John Halifax, Gentleman by Dinah Maria Mulock (Mrs. Craik) (page 4)

“Oh, no matter; the mare will be safer under me than a stranger. And though I have taken good care that the three horses in the tan-yard shall have the journey, turn and turn about; still it’s a good pull from here to Norton Bury, and the mare’s my favourite. I would rather take her myself.”

I smiled at his numerous good reasons for doing such a very simple thing; and agreed that it was right and best he should do it.

“Then shall I call Mrs. Tod and inquire? Or perhaps it might make less fuss just to go and speak to her in the kitchen. Will you, Phineas, or shall I?”

Scarcely waiting my answer, we walked from our parlour into what I called the Debateable Land.

No one was there. We remained several minutes all alone, listening to the groaning overhead.

“That must be Mr. March, John.”

“I hear. Good heavens! how hard for her. And she such a young thing, and alone,” muttered he, as he stood gazing into the dull wood embers of the kitchen fire. I saw he was moved; but the expression on his face was one of pure and holy compassion. That at this moment no less unselfish feeling mingled with it I am sure.

Mrs. Tod appeared at the door leading to the other half of the cottage; she was apparently speaking to Miss March on the staircase. We heard again those clear, quick, decided tones, but subdued to a half-whisper.

“No, Mrs. Tod, I am not sorry you did it–on my father’s account, ’tis best. Tell Mr.–the young gentleman–I forget his name–that I am very much obliged to him.”

“I will, Miss March–stay, he is just here.–Bless us! she has shut the door already.–Won’t you take a seat, Mr. Halifax? I’ll stir up the fire in a minute, Mr. Fletcher. You are always welcome in my kitchen, young gentlemen.” And Mrs. Tod bustled about, well aware what a cosy and cheerful old-fashioned kitchen it was, especially of evenings.

But when John explained the reason of our intrusion there was no end to her pleasure and gratitude. He was the kindest young gentleman that ever lived.–She would tell Miss March so; as, indeed, she had done many a time.

“‘Miss,’ said I to her the very first day I set eyes on you, when I had told her how you came hunting for lodgings–(she often has a chat with me quite freely, being so lonesome-like, and knowing I to be too proud to forget that she’s a born lady)–‘Miss,’ said I, ‘who Mr. Halifax may be I don’t know, but depend upon it he’s a real gentleman.'”

I was the sole amused auditor of this speech, for John had vanished. In a few minutes more he had brought the mare round, and after a word or two with me was clattering down the road.

I wondered whether this time any white-furred wrist stirred the blind to watch him.

John was away a wonderfully short time, and the doctor rode back with him. They parted at the gate, and he came into our parlour, his cheeks all glowing with the ride. He only remarked, “that the autumn nights were getting chill,” and sat down. The kitchen clock struck one.

“You ought to have been in bed hours ago, Phineas. Will you not go? I shall sit up just a little while, to hear how Mr. March is.”

“I should like to hear, too. It is curious the interest that one learns to take in people that are absolute strangers, when shut up together in a lonely place like this, especially when they are in trouble.”

“Ay, that’s it,” said he, quickly. “It’s the solitude, and their being in trouble. Did you hear anything more while I was away?”

“Only that Mr. March was rather better, and everybody had gone to bed except his daughter and Mrs. Tod.”

“Hark! I think that’s the doctor going away. I wonder if one might ask–No! they would think it intrusive. He must be better. But Dr. Brown told me that in one of these paroxysms he might–Oh, that poor young thing!”

“Has she no relatives, no brothers or sisters? Doctor Brown surely knows.”

“I did not like to ask, but I fancy not. However, that’s not my business: my business is to get you off to bed, Phineas Fletcher, as quickly as possible.”

“Wait one minute, John. Let us go and see if we can do anything more.”

“Ay–if we can do anything more,” repeated he, as we again recrossed the boundary-line, and entered the Tod country.

All was quiet there. The kitchen fire burnt brightly, and a cricket sang in merry solitude on the hearth; the groans overhead were stilled, but we heard low talking, and presently stealthy footsteps crept down-stairs. It was Mrs. Tod and Miss March.

We ought to have left the kitchen: I think John muttered something to that effect, and even made a slight movement towards the door; but–I don’t know how it was–we stayed.

She came and stood by the fire, scarcely noticing us. Her fresh cheeks were faded, and she had the weary look of one who has watched for many hours. Some sort of white dimity gown that she wore added to this paleness.

“I think he is better, Mrs. Tod–decidedly better,” said she, speaking quickly. “You ought to go to bed now. Let all the house be quiet. I hope you told Mr.–Oh–“

She saw us, stopped, and for the moment the faintest tinge of her roses returned. Presently she acknowledged us, with a slight bend.

John came forward. I had expected some awkwardness on his part; but no–he was thinking too little of himself for that. His demeanour– earnest, gentle, kind–was the sublimation of all manly courtesy.

“I hope, madam”–young men used the deferential word in those days always–“I do hope that Mr. March is better. We were unwilling to retire until we had heard.”

“Thank you! My father is much better. You are very kind,” said Miss March, with a maidenly dropping of the eyes.

“Indeed he is kind,” broke in the warm-hearted Mrs. Tod. “He rode all the way to S—-, his own self, to fetch the doctor.”

“Did you, sir? I thought you only lent your horse.”

“Oh! I like a night-ride. And you are sure, madam, that your father is better? Is there nothing else I can do for you?”

His sweet, grave manner, so much graver and older than his years, softened too with that quiet deference which marked at once the man who reverenced all women, simply for their womanhood–seemed entirely to reassure the young lady. This, and her own frankness of character, made her forget, as she apparently did, the fact that she was a young lady and he a young gentleman, meeting on unacknowledged neutral ground, perfect strangers, or knowing no more of one another than the mere surname.

Nature, sincerity, and simplicity conquered all trammels of formal custom. She held out her hand to him.

“I thank you very much, Mr. Halifax. If I wanted help I would ask you; indeed I would.”

“Thank YOU. Good-night.”

He pressed the hand with reverence–and was gone. I saw Miss March look after him: then she turned to speak and smiled with me. A light word, an easy smile, as to a poor invalid whom she had often pitied out of the fulness of her womanly heart.

Soon I followed John into the parlour. He asked me no questions, made no remarks, only took his candle and went up-stairs.

But, years afterwards, he confessed to me that the touch of that hand–it was a rather peculiar hand in the “feel” of it, as the children say, with a very soft palm, and fingers that had a habit of perpetually fluttering, like a little bird’s wing–the touch of that hand was to the young man like the revelation of a new world.

CHAPTER XII

The next day John rode away earlier even than was his wont, I thought. He stayed but a little while talking with me. While Mrs. Tod was bustling over our breakfast he asked her, in a grave and unconcerned manner, “How Mr. March was this morning?” which was the only allusion he made to the previous night’s occurrences.

I had a long, quiet day alone in the beech-wood, close below our cottage, sitting by the little runnel, now worn to a thread with the summer weather, but singing still. It talked to me like a living thing.

When I came home in the evening Miss March stood in front of the cottage, with–strange to say–her father. But I had heard that his paroxysms were often of brief continuance, and that, like most confirmed valetudinarians, when real danger stared him in the face he put it from him, and was glad to be well.

Seeing me coming, Miss March whispered to him; he turned upon me a listless gaze from over his fur collar, and bowed languidly, without rising from his easy chair. Yes, it was Mr. March–the very Mr. March we had met! I knew him, changed though he was; but he did not know me in the least, as, indeed, was not likely.

His daughter came a step or two to meet me. “You are better, I see, Mr. Fletcher. Enderley is a most healthy place, as I try to persuade my father. This is Mr. Fletcher, sir, the gentleman who–“

“Was so obliging as to ride to S—-, last night, for me? Allow me to thank him myself.”

I began to disclaim, and Miss March to explain; but we must both have been slightly incoherent, for I think the poor gentleman was never quite clear as to who it was that went for Dr. Brown. However, that mattered little, as his acknowledgments were evidently dictated more by a natural habit of courtesy than by any strong sense of service rendered.

“I am a very great invalid, sir; my dear, will you explain to the gentleman?” And he leaned his head back wearily.

“My father has never recovered his ten years’ residence in the West Indies.”

“‘Residence?’ Pardon me, my dear, you forget I was governor of–“

“Oh, yes!–The climate is very trying there, Mr. Fletcher. But since he has been in England–five years only–he has been very much better. I hope he will be quite well in time.”

Mr. March shook his head drearily. Poor man! the world of existence to him seemed to have melted lazily down into a mere nebula, of which the forlorn nucleus was–himself. What a life for any young creature–even his own daughter, to be bound to continually!

I could not help remarking the strong contrast between them. He, with his sallow, delicately-shaped features–the thin mouth and long straight nose, of that form I have heard called the “melancholy nose,” which usually indicates a feeble, pensive, and hypochondriac temperament; while his daughter–But I have described her already.

“Mr. Fletcher is an invalid too, father,” she said; so gently, that I could feel no pain in her noticing my infirmity; and took gratefully a seat she gave me, beside that of Mr. March. She seemed inclined to talk to me; and her manner was perfectly easy, friendly, and kind.

We spoke of commonplace subjects, near at hand, and of the West Indian island, which its late “governor” was apparently by no means inclined to forget. I asked Miss March whether she had liked it?

“I was never there. Papa was obliged to leave me behind, in Wales– poor mamma’s country. Were you ever in Wales? I like it so! Indeed, I feel as if I belonged altogether to the mountains.”

And saying this, she looked the very incarnation of the free mountain spirit–a little rugged, perhaps, and sharply outlined; but that would soften with time, and was better and wholesomer than any tame green level of soft perfection. At least, one inclined to think so, looking at her.

I liked Miss March very much, and was glad of it.

In retiring, with her father leaning on her arm, to which he hung trustingly and feebly as a child, she turned abruptly, and asked if she could lend me any books to read? I must find the days long and dull without my friend.

I assented with thanks; and shortly afterwards she brought me an armful of literature–enough to have caused any young damsel to have been dubbed a “blue,” in those matter-of-fact days.

“I have no time to study much myself,” said she, in answer to my questions; “but I like those who do. Now, good evening, for I must run. You and your friend can have any books of ours. You must not think”–and she turned back to tell me this–“that because my father said little he and I are not deeply grateful for the kindness Mr. Halifax showed us last night.”

“It was a pleasure to John–it always is–to do a kind office for any one.”

“I well believe that, Mr. Fletcher.” And she left me.

When John came home I informed him of what had passed. He listened, though he made no comment whatever. But all the evening he sat turning over Miss March’s books, and reading either aloud or to himself fragments out of one–which I had expected he would have scouted, inasmuch as it was modern not classical poetry: in fact, a collection of Lyrical Ballads, brought out that year by a young man named Mr. William Wordsworth, and some anonymous friend, conjointly. I had opened it, and found therein great nonsense; but John had better luck–he hit upon a short poem called “Love,” by the Anonymous Friend, which he read, and I listened to, almost as if it had been Shakspeare. It was about a girl named Genevieve–a little simple story–everybody knows it now; but it was like a strange, low, mystic music, luring the very heart out of one’s bosom, to us young visionaries then.

I wonder if Miss March knew the harm she did, and the mischief that has been done among young people in all ages (since Caxton’s days), by the lending books, especially books of poetry.

The next day John was in a curious mood. Dreamy, lazy, mild; he sat poring in-doors, instead of roaming abroad–in truth, was a changed lad. I told him so, and laid it all to the blame of the Anonymous Friend: who held him in such fascinated thrall that he only looked up once all the morning,–which was when Mr. and Miss March went by. In the afternoon he submitted, lamb-like, to be led down to the beech-wood–that the wonderful talking stream might hold forth to him as it did to me. But it could not–ah, no! it could not. Our lives, though so close, were yet as distinct as the musical living water and the motionless grey rock beside which it ran. The one swept joyfully on to its appointed course: the other–was what Heaven made it, abode where Heaven placed it, and likewise fulfilled its end.

Coming back out of the little wood, I took John a new way I had discovered, through the prettiest undulating meadow, half-field, half-orchard, where trees loaded with ripening cider apples and green crabs made a variety among the natural foresters. Under one of these, as we climbed the slope–for field, beech-wood, and common formed a gradual ascent–we saw a vacant table laid.

“A pretty piece of rusticity–domestic Arcadia on a small scale,” said John; “I should like to invite myself to tea with them. Who can they be?”

“Probably visitors. Resident country-folks like their meals best under a decent roof-tree. I should not wonder if this were not one of Mr. March’s vagaries.”

“Don’t say vagaries–he is an old man.”

“Don’t be reproachful–I shall say nought against him. Indeed, I have no opportunity, for there they both are coming hither from the house.”

Sure enough they were–Miss March helping her father across the uneven bit of common to the gate which led to the field. Precisely at that gate we all four met.

“‘Tis useless to escape them,” whispered I to John.

“I do not wish–why should I?” he answered, and held the gate open for the father and daughter to go through. She looked up and acknowledged him, smiling. I thought that smile and his courteous, but far less frank, response to it, would have been all the greeting; but no! Mr. March’s dull perceptions had somehow been brightened up. He stopped.

“Mr. Halifax, I believe?”

John bowed.

They stood a moment looking at one another; the tall, stalwart young man, so graceful and free in bearing, and the old man, languid, sickly, prematurely broken down.

“Sir,” said the elder, and in his fixed gaze I fancied I detected something more than curiosity–something of the lingering pensiveness with which, years ago, he had turned back to look at John–as if the lad reminded him of some one he knew. “Sir, I have to thank you–“

“Indeed, no thanks are needed. I sincerely hope you are better to-day?”

Mr. March assented: but John’s countenance apparently interested him so much that he forgot his usual complainings. “My daughter tells me you are our neighbours–I am happy to have such friendly ones. My dear,” in a half audible, pensive whisper to her, “I think your poor brother Walter would have grown up extremely like Mr.–Mr.–“

“Mr. Halifax, papa.”

“Mr. Halifax, we are going to take tea under the trees there–my daughter’s suggestion–she is so fond of rurality. Will you give us the pleasure of your company? You and”–here, I must confess, the second invitation came in reply to a glance of Miss March’s–“your friend.”

Of course we assented: I considerably amused, and not ill-pleased, to see how naturally it fell out that when John appeared in the scene, I, Phineas, subsided into the secondary character of John’s “friend.”

Very soon–so soon that our novel position seemed like an adventure out of the Arabian Nights–we found ourselves established under the apple-tree, between whose branches the low sun stole in, kissing into red chestnut colour the hair of the “nut-browne mayde,” as she sat, bareheaded, pouring into small white china cups that dainty luxury, tea. She had on–not the grey gown, but a white one, worked in delicate muslin. A bunch of those small pinky-white roses that grew in such clusters about our parlour window nestled, almost as if they were still growing, in her fair maiden bosom.

She apologized for little Jack’s having “stolen” them from our domains for her–lucky Jack! and received some brief and rather incoherent answer from John about being “quite welcome.”

He sat opposite her–I by her side–she had placed me there. It struck me as strange, that though her manner to us both was thoroughly frank and kind, it was a shade more frank, more kind, to me than to him. Also, I noted, that while she chatted gaily with me, John almost entirely confined his talk to her father.

But the young lady listened–ay, undoubtedly she listened–to every word that was said. I did not wonder at it: when his tongue was once unloosed few people could talk better than John Halifax. Not that he was one of your showy conversationalists; language was with him neither a science, an art, nor an accomplishment, but a mere vehicle for thought; the garb, always chosen as simplest and fittest, in which his ideas were clothed. His conversation was never wearisome, since he only spoke when he had something to say; and having said it, in the most concise and appropriate manner that suggested itself at the time, he was silent; and silence is a great and rare virtue at twenty years of age.

We talked a good deal about Wales; John had been there more than once in his journeyings; and this fact seemed to warm Miss March’s manner, rather shy and reserved though it was, at least to him. She told us many an innocent tale of her life there–of her childish days, and of her dear old governess, whose name, I remember, was Cardigan. She seemed to have grown up solely under that lady’s charge. It was not difficult to guess–though I forget whether she distinctly told us so–that “poor mamma” had died so early as to become a mere name to her orphan daughter. She evidently owed everything she was to this good governess.

“My dear,” at last said Mr. March, rather testily, “you make rather too much of our excellent Jane Cardigan. She is going to be married, and she will not care for you now.”

“Hush! papa, that is a secret at present. Pray, Mr. Halifax, do you know Norton Bury?”

The abruptness of the question startled John, so that he only answered in a hurried affirmative. Indeed, Mr. March left him no time for further explanation.

“I hate the place. My late wife’s cousins, the Brithwoods of the Mythe, with whom I have had–ahem!–strong political differences– live there. And I was once nearly drowned in the Severn, close by.”

“Papa, don’t speak of that, please,” said Miss March, hurriedly; so hurriedly that I am sure she did not notice what would otherwise have been plain enough–John’s sudden and violent colour. But the flush died down again–he never spoke a word. And, of course, acting on his evident desire, neither did I.

“For my part,” continued the young lady, “I have no dislike to Norton Bury. Indeed, I rather admired the place, if I remember right.”

“You have been there?” Though it was the simplest question, John’s sudden look at her, and the soft inflection of his voice, struck me as peculiar.

“Once, when I was about twelve years old. But we will talk of something papa likes better. I am sure papa enjoys this lovely evening. Hark! how the doves are cooing in the beech-wood.”

I asked her if she had ever been in the beech-wood.

No; she was quite unacquainted with its mysteries–the fern-glades, the woodbine tangles, and the stream, that, if you listened attentively, you could hear faintly gurgling even where we sat.

“I did not know there was a stream so near. I have generally taken my walks across the Flat,” said Miss March, smiling, and then blushing at having done so, though it was the faintest blush imaginable.

Neither of us made any reply.

Mr. March settled himself to laziness and his arm-chair; the conversation fell to the three younger persons–I may say the two– for I also seceded, and left John master of the field. It was enough for me to sit listening to him and Miss March, as they gradually became more friendly; a circumstance natural enough, under the influence of that simple, solitary place, where all the pretences of etiquette seemed naturally to drop away, leaving nothing but the forms dictated and preserved by true manliness and true womanliness.

How young both looked, how happy in their frank, free youth, with the sun-rays slanting down upon them, making a glory round either head, and–as glory often does–dazzling painfully.

“Will you change seats with me, Miss March?–The sun will not reach your eyes here.”

She declined, refusing to punish any one for her convenience.

“It would not be punishment,” said John, so gravely that one did not recognize it for a “pretty speech” till it had passed–and went on with their conversation. In the course of it he managed so carefully, and at the same time so carelessly, to interpose his broad hat between the sun and her, that the fiery old king went down in splendour before she noticed that she had been thus guarded and sheltered. Though she did not speak–why should she? of such a little thing,–yet it was one of those “little things” which often touch a woman more than any words.

Miss March rose. “I should greatly like to hear your stream and its wonderful singing.” (John Halifax had been telling how it held forth to me during my long, lonely days)–“I wonder what it would say to me? Can we hear it from the bottom of this field?”

“Not clearly; we had better go into the wood.” For I knew John would like that, though he was too great a hypocrite to second my proposal by a single word.

Miss March was more single-minded, or else had no reason for being the contrary. She agreed to my plan with childish eagerness. “Papa, you wouldn’t miss me–I shall not be away five minutes. Then, Mr. Fletcher, will you go with me?”

“And I will stay beside Mr. March, so that he will not be left alone,” said John, reseating himself.

What did the lad do that for?–why did he sit watching us so intently, as I led Miss March down the meadow, and into the wood? It passed my comprehension.

The young girl walked with me, as she talked with me, in perfect simplicity and frankness, free from the smallest hesitation. Even as the women I have known have treated me all my life–showing me that sisterly trust and sisterly kindness which have compensated in a measure for the solitary fate which it pleased Heaven to lay upon me; which, in any case, conscience would have forced me to lay upon myself–that no woman should ever be more to me than a sister.

Yet I watched her with pleasure–this young girl, as she tripped on before me, noticing everything, enjoying everything. She talked to me a good deal too about myself, in her kindly way, asking what I did all day?–and if I were not rather dull sometimes, in this solitary country lodging?

“I am dull occasionally myself, or should be, if I had time to think about it. It is hard to be an only child.”

I told her I had never found it so.

“But then you have your friend. Has Mr. Halifax any brothers or sisters?”

“None. No relatives living.”

“Ah!” a compassionate ejaculation, as she pulled a woodbine spray, and began twisting it with those never-quiet fingers of hers. “You and he seem to be great friends.”

“John is a brother, friend, everything in the world to me.”

“Is he? He must be very good. Indeed, he looks so,” observed Miss March, thoughtfully. “And I believe–at least I have often heard– that good men are rare.”

I had no time to enter into that momentous question, when the origin of it himself appeared, breaking through the bushes to join us.

He apologized for so doing, saying Mr. March had sent him.

“You surely do not mean that you come upon compulsion? What an ill compliment to this lovely wood.”

And the eyes of the “nut-browne mayde” were a little mischievous. John looked preternaturally grave, as he said, “I trust you do not object to my coming?”

She smiled–so merrily, that his slight haughtiness evaporated like mist before the sunbeams.

“I was obliged to startle you by jumping through the bushes; for I heard my own name. What terrible revelations has this friend of mine been making to you, Miss March?”

He spoke gaily; but I fancied he looked uneasy. The young lady only laughed.

“I have a great mind not to tell you, Mr. Halifax.”

“Not when I ask you?”

He spoke so seriously that she could choose but reply.

“Mr. Fletcher was telling me three simple facts:–First, that you were an orphan, without relatives. Secondly, that you were his dearest friend. Thirdly–well, I never compromise truth–that you were good.”

“And you?”

“The first I was ignorant of; the second I had already guessed; the third–“

He gazed at her intently.

“The third I had likewise–not doubted.”

John made some hurried acknowledgment. He looked greatly pleased– nay, more than pleased–happy. He walked forward by Miss March’s side, taking his natural place in the conversation, while I as naturally as willingly fell behind. But I heard all they said, and joined in it now and then.

Thus, sometimes spoken to, and sometimes left silent, watching their two figures, and idly noting their comparative heights–her head came just above John’s shoulder–I followed these young people through the quiet wood.

Let me say a word about that wood—dear and familiar as it was. Its like I have never since seen. It was small–so small that in its darkest depths you might catch the sunshine lighting up the branches of its outside trees. A young wood, too–composed wholly of smooth- barked beeches and sturdy Scotch firs, growing up side by side–the Adam and Eve in this forest Eden. No old folk were there–no gnarled and withered foresters–every tree rose up, upright in its youth, and perfect after its kind. There was as yet no choking under-growth of vegetation; nothing but mosses, woodbine, and ferns; and between the boles of the trees you could trace vista after vista, as between the slender pillars of a cathedral aisle.

John pointed out all this to Miss March, especially noticing the peculiar character of the two species of trees–the masculine and feminine–fir and beech. She smiled at the fancy; and much graceful badinage went on between them. I had never before seen John in the company of women, and I marvelled to perceive the refinement of his language, and the poetic ideas it clothed. I forgot the truth–of whose saying was it?–“that once in his life every man becomes a poet.”

They stood by the little rivulet, and he showed her how the water came from the spring above; the old well-head where the cattle drank; how it took its course merrily through the woods, till at the bottom of the valley below it grew into a wide stream.

“Small beginnings make great endings,” observed Miss March, sententiously.

John answered her with the happiest smile! He dipped his hollowed palm into the water and drank: she did the same. Then, in her free-hearted girlish fun, she formed a cup out of a broad leaf, which, by the greatest ingenuity, she managed to make contain about two teaspoonfuls of water for the space of half a minute, and held it to my mouth.

“I am like Rebecca at the well. Drink, Eleazer,” she cried, gaily.

John looked on. “I am very thirsty, too,” said he, in a low voice.

The young girl hesitated a moment; then filled and offered to him the Arcadian cup. I fear he drank out of it a deeper and more subtle draught than that innocent water.

Both became somewhat grave, and stood, one on either side the stream, looking down upon it, letting its bubbling murmur have all the talk. What it said I know not: I only know that it did not, could not, say to those two what it said to me.

When we took leave of our acquaintances Mr. March was extremely courteous, and declared our society would always be a pleasure to himself and his daughter.

“He always says so formally, ‘my daughter,'” I observed, breaking the silence in which they had left us. “I wonder what her Christian name is.”

“I believe it is Ursula.”

“How did you find that out?”

“It is written in one of her books.”

“Ursula!” I repeated, wondering where I had heard it before. “A pretty name.”

“A very pretty name.”

When John fell into this echo mood I always found it best to fall into taciturnity.

CHAPTER XIII

Next day, the rain poured down incessantly, sweeping blindingly across the hills as I have rarely seen it sweep except at Enderley. The weather had apparently broken up, even thus early in the autumn; and for that day, and several days following, we had nothing but wind, rain, and storm. The sky was as dusky as Miss March’s grey gown; broken sometimes in the evening by a rift of misty gold, gleaming over Nunnely Hill, as if to show us what September sunsets might have been.

John went every day to Norton Bury that week. His mind seemed restless–he was doubly kind and attentive to me; but every night I heard him go out in all the storm to walk upon the common. I longed to follow him, but it was best not.

On the Saturday morning, coming to breakfast, I heard him ask Mrs. Tod how Mr. March was? We knew the invalid had been ailing all the week, nor had we seen him or his daughter once.

Mrs. Tod shook her head ominously. “He is very bad, sir; badder than ever, I do think. She sits up wi’ him best part of every night.”

“I imagined so. I have seen her light burning.”

“Law, Mr. Halifax! you don’t be walking abroad of nights on the Flat? It’s terrible bad for your health,” cried the honest soul, who never disguised the fact that Mr. Halifax was her favourite of all her lodgers, save and except Miss March.

“Thank you for considering my health,” he replied, smiling. “Only tell me, Mrs. Tod, can anything be done–can we do anything for that poor gentleman?”

“Nothing, sir–thank’ee all the same.”

“If he should grow worse let me go for Doctor Brown. I shall be at home all day.”

“I’ll tell Miss March of your kindness, sir,” said Mrs. Tod, as with a troubled countenance she disappeared.

“Were you not going to Norton Bury to-day, John?”

“I was–but–as it is a matter of no moment, I have changed my mind. You have been left so much alone lately. Nay–I’ll not disguise the truth; I had another reason.”

“May I know it?”

“Of course you may. It is about our fellow-lodgers. Doctor Brown–I met him on the road this morning–told me that her father cannot live more than a few days–perhaps a few hours. And she does not know it.”

He leaned on the mantelpiece. I could see he was very much affected.

So was I.

“Her relatives–surely they ought to be sent for?”

“She has none. Doctor Brown said she once told him so: none nearer than the Brithwoods of the Mythe–and we know what the Brithwoods are.”

A young gentleman and his young wife–proverbially the gayest, proudest, most light-hearted of all our country families.

“Nay, Phineas, I will not have you trouble yourself. And after all, they are mere strangers–mere strangers. Come, sit down to breakfast.”

But he could not eat. He could not talk of ordinary things. Every minute he fell into abstractions. At length he said, suddenly:

“Phineas, I do think it is wicked, downright wicked, for a doctor to be afraid of telling a patient he is going to die–more wicked, perhaps, to keep the friends in ignorance until the last stunning blow falls. She ought to be told: she must be told: she may have many things to say to her poor father. And God help her! for such a stroke she ought to be a little prepared. It might kill her else!”

He rose up and walked about the room. The seal once taken from his reserve, he expressed himself to me freely, as he had used to do– perhaps because at this time his feelings required no disguise. The dreams which might have peopled that beautiful sunset wood necessarily faded in an atmosphere like this–filled with the solemn gloom of impending death.

At last he paused in his hurried walk, quieted, perhaps, by what he might have read in my ever-following eyes.

“I know you are as grieved as I am, Phineas. What can we do? Let us forget that they are strangers, and act as one Christian ought to another. Do YOU not think she ought to be told?”

“Most decidedly. They might get further advice.”

“That would be vain. Dr. Brown says it is a hopeless case, has been so for long; but he would not believe it, nor have his daughter told. He clings to life desperately. How horrible for her!”

“You think most of her.”

“I do,” said he, firmly. “He is reaping what he sowed, poor man! God knows I pity him. But she is as good as an angel of heaven.”

It was evident that, somehow or other, John had learnt a great deal about the father and daughter. However, now was not the time to question him. For at this moment, through the opened doors, we heard faint moans that pierced the whole house, and too surely came from the sick–possibly, the dying–man. Mrs. Tod, who had been seeing Dr. Brown to his horse, now entered our parlour–pale, with swollen eyes.

“Oh, Mr. Halifax!” and the kind soul burst out into crying afresh. John made her sit down, and gave her a glass of wine.

“I’ve been with them since four this morning, and it makes me weakly like,” said she. “That poor Mr. March!–I didn’t like him very much alive, but I do feel so sorry now he’s a-dying.”

Then he WAS dying.

“Does his daughter know?” I asked.

“No–no–I dare not tell her. Nobody dare.”

“Does she not guess it?”

“Not a bit. Poor young body! she’s never seen anybody so. She fancies him no worse than he has been, and has got over it. She WOULDN’T think else. She be a good daughter to him–that she be!”

We all sat silent; and then John said, in a low voice–“Mrs. Tod, she ought to be told–and you would be the best person to tell her.”

But the soft-hearted landlady recoiled from the task. “If Tod were at home now–he that is so full o’ wisdom learnt in ‘the kirk’–“

“I think,” said John, hastily interrupting, “that a woman would be the best. But if you object, and as Doctor Brown will not be here till to-morrow–and as there is no one else to perform such a trying duty–it seems–that is, I believe”–here his rather formal speech failed. He ended it abruptly–“If you like I will tell her myself.”

Mrs. Tod overwhelmed him with thankfulness.

“How shall I meet her, then? If it were done by chance it would be best.”

“I’ll manage it somehow. The house is very quiet: I’ve sent all the children away, except the baby. The baby’ll comfort her, poor dear! afterwards.” And, again drying her honest eyes, Mrs. Tod ran out of the room.

We could do nothing at all that morning. The impending sorrow might have been our own, instead of that of people who three weeks ago were perfect strangers. We sat and talked–less, perhaps, of them individually, than of the dark Angel, whom face to face I at least had never yet known–who even now stood at the door of our little habitation, making its various inmates feel as one family, in the presence of the great leveller of all things–Death.

Hour by hour of that long day the rain fell down–pouring, pouring– shutting us up, as it were, from the world without, and obliterating every thought, save of what was happening under our one roof–that awful change which was taking place in the upper room, in the other half of the house, whence the moans descended, and whence Mrs. Tod came out from time to time, hurrying mournfully to inform “Mr. Halifax” how things went on.

It was nearly dusk before she told us Mr. March was asleep, that his daughter had at last been persuaded to come down-stairs, and was standing drinking “a cup o’ tea” by the kitchen fire.

“You must go now, sir; she’ll not stop five minutes. Please go.”

“I will,” he answered; but he turned frightfully pale. “Phineas– don’t let her see us both. Stay without the door. If there were anybody to tell her this but me!”

“Do you hesitate?”

“No–No.”

And he went out. I did not follow him; but I heard afterwards, both from himself and Mrs. Tod, what transpired.

She was standing so absorbed that she did not notice his entrance. She looked years older and sadder than the young girl who had stood by the stream-side less than a week ago. When she turned and spoke to John it was with a manner also changed. No hesitation, no shyness; trouble had put aside both.

“Thank you, my father is indeed seriously ill. I am in great trouble, you see, though Mrs. Tod is very, very kind. Don’t cry so, good Mrs. Tod; I can’t cry, I dare not. If I once began I should never stop, and then how could I help my poor father? There now, there!”

She laid her hand, with its soft, fluttering motions, on the good woman’s shoulder, and looked up at John. He said afterwards that those dry, tearless eyes smote him to the heart.

“Why does she sob so, Mr Halifax? Papa will be better tomorrow, I am sure.”

“I HOPE so,” he answered, dwelling on the word; “we should always hope to the very last.”

“The last?” with a quick, startled glance.

“And then we can only trust.”

Something more than the MERE words struck her. She examined him closely for a minute.

“You mean–yes–I understand what you mean. But you are mistaken. The doctor would have told me–if–if–” she shivered, and left the sentence unfinished.

“Dr. Brown was afraid–we were all afraid,” broke in Mrs. Tod, sobbing. “Only Mr. Halifax, he said–“

Miss March turned abruptly to John. That woeful gaze of hers could be answered by no words. I believe he took her hand, but I cannot tell. One thing I can tell, for she said it to me herself afterwards, that he seemed to look down upon her like a strong, pitiful, comforting angel; a messenger sent by God.

Then she broke away, and flew up-stairs. John came in again to me, and sat down. He did not speak for many minutes.

After an interval–I know not how long–we heard Mrs. Tod calling loudly for “Mr. Halifax.” We both ran through the empty kitchen to the foot of the stairs that led to Mr. March’s room.

Mr. March’s room! Alas, he owned nothing now on this fleeting, perishable earth of ours. He had gone from it: the spirit stealing quietly away in sleep. He belonged now to the world everlasting.

Peace be to him! whatever his life had been, he was HER father.

Mrs. Tod sat half-way down the stair-case, holding Ursula March across her knees. The poor creature was insensible, or nearly so. She–we learnt–had been composed under the terrible discovery made when she returned to his room; and when all restorative means failed, the fact of death became certain, she had herself closed her father’s eyes, and kissed him, then tried to walk from the room–but at the third step she dropped quietly down.

There she lay; physical weakness conquering the strong heart: she lay, overcome at last. There was no more to bear. Had there been, I think she would have been able to have borne it still.

John took her in his arms; I know not if he took her, or Mrs. Tod gave her to him–but there she was. He carried her across the kitchen into our own little parlour, and laid her down on my sofa.

“Shut the door, Phineas. Mrs. Tod, keep everybody out. She is waking now.”

She did, indeed, open her eyes, with a long sigh, but closed them again. Then with an effort she sat upright, and looked at us all around.

“Oh, my dear! my dear!” moaned Mrs. Tod, clasping her, and sobbing over her like a child. “Cry, do cry!”

“I CAN’T,” she said, and lay down again.

We stood awed, watching that poor, pale face, on every line of which was written stunned, motionless, impassive grief. For John–two minutes of such a gaze as his might in a man’s heart do the work of years.

“She must be roused,” he said at last. “She MUST cry. Mrs. Tod, take her up-stairs. Let her look at her father.”

The word effected what he desired; what almost her life demanded. She clung round Mrs. Tod’s neck in torrents of weeping.

“Now, Phineas, let us go away.”

And he went, walking almost like one blindfold, straight out of the house, I following him.

CHAPTER XIV

“I am quite certain, Mrs. Tod, that it would be much better for her; and, if she consents, it shall be so,” said John, decisively.

We three were consulting, the morning after the death, on a plan which he and I had already settled between ourselves, namely, that we should leave our portion of the cottage entirely at Miss March’s disposal, while we inhabited hers–save that locked and silent chamber wherein there was no complaining, no suffering now.

Either John’s decision, or Mrs. Tod’s reasoning, was successful; we received a message to the effect that Miss March would not refuse our “kindness.” So we vacated; and all that long Sunday we sat in the parlour lately our neighbour’s, heard the rain come down, and the church bells ring; the wind blowing autumn gales, and shaking all the windows, even that of the room overhead. It sounded awful THERE. We were very glad the poor young orphan was away.

On the Monday morning we heard going up-stairs the heavy footsteps that every one at some time or other has shuddered at; then the hammering. Mrs. Tod came in, and told us that no one–not even his daughter–could be allowed to look at what had been “poor Mr. March,” any more. All with him was ended.

“The funeral is to be soon. I wonder what she will do then, poor thing!”

John made me no answer.

“Is she left well provided for, do you think?”

“It is impossible to say.”

His answers were terse and brief enough, but I could not help talking about the poor young creature, and wondering if she had any relative or friend to come to her in this sad time.

“She said–do you remember, when she was crying–that she had not a friend in the wide world?”

And this fact, which he expressed with a sort of triumph, seemed to afford the greatest possible comfort to John.

But all our speculations were set at rest by a request brought this moment by Mrs. Tod–that Mr. Halifax would go with her to speak to Miss March.

“I! only I?” said John, starting.

“Only you, sir. She wants somebody to speak to about the funeral– and I said, ‘There be Mr. Halifax, Miss March, the kindest gentleman’; and she said, ‘if it wouldn’t trouble him to come–‘”

“Tell her I am coming.”

When, after some time, he returned, he was very serious.

“Wait a minute, Phineas, and you shall hear; I feel confused, rather. It is so strange, her trusting me thus. I wish I could help her more.”

Then he told me all that had passed–how he and Mrs. Tod had conjointly arranged the hasty funeral–how brave and composed she had been–that poor child, all alone!

“Has she indeed no one to help her?”

“No one. She might send for Mr. Brithwood, but he was not friendly with her father; she said she had rather ask this ‘kindness’ of me, because her father had liked me, and thought I resembled their Walter, who died.”

“Poor Mr. March!–perhaps he is with Walter, now. But, John, can you do all that is necessary for her? You are very young.”

“She does not seem to feel that. She treats me as if I were a man of forty. Do I look so old and grave, Phineas?”

“Sometimes. And about the funeral?”

“It will be very simple. She is determined to go herself. She wishes to have no one besides Mrs. Tod, you, and me.”

“Where is he to be buried?”

“In the little churchyard close by, which you and I have looked at many a time. Ah, Phineas, we did not think how soon we should be laying our dead there.”

“Not OUR dead, thank God!”

But the next minute I understood. “OUR dead”–the involuntary admission of that sole feeling, which makes one, erewhile a stranger, say to, or think of another–“All thine are mine, and mine are thine, henceforward and for ever.”

I watched John as he stood by the fire; his thoughtful brow and firm-set lips contradicting the youthfulness of his looks. Few as were his years, he had learnt much in them. He was at heart a man, ready and able to design and carry out a man’s work in the world. And in his whole aspect was such grave purity, such honest truth, that no wonder, young as they both were, and little as she knew of him, this poor orphan should not have feared to trust him entirely. And there is nothing that binds heart to heart, of lovers or friends, so quickly and so safely, as to trust and be trusted in time of trouble.

“Did she tell you any more, John? Anything of her circumstances?”

“No. But from something Mrs. Tod let fall, I fear”–and he vainly tried to disguise his extreme satisfaction–“that she will be left with little or nothing.”

“Poor Miss March!”

“Why call her poor? She is not a woman to be pitied, but to be honoured. You would have thought so, had you seen her this morning. So gentle–so wise–so brave. Phineas,”–and I could see his lips tremble–“that was the kind of woman Solomon meant, when he said, ‘Her price was above rubies.'”

“I think so too. I doubt not that when she marries Ursula March will be ‘a crown to her husband.'”

My words, or the half sigh that accompanied them–I could not help it–seemed to startle John, but he made no remark. Nor did we recur to the subject again that day.

Two days after, our little company followed the coffin out of the woodbine porch–where we had last said good-bye to poor Mr. March– across the few yards of common, to the churchyard, scarcely larger than a cottage garden, where, at long intervals, the few Enderley dead were laid.

A small procession–the daughter first, supported by good Mrs. Tod, then John Halifax and I. So we buried him–the stranger who, at this time, and henceforth, seemed even, as John had expressed it, “our dead,” our own.

We followed the orphan home. She had walked firmly, and stood by the grave-side motionless, her hood drawn over her face. But when we came back to Rose Cottage door, and she gave a quick, startled glance up at the familiar window, we saw Mrs. Tod take her, unresisting, into her motherly arms–then we knew how it would be.

“Come away,” said John, in a smothered voice–and we came away.

All that day we sat in our parlour–Mr. March’s parlour that had been–where, through the no longer darkened casement, the unwonted sun poured in. We tried to settle to our ordinary ways, and feel as if this were like all other days–our old sunshiny days at Enderley. But it would not do. Some imperceptible but great change had taken place. It seemed a year since that Saturday afternoon, when we were drinking tea so merrily under the apple-tree in the field.

We heard no more from Miss March that day. The next, we received a message of thanks for our “kindness.” She had given way at last, Mrs. Tod said, and kept her chamber, not seriously ill, but in spirit thoroughly broken down. For three days more, when I went to meet John returning from Norton Bury, I could see that his first glance, as he rode up between the chestnut trees, was to the window of the room that had been mine. I always told him, without his asking, whatever Mrs. Tod had told me about her state; he used to listen, generally in silence, and then speak of something else. He hardly ever mentioned Miss March’s name.

On the fourth morning, I happened to ask him if he had told my father what had occurred here?

“No.”

I looked surprised.

“Did you wish me to tell him? I will, if you like, Phineas.”

“Oh, no. He takes little interest in strangers.”

Soon after, as he lingered about the parlour, John said:

“Probably I may be late to-night. After business hours I want to have a little talk with your father.”

He stood irresolutely by the fire. I knew by his countenance that there was something on his mind.

“David.”

“Ay, lad.”

“Will you not tell me first what you want to say to my father?”

“I can’t stay now. To-night, perhaps. But, pshaw! what is there to be told? ‘Nothing.'”

“Anything that concerns you can never be to me quite ‘nothing.'”

“I know that,” he said, affectionately, and went out of the room.

When he came in he looked much more cheerful–stood switching his riding-whip after the old habit, and called upon me to admire his favourite brown mare.

“I do; and her master likewise. John, when you’re on horseback you look like a young knight of the Middle Ages. Maybe, some of the old Norman blood was in ‘Guy Halifax, gentleman.'”

It was a dangerous allusion. He changed colour so rapidly and violently that I thought I had angered him.

“No–that would not matter–cannot–cannot–never shall. I am what God made me, and what, with His blessing, I will make myself.”

He said no more, and very soon afterwards he rode away. But not before, as every day, I had noticed that wistful wandering glance up at the darkened window of the room, where sad and alone, save for kindly Mrs. Tod, the young orphan lay.

In the evening, just before bed-time, he said to me with a rather sad smile, “Phineas, you wanted to know what it was that I wished to speak about to your father?”

“Ay, do tell me.”

“It is hardly worth telling. Only to ask him how he set up in business for himself. He was, I believe, little older than I am now.”

“Just twenty-one.”

“And I shall be twenty-one next June.”

“Are you thinking of setting up for yourself?”

“A likely matter!” and he laughed, rather bitterly, I thought–“when every trade requires capital, and the only trade I thoroughly understand, a very large one. No, no, Phineas; you’ll not see me setting up a rival tan-yard next year. My capital is NIL.”

“Except youth, health, courage, honour, honesty, and a few other such trifles.”

“None of which I can coin into money, however. And your father has expressly told me that without money a tanner can do nothing.”

“Unless, as was his own case, he was taken into some partnership where his services were so valuable as to be received instead of capital. True, my father earned little at first, scarcely more than you earn now; but he managed to live respectably, and, in course of time, to marry.”

I avoided looking at John as I said the last word. He made no answer, but in a little time he came and leaned over my chair.

“Phineas, you are a wise counsellor–‘a brother born for adversity.’ I have been vexing myself a good deal about my future, but now I will take heart. Perhaps, some day, neither you nor any one else will be ashamed of me.”

“No one could, even now, seeing you as you really are.”

“As John Halifax, not as the tanner’s ‘prentice boy? Oh! lad–there the goad sticks. Here I forget everything unpleasant; I am my own free natural self; but the minute I get back to Norton Bury–however, it is a wrong, a wicked feeling, and must be kept down. Let us talk of something else.”

“Of Miss March? She has been greatly better all day.”

“She? No, not her to-night!” he said, hurriedly. “Pah! I could almost fancy the odour of these hides on my hands still. Give me a candle.”

He went up-stairs, and only came down a few minutes before bed-time.

Next morning was Sunday. After the bells had done ringing we saw a black-veiled figure pass our window. Poor girl!–going to church alone. We followed–taking care that she should not see us, either during service or afterwards. We did not see anything more of her that day.

On Monday a message came, saying that Miss March would be glad to speak with us both. Of course we went.

She was sitting quite alone, in our old parlour, very grave and pale, but perfectly composed. A little more womanly-looking in the dignity of her great grief, which, girl as she was, and young men as we were, seemed to be to her a shield transcending all worldly “proprieties.”

As she rose, and we shook hands, in a silence only broken by the rustle of her black dress, not one of us thought–surely the most evil-minded gossip could not have dared to think–that there was anything strange in her receiving us here. We began to talk of common things–not THE thing. She seemed to have fought through the worst of her trouble, and to have put it back into those deep quiet chambers where all griefs go; never forgotten, never removed, but sealed up in silence, as it should be. Perhaps, too–for let us not exact more from Nature than Nature grants–the wide, wide difference in character, temperament, and sympathies between Miss March and her father unconsciously made his loss less a heart-loss, total and irremediable, than one of mere habit and instinctive feeling, which, the first shock over, would insensibly heal. Besides, she was young- -young in life, in hope, in body, and soul; and youth, though it grieves passionately, cannot for ever grieve.

I saw, and rejoiced to see, that Miss March was in some degree herself again; at least, so much of her old self as was right, natural, and good for her to be.

She and John conversed a good deal. Her manner to him was easy and natural, as to a friend who deserved and possessed her warm gratitude: his was more constrained. Gradually, however, this wore away; there was something in her which, piercing all disguises, went at once to the heart of things. She seemed to hold in her hand the touchstone of truth.

He asked–no, I believe _I_ asked her, how long she intended staying at Enderley?

“I can hardly tell. Once I understood that my cousin Richard Brithwood was left my guardian. This my fa–this was to have been altered, I believe. I wish it had been. You know Norton Bury, Mr. Halifax?”

“I live there.”

“Indeed!”–with some surprise. “Then you are probably acquainted with my cousin and his wife?”

“No; but I have seen them.”

John gave these answers without lifting his eyes.

“Will you tell me candidly–for I know nothing of her, and it is rather important that I should learn–what sort of person is Lady Caroline?”

This frank question, put directly, and guarded by the battery of those innocent, girlish eyes, was a very hard question to be answered; for Norton Bury had said many ill-natured things of our young ‘squire’s wife, whom he married at Naples, from the house of the well-known Lady Hamilton.

“She was, you are aware, Lady Caroline Ravenel, the Earl of Luxmore’s daughter.”

“Yes, yes; but that does not signify. I know nothing of Lord Luxmore–I want to know what she is herself.”

John hesitated, then answered, as he could with truth, “She is said to be very charitable to the poor, pleasant and kind-hearted. But, if I may venture to hint as much, not exactly the friend whom I think Miss March would choose, or to whom she would like to be indebted for anything but courtesy.”

“That was not my meaning. I need not be indebted to any one. Only, if she were a good woman, Lady Caroline would have been a great comfort and a useful adviser to one who is scarcely eighteen, and, I believe, an heiress.”

“An heiress!” The colour flashed in a torrent over John’s whole face, then left him pale. “I–pardon me–I thought it was otherwise. Allow me to–to express my pleasure–“

“It does not add to mine,” said she, half-sighing. “Jane Cardigan always told me riches brought many cares. Poor Jane! I wish I could go back to her–but that is impossible!”

A silence here intervened, which it was necessary some one should break.

“So much good can be done with a large fortune,” I said.

“Yes. I know not if mine is very large; indeed, I never understood money matters, but have merely believed what–what I was told. However, be my fortune much or little, I will try to use it well.”

“I am sure you will.”

John said nothing; but his eyes, sad indeed, yet lit with a proud tenderness, rested upon her as she spoke. Soon after, he rose up to take leave.

“Do not go yet; I want to ask about Norton Bury. I had no idea you lived there. And Mr. Fletcher too?”

I replied in the affirmative.

“In what part of the town?”

“On the Coltham Road, near the Abbey.”

“Ah, those Abbey chimes!–how I used to listen to them, night after night, when the pain kept me awake!”

“What pain?” asked John, suddenly, alive to any suffering of hers.

Miss March smiled almost like her old smile. “Oh! I had nearly forgotten it, though it was very bad at the time; only that I cut my wrist rather dangerously with a bread knife, in a struggle with my nurse.”

“When was that?” eagerly inquired John.

For me, I said nothing. Already I guessed all. Alas! the tide of fate was running strong against my poor David. What could I do but stand aside and watch?

“When was it? Let me see–five, six years ago. But, indeed, ’tis nothing.”

“Not exactly ‘nothing.’ Do tell me!”

And John stood, listening for her words, counting them even, as one would count, drop by drop, a vial of joy which is nearly empty, yet Time’s remorseless hand still keeps on, pouring, pouring.

“Well, if you must know it, it was one of my naughtinesses–I was very naughty as a child. They would not let me have a piece of bread that I wanted to give away to a poor lad.”

“Who stood opposite–under an alley–in the rain?–was it not so?”

“How could you know? But he looked so hungry; I was so sorry for him.”

“Were you?”–in a tone almost inaudible.

“I have often thought of him since, when I chanced to look at this mark.”

“Let me look at it–may I?”

Taking her hand, he softly put back the sleeve, discovering, just above the wrist, a deep, discoloured seam. He gazed at it, his features all quivering, then, without a word either of adieu or apology, he quitted the room.

CHAPTER XV

I was left with Miss March alone. She sat looking at the door where John had disappeared, in extreme surprise, not unmingled with a certain embarrassment.

“What does he mean, Mr. Fletcher? Can I have offended him in any way?”

“Indeed, no.”

“Why did he go away?”

But that question, simple as it was in itself, and most simply put, involved so much, that I felt I had no right to answer it; while, at the same time, I had no possible right to use any of those disguises or prevarications which are always foolish and perilous, and very frequently wrong. Nor, even had I desired, was Miss March the woman to whom one dared offer the like; therefore I said to her plainly:

“I know the reason. I would tell you, but I think John would prefer telling you himself.”

“As he pleases,” returned Miss March, a slight reserve tempering her frank manner; but it soon vanished, and she began talking to me in her usual friendly way, asking me many questions about the Brithwoods and about Norton Bury. I answered them freely–my only reservation being, that I took care not to give any information concerning ourselves.

Soon afterwards, as John did not return, I took leave of her, and went to our own parlour.

He was not there. He had left word with little Jack, who met him on the common, that he was gone a long walk, and should not return till dinner-time. Dinner-time came, but I had to dine alone. It was the first time I ever knew him break even such a trivial promise. My heart misgave me–I spent a miserable day. I was afraid to go in search of him, lest he should return to a dreary, empty parlour. Better, when he did come in, that he should find a cheerful hearth and–me.

Me, his friend and brother, who had loved him these six years better than anything else in the whole world. Yet what could I do now? Fate had taken the sceptre out of my hands–I was utterly powerless; I could neither give him comfort nor save him pain any more.

What I felt then, in those long, still hours, many a one has felt likewise; many a parent over a child, many a sister over a brother, many a friend over a friend. A feeling natural and universal. Let those who suffer take it patiently, as the common lot; let those who win hold the former ties in tenderest reverence, nor dare to flaunt the new bond cruelly in the face of the old.

Having said this, which, being the truth, it struck me as right to say, I will no more allude to the subject.

In the afternoon there occurred an incident. A coach-and-four, resplendent in liveries, stopped at the door; I knew it well, and so did all Norton Bury. It was empty; but Lady Caroline’s own maid–so I heard afterwards–sat in the rumble, and Lady Caroline’s own black- eyed Neapolitan page leaped down, bearing a large letter, which I concluded was for Miss March.

I was glad that John was not at home; glad that the coach, with all its fine paraphernalia, was away, empty as it had arrived, before John came in.

He did not come till it was nearly dusk. I was at the window, looking at my four poplar-trees, as they pointed skywards like long fingers stretching up out of the gloom, when I saw him crossing the common. At first I was going to meet him at the gate, but on second thoughts I remained within, and only stirred up the fire, which could be seen shining ever so far.

“What a bright blaze!–Nay, you have not waited dinner, I hope?–Tea- -yes, that’s far better; I have had such a long walk, and am so tired “

The words were cheerful, so was the tone. TOO cheerful–oh, by far! The sort of cheerfulness that strikes to a friend’s heart, like the piping of soldiers as they go away back from a newly-filled grave.

“Where have you been, John?”

“All over Nunnely Hill. I must take you there–such expansive views. As Mrs. Tod informed me, quoting some local ballad, which she said was written by an uncle of hers:

“‘There you may spy
Twenty-three churches with the glass and the eye.’

Remarkable fact, isn’t it?”

Thus he kept on talking all tea-time, incessantly, rapidly talking. It was enough to make one weep.

After tea I insisted on his taking my arm-chair; saying, that after such a walk, in that raw day, he must be very cold.

“Not the least–quite the contrary–feel my hand.” It was burning. “But I am tired–thoroughly tired.”

He leaned back and shut his eyes. Oh, the utter weariness of body and soul that was written on his face!

“Why did you go out alone? John, you know that you have always me.”

He looked up, smiling. But the momentary brightness passed. Alas! I was not enough to make him happy now.

We sat silent. I knew he would speak to me in time; but the gates of his heart were close locked. It seemed as if he dared not open them, lest the flood should burst forth and overwhelm us.

At nine o’clock Mrs. Tod came in with supper. She had always something or other to say, especially since the late events had drawn the whole household of Rose Cottage so closely together; now, she was brim-full of news.

She had been all that evening packing up for poor dear Miss March; though why she should call her “poor,” truly, she didn’t know. Who would have thought Mr. March had such grand relations? Had we seen Lady Caroline Brithwood’s coach that came that day? Such a beautiful coach it was!–sent on purpose for Miss March–only she wouldn’t go. “But now she has made up her mind, poor dear. She is leaving to-morrow.”

When John heard this he was helping Mrs. Tod, as usual, to fasten the heavy shutters. He stood, with his hand on the bolt, motionless, till the good woman was gone. Then he staggered to the mantelpiece, and leaned on it with both his elbows, his hands covering his face.

But there was no disguise now–no attempt to make it. A young man’s first love–not first fancy, but first love–in all its passion, desperation, and pain–had come to him, as it comes to all. I saw him writhing under it–saw, and could not help him. The next few silent minutes were very bitter to us both.

Then I said gently, “David!”

“Well?”

“I thought things were so.”

“Yes.”

“Suppose you were to talk to me a little–it might do you good.”

“Another time. Let me go out–out into the air; I’m choking.”

Snatching up his hat, he rushed from me. I did not dare to follow.

After waiting some time, and listening till all was quiet in the house, I could bear the suspense no longer and went out.

I thought I should find him on the Flat–probably in his favourite walk, his “terrace,” as he called it, where he had first seen, and must have seen many a day after, that girlish figure tripping lightly along through the morning sunshine and morning dew. I had a sort of instinct that he would be there now; so I climbed up the shortest way, often losing my footing; for it was a pitch-dark night, and the common looked as wide, and black, and still, as a midnight sea.

John was not there; indeed, if he had been I could scarcely have seen him; I could see nothing but the void expanse of the Flat, or, looking down, the broad river of mist that rolled through the valley, on the other side of which twinkled a few cottage lights, like unearthly beacons from the farthest shore of an impassable flood.

Suddenly I remembered hearing Mrs. Tod say that, on account of its pits and quarries, the common was extremely dangerous after dark, except to those who knew it well. In a horrible dread I called out John’s name–but nothing answered. I went on blindly, desperately shouting as I went. At length, in one of the Roman fosses, I stumbled and fell. Some one came, darting with great leaps through the mist, and lifted me up.

“Oh! David–David!”

“Phineas–is that you? You have come out this bitter night–why did you?”

His tenderness over me, even then, made me break down. I forgot my manhood, or else it slipped from me unawares. In the old Bible language, “I fell on his neck and wept.”

Afterwards I was not sorry for this, because I think my weakness gave him strength. I think, amidst the whirl of passion that racked him it was good for him to feel that the one crowning cup of life is not inevitably life’s sole sustenance; that it was something to have a friend and brother who loved him with a love–like Jonathan’s– “passing the love of women.”

“I have been very wrong,” he kept repeating, in a broken voice; “but I was not myself. I am better now. Come–let us go home.”

He put his arm round me to keep me warm, and brought me safely into the house. He even sat down by the fire to talk with me. Whatever struggle there had been, I saw it was over, he looked his own self– only so very, very pale–and spoke in his natural voice; ay, even when mentioning HER, which he was the first to do.

“She goes to-morrow, you are sure, Phineas?”

“I believe so. Shall you see her again?”

“If she desires it.”

“Shall you say anything to her?”

“Nothing. If for a little while–not knowing or not thinking of all the truth–I felt I had strength to remove all impediments, I now see that even to dream of such things makes me a fool, or possibly worse- -a knave. I will be neither–I will be a man.”

I replied not: how could one answer such words?–calmly uttered, though each syllable must have been torn out like a piece of his heart.

“Did she say anything to you? Did she ask why I left her so abruptly this morning?”

“She did; I said you would probably tell her the reason yourself.”

“I will. She must no longer be kept in ignorance about me or my position. I shall tell her the whole truth–save one thing. She need never know that.”

I guessed by his broken voice what the “one thing” was;–which he counted as nothing; but which, I think, any true woman would have counted worth everything–the priceless gift of a good man’s love. Love, that in such a nature as his, if once conceived, would last a lifetime. And she was not to know it! I felt sorry–ay, even sorry for Ursula March.

“Do you not think I am right, Phineas?”

“Perhaps. I cannot say. You are the best judge.”

“It is right,” said he, firmly. “There can be no possible hope for me; nothing remains but silence.”

I did not quite agree with him. I could not see that to any young man, only twenty years old, with the world all before him, any love could be absolutely hopeless; especially to a young man like John Halifax. But as things now stood I deemed it best to leave him altogether to himself, offering neither advice nor opinion. What Providence willed, through HIS will, would happen: for me to interfere either way would be at once idle and perilous; nay, in some sense, exceedingly wrong.

So I kept my thoughts to myself, and preserved a total silence.

John broke it–talking to himself as if he had forgotten I was by.

“To think it was she who did it–that first kindness to a poor friendless boy. I never forgot it–never. It did me more good than I can tell. And that scar on her poor arm–her dear little tender arm;–how this morning I would have given all the world to–“

He broke off–instinctively, as it were–with the sort of feeling every good man has, that the sacred passion, the inmost tenderness of his love, should be kept wholly between himself and the woman he has chosen.

I knew that too; knew that in his heart had grown up a secret, a necessity, a desire, stronger than any friendship–closer than the closest bond of brotherly love. Perhaps–I hardly know why–I sighed.

John turned round–“Phineas, you must not think–because of this– which you will understand for yourself, I hope, one day; you must not think I could ever think less, or feel less, about my brother.”

He spoke earnestly, with a full heart. We clasped hands warmly and silently. Thus was healed my last lingering pain–I was thenceforward entirely satisfied.

I think we parted that night as we had never parted before; feeling that the trial of our friendship–the great trial, perhaps, of any friendship–had come and passed, safely: that whatever new ties might gather round each, our two hearts would cleave together until death.

The next morning rose, as I have seen many a morning rise at Enderley–misty and grey; but oh, so heavenly fair! with a pearly network of dewy gossamer under foot, and overhead countless thistle downs flying about, like fairy chariots hurrying out of sight of the sun, which had only mounted high enough above the Flat to touch the horizon of hills opposite, and the tops of my four poplars, leaving Rose Cottage and the valley below it all in morning shadow. John called me to go with him on the common; his voice sounded so cheerful outside my door that it was with a glad heart I rose and went.

He chose his old walk–his “terrace.” No chance now of meeting the light figure coming tripping along the level hill. All that dream was now over. He did not speak of it–nor I. He seemed contented– or, at least, thoroughly calmed down; except that the sweet composure of his mien had settled into the harder gravity of manhood. The crisis and climax of youth had been gone through–he never could be a boy again.

We came to that part of John’s terrace which overhung the churchyard. Both of us glanced instinctively down to the heap of loose red earth- -the as yet nameless grave. Some one stood beside it–the only one who was likely to be there.

Even had I not recognized her, John’s manner would have told me who it was. A deadly paleness overspread his face–its quietness was gone–every feature trembled. It almost broke my heart to see how deeply this love had struck its roots down to the very core of his; twisting them with every fibre of his being. A love which, though it had sprung up so early, and come to maturity so fast, might yet be the curse of his whole existence. Save that no love conceived virtuously, for a good woman, be it ever so hopeless, can be rightly considered as a curse.

“Shall we go away?” I whispered–“a long walk–to the other side of the Flat? She will have left Rose Cottage soon.”

“When?”

“Before noon, I heard. Come, David.”

He suffered me to put my arm in his, and draw him away for a step or two, then turned.

“I can’t, Phineas, I can’t! I MUST look at her again–only for one minute–one little minute.”

But he stayed–we were standing where she could not see us–till she had slowly left the grave. We heard the click of the churchyard gate: where she went afterward we could not discern.

John moved away. I asked him if we should take our walk now? But he did not seem to hear me; so I let him follow his own way–perhaps it might be for good–who could tell?

He descended from the Flat, and came quickly round the corner of the cottage. Miss March stood there, trying to find one fresh rose among the fast-withering clusters about what had been our parlour window and now was hers.

She saw us, acknowledged us, but hurriedly, and not without some momentary signs of agitation.

“The roses are all gone,” she said rather sadly.

“Perhaps, higher up, I can reach one–shall I try?”

I marvelled to see that John’s manner as he addressed her was just like his manner always with her.

“Thank you–that will do. I wanted to take some away with me–I am leaving Rose Cottage to-day, Mr. Halifax.”

“So I have heard.”

He did not say “sorry to hear.” I wondered did the omission strike her? But no–she evidently regarded us both as mere acquaintances, inevitably, perhaps even tenderly, bound up with this time; and as such, claiming a more than ordinary place in her regard and remembrance. No man with common sense or common feeling could for a moment dare to misinterpret the emotion she showed.

Re-entering the house, she asked us if we would come in with her; she had a few things to say to us. And then she again referred gratefully to our “kindness.”

We all went once more–for the last time–into the little parlour. “Yes–I am going away,” said she, mournfully.

“We hope all good will go with you–always and everywhere.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fletcher.”

It was strange, the grave tone our intercourse now invariably assumed. We might have been three old people, who had long fought with and endured the crosses of the world, instead of two young men and a young woman, in the very dawn of life.

“Circumstances have fixed my plans since I saw you yesterday. I am going to reside for a time with my cousins, the Brithwoods. It seems best for me. Lady Caroline is very kind, and I am so lonely.”

She said this not in any complaint, but as if accepting the fact, and making up her mind to endure it. A little more fragmentary conversation passed, chiefly between herself and me–John uttered scarcely a word. He sat by the window, half shading his face with his hand. Under that covert, the gaze which incessantly followed and dwelt on her face–oh, had she seen it!

The moments narrowed. Would he say what he had intended, concerning his position in the world? Had she guessed or learned anything, or were we to her simply Mr. Halifax and Mr. Fletcher–two “gentlemen” of Norton Bury? It appeared so.

“This is not a very long good-bye, I trust?” said she to me, with something more than courtesy. “I shall remain at the Mythe House some weeks, I believe. How long do you purpose staying at Enderley?”

I was uncertain.

“But your home is in Norton Bury? I hope–I trust, you will allow my cousin to express in his own house his thanks and mine for your great kindness during my trouble?”

Neither of us answered. Miss March looked surprised–hurt–nay, displeased; then her eye, resting on John, lost its haughtiness, and became humble and sweet.

“Mr. Halifax, I know nothing of my cousin, and I do know you. Will you tell me–candidly, as I know you will–whether there is anything in Mr. Brithwood which you think unworthy of your acquaintance?”

“He would think me unworthy of his,” was the low, firm answer.

Miss March smiled incredulously. “Because you are not very rich? What can that signify? It is enough for me that my friends are gentlemen.”

“Mr. Brithwood, and many others, would not allow my claim to that title.”

Astonished–nay, somewhat more than astonished–the young gentlewoman drew back a little. “I do not quite understand you.”

“Let me explain, then;” and her involuntary gesture seeming to have brought back all honest dignity and manly pride, he faced her, once more himself. “It is right, Miss March, that you should know who and what I am, to whom you are giving the honour of your kindness. Perhaps you ought to have known before; but here at Enderley we seemed to be equals–friends.”

“I have indeed felt it so.”

“Then you will the sooner pardon my not telling you–what you never asked, and I was only too ready to forget–that we are not equals– that is, society would not regard us as such–and I doubt if even you yourself would wish us to be friends.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are a gentlewoman and I am a tradesman.”

The news was evidently a shock to her–it could not but be, reared as she had been. She sat–the eye-lashes dropping over her flushed cheeks–perfectly silent.

John’s voice grew firmer–prouder–no hesitation now.

“My calling is, as you will soon hear at Norton Bury, that of a tanner. I am apprentice to Abel Fletcher–Phineas’s father.”

“Mr. Fletcher!” She looked up at me–a mingled look of kindliness and pain.

“Ay, Phineas is a little less beneath your notice than I am. He is rich–he has been well educated; I have had to educate myself. I came to Norton Bury six years ago–a beggar-boy. No, not quite that- -for I never begged! I either worked or starved.”

The earnestness, the passion of his tone, made Miss March lift her eyes, but they fell again.

“Yes, Phineas found me in an alley–starving. We stood in the rain, opposite the mayor’s house. A little girl–you know her, Miss March- -came to the door, and threw out to me a bit of bread.”

Now indeed she started. “You–was that you?”

“It was I.”

John paused, and his whole manner changed into softness, as he resumed. “I never forgot that little girl. Many a time, when I was inclined to do wrong, she kept me right–the remembrance of her sweet face and her kindness.”

That face was pressed down against the sofa where she sat. I think Miss March was all but weeping.

John continued.

“I am glad to have met her again–glad to have been able to do her some small good in return for the infinite good she once did me. I shall bid her farewell now–at once and altogether.”

A quick, involuntary turn of the hidden face asked him “Why?”

“Because,” John answered, “the world says we are not equals, and it would neither be for Miss March’s honour nor mine did I try to force upon it the truth–which I may prove openly one day–that we ARE equals.”

Miss March looked up at him–it were hard to say with what expression, of pleasure, or pride, or simple astonishment; perhaps a mingling of all–then her eyelids fell. She silently offered her hand, first to me and then to John. Whether she meant it as friendliness, or as a mere ceremony of adieu, I cannot tell. John took it as the latter, and rose.

His hand was on the door–but he could not go.

“Miss March,” he said, “perhaps I may never see you again–at least, never as now. Let me look once more at that wrist which was hurt.”

Her left arm was hanging over the sofa–the scar being visible enough. John took the hand, and held it firmly.

“Poor little hand–blessed little hand! May God bless it evermore.”

Suddenly he pressed his lips to the place where the wound had been–a kiss long and close, such as only a lover’s kiss could be. Surely she must have felt it–known it.

A moment afterward, he was gone.

That day Miss March departed, and we remained at Enderley alone.

CHAPTER XVI

It was winter-time. All the summer-days at Enderley were gone, “like a dream when one awaketh.” Of her who had been the beautiful centre of the dream we had never heard nor spoken since.

John and I were walking together along the road towards the Mythe; we could just see the frosty sunset reflected on the windows of the Mythe House, now closed for months, the family being away. The meadows alongside, where the Avon had overflowed and frozen, were a popular skating-ground: and the road was alive with lookers-on of every class. All Norton Bury seemed abroad; and half Norton Bury exchanged salutations with my companion, till I was amused to notice how large John’s acquaintance had grown.

Among the rest there overtook us a little elderly lady, as prim and neat as an old maid, and as bright-looking as a happy matron. I saw at once who it was–Mrs. Jessop, our good doctor’s new wife, and old love: whom he had lately brought home, to the great amazement and curiosity of Norton Bury.

“She seems to like you very much,” I said; as, after a cordial greeting, which John returned rather formally, she trotted on.

“They were both very kind to me in London, last month, as I think I told you.”

“Ay!” It was one of the few things he had mentioned about that same London journey, for he had grown into a painful habit of silence now. Yet I dreaded to break it, lest any wounds rankling beneath might thereby be caused to smart once more. And our love to one another was too faithful for a little reserve to have power to influence it in any way.

We came once more upon the old lady, watching the skaters. She again spoke to John, and looked at me with her keen, kind, blue eyes.

“I think I know who your friend is, though you do not introduce him.” (John hastily performed that ceremony.) “Tom, and I” (how funny to hear her call our old bachelor doctor, “Tom!”) “were wondering what had become of you, Mr. Halifax. Are you stronger than you were in London?”

“Was he ill in London, madam?”

“No, indeed, Phineas! Or only enough to win for me Dr. and Mrs. Jessop’s great kindness.”

“Which you have never come to thank us for. Never crossed our door-sill since we returned home! Does not your conscience sting you for your ingratitude?”

He coloured deeply.

“Indeed, Mrs. Jessop, it was not ingratitude.”

“I know it; I believe it,” she answered, with much kindness. “Tell me what it was?”

He hesitated.

“You ought to believe the warm interest we both take in you. Tell me the plain truth.”

“I will. It is that your kindness to me in London was no reason for my intruding on you at Norton Bury. It might not be agreeable for you and Dr. Jessop to have my acquaintance here. I am a tradesman.”

The little old lady’s eyes brightened into something beyond mere kindness as she looked at him.

“Mr. Halifax, I thank you for that ‘plain truth.’ Truth is always best. Now for mine. I had heard you were a tradesman; I found out