"Love!"
She melted at that low, fond word; leaning against his shoulder--trying to control her tears.
"It shocked me so--the bare thought of such a thing. Oh! husband, don"t let her be looked at again."
"Only once again, my darling. It is best. Then we shall be quite satisfied. Phineas, give me the candle."
The words--caressing, and by strong constraint made calm and soothing--were yet firm. Ursula resisted no more, but let him take Muriel--little, unconscious, cooing dove! Lulled by her father"s voice she once more opened her eyes wide. Dr. Jessop pa.s.sed the candle before them many times, once so close that it almost touched her face; but the full, quiet eyes, never blenched nor closed. He set the light down.
"Doctor!" whispered the father, in a wild appeal against--ay, it was against certainty. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the candle, and tried the experiment himself.
"She does not see at all. Can she be blind?"
"Born blind."
Yes, those pretty baby-eyes were dark--quite dark. There was nothing painful nor unnatural in their look, save, perhaps, the blankness of gaze which I have before noticed. Outwardly, their organization was perfect; but in the fine inner mechanism was something wrong--something wanting. She never had seen--never would see--in this world.
"BLIND!" The word was uttered softly, hardly above a breath, yet the mother heard it. She pushed every one aside, and took the child herself. Herself, with a desperate incredulity, she looked into those eyes, which never could look back either her agony or her love. Poor mother!
"John! John! oh, John!"--the name rising into a cry, as if he could surely help her. He came and took her in his arms--took both, wife and babe. She laid her head on his shoulder in bitter weeping. "Oh, John!
it is so hard. Our pretty one--our own little child!"
John did not speak, but only held her to him--close and fast. When she was a little calmer he whispered to her the comfort--the sole comfort even her husband could give her--through whose will it was that this affliction came.
"And it is more an affliction to you than it will be to her, poor pet!"
said Mrs. Jessop, as she wiped her friendly eyes. "She will not miss what she never knew. She may be a happy little child. Look, how she lies and smiles."
But the mother could not take that consolation yet. She walked to and fro, and stood rocking her baby, mute indeed, but with tears falling in showers. Gradually her anguish wept itself away, or was smothered down, lest it should disturb the little creature asleep on her breast.
Some one came behind her, and placed her in the arm-chair, gently. It was my father. He sat down by her, taking her hand.
"Grieve not, Ursula. I had a little brother who was blind. He was the happiest creature I ever knew."
My father sighed. We all marvelled to see the wonderful softness, even tenderness, which had come into him.
"Give me thy child for a minute." Ursula laid it across his knees; he put his hand solemnly on the baby-breast. "G.o.d bless this little one!
Ay, and she shall be blessed."
These words, spoken with as full a.s.surance as the prophetic benediction of the departing patriarchs of old, struck us all. We looked at little Muriel as if the blessing were already upon her; as if the mysterious touch which had scaled up her eyes for ever had left on her a sanct.i.ty like as of one who has been touched by the finger of G.o.d.
"Now, children, I must go home," said my father.
They did not detain us: it was indeed best that the poor young parents should be left alone.
"You will come again soon?" begged Ursula, tenderly clasping the hand which he had laid upon her curls as he rose with another murmured "G.o.d bless thee!"
"Perhaps. We never know. Be a good wife to thy husband, my girl. And John, never be thou harsh to her, nor too hard upon her little failings. She is but young--but young."
He sighed again. It was plain to see he was thinking of another than Ursula.
As we walked down the street he spoke to me only once or twice, and then of things which startled me by their strangeness--things which had happened a long time ago; sayings and doings of mine in my childhood, which I had not the least idea he had either known of or remembered.
When we got in-doors I asked if I should come and sit with him till his bed-time.
"No--no; thee looks tired, and I have a business letter to write.
Better go to thy bed as usual."
I bade him good-night, and was going, when he called me back.
"How old art thee, Phineas--twenty-four or five?"
"Twenty-five, father."
"Eh! so much?" He put his hand on my shoulder, and looked down on me kindly, even tenderly. "Thee art but weakly still, but thee must pick up, and live to be as old a man as thy father. Goodnight. G.o.d be with thee, my son!"
I left him. I was happy. Once I had never expected my old father and I would have got on together so well, or loved one another so dearly.
In the middle of the night Jael came into my room, and sat down on my bed"s foot, looking at me. I had been dreaming strangely, about my own childish days, and about my father and mother when we were young.
What Jael told me--by slow degrees, and as tenderly as when she was my nurse years ago--seemed at first so unreal as to be like a part of the dream.
At ten o"clock, when she had locked up the house, she had come as usual to the parlour door, to tell my father it was bed-time. He did not answer, being sitting with his back to the door, apparently busy writing. So she went away.
Half an hour afterwards she came again. He sat there still--he had not moved. One hand supported his head; the other, the fingers stiffly holding the pen, lay on the table. He seemed intently gazing on what he had written. It ran thus:
"GOOD FRIEND,
"To-morrow I shall be--"
But there the hand had stopped--for ever.
O dear father! on that to-morrow thou wert with G.o.d.
CHAPTER XXII
It was the year 1812. I had lived for ten years as a brother in my adopted brother"s house, whither he had brought me on the day of my father"s funeral; entreating that I should never leave it again. For, as was shortly afterwards made clear, fate--say Providence--was now inevitably releasing him from a bond, from which, so long as my poor father lived, John would never have released himself. It was discovered that the profits of the tanning trade had long been merely nominal--that of necessity, for the support of our two families, the tan-yard must be sold, and the business confined entirely to the flour-mill.
At this crisis, as if the change of all things broke her stout old heart, which never could bend to any new ways--Jael died. We laid her at my father"s and mother"s feet--poor old Jael! and that grave-yard in St. Mary"s Lane now covered over all who loved me, all who were of my youth day--my very own.
So thought I--or might have thought--but that John and Ursula then demanded with one voice, "Brother, come home."
I resisted long: for it is one of my decided opinions that married people ought to have no one, be the tie ever so close and dear, living permanently with them, to break the sacred duality--no, let me say the unity of their home.
I wished to try and work for my living, if that were possible--if not, that out of the wreck of my father"s trade might be found enough to keep me, in some poor way. But John Halifax would not hear of that.
And Ursula--she was sitting sewing, while the little one lay on her lap, cooing softly with shut eyes--Ursula took my hand to play with Muriel"s. The baby fingers closed over mine--"See there, Phineas; SHE wants you too." So I stayed.
Perhaps it was on this account that better than all his other children, better than anything on earth except himself, I loved John"s eldest daughter, little blind Muriel.