Jim East, in his dark-hued mourning garments, had from afar appeared sad indeed in the eyes of Frances. As he came nearer, she saw signs not of sadness alone, but of sensations more strange to the girlish onlooker. The sorrow he had just experienced could hardly account for the wistful expression in the lad’s face, or for a certain hopefulness in his bearing. Jim was coming forward to meet, with what courage he could command, the crucial moment of his young life. He was trying to assure himself that he had a right to expect that the ordeal would pass and leave him happy.
“He is very lonely,” reflected Frances pityingly; “he has begun to feel that he is lonely. I wish I could comfort him, but I don’t know how.”
Setting aside all possibility of administering comfort, it must surely be a simple thing to condole and sympathize with Jim. Frances felt that she could do both, for she had sincerely liked the old grandfather, and was glad now to recall the sacrificed holiday hours for which he had thanked her with moist eyes and grateful lips. She took a step forward lest Jim should pass her with his usual quiet salute, but she saw that this had not been his intention. He turned a little, even before she moved, and directed his course to her without hesitation.
“She will be kind,” thought the lad as his gaze rested on Frances, and she greeted him with a smile. “Grandfather was right, he said she would be kind. If only she knew how I want her to be kind!”
Jim’s yearning was no more translatable through his face than was his simple trust in a girl’s faith. Frances had left him the treasured belief that in her sight his work, however humble, was honourable; himself, however lowly, above reproach. She had not forced on him, as had Austin, more than once, the recognition of differences of class, habit, and attainment. These, she knew, were obvious enough to modest Jim. Instead, she had shown him a gracious friendliness which had roused the lad to wondering gratitude; while her intelligent interest in his monotonous labour had given it value apart from bread-winning necessity.
Jim, in his ill-fitting cloth suit of rustic cut, was in Frances’s eyes a much more pretentious and less picturesque figure than Jim the blacksmith working at his forge. A little half-conscious regret that Jim himself was likely to hold a contrary opinion was promptly stifled by the remembrance that in his case, at least, the wearing of mourning garb was no meaningless form.
“Good-evening, Jim!” Frances’s right hand rested lightly on the half-opened gate which bounded the carriage-drive to Elveley. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve wanted to tell you how very sorry I am for your trouble. It isn’t only I, either; all of us boys and girls are sorry. Your grandfather was always good to us; and we liked him, ever so much. Of course,” she went on gravely, “I know that we can’t feel as you do, because you miss him all day long. But you won’t forget, will you, when you are sad and lonely, that we are sorry too?”
“No, Missy,” said Jim in a low voice, “I won’t forget; and I thank you kindly for speaking so.”
“Then you will try to cheer up, won’t you, Jim? And we will all come to see your dear smithy; and you must come sometimes to our meetings and help us with the village-boys.”
A scrape of Austin’s foot on the gravel warned Frances of his strong objection; but at that moment his sister’s thoughts were echoing the quavering tones of an old man’s voice, begging her, when Jim should be left solitary, to be kind to the lonely lad.
“We hope you will come to help us,” persisted the girl.
“I’ll do anything as you may wish,” Jim replied. “I’ll be proud to serve you, Missy.” He lifted his head then; the gentleness of Frances’s accents moving him to look to her face in search of help for the better meeting of his fate. The lad was in sore need of some encouragement, for he knew that the errand which had brought him to Elveley this Christmas-day was one that might well startle, if it did not repel, his listener. And above all things Jim dreaded to see Frances’s pain or to hear her reproach. The position he now occupied was intolerable to the boy’s sensitive nature. But guessing instinctively that in telling his story the simplest words would be the best, and the briefest phrases the most acceptable, Jim began his explanations without any sort of pretence at ingenious circumlocution.
“I came to see you this afternoon, Missy, because of something you don’t know about—something Grandfather told me just before he died. I’m feared—I’m feared it isn’t what you’ll wish to hear. Grandfather told the doctor, too; but not till he’d promised to keep quiet. Grandfather wished me to tell you myself. He wished me to tell you on Christmas-day, because then, he said, folks thought kinder of everyone, let alone their own kindred. So I’ve been waiting all day, but somehow I couldn’t bear to come. I wanted to come, but I was feared, in case Grandfather was wrong when he said you would be kind. He bade me speak first to you.”
“Jim,” said Frances slowly, though her heart beat fast, “I don’t understand you in the very least.”
“Likely not, Missy. But it’s true what Grandfather told me, and I’ve brought the papers, as he wished, for Madam to see.”
“For my mother to see?” asked Frances wonderingly.
“Ay, Missy. And,” added Jim, with a sudden, natural break in his self-control, “won’t you please try to be kind to me? I’m your own father’s son.”
“What!” exclaimed Frances, drawing back against the gate. “Jim! You! What do you mean?”
“I’m Mr. Morland’s eldest son,” said Jim, in hurried tones, vibrating with mingled hope and fear. The hope was built on memory alone, the fear was roused by the shrinking dread he had fancied present in Frances’s face and voice.
“My mother was Martha East, Grandfather’s only daughter,—there had been one son, who had died. My mother wished to marry Mr. Morland, but Grandfather wouldn’t let her, for fear he’d tire of her; so they ran away, and married without leave. Mr. Morland was good to Mother, and they were very happy.”
Jim paused a moment, in keen distress, for he saw that Frances had grown white, and that she trembled as she leant for support against the gate.
“Not long before he married, Mr. Morland had promised a great Society in London to go for them to some country where he had travelled, and try to find out something they wanted to know. So when the time came he was obliged to go right away to some place in Asia; and before he went he took my mother to her old home—for he had no relations of his own—and begged Grandfather to take care of her till he came back. When he’d been away three months, word came to England that he’d been lost—taken prisoner, and carried off by some robber-tribes. There was no more heard of him, and Mother began to fret and pine, for it was said he’d never come home again. Mother lived only a few months after she’d got the news. She said she couldn’t live without her husband. I was born two months before she died.”
Jim hesitated, his voice faltering again as he glanced at Frances’s face, in which the dread was now too clear to allow of mistake. The hopefulness left the lad’s tones altogether, and he finished his story in nervous haste.
“They thought I’d die too, but I didn’t; and Grandfather, being alone, except for me, was glad I lived. Mother had called me Austin after my father, and James after her brother; but Grandfather always called me Jim. He’d loved his daughter dearly, but he was proud, and didn’t like her having married among gentlefolk, who’d look down on him as just a rough farmer. So, seeing he thought as my father was dead, as well as my mother, he reckoned he’d keep me and bring me up a working-man.
“I was six months old when Mr. Morland came back. He had been rescued by some travellers, who had been sent to search for him. When Grandfather heard the news, he made up his mind as he’d keep me still, and he did. They said in the certificate as my mother had died of a fever that was about the village where Grandfather lived then; and Grandfather took this paper and went to town to meet my father, and told him how Mother had died, but never a word about me. My father was dreadfully grieved not to find his wife waiting for him; and Grandfather told him—quite true—how she’d always loved him, and fretted after him, and spoken of him tender at the last.
“Then Grandfather took me away to the north, but he always managed to know where my father was. He knew when Mr. Morland married again, and that he had children, and when he died. And a few months ago, knowing he was failing in health and soon to leave me, he began to think as he oughtn’t to have kept me away from my father’s folk, so that I’d be left all alone in the world; and he found out where you were living, and bought Rowdon Smithy so that we could settle near you. He meant that some day I should come to you and beg you to be good to me.” Jim’s eyes and voice pleaded eloquently. “I’m your brother, Missy! your own father’s son. I’ll always care for you and little master if you’ll let me. I’d be proud to work for you, only”—Jim sighed forlornly—“there’s naught you need.”
Frances stood silent and utterly confused. She might have fancied that Jim’s sorrow had turned his brain, but for his intense earnestness and the straightforward way in which he had told his strange story. Again, she remembered facts which gave the story corroboration. For instance, the old grandfather’s solemn expressions of pleasure and satisfaction that he had seen her, and his evident delight in witnessing any kindness she had shown to his boy. Then Frances knew that her father had been a distinguished member of a learned Society, and in his youth had travelled far to serve the cause of science. She had heard of his romantic imprisonment and rescue; and though she never had been told that he had been married twice, she saw that in this respect Jim’s statements might easily be true. Her father had died while she was very young, and her mother might not have cared to speak, to a mere child, of her own predecessor.
As she hesitated, painfully conscious of Jim’s troubled and searching glances, she was relieved to hear her brother step forward. What Austin would say she could not guess, but at least his words might help her own. The boy did not turn to her for prompting, though he stood by her side, his face flushed and disturbed.
“Is it all true, Jim East,—what you’ve been telling my sister?”
Austin’s tone was masterful, and by no means suggestive of a willingness to believe; but it served to rouse Jim’s pride, which had refused to help its owner hitherto. The lad gained self-command, and after answering Austin’s question with a simple “Yes”, turned again pointedly to Frances for some sort of comment. The girl felt that she must speak. Her perceptions were always quick, though they gained in force from her reluctance to hold them final; and now her confusion vanished before the overwhelming certainty that Jim had spoken the truth—that he, the uneducated, shy young blacksmith, his face roughened with exposure, his hands hard with toil, was indeed her own father’s son, and her kin in blood.
“It is all true,” said Jim once more.
“Oh!” cried Frances passionately; “Oh, Jim, I hope it is not true!”
“Not true!” repeated Jim blankly. “You hope it is not true, Missy? Why?—I’m rough, maybe,—but I’d never be rough to you. It is true, Missy; I’ve the papers to show Madam. I’m your father’s eldest child.”
Jim’s trembling hands sought vaguely in his pockets.
“Oh, don’t say it—don’t say it!” went on Frances, in extremity of fear and distress. “It—it couldn’t make any difference if it were true,—don’t you see? We’re not alike in—in anything; we never could be alike now. Oh, I don’t know how it sounds—what I’m saying! I dare say it’s horrid, and conceited, and—and—not fair. But it wasn’t we who settled whose you should be; and it’s your grandfather’s fault, not ours!” Frances hurried out her words as though her own ears were ashamed to listen to them. “He kept you back—he wouldn’t let you belong to Papa,—and now he wants you to come to us, when it’s too late.”
“Too late?” echoed Jim.
“Yes, it’s too late!” repeated Frances almost fiercely; “you belong to your mother’s people, not to us. You know there is—a difference. If we were all little, it wouldn’t matter; but Austin and I are too old not to feel—to feel—”
“To feel shame of me, Missy?” suggested Jim quietly.
The peasant lad was standing erect and calm, and his grave eyes hardly hinted at the agony which had come to him with the breaking of his happy dream. If his imagination had idealized this young sister of his, as well as a future which, in truth, would have been impossible as he had pictured it, he could find blame for no one save himself. His memory still dwelt tenderly on his grandfather, and he now wondered how he ever could have supposed that the daintily-reared young Morlands would have a thought of toleration for him and his claim of brotherhood.
“How can we help feeling ashamed? It’s not our fault!” reiterated Frances bitterly.
“You didn’t feel shame to speak to me at the smithy,” said Jim.
Then Frances, hardly knowing how to account for sensations of repulsion which she knew to be unworthy, broke into child-like tears.
“You—you were a very nice blacksmith,” she sobbed, “and your house was clean and tidy, and we liked to see the forge.”
“But we don’t exactly want a blacksmith-brother?” added Austin interrogatively, while he looked curiously at his sister.
Frances seized his hand, and tugged it nervously.
“Oh, Austin, come away!”
“Wait,” interrupted Jim, in a dull voice; “won’t you stay till I’ve seen Madam? I promised Grandfather I’d see Madam, and show her the papers, to prove he’d told true. Mayhap she won’t turn from me,—won’t you wait?”
“I can’t!” murmured Frances, shrinking as Jim advanced. “And Mamma will only be angry if you go to her.”
“I don’t see why she should be angry,” said Austin, who was the best controlled of the three. “Go up to the front door, Jim East, and they’ll let you in. Then you’ll see our mother. I’ll wait here.”
“Austin, come with me!” begged Frances.
“No—I’ll wait here.”
Mrs. Morland laid the papers aside with a little well-bred gesture of courtesy. Careless her examination of them had seemed to Jim; but in reality she had grasped their contents accurately, and had no doubt that they were genuine. The stately, beautifully-dressed woman leaned back in her luxurious chair, and her fine eyes, which had forgotten their youthful softness, scanned Jim from head to foot. She seemed to find his appearance amusing.
“My good lad,” she said, in her clear, refined voice, “I am quite aware that I was Mr. Morland’s second wife, and that his first was beneath him in station. He was an honourable man, and he told me all the facts of his pretty rustic idyll. I believe that he even told me that the young woman’s name was Martha East. In any case, there is no reason why her name should not have been Martha East. Nor is there any reason why she should not have left a child. I do not wish to profess incredulity concerning your statement that you are Martha East’s son, and that your existence was hidden deliberately from Mr. Morland by your grandfather. Such an action would, of course, be underhand and selfish; but one does not expect from the uneducated classes a great refinement of motive or honesty of conduct. It would be unreasonable to do so. It would have been unreasonable, for instance, if I had supposed that, when this piece of news was communicated to you, you would have resolved to spare Mr. Morland’s other children the pain and annoyance of hearing it also. That would have been the sort of conduct I could have had the right to expect only from a gentleman. Your grandfather’s training would naturally teach you differently. It would incline you to take the course which promised most gain to yourself.”
Jim raised his eyes and looked steadily at the speaker.
“I do not blame you,” continued Mrs. Morland, with a quick movement of deprecation; “your behaviour has been according to your lights. It makes it the more easy for me to credit your story, which has, however, no concern for me or my children. As your grandfather probably knew, Mr. Morland was not a land-owner, and his fortune was absolutely at his own disposal. Consequently, his will would hold good; and the discovery of an elder child would in no way affect his provision for my son and daughter.”
“Madam—Madam,” said Jim sternly, “you have no right to think as I was wanting the money!”
“Then what did you want?” asked Mrs. Morland, smiling slightly. “You wished, perhaps, that I should adopt you—take you to live here, as my children’s equal and companion?”
“No,” said Jim, speaking firmly and bravely, “I did not wish that. I only hoped as you’d allow I belonged to them, and had a right to care for them, and—they for me.”
“Poor boy, you are quite modest and nice! I am afraid you do not precisely understand social distinctions. Your grandfather made choice of your future position for you, when he concealed your birth from my husband. You have been brought up a working-man; and it would be impossible, as it is quite unnecessary, for you to fit yourself for any other kind of life.”
“I had no thought of doing so,” said Jim, maintaining his composure in spite of failing heart.
“I have no doubt that when you come to reflect, you will see matters in a sensible light. For your sake, I am sorry that your grandfather, having kept silence so long to suit his own convenience, did not keep it to the end to suit yours. You would have been happier without this foolish revelation, which I advise you speedily to forget. I will say nothing more about your coming here; you have merely obeyed your grandfather’s selfish wish. But there is something I must say concerning the future.”
Mrs. Morland raised herself, and, leaning forward, spoke in a firm, distinct tone, very different from her previous cynical indifference.
“You must understand, once for all, that I can allow no sort of acquaintanceship between you and my children. They are mine, and I have the right to decide what is best for them. They have, I believe, shown you some kindness—in return, I readily admit, for kindness shown to them by your grandfather. You and they are therefore quits, and I wish all intercourse between you and them to cease from this moment. I understand that your grandfather bought for you a cottage and workshop at a place called Rowdon, not far from here, and that he provided for you according to the needs of the station in which he brought you up?”
“Ay, Madam.”
“To some extent, then, he justified his conduct. Well, in the same way I have bought a house here, I have placed my children at a school where they are happy, I have surrounded them with the comforts, the pleasures, the luxuries, to which they are accustomed.”
Mrs. Morland stumbled for a second, as her eyes rested on the rough clothing and labour-hardened hands of her husband’s eldest son. But if there was an opening for reproach, Jim did not avail himself of it.
“I do not envy them their better fortune, Madam. Indeed, I do not.”
“You have no occasion to. If you have missed what you might have had, it has been no fault of theirs or mine. I have settled here, in my own house, and my children are learning to love their home. You, perhaps, are attached to yours. I have no wish to suggest that you should go elsewhere, and I should prefer not to do so myself. At the same time, my resolve that you and they shall hold no intercourse is unalterable; and I will rather break up my home than have its peace destroyed. If you will give me your promise to keep silence on this purely private matter—which never ought to have been brought forward—and to refrain from forcing yourself on my children, there is no reason why you and they should not rest undisturbed.”
Mrs. Morland waited in an anxiety to which her manner gave no clue.
“I never thought of telling anyone,” said Jim simply. “I never meant to come here against your will. I’ll promise, as you wish.”
He picked up the papers Mrs. Morland had laid aside, and thrust them back into his pocket. The young blacksmith would have been puzzled to know what was meant by theories of life and analyses of conduct; but he did not lack intelligence, and he perceived that he was being treated unworthily by his father’s widow. For the two children he had lately left he had no condemnation, though from them had come the only stabs which had reached his heart.
“I’ll go now, Madam,” he said. “I’ve done as my grandfather bade me, and I hope you’ve seen as he spoke true.”
“Yes,” reflected Mrs. Morland, while Jim was closing the door softly behind him, “the wretched old man did ‘speak true’! That boy has his father’s eyes and expression—he is like Frances. None of those marvellous resemblances one reads of in story-books, of course; but there are sometimes traces which recall personalities more closely than a stronger likeness would. I hope, I hope against hope, that he’ll keep his word! If he’s his father’s son, he will.”
Down by the garden-gate Frances and Austin Morland awaited Jim’s return. Frances had striven hard to draw her brother away; but as he would neither leave his post nor talk to her, she remained by his side, acutely miserable. With tongues inactive, the girl and boy thought the more. Frances felt a self-accusing shame which she could not escape and did not know how to justify. She was not old enough to probe her nature with searching finger, and find there that very sensitiveness to the opinions of others which she always had thought so poor a thing. She wondered only why the sudden appearance of a blacksmith-brother should seem so great a misfortune to her—to her whom her friends had nicknamed “Frances the Altruist”, who had appeared to have a mission for the better instruction of less liberal-minded persons! She was a sinner against her own code, a traitor to her own cause.
Frances did not tell herself these facts: she merely felt them in a kind of vague disturbance. Self-consciousness is not a fault bred in public schools; and the influence which, though brief in duration, had so strongly affected her, had not tended to develop unchildlike self-introspection.
“Here he comes.”
Austin spoke at last, and his sister, with a little shiver, drew close to him. The boy laid his hand on her arm, in a gesture which was at once affectionate and protecting.
“Never mind, Sis. We can’t help things happening.”
Jim’s footsteps drew close. The lad had forgotten Austin’s promise, and in the gathering darkness did not quickly see the watchers by the gate. He gazed straight before him as he came, and would have passed the two Morlands had Austin not stepped forward.
“You’ve seen my mother, then?”
Jim, with a start, looked at the speaker, not knowing what his own face revealed.
“Yes—I’ve seen Madam.”
“You showed her those papers—whatever they were? Did she believe what you said?”
“Yes. It didn’t make any difference. I’d rather be going, please,” added Jim, trying to open the gate on which Austin had laid his hands.
“Stay!... No, never mind! I’ll ask Mamma myself.” Austin opened the gate, mounted it, and swung out with it into the roadway. From this convenient perch he fixed a steady and observant gaze on the figure of the unwelcome visitor.
“We might have said good-bye to him?” queried Frances in a shaking voice.
“Perhaps—if we’d meant it,” returned Austin carelessly. “Frances, I’m going to Mamma. You come too.”
So Austin led the way. Mrs. Morland had already sent a servant to look for her children, and they met the man on the steps.
In the drawing-room Austin put his questions straight.
“Jim East has been here, hasn’t he, Mater? He has been telling Frances and me queer things. Are they true?”
“How am I to know what he has told you, my darling?” asked Mrs. Morland diplomatically.
“He told you too, didn’t he? He said he was our brother.”
“Your half-brother, dearest,” corrected Mrs. Morland gently. “A mixed relationship merely. You need not remember it.”
“Is it true? Is he our father’s son?”
“I believe he is. I shall make inquiries, of course, but I have no doubt they will confirm his story. He brought proofs which appeared to me sufficient; some letters of your father’s, for instance.”
There was a brief pause, while Austin stood thoughtful, and Frances scanned her mother’s face.
“I tell you these things, children,” continued Mrs. Morland composedly, “because I wish you to understand the position clearly, and also my wishes with regard to it. This poor lad is probably your half-brother, but he has been brought up apart from you, and you and he have nothing in common. There are many reasons why I could not possibly allow you to be intimate with him. Such persons have different thoughts and feelings, and use different language, from any I could allow you to become accustomed to.”
Austin looked steadily at his mother.
“I’ve seen Jim East—no! I suppose it’s Jim Morland!—a good many times, Mater. I don’t know about his ‘thoughts and feelings’, but I’ve never heard him say a word you wouldn’t have liked us to listen to.”
Frances saw her brother glance at her for confirmation, and murmured lamely: “No, he always spoke nicely.”
“I am glad to hear it,” said Mrs. Morland drily. “That lessens my regret at having let you both come in contact with your poorer neighbours. Indirectly, we owe all this nuisance to your fads and nonsense, Frances.”
“Mamma,” said the girl, colouring, “Jim’s grandfather evidently meant to send him here some day. Mr. East came to live at Rowdon on purpose.”
“It is horrible to think we have lived under a sort of espionage,” said Mrs. Morland impetuously. “The old man’s conduct, from first to last, was disgraceful. Let me never hear you speak of him again. And let me hear no more of the wretched boy he left behind. Austin and Frances, you will give me your word of honour that you will not again visit Rowdon Smithy, and that if you come across that lad anywhere you will take no sort of notice of him. You understand me?”
Frances murmured a reply.
“Then I have your distinct promise, Frances?”
The girl knew that her brother was watching her. He, of course, would follow where she led.
“Yes, Mamma.”
“Yours also, Austin?”
“Well, ... no.” The boy threw back his head with a proud motion. “See, Mater, I don’t want to be cheeky, or to vex you ... and what you say may be all right for Frances. She’s a girl; and though I can’t see what harm she’d come to at the smithy, I suppose she’s got to stay at home if you want her to. But I don’t care twopence about charity, and humble neighbours, and Altruists—except to please Frances, and join in any lark that’s going. I’ll cut the lot if you like. But if Jim is Jim Morland and our brother—half or whole—I’m not going to cut him. That would make me a jolly cad, anyhow.”
Austin, who was certainly innocent of any desire for melodramatic effect, stopped abruptly, the better to observe his hearers. Frances had dropped her face between her hands—now, why on earth, Austin asked himself, had she done that? Mrs. Morland had started upright, angry and bewildered. What was the matter with her? Did she suppose—did anyone suppose—a fellow was going to cut his own brother?
“Austin!” exclaimed Mrs. Morland, “do I understand that you threaten to disobey me? Do you wish to make me miserable, and bring shame upon us all? Don’t imagine I shall allow you to do it. You are only a child, and utterly incapable of judging for yourself on so important a matter. You will simply do as I order you. By and by, when you come of age, you can of course throw my authority aside. In the meantime you are entirely under my control. I forbid you to speak again to this young blacksmith. That is enough.”
Mrs. Morland leant back on her cushions almost overcome. Her agitation was very real; for though Austin had not interrupted her, she had seen no sign of yielding on his handsome, boyish face—out of which, as she had spoken, had passed all the carelessness and all the pride.
“Mater—I don’t know how to tell you properly—but I think you’d speak differently if you had seen Jim at the gate just now. Frances had chucked him up, you know, when he came first; and then you had chucked him up, and he was going away without a word. He looked awfully down. I thought it was hard lines.”
Austin pushed away, with an abrupt, half-nervous movement, the chair across which he had been leaning, and thrust his hands into his pockets. He was a typical little Englishman—a boy of that nation which despises demonstrations of sentiment; but there was an honest flush on his cheeks.
“Look here, Mater,” he continued, “don’t you believe that if our father were alive he’d take Jim home this very minute? Wouldn’t he have him here with us, and treat him just the same?”
Mrs. Morland sat speechless.
“I think he would,” said Austin soberly; “I truly do. And,” he continued, a delicate instinct prompting him, “I can’t tell why you don’t; only, of course, I don’t know about all the things you know of. I’m just settling about myself. I saw Jim going away, looking down, and I meant to ask you to send someone to fetch him back.”
“Austin!”
“Why not?”
“Because,” said Mrs. Morland indignantl