To-night, she heard all my explanation; understood it, I think, more clearly than I did—probably from being better acquainted with her husband’s plans and fears. She saw at once 370the position in which he was placed; a grave one, to judge by her countenance.
“Then you think John is right?”
“Of course I do.”
I had not meant it as a question, or even a doubt. But it was pleasant to hear her thus answer. For, as I have said, Ursula was not a woman to be led blindfold, even by her husband. Sometimes they differed on minor points, and talked their differences lovingly out; but on any great question she had always this safe trust in him—that if one were right and the other wrong, the erring one was much more likely to be herself than John.
She said no more; but put the children to bed; then came downstairs with her bonnet on.
“Will you come with me, Phineas? Or are you too tired? I am going down to the mill.”
She started, walking quickly—yet not so quick but that on the slope of the common she stooped to pick up a crying child, and send it home to its mother in Enderley village.
It was almost dark, and we met no one else except a young man, whom I had occasionally seen about of evenings. He was rather odd looking, being invariably muffled up in a large cloak and a foreign sort of hat.
“Who is that, watching our mills?” said Mrs. Halifax, hastily.
I told her all I had seen of the person.
“A Papist, most likely—I mean a Catholic.” (John objected to the opprobrious word “Papist.”) “Mrs. Tod says there are a good many hidden hereabouts. They used to find shelter at Luxmore.”
And that name set both our thoughts anxiously wandering; so that not until we reached the foot of the hill did I notice that the person had followed us almost to the mill-gates.
In his empty mill, standing beside one of its silenced looms, 371we found the master. He was very much dejected—Ursula touched his arm before he even saw her.
“Well, love—you know what has happened?”
“Yes, John. But never mind.”
“I would not—except for my poor people.”
“What do you intend doing? That which you have wished to do all the year?”
“Our wishes come as a cross to us sometimes,” he said, rather bitterly. “It is the only thing I can do. The water-power being so greatly lessened, I must either stop the mills, or work them by steam.”
“Do that, then. Set up your steam-engine.”
“And have all the country down upon me for destroying hand-labour? Have a new set of Luddites coming to burn my mill, and break my machinery? That is what Lord Luxmore wants. Did he not say he would ruin me?—Worse than this—he is ruining my good name. If you had heard those poor people whom I sent away tonight! What must they, who will have short work these two months, and after that machinery-work, which they fancy is taking the very bread out of their mouths—what must they think of the master?”
He spoke—as we rarely heard John speak: as worldly cares and worldly injustice cause even the best of men to speak sometimes.
“Poor people!” he added, “how can I blame them? I was actually dumb before them to-night, when they said I must take the cost of what I do—they must have bread for their children. But so must I for mine. Lord Luxmore is the cause of all.”
Here I heard—or fancied I heard—out of the black shadow behind the loom, a heavy sigh. John and Ursula were too anxious to notice it.
“Could anything be done?” she asked. “Just to keep things going till your steam-engine is ready? Will it cost much?”
“More than I like to think of. But it must be;—nothing 372venture— nothing have. You and the children are secure anyhow, that’s one comfort. But oh, my poor people at Enderley!”
Again Ursula asked if nothing could be done.
“Yes—I did think of one plan—but—”
“John, I know what you thought of.”
She laid her hand on his arm, and looked straight up at him—eye to eye. Often, it seemed that from long habit they could read one another’s minds in this way, clearly as a book. At last John said:
“Would it be too hard a sacrifice, love?”
“How can you talk so! We could do it easily, by living in a plainer way; by giving up one or two trifles. Only outside things, you know. Why need we care for outside things?”
“Why, indeed?” he said, in a low, fond tone.
So I easily found out how they meant to settle the difficulty; namely, by setting aside a portion of the annual income which John, in his almost morbid anxiety lest his family should take harm by any possible non-success in his business, had settled upon his wife. Three months of little renunciations—three months of the old narrow way of living, as at Norton Bury—and the poor people at Enderley might have full wages, whether or no there was full work. Then in our quiet valley there would be no want, no murmurings, and, above all, no blaming of the master.
They decided it all—in fewer words than I have taken to write it—it was so easy to decide when both were of one mind.
“Now,” said John, rising, as if a load were taken off his breast—“now, do what he will Lord Luxmore cannot do me any harm.”
“Husband, don’t let us speak of Lord Luxmore.”
Again that sigh—quite ghostly in the darkness. They heard it likewise this time.
“Who’s there?”
“Only I, Mr. Halifax—don’t be angry with me.”
373It was the softest, mildest voice—the voice of one long used to oppression; and the young man whom Ursula had supposed to be a Catholic appeared from behind the loom.
“I do not know you, sir. How came you to enter my mill?”
“I followed Mrs. Halifax. I have often watched her and your children. But you don’t remember me.”
Yes; when he came underneath the light of the one tallow candle, we all recognized the face—more wan than ever—with a sadder and more hopeless look in the large grey eyes.
“I am surprised to see you here, Lord Ravenel.”
“Hush! I hate the very sound of the name. I would have renounced it long ago. I would have hid myself away from him and from the world, if he would have let me.”
“He—do you mean your father?”
The boy—no, he was a young man now, but scarcely looked more than a boy—assented silently, as if afraid to utter the name.
“Would not your coming here displease him?” said John, always tenacious of trenching a hair’s breadth upon any lawful authority.
“It matters not—he is away. He has left me these six months alone at Luxmore.”
“Have you offended him?” asked Ursula, who had cast kindly looks on the thin face, which perhaps reminded her of another—now for ever banished from our sight, and his also.
“He hates me because I am a Catholic, and wish to become a monk.”
The youth crossed himself, then started and looked round, in terror of observers. “You will not betray me? You are a good man, Mr. Halifax, and you spoke warmly for us. Tell me—I will keep your secret—are you a Catholic too?”
“No, indeed.”
“Ah! I hoped you were. But you are sure you will not betray me?”
374Mr. Halifax smiled at such a possibility. Yet, in truth, there was some reason for the young man’s fears; since, even in those days, Catholics were hunted down both by law and by public opinion, as virulently as Protestant nonconformists. All who kept out of the pale of the national church were denounced as schismatics, deists, atheists—it was all one.
“But why do you wish to leave the world?”
“I am sick of it. There never was but one in it I cared for, or who cared for me—and now—Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis.”
His lips moved in a paroxysm of prayer—helpless, parrot-learnt, Latin prayer; yet, being in earnest, it seemed to do him good. The mother, as if she heard in fancy that pitiful cry, which rose to my memory too—“Poor William!—don’t tell William!”—turned a
nd spoke to him kindly, asking him if he would go home with us.
He looked exceedingly surprised. “I—you cannot mean it? After Lord Luxmore has done you all this evil?”
“Is that any reason why I should not do good to his son—that is, if I could? Can I?”
The lad lifted up those soft grey eyes, and then I remembered what his sister had said of Lord Ravenel’s enthusiastic admiration of Mr. Halifax. “Oh, you could—you could.”
“But I and mine are heretics, you know!”
“I will pray for you. Only let me come and see you—you and your children.”
“Come, and welcome.”
“Heartily welcome, Lord—”
“No—not that name, Mrs. Halifax. Call me as they used to call me at St. Omer—Brother Anselmo.”
The mother was half inclined to smile; but John never smiled at any one’s religious beliefs, howsoever foolish. He held in universal sacredness that one rare thing—sincerity,
So henceforward “Brother Anselmo” was almost domesticated at Rose Cottage. What would the earl have said, had 375a little bird flown over to London and told him that his only son, the heir-apparent to his title and political opinions, was in constant and open association—for clandestine acquaintance was against all our laws and rules—with John Halifax the mill-owner, John Halifax the radical, as he was still called sometimes; imbibing principles, modes of life and of thought, which, to say the least, were decidedly different from those of the house of Luxmore!
Above all, what would that noble parent have said, had he been aware that this, his only son, for whom, report whispered, he was already planning a splendid marriage—as grand in a financial point of view as that he planned for his only daughter—that Lord Ravenel was spending all the love of his loving nature in the half paternal, half lover-like sentiment which a young man will sometimes lavish on a mere child—upon John Halifax’s little blind daughter, Muriel!
He said, “She made him good”—our child of peace. He would sit, gazing on her almost as if she were his guardian angel—his patron saint. And the little maid in her quiet way was very fond of him; delighting in his company when her father was not by. But no one ever was to her like her father.
The chief bond between her and Lord Ravenel—or “Anselmo,” as he would have us call him—was music. He taught her to play on the organ, in the empty church close by. There during the long midsummer evenings, they two would sit for hours in the organ-gallery, while I listened down below; hardly believing that such heavenly sounds could come from those small child-fingers; almost ready to fancy she had called down some celestial harmonist to aid her in playing. Since, as we used to say—but by some instinct never said now—Muriel was so fond of “talking with the angels.”
Just at this time, her father saw somewhat less of her than usual. He was oppressed with business cares; daily, hourly vexations. Only twice a week the great water-wheel, the delight 376of our little Edwin as it had once been of his father, might be seen slowly turning; and the water-courses along the meadows, with their mechanically-forced channels, and their pretty sham cataracts, were almost always low or dry. It ceased to be a pleasure to walk in the green hollow, between the two grassy hills, which heretofore Muriel and I had liked even better than the Flat. Now she missed the noise of the water—the cry of the water-hens—the stirring of the reeds. Above all, she missed her father, who was too busy to come out of his mill to us, and hardly ever had a spare minute, even for his little daughter.
He was setting up that wonderful novelty—a steam-engine. He had already been to Manchester and elsewhere, and seen how the new power was applied by Arkwright, Hargreaves, and others; his own ingenuity and mechanical knowledge furnished the rest. He worked early and late—often with his own hands—aided by the men he brought with him from Manchester. For it was necessary to keep the secret—especially in our primitive valley—until the thing was complete. So the ignorant, simple mill people, when they came for their easy Saturday’s wages, only stood and gaped at the mass of iron, and the curiously-shaped brickwork, and wondered what on earth “the master” was about? But he was so thoroughly “the master,” with all his kindness, that no one ventured either to question or interfere.
377CHAPTER XXVII
Summer waned. Already the beech-wood began to turn red, and the little yellow autumn flowers to show themselves all over the common, while in the midst of them looked up the large purple eye of the ground-thistle. The mornings grew hazy and dewy. We ceased to take Muriel out with us in our slow walk along John’s favourite “terrace” before any one else was stirring. Her father at first missed her sorely, but always kept repeating that “early walks were not good for children.” At last he gave up the walk altogether, and used to sit with her on his knee in front of the cottage till breakfast-time.
After that, saying with a kind of jealousy “that every one of us had more of his little daughter than he,” he got into a habit of fetching her down to the mill every day at noon, and carrying her about in his arms, wherever he went, during the rest of his work.
Many a time I have seen the rough, coarse, blue-handed, blue-pinafored women of the mill stop and look wistfully after “master and little blind miss.” I often think that the quiet way in which the Enderley mill people took the introduction of machinery, and the peaceableness with which they watched for weeks the setting up of the steam-engine, was partly owing to their strong impression of Mr. Halifax’s goodness as a father, 378and the vague, almost superstitious interest which attached to the pale, sweet face of Muriel.
Enderley was growing dreary, and we began to anticipate the cosy fireside of Longfield.
“The children will all go home looking better than they came; do you not think so, Uncle Phineas?—especially Muriel?”
To that sentence I had to answer with a vague assent; after which I was fain to rise and walk away, thinking how blind love was—all love save mine, which had a gift for seeing the saddest side of things.
When I came back, I found the mother and daughter talking mysteriously apart. I guessed what it was about, for I had overheard Ursula saying they had better tell the child—it would be “something for her to look forward to—something to amuse her next winter.”
“It is a great secret, mind,” the mother whispered, after its communication.
“Oh, yes!” The tiny face, smaller than ever, I thought, flushed brightly. “But I would much rather have a little sister, if you please. Only”—and the child suddenly grew earnest—“will she be like me?”
“Possibly; sisters often are alike.”
“No, I don’t mean that; but—you know?” And Muriel touched her own eyes.
“I cannot tell, my daughter. In all things else, pray God she may be like you, Muriel, my darling—my child of peace!” said Ursula, embracing her with tears.
After this confidence, of which Muriel was very proud, and only condescended, upon gaining express permission, to re-confide it to me, she talked incessantly of the sister that was coming, until “little Maud”—the name she chose for her—became an absolute entity in the household.
The dignity and glory of being sole depositary of this momentous 379fact, seemed for a time to put new life—bright human life—into this little maid of eleven years old. She grew quite womanly, as it were; tried to help her mother in a thousand little ways, and especially by her own solitary branch of feminine industry—poor darling! She set on a pair of the daintiest elfin socks that ever were knitted. I found them, years after—one finished, one with the needles (all rusty) stuck through the fine worsted ball, just as the child had laid it out of her hand. Ah, Muriel, Muriel!
The father took great delight in this change, in her resuming her simple work, and going about constantly with her mother.
“What a comfort she will be to Ursula one day—an eldest daughter always is. So will she: will she not, Uncle Phineas?”
I smiled assentingly. Alas! his burthens were heavy enough! I think I did right to smil
e.
“We must take her down with us to see the steam-engine first worked. I wish Ursula would have gone home without waiting for to-morrow. But there is no fear—my men are so quiet and good-humoured. What in most mills has been a day of outrage and dread, is with us quite a festival. Boys, shall you like to come? Edwin, my practical lad, my lad that is to carry on the mills—will you promise to hold fast by Uncle Phineas, if I let you see the steam-engine work?”
Edwin lifted up from his slate bright, penetrating eyes. He was quite an old man in his ways—wise even from his babyhood, and quiet even when Guy snubbed him; but, I noticed, he did not come to “kiss and make friends” so soon as Guy. And though Guy was much the naughtiest, we all loved him best. Poor Guy! he had the frankest, warmest, tenderest boy-heart, always struggling to be good, and never able to accomplish it.
“Father,” cried Guy, “I want to see the steam-engine move, but I’ll not be a baby like Edwin; I’ll not hold Uncle Phineas’s hand.”
380Hereupon ensued one of those summer storms which sometimes swept across the family horizon, in the midst of which Muriel and I stole out into the empty church, where, almost in the dark—which was no dark to her—for a long hour she sat and played. By and by the moon looked in, showing the great gilt pipes of the organ, and the little fairy figure sitting below.
Once or twice she stooped from the organ-loft to ask me where was Brother Anselmo, who usually met us in the church of evenings, and whom to-night—this last night before the general household moved back to Longfield—we had fully expected.
At last he came, sat down by me, and listened. She was playing a fragment of one of his Catholic masses. When it ended, he called “Muriel!”
Her soft, glad answer came down from the gallery.
“Child, play the ‘Miserere’ I taught you.”
She obeyed, making the organ wail like a tormented soul. Truly, no tales I ever heard of young Wesley and the infant Mozart ever surpassed the wonderful playing of our blind child.
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