John Halifax, Gentleman Part 63

Ursula laughed, and repeated the welcome. She was so happy herself--she longed to distribute her happiness. They walked, the children following, towards the house.

Under the great walnut-tree, by the sunk fence which guarded the flower-garden from the sheep and cows, Mrs. Halifax stopped and pointed down the green slope of the field, across the valley, to the wooded hills opposite.

"Isn't it a pretty view?" said Guy, creeping up and touching the stranger's gown; our children had lived too much in an atmosphere of love to know either shyness or fear.

"Very pretty, my little friend."

"That's One-tree Hill. Father is going to take us all a walk there this afternoon."

"Do you like going walks with your father?"

"Oh, don't we!" An electric smile ran through the whole circle. It told enough of the blessed home-tale.

Lady Caroline laughed a sharp laugh. "Eh, my dear, I see how things are. You don't regret having married John Halifax, the tanner?"

"Regret!"

"Nay, be not impetuous. I always said he was a n.o.ble fellow--so does the earl now. And William--you can't think what a hero your husband is to William."

"Lord Ravenel?"

"Ay, my little brother that was--growing a young man now--a frightful bigot, wanting to make our house as Catholic as when two or three of us lost our heads for King James. But he is a good boy--poor William! I had rather not talk about him."

Ursula inquired courteously if her Cousin Richard were well.

"Bah!--I suppose he is; he is always well. His late astonis.h.i.+ng honesty to Mr. Halifax cost him a fit of gout--mais n'importe. If they meet, I suppose all things will be smooth between them?"

"My husband never had any ill-feeling to Mr. Brithwood."

"I should not bear him an undying enmity if he had. But you see, 'tis election time, and the earl wishes to put in a gentleman, a friend of ours, for Kingswell. Mr. Halifax owns some cottages there, eh?"

"Mr. Fletcher does. My husband transacts business--"

"Stop! stop!" cried Lady Caroline. "I don't understand business; I only know that they want your husband to be friendly with mine. Is this plain enough?"

"Certainly: be under no apprehension. Mr. Halifax never bears malice against any one. Was this the reason of your visit, Lady Caroline?"

"Eh--mon Dieu! what would become of us if we were all as straightforward as you, Mistress Ursula? But it sounds charming--in the country. No, my dear; I came--nay, I hardly know why. Probably, because I liked to come--my usual reason for most actions. Is that your salle-a-manger? Won't you ask me to dinner, ma cousine?"

"Of course," the mother said, though I fancied, afterwards, the invitation rather weighed upon her mind, probably from the doubt whether or no John would like it. But in little things, as in great, she had always this safe trust in him--that conscientiously to do what she felt to be right was the surest way to be right in her husband's eyes.

So Lady Caroline was our guest for the day--a novel guest--but she made herself at once familiar and pleasant. Guy, a little gentleman from his cradle, installed himself her admiring knight attendant everywhere: Edwin brought her to see his pigeons; Walter, with sweet, shy blushes, offered her "a 'ittle f'ower!" and the three, as the greatest of all favours, insisted on escorting her to pay a visit to the beautiful calf not a week old.

Laughing, she followed the boys; telling them how lately in Sicily she had been presented to a week-old prince, son of Louis Philippe the young Duke of Orleans and the Princess Marie-Amelie. "And truly, children, he was not half so pretty as your little calf. Ursula, I am sick of courts sometimes. I would turn shepherdess myself, if we could find a tolerable Arcadia."

"Is there any Arcadia like home?"

"Home!"--Her face expressed the utmost loathing, fear, and scorn. I remembered hearing that the 'Squire since his return from abroad had grown just like his father; was drunk every day and all day long. "Is your husband altered, Ursula? He must be quite a young man still. Oh, what it is to be young!"

"John looks much older, people say; but I don't see it."

"Arcadia again! Can such things be? especially in England, that paradise of husbands, where the first husband in the realm sets such an ill.u.s.trious example. How do you stay-at-home British matrons feel towards my friend the Princess of Wales?"

"G.o.d help her, and make her as good a woman as she is a wronged and miserable wife," said Ursula, sadly.

"Query, Can a 'good woman' be made out of a 'wronged and miserable wife'? If so, Mrs. Halifax, you should certainly take out a patent for the manufacture."

The subject touched too near home. Ursula wisely avoided it, by inquiring if Lady Caroline meant to remain in England.

"Cela depend." She turned suddenly grave. "Your fresh air makes me feel weary. Shall we go in-doors?"

Dinner was ready laid out--a plain meal; since neither the father nor any of us cared for table dainties; but I think if we had lived in a hut, and fed off wooden platters on potatoes and salt, our repast would have been fair and orderly, and our hut the neatest that a hut could be. For the mother of the family had in perfection almost the best genius a woman can have--the genius of tidiness.

We were not in the least ashamed of our simple dinner-table, where no difference was ever made for anybody. We had little plate, but plenty of snow-white napery and pretty china; and what with the scents of the flower-garden on one side, and the green waving of the elm-tree on the other, it was as good as dining out-of-doors.

The boys were still gathered round Lady Caroline, in the little closet off the dining-room where lessons were learnt; Muriel sat as usual on the door-sill, petting one of her doves that used to come and perch on her head and her shoulder, of their own accord, when I heard the child say to herself:

"Father's coming."

"Where, darling?"

"Up the farm-yard way. There--he is on the gravel-walk. He has stopped; I dare say it is to pull some of the jessamine that grows over the well. Now, fly away, dove! Father's here."

And the next minute a general shout echoed, "Father's here!"

He stood in the doorway, lifting one after the other up in his arms; having a kiss and a merry word for all--this good father!

O solemn name, which Deity Himself claims and owns! Happy these children, who in its fullest sense could understand the word "father!"

to whom, from the dawn of their little lives, their father was what all fathers should be--the truest representative here on earth of that Father in heaven, who is at once justice, wisdom, and perfect love.

Happy, too--most blessed among women--the woman who gave her children such a father!

Ursula came--for his eye was wandering in search of her--and received the embrace, without which he never left her, or returned.

"All rightly settled, John?"

"Quite settled."

"I am so glad." With a second kiss, not often bestowed in public, as congratulation. He was going to tell more, when Ursula said, rather hesitatingly, "We have a visitor to-day."

Lady Caroline came out of her corner, laughing. "You did not expect me, I see. Am I welcome?"

"Any welcome that Mrs. Halifax has given is also mine."

But John's manner, though polite, was somewhat constrained; and he felt, as it seemed to my observant eye, more surprise than gratification in this incursion on his quiet home. Also I noticed that when Lady Caroline, in the height of her condescension, would have Muriel close to her at dinner, he involuntarily drew his little daughter to her accustomed place beside himself,

"She always sits here, thank you."

The table-talk was chiefly between the lady and her host; she rarely talked to women when a man was to be had. Conversation veered between the Emperor Napoleon and Lord Wellington, Lord William Bentinck and Sardinian policy, the conjugal squabbles of Carlton House, and the one-absorbing political question of this year--Catholic emanc.i.p.ation.