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David Graham Phillips - "The Price She Paid"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre Buch 2"

Clemens Brentano - "Das Maerchen von dem Myrtenfraeulei"

Jules Verne - "De la Terre a la Lune"

John Halifax, Gentleman

D >> Dinah Maria Mulock (Mrs. Craik) >> John Halifax, Gentleman




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 muff, 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 circumstances--indeed, under any circumstances--
intimacy between your house and ours would he 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 God 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 passed 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 bumpkin, 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 coarse brown pan, shelling 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 nobody, and nobody 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.

"Do you know, Phineas, that when this tree is bare--we shall, if with
God's blessing all goes well--we shall have--a little child."

I wrung his hand in silence.

"You cannot imagine how strange it feels. A child--hers and mine--
little feet to go pattering about our house--a little voice to say--
Think, that by Christmas-time I shall be a FATHER."

He sat down on the garden-bench, and did not speak for a long time.

"I wonder," he said at last, "if, when I was born, MY father was as
young as I am: whether he felt as I do now. You cannot think what
an awful joy it is to be looking forward to a child; a little soul of
God's giving, to be made fit for His eternity. How shall we do it!
we that are both so ignorant, so young--she will be only just
nineteen when, please God, her baby is born. Sometimes, of an
evening, we sit for hours on this bench, she and I, talking of what
we ought to do, and how we ought to rear the little thing, until we
fall into silence, awed at the blessing that is coming to us."

"God will help you both, and make you wise."

"We trust He will; and then we are not afraid."

A little while longer I sat by John's side, catching the dim outline
of his face, half uplifted, looking towards those myriad worlds,
which we are taught to believe, and do believe, are not more precious
in the Almighty sight than one living human soul.

But he said no more of the hope that was coming, or of the thoughts
which, in the holy hush of that summer night, had risen out of the
deep of his heart. And though after this time they never again
formed themselves into words, yet he knew well that not a hope, or
joy, or fear of his, whether understood or not, could be unshared by
me.

In the winter, when the first snow lay on the ground, the little one
came.

It was a girl--I think they had wished for a son; but they forgot all
about it when the tiny maiden appeared. She was a pretty baby--at
least, all the women-kind said so, from Mrs. Jessop down to Jael, who
left our poor house to its own devices, and trod stately in Mrs.
Halifax's, exhibiting to all beholders the mass of white draperies
with the infinitesimal human morsel inside them, which she vehemently
declared was the very image of its father.

For that young father--

But I--what can _I_ say? How should _I_ tell of the joy of a man
over his first-born?

I did not see John till a day afterwards--when he came into our
house, calm, happy, smiling. But Jael told me, that when she first
placed his baby in his arms he had wept like a child.

The little maiden grew with the snowdrops. Winter might have dropped
her out of his very lap, so exceedingly fair, pale, and pure-looking
was she. I had never seen, or at least never noticed, any young baby
before; but she crept into my heart before I was aware. I seem to
have a clear remembrance of all the data in her still and quiet
infancy, from the time her week-old fingers, with their tiny pink
nails--a ludicrous picture of her father's hand in little--made me
smile as they closed over mine.

She was named Muriel--after the rather peculiar name of John's
mother. Her own mother would have it so; only wishing out of her
full heart, happy one! that there should be a slight alteration made
in the second name. Therefore the baby was called Muriel Joy--Muriel
Joy Halifax.

That name--beautiful, sacred, and never-to-be-forgotten among us--I
write it now with tears.

* * * *

In December, 1802, she was born--our Muriel. And on February 9th--
alas! I have need to remember the date!--she formally received her
name. We all dined at John's house--Dr. and Mrs. Jessop, my father
and I.

It was the first time my father had taken a meal under any roof but
his own for twenty years. We had not expected him, since, when asked
and entreated, he only shook his head; but just when we were all
sitting down to the table, Ursula at the foot, her cheeks flushed,
and her lips dimpling with a house-wifely delight that everything was
so nice and neat, she startled us by a little cry of pleasure. And
there, in the doorway, stood my father!

His broad figure, but slightly bent even now, his smooth-shaven face,
withered, but of a pale brown still, with the hard lines softening
down, and the keen eyes kinder than they used to be; dressed
carefully in his First-day clothes, the stainless white kerchief
supporting his large chin, his Quaker's hat in one hand, his stick in
the other, looking in at us, a half-amused twitch mingling with the
gravity of his mouth--thus he stood--thus I see thee, O my dear old
father!

The young couple seemed as if they never could welcome him enough.
He only said, "I thank thee, John," "I thank thee, Ursula;" and took
his place beside the latter, giving no reason why he had changed his
mind and come. Simple as the dinner was--simple as befitted those
who, their guests knew, could not honestly afford luxuries; though
there were no ornaments, save the centre nosegay of laurustinus and
white Christmas roses--I do not think King George himself ever sat
down to a nobler feast.

Afterwards we drew merrily round the fire, or watched outside the
window the thickly falling snow.

"It has not snowed these two months," said John; "never since the day
our little girl was born."

And at that moment, as if she heard herself mentioned, and was
indignant at our having forgotten her so long, the little maid
up-stairs set up a cry--that unmistakable child's cry, which seems to
change the whole atmosphere of a household.

My father gave a start--he had never seen or expressed a wish to see
John's daughter. We knew he did not like babies. Again the little
helpless wail; Ursula rose and stole away--Abel Fletcher looked after
her with a curious expression, then began to say something about
going back to the tan-yard.

"Do not, pray do not leave us," John entreated; "Ursula wants to show
you our little lady."

My father put out his hands in deprecation; or as if desiring to
thrust from him a host of thronging, battling thoughts. Still, came
faintly down at intervals the tiny voice, dropping into a soft coo of
pleasure, like a wood-dove in its nest--every mother knows the sound.
And then Mrs. Halifax entered holding in her arms her little winter
flower, her baby daughter.

Abel Fletcher just looked at it and her--closed his eyes against
both, and looked no more.

Ursula seemed pained a moment, but soon forgot it in the general
admiration of her treasure.

"She might well come in a snow-storm," said Mrs. Jessop, taking the
child. "She is just like snow, so soft and white."

"And as soundless--she hardly ever cries. She just lies in this way
half the day over, cooing quietly, with her eyes shut. There, she
has caught your dress fast. Now, was there ever a two months' old
baby so quick at noticing things? and she does it all with her
fingers--she touches everything;--ah! take care, doctor," the mother
added, reproachfully, at a loud slam of the door, which made the baby
tremble all over.

"I never knew a child so susceptible of sounds," said John, as he
began talking to it and soothing it;--how strange it was to see him!
and yet it seemed quite natural already. "I think even now she knows
the difference between her mother's voice and mine; and any sudden
noise always startles her in this way."

"She must have astonishingly quick hearing," said the doctor,
slightly annoyed. Ursula wisely began to talk of something else--
showed Muriel's eyelashes, very long for such a baby--and descanted
on the colour of her eyes, that fruitful and never-ending theme of
mothers and friends.

"I think they are like her father's; yes, certainly like her
father's. But we have not many opportunities of judging, for she is
such a lazy young damsel, she hardly ever opens them--we should often
fancy her asleep, but for that little soft coo; and then she will
wake up all of a sudden. There now! do you see her? Come to the
window, my beauty! and show Dr. Jessop your bonny brown eyes."

They were bonny eyes! lovely in shape and colour, delicately fringed;
but there was something strange in their expression--or rather, in
their want of it. Many babies have a round, vacant stare--but this
was no stare, only a wide, full look--a look of quiet blankness--an
UNSEEING look.

It caught Dr. Jessop's notice. I saw his air of vexed dignity change
into a certain anxiety.

"Well, whose are they like--her father's or mine? His, I hope--it
will be the better for her beauty. Nay, we'll excuse all
compliments."

"I--I can't exactly tell. I could judge better by candlelight."

"We'll have candles."

"No--no! Had we not better put it off altogether, till another day?-
-I'll call in to-morrow and look at her eyes."

His manner was hesitating and troubled. John noticed it.

"Love, give her to me. Go and get us lights, will you?"

When she was gone, John took his baby to the window, gazed long and
intently into her little face, then at Dr. Jessop. "Do you think--
no--it's not possible--that there can be anything the matter with the
child's eyes?"

Ursula coming in, heard the last words.

"What was that you said about baby's eyes?"

No one answered her. All were gathered in a group at the window, the
child being held on her father's lap, while Dr. Jessop was trying to
open the small white lids, kept so continually closed. At last the
baby uttered a little cry of pain--the mother darted forward, and
clasped it almost savagely to her breast.

"I will not have my baby hurt! There is nothing wrong with her sweet
eyes. Go away; you shall not touch her, John."

"Love!"

She melted at that low, fond word; leaning against his shoulder--
trying to control her tears.

"It shocked me so--the bare thought of such a thing. Oh! husband,
don't let her be looked at again."

"Only once again, my darling. It is best. Then we shall be quite
satisfied. Phineas, give me the candle."

The words--caressing, and by strong constraint made calm and
soothing--were yet firm. Ursula resisted no more, but let him take
Muriel--little, unconscious, cooing dove! Lulled by her father's
voice she once more opened her eyes wide. Dr. Jessop passed the
candle before them many times, once so close that it almost touched
her face; but the full, quiet eyes, never blenched nor closed. He
set the light down.

"Doctor!" whispered the father, in a wild appeal against--ay, it was
against certainty. He snatched the candle, and tried the experiment
himself.

"She does not see at all. Can she be blind?"

"Born blind."

Yes, those pretty baby-eyes were dark--quite dark. There was nothing
painful nor unnatural in their look, save, perhaps, the blankness of
gaze which I have before noticed. Outwardly, their organization was
perfect; but in the fine inner mechanism was something wrong--
something wanting. She never had seen--never would see--in this
world.

"BLIND!" The word was uttered softly, hardly above a breath, yet the
mother heard it. She pushed every one aside, and took the child
herself. Herself, with a desperate incredulity, she looked into
those eyes, which never could look back either her agony or her love.
Poor mother!

"John! John! oh, John!"--the name rising into a cry, as if he could
surely help her. He came and took her in his arms--took both, wife
and babe. She laid her head on his shoulder in bitter weeping. "Oh,
John! it is so hard. Our pretty one--our own little child!"

John did not speak, but only held her to him--close and fast. When
she was a little calmer he whispered to her the comfort--the sole
comfort even her husband could give her--through whose will it was
that this affliction came.

"And it is more an affliction to you than it will be to her, poor
pet!" said Mrs. Jessop, as she wiped her friendly eyes. "She will
not miss what she never knew. She may be a happy little child.
Look, how she lies and smiles."

But the mother could not take that consolation yet. She walked to
and fro, and stood rocking her baby, mute indeed, but with tears
falling in showers. Gradually her anguish wept itself away, or was
smothered down, lest it should disturb the little creature asleep on
her breast.

Some one came behind her, and placed her in the arm-chair, gently.
It was my father. He sat down by her, taking her hand.

"Grieve not, Ursula. I had a little brother who was blind. He was
the happiest creature I ever knew."

My father sighed. We all marvelled to see the wonderful softness,
even tenderness, which had come into him.

"Give me thy child for a minute." Ursula laid it across his knees;
he put his hand solemnly on the baby-breast. "God bless this little
one! Ay, and she shall be blessed."

These words, spoken with as full assurance as the prophetic
benediction of the departing patriarchs of old, struck us all. We
looked at little Muriel as if the blessing were already upon her; as
if the mysterious touch which had scaled up her eyes for ever had
left on her a sanctity like as of one who has been touched by the
finger of God.

"Now, children, I must go home," said my father.

They did not detain us: it was indeed best that the poor young
parents should be left alone.

"You will come again soon?" begged Ursula, tenderly clasping the hand
which he had laid upon her curls as he rose with another murmured
"God bless thee!"

"Perhaps. We never know. Be a good wife to thy husband, my girl.
And John, never be thou harsh to her, nor too hard upon her little
failings. She is but young--but young."

He sighed again. It was plain to see he was thinking of another than
Ursula.

As we walked down the street he spoke to me only once or twice, and
then of things which startled me by their strangeness--things which
had happened a long time ago; sayings and doings of mine in my
childhood, which I had not the least idea he had either known of or
remembered.

When we got in-doors I asked if I should come and sit with him till
his bed-time.

"No--no; thee looks tired, and I have a business letter to write.
Better go to thy bed as usual."

I bade him good-night, and was going, when he called me back.

"How old art thee, Phineas--twenty-four or five?"

"Twenty-five, father."

"Eh! so much?" He put his hand on my shoulder, and looked down on me
kindly, even tenderly. "Thee art but weakly still, but thee must
pick up, and live to be as old a man as thy father. Goodnight. God
be with thee, my son!"

I left him. I was happy. Once I had never expected my old father
and I would have got on together so well, or loved one another so
dearly.

In the middle of the night Jael came into my room, and sat down on my
bed's foot, looking at me. I had been dreaming strangely, about my
own childish days, and about my father and mother when we were young.

What Jael told me--by slow degrees, and as tenderly as when she was
my nurse years ago--seemed at first so unreal as to be like a part of
the dream.

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