“Of course—most natural.” The words were formally spoken, and John did not speak again for some time.
“I hope,”—said Ursula, breaking the pause, and then stopping, as if her own voice frightened her.
“What do you hope?”
“That long before this moon has grown old you will be quite strong again.”
“Thank you! I hope so too. I have need for strength, God knows!” He sighed heavily.
“And you will have what you need, so as to do your work in the world. You must not be afraid.”
“I am not afraid. I shall bear my burthen like other men. Every one has some inevitable burthen to bear.”
“So I believe.”
And now the room darkened so fast that I could not see them; but their voices seemed a great way off, as the children’s voices playing at the old well-head used to sound to me when I lay under the brow of the Flat—in the dim twilights at Enderley.
“I intend,” John said, “as soon as I am able, to leave Norton Bury, and go abroad for some time.”
“Where?”
“To America. It is the best country for a young man who has neither money, nor kindred, nor position—nothing, in fact, but his own right hand with which to carve out his own fortunes—as I will, if I can.”
She murmured something about this being “quite right.”
“I am glad you think so.” But his voice had resumed that formal tone which ever and anon mingled strangely with its 245low, deep tenderness. “In any case, I must quit England. I have reasons for so doing.”
“What reasons?”
The question seemed to startle John—he did not reply at once.
“If you wish I will tell you; in order that, should I ever come back—or if I should not come back at all, you who were kind enough to be my friend will know I did not go away from mere youthful recklessness, or love of change.”
He waited, apparently for some answer—but it came not, and he continued:
“I am going because there has befallen me a great trouble, which, while I stay here, I cannot get free from or overcome. I do not wish to sink under it—I had rather, as you said, ‘Do my work in the world’ as a man ought. No man has a right to say unto his Maker, ‘My burthen is heavier than I can bear.’ Do you not think so?”
“I do.”
“Do you not think I am right in thus meeting, and trying to conquer, an inevitable ill?”
“IS it inevitable?”
“Hush!” John answered, wildly. “Don’t reason with me—you cannot judge—you do not know. It is enough that I must go. If I stay I shall become unworthy of myself, unworthy of—Forgive me, I have no right to talk thus; but you called me ‘friend,’ and I would like you to think kindly of me always. Because—because—” and his voice shook—broke down utterly. “God love thee and take care of thee, wherever I may go!”
“John, stay!”
It was but a low, faint cry, like that of a little bird. But he heard it—felt it. In the silence of the dark she crept up to him, like a young bird to its mate, and he took her into the shelter of his love for evermore. At once all was made clear between 246them; for whatever the world might say, they were in the sight of heaven equal, and she received as much as she gave.
When Jael brought in lights the room seemed to me, at first, all in a wild dazzle. Then I saw John rise, and Miss March with him. Holding her hand, he led her across the room. His head was erect, his eyes shining—his whole aspect that of a man who declares before all the world, “This is MY OWN.”
“Eh?” said my father, gazing at them from over his spectacles.
John spoke brokenly, “We have no parents, neither she nor I. Bless her—for she has promised to be my wife.”
And the old man blessed her with tears.
247CHAPTER XIX
“I hardly like taking thee out this wet day, Phineas—but it is a comfort to have thee.”
Perhaps it was, for John was bent on a trying errand. He was going to communicate to Mr. Brithwood of the Mythe, Ursula’s legal guardian and trustee, the fact that she had promised him her hand—him, John Halifax, the tanner. He did it—nay, insisted upon doing it—the day after he came of age, and just one week after they had been betrothed—this nineteenth of June, one thousand eight hundred and one.
We reached the iron gate of the Mythe House;—John hesitated a minute, and then pulled the bell with a resolute hand.
“Do you remember the last time we stood here, John? I do, well!”
But soon the happy smile faded from his lips, and left them pressed together in a firm, almost painful gravity. He was not only a lover but a man. And no man could go to meet what he knew he must meet in this house, and on this errand, altogether unmoved. One might foresee a good deal—even in the knowing side-glance of the servant, whom he startled with his name, “Mr. Halifax.”
“Mr. Brithwood’s busy, sir—better come to-morrow,” suggested 248the man—evidently knowing enough upon his master’s affairs.
“I am sorry to trouble him—but I must see Mr. Brithwood to-day.”
And John determinedly followed the man into the grand empty dining-room, where, on crimson velvet chairs, we sat and contemplated the great stag’s head with its branching horns, the silver flagons and tankards, and the throstles hopping outside across the rainy lawn: at our full leisure, too, for the space of fifteen minutes.
“This will not do,” said John—quietly enough, though this time it was with a less steady hand that he pulled the bell.
“Did you tell your master I was here?”
“Yes, sir.” And the grin with which the footman came in somehow slid away from his mouth’s corners.
“How soon may I have the honour of seeing him?”
“He says, sir, you must send up your business by me.”
John paused, evidently subduing something within him—something unworthy of Ursula’s lover—of Ursula’s husband that was to be.
“Tell your master my business is solely with himself, and I must request to see him. It is important, say, or I would not thus intrude upon his time.”
“Very well, sir.”
Ere long, the man brought word that Mr. Brithwood would be at liberty, for five minutes only, in the justice-room. We were led out, crossing the court-yard once more—where, just riding out, I saw two ladies, one of whom kissed her hand gaily to John Halifax—to the magistrate’s office. There, safely separated from his own noble mansion, Mr. Brithwood administered justice. In the outer room a stout young fellow—a poacher, probably—sat heavily ironed, sullen and fierce; and by the door a girl with a child in her arms, and—God pity her!—no ring on her finger, stood crying; another ill-looking 249fellow, maudlin drunk, with a constable by him, called out to us as we passed for “a drop o’ beer.”
These were the people whom Richard Brithwood, Esquire, magistrate for the county of ——, had to judge and punish, according to his own sense of equity and his knowledge of his country’s law.
He sat behind his office-table, thoroughly magisterial, dictating so energetically to his clerk behind him, that we had both entered, and John had crossed the room, before he saw us, or seemed to see.
“Mr. Brithwood.”
“Oh—Mr. Halifax. Good-morning.”
John returned the salutation, which was evidently meant to show that the giver bore no grudge; that, indeed, it was impossible so dignified a personage as Richard Brithwood, Esquire, in his public capacity, too, could bear a grudge against so inferior an individual as John Halifax.
“I should be glad, sir, of a few minutes’ speech with you.”
“Certainly—certainly; speak on;” and he lent a magisterial ear.
“Excuse me, my business is private,” said John, looking at the clerk.
“No business is private here,” returned the ’squire, haughtily.
“Then shall I speak with you elsewhere? But I must have the honour of an interview with you, and immediately.”
Wheth
er Mr. Brithwood was seized with some indefinite alarm, he himself best knew why, or whether John’s manner irresistibly compelled him to civility, as the stronger always compels the weaker, I cannot tell—but he signed to the clerk to leave the room.
“And, Jones, send back all the others to the lock-up house till tomorrow. Bless my life! it’s near three o’clock. They can’t expect to keep a gentleman’s dinner waiting—these low fellows.”
250I suppose this referred only to the culprits outside; at all events, we chose to take it so.
“Now—you, sir—perhaps you’ll despatch your business; the sooner the better.”
“It will not take long. It is a mere matter of form, which nevertheless I felt it my duty to be the first to inform you. Mr. Brithwood, I have the honour of bearing a message to you from your cousin—Miss Ursula March.”
“She’s nothing to me—I never wish to see her face again, the—the vixen!”
“You will be kind enough, if you please, to avoid all such epithets; at least, in my hearing.”
“Your hearing! And pray who are you, sir?”
“You know quite well who I am.”
“Oh, yes! And how goes the tanning? Any offers in the horseflesh line? Always happy to meet you in the way of business. But what can you possibly have to do with me, or with any member of my family?”
John bit his lip; the ’squire’s manner was extremely galling; more so, perhaps, in its outside civility than any gross rudeness.
“Mr. Brithwood, I was not speaking of myself, but of the lady whose message I have the honour to bring you.”
“That lady, sir, has chosen to put herself away from her family, and her family can hold no further intercourse with her,” said the ’squire, loftily.
“I am aware of that,” was the reply, with at least equal hauteur.
“Are you? And pray what right may you have to be acquainted with Miss March’s private concerns?”
“The right—which, indeed, was the purport of her message to you—that in a few months I shall become her husband.”
John said this very quietly—so quietly that, at first, the ’squire seemed hardly to credit his senses. At last, he burst into a hoarse laugh.
251“Well, that is the best joke I ever did hear.”
“Pardon me; I am perfectly serious.”
“Bah! how much money do you want, fellow? A pretty tale! you’ll not get me to believe it—ha! ha! She wouldn’t be so mad. To be sure, women have their fancies, as we know, and you’re a likely young fellow enough; but to marry you—”
John sprang up—his whole frame quivering with fury. “Take care, sir; take care how you insult my WIFE!”
He stood over the wretch—the cowardly shrinking wretch—he did not touch him, but he stood over him till, terrified out of his life, Richard Brithwood gasped out some apology.
“Sit down—pray sit down again. Let us proceed in our business.”
John Halifax sat down.
“So—my cousin is your wife, I think you were saying?”
“She will be, some months hence. We were engaged a week ago, with the full knowledge and consent of Doctor and Mrs. Jessop, her nearest friends.”
“And of yours?” asked Mr. Brithwood, with as much sarcasm as his blunt wits could furnish him.
“I have no relatives.”
“So I always understood. And that being the case, may I ask the meaning of the visit? Where are your lawyers, your marriage settlements, hey? I say, young man—ha! ha! I should like to know what you can possibly want with me, Miss March’s trustee?”
“Nothing whatever. Miss March, as you are aware, is by her father’s will left perfectly free in her choice of marriage; and she has chosen. But since, under certain circumstances, I wish to act with perfect openness, I came to tell you, as her cousin and the executor of this will, that she is about to become my wife.”
And he lingered over that name, as if its very utterance strengthened and calmed him.
252“May I inquire into those ‘certain circumstances’?” asked the other, still derisively.
“You know them already. Miss March has a fortune and I have none; and though I wish that difference were on the other side—though it might and did hinder me from seeking her—yet now she is sought and won, it shall not hinder my marrying her.”
“Likely not,” sneered Mr. Brithwood.
John’s passion was rising again.
“I repeat, it shall not hinder me. The world may say what it chooses; we follow a higher law than the world—she and I. She knows me, she is not afraid to trust her whole life with me; am I to be afraid to trust her? Am I to be such a coward as not to dare to marry the woman I love, because the world might say I married her for her money?”
He stood, his clenched hand resting on the table, looking full into Richard Brithwood’s face. The ’squire sat dumfoundered at the young man’s vehemence.
“Your pardon,” John added, more calmly. “Perhaps I owe her some pardon too, for bringing her name thus into discussion; but I wished to have everything clear between myself and you, her nearest relative. You now know exactly how the matter stands. I will detain you no longer—I have nothing more to say.”
“But I have,” roared out the ’squire, at length recovering himself, seeing his opponent had quitted the field. “Stop a minute.”
John paused at the door.
“Tell Ursula March she may marry you, or any other vagabond she pleases—it’s no business of mine. But her fortune is my business, and it’s in my hands too. Might’s right, and possession’s nine-tenths of the law. Not one penny shall she get out of my fingers as long as I can keep hold of it.”
John bowed, his hand still on the door. “As you please, Mr. 253Brithwood. That was not the subject of our interview. Good-morning.”
And we were away.
Re-crossing the iron gates, and out into the open road, John breathed freely.
“That’s over—all is well.”
“Do you think what he threatened is true? Can he do it?”
“Very likely; don’t let us talk about that.” And he walked on lightly, as if a load were taken off his mind, and body and soul leaped up to meet the glory of the summer sunshine, the freshness of the summer air.
“Oh! what a day is this!—after the rain, too! How she will enjoy it!”
And coming home through Norton Bury, we met her, walking with Mrs. Jessop. No need to dread that meeting now.
Yet she looked up, questioning, through her blushes. Of course he had told her where we were going to-day; her who had a right to know every one of his concerns now.
“Yes, dear, all is quite right. Do not be afraid.”
Afraid, indeed! Not the least fear was in those clear eyes. Nothing but perfect content—perfect trust.
John drew her arm through his. “Come, we need not mind Norton Bury now,” he said, smiling.
So they two walked forward, talking, as we could see, earnestly and rather seriously to one another; while Mrs. Jessop and I followed behind.
“Bless their dear hearts!” said the old lady, as she sat resting on the stile of a bean-field. “Well, we have all been young once.”
Not all, good Mrs. Jessop, thought I; not all.
Yet, surely it was most pleasant to see them, as it is to see all true lovers—young lovers, too, in the morning of their days. Pleasant to see written on every line of their happy faces the blessedness of Nature’s law of love—love began in youth-time, 254sincere and pure, free from all sentimental shams, or follies, or shames—love mutually plighted, the next strongest bond to that in which it will end, and is meant to end, God’s holy ordinance of marriage.
We came back across the fields to tea at Mrs. Jessop’s. It was John’s custom to go there almost every evening; though certainly he could not be said to “go a-courting.” Nothing could be more unlike it than his demeanour, or indeed the demeanour of both. They were very quiet lovers, never making much of one another “before folk.” No
whispering in corners, or stealing away down garden walks. No public show of caresses—caresses whose very sweetness must consist in their entire sacredness; at least, I should think so. No coquettish exactions, no testing of either’s power over the other, in those perilous small quarrels which may be the renewal of passion, but are the death of true love.
No, our young couple were well-behaved always. She sat at her work, and he made himself generally pleasant, falling in kindly to the Jessop’s household ways. But whatever he was about, at Ursula’s lightest movement, at the least sound of her voice, I could see him lift a quiet glance, as if always conscious of her presence; her who was the delight of his eyes.
To-night, more than ever before, this soft, invisible link seemed to be drawn closer between them, though they spoke little together, and even sat at opposite sides of the table; but whenever their looks met, one could trace a soft, smiling interchange, full of trust, and peace, and joy. He had evidently told her all that had happened to-day, and she was satisfied.
More, perhaps, than I was; for I knew how little John would have to live upon besides what means his wife brought him; but that was their own affair, and I had no business to make public my doubts or fears.
We all sat round the tea-table, talking gaily together, and then John left us, reluctantly enough; but he always made a 255point of going to the tan-yard for an hour or two, in my father’s stead, every evening. Ursula let him out at the front door; this was her right, silently claimed, which nobody either jested at or interfered with.
When she returned, and perhaps she had been away a minute or two longer than was absolutely necessary, there was a wonderful brightness on her young face; though she listened with a degree of attention, most creditable in its gravity, to a long dissertation of Mrs. Jessop’s on the best and cheapest way of making jam and pickles.
“You know, my dear, you ought to begin and learn all about such things now.”
“Yes,” said Miss March, with a little droop of the head.
“I assure you”—turning to me—“she comes every day into the kitchen—never mind, my dear, one can say anything to Mr. Fletcher. And what lady need be ashamed of knowing how a dinner is cooked and a household kept in order?”
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