CHAPTER V.
BROTHER AND SISTER.
SUSIE knew her way about, and where to go and what to see. She was not disturbed by the noise and clangour of what she called ‘The Underground,’ a mode of conveyance which at first bewildered the country boy, to whom the clash of train after train, the noise, the complication, the crowds pouring this way and that took away all understanding, and who felt himself a child in the hands of his sister, who knew exactly when the right train which she wanted was coming, and all about it, and steered him in her deft London way through the tumult.
‘How can you tell which is which?’ John cried, feeling the dust in his throat, the din in his ears, and his eyes growing red and hot with the flutter of the crowd, and of all the sights that flashed past him, and the smoke and suffocating atmosphere.
“Oh, I can’t tell. I only know,” said Susie.
She was at her ease in the midst of the commotion, looking as calm and as modest and composed as if she were walking in country lanes, not afraid of the thronged stations of the Metropolitan, the dingy platforms, the confusion of porters shouting, and doors clanging. John had meant to take care of his sister, but it was he who clung to her in the midst of the bewilderment and the noise. She knew which train to take, she knew when to change into another, where to stop; though to him they bore no distinction, neither the stations, the names of which he could never discover, nor the directions—for as yet, John was not even aware which was north or south, east or west.
Under Susie’s guidance, however, he saw and learnt a great deal in that first wonderful day. She took him from the Tower, to St. Paul’s, and then to the Abbey, to the Houses of Parliament—to the parks—as she was used to do with strangers, with convalescent patients sometimes, but that more gently—and with their relations and friends who would come up from the country to see somebody in the hospital, and then contemplate longingly the unknown world around them, till Susie, always kind, took pity on their ignorance. By this means she had been trained in the duties of cicerone, and was extremely efficient, knowing just enough and not too much: which is best—for a guide too erudite is a confusion to the simple mind.
She took her brother, in the middle of the day, to a modest place on the outskirts of the city, which she knew by this kind of excursion, to give him something to eat, and there pointed out to him what he found as interesting as anything—the young men and middle-aged men of all classes in pursuit of luncheon, crowding every kind of hotel and eating-house. It gave John altogether a new view of that busy life, where there is no time to go home for meals, but where everyone has comfortable means of being fed with no makeshifts or picnic arrangements, but a whole population toiling to supply the brief necessary repast. This, with all its immense supply and demand, and the sight of the men about the streets, plunging into, and being swallowed up in the high buildings which have replaced, in so many cases magnificently, the old shabby offices and chambers in which London laboured and grew rich, was as exciting to John, or perhaps more so, if the truth must be told, than the historical places to which Susie guided him. He was overawed by St. Paul’s, where he stood under the great dome, and heard the waves, so to speak, of the great sea of London dashing outside with a rhythmic force: and the venerable Abbey with all its records went to his heart. But for a youth of his day, standing eagerly upon the verge of life and longing to take part himself in all that was going on, the flood and pressure of men steadily pushing their way along the streets, all with some object or pursuit, pressing in crowds to snatch their hasty meal, pouring back again into every kind of office, in every possible capacity, that was to him the most interesting of all. Should he himself be like that in a day or two? Full of business, full of work, his mind all engaged with something outside of himself, no time to inquire into his own history, or discuss his relationships, or make himself wretched, perhaps, about things that might turn out of so little importance. This was the thought that took entire possession of his mind, as he went on.
‘Do you think you’ll like it, John?’
‘I don’t know if I’ll like it. That’s not what one wants to know—one wants to know how one is to get on.’
‘I should think,’ said Susie, hesitating a little, ‘I should think—that you are sure to get on, if you try.’
‘It shan’t be for the want of trying,’ said John.
‘Oh,’ cried Susie, ‘that is the thing we’ll think of most—that you should try, John. If you try your very best, and don’t succeed, it’s not your fault. That is what mother will think of, and I, too.’
‘But I mean to succeed,’ said John. Many have said it before him, and yet failed miserably. Yet each new aspirant means to win, and is as certain of his power to do so as those that went before. John’s purpose shone in his eyes, and his certainty communicated itself to his sister. She put her hand through his arm, giving him an affectionate pressure.
‘And oh, how I wish and pray you may! and believe it, too. Oh, John, with all my heart! That will do more for mother to heal her wounds than anything else in the world.’
Do more for mother! That was not what he was thinking of. He drew his arm away, perhaps somewhat coldly. The mother, who was Emily, had but few claims upon him. If Susie had said it for herself, if Elly had said it, that would have been a motive. He did not feel inspired by the one presented to him now. And there was a pause between them, and Susie saw that she had made a mistake, and that this was not the spell. They went on for some time after very soberly, without any question on John’s part or offer of information on the part of Susie, in a sort of heavy, dispirited way. At last she pressed his arm again, and said,
‘Oh, John, I wish you would have more feeling about mother. If you only knew what a life she has had, what a hard life! I can’t do much, one way or another. I can only stand by her, and do what I can to please her; but you, you are different. You can do so much. Oh, John!’
‘It is of no use. She does not believe that I will ever be good for anything; sometimes I think she—dislikes me, Susie.’
‘Oh, John, how can you say so, her own son, her only son! She has always thought of you, always; that I know.’
‘How has she thought of me? That I am sure to go wrong? I know,’ said John, with a sudden inspiration, ‘that is what she expects, that I must go wrong. She is always waiting to see me do it. I don’t know why, but I am sure it has always been in her mind.’
‘She didn’t know you, John,’ said Susie, eagerly, not seeing that she assented to his suggestion, ‘how could she know you? We had never seen you since you were a child; and if she thought——’
‘Why has she never seen me since I was a child?’ the boy asked, sternly. ‘Why is it I didn’t know you, Susie, my only sister, till now?’
‘Oh, as for that,’ said she, pressing his arm, ‘that didn’t matter, did it? You and I would always understand each other. It is only to say that you are John and I am Susie. We didn’t want any more.’
‘If sister and brother do that, shouldn’t mother and son do it?’ said John; ‘and we don’t, you see. She expects everything that is bad of me, and I think everything that is——’
‘No,’ she cried, ‘don’t say that; oh, John, don’t say that. It is all that you don’t know her. Wait a little, only wait a little. She has had a great deal to bear. She has had to put on what is almost a mask, to hide her heart which has been so wounded; oh, so wounded! John, you don’t know!’
‘Not by me,’ he said. ‘I have never done anything to her. But she has made up her mind that I shall turn out badly. Don’t contradict me, Susie, for I know.’
Susie made no attempt to contradict him. She patted his arm softly, and said, ‘Poor mother, poor mother,’ under her breath. John was not ill-pleased that she should take his mother’s part—it seemed suitable that she should do so, the thing that was becoming and natural. He did not want her to come over to his side. And then the mother was so wrong—so ridiculously, fantastically wrong, that some one to support and stand up for her was doubly necessary. Poor mother! who would not even have it in her power to be glad, as the commonest mother would be, when her son turned out the reverse of all she had feared.
‘If you would only forget,’ said Susie, ‘this notion you have taken into your mind, and go on (as I know you will go on) well, and make your way, mother will be beside herself with joy. Oh, it will make up for everything that is past, all she has had to bear; and there is nobody can do that but you.’
This appeal left John cold. He was thoroughly determined to go on well—by nature in the first place, for he felt no inclination for anything else. And if Susie had implored him for her own sake, or for Elly’s sake, he would have responded magnanimously, and promised everything she pleased—but for his mother, for the woman whose real name (if she only knew it) was Emily, how could that affect him? He made no reply, and presently their attention was diverted by some new thing which was strange to the country lad, and they discoursed on this subject no more. They had reached the Strand, the scene of John’s adventure of the previous night, when Susie suddenly dropped his arm very hastily, and with scarcely a word of explanation, bidding him wait for her, took refuge suddenly in a shop. He had not recovered from his surprise, when he was accosted by some one who came up with great cordiality, holding out his hand, and in whom John, with no small surprise, recognised his acquaintance, the father of the child he had rescued, the man who had been so grateful and enthusiastic in his thanks, Montressor, who hailed him with a heartiness that was almost noisy, shaking hands violently and protesting his delight.
‘Is it really you in the flesh, me dear young friend? And I’ve found ye, then, in daylight, and quite natural. You’re not the good fairy in the pantomime, nor yet the Red Cross Knight as me Nelly says ye are. And none the worse? I’m proud to see ye, young Mr. May.’
‘Oh,’ said John, ‘it’s nothing; indeed it’s nothing. I hope she is all right, and that she has taken no harm.’
‘She’s taken no harum, sir; but she’s a young creature of a highly nervous organisation, and her mother and me, we are always anxious. You’ll come in and see me chyld, Mr. May, and let her mother thank her deliverer. We talk of nothing else, if ye’ll believe me. Ye are a sort of a little god, me young hero, to the little one, and her grateful parents, and ye’ll not pass me humble door.’
‘I can’t come in to-day,’ said John, blushing a little, yet not without a sense that all this applause was pleasant, ‘for I’m waiting for my sister who has gone into one of these shops. I am glad I did not go after her, or I should not have seen you; but I will come another time to see you and the little girl.’
‘Do,’ said Montressor. He was a person who could not be called unobtrusive: his hat had a cock upon his head, and his elbow against his side, which called the attention of the passersby. His shaven face with its deep lines, and mobile features, and even his way of standing about, occupying much more than his proper share of the pavement, aroused the attention. John felt unpleasantly that the people who passed stared, and that one or two lingered a little, contemplating the old actor, with that frank curiosity which the British public permits itself to display. John, being young and shy, did not like these demonstrations; but they pleased the object of them, who stood aside a little, and said to his young companion, ‘They remember Montressor. Though the managers consider me passé, sir, me old admirers, those that have once flocked to see me in my favourite parts, have not forgotten me. The public makes up for the injustice of the officials; me kind friends—me good friends! This would be sweet to the heart of me faithful partner, Mr. May.’
‘Yes, perhaps she would like it,’ said John, hesitating. But for himself, he could not disguise that he shrank from the appreciation of the passengers in the Strand. Montressor was too much occupied by the pleasure it gave himself, however, to observe this.
‘The public, Mr. May,’ he said, ‘is the best of masters to the artist. As soon as ye can get face to face with it, sir, the battle’s done. It’s the officials, the managers, the middle-men, those that live upon the artist’s blood:—but a generous public never forgets an old servant.’ He looked round upon the people who stared and lingered, as if with the intention of addressing his thanks to them, while poor John shrank into himself.
‘I think I must bid you good-bye, sir,’ said the boy. ‘My sister is waiting for me. I’ll come and see you soon, and ask for—for the little girl.’
‘Must ye go?—then I’ll not detain ye. You’re right not to keep a lady waiting. Yes, come, me young hero—with us you’ll ever find a grateful welcome. And I’ll tell Nelly ye have promised. Good-bye, and a father’s blessing, Mr. May.’
To John’s surprise Susie came out to him from the shop, whence she had seen everything and heard something, looking very agitated and pale.
‘You don’t mean to say, John,’ she said, suddenly carrying him away in the opposite direction, ‘that that man knows you by the name of May?’
‘I never said anything about it,’ said John, in his surprise, ‘but it is true, whoever told you. That is the name he knows me by—and why not, since it is my name.’
‘Oh, John!’ cried Susie, with tears in her eyes; ‘when I told you it was for family reasons, for property and that sort of thing! Why will you be so perverse? Do you think it is a nice thing, do you think it looks honest and true, to have two names?’
‘Perhaps not,’ said the lad, ‘but then, let me have my own that was mine when I was a little child. Your family reasons, Susie, they were never told to me.’
‘Then for mere pride you will make an end of all mother has done and tried to do all her life, because she couldn’t explain to you, a little boy that couldn’t understand; you’ll expose her to all sorts of trouble, and yourself—yourself to——’
The tears were in Susie’s eyes. Her countenance, so gentle and mild, was suffused with angry colour, with indignation and impatience.
‘Even that man,’ she said, ‘even that man, a stranger, could—— Oh, John, will you go against grandfather as well as the rest of us? He left you the most of what he had, and his own good name, John Sandford, because he had no son. Will you go against grandfather and grandmother too?’
‘No,’ said John, after a pause, ‘I never did, and I never will. I suppose they wished it, though they never said anything. But, Susie, I’m no longer a child. All those circumstances you speak of, that you have known for years and years, surely may be told to me too?’
She shuddered a little and turned her face away.
‘I’ll speak to mother,’ she said, in a subdued voice. Then, more boldly, ‘But if you’re to be John Sandford, as grandfather said, you can’t be—the other. Is it right to have two names? It is just the one thing that cannot be done. It looks as if one were dishonest, untrue, to hide one’s name——’
‘I have no reason to do that,’ said John. ‘If you are sure grandfather intended it to be so? He never said anything to me. I always took it for granted without inquiring. I had forgotten the other. As for Mr. Montressor,’ said John, ‘I did it without thought. I had been thinking over it a great deal on the way to London, and when I saw him it was the first thing that came into my head.’
‘And how do you know Montressor?’ Susie asked.
‘Why, Susie, that is the man of last night!’
‘The man of last night! the man whose child—— And you gave him that other name? Oh!’ She gave a little fluttering cry, then paused, with a look of consternation growing upon her face. She stopped short for a moment in the streets in the extremity of her perplexed and troubled sensations. Then she caught John’s arm again with a close pressure. ‘Don’t see that man any more. Oh, promise me not to see that man any more.’
‘Why?’ said John. ‘He is not perhaps so well-known as he thinks, but he is a good fellow enough, and knows a lot. He is very kind. You should see him with his little girl; and then he was so kind to me.’
‘Oh, John, oh, John!’ Susie cried. It had all been so pleasant when they had set out, when nothing but the ordinary incidents of living had to be taken into account. But now they had struck upon more difficult ground.