John Halifax, Gentleman Part 56

"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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.sed 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.

"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 m.u.f.f, 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 circ.u.mstances--indeed, under any circ.u.mstances--intimacy between your house and ours would be 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."

"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 G.o.d 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.

CHAPTER XXI

The winter and spring pa.s.sed 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 garden. 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 b.u.mpkin, 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, like 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 coa.r.s.e brown pan, sh.e.l.ling 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 n.o.body, and n.o.body 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 sweetness, 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.