I believe every one of us remembered for years,with an awe that was not altogether pain,this morning's chapter and prayer.
When it was ended,worldly troubles closed round us again.
Nothing seemed natural.We hung about in twos and threes,uncertain what to do.Guy walked up and down,alone.His mother asked him if,seeing his foot was so well,he would like to go down to the mills as usual;but he declined.Miss Silver made some suggestion about "lessons,"which Edwin jealously negatived immediately,and proposed that she and Maud should take a drive somewhere.
Mrs.Halifax eagerly assented."Lady Oldtower has been wanting them both for some time.You would like to go,would you not,for a day or two?"said she,addressing the governess.
Guy caught at this."Going away,are you?When?"He put the question to Miss Silver direct--his eyes blazing right into her own.She made some confused reply,about "leaving immediately.""In the carriage,of course?Shall I have the honour of driving you?""No,"said Edwin,decisively.
A fierce,vindictive look passed between the brothers--a look terrible in itself--more terrible in its warning of days to come.No wonder the mother shuddered--no wonder the young betrothed,pale and alarmed,slipped out of the room.Edwin followed her.Then Guy,snatching up his sister,lifted her roughly on his knee.
"Come along,Maud.You'll be my girl now.Nobody else wants you.
Kiss me,child."
But the little lady drew back.
"So,you hate me too?Edwin has been teaching you?Very well.Get away,you cheat!"He pushed her violently aside.Maud began to cry.
Her father looked up from his book--the book he had not been reading--though he had seemingly thought it best to take no notice of what was passing around him.
"Come here,Maud,my child.Guy,you should not be unkind to your little sister.Try and command yourself,my dear boy!"The words,though spoken gently,almost in a whisper,were more than the lad's chafed spirit could brook.
"Father,you insult me.I will not bear it.I will quit the room."He went out,shutting the door passionately after him.His mother rose up to follow him--then sat down again.The eyes that she lifted to her husband were deprecating,beseeching,heavy with a speechless pain.
For John--he said nothing.Not though,as was plain to see,this,the first angry or disrespectful word he had ever received from any one of his children,struck him like an arrow;for a moment stirred him even to wrath--holy wrath--the just displeasure of a father who feels that the least portion of his child's sin is the sin against him.Perhaps this very feeling,distinct from,and far beyond,all personal indignation,all sense of offended dignity,made the anger strangely brief--so brief,that when the other children,awed and startled,looked for some ebullition of it--lo!it was all gone.In its stead was something at which the children,more awed still,crept out of the room.
Ursula even,alarmed,looked in his face as if for the first time she could not comprehend her husband.
"John,you should forgive poor Guy!he did not intend any harm.""No--no."
"And he is so very miserable.Never before did he fail in his duty to you.""But what if I have failed in mine to him?--What if--you used to say I could not understand Guy--what if I have come short towards him?
I,that am accountable to God for every one of my children.""John--John"--she knelt down and put her arms round his neck.
"Husband,do not look unhappy.I did not mean to blame you--we may be wrong,both of us--all of us.But we will not be afraid.We know Who pities us,even as we pity our children."Thus she spoke,and more to the same purport;but it was a long time before her words brought any consolation.Then the parents talked together,trying to arrange some plan whereby Guy's mind might be occupied and soothed,or else Edwin removed out of his sight for a little while.Once I hinted at the advantage of Guy's leaving home;but Mrs.Halifax seemed to shrink from this project as though it were a foreboding of perpetual exile.
"No,no;anything but that.Beside,Guy would not wish it.He has never left me in his life.His going would seem like the general breaking up of the family."Alas!she did not,would not see that the family was already "broken."Broken,more than either absence,marriage,or death itself could have effected.
One thing more we had to consider--a thing at once natural and right in any family,namely,how to hide its wounds from the chattering,scandalous world.And so,when by a happy chance there came over that morning our good friend Lady Oldtower and her carriage full of daughters,Mrs.Halifax communicated,with a simple dignity that quelled all comment,the fact of "my son Edwin's engagement,"and accepted the invitation for Maud and Miss Silver,which was willingly repeated and pressed.
One thing I noticed,that in speaking of or to the girl who in a single day from merely the governess had become,and was sedulously treated as,our own,Mrs.Halifax invariably called her,as heretofore,"Miss Silver,"or "my dear;"never by any chance "Louise,"or "Mademoiselle D'Argent."Before she left Beechwood,Edwin came in and hurriedly spoke to his mother.What he said was evidently painful to both.
"I am not aware of it,Edwin;I had not the slightest intention of offending her.Is she already made your judge and referee as to the actions of your mother?"Edwin was a good lad,though perhaps a little less loving than the rest of the boys.His self-restraint,his exceeding patience,lulled the threatened storm.
"But you will be kind to her,mother?--I know you will.""Did I not say so?"
"And may I bring her to you here?"
"If you choose."