And John, though he had received that shock, though he was so serious, still, moved by thrills of wondering and confused emotion, laughed. He said, ‘How can I tell, grandfather, all at once?’ with that elasticity of the youthful mind which older people find it so difficult to take into account.
The grandparents looked at each other across John and across Mr. Cattley. What their eyes said was briefly this—‘Thank God that’s over.’ ‘And he hasn’t a doubt,’ said old Sandford’s look, with a little brightness of triumph, to which his wife’s reply was an almost imperceptible shake of her head. This little pantomime was not at all remarked either by Mr. Cattley, who knew nothing about it, or by John, who made no remark at all. The existence of any mystery never occurred to the boy. How should it? He knew nothing about skeletons in cupboards, and was quite ready to have sworn to it that nothing of the kind belonged, or could belong, to his family at least.
‘Well,’ said the curate, ‘if it is making money you are thinking of, we all know what is the best way and the one way—if you have any opening: and that is business—in a London office now, or in Liverpool or Manchester.’
‘Oh, the Lord forbid!’ cried Mrs. Sandford, letting her knitting drop and clasping her hands.
Her husband looked at her severely, and breathed a hasty ‘Hush!’ Then after a little pause,
‘Perhaps we’re prejudiced. We have had to do with some that have done badly in business, and we don’t take a sanguine view. You may make money, I don’t deny, but again you may lose it. You may have to part with every penny you’ve got, and there’s a deal of temptation to speculate and all that. And besides we’ve got no opening that I know,’ he added, almost sharply, ‘which alters the question.’
There had been no argument nor anything to excite him, and yet he ended up in a belligerent manner, as though he had been violently contesting the views of some antagonist, and then looked at Mr. Cattley with a sort of defiance, as if that mild and innocent clergyman had been pressing upon him some undesirable course.
‘Nay, nay, if you don’t like it,’ said the curate, ‘there is nothing more to be said. I am not much moved that way myself. I had a brother once——’
‘Yes?’ cried Mrs. Sandford, putting away her knitting altogether, as if in the importance of this discussion the mere touch of the work irritated her. The old gentleman lifted a finger as if in warning.
‘Don’t you excite yourself, my dear,’ he said.
‘Poor fellow,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘He was much older than I: but he died young, broken-hearted. He was not the resolute sort of fellow that gets on. He got his accounts into a muddle somehow——’
‘Yes!’ cried Mrs. Sandford again. She was as eager as if this were something pleasant that was being told her; whereas the curate had his eyes fixed, meditatively, on the fire, and spoke slowly and with regret.
‘He was not much more than a boy,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘It’s a long time ago, when I was a child. I believe it never could be found out how it was—whether he had lost the money or spent it without knowing, or whether some one had taken it. Nobody blamed him, but he never got over it. It broke his heart.’
‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Sandford, with a gasp for breath. But she seemed a little disappointed—as if she were sorry—though that of course must have been impossible—that the curate’s brother was not to blame.
‘Things do happen like that,’ said the old gentleman, breathing what seemed like a sigh of relief. ‘And sometimes it’s partly a young fellow’s fault, and partly it isn’t. But my wife and I, we’ve seen so much of it, living near Liverpool at one time, which is a great business place, that it’s not at all the kind of life we would choose for John.’
‘Oh, John would be all right,’ said Mr. Cattley, ‘but I’m sorry I have been so unfortunate in my first shot. I don’t doubt, however, that he has a very fair guess what he wants to be himself.’
‘I didn’t know,’ said John, ‘you had any objection to business. I should have liked an office as well as anything, for then one could have been upon one’s own hook at once, and got a salary, and not needed to come upon you.’
‘Oh, Johnnie, my boy, did we ever grudge you anything that you say that?’
‘Nothing, grandmamma! and that’s why I should like to do for myself when I begin: but then I’ll do nothing that wouldn’t please you. May I speak out quite what I should like? Well, then, Mr. Cattley knows. I’d like to build bridges and lighthouses, especially lighthouses; that’s to say, I’d like to be an engineer.’
‘An engineer!’ They looked at each other again, but not with any secret communications, in simple surprise and mutual consultation. ‘Nobody belonging to you ever was that before,’ Mrs. Sandford said.
‘Yes, that is something quite new,’ said the grandfather. ‘I thought he’d have favoured farming, or to try for an agency, or, perhaps, the corn-factoring trade. Well, it is none the worse that I know of for being something new.’
‘The worst is that it takes a great deal of learning,’ said John, doubtfully. ‘Mr. Cattley knows, grandfather. You have to serve your time, and to work hard: but I don’t mind the work.’
‘Yes,’ said the curate, ‘I know a good deal about it, or at least, I could get you all the information. I have a brother——’
‘Not the one,’ said Mrs. Sandford, with again a little gasp, ‘that broke his heart——’
‘Oh, no,’ said the curate, ‘my father was three times married, and I have a great many brothers. This was one of the first lot. He is quite an old fellow, and he’s done very well for himself; he never had the least idea of breaking his heart. Indeed, I don’t know,’ he added, with a smile—but stopped himself, and left his sentence unfinished, ‘He has a great foundry, and is in a large way of business. By the way, John, I’m afraid he has nothing to do with lighthouses. He is what is called a mechanical engineer.’
‘I suppose they are all connected,’ said Mr. Sandford, as if he knew all about it: and he expressed himself as very grateful to Mr. Cattley, who promised to procure him all necessary information about the further education that John would require to go through: and the evening terminated with a little supper of the simplest kind, which the curate was not too fine to share. It seemed to bring him closer to them, and knit the bond of long association more warmly that he should thus have something to do with John’s future career, and on the other hand it threw a light of respectability upon the profession John had chosen, that Mr. Cattley’s brother should be in it. It was a very dark night, and when the curate left them, John took the lantern to see him home to his own house. When the old people were alone, after accompanying their guest to the door, they came back to the fire, for it was cold; but for a few minutes neither spoke. Then Grandfather Sandford said, with an air of relief,
‘Well, that’s over, thank heaven. It’s been hanging over me, day after day, for years. But I might have saved myself the trouble, for he took it as sweetly as any baby, and never had a doubt.’
‘Oh, John Sandford,’ said the old lady, ‘and doesn’t that make it all the worse to deceive him now? We’ve told him the truth all his days; how could he doubt us? But when he finds it out he will think it’s all a lie everything we’ve ever said.’
To this the old gentleman replied with something like a sob, covering his face with his hand,
‘If you feel you can take it upon you to break that poor lad’s heart, do it; but don’t ask me.’
CHAPTER V.
AN ADVENTURE.