “thou art certainly one of the faithful servants whom the Master when He cometh will find watching.”
“I hope so. It ought to be thus with all men–but especially with me.”
I imagined from his tone that he was thinking of his responsibility as father, master, owner of large wealth. How could I know–how could I guess–beyond this!
“Do you think she looks pale, Phineas?” he asked suddenly.
“Who–your wife?”
“No–Maud. My little Maud.”
It was but lately that he called her “his” little Maud; since with that extreme tenacity of attachment which was a part of his nature– refusing to put any one love in another love’s place–his second daughter had never been to him like the first. Now, however, I had noticed that he took Maud nearer to his heart, made her more often his companion, watching her with a sedulous tenderness–it was easy to guess why.
“She may have looked a little paler of late, a little more thoughtful. But I am sure she is not unhappy.”
“I believe not–thank God!”
“Surely,” I said anxiously, “you have never repented what you did about Lord Ravenel?”
“No–not once. It cost me so much, that I know it was right to be done.”
“But if things had been otherwise–if you had not been so sure of Maud’s feelings–“
He started, painfully; then answered–“I think I should have done it still.”
I was silent. The paramount right, the high prerogative of love, which he held as strongly as I did, seemed attacked in its liberty divine. For the moment, it was as if he too had in his middle-age gone over to the cold-blooded ranks of harsh parental prudence, despotic paternal rule; as if Ursula March’s lover and Maud’s father were two distinct beings. One finds it so, often enough, with men.
“John,” I said, “could you have done it? could you have broken the child’s heart?”
“Yes, if it was to save her peace, perhaps her soul, I could have broken my child’s heart.”
He spoke solemnly, with an accent of inexpressible pain, as if this were not the first time by many that he had pondered over such a possibility.
“I wish, Phineas, to make clear to you, in case of–of any future misconceptions–my mind on this matter. One right alone I hold superior to the right of love,–duty. It is a father’s duty, at all risks, at all costs, to save his child from anything which he believes would peril her duty–so long as she is too young to understand fully how beyond the claim of any human being, be it father or lover, is God’s claim to herself and her immortal soul. Anything which would endanger that should be cut off–though it be the right hand–the right eye. But, thank God, it was not thus with my little Maud.”
“Nor with him either. He bore his disappointment well.”
“Nobly. It may make a true nobleman of him yet. But, being what he is, and for as long as he remains so, he must not be trusted with my little Maud. I must take care of her while I live: afterwards–“
His smile faded, or rather was transmuted into that grave thoughtfulness which I had lately noticed in him, when, as now, he fell into one of his long silences. There was nothing sad about it; rather a serenity which reminded me of that sweet look of his boyhood, which had vanished during the manifold cares of his middle life. The expression of the mouth, as I saw it in profile–close and calm–almost inclined me to go back to the fanciful follies of our youth, and call him “David.”
We drove through Norton Bury, and left Mrs. Edwin there. Then on, along the familiar road, towards the manor-house; past the white gate, within sight of little Longfield.
“It looks just the same–the tenant takes good care of it.” And John’s eyes turned fondly to his old home.
“Ay, just the same. Do you know your wife was saying to me this morning, that when Guy comes back, when all the young folk are married, and you retire from business and settle into the otium cum dignitate, the learned leisure you used to plan–she would like to give up Beechwood. She said, she hopes you and she will end your days together at little Longfield.”
“Did she? Yes, I know that has been always her dream.”
“Scarcely a dream, or one that is not unlikely to be fulfilled. I like to fancy you both two old people, sitting on either side the fire–or on the same side if you like it best; very cheerful–you will make such a merry old man, John, with all your children round you, and indefinite grandchildren about the house continually. Or else you two will sit alone together, just as in your early married days–you and your old wife–the dearest and handsomest old lady that ever was seen.”
“Phineas–don’t–don’t.” I was startled by the tone in which he answered the lightness of mine. “I mean–don’t be planning out the future. It is foolish–it is almost wrong. God’s will is not as our will; and He knows best.”
I would have spoken; but just then we reached the manor-house gate, and plunged at once into present life, and into the hospitable circle of the Oldtowers.
They were all in the excitement of a wonderful piece of gossip; gossip so strange, sudden, and unprecedented, that it absorbed all lesser matters. It burst out before we had been in the house five minutes.
“Have you heard this extraordinary report about the Luxmore family?”
I could see Maud turn with eager attention–fixing her eyes wistfully on Lady Oldtower.
“About the earl’s death. Yes, we saw it in the newspaper.” And John passed on to some other point of conversation. In vain.
“This news relates to the present earl. I never heard of such a thing–never. In fact, if true, his conduct is something which in its self-denial approaches absolute insanity. Is it possible that, being so great a friend of your family, he has not informed you of the circumstances?”
These circumstances, with some patience, we extracted from the voluble Lady Oldtower. She had learnt them–I forget how: but news never wants a tongue to carry it.
It seemed that on the earl’s death it was discovered, what had already been long suspected, that his liabilities, like his extravagances, were enormous. That he was obliged to live abroad to escape in some degree the clamorous haunting of the hundreds he had ruined: poor tradespeople, who knew that their only chance of payment was during the old man’s life-time, for his whole property was entailed on the son.
Whether Lord Ravenel had ever been acquainted with the state of things, or whether, being in ignorance of it, his own style of living had in degree imitated his father’s, rumour did not say, nor indeed was it of much consequence. The facts subsequently becoming known immediately after Lord Luxmore’s death, made all former conjectures unnecessary.
Not a week before he died, the late earl and his son–chiefly it was believed on the latter’s instigation–had cut off the entail, thereby making the whole property saleable, and available for the payment of creditors. Thus by his own act, and–as some one had told somebody that somebody else had heard Lord Ravenel say: “for the honour of the family,” the present earl had succeeded to an empty title, and– beggary.
“Or,” Lady Oldtower added, “what to a man of rank will be the same as beggary–a paltry two hundred a year or so–which he has reserved, they say, just to keep him from destitution. Ah–here comes Mr. Jessop; I thought he would. He can tell us all about it.”
Old Mr. Jessop was as much excited as any one present.
“Ay–it’s all true–only too true, Mr. Halifax. He was at my house last night.”
“Last night!” I do not think anybody caught the child’s exclamation but me; I could not help watching little Maud, noticing what strong emotion, still perfectly child-like and unguarded in its demonstration, was shaking her innocent bosom, and overflowing at her eyes. However, as she sat still in the corner, nobody observed her.
“Yes, he slept at my house–Lord Ravenel, the Earl of Luxmore, I mean. Much good will his title do him! My head clerk is better off than he. He has stripped himself of every penny, except–bless me, I forgot; Mr. Halifax, he gave me a letter for you.”
John walked to the window to read it; but having read it, passed it openly round the circle; as indeed was best.
“MY DEAR FRIEND,
“You will have heard that my father is no more.”
(“He used always to say ‘the earl,'” whispered Maud, as she looked over my shoulder.)
“I write this merely to say, what I feel sure you will already have believed–that anything which you may learn concerning his affairs, I was myself unaware of, except in a very slight degree, when I last visited Beechwood.
“Will you likewise believe that in all I have done, or intend doing, your interests as my tenant–which I hope you will remain– have been, and shall be, sedulously guarded?
“My grateful remembrance to all your household. “Faithfully yours and theirs, “LUXMORE.”
“Give me back the letter, Maud my child.”
She had been taking possession of it, as in right of being his “pet” she generally did of all Lord Ravenel’s letters. But now, without a word of objection, she surrendered it to her father.
“What does he mean, Mr. Jessop, about my interests as his tenant?”
“Bless me–I am so grieved about the matter that everything goes astray in my head. He wished me to explain to you that he has reserved one portion of the Luxmore property intact–Enderley Mills. The rent you pay will, he says, be a sufficient income for him; and then while your lease lasts no other landlord can injure you. Very thoughtful of him–very thoughtful indeed, Mr. Halifax.”
John made no answer.
“I never saw a man so altered. He went over some matters with me– private charities, in which I have been his agent, you know–grave, clear-headed, business-like; my clerk himself could not have done better. Afterwards we sat and talked, and I tried–foolishly enough, when the thing was done!–to show him what a frantic act it was both towards himself and his heirs. But he could not see it. He said cutting off the entail would harm nobody–for that he did not intend ever to marry. Poor fellow!”
“Is he with you still?” John asked in a low tone.
“No; he left this morning for Paris; his father is to be buried there. Afterwards, he said, his movements were quite uncertain. He bade me good-bye–I–I didn’t like it, I can assure you.”
And the old man, blowing his nose with his yellow pocket-handkerchief, and twitching his features into all manner of shapes, seemed determined to put aside the melancholy subject, and dilated on the earl and his affairs no more.
Nor did any one. Something in this young nobleman’s noble act–it has since been not without a parallel among our aristocracy–silenced the tongue of gossip itself. The deed was so new–so unlike anything that had been conceived possible, especially in a man like Lord Ravenel, who had always borne the character of a harmless, idle misanthropic nonentity–that society was really nonplussed concerning it. Of the many loquacious visitors who came that morning to pour upon Lady Oldtower all the curiosity of Coltham–fashionable Coltham, famous for all the scandal of haut ton–there was none who did not speak of Lord Luxmore and his affairs with an uncomfortable, wondering awe. Some suggested he was going mad–others, raking up stories current of his early youth, thought he had turned Catholic again, and was about to enter a monastery. One or two honest hearts protested that he was a noble fellow, and it was a pity he had determined to be the last of the Luxmores.
For ourselves–Mr. and Mrs. Halifax, Maud and I–we never spoke to one another on the subject all the morning. Not until after luncheon, when John and I had somehow stolen out of the way of the visitors, and were walking to and fro in the garden. The sunny fruit garden–ancient, Dutch, and square–with its barricade of a high hedge, a stone wall, and between it and the house a shining fence of great laurel trees.
Maud appeared suddenly before us from among these laurels, breathless.
“I got away after you, father. I–I wanted to find some strawberries–and–I wanted to speak to you.”
“Speak on, little lady.”
He linked her arm in his, and she paced between us up and down the broad walk–but without diverging to the strawberry-beds. She was grave, and paler than ordinary. Her father asked if she were tired?
“No, but my head aches. Those Coltham people do talk so. Father, I want you to explain to me, for I can’t well understand all this that they have been saying about Lord Ravenel.”
John explained, as simply and briefly as he could.
“I understand. Then, though he is Earl of Luxmore, he is quite poor- -poorer than any of us? And he has made himself poor in order to pay his own and his father’s debts, and keep other people from suffering from any fault of his? Is it so?”
“Yes, my child.”
“Is it not a very noble act, father?”
“Very noble.”
“I think it is the noblest act I ever heard of. I should like to tell him so. When is he coming to Beechwood?”
Maud spoke quickly, with flushed cheeks, in the impetuous manner she inherited from her mother. Her question not being immediately answered, she repeated it still more eagerly.
Her father replied–“I do not know.”
“How very strange! I thought he would come at once–to-night, probably.”
I reminded her that Lord Ravenel had left for Paris, bidding goodbye to Mr. Jessop.
“He ought to have come to us instead of to Mr. Jessop. Write and tell him so, father. Tell him how glad we shall be to see him. And perhaps you can help him: you who help everybody. He always said you were his best friend.”
“Did he?”
“Ah now, do write, father dear–I am sure you will.”
John looked down on the little maid who hung on his arm so persuasively, then looked sorrowfully away.
“My child–I cannot.”
“What, not write to him? When he is poor and in trouble? That is not like you, father,” and Maud half-loosed her arm.
Her father quietly put the little rebellious hand back again to its place. He was evidently debating within himself whether he should tell her the whole truth, or how much of it. Not that the debate was new, for he must already have foreseen this possible, nay, certain, conjuncture. Especially as all his dealings with his family had hitherto been open as daylight. He held that to prevaricate, or wilfully to give the impression of a falsehood, is almost as mean as a direct lie. When anything occurred that he could not tell his children, he always said plainly, “I cannot tell you,” and they asked no more.
I wondered exceedingly how he would deal with Maud.
She walked with him, submissive yet not satisfied, glancing at him from time to time, waiting for him to speak. At last she could wait no longer.
“I am sure there is something wrong. You do not care for Lord Ravenel as much as you used to do.”
“More, if possible.”
“Then write to him. Say, we want to see him–I want to see him. Ask him to come and stay a long while at Beechwood.”
“I cannot, Maud. It would be impossible for him to come. I do not think he is likely to visit Beechwood for some time.”
“How long? Six months? A year, perhaps?”
“It may be several years.”
“Then, I was right. Something HAS happened; you are not friends with him any longer. And he is poor–in trouble–oh, father!”
She snatched her hand away, and flashed upon him reproachful eyes. John took her gently by the arm, and made her sit down upon the wall of a little stone bridge, under which the moat slipped with a quiet murmur. Maud’s tears dropped into it fast and free.
That very outburst, brief and thundery as a child’s passion, gave consolation both to her father and me. When it lessened, John spoke.
“Now has my little Maud ceased to be angry with her father?”
“I did not mean to be angry–only I was so startled–so grieved. Tell me what has happened, please, father?”
“I will tell you–so far as I can. Lord Ravenel and myself had some conversation, of a very painful kind, the last night he was with us. After it, we both considered it advisable he should not visit us again for the present.”
“Why not? Had you quarrelled? or if you had, I thought my father was always the first to forgive everybody.”
“No, Maud, we had not quarrelled.”
“Then, what was it?”
“My child, you must not ask, for indeed I cannot tell you.”
Maud sprang up–the rebellious spirit flashing out again. “Not tell me–me, his pet–me, that cared for him more than any of you did. I think you ought to tell me, father.”
“You must allow me to decide that, if you please.”
After this answer Maud paused, and said humbly, “Does any one else know?”
“Your mother, and your uncle Phineas, who happened to be present at the time. No one else: and no one else shall know.”
John spoke with that slight quivering and blueness of the lips which any mental excitement usually produced in him. He sat down by his daughter’s side and took her hand.
“I knew this would grieve you, and I kept it from you as long as I could. Now you must only be patient, and like a good child trust your father.”
Something in his manner quieted her. She only sighed and said, “she could not understand it.”
“Neither can I–often times, my poor little Maud. There are so many sad things in life that we have to take upon trust, and bear, and be patient with–yet never understand. I suppose we shall some day.”
His eyes wandered upward to the wide-arched blue sky, which in its calm beauty makes us fancy that Paradise is there, even though we know that “THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN US,” and that the kingdom of spirits may be around us and about us everywhere.
Maud looked at her father, and crept closer to him–into his arms.
“I did not mean to be naughty. I will try not to mind losing him. But I liked Lord Ravenel so much–and he was so fond of me.”
“Child”–and her father himself could not help smiling at the simplicity of her speech–“it is often easiest to lose those we are fond of and who are fond of us, because, in one sense, we never can really lose them. Nothing in this world, nor, I believe, in any other, can part those who truly and faithfully love.”
I think he was hardly aware how much he was implying, at least not in its relation to her, else he would not have said it. And he would surely have noticed, as I did, that the word “love,” which had not been mentioned before–it was “liking,” “fond of,” “care for,” or some such round-about, childish phrase–the word “love” made Maud start. She darted from one to the other of us a keen glance of inquiry, and then turned the colour of a July rose.
Her attitude, her blushes, the shy tremble about her mouth, reminded me vividly, too vividly, of her mother twenty-eight years ago.
Alarmed, I tried to hasten the end of our conversation, lest, voluntarily or involuntarily, it might produce the very results which, though they might not have altered John’s determination, would almost have broken his heart.
So, begging her to “kiss and make friends,” which Maud did, timidly, and without attempting further questions, I hurried the father and daughter into the house; deferring for mature consideration, the question whether or not I should trouble John with any too-anxious doubts of mine concerning her.
As we drove back through Norton Bury, I saw that while her mother and Lady Oldtower conversed, Maud sat opposite rather more silent than her wont; but when the ladies dismounted for shopping, she was again the lively independent Miss Halifax,
“Standing with reluctant feet, Where womanhood and childhood meet;”
and assuming at once the prerogatives and immunities of both.
Her girlish ladyship at last got tired of silks and ribbons, and stood with me at the shop-door, amusing herself with commenting on the passers-by.
These were not so plentiful as I once remembered, though still the old town wore its old face–appearing fairer than ever, as I myself grew older. The same Coltham coach stopped at the Lamb Inn, and the same group of idle loungers took an interest in its disemboguing of its contents. But railways had done an ill turn to the coach and to poor Norton Bury: where there used to be six inside passengers, to-day was turned out only one.
“What a queer-looking little woman! Uncle Phineas, people shouldn’t dress so fine as that when they are old.”
Maud’s criticism was scarcely unjust. The light-coloured flimsy gown, shorter than even Coltham fashionables would have esteemed decent, the fluttering bonnet, the abundance of flaunting curls–no wonder that the stranger attracted considerable notice in quiet Norton Bury. As she tripped mincingly along, in her silk stockings and light shoes, a smothered jeer arose.
“People should not laugh at an old woman, however conceited she may be,” said Maud, indignantly.
“Is she old?”
“Just look.”
And surely when, as she turned from side to side, I caught her full face–what a face it was! withered, thin, sallow almost to deathliness, with a bright rouge-spot on each cheek, a broad smile on the ghastly mouth.
“Is she crazy, Uncle Phineas?”
“Possibly. Do not look at her.” For I was sure this must be the wreck of such a life as womanhood does sometimes sink to–a life, the mere knowledge of which had never yet entered our Maud’s pure world.
She seemed surprised, but obeyed me and went in. I stood at the shop-door, watching the increasing crowd, and pitying, with that pity mixed with shame that every honest man must feel towards a degraded woman, the wretched object of their jeers. Half-frightened, she still kept up that set smile, skipping daintily from side to side of the pavement, darting at and peering into every carriage that passed. Miserable creature as she looked, there was a certain grace and ease in her movements, as if she had fallen from some far higher estate.
At that moment, the Mythe carriage, with Mr. Brithwood in it, dozing his daily drive away, his gouty foot propped up before him–slowly lumbered up the street. The woman made a dart at it, but was held back.
“Canaille! I always hated your Norton Bury! Call my carriage. I will go home.”
Through its coarse discordance, its insane rage, I thought I knew the voice. Especially when, assuming a tone of command, she addressed the old coachman:
“Draw up, Peter; you are very late. People, give way! Don’t you see my carriage?”
There was a roar of laughter, so loud that even Mr. Brithwood opened his dull, drunken eyes and stared about him.
“Canaille!”–the scream was more of terror than anger, as she almost flung herself under the horses’ heads in her eagerness to escape from the mob. “Let me go! My carriage is waiting. I am Lady Caroline Brithwood!”
The ‘squire heard her. For a single instant they gazed at one another–besotted husband, dishonoured, divorced wife–gazed with horror and fear, as two sinners who had been each other’s undoing, might meet in the poetic torments of Dante’s “Inferno,” or the tangible fire and brimstone of many a blind but honest Christian’s hell. One single instant,–and then Richard Brithwood made up his mind.
“Coachman, drive on!”
But the man–he was an old man–seemed to hesitate at urging his horses right over “my lady.” He even looked down on her with a sort of compassion–I remembered having heard say that she was always kind and affable to her servants.
“Drive on, you fool! Here”–and Mr. Brithwood threw some coin amongst the mob–“Fetch the constable–some of you; take the woman to the watch-house!”
And the carriage rolled on, leaving her there, crouched on the kerbstone, gazing after it with something between a laugh and a moan.
Nobody touched her. Perhaps some had heard of her; a few might even have seen her–driving through Norton Bury in her pristine state, as the young ‘squire’s handsome wife–the charming Lady Caroline.
I was so absorbed in the sickening sight, that I did not perceive how John and Ursula, standing behind me, had seen it likewise–evidently seen and understood it all.
“What is to be done?” she whispered to him.
“What ought we to do?”
Here Maud came running out to see what was amiss in the street.
“Go in, child,” said Mrs. Halifax, sharply. “Stay till I fetch you.”
Lady Oldtower also advanced to the door; but catching some notion of what the disturbance was, shocked and scandalised, retired into the shop again.
John looked earnestly at his wife, but for once she did not or would not understand his meaning; she drew back uneasily.
“What must be done?–I mean, what do you want me to do?”
“What only a woman can do–a woman like you, and in your position.”
“Yes, if it were only myself. But think of the household–think of Maud. People will talk so. It is hard to know how to act.”
“Nay; how did One act–how would He act now, if He stood in the street this day? If we take care of aught of His, will He not take care of us and of our children?”
Mrs. Halifax paused, thought a moment, hesitated–yielded.
“John, you are right; you are always right. I will do anything you please.”
And then I saw, through the astonished crowd, in face of scores of window-gazers, all of whom knew them, and a great number of whom they also knew, Mr. Halifax and his wife walk up to where the miserable woman lay.
John touched her lightly on the shoulder–she screamed and cowered down.
“Are you the constable? He said he would send the constable.”
“Hush–do not be afraid. Cousin–Cousin Caroline.”
God knows how long it was since any woman had spoken to her in that tone. It seemed to startle back her shattered wits. She rose to her feet, smiling airily.
“Madam, you are very kind. I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing you somewhere. Your name is–“
“Ursula Halifax. Do you remember?”–speaking gently as she would have done to a child.
Lady Caroline bowed–a ghastly mockery of her former sprightly grace. “Not exactly; but I dare say I shall presently–au revoir, madame!”
She was going away, kissing her hand–that yellow, wrinkled, old woman’s hand,–but John stopped her.
“My wife wants to speak to you, Lady Caroline. She wishes you to come home with us.”
“Plait il?–oh yes; I understand. I shall be happy–most happy.”
John offered her his arm with an air of grave deference; Mrs. Halifax supported her on the other side. Without more ado, they put her in the carriage and drove home, leaving Maud in my charge, and leaving astounded Norton Bury to think and say exactly what it pleased.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
For nearly three years Lady Caroline lived in our house–if that miserable existence of hers could be called living–bedridden, fallen into second childhood:
“Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw;”
oblivious to both past and present, recognising none of us, and taking no notice of anybody, except now and then of Edwin’s little daughter, baby Louise.
We knew that all our neighbours talked us over, making far more than a nine days’ wonder of the “very extraordinary conduct” of Mr. and Mrs. Halifax. That even good Lady Oldtower hesitated a little before she suffered her tribe of fair daughters to visit under the same roof where lay, quite out of the way, that poor wreck of womanhood, which would hardly have tainted any woman now. But in process of time the gossip ceased of itself; and when, one summer day, a small decent funeral moved out of our garden gate to Enderley churchyard, all the comment was:
“Oh! is she dead?–What a relief it must be! How very kind of Mr. and Mrs. Halifax!”
Yes, she was dead, and had “made no sign,” either of repentance, grief, or gratitude. Unless one could consider as such a moment’s lightening before death, which Maud declared she saw in her–Maud, who had tended her with a devotedness which neither father nor mother forbade, believing that a woman cannot too soon learn womanhood’s best “mission”–usefulness, tenderness, and charity. Miss Halifax was certain that a few minutes before the last minute, she saw a gleam of sense in the filmy eyes, and stooping down, had caught some feeble murmur about “William–poor William!”
She did not tell me this; she spoke of it to no one but her mother, and to her briefly. So the wretched life, once beautiful and loveful, was now ended, or perhaps born in some new sphere to begin again its struggle after the highest beauty, the only perfect love. What are we that we should place limits to the infinite mercy of the Lord and Giver of Life, unto whom all life returns?
We buried her and left her–poor Lady Caroline!
No one interfered with us, and we appealed to no one. In truth, there was no one unto whom we could appeal. Lord Luxmore, immediately after his father’s funeral, had disappeared, whither, no one knew except his solicitor; who treated with and entirely satisfied the host of creditors, and into whose hands the sole debtor, John Halifax, paid his yearly rent. Therewith, he wrote several times to Lord Luxmore; but the letters were simply acknowledged through the lawyer: never answered. Whether in any of them John alluded to Lady Caroline I do not know; but I rather think not, as it would have served no purpose and only inflicted pain. No doubt, her brother had long since believed her dead, as we and the world had done.
In that same world one man, even a nobleman, is of little account. Lord Ravenel sank in its wide waste of waters, and they closed over him. Whether he were drowned or saved was of small moment to any one. He was soon forgotten–everywhere except at Beechwood; and sometimes it seemed as if he were even forgotten there. Save that in our family we found it hard to learn this easy, convenient habit–to forget.
Hard, though seven years had passed since we saw Guy’s merry face, to avoid missing it keenly still. The mother, as her years crept on, oftentimes wearied for him with a yearning that could not be told. The father, as Edwin became engrossed in his own affairs, and Walter’s undecided temperament kept him a boy long after boyhood, often seemed to look round vaguely for an eldest son’s young strength to lean upon, often said anxiously, “I wish Guy were at home.”
Yet still there was no hint of his coming; better he never came at all than came against his will, or came to meet the least pain, the shadow of disgrace. And he was contented and prosperous in the western world, leading an active and useful life, earning an honourable name. He had taken a partner, he told us; there was real friendship between them, and they were doing well; perhaps might make, in a few years, one of those rapid fortunes which clever men of business do make in America, and did especially at that time.
He was also eager and earnest upon other and higher cares than mere business; entered warmly into his father’s sympathy about many political measures now occupying men’s minds. A great number of comparative facts concerning the factory children in England and America; a mass of evidence used by Mr. Fowell Buxton in his arguments for the abolition of slavery; and many other things, originated in the impulsive activity, now settled into mature manly energy, of Mr. Guy Halifax, of Boston, U.S.–“our Guy.”
“The lad is making a stir in the world,” said his father one day, when we had read his last letter. “I shall not wonder if when he comes home a deputation from his native Norton Bury were to appear, requesting him to accept the honour of representing them in Parliament. He would suit them–at least, as regards the canvassing and the ladies–a great deal better than his old father–eh, love?”
Mrs. Halifax smiled, rather unwillingly, for her husband referred to a subject which had cost her some pain at the time. After the Reform Bill passed, many of our neighbours, who had long desired that one of John’s high character, practical knowledge, and influence in the town, should be its M.P., and were aware that his sole objection to entering the House was the said question of Reform, urged him very earnestly to stand for Norton Bury.
To everybody’s surprise, and none more than our own, he refused.
Publicly he assigned no reason for this except his conviction that he could not discharge as he ought, and as he would once have done, duties which he held so sacred and indispensable. His letter, brief and simple, thanking his “good neighbours,” and wishing them “a younger and worthier” member, might be found in some old file of the Norton Bury Herald still. Even the Norton Bury Mercury, in reprinting it, commented on its touching honesty and brevity, and– concluding his political career was ended with it–condescended to bestow on Mr. Halifax the usual obituary line–
“We could have better spared a better man.”
When his family, and even his wife, reasoned with him, knowing that to enter Parliament had long been his thought, nay, his desire, and perhaps herself taking a natural pride in the idea of seeing M.P.– M.P. of a new and unbribed House of Commons–after his well-beloved name; to us and to her he gave no clearer motive for his refusal than to the electors of Norton Bury.
“But you are not old, John,” I argued with him one day; “you possess to the full the mens sana in corpore sano. No man can be more fitted than yourself to serve his country, as you used to say it might be served, and you yourself might serve it, after Reform was gained.”
He smiled, and jocularly thanked me for my good opinion.
“Nay, such service is almost your duty; you yourself once thought so too. Why have you changed your mind?”
“I have not changed my mind, but circumstances have changed my actions. As for duty–duty begins at home. Believe me, I have thought well over the subject. Brother, we will not refer to it again.”
I saw that something in the matter pained him, and obeyed his wish. Even when, a few days after, perhaps as some compensation for the mother’s disappointment, he gave this hint of Guy’s taking his place and entering Parliament in his room.
For any one–nay, his own son–to take John’s place, to stand in John’s room, was not a pleasant thought, even in jest; we let it pass by unanswered, and John himself did not recur to it.
Thus time went on, placidly enough; the father and mother changed into grandfather and grandmother, and little Maud into Auntie Maud. She bore her new honours and fulfilled her new duties with great delight and success. She had altered much of late years: at twenty was as old as many a woman of thirty–in all the advantages of age. She was sensible, active, resolute, and wise; sometimes thoughtful, or troubled with fits of what in any less wholesome temperament would have been melancholy; but as it was, her humours only betrayed themselves in some slight restlessness or irritability, easily soothed by a few tender words or a rush out to Edwin’s, and a peaceful coming back to that happy home, whose principal happiness she knew that she, the only daughter, made.
She more than once had unexceptionable chances of quitting it; for Miss Halifax possessed plenty of attractions, both outwardly and inwardly, to say nothing of her not inconsiderable fortune. But she refused all offers, and to the best of our knowledge was a free-hearted damsel still. Her father and mother seemed rather glad of this than otherwise. They would not have denied her any happiness she wished for; still it was evidently a relief to them that she was slow in choosing it; slow in quitting their arms of love to risk a love untried. Sometimes, such is the weakness of parental humanity, I verily believe they looked forward with complacency to the possibility of her remaining always Miss Halifax. I remember one day, when Lady Oldtower was suggesting–half jest, half earnest– “better any marriage than no marriage at all;” Maud’s father replied, very seriously–
“Better no marriage, than any marriage that is less than the best.”
“How do you mean?”
“I believe,” he said, smiling, “that somewhere in the world every man has his right wife, every woman her right husband. If my Maud’s come he shall have her. If not, I shall be well content to see her a happy old maid.”
Thus after many storms, came this lull in our lives; a season of busy yet monotonous calm,–I have heard say that peace itself, to be perfect, ought to be monotonous. We had enough of it to satisfy our daily need; we looked forward to more of it in time to come, when Guy should be at home, when we should see safely secured the futures of all the children, and for ourselves a green old age,
“Journeying in long serenity away.”
A time of heavenly calm–which as I look back upon it grows heavenlier still! Soft summer days and autumn afternoons, spent under the beech-wood, or on the Flat. Quiet winter evenings, all to ourselves–Maud and her mother working, Walter drawing. The father sitting with his back to the lamp–its light making a radiance over his brow and white bald crown, and as it thrilled through the curls behind, restoring somewhat of the youthful colour to his fading hair. Nay, the old youthful ring of his voice I caught at times, when he found something funny in his book and read it out loud to us; or laying it down, sat talking as he liked to talk about things speculative, philosophical, or poetical–things which he had necessarily let slip in the hurry and press of his business life, in the burthen and heat of the day; but which now, as the cool shadows of evening were drawing on, assumed a beauty and a nearness, and were again caught up by him–precious as the dreams of his youth.
Happy, happy time–sunshiny summer, peaceful winter–we marked neither as they passed; but now we hold both–in a sacredness inexpressible–a foretaste of that Land where there is neither summer nor winter, neither days nor years.
The first break in our repose came early in the new year. There had been no Christmas letter from Guy, and he never once in all his wanderings had missed writing home at Christmas time. When the usual monthly mail came in, and no word from him–a second month, and yet nothing, we began to wonder about his omission less openly–to cease scolding him for his carelessness. Though over and over again we still eagerly brought up instances of the latter–“Guy is such a thoughtless boy about his correspondence.”
Gradually, as his mother’s cheek grew paler, and his father more anxious-eyed, more compulsorily cheerful, we gave up discussing publicly the many excellent reasons why no letters should come from Guy. We had written, as usual, by every mail. By the last–by the March mail, I saw that in addition to the usual packet for Mr. Guy Halifax–his father, taking another precautionary measure, had written in business form to “Messrs. Guy Halifax and Co.” Guy had always, “just like his carelessness!” omitted to give the name of his partner; but addressed thus, in case of any sudden journey or illness of Guy’s, the partner, whoever he was, would be sure to write.
In May–nay, it was on May day, I remember, for we were down in the mill-meadows with Louise and her little ones going a-maying–there came in the American mail.
It brought a large packet–all our letters of this year sent back again, directed in a strange hand, to “John Halifax, Esquire, Beechwood,” with the annotation, “By Mr. Guy Halifax’s desire.”
Among the rest–though the sickening sight of them had blinded even his mother at first, so that her eye did not catch it, was one that explained–most satisfactorily explained, we said–the reason they were thus returned. It was a few lines from Guy himself, stating that unexpected good fortune had made him determine to come home at once. If circumstances thwarted this intention, he would write without fail; otherwise he should most likely sail by an American merchantman–the “Stars-and-Stripes.”
“Then he is coming home. On his way home!”
And the mother, as with one shaking hand she held fast the letter, with the other steadied herself by the rail of John’s desk–I guessed now why he had ordered all the letters to be brought first to his counting-house. “When do you think we shall see–Guy?”
At thought of that happy sight, her bravery broke down. She wept heartily and long.
John sat still, leaning over the front of his desk. By his sigh, deep and glad, one could tell what a load was lifted off the father’s heart at the prospect of his son’s return.
“The liners are only a month in sailing; but this is a barque most likely, which takes longer time. Love, show me the date of the boy’s letter.”
She looked for it herself. It was in JANUARY!
The sudden fall from certainty to uncertainty–the wild clutch at that which hardly seemed a real joy until seen fading down to a mere hope, a chance, a possibility–who has not known all this?
I remember how we all stood, mute and panic-struck, in the dark little counting-house. I remember seeing Louise, with her children in the door-way, trying to hush their laughing, and whispering to them something about “poor Uncle Guy.”
John was the first to grasp the unspoken dread, and show that it was less than at first appeared.
“We ought to have had this letter two months ago; this shows how often delays occur–we ought not to be surprised or uneasy at anything. Guy does not say when the ship was to sail–she may be on her voyage still. If he had but given the name of her owners! But I can write to Lloyd’s and find out everything. Cheer up, mother. Please God, you shall have that wandering, heedless boy of yours back before long.”
He replaced the letters in their enclosure–held a general consultation, into which he threw a passing gleam of faint gaiety, as to whether being ours we had a right to burn them, or whether having passed through the post-office they were not the writer’s but the owner’s property, and Guy could claim them, with all their useless news, on his arrival in England. This was finally decided, and the mother, with faint smile, declared that nobody should touch them; she would put them under lock and key “till Guy came home.”
Then she took her husband’s arm; and the rest of us followed them as they walked slowly up the hill to Beechwood.
But after that day Mrs. Halifax’s strength decayed. Not suddenly, scarcely perceptibly; not with any outward complaint, except what she jested over as “the natural weakness of old age;” but there was an evident change. Week by week her long walks shortened; she gave up her village school to me; and though she went about the house still and insisted on keeping the keys, gradually, “just for the sake of practice,” the domestic surveillance fell into the hands of Maud.
An answer arrived from Lloyd’s: the “Stars-and-Stripes” was an American vessel, probably of small tonnage and importance, was the under-writers knew nothing of it.
More delay–more suspense. The summer days came–but not Guy. No news of him–not a word–not a line.
His father wrote to America–pursuing inquiries in all directions. At last some tangible clue was caught. The “Stars-and-Stripes” had sailed, had been spoken with about the Windward Isles–and never heard of afterwards.
Still, there was a hope. John told the hope first, before he ventured to speak of the missing ship, and even then had to break the news gently, for the mother had grown frail and weak, and could not bear things as she used to do. She clung as if they had been words of life or death to the ship-owner’s postscript–“that they had no recollection of the name of Halifax; there might have been such a gentleman on board–they could not say. But it was not probable; for the ‘Stars-and-Stripes’ was a trading vessel, and had not good accommodation for passengers.”
Then came week after week–I know not how they went by–one never does, afterwards. At the time they were frightfully vivid, hour by hour; we rose each morning, sure that some hope would come in the course of the day; we went to bed at night, heavily, as if there were no such thing as hope in the world. Gradually, and I think that was the worst consciousness of all, our life of suspense became perfectly natural; and everything in and about the house went on as usual, just as though we knew quite well–what the Almighty Father alone knew!– where our poor lad was, and what had become of him. Or rather, as if we had settled in the certainty, which perhaps the end of our own lives alone would bring us, that he had slipped out of life altogether, and there was no such being as Guy Halifax under this pitiless sun.
The mother’s heart was breaking. She made no moan, but we saw it in her face. One morning–it was the morning after John’s birthday, which we had made a feint of keeping, with Grace Oldtower, the two little grandchildren, Edwin and Louise–she was absent at breakfast and dinner; she had not slept well, and was too tired to rise. Many days following it happened the same; with the same faint excuse, or with no excuse at all. How we missed her about the house!–ay, changed as she had been. How her husband wandered about, ghost-like, from room to room!–could not rest anywhere, or do anything. Finally, he left our company altogether, and during the hours that he was at home rarely quitted for more than a few minutes the quiet bed- chamber, where, every time his foot entered it, the poor pale face looked up and smiled.
Ay, smiled; for I noticed, as many another may have done in similar cases, that when her physical health definitely gave way, her mental health returned. The heavy burthen was lighter; she grew more cheerful, more patient; seemed to submit herself to the Almighty will, whatever it might be. As she lay on her sofa in the study, where one or two evenings John carried her down, almost as easily as he used to carry little Muriel, his wife would rest content with her hand in his, listening to his reading, or quietly looking at him, as though her lost son’s face, which a few weeks since she said haunted her continually, were now forgotten in his father’s. Perhaps she thought the one she should soon see–while the other–
“Phineas,” she whispered one day, when I was putting a shawl over her feet, or doing some other trifle that she thanked me for,–“Phineas, if anything happens to me, you will comfort John!”
Then first I began seriously to contemplate a possibility, hitherto as impossible and undreamed of as that the moon should drop out of the height of heaven–What would the house be without the mother?
Her children never suspected this, I saw; but they were young. For her husband–
I could not understand John. He, so quick-sighted; he who meeting any sorrow looked steadily up at the Hand that smote him, knowing neither the coward’s dread nor the unbeliever’s disguise of pain– surely he must see what was impending. Yet he was as calm as if he saw it not. Calm, as no man could be contemplating the supreme parting between two who nearly all their lives had been not two, but one flesh.
Yet I had once heard him say that a great love, and only that, makes parting easy. Could it be that this love of his, which had clasped his wife so firmly, faithfully, and long, fearlessly clasped her still, by its own perfectness assured of its immortality?
But all the while his human love clung about her, showing itself in a thousand forms of watchful tenderness. And hers clung to him, closely, dependently; she let herself be taken care of, ruled and guided, as if with him she found helplessness restful and submission sweet. Many a little outward fondness, that when people have been long married naturally drops into disuse, was revived again; he would bring her flowers out of the garden, or new books from the town; and many a time, when no one noticed, I have seen him stoop and press his lips upon the faded hand, where the wedding-ring hung so loosely;– his own for so many years, his own till the dust claimed it, that well-beloved hand!
Ay, he was right. Loss, affliction, death itself, are powerless in the presence of such a love as theirs.
It was already the middle of July. From January to July–six months! Our neighbours without–and there were many who felt for us–never asked now, “Is there any news of Mr. Guy?” Even pretty Grace Oldtower–pretty still, but youthful no longer–only lifted her eyes inquiringly as she crossed our doorway, and dropped them again with a hopeless sigh. She had loved us all, faithfully and well, for a great many years.
One night, when Miss Oldtower had just gone home after staying with us the whole day–Maud and I sat in the study by ourselves, where we generally sat now. The father spent all his evenings up-stairs. We could hear his step overhead as he crossed the room or opened the window, then drew his chair back to its constant place by his wife’s bedside. Sometimes there was a faint murmur of reading or talk; then long silence.
Maud and I sat in silence too. She had her own thoughts–I mine. Perhaps they were often one and the same: perhaps–for youth is youth after all–they may have diverged widely. Hers were deep, absorbed thoughts, at any rate, travelling fast–fast as her needle travelled; for she had imperceptibly fallen into her mother’s ways and her mother’s work.
We had the lamp lit, but the windows were wide open; and through the sultry summer night we could hear the trickle of the stream and the rustle of the leaves in the beech-wood. We sat very still, waiting for nothing, expecting nothing; in the dull patience which always fell upon us about this hour–the hour before bed-time, when nothing more was to be looked for but how best to meet another dreary day.
“Maud, was that the click of the front gate swinging?”
“No, I told Walter to lock it before he went to bed. Last night it disturbed my mother.”
Again silence. So deep that the maid’s opening the door made us both start.
“Miss Halifax–there’s a gentleman wanting to see Miss Halifax.”
Maud sprung up in her chair, breathless.
“Any one you know, is it?”
“No, Miss.”
“Show the gentleman in.”
He stood already in the doorway,–tall, brown, bearded. Maud just glanced at him, then rose, bending stiffly, after the manner of Miss Halifax of Beechwood.
“Will you be seated? My father–“
“Maud, don’t you know me? Where’s my mother? I am Guy.”
CHAPTER XXXIX
Guy and his mother were together. She lay on a sofa in her dressing-room; he sat on a stool beside her, so that her arm could rest on his neck and she could now and then turn his face towards her and look at it–oh, what a look!
She had had him with her for two whole days–two days to be set against eight years! Yet the eight years seemed already to have collapsed into a span of time, and the two days to have risen up a great mountain of happiness, making a barrier complete against the woeful past, as happiness can do–thanks to the All-merciful for His mercies. Most especially for that mercy–true as His truth to the experience of all pure hearts–that one bright, brief season of joy can outweigh, in reality and even in remembrance, whole years of apparently interminable pain.
Two days only since the night Guy came home, and yet it seemed months ago! Already we had grown familiar to the tall, bearded figure; the strange step and voice about the house; all except Maud, who was rather shy and reserved still. We had ceased the endeavour to reconcile this our Guy–this tall, grave man of nearly thirty, looking thirty-five and more–with Guy, the boy that left us, the boy that in all our lives we never should find again. Nevertheless, we took him, just as he was, to our hearts, rejoicing in him one and all with inexpressible joy.
He was much altered, certainly. It was natural, nay, right, that he should be. He had suffered much; a great deal more than he ever told us–at least, not till long after; had gone through poverty, labour, sickness, shipwreck. He had written home by the “Stars-and-Stripes”- -sailed a fortnight later by another vessel–been cast away–picked up by an outward-bound ship–and finally landed in England, he and his partner, as penniless as they left it.
“Was your partner an Englishman, then?” said Maud, who sat at the foot of the sofa, listening. “You have not told us anything about him yet.”