CHAPTER IV.
JOHN’S CHOICE.
This conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door, which was evidently a very welcome sound to the old people, who displayed even more than their usual cordiality when the door of the parlour opened and Mr. Cattley was shown in. Mr. Cattley was the curate. He had held that position in the village of Edgeley-on-the-Moor since John’s childhood, having little influence, and no ambition, and finding himself in congenial society, which indisposed him to take any measures for ‘bettering himself’ or moving, as perhaps he would himself have said, to a wider sphere. As a matter of fact, if Mr. Cattley had ever possessed any friends who would have helped him to that wider sphere, they had forgotten him before now; and he had forgotten them, having succeeded in concentrating himself in the little rural parish as few people could have done. Perhaps his pupils had helped to weave that spell which bound him to the little place. He had taken charge of all the young Spencers in their earlier days. He had trained both Dick and Percy for their school, in which they had done him credit, at least, in the beginning of their career: but Elly and John were his favourites: and, as they had remained with him until now, his interest in his work had remained unbroken.
Mr. Cattley was not a very frequent visitor at the house of the Sandfords. He was, to tell the truth, generally so absorbed by another friendship that he had no leisure to pay visits. This was in fact the secret, but it was no secret, of the good curate’s life. The rector, Mr. Spencer, was a widower, having been so for many years, and his house was ruled and presided over by a sister, also a widow, to whom en tout bien et tout honneur, the curate was devoted. It was such a devotion as from time to time arises without any blame on one side or another in the heart of a young man for a woman who is older than himself, and whom there is not the least possibility that he can ever marry. Such attachments are perhaps less uncommon than people think, and they are very warm, constant, and absorbing. Sometimes, as everybody knows, they do end in marriage, but that is a disturbance of the ideal, and brings in elements less delicate and exquisite than the tie which is more than friendship, yet a little less than love, and which by its nature can and ought to come to nothing.
Mrs. Egerton was a woman of forty-five, bright-eyed and comely, and full of interest in everything; but without any pretence at youth: and the curate had ten years less of age and no experience whatever of the world, so that the difference between them was rather emphasised than lessened. There was, however, one thing which reduced this difference, which was that Mr. Cattley had a great air of gravity, and took an elderly kind of view in the simplicity of his heart, whereas she was full of vivacity and spirit, and sided always with the young rather than the old. The curate had for this middle-aged woman a sort of quiet worship which was beyond all reason: all that she said was admirable and excellent to him; what she did was beyond criticism. Whatever she was occupied in he would have had her to do that ever, like the young lover of poetry: yet hailed every new manifestation of the variety of mind which seemed to him inexhaustible, as if it were a new revelation. He was sometimes foolish in his worship, it may be allowed, and the elderly object of that devotion laughed at it not a little. But in her heart she liked it well enough, as what woman would not do? Her heart was soft to the man who adored her. But that she should adore him in turn, or that anything should come of their intercourse save peaceful continuance, was not only out of the question, but was altogether beyond the possibility of being taken into question, which is more conclusive still.
Mrs. Egerton was at this moment absent from the rectory, and Mr. Cattley was like a fish out of water. He spent almost all the time he could spare from his pupils and the parish in writing long letters to her: but all his evenings could not be spent in this way, and now and then, sighing for the difference, he would come out of an evening and visit one of the houses in the village. The Sandfords stood very high in the little aristocracy of Edgeley-on-the-Moor. They were not very old residents, having come here only about ten years before, but they had always been very highly thought of. Mr. Cattley was received by them with all the deference which good Church people, to whom his visit is an honour, show to their clergyman. They thought more of his visit than if it had been a common occurrence. And, though he was only the curate, it was he that was most of a clergyman in the parish, for the rector, though he was much liked, was of the class which used to be called Squarson, and was more of a country gentleman than a parish priest. There was yet another reason for their great pleasure at sight of this visitor, and the warm welcome they gave him. The conversation had come to a point which made a break—a new incident very convenient. They were glad to escape at that moment from John. After a little interval it would be more easy to resume their talk in a cool and matter-of-fact tone.
‘You will have a cup of tea, sir,’ said Mrs. Sandford. ‘Oh! dear, yes, we’ve had our tea a long while ago, but it is just a pleasure and a pride to have some made fresh for you; and though we don’t live in that way ourselves I know many that do. We understand the habits of gentlepeople, even though we may not be gentlefolks ourselves.’
‘That I am sure you are,’ said the curate, ‘in the truest sense of the word.’
‘Oh! well, sir, it’s very good of you to say it, and I hope we’re not rude or rough,’ said the old lady, and she bustled out of the room to look after the tea, which he did not at all care for, with great satisfaction in being able thus to leave the room for a moment. Her husband plunged into parish talk with Mr. Cattley with not less relief.
‘Thank God, that’s got over,’ he said to himself.
As for John, he was very glad to see his tutor also, but without any of their special thankfulness. He did not take much part in the conversation, which was natural. At his age a boy is expected not to put himself forward. He sat and listened, and through it all would now and then feel a bitter throb of wonder and pain go through him. Dead! He might have known it all the time. Papa, so kind as he was, would never have left him so long without finding him out, without coming to see him, even if, as he had sometimes fancied, the grandparents did not approve. And so he was dead! gone, never to be seen more. It was so long, so long since there had been any reality in the relationship that the boy could not grieve as he would have done had he lost anyone he knew and loved. It was only a shadow he had lost, and, indeed, he had not lost that, it was with him just the same as before. And, as a matter of fact, he had never thought of any meeting again. The shock he had received was more a kind of awe of dying, a kind of ache at the thought that his fond recollections had been, as it were, vain all this long time. He listened to the conversation, and even would put in a word or two, and smile at what grandfather or Mr. Cattley said. And then the thought, the throb would again dart through him: dead! It was a strange thing to feel that some one belonging to him had actually gone over that bourne from which no traveller returns. This was so solemn, and John’s recollection was so far from solemn; and he knew that the gayest, the most light-hearted had to die all the same, like the gravest. But to think that some one belonging to him had stepped across that dark line of separation, that some one might be thinking about him upon the other side, beyond the grave. This made John’s nerves tingle, and a shiver passed under his hair. Dead! it is so strange when one is young to realise, though it is, no doubt, common to all, yet that one individual known to one’s self should die.