SUSIE had never been so much made of, so watched over and attended to, all her life.
She did not quite know what to make of it all. First there was John arriving like a whirlwind, rushing upstairs to pack up his things, telling her he was going away at once, with Elly following, wistful, not quite understanding, it seemed, yet full of suppressed excitement. Susie suspected how it was, though she had not been told, and she had all a young woman’s interest in her brother’s love-story, and did not see any incompatibility as Percy and Mrs. Egerton did, but thought it very natural, as they had known each other all their lives. She was too kind to question Elly when she came into the parlour while John rushed upstairs. The girl it was evident was much excited, sitting down one moment, getting up again, turning over the books on the table, looking out of the window, distracted, and not knowing what to do with herself, listening to the sound of his movements upstairs. Susie felt that he must be throwing his things into his portmanteau in the most dreadful confusion, and longed to run up and pack them for him, but did not venture to leave her visitor, or indeed to interfere. And it was not till some time had passed, and the tramping overhead became more and more lively, as if John was stamping upon his portmanteau to get it to close (which was exactly what he was doing) that Susie took it upon her to inquire.
‘I wonder why he is going away in such a hurry. Do you know, Miss Spencer, if he has had any telegram, any news?—if he is wanted at the office?’
‘Oh, Susie,’ said Elly, bursting forth all at once, ‘don’t call me Miss Spencer. I’m going to marry him as soon as we can; and it is because of that and Aunt Mary that he is going away.’
‘Because of that; but I should have thought—’ Here Susie paused in some perplexity, and looked her young companion in the face.
‘You should have thought he would have stayed longer, instead of hurrying away? Oh, so should I! but boys understand each other, it appears, just as you and I would do. It was Percy who said something to him. Percy is not a bit clever; and it was slangy and only half intelligible to me. “There are some things a fellow can do, and some he can’t,” that was all Percy said; and Jack just jumped up as if he had been stung and darted away. Aunt Mary was scolding, indeed,’ said Elly, glad of the opportunity of unburdening herself; ‘but what of that? she would have come round in time.’
‘Perhaps he thought they did not like it,’ Susie said.
‘What of that?’ said Elly, ‘when I tell you they would have come round in time!’ Then she cried, ‘Oh, forgive me, Susie, if I am not civil. I am so mixed up! So happy one moment, and then so perplexed, and not knowing anything about it. I thought I had it all in my own hands. So I have, with a little time. Papa never resists me long, and as for Aunt Mary, she was coming round even when she was making the most fuss. When all at once this thing happens between the boys, and Jack pays no more attention to me.’
With this she began to cry a little, merely by way of distraction to fill up the time, for Elly was not at all given to crying. There was a sound in the midst of it as if John were coming downstairs, and then Elly immediately cried, ‘Hush!’ as if Susie had been the guilty person, and dried her eyes. But John did not come downstairs. He was still to be heard stamping and moving about overhead. And presently Elly resumed.
‘He must be making a dreadful mess of his things,’ she said, with a tone of resignation. ‘So does Dick when he packs for himself, but Percy never. Percy is always neat—and yet to think it was he who said that!’ There was again a little pause, both listening to every sound upstairs, Susie, puzzled and disturbed, not knowing what to say, while Elly, altogether absorbed in this new relationship, which was at once authoritative and subject, could neither think nor speak of anything but Jack. There was not much of the confused rapture of a newly-developed love about her. Even at the first moment there had been something of the familiar sway of a sister in Elly’s treatment of John, and now she was anxious, bewildered, not knowing what to make of him, feeling that he had gone out of her ken into a region influenced by a man’s motives, not a woman’s, which are different. Elly gave presently a glance at the clock, and took out her watch and compared it, then gave a sigh of relief. ‘He is too late,’ she said, ‘thank goodness, for this train. He must wait till night now,’ whereupon she became more composed, and her excitement calmed down.
But Susie did not know what to say in this curious position of affairs. To take this pretty young stranger into her arms and talk to her of all John’s excellencies, and kiss her and cry over her with pleasure, as is the wont of a young man’s admiring and sympathetic sister with his love, seemed out of place with Elly, whom she scarcely knew, who seemed to know John better than she did, and who, in place of the emotional stage, was in the anxious one, rather regarding John as a wife does who is concerned about how her husband is going to act in a certain position of affairs which affects their well-being, than as a rapturous girl ready to find everything her lover does half divine. There was care instead of ecstacy on Elly’s brow, and that little conflict of opinion which must take place sometimes between all properly endowed minds, even in the closest relationship, was in full force. She resumed after a time the discussion in which Susie could not take an active part.
‘Don’t you think,’ she said, ‘that instead of starting off like this, to make his fortune—as if a fortune could be made in a day!—it would have been more sensible to wait and give them a little time?’
‘I am sure I don’t know,’ said Susie, diffidently. ‘You are so young. You didn’t mean to—— to marry all at once, even if your papa gave his consent.’
‘Oh, no,’ cried Elly, with a blush and a laugh. ‘Oh, no; why, Jack’s only just come of age.’
Susie accepted this information meekly.
‘Then, he had got your consent?’ she said.
‘Oh, yes,’ cried Elly, with fervour, ‘of course he had that all the time.’ And then the girl was seized with a little fit of that laughter which is so near tears. She grasped Susie suddenly by the arm. ‘Do you know,’ she cried, flaming celestial rosy red, ‘what happened when he went away? We kissed each other! I was only sixteen. It was four years ago. And I have sometimes thought that he never understood what had happened. But, of course, after that, when Jack asked me——’ She could not grow more crimson than she had done before, and her eyes filled with that golden dew of happiness and tears which makes the dullest eyes swim in light. This lovely softening and revolution in the girl’s face touched Susie. She put her arms timidly round her and kissed her cheek, to which Elly replied by flinging herself upon the conforting bosom of this new friend to whom she had now a right.
‘We’re sisters, don’t you know,’ she said. ‘I’ve only had Aunt Mary till now, and Aunt Mary’s so much older. Yes, of course, of course, he had my consent.’
‘Then what did he want more?’ said Susie, in her ear. ‘Dear, I’m of Mr. Percy’s opinion too. He has got to go away and do what he can to make it agreeable to your people. That is the only thing he could do—unless he had kept away altogether,’ Susie added, ‘which would perhaps have been the wisest way.’
At which Elly sprang up, and, seizing her comforter by both arms, shook her, first with wild indignation, then bursting again into the agitated laughter which belonged to her state.
‘Oh, you cruel—oh, you barbarous——’ she cried, and kissed her between. Then they started apart and turning round appeared demurely, seated close to each other in silence and attention, when John came in hurriedly with a bag in his hand pushing open the door.
It was of no use, however, as he was obliged to acknowledge. The night train which did not pass till midnight was the only one possible. As a matter of fact he did not go till next morning, subdued in his ardour of departure by a whole afternoon spent in the society of Elly, with whose freedom for that day nobody interfered. And indeed the afternoon was passed in a somewhat strange way, in the parlour which was so connected with all the associations of John’s youthful life, where he and she bending over the table with their heads close together went over the plans, of which John made a sketch for Elly’s benefit, of the great scheme which he was convinced was to make his fortune. It was, let us say, the drainage of the Thames valley, than which there is no more urgently wanted piece of engineering, nor one which would bring a young man more fame and money.
John drew rude plans and diagrams of all kinds, while Elly looked on. He became enthusiastic in his descriptions, laying out everything before her, the manner in which the waste was to be carried away so as to do good and not harm, how floods were to be prevented, how the low-lying lands near the river were to be protected and utilised. John’s eyes glowed as he set it all forth, and Elly said, ‘I see!’ ‘I understand,’ with sympathetic emotion and many a lyric of praise; but whether she did really see so clearly as she said, remains, perhaps, open to doubt. She believed, at all events, which comes to the same thing, and without being at all humbled or troubled by her inability to fathom the expedients or comprehend the calculations. At sixteen she would not have given in so easily. She would have worked out the diagrams, and compelled herself to know what it was all about. But now she saw, after a sort, through John’s eyes and was satisfied. He got perhaps more applause than was good for him from Elly, who he honestly believed followed all his elucidations, and from Susie, who understood none of them, and did not pretend to know anything save that he was very clever, the cleverest of engineers, a conclusion which, with deprecations, John was not perhaps altogether unwilling to accept. In this way they spent a few hours of such happiness as comes but rarely in youthful life. It was better than the more emotional rapture of the young lover’s paradise, for it had so many finer elements in it to their own happy consciousness. Their life was to be built upon this grand work, which was a work which would save life, which would increase comfort, which would make wealth, not only to themselves but to others. It was the plan which had ‘pleased their childish thought.’ It was Elly’s dream, which she had transferred with all her girl’s enthusiasm to the steady working brain, full of impulses more lasting than hers, and a training infinitely stronger, which had made that suggestion into a reality.
Thus the personality of each was flattered and charmed with the scheme that seemed to be in some sort the production of both. And Susie, who could not possibly claim any share, sat by and admired and applauded. She was as much delighted as they were. She had the additional advantage of being able to feel how clever they both were, how good it was that John was to have a wife who understood him, who would go with him in everything. Susie sat and beamed upon them from the heights of unselfish enthusiasm and delight, not with any effort to understand. Her mind had no need of that. Her part was to admire and love, which was easy, and suited her best.
Susie made no objections about remaining behind, when John thus rushed away. She was pleased with the village, the quietness, the retirement, the new friends; and, as has been said, she had never been so much made of, never met with so many attentions all her life. The old gardener and his wife whom John had managed to pick up again, and instal as guardians of the house, according to his old dream, were in the first place her devoted servants, telling her all manner of stories about her grandparents, which were very pleasant to Susie; and then she had visits from everybody to comfort or to explain to her. Mrs. Egerton came, full of anxiety, appealing to her as a person of sense to say whether she did not think her brother far too young to take the serious engagements of life upon him—whether it was not a pity for a young man to tie a millstone round his own neck—whether she had ever seen an engagement turn out well that had been formed so indefinitely, where there was no likelihood of a conclusion to it for years? This was the tone Mrs. Egerton had now taken up: and indeed she was too much of a gentlewoman at any time to have troubled Susie with any hint of the inequality in family and circumstances, which she had pointed out so distinctly to John. And then Elly would come with her letters, to ask what news Susie had, and to talk about Jack and herself—herself and Jack, and what they had done when they were ‘young,’ and what now they meant to do.
Percy too had got a habit of ‘looking in’ when he came in from his rounds in the parish. He tried to interest Susie in parish work, and, indeed, did get from her a wonderful deal of information and help in the matter of the cottage hospital which he and the parish doctor were so anxious to get up— Percy, in order to get the sick poor to some small extent provided for, the doctor with perhaps the less virtuous motive of studying disease. She gave him a great deal of help, but that did not altogether account for the constant visits he paid her, nor the deferential tone in which he spoke, and the respect with which he received all her little opinions. On the subject of hospitals, it was true, Susie knew more than anyone else in the whole parish: but on others her opinions were timid and not at all self-assured. Yet with what respect this young man, who put aside Elly’s much more convinced and enlightened views, listened to the little which Miss Sandford had to say! He almost frightened Susie by the earnestness of his attention, frightened her, flattered her, in the end amused her very much, and made her laugh to herself in private at the new position she held, quoted and looked up to as in all her life she had never been before. Susie could not tell why. She was older than he was, and she understood his kind better than he understood hers, and had not in reality as much reverence for the type of curate as he had. But yet he came every day, and told her more about himself and his own life and thoughts than any one else knew, and brought her books which he was anxious she should read and tell him her opinion of, even going so far as to mark passages, in the eagerness of his desire to know what she thought on this and that point. It was not possible that Percy should refrain from all remark about John in these many and prolonged interviews, but the tenderness with which he treated Susie’s brother was very different from the uncompromising views he had held on that subject before Susie appeared at Edgeley. He gave her to understand that if he interfered at all it was wholly in John’s interest.
‘They would never be allowed to marry now; indeed, I don’t suppose they ever thought of that; and it seemed best for them not to let him lose his time here, and disturb his mind—don’t you think so, Miss Sandford? A fine fellow like Jack, with everything before him.’
‘But they say,’ said Susie, in her modest way, ‘that nothing is so good for a young man. It gives him something to look forward to, and a motive in his work. John is so much younger than I am. I feel more like a mother to him—’
‘And so do I to Elly,’ said the young man, with great gravity, ‘who is just like that, much younger than I. And next to our own family I take an interest in Jack. He has done so well, and will do still better, I feel sure. And then he will understand what I meant. Miss Sandford, won’t you come to the edge of the common and see the sunset? It is going to be glorious. I’ll bring you home afterwards, and then, perhaps you will give a look at this which I brought to show you. I should so much like to know what you think.’
Sometimes Susie assented to this proposal, and would walk out pleasantly in the light of the declining sun, to see the sky all golden and purple over the common, and all those peaceful sights of a country life, which are so wonderful and delightful to town-bred folk. She had no lack of companions, of escorts, of attendants at any time, and the air, that was so sweet and fresh, blowing over miles of green and blossoming country, and the friendly life of the village, and the tranquillity of the little house, and its sweet old-fashioned garden, was a refreshment to her beyond anything that heart could conceive. She thought regretfully of her mother, going on all the time with that stern routine which was all charity and succour yet at the same time business of the severest and most uncompromising kind. But Susie knew that the sweet rest she was taking would not be a possibility to her mother, and that the hospital was what suited Mrs. Sandford best. And she could not but think of John, whose name was on everybody’s lips, and who had gone off with such an impulse of energy and faith in himself and his future: but afterwards returned again with a great deal of pleasure to the life around, which breathed so full of quiet and friendliness, and every pleasant thing.
She had another frequent visitor whom she received with almost more pleasure and sense of grateful esteem than any, and that was Mr. Cattley, who had not half so much to say as Percy, and yet seemed to feel in Susie’s parlour—the room which he had known so well in other times, when it was full of the ways of the old people, but which now was Susie’s parlour as if it never had belonged to anyone else—something of the same sweet calm and refreshment which the village life and quiet brought to her. Mr. Cattley knew the village as well as Susie knew the hospital: he wanted something more to refresh his spirit: and on the eve of going away from Edgeley, and breaking up all the old habits which had been his life for years, this new habit and association were more pleasant to him than it was easy to believe anything could be. He liked to sit and watch her, moving about, or sitting at work, or perhaps only looking up with a little interchange of simple talk. He told her when he got more familiar how long he had been here, and how little inclination he had to go away; and then he told her of his new parish, and its great unlikeness to this, and how reluctant he was to plunge into it, feeling as if he were about to plunge into a new world.
‘It will not seem so when you get used to it,’ Susie would say.
‘No, most likely not. It is the getting used to it that is the difficulty,’ he would reply: and looked at her in an anxious way, as if the sight of her made a difference. He did not himself understand yet what the difference was.
When Percy came and found Mr. Cattley there, the new curate made it apparent in his manner that he thought the old one very much out of place. He would say,
‘Oh, I thought this was your day for the schools: but, of course, it is not important to keep that up now you are going away;’ or ‘I thought you said you would take the almshouses this evening. If I had known you were not going I should have gone, for the old people don’t like to be disappointed:’ which was half-amusing to Mr. Cattley, but not pleasant, as the pupil’s attempts to instruct his former master seldom are. But what the old curate felt most of all was when the young man said to him: ‘I thought you had some business with Aunt Mary! I know she was looking for you.’
When this was said, Mr. Cattley took up his hat and rose from his chair, giving Susie a glance which she did not understand—and perhaps neither did he: and Percy would settle himself in his chair to remain, while Mr. Cattley went away.