“And you cannot remember them?”
“My father not at all; my mother very little.”
“And have you nothing belonging to them?”
“Only one thing. Should you like to see it?”
“Very much.” She still spoke slowly, and with slight hesitation. 266“It was hard for him not to have known his parents,” she added, when John had left the room. “I should like to have known them too. But still—when I know HIM—”
She smiled, tossed back the coronet of curls from her forehead—her proud, pure forehead, that would have worn a coronet of jewels more meekly than it now wore the unadorned honour of being John Halifax’s wife. I wished he could have seen her.
That minute he re-appeared.
“Here, Ursula, is all I have of my parents. No one has seen it, except Phineas there, until now.”
He held in his hand the little Greek Testament which he had showed me years before. Carefully, and with the same fond, reverent look as when he was a boy, he undid the case, made of silk, with ribbon strings—doubtless a woman’s work—it must have been his mother’s. His wife touched it, softly and tenderly. He showed her the fly-leaf; she looked over the inscription, and then repeated it aloud.
“‘Guy Halifax, gentleman.’ I thought—I thought—”
Her manner betrayed a pleased surprise: she would not have been a woman, especially a woman reared in pride of birth, not to have felt and testified the like pleasure for a moment.
“You thought that I was only a labourer’s son: or—nobody’s. Well, does it signify?”
“No,” she cried, as, clinging round his neck and throwing her head back, she looked at him with all her heart in her eyes. “No, it does NOT signify. Were your father the king on his throne, or the beggar in the streets, it would be all the same to me; you would still be yourself—MY husband—MY John Halifax.”
“God bless thee—my own wife that He has given me!” John murmured, through his close embrace.
They had altogether forgotten any one’s presence, dear souls! so I kept them in that happy oblivion by slipping out to 267Jenny in the kitchen, and planning with her how we could at least spare Jem Watkins two days a week to help in the garden, under Mr. Halifax’s orders.
“Only, Jenny,” smiled I, with a warning finger, “no idling and chattering. Young folk must work hard if they want to come to the happy ending of your master and mistress.”
The little maid grew the colour of her swain’s pet peonies, and promised obedience. Conscientious Jem there was no fear of—all the rosy-cheeked damsels in Christendom would not have turned him aside from one iota of his duty to Mr. Halifax. Thus there was love in the parlour and love in the kitchen. But, I verily believe, the young married couple were served all the better for their kindness and sympathy to the humble pair of sweethearts in the rank below them.
John walked home with me—a pleasure I had hardly expected, but which was insisted upon both by him and Ursula. For from the very first of her betrothal there had been a thorough brother-and-sisterly bond established between her and me. Her womanly, generous nature would have scorned to do what, as I have heard, many young wives do—seek to make coldness between her husband and his old friends. No; secure in her riches, in her rightful possession of his whole heart, she took into hers everything that belonged to John, every one he cared for; to be for ever held sacred and beloved, being his, and therefore her own. Thus we were the very best of friends, my sister Ursula and me.
John and I talked a little about her—of her rosy looks, which he hoped would not fade in their town dwelling—and of good Mrs. Tod’s wonderful delight at seeing her, when last week they had stayed two days in the dear old cottage at Enderley. But he seemed slow to speak about his wife, or to dilate on a joy so new that it was hardly to be breathed on, lest it might melt into air.
Only when, as we were crossing the street, a fine equipage passed, he looked after it with a smile.
“Grey ponies! she is so fond of long-tailed grey ponies. Poor 268child! when shall I be able to give her a carriage? Perhaps some day—who knows!”
He turned the conversation, and began telling me about the cloth mill—his old place of resort; which he had been over once again when they were at Rose Cottage.
“And do you know, while I was looking at the machinery, a notion came into my head that, instead of that great water-wheel—you remember it?—it might be worked by steam.”
“What sort of steam?”
“Phineas, your memory is no better, I see. Have you forgotten my telling you how, last year, some Scotch engineer tried to move boats by steam, on the Forth and Clyde canal? Why should not the same power be turned to account in a cloth-mill? I know it could—I have got the plan of the machinery in my head already. I made a drawing of it last night, and showed it to Ursula; SHE understood it directly.”
I smiled.
“And I do believe, by common patience and skill, a man might make his fortune with it at those Enderley cloth-mills.”
“Suppose you try!” I said in half jest, and was surprised to see how seriously John took it.
“I wish I could try—if it were only practicable. Once or twice I have thought it might be. The mill belongs to Lord Luxmore. His steward works it. Now, if one could get to be a foreman or overseer—”
“Try—you can do anything you try.”
“No, I must not think of it—she and I have agreed that I must not,” said he, steadily. “It’s my weakness—my hobby, you know. But—no hobbies now. Above all, I must not, for a mere fancy, give up the work that lies under my hand. What of the tan-yard, Phineas?”
“My father missed you, and grumbled after you a good deal. He looks anxious, I think. He vexes himself more than he needs about business.”
269“Don’t let him. Keep him as much at home as you can. I’ll manage the tan-yard: you know—and he knows too—that everything which can be done for us all I shall do.”
I looked up, surprised at the extreme earnestness of his manner.
“Surely, John—”
“Nay, there is nothing to be uneasy about—nothing more than there has been for this year past. All trade is bad just now. Never fear, we’ll weather the storm—I’m not afraid.”
Cheerfully as he spoke, I began to guess—what he already must have known—that our fortunes were as a slowly leaking ship, of which the helm had slipped from my old father’s feeble hand. But John had taken it—John stood firm at the wheel. Perhaps, with God’s blessing, he might guide us safe to land.
I had not time to say more, when, with its pretty grey ponies, the curricle once more passed our way. Two ladies were in it: one leaned out and bowed. Presently a lacquey came to beg Mr. Halifax would come and speak with Lady Caroline Brithwood.
“Shall you go, John?”
“Certainly—why not?” And he stepped forward to the carriage-side.
“Ah! delighted to see mon beau cousin. This is he, Emma,” turning to the lady who sat by her—oh, what a lovely face that lady had! no wonder it drove men mad; ay, even that brave man in whose honest life can be chronicled only this one sin, of being bewitched by her.
John caught the name—perhaps, too, he recognized the face—it was only too public, alas! His own took a sternness, such as I had never before seen, and yet there was a trace of pity in it too.
“You are quite well. Indeed, he looks so—n’est-ce pas, ma chere?”
John bore gravely the eyes of the two ladies fixed on him, in rather too plain admiration—very gravely, too, he bowed.
270“And what of our young bride, our treasure that we stole—nay, it was quite fair—quite fair. How is Ursula?”
“I thank you, Mrs. Halifax is well.”
Lady Caroline smiled at the manner, courteous through all its coldness, which not ill became the young man. But she would not be repelled.
“I am delighted to have met you. Indeed, we must be friends. One’s friends need not always be the same as one’s husband�
��s, eh, Emma? You will be enchanted with our fair bride. We must both seize the first opportunity, and come as disguised princesses to visit Mrs. Halifax.”
“Again let me thank you, Lady Caroline. But—”
“No ‘buts.’ I am resolved. Mr. Brithwood will never find it out. And if he does—why, he may. I like you both; I intend us to be excellent friends, whenever I chance to be at Norton Bury. Don’t be proud, and reject me, there’s good people—the only good people I ever knew who were not disagreeable.”
And leaning on her large ermine muff, she looked right into John’s face, with the winning sweetness which Nature, not courts, lent to those fair features—already beginning to fade, already trying to hide by art their painful, premature decay.
John returned the look, half sorrowfully; it was so hard to give back harshness to kindliness. But a light laugh from the other lady caught his ear, and his hesitation—if hesitation he had felt—was over.
“No, Lady Caroline, it cannot be. You will soon see yourself that it cannot. Living, as we do, in the same neighbourhood, we may meet occasionally by chance, and always, I hope, with kindly feeling; but, under present circumstances—indeed, under any circumstances—intimacy between your house and ours would he impossible.”
Lady Caroline shrugged her shoulders with a pretty air of pique. “As you will! I never trouble myself to court the friendship of any one. Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle.”
271“Do not mistake me,” John said, earnestly. “Do not suppose I am ungrateful for your former kindness to my wife; but the difference between her and you—between your life and hers—is so extreme.”
“Vraiment!” with another shrug and smile, rather a bitter one.
“Our two paths lie wide apart—wide as the poles; our house and our society would not suit you; and that my wife should ever enter yours”—glancing from one to the other of those two faces, painted with false roses, lit by false smiles,—“No, Lady Caroline,” he added, firmly, “it is impossible.”
She looked mortified for a moment, and then resumed her gaiety, which nothing could ever banish long.
“Hear him, Emma! So young and so unkindly! Mais nous verrons. You will change your mind. Au revoir, mon beau cousin.”
They drove off quickly, and were gone.
“John, what will Mrs. Halifax say?”
“My innocent girl! thank God she is safe away from them all—safe in a poor man’s honest breast.” He spoke with much emotion.
“Yet Lady Caroline—”
“Did you see who sat beside her?”
“That beautiful woman?”
“Poor soul! alas for her beauty! Phineas, that was Lady Hamilton.”
He said no more, nor I. At my own door he left me, with his old merry laugh, his old familiar grasp of my shoulder.
“Lad, take care of thyself, though I’m not by to see. Remember, I am just as much thy tyrant as if I were living here still.”
I smiled, and he went his way to his own quiet, blessed, married home.
272CHAPTER XXI
The winter and spring passed calmly by. I had much ill-health, and could go out very little; but they came constantly to me, John and Ursula, especially the latter. During this illness, when I learned to watch longingly for her kind face, and listen for her cheerful voice talking pleasantly and sisterly beside my chair, she taught me to give up “Mrs. Halifax,” and call her Ursula. It was only by slow degrees I did so, truly; for she was not one of those gentle creatures whom, married or single, one calls instinctively by their Christian names. Her manner in girlhood was not exactly either “meek” or “gentle”; except towards him, the only one who ever ruled her, and to whom she was, through life, the meekest and tenderest of women. To every one else she comported herself, at least in youth, with a dignity and decision—a certain stand-offishness—so that, as I said, it was not quite easy to speak to or think of her as “Ursula.” Afterwards, when seen in the light of a new character, for which Heaven destined and especially fitted her, and in which she appeared altogether beautiful—I began to give her another name—but it will come by and by.
In the long midsummer days, when our house was very quiet and rather dreary, I got into the habit of creeping over to John’s home, and sitting for hours under the apple-trees in his 273garden. It was now different from the wilderness he found it; the old trees were pruned and tended, and young ones planted. Mrs. Halifax called it proudly “our orchard,” though the top of the tallest sapling could be reached with her hand. Then, in addition to the indigenous cabbages, came long rows of white-blossomed peas, big-headed cauliflowers, and all vegetables easy of cultivation. My father sent contributions from his celebrated gooseberry-bushes, and his wall-fruit, the pride of Norton Bury; Mrs. Jessop stocked the borders from her great parterres of sweet-scented common flowers; so that, walled in as it was, and in the midst of a town likewise, it was growing into a very tolerable garden. Just the kind of garden that I love—half trim, half wild—fruits, flowers, and vegetables living in comfortable equality and fraternity, none being too choice to be harmed by their neighbours, none esteemed too mean to be restricted in their natural profusion. Oh, dear old-fashioned garden! full of sweet-Williams and white-Nancies, and larkspur and London-pride, and yard-wide beds of snowy saxifrage, and tall, pale evening primroses, and hollyhocks six or seven feet high, many-tinted, from yellow to darkest ruby-colour; while for scents, large blushing cabbage-roses, pinks, gilly-flowers, with here and there a great bush of southern-wood or rosemary, or a border of thyme, or a sweet-briar hedge—a pleasant garden, where all colours and perfumes were blended together; ay, even a stray dandelion, that stood boldly up in his yellow waistcoat, like a young country bumpkin, who feels himself a decent lad in his way—or a plant of wild marjoram, that had somehow got in, and kept meekly in a corner of the bed, trying to turn into a respectable cultivated herb. Dear old garden!—such as one rarely sees now-a-days!—I would give the finest modern pleasure-ground for the like of thee!
This was what John’s garden became; its every inch and every flower still live in more memories than mine, and will for a generation yet; but I am speaking of it when it was young, 274like its gardeners. These were Mrs. Halifax and her husband, Jem and Jenny. The master could not do much; he had long, long hours in his business; but I used to watch Ursula, morning after morning, superintending her domain, with her faithful attendant Jem—Jem adored his “missis.” Or else, when it was hot noon, I used to lie in their cool parlour, and listen to her voice and step about the house, teaching Jenny, or learning from her—for the young gentlewoman had much to learn, and was not ashamed of it either. She laughed at her own mistakes, and tried again; she never was idle or dull for a minute. She did a great deal in the house herself. Often she would sit chatting with me, having on her lap a coarse brown pan, shelling peas, slicing beans, picking gooseberries; her fingers—Miss March’s fair fingers—looking fairer for the contrast with their unaccustomed work. Or else, in the summer evenings, she would be at the window sewing—always sewing—but so placed that with one glance she could see down the street where John was coming. Far, far off she always saw him; and at the sight her whole face would change and brighten, like a meadow when the sun comes out. Then she ran to open the door, and I could hear his low “my darling!” and a long, long pause, in the hall.
They were very, very happy in those early days—those quiet days of poverty; when they visited nobody, and nobody visited them; when their whole world was bounded by the dark old house and the garden, with its four high walls.
One July night, I remember, John and I were walking up and down the paths by star-light. It was very hot weather, inclining one to stay without doors half the night. Ursula had been with us a good while, strolling about on her husband’s arm; then he had sent her in to rest, and we two remained out together.
How soft they were, those faint, misty, summer stars! what a mysterious, perfumy haze they let fall over us!—A haze through which all around seemed
melting away in delicious intangible 275sweetness, in which the very sky above our heads—the shining, world-besprinkled sky—was a thing felt rather than seen.
“How strange all seems! how unreal!” said John, in a low voice, when he had walked the length of the garden in silence. “Phineas, how very strange it seems!”
“What seems?”
“What?—oh, everything.” He hesitated a minute. “No, not everything—but something which to me seems now to fill and be mixed up with all I do, or think, or feel. Something you do not know—but to-night Ursula said I might tell you.”
Nevertheless he was several minutes before he told me.
“This pear-tree is full of fruit—is it not? How thick they hang and yet it seems but yesterday that Ursula and I were standing here, trying to count the blossoms.”
He stopped—touching a branch with his hand. His voice sank so I could hardly hear it.
“Do you know, Phineas, that when this tree is bare—we shall, if with God’s blessing all goes well—we shall have—a little child.”
I wrung his hand in silence.
“You cannot imagine how strange it feels. A child—hers and mine—little feet to go pattering about our house—a little voice to say—Think, that by Christmas-time I shall be a FATHER.”
He sat down on the garden-bench, and did not speak for a long time.
“I wonder,” he said at last, “if, when I was born, MY father was as young as I am: whether he felt as I do now. You cannot think what an awful joy it is to be looking forward to a child; a little soul of God’s giving, to be made fit for His eternity. How shall we do it! we that are both so ignorant, so young—she will be only just nineteen when, please God, her baby is born. Sometimes, of an evening, we sit for hours on this bench, she 276and I, talking of what we ought to do, and how we ought to rear the little thing, until we fall into silence, awed at the blessing that is coming to us.”
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