‘To the rectory?’ said Mr. Cattley, with a prevision, which—for the reason that it agreed with all his wishes, yet went against all his instructions—made his heart beat—‘I must have met him on the way had he gone there.’
‘I am sure he has gone there,’ said Susie, ‘for he took some books Miss Spencer had asked for. He may have gone round some other way.’
‘Yes, he may have gone round,’ said Mr. Cattley, his face growing long, yet his heart stirring with a sharp, acute sympathy which was almost painful. And then he said, ‘You must pardon me, Miss Sandford, for I am sure I am speaking to Jack’s sister. I should like to wait for him if you will let me stay.’
‘Surely,’ she said, with that smile in her eyes which was always there, resuming her seat: and the curate sat down by her, with a pleasure in this novelty, in the old associations turned into new ones, in the unknown gentle friend who did not know anything about his perplexities or his position, but met him on fresh ground with her pleasant welcoming eyes and tranquillising presence. He would wait for Jack: and probably some new light as to how to treat this matter might spring up by the way.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE VITA NUOVA.
John had gone out for no particular reason. He had nothing to do, which was unusual to him, and his mind was perturbed and restless. He was altogether out of son assiette, as the French say, out of his natural atmosphere, exposed to thoughts, temptations of all kinds, with which naturally he had nothing to do. A holiday is not always so very good a thing. When the mind is busy with a delicate piece of engineering, or with specifications or even estimates, it has not time to get into mischief. But fancy when suddenly left blank of all those occupations, deprived of all preservatives, and left to face the most supreme of youthful impulses without any defence at all, is in a bad way. John did what of course is the very worst thing he could possibly have done. He wandered about all day, taking long walks, and turning over and over in his bewildered brain the same subject—and that subject was Elly. What else? the only thing that he ought not to have thought about.
He should not have done so—that was too certain. When he felt it coming on, when she jumped into his mind like that, without rhyme or reason, he ought to have shut the door sternly against her, he ought to have betaken himself to some matter of professional difficulty of the hardest possible sort; he should have devoted himself to the Euphrates Canal or the St. Gothard Tunnel. Or if he had wanted something nearer home there was the great subject which had already occupied him for years, and which we may call the drainage of the Thames valley—which is a thing waiting to be done, and by which some engineer, and perhaps John, might yet distinguish himself. He was aware that he ought to do this, but he did not. Instead of engaging in a course of thought which would have been both laudable and useful, he thought of Elly and nothing else—nothing but Elly, as he walked for hours across the common and to every village in the neighbourhood. Susie, who had not fathomed his difficulties, thought these long walks very good for him. She could not herself walk so far, but she had always heard that exercise was the first necessity for a man, so that, instead of opposing, as she ought to have done, she encouraged him for the good of his health, and because his holidays would soon be over, to walk and think—of Elly—though she did not know anything of this latter exercise.
Percy’s interrupted remonstrances of the previous night, which he had understood well enough, as he had foreseen all the time that they were coming, quickened to an almost incalculable extent the current of John’s thoughts. It gave them a swing and energy which they had never had before. He had known very well it was coming! From the beginning he had been aware that things could not go on on this present footing, that some change there must be; he had foreseen it dimly when Percy said ‘my sister,’ that the familiar name, the child’s name, might not be given over to John’s lips. How well he had perceived that! He had even, as he now remembered, made an effort to obey. He had tried to set things straight, to call her Miss Spencer, to treat the old childish intimacy as a thing of the past, if Elly would have allowed it to be so. But she had not allowed it; she would not suffer it; and now? What was to be done? for something would have to be done. Even if there were no Percy in the world, no watchful aunt, all this would have to be altered somehow. The course of their history could not go on as it was going now. His thoughts quickened as he pushed on and on for many a flying mile. He walked, not seeing where he went, the landscape spinning past him as if he were travelling in an express train. Things could not go on as they were going now. Either all this whirling world of passion and excitement must go back and be stilled and relapse into the former calm, the easy boy and girl friendship, that relation which was entirely of the past: or else—what else? What was the alternative? There was an alternative; but even to himself it was difficult to put it into words.
This was what passed while Susie thought that he was taking exercise for his health and to take advantage of being in the country. When he came in he brought the scent of the fresh air with him, and a glow as of vigour and wholesome exertion on his face, the rapidity of his movements, and the contact of the keen, sweet air keeping him from all appearance of being sicklied o’er with thought—though no philosopher could have thought more deeply or sought more diligently a solution of any problem. This was how he had been engaged on the day when Mr. Cattley came to set matters right. He had, indeed, taken with him the books which Elly wanted, which he had to carry to the rectory for her, but he carried them first for miles along the country roads, always busy with that problem which he had to solve; and in all likelihood would have left them at the rectory as he returned home without so much as a glimpse of Elly. For, as a matter of fact, at the time when her relatives were most alarmed, and when the course of events seemed to be most whirling and rapid, John had seen less and less of Elly. They had both taken fright at the same moment—a mutual terror had seized upon them; they had begun to avoid instead of seeking each other—he walking miles about on his way to the rectory to leave those books for her, she restricting herself to the most limited circuit that she might not encounter him.
Mrs. Egerton was seated in her room, which commanded the gate of the rectory, and in fact of the village street, waiting for Mr. Cattley to come back, and tell her how he had sped; and Mr. Cattley in John Sandford’s house was sitting with a sort of vague solace and consolation in the company of the gentle young woman who knew nothing about him, except that he was her brother’s friend, waiting for John. The afternoon was a little heavy, as afternoons in the summer often are. It had been raining all the morning, and the air was warm and damp, and the atmosphere oppressive. Elly, who had spent the day chiefly at home, taking her walk round and round the garden, lingering for a long time under the old pear-tree, had been seized at last by one of those fits of impatience which so often come upon us in a moment, nullifying the precautions of many days. She felt as if there was no air, and that a run across the common to the cottage of one of her pensioners would deliver her from the stifling of this oppressed and breathless state. She knew a way amongst the gorse, a wild little track over the moor and heather, which nobody but herself and the village children ever used. And she would not, she said to herself, be half-an-hour gone. She seized upon her little basket, which stood on the hall table, all nicely packed with certain little matters which made her a welcome visitor; and so went out, nobody seeing her, if anybody had thought of remarking. But, indeed, it was not for Elly, but Mr. Cattley that Mrs. Egerton was on the watch, and no one else took any notice of the goings and comings of the daughter of the house. She skimmed along as light as a bird, until she got among the gorse bushes, half ablaze with their yellow blossoms, filling the numerous bees with a sweet intoxication and the air with a honeyed balm; and there Elly lingered, her basket hanging from her hand, her head drooping, her mind full of thought, which was half troublous and half sweet. She felt the crisis, too, in every vein, but not as John felt it. The fears, the tribulations, the doubts of that moment were not for her. Her honour could never be called in question. No one could think of her as having betrayed any trust placed in her. Her brain was thrilling with a suppressed excitement and wonder as to the next step in this wonderful little drama of which she was the heroine. And she was aware that there would be blame: she was aware that there would be a struggle; but she was in no ways afraid of either one or the other. The commotion of the great new thing, the revolution which seemed to be imminent, the mingled reluctance and eagerness, the hesitation and the longing, made disturbance enough in her girlish breast.