The Son of His Father. Mrs. Oliphant
advantage, that the curate secured from his window a great deal of information as to the habits of the more careless portion of his parishioners, and now and then was able to come down upon them accordingly, with very crushing effect. Beyond the ‘Green Man,’ at a little distance, was the shop, and then the row of houses ran on, sloping a little to the right hand, so that the gable of Mr. Sandford’s house in the distance, which was old, and of a fine, mellow, red brick, closed up the view. The church and rectory were withdrawn among trees to the left hand, behind the line of the village street, which had nothing at all remarkable about it, but was homely, and pleasant to the eyes which had known it all their lives and knew everybody in it. To be sure, John Sandford was seven when he came to Edgeley—but that at seventeen does not tell for much. Feather Lane, the low part of Edgeley, was quite unseen from Mr. Cattley’s, being a narrow street which sloped down to the river, well hidden by intervening houses. Mrs. Sibley’s was rather a modern house—at least, it had additions which were of very recent date. The window was a wide, bow-window, roomy enough to hold the curate’s writing-table, and seat his two pupils, one at each side. The other part of the room was quite square, and not very lovely. It had a table in the centre—a black horse-hair sofa and chairs, and a red and green carpet with a very bold pattern. The want of beauty in these articles, however, had not struck anyone. The furniture was all so familiar, associated with so many tranquil, pleasant days, so many little jokes and youthful laughter. It was ‘a dear old room,’ Elly said. She looked round, as she gathered up her books, with affectionate regard. ‘Dear old place! To think one will never come here again, except to ask for Mr. Cattley, or bring him a message from Aunt Mary!’ The regret was quite genuine, but there was a little laugh in it too.
‘I sha’n’t be able even to do that,’ said John. ‘I shall be away.’
‘Ah, but then you’ll write,’ said Elly. ‘Writing brings you back to a place more than merely coming with a message. If you don’t write regularly to me, I shall come to Mr. Cattley, and ask him, “Mr. Cattley, have you heard from Jack?” And then he’ll take it out, and read it to me; and so we’ll all three be together again.’
‘Oh, I’ll write fast enough,’ said John, lightly, without any sense of the privilege it was to be permitted to write as often as he liked to Elly. ‘I shall have nothing else to do.’
Elly was not at all offended by this easy statement. She said,
‘Not at first; but after, when you come to know people, then you’ll drop off, I’m sure. Everybody does. I have heard Aunt Mary say so often, “Oh, wait till they get among their own friends.” But keep it up as long as you can be troubled, Jack; for I am not going among new friends, you know. Look here, Mr. Cattley has papa and Aunt Mary on his mantelpiece. He has hung papa only to keep Aunt Mary company, I’m sure. Now, let you and me leave him our photographs, one on each side. He’ll like it, and it will be a little surprise for him when he comes in.’
‘He will like yours, I daresay,’ said Jack, ‘but mine? I am sure he can’t want mine: and I’ve not got one, that I know of.’
‘Yes, you have,’ said Elly. ‘This is my own: I brought it with me on purpose; and, of course, Mrs. Sandford must have another copy, and she’ll give it me. Look here,’ said the girl, taking out two photographs, which she had placed together in an envelope. They were not very noble works of art. They were the production of a travelling photographer who had been in the village for a week, and in that time had ‘done’ everybody, both gentle and simple, in Edgeley. They represented two young, round faces, very staring as to likeness, but without other advantage: however, neither Elly nor John knew any better. And there was enough in that juxtaposition to have made the heart of a youth beat; but John’s heart remained perfectly at ease. It seemed to him, as to Elly, the most natural thing in the world that they should balance each other. Nor was he at all offended that she should give ‘my one,’ as she called it, to the curate, with the intention of getting another from his grandmother to fill the vacant place in her room when he was aware he had been placed beside ‘the other boys.’ There was no feeling about the matter that was not quite simple and straightforward. Elly took them out of their envelope, and attached them over the curate’s mantelpiece with two big pins.
‘I thought at one time,’ she said, ‘of giving him the frames, too, but then I thought it was better to pin them up—for if he cares for them very much he can get frames for them, and if he doesn’t it’s no great matter. All the same it will be you and me.’
Elly stood up against the fire, reaching up with her arms to fasten the photographs, in her dark winter frock, which made her slim, girlish figure more slim than ever. Her hair still hung down upon her shoulders in half curling locks, not very long, but very thick and shining, and full of the wavy, long undulation of natural curls, which have never been put in paper, or touched with curling-irons. John, though it had never occurred to him to admire Elly, did think her hair very pretty, falling upon her shoulders in that easy way. It was reddish-brown, but more brown than red on ordinary occasions; only now and then, when there was no occasion for such vanities, the red would come out.
‘You’ve got very pretty hair, Elly,’ he said, quite simply. ‘I think I never saw anyone with such pretty hair.’
‘Oh, Jack, papa says it’s too red, and Aunt Mary says it’s not red enough; it’s neither one thing nor another. How can one help the colour of one’s hair, or anything else for the matter of that; and yet people speak as if it was your fault! Will that do, do you think? I’ve put you on Aunt Mary’s side and myself on papa’s, because a lady and a gentleman should always come alternately, as people sit at dinner, don’t you know. It looks very nice, quite complete. If Mr. Cattley has any brothers or sisters, or anything of that sort, there is no room for them now, that is clear.’
‘Or fathers and mothers,’ said John.
‘Well, he has had a long time to put them up in, if he wanted to. We must not trouble ourselves about them. Everybody has got fathers and mothers, of course. But I don’t remember mamma a bit; and you don’t either, do you, Jack?’
‘Oh! yes, I think I do; but there is one thing, Elly,’ said Jack, ‘I remember papa; I remember him as distinctly as if it had been yesterday. He used to come and take me out of bed, I should think in the middle of the night, and take me downstairs to supper, and I had oranges and cakes and all sorts of things sitting on his knee.’
‘Oh, how bad for you,’ said Elly, with a woman’s instinctive consciousness of maternal responsibility. ‘He must have been very thoughtless to do that.’
‘Thoughtless? well, perhaps: I never thought of it in that light—but it seems very nice as I look back. Can you believe it, Elly,’ said John, coming close and speaking low, ‘it was only two or three days since, when we were talking it all over, that I heard for the first time that my father was dead.’
‘Dear, dear!’ said Elly, looking very grave; but then she added, ‘I’ve known it a long time, Jack. I’ve always heard papa say that you were an orphan boy.’
‘I am not an orphan boy, my mother is living,’ said John, hurriedly. For the first time it occurred to him that to have a mother living whom he had not seen for ten years was strange. It had never struck him in this light before. ‘But papa,’ he added, in a softer tone, ‘died many years ago. I don’t know why I never understood it. One doesn’t think of things when there is nothing to lead one’s mind to them.’
‘I know,’ said Elly. ‘It is just now that I am trying to remember a little about mamma. You know, I was only a baby when she died, and for years and years I never even thought—’
‘That was like me: it all seemed so natural, one made no inquiry.’
‘We are very like each other, Jack,’ said Elly, ‘now some people would have been always inquiring: at least that is how they do in books. You and I just took it for granted. Has your mother, then, a large family that she has given you quite up to old Mr. and Mrs. Sandford? I suppose your father was their son, as you are Sandford too.’
This puzzled John extremely. It was a question he had not asked