The Son of His Father. Mrs. Oliphant
to say; but do come—oh, do come. I do not feel that I can go on longer as I have gone on all these years, knowing nothing about myself, or about you. You must see, if you will think, that it is very, very hard upon me, especially now when I am old enough to think for myself.
‘I am, dear mother,
‘Your affectionate son,
‘John Sandford.’
He had worked himself up to a very high pitch of feeling before he came to the end. It need scarcely be added that it was not in the least what he intended to say. He meant to have pointed out the hardship of his own case incidentally, and put the force of his prayer into his grandmother’s wishes. But John found out, like other people, that his pen ran away with him—his thoughts ran away with him. The stream of his eloquence all poured in one direction, while his intentions took the other way—curious conflict of that dual nature which nobody understands though so many people talk of it. It is more often in doing than in saying that we contradict our own purpose. But John was more near to the truth in what he said, being carried away by the fever of writing, and the natural impulse which seized upon his pen, than if he had discharged his commission more exactly. It was only when he read his letter over, still labouring with the emotion it had called forth, and which gradually rose higher and higher by the stimulus of his own eloquence, that it occurred to him that he had altogether left out his grandmother’s message. He added, as so many people do, in the manner which is called feminine, the real object of his writing in a postscript. It was very brief, and delivered with a much decreased earnestness.
‘Grandmamma is not very well. She can’t do nearly so much as she did a little while ago. It was she who first said I might write to beg you to come, and to say that she would like to see you. There are many things she would like to say to you, for the people here are very ignorant, and don’t understand.’
John had no doubt that he had thus given everything that was of the least importance in his grandmother’s message. He made a fair copy—a very fair copy of the document which was the most important he had ever had to do with. He would not trust himself to the opportunities of the morning, when, perhaps, Mr. Sandford might want him to do something, or Mr. Cattley might send for him, or anything might happen. The fire had gone out by this time, and the boy was very cold and cramped, and the stillness of the dead of night pressed upon his spirits. He took off his shoes before he stole up the creaking stairs to bed, with the fumes of his great intellectual effort in his head, and all his feelings roused. A sense of temerity, yet of pride, in the independent step he had taken was strong within him. Whatever might happen, at least he had made it apparent that he was now able to act and judge for himself.
When Mrs. Sandford came downstairs a little later than usual next day—it was always now a little later, so that it was hard upon any principle of averages to say what the ‘usual’ was—she asked John about his letter, with a look and a grasp of his hand, which showed how much in earnest she was, and which gave him a momentary compunction at the thought of how little important her share in the invitation had been made.
‘Did you send it away?’ she said to him, as he kissed her.
‘Yes, grandmamma, this morning.’
‘Thank you, my dear,’ she said; ‘did you say how much I wanted her, and how I hoped she would come soon?’
‘Ye-es,’ said John, with a less assured affirmative; then he added, ‘I said everything I could think of. I implored her to come.’
She pressed his hand in hers with a tender clasp.
‘Dear boy,’ she said, ‘you know I would never wish you to keep a secret from your grandfather. But unless he asks you—unless he says something—you will not take any notice, John?’
John drew himself apart a little, squaring his young shoulders.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘grandmamma, that I am old enough to write to my mother on my own responsibility, without thinking what even grandfather might say.’
‘Oh! yes,’ she said, looking up at him with a woman’s admiration for masculine independence, ‘that is quite true.’
‘And he would be the last to think otherwise. He would see that it was only natural and right.’
‘Yes,’ she answered, more doubtfully; ‘but he might think he ought to be consulted before you took any step. And that would only be just. What I hope is that Emily, who is so sensible, will take it into her own hands and write that she is coming—without saying anything about an invitation—that would certainly be the best way.’
‘I think,’ said John, ‘that, whether there were an invitation at all or not, she ought to have come long ago to see——’
He paused with a curious sense of the involved situation. Mrs. Sandford echoed his words with a soft, little sigh.
‘Oh! yes, whatever might have happened, she should have come to see her mother, John.’
But that was not what John intended to say.
Mr. Sandford came in shortly after, full of an interview he had just had with Mr. Cattley, who had been corresponding with his brother, the engineer, about John’s plans.
‘It appears that Mr. Cattley’s brother is an engineer who has to do with machinery,’ grandfather said. ‘I don’t know if that is the same thing as a lighthouse man. You will have to go to the foundry and learn how everything is made. It is not surveying and that sort of thing, so far as I can hear. You will have to put your shoulder to the wheel, they tell me, and work with your own hands: but I suppose you will not mind that, John.’
‘And where is the foundry?’ asked grandmamma, from the sofa. ‘I hope it is not too far away.’
‘Well, it is not perhaps the place I should have chosen; but what does it matter? one place is very like another. Anything that could harm him would be just as likely to come to him in any other place. It’s in Liverpool, my dear.’
‘In Liverpool——’ Mrs. Sandford raised herself so quickly and energetically for her weak condition that she looked as if she were about to spring from the sofa. ‘John Sandford,’ she said, ‘you will never let the boy go there.’
‘It is not what I should have wished,’ said the old gentleman; ‘in short, it is the last place I should have chosen. But I did not think of that soon enough, and, after Mr. Cattley has been so kind as to make all the inquiries—— What can it matter, after all? That or any other place. It will be just the same. I can’t think that there is any more danger there than anywhere else. And, things have gone so far, I don’t see how we can draw back.’
‘Oh, John Sandford!’ cried his wife, ‘it is not possible. I can never, never consent. What! After all we have suffered, and all the sacrifices we have made, to send him back there!’
‘I know, I know,’ said the old gentleman, with a deprecatory wave of his hands. ‘It is all true; but still, what can we do? A long time has passed, and he is going back without any—— No, I know very well what you would say: but if you will look at it reasonably——’
‘How can I look at it reasonably? And do you think Emily will be reasonable? She will never consent, and neither will I.’
‘But, my dear, my dear!’ he said, ‘it is all settled, and how can I go back?’
John had listened to this conversation with a surprise which gradually grew into something like indignation.
‘Grandmamma,’ he said, coming forward to the sofa, ‘I don’t want to seem wiser than you, or as if I knew better; but why should you be so afraid to trust me? I have never done anything to make you afraid. I don’t think I want pleasure or anything that is wrong. I will try to do my duty either at Liverpool or anywhere else. Don’t, please, think that I shall forget everything you have taught me, and all that I have been brought up to, the moment I go away.’
Both the old people had their eyes fixed on him as he spoke, and then they looked at each other