The Son of His Father. Mrs. Oliphant
to meet the postman as he went his rounds, which did not mean that John doubted his mother’s coming, but only that he was very anxious, and eager to know what she would say. Not only her answer, but what she would say. Was it possible that her reply would be in the old, formal tone, as to a little boy who knew no better? or would she now perceive that he was at least an independent human creature, capable of feeling, capable of knowing, and address him as such? John was almost more anxious to resolve this question than to know whether she was coming. Of course she must be coming. Who could resist the appeal, that was at once from her mother and from her son? He had forgotten by this time how very little had been her mother’s part in it, and believed sincerely that he had said everything that had been suggested to him. In the first pang of astonished disappointment with which he found that there was no letter the first day, all his calculations were confounded, for he had never for a moment supposed that she would not answer, and answer at once. But then his hopes sprang up, and he said to himself that she must be thinking it over, and arranging how to come, and that she did not wish to write till she could tell him exactly the hour she would arrive. On the third day, grandmamma was downstairs again, looking paler, but still smiling. She took his face between her two thin hands (how thin they had grown, and all the veins showing), and whispered in his ear, as he stooped over her:
‘What does Emily say?’
Always Emily. He could not get rid of Emily.
‘There is no letter yet, grandmamma.’
‘Ah! she will be waiting till she can settle exactly which train she is to come by,’ said the old lady, and gave him a kiss, and lay smiling, thinking, no doubt, of her daughter, who was coming. She could not talk much, for she was still very weak.
On the fourth morning the letter arrived.
‘It is for you, Mr. John,’ said the postman.
‘Yes, yes,’ cried the boy; ‘I know it is for me.’
He hurried in, and shut the parlour-door, that no one might disturb him in reading it. At all events, it was a letter, he could see in a moment, and not the usual little formal note about his health and her health, which had been enough for him when he was a child. John’s heart beat very high as he began to read, but gradually calmed down, and became quite still, scarcely moving at all in his breast. For his mother’s letter was not the kind of letter to encourage the beatings of any heart.
‘My Dear John,
‘I have received your letter, partly with pleasure, seeing that you write in a much more intelligent and independent way than usual, which I am glad to see—for at nearly seventeen you are on the eve of manhood, and very different things may be expected from you from those which all your friends were content with when you were a child. But I also read it with pain, for there seems to me an idea in it that, if you insist very much, you are sure to get your own way, a sort of thing which perhaps is natural, seeing how you have been brought up, and that no doubt my father and mother have indulged you very much: but which is not good for you, and will expose you to disappointment even greater than we are doomed to by nature. How can you know that it would be a good thing if I were to come? You ought rather to understand that, as I have not come all these years, it is because your grandparents and I, who know all the circumstances, have decided that it is better I should not come. This I probably could not explain to your satisfaction, but it was settled to theirs and to mine long ago—and you cannot expect that I should depart from a resolution which I did not make without pain—because you, a boy who knows nothing about it, have been taken with a fancy that you would like to see your mother. It is quite natural, no doubt, that you should wish it, though I cannot suppose that it would make any particular difference to you whether your wish was granted or not. You are at an age when a mother is not of much consequence, and, if you had been brought up with me, you would probably be very impatient of me, and prefer to get out of my way, like most boys of your age. And I am sorry to say that I don’t think you would like me much if you saw me. Your ideal of course is my mother, and I am not at all like my mother. If anything should happen that would make it necessary for us to be together, necessity will help us to get on with each other; but for the present, so long as there is no necessity, it is best to go on as we are doing. There are reasons, quite needless to enter into, which make it out of the question, unless it were a matter of life and death, that I should go to Edgeley. I am sorry to disappoint you, but it is much better you should know.
‘I shall always be glad to hear how you are getting on. I am glad to know that something has been done towards deciding what you are to do for your living. Of course my father and mother, who have brought you up, are the right persons to settle that, and I approve in general, though I should like to know what they are doing most particularly, and to give my advice, though I should not interfere. For yourself, pray write to me whenever you feel disposed, and I will answer to the best of my ability, though I cannot always promise you to do what you desire.
‘Your affectionate mother,
‘Emily Sandford.
‘P.S—I am sorry to hear that my mother is not so strong as usual. Let us hope she will recover her old spirits as the spring comes on. I daresay she was a little low when she thought it would do her good to have a talk with me. Tell her, if she thinks a little, she will remember that it is very doubtful whether we should either of us like it, and, as for the people being ignorant, the more ignorant the better, it seems to me.’
John had been palpitating with expectation and hope when he opened this letter. He came gradually down, down, as he read it. All through, he felt that it was Emily who was writing to him, a woman whom he knew a great deal about (and yet nothing), and whom he did not like very much—not his mother.
It seemed likely that he had no mother. The loss of all that he had been expecting and looking forward to, and the strangest sense of whirling down, down, as if everything was giving way under him, made him sick and cold. When he had read it to the last word, he folded it up carefully, with a very grave face, and put it into his pocket. He was far too serious for the angry impulse of throwing it into the fire. He was not angry so much as crushed and overawed. He felt himself altogether put down from the position which he had taken. She had acknowledged that he was no longer a child, and yet she treated him as if he knew nothing, understood nothing. The injury to his pride, to his heart, to all that was individual in him, was more than words could say.
Mrs. Sandford looked at him wistfully when she came downstairs (always a little later). She caught his hand when he came and stood by her sofa looking down at her, thinking how bright and liquid her eyes were. How large and deep the sockets seemed, as if they had widened out, and what a pallor had come upon her face—her little face! She was a small woman, but now her face was like the face of a child, all but the widened circle about her eyes. She put her hand upon his, the touch felt like a feather, and looked up at him wistfully, but without speaking. He had gone out immediately after breakfast, half stupified, and taken a long walk, his chief object being not to see her, not to give her any information. But he was obliged to answer the question in her eyes.
‘I have had a letter, grandmamma. She says she can’t come.’
‘Can’t come, John!’ The old lady kept looking up at him, till suddenly her eyes grew dim with two great tears. She clasped her hands together with a low cry. He could see the disappointment, which was so unexpected, go over her like a flood. She could not say any more. Her lips quivered—it was all she could do in her weakness not to break down altogether, and whimper and moan like a child. ‘Can’t come!’ she repeated, after a time, with little broken sobs.
‘Grandmamma, don’t take it like that, and break my heart. It is my fault. I began to write as if it was me only, and I felt it a good deal and went on and on from myself, not from you. She thinks it was only my letter, only I that wanted her. She seems to have thought that it was rather impudent of me to ask.’
‘She could not have done that. She could not have done that,’ said the old lady. She was so used to mastering herself that she had by this time succeeded in doing so, though her lip trembled and she kept softly drying her eyes: for at her age the eyes only get full with a dew of pain, they do not pour forth easy floods of tears like those that are young.