"Yes--I am going away," said she, mournfully.
"We hope all good will go with you--always and everywhere."
"Thank you, Mr. Fletcher."
It was strange, the grave tone our intercourse now invariably a.s.sumed.
We might have been three old people, who had long fought with and endured the crosses of the world, instead of two young men and a young woman, in the very dawn of life.
"Circ.u.mstances have fixed my plans since I saw you yesterday. I am going to reside for a time with my cousins, the Brithwoods. It seems best for me. Lady Caroline is very kind, and I am so lonely."
She said this not in any complaint, but as if accepting the fact, and making up her mind to endure it. A little more fragmentary conversation pa.s.sed, chiefly between herself and me--John uttered scarcely a word. He sat by the window, half shading his face with his hand. Under that covert, the gaze which incessantly followed and dwelt on her face--oh, had she seen it!
The moments narrowed. Would he say what he had intended, concerning his position in the world? Had she guessed or learned anything, or were we to her simply Mr. Halifax and Mr. Fletcher--two "gentlemen" of Norton Bury? It appeared so.
"This is not a very long good-bye, I trust?" said she to me, with something more than courtesy. "I shall remain at the Mythe House some weeks, I believe. How long do you purpose staying at Enderley?"
I was uncertain.
"But your home is in Norton Bury? I hope--I trust, you will allow my cousin to express in his own house his thanks and mine for your great kindness during my trouble?"
Neither of us answered. Miss March looked surprised--hurt--nay, displeased; then her eye, resting on John, lost its haughtiness, and became humble and sweet.
"Mr. Halifax, I know nothing of my cousin, and I do know you. Will you tell me--candidly, as I know you will--whether there is anything in Mr.
Brithwood which you think unworthy of your acquaintance?"
"He would think me unworthy of his," was the low, firm answer.
Miss March smiled incredulously. "Because you are not very rich? What can that signify? It is enough for me that my friends are gentlemen."
"Mr. Brithwood, and many others, would not allow my claim to that t.i.tle."
Astonished--nay, somewhat more than astonished--the young gentlewoman drew back a little. "I do not quite understand you."
"Let me explain, then;" and her involuntary gesture seeming to have brought back all honest dignity and manly pride, he faced her, once more himself. "It is right, Miss March, that you should know who and what I am, to whom you are giving the honour of your kindness. Perhaps you ought to have known before; but here at Enderley we seemed to be equals--friends."
"I have indeed felt it so."
"Then you will the sooner pardon my not telling you--what you never asked, and I was only too ready to forget--that we are not equals--that is, society would not regard us as such--and I doubt if even you yourself would wish us to be friends."
"Why not?"
"Because you are a gentlewoman and I am a tradesman."
The news was evidently a shock to her--it could not but be, reared as she had been. She sat--the eye-lashes dropping over her flushed cheeks--perfectly silent.
John"s voice grew firmer--prouder--no hesitation now.
"My calling is, as you will soon hear at Norton Bury, that of a tanner.
I am apprentice to Abel Fletcher--Phineas"s father."
"Mr. Fletcher!" She looked up at me--a mingled look of kindliness and pain.
"Ay, Phineas is a little less beneath your notice than I am. He is rich--he has been well educated; I have had to educate myself. I came to Norton Bury six years ago--a beggar-boy. No, not quite that--for I never begged! I either worked or starved."
The earnestness, the pa.s.sion of his tone, made Miss March lift her eyes, but they fell again.
"Yes, Phineas found me in an alley--starving. We stood in the rain, opposite the mayor"s house. A little girl--you know her, Miss March--came to the door, and threw out to me a bit of bread."
Now indeed she started. "You--was that you?"
"It was I."
John paused, and his whole manner changed into softness, as he resumed.
"I never forgot that little girl. Many a time, when I was inclined to do wrong, she kept me right--the remembrance of her sweet face and her kindness."
That face was pressed down against the sofa where she sat. I think Miss March was all but weeping.
John continued.
"I am glad to have met her again--glad to have been able to do her some small good in return for the infinite good she once did me. I shall bid her farewell now--at once and altogether."
A quick, involuntary turn of the hidden face asked him "Why?"
"Because," John answered, "the world says we are not equals, and it would neither be for Miss March"s honour nor mine did I try to force upon it the truth--which I may prove openly one day--that we ARE equals."
Miss March looked up at him--it were hard to say with what expression, of pleasure, or pride, or simple astonishment; perhaps a mingling of all--then her eyelids fell. She silently offered her hand, first to me and then to John. Whether she meant it as friendliness, or as a mere ceremony of adieu, I cannot tell. John took it as the latter, and rose.
His hand was on the door--but he could not go.
"Miss March," he said, "perhaps I may never see you again--at least, never as now. Let me look once more at that wrist which was hurt."
Her left arm was hanging over the sofa--the scar being visible enough.
John took the hand, and held it firmly.
"Poor little hand--blessed little hand! May G.o.d bless it evermore."
Suddenly he pressed his lips to the place where the wound had been--a kiss long and close, such as only a lover"s kiss could be. Surely she must have felt it--known it.
A moment afterward, he was gone.
That day Miss March departed, and we remained at Enderley alone.
CHAPTER XVI
It was winter-time. All the summer-days at Enderley were gone, "like a dream when one awaketh." Of her who had been the beautiful centre of the dream we had never heard nor spoken since.
John and I were walking together along the road towards the Mythe; we could just see the frosty sunset reflected on the windows of the Mythe House, now closed for months, the family being away. The meadows alongside, where the Avon had overflowed and frozen, were a popular skating-ground: and the road was alive with lookers-on of every cla.s.s.