When suddenly, in the midst of all these delightful thoughts, John felt himself struck down as if by a great stone, as if it were some falling meteor, compounded of infernal elements, though coming from the skies. It came down, down with the straight and cruel velocity which is given by natural laws, down to the very bottom of his heart. Suddenly there seemed to appear before him old Barrett shaking his head, and his own mother, with her suspicious, troubled eyes, watching him, looking for evil: and the reason of it all. The convict’s son! with the whole world watching to see when the leaven would break out in him, his father’s nature, the instincts of the criminal—and even his friends standing apart in horror and pity, broken-hearted, yet holding his shame aloof. What could they do but hold him aloof? And Elly, Elly, who wanted to stand by him, who had come to give him her support, to be his champion, his stainless white protector! He heard himself laugh in the street like a madman, laugh aloud with misery, he who had been nearly weeping with pleasure. God help him, for what could man do for him; or woman either, or fool, or angel—for was not she all these together, she who could dream of the possibility of standing up for him still, standing by him, and he his father’s son?
CHAPTER XVII.
ELLY’S PLEDGE.
Mrs. Egerton and Elly were aware, but vaguely, that something was happening outside while they sat half frightened, bewildered, not knowing what to think, in John’s little parlour, dismayed by the sudden appearance and disappearance of the man who was his father, who had looked at them with that deprecating, good-humoured face, unlike a criminal, and who yet was—something that they shuddered to think of. They sat there silent, listening, waiting for John to come back; but they forgave him that he did not come back. Everything was so disorganised, so out of gear, that all the ordinary laws seemed suspended, and even Mrs. Egerton forgave, indeed scarcely thought of, this breach of all the rules of courtesy. Poor boy! whatever he had done, she would have forgiven him. She was sorry for him, sorry to the bottom of her heart. And fortunately they neither of them knew that Susie had been there, and had fled, afraid to meet them, not knowing what to say to them. Both pride and honour had kept them from looking out, from spying upon John, or watching what he was doing. They had sat, as it were, behind a veil, and only known vaguely and half by instinct that another scene in this painful little drama was going on outside. And then silence had come, the sound of the voices had died away, and they had still sat looking at each other with everything stopped and arrested round them, not knowing what to think. It was some time before they made up their minds to go, leaving the address of the house in which they were in the habit of staying when they came to town to see the pictures or do a little shopping such as ladies from the country love. But all these pleasant usages were forgotten in the excitement of this crisis.
‘Tell Mr. Sandford we shall expect him as soon as he can come to us.’
‘Oh, I will, ma’am, I will,’ cried Mrs. Short, ‘for he have need of his friends, that I’m sure of. He do have need of his true friends.’
Mrs. Egerton was too much subdued and anxious even to take advantage of this opportunity to inquire into John’s habits and mode of life, which for a lady accustomed to manage a parish was wonderful, and showed how serious the emergency was. And then they got into their cab and drove away.
These two ladies had come to London in a flush of tender impulse and kindness, even Mrs. Egerton, who was an impulsive woman, forgetting all her objections—which, indeed, from the beginning her heart had fought against. And the thought of John in what seemed an abyss of despair which had roused Elly to a swift determination to suffer no more interference, to go to him, stand by him, marry him even in spite of himself, and whether he wished it or not, had also swept all prudential sentiments out of the warm heart of her aunt. They had rushed like a couple of doves flying to save some wounded eagle, like a couple of generous, inconsequent women, determined that there was nothing in heaven or earth that could not be overcome by their support and love. He had been met by some sudden obstacle, perhaps, to the success he had dreamt of—good heavens, what did that matter? And as for his father, his father, what could he have to do with it? Even now, when they knew all, though the elder woman had met the revelation with a shriek of dismay, Elly remained stolidly, stupidly unconscious of any force in it. It did not affect her intelligence at all: if it was anything, it was a reason for standing more determinedly, more constantly, by Jack, who wanted support—that was all. It was not even that she would not permit herself to see the force of it: she did not, actually. It passed by her intelligence, and did not touch her. The more reason to stand by Jack! that was all that Elly saw.
But as they drove along in the dingy cab, through the endless shabby streets, in the silence which was rendered more complete by the din and tumult of London round them, a better understanding came to both—even Elly began to find a tremor seize her. Her mind began to work in spite of herself. The moment that crime comes near, within the circle where honour has been always a foregone conclusion, and any infringement of the law a thing impossible, is a moment unspeakable, indescribable. It is bad enough when vice shows itself among all the pure traditions of an honourable family: but crime—something that cannot be excused by the force of temptation, that cannot be wept over as affecting the sinner only, who is nobody’s enemy but his own—but a breach of honesty, a crime against the law and against the rights of others! There are sins which are a thousand times more deeply guilty than theft or even forgery, but they are in a different category. Trial, conviction, the contamination of a prison, the felon’s obliteration from personality and right, make up a horror and shame of the actual, undeniable, matter-of-fact kind, which the dullest feel, and which affect the innocent with a sensation like a nightmare.
In the silence of their long drive Mrs. Egerton repeated now and then to herself, ‘A convict!’ with a shudder. Anything but that; if the father thus suddenly discovered had been a beggar, if he had been a poor broken-down drunkard, a reprobate! There are drunkards and reprobates, alas! everywhere, whom the best of families have to put aside into some corner, and veil with silence or with pitiful excuses, with abandonment or sacrificing love. But a convict cannot be hid. A man may live the purest life, he may win everything that energy and even genius can secure, but at the end of all the meanest may rise up and say, ‘Behold the convict’s son,’ and cover even a hero with shame. Imagination could not go so far as that in picturing the evils that are possible. Poor Jack! Poor boy! with his father a convict—a convict! The horror of it was so great and terrible that nothing was possible, save to say over and over these words of shame.
And Elly felt it still more deeply in her way. It seemed to ache all over her, this consciousness which she could never shake off, never forget. She took it for her own without doubt or question, embraced it, drew it close to her, with all the abandon of youth. It seemed to Elly that nobody would ever forget it, that it would be blazoned on Jack, and all who belonged to them, on their name, their dwelling, and, above all, on those great things that he was to do. And, of course, he could not give up his father; he must live with them, be their daily companion, this man who had spent years and years in a prison. She was silent, too, with a chill upon all her thoughts. No idea of deserting him ever came into Elly’s mind. She accepted the misery as for her too. And all the accounts she had ever heard of the cruelty of the world in visiting disgrace upon the innocent came into her mind. Could they live it down? she asked herself, or must Jack, poor Jack, dear Jack, with only her to console him, live under this shadow, this awful, undeserved shadow, all his life?