evening packing up for poor dear Miss March; though why she should call her “poor,” truly, she didn’t know. Who would have thought Mr. March had such grand relations? Had we seen Lady Caroline Brithwood’s coach that came that day? Such a beautiful coach it was! — sent on purpose for Miss March — only she wouldn’t go. “But now she has made up her mind, poor dear. She is leaving tomorrow.”
When John heard this he was helping Mrs. Tod, as usual, to fasten the heavy shutters. He stood, with his hand on the bolt, motionless, till the good woman was gone. Then he staggered to the mantelpiece, and leaned on it with both his elbows, his hands covering his face.
But there was no disguise now — no attempt to make it. A young man’s first love — not first fancy, but first love — in all its passion, desperation, and pain — had come to him, as it comes to all. I saw him writhing under it — saw, and could not help him. The next few silent minutes were very bitter to us both.
Then I said gently, “David!”
“Well?”
“I thought things were so.”
“Yes.”
“Suppose you were to talk to me a little — it might do you good.”
“Another time. Let me go out — out into the air; I’m choking.”
Snatching up his hat, he rushed from me. I did not dare to follow.
After waiting some time, and listening till all was quiet in the house, I could bear the suspense no longer and went out.
I thought I should find him on the Flat — probably in his favourite walk, his “terrace,” as he called it, where he had first seen, and must have seen many a day after, that girlish figure tripping lightly along through the morning sunshine and morning dew. I had a sort of instinct that he would be there now; so I climbed up the shortest way, often losing my footing; for it was a pitch-dark night, and the common looked as wide, and black, and still, as a midnight sea.
John was not there; indeed, if he had been I could scarcely have seen him; I could see nothing but the void expanse of the Flat, or, looking down, the broad river of mist that rolled through the valley, on the other side of which twinkled a few cottage lights, like unearthly beacons from the farthest shore of an impassable flood.
Suddenly I remembered hearing Mrs. Tod say that, on account of its pits and quarries, the common was extremely dangerous after dark, except to those who knew it well. In a horrible dread I called out John’s name — but nothing answered. I went on blindly, desperately shouting as I went. At length, in one of the Roman fosses, I stumbled and fell. Some one came, darting with great leaps through the mist, and lifted me up.
“Oh! David — David!”
“Phineas — is that you? You have come out this bitter night — why did you?”
His tenderness over me, even then, made me break down. I forgot my manhood, or else it slipped from me unawares. In the old Bible language, “I fell on his neck and wept.”
Afterwards I was not sorry for this, because I think my weakness gave him strength. I think, amidst the whirl of passion that racked him it was good for him to feel that the one crowning cup of life is not inevitably life’s sole sustenance; that it was something to have a friend and brother who loved him with a love — like Jonathan’s —“passing the love of women.”
“I have been very wrong,” he kept repeating, in a broken voice; “but I was not myself. I am better now. Come — let us go home.”
He put his arm round me to keep me warm, and brought me safely into the house. He even sat down by the fire to talk with me. Whatever struggle there had been, I saw it was over, he looked his own self — only so very, very pale — and spoke in his natural voice; ay, even when mentioning HER, which he was the first to do.
“She goes tomorrow, you are sure, Phineas?”
“I believe so. Shall you see her again?”
“If she desires it.”
“Shall you say anything to her?”
“Nothing. If for a little while — not knowing or not thinking of all the truth — I felt I had strength to remove all impediments, I now see that even to dream of such things makes me a fool, or possibly worse — a knave. I will be neither — I will be a man.”
I replied not: how could one answer such words? — calmly uttered, though each syllable must have been torn out like a piece of his heart.
“Did she say anything to you? Did she ask why I left her so abruptly this morning?”
“She did; I said you would probably tell her the reason yourself.”
“I will. She must no longer be kept in ignorance about me or my position. I shall tell her the whole truth — save one thing. She need never know that.”
I guessed by his broken voice what the “one thing” was; — which he counted as nothing; but which, I think, any true woman would have counted worth everything — the priceless gift of a good man’s love. Love, that in such a nature as his, if once conceived, would last a lifetime. And she was not to know it! I felt sorry — ay, even sorry for Ursula March.
“Do you not think I am right, Phineas?”
“Perhaps. I cannot say. You are the best judge.”
“It is right,” said he, firmly. “There can be no possible hope for me; nothing remains but silence.”
I did not quite agree with him. I could not see that to any young man, only twenty years old, with the world all before him, any love could be absolutely hopeless; especially to a young man like John Halifax. But as things now stood I deemed it best to leave him altogether to himself, offering neither advice nor opinion. What Providence willed, through HIS will, would happen: for me to interfere either way would be at once idle and perilous; nay, in some sense, exceedingly wrong.
So I kept my thoughts to myself, and preserved a total silence.
John broke it — talking to himself as if he had forgotten I was by.
“To think it was she who did it — that first kindness to a poor friendless boy. I never forgot it — never. It did me more good than I can tell. And that scar on her poor arm — her dear little tender arm; — how this morning I would have given all the world to —”
He broke off — instinctively, as it were — with the sort of feeling every good man has, that the sacred passion, the inmost tenderness of his love, should be kept wholly between himself and the woman he has chosen.
I knew that too; knew that in his heart had grown up a secret, a necessity, a desire, stronger than any friendship — closer than the closest bond of brotherly love. Perhaps — I hardly know why — I sighed.
John turned round —“Phineas, you must not think — because of this — which you will understand for yourself, I hope, one day; you must not think I could ever think less, or feel less, about my brother.”
He spoke earnestly, with a full heart. We clasped hands warmly and silently. Thus was healed my last lingering pain — I was thenceforward entirely satisfied.
I think we parted that night as we had never parted before; feeling that the trial of our friendship — the great trial, perhaps, of any friendship — had come and passed, safely: that whatever new ties might gather round each, our two hearts would cleave together until death.
The next morning rose, as I have seen many a morning rise at Enderley — misty and grey; but oh, so heavenly fair! with a pearly network of dewy gossamer under foot, and overhead countless thistle downs flying about, like fairy chariots hurrying out of sight of the sun, which had only mounted high enough above the Flat to touch the horizon of hills opposite, and the tops of my four poplars, leaving Rose Cottage and the valley below it all in morning shadow. John called me to go with him