CHAPTER XV.
A VISIT TO THE FOUNDRY.
JOHN was not, perhaps, very much pleased with himself as he came home after seeing Emily away. As soon as he said that to her, his heart swung back like a pendulum, and he asked himself what if he were wrong after all, what if it were not so? He had believed her to be his mother all his life, and what if, after all, that idea, which up to a few days since there had been no doubt about, what if it proved the right one, and this new light which had burst upon him, wrong? He shivered when this thought came into his mind, but he would not entertain it. Yet instinctively, involuntarily, it would come back and back. In all that he could recollect of his childhood there was nothing which indicated to him a different kind of mother. He had little recollection of caresses or the softness of maternal tenderness. The bright spots in his childhood were those illegitimate moments which he knew enough to know must have been infringements of every rule, when he had been brought down in his night-gown in his father’s arms. In place of all the ordinary pleasures of childhood, he had the recollection of those moments and nothing more; but of a mother, such as his grandmother had been, nothing. All that he did remember chimed in well enough with the image of her whom he had called Emily, a recollection which began to burn and sting, but which yet he justified to himself, remembering all the years in which he had heard her spoken of by that name, and in which she had never come near him, never expressed any wish to see him, as most mothers would. He came home distracted by these thoughts, driving back solitary in the cab—though he had meant to walk; and found that his grandfather had gone to bed, and that all was silent and miserable in the house. There was the fire, and that was all, to give a little cheerfulness. John was not old enough to feel the companionship of a cheerful fire, making its little noises, its ashes falling, its flames breaking out, to cheer the solitary; but he liked the warmth in his nervous condition, and sat down by it and thought. If by chance it should have been to his mother that he dealt that cruel blow! but he would not think of a hazard so terrible. And then he put forward his hand and pulled out two old books from the shelf, where all his old classics stood untouched. These were classics too in a way, but it was not for their rank in literature that he prized them. One was the ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ which was so full of memories; the other, which was the one he chiefly sought, was Mrs. Trimmers’ ‘Robins.’ But it was not the story of Pecksy and Chicksy that moved him. It was the name in a large scrawl of childish text, Johnny May. He remembered it so distinctly now, the name that had come to him with such vague souvenirs, such a familiar but long-forgotten sound. He had never heard it since he came to Edgeley. And why did his grandfather give him no answer to his question when he asked what he had to do with that name? The wildest fancies went circling about his brain. Why was his name taken from him? Who was he? Had he indeed lost both father and mother in those old, long-forgotten days, or was she—the grave mother of old, the mother who never played with him or caressed him—was she—could she be after all—Emily? His heart grew sick at the thought—sick not so much with repugnance and opposition as with the recollection of how he must have wounded her, insulted her, if this was so.
He tried next day to get some satisfaction from his grandfather, but failed entirely. John began by telling the old man that, now he had found out his real name, he intended to be called no longer John Sandford, but John May—words which turned Mr. Sandford livid with horror, and for a moment dumb with passion.
‘You shall do nothing of the sort,’ he cried, ‘unless you want to break at once and for ever with me.’
‘But, grandfather——’
‘There’s no “but” in the matter. I’ll hear of no “buts.” Dismiss this nonsense out of your head, or else dismiss yourself out of this house. Do you hear me, sir? Not another word of it. It shan’t be—I won’t hear of it. Silence, John! Say another word and I’ll turn you out to the street. Cast off my name, who have been your guardian all your life, to take up—— Silence, John! Don’t say another word to me.’
John, indeed, was saying no word. He was gazing at his grandfather with wide-open, astonished eyes. Never in his life had such words been said to him before. He was too much astonished to resent them. When the old man reproached him for his wish to cast off the name which was that of the tender protector, the only father he had really known, compunction came quick to the boy’s heart. That was not what he had intended—it had never entered his thoughts.
‘Grandfather, indeed you do me wrong. I—never thought of that.’
‘How was it you didn’t think of it? Haven’t we done enough for you, my poor dear and me? What have we not done for you that heart could desire? And now you want to be shut of us, to clear out, to change your name. I am glad she’s out of the way not to see it or to hear of it. I’m glad she’s out of the way.’
‘Grandfather! don’t, for pity’s sake don’t——’
‘Pity!’ said the old man—‘you don’t show much for me. I’m settling down, my poor old dear in her grave, and the house desolate, and Emily gone, and nobody left but you and me. And the first day, the very first day when everything’s over, and I’ve got to face the world again alone, that’s the time you choose to tell me that you’re going to make a fuss and disturbance, and take a new name, and set all the village talking. Set ’em talking and inquiring and putting things together. Oh, I’ll not have it. I’ll rather clear out myself and go right away.’
‘Grandfather!’ said John again.
‘Don’t speak to me. I’ll go and telegraph for Emily back again. She’ll have to find me a place where I can have some peace; for all my peace will be gone here. Oh, John! oh, John! I am glad she has not lived to see this day.’
‘Don’t say that, grandfather,’ the boy cried. ‘I’ll not do anything to vex you. I only wanted to bear my own name.’
‘And who told you it was your own name? Your mother is Sandford, and so are you——’
‘My mother?’ said John, faltering—‘my mother?’
‘Perhaps,’ said old Sandford, ‘you’re going to deny her too——’
And then there was a silence in the middle of the storm—a silence which marked the dangerous point beyond which these two unused to fighting did not care to go.
‘Grandfather,’ said John at last, ‘I don’t want to vex you, nor to make myself as if I didn’t belong to you. But why shouldn’t you tell me? I’m old enough to understand. If there’s any secret, oughtn’t I to know it? Perhaps it isn’t half so bad as the things I take into my head. It would be so much better if you would trust me—tell me. One time or other I shall be sure to find out; and if I’ve been insulting my mother (how can I tell?) and vexing you, is it my fault? It is out of exasperation because I know there is something, and yet what it is I’m not allowed to know.’
The old man calmed down during this speech and perceived what his best policy was. He said:
‘You moider my poor brains with your talk of secrets. Let alone, my boy. There’s few families that haven’t got something that they keep to themselves—but the Sandfords have less than most. We’ve never been very rich or great, but we’ve always been able to hold up our heads wherever we went. I’m very shaky this morning,’ he said, relapsing into his broken voice. ‘I’d like to take the air a little; but I’ve been so long indoors I don’t know if I could keep my legs.’
‘Will you have my arm, grandfather?’ said John.
‘Well,’ said the old man, with his half sob, ‘the first day we’re alone it’s a kind of natural to go out together; and we’ll just look if there’s a snowdrop or two out yonder. By this time there should be a snowdrop out.’
This altogether overcame John, who walked with the old man leaning on his arm to the new-made grave, which had been covered with snowdrops, and where already two or three of these pale, wintry blossoms, cold and pure, were peeping out. They were followed all along the street by many a sympathetic look. The men took off their hats, the women gave them half-tearful greetings. ‘They go unto the grave to weep there.’ These words can never be said without moving the general heart, so easily touched, and to some griefs so sympathetic. That it should be an old man and a boy who were making that pilgrimage was, the gossips said, ‘more heart-breakin’ than if it had been a woman and a girl.’ The helplessness of the pair, and yet the difference between their helplessness and that of the women who had lost their bread-winner, has something poignant in it. And if Mr. Sandford had exhausted all resources in finding an expedient for calming the mind of John, and diverting him from his inquiries, he could not have found one that was more effectual. The chill sweetness of the little snowdrop upon his tender old mother’s grave quenched all the heat and fire of thought out of the boy’s heart.
But he did not forget the question which tore it asunder. Some time after he heard that Mr. Cattley was going to Liverpool for a day or two to see his brother, and eagerly asked to be allowed to go with him. The boy was looking pale, they had all remarked without surprise, and the curate was very willing to have him for a companion. John managed to get his grandfather’s permission without letting him know where they were going; for Mr. Sandford was pleased and proud that his boy should be the curate’s companion anywhere. It was with a mixture of excitement and trouble that John set out. He felt that he might be about to make some monstrous discovery, he knew not what, yet the sense of doing something clandestine and forbidden contended in his mind with that pleasure in carrying out our own desires, which is so strong in most hearts.
It was a long journey. Mr. Cattley and he went over the common to the station at twelve o’clock of a brilliant, sunshiny February day, when all the roads in their wetness reflected the wonderful colours of the sky, and the very puddles were strewn with turquoise and gold; but it was between six and seven at night, dark and cold, when they reached the great town, which John entered with all the natural excitement of a country boy who has never seen such a place before. Mr. Cattley took him to the lodging to which he himself usually came on his visits here; for his brother, like most other people of his importance, lived out of town. He took John next morning through a world of streets, some of which were imposing and brilliant, but by far the greater part mean, narrow, and unlovely, to the place where the great foundry was, and where but for an accident he himself might have been. The youth went over it with a mixture of pleasure and repulsion. The novelty, the bustle, the feeling of a great new energy unknown to him before, the quickened sense of living and great creative work went to his head like a new inspiration; but the plunging and ploughing of pistons and wheels, the huge monstrous machines which looked like sentient creatures; the grind, and whirl, and noise, and endless movement, in so many different senses at once, up and down, round and round, back and forward, contradicting each other, made the brain of the country lad go round too, with a sickening confusion. A touch of envy of all those accustomed workmen, who understood, and moved about so coolly among, this confusing round of wheels, and at the same time a sense of thankfulness that he was not himself to take his place among them, was in John’s mind. This was not what had fired his imagination, or rather, had fired Elly’s imagination, and thrown a warm reflection upon his. The lighthouses, the canals, the civilising roads, the works that would be good for humanity, as well as worth a man’s while, were different from all this buzzing and plunging. Yet John was wise enough to know that the two things were too closely connected to be severed. He was glad, however, that he was to be set to surveying and outdoor work rather than to this.
Mr. Cattley was with his brother in the office, and John was left to stray about the outskirts of the place, after he had been shown over it, to wait for the curate. The grimy courts, the big, ugly buildings, sheds, all the frightful accessories of the place were new to him. Why were such places so ugly? Was it necessary they should be so ugly? The black soil of the yard, over which the workmen went crunching in their heavy boots, seemed mixed up of cinders and coal dust and mud. He was asking himself, with a half laugh at his own simplicity, why this must be—whether it might not be worth while to make the surroundings of the workshops less hideous—when his eye was caught by one of the labourers passing between him and the grimy wall. No skilled workman this, like those in the blackened moleskins, which, at the beginning of the week, were white, with their free step and independent aspect. The man was one of the drudges of the establishment, a skill-less hanger-on, doing jobs as they were wanted, carrying the great, rusty bars of iron, bringing coals, doing all the rough work of the place. He was dressed in the indescribable clothes of the British labourer, who has no sort of habitual costume, not even a blouse under which to hide his rags, with a red cotton handkerchief knotted about his neck. Perhaps it was this bit of cotton that caught John’s eyes: and then it seemed to him that the face above it was not unknown to him. It was a sufficiently villainous face; the features looked as if they had been roughly shaped out of some coarse paste, the small eyes, looking out from under shaggy brows, with a sidelong glance, the slouching gait, the unshaven chin, made up a very unattractive picture altogether.
‘Where can I have seen him?’ John said to himself. He had the keen recollection of youth, and soon identified the unlovely figure which had passed across his field of vision once, and no more. The man, seeing John’s gaze fixed on him, felt it expedient to touch his cap, and claim the recognition that was in the lad’s eyes. It might mean, if nothing more, a pint of beer.
‘Mornin’, sir,’ he said, as if he knew all about him.
John was a little startled by this recognition.
‘You know me, too?’ he said.
‘I never forget anyone I ever sets eyes upon—especially a young man as has little to do with them sixpences of his, and knows as a poor man is mostly dry.’
‘And yet I never saw you but once,’ said John, with a laugh. He thought within himself that this was not a very dignified acquaintance, and yet to have remembered was something in the fellow’s favour. ‘When I saw you you were looking for some one down at Edgeley, don’t you know?’
And then it suddenly occurred to John that it was this man’s inquiries which had ended in bringing to his mind his own forgotten name—the name of his childhood, which, for the present, at least, he was not allowed to claim—and this changed his countenance from its lighter aspect to profound gravity. For was not this the object with which he came here, to find out something?—which he was not likely to do wandering about the grimy yard of the foundry.
‘Ah!’ said the man, with a sudden lighting up of his seemingly impassive countenance, ‘I have ye now. Never forgets a face, but don’t always remember where I seen it. Edgeley, where I went to look up my mate’s wife? But where that mate was, I’m not a-goin’ to say now.’ He put his finger against his nose. ‘I warn’t a-minding down there. Bless you, I knew if I’d a-found her, she’d a-bought me off pretty smart, rather than let the story run that I was his mate and where he was. But mum’s the word in the foundry. You won’t peach on a poor man, that is trying to turn a honest penny, and get back his character—will ye, now?’
‘I!’ cried John, with great disdain. ‘I know nothing about you. I only remembered I had seen your face——’
‘And was so kind as to want to know if I was in good ’ealth—which the same to you, young man,’ said the fellow. ‘You wouldn’t give me no help, though, then; and ye might have done it, and no harm.’
‘I couldn’t have helped you; for I knew there was no one of the name you wanted in the village.’
‘Maybe there was, and maybe there wasn’t,’ said the man. ‘There was them belonging to her, if she wasn’t there herself. An old lady come and give me a sov. to go away. She did—she give me a sov.—though if it was for that, or because she thought her blasted village wasn’t good enough for the likes of me—— Give us a shilling, young master, to drink your ’ealth.’
John was so unused to the magnificence of dispensing shillings that he took one mechanically from his pocket in answer to this appeal. But he said before he gave it, with much authority and wisdom,
‘You don’t deserve a shilling, or anything else—if all you wanted was to bring some poor woman to shame.’
‘It was very wrong,’ said the man, with a wink. ‘I know’d you’d think so. But that was only my fun, bless you—and you’re sure there warn’t not one o’ that name in the village, young master? Why, I wanted to give her news of her ’usband as was my mate. You’re sure there warn’t one o’ that name?’