第155章 CHAPTER XXXV(1)

Two years rolled over Beechwood--two uneventful years.The last of the children ceased to be a child;and we prepared for that great era in all household history,the first marriage in the family.It was to be celebrated very quietly,as Edwin and Louise both desired.

Time had healed over many a pang,and taught many a soothing lesson;still it could not be supposed that this marriage was without its painfulness.

Guy still remained abroad;his going had produced the happy result intended.Month after month his letters came,each more hopeful than the last,each bringing balm to the mother's heart.Then he wrote to others beside his mother:Maud and Walter replied to him in long home-histories;and began to talk without hesitation--nay,with great pride and pleasure--"of my brother who is abroad."The family wound was closing,the family peace about to be restored;Maud even fancied Guy ought to come home to "our wedding;"--but then she had never been told the whole of past circumstances;and,besides,she was still too young to understand love matters.Yet so mercifully had time smoothed down all things,that it sometimes appeared even to us elders as if those three days of bitterness were a mere dream--as if the year we dreaded had passed as calmly as any other year.Save that in this interval Ursula's hair had begun to turn from brown to grey;and John first mentioned,so cursorily that I cannot even now remember when or where,that slight pain,almost too slight to complain of,which he said warned him in climbing Enderley Hill that he could not climb so fast as when he was young.

And I returned his smile,telling him we were evidently growing old men;and must soon set our faces to descend the hill of life.Easy enough I was in saying this,thinking,as I often did,with great content,that there was not the faintest doubt which of us would reach the bottom first.

Yet I was glad to have safely passed my half century of life--glad to have seen many of John's cares laid to rest,more especially those external troubles which I have not lately referred to--for,indeed,they were absorbed and forgotten in the home-troubles that came after.He had lived down all slanders,as he said he would.Far and near travelled the story of the day when Jessop's bank was near breaking;far and near,though secretly--for we found it out chiefly by its results--poor people whispered the tale of a gentleman who had been attacked on the high roads,and whose only attempt at bringing the robbers to justice was to help the widow of one and send the others safe out of the country,at his own expense,not Government's.

None of these were notable or showy deeds--scarcely one of them got,even under the disguise of asterisks,into the newspaper;the Norton Bury Mercury,for its last dying sting,still complained (and very justly)that there was not a gentleman in the county whose name so seldom headed a charity subscription as that of John Halifax,Esquire,of Beechwood.But the right made its way,as,soon or late,the right always does;he believed his good name was able to defend itself,and it did defend itself;he had faith in the only victory worth having--the universal victory of Truth;and Truth conquered at last.

To drive with him across the country--he never carried pistols now,--or to walk with him,as one day before Edwin's wedding we walked,a goodly procession,through the familiar streets of Norton Bury,was a perpetual pleasure to the rest of the family.Everybody knew him,everybody greeted him,everybody smiled as he passed--as though his presence and his recognition were good things to have and to win.

His wife often laughed,and said she doubted whether even Mr.

O'Connell of Derrynane,who was just now making a commotion in Ireland,lighting the fire of religious and political discord from one end to the other of County Clare;--she doubted if even Daniel O'Connell had more popularity among his own people than John Halifax had in the primitive neighbourhood where he had lived so long.

Mrs.Halifax herself was remarkably gay this morning.She had had letters from Guy;together with a lovely present,for which he said he had ransacked all the magazins des modes in Paris--a white embroidered China shawl.It had arrived this morning--Lord Ravenel being the bearer.This was not the first time by many that he had brought us news of our Guy,and thereby made himself welcome at Beechwood.More welcome than he might have been otherwise;for his manner of life was so different from ours.Not that Lord Ravenel could be accused of any likeness to his father;but blood is blood,and education and habits are not to be easily overcome.The boys laughed at him for his aristocratic,languid ways;Maud teased him for his mild cynicism and the little interest he seemed to take in anything;while the mother herself was somewhat restless about his coming,wondering what possible good his acquaintance could do to us,or ours to him,seeing we moved in totally different spheres.But John himself was invariably kind,nay,tender over him--we all guessed why.And perhaps even had not the young man had so many good points,while his faults were more negations than positive ill qualities,we likewise should have been tender over him--for Muriel's sake.

He had arrived at Beechwood this morning,and falling as usual into our family routine,had come with us to Norton Bury.He looked up with more interest than usual in his pensive eyes,as he crossed the threshold of our old house,and told Maud how he had come there many years ago with his father.

"That was the first time I ever met your father,"I overheard him say to Maud--not without feeling;as if he thought he owed fate some gratitude for the meeting.

Mrs.Halifax,in the casual civil inquiry which was all the old earl ever won in our house,asked after the health of Lord Luxmore.