John Halifax, Gentleman

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

  “Nay, she should rather be proud; I know John thinks so.”

  At this answer of mine Ursula half smiled: but there was a colour in her cheek, and a thoughtfulness in her eyes, deeper than any that our conversation warranted or occasioned. I was planning how to divert Mrs. Jessop from the subject, when it was broken at once by a sudden entrance, which startled us all like a flash of lightning.

  “Stole away! stole away! as my husband would say. Here have I come in the dusk, all through the streets to Dr. Jessop’s very door. How is she? where is she, ma petite!”

  “Caroline!”

  “Ah! come forward. I haven’t seen you for an age.”

  And Lady Caroline kissed her on both cheeks in her lively French fashion, which Ursula received patiently, and returned—no, I will not be certain whether she returned it or not.

  “Pardon—how do you do, Mrs. Jessop, my dear woman? 256What trouble I have had in coming! Are you not glad to see me, Ursula?”

  “Yes, very.” In that sincere voice which never either falsified or exaggerated a syllable.

  “Did you ever expect to see me again?”

  “No, certainly I did not. And I would almost rather not see you now, if—”

  “If Richard Brithwood did not approve of it? Bah! what notions you always had of marital supremacy. So, ma chere, you are going to be married yourself, I hear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, how quietly you seem to take it! The news perfectly electrified me this morning. I always said that young man was ‘un heros de romans!’ Ma foi! this is the prettiest little episode I ever heard of. Just King Cophetua and the beggar-maid—only reversed. How do you feel, my Queen Cophetua?”

  “I do not quite understand you, Caroline.”

  “Neither should I you, for the tale seems incredible. Only you gave me such an honest ‘yes,’ and I know you never tell even white lies. But it can’t be true; at least, not certain. A little affaire de coeur, maybe—ah! I had several before I was twenty—very pleasant, chivalrous, romantic, and all that; and such a brave young fellow, too! Helas! love is sweet at your age!”—with a little sigh—“but marriage! My dear child, you are not surely promised to this youth?”

  “I am.”

  “How sharply you say it! Nay, don’t be angry. I liked him greatly. A very pretty fellow. But then he belongs to the people.”

  “So do I.”

  “Naughty child, you will not comprehend me. I mean the lower orders, the bourgeoisie. My husband says he is a tanner’s ’prenticeboy.”

  “He was apprentice; he is now partner in Mr. Fletcher’s tan-yard.”

  257“That is nearly as bad. And so you are actually going to marry a tanner?”

  “I am going to marry Mr. Halifax. We will, if you please, cease to discuss him, Lady Caroline.”

  “La belle sauvage!” laughed the lady; and, in the dusk, I fancied I saw her reach over to pat Ursula’s hand in her careless, pretty way. “Nay, I meant no harm.”

  “I am sure you did not; but we will change the subject.”

  “Not at all. I came to talk about it. I couldn’t sleep till I had. Je t’aime bien, tu le sais, ma petite Ursule.”

  “Thank you,” said Ursula, gently.

  “And I would like well to see you married. Truly we women must marry, or be nothing at all. But as to marrying for love, as we used to think of, and as charming poets make believe—my dear, now-a-days, nous avons change tout cela.”

  Ursula replied nothing.

  “I suppose my friend the young bourgeois is very much in love with you? With ‘les beaux yeux de votre cassette,’ Richard swears; but I know better. What of that? All men say they love one—but it will not last. It burns itself out. It will be over in a year, as we wives all know. Do we not, Mrs. Jessop? Ah! she is gone away.”

  Probably they thought I was away too—or else they took no notice of me—and went talking on.

  “Jane would not have agreed with you, Cousin Caroline; she loved her husband very dearly when she was a girl. They were poor, and he was afraid to marry; so he let her go. That was wrong, I think.”

  “How wise we are growing in these things now!” laughed Lady Caroline. “But come, I am not interested in old turtle-doves. Say about yourself.”

  “I have nothing more to say.”

  “Nothing more? Mon Dieu! are you aware that Richard is furious; that he vows he will keep every sou he has of yours—law 258or no law—for as long as ever he can? He declared so this morning. Did young Halifax tell you?”

  “Mr. Halifax has told me.”

  “‘MR. Halifax!’ how proudly she says it. And are you still going to be married to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “What! a bourgeois—a tradesman? with no more money than those sort of people usually have, I believe. You, who have had all sorts of comforts, have always lived as a gentlewoman. Truly, though I adore a love-marriage in theory, practically I think you are mad—quite mad, my dear.”

  “Do you?”

  “And he, too! Verily, what men are! Especially men in love. All selfish together.”

  “Caroline!”

  “Isn’t it selfish to drag a pretty creature down, and make her a drudge, a slave—a mere poor man’s wife?”

  “She is proud of being such!” burst in the indignant young voice. “Lady Caroline, you may say what you like to me; you were kind always, and I was fond of you; but you shall not say a word against Mr. Halifax. You do not know him—how could you?”

  “And you do? Ah! ma petite, we all think that, till we find out to the contrary. And so he urges you to be married at once—rich or poor—at all risks, at all costs? How lover-like—how like a man! I guess it all. Half beseeches—half persuades—”

  “He does not!” And the girl’s voice was sharp with pain. “I would not have told you, but I must—for his sake. He asked me this afternoon if I was afraid of being poor? if I would like to wait, and let him work hard alone, till he could give me a home like that I was born to? He did, Caroline.”

  “And you answered—”

  “No—a thousand times, no! He will have a hard battle to fight—would I let him fight it alone? when I can help him—when he says I can.”

  259“Ah, child! you that know nothing of poverty, how can you bear it?”

  “I will try.”

  “You that never ruled a house in your life—”

  “I can learn.”

  “Ciel! ’tis wonderful! And this young man has no friends, no connections, no fortune! only himself.”

  “Only himself,” said Ursula, with a proud contempt.

  “Will you tell me, my dear, why you marry him?”

  “Because”—and Ursula spoke in low tones, that seemed wrung out of her almost against her will—“because I honour him, because I trust him; and, young as I am, I have seen enough of the world to be thankful that there is in it one man whom I can trust, can honour, entirely. Also—though I am often ashamed lest this be selfish—because when I was in trouble he helped me; when I was misjudged he believed in me; when I was sad and desolate he loved me. And I am proud of his love—I glory in it. No one shall take it from me—no one will—no one can, unless I cease to deserve it.”

  Lady Caroline was silent. Despite her will, you might hear a sigh breaking from some deep corner of that light, frivolous heart.

  “Bien! chacun a son gout! But you have never stated one trifle—not unnecessary, perhaps, though most married folk get on quite well without it—‘Honour,’ ‘trust,’—pshaw! My child—do you LOVE Mr. Halifax?”

  No answer.

  “Nay, why be shy? In England, they say, and among the people—no offence, ma petite—one does sometimes happen to care for the man one marries. Tell me, for I must be gone, do you love him? one word, whether or no?”

  Just then the light coming in showed Ursula’s face, beautiful with more than happiness, uplifted even with a religious thankfulness, as she said simply:

  “John knows.”

/>   260CHAPTER XX

  In the late autumn, John married Ursula March. He was twenty-one, and she eighteen. It was very young—too young, perhaps, prudent folk might say: and yet sometimes I think a double blessing falls on unions like this. A right and holy marriage, a true love-marriage, be it early or late, is—must be—sanctified and happy; yet those have the best chance of happiness, who, meeting on the very threshold of life, enter upon its duties together; with free, fresh hearts, easily moulded the one to the other, rich in all the riches of youth, acute to enjoy, brave and hopeful to endure.

  Such were these two—God bless them!

  They were married quite privately, neither having any near kindred. Besides, John held strongly the opinion that so solemn a festival as marriage is only desecrated by outward show. And so, one golden autumn morning, Ursula walked quietly up the Abbey aisle in her plain white muslin gown; and John and she plighted their faithful vows, no one being present except the Jessops and I. They then went away for a brief holiday—went away without either pomp or tears, entirely happy—husband and wife together.

  When I came home and said what had happened my good father seemed little surprised. He had expressly desired not to 261be told anything of the wedding till all was over—he hated marriages.

  “But since it is done, maybe ’tis as well,” said he, grimly. “She seems a kindly young thing; wise, even—for a woman.”

  “And pleasant too, father?”

  “Ay, but favour is deceitful, and beauty vain. So the lad’s gone;” and he looked round, as if missing John, who had lived in our house ever since his illness. “I thought as much, when he bade me goodnight, and asked my leave to take a journey. So he’s married and gone! Come, Phineas, sit thee down by thy old father; I am glad thee wilt always remain a bachelor.”

  We settled ourselves, my father and I; and while the old man smoked his meditative pipe I sat thinking of the winter evenings when we two lads had read by the fire-side; the summer days when we had lounged on the garden wall. He was a married man now, the head of a household; others had a right—the first, best, holiest right—to the love that used to be all mine; and though it was a marriage entirely happy and hopeful, though all that day and every day I rejoiced both with and for my brother, still it was rather sad to miss him from our house, to feel that his boyish days were quite over—that his boyish place would know him no more.

  But of course I had fully overcome, or at least suppressed, this feeling when, John having brought his wife home, I went to see them in their own house.

  I had seen it once before; it was an old dwelling-house, which my father bought with the flour-mill, situated in the middle of the town, the front windows looking on the street, the desolate garden behind shut in by four brick walls. A most un-bridal-like abode. I feared they would find it so, even though John had been busy there the last two months, in early mornings and late evenings, keeping a comical secrecy over the matter as if he were jealous that any one but himself should lend an eye, or put a finger, to the dear task of making ready for his young wife.

  262They could not be great preparations, I knew, for the third of my father’s business promised but a small income. Yet the gloomy outside being once passed, the house looked wonderfully bright and clean; the walls and doors newly-painted and delicately stencilled:— (“Master did all that himself,” observed the proud little handmaid, Jenny—Jem Watkins’s sweetheart. I had begged the place for her myself of Mistress Ursula.) Though only a few rooms were furnished, and that very simply, almost poorly, all was done with taste and care; the colours well mingled, the wood-work graceful and good.

  They were out gardening, John Halifax and his wife.

  Ay, his wife; he was a husband now. They looked so young, both of them, he kneeling, planting box-edging, she standing by him with her hand on his shoulder—the hand with the ring on it. He was laughing at something she had said, thy very laugh of old, David! Neither heard me come till I stood close by.

  “Phineas, welcome, welcome!” He wrung my hand fervently, many times; so did Ursula, blushing rosy red. They both called me “brother,” and both were as fond and warm as any brother and sister could be.

  A few minutes after, Ursula—“Mrs. Halifax,” as I said I ought to call her now—slipped away into the house, and John and I were left together. He glanced after his wife till she was out of sight, played with the spade, threw it down, placed his two hands on my shoulders, and looked hard in my face. He was trembling with deep emotion.

  “Art thou happy, David?”

  “Ay, lad, almost afraid of my happiness. God make me worthy of it, and of her!”

  He lifted his eyes upwards; there was in them a new look, sweet and solemn, a look which expressed the satisfied content of a life now rounded and completed by that other dear life which it had received into and united with its own—making a full and perfect whole, which, however kindly and fondly it may 263look on friends and kindred outside, has no absolute need of any, but is complete in and sufficient to itself, as true marriage should be. A look, unconsciously fulfilling the law—God’s own law—that a man shall leave father and mother, brethren and companions, and shall cleave unto his wife, and “they two shall become one flesh.”

  And although I rejoiced in his joy, still I felt half-sadly for a moment, the vague, fine line of division which was thus for evermore drawn between him and me of no fault on either side, and of which he himself was unaware. It was but the right and natural law of things, the difference between the married and unmarried, which only the latter feel. Which, perhaps, the Divine One meant them to feel—that out of their great solitude of this world may grow a little inner Eden, where they may hear His voice, “walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”

  We went round John’s garden; there was nothing Eden-like about it, being somewhat of a waste still, divided between ancient cabbage-beds, empty flower-beds, and great old orchard-trees, very thinly laden with fruit.

  “We’ll make them bear better next year,” said John, hopefully. “We may have a very decent garden here in time.” He looked round his little domain with the eye of a master, and put his arm, half proudly, half shyly, round his wife’s shoulders—she had sidled up to him, ostensibly bringing him a letter, though possibly only for an excuse, because in those sweet early days they naturally liked to be in each other’s sight continually. It was very beautiful to see what a demure, soft, meek matronliness had come over the high spirit of the “Nut-browne Mayde.”

  “May I read?” she said, peeping over him.

  “Of course you may, little one.” A comical pet name for him to give her, who was anything but small. I could have smiled, remembering the time when John Halifax bowed to the stately and dignified young gentlewoman who stood at Mrs. 264Tod’s door. To think he should ever have come to call Miss Ursula March “little one!”

  But this was not exactly a time for jesting, since, on reading the letter, I saw the young wife flush an angry red, and then look grave. Until John, crumpling up the paper, and dropping it almost with a boyish frolic into the middle of a large rosemary-bush, took his wife by both her hands, and gazed down into her troubled face, smiling.

  “You surely don’t mind this, love? We knew it all before. It can make no possible difference.”

  “No! But it is so wrong—so unjust. I never believed he dared do it—to you.”

  “Hear her, Phineas! She thinks nobody dare do anything ill to her husband—not even Richard Brithwood.”

  “He is a—”

  “Hush, dear!—we will not talk about him; since, for all his threats, he can do us no harm, and, poor man! he never will be half as happy as we.”

  That was true. So Mr. Brithwood’s insulting letter was left to moulder harmlessly away in the rosemary-bush, and we all walked up and down the garden, talking over a thousand plans for making ends meet in that little household. To their young hopefulness even poverty itself became a jest; and was met cheerfully, like an honest, hard-featured, har
d-handed friend, whose rough face was often kindly, and whose harsh grasp made one feel the strength of one’s own.

  “We mean,” John said gaily, “to be two living Essays on the Advantages of Poverty. We are not going to be afraid of it or ashamed of it. We don’t care who knows it. We consider that our respectability lies solely in our two selves.”

  “But your neighbours?”

  “Our neighbours may think of us exactly what they like. Half the sting of poverty is gone when one keeps house for one’s own comfort, and not for the comments of one’s neighbours.”

  265“I should think not,” Ursula cried, tossing back her head in merry defiance. “Besides, we are young, we have few wants, and we can easily reduce our wants to our havings.”

  “And no more grey silk gowns?” said her husband, half-fondly, half-sadly.

  “You will not be so rude as to say I shall not look equally well in a cotton one? And as for being as happy in it—why, I know best.”

  He smiled at her once more,—that tender, manly smile which made all soft and lustrous the inmost depths of his brown eyes; truly no woman need be afraid, with a smile like that, to be the strength, the guidance, the sunshine of her home.

  We went in, and the young mistress showed us her new house; we investigated and admired all, down to the very scullery; then we adjourned to the sitting-room—the only one—and, after tea, Ursula arranged her books, some on stained shelves, which she proudly informed me were of John’s own making, and some on an old spinet, which he had picked up, and which, he said, was of no other use than to hold books, since she was not an accomplished young lady, and could neither sing nor play.

  “But you don’t dislike the spinet, Ursula? It caught my fancy. Do you know I have a faint remembrance that once, on such a thing as this, my mother used to play?”

  He spoke in a low voice; Ursula stole up to him with a fond, awed look.

  “You never told me anything about your mother?”

  “Dear, I had little to tell. Long ago you knew whom you were going to marry—John Halifax, who had no friends, no kindred, whose parents left him nothing but his name.”