John Halifax, Gentleman Part 99

"It might, if I had anything to do. Mother," kneeling down by her with a piteous gaze--"mother, you need not look so wretched. I wouldn't harm Edwin--would not take from him his happiness; but to live in sight of it day after day, hour after hour--I can't do it! Do not ask me--let me get away."

"But where?"

"Anywhere, as I said; only let me go far away from them, where no possible news of them can reach me. In some place, oh, mother darling!

where I can trouble no one and make no one miserable."

The mother feebly shook her head. As if such a spot could be found on earth, while SHE lived.

But she saw that Guy was right. To expect him to remain at home was cruelty. As he had said, he could not bear it--few could. Few even among women--of men much fewer. One great renunciation is possible, sometimes easy, as death may be; but to "die daily?" In youth, too, with all the pa.s.sions vehement, the self-knowledge and self-control small? No; Nature herself, in that universal desire to escape, which comes with such a trial, hints at the unnaturalness of the ordeal; in which, soon or late, the weak become paralysed or callous; the strong--G.o.d help them!--are apt to turn wicked.

Guy's instinct of flight was, his mother felt, wisest, safest, best.

"My boy, you shall have your desire; you shall go."

I had not expected it of her--at least, not so immediately. I had thought, bound up in him as she was, accustomed to his daily sight, his daily fondness--for he was more with her, and "petted" her more than any other of the children--I had thought to have seen some reluctance, some grieved entreaty--but no! Not even when, gaining her consent, the boy looked up as if her allowing him to quit her was the greatest kindness she had ever in his life bestowed.

"And when shall I go?"

"Whenever you choose."

"To-day; perhaps I might get away to-day?"

"You can, if you wish, my dear boy."

But no sooner had she said it, than the full force and meaning of the renunciation seemed to burst upon her. Her fingers, which had been smoothing Guy's hand as it lay on her lap, tightly closed round it; with the other hand she put back his hair, gazing--gazing, as if it were impossible to part with him.

"Guy--oh, Guy, my heart is breaking! Promise that you will try to be yourself again--that you will never be anything other than my own good boy, if I agree to let you go?" What he answered, or what further pa.s.sed between them, was not for me either to hear or to know. I left the room immediately.

When, some time after John's hour for returning from the mills, I also returned to the house, I found that everything was settled for Guy's immediate departure.

There was some business in Spain--something about Andalusian wool--which his father made the ostensible reason for the journey. It would occupy him and distract his mind, besides giving him constant necessity of change. And, they say, travel is the best cure for the heart-ache. We hoped it might prove so.

Perhaps the sorest point, and one that had been left undecided till both parents saw that in Guy's present mood any opposition was hurtful, even dangerous, was the lad's obstinate determination to depart alone.

He refused his mother's companions.h.i.+p to London, even his father's across the country to the nearest point where one of those new and dangerous things called railways tempted travellers to their destruction. But Guy would go by it--the maddest and strangest way of locomotion pleased him best. So it was settled he should go, as he pleaded, this very day.

A strange day it seemed--long and yet how short! Mrs. Halifax was incessantly busy. I caught sight of her now and then, flitting from room to room, with Guy's books in her hand--Guy's linen thrown across her arm. Sometimes she stood a few minutes by the window, doing a few st.i.tches of necessary work, which, when even nurse Watkins offered to do--Jenny, who had been a rosy la.s.s when Guy was born--she refused abruptly, and went st.i.tching on.

There were no regular meals that day; better not, perhaps. I saw John come up to his wife as she stood sewing, and bring her a piece of bread and a gla.s.s of wine--but she could not touch either.

"Mother, try," whispered Guy, mournfully. "What will become of me if I have made you ill?"

"Oh, no fear, no fear!" She smiled, took the wine and swallowed it--broke off a bit of the bread,--and went on with her work.

The last hour or two pa.s.sed so confusedly that I do not well remember them. I can only call to mind seeing Guy and his mother everywhere side by side, doing everything together, as if grudging each instant remaining till the final instant came. I have also a vivid impression of her astonis.h.i.+ng composure, of her calm voice when talking to Guy about indefinite trifles, or, though that was seldom, to any other of us. It never faltered--never lost its rich, round, cheerfulness of tone; as if she wished him to carry it as such, and no other--the familiar mother's voice--in his memory across the seas.

Once only it grew sharp, when Walter, who hovered about disconsolately, knelt down to fasten his brother's portmanteau.

"No! Let go! I can do everything myself."

And now the time was fast flying--her boy must depart.

All the household collected in the hall to bid Mr. Guy good-bye--Mr.

Guy whom everybody was so fond of. They believed--which was all that any one, save ourselves, ever knew--that sudden business had called him away on a long and anxious journey. They lingered about him, respectfully, with eager, honest blessings, such as it was good the lad should have--good that he should bear away with him from England and from home.

Finally, Guy, his father, and his mother went into the study by themselves. Soon even his father came out and shut the door, that there should be not a single witness to the last few words between mother and son. These being over, they both came into the hall together, brave and calm--which calmness was maintained even to the last good-bye.

Thus we sent our Guy away, cheerfully and with blessings--away into the wide, dangerous world; alone, with no guard or restraint, except (and in that EXCEPT lay the whole mystery of our cheerfulness)--the fear of G.o.d, his father's counsels, and his mother's prayers.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

Two years rolled over Beechwood--two uneventful years. The last of the children ceased to be a child; and we prepared for that great era in all household history, the first marriage in the family. It was to be celebrated very quietly, as Edwin and Louise both desired. Time had healed over many a pang, and taught many a soothing lesson; still it could not be supposed that this marriage was without its painfulness.

Guy still remained abroad; his going had produced the happy result intended. Month after month his letters came, each more hopeful than the last, each bringing balm to the mother's heart. Then he wrote to others beside his mother: Maud and Walter replied to him in long home-histories; and began to talk without hesitation--nay, with great pride and pleasure--"of my brother who is abroad."

The family wound was closing, the family peace about to be restored; Maud even fancied Guy ought to come home to "our wedding;"--but then she had never been told the whole of past circ.u.mstances; and, besides, she was still too young to understand love matters. Yet so mercifully had time smoothed down all things, that it sometimes appeared even to us elders as if those three days of bitterness were a mere dream--as if the year we dreaded had pa.s.sed as calmly as any other year. Save that in this interval Ursula's hair had begun to turn from brown to grey; and John first mentioned, so cursorily that I cannot even now remember when or where, that slight pain, almost too slight to complain of, which he said warned him in climbing Enderley Hill that he could not climb so fast as when he was young. And I returned his smile, telling him we were evidently growing old men; and must soon set our faces to descend the hill of life. Easy enough I was in saying this, thinking, as I often did, with great content, that there was not the faintest doubt which of us would reach the bottom first.

Yet I was glad to have safely pa.s.sed my half century of life--glad to have seen many of John's cares laid to rest, more especially those external troubles which I have not lately referred to--for, indeed, they were absorbed and forgotten in the home-troubles that came after.

He had lived down all slanders, as he said he would. Far and near travelled the story of the day when Jessop's bank was near breaking; far and near, though secretly--for we found it out chiefly by its results--poor people whispered the tale of a gentleman who had been attacked on the high roads, and whose only attempt at bringing the robbers to justice was to help the widow of one and send the others safe out of the country, at his own expense, not Government's. None of these were notable or showy deeds--scarcely one of them got, even under the disguise of asterisks, into the newspaper; the Norton Bury Mercury, for its last dying sting, still complained (and very justly) that there was not a gentleman in the county whose name so seldom headed a charity subscription as that of John Halifax, Esquire, of Beechwood. But the right made its way, as, soon or late, the right always does; he believed his good name was able to defend itself, and it did defend itself; he had faith in the only victory worth having--the universal victory of Truth; and Truth conquered at last.

To drive with him across the country--he never carried pistols now,--or to walk with him, as one day before Edwin's wedding we walked, a goodly procession, through the familiar streets of Norton Bury, was a perpetual pleasure to the rest of the family. Everybody knew him, everybody greeted him, everybody smiled as he pa.s.sed--as though his presence and his recognition were good things to have and to win. His wife often laughed, and said she doubted whether even Mr. O'Connell of Derrynane, who was just now making a commotion in Ireland, lighting the fire of religious and political discord from one end to the other of County Clare;--she doubted if even Daniel O'Connell had more popularity among his own people than John Halifax had in the primitive neighbourhood where he had lived so long.

Mrs. Halifax herself was remarkably gay this morning. She had had letters from Guy; together with a lovely present, for which he said he had ransacked all the magazins des modes in Paris--a white embroidered China shawl. It had arrived this morning--Lord Ravenel being the bearer. This was not the first time by many that he had brought us news of our Guy, and thereby made himself welcome at Beechwood. More welcome than he might have been otherwise; for his manner of life was so different from ours. Not that Lord Ravenel could be accused of any likeness to his father; but blood is blood, and education and habits are not to be easily overcome. The boys laughed at him for his aristocratic, languid ways; Maud teased him for his mild cynicism and the little interest he seemed to take in anything; while the mother herself was somewhat restless about his coming, wondering what possible good his acquaintance could do to us, or ours to him, seeing we moved in totally different spheres. But John himself was invariably kind, nay, tender over him--we all guessed why. And perhaps even had not the young man had so many good points, while his faults were more negations than positive ill qualities, we likewise should have been tender over him--for Muriel's sake.

He had arrived at Beechwood this morning, and falling as usual into our family routine, had come with us to Norton Bury. He looked up with more interest than usual in his pensive eyes, as he crossed the threshold of our old house, and told Maud how he had come there many years ago with his father.

"That was the first time I ever met your father," I overheard him say to Maud--not without feeling; as if he thought he owed fate some grat.i.tude for the meeting.

Mrs. Halifax, in the casual civil inquiry which was all the old earl ever won in our house, asked after the health of Lord Luxmore.

"He is still at Compiegne. Does not Guy mention him? Lord Luxmore takes the greatest pleasure in Guy's society."

By her start, this was evidently new and not welcome tidings to Guy's mother. No wonder. Any mother in England would have shrank from the thought that her best-beloved son--especially a young man of Guy's temperament, and under Guy's present circ.u.mstances--was thrown into the society which now surrounded the debauched dotage of the too-notorious Earl of Luxmore.

"My son did not mention it. He has been too much occupied in business matters to write home frequently, since he reached Paris. However his stay there is limited;" and this seemed to relieve her. "I doubt if he will have much time left to visit Compiegne."

She said no more than this, of course, to Lord Luxmore's son; but her disquiet was sufficiently apparent.

"It was I who brought your son to Compiegne--where he is a universal favourite, from his wit and liveliness. I know no one who is a more pleasant companion than Guy."

Guy's mother bowed--but coldly.

"I think, Mrs. Halifax, you are aware that the earl's tastes and mine differ widely--have always differed. But he is an old man, and I am his only son. He likes to see me sometimes, and I go:--though, I must confess, I take little pleasure in the circle he has around him."

"In which circle, as I understand, my son is constantly included?"

"Why not? It is a very brilliant circle. The whole court of Charles Dix can afford none more amusing. For the rest, what matters? One learns to take things as they seem, without peering below the surface.

One wearies of impotent Quixotism against unconquerable evils."