Elly stood up against the fire, reaching up with her arms to fasten the photographs, in her dark winter frock, which made her slim, girlish figure more slim than ever. Her hair still hung down upon her shoulders in half curling locks, not very long, but very thick and shining, and full of the wavy, long undulation of natural curls, which have never been put in paper, or touched with curling-irons. John, though it had never occurred to him to admire Elly, did think her hair very pretty, falling upon her shoulders in that easy way. It was reddish-brown, but more brown than red on ordinary occasions; only now and then, when there was no occasion for such vanities, the red would come out.
‘You’ve got very pretty hair, Elly,’ he said, quite simply. ‘I think I never saw anyone with such pretty hair.’
‘Oh, Jack, papa says it’s too red, and Aunt Mary says it’s not red enough; it’s neither one thing nor another. How can one help the colour of one’s hair, or anything else for the matter of that; and yet people speak as if it was your fault! Will that do, do you think? I’ve put you on Aunt Mary’s side and myself on papa’s, because a lady and a gentleman should always come alternately, as people sit at dinner, don’t you know. It looks very nice, quite complete. If Mr. Cattley has any brothers or sisters, or anything of that sort, there is no room for them now, that is clear.’
‘Or fathers and mothers,’ said John.
‘Well, he has had a long time to put them up in, if he wanted to. We must not trouble ourselves about them. Everybody has got fathers and mothers, of course. But I don’t remember mamma a bit; and you don’t either, do you, Jack?’
‘Oh! yes, I think I do; but there is one thing, Elly,’ said Jack, ‘I remember papa; I remember him as distinctly as if it had been yesterday. He used to come and take me out of bed, I should think in the middle of the night, and take me downstairs to supper, and I had oranges and cakes and all sorts of things sitting on his knee.’
‘Oh, how bad for you,’ said Elly, with a woman’s instinctive consciousness of maternal responsibility. ‘He must have been very thoughtless to do that.’
‘Thoughtless? well, perhaps: I never thought of it in that light—but it seems very nice as I look back. Can you believe it, Elly,’ said John, coming close and speaking low, ‘it was only two or three days since, when we were talking it all over, that I heard for the first time that my father was dead.’
‘Dear, dear!’ said Elly, looking very grave; but then she added, ‘I’ve known it a long time, Jack. I’ve always heard papa say that you were an orphan boy.’
‘I am not an orphan boy, my mother is living,’ said John, hurriedly. For the first time it occurred to him that to have a mother living whom he had not seen for ten years was strange. It had never struck him in this light before. ‘But papa,’ he added, in a softer tone, ‘died many years ago. I don’t know why I never understood it. One doesn’t think of things when there is nothing to lead one’s mind to them.’