CHAPTER XXVIII
Without any discussion, our plans were tacitly changed—no more was said about going home to dear Longfield. Every one felt, though no one trusted it to words, that the journey was impossible. For Muriel lay, day after day, on her little bed in an upper chamber, or was carried softly down in the middle of the day by her father, never complaining, but never attempting to move or talk. When we asked her if she felt ill, she always answered, "Oh, no! only so very tired." Nothing more.
"She is dull, for want of the others to play with her. The boys should not run out and leave their sister alone," said John, almost sharply, when one bright morning the lads' merry voices came down from the Flat, while he and I were sitting by Muriel's sofa in the still parlour.
"Father, let the boys play without me, please. Indeed, I do not mind. I had rather lie quiet here."
"But it is not good for my little girl always to be quiet, and it grieves father."
"Does it?" She roused herself, sat upright, and began to move her limbs, but wearily.
"That is right, my darling. Now let me see how well you can walk."
Muriel slipped to her feet and tried to cross the room, catching at table and chairs—now, alas! not only for guidance but actual support. At last she began to stagger, and said, half crying:
"I can't walk, I am so tired. Oh, do take me in your arms, dear father."
Her father took her, looked long in her sightless face, then buried his against her shoulder, saying nothing. But I think in that moment he too saw, glittering and bare, the long-veiled Hand which, for this year past, I had seen stretched out of the immutable heavens, claiming that which was its own. Ever after there was discernible in John's countenance a something which all the cares of his anxious yet happy life had never written there—an ineffaceable record, burnt in with fire.
He held her in his arms all day. He invented all sorts of tales and little amusements for her; and when she was tired of these he let her lie in his bosom and sleep. After her bed-time he asked me to go out with him on the Flat.
It was a misty night. The very cows and asses stood up large and spectral as shadows. There was not a single star to be seen.
We took our walk along the terrace and came back again, without exchanging a single word. Then John said hastily:
"I am glad her mother was so busy to-day—too busy to notice."
"Yes," I answered; unconnected as his words were.
"Do you understand me, Phineas? Her mother must not on any account be led to imagine, or to fear—anything. You must not look as you looked this morning. You must not, Phineas."
He spoke almost angrily. I answered in a few quieting words. We were silent, until over the common we caught sight of the light in Muriel's window. Then I felt rather than heard the father's groan.
"Oh, God! my only daughter—my dearest child!"
Yes, she was the dearest. I knew it. Strange mystery, that He should so often take, by death or otherwise, the DEAREST—always the dearest. Strange that He should hear us cry—us writhing in the dust, "O Father, anything, anything but this!" But our Father answers not; and meanwhile the desire of our eyes—be it a life, a love, or a blessing—slowly, slowly goes—is gone. And yet we have to believe in our Father. Perhaps of all trials to human faith this is the sorest. Thanks be to God if He puts into our hearts such love towards Him that even while He slays us we can trust Him still.
This father—this broken-hearted earthly father—could.
When we sat at the supper-table—Ursula, John, and I, the children being all in bed—no one could have told that there was any shadow over us, more than the sadly-familiar pain of the darling of the house being "not so strong as she used to be."
"But I think she will be, John. We shall have her quite about again, before—"
The mother stopped, slightly smiling. It was, indeed, an especial mercy of heaven which put that unaccountable blindness before her eyes, and gave her other duties and other cares to intercept the thought of Muriel. While, from morning till night, it was the incessant secret care of her husband, myself, and good Mrs. Tod, to keep her out of her little daughter's sight, and prevent her mind from catching the danger of one single fear.
Thus, within a week or two, the mother lay down cheerfully upon her couch of pain, and gave another child to the household—a little sister to Muriel.
Muriel was the first to whom the news was told. Her father told it. His natural joy and thankfulness seemed for the moment to efface every other thought.
"She is come, darling! little Maud is come. I am very rich—for I have two daughters now."
"Muriel is glad, father." But she showed her gladness in a strangely quiet, meditative way, unlike a child—unlike even her old self.
"What are you thinking of, my pet?"
"That—though father has another daughter, I hope he will remember the first one sometimes."
"She is jealous!" cried John, in the curious delight with which he always detected in her any weakness, any fault, which brought her down to the safe level of humanity. "See, Uncle Phineas, our Muriel is actually jealous."
But Muriel only smiled.
That smile—so serene—so apart from every feeling or passion appertaining to us who are "of the earth, earthy," smote the father to the heart's core.
He sat down by her, and she crept up into his arms.
"What day is it, father?"
"The first of December."
"I am glad. Little Maud's birthday will be in the same month as mine."
"But you came in the snow, Muriel, and now it is warm and mild."
"There will be snow on my birthday, though. There always is. The snow is fond of me, father. It would like me to lie down and be all covered over, so that you could not find me anywhere."
I heard John try to echo her weak, soft laugh.
"This month it will be eleven years since I was born, will it not, father?"
"Yes, my darling."
"What a long time! Then, when my little sister is as old as I am, I shall be—that is, I should have been—a woman grown. Fancy me twenty years old, as tall as mother, wearing a gown like her, talking and ordering, and busy about the house. How funny!" and she laughed again. "Oh! no, father, I couldn't do it. I had better remain always your little Muriel, weak and small, who liked to creep close to you, and go to sleep in this way."
She ceased talking—very soon she was sound asleep. But—the father!
Muriel faded, though slowly. Sometimes she was so well for an hour or two that the Hand seemed drawn back into the clouds, till of a sudden again we discerned it there.
One Sunday—it was ten days or so after Maud's birth, and the weather had been so bitterly cold that the mother had herself forbidden our bringing Muriel to the other side of the house where she and the baby lay—Mrs. Tod was laying the dinner, and John stood at the window playing with his three boys.
He turned abruptly, and saw all the chairs placed round the table—all save one.
"Where is Muriel's chair, Mrs. Tod?"
"Sir, she says she feels so tired like, she'd rather not come down to-day," answered Mrs. Tod, hesitatingly.
"Not come down?"
"Maybe better not, Mr. Halifax. Look out at the snow. It'll be warmer for the dear child to-morrow."
"You are right. Yes, I had forgotten the snow. She shall come down to-morrow."
I caught Mrs. Tod's eyes; they were running over. She was too wise to speak of it—but she knew the truth as well as we.
This Sunday—I remember it well—was the first day we sat down to dinner with the one place vacant.
For a few days longer, her father, every evening when he came in from the mills, persisted in carrying her down, as he had said, holding her on his knee during tea, then amusing her and letting the boys amuse her for half-an-hour or so before bed-time. But at the week's end even this ceased.
When Mrs. Halifax, quite convalescent, was brought triumphantly to her old place at our happy Sunday dinner-table, and all the boys came pressing about her, vying which should get most kisses from little sister Maud—she looked round, surprised amidst her smiling, and asked:
"Where is Muriel?"
"She seems to feel this bitter weather a good deal," John said; "and I thought it better she should not come down to dinner."
"No," added Guy, wondering and dolefully, "sister has not been down to dinner with us for a great many days."
The mother started; looked first at her husband, and then at me.
"Why did nobody tell me this?"
"Love—there was nothing new to be told."
"Has the child had any illness that I do not know of?"
"No."
"Has Dr. Jessop seen her?"
"Several times."
"Mother," said Guy, eager to comfort—for naughty as he was sometimes, he was the most tender-hearted of all the boys, especially to Muriel and to his mother,—"sister isn't ill a bit, I know. She was laughing and talking with me just now—saying she knows she could carry baby a great deal better than I could. She is as merry as ever she can be."
The mother kissed him in her quick, eager way—the sole indication of that maternal love which was in her almost a passion. She looked more satisfied.
Nevertheless, when Mrs. Tod came into the parlour, she rose and put little Maud into her arms.
"Take baby, please, while I go up to see Muriel."
"Don't—now don't, please, Mrs. Halifax," cried earnestly the good woman.
Ursula turned very pale. "They ought to have told me," she muttered; "John, YOU MUST let me go and see my child."
"Presently—presently—Guy, run up and play with Muriel. Phineas, take the others with you. You shall go up-stairs in one minute, my darling wife!"
He turned us all out of the room, and shut the door. How he told her that which was necessary she should know—that which Dr. Jessop himself had told us this very morning—how the father and mother had borne this first open revelation of their unutterable grief—for ever remained unknown.
I was sitting by Muriel's bed, when they came up-stairs. The darling laid listening to her brother, who was squatted on her pillow, making all sorts of funny talk. There was a smile on her face; she looked quite rosy: I hoped Ursula might not notice, just for the time being, the great change the last few weeks had made.
But she did—who could ever blindfold a mother? For a moment I saw her recoil—then turn to her husband with a dumb, piteous, desperate look, as though to say, "Help me—my sorrow is more than I can bear!"
But Muriel, hearing the step, cried with a joyful cry, "Mother! it's my mother!"
The mother folded her to her breast.
Muriel shed a tear or two there—in a satisfied, peaceful way; the mother did not weep at all. Her self-command, so far as speech went, was miraculous. For her look—but then she knew the child was blind.
"Now," she said, "my pet will be good and not cry? It would do her harm. We must be very happy to-day."
"Oh, yes." Then, in a fond whisper, "Please, I do so want to see little Maud."
"Who?" with an absent gaze.
"My little sister Maud—Maud that is to take my place, and be everybody's darling now."
"Hush, Muriel," said the father, hoarsely.
A strangely soft smile broke over her face—and she was silent.
The new baby was carried up-stairs proudly, by Mrs. Tod, all the boys following. Quite a levee was held round the bed, where, laid close beside her, her weak hands being guided over the tiny face and form, Muriel first "saw" her little sister. She was greatly pleased. With a grave elder-sisterly air she felt all over the baby-limbs, and when Maud set up an indignant cry, began hushing her with so quaint an imitation of motherliness, that we were all amused.
"You'll be a capital nurse in a month or two, my pretty!" said Mrs. Tod.
Muriel only smiled. "How fat she is!—and look, how fast her fingers take hold! And her head is so round, and her hair feels so soft—as soft as my dove's neck at Longfield. What colour is it? Like mine?"
It was; nearly the same shade. Maud bore, the mother declared, the strongest likeness to Muriel.
"I am so glad. But these"—touching her eyes anxiously.
"No—my darling. Not like you there," was the low answer.
"I am VERY glad. Please, little Maud, don't cry—it's only sister touching you. How wide open your eyes feel! I wonder,"—with a thoughtful pause—"I wonder if you can see me. Little Maud, I should like you to see sister."
"She does see, of course; how she stares!" cried Guy. And then Edwin began to argue to the contrary, protesting that as kittens and puppies could not see at first, he believed little babies did not: which produced a warm altercation among the children gathered round the bed, while Muriel lay back quietly on her pillow, with her little sister fondly hugged to her breast.
The father and mother looked on. It was such a picture—these five darlings, these children which God had given them—a group perfect and complete in itself, like a root of daisies, or a branch of ripening fruit, which not one could be added to, or taken from—
No. I was sure, from the parents' smile, that, this once, Mercy had blinded their eyes, so that they saw nothing beyond the present moment.
The children were wildly happy. All the afternoon they kept up their innocent little games by Muriel's bed-side; she sometimes sharing, sometimes listening apart. Only once or twice came that wistful, absent look, as if she were listening partly to us, and partly to those we heard not; as if through the wide-open orbs the soul were straining at sights wonderful and new—sights unto which HER eyes were the clear-seeing, and ours the blank and blind.
It seems strange now, to remember that Sunday afternoon, and how merry we all were; how we drank tea in the queer bed-room at the top of the house; and how afterwards Muriel went to sleep in the twilight, with baby Maud in her arms. Mrs. Halifax sat beside the little bed, a sudden blazing up of the fire showing the intentness of her watch over these two, her eldest and youngest, fast asleep; their breathing so soft, one hardly knew which was frailest, the life slowly fading or the life but just begun. Their breaths seemed to mix and mingle, and the two faces, lying close together, to grow into a strange likeness each to each. At least, we all fancied so.
Meanwhile, John kept his boys as still as mice, in the broad window-seat, looking across the white snowy sheet, with black bushes peering out here and there, to the feathery beech-wood, over the tops of which the new moon was going down. Such a little young moon! and how peacefully—nay, smilingly—she set among the snows!
The children watched her till the very last minute, when Guy startled the deep quiet of the room by exclaiming—"There—she's gone."
"Hush!"
"No, mother, I am awake," said Muriel. "Who is gone, Guy?"
"The moon—such a pretty little moon."
"Ah, Maud will see the moon some day." She dropped her cheek down again beside the baby sister, and was silent once more.
This is the only incident I remember of that peaceful, heavenly hour.
Maud broke upon its quietude by her waking and wailing; and Muriel very unwillingly let the little sister go.
"I wish she might stay with me—just this one night; and to-morrow is my birthday. Please, mother, may she stay?"
"We will both stay, my darling. I shall not leave you again."
"I am so glad;" and once more she turned round, as if to go to sleep.
"Are you tired, my pet?" said John, looking intently at her.
"No, father."
"Shall I take your brothers down-stairs?"
"Not yet, dear father."
"What would you like, then?"
"Only to lie here, this Sunday evening, among you all."
He asked her if she would like him to read aloud? as he generally did on Sunday evenings.
"Yes, please; and Guy will come and sit quiet on the bed beside me and listen. That will be pleasant. Guy was always very good to his sister—always."
"I don't know that," said Guy, in a conscience-stricken tone. "But I mean to be when I grow a big man—that I do."
No one answered. John opened the large Book—the Book he had taught all his children to long for and to love—and read out of it their favourite history of Joseph and his brethren. The mother sat by him at the fireside, rocking Maud softly on her knees. Edwin and Walter settled themselves on the hearth-rug, with great eyes intently fixed on their father. From behind him the candle-light fell softly down on the motionless figure in the bed, whose hand he held, and whose face he every now and then turned to look at—then, satisfied, continued to read.
In the reading his voice had a fatherly, flowing calm—as Jacob's might have had, when "the children were tender," and he gathered them all round him under the palm-trees of Succoth—years before he cried unto the Lord that bitter cry—(which John hurried over as he read)—"IF I AM BEREAVED OF MY CHILDREN, I AM BEREAVED."
For an hour, nearly, we all sat thus—with the wind coming up the valley, howling in the beech-wood, and shaking the casement as it passed outside. Within, the only sound was the father's voice. This ceased at last; he shut the Bible, and put it aside. The group—that last perfect household picture—was broken up. It melted away into things of the past, and became only a picture, for evermore.
"Now, boys—it is full time to say good-night. There, go and kiss your sister."
"Which?" said Edwin, in his funny way. "We've got two now; and I don't know which is the biggest baby."
"I'll thrash you if you say that again," cried Guy. "Which, indeed? Maud is but the baby. Muriel will be always 'sister.'"
"Sister" faintly laughed, as she answered his fond kiss—Guy was often thought to be her favourite brother.
"Now, off with you, boys; and go down-stairs quietly—mind, I say quietly."
They obeyed—that is, as literally as boy-nature can obey such an admonition. But an hour after I heard Guy and Edwin arguing vociferously in the dark, on the respective merits and future treatment of their two sisters, Muriel and Maud.
John and I sat up late together that night. He could not rest—even though he told me he had left the mother and her two daughters as cosy as a nest of wood-pigeons. We listened to the wild night, till it had almost howled itself away; then our fire went out, and we came and sat over the last faggot in Mrs. Tod's kitchen—the old Debateable Land. We began talking of the long-ago time, and not of this time at all. The vivid present—never out of either mind for an instant—we in our conversation did not touch upon, by at least ten years. Nor did we give expression to a thought which strongly oppressed me, and which I once or twice fancied I could detect in John likewise—how very like this night seemed to the night when Mr. March died; the same silentness in the house—the same windy whirl without—the same blaze of the wood-fire on the same kitchen ceiling.
More than once I could almost have deluded myself that I heard the faint moans and footsteps over-head—that the staircase door would open, and we should see there Miss March, in her white gown, and her pale, steadfast look.
"I think the mother seemed very well and calm to-night," I said, hesitatingly, as we were retiring.
"She is. God help her—and us all!"
"He will."
This was all we said.
He went up-stairs the last thing, and brought down word that mother and children were all sound asleep.
"I think I may leave them until daylight to-morrow. And now, Uncle Phineas, go you to bed, for you look as tired as tired can be."
I went to bed; but all night long I had disturbed dreams, in which I pictured over and over again, first the night when Mr. March died—then the night at Longfield, when the little white ghost had crossed by my bed's foot, into the room where Mary Baines' dead boy lay. And continually, towards morning, I fancied I heard through my window, which faced the church, the faint, distant sound of the organ, as when Muriel used to play it.
Long before it was light I rose. As I passed the boy's room Guy called out to me:
"Halloa! Uncle Phineas, is it a fine morning?—for I want to go down into the wood and get a lot of beech-nuts and fir-cones for sister. It's her birthday to-day, you know."
It WAS, for her. But for us—Oh, Muriel, our darling—darling child!
Let me hasten over the story of that morning, for my old heart quails before it still.
John went early to the room up-stairs. It was very still. Ursula lay calmly asleep, with baby Maud in her bosom; on her other side, with eyes wide open to the daylight, lay—that which for more than ten years we had been used to call "blind Muriel." She saw, now.
The same day at evening we three were sitting in the parlour; we elders only—it was past the children's bed-time. Grief had spent itself dry; we were all very quiet. Even Ursula, when she came in from fetching the boys' candle, as had always been her custom, and though afterwards I thought I had heard her going up-stairs, likewise from habit,—where there was no need to bid any mother's good-night now—even Ursula sat in the rocking-chair, nursing Maud, and trying to still her crying with a little foolish baby-tune that had descended as a family lullaby from one to the other of the whole five—how sad it sounded!
John—who sat at the table, shading the light from his eyes, an open book lying before him, of which he never turned one page—looked up at her.
"Love, you must not tire yourself. Give me the child."
"No, no! Let me keep my baby—she comforts me so." And the mother burst into uncontrollable weeping.
John shut his book and came to her. He supported her on his bosom, saying a soothing word or two at intervals, or when the paroxysm of her anguish was beyond all bounds supporting her silently till it had gone by; never once letting her feel that, bitter as her sorrow was, his was heavier than hers.
Thus, during the whole of the day, had he been the stay and consolation of the household. For himself—the father's grief was altogether dumb.
At last Mrs. Halifax became more composed. She sat beside her husband, her hand in his, neither speaking, but gazing, as it were, into the face of this their great sorrow, and from thence up to the face of God. They felt that He could help them to bear it; ay, or anything else that it was His will to send—if they might thus bear it, together.
We all three sat thus, and there had not been a sound in the parlour for ever so long, when Mrs. Tod opened the door and beckoned me.
"He will come in—he's crazy-like, poor fellow! He has only just heard—"
She broke off with a sob. Lord Ravenel pushed her aside and stood at the door. We had not seen him since the day of that innocent jest about his "falling in love" with Muriel. Seeing us all so quiet, and the parlour looking as it always did when he used to come of evenings—the young man drew back, amazed.
"It is not true! No, it could not be true!" he muttered.
"It is true," said the father. "Come in."
The mother held out her hand to him. "Yes, come in. You were very fond of—"
Ah! that name!—now nothing but a name! For a little while we all wept sore.
Then we told him—it was Ursula who did it chiefly—all particulars about our darling. She told him, but calmly, as became one on whom had fallen the utmost sorrow and crowning consecration of motherhood—that of yielding up her child, a portion of her own being, to the corruption of the grave—of resigning the life which out of her own life had been created, unto the Creator of all.
Surely, distinct and peculiar from every other grief, every other renunciation, must be that of a woman who is thus chosen to give her very flesh and blood, the fruit of her own womb, unto the Lord!
This dignity, this sanctity, seemed gradually to fall upon the mourning mother, as she talked about her lost one; repeating often—"I tell you this, because you were so fond of Muriel."
He listened silently. At length he said, "I want to see Muriel."
The mother lit a candle, and he followed her up-stairs.
Just the same homely room—half-bedchamber, half-nursery—the same little curtainless bed where, for a week past, we had been accustomed to see the wasted figure and small pale face lying, in smiling quietude, all day long.
It lay there still. In it, and in the room, was hardly any change. One of Walter's playthings was in a corner of the window-sill, and on the chest of drawers stood the nosegay of Christmas roses which Guy had brought for his sister yesterday morning. Nay, her shawl—a white, soft, furry shawl, that she was fond of wearing—remained still hanging up behind the door. One could almost fancy the little maid had just been said "good-night" to, and left to dream the childish dreams on her nursery pillow, where the small head rested so peacefully, with that pretty babyish nightcap tied over the pretty curls.
There she was, the child who had gone out of the number of our children—our earthly children—for ever.
Her mother sat down at the side of the bed, her father at its foot, looking at her. Lord Ravenel stood by, motionless; then stooping down, he kissed the small marble hand.
"Good-bye, good-bye, my little Muriel!"
And he left the room abruptly, in such an anguish of grief that the mother rose and followed him.
John went to the door and locked it, almost with a sort of impatience; then came back and stood by his darling, alone. Me he never saw—no, nor anything in the world except that little face, even in death so strangely like his own. The face which had been for eleven years the joy of his heart, the very apple of his eye.
For a long time he remained gazing, in a stupor of silence; then, sinking on his knee, he stretched out his arms across the bed, with a bitter cry:
"Come back to me, my darling, my first-born! Come back to me, Muriel, my little daughter—my own little daughter!"
But thou wert with the angels, Muriel—Muriel!
CHAPTER XXIX
We went home, leaving all that was mortal of our darling sleeping at Enderley, underneath the snows.
For twelve years after then, we lived at Longfield; in such unbroken, uneventful peace, that looking back seems like looking back over a level sea, whose leagues of tiny ripples make one smooth glassy plain.
Let me recall—as the first wave that rose, ominous of change—a certain spring evening, when Mrs. Halifax and I were sitting, as was our wont, under the walnut-tree. The same old walnut-tree, hardly a bough altered, though many of its neighbours and kindred had grown from saplings into trees—even as some of us had grown from children almost into young men.
"Edwin is late home from Norton Bury," said Ursula.
"So is his father."
"No—this is just John's time. Hark! there are the carriage-wheels!"
For Mr. Halifax, a prosperous man now, drove daily to and from his mills, in as tasteful an equipage as any of the country gentry between here and Enderley.
His wife went down to the stream to meet him, as usual, and they came up the field-path together.
Both were changed from the John and Ursula of whom I last wrote. She, active and fresh-looking still, but settling into that fair largeness which is not unbecoming a lady of middle-age, he, inclined to a slight stoop, with the lines of his face more sharply defined, and the hair wearing away off his forehead up to the crown. Though still not a grey thread was discernible in the crisp locks at the back, which successively five little ones had pulled, and played with, and nestled in; not a sign of age, as yet, in "father's curls."
As soon as he had spoken to me, he looked round as usual for his children, and asked if the boys and Maud would be home to tea?
"I think Guy and Walter never do come home in time when they go over to the manor-house."
"They're young—let them enjoy themselves," said the father, smiling. "And you know, love, of all our 'fine' friends, there are none you so heartily approve of as the Oldtowers."
These were not of the former race. Good old Sir Ralph had gone to his rest, and Sir Herbert reigned in his stead; Sir Herbert, who in his dignified gratitude never forgot a certain election day, when he first made the personal acquaintance of Mr. Halifax. The manor-house family brought several other "county families" to our notice, or us to theirs. These, when John's fortunes grew rapidly—as many another fortune grew, in the beginning of the thirty years' peace, when unknown, petty manufacturers first rose into merchant princes and cotton lords—these gentry made a perceptible distinction, often amusing enough to us, between John Halifax, the tanner of Norton Bury, and Mr. Halifax, the prosperous owner of Enderley Mills. Some of them, too, were clever enough to discover, what a pleasant and altogether "visitable" lady was Mrs. Halifax, daughter of the late Mr. March, a governor in the West Indies, and cousin of Mr. Brithwood of the Mythe. But Mrs. Halifax, with quiet tenacity, altogether declined being visited as anything but Mrs. Halifax, wife of John Halifax, tanner, or mill-owner, or whatever he might be. All honours and all civilities that did not come through him, and with him, were utterly valueless to her.
To this her peculiarity was added another of John's own, namely, that all his life he had been averse to what is called "society;" had eschewed "acquaintances,"—and—but most men might easily count upon their fingers the number of those who, during a life-time, are found worthy of the sacred name of "friend." Consequently, our circle of associations was far more limited than that of many families holding an equal position with us—on which circumstance our neighbours commented a good deal. But little we cared; no more than we had cared for the chit-chat of Norton Bury. Our whole hearts were bound up within our own home—our happy Longfield.
"I do think this place is growing prettier than ever," said John, when, tea being over—a rather quiet meal, without a single child—we elders went out again to the walnut-tree bench. "Certainly, prettier than ever;" and his eye wandered over the quaint, low house, all odds and ends—for nearly every year something had been built, or something pulled down; then crossing the smooth bit of lawn, Jem Watkins's special pride, it rested on the sloping field, yellow with tall buttercups, wavy with growing grass. "Let me see—how long have we lived here? Phineas, you are the one for remembering dates. What year was it we came to Longfield?"
"Eighteen hundred and twelve. Thirteen years ago."
"Ah, so long!"
"Not too long," said Mrs. Halifax, earnestly. "I hope we may end our days here. Do not you, John?"
He paused a little before answering. "Yes, I wish it; but I am not sure how far it would be right to do it."
"We will not open that subject again," said the mother, uneasily. "I thought we had all made up our minds that little Longfield was a thousand times pleasanter than Beechwood, grand as it is. But John thinks he never can do enough for his people at Enderley."
"Not that alone, love. Other reasons combined. Do you know, Phineas," he continued, musingly, as he watched the sun set over Leckington Hill—"sometimes I fancy my life is too easy—that I am not a wise steward of the riches that have multiplied so fast. By fifty, a man so blest as I have been, ought to have done really something of use in the world—and I am forty-five. Once, I hoped to have done wonderful things ere I was forty-five. But somehow the desire faded."
His wife and I were silent. We both knew the truth; that calm as had flowed his outer existence, in which was omitted not one actual duty, still, for these twelve years, all the high aims which make the glory and charm of life as duties make its strength, all the active energies and noble ambitions which especially belong to the prime of manhood, in him had been, not dead perhaps, but sleeping. Sleeping, beyond the power of any human voice to waken them, under the daisies of a child's grave at Enderley.
I know not if this was right—but it was scarcely unnatural. In that heart, which loved as few men love, and remembered as few men remember, so deep a wound could never be thoroughly healed. A certain something in him seemed different ever after, as if a portion of the father's own life had been taken away with Muriel, and lay buried in the little dead bosom of his first-born, his dearest child.
"You forget," said Mrs. Halifax, tenderly—"you forget, John, how much you have been doing, and intend to do. What with your improvements at Enderley, and your Catholic Emancipation—your Abolition of Slavery and your Parliamentary Reform—why, there is hardly any scheme for good, public or private, to which you do not lend a helping hand."
"A helping purse, perhaps, which is an easier thing, much."
"I will not have you blaming yourself. Ask Phineas, there—our household Solomon."
"Thank you, Ursula," said I, submitting to the not rare fortune of being loved and laughed at.
"Uncle Phineas, what better could John have done in all these years, than look after his mills and educate his three sons?"
"Have them educated, rather," corrected he, sensitive over his own painfully-gained and limited acquirements. Yet this feeling had made him doubly careful to give his boys every possible advantage of study, short of sending them from home, to which he had an invincible objection. And three finer lads, or better educated, there could not be found in the whole country.
"I think, John, Guy has quite got over his fancy of going to Cambridge with Ralph Oldtower."
"Yes; college life would not have done for Guy," said the father thoughtfully.
"Hush! we must not talk about them, for here come the children."
It was now a mere figure of speech to call them so, though in their home-taught, loving simplicity, they would neither have been ashamed nor annoyed at the epithet—these two tall lads, who in the dusk looked as man-like as their father.
"Where is your sister, boys?"
"Maud stopped at the stream with Edwin," answered Guy, rather carelessly. His heart had kept its childish faith; the youngest, pet as she was, was never anything to him but "little Maud." One—whom the boys still talked of, softly and tenderly, in fireside evening talks, when the winter winds came and the snow was falling—one only was ever spoken of by Guy as "sister."
Maud, or Miss Halifax, as from the first she was naturally called—as naturally as our lost darling was never called anything else than Muriel—came up, hanging on Edwin's arm, which she was fond of doing, both because it happened to be the only arm low enough to suit her childish stature, and because she was more especially "Edwin's girl," and had been so always. She had grown out of the likeness that we longed for in her cradle days, or else we had grown out of the perception of it; for though the external resemblance in hair and complexion still remained, nothing could be more unlike in spirit than this sprightly elf, at once the plague and pet of the family—to our Muriel.
"Edwin's girl" stole away with him, merrily chattering. Guy sat down beside his mother, and slipped his arm round her waist. They still fondled her with a child-like simplicity—these her almost grown-up sons; who had never been sent to school for a day, and had never learned from other sons of far different mothers, that a young man's chief manliness ought to consist in despising the tender charities of home.
"Guy, you foolish boy!" as she took his cap off and pushed back his hair, trying not to look proud of his handsome face, "what have you been doing all day?"
"Making myself agreeable, of course, mother."
"That he has," corroborated Walter, whose great object of hero-worship was his eldest brother. "He talked with Lady Oldtower, and he sang with Miss Oldtower and Miss Grace. Never was there such a fellow as our Guy."
"Nonsense!" said his mother, while Guy only laughed, too accustomed to this family admiration to be much disconcerted or harmed thereby.
"When does Ralph return to Cambridge?"
"Not at all. He is going to leave college, and be off to help the Greeks. Father, do you know everybody is joining the Greeks? Even Lord Byron is off with the rest. I only wish I were."
"Heaven forbid!" muttered the mother.
"Why not? I should have made a capital soldier, and liked it too, better than anything."
"Better than being my right hand at the mills, and your mother's at home?—Better than growing up to be our eldest son, our comfort and our hope?—I think not, Guy."
"You are right, father," was the answer, with an uneasy look. For this description seemed less what Guy was than what we desired him to be. With his easy, happy temper, generous but uncertain, and his showy, brilliant parts, he was not nearly so much to be depended on as the grave Edwin, who was already a thorough man of business, and plodded between Enderley mills and a smaller one which had taken the place of the flour mill at Norton Bury, with indomitable perseverance.
Guy fell into a brown study, not unnoticed by those anxious eyes, which lingered oftener upon his face than on that of any of her sons. Mrs. Halifax said, in her quick, decisive way, that it was "time to go in."
So the sunset picture outside changed to the home-group within; the mother sitting at her little table, where the tall silver candlestick shed a subdued light on her work-basket, that never was empty, and her busy fingers, that never were still. The father sat beside her; he kept his old habit of liking to have her close to him; ay, even though he was falling into the middle-aged comforts of an arm-chair and newspaper. There he sat, sometimes reading aloud, or talking; sometimes lazily watching her, with silent, loving eyes, that saw beauty in his old wife still.
The young folk scattered themselves about the room. Guy and Walter at the unshuttered window—we had a habit of never hiding our home-light—were looking at the moon, and laying bets, sotto voce, upon how many minutes she would be in climbing over the oak on the top of One-tree Hill. Edwin sat, reading hard—his shoulders up to his ears, and his fingers stuck through his hair, developing the whole of his broad, knobbed, knotted forehead, where, Maud declared, the wrinkles had already begun to show. For Mistress Maud herself, she flitted about in all directions, interrupting everything, and doing nothing.
"Maud," said her father, at last, "I am afraid you give a great deal of trouble to Uncle Phineas."
Uncle Phineas tried to soften the fact, but the little lady was certainly the most trying of his pupils. Her mother she had long escaped from, for the advantage of both. For, to tell the truth, while in the invisible atmosphere of moral training the mother's influence was invaluable, in the minor branch of lesson-learning there might have been found many a better teacher than Ursula Halifax. So the children's education was chiefly left to me; other tutors succeeding as was necessary; and it had just begun to be considered whether a lady governess ought not to "finish" the education of Miss Halifax. But always at home. Not for all the knowledge and all the accomplishments in the world would these parents have suffered either son or daughter—living souls intrusted them by the Divine Father—to be brought up anywhere out of their own sight, out of the shelter and safeguard of their own natural home.
"Love, when I was waiting to-day in Jessop's bank—"
(Ah! that was another change, to which we were even yet not familiar, the passing away of our good doctor and his wife, and his brother and heir turning the old dining-room into a "County Bank—open from ten till four.")
"While waiting there I heard of a lady who struck me as likely to be an excellent governess for Maud."
"Indeed!" said Mrs. Halifax, not over-enthusiastically. Maud became eager to know "what the lady was like?" I at the same time inquiring "who she was?"
"Who? I really did not ask," John answered, smiling. "But of what she is, Jessop gave me first-rate evidence—a good daughter, who teaches in Norton Bury anybody's children for any sort of pay, in order to maintain an ailing mother. Ursula, you would let her teach our Maud, I know?"
"Is she an Englishwoman?"—For Mrs. Halifax, prejudiced by a certain French lady who had for a few months completely upset the peace of the manor-house, and even slightly tainted her own favourite, pretty Grace Oldtower, had received coldly this governess plan from the beginning. "Would she have to live with us?"
"I think so, decidedly."
"Then it can't be. The house will not accommodate her. It will hardly hold even ourselves. No, we cannot take in anybody else at Longfield."
"But—we may have to leave Longfield."
The boys here turned to listen; for this question had already been mooted, as all family questions were. In our house we had no secrets: the young folk, being trusted, were ever trustworthy; and the parents, clean-handed and pure-hearted, had nothing that they were afraid to tell their children.
"Leave Longfield!" repeated Mrs. Halifax; "surely—surely—" But glancing at her husband, her tone of impatience ceased.
He sat gazing into the fire with an anxious air.
"Don't let us discuss that question—at least, not to-night. It troubles you, John. Put it off till to-morrow."
No, that was never his habit. He was one of the very few who, a thing being to be done, will not trust it to uncertain "to-morrows." His wife saw that he wanted to talk to her, and listened.
"Yes, the question does trouble me a good deal. Whether, now that our children are growing up, and our income is doubling and trebling year by year, we ought to widen our circle of usefulness, or close it up permanently within the quiet bound of little Longfield. Love, which say you?"
"The latter, the latter—because it is far the happiest."
"I am afraid, NOT the latter, because it IS the happiest."
He spoke gently, laying his hand on his wife's shoulder, and looking down on her with that peculiar look which he always had when telling her things that he knew were sore to hear. I never saw that look on any living face save John's; but I have seen it once in a picture—of two Huguenot lovers. The woman is trying to fasten round the man's neck the white badge that will save him from the massacre (of St. Bartholomew)—he, clasping her the while, gently puts it aside—not stern, but smiling. That quiet, tender smile, firmer than any frown, will, you feel sure, soon control the woman's anguish, so that she will sob out—any faithful woman would—"Go, die! Dearer to me than even thyself are thy honour and thy duty!"
When I saw this noble picture, it touched to the core this old heart of mine—for the painter, in that rare expression, might have caught John's. Just as in a few crises of his life I have seen it, and especially in this one, when he first told to his wife that determination which he had slowly come to—that it was both right and expedient for us to quit Longfield, our happy home for so many years, of which the mother loved every flower in the garden, every nook and stone in the walls.
"Leave Longfield!" she repeated again, with a bitter sigh.
"Leave Longfield!" echoed the children, first the youngest, then the eldest, but rather in curiosity than regret. Edwin's keen, bright eyes were just lifted from his book, and fell again; he was not a lad of much speech, or much demonstration of any kind.
"Boys, come and let us talk over the matter."
They came at once and joined in the circle; respectfully, yet with entire freedom, they looked towards their father—these, the sons of his youth, to whom he had been from their birth, not only parent and head, but companion, guide, and familiar friend. They honoured him, they trusted him, they loved him; not, perhaps, in the exact way that they loved their mother; for it often seems Nature's own ordinance, that a mother's influence should be strongest over her sons, while the father's is greatest over his daughters. But even a stranger could not glance from each to each of those attentive faces, so different, yet with a curious "family look" running through them all, without seeing in what deep, reverent affection, such as naturally takes the place of childish fondness, these youths held their father.
"Yes, I am afraid, after much serious thought on the matter, and much consultation with your mother here,—that we ought to leave Longfield."
"So I think," said Mistress Maud, from her footstool; which putting forward of her important opinion shook us all from gravity to merriment, that compelled even Mrs. Halifax to join. Then, laying aside her work, and with it the saddened air with which she had bent over it, she drew her chair closer to her husband, slipping her hand in his, and leaning against his shoulder. Upon which Guy, who had at first watched his mother anxiously, doubtful whether or no his father's plan had her approval, and therefore ought to be assented to,—relapsed into satisfied, undivided attention.
"I have again been over Beechwood Hall. You all remember Beechwood?"
Yes. It was the "great house" at Enderley, just on the slope of the hill, below Rose Cottage. The beech-wood itself was part of its pleasure ground, and from its gardens honest James Tod, who had them in keeping, had brought many a pocketful of pears for the boys, many a sweet-scented nosegay for Muriel.
"Beechwood has been empty a great many years, father? Would it be a safe investment to buy it?"
"I think so, Edwin, my practical lad," answered the father, smiling. "What say you, children? Would you like living there?"
Each one made his or her comment. Guy's countenance brightened at the notion of "lots of shooting and fishing" about Enderley, especially at Luxmore; and Maud counted on the numerous visitors that would come to John Halifax, Esquire, of Beechwood Hall.
"Neither of which excellent reasons happen to be your father's," said Mrs. Halifax, shortly. But John, often tenderer over youthful frivolities than she, answered:
"I will tell you, boys, what are my reasons. When I was a young man, before your mother and I were married, indeed before I had ever seen her, I had strongly impressed on my mind the wish to gain influence in the world—riches if I could—but at all events, influence. I thought I could use it well, better than most men; those can best help the poor who understand the poor. And I can; since, you know, when Uncle Phineas found me, I was—"
"Father," said Guy, flushing scarlet, "we may as well pass over that fact. We are gentlefolks now."
"We always were, my son."
The rebuke, out of its very mildness, cut the youth to the heart. He dropped his eyes, colouring now with a different and a holier shame.
"I know that. Please will you go on, father."
"And now," the father continued, speaking as much out of his own thoughts as aloud to his children—"now, twenty-five years of labour have won for me the position I desired. That is, I might have it for the claiming. I might take my place among the men who have lately risen from the people, to guide and help the people—the Cannings, Huskissons, Peels."
"Would you enter parliament? Sir Herbert asked me to-day if you ever intended it. He said there was nothing you might not attain to if you would give yourself up entirely to politics."
"No, Guy, no. Wisdom, like charity, begins at home. Let me learn to rule in my own valley, among my own people, before I attempt to guide the state. And that brings me back again to the pros and cons about Beechwood Hall."
"Tell them, John; tell all out plainly to the children."
The reasons were—first, the advantage of the boys themselves; for John Halifax was not one of those philanthropists who would benefit all the world except their own household and their own kin. He wished—since the higher a man rises, the wider and nobler grows his sphere of usefulness—not only to lift himself, but his sons after him; lift them high enough to help on the ever-advancing tide of human improvement, among their own people first, and thence extending outward in the world whithersoever their talents or circumstances might call them.
"I understand," cried the eldest son, his eyes sparkling; "you want to found a family. And so it shall be—we will settle at Beechwood Hall; all coming generations shall live to the honour and glory of your name—our name—"
"My boy, there is only one Name to whose honour we should all live. One Name 'in whom all the generations of the earth are blessed.' In thus far only do I wish to 'found a family,' as you call it, that our light may shine before men—that we may be a city set on a hill—that we may say plainly unto all that ask us, 'For me and my house, we will serve the Lord.'"
It was not often that John Halifax spoke thus; adopting solemnly the literal language of the Book—his and our life's guide, no word of which was ever used lightly in our family. We all listened, as in his earnestness he rose, and, standing upright in the firelight, spoke on.
"I believe, with His blessing, that one may 'serve the Lord' as well in wealth as in poverty, in a great house as in a cottage like this. I am not doubtful, even though my possessions are increased. I am not afraid of being a rich man. Nor a great man neither, if I were called to such a destiny."
"It may be—who knows?" said Ursula, softly.
John caught his wife's eyes, and smiled.
"Love, you were a true prophet once, with a certain 'Yes, you will,' but now—Children, you know when I married your mother I had nothing, and she gave up everything for me. I said I would yet make her as high as any lady in the land,—in fortune I then meant, thinking it would make her happier; but she and I are wiser now. We know that we never can be happier than we were in the old house at Norton Bury, or in this little Longfield. By making her lady of Beechwood I should double her responsibilities and treble her cares; give her an infinitude of new duties, and no pleasures half so sweet as those we leave behind. Still, of herself and for herself, my wife shall decide."
Ursula looked up at him; tears stood in her eyes, though through them shone all the steadfastness of faithful love. "Thank you, John. I have decided. If you wish it, if you think it right, we will leave Longfield and go to Beechwood."
He stooped and kissed her forehead, saying only: "We will go."
Guy looked up, half-reproachfully, as if the father were exacting a sacrifice; but I question whether the greater sacrifice were not his who took rather than hers who gave.
So all was settled—we were to leave beloved Longfield. It was to be let, not sold; let to a person we knew, who would take jealous care of all that was ours, and we might come back and see it continually; but it would be ours—our own home—no more.
Very sad—sadder even than I had thought—was the leaving all the familiar things; the orchard and the flower-garden, the meadow and the stream, the woody hills beyond, every line and wave of which was pleasant and dear almost as our children's faces. Ay, almost as that face which for a year—one little year, had lived in sight of, but never beheld, their beauty; the child who one spring day had gone away merrily out of the white gate with her three brothers, and never came back to Longfield any more.
Perhaps this circumstance, that her fading away and her departure happened away from home, was the cause why her memory—the memory of our living Muriel, in her human childhood—afterwards clung more especially about the house at Longfield. The other children altered, imperceptibly, yet so swiftly, that from year to year we half forgot their old likenesses. But Muriel's never changed. Her image, only a shade, yet often more real than any of these living children, seemed perpetually among us. It crept through the house at dusk; in winter fire-light it sat smiling in dim corners; in spring mornings it moved about the garden borders, with tiny soft footsteps neither seen nor heard. The others grew up—would be men and women shortly—but the one child that "was not," remained to us always a child.
I thought, even the last evening—the very last evening that John returned from Enderley, and his wife went down to the stream to meet him, and they came up the field together, as they had done so for many, many years;—ay, even then I thought I saw his eyes turn to the spot where a little pale figure used to sit on the door-sill, listening and waiting for him, with her dove in her bosom. We never kept doves now.
And the same night, when all the household was in bed—even the mother, who had gone about with a restless activity, trying to persuade herself that there would be at least no possibility of accomplishing the flitting to-morrow—the last night, when John went as usual to fasten the house-door, he stood a long time outside, looking down the valley.
"How quiet everything is. You can almost hear the tinkle of the stream. Poor old Longfield!" And I sighed, thinking we should never again have such another home.
John did not answer. He had been mechanically bending aside and training into its place a long shoot of wild clematis—virgin's bower, which Guy and Muriel had brought in from the fields and planted, a tiny root; it covered the whole front of the house now. Then he came and leaned beside me over the wicket-gate, looking fixedly up into the moon-light blue.
"I wonder if she knows we are leaving Longfield?"
"Who?" said I; for a moment forgetting.
"The child."