THE WELCOME.
‘Hullo, Jack, is this really you?’
The speaker was the Rev. Percy Spencer, as completely arrayed a curate
as could be found in all the parishes of England. John sprang up from
his seat, and contemplated him with an amused scrutiny which suddenly
ended in a burst of laughter. Percy did not refuse to join a little, but
only a little, in the laugh, conscious of the difference between his
long clerical coat and high waistcoat, and the soft hat he held in his
hands, and those gayer garments, resplendent ties and canes in the
height of the fashion, which had distinguished him in his university
days. John had not seen him since he had assumed the severe simplicity
of this priestly garb, and he was willing to allow a momentary
merriment; but he soon resumed the little air of seriousness and
responsibility which became his position.
‘I daresay,’ he said, ‘you find me a little changed; so I am. It makes a
vast difference on a man, on his feelings as well as on his clothes,
when he becomes a priest. But, all the same, I’m delighted to see you,
and I hope Cattley has given you a good breakfast after your journey.’
Cattley! John, notwithstanding that he felt himself rather a fine
fellow, had preserved, probably because of having been so far removed
from the scene of them, all the traditions and reverential usages of his
youth, and to have called his old tutor Cattley would have been no more
possible to him than to have thrown stones at the old church-tower which
presided over the village. Percy, too, thought himself a fine fellow, a
much finer fellow than John, and the young layman naturally saw the
absurd aspect of that conviction in the person of the young priest.
‘I am very well,’ he said, ‘I have had a capital breakfast, and
everything here looks delightful and like itself--even Mr. Cattley;
only you and I have changed, I think.’
‘You’re not so big as you promised to be,’ said Percy, with
satisfaction. ‘I thought you’d have grown twice that height. Dick is six
foot, don’t you know. That’s all very well for one in a family, but you
can’t go on doing it. I suppose you’re going now to see--Aunt Mary?
You’re expected, of course. Cattley, there’s a good fellow, do put me up
a little to the manners and customs of Feather Lane.’
‘If I go now will it be too early for--the ladies?’ said John, ‘as I see
you’ve got business on hand.’
‘Oh, not at all; no business in particular; only I’m taking hold of the
work, and Cattley is giving it up. Things are a little different, don’t
you know, from what they were when he took it up. I daresay I shall have
to make changes,’ Percy said.
‘Every new man does that,’ said mild Mr. Cattley, ‘and undoes them again
two or three times probably before he finds the right way.’
‘I hope,’ said Percy, ‘I shan’t be so long about it as that; but if
you’re ready, Jack, I’ll step along with you. You mightn’t find Aunt
Mary by yourself. She’s busier than ever in the parish, more busy than
she has any occasion to be; but ladies seldom attain the _juste
milieu_.’
Mr. Cattley’s eyes flashed a little at this, but he only permitted
himself to say,
‘You must give up those pretty speeches about ladies if you mean to do
much good in the parish. Shall I see you back to dinner, John?’
‘They’re sure to keep him to lunch,’ said Percy, not sorry to pay back
to ‘Old Cattley’ an answering prick: for the curate, in deference
perhaps to Mrs. Sibley, had always continued to call his mid-day meal
his dinner. ‘Hadn’t you better come too? Aunt Mary will want both of
you; and then you can tell her yourself when you are going away. I hope
I can give as good as I get,’ said this young ecclesiastic, as he led
the way out of the house. ‘Old Cattley is too much of a good thing with
his advices and his prophecies, as if we had not learnt a thing or two
since his time. And he doesn’t want to go, don’t you know, not a bit. He
has hung on here years longer than he ought to have done. My father did
not mind waiting till I was ready to step in; but an old fellow like
that is quite out of date for a curate. I’ll have a great deal of
trouble to work the parish into what’s wanted now.’
‘Perhaps I don’t know what’s wanted now,’ said John, with some
suppressed resentment. ‘I always thought Mr. Cattley the model of
everything a clergyman should be.’
‘That’s a very nice little speech,’ said the Rev. Percy; ‘but, bless
your heart, he’s not a churchman at all--not a bit of him. Even Aunt
Mary sees it now. He’s so much her slave, that she has always stuck to
him, but I think even she sees it now.’
There was a little pause, and then John said, falteringly,
‘I hope Mrs. Egerton is quite well?’
‘Oh! she’s well enough, thanks. She’s grown stout. Ladies of her age
generally do. She likes to mess about in the parish, and Cattley has
always given in to her: but I mean to put my foot down, and make an end
of that sort of thing. I shall have it entirely in my hands, of course;
for my father, you know, doesn’t trouble himself much to interfere.’
‘And I hope the rector is--quite well?’ said John.
‘Oh, thanks, he’s well enough.’
There was not a word of Elly on the one side nor the other. John felt a
chill, so far as he was concerned, which he could not himself
understand. He had been so full of her, thinking more of her than of all
the rest of the village put together. And now he did not even inquire
for her! He walked along the road under the fresh green of the trees,
while Percy entered more largely into all the new things he was about to
do. John did not take very much interest in it. It would have pleased
him a great deal more to hear the simplest thing about her whose name he
had not ventured to pronounce. It was but a short way between Mr.
Cattley’s door and the rectory, but Percy had managed to unfold a great
many of his plans, and show clearly enough that he meant to turn the
parish upside down, before they reached the door. John, to tell the
truth, gave but a very distracted attention. His eyes were inspecting
the house, every window and opening. It seemed so strange that she
should not at least be looking out for him somewhere, expecting him.
Elly! Why, she had been about the same as a sister. She had been more
than his sister: she had been his comrade and play-fellow: and to think
that he had not the courage to ask for her, and that she did not so much
as look out of a window to see whether he was coming! It was neither
possible nor natural that such a thing should be.
Percy’s voice ran on in a sort of complacent sing-song, while this
thought took possession of John’s mind. What did he care for what the
fellow was going to do in the parish? His self-assurance was intolerable
to John, notwithstanding that he himself, in his way, was quite as much
disposed to think well of his own new methods, and despise his elders,
as Percy could do. But that is a thing which looks much less natural in
another than it does in our own case. And John’s suspense and surprise
were becoming more and more highly wrought. Could it be possible that
Elly was not at home, that she was absent just when he looked for her,
that she might perhaps never have heard that he was coming? This thought
roused a great anger in his mind--he jumped at it with a flash of sudden
conviction. She had never received his letter. She had never heard----
When suddenly the door opened, and some one came out, meeting them: a
young lady nearly as tall as John, with brown hair of a warm shade,
plaited in endless coils round the back of her head, with a stately
carriage, a long white dress almost touching the ground; but, what was
far better than all the rest, two hands held out.
‘After all, I was the first to see you,’ she cried. ‘Oh, Jack, did he
tell you? I was looking over the garden-wall when you passed: but you
never looked up. Oh, Jack, welcome home!’
And this was Elly! He took the hands she held out to him, and grasped
them tight, and stared at her, but with changing looks, and the most
extraordinary revolution going on in his mind. So this was Elly! He felt
himself grow red, he felt himself stare; he was speechless, and had not
a word to say. He had a kind of certainty that he must be disappointing
to her, and that she expected him, naturally, to say something. But he
could not find a word to say.
At last she tried to draw her fingers out of his clasp, and grew red,
and laughed.
‘I daresay it is my fault. My hands are not so solid as they used to be.
You--you hurt me a little, Jack!’
He dropped them as if they had been on fire, and burst into excuses.
‘How horrible of me!--how disgusting. As if I oughtn’t to have known. As
if I shouldn’t have been sure----’ And here John’s voice seemed to die
away in his throat, and he stood, now averting his eyes, now giving her
a sudden shame-faced glance, crimson covering his face, and shame and
perturbation his soul.
Why should he have been so much ashamed? and why should the sight of
Elly have discomposed him so? Who can tell? It was a climax, and it was
at the same time a contradiction. _That_ Elly! How was he ever to
suppose she would grow to be like _that_? And yet of course that was
just how she must have grown, he said to himself--or rather, which is
truer, himself said to him--as he stood staring, lost in disappointment
and trouble, and self-disgust and delight. And the strange thing was,
that she too grew confused and embarrassed under his gaze. She had been,
perhaps, to tell the truth, a little embarrassed from the first, not
knowing how to get the first meeting over, anxious to get it over, and
have the new system of intercourse begun.
‘Well, Sandford,’ said Percy, ‘you seem to find my sister as much
changed as you found me? Where’s Aunt Mary, Elinor? Of course she is
full of curiosity to see the great conqueror that is to be----’
‘Of course she wants to see Jack, if that is what you mean,’ said Elly.
She made a little pause before his name, and grew red as she said it,
which was wonderful, confusing, extraordinary beyond measure to John,
who did not know what to make of it all, neither of himself nor of her,
nor of Percy, who called him Sandford and Elly Elinor. Something had
happened; something had changed in a way he had not thought of nor
anticipated: and he did not know whether he was most happy or unhappy
at the change. He followed Elly in, looking at her, at her tallness, her
slimness, the sweep of her long dress, her shining coils of hair, not
tossing on her shoulders any longer in those tumbled curls, every one of
which had seemed to have an independent life of its own, but so smooth
and orderly in endless plaits. He was not quite sure if he was walking
on solid ground or floating after her upon the golden morning air in
which her white figure seemed to float glorified. He had to shake
himself out of this dream, as Mrs. Egerton came out with hands
outstretched, and the rector in the background, who never took much
notice, added a word of welcome. They were both exactly the same, the
lady a little stouter, as her nephew had said; and the house was the
same, restoring his balance a little by means of its steady
unalterableness, every ornament in its habitual place, nothing changed.
So long as he did not look at Elly, John felt the giddiness go off, and
his head got steady again. He was taken into Mrs. Egerton’s room and had
to give an account of himself, which, stimulated by her questions, he
did in great detail. Elly kept a little behind, out of sight, as this
examination went on. Perhaps she had guessed by sympathy or otherwise
that the sight of her made John’s head go round. Mrs. Egerton was
immensely interested in John’s account of himself, but it seemed
by-and-by to pall upon Percy, who went out declaring that he must go to
his work and that ‘Old Cattley’ was waiting for him, a phrase which John
thought did not please Mrs. Egerton any more than it pleased himself.
Percy added a word to his sister as he went out.
‘Isn’t this your day for the schools, Nell?’ which that young lady did
not receive with much greater favour. There was a little pause of joint
disapproval as he disappeared. In John’s opinion Percy had grown
insufferable in his new developement: my sister, Elinor, Nell--all these
names, as applied to Elly, were equally intolerable. The pretensions of
this new-made priest were more than any man could put up with, John
felt, not being at all aware that in himself there were elements of
self-complacency very clear to spectators too.
‘I suppose you are not going to the schools to-day, Elly?’ Mrs. Egerton
said.
‘No, Aunt Mary, I never said I would go always;--and it is not every day
that--Jack comes home.’
These words were delivered with a little suddenness and a tone as of
defiance, but Mrs. Egerton did not take up the glove.
‘Percy would like to keep us all to our duties,’ she said, with an ease
which made the success of that effort very doubtful, ‘but we don’t at
present see our way to absolute obedience. Since you are not going to
the schools, sit down, Elly, and keep still. No doubt you distract
John’s attention, fluttering about like that. I am sure you do mine.’
John did not say anything. It distracted him still more when she came at
her aunt’s order and sat down within sight, and let him see how
carefully she was listening, and what interest she took in his
narrative--which henceforward became a very broken affair, chiefly
elicited by questions to which he replied. He had all the desire in the
world to interest and satisfy Elly, but his own interest in all her
looks and movements was so great, and his anxiety not to lose a word
she said, that the desire was baulked even by its very warmth. Perhaps
Mrs. Egerton perceived the ground of the disturbance in the young man’s
mind, for she came suddenly to the present, after he began to waver in
his narrative of the past.
‘And so,’ she said, ‘you have come to settle about the old house, John?
Have you been there yet?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘not yet. I did not care to go at once. Being with Mr.
Cattley was like old times, without the pain of contrast.’
‘Ah! and that’s a pleasure you will not have very long. I am glad you
keep to the “Mr. Cattley,” John. I expect to hear Percy call me Mary
_tout court_ one of these days. I am glad some of you boys have a little
sense of what is befitting. Mr. Cattley is going, you know.’
‘I am sorry, Mrs. Egerton: and yet I suppose----’
‘One ought to be glad? That is just my feeling. One ought to be glad. He
never would have--married or done anything else that is necessary at
his age, or asserted himself and his independence, here. But come, tell
me: you are going to settle about the old house. Do you mean to sell it,
or to let it, or what do you mean to do?’
‘I want to do a silly thing,’ said John.
‘Well! out with it. What is your silly thing? You young men are all so
admirably sensible and awake to your own interests. I am rather glad to
hear of anything that can be called so.’
‘I should like,’ he said, ‘to keep the house in my own hands. My sister
is coming to join me presently.’
‘But you couldn’t stay here--at your age, and getting on so well in your
profession.’
‘Oh, no! But it used to be a dream of mine to keep it up in the old way.
Would it be very silly? Susie could come when she pleased, and my mother
if she pleased. It would be something to think of and come back to.’
‘But then you would require to furnish it and keep some one in it.’
John looked at Elly, and she at him. It was almost the first time that
their glances had met. There was a flash of private communication,
confidential, charged with intelligence: and then over both the young
faces there came something like a flame, a flush of recollection and
emotion. _That_ had been their last interview: and how much there was in
it which it was confusing to recall now.
‘What are you looking at each other for, you two?’
‘You know, Aunt Mary!’ It was the first time Elly had spoken. ‘The two
dear old chairs. Jack, they have been in my room ever since. Often and
often I have wondered if they knew. I have taken such care of them. When
you take them back, it will seem like losing old friends.’
‘Oh! yes, I remember,’ said Mrs. Egerton. She looked from one to another
with a slightly roused look; perhaps she had not been alarmed before.
She saw a little excitement in both faces, an unusual colour and light
in their eyes, which showed more feeling than was at all necessary. And
in the atmosphere altogether there was a sort of electricity, something
that was different from the everyday calm.
The watchful family guardian was startled. She had not thought there
was any danger. When Percy had fumed and indulged in whatever is the
clerical substitute for swearing, and declared that he would not allow
any nonsense between that fellow and Elly, his aunt had put him down
with calm decision, and an assurance that nothing of the kind was
possible. That look produced a change as rapid as itself in Mrs.
Egerton’s frame of mind.
‘Do you know,’ she said, with no perceptible change from the maternal
kindness of her previous tone, ‘I think it would be rather a silly
thing. It would bind you to this little place quite out of the way, with
which you have, so to speak, no family connection, for none of your
people have _belonged_ here; and you would entail upon yourself a
considerable expense, for you can’t furnish a house with two old chairs,
whatever may be their associations. I don’t think I would do it, if I
were you.’