John Halifax, Gentleman Part 97

I think all parents must feel cruelly a pang like this--the first trouble in which they cannot help their children--the first time when those children must learn to stand alone, each for himself, compelled to carry his own burthen and work out, well or ill, his individual life. When the utmost the wisest or tenderest father can do, is to keep near with outstretched hand that the child may cling to, a.s.sured of finding sympathy, counsel, and love.

If this father had stood aloof all his life, on some pinnacle of paternal "pride," paternal "dignity"--if he had not made himself his boys' companion, counsellor, and friend, how great would have been his terrors now!

For, as we both knew well--too well to trust ourselves to say it--if there was one thing in the world that ruins a lad, drives him to desperation, shuts the door of home upon him, and opens many another door, of which the entrance is the very gate of h.e.l.l--it is such a disappointment as this which had happened to our Guy.

His father saw it all. Saw it clearer, crueller, than even his mother could see. Yet when, very late, almost at dawn, she came in, with the tidings that Guy was himself again now--sleeping as quietly as a child--her husband was able to join in her deep thankfulness, and give her hope for the days to come.

"But what is to be done with Guy?"

"G.o.d knows," John answered. But his tone expressed a meaning different from that generally conveyed in the words: a meaning which the mother caught at once, and rested on.

"Ay--you are right. He knows!"--And so they went away together, almost content.

Next morning, I woke late; the suns.h.i.+ne falling across my bed, and the sparrows chattering loud in the ivy. I had been dreaming, with a curious pertinacity, of the old days at Rose Cottage, the days when John first fell in love with Ursula.

"Uncle Phineas." I heard myself called.

It was John's son, who sat opposite, with wan, wild eyes, and a settled anguish on his mouth--that merry, handsome mouth--the only really handsome mouth in the family.

"You are up early, my boy."

"What was the good of lying in bed? I am not ill. Besides, I wish to go about as usual. I don't wish anybody to think that--that I care."

He stopped--evidently fighting hard against himself. A new lesson, alas! for our Guy.

"Was I too violent last night? I did not mean it. I mean to be a man.

Not the first man whom a lady has refused--eh?" And braving it out, he began to whistle; but the lips fell--the frank brow grew knotted with pain. The lad broke into a pa.s.sion of misery.

The chief bitterness was that he had been deceived. Unwittingly, we well believed--but still deceived. Many little things he told me--Guy's was a nature that at once spent and soothed itself by talking--of Miss Silver's extreme gentleness and kindness towards him; a kindness which seemed so like, so cruelly like love.

"Love!--Oh, she loved me. She told me so. Of course!--I was Edwin's brother."

Ay, there was the sting, which never could be removed; which might rankle in the boy's heart for life. He had not only lost his love, but what is more precious than love--faith in womankind. He began to make light of his losings--to think the prize was not so great after all.

He sat on my bed, singing--Guy had a fine voice and ear--singing out of mockery, songs which I had an especial aversion to--light songs written by an Irishman, Mr. Thomas Moore, about girls and wine, and being "far from the lips we love," but always ready enough "to make love to the lips we are near." Then, laughing at me, he threw up the window and looked out.

I think it was wrong of those two, wrong and selfish, as all lovers are--young lovers in the flush of their happiness; I think it was cruel of Edwin and Louise to walk up and down there in the elder brother's very eyes.

For a moment he struggled against his pa.s.sion.

"Uncle Phineas, just look here. How charming! Ha, ha! Did you ever see such a couple of fools?"

Fools, maybe, but happy; happy to the very core--thoroughly engrossed in their happiness. The elder brother was almost maddened by it.

"He must mind what he does--tell him so, Uncle Phineas--it would be safer. He MUST mind, or I will not answer for myself. I was fond of Edwin--I was indeed--but now it seems sometimes as if I HATED him."

"Guy!"

"Oh, if it had been a stranger, and not he! If it had been any one in the world except my brother!"

And in that bitter cry the lad's heart melted again; it was such a tender heart--his mother's heart.

After a time he recovered himself, and came down with me to breakfast, as he had insisted upon doing; met them all, even Miss Silver--and Edwin, who had placed himself by her side with an air of right. These lovers, however deeply grieved they looked--and, to do justice, it was really so--needed not to be grieved over by any of us.

Nor, looking at the father and mother, would we have dared to grieve over THEM. In the silent watches of the night, heart to heart, husband and wife had taken council together; together had carried their sorrow to the only Lightener of burthens. It seemed that theirs was lightened; that even in this strange entanglement of fate they were able to wait patiently--trusting unto the Almighty Mercy not only themselves but the children He had given them.

When, breakfast being over, John according to his custom read the chapter and the prayer--no one rose up or went out; no one refused, even in this anguish of strife, jealousy, and disunion--to repeat after him the "Our Father" of their childhood.

I believe every one of us remembered for years, with an awe that was not altogether pain, this morning's chapter and prayer.

When it was ended, worldly troubles closed round us again.

Nothing seemed natural. We hung about in twos and threes, uncertain what to do. Guy walked up and down, alone. His mother asked him if, seeing his foot was so well, he would like to go down to the mills as usual; but he declined. Miss Silver made some suggestion about "lessons," which Edwin jealously negatived immediately, and proposed that she and Maud should take a drive somewhere.

Mrs. Halifax eagerly a.s.sented. "Lady Oldtower has been wanting them both for some time. You would like to go, would you not, for a day or two?" said she, addressing the governess.

Guy caught at this. "Going away, are you? When?"

He put the question to Miss Silver direct--his eyes blazing right into her own. She made some confused reply, about "leaving immediately."

"In the carriage, of course? Shall I have the honour of driving you?"

"No," said Edwin, decisively.

A fierce, vindictive look pa.s.sed between the brothers--a look terrible in itself--more terrible in its warning of days to come. No wonder the mother shuddered--no wonder the young betrothed, pale and alarmed, slipped out of the room. Edwin followed her. Then Guy, s.n.a.t.c.hing up his sister, lifted her roughly on his knee.

"Come along, Maud. You'll be my girl now. n.o.body else wants you. Kiss me, child."

But the little lady drew back.

"So, you hate me too? Edwin has been teaching you? Very well. Get away, you cheat!"

He pushed her violently aside. Maud began to cry.

Her father looked up from his book--the book he had not been reading--though he had seemingly thought it best to take no notice of what was pa.s.sing around him.

"Come here, Maud, my child. Guy, you should not be unkind to your little sister. Try and command yourself, my dear boy!"

The words, though spoken gently, almost in a whisper, were more than the lad's chafed spirit could brook.

"Father, you insult me. I will not bear it. I will quit the room."

He went out, shutting the door pa.s.sionately after him. His mother rose up to follow him--then sat down again. The eyes that she lifted to her husband were deprecating, beseeching, heavy with a speechless pain.

For John--he said nothing. Not though, as was plain to see, this, the first angry or disrespectful word he had ever received from any one of his children, struck him like an arrow; for a moment stirred him even to wrath--holy wrath--the just displeasure of a father who feels that the least portion of his child's sin is the sin against him. Perhaps this very feeling, distinct from, and far beyond, all personal indignation, all sense of offended dignity, made the anger strangely brief--so brief, that when the other children, awed and startled, looked for some ebullition of it--lo! it was all gone. In its stead was something at which the children, more awed still, crept out of the room.

Ursula even, alarmed, looked in his face as if for the first time she could not comprehend her husband.

"John, you should forgive poor Guy! he did not intend any harm."