John Halifax, Gentleman

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

  “Brown is—(may I offer you a pinch, Mr. Halifax?—what, not the Prince Regent’s own mixture?)—is indeed a worthy fellow, but too hasty in his conclusions. As it happens, my son is yet undecided between the Church—that is, the priesthood, and politics. But to our conversation—Mrs. Halifax, may I not enlist you on my side? We could easily remove all difficulties, such as qualification, etc. Would you not like to see your husband member for the old and honourable borough of Kingswell?”

  “Kingswell!” It was a tumble-down village, where John held and managed for me the sole remnant of landed property which my poor father had left me. “Kingswell! why there are not a dozen houses in the place.”

  “The fewer the better, my dear madam. The election would cost me scarcely any—trouble; and the country be vastly the gainer by your husband’s talents and probity. Of course he will give up the—I forget what is his business now—and live independent. He is made to shine as a politician: it will be both happiness and honour to myself to have in some way contributed to that end. Mr. Halifax, you will accept my borough?”

  “Not on any consideration your lordship could offer me.”

  Lord Luxmore scarcely credited his ears. “My dear sir—you are the most extraordinary—may I again inquire your reasons?”

  “I have several; one will suffice. Though I wish to gain 297influence—power perhaps; still the last thing I should desire would be political influence.”

  “You might possibly escape that unwelcome possession,” returned the earl. “Half the House of Commons is made up of harmless dummies, who vote as we bid them.”

  “A character, my lord, for which I am decidedly unfitted. Until political conscience ceases to be a thing of traffic, until the people are allowed honestly to choose their own honest representatives, I must decline being of that number. Shall we dismiss the subject?”

  “With pleasure, sir.”

  And courtesy being met by courtesy, the question so momentous was passed over, and merged into trivialities. Perhaps the earl, who, as his pleasures palled, was understood to be fixing his keen wits upon the pet profligacy of old age, politics—saw, clearly enough, that in these chaotic days of contending parties, when the maddened outcry of the “people” was just being heard and listened to, it might be as well not to make an enemy of this young man, who, with a few more, stood as it were midway in the gulf, now slowly beginning to narrow, between the commonalty and the aristocracy. He stayed some time longer, and then bowed himself away with a gracious condescension worthy of the Prince of Wales himself, carrying with him the shy, gentle Lord Ravenel, who had spoken scarcely six words the whole time.

  When he was gone the father and mother seemed both relieved.

  “Truly, John, he has gained little by his visit, and I hope it may be long before we see an earl in our quiet house again. Come in to dinner, my children.”

  But his lordship had left an uncomfortable impression behind him. It lasted even until that quiet hour—often the quietest and happiest of our day—when, the children being all in bed, we elders closed in round the fire.

  298Ursula and I sat there, longer alone than usual.

  “John is late to-night,” she said more than once; and I could see her start, listening to every foot under the window, every touch at the door-bell; not stirring, though: she knew his foot and his ring quite well always.

  “There he is!” we both said at once—much relieved; and John came in.

  Brightness always came in with him. Whatever cares he had without—and they were heavy enough, God knows—they always seemed to slip off the moment he entered his own door; and whatever slight cares we had at home, we put them aside; as they could not but be put aside, nay, forgotten—at the sight of him.

  “Well, Uncle Phineas! Children all right, my darling? A fire! I’m glad of it. Truly to-night is as cold as November.”

  “John, if you have a weakness, it is for fire. You’re a regular salamander.”

  He laughed—warming his hands at the blaze. “Yes, I would rather be hungry than cold, any day. Love, our one extravagance is certainly coals. A grand fire this! I do like it so!”

  She called him “foolish;” but smoothed down with a quiet kiss the forehead he lifted up to her as she stood beside him, looking as if she would any day have converted the whole house into fuel for his own private and particular benefit.

  “Little ones all in bed, of course?”

  “Indeed, they would have lain awake half the night—those naughty boys—talking of Longfield. You never saw children so delighted.”

  “Are they?” I thought the tone was rather sad, and that the father sat listening with less interest than usual to the pleasant little household chronicle, always wonderful and always new, which it was his custom to ask for and have, night after night, when he came home,—saying it was to him, after his day’s toil, like a “babbling o’ green fields.” Soon it stopped.

  299“John dear, you are very tired?”

  “Rather.”

  “Have you been very busy all day?”

  “Very busy.”

  I understood, almost as well as his wife did, what those brief answers indicated; so, stealing away to the table where Guy’s blurred copy-book and Edwin’s astonishing addition sums were greatly in need of Uncle Phineas, I left the fire-side corner to those two. Soon John settled himself in my easy chair, and then one saw how very weary he was—weary in body and soul alike—weary as we seldom beheld him. It went to my heart to watch the listless stretch of his large, strong frame—the sharp lines about his mouth—lines which ought not to have come there in his two-and-thirty years. And his eyes—they hardly looked like John’s eyes, as they gazed in a sort of dull quietude, too anxious to be dreamy, into the red coals—and nowhere else.

  At last he roused himself, and took up his wife’s work.

  “More little coats! Love, you are always sewing.”

  “Mothers must—you know. And I think never did boys outgrow their things like our boys. It is pleasant, too. If only clothes did not wear out so fast.”

  “Ah!” A sigh—from the very depths of the father’s heart.

  “Not a bit too fast for my clever fingers, though,” said Ursula, quickly. “Look, John, at this lovely braiding. But I’m not going to do any more of it. I shall certainly have no time to waste over fineries at Longfield.”

  Her husband took up the fanciful work, admired it, and laid it down again. After a pause he said:

  “Should you be very much disappointed if—if we do not go to Longfield after all?”

  “Not go to Longfield!” The involuntary exclamation showed how deep her longing had been.

  “Because I am afraid—it is hard, I know—but I am afraid we cannot manage it. Are you very sorry?”

  300“Yes,” she said frankly and truthfully. “Not so much for myself, but—the children.”

  “Ay, the poor children.”

  Ursula stitched away rapidly for some moments, till the grieved look faded out of her face; then she turned it, all cheerful once more, to her husband. “Now, John, tell me. Never mind about the children. Tell me.”

  He told her, as was his habit at all times, of some losses which had to-day befallen him—bad debts in his business—which would make it, if not impracticable, at least imprudent, to enter on any new expenses that year. Nay, he must, if possible, retrench a little. Ursula listened, without question, comment, or complaint.

  “Is that all?” she said at last, very gently.

  “All.”

  “Then never mind. I do not. We will find some other pleasures for the children. We have so many pleasures, ay, all of us. Husband, it is not so hard to give up this one.”

  He said, in a whisper, low almost as a lover’s, “I could give up anything in the world but them and thee.”

  So, with a brief information to me at supper-time—“Uncle Phineas, did you hear? we cannot go to Longfield,”—the renunciation was made, and the subject ended. For this year, at least,
our Arcadian dream was over.

  But John’s troubled looks did not pass away. It seemed as if this night his long toil had come to that crisis when the strongest man breaks down—or trembles within a hair’s breadth of breaking down; conscious too, horribly conscious, that if so, himself will be the least part of the universal ruin. His face was haggard, his movements irritable and restless; he started nervously at every sound. Sometimes even a hasty word, an uneasiness about trifles, showed how strong was the effort he made at self-control. Ursula, usually by far the most quick-tempered of the two, became to-night mild and patient. She 301neither watched nor questioned him—wise woman as she was; she only sat still, busying herself over her work, speaking now and then of little things, lest he should notice her anxiety about him. He did at last.

  “Nay, I am not ill, do not be afraid. Only my head aches so—let me lay it here as the children do.”

  His wife made a place for it on her shoulder; there it rested—the poor tired head, until gradually the hard and painful expression of the features relaxed, and it became John’s own natural face—as quiet as any of the little faces on their pillows up-stairs, whence, doubtless, slumber had long banished all anticipation of Longfield. At last he too fell asleep.

  Ursula held up her finger, that I might not stir. The clock in the corner, and the soft sobbing of the flame on the hearth, were the only sounds in the parlour. She sewed on quietly, to the end of her work; then let it drop on her lap, and sat still. Her cheek leaned itself softly against John’s hair, and in her eyes, which seemed so intently contemplating the little frock, I saw large bright tears gather—fall. But her look was serene, nay, happy; as if she thought of these beloved ones, husband and children—her very own—preserved to her in health and peace,—ay, and in that which is better than either, the unity of love. For that priceless blessing, for the comfort of being HIS comfort, for the sweetness of bringing up these his children in the fear of God and in the honour of their father—she, true wife and mother as she was, would not have exchanged the wealth of the whole world.

  “What’s that?” We all started, as a sudden ring at the bell pealed through the house, waking John, and frightening the very children in their beds. All for a mere letter too, brought by a lacquey of Lord Luxmore’s. Having—somewhat indignantly—ascertained this fact, the mother ran upstairs to quiet her little ones. When she came down, John still stood with the letter in his hand. He had not told me what it was; when I 302chanced to ask he answered in a low tone—“Presently!” On his wife’s entrance he gave her the letter without a word.

  Well might it startle her into a cry of joy. Truly the dealings of heaven to us were wonderful!

  “Mr. John Halifax.

  “SIR,

  “Your wife, Ursula Halifax, having some time since attained the age fixed by her late father as her majority, I will, within a month after date, pay over to your order all moneys, principal and interest, accruing to her, and hitherto left in my hands, as trustee, according to the will of the late Henry March, Esquire.

  “I am, sir,

  “Yours, etc.,

  “RICHARD BRITHWOOD.”

  “Wonderful—wonderful!”

  It was all I could say. That one bad man, for his own purposes, should influence another bad man to an act of justice—and that their double evil should be made to work out our good! Also, that this should come just in our time of need—when John’s strength seemed ready to fail.

  “Oh John—John! now you need not work so hard!”

  That was his wife’s first cry, as she clung to him almost in tears.

  He too was a good deal agitated. This sudden lifting of the burthen made him feel how heavy it had been—how terrible the responsibility—how sickening the fear.

  “Thank God! In any case, you are quite safe now—you and the children!”

  He sat down, very pale. His wife knelt beside him, and put her arms around his neck—I quietly went out of the room.

  When I came in again, they were standing by the fire-side—303both cheerful, as two people to whom had happened such unexpected good fortune might naturally be expected to appear. I offered my congratulations in rather a comical vein than otherwise; we all of us had caught John’s habit of putting things in a comic light whenever he felt them keenly.

  “Yes, he is a rich man now—mind you treat your brother with extra respect, Phineas.”

  “And your sister too.

  ‘For she sall walk in silk attire,

  And siller hae to spare.’

  She’s quite young and handsome still—isn’t she? How magnificent she’ll look in that grey silk gown!”

  “John, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! you—the father of a family! you—that are to be the largest mill-owner at Enderley—”

  He looked at her fondly, half deprecatingly. “Not till I have made you and the children all safe—as I said.”

  “We are safe—quite safe—when we have you. Oh, Phineas! make him see it as I do. Make him understand that it will be the happiest day in his wife’s life when she knows him happy in his heart’s desire.”

  We sat a little while longer, talking over the strange change in our fortunes—for they wished to make me feel that now, as ever, what was theirs was mine; then Ursula took her candle to depart.

  “Love!” John cried, calling her back as she shut the door, and watching her stand there patient—watching with something of the old mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Mrs. Halifax, when shall I have the honour of ordering your long-tailed grey ponies?”

  304CHAPTER XXIII

  Not many weeks afterwards we went to live at Longfield, which henceforth became the family home for many years.

  Longfield! happy Longfield! little nest of love, and joy, and peace— where the children grew up, and we grew old—where season after season brought some new change ripening in us and around us—where summer and winter, day and night, the hand of God’s providence was over our roof, blessing our goings out and our comings in, our basket and our store; crowning us with the richest blessing of all, that we were made a household where “brethren dwelt together in unity.” Beloved Longfield! my heart, slow pulsing as befits one near the grave, thrills warm and young as I remember thee!

  Yet how shall I describe it—the familiar spot; so familiar that it seems to need no description at all.

  It was but a small place when we first came there. It led out of the high-road by a field-gate—the White Gate; from which a narrow path wound down to a stream, thence up a green slope to the house; a mere farm-house, nothing more. It had one parlour, three decent bed-rooms, kitchen and out-houses; we built extempore chambers out of the barn and cheese-room. In one of these the boys, Guy and Edwin, slept, against the 305low roof of which the father generally knocked his head every morning when he came to call the lads. Its windows were open all summer round, and birds and bats used oftentimes to fly in, to the great delight of the youthful inmates.

  Another infinite pleasure to the little folk was that for the first year, the farm-house kitchen was made our dining-room. There, through the open door, Edwin’s pigeons, Muriel’s two doves, and sometimes a stately hen, walked in and out at pleasure. Whether our live stock, brought up in the law of kindness, were as well-trained and well-behaved as our children, I cannot tell; but certain it is that we never found any harm from this system, necessitated by our early straits at Longfield—this “liberty, fraternity, and equality.”

  Those words, in themselves true and lovely, but wrested to false meaning, whose fatal sound was now dying out of Europe, merged in the equally false and fatal shout of “Gloire! gloire!” remind me of an event which I believe was the first that broke the delicious monotony of our new life.

  It was one September morning. Mrs. Halifax, the children, and I were down at the stream, planning a bridge across it, and a sort of stable, where John’s horse might be put up—the mother had steadily resisted the long-tailed grey ponies. For with all the necessary improvements at Lo
ngfield, with the large settlement that John insisted upon making on his wife and children, before he would use in his business any portion of her fortune, we found we were by no means so rich as to make any great change in our way of life advisable. And, after all, the mother’s best luxuries were to see her children merry and strong, her husband’s face lightened of its care, and to know he was now placed beyond doubt in the position he had always longed for; for was he not this very day gone to sign the lease of Enderley Mills?

  Mrs. Halifax had just looked at her watch, and she and I were wondering, with quite a childish pleasure, whether he 306were not now signing the important deed, when Guy came running to say a coach-and-four was trying to enter the White Gate.

  “Who can it be?—But they must be stopped, or they’ll spoil John’s new gravel road that he takes such pride in. Uncle Phineas, would you mind going to see?”

  Who should I see, but almost the last person I expected—who had not been beheld, hardly spoken of, in our household these ten years—Lady Caroline Brithwood, in her travelling-habit of green cloth, her velvet riding-hat, with its Prince of Wales’ feathers, gayer than ever—though her pretty face was withering under the paint, and her lively manner growing coarse and bold.

  “Is this Longfield?—Does Mr. Halifax—mon Dieu, Mr. Fletcher, is that you?”

  She held out her hand with the frankest condescension, and in the brightest humour in the world. She insisted on sending on the carriage, and accompanying me down to the stream, for a “surprise”—a “scene.”

  Mrs. Halifax, seeing the coach drive on, had evidently forgotten all about it. She stood in the little dell which the stream had made, Walter in her arms—her figure thrown back, so as to poise the child’s weight. Her right hand kept firm hold of Guy, who was paddling barefoot in the stream: Edwin, the only one of the boys who never gave any trouble, was soberly digging away, beside little Muriel.