‘Harm!’ said her husband, ‘from you, me love, or from Montressor? No, he will get no harm, whatever a brutal manager or designing critics may say. Thank God, Maria, corrupting the young was never laid to your husband’s charge, me dear. He shall see that conscious virtue is not ashamed of humble offices. I will prepare the table while she makes ready our food. There is nothing derogatory in that, me young friend. Look at Mrs. Montreseor if you would see one that is superior to every fortune. She has had her cooks, her housemaids, her grooms; she has driven in her own carriages, and worn silks and satins. And now ye see her preparing to fry the sausages. And which is the finest office?—the last, sir!—for she’s always a lady—a perfect lady—whatever her occupation may be.’
John did not feel called upon to make any answer to this. He sat in a half dream of wonderment, while all these domestic arrangements went on in this strange little interior, where all was so new and extraordinary to him. How had he got there? What sort of place was it? What kind of people were these? The curious serio-comic character of the episode did not strike him so much as it might have done an older spectator; but the hissing of the sausages on the fire, before which this unknown woman stood, her wistful eyes fixed upon the frying-pan, while her husband, with his fine language and fine sentiments, laid the cloth upon the table behind, were too strange, too peculiar, too ridiculous, even—for he was hungry again, and there was a sort of warm friendliness in the air that comforted his young, childish soul—too comfortable, not to affect the boy. He felt a sort of pleasurable disquietude and alarm and embarrassment. He ought to go, he felt, but he was shy and they were kind, and he did not know how to get himself away. Presently the child who was the occasion of it all, and who had clung to her mother’s skirts all the time, pulled a stool towards John’s feet, and sitting down by him began to pat his leg with soft little touches.
‘Did it hurt much,’ she said, ‘that big horse’s foot? I called mamma and it was you. What made you get hurt for a poor little girl like me?’
‘What made him? It was God, Edie, to save you to mother: and God bless him for it,’ said the woman, turning round.
‘It was a heroic action,’ said Montressor, ‘it was the act of a hero, me chyild. Your saviour will always be to us a noble youth. Me young benefactor, as yet we do not know your honoured name.’
John paused for a moment. He never could tell what curious impulse possessed him. Perhaps it was because he was in a new world of his own discovery, with which no one else had anything to do. He said, with the blood rushing to his face,
‘My name is John May.’
When he heard his own voice, his heart gave a great leap and throb; but whether it was the feeling of one who takes a false name, or of one who for the first time claims a true one, he could not tell. The act, which was almost involuntary, filled him with an excitement which he could not explain.
‘May!’ cried Montressor—‘Maria! what did I say? that there was something in the countenance of this noble youth not unfamiliar. I knew a May once—I have not forgotten him. Me young friend, ye are like that companion of me youth—yes, ye are like him. I felt it from the first. He was the kindest, the dearest—but misfortune fell upon him. Ah! may it be that the blood of our friend runs in your veins.’
‘Montressor,’ said his wife, hurriedly, ‘this young gentleman can have nothing to do with the May you once knew. It is not a thing to be talked about, that connection. You know what I mean. There is not the slightest likeness, nor the least possibility: for goodness sake keep your ideas to yourself, and think how impossible—The supper is ready,’ she added, in a lighter tone. ‘Come, Mr. May, a little food will do you good, though it is neither rich nor rare.’