John Halifax, Gentleman Part 113

"Annihilate both time and s.p.a.ce, And make two lovers happy!"

"And I'm sure I shall be happy too, in seeing them. They shall be married immediately. And we'll take William into partners.h.i.+p--that was a whim of his, mother--we call one another 'Guy' and 'William,' just like brothers. Heigho! I'm very glad. Are not you?"

The mother smiled.

"You will soon have n.o.body left but me. No matter. I shall have you all to myself, and be at once a spoiled child, and an uncommonly merry old bachelor."

Again the mother smiled, without reply. She, too, doubtless thought herself a great diplomatist.

William Ravenel--he was henceforward never anything to us but William--came home with Mr. Halifax. First, the mother saw him; then I heard the father go to the maiden bower where Maud had shut herself up all day--poor child!--and fetch his daughter down. Lastly, I watched the two--Mr. Ravenel and Miss Halifax--walk together down the garden and into the beech-wood, where the leaves were whispering and the stock-doves cooing; and where, I suppose, they told and listened to the old tale--old as Adam--yet for ever beautiful and new.

That day was a wonderful day. That night we gathered, as we never thought we should gather again in this world, round the family table--Guy, Edwin, Walter, Maud, Louise, and William Ravenel--all changed, yet not one lost. A true love-feast it was: a renewed celebration of the family bond, which had lasted through so much sorrow, now knitted up once more, never to be broken.

When we came quietly to examine one another and fall into one another's old ways, there was less than one might have expected even of outward change. The table appeared the same; all took instinctively their old places, except that the mother lay on her sofa and Maud presided at the urn.

It did one's heart good to look at Maud, as she busied herself about, in her capacity as vice-reine of the household; perhaps, with a natural feeling, liking to show some one present how mature and sedate she was--not so very young after all. You could see she felt deeply how much he loved her--how her love was to him like the restoring of his youth. The responsibility, sweet as it was, made her womanly, made her grave. She would be to him at once wife and child, plaything and comforter, sustainer and sustained. Ay, love levels all things. They were not ill-matched, in spite of those twenty years.

And so I left them, and went and sat with John and Ursula--we, the generation pa.s.sing away, or ready to pa.s.s, in Heaven's good time, to make room for these. We talked but little, our hearts were too full.

Early, before anybody thought of moving, John carried his wife up-stairs again, saying that, well as she looked, she must be compelled to economise both her good looks and her happiness.

When he came down again he stood talking for some time with Mr.

Ravenel. While he talked I thought he looked wearied--pallid even to exhaustion; a minute or two afterwards he silently left the room.

I followed him, and found him leaning against the chimney-piece in his study.

"Who's that?" He spoke feebly; he looked--ghastly!

I called him by his name.

"Come in. Fetch no one. Shut the door."

The words were hoa.r.s.e and abrupt, but I obeyed.

"Phineas," he said, again holding out a hand, as if he thought he had grieved me; "don't mind. I shall be better presently. I know quite well what it is--ah, my G.o.d--my G.o.d!"

Sharp, horrible pain--such as human nature shrinks from--such as makes poor mortal flesh cry out in its agony to its Maker, as if, for the time being, life itself were worthless at such a price. I know now what it must have been; I know now what he must have endured.

He held me fast, half unconscious as he was, lest I should summon help; and when a step was heard in the pa.s.sage, as once before--the day Edwin was married--how, on a sudden, I remembered all!--he tottered forward and locked, double-locked, the door.

After a few minutes the worst suffering abated, and he sat down again in his chair. I got some water; he drank, and let me bathe his face with it--his face, grey and death-like--John's face!

But I am telling the bare facts--nothing more.

A few heavy sighs, gasped as it were for life, and he was himself again.

"Thank G.o.d, it is over now! Phineas, you must try and forget all you have seen. I wish you had not come to the door."

He said this, not in any tone that could wound me, but tenderly, as if he were very sorry for me.

"What is it?"

"There is no need for alarm;--no more than that day--you recollect?--in this room. I had an attack once before then--a few times since. It is horrible pain while it lasts, you see; I can hardly bear it. But it goes away again, as you also see. It would be a pity to tell my wife, or anybody; in fact, I had rather not. You understand?"

He spoke thus in a matter-of-fact way, as if he thought the explanation would satisfy me and prevent my asking further. He was mistaken.

"John, what is it?"

"What is it? Why, something like what I had then; but it comes rarely, and I am well again directly. I had much rather not talk about it.

Pray forget it."

But I could not; nor, I thought, could he. He took up a book and sat still; though often times I caught his eyes fixed on my face with a peculiar earnestness, as if he would fain test my strength--fain find out how much I loved him; and loving, how much I could bear.

"You are not reading, John; you are thinking--what about?"

He paused a little, as if undetermined whether or not to tell me; then said: "About your father. Do you remember him?"

I looked surprised at the question.

"I mean, do you remember how he died?"

Somehow--though, G.o.d knows, not at that dear and sacred remembrance--I shuddered. "Yes; but why should we talk of it now?"

"Why not? I have often thought what a happy death it was--painless, instantaneous, without any wasting sickness beforehand--his sudden pa.s.sing from life present to life eternal. Phineas, your father's was the happiest death I ever knew."

"It may be--I am not sure. John," for again something in his look and manner struck me--"why do you say this to me?"

"I scarcely know. Yes, I do know."

"Tell me, then."

He looked at me across the table--steadily, eye to eye, as if he would fain impart to my spirit the calmness that was in his own. "I believe, Phineas, that when I die my death will be not unlike your father's."

Something came wildly to my lips about "impossibility," the utter impossibility, of any man's thus settling the manner of his death, or the time.

"I know that. I know that I may live ten or twenty years, and die of another disease after all."

"Disease!"

"Nay--it is nothing to be afraid of. You see I am not afraid. I have guessed it for many years. I have known it for a certainty ever since I was in Paris."

"Were you ill in Paris?--You never said so."

"No--because--Phineas, do you think you could bear the truth? You know it makes no real difference. I shall not die an hour sooner for being aware of it."

"Aware of--what? Say quickly."

"Dr. K---- told me--I was determined to be told--that I had the disease I suspected; beyond medical power to cure. It is not immediately fatal; he said I might live many years, even to old age; and I might die, suddenly, at any moment, just as your father died."