CHAPTER XIV.
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION.
ANOTHER followed; and then another morning after that.
Night and day were much the same to John in this dreadful pause of existence. Sometimes he dozed in the day, in utter weariness and sickness of heart, after coming in from an unsuccessful search for some trace of any one of those three men who had so changed the course of his life; often lay awake through the slow and terrible night, in which all manner of miserable thoughts came crowding about him like vultures, so that he did not know which was most insupportable, the night or the day. The wondering looks of the people in the house, the shaking of the head of his landlady, Mrs. Short, who saw all her fears realised, and made no doubt whatever that John had been tempted, and had fallen, and had been dismissed by his employers with obliquy, did not affect him, for he was unconscious of them. He sought no comfort from his mother, who was the only confidant he could have had—indeed, he sought comfort nowhere. He did not recognise the possibility of any succour existing for him at all.
Again he had slept late on the morning of the third day. By that means he seemed to cheat time of one little bit of its tedious, soul-consuming power. The day was a little less long when he thus managed to steal an hour from it, and this habit, which the troubled and sorrowful share with the idle and dissipated, easily steals upon those who are unemployed and unhappy. He felt that he hated the light, as so many have done before him. To turn his face to the wall, to close his eyes upon it, to push as far from him as possible the new day, in which there could be nothing but evil, was a little gain in the dearth of all comfort. John was roused with a start by some one knocking at his door, to bid him make haste and come downstairs, where two ladies were waiting for him.
‘Missis wants to know if she’s to send up breakfast for them?’ the serving maiden inquired.
John, in his consternation, did not answer the question. Two ladies! After a while, he said to himself, while he completed his dressing hastily, that no doubt his mother had sent for Susie, and that together they had come to plead with him to abandon the unfortunate, to keep everything secret. John smiled at himself in his glass at the thought. Abandon him! The poor culprit, the convict, the deserted father had been more magnanimous than they were, and had fled from him not to shame him. So much the less could his son abandon him. He prepared himself to tell them his resolution as he finished his dressing. Susie would cry, perhaps, but neither of them would care much: why should they care? He had never entered actively into their lives. It would be nothing to them to lose him. They might, indeed, have been proud of him, had he come to be, as he believed he should so short a time ago, a successful and famous engineer. But pride and love were two different things. They might plead as they pleased, but he would not give in to them. What, preserve this hideous secret, cheat the world into supposing them an honourable family? That might have been, perhaps, had John been entering upon a successful career, accompanied by the plaudits of the office, and with many things depending upon him. But now when nothing depended upon him, when he was considered to have justified all prejudices against him (of which now he knew the cause) and to be himself a traitor—now that he should shrink from doing his duty! No, no! His father after all was everything that belonged to him, as he was the only thing that belonged to his father.
He went through all this with himself as he prepared to go downstairs. And he threw himself into their thoughts. He fancied how, as they heard his step coming down, they would say over to each other the arguments it would be best to use, and the mother might perhaps suggest to Susie to be more loving than usual to win him. It was very likely that she would do that. And when John opened the parlour door and found himself in a moment caught in some one’s arms, the first flush of consciousness in his mind was that to the letter the programme was being carried out.
But that flush of consciousness was very brief. The next was different, it was rapture and anguish mingled together. For the arms that were flung about him, the face that was put close to his was not his sister’s but Elly’s—Elly’s! Good heavens!
‘Don’t!’ he cried, putting her away from him, putting away her hands from his shoulders. ‘Don’t! for the love of God.’
‘Jack!’ she cried, ‘Jack!’ and kissed him determinedly, openly, without a blush, flinging off those deterring hands.
‘Oh, Jack, my boy, what does all this mean?’ said another voice behind. Had he gone mad, or was he still in a dream? For this mocking spirit seemed to speak with Mrs. Egerton’s voice. The whole world seemed to swim in his eyes for a moment, and then things settled back into their place, and he found himself standing in his parlour with two ladies indeed, but the ladies were Elly and her aunt. Mrs. Egerton was seated in the only easy-chair in the room, the one which May the convict had preferred, and Elly stood all eagerness and life, like a creature made out of light, in the full shining of the morning sun which came in at the end window, and which had caught and translated itself bodily to her hair.
John stood apart, like the shadow of this lovely group, which was of the light, as he said to himself, and could not have too much shining upon it, while he was of the dark and could do nothing but retire into the gloom. He turned towards Mrs. Egerton with a trembling which he could not disguise.
‘Why,’ said he, ‘did you come here? Why have you let her bring you—Why have you brought her here?’
‘Jack,’ said Mrs. Egerton, ‘what does it all mean? Do you think anyone who cared for you as we do could be satisfied with what you said?’
‘But you—didn’t much care for me,’ he said, feeling stupified and unable to face the real issue. She made a little gesture of impatience.
‘I know you have some reason to speak. I was against you: but that’s a very different thing from this. Do you think your friends could give you up when you were in trouble, my poor Jack? Oh! no! no——’
‘Oh no, no, no,’ echoed Elly. ‘Not even papa. He said that we must come and see——’
‘Yes,’ cried Mrs. Egerton, ‘my brother himself. He said what of course anybody would say, that to let you go off and make a martyr of yourself for some unknown reason was out of the question. He would have come himself, but you know he never goes anywhere.’
‘And Mr. Cattley offered to come,’ said Elly, ‘but we felt that we were the right people to come, Jack.’
He stood stupified listening to the alternation of the voices, both so soft in their different tones, both—in view of him, and in the ease and everyday circumstances of his lodging, and his appearance, which was little changed—beginning to feel at their ease too, and as if nothing could be so terrible as they had supposed. It relieved their minds beyond description to see everything in the usual order of a place in which people were living. No man could be in the depths of a catastrophe who had his breakfast-table neatly set out and the Standard folded by his plate. ‘He has given us a fright for nothing,’ Elly had said. The appearance of John indeed gave them a moment’s pause, for he was very pale, and his eyes had a worn and troubled look which it was impossible not to remark. But two days’ illness, or the failure of his scheme, or any other trifling (as these ladies thought) matter, would have sufficed to do that. As he did not say anything, being too much confused and disturbed and miserable and (almost) happy, to do so, Mrs. Egerton went on, in her calm voice, the voice of one who was accustomed to no infringements of the happy ordinary course of life,
‘Now that we are here, don’t you think you might give us some breakfast, Jack? We have travelled most part of the night.’
He went and gave the necessary orders without a word—which, however, was not necessary, for Mrs. Short herself met him in the passage, bringing up the ‘things.’ The sight of these visitors had at once set John right in his land-lady’s mind. Mrs. Sandford, who was his ma, was a dignified functionary, and worthy of every respect, but she was still only Mrs. Sandford of the hospital: whereas the ladies who thus arrived with their travelling-bags in the early morning were ladies to their finger-tips, and had every sign of belonging to that class of the community, more respected than any other by the masses, which has nothing to do. And before he could remark upon the extraordinary position, the horror and the ridicule of it, John found himself sitting down to table with his cheerful guests, who were delighted to see that there was really nothing much to make any fuss about, and put off the explanation till after breakfast with the greatest composure, making themselves in the meantime very much at home.
Elly pried about at all his treasures, found out her own photograph in the place from which he had not removed it, shut up in a little velvet shrine—and opened his books, and took out a rose-bud from among the little knot of flowers which one of John’s pensioners brought him regularly. She gave him a bright glance of love and sauciness, and put the rose into her bodice. Poor John! How happy it would have made him a week ago: what an aggravation of misery it was now: an anguish made more poignant by this mingled sweetness, which broke the poor fellow’s heart.
They breakfasted, almost gaily, making even John for a moment or two forget himself. And then when the meal was over the examination began.
‘Jack,’ said Mrs. Egerton, ‘it has been a great comfort to see you—though you wrote in such a solemn tone—looking fairly well upon the whole. Tell us, what made you do so, now?’
Elly sat down beside him, leaning against his chair.
‘Yes, tell us, Jack,’ she said.
She was smiling, almost laughing, at his paleness, at his trouble, with not the faintest notion what it was, or indeed that it could be anything worthy, she would have said, of ‘the fright he had given them.’ Her attitude, her smile, the way in which she looked at him, so tender, so saucy, so frank, overwhelmed poor John. He got up hurriedly, leaving her astonished, deserted in the place she had taken, and confronted them both in an access of self-controlled, yet impatient misery, with his back to the wall.
‘I will tell you,’ he said, hoarsely, ‘if you insist upon it. I said so in my letter. It would have been kinder to let me go away, and take no notice. But if you insist I must explain.’
‘Insist! Explain!’ said Mrs. Egerton. ‘How is it possible not to insist when you speak as you have done. Did you expect us really to let you break off everything and disappear without a word?’
‘Mrs. Egerton,’ said poor John, ‘you said there was no engagement to be allowed between Miss Spencer and me.’
Elly got up at this amazed, and went and stood by him, and touched his arm with her hand. ‘Oh, Jack!’ she said, with a reproach which went to his heart.
‘Well,’ said Mrs. Egerton, ‘that is true. I said I would not hear of it; but that is very different from suddenly breaking it off on the man’s side, without a word.’
‘Oh, very, very different!’ cried Elly. ‘Aunt Mary, he never, never could intend to use me so.’
It was all a sort of sweet trifling to Elly, a sort of quarrel to be made up, though without any of the harshness of a quarrel—a little misunderstanding that could only end in one way.
And he stood leaning up against the wall facing them, with his sad knowledge in his heart, knowing that it was no trifle that stood between them, but a great gulf which neither could cross. He stood and gazed at them for a moment, his eyes and his heart and every member of him thrilling with insupportable pain.
‘I will tell you if you wish it,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to tell you, but if I must, I must. I told you that I always believed my father to be dead. He was nothing but a vision to me. I remember him only as a child does. I believed he was dead.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Egerton, interested, but mildly, while Elly continued to look up, smiling into his face.
‘I remember, too,’ she said, ‘how he used to come in and take you out of bed.’
The unfortunate young man shuddered. It was so dreadful to think of this now, and to think that the cause of all his trouble remembered it too, as the one distinct thing when so much was blank. And to see the untroubled curiosity in their faces, so unexpectant of the thunderbolt which was about to fall!
‘The reason he has been out of sight so long is—that he has been in prison for forgery for fourteen years. He came out about a month since, and I found him the first night, but without knowing who he was. He is a convict, and has been in prison for fourteen years.’
Mrs. Egerton uttered a low cry as if somebody had struck her. As for Elly, she did not understand, but looked at him again with growing wonder, as if she knew only from his face, not from what he said.
‘It is easily explained, isn’t it?’ he said, with a strange smile; ‘not much trouble, that is how it is. I knew nothing, no more than you did, or I should be inexcusable. Now you have heard it, take her away. Oh, Mrs. Egerton, now you know—spare me, and take her away.’
‘Jack! God bless you, my poor boy. Oh, Jack, I never dreamt of this. God help you, my poor boy.’
‘Yes, I hope He will: for nobody else can. It is like that in the prayer-book—“Because there is none other that fighteth for us.” Take her away. She can’t understand. Oh, Mrs. Egerton, for God’s sake, take her away.’
‘Yes, Jack; yes, I will; that is, I will if I can. Elly, do you hear him? He does not want us; not now, not at this dreadful moment. Oh, my poor, heart-broken boy! Oh, God help you, my poor Jack!’
Mrs. Egerton got up, as if she intended to go away; but then she stopped and held out her hands to him, and finally drew him to her, and gave him a kiss upon his pale cheek, bursting out into crying as she drew him, resisting, into her arms.
‘Oh, my poor boy! oh, my poor boy! how are you to bear it?’ she cried.
Oh, if he could but have put his head on her motherly bosom, and cried like a child, as even a man may do, like one whom his mother comforteth! But John, with Elly on the other side of him, resisted, and would not do this. He said, hoarsely:
‘I can’t bear it—I must bear it: only take her away.’
‘Elly—Elly! do you hear? We make it worse for him. You and I must not make anything worse for him. Elly, let us go away.’
‘It seems as if I had nothing to do with all this,’ said Elly, with trembling lips. ‘Yet I thought it was me you loved, and not anyone else. I thought——’
‘Oh, Elly!’ Mrs. Egerton cried, weeping, ‘don’t you see you are torturing him? Oh, I wish I knew what to do! Elly, don’t you see you are breaking his heart? Come away, and leave him to himself. It is perhaps the kindest thing we can do.’
Elly did not move. She did not cry, though her lips quivered. She stood up straight by his side, as if nothing would ever alter her position.
‘You may go,'she said, ‘Aunt Mary. You are not so very near a relation: but I am not going, not a step. What, just when he wants me? Just when it is some good to have some one to stand by him. I shall not move, not a step. I am in my proper place. Is that all you know of Elly, Jack?’
There had been a faint tapping for some time at the door, which in the excitement and agitation of the little company within had gone on without notice. They were all too much absorbed to be conscious of it, or, if conscious, to think of it as appealing in any way to them. To John it had been a faint additional irritation, a something which penetrated through all the rest like a child crying or a door swinging, nothing that affected himself or made any call upon him. At this point, however, the patience of the applicant outside failed, the door was opened softly, and first a head put in, and then the entire person. It was Mrs. Egerton who first caught sight of this intruder. She dried her eyes hurriedly and looked, with a hasty attempt to recover her composure, at the wistful but still cheerful countenance, with a smile upon it like the smile of a child who has been punished for some fault, but comes back propitiatory, with looks intended to conciliate, and a humble yet not uncomplacent consciousness of being good, and ready to make amends. A child in such a frame of mind is always amiable, and so was, to all appearance, the man who stepped softly in, with his hat in one hand and a bundle of papers in the other. He was scarcely young enough for the pose, or for the look, or the desire to please and to be forgiven, and to make all up again, which was in every line of his face. But to Mrs. Egerton the face was a pleasant one, with a good, innocent expression, which made her feel that this conciliatory personage could not be a very great offender. He made her a little bow when he caught her eye, and seemed to take her into his confidence as he stood there deprecating, smiling. John did not perceive him till he had come into the room, and in the same deprecating manner closed the door behind him. Then he made a step forward, holding out the papers in his hand.
‘Here,’ he said, and the ladies, watching with sudden interest, were startled by the bound John made at the sound of this unexpected voice. ‘Here are your papers—Mr. Sandford.’ He made a little pause before the name. ‘I had no right, I believe, to take them away, but at the moment it did not occur to me in that light. I thought—— ah!—no, no, that is all—nonsense. Don’t think of it any more.’
For John had darted towards him, caught him by the arm, and said ‘Father!’ in the midst of the little speech he was making.
‘No, no,’ he repeated, ‘that is all nonsense. Nothing of the sort, nothing of the sort. Here are your papers, which is the only thing to think of. I have brought you—your papers. That is all. I didn’t intend to disturb you in the midst of your friends.’
He would have slid out again, or at least he made a semblance of wishing to slide out, though in reality his eyes were full of curiosity respecting John’s friends, who on their side gazed at him with an almost ludicrous dismay. This, at least, was the feeling of Mrs. Egerton, who stood with a helpless gasp of incredulity and amazement gazing at this criminal, this untragical, unterrible apparition of whom she had been thinking a moment before with horror in which no mitigating circumstance had any part.
‘I did not think,’ said the culprit, with his deprecating look, ‘that you would have been at home at this hour. I thought I would find the room empty when I got here. I had these back from Spender & Diggs last night. I intended only to leave them—not to disturb you among your friends.’
John’s mouth was so dry that he could scarcely speak. He took May by the arm and almost forced him into a chair.
‘I did not seek you,’ he said, ‘God knows. It would be better for us if you had been dead as I thought. But you cannot go away now on any pretext of disowning who you are. This is my father, Mrs. Egerton. I have told you who he is and what he is—there’s no more to say. As for Miss—as for—for Elly—— Oh, my God!’
He stood holding his father by the arm, but with the other hand he covered his face. Such a cry of anguish could find no words except in the inevitable universal appeal which human nature takes its final refuge in, whatever its misery may be.
Even at this moment, however, the comic element, which mixes with almost every tragedy, came in when it ought least to have shown itself. May struggled against the detaining hold with a look of injured amiability and innocent amazement.
‘I’m not used to be kept by force,’ he said, turning to the elder lady with that look of taking her into his confidence. ‘He grips me like—like a policeman. I don’t know what he wants to do with me: to expose me to ladies who don’t know me: to make you think—— If I’ve made a mistake, why, there’s your papers again, and all’s right between us. Let me go.’
Elly stole round to the other side of the prisoner’s chair.
‘Oh, sir,’ she said, ‘I don’t know who you are: but you must stay if Jack wishes you to stay. He is unhappy, do not cross him now. If you are his father, we are your friends as well as his.’
May’s countenance changed. He looked at her with an anxious, furtive pucker of his eyelids.
‘Young lady,’ he said, ‘who are you? are you—Susie?’ with a shade of sudden gravity on his face.
‘No,’ said Elly, casting at John a glance of radiant defiance, unable even at that moment to take his rejection seriously. ‘I am—engaged to Jack.’
The man who had brought such dismay and misery with him had no lively sense of shame, but he had occasional perceptions as keen as they were evanescent. He looked for a moment at the group round him, and divined all it meant. It was not easy for the quickest wit to find a remedy.
‘Madam,’ he said, turning to Mrs. Egerton, ‘this young man has been working too hard, and he is off his head. Take care of him. It’s a common thing among inventors; take care of him.’
He settled himself on his chair as if he were about to enter on a long, peaceable explanation; then, in a moment, with the skill which is learned among criminals, he snatched his arm from John’s grasp and was gone. The clang of the door as it closed behind him was almost the first notice they had that he had escaped.
John was weakened by the sufferings of the past days, and altogether taken by surprise. He was thrown against the wall, and, for a moment, stunned by the shock. Mrs. Egerton, half disposed to think the respectable visitor was right and the young man crazed—half alarmed by that sudden exit, not knowing what to do—held his hands in hers and chafed them, bidding some one fetch a doctor, send for his mother, do something—she knew not what.