CHAPTER XV.
A FAMILY CONCLAVE.
‘NEVER, never, never!’ cried Mrs. Egerton. She was red with excitement and wrath. Her matronly presence, generally so dignified and friendly and calm, grew into that of an angry Juno, swelling and expanding in indignation and resentment till the passion seemed to fill the room. And this all the more that no one shared, or at least appeared to share, her agitation. John stood before her humble enough, red too, with pain and mortification, yet not giving way; a culprit, but defending himself. Elly stood at the back of her aunt’s chair, astonished, not sufficiently recovered from her surprise at her reception to have yet taken her part in the controversy. The two other persons present were Percy and Mr. Cattley, who had both been there when the lovers, in the flush of their first happiness and pain, with all the solemnity the occasion demanded, came in to make their confession. Percy, at least, it might be supposed, would have been on his aunt’s side: but, instead of standing by her as he ought, he had turned his back upon her and stood gazing out of the window at nothing, with a degree of trouble and embarrassment in every line of that back which would have awakened a thousand apprehensions in the bosom of Aunt Mary, had she at that moment had any eyes for him, or been aware of anything except the demand just made upon her, which had carried her altogether out of herself.
Mr. Cattley sat near her, with his eyes cast down and a very serious face, twiddling his thumbs with great gravity. It is not to be supposed that intimate as he was, and having been so long a constant visitor at the rectory, he had not seen Mrs. Egerton angry before. But it was a sight he did not like, and especially the present cause of her anger was distressful to him. He had just come from Susie, and the atmosphere of peace which was around her, and he was fond of John, and his heart rebelled against this summary denial of a young love, which was a thing he respected from the bottom of his heart.
‘Never, never, never!’ cried Mrs. Egerton, ‘how can you ask it? How could you ever think—you, a boy I have always been so kind to— Too kind! I have made you like one of our own boys. And now you come and ask me for—— Who are you, John Sandford? What does anyone know about you or your family? No, I am not saying a word against his grandparents. They were dear old people and I was very fond of them, but not, not—— And they would have been as indignant as I am. What! John, their boy, to put himself on the same level, and think—actually think—that he would be accepted by the rector’s daughter! Oh, Jack! I never expected anything of the kind from you.’
‘I feel all that,’ said John, ‘I know it all. What you say is quite true.’
‘It is a fine thing to say that—when you come and do it all the same. Who are you, to propose for Elly? What do we know about you, or your means, or your family.’
Upon this Elly started from the shelter of Mrs. Egerton’s chair.
‘His family!’ she said, as all girls do in the same circumstances. ‘We know himself: and that is of more consequence than all the families in the world.’
‘I say, Elly, shut up,’ said her brother, turning half round.
Mrs. Egerton turned to him who offered this succour with eagerness.
‘Percy understands,’ she said, ‘he has more interest in it than anyone except myself, and he knows the world and that such things can’t be. They can’t be. Ask anybody. Ask your own connections, Jack; ask—— Mr. Cattley.’ She made a little pause before she said this, and gave a glance at the curate seated there with downcast eyes. Her voice faltered a little, but not with trouble this time. It was a sort of half smile which fluttered across the current of her speech. ‘He is romantic,’ she said, ‘but even he will tell you such connections can’t be.’
‘I will not shut up,’ said Elly, ‘I am the person most interested. If you send Jack away, if he is such a fool,’—something in the freedom of sisterhood was still in her feelings towards her lover. ‘If you get the better of him, if you bully him or over-persuade him to go away, who is it that will suffer? Not you, Aunt Mary, nor Percy, nor anybody but me. Jack and I have always been the two who stood together,’ cried the girl, the tears glistening in her eyes like dew under sunshine. ‘You know, Mr. Cattley! The others went away, they fell into their mannish, stupid Oxford ways, but Jack and I have always stood fast. Jack! if you let them master you, if you let them send you away——’
She raised her hand, clenched into a small, rosy, but not unpowerful fist, threatening fate in general, and the evil ways of the world. Love had only come, in Elly’s mind, to strengthen the partnership, the comradeship that existed before. If he could be driven to desert her, if he could be such a fool! She could not help taking the tone still of the one girl among these boys, the girl whose standard of what was right and true was more absolute than theirs—less modified by possibility or circumstance—and who flamed with instant wrath upon any who would betray or fall away from that uncompromising rule.
‘My dear Elly,’ said Mr. Cattley, ‘that’s a very different matter. That was when you were at school.’
‘To be sure,’ said Mrs. Egerton: ‘and Jack was a boy who might have been anyone’s companion. Oh, so he is now, do you think I doubt that? But, when boys and girls grow up, other questions come in. You can only marry in your own class. It is no rule of mine: it is a settled principle. Nothing but trouble ever comes of it when you marry out of your own sphere.’
John had borne all the discussion well. He had stood firmly enough, not shrinking, while he was torn to pieces and defended and defied. Now he spoke.
‘Perhaps I am wrong,’ he said, ‘but all that one reads and sees seems to show that for a settled principle that’s not so strong as it once was. If a man is well off, people make a difference.’
‘If you mean to say that I am thinking of a mercenary marriage for Elly——’ said Mrs. Egerton.
John took no notice of this interruption. He went on with what he was saying.
‘Now, I mean to be well off,’ he said. ‘I am doing well already, and I mean to get on. What does it matter what my grandfather was, if I am able to live as gentlemen do, and to think as gentlemen do, and to maintain—those who belong to me.’ He would not say ‘my wife—’ but he held his head high, as if with the pride of having done so, and looked at Elly; and one quick, bright flash of happiness and consciousness went over both faces at the same moment. ‘I am only an engineer,’ he said, ‘but it’s a fine profession, and when one succeeds one grows rich. And I mean to succeed. My grandfather was not one to be ashamed of, whatever he was. And if it is said that I’m not a gentleman,’ said John, with another darker flush of self-assertion, ‘it’s an insult to Mr. Cattley, and even to this house where I have been allowed to come, and where such an idea was never hinted at before.’
‘Oh, Jack!’ cried Mrs. Egerton horrified, clasping her hands in deprecation. ‘I never said that. I never thought it. It is only that you are not in the same sphere.’
‘Would you say so if I were at the head of my firm?’ said John, ‘if I were making thousands a year; if I had works going on all over the world? I shall be if you will give me time. Would you say then that I was not of the same sphere?’
‘Yes,’ said Elly, quick as lightning, taking the words with fine scorn out of her aunt’s mouth; ‘for, of course, it would not be likely then that you would come to a poor little village to ask for a country girl like me.’
Percy had been standing all this time with his back to the belligerents, looking fixedly out of the window. His back was as uncertain and embarrassed a back as ever man had. It gave his aunt no support at all. There was something in the aspect of his shoulders shrugged up to his ears, and his elbows sunk with the plunging of his hands into his pockets, that took all courage out of her. Percy, who had been so much more strenuous on this question than Aunt Mary herself, who had undertaken to speak to John! And now, here he stood, taking no notice, gazing out of the window! When it came to this point, however, he turned round, not looking at anyone, his eyebrows pulled down over his eyes.
‘I say,’ he remarked, slowly, ‘what is the good of all this now? It’s gone too far to be stopped like this. You should have made an end of it long ago. I warned you when he came first. You had no call to have him here. It was folly to begin with, and it’s nonsense now. You wouldn’t let him marry Elly if he could, and he couldn’t if you did let him. What’s the good of going on? It’s all true that both of you say. If he was rich enough you’d have him like a shot. But you can’t have him now, and he knows it, and so do we all. Why, even my father would make a stand. It’s a pity they’ve had this talk, but it can’t be helped now. The best thing for him to do is to go right away.’
‘Away!’ cried Elly and John in a breath, making a simultaneous step towards each other. Percy was the little one of the family. He was much shorter than John, and even than Elly, whose female garments and hair upon the top of her head gave her the advantage. He came drifting between them, still with his hands in his pockets.
‘I like good family and that sort of thing,’ said Percy, ‘but I never said it required that to make a gentleman. Handsome is as handsome does. There are things a fellow can do, and things he can’t do,’ said this young man.
‘I know what he means, Elly,’ said John, ‘and I believe he’s right, though I never thought Percy would stand my friend. I’ll go, Mrs. Egerton: he’s right. I’ll not even hold Elly to what she has said—(though I know the sky will fall before she’ll desert me,’ he exclaimed, in an aside). ‘But I’ll not say another word. I’ll go.’
The ladies looked at him with a little gasp of surprise, Elly standing with her lips apart as if she had begun to speak and stopped herself, Mrs. Egerton drawing a sudden long breath. She was astonished by the sudden quick turn this youthful argument had taken. Percy, her champion, her inspirer even, had seemed to take the other side, and yet had routed the enemy. It was altogether amazing and incomprehensible, almost disappointing: for Mrs. Egerton had felt that John would take a great deal of arguing with, and she had some belief in her own powers. The scene was a curious one. Percy, standing between the two with his hands in his pockets and his head down, looked more as if some wind had blown him there than as if he had been taking an active part in such a controversy. Mr. Cattley, still sitting passive near Mrs. Egerton’s table, had now lifted his head and was looking on, while John, all firm and strong in his new resolution, had become the centre of the group.
‘I thought I might have had a week more,’ said John, with a touch of pathos which went to the hearts of both the ladies, ‘after all these years! But I won’t, Elly. I won’t waste another moment. What do I want with holidays when there’s you at the end? Mrs. Egerton, good-bye. You’ve been awfully kind to me. And I know you’re right. I’m not a match for her. I’ll never be good enough—but I’ll be rich enough one day, please God.’
‘John, you take away my breath. Why should you go off like this, like a flash of lightning?—and there’s your sister just arrived. Dear me,’ cried Mrs. Egerton, ‘just give this nonsense up, it will be far more reasonable, and take your holiday out.’
‘Must you go, Jack?’ said Elly, quite subdued.
‘If it is only your sister that would detain you,’ said Mr. Cattley, clearing his throat. ‘She will find friends, I am sure. We shall all be glad to do our best for her, if she chooses to stay.’
‘Oh! we’ll look after that. We’ll see to Miss Sandford,’ Percy said.
Mrs. Egerton’s under lip dropped with an almost awe of the miracle happening before her eyes. Mr. Cattley even, her own particular slave! She gave him a look and then turned to Percy: then went off suddenly into an unexpected and, as appeared, quite uncalled-for laugh.
‘Elly,’ she said, ‘the gentlemen are taking it all into their own hands——’
And she who had so much good-humoured, affectionate contempt for the gentlemen, who had followed her lead with such docility for many a day! She did not recover from her astonishment even when John shook hands with her hastily, and hurried off as if he meant to begin collecting those thousands this very day. She had not spirit enough even, save very feebly in a scarcely audible voice, to call back Elly, who hurried after him and who paid no attention to that faint call. She did nothing but stare at the two curates as the sound of the quick young footsteps went downstairs and died away, and then became audible again, going out and through the garden, the gate swinging and clicking after them. Then she said, ‘Elly has gone with him!’ in an appeal and protest to earth and heaven.
‘It can’t be helped,’ said Percy, with a wave of his hand.
Elly followed John out without saying a word, going after him quite solemnly: the colour had gone out of her face, her steps were subdued as if in subjection to his. No fear had been in Elly’s mind. She had been accustomed to find most things yield to her, and she did not see in this new event so great an additional gravity that she should have been brought to a stop in her life, or made to contemplate the idea of failure. Even now she would have fallen back upon the supreme consciousness of her importance in the house, and her father’s incapability of resisting anything she desired, had not that short but most conclusive colloquy between John and Percy confused all her ideas and silenced the words on her lips. Aunt Mary, it is true, was more strenuous in her resistance, more determined than Elly had any idea of; but the girl, who knew the ways of her own race and kind, knew well that even Aunt Mary, after a great deal of impassioned argument, going over and over again every feature of the case, would end by exhausting everything against it, and coming round to the conviction that there was nothing so interesting in life as the young pair and their hopes, and that, however she might shake her head over it, her happiness was involved in Elly’s. That was the strong point of which Elly was quite conscious. Her own happiness was a matter too important to the household to be permanently risked in any way.
But a few words from Percy, for whom she had no veneration, whom she rather scorned in his new sacerdotal assumptions, had changed all this! Elly was confused by the suddenness of the revolution, and did not understand it, nor did she quite understand the hasty, resolute step with which John went on, not observing, apparently, that he was walking out before her. Not that she minded that; it seemed, on the contrary, quite natural. She liked him to forget that he needed to stand on any punctilio with her. The wonderful thing was that Percy had done it all, and that a change had been wrought in John himself by that little curate. There was, then, a freemasonry among them, too. She walked on beside her lover, breathless, finding it a little difficult to keep up with him; and at length, when her mind began to get into working order again, broke the silence with a question.
‘Jack, what are you going to do?’
Whereupon he stopped all at once, and turned round upon her.
‘Elly! to think that I should have been thinking so much of you as almost to forget you were there! Percy’s right, that’s the truth. I must go away. I couldn’t be such a hound as to upset you and put you out with them, when there’s nothing more possible for the moment. I’ve got to go and work it out.’
‘To work what out—to go away when you might stay a week longer? Aunt Mary is not everybody. I will speak to my father,’ cried Elly, in the light of a new impulse. It was not at all a usual thing for anyone to think of going directly to the rector, but yet in a great emergency it might be done.
‘No,’ said John. ‘Now that Mrs. Egerton knows, and all of them, it’s honest, Elly; that’s all I want. Don’t let us ask anything more. They shall never say I bound you to a nobody when you might have done so much better. You’re free, Elly; but you’ll stick to me all the same I know.’
‘Till I die—and after,’ she said, raising her face, which was a little pale, but ennobled with great and solemn feeling. She added after a moment, falling back to a more natural level, ‘But I can’t understand, all the same, why you should hurry off like this—why, for something that Percy said, Percy! you should change all in a moment and go and leave me.’
‘I’m going after you,’ said John. ‘You’re perhaps a long way off, Elly, but the road’s clear, and I shall be a little bit nearer to you every step I take. I’ll be a little bit nearer every day, please God. I’ve got the ball at my feet, Elly. I’ve never had time to tell you about it, to show you. There’s all the plans and calculations made out. Perhaps it needn’t be so very long. I am not going to lose a day, not a day.’
‘What is it, Jack? Something like what we used to talk of? oh, how silly we were! about the lighthouse——?’
‘It’s not a lighthouse, but the biggest job—Elly, it was you who put me up to it from the very first. It’s your work as well as mine, and it’s for you. And I’ve got the ball at my feet and the road’s clear.’