John Halifax, Gentleman Part 62

"Nay, I am not ill, do not be afraid. Only my head aches so--let me lay it here as the children do."

His wife made a place for it on her shoulder; there it rested--the poor tired head, until gradually the hard and painful expression of the features relaxed, and it became John's own natural face--as quiet as any of the little faces on their pillows up-stairs, whence, doubtless, slumber had long banished all antic.i.p.ation of Longfield. At last he too fell asleep.

Ursula held up her finger, that I might not stir. The clock in the corner, and the soft sobbing of the flame on the hearth, were the only sounds in the parlour. She sewed on quietly, to the end of her work; then let it drop on her lap, and sat still. Her cheek leaned itself softly against John's hair, and in her eyes, which seemed so intently contemplating the little frock, I saw large bright tears gather--fall.

But her look was serene, nay, happy; as if she thought of these beloved ones, husband and children--her very own--preserved to her in health and peace,--ay, and in that which is better than either, the unity of love. For that priceless blessing, for the comfort of being HIS comfort, for the sweetness of bringing up these his children in the fear of G.o.d and in the honour of their father--she, true wife and mother as she was, would not have exchanged the wealth of the whole world.

"What's that?" We all started, as a sudden ring at the bell pealed through the house, waking John, and frightening the very children in their beds. All for a mere letter too, brought by a lacquey of Lord Luxmore's. Having--somewhat indignantly--ascertained this fact, the mother ran upstairs to quiet her little ones. When she came down, John still stood with the letter in his hand. He had not told me what it was; when I chanced to ask he answered in a low tone--"Presently!" On his wife's entrance he gave her the letter without a word.

Well might it startle her into a cry of joy. Truly the dealings of heaven to us were wonderful!

"Mr. John Halifax.

"SIR,

"Your wife, Ursula Halifax, having some time since attained the age fixed by her late father as her majority, I will, within a month after date, pay over to your order all moneys, princ.i.p.al and interest, accruing to her, and hitherto left in my hands, as trustee, according to the will of the late Henry March, Esquire.

"I am, sir, "Yours, etc., "RICHARD BRITHWOOD."

"Wonderful--wonderful!"

It was all I could say. That one bad man, for his own purposes, should influence another bad man to an act of justice--and that their double evil should be made to work out our good! Also, that this should come just in our time of need--when John's strength seemed ready to fail.

"Oh John--John! now you need not work so hard!"

That was his wife's first cry, as she clung to him almost in tears.

He too was a good deal agitated. This sudden lifting of the burthen made him feel how heavy it had been--how terrible the responsibility--how sickening the fear.

"Thank G.o.d! In any case, you are quite safe now--you and the children!"

He sat down, very pale. His wife knelt beside him, and put her arms around his neck--I quietly went out of the room.

When I came in again, they were standing by the fire-side--both cheerful, as two people to whom had happened such unexpected good fortune might naturally be expected to appear. I offered my congratulations in rather a comical vein than otherwise; we all of us had caught John's habit of putting things in a comic light whenever he felt them keenly.

"Yes, he is a rich man now--mind you treat your brother with extra respect, Phineas."

"And your sister too.

'For she sall walk in silk attire, And siller hae to spare.'

She's quite young and handsome still--isn't she? How magnificent she'll look in that grey silk gown!"

"John, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! you--the father of a family! you--that are to be the largest mill-owner at Enderley--"

He looked at her fondly, half deprecatingly. "Not till I have made you and the children all safe--as I said."

"We are safe--quite safe--when we have you. Oh, Phineas! make him see it as I do. Make him understand that it will be the happiest day in his wife's life when she knows him happy in his heart's desire."

We sat a little while longer, talking over the strange change in our fortunes--for they wished to make me feel that now, as ever, what was theirs was mine; then Ursula took her candle to depart.

"Love!" John cried, calling her back as she shut the door, and watching her stand there patient--watching with something of the old mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "Mrs. Halifax, when shall I have the honour of ordering your long-tailed grey ponies?"

CHAPTER XXIII

Not many weeks afterwards we went to live at Longfield, which henceforth became the family home for many years.

Longfield! happy Longfield! little nest of love, and joy, and peace--where the children grew up, and we grew old--where season after season brought some new change ripening in us and around us--where summer and winter, day and night, the hand of G.o.d's providence was over our roof, blessing our goings out and our comings in, our basket and our store; crowning us with the richest blessing of all, that we were made a household where "brethren dwelt together in unity." Beloved Longfield! my heart, slow pulsing as befits one near the grave, thrills warm and young as I remember thee!

Yet how shall I describe it--the familiar spot; so familiar that it seems to need no description at all.

It was but a small place when we first came there. It led out of the high-road by a field-gate--the White Gate; from which a narrow path wound down to a stream, thence up a green slope to the house; a mere farm-house, nothing more. It had one parlour, three decent bedrooms, kitchen and out-houses; we built extempore chambers out of the barn and cheese-room. In one of these the boys, Guy and Edwin, slept, against the low roof of which the father generally knocked his head every morning when he came to call the lads. Its windows were open all summer round, and birds and bats used oftentimes to fly in, to the great delight of the youthful inmates.

Another infinite pleasure to the little folk was that for the first year, the farm-house kitchen was made our dining-room. There, through the open door, Edwin's pigeons, Muriel's two doves, and sometimes a stately hen, walked in and out at pleasure. Whether our live stock, brought up in the law of kindness, were as well-trained and well-behaved as our children, I cannot tell; but certain it is that we never found any harm from this system, necessitated by our early straits at Longfield--this "liberty, fraternity, and equality."

Those words, in themselves true and lovely, but wrested to false meaning, whose fatal sound was now dying out of Europe, merged in the equally false and fatal shout of "Gloire! gloire!" remind me of an event which I believe was the first that broke the delicious monotony of our new life.

It was one September morning. Mrs. Halifax, the children, and I were down at the stream, planning a bridge across it, and a sort of stable, where John's horse might be put up--the mother had steadily resisted the long-tailed grey ponies. For with all the necessary improvements at Longfield, with the large settlement that John insisted upon making on his wife and children, before he would use in his business any portion of her fortune, we found we were by no means so rich as to make any great change in our way of life advisable. And, after all, the mother's best luxuries were to see her children merry and strong, her husband's face lightened of its care, and to know he was now placed beyond doubt in the position he had always longed for; for was he not this very day gone to sign the lease of Enderley Mills?

Mrs. Halifax had just looked at her watch, and she and I were wondering, with quite a childish pleasure, whether he were not now signing the important deed, when Guy came running to say a coach-and-four was trying to enter the White Gate.

"Who can it be?--But they must be stopped, or they'll spoil John's new gravel road that he takes such pride in. Uncle Phineas, would you mind going to see?"

Who should I see, but almost the last person I expected--who had not been beheld, hardly spoken of, in our household these ten years--Lady Caroline Brithwood, in her travelling-habit of green cloth, her velvet riding-hat, with its Prince of Wales' feathers, gayer than ever--though her pretty face was withering under the paint, and her lively manner growing coa.r.s.e and bold.

"Is this Longfield?--Does Mr. Halifax--mon Dieu, Mr. Fletcher, is that you?"

She held out her hand with the frankest condescension, and in the brightest humour in the world. She insisted on sending on the carriage, and accompanying me down to the stream, for a "surprise"--a "scene."

Mrs. Halifax, seeing the coach drive on, had evidently forgotten all about it. She stood in the little dell which the stream had made, Walter in her arms--her figure thrown back, so as to poise the child's weight. Her right hand kept firm hold of Guy, who was paddling barefoot in the stream: Edwin, the only one of the boys who never gave any trouble, was soberly digging away, beside little Muriel.

The lady clapped her hands. "Brava! bravissima! a charming family picture, Mrs. Halifax."

"Lady Caroline!"

Ursula left her children, and came to greet her old acquaintance, whom she had never once seen since she was Ursula Halifax. Perhaps that fact touched her, and it was with a kind of involuntary tenderness that she looked into the sickly face, where all the smiles could not hide the wrinkles.

"It is many years since we met; and we are both somewhat altered, Cousin Caroline."

"You are, with those three great boys. The little girl yours also?--Oh yes, I remember William told me--poor little thing!" And with uneasy awe she turned from our blind Muriel, our child of peace.

"Will you come up to the house? my husband has only ridden over to Enderley; he will be home soon."

"And glad to see me, I wonder? For I am rather afraid of that husband of yours--eh, Ursula? Yet I should greatly like to stay."