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——’