SUSIE.
Susie arrived a few days later, having left John time, as she believed,
to resume his relations with his old friends, and get himself received
upon such foundations as were practicable in the change of
circumstances. It was a subject which she and her mother had talked over
often with different opinions. For it was apparent to both that the
question was very doubtful as to how John going back, no longer a boy,
but a man, no longer an equal in the school-work which had united him to
these friends of youth, but divorced from all their ways and traditions
in the path of practical life, would be received by them. Mrs. Sandford
had been of opinion that the bland and patronising woman who had
attempted to fathom her own circumstances in a ten-minutes’ interview,
would summarily drop the young man, who was the son of a matron in a
hospital, and had no standing of any kind which could place him on a
level with her family. So would the young clergyman. ‘Clergymen are
never indifferent to social inequalities,’ she said. And it was her
severe opinion that the only way to demonstrate to John the fact of his
practical severance from all those boyish ties was to let him return to
Edgeley and see for himself that kindness shown to a boy was a very
different thing from friendship accorded to a man.
‘Mother, you are sending him there to be wounded and trampled on,’ Susie
had said: to which Mrs. Sandford had replied with a smile, ‘Not if you
are right, Susie.’
But, nevertheless, this was most likely what the stern woman meant, to
prove to him of how little worth was the friendship upon which he had
built, that sort of amateur motherhood and sisterhood of the ladies at
Edgeley, who had beguiled his heart in his youth into a faith in them
which his real mother did not believe they would ever justify. She was
not aware, perhaps, of any taint of jealousy in her own mind, any
remnant of the inevitable wound which she had shown so little, but which
she had still felt, in the days when he had hotly resisted her
influence, and told her she was Emily. Mrs. Sandford had been very
magnanimous. She had not punished John in any way, not even by a taunt,
for that cruel utterance of his youthful despair; but perhaps there had
lingered in her heart a tone of vindictiveness towards the lady who had
been so kind to him--so strangely kind, the mother thought, but whose
regard was no doubt so artificial, so little likely to survive the
pressure of years. She was willing that he should find this out, that he
should be undeceived. The blow might be a keen one, but it was
necessary, she said to herself.
Susie was indignant at this intention. She saw in it a still more
cold-blooded aspect than that which it really bore, and John had no
sooner gone than she felt herself a sort of accomplice exposing him to a
terrible ordeal for no rational end: for to Susie’s softer nature the
dispelling of John’s dream, if it should be dispelled, was in itself an
evil, not, as his mother thought, an advantage. The two days which she
had arranged to stay behind him seemed long to her, a lingering delay,
in which harm that she might have prevented was perhaps being done. She
was eager to start, to go to the succour of the poor boy whose castles
in the air were perhaps cast down by this time, and his trust betrayed.
And why should his dream-castles have been demolished? They did nobody
any harm, and they kept his heart warm. Susie said to herself that she
would like to have somebody to believe in, of whom she could always be
sure that they liked and remembered her. Even if they should never do
her any good, if they did not like her enough for any practical
advantage, still to believe in them as poor John had done in his Edgeley
friends, would be a pleasant thing. Susie’s life had not been gay. She
was neither discontented nor did she complain: neither the one nor other
were in her nature; but she said to herself that if she had friends like
John’s friends she would take good care not to put their devotion to any
severe test. She would not try them whether they were true or not, but
would believe they were true, and cling to that faith as long as they
took no steps to convince her of the contrary. Some people think it is
best to know the truth at all hazards. She had no such disastrous
curiosity. She would have been content to believe.
Susie was very anxious for her brother’s first look, which she thought
would tell her more than he was at all likely to tell in words. If she
found him depressed and subdued she would know what had happened--that
his mother’s policy had been successful, that he was disenchanted, and
his fond illusions gone. But this was not John’s aspect when she sprang
out to meet him as the train arrived, and saw him waiting on the little
platform in the twilight of the soft evening. How silent it was, how
quiet when the train went shrieking on into the night, and the brief
bustle was over! The air, almost dark, seemed infinite, stretching away
into the unseen across the common, full of the breadth and freshness of
the sky, and space unbroken for miles by any obstacle. She felt the
charm of the wide atmosphere, the soft enlargement of the darkening
world about, and the freshness and dewy look of John’s eyes, with a
sensation of refreshment and relief. He was not disenchanted at least,
whatever had happened to him. He took her home, not saying very much,
feeling the excitement and surprise of the home-coming in a way which
Susie, who knew nothing about it, and to whom any house in the village
was the same as any other, could not possibly feel it. John had been
very busy re-establishing the little old house which had been so dear.
The two old chairs had been brought from the rectory, Elly herself
accompanying them, and he and she together had reverently put them back
in their old place. It looked exactly as it had done when the old people
left it, as John led his sister over the threshold. Elly and he had gone
over this little scene in anticipation with great feeling.
‘Jack, you will say to her, “Welcome home:” and when she looks round and
sees everything as it always was----’
‘But she never knew it in the old time,’ John felt bound to say against
his will.
‘Her heart will tell her,’ said Elly, with high conviction: and they
looked round together and felt for Susie--so much more than it was
possible Susie could feel.
He carried out this little programme quite simply and fully with the
greatest faithfulness. He kissed her as he led her in, and said,
‘Susie dear, welcome home.’
‘Home,’ she said, with a little start, ‘is this where you used to live?’
‘It is where we all used to live. It is our home, where we always were.
These are grandfather’s and grandmother’s chairs on each side of the
fire. Most of the things here belonged to them. We have got no home to
speak of anywhere else. Susie, I am always going to keep it, as I
intended. It shall always be home to come back to when we please.’
Susie looked round with astonished eyes--not with so much emotion as
they had hoped, but with much astonishment and some pleasure, and
perhaps at the bottom of her heart a little amusement at the impressive
way in which she was introduced into the little parlour, which did not
look anything very remarkable. But presently her eye was caught by
something she, too, remembered; some old article which had belonged to
the old people even in her time, which brought a flood of associations
to her heart: and she suddenly sat down in one of the old chairs and
cried a little, thinking of things that were further back than any clear
memory John had. How Elly had divined, he said to himself! Her heart had
told her, as Elly said! To find how right Elly was, gave John almost
more pleasure than to feel that Susie appreciated what he had done.
They had taken their first meal together, and she had gone upstairs to
arrange her ‘things,’ that first necessity for a woman who has not a
maid to do it for her, leaving John sitting in grave but wistful
satisfaction in his familiar place. He had been very busy for two days
past and was glad to sit still and rest--and he was happy, yet sad in a
luxurious delicious melancholy such as is the atmosphere and background
of life at a certain stage. He felt a little pang as he looked at the
two old chairs, and half regretted for them that they had been brought
away out of Elly’s room, and felt for himself that they had a charm, a
sort of perfume hanging about them from being so long there, and wished
for Elly to tell this to--not Susie, though she was the heroine of the
evening. He felt that he wanted to say it to Elly. He wanted to talk to
Elly, to have her there--which was impossible. He was very fond of his
sister; but it was Elly he wished to communicate his thought to, and
whom he longed to see coming in, sitting down--which, as has been said,
was impossible. She had been a great deal with him during these
preparations of his, helping him with everything, suggesting various
little improvements, remembering even he took pleasure in thinking,
almost better than he did, how all the things had been. He was sorry
those busy days were over--and that she would come no more. But the
melancholy of this thought was tempered by the certainty that she must
come to see Susie, that Susie being here he would have chances of seeing
her continually more easily and sweetly than if he had been himself
going to the rectory, where Percy for one was not very cordial. All this
was going through his mind when he heard the outer door, an innocent
village door which opened from outside, pushed open, and some one
enter. Then Percy’s voice said, ‘May I come in?’ with a certain
solemnity, John was chilled a little in the fulness of his satisfaction
by Percy’s voice.
‘So you really got in, and got everything done in time,’ said Percy,
‘and has Miss Sandford come? It was clever of you to get it done in
time. How you managed with the tradespeople, I don’t know.’
‘I was my own tradespeople,’ said John, with a laugh. ‘We have got the
use of our hands, we engineers: and Elly,’ he added, unguardedly, in the
warmth of the moment, ‘helped me so much: it is more credit to Elly than
to me.’
Before John had ended this speech he had seen how injudicious it was,
and accordingly the second time stammered a little and hesitated upon
Elly’s name.
‘Really,’ said Percy, with a darkening brow. And then he added,
‘Sandford, I hope you won’t take it amiss: but that was just what I
wanted to speak to you about.’
‘To speak to me about?’ said John, with an air of astonishment: but as a
matter of fact he was not surprised. He had been sure all the time,
even when most happy and at his ease, that this would come.
‘Yes: you know,’ said Percy, evidently not finding his errand an easy
one, now he had plunged into it: ‘we were all children together, Jack.’
‘Yes, indeed. I am not likely to forget that; I shall have forgotten
everything before I forget that,’ cried John.
‘And we’ve always been very good friends--I am sure not one of us wishes
anything different--the best of friends.’
‘You have all been the best of friends to me,’ said John, with warmth,
‘up to this time I haven’t had much in my power: but if there should
ever come a day----’ The earnestness with which he spoke made John’s
eyes glisten. He felt his heart swell and glow with affection and every
kindly feeling. And yet he knew very well that he was going to receive a
blow.
‘No need to think of that,’ said Percy, with a little wave of his hand,
‘though indeed with the church and the gentry going down as they seem to
be in these advancing times, and the people coming up----’
John was vaguely wounded by this. To be called of the people is not
delightful to anyone who feels himself at all above the general crowd.
Some visionaries may like it, but better in their own mouths than in
those of others. Our young man was no democrat; and he felt himself a
better man than Percy, notwithstanding his long coat.
‘You may be able to save all our lives one time or other. You may save
us from the violence of the mob, like the French Revolution, don’t you
know?’
‘I am not a Radical,’ said John. ‘I might require to be saved from the
mob as well as you.’
‘Oh, not with the same reason,’ said the curate, with an air that was
insufferable. John felt that presently he might be moved to pitch the
friend of his youth out of window, notwithstanding Elly and
notwithstanding the clerical coat. ‘Let us cling at least to the idea
that you would save us. But, I say, look here--don’t you know----’
It had become very embarrassing indeed, and difficult to carry out,
while John sat and looked at him seriously and attentively, not giving
any assistance whatever.
‘Oh, I say,’ Percy repeated, ‘don’t you know? though we all think so
highly of you, and wish you every success--oh, yes, we do, all of us, as
much as anyone can. But, Jack, now don’t be offended. Just call your
good sense to your aid, and you will see the reason in it. It is about
Elly. Most likely you know beforehand what I want to say.’
‘No, not I,’ said John, all the meaning having arbitrarily disappeared
from his face: and for a moment Percy, who was not so hard-hearted as he
made himself appear, sat before him, a very awkward mortal, endeavouring
to clear his throat and say what he had come to say.
In the midst of this, quite suddenly the door opened and a miracle
happened, one of those that go on happening every day, and which will
continue to happen to the end of time. It was a miracle, yet it was a
very simple fact. The door opened, and light-footed in her slippers,
which she had gone to get, and a pretty dress, which it had seemed to
her expedient to put on at the same time, in honour of John and his
new-old house, Susie suddenly appeared, She was twenty-six, but she
looked much younger, she looked any age that may be supposed the
perfect age. Her pretty complexion was as sweet and fresh as eighteen;
but in her eyes there was something more, a sweetness of understanding
and gentle thought to which eighteen rarely attains. Her fair hair was
not so carefully arranged as usual, and frisked a little about her
temples. She came in with that air of perfect health, perfect content
and harmony, which made her very appearance in the hospital so healing
and tranquillising, her eyes very clear and kind, always with a smile
latent in them, even when her mouth was grave. She came in with the air
of having something to say, something that was upon her lips, but made
an instant’s pause at the unexpected sight of a stranger whom she had
never seen before.
That stranger, all embarrassed, startled beyond measure, feeling as if
an angel had suddenly come in to recall him to a sense of the
unfriendliness, the untenderness of what he was doing, gasped and rose
from his chair and stood before her, in every line of his person and
every feature of his face submissively asking pardon, though he could
not understand how, and she had not the slightest idea why. Had Susie
been indeed that angel passing by, coming in to ask what unseemly words
were these that were about to be said, the young man could not have been
more confounded. He stood for a moment like a culprit at the bar, while
she paused with a slightly startled look, which brought just a little
colour, and then a smile.
‘I beg your pardon,’ she said. ‘I thought there was no one here.’ And ‘I
beg your pardon,’ cried he, with far more emphasis and meaning. There
was indeed so much emphasis in it that Susie’s smile ran into a little
laugh, and she said to her brother: ‘Shall I go away?’
‘No,’ said John, putting a chair for her. He was a little stern,
thinking still of the words that had not been said.
‘Jack,’ said Percy, ‘won’t you introduce me to your sister?’ There was
nothing but humility and submission in his tone, a change which was
almost ludicrous in its completeness. But he had the clerical habit of
explaining himself, of making amiable advances, which stood him in stead
in the present emergency. ‘I am one of his oldest friends,’ he said,
‘and I hope you’ve heard of me, Miss Sandford. I’m Percy. If Jack hasn’t
been a traitor to the old days, I make bold to believe that you must
have heard of me.’
‘I have heard of you, often,’ said Susie, a little puzzled. She
perceived now that the conversation which she had interrupted had not
been of so affectionate a kind as might have been inferred from this
address; and she felt that the character of it had been entirely changed
by her appearance--a suggestion which was not unpleasant. ‘I have heard
so much of everything at Edgeley,’ she continued, ‘that I feel as if,
though I have never been here before, I was coming home.’
‘I hope,’ said Percy, ‘that we shall succeed in strengthening the
impression. I am very sure we shall try our best.’ And with that he sat
down again with all the mild persistence of his profession, as if he
meant to remain there for the rest of his life.