“The devil he will!”
“Richard—you hurt me!”—with a little scream, as she pushed his rough fingers from her arm, so soft, and round, and fair.
223“Madam, you must be crazy. The young man is a tradesman—a tanner. Not fit for MY society.”
“Precisely; I invite him for my own.”
But the whispers and responses were alike unheeded by their object. For, at the doorway, entering with Mrs. Jessop, was a tall girl in deep mourning. We knew her—we both knew her—our dream at Enderley—our Nut-browne Mayde.
John was near to the door—their eyes met. She bowed—he returned it. He was very pale. For Miss March, her face and neck were all in a glow. Neither spoke, nor offered more than this passing acknowledgment, and she moved on.
She came and sat down beside me, accidentally, I believe; but when she saw me she held out her hand. We exchanged a word or two—her manner was unaltered; but she spoke hurriedly, and her fingers had their old nervous twitch. She said this meeting was to her “unexpected,” but “she was very glad to see me.”
So she sat, and I looked sideways at her dropped eyes—her forehead with its coronet of chestnut curls. How would he bear the sight—he of whose heart mine was the mere faint echo? Yet truly an echo, repeating with cruel faithfulness every throb.
He kept his position, a little aloof from the Brithwoods, who were holding a slight altercation—though more of looks than words. John heeded them not. I was sure, though he had never looked directly towards us, that he had heard every syllable Miss March said to me.
The ’squire called across the room, in a patronising tone: “My good fellow—that is, ahem! I say, young Halifax?”
“Were you addressing me, Mr. Brithwood?”
“I was. I want a quiet word or two—between ourselves.”
“Certainly.”
They stood face to face. The one seemed uncomfortable, the other was his natural self—a little graver, perhaps, as if he felt what was coming, and prepared to meet it, knowing 224in whose presence he had to prove himself—what Richard Brithwood, with all his broad acres, could never be—a gentleman.
Few could doubt that fact, who looked at the two young men, as all were looking now.
“On my soul, it’s awkward—I’ll call at the tan-yard and explain.”
“I had rather you would explain here.”
“Well then, though it’s a confounded unpleasant thing to say—and I really wish I had not been brought into such a position—you’ll not heed my wife’s nonsense?”
“I do not understand you.”
“Come, it’s no use running to cover in that way. Let’s be open and plain. I mean no offence. You may be a very respectable young man for aught I know, still rank is rank. Of course Doctor Jessop asks whom he likes to his house—and, by George! I’m always civil to everybody—but really, in spite of my lady’s likings, I can’t well invite you to my table!”
“Nor could I humiliate myself by accepting any such invitation.”
He said the words distinctly, so that the whole circle might have heard, and was turning away, when Mr. Brithwood fired up—as an angry man does in a losing game.
“Humiliate yourself! What do you mean, sir? Wouldn’t you be only too thankful to crawl into the houses of your betters, any how, by hook or by crook? Ha! ha! I know you would. It’s always the way with you common folk, you rioters, you revolutionists. By the Lord! I wish you were all hanged.”
The young blood rose fiercely in John’s cheek, but he restrained himself. “Sir, I am neither a rioter nor a revolutionist.”
“But you are a tradesman? You used to drive Fletcher’s cart of skins.”
“I did.”
“And are you not—I remember you now—the very lad, the 225tanner’s lad, that once pulled us ashore from the eger—Cousin March and me?”
I heard a quick exclamation beside me, and saw Ursula listening intently—I had not noticed how intently till now. Her eyes were fixed on John, waiting for his answer. It came.
“Your memory is correct; I was that lad.”
“Thank’ee for it too. Lord! what a jolly life I should have missed! You got no reward, though. You threw away the guinea I offered you; come, I’ll make it twenty guineas to-morrow.”
The insult was too much. “Sir, you forget that whatever we may have been, to-night we meet as equals.”
“Equals!”
“As guests in the same house—most certainly for the time being, equals.”
Richard Brithwood stared, literally dumb with fury. The standers-by were dumb too, though such fracas were then not uncommon even in drawing-rooms, and in women’s presence, especially with men of Mr. Brithwood’s stamp. His wife seemed quite used to it. She merely shrugged her shoulders and hummed a note or two of “Ca ira.” It irritated the husband beyond all bounds.
“Hold your tongue, my lady. What, because a ’prentice-lad once saved my life, and you choose to patronise him as you do many another vagabond, with your cursed liberty and equality, am I to have him at my table, and treat him as a gentleman? By —, madam, never!”
He spoke savagely, and loud. John was silent; he had locked his hands together convulsively; but it was easy to see that his blood was at boiling heat, and that, did he once slip the leash of his passions, it would go hard with Richard Brithwood.
The latter came up to him with clenched fist. “Now mark me, you—you vagabond!”
Ursula March crossed the room, and caught his arm, her eyes gleaming fire.
226“Cousin, in my presence this gentleman shall be treated as a gentleman. He was kind to my father.”
“Curse your father!”
John’s right hand burst free; he clutched the savage by the shoulder.
“Be silent. You had better.”
Brithwood shook off the grasp, turned and struck him; that last fatal insult, which offered from man to man, in those days, could only be wiped out with blood.
John staggered. For a moment he seemed as if he would have sprung on his adversary and felled him to the ground—but—he did it not.
Some one whispered,—“He won’t fight. He is a Quaker.”
“No!” he said, and stood erect; though he was ghastly pale, and his voice sounded hoarse and strange—“But I am a Christian. I shall not return blow for blow.”
It was a new doctrine; foreign to the practice, if familiar to the ear, of Christian Norton Bury. No one answered him; all stared at him; one or two sheered off from him with contemptuous smiles. Then Ursula March stretched out her friendly hand. John took it, and grew calm in a moment.
There arose a murmur of “Mr. Brithwood is going.”
“Let him go!” Miss March cried, anger still glowing in her eyes.
“Not so—it is not right. I will speak to him. May I?” John softly unclosed her detaining hand, and went up to Mr. Brithwood. “Sir, there is no need for you to leave this house—I am leaving it. You and I shall not meet again if I can help it.”
His proud courtesy, his absolute dignity and calmness, completely overwhelmed his blustering adversary; who gazed open-mouthed, while John made his adieu to his host and to those he knew. The women gathered round him—woman’s instinct is usually true. Even Lady Caroline, amid a flutter of regrets, declared she did not believe there was a man in the universe 227who would have borne so charmingly such a “degradation.”
At the word Miss March fired up. “Madam,” she said, in her impetuous young voice, “no insult offered to a man can ever degrade him; the only real degradation is when he degrades himself.”
John, passing out at the doorway, caught her words. As he quitted the room no crowned victor ever wore a look more joyful, more proud.
After a minute we followed him; the Doctor’s wife and I. But now the pride and joy had both faded.
“Mrs. Jessop, you see I am right,” he murmured. “I ought not to have come here. It is a hard world for such as I. I shall never conquer it—never.”
“Y
es—you will.” And Ursula stood by him, with crimsoned cheek, and eyes no longer flashing, but fearless still.
Mrs. Jessop put her arm round the young girl. “I also think you need not dread the world, Mr. Halifax, if you always act as you did tonight; though I grieve that things should have happened thus, if only for the sake of this, my child.”
“Have I done any harm? oh! tell me, have I done any harm?”
“No!” cried Ursula, with the old impetuosity kindling anew in every feature of her noble face. “You have but showed me what I shall remember all my life—that a Christian only can be a true gentleman.”
She understood him—he felt she did; understood him as, if a man be understood by one woman in the world, he—and she too—is strong, safe, and happy. They grasped hands once more, and gazed unhesitatingly into each other’s eyes. All human passion for the time being set aside, these two recognized each in the other one aim, one purpose, one faith; something higher than love, something better than happiness. It must have been a blessed moment for both.
228Mrs. Jessop did not interfere. She had herself known what true love was, if, as gossips said, she had kept constant to our worthy doctor for thirty years. But still she was a prudent woman, not unused to the world.
“You must go now,” she said, laying her hand gently on John’s arm.
“I am going. But she—what will she do?”
“Never mind me. Jane will take care of me,” said Ursula, winding her arms round her old governess, and leaning her cheek down on Mrs. Jessop’s shoulder.
We had never seen Miss March show fondness, that is, caressing fondness, to any one before. It revealed her in a new light; betraying the depths there were in her nature; infinite depths of softness and of love.
John watched her for a minute; a long, wild, greedy minute, then whispered hoarsely to me, “I must go.”
We made a hasty adieu, and went out together into the night—the cold, bleak night, all blast and storm.
229CHAPTER XVIII
For weeks after then, we went on in our usual way; Ursula March living within a stone’s throw of us. She had left her cousin’s, and come to reside with Dr. Jessop and his wife.
It was a very hard trial for John.
Neither of us were again invited by Mrs. Jessop. We could not blame her; she held a precious charge, and Norton Bury was a horrible place for gossip. Already tale after tale had gone abroad about Miss March’s “ingratitude” to her relations. Already tongue after tongue had repeated, in every possible form of lying, the anecdote of “young Halifax and the ’squire.” Had it been “young Halifax and Miss March,” I truly believe John could not have borne it.
As it was, though he saw her constantly, it was always by chance—a momentary glimpse at the window, or a passing acknowledgment in the street. I knew quite well when he had thus met her, whether he mentioned it or not—knew by the wild, troubled look, which did not wear off for hours.
I watched him closely, day by day, in an agony of doubt and pain.
For, though he said nothing, a great change was creeping over “the lad,” as I still fondly called him. His strength, the glory of a young man, was going from him—he was becoming 230thin, weak, restless-eyed. That healthy energy and gentle composure, which had been so beautiful in him all his life through, were utterly lost.
“What am I to do with thee, David?” said I to him one evening, when he had come in, looking worse than usual—I knew why; for Ursula and her friend had just passed our house taking their pleasant walk in the spring twilight. “Thou art very ill, I fear?”
“Not at all. There is not the least thing the matter with me. Do let me alone.”
Two minutes afterwards he begged my pardon for those sharp-spoken words. “It was not THEE that spoke, John,” I said.
“No, you are right, it was not I. It was a sort of devil that lodges here:” he touched his breast. “The chamber he lives in is at times a burning hell.”
He spoke in a low tone of great anguish. What could I answer? Nothing.
We stood at the window, looking idly out. The chestnut trees in the Abbey-yard were budding green: there came that faint, sweet sound of children at play, which one hears as the days begin to lengthen.
“It’s a lovely evening,” he said.
“John!” I looked him in the face. He could not palm off that kind deceit upon me. “You have heard something about her?”
“I have,” he groaned. “She is leaving Norton Bury.”
“Thank God!” I muttered.
John turned fiercely upon me—but only for a moment. “Perhaps I too ought to say, ‘Thank God.’ This could not have lasted long, or it would have made me—what I pray His mercy to save me from, or to let me die. Oh, lad, if I could only die.”
He bent down over the window-sill, crushing his forehead on his hands.
231“John,” I said, in this depth of despair snatching at an equally desperate hope, “what if, instead of keeping this silence, you were to go to her and tell her all?”
“I have thought of that: a noble thought, worthy of a poor ’prentice lad! Why, two several evenings I have been insane enough to walk to Dr. Jessop’s door, which I have never entered, and—mark you well! they have never asked me to enter since that night. But each time ere I knocked my senses came back, and I went home—luckily having made myself neither a fool nor a knave.”
There was no answer to this either. Alas! I knew as well as he did, that in the eye of the world’s common sense, for a young man not twenty-one, a tradesman’s apprentice, to ask the hand of a young gentlewoman, uncertain if she loved him, was most utter folly. Also, for a penniless youth to sue a lady with a fortune, even though it was (the Brithwoods took care to publish the fact) smaller than was at first supposed—would, in the eye of the world’s honour, be not very much unlike knavery. There was no help—none!
“David,” I groaned, “I would you had never seen her.”
“Hush!—not a word like that. If you heard all I hear of her—daily—hourly—her unselfishness, her energy, her generous, warm heart! It is blessedness even to have known her. She is an angel—no, better than that, a woman! I did not want her for a saint in a shrine—I wanted her as a help-meet, to walk with me in my daily life, to comfort me, strengthen me, make me pure and good. I could be a good man if I had her for my wife. Now—”
He rose, and walked rapidly up and down. His looks were becoming altogether wild.
“Come, Phineas, suppose we go to meet her up the road—as I meet her almost every day. Sometimes she merely bends and smiles, sometimes she holds out her little hand, and ‘hopes I am quite well!’ And then they pass on, and I stand gaping 232and staring after them like an idiot. There—look—there they are now.”
Ay! walking leisurely along the other side of the road—talking and smiling to one another, in their own merry, familiar way, were Mrs. Jessop and Miss March.
They were not thinking of us, not the least. Only just ere they passed our house Ursula turned slightly round, and looked behind; a quiet, maidenly look, with the smile still lingering on her mouth. She saw nothing, and no one; for John had pulled me from the window, and placed himself out of sight. So, turning back again, she went on her way. They both disappeared.
“Now, Phineas, it is all ended.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have looked on her for the last time.”
“Nay—she is not going yet.”
“But I am—fleeing from the devil and his angels. Hurrah, Phineas, lad! We’ll have a merry night. To-morrow I am away to Bristol, to set sail for America.”
He wrung my hands with a long, loud, half-mad laugh; and then dropped heavily on a chair.
A few hours after, he was lying on my bed, struck down by the first real sickness he had ever known. It was apparently a low agueish fever, which had been much about Norton Bury since the famine of last year. At least, so Jael said; and she was a wise doctoress, and had cured many. He would have no one else
to attend him—seemed terrified at the mere mention of Dr. Jessop. I opposed him not at first, for well I knew, whatever the proximate cause of his sickness might be, its root was in that mental pang which no doctors could cure. So I trusted to the blessed quiet of a sick-room—often so healing to misery—to Jael’s nursing, and his brother’s love.
After a few days we called in a physician—a stranger from Coltham—who pronounced it to be this Norton Bury fever, caught through living, as he still persisted in doing, in his old 233attic, in that unhealthy alley where was Sally Watkins’s house. It must have been coming on, the doctor said, for a long time; but it had no doubt now reached its crisis. He would be better soon.
But he did not get better. Days slid into weeks, and still he lay there, never complaining, scarcely appearing to suffer, except from the wasting of the fever; yet when I spoke of recovery he “turned his face unto the wall”—weary of living.
Once, when he had lain thus a whole morning, hardly speaking a word, I began to feel growing palpable the truth which day by day I had thrust behind me as some intangible, impossible dread—that ere now people had died of mere soul-sickness, without any bodily disease. I took up his poor hand that lay on the counterpane;—once, at Enderley, he had regretted its somewhat coarse strength: now Ursula’s own was not thinner or whiter. He drew it back.
“Oh, Phineas, lad, don’t touch me—only let me rest.”
The weak, querulous voice—that awful longing for rest! What if, despite all the physician’s assurances, he might be sinking, sinking—my friend, my hope, my pride, all my comfort in this life—passing from it and from me into another, where, let me call never so wildly, he could not answer me any more, nor come back to me any more.
Oh, God of mercy! if I were to be left in this world without my brother!
I had many a time thought over the leaving him, going quietly away when it should please the Giver of all breath to recall mine, falling asleep, encompassed and sustained by his love until the last; then, a burden no longer, leaving him to work out a glorious life, whose rich web should include and bring to beautiful perfection all the poor broken threads in mine. But now, if this should be all vain, if he should go from me, not I from him—I slid down to the ground, to my knees, and the dumb cry of my agony went up on high.
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