The winter and spring passed calmly by.I had much ill-health,and could go out very little;but they came constantly to me,John and Ursula,especially the latter.During this illness,when I learned to watch longingly for her kind face,and listen for her cheerful voice talking pleasantly and sisterly beside my chair,she taught me to give up "Mrs.Halifax,"and call her Ursula.It was only by slow degrees I did so,truly;for she was not one of those gentle creatures whom,married or single,one calls instinctively by their Christian names.Her manner in girlhood was not exactly either "meek"or "gentle";except towards him,the only one who ever ruled her,and to whom she was,through life,the meekest and tenderest of women.To every one else she comported herself,at least in youth,with a dignity and decision--a certain stand-offishness--so that,as I said,it was not quite easy to speak to or think of her as "Ursula."Afterwards,when seen in the light of a new character,for which Heaven destined and especially fitted her,and in which she appeared altogether beautiful--I began to give her another name--but it will come by and by.
In the long midsummer days,when our house was very quiet and rather dreary,I got into the habit of creeping over to John's home,and sitting for hours under the apple-trees in his garden.It was now different from the wilderness he found it;the old trees were pruned and tended,and young ones planted.Mrs.Halifax called it proudly "our orchard,"though the top of the tallest sapling could be reached with her hand.Then,in addition to the indigenous cabbages,came long rows of white-blossomed peas,big-headed cauliflowers,and all vegetables easy of cultivation.My father sent contributions from his celebrated gooseberry-bushes,and his wall-fruit,the pride of Norton Bury;Mrs.Jessop stocked the borders from her great parterres of sweet-scented common flowers;so that,walled in as it was,and in the midst of a town likewise,it was growing into a very tolerable garden.Just the kind of garden that I love--half trim,half wild--fruits,flowers,and vegetables living in comfortable equality and fraternity,none being too choice to be harmed by their neighbours,none esteemed too mean to be restricted in their natural profusion.
Oh,dear old-fashioned garden!full of sweet-Williams and white-Nancies,and larkspur and London-pride,and yard-wide beds of snowy saxifrage,and tall,pale evening primroses,and hollyhocks six or seven feet high,many-tinted,from yellow to darkest ruby-colour;while for scents,large blushing cabbage-roses,pinks,gilly-flowers,with here and there a great bush of southern-wood or rosemary,or a border of thyme,or a sweet-briar hedge--a pleasant garden,where all colours and perfumes were blended together;ay,even a stray dandelion,that stood boldly up in his yellow waistcoat,like a young country bumpkin,who feels himself a decent lad in his way--or a plant of wild marjoram,that had somehow got in,and kept meekly in a corner of the bed,trying to turn into a respectable cultivated herb.
Dear old garden!--such as one rarely sees now-a-days!--I would give the finest modern pleasure-ground for the like of thee!
This was what John's garden became;its every inch and every flower still live in more memories than mine,and will for a generation yet;but I am speaking of it when it was young,like its gardeners.These were Mrs.Halifax and her husband,Jem and Jenny.The master could not do much;he had long,long hours in his business;but I used to watch Ursula,morning after morning,superintending her domain,with her faithful attendant Jem--Jem adored his "missis."Or else,when it was hot noon,I used to lie in their cool parlour,and listen to her voice and step about the house,teaching Jenny,or learning from her--for the young gentlewoman had much to learn,and was not ashamed of it either.She laughed at her own mistakes,and tried again;she never was idle or dull for a minute.She did a great deal in the house herself.Often she would sit chatting with me,having on her lap a coarse brown pan,shelling peas,slicing beans,picking gooseberries;her fingers--Miss March's fair fingers--looking fairer for the contrast with their unaccustomed work.Or else,in the summer evenings,she would be at the window sewing--always sewing--but so placed that with one glance she could see down the street where John was coming.Far,far off she always saw him;and at the sight her whole face would change and brighten,like a meadow when the sun comes out.Then she ran to open the door,and I could hear his low "my darling!"and a long,long pause,in the hall.
They were very,very happy in those early days--those quiet days of poverty;when they visited nobody,and nobody visited them;when their whole world was bounded by the dark old house and the garden,with its four high walls.
One July night,I remember,John and I were walking up and down the paths by star-light.It was very hot weather,inclining one to stay without doors half the night.Ursula had been with us a good while,strolling about on her husband's arm;then he had sent her in to rest,and we two remained out together.
How soft they were,those faint,misty,summer stars!what a mysterious,perfumy haze they let fall over us!--A haze through which all around seemed melting away in delicious intangible sweetness,in which the very sky above our heads--the shining,world-besprinkled sky--was a thing felt rather than seen.
"How strange all seems!how unreal!"said John,in a low voice,when he had walked the length of the garden in silence."Phineas,how very strange it seems!""What seems?"
"What?--oh,everything."He hesitated a minute."No,not everything--but something which to me seems now to fill and be mixed up with all I do,or think,or feel.Something you do not know--but to-night Ursula said I might tell you."Nevertheless he was several minutes before he told me.