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John Halifax, Gentleman: Ravenel

While this change eased the situation, it was also the source of new anxieties. Disquieting reports were brought from Paris by the Earl of Luxmore's son, Lord Ravenel. From boyhood young Ravenel had entertained an admiration for his father's opponent, John Halifax, which had grown with time. The kindness always shown by Mr. and Mrs. Halifax to Lord Ravenel's sister, Lady Caroline Brithwood, whom her husband, Richard Brithwood, had divorced, strengthened the attachment of a young man neglected by his father, to those who could take a stand of their own. Each time he returned to Luxmore Park young Ravenel made a refuge of the Halifax home. From Paris he brought news that Guy had come into the circle of the aged reprobate, Lord Luxmore, with little advantage to himself. Graver news followed that. A letter in Guy's own hand informed his parents that, being drunk in a gambling-house, he had quarreled with Sir Gerard Vermilye, who years before had induced Lady Caroline to elope with him, had struck the man and possibly killed him. He had now to flee from France. By the time the letter reached his parents he would have sailed for America.

If Muriel's death had ended John's youth, Guy's disgrace did the same for his mother's. I first noticed then that Ursula was beginning to grow old. Up to that time she had been a matron, ripening with serenity. More than maturity came into her beauty now, a sadness, a depression, which she rarely threw off. Though peaceful years came with the news that Guy had settled in Boston, where the business of which he had become the head was prospering, the lightheartedness went out of our home forever. In my case that was the more true, owing to the fact that on the day when Edwin was married I had surprised John, for whom my affection was that of Jonathan for David, "passing the love of women," in an unusual fit of pain. He had been so strong and well throughout the years in which we had lived together as brothers that the thought of his suffering was new and strange to me. It became stranger if not newer when the paroxysms were repeated. This was only at long intervals, so that we were able to keep the secret to ourselves. Even Ursula did not know, and John bound me to silence till he himself spoke. It was not till Guy had been some years in America, and a little daughter had been born to Edwin and Louise, that John told me the doctor's verdict concerning himself. He might live to an old age, or he might go at any minute. With the knowledge of this possibility my own death seemed to begin.

Nevertheless, more years went by with no greater disturbance to the current of our lives than a sudden perplexity with regard to Maud. It was not only with regard to Maud, but with regard to Lord Ravenel. Why neither John nor Ursula had foreseen what might happen there I never understood, for to me such a possibility had long been evident. Maud was now eighteen; Lord Ravenel a romantic, somewhat Byronic figure of thirty-seven. To her parents the difference in age precluded love; to me love knew no such limitations. When, therefore, Ravenel came to us asking permission to try to win the child her parents refused. While nothing was said to Maud, the disappearance of her lover--he was almost that--left her wounded and wondering. It was not only the difference in age which had dictated the course of John and Ursula, but lack of confidence in the stability of the young man's character. That was soon to be tested. Within a short time after he had left us, with the understanding that he was not to return, the earl, his father, died, leaving a large entailed property, but otherwise nothing but debts. To pay these debts, for which the law held the new earl in no way responsible, Ravenel, now Lord Luxmore, renounced his rights of inheritance. He himself was left with the smallest income on which a man of his rank could live. To John and Ursula this unexpected force of character brought mingled satisfaction and regret. The more they rejoiced in the nobility of the act, the more deep their anxiety lest they should have intervened to the injury of two whom they loved. And still more years went by. Edwin was now relieving his father of some of the cares of business; Walter was preparing to go out into the world; Maud was growing staid. Already prominent in public affairs, John declined to stand for Parliament because, to some degree, the heart had gone out of him. There was no outward change beyond more gray in the hair and more gravity in the expression, but pain borne in secret was beginning to tell on him. The knowledge that Guy was so far away and Maud not happy had its effect on Ursula. Growing old myself, I was obliged to stand by and watch the two I loved best on earth growing old even more rapidly.

There came a day when there was no more news from Guy. Our fears increased with the weeks. Then we received a letter saying that he and his partner were to sail in a few days' time from Boston. For some reason not explained the letter was already two months old. Had they really taken the ship Guy named they should have been in England some weeks ago. Inquiry at Lloyd's revealed no such ship as having crossed the Atlantic, though a small vessel of that name had foundered in the West Indies. Had Guy and his partner sailed for England by this roundabout route, it was still possible that they had been rescued and might be on the way home.

So for more months we waited in a hope that gradually became no hope. For the first time in my knowledge of her the strong, competent Ursula began to have days of not coming down-stairs. She never complained; she never spoke of Guy; she was only tired. John with his secret and she with hers seemed to withdraw each into a still place where they were alone with God. It was a quiet time, even if a sad time; but to me it was the end.

Then one day a stranger appeared, tall, bearded, tanned. It was Maud who saw him first. Begging him to be seated, she told him she would send her father. "But, Maud, don't you know me? I'm Guy."

He had come back with his partner, who was now known as William Ravenel. For John and Ursula it was the joy which lets the servant depart in peace. Guy having outlived his boyish passion for Louise d'Argent, he and Edwin met as friends. Maud and William Ravenel found each other in that happiness in which a difference of twenty years does not count.

We went one day into the old beech woods at Enderley, where thirty-three years earlier John and Ursula had vowed themselves to each other. John had come with us; Ursula kept her room. Not even the bliss of Guy's return gave her back her strength. It was a pleasant afternoon with the young people all about us. John lay down upon the grass, his hat pulled over his eyes. "How cold it has grown," Maud said, toward sunset. "I think we ought to wake father."

But John did not wake. While sleeping he had been called. I went home to tell his wife.

We carried him into the old farm-house where he and Ursula had met. There at ten that night she came to him. How she came I do not know. How she, who had not walked for weeks, had found her way hither, what strength helped her to stand there as she did stand, upright and calm, I do not know. All I can say is that she came, that she talked to her children, bade them never forget their father, and asked them to leave her for a little while alone with him. We closed the door, sitting on the stairs outside. It might have been for minutes, it might have been for hours. It was Guy who at last went in. She was still in the same place by the bedside, but half lying on the bed. Her arm was round her husband's neck, her face nestled close to his hair. They might have been asleep. One of her children called her, but she neither stirred nor answered. Guy lifted her up very tenderly--his mother--a widow-- But she was not a widow now.