‘You know how I found Jane. Not long after, I put an advertisement in the papers, asking my son, if he saw it, to communicate with Mr. Percival—that’s the lawyer I was recommended to in London. There was no answer; Joseph was in America at that time. I hadn’t much reason to like Mrs. Peckover and her daughter, but I kept up acquaintance with them because I thought they might hear of Jo some day. And after a while I sent Jane to learn a business. Do you know why I did that? Can you think why I brought up the child as if I’d only had just enough to keep us both, and never gave a sign that I could have made a rich lady of her?’
In asking the question, he bent forward and laid his hand on Sidney’s shoulder. His eyes gleamed with that light which betrays the enthusiast, the idealist. As he approached the explanation to which his story had tended, the signs of age and weakness disappeared before the intensity of his feeling. Sidney understood now why he had always been conscious of something in the man’s mind that was not revealed to him, of a life-controlling purpose but vaguely indicated by the general tenor of Michael’s opinions. The latter’s fervour affected him, and he replied with emotion:
‘You wish Jane to think of this money as you do yourself—not to regard it as wealth, but as the means of bringing help to the miserable.’
‘That is my thought, Sidney. It came to me in that form whilst I was sitting by her bed, when she was ill at Mrs. Peckover’s. I knew nothing of her character then, and the idea I had might have come to nothing through her turning out untrustworthy. But I thought to myself: Suppose she grows up to be a good woman—suppose I can teach her to look at things in the same way as I do myself, train her to feel that no happiness could be greater than the power to put an end to ever so little of the want and wretchedness about her—suppose when I die I could have the certainty that all this money was going to be used for the good of the poor by a woman who herself belonged to the poor? You understand me? It would have been easy enough to leave it among charities in the ordinary way; but my idea went beyond that. I might have had Jane schooled and fashioned into a lady, and still have hoped that she would use the money well; but my idea went beyond that. There’s plenty of ladies nowadays taking an interest in the miserable, and spending their means unselfishly. What I hoped was to raise up for the poor and the untaught a friend out of their own midst, some one who had gone through all that they suffer, who was accustomed to earn her own living by the work of her hands as they do, who had never thought herself their better, who saw the world as they see it and knew all their wants. A lady may do good, we know that; but she can’t be the friend of the poor as I understand it; there’s too great a distance between her world and theirs. Can you picture to yourself how anxiously I’ve watched this child from the first day she came to live with me? I’ve scarcely had a thought but about her. I saw very soon that she had good feelings, and I set myself to encourage them. I wanted her to be able to read and write, but there was no need of any more education than that; it was the heart I cared about, not the mind. Besides, I had always to keep saying to myself that perhaps, after all, she wouldn’t turn out the kind of woman I wished, and in that case she mustn’t be spoiled for an ordinary life. Sidney, it’s this money that has made me a weak old man when I might still have been as strong as many at fifty; the care of it has worn me out; I haven’t slept quietly since it came into my hands. But the worst is over. I shan’t be disappointed. Jane will be the woman I’ve hoped for, and however soon my own life comes to an end, I shall die knowing that there’s a true man by her side to help her to make my idea a reality.
‘I’ve mentioned Mr. Percival, the lawyer. He’s an old man like myself, and we’ve had many a long talk together. About a year and a half ago I told him what I’ve told you now. Since I came back to England he’s been managing the money for me; he’s paid me the little we needed, and the rest of the income has been used in charity by some people we could trust. Well, Mr. Percival doesn’t go with me in my plans for Jane. He thinks I’m making a mistake, that I ought to have had the child educated to fit her to live with rich people. It’s no use; I can’t get him to feel what a grand thing it’ll be for Jane to go about among her own people and help them as nobody ever could. He said to me not long ago, “And isn’t the girl ever to have a husband?” It’s my hope that she will, I told him. “And do you suppose,” he went on, “that whoever marries her will let her live in the way you talk of? Where are you going to find a working man that’ll be content never to touch this money—to work on for his weekly wages, when he might be living at his ease?” And I told him that it wasn’t as impossible as he thought. What do you think, Sidney?’
The communication of a noble idea has the same effect upon the brains of certain men—of one, let us say, in every hundred thousand—as a wine that exalts and enraptures. As Sidney listened to the old man telling of his wondrous vision, he became possessed with ardour such as he had known but once or twice in his life. Idealism such as Michael Snowdon had developed in these latter years is a form of genius; given the susceptible hearer, it dazzles, inspires, raises to heroic contempt of the facts of life. Had this story been related to him of some unknown person, Sidney would have admired, but as one admires the nobly impracticable; subject to the electric influence of a man who was great enough to conceive and direct his life by such a project, who could repose so supreme a faith in those he loved, all the primitive nobleness of his character asserted itself, and he could accept with a throbbing heart the superb challenge addressed to him.
‘If Jane can think me worthy to be her husband,’ he replied, ‘your friend shall see that he has feared without cause.’
‘I knew it, Sidney; I knew it!’ exclaimed the old man. ‘How much younger I feel now that I have shared this burden with you!’
‘And shall you now tell Jane?’ the other inquired.
‘Not yet; not just yet. She is very young; we must wait a little. But there can be no reason why you shouldn’t speak to her—of yourself.’