John Halifax, Gentleman

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

  “It is partly my fault, that I did not pay the rent to-day—I will do so at once. I will get your goods back to-night, if I can. If not, you hale fellows can rough it, and we’ll take the women and children in till morning—can we not, love?”

  “Oh, readily!” said the mother. “Don’t cry, my good women. Mary Baines, give me your baby. Cheer up, the master will set all right!”

  John smiled at her in fond thanks—the wife who hindered him by no selfishness or weakness, but was his right hand and support in everything. As he mounted, she gave him his whip, whispering—

  “Take care of yourself, mind. Come back as soon as you can.”

  And lingeringly she watched him gallop down the field.

  It was a strange three hours we passed in his absence. The misty night came down, and round about the house crept wailing the loud September wind. We brought the women into the kitchen—the men lit a fire in the farm-yard, and sat sullenly round it. It was as much as I could do to persuade Guy and Edwin to go to bed, instead of watching that “beautiful blaze.” There, more than once, I saw the mother standing, with a shawl over her head, and her white gown blowing, trying to reason into patience those poor fellows, savage with their wrongs.

  “How far have they been wronged, Phineas? What is the strict law of the case? Will any harm come to John for interfering?”

  I told her, no, so far as I knew. That the cruelty and illegality lay in the haste of the distraint, and in the goods having been carried off at once, giving no opportunity of redeeming them. It was easy to grind the faces of the poor, who had no helper.

  350“Never mind; my husband will see them righted—at all risks.”

  “But Lord Luxmore is his landlord.”

  She looked troubled. “I see what you mean. It is easy to make an enemy. No matter—I fear not. I fear nothing while John does what he feels to be right—as I know he will; the issue is in higher hands than ours or Lord Luxmore’s. But where’s Muriel?”

  For as we sat talking, the little girl—whom nothing could persuade to go to bed till her father came home—had slipped from my hand, and gone out into the blustering night. We found her standing all by herself under the walnut-tree.

  “I wanted to listen for father. When will he come?”

  “Soon, I hope,” answered the mother, with a sigh. “You must not stay out in the cold and the dark, my child.”

  “I am not cold, and I know no dark,” said Muriel, softly.

  And thus so it was with her always. In her spirit, as in her outward life, so innocent and harmless, she knew no dark. No cold looks—no sorrowful sights—no winter—no age. The hand laid upon her clear eyes pressed eternal peace down on her soul. I believe she was, if ever human being was, purely and entirely happy. It was always sweet for us to know this—it is very sweet still, Muriel, our beloved!

  We brought her within the house, but she persisted in sitting in her usual place, on the door-sill, “waiting” for her father. It was she who first heard the white gate swing, and told us he was coming.

  Ursula ran down to the stream to meet him.

  When they came up the path, it was not alone—John was helping a lame old woman, and his wife carried in her arms a sick child, on whom, when they entered the kitchen, Mary Baines threw herself in a passion of crying.

  “What have they been doing to ’ee, Tommy?—’ee warn’t like this when I left ’ee. Oh, they’ve been killing my lad, they have!”

  351“Hush!” said Mrs. Halifax; “we’ll get him well again, please God. Listen to what the master’s saying.”

  He was telling to the men who gathered round the kitchen-door the results of his journey.

  It was—as I had expected from his countenance the first minute he appeared—fruitless. He had found all things at Kingswell as stated. Then he rode to the sheriff’s; but Sir Ralph was absent, sent for to Luxmore Hall on very painful business.

  “My friends,” said the master, stopping abruptly in his narrative, “for a few hours you must make up your minds to sit still and bear it. Every man has to learn that lesson at times. Your landlord has—I would rather be the poorest among you than Lord Luxmore this night. Be patient; we’ll lodge you all somehow. To-morrow I will pay your rent—get your goods back—and you shall begin the world again, as my tenants, not Lord Luxmore’s.”

  “Hurrah!” shouted the men, easily satisfied; as working people are, who have been used all their days to live from hand to mouth, and to whom the present is all in all. They followed the master, who settled them in the barn; and then came back to consult with his wife as to where the women could be stowed away. So, in a short time, the five homeless families were cheerily disposed of—all but Mary Baines and her sick boy.

  “What can we do with them?” said John, questioningly to Ursula.

  “I see but one course. We must take him in; his mother says hunger is the chief thing that ails the lad. She fancies that he has had the measles; but our children have had it too, so there’s no fear. Come up-stairs, Mary Baines.”

  Passing, with a thankful look, the room where her own boys slept, the good mother established this forlorn young mother and her two children in a little closet outside the nursery door; cheered her with comfortable words; helped her ignorance with wise counsels—for Ursula was the general doctress of all the poor 352folk round. It was almost midnight before she came down to the parlour where John and I sat, he with little Muriel asleep in his arms. The child would gladly have slumbered away all night there, with the delicate, pale profile pressed close into his breast.

  “Is all right, love? How tired you must be!” John put his left arm round his wife as she came and knelt by him, in front of the cheerful fire.

  “Tired? Oh, of course; but you can’t think how comfortable they are up-stairs. Only poor Mary Baines does nothing but cry, and keep telling me that nothing ails her lad but hunger. Are they so very poor?”

  John did not immediately answer; I fancied he looked suddenly uneasy, and imperceptibly pressed his little girl closer to him.

  “The lad seems very ill. Much worse than our children were with measles.”

  “Yet how they suffered, poor pets! especially Walter. It was the thought of them made me pity her so. Surely I have not done wrong?”

  “No—love; quite right and kind. Acting so, I think one need not fear. See, mother, how soundly Muriel sleeps. It’s almost a pity to waken her—but we must go to bed now.”

  “Stay one minute,” I said. “Tell us, John—I quite forgot to ask till now—what is that ‘painful business’ you mentioned, which called the sheriff to Lord Luxmore’s?”

  John glanced at his wife, leaning fondly against him, her face full of sweet peace, then at his little daughter asleep, then round the cheerful fire-lit room, outside which the autumn night-wind went howling furiously.

  “Love, we that are so happy, we must not, dare not condemn.”

  She looked at him with a shocked inquiry. “You don’t mean—No; it is impossible!”

  “It is true. She has gone away.”

  353Ursula sank down, hiding her face. “Horrible! And only two days since she was here, kissing our children.”

  We all three kept a long silence; then I ventured to ask when she went away?

  “This morning, early. They took—at least, Mr. Vermilye did—all the property of Lord Luxmore’s that he could lay his hands upon—family jewels and money to a considerable amount. The earl is pursuing him now, not only as his daughter’s seducer, but as a swindler and a thief.”

  “And Richard Brithwood?”

  “Drinks—and drinks—and drinks. That is the beginning and the end of all.”

  There was no more to be said. She had dropped for ever out of her old life, as completely as a star out of the sky. Henceforth, for years and years, neither in our home, nor, I believe, in any other, was there the slightest mention made of Lady Caroline Brithwood.

  All the next day John was from home, settling the Kingswell affair. The
ejected tenants—our tenants now—left us at last, giving a parting cheer for Mr. Halifax, the best master in all England.

  Sitting down to tea, with no small relief that all was over, John asked his wife after the sick lad.

  “He is very ill still, I think.”

  “Are you sure it is measles?”

  “I imagine so; and I have seen nearly all childish diseases, except—no, THAT is quite impossible!” added the mother, hastily. She cast an anxious glance on her little ones; her hand slightly shook as she poured out their cups of milk. “Do you think, John—it was hard to do it when the child is so ill—I ought to have sent them away with the others?”

  “Certainly not. If it were anything dangerous, of course Mary Baines would have told us. What are the lad’s symptoms?”

  354As Ursula informed him, I thought he looked more and more serious; but he did not let her see.

  “Make your mind easy, love; a word from Dr. Jessop will decide all. I will fetch him after tea. Cheer up! Please God, no harm will come to our little ones!”

  The mother brightened again; with her all the rest; and the tea-table clatter went on merry as ever. Then, it being a wet night, Mrs. Halifax gathered her boys round her knee for an evening chat over the kitchen-fire; while through the open door, out of the dim parlour came “Muriel’s voice,” as we called the harpsichord. It seemed sweeter than ever this night, like—as her father once said, but checked himself, and never said it afterwards—like Muriel talking with angels.

  He sat listening awhile, then, without any remark, put on his coat and went out to fetch the good doctor. I followed him down to the stream.

  “Phineas,” he said, “will you mind—don’t notice it to the mother—but mind and keep her and the children down-stairs till I come back?”

  I promised. “Are you uneasy about Mary Baines’s lad?”

  “No; I have full trust in human means, and above all, in—what I need not speak of. Still, precautions are wise. Do you remember that day when, rather against Ursula’s wish, I vaccinated the children?”

  I remembered. Also that the virus had taken effect with all but Muriel; and we had lately talked of repeating the much-blamed and miraculous experiment upon her. I hinted this.

  “Phineas, you mistake,” he answered, rather sharply. “She is quite safe—as safe as the others. I wrote to Dr. Jenner himself. But don’t mention that I spoke about this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because to-day I heard that they have had the small-pox at Kingswell.”

  I felt a cold shudder. Though inoculation and vaccination 355had made it less fatal among the upper classes, this frightful scourge still decimated the poor, especially children. Great was the obstinacy in refusing relief; and loud the outcry in Norton Bury, when Mr. Halifax, who had met and known Dr. Jenner in London—finding no practitioner that would do it, persisted in administering the vaccine virus himself to his children. But still, with a natural fear, he had kept them out of all risk of taking the small-pox until now.

  “John, do you think—”

  “No; I will not allow myself to think. Not a word of this at home, mind. Good-bye!”

  He walked away, and I returned up the path heavily, as if a cloud of terror and dole were visibly hanging over our happy Longfield.

  The doctor appeared; he went up to the sick lad; then he and Mr. Halifax were closeted together for a long time. After he was gone, John came into the kitchen, where Ursula sat with Walter on her knee. The child was in his little white night-gown, playing with his elder brothers, and warming his rosy toes.

  The mother had recovered herself entirely: was content and gay. I saw John’s glance at her, and then—and then I feared.

  “What does the doctor say? The child will soon be well?”

  “We must hope so.”

  “John, what do you mean? I thought the little fellow looked better when I went up to see him last. And there—I hear the poor mother up-stairs crying.”

  “She may cry; she has need,” said John, bitterly. “She knew it all the while. She never thought of our children; but they are safe. Be content, love—please God, they are quite safe. Very few take it after vaccination.”

  “It—do you mean the small-pox? Has the lad got small-pox? Oh, God help us! My children—my children!”

  She grew white as death; long shivers came over her from head to foot. The little boys, frightened, crept up to her; she 356clasped them all together in her arms, turning her head with a wild savage look, as if some one were stealing behind to take them from her.

  Muriel, perceiving the silence, felt her way across the room, and touching her mother’s face, said, anxiously, “Has anybody been naughty?”

  “No, my darling; no!”

  “Then never mind. Father says, nothing will harm us, except being naughty. Did you not, father?”

  John snatched his little daughter up to his bosom, and called her for the hundredth time the name my poor old father had named her—the “blessed” child.

  We all grew calmer; the mother wept a little, and it did her good: we comforted the boys and Muriel, telling them that in truth nothing was the matter, only we were afraid of their catching the little lad’s sickness, and they must not go near him.

  “Yes; she shall quit the house this minute—this very minute,” said the mother, sternly, but with a sort of wildness too.

  Her husband made no immediate answer; but as she rose to leave the room, he detained her. “Ursula, do you know the child is all but dying?”

  “Let him die! The wicked woman! She knew it, and she let me bring him among my children—my own poor children!”

  “I would she had never come. But what is done, is done. Love, think—if YOU were turned out of doors this bleak, rainy night—with a dying child.”

  “Hush! hush!”—She sank down with a sob.

  “My darling!” whispered John, as he made her lean against him—her support and comfort in all things: “do you think my heart is not ready to break, like yours? But I trust in God. This trouble came upon us while we were doing right; let us do right still, and we need not fear. Humanly speaking, our children are safe; it is only our own terror which exaggerates 357the danger. They may not take the disease at all. Then, how could we answer it to our conscience if we turned out this poor soul, and HER child died?”

  “No! no!”

  “We will use all precautions. The boys shall be moved to the other end of the house.”

  I proposed that they should occupy my room, as I had had smallpox, and was safe.

  “Thank you, Phineas; and even should they take it, Dr. Jenner has assured me that in every case after vaccination it has been the very slightest form of the complaint. Be patient, love; trust in God, and have no fear.”

  Her husband’s voice gradually calmed her. At last, she turned and clung round his neck, silently and long. Then she rose up and went about her usual duties, just as if this horrible dread were not upon us.

  Mary Baines and her children stayed in the house. Next day, about noon, the little lad died.

  It was the first death that had ever happened under our roof. It shocked us all very much, especially the children. We kept them far away on the other side of the house—out of the house, when possible—but still they would be coming back and looking up at the window, at which, as Muriel declared, the little sick boy “had turned into an angel and flown away.” The mother allowed the fancy to remain; she thought it wrong and horrible that a child’s first idea should be “putting into the pit-hole.” Truer and more beautiful was Muriel’s instinctive notion of “turning into an angel and flying away.” So we arranged that the poor little body should be coffined and removed before the children rose next morning.

  It was a very quiet tea-time. A sense of awe was upon the little ones, they knew not why. Many questions they asked about poor Tommy Baines, and where he had gone to, which the mother only answered after the simple manner of 358Scripture—he “was not, for God took him.” B
ut when they saw Mary Baines go crying down the field-path, Muriel asked “why she cried? how could she cry, when it was God who had taken little Tommy?”

  Afterwards she tried to learn of me privately, what sort of place it was he had gone to, and how he went; whether he had carried with him all his clothes, and especially the great bunch of woodbine she sent to him yesterday; and above all, whether he had gone by himself, or if some of the “angels,” which held so large a place in Muriel’s thoughts, and of which she was ever talking, had come to fetch him and take care of him. She hoped—indeed, she felt sure—they had. She wished she had met them, or heard them about in the house.

  And seeing how the child’s mind was running on the subject, I thought it best to explain to her as simply as I could, the solemn putting off of life and putting on of immortality. I wished that my darling, who could never visibly behold death, should understand it as no image of terror, but only as a calm sleep and a joyful waking in another country, the glories of which eye had not seen nor ear heard.

  “Eye has not seen!” repeated Muriel, thoughtfully; “can people SEE there, Uncle Phineas?”

  “Yes, my child. There is no darkness at all.”

  She paused a minute, and said earnestly, “I want to go—I very much want to go. How long do you think it will be before the angels come for me?”

  “Many, many years, my precious one,” said I, shuddering; for truly she looked so like them, that I began to fear they were close at hand.

  But a few minutes afterwards she was playing with her brothers and talking to her pet doves, so sweet and humanlike, that the fear passed away.

  We sent the children early to bed that night, and sat long by the fire, consulting how best to remove infection, and almost 359satisfied that in these two days it could not have taken any great hold on the house. John was firm in his belief in Dr. Jenner and vaccination. We went to bed greatly comforted, and the household sank into quiet slumbers, even though under its roof slept, in deeper sleep, the little dead child.