John Halifax, Gentleman Part 108

"How long? Six months? A year, perhaps?"

"It may be several years."

"Then, I was right. Something HAS happened; you are not friends with him any longer. And he is poor--in trouble--oh, father!"

She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away, and flashed upon him reproachful eyes. John took her gently by the arm, and made her sit down upon the wall of a little stone bridge, under which the moat slipped with a quiet murmur.

Maud's tears dropped into it fast and free.

That very outburst, brief and thundery as a child's pa.s.sion, gave consolation both to her father and me. When it lessened, John spoke.

"Now has my little Maud ceased to be angry with her father?"

"I did not mean to be angry--only I was so startled--so grieved. Tell me what has happened, please, father?"

"I will tell you--so far as I can. Lord Ravenel and myself had some conversation, of a very painful kind, the last night he was with us.

After it, we both considered it advisable he should not visit us again for the present."

"Why not? Had you quarrelled? or if you had, I thought my father was always the first to forgive everybody."

"No, Maud, we had not quarrelled."

"Then, what was it?"

"My child, you must not ask, for indeed I cannot tell you."

Maud sprang up--the rebellious spirit flashing out again. "Not tell me--me, his pet--me, that cared for him more than any of you did. I think you ought to tell me, father."

"You must allow me to decide that, if you please."

After this answer Maud paused, and said humbly, "Does any one else know?"

"Your mother, and your uncle Phineas, who happened to be present at the time. No one else: and no one else shall know."

John spoke with that slight quivering and blueness of the lips which any mental excitement usually produced in him. He sat down by his daughter's side and took her hand.

"I knew this would grieve you, and I kept it from you as long as I could. Now you must only be patient, and like a good child trust your father."

Something in his manner quieted her. She only sighed and said, "she could not understand it."

"Neither can I--often times, my poor little Maud. There are so many sad things in life that we have to take upon trust, and bear, and be patient with--yet never understand. I suppose we shall some day."

His eyes wandered upward to the wide-arched blue sky, which in its calm beauty makes us fancy that Paradise is there, even though we know that "THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN US," and that the kingdom of spirits may be around us and about us everywhere.

Maud looked at her father, and crept closer to him--into his arms.

"I did not mean to be naughty. I will try not to mind losing him. But I liked Lord Ravenel so much--and he was so fond of me."

"Child"--and her father himself could not help smiling at the simplicity of her speech--"it is often easiest to lose those we are fond of and who are fond of us, because, in one sense, we never can really lose them. Nothing in this world, nor, I believe, in any other, can part those who truly and faithfully love."

I think he was hardly aware how much he was implying, at least not in its relation to her, else he would not have said it. And he would surely have noticed, as I did, that the word "love," which had not been mentioned before--it was "liking," "fond of," "care for," or some such round-about, childish phrase--the word "love" made Maud start. She darted from one to the other of us a keen glance of inquiry, and then turned the colour of a July rose.

Her att.i.tude, her blushes, the shy tremble about her mouth, reminded me vividly, too vividly, of her mother twenty-eight years ago.

Alarmed, I tried to hasten the end of our conversation, lest, voluntarily or involuntarily, it might produce the very results which, though they might not have altered John's determination, would almost have broken his heart.

So, begging her to "kiss and make friends," which Maud did, timidly, and without attempting further questions, I hurried the father and daughter into the house; deferring for mature consideration, the question whether or not I should trouble John with any too-anxious doubts of mine concerning her.

As we drove back through Norton Bury, I saw that while her mother and Lady Oldtower conversed, Maud sat opposite rather more silent than her wont; but when the ladies dismounted for shopping, she was again the lively independent Miss Halifax,

"Standing with reluctant feet, Where womanhood and childhood meet;"

and a.s.suming at once the prerogatives and immunities of both.

Her girlish ladyship at last got tired of silks and ribbons, and stood with me at the shop-door, amusing herself with commenting on the pa.s.sers-by.

These were not so plentiful as I once remembered, though still the old town wore its old face--appearing fairer than ever, as I myself grew older. The same Coltham coach stopped at the Lamb Inn, and the same group of idle loungers took an interest in its disemboguing of its contents. But railways had done an ill turn to the coach and to poor Norton Bury: where there used to be six inside pa.s.sengers, to-day was turned out only one.

"What a queer-looking little woman! Uncle Phineas, people shouldn't dress so fine as that when they are old."

Maud's criticism was scarcely unjust. The light-coloured flimsy gown, shorter than even Coltham fashionables would have esteemed decent, the fluttering bonnet, the abundance of flaunting curls--no wonder that the stranger attracted considerable notice in quiet Norton Bury. As she tripped mincingly along, in her silk stockings and light shoes, a smothered jeer arose.

"People should not laugh at an old woman, however conceited she may be," said Maud, indignantly.

"Is she old?"

"Just look."

And surely when, as she turned from side to side, I caught her full face--what a face it was! withered, thin, sallow almost to deathliness, with a bright rouge-spot on each cheek, a broad smile on the ghastly mouth.

"Is she crazy, Uncle Phineas?"

"Possibly. Do not look at her." For I was sure this must be the wreck of such a life as womanhood does sometimes sink to--a life, the mere knowledge of which had never yet entered our Maud's pure world.

She seemed surprised, but obeyed me and went in. I stood at the shop-door, watching the increasing crowd, and pitying, with that pity mixed with shame that every honest man must feel towards a degraded woman, the wretched object of their jeers. Half-frightened, she still kept up that set smile, skipping daintily from side to side of the pavement, darting at and peering into every carriage that pa.s.sed.

Miserable creature as she looked, there was a certain grace and ease in her movements, as if she had fallen from some far higher estate.

At that moment, the Mythe carriage, with Mr. Brithwood in it, dozing his daily drive away, his gouty foot propped up before him--slowly lumbered up the street. The woman made a dart at it, but was held back.

"Canaille! I always hated your Norton Bury! Call my carriage. I will go home."

Through its coa.r.s.e discordance, its insane rage, I thought I knew the voice. Especially when, a.s.suming a tone of command, she addressed the old coachman:

"Draw up, Peter; you are very late. People, give way! Don't you see my carriage?"

There was a roar of laughter, so loud that even Mr. Brithwood opened his dull, drunken eyes and stared about him.

"Canaille!"--the scream was more of terror than anger, as she almost flung herself under the horses' heads in her eagerness to escape from the mob. "Let me go! My carriage is waiting. I am Lady Caroline Brithwood!"

The 'squire heard her. For a single instant they gazed at one another--besotted husband, dishonoured, divorced wife--gazed with horror and fear, as two sinners who had been each other's undoing, might meet in the poetic torments of Dante's "Inferno," or the tangible fire and brimstone of many a blind but honest Christian's h.e.l.l. One single instant,--and then Richard Brithwood made up his mind.