John Halifax, Gentleman Part 80

"I am glad her mother was so busy to-day--too busy to notice."

"Yes," I answered; unconnected as his words were.

"Do you understand me, Phineas? Her mother must not on any account be led to imagine, or to fear--anything. You must not look as you looked this morning. You must not, Phineas."

He spoke almost angrily. I answered in a few quieting words. We were silent, until over the common we caught sight of the light in Muriel's window. Then I felt rather than heard the father's groan.

"Oh, G.o.d! my only daughter--my dearest child!"

Yes, she was the dearest. I knew it. Strange mystery, that He should so often take, by death or otherwise, the DEAREST--always the dearest.

Strange that He should hear us cry--us writhing in the dust, "O Father, anything, anything but this!" But our Father answers not; and meanwhile the desire of our eyes--be it a life, a love, or a blessing--slowly, slowly goes--is gone. And yet we have to believe in our Father. Perhaps of all trials to human faith this is the sorest.

Thanks be to G.o.d if He puts into our hearts such love towards Him that even while He slays us we can trust Him still.

This father--this broken-hearted earthly father--could.

When we sat at the supper-table--Ursula, John, and I, the children being all in bed--no one could have told that there was any shadow over us, more than the sadly-familiar pain of the darling of the house being "not so strong as she used to be."

"But I think she will be, John. We shall have her quite about again, before--"

The mother stopped, slightly smiling. It was, indeed, an especial mercy of heaven which put that unaccountable blindness before her eyes, and gave her other duties and other cares to intercept the thought of Muriel. While, from morning till night, it was the incessant secret care of her husband, myself, and good Mrs. Tod, to keep her out of her little daughter's sight, and prevent her mind from catching the danger of one single fear.

Thus, within a week or two, the mother lay down cheerfully upon her couch of pain, and gave another child to the household--a little sister to Muriel.

Muriel was the first to whom the news was told. Her father told it.

His natural joy and thankfulness seemed for the moment to efface every other thought.

"She is come, darling! little Maud is come. I am very rich--for I have two daughters now."

"Muriel is glad, father." But she showed her gladness in a strangely quiet, meditative way, unlike a child--unlike even her old self.

"What are you thinking of, my pet?"

"That--though father has another daughter, I hope he will remember the first one sometimes."

"She is jealous!" cried John, in the curious delight with which he always detected in her any weakness, any fault, which brought her down to the safe level of humanity. "See, Uncle Phineas, our Muriel is actually jealous."

But Muriel only smiled.

That smile--so serene--so apart from every feeling or pa.s.sion appertaining to us who are "of the earth, earthy," smote the father to the heart's core.

He sat down by her, and she crept up into his arms.

"What day is it, father?"

"The first of December."

"I am glad. Little Maud's birthday will be in the same month as mine."

"But you came in the snow, Muriel, and now it is warm and mild."

"There will be snow on my birthday, though. There always is. The snow is fond of me, father. It would like me to lie down and be all covered over, so that you could not find me anywhere."

I heard John try to echo her weak, soft laugh.

"This month it will be eleven years since I was born, will it not, father?"

"Yes, my darling."

"What a long time! Then, when my little sister is as old as I am, I shall be--that is, I should have been--a woman grown. Fancy me twenty years old, as tall as mother, wearing a gown like her, talking and ordering, and busy about the house. How funny!" and she laughed again.

"Oh! no, father, I couldn't do it. I had better remain always your little Muriel, weak and small, who liked to creep close to you, and go to sleep in this way."

She ceased talking--very soon she was sound asleep. But--the father!

Muriel faded, though slowly. Sometimes she was so well for an hour or two that the Hand seemed drawn back into the clouds, till of a sudden again we discerned it there.

One Sunday--it was ten days or so after Maud's birth, and the weather had been so bitterly cold that the mother had herself forbidden our bringing Muriel to the other side of the house where she and the baby lay--Mrs. Tod was laying the dinner, and John stood at the window playing with his three boys.

He turned abruptly, and saw all the chairs placed round the table--all save one.

"Where is Muriel's chair, Mrs. Tod?"

"Sir, she says she feels so tired like, she'd rather not come down to-day," answered Mrs. Tod, hesitatingly.

"Not come down?"

"Maybe better not, Mr. Halifax. Look out at the snow. It'll be warmer for the dear child to-morrow."

"You are right. Yes, I had forgotten the snow. She shall come down to-morrow."

I caught Mrs. Tod's eyes; they were running over. She was too wise to speak of it--but she knew the truth as well as we.

This Sunday--I remember it well--was the first day we sat down to dinner with the one place vacant.

For a few days longer, her father, every evening when he came in from the mills, persisted in carrying her down, as he had said, holding her on his knee during tea, then amusing her and letting the boys amuse her for half-an-hour or so before bed-time. But at the week's end even this ceased.

When Mrs. Halifax, quite convalescent, was brought triumphantly to her old place at our happy Sunday dinner-table, and all the boys came pressing about her, vying which should get most kisses from little sister Maud--she looked round, surprised amidst her smiling, and asked:

"Where is Muriel?"

"She seems to feel this bitter weather a good deal," John said; "and I thought it better she should not come down to dinner."

"No," added Guy, wondering and dolefully, "sister has not been down to dinner with us for a great many days."

The mother started; looked first at her husband, and then at me.

"Why did n.o.body tell me this?"

"Love--there was nothing new to be told."