‘I don’t think I know, Elly. It really is very funny how little one thinks. I don’t believe there were many of us. I have a sister Susie—but whether there are any more—— Oh, no, I don’t think there are any more. My mother never comes to see us because—I am sure I don’t know why. I never asked. Some time or other I must think it all out, and ask grandmamma. It is absurd, isn’t it, to know so little about one’s own people.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Elly, ‘not when you have not heard people talking of them. See how well we look, over Mr. Cattley’s mantelpiece. I wonder what he will say when he comes in. He will say, “That’s Elly,” I am sure. He will never give you the credit of it.’
‘And of course he will be quite right,’ said John. ‘I should never have thought of such a thing. Well, dear old place, good-bye. I shall think of it often when I am away and working. We have been just the same for a long time, but we are going to be very different, Elly. Perhaps next time we meet you won’t have anything to say to me.’
‘Why?’ she asked, opening wide again her great soft brown eyes.
‘Because, of course, you will always be a lady, and I shall perhaps be a rough kind of working man.’ John laughed in spite of himself at the idea, which did not frighten him at all. ‘Mr. Cattley says one has to go and work at the foundry like any working man.’
‘Likely that I shouldn’t have anything to say to you! Why, that is what I should enjoy,’ said Elly. ‘Have you got all your books? Well, then, we’ll say good-bye in concert. Good-bye, dear old place! Of course I shall come back to you often, but Jack most likely will not come back for a very long time. I hope when he does he’ll be a good engineer, and be building a new Eddystone, or something of that kind: and I hope he will never be such a fool as to think that people will have nothing to say to him. We two schoolfellows will always be friends whatever happens, and wherever we go. You shall always tell everything to me, Jack, just as you always did in Mr. Cattley’s dear old study. Now, that is a promise, mind.’
‘Yes, Elly,’ said John, ‘but you ought to promise the same, that you will tell everything to me.’
‘Oh, girls are different,’ said Elly. They walked out, carrying with them their burdens of books. It did not occur to John that he should offer to carry hers for her, or treat her otherwise than on the footing of perfect equality which they had hitherto occupied. Nor did she think of it. They stood upon no ceremony with each other. Elly’s instinct told her that to promise entire confidence was not on her side so simple, as on his: but she was ready to promise ‘faithfully,’ on her part, always a ready ear for his confidences, and her best attention to any problem he might present for her consideration. John accepted this without further question. He knew vaguely that girls were different. Elly would go back to the drawing-room at the rectory, while he went out to work at his profession. He felt that the girls had the worst of it, poor things.
And they walked out through the little garden and down the side street which led to the rectory with a little sentiment in their young bosoms, but none that touched upon the relations between themselves. They felt a little sad at leaving school. They felt that one chapter of their lives was over, and that it was a pity, yet delightful. They were sad to leave Mr. Cattley and their books, yet enchanted to be on the threshold of life. John walked to the rectory gate with his school-fellow, for company, and then they parted, but without any tender adieu, without even shaking hands; for after all, until John actually left Edgeley, they would certainly see each other every day.
CHAPTER VIII.
A CALL FOR EMILY.
Mrs. Sandford had not been well ever since that morning expedition of hers. There was nothing the matter with her, she said, oh, nothing. She was only a little tired; perhaps she had done too much at Christmas, what with the flannel-petticoats and all the rest. The clothing club had been a little trying that year. There had been more people to satisfy, a greater number of pence to reckon up, and garments to choose. And Mrs. Egerton had been absent on a visit, so that the great part of the work fell to Mrs. Sandford’s share. All these she set forth, smiling, as reasons why she should be tired. And then there was the reason that underlay all these, which gave force to them—that she was growing old. Of that there could be no question—every birthday made it more and more certain. She was no longer at a time of life when people can make light of fatigue. She was growing older every year. This smiling plea was received by grandfather with his tchick, tchick, and by John with a troubled but nevertheless unquestioning acquiescence: for there could be no doubt that it was true. He thought her even older than she thought herself, and felt that her days were over, before she had realised that fact in her own person. She grew older not only every year but every day as the weeks of January went on. At first she went out a little in the middle of the day when the sun shone. But soon this little exercise was given up. It did a delicate person no good, really no good, the doctor said, to go out in that wintry weather. It was wiser and better to stay indoors; and then it came to be considered wiser that she should rise late, and lie on the sofa when she came downstairs. She lay there always smiling, declaring that nothing ailed her, but as a matter of fact fading and failing day by day.
The last time she went out with John she had kept looking about with a little nervous glance by all the side roads. They went as far as the common and paused a little, looking across by the path which led to the railway-station.
‘Have you ever heard anything more of that man?’ she said.
‘What man, grandmamma?’
‘The man you once told me of, you know, who had been a convict. The man who was asking for somebody’s poor wife——’
‘Oh! yes, I remember. No. I am sure he has never come back again. Perhaps he did not mean all he said. He had been drinking——’
‘Drink is a terrible thing, John. Almost everything begins with drinking. I have known it poison more lives than anything else in the world. If I had to choose, I think I would rather that a child of mine should murder some one outright than take to drink, for in that case there is no telling how many he might murder—all that loved him—and himself as well as the rest.’
‘You need not tell me, grandmamma; no one can hate it more than I.’
‘I hope so. I hope so, dear! You have never seen anything all your life that could incline you in any such way, have you, John? But remember you have never been in any temptation—and till one is in temptation one can never tell what may happen. I think, my dear, we will go home.’
They had many little conversations of this kind. The old lady would begin upon any subject, it did not matter what, and then by degrees she would come to this:
‘I have seen so much in my life. I have seen many young people grow up everything that could be wished, as you have done, John; and then, as soon as they came into temptation, they have gone astray. Nobody knows till he has been tried: and it is not the disagreeable ones, the ones that you would dislike, that go: sometimes the very nicest, John—those that are the kindest, the tenderest. That is a great mystery. None of us can fathom it.’
‘It does seem very strange,’ said the attentive boy, listening at once out of respect and out of the cheerful curiosity of his age, often with a sense that he knew better, but far too considerate and kind, as well as conscious of the fitness of things, to let her see this. She had seen so much: and yet to one who had begun to know a little philosophy and a number of books, how little it seemed that grandmamma could know.
‘Oh! it’s