This conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door, which was evidently a very welcome sound to the old people, who displayed even more than their usual cordiality when the door of the parlour opened and Mr. Cattley was shown in. Mr. Cattley was the curate. He had held that position in the village of Edgeley-on-the-Moor since John’s childhood, having little influence, and no ambition, and finding himself in congenial society, which indisposed him to take any measures for ‘bettering himself’ or moving, as perhaps he would himself have said, to a wider sphere. As a matter of fact, if Mr. Cattley had ever possessed any friends who would have helped him to that wider sphere, they had forgotten him before now; and he had forgotten them, having succeeded in concentrating himself in the little rural parish as few people could have done. Perhaps his pupils had helped to weave that spell which bound him to the little place. He had taken charge of all the young Spencers in their earlier days. He had trained both Dick and Percy for their school, in which they had done him credit, at least, in the beginning of their career: but Elly and John were his favourites: and, as they had remained with him until now, his interest in his work had remained unbroken.

Mr. Cattley was not a very frequent visitor at the house of the Sandfords. He was, to tell the truth, generally so absorbed by another friendship that he had no leisure to pay visits. This was in fact the secret, but it was no secret, of the good curate’s life. The rector, Mr. Spencer, was a widower, having been so for many years, and his house was ruled and presided over by a sister, also a widow, to whom en tout bien et tout honneur, the curate was devoted. It was such a devotion as from time to time arises without any blame on one side or another in the heart of a young man for a woman who is older than himself, and whom there is not the least possibility that he can ever marry. Such attachments are perhaps less uncommon than people think, and they are very warm, constant, and absorbing. Sometimes, as everybody knows, they do end in marriage, but that is a disturbance of the ideal, and brings in elements less delicate and exquisite than the tie which is more than friendship, yet a little less than love, and which by its nature can and ought to come to nothing.

Mrs. Egerton was a woman of forty-five, bright-eyed and comely, and full of interest in everything; but without any pretence at youth: and the curate had ten years less of age and no experience whatever of the world, so that the difference between them was rather emphasised than lessened. There was, however, one thing which reduced this difference, which was that Mr. Cattley had a great air of gravity, and took an elderly kind of view in the simplicity of his heart, whereas she was full of vivacity and spirit, and sided always with the young rather than the old. The curate had for this middle-aged woman a sort of quiet worship which was beyond all reason: all that she said was admirable and excellent to him; what she did was beyond criticism. Whatever she was occupied in he would have had her to do that ever, like the young lover of poetry: yet hailed every new manifestation of the variety of mind which seemed to him inexhaustible, as if it were a new revelation. He was sometimes foolish in his worship, it may be allowed, and the elderly object of that devotion laughed at it not a little. But in her heart she liked it well enough, as what woman would not do? Her heart was soft to the man who adored her. But that she should adore him in turn, or that anything should come of their intercourse save peaceful continuance, was not only out of the question, but was altogether beyond the possibility of being taken into question, which is more conclusive still.

Mrs. Egerton was at this moment absent from the rectory, and Mr. Cattley was like a fish out of water. He spent almost all the time he could spare from his pupils and the parish in writing long letters to her: but all his evenings could not be spent in this way, and now and then, sighing for the difference, he would come out of an evening and visit one of the houses in the village. The Sandfords stood very high in the little aristocracy of Edgeley-on-the-Moor. They were not very old residents, having come here only about ten years before, but they had always been very highly thought of. Mr. Cattley was received by them with all the deference which good Church people, to whom his visit is an honour, show to their clergyman. They thought more of his visit than if it had been a common occurrence. And, though he was only the curate, it was he that was most of a clergyman in the parish, for the rector, though he was much liked, was of the class which used to be called Squarson, and was more of a country gentleman than a parish priest. There was yet another reason for their great pleasure at sight of this visitor, and the warm welcome they gave him. The conversation had come to a point which made a break—a new incident very convenient. They were glad to escape at that moment from John. After a little interval it would be more easy to resume their talk in a cool and matter-of-fact tone.

‘You will have a cup of tea, sir,’ said Mrs. Sandford. ‘Oh! dear, yes, we’ve had our tea a long while ago, but it is just a pleasure and a pride to have some made fresh for you; and though we don’t live in that way ourselves I know many that do. We understand the habits of gentlepeople, even though we may not be gentlefolks ourselves.’

‘That I am sure you are,’ said the curate, ‘in the truest sense of the word.’

‘Oh! well, sir, it’s very good of you to say it, and I hope we’re not rude or rough,’ said the old lady, and she bustled out of the room to look after the tea, which he did not at all care for, with great satisfaction in being able thus to leave the room for a moment. Her husband plunged into parish talk with Mr. Cattley with not less relief.

‘Thank God, that’s got over,’ he said to himself.

As for John, he was very glad to see his tutor also, but without any of their special thankfulness. He did not take much part in the conversation, which was natural. At his age a boy is expected not to put himself forward. He sat and listened, and through it all would now and then feel a bitter throb of wonder and pain go through him. Dead! He might have known it all the time. Papa, so kind as he was, would never have left him so long without finding him out, without coming to see him, even if, as he had sometimes fancied, the grandparents did not approve. And so he was dead! gone, never to be seen more. It was so long, so long since there had been any reality in the relationship that the boy could not grieve as he would have done had he lost anyone he knew and loved. It was only a shadow he had lost, and, indeed, he had not lost that, it was with him just the same as before. And, as a matter of fact, he had never thought of any meeting again. The shock he had received was more a kind of awe of dying, a kind of ache at the thought that his fond recollections had been, as it were, vain all this long time. He listened to the conversation, and even would put in a word or two, and smile at what grandfather or Mr. Cattley said. And then the thought, the throb would again dart through him: dead! It was a strange thing to feel that some one belonging to him had actually gone over that bourne from which no traveller returns. This was so solemn, and John’s recollection was so far from solemn; and he knew that the gayest, the most light-hearted had to die all the same, like the gravest. But to think that some one belonging to him had stepped across that dark line of separation, that some one might be thinking about him upon the other side, beyond the grave. This made John’s nerves tingle, and a shiver passed under his hair. Dead! it is so strange when one is young to realise, though it is, no doubt, common to all, yet that one individual known to one’s self should die.

Mrs. Sandford came up after a little while, followed by the maid with a tray. She had much too good manners to let the guest take this refreshment by himself, accordingly there were two tea-cups with the little teapot. And the old lady’s eyes were a little red, if anyone had remarked it. She had been doing more than making tea. She had run up to her own room and cried a little there in the dark over all the confusing troubles of the past, and over the new chapter which was opening. She said to herself,

‘Oh! I don’t approve it—I don’t approve it!’ But what did it matter what she approved, when it was certain that he (which was the only name she ever gave her husband) and Emily would have it their own way?

‘I suppose,’ said the gentle curate, ‘that it is all settled, and that it is I now that am to have holiday. I shall miss the young ones dreadfully. I don’t know what I shall do without them. It will make all the difference in the world to me.’

‘You see, sir,’ said Grandfather Sandford, who had a faint and uncomfortable feeling that it was the want of those little payments which had been made for John which would make the great difference to the curate, ‘as it doesn’t suit us to carry him on for what you may call a learned education, we think it’s better for the boy not to lose more time.’

‘Not meaning that he ever could be losing time with you, Mr. Cattley!’

‘Mr. Cattley knows I don’t mean that: but only that he has to work and make his own way.’

‘I understand perfectly,’ said the curate, ‘and you are quite right. When a boy has to go into active life it is far better that he should begin early. Don’t think I disapprove. John and I have been great friends, and I shall miss him sadly. But he has really got as much from me as I can give him—unless it were a little more Greek: and I’m afraid there is not much practical advantage in Greek.’

‘Learning anything,’ said old Mr. Sandford, in a respectful sort of apologetic tone, ‘is always a practical advantage. If you know how to learn Greek, you’ll know how to learn anything. So the time can never be said to be lost.’

Mr. Cattley laughed a little quietly, and made a mental note of this as something to tell Mrs. Egerton. It amused him very much that the old man should patronise learning and explain to himself how Greek could do harm: but still there is no doubt that Mr. Sandford was quite right from his point of view.

‘I wish he had taken a little more to figures,’ said the old gentleman; ‘figures are very useful in every way of life. I would teach more sums than anything else if I were one that was engaged in instructing youth.’

Mr. Cattley laughed again and said he would have to learn them first himself.

‘For that was always my weak point: but John has a very pretty notion of mathematics. And have you come to any decision as to what he is going to do?’

‘We were just beginning to talk of it,’ said the old gentleman. ‘We were going over a few family matters, and then we were coming to the great question.’

‘I am afraid then,’ said the curate, ‘that I came in at an unfortunate moment. You should have told me you were occupied, and I should have gone away.’

‘Dear, dear, I hope you don’t think we are capable of such rudeness,’ cried the old lady, ‘and it was just this very reason, Mr. Cattley, to see you come in was what we wished most.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said her husband, ‘nobody can know like you what the boy’s good for. It will help us more than anything. I was just going to ask him—John, my lad, what do you think you’d like to be?’

And John, though he had received that shock, though he was so serious, still, moved by thrills of wondering and confused emotion, laughed. He said, ‘How can I tell, grandfather, all at once?’ with that elasticity of the youthful mind which older people find it so difficult to take into account.

The grandparents looked at each other across John and across Mr. Cattley. What their eyes said was briefly this—‘Thank God that’s over.’ ‘And he hasn’t a doubt,’ said old Sandford’s look, with a little brightness of triumph, to which his wife’s reply was an almost imperceptible shake of her head. This little pantomime was not at all remarked either by Mr. Cattley, who knew nothing about it, or by John, who made no remark at all. The existence of any mystery never occurred to the boy. How should it? He knew nothing about skeletons in cupboards, and was quite ready to have sworn to it that nothing of the kind belonged, or could belong, to his family at least.

‘Well,’ said the curate, ‘if it is making money you are thinking of, we all know what is the best way and the one way—if you have any opening: and that is business—in a London office now, or in Liverpool or Manchester.’

‘Oh, the Lord forbid!’ cried Mrs. Sandford, letting her knitting drop and clasping her hands.

Her husband looked at her severely, and breathed a hasty ‘Hush!’ Then after a little pause,

‘Perhaps we’re prejudiced. We have had to do with some that have done badly in business, and we don’t take a sanguine view. You may make money, I don’t deny, but again you may lose it. You may have to part with every penny you’ve got, and there’s a deal of temptation to speculate and all that. And besides we’ve got no opening that I know,’ he added, almost sharply, ‘which alters the question.’

There had been no argument nor anything to excite him, and yet he ended up in a belligerent manner, as though he had been violently contesting the views of some antagonist, and then looked at Mr. Cattley with a sort of defiance, as if that mild and innocent clergyman had been pressing upon him some undesirable course.

‘Nay, nay, if you don’t like it,’ said the curate, ‘there is nothing more to be said. I am not much moved that way myself. I had a brother once——’

‘Yes?’ cried Mrs. Sandford, putting away her knitting altogether, as if in the importance of this discussion the mere touch of the work irritated her. The old gentleman lifted a finger as if in warning.

‘Don’t you excite yourself, my dear,’ he said.

‘Poor fellow,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘He was much older than I: but he died young, broken-hearted. He was not the resolute sort of fellow that gets on. He got his accounts into a muddle somehow——’

‘Yes!’ cried Mrs. Sandford again. She was as eager as if this were something pleasant that was being told her; whereas the curate had his eyes fixed, meditatively, on the fire, and spoke slowly and with regret.

‘He was not much more than a boy,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘It’s a long time ago, when I was a child. I believe it never could be found out how it was—whether he had lost the money or spent it without knowing, or whether some one had taken it. Nobody blamed him, but he never got over it. It broke his heart.’

‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Sandford, with a gasp for breath. But she seemed a little disappointed—as if she were sorry—though that of course must have been impossible—that the curate’s brother was not to blame.

‘Things do happen like that,’ said the old gentleman, breathing what seemed like a sigh of relief. ‘And sometimes it’s partly a young fellow’s fault, and partly it isn’t. But my wife and I, we’ve seen so much of it, living near Liverpool at one time, which is a great business place, that it’s not at all the kind of life we would choose for John.’

‘Oh, John would be all right,’ said Mr. Cattley, ‘but I’m sorry I have been so unfortunate in my first shot. I don’t doubt, however, that he has a very fair guess what he wants to be himself.’

‘I didn’t know,’ said John, ‘you had any objection to business. I should have liked an office as well as anything, for then one could have been upon one’s own hook at once, and got a salary, and not needed to come upon you.’

‘Oh, Johnnie, my boy, did we ever grudge you anything that you say that?’

‘Nothing, grandmamma! and that’s why I should like to do for myself when I begin: but then I’ll do nothing that wouldn’t please you. May I speak out quite what I should like? Well, then, Mr. Cattley knows. I’d like to build bridges and lighthouses, especially lighthouses; that’s to say, I’d like to be an engineer.’

‘An engineer!’ They looked at each other again, but not with any secret communications, in simple surprise and mutual consultation. ‘Nobody belonging to you ever was that before,’ Mrs. Sandford said.

‘Yes, that is something quite new,’ said the grandfather. ‘I thought he’d have favoured farming, or to try for an agency, or, perhaps, the corn-factoring trade. Well, it is none the worse that I know of for being something new.’

‘The worst is that it takes a great deal of learning,’ said John, doubtfully. ‘Mr. Cattley knows, grandfather. You have to serve your time, and to work hard: but I don’t mind the work.’

‘Yes,’ said the curate, ‘I know a good deal about it, or at least, I could get you all the information. I have a brother——’

‘Not the one,’ said Mrs. Sandford, with again a little gasp, ‘that broke his heart——’

‘Oh, no,’ said the curate, ‘my father was three times married, and I have a great many brothers. This was one of the first lot. He is quite an old fellow, and he’s done very well for himself; he never had the least idea of breaking his heart. Indeed, I don’t know,’ he added, with a smile—but stopped himself, and left his sentence unfinished, ‘He has a great foundry, and is in a large way of business. By the way, John, I’m afraid he has nothing to do with lighthouses. He is what is called a mechanical engineer.’

‘I suppose they are all connected,’ said Mr. Sandford, as if he knew all about it: and he expressed himself as very grateful to Mr. Cattley, who promised to procure him all necessary information about the further education that John would require to go through: and the evening terminated with a little supper of the simplest kind, which the curate was not too fine to share. It seemed to bring him closer to them, and knit the bond of long association more warmly that he should thus have something to do with John’s future career, and on the other hand it threw a light of respectability upon the profession John had chosen, that Mr. Cattley’s brother should be in it. It was a very dark night, and when the curate left them, John took the lantern to see him home to his own house. When the old people were alone, after accompanying their guest to the door, they came back to the fire, for it was cold; but for a few minutes neither spoke. Then Grandfather Sandford said, with an air of relief,

‘Well, that’s over, thank heaven. It’s been hanging over me, day after day, for years. But I might have saved myself the trouble, for he took it as sweetly as any baby, and never had a doubt.’

‘Oh, John Sandford,’ said the old lady, ‘and doesn’t that make it all the worse to deceive him now? We’ve told him the truth all his days; how could he doubt us? But when he finds it out he will think it’s all a lie everything we’ve ever said.’

To this the old gentleman replied with something like a sob, covering his face with his hand,

‘If you feel you can take it upon you to break that poor lad’s heart, do it; but don’t ask me.’