John Halifax, Gentleman Part 105

"I understand you now. 'The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children,' as your Bible says--your Bible, that I had half begun to believe in. Be it so. Mr. Halifax, I will detain you no longer."

John intercepted the young man's departure.

"No, you do NOT understand me. I hold no man accountable for any errors, any shortcomings, except his own."

"I am to conclude, then, that it is to myself you refuse your daughter?"

"It is."

Lord Ravenel once more bowed, with sarcastic emphasis.

"I entreat you not to mistake me," John continued, most earnestly. "I know nothing of you that the world would condemn, much that it would even admire; but your world is not our world, nor your aims our aims.

If I gave you my little Maud, it would confer on you no lasting happiness, and it would be thrusting my child, my own flesh and blood, to the brink of that whirlpool where, soon or late, every miserable life must go down."

Lord Ravenel made no answer. His new-born energy, his pride, his sarcasm, had successively vanished; dead, pa.s.sive melancholy resumed its empire over him. Mr. Halifax regarded him with mournful compa.s.sion.

"Oh, that I had foreseen this! I would have placed the breadth of all England between you and my child."

"Would you?"

"Understand me. Not because you do not possess our warm interest, our friends.h.i.+p: both will always be yours. But these are external ties, which may exist through many differences. In marriage there must be perfect unity; one aim, one faith, one love, or the marriage is incomplete, unholy--a mere civil contract and no more."

Lord Ravenel looked up amazed at this doctrine, then sat awhile pondering drearily.

"Yes, you may be right," at last he said. "Your Maud is not for me, nor those like me. Between us and you is that 'great gulf fixed;'--what did the old fable say? I forget.--Che sara sara! I am but as others: I am but what I was born to be."

"Do you recognize what you were born to be? Not only a n.o.bleman, but a gentleman; not only a gentleman, but a man--man, made in the image of G.o.d. How can you, how dare you, give the lie to your Creator?"

"What has He given me? What have I to thank Him for?"

"First, manhood; the manhood His Son disdained not to wear; worldly gifts, such as rank, riches, influence, things which others have to spend half an existence in earning; life in its best prime, with much of youth yet remaining--with grief endured, wisdom learnt, experience won. Would to Heaven, that by any poor word of mine I could make you feel all that you are--all that you might be!"

A gleam, bright as a boy's hope, wild as a boy's daring, flashed from those listless eyes--then faded.

"You mean, Mr. Halifax, what I might have been. Now it is too late."

"There is no such word as 'too late,' in the wide world--nay, not in the universe. What! shall we, whose atom of time is but a fragment out of an ever-present eternity--shall we, so long as we live, or even at our life's ending, dare to cry out to the Eternal One, 'It is too late!'"

As John spoke, in much more excitement than was usual to him, a sudden flush or rather spasm of colour flushed his face, then faded away, leaving him pallid to the very lips. He sat down hastily, in his frequent att.i.tude, with the left arm pa.s.sed across his breast.

"Lord Ravenel." His voice was faint, as though speech was painful to him.

The other looked up, the old look of reverent attention, which I remembered in the boy-lord who came to see us at Norton Bury; in the young "Anselmo," whose enthusiastic hero-wors.h.i.+p had fixed itself, with an almost unreasoning trust, on Muriel's father.

"Lord Ravenel, forgive anything I have said that may have hurt you. It would grieve me inexpressibly if we did not part as friends."

"Part?"

"For a time, we must. I dare not risk further either your happiness or my child's."

"No, not hers. Guard it. I blame you not. The lovely, innocent child! G.o.d forbid she should ever have a life like mine!"

He sat silent, his clasped hands listlessly dropping, his countenance dreamy; yet, it seemed to me, less hopelessly sad: then with a sudden effort he rose.

"I must go now."

Crossing over to Mrs. Halifax, he thanked her, with much emotion, for all her kindness.

"For your husband, I owe him more than kindness, as perhaps I may prove some day. If not, try to believe the best of me you can. Good-bye."

They both said good-bye, and bade G.o.d bless him; with scarcely less tenderness than if things had ended as he desired, and, instead of this farewell, sad and indefinite beyond most farewells, they were giving the parental welcome to a newly-chosen son.

Ere finally quitting us, Lord Ravenel turned back to speak to John once more, hesitatingly and mournfully.

"If she--if the child should ask or wonder about my absence--she likes me in her innocent way you know--you will tell her--What shall you tell her?"

"Nothing. It is best not."

"Ay, it is, it is."

He shook hands with us all three, without saying anything else; then the carriage rolled away, and we saw his face--that pale, gentle, melancholy face--no more.

It was years and years before any one beyond ourselves knew what a near escape our little Maud had had of becoming Viscountess Ravenel--future Countess of Luxmore.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

It was not many weeks after this departure of Lord Ravenel's--the pain of which was almost forgotten in the comfort of Guy's first long home letter, which came about this time--that John one morning, suddenly dropping his newspaper, exclaimed:

"Lord Luxmore is dead."

Yes, he had returned to his dust, this old bad man; so old, that people had begun to think he would never die. He was gone; the man who, if we owned an enemy in the world, had certainly proved himself that enemy.

Something peculiar is there in a decease like this--of one whom, living, we have almost felt ourselves justified in condemning, avoiding--perhaps hating. Until Death, stepping in between, removes him to another tribunal than this petty justice of ours, and laying a solemn finger on our mouths, forbids us either to think or utter a word of hatred against that which is now--what?--a disembodied spirit--a handful of corrupting clay.

Lord Luxmore was dead. He had gone to his account; it was not ours to judge him. We never knew--I believe no one except his son ever fully knew--the history of his death-bed.

John sat in silence, the paper before him, long after we had pa.s.sed the news and discussed it, not without awe, all round the breakfast-table.

Maud stole up--hesitatingly, and asked to see the announcement of the earl's decease.

"No, my child; but you shall hear it read aloud, if you choose."

I guessed the reason of his refusal; when, looking over him as he read, I saw, after the long list of t.i.tles owned by the new Earl of Luxmore, one bitter line; how it must have cut to the heart of him whom we first heard of as "poor William!"

"HAD LIKEWISE ISSUE, CAROLINE, MARRIED IN 17--, TO RICHARD BRITHWOOD, ESQUIRE, AFTERWARDS DIVORCED."

And by a curious coincidence, about twenty lines further down I read among the fas.h.i.+onable marriages: