We went home, leaving all that was mortal of our darling sleeping at
Enderley, underneath the snows.
For twelve years after then, we lived at Longfield; in such unbroken, uneventful peace, that looking back seems like looking back over a level sea, whose leagues of tiny ripples make one smooth glassy plain.
Let me recall—as the first wave that rose, ominous of change—a
certain spring evening, when Mrs. Halifax and I were sitting, as was
our wont, under the walnut-tree. The same old walnut-tree, hardly a
bough altered, though many of its neighbours and kindred had grown
from saplings into trees—even as some of us had grown from children
almost into young men.
"Edwin is late home from Norton Bury," said Ursula.
"So is his father."
"No—this is just John's time. Hark! there are the carriage-wheels!"
For Mr. Halifax, a prosperous man now, drove daily to and from his
mills, in as tasteful an equipage as any of the country gentry
between here and Enderley.
His wife went down to the stream to meet him, as usual, and they came
up the field-path together.
Both were changed from the John and Ursula of whom I last wrote. She, active and fresh-looking still, but settling into that fair largeness which is not unbecoming a lady of middle-age, he, inclined to a slight stoop, with the lines of his face more sharply defined, and the hair wearing away off his forehead up to the crown. Though still not a grey thread was discernible in the crisp locks at the back, which successively five little ones had pulled, and played with, and nestled in; not a sign of age, as yet, in "father's curls."
As soon as he had spoken to me, he looked round as usual for his
children, and asked if the boys and Maud would be home to tea?
"I think Guy and Walter never do come home in time when they go over
to the manor-house."
"They're young—let them enjoy themselves," said the father, smiling. "And you know, love, of all our 'fine' friends, there are none you so heartily approve of as the Oldtowers."
These were not of the former race. Good old Sir Ralph had gone to
his rest, and Sir Herbert reigned in his stead; Sir Herbert, who in
his dignified gratitude never forgot a certain election day, when he
first made the personal acquaintance of Mr. Halifax. The manor-house
family brought several other "county families" to our notice, or us
to theirs. These, when John's fortunes grew rapidly—as many another
fortune grew, in the beginning of the thirty years' peace, when
unknown, petty manufacturers first rose into merchant princes and
cotton lords—these gentry made a perceptible distinction, often
amusing enough to us, between John Halifax, the tanner of Norton
Bury, and Mr. Halifax, the prosperous owner of Enderley Mills. Some
of them, too, were clever enough to discover, what a pleasant and
altogether "visitable" lady was Mrs. Halifax, daughter of the late
Mr. March, a governor in the West Indies, and cousin of Mr. Brithwood
of the Mythe. But Mrs. Halifax, with quiet tenacity, altogether
declined being visited as anything but Mrs. Halifax, wife of John
Halifax, tanner, or mill-owner, or whatever he might be. All honours
and all civilities that did not come through him, and with him, were
utterly valueless to her.
To this her peculiarity was added another of John's own, namely, that
all his life he had been averse to what is called "society;" had
eschewed "acquaintances,"—and—but most men might easily count upon
their fingers the number of those who, during a life-time, are found
worthy of the sacred name of "friend." Consequently, our circle of
associations was far more limited than that of many families holding
an equal position with us—on which circumstance our neighbours
commented a good deal. But little we cared; no more than we had
cared for the chit-chat of Norton Bury. Our whole hearts were bound
up within our own home—our happy Longfield.