John Halifax, Gentleman Part 61

"Which you wish to be held by some convenient person till Lord Ravenel comes of age? So Mr. Brown informed me yesterday."

Lord Luxmore slightly frowned. Such transactions, as common then in the service of the country as they still are in the service of the Church, were yet generally glossed over, as if a certain discredit attached to them. The young lord seemed to feel it; at sound of his name he turned round to listen, and turned back again, blushing scarlet. Not so the earl, his father.

"Brown is--(may I offer you a pinch, Mr. Halifax?--what, not the Prince Regent's own mixture?)--is indeed a worthy fellow, but too hasty in his conclusions. As it happens, my son is yet undecided between the Church--that is, the priesthood, and politics. But to our conversation--Mrs. Halifax, may I not enlist you on my side? We could easily remove all difficulties, such as qualification, etc. Would you not like to see your husband member for the old and honourable borough of Kingswell?"

"Kingswell!" It was a tumble-down village, where John held and managed for me the sole remnant of landed property which my poor father had left me. "Kingswell! why there are not a dozen houses in the place."

"The fewer the better, my dear madam. The election would cost me scarcely any--trouble; and the country be vastly the gainer by your husband's talents and probity. Of course he will give up the--I forget what is his business now--and live independent. He is made to shine as a politician: it will be both happiness and honour to myself to have in some way contributed to that end. Mr. Halifax, you will accept my borough?"

"Not on any consideration your lordship could offer me."

Lord Luxmore scarcely credited his ears. "My dear sir--you are the most extraordinary--may I again inquire your reasons?"

"I have several; one will suffice. Though I wish to gain influence--power perhaps; still the last thing I should desire would be political influence."

"You might possibly escape that unwelcome possession," returned the earl. "Half the House of Commons is made up of harmless dummies, who vote as we bid them."

"A character, my lord, for which I am decidedly unfitted. Until political conscience ceases to be a thing of traffic, until the people are allowed honestly to choose their own honest representatives, I must decline being of that number. Shall we dismiss the subject?"

"With pleasure, sir."

And courtesy being met by courtesy, the question so momentous was pa.s.sed over, and merged into trivialities. Perhaps the earl, who, as his pleasures palled, was understood to be fixing his keen wits upon the pet profligacy of old age, politics--saw, clearly enough, that in these chaotic days of contending parties, when the maddened outcry of the "people" was just being heard and listened to, it might be as well not to make an enemy of this young man, who, with a few more, stood as it were midway in the gulf, now slowly beginning to narrow, between the commonalty and the aristocracy. He stayed some time longer, and then bowed himself away with a gracious condescension worthy of the Prince of Wales himself, carrying with him the shy, gentle Lord Ravenel, who had spoken scarcely six words the whole time.

When he was gone the father and mother seemed both relieved.

"Truly, John, he has gained little by his visit, and I hope it may be long before we see an earl in our quiet house again. Come in to dinner, my children."

But his lordship had left an uncomfortable impression behind him. It lasted even until that quiet hour--often the quietest and happiest of our day--when, the children being all in bed, we elders closed in round the fire.

Ursula and I sat there, longer alone than usual.

"John is late to-night," she said more than once; and I could see her start, listening to every foot under the window, every touch at the door-bell; not stirring, though: she knew his foot and his ring quite well always.

"There he is!" we both said at once--much relieved; and John came in.

Brightness always came in with him. Whatever cares he had without--and they were heavy enough, G.o.d knows--they always seemed to slip off the moment he entered his own door; and whatever slight cares we had at home, we put them aside; as they could not but be put aside, nay, forgotten--at the sight of him.

"Well, Uncle Phineas! Children all right, my darling? A fire! I'm glad of it. Truly to-night is as cold as November."

"John, if you have a weakness, it is for fire. You're a regular salamander."

He laughed--warming his hands at the blaze. "Yes, I would rather be hungry than cold, any day. Love, our one extravagance is certainly coals. A grand fire this! I do like it so!"

She called him "foolish;" but smoothed down with a quiet kiss the forehead he lifted up to her as she stood beside him, looking as if she would any day have converted the whole house into fuel for his own private and particular benefit.

"Little ones all in bed, of course?"

"Indeed, they would have lain awake half the night--those naughty boys--talking of Longfield. You never saw children so delighted."

"Are they?" I thought the tone was rather sad, and that the father sat listening with less interest than usual to the pleasant little household chronicle, always wonderful and always new, which it was his custom to ask for and have, night after night, when he came home,--saying it was to him, after his day's toil, like a "babbling o'

green fields." Soon it stopped.

"John dear, you are very tired?"

"Rather."

"Have you been very busy all day?"

"Very busy."

I understood, almost as well as his wife did, what those brief answers indicated; so, stealing away to the table where Guy's blurred copy-book and Edwin's astonishing addition sums were greatly in need of Uncle Phineas, I left the fire-side corner to those two. Soon John settled himself in my easy chair, and then one saw how very weary he was--weary in body and soul alike--weary as we seldom beheld him. It went to my heart to watch the listless stretch of his large, strong frame--the sharp lines about his mouth--lines which ought not to have come there in his two-and-thirty years. And his eyes--they hardly looked like John's eyes, as they gazed in a sort of dull quietude, too anxious to be dreamy, into the red coals--and nowhere else.

At last he roused himself, and took up his wife's work.

"More little coats! Love, you are always sewing."

"Mothers must--you know. And I think never did boys outgrow their things like our boys. It is pleasant, too. If only clothes did not wear out so fast."

"Ah!" A sigh--from the very depths of the father's heart.

"Not a bit too fast for my clever fingers, though," said Ursula, quickly. "Look, John, at this lovely braiding. But I'm not going to do any more of it. I shall certainly have no time to waste over fineries at Longfield."

Her husband took up the fanciful work, admired it, and laid it down again. After a pause he said:

"Should you be very much disappointed if--if we do not go to Longfield after all?"

"Not go to Longfield!" The involuntary exclamation showed how deep her longing had been.

"Because I am afraid--it is hard, I know--but I am afraid we cannot manage it. Are you very sorry?"

"Yes," she said frankly and truthfully. "Not so much for myself, but--the children."

"Ay, the poor children."

Ursula st.i.tched away rapidly for some moments, till the grieved look faded out of her face; then she turned it, all cheerful once more, to her husband. "Now, John, tell me. Never mind about the children. Tell me."

He told her, as was his habit at all times, of some losses which had to-day befallen him--bad debts in his business--which would make it, if not impracticable, at least imprudent, to enter on any new expenses that year. Nay, he must, if possible, retrench a little. Ursula listened, without question, comment, or complaint.

"Is that all?" she said at last, very gently.

"All."

"Then never mind. I do not. We will find some other pleasures for the children. We have so many pleasures, ay, all of us. Husband, it is not so hard to give up this one."

He said, in a whisper, low almost as a lover's, "I could give up anything in the world but them and thee."

So, with a brief information to me at supper-time--"Uncle Phineas, did you hear? we cannot go to Longfield,"--the renunciation was made, and the subject ended. For this year, at least, our Arcadian dream was over.

But John's troubled looks did not pa.s.s away. It seemed as if this night his long toil had come to that crisis when the strongest man breaks down--or trembles within a hair's breadth of breaking down; conscious too, horribly conscious, that if so, himself will be the least part of the universal ruin. His face was haggard, his movements irritable and restless; he started nervously at every sound. Sometimes even a hasty word, an uneasiness about trifles, showed how strong was the effort he made at self-control. Ursula, usually by far the most quick-tempered of the two, became to-night mild and patient. She neither watched nor questioned him--wise woman as she was; she only sat still, busying herself over her work, speaking now and then of little things, lest he should notice her anxiety about him. He did at last.