John Halifax, Gentleman Part 66

"Husband, shall I?"

"No."

For some minutes they stood together, both silent, with this poor woman. I call her "poor," as did they, knowing, that if a sufferer needs pity, how tenfold more does a sinner!

John spoke first. "Cousin Caroline." She lifted up her head in amazement. "We are your cousins, and we wish to be your friends, my wife and I. Will you listen to us?"

She sobbed still, but less violently.

"Only, first--you must promise to renounce for ever guilt and disgrace."

"I feel it none. He is an honourable gentleman--he loves me, and I love him. That is the true marriage. No, I will make you no such promise. Let me go."

"Pardon me--not yet. I cannot suffer my wife's kinswoman to elope from my own house, without trying to prevent it."

"Prevent!--sir!--Mr. Halifax! You forget who you are, and who I am--the daughter of the Earl of Luxmore."

"Were you the King's daughter it would make no difference. I will save you in spite of yourself, if I can. I have already spoken to Mr.

Vermilye, and he has gone away."

"Gone away! the only living soul that loves me. Gone away! I must follow him--quick--quick."

"You cannot. He is miles distant by this time. He is afraid lest this story should come out to-morrow at Kingswell; and to be an M.P. and safe from arrest is better to Mr. Vermilye than even yourself, Lady Caroline."

John's wife, unaccustomed to hear him take that cool, worldly, half-sarcastic tone, turned to him somewhat reproachfully; but he judged best. For the moment, this tone had more weight with the woman of the world than any homilies. She began to be afraid of Mr. Halifax.

Impulse, rather than resolution, guided her, and even these impulses were feeble and easily governed. She sat down again, muttering:

"My will is free. You cannot control me."

"Only so far as my conscience justifies me in preventing a crime."

"A crime?"

"It would be such. No sophistries of French philosophy on your part, no cruelty on your husband's, can abrogate the one law, which if you disown it as G.o.d's, is still man's--being necessary for the peace, honour, and safety of society."

"What law?"

"THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY."

People do not often utter this plain Bible word. It made Ursula start, even when spoken solemnly by her own husband. It tore from the self-convicted woman all the sentimental disguises with which the world then hid, and still hides, its corruptions. Her sin arose and stared her blackly in the face--AS SIN. She cowered before it.

"Am I--THAT? And William will know it. Poor William!" She looked up at Ursula--for the first time with the guilty look; hitherto, it had been only one of pain or despair. "n.o.body knows it, except you. Don't tell William. I would have gone long ago, but for him. He is a good boy;--don't let him guess his sister was--"

She left the word unspoken. Shame seemed to crush her down to the earth; shame, the precursor of saving penitence--at least, John thought so. He quitted the room, leaving her to the ministry of his other self, his wife. As he sat down with me, and told me in a few words what indeed I had already more than half guessed, I could not but notice the expression of his own face. And I recognized how a man can be at once righteous to judge, tender to pity, and strong to save; a man the principle of whose life is, as John's was--that it should be made "conformable to the image" of Him, who was Himself on earth the image of G.o.d.

Ursula came out and called her husband. They talked some time together. I guessed, from what I heard, that she wished Lady Caroline to stay the night here, but that he with better judgment was urging the necessity of her returning to the protection of her husband's home without an hour's delay.

"It is her only chance of saving her reputation. She must do it. Tell her so, Ursula."

After a few minutes, Mrs. Halifax came out again.

"I have persuaded her at last. She says she will do whatever you think best. Only before she goes, she wants to look at the children. May she?"

"Poor soul!--yes," John murmured, turning away.

Stepping out of sight, we saw the poor lady pa.s.s through the quiet, empty house into the children's bed-room. We heard her smothered sob, at times, the whole way.

Then I went down to the stream, and helped John to saddle his horse, with Mrs. Halifax's old saddle--in her girlish days, Ursula used to be very fond of riding.

"She can ride back again from the Mythe," said John. "She wishes to go, and it is best she should; so that nothing need be said, except that Lady Caroline spent a day at Longfield, and that my wife and I accompanied her safe home."

While he spoke, the two ladies came down the field-path. I fancied I heard, even now, a faint echo of that peculiarly sweet and careless laugh, indicating how light were all impressions on a temperament so plastic and weak--so easily remoulded by the very next influence that fate might throw across her perilous way.

John Halifax a.s.sisted her on horseback, took the bridle under one arm and gave the other to his wife. Thus they pa.s.sed up the path, and out at the White Gate.

I delayed a little while, listening to the wind, and to the prattle of the stream, that went singing along in daylight or in darkness, by our happy home at Longfield. And I sighed to myself, "Poor Lady Caroline!"

CHAPTER XXIV

Midnight though it was, I sat up until John and his wife came home.

They said scarcely anything, but straightway retired. In the morning, all went on in the house as usual, and no one ever knew of this night's episode, except us three.

In the morning, Guy looked wistfully around him, asking for the "pretty lady;" and being told that she was gone, and that he would not be likely to see her again, seemed disappointed for a minute; but soon he went down to play at the stream, and forgot all.

Once or twice I fancied the mother's clear voice about the house was rarer than its wont; that her quick, active, cheerful presence--penetrating every nook, and visiting every creature, as with the freshness of an April wind--was this day softer and sadder; but she did not say anything to me, nor I to her.

John had ridden off early--to the flour-mill, which he still kept on, together with the house at Norton Bury--he always disliked giving up any old a.s.sociations. At dinner-time he came home, saying he was going out again immediately.

Ursula looked uneasy. A few minutes after, she followed me under the walnut-tree, where I was sitting with Muriel, and asked me if I would go with John to Kingswell.

"The election takes place to-day, and he thinks it right to be there.

He will meet Mr. Brithwood and Lord Luxmore; and though there is not the slightest need--my husband can do all that he has to do alone--still, for my own satisfaction, I would like his brother to be near him."

They invariably called me their brother now; and it seemed as if the name had been mine by right of blood always.

Of course, I went to Kingswell, riding John's brown mare, he himself walking by my side. It was not often that we were thus alone together, and I enjoyed it much. All the old days seemed to come back again as we pa.s.sed along the quiet roads and green lanes, just as when we were boys together, when I had none I cared for but David, and David cared only for me. The natural growth of things had made a difference in this, but our affection had changed its outward form only, not its essence. I often think that all loves and friendships need a certain three days' burial before we can be quite sure of their truth and immortality. Mine--it happened just after John's marriage, and I may confess it now--had likewise its entombment, bitter as brief. Many cruel hours sat I in darkness, weeping at the door of its sepulchre, thinking that I should never see it again; but, in the dawn of the morning, it rose, and I met it in the desolate garden, different, yet the very same. And after that, it walked with me continually, secure and imperishable evermore.

I rode, and John sauntered beside me along the footpath, now and then plucking a leaf or branch off the hedge, and playing with it, as was his habit when a lad. Often I caught the old smile--not one of his three boys, not even handsome Guy, had their father's smile.

He was telling me about Enderley Mill, and all his plans there, in the which he seemed very happy. At last, his long life of duty was merging into the life he loved. He looked as proud and pleased as a boy, in talking of the new inventions he meant to apply in cloth-weaving; and how he and his wife had agreed together to live for some years to come at little Longfield, strictly within their settled income, that all the remainder of his capital might go to the improvement of Enderley Mills and mill-people.

"I shall be master of nearly a hundred, men and women. Think what good we may do! She has half-a-dozen plans on foot already--bless her dear heart!"

It was easy to guess whom he referred to--the one who went hand-in-hand with him in everything.

"Was the dinner in the barn, next Monday, her plan, too?"