‘Why has she never seen me since I was a child?’ the boy asked, sternly. ‘Why is it I didn’t know you, Susie, my only sister, till now?’
‘Oh, as for that,’ said she, pressing his arm, ‘that didn’t matter, did it? You and I would always understand each other. It is only to say that you are John and I am Susie. We didn’t want any more.’
‘If sister and brother do that, shouldn’t mother and son do it?’ said John; ‘and we don’t, you see. She expects everything that is bad of me, and I think everything that is——’
‘No,’ she cried, ‘don’t say that; oh, John, don’t say that. It is all that you don’t know her. Wait a little, only wait a little. She has had a great deal to bear. She has had to put on what is almost a mask, to hide her heart which has been so wounded; oh, so wounded! John, you don’t know!’
‘Not by me,’ he said. ‘I have never done anything to her. But she has made up her mind that I shall turn out badly. Don’t contradict me, Susie, for I know.’
Susie made no attempt to contradict him. She patted his arm softly, and said, ‘Poor mother, poor mother,’ under her breath. John was not ill-pleased that she should take his mother’s part—it seemed suitable that she should do so, the thing that was becoming and natural. He did not want her to come over to his side. And then the mother was so wrong—so ridiculously, fantastically wrong, that some one to support and stand up for her was doubly necessary. Poor mother! who would not even have it in her power to be glad, as the commonest mother would be, when her son turned out the reverse of all she had feared.
‘If you would only forget,’ said Susie, ‘this notion you have taken into your mind, and go on (as I know you will go on) well, and make your way, mother will be beside herself with joy. Oh, it will make up for everything that is past, all she has had to bear; and there is nobody can do that but you.’
This appeal left John cold. He was thoroughly determined to go on well—by nature in the first place, for he felt no inclination for anything else. And if Susie had implored him for her own sake, or for Elly’s sake, he would have responded magnanimously, and promised everything she pleased—but for his mother, for the woman whose real name (if she only knew it) was Emily, how could that affect him? He made no reply, and presently their attention was diverted by some new thing which was strange to the country lad, and they discoursed on this subject no more. They had reached the Strand, the scene of John’s adventure of the previous night, when Susie suddenly dropped his arm very hastily, and with scarcely a word of explanation, bidding him wait for her, took refuge suddenly in a shop. He had not recovered from his surprise, when he was accosted by some one who came up with great cordiality, holding out his hand, and in whom John, with no small surprise, recognised his acquaintance, the father of the child he had rescued, the man who had been so grateful and enthusiastic in his thanks, Montressor, who hailed him with a heartiness that was almost noisy, shaking hands violently and protesting his delight.
‘Is it really you in the flesh, me dear young friend? And I’ve found ye, then, in daylight, and quite natural. You’re not the good fairy in the pantomime, nor yet the Red Cross Knight as me Nelly says ye are. And none the worse? I’m proud to see ye, young Mr. May.’
‘Oh,’ said John, ‘it’s nothing; indeed it’s nothing. I hope she is all right, and that she has taken no harm.’