The Son of His Father; vol. 1/3

‘I thought at one time,’ she said, ‘of giving him the frames, too, but then I thought it was better to pin them up—for if he cares for them very much he can get frames for them, and if he doesn’t it’s no great matter. All the same it will be you and me.’

Elly stood up against the fire, reaching up with her arms to fasten the photographs, in her dark winter frock, which made her slim, girlish figure more slim than ever. Her hair still hung down upon her shoulders in half curling locks, not very long, but very thick and shining, and full of the wavy, long undulation of natural curls, which have never been put in paper, or touched with curling-irons. John, though it had never occurred to him to admire Elly, did think her hair very pretty, falling upon her shoulders in that easy way. It was reddish-brown, but more brown than red on ordinary occasions; only now and then, when there was no occasion for such vanities, the red would come out.

‘You’ve got very pretty hair, Elly,’ he said, quite simply. ‘I think I never saw anyone with such pretty hair.’

‘Oh, Jack, papa says it’s too red, and Aunt Mary says it’s not red enough; it’s neither one thing nor another. How can one help the colour of one’s hair, or anything else for the matter of that; and yet people speak as if it was your fault! Will that do, do you think? I’ve put you on Aunt Mary’s side and myself on papa’s, because a lady and a gentleman should always come alternately, as people sit at dinner, don’t you know. It looks very nice, quite complete. If Mr. Cattley has any brothers or sisters, or anything of that sort, there is no room for them now, that is clear.’

‘Or fathers and mothers,’ said John.

‘Well, he has had a long time to put them up in, if he wanted to. We must not trouble ourselves about them. Everybody has got fathers and mothers, of course. But I don’t remember mamma a bit; and you don’t either, do you, Jack?’

‘Oh! yes, I think I do; but there is one thing, Elly,’ said Jack, ‘I remember papa; I remember him as distinctly as if it had been yesterday. He used to come and take me out of bed, I should think in the middle of the night, and take me downstairs to supper, and I had oranges and cakes and all sorts of things sitting on his knee.’

‘Oh, how bad for you,’ said Elly, with a woman’s instinctive consciousness of maternal responsibility. ‘He must have been very thoughtless to do that.’

‘Thoughtless? well, perhaps: I never thought of it in that light—but it seems very nice as I look back. Can you believe it, Elly,’ said John, coming close and speaking low, ‘it was only two or three days since, when we were talking it all over, that I heard for the first time that my father was dead.’

‘Dear, dear!’ said Elly, looking very grave; but then she added, ‘I’ve known it a long time, Jack. I’ve always heard papa say that you were an orphan boy.’

‘I am not an orphan boy, my mother is living,’ said John, hurriedly. For the first time it occurred to him that to have a mother living whom he had not seen for ten years was strange. It had never struck him in this light before. ‘But papa,’ he added, in a softer tone, ‘died many years ago. I don’t know why I never understood it. One doesn’t think of things when there is nothing to lead one’s mind to them.’

‘I know,’ said Elly. ‘It is just now that I am trying to remember a little about mamma. You know, I was only a baby when she died, and for years and years I never even thought—’

‘That was like me: it all seemed so natural, one made no inquiry.’

‘We are very like each other, Jack,’ said Elly, ‘now some people would have been always inquiring: at least that is how they do in books. You and I just took it for granted. Has your mother, then, a large family that she has given you quite up to old Mr. and Mrs. Sandford? I suppose your father was their son, as you are Sandford too.’

This puzzled John extremely. It was a question he had not asked himself. Though he knew that his mother was Emily, and that she was the daughter of the old people, it had not occurred to him to wonder why he should be called John Sandford. It sent off his mind at an entirely different angle of wonder and inquiry. John—he had always been called Johnnie in those old days. John—what? It seemed to him a dozen times that he was just on the eve of catching the name, and then it went from him again; besides, he had not time to think of it now with Elly looking in his face with her brown eyes, all round and big with the inquiry. He replied to her question,

‘I don’t think I know, Elly. It really is very funny how little one thinks. I don’t believe there were many of us. I have a sister Susie—but whether there are any more—— Oh, no, I don’t think there are any more. My mother never comes to see us because—I am sure I don’t know why. I never asked. Some time or other I must think it all out, and ask grandmamma. It is absurd, isn’t it, to know so little about one’s own people.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Elly, ‘not when you have not heard people talking of them. See how well we look, over Mr. Cattley’s mantelpiece. I wonder what he will say when he comes in. He will say, “That’s Elly,” I am sure. He will never give you the credit of it.’

‘And of course he will be quite right,’ said John. ‘I should never have thought of such a thing. Well, dear old place, good-bye. I shall think of it often when I am away and working. We have been just the same for a long time, but we are going to be very different, Elly. Perhaps next time we meet you won’t have anything to say to me.’

‘Why?’ she asked, opening wide again her great soft brown eyes.

‘Because, of course, you will always be a lady, and I shall perhaps be a rough kind of working man.’ John laughed in spite of himself at the idea, which did not frighten him at all. ‘Mr. Cattley says one has to go and work at the foundry like any working man.’

‘Likely that I shouldn’t have anything to say to you! Why, that is what I should enjoy,’ said Elly. ‘Have you got all your books? Well, then, we’ll say good-bye in concert. Good-bye, dear old place! Of course I shall come back to you often, but Jack most likely will not come back for a very long time. I hope when he does he’ll be a good engineer, and be building a new Eddystone, or something of that kind: and I hope he will never be such a fool as to think that people will have nothing to say to him. We two schoolfellows will always be friends whatever happens, and wherever we go. You shall always tell everything to me, Jack, just as you always did in Mr. Cattley’s dear old study. Now, that is a promise, mind.’

‘Yes, Elly,’ said John, ‘but you ought to promise the same, that you will tell everything to me.’

‘Oh, girls are different,’ said Elly. They walked out, carrying with them their burdens of books. It did not occur to John that he should offer to carry hers for her, or treat her otherwise than on the footing of perfect equality which they had hitherto occupied. Nor did she think of it. They stood upon no ceremony with each other. Elly’s instinct told her that to promise entire confidence was not on her side so simple, as on his: but she was ready to promise ‘faithfully,’ on her part, always a ready ear for his confidences, and her best attention to any problem he might present for her consideration. John accepted this without further question. He knew vaguely that girls were different. Elly would go back to the drawing-room at the rectory, while he went out to work at his profession. He felt that the girls had the worst of it, poor things.

And they walked out through the little garden and down the side street which led to the rectory with a little sentiment in their young bosoms, but none that touched upon the relations between themselves. They felt a little sad at leaving school. They felt that one chapter of their lives was over, and that it was a pity, yet delightful. They were sad to leave Mr. Cattley and their books, yet enchanted to be on the threshold of life. John walked to the rectory gate with his school-fellow, for company, and then they parted, but without any tender adieu, without even shaking hands; for after all, until John actually left Edgeley, they would certainly see each other every day.

CHAPTER VIII.

A CALL FOR EMILY.

Mrs. Sandford had not been well ever since that morning expedition of hers. There was nothing the matter with her, she said, oh, nothing. She was only a little tired; perhaps she had done too much at Christmas, what with the flannel-petticoats and all the rest. The clothing club had been a little trying that year. There had been more people to satisfy, a greater number of pence to reckon up, and garments to choose. And Mrs. Egerton had been absent on a visit, so that the great part of the work fell to Mrs. Sandford’s share. All these she set forth, smiling, as reasons why she should be tired. And then there was the reason that underlay all these, which gave force to them—that she was growing old. Of that there could be no question—every birthday made it more and more certain. She was no longer at a time of life when people can make light of fatigue. She was growing older every year. This smiling plea was received by grandfather with his tchick, tchick, and by John with a troubled but nevertheless unquestioning acquiescence: for there could be no doubt that it was true. He thought her even older than she thought herself, and felt that her days were over, before she had realised that fact in her own person. She grew older not only every year but every day as the weeks of January went on. At first she went out a little in the middle of the day when the sun shone. But soon this little exercise was given up. It did a delicate person no good, really no good, the doctor said, to go out in that wintry weather. It was wiser and better to stay indoors; and then it came to be considered wiser that she should rise late, and lie on the sofa when she came downstairs. She lay there always smiling, declaring that nothing ailed her, but as a matter of fact fading and failing day by day.

The last time she went out with John she had kept looking about with a little nervous glance by all the side roads. They went as far as the common and paused a little, looking across by the path which led to the railway-station.

‘Have you ever heard anything more of that man?’ she said.

‘What man, grandmamma?’

‘The man you once told me of, you know, who had been a convict. The man who was asking for somebody’s poor wife——’

‘Oh! yes, I remember. No. I am sure he has never come back again. Perhaps he did not mean all he said. He had been drinking——’

‘Drink is a terrible thing, John. Almost everything begins with drinking. I have known it poison more lives than anything else in the world. If I had to choose, I think I would rather that a child of mine should murder some one outright than take to drink, for in that case there is no telling how many he might murder—all that loved him—and himself as well as the rest.’

‘You need not tell me, grandmamma; no one can hate it more than I.’

‘I hope so. I hope so, dear! You have never seen anything all your life that could incline you in any such way, have you, John? But remember you have never been in any temptation—and till one is in temptation one can never tell what may happen. I think, my dear, we will go home.’

They had many little conversations of this kind. The old lady would begin upon any subject, it did not matter what, and then by degrees she would come to this:

‘I have seen so much in my life. I have seen many young people grow up everything that could be wished, as you have done, John; and then, as soon as they came into temptation, they have gone astray. Nobody knows till he has been tried: and it is not the disagreeable ones, the ones that you would dislike, that go: sometimes the very nicest, John—those that are the kindest, the tenderest. That is a great mystery. None of us can fathom it.’

‘It does seem very strange,’ said the attentive boy, listening at once out of respect and out of the cheerful curiosity of his age, often with a sense that he knew better, but far too considerate and kind, as well as conscious of the fitness of things, to let her see this. She had seen so much: and yet to one who had begun to know a little philosophy and a number of books, how little it seemed that grandmamma could know.

‘Oh! it’s very strange,’ she said. ‘I’ve lain in bed for hours thinking of it, and I’ve gone about the house for days thinking of it, and yet I never come any nearer. Do you remember what it says in the Bible, about the potter making one vessel to dishonour and another to honour? Oh! but, John, it seems sometimes more than that! It seems as if He took the vessels that had been made for honour, and dashed them down on the ground and let them all break into shreds and miserable fragments. You can’t think what it is to stand and look on at that, and be able to do nothing, nothing!’

John was sitting by the side of her sofa: for they had come in: and he saw with wonder, yet great respect, that the tears had come to her eyes.

‘But, surely, grandmamma,’ he said, seriously, ‘it must be their own fault.’

‘Oh! yes, my dear, no doubt it must be their own fault,’ she said, and put up her handkerchief to her eyes, and for a moment could not speak. The boy sat by her side, greatly touched by her emotion and wondering who it might be of whom she was thinking: for he felt that it could not be only the general question that went so much to the old lady’s heart. But he felt inclined to speak to her seriously, and reason with her, and say to her that no one could be forced to go wrong, that the people who did so must do it because they liked it, because they had no self-control, or wanted something in their constitutions: and that it was wrong to blame Providence or even human nature for what was their own individual fault. He only did not say this because he was so respectful and kind, and the sight of her silent crying—although, indeed, at her age, an old lady is easily moved to tears—went to his heart.

‘But no one can ever tell whether they can resist or not, till they have been tempted,’ she said. ‘We think nothing would ever make us do it, and then the next thing is that we find ourselves doing it, some in small things and some in great.’

To this, which was abstract, John did not know how to make any reply; and there was a silence of a minute or two, after which Mrs. Sandford said, suddenly,

‘John, I am thinking of sending for Emily. It is a long, long time since I saw her, and at my age, you know, one can’t go on living for ever.’

‘You don’t feel any worse, grandmamma?’

‘Oh, worse!’ she said, with her pretty old smile, ‘not even ill—there is nothing at all the matter with me. Still, I’ve been keeping quieter than usual, and lying on the sofa so much makes one feel weak. And I’ve been thinking that it’s a long, long time since she has been here. It is not quite natural that a daughter should be so long without coming to see her parents, is it?—and she our only child. But you must not suppose I blame Emily—oh, no! There were many reasons which seemed to make it better that she should not come—family matters which we should have to explain to people that know nothing about them. And in some respects, John, though you will think it strange, it might be a painful meeting. Still, I think that she should come.’

John did not feel able to make any reply. It seemed to have escaped Mrs. Sandford’s mind that this was his mother of whom she was speaking, and that, if it was strange that a daughter should not come to see her parents, it was still more strange that a mother should not come to see her child. The thought of her coming brought a great sense of disturbance into his mind. He did not feel that he had any wish to see her. His mother had got confused and lost in this Emily of whom he had heard so much. They were, he supposed, the same person, but he had a reluctance to identify them. It was not to her but to his grandparents that he belonged. He had no desire to have this little world disturbed, where all was so harmonious, by an alien presence. The wonder which had arisen in his mind when he talked with Elly, rose up again more painfully. How little she must care for him never to have wished to see him again. Perhaps she was one of those people who do not care much for anyone. Altogether it would be better that the family should remain as they had always been, without the disturbing influence of one who was so near to them all, and yet was a stranger. An uneasy sense that harm would come of it and that pain would be in it filled his thoughts.

‘Yes,’ said the old lady, in her soft voice, ‘whatever happens, it would be well that she should come. Her father would like her to be here. Even if he did not wish it at the time, he would be glad of it afterwards; for how could he settle everything, he that has never had any trouble about the house, by himself? John, we have a nice quiet time just now. It’s raining, and nobody is likely to call, and your grandfather has gone over to Sailsfield to ask about those new strawberries. Bring your little writing-case—that Mr. Cattley gave you on your birthday. You can put it here on my table. I’m too tired to write myself. Just say what I tell you. Are you ready, dear? Then, you may begin. “Dear Emily——”

‘But, grandmamma,’ said John, ‘how can I say “dear Emily,” when it is my mother? I can’t write to my mother so.’

‘Dear, dear me!’ said Mrs. Sandford, ‘how was it I never thought of that? Oh, my poor boy. It is just a confusion altogether,’ she cried, once more, with tears ready to drop, ‘just a confusion, everything turned upside down, and all as unnatural——! I felt it from the first, but they thought they knew better than me. Then you must say, “dear mamma,” John. I am glad you reminded me of that, for I get confused too. Now go on, my dear. “It is a long time since you have been here, and I think it is time that you should pay us a visit. We are getting old people, and your dear father, though he never complains, is not such a walker as he used to be, and I have got a little stupid, and can’t keep him as cheerful as I could wish.” Do you think I shouldn’t say as much as that? or what do you object to, my dear?’

‘Dear grandmamma,’ said John, ‘I had better put “Emily” at the beginning of the letter: for I could not say that about getting old, and about her dear father, could I—when I am only her—son?’

Mrs. Sandford said tchick, tchick as her husband did; half coughing, half crying.

‘How very silly I am. Of course, you can’t put all that in if you begin “dear mamma.” This is what you must say, John, just “My dear.” That is neither one thing nor another. Put all the rest that I have told you, and “My dear,” to begin with. “My dear,” will do for anybody. Tell her that I’ve been thinking of late of a great many things I should like to say to her: but that it tires me very much to write, and that the only way I can think is if she would come. Of course it will interfere with her time and she might not be able to get leave; but I hope she won’t grudge that once in a way to her mother: and tell her, John—it is just a little matter between us; it is nothing you will understand—tell her that the people here are very ignorant, good sort of souls that never know anything. They don’t even read the newspapers, and never have done so. She will know what I mean.’

John put down all this in the best way he could; but it seemed sadly out of character to him to write with his firm young handwriting, and with all the sense of incongruity that was in his mind, such sentences as these to his mother. He wrote to her very seldom; only on great occasions, at Christmas and other anniversaries, and very formally, as a boy writes when he is at school. He had done this for a long time, as a matter of course, and never thought any more of it. But now his eyes were opened to the strangeness of everything, to all that was out of nature in the constitution of his family, and it did not seem possible to him to continue any longer in that way which till now he had accepted without question. There was something even in the erasures with which this paper began—the ‘dear Emily’ which gave him a little shiver, the ‘dear mamma’ which was still more incongruous—which seemed to stir up all the smouldering questions which he was not aware were in his mind. He had not known anything about them, and yet, apparently, they were all there, waiting only this touch to bring them to light. Why was it she never came? Why was it she had abandoned him, her child, and then her parents? What was it in her life that kept her so far apart, so unknown, in a strange world, from which nobody ever came—nobody who could say ‘I have seen her’—to give them fuller satisfaction than letters could afford, letters which John was now aware told nothing but the merest surface of existence, that all was well, that he was getting on with his lessons, that the weather was very fine, or the season a cold one? What are such facts as these in comparison with the intercourse that ought to exist between people who were each other’s nearest relations? It gave him a great shock as he wrote that about ‘your dear father.’ Was grandpapa, indeed, her dear father? and did she think so little of him that she never came to see with her own eyes whether he was growing old or not? And what was he, John himself, her son? Oh, but other women were not so with their sons. All this must have been in his mind, though he had never thought of it before. He wrote down all that his grandmother had told him, and then he paused in his new development of feeling. It seemed to him that he would like to take this paper and tear it into a dozen pieces in the exasperation of his soul.

‘Grandmamma,’ he said, with a little quiver in his voice, ‘don’t you think it would be better for me to write from myself, and tell her this in my own way? I will say just what you want to have said, but it shall be from myself. It would be more natural. After all she is my—mother, I suppose.’

‘John!’ said the old lady. ‘You suppose! What should she be but your mother? Who should be your mother but she? Oh, my dear, I hope you will not take things into your head that are not true. We have enough of trouble, enough of trouble, in our family. Don’t you begin and imagine things that are not true.’

‘I don’t imagine anything,’ said the boy, ‘but if you will consider, grandmamma, this is my mother. And I know nothing about her. For a long time it seemed all simple. I never minded. But, now I’m getting older and see how other people are, it is all so strange. Let me have my own way this time—let me just write to her as it would be natural if I were really her son.’

‘Oh, my John, that you are, indeed, indeed; her son and nothing else. Whose son should you be but hers? Don’t take any wrong notions into your head. My poor Emily! Oh, if you knew how many things she has had to bear! And what would she do at the end of all if her own boy’s heart was cold to her? You are her son and no one’s else—hers, my dear, and hers alone.’

John looked with his clear young eyes, severe yet gentle, in her face.

‘Isn’t that too much to say, grandmamma? Am I not the son of my father, too?’

The old lady looked at him with a strange, low cry. She caught hold of both his hands for a moment, with a grasp in which there seemed something like terror. And then she dropped back upon her pillow and covered her face with her hands.

‘I always said it. I always said it,’ she cried.

Just then, in the pause that followed, a heavy, familiar step, slow and steady, came along the road, audible for some time in the quiet of the afternoon and the house. Mrs. Sandford dried her eyes hastily and raised herself up again.

‘There is your grandfather,’ she said. ‘Oh, my dear, take that away, and write as you please: but don’t say anything about it, for I have not spoken to him. And it is not as if I were sending for her, John. I am only saying that I should like to see her. Of course I should like to see her, every mother wishes that, to see her child. Write out of your own head; but don’t say anything about it, and quick, quick, take all that away!’

CHAPTER IX.

JOHN’S LETTER.

John was allowed to sit in the parlour now that he was almost a man, after the old people had gone to bed. His own room was small, and it had been agreed upon as a reasonable thing that he should have a place in which he could sit and read, or write—till eleven o’clock, at least. Mr. Sandford retired to his room at ten exactly, every night, and, since she had been so ill—no, not ill, tired—his wife had preceded him, going upstairs very early, in that unaccountable but quite gentle fatigue which had come over her. All the afternoon and evening John had been very silent, thinking—chiefly what he was to say in his letter to his mother—but also about all the circumstances, the strangeness of the household life altogether, the extraordinary separation which, now that conveyance was so easy, now that everybody travelled, when even little Joe Hodge, who was apprenticed in London, came home every Christmas to see his mother, a poor widow in the alms-houses—was more wonderful than ever. In old times it might have been understood, when there were no railways, in the days which the old people remembered—but now! It perplexed him beyond description, when his thoughts were fully directed to the subject. And it became clear to him all at once, as when a landscape suddenly becomes apparent to us on turning a corner or coming to the top of a hill, that some other reason must exist for this than the simple fact that his mother lived in London and his grandparents at Edgeley. That was no reason; his enlightened mind rejected it. All the afternoon he kept turning over and over in his mind what he was to say. He had never in his life written an important letter, scarcely ever written one at all which was not suggested, partly dictated even, by the old people, who would say to him, ‘You must write to Susie,’ or, ‘Don’t you think, John, that you ought to write to your mother?’ This was how his correspondence had generally been conducted. He had written a few schoolboy epistles to Dick and Percy, but they did not count. He thought a great deal of the importance of the letter. Phrases for it, sentences which he polished and reconstructed, and which he felt, with a little satisfaction, would come very well, kept passing through his mind in a sort of procession. Sometimes he felt that he had put a thing very strongly indeed, that his mother must feel herself entirely in the wrong, and change her procedure altogether. He was not aware that people do not like to find themselves in the wrong, and are far from candid in acknowledging that fact, even when it is most apparent in the accuser’s eyes.

He got out the little writing-case, of which he was proud, as soon as his grandfather had gone upstairs. He got out some paper, carefully inspecting it to see that there was no infinitesimal soil on its glossy purity; and then he began to write, taking a new pen, and every precaution against blotting. All these were signs and symbols of the importance of the act he was about to accomplish. He lingered over the preparations with a hope that they would inspire him. But when all was done he did not find it so easy to put down what he wanted to say. He did not go to bed at eleven that night. He sat up for two hours later, trying to shape an epistle which should be like that of a son to his mother, yet at the same time that of a young man coming into full possession of his reason to a woman who was not obeying the dictates of that fundamental principle. He did not want to be instructive or dictatorial, but yet he wanted to show her that he was aware she was failing in her duty; and withal it was his intention to be perfectly respectful and filial. To combine these things was to an unaccustomed letter-writer very difficult. His beautiful sheet of paper which he had chosen so carefully was all scored and interlined, and had become a mere scrawl long before he was done. And he himself grew hot and excited in the process: far more than if Mr. Cattley had cut to pieces his Latin poem, and he had been trying to do a new composition. As a matter of fact, he had made two or three compositions of this letter before he settled on one that would do.

This was what he decided on sending at the last:

‘Dear Mother’—(He had always heretofore said Mamma, keeping the baby name, which was the only one under which he had any real knowledge of her. That, and Emily, he understood: but Mother seemed a new person, some one with whom he had no real acquaintance, whom he must learn to know). ‘Dear Mother,’—He did not add any more for half an hour, and then he began to write quickly for ten minutes, and put down the most of what is copied here, though with corrections and interlining past counting. This was nothing but the mere draft.

‘I think I am old enough to write to you from myself, being no longer a child: for it seems so very hard not to know you, or to understand why it is that I have not seen you for such a long, long time. People change very much in such a time; it is said that even your body changes, and, still more, your mind, which is always undergoing developments, and learning more and having more experiences. Dear mother, I am not now a little boy. I have finished my education. Mr. Cattley thinks I have gone as far as I need try to do, as I am not to proceed seriously with my studies, and now it has been settled that I am to begin to learn the profession of an engineer. I had my choice between that and going into an office, and I chose that. I hope you will be interested in hearing all this. Mothers are generally so, and it is hard upon me—Please do think so!—not to know whether you care, or if you will be pleased. Mother, I am writing now to ask you something—something that is very much in my mind. I do want you to come here. Consider that I don’t know you at all. It is not natural. I feel almost as if it were wrong not to know my mother. But it is not my fault; and there are poor grandfather and grandmamma whom you have given up too. They are your parents just as you are mine, and it is dreadful that we should never meet. Mother, please don’t think I am saying more than I ought to say; but do come—oh, do come. I do not feel that I can go on longer as I have gone on all these years, knowing nothing about myself, or about you. You must see, if you will think, that it is very, very hard upon me, especially now when I am old enough to think for myself.

‘I am, dear mother,
‘Your affectionate son,
‘John Sandford.’

He had worked himself up to a very high pitch of feeling before he came to the end. It need scarcely be added that it was not in the least what he intended to say. He meant to have pointed out the hardship of his own case incidentally, and put the force of his prayer into his grandmother’s wishes. But John found out, like other people, that his pen ran away with him—his thoughts ran away with him. The stream of his eloquence all poured in one direction, while his intentions took the other way—curious conflict of that dual nature which nobody understands though so many people talk of it. It is more often in doing than in saying that we contradict our own purpose. But John was more near to the truth in what he said, being carried away by the fever of writing, and the natural impulse which seized upon his pen, than if he had discharged his commission more exactly. It was only when he read his letter over, still labouring with the emotion it had called forth, and which gradually rose higher and higher by the stimulus of his own eloquence, that it occurred to him that he had altogether left out his grandmother’s message. He added, as so many people do, in the manner which is called feminine, the real object of his writing in a postscript. It was very brief, and delivered with a much decreased earnestness.

‘Grandmamma is not very well. She can’t do nearly so much as she did a little while ago. It was she who first said I might write to beg you to come, and to say that she would like to see you. There are many things she would like to say to you, for the people here are very ignorant, and don’t understand.’

John had no doubt that he had thus given everything that was of the least importance in his grandmother’s message. He made a fair copy—a very fair copy of the document which was the most important he had ever had to do with. He would not trust himself to the opportunities of the morning, when, perhaps, Mr. Sandford might want him to do something, or Mr. Cattley might send for him, or anything might happen. The fire had gone out by this time, and the boy was very cold and cramped, and the stillness of the dead of night pressed upon his spirits. He took off his shoes before he stole up the creaking stairs to bed, with the fumes of his great intellectual effort in his head, and all his feelings roused. A sense of temerity, yet of pride, in the independent step he had taken was strong within him. Whatever might happen, at least he had made it apparent that he was now able to act and judge for himself.

When Mrs. Sandford came downstairs a little later than usual next day—it was always now a little later, so that it was hard upon any principle of averages to say what the ‘usual’ was—she asked John about his letter, with a look and a grasp of his hand, which showed how much in earnest she was, and which gave him a momentary compunction at the thought of how little important her share in the invitation had been made.

‘Did you send it away?’ she said to him, as he kissed her.

‘Yes, grandmamma, this morning.’

‘Thank you, my dear,’ she said; ‘did you say how much I wanted her, and how I hoped she would come soon?’

‘Ye-es,’ said John, with a less assured affirmative; then he added, ‘I said everything I could think of. I implored her to come.’

She pressed his hand in hers with a tender clasp.

‘Dear boy,’ she said, ‘you know I would never wish you to keep a secret from your grandfather. But unless he asks you—unless he says something—you will not take any notice, John?’

John drew himself apart a little, squaring his young shoulders.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘grandmamma, that I am old enough to write to my mother on my own responsibility, without thinking what even grandfather might say.’

‘Oh! yes,’ she said, looking up at him with a woman’s admiration for masculine independence, ‘that is quite true.’

‘And he would be the last to think otherwise. He would see that it was only natural and right.’

‘Yes,’ she answered, more doubtfully; ‘but he might think he ought to be consulted before you took any step. And that would only be just. What I hope is that Emily, who is so sensible, will take it into her own hands and write that she is coming—without saying anything about an invitation—that would certainly be the best way.’

‘I think,’ said John, ‘that, whether there were an invitation at all or not, she ought to have come long ago to see——’

He paused with a curious sense of the involved situation. Mrs. Sandford echoed his words with a soft, little sigh.

‘Oh! yes, whatever might have happened, she should have come to see her mother, John.’

But that was not what John intended to say.

Mr. Sandford came in shortly after, full of an interview he had just had with Mr. Cattley, who had been corresponding with his brother, the engineer, about John’s plans.

‘It appears that Mr. Cattley’s brother is an engineer who has to do with machinery,’ grandfather said. ‘I don’t know if that is the same thing as a lighthouse man. You will have to go to the foundry and learn how everything is made. It is not surveying and that sort of thing, so far as I can hear. You will have to put your shoulder to the wheel, they tell me, and work with your own hands: but I suppose you will not mind that, John.’

‘And where is the foundry?’ asked grandmamma, from the sofa. ‘I hope it is not too far away.’

‘Well, it is not perhaps the place I should have chosen; but what does it matter? one place is very like another. Anything that could harm him would be just as likely to come to him in any other place. It’s in Liverpool, my dear.’

‘In Liverpool——’ Mrs. Sandford raised herself so quickly and energetically for her weak condition that she looked as if she were about to spring from the sofa. ‘John Sandford,’ she said, ‘you will never let the boy go there.’

‘It is not what I should have wished,’ said the old gentleman; ‘in short, it is the last place I should have chosen. But I did not think of that soon enough, and, after Mr. Cattley has been so kind as to make all the inquiries—— What can it matter, after all? That or any other place. It will be just the same. I can’t think that there is any more danger there than anywhere else. And, things have gone so far, I don’t see how we can draw back.’

‘Oh, John Sandford!’ cried his wife, ‘it is not possible. I can never, never consent. What! After all we have suffered, and all the sacrifices we have made, to send him back there!’

‘I know, I know,’ said the old gentleman, with a deprecatory wave of his hands. ‘It is all true; but still, what can we do? A long time has passed, and he is going back without any—— No, I know very well what you would say: but if you will look at it reasonably——’

‘How can I look at it reasonably? And do you think Emily will be reasonable? She will never consent, and neither will I.’

‘But, my dear, my dear!’ he said, ‘it is all settled, and how can I go back?’

John had listened to this conversation with a surprise which gradually grew into something like indignation.

‘Grandmamma,’ he said, coming forward to the sofa, ‘I don’t want to seem wiser than you, or as if I knew better; but why should you be so afraid to trust me? I have never done anything to make you afraid. I don’t think I want pleasure or anything that is wrong. I will try to do my duty either at Liverpool or anywhere else. Don’t, please, think that I shall forget everything you have taught me, and all that I have been brought up to, the moment I go away.’

Both the old people had their eyes fixed on him as he spoke, and then they looked at each other across him, with one of those looks which he had so often caught in the passing, looks which it had always been hard to understand. Whatever it was, their eyes spoke to each other, not to him, with a sort of troubled commentary between them on what he said. Grandfather shook his head slightly in answer to his wife’s look, and he cleared his throat as if for something he wanted, but did not know how, to say—but in the end it was she who spoke.

‘Oh, John, it is not that, my dear. We do trust you, both grandfather and I. It isn’t that. I’m always of a tremble when I see an innocent boy go out into the world. Oh, yes, I allow I am, John: and for you, because you’re so precious, most of all; but it’s not that—oh, no, it’s not that.’

‘What is it, then? What is there so dreadful about Liverpool?’

That look passed between them again—but this time there was a warning in the husband’s eyes. He turned round in his chair towards where John stood.

‘Grandmamma was always one of the nervous ones,’ he said, with a faint little laugh, ‘and the particular thing about Liverpool is that we once lived near it, and knew a great deal of what went on there. And there were some dreadful things happened—one above all. Oh, you need not be afraid, my dear. I’m not going to disturb the boy’s mind with any tales. But that’s how it is, John. We’ve seen such things happen under our very eyes.’

‘That is no reason, grandfather,’ said John, very gravely, ‘that anything bad should happen to me.’

‘Have I not been saying so? The best thing is to shut your ears to all idle tales. Don’t believe half you hear, and never go inquiring into trouble that is past. If you make up your mind to it, and never forget your duty, and keep steady—why, Liverpool is just the same as any other place.’

‘Not to us—not to anyone connected with us,’ Mrs. Sandford said.

It was all very strange to John. He could not think why they should distrust him, why they should have so little faith. Keep steady! That was a very low level of duty; he said to himself that he hoped he would do better than that. Any poor workman, or poor fellow without education or advantage of training, disgraced himself if he did not keep steady. How much more was required of one like himself! He had not time, however, to express these sentiments, for that was the night on which Mrs. Sandford had one of her attacks. She had never been in the way of having attacks as so many people have. But on that evening she was very ill, and John had to run for the doctor, and for medicines, and was kept perpetually in movement, not to say that he was in deep anxiety, altogether discouraged by the sight of her suffering, and jumping at once, as is usual to inexperience, to the awful idea of death. He did not know how hard that is of coming, and how many lingering preliminaries there are to go through. He thought that the dread presence might push through all human defences at once, as he does sometimes, and do his work in a moment. And he was awe-stricken, overwhelmed with terrible suspense. She was very ill all night, but in the morning began to get better.

‘We shall pull her through,’ the doctor said, ‘but you must see she is not worried or put out about anything—for that in her present state she could not bear.’

‘We are to see she is not worried. But who except God can do that?’ said grandfather, still up in the cold, blue dawn of the morning, leaning upon John’s shoulder. ‘As long as she lives she will never cease to worry: and what can I do?—— Perhaps if Emily were here——’

CHAPTER X.

THE REPLY.

‘Who gave you authority to invite her here? What is she going to do here? Don’t you know, sir, don’t you know, sir, that I—that she—that she—that everything depends—’ Mr. Sandford stammered forth in wrath. And then he stopped himself in considerable agitation, and walked about the parlour a little, to calm himself down. ‘To be sure she’s the boy’s mother, after all,’ he said to himself, in a sort of whisper. ‘And then her mother’s bad—my poor old dear—she’s very bad.’ There seemed a process of reasoning going on in his mind of which those murmurs marked the stages. Finally he put his hand on John’s shoulder not untenderly. ‘You’ve done it,’ he said, ‘out of your own head. I would not have let you do it had I known. But now that it’s done it’s done, and it may turn out for the best.’

‘Do you think she will come, grandfather?’ John asked, eagerly.

‘God knows. She would, like a shot, if it was anyone but Emily. But how can I tell what she will do? She was always too many for me.’

And with a sigh the old man hurried upstairs again ‘to see how She was going on.’ His old wife had done everything for him all the long lifetime they had spent together. But his alarm and awkward anxiety were touching. He would fain have done everything for her with his clumsy, old, trembling hands and slow comprehension of invalid needs. How should an old man who had been used to have everything done for him learn in a moment the arts of a sick-room—the recollection of everything, the softened touch, the subdued sounds? Love itself is not enough to teach all these. And old Mr. Sandford had been less used to help himself than any duke. To have your wife there to do everything for you, as is the habit of the class to which he belonged, involves a far closer service than any valet would give. The poor old gentleman, with the best will in the world, was quite incapable. He required her to tell him what to do. ‘My dear!’ the appeal of fifty years, which had always been met on her part by the instant response of a service which was far more than duty, came to his lips every moment almost with at touch of indignation: for if she would not tell him how could he be expected to know? But he could not keep away from her. He wanted to see with his own eyes every moment that she was getting a little better. She had never been ill, and he did not believe in her being ill; but still if she should be ill what would become of him and everything? His very heart seemed to stop beating at the thought.

These two had come to that point of age and long continuance when it is scarcely possible to believe in an end at all. Everything went on with such a steady, gentle routine, one day following another, each the same as the other, a steady succession of hours and habits, and invariable ways. They were so accustomed to it all: they were past the age of change: they were so easily satisfied, wanting nothing more than the warmth of the fireside, and their mutual talks, and their sober, moderate meals, and to see John growing up such a fine fellow! That was the one quicker, keener throb of happiness in the midst of their well-being. That he should go away would indeed be a wrench. But then there was no reason to suppose that his going away would be for anything but his good, and it was inevitable, a thing they had always known. And then they would have his letters, and his visits now and then, and always themselves to fall back upon, the inseparable pair, the two who were one. It is true that everybody knows that everybody else must die, but there seemed no reason in the world why this life should not go on for ever, so peaceful, so uneventful, doing no harm to anybody, doing good, demanding so little, and in itself so contented, without further desire or expectation. Mr. Sandford had long got over that other human sentiment which fears its own well-being, and feels that, the more comfortable you are, the more likely it is that fate will come down and crush you. Fate had nothing to do with this old pair: they were good, religious people, who had suffered much in this life, but to whom God had given a peace which was very sweet. And why should it be broken by any startling change? Why should it be disturbed? It was not an idea to be entertained for a moment. Did not all experience prove that that which hath been is the thing which shall be? He went upstairs, trying to make no noise with his heavy tread, to convince himself that every moment she was getting a little better, and that no change was possible, except for good.

The answer to John’s letter could not come till the second day; as a matter of fact, it did not come till the fourth. All these three mornings he came down early, and was at the door to meet the postman as he went his rounds, which did not mean that John doubted his mother’s coming, but only that he was very anxious, and eager to know what she would say. Not only her answer, but what she would say. Was it possible that her reply would be in the old, formal tone, as to a little boy who knew no better? or would she now perceive that he was at least an independent human creature, capable of feeling, capable of knowing, and address him as such? John was almost more anxious to resolve this question than to know whether she was coming. Of course she must be coming. Who could resist the appeal, that was at once from her mother and from her son? He had forgotten by this time how very little had been her mother’s part in it, and believed sincerely that he had said everything that had been suggested to him. In the first pang of astonished disappointment with which he found that there was no letter the first day, all his calculations were confounded, for he had never for a moment supposed that she would not answer, and answer at once. But then his hopes sprang up, and he said to himself that she must be thinking it over, and arranging how to come, and that she did not wish to write till she could tell him exactly the hour she would arrive. On the third day, grandmamma was downstairs again, looking paler, but still smiling. She took his face between her two thin hands (how thin they had grown, and all the veins showing), and whispered in his ear, as he stooped over her:

‘What does Emily say?’

Always Emily. He could not get rid of Emily.

‘There is no letter yet, grandmamma.’

‘Ah! she will be waiting till she can settle exactly which train she is to come by,’ said the old lady, and gave him a kiss, and lay smiling, thinking, no doubt, of her daughter, who was coming. She could not talk much, for she was still very weak.

On the fourth morning the letter arrived.

‘It is for you, Mr. John,’ said the postman.

‘Yes, yes,’ cried the boy; ‘I know it is for me.’

He hurried in, and shut the parlour-door, that no one might disturb him in reading it. At all events, it was a letter, he could see in a moment, and not the usual little formal note about his health and her health, which had been enough for him when he was a child. John’s heart beat very high as he began to read, but gradually calmed down, and became quite still, scarcely moving at all in his breast. For his mother’s letter was not the kind of letter to encourage the beatings of any heart.