John Dorrien

Front matter

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Chapter I

It was six o'clock, and quite dark, October being the time of the year, and yet Mrs. Dorrien, who was to have been home by five, had not come back from town. Johnny, as he sat perched up on his high chair, looking down at the fire in the grate before him, wondered rather anxiously what kept his mother out so late. We call him Johnny because he was only ten years old, and a very little fellow, too, for that time of life. He was not a fine boy, nor yet a handsome one. He was undersized, to begin with, and his little face was thin and pale — the face of a child who stays too much within. Even the firelight, which showed so plainly the turned-up nose and pointed chin, could not pretend to give the glow of health to what it lit up. And yet, seen by that fitful light — there was none other in the room, Johnny being strictly forbidden to touch the petroleum oil lamp — it had a quaint charm of its own.

The brow, around which clustered rich brown curls, was firmly and finely moulded. The eyes, of a dark gray, were so beautiful, so full of light and fire, and yet so deep and tender, that if you had seen them once, you never forgot them again, even as the mobile expressive countenance never left your memory when you had once watched its wonderful play. In repose it had not much to recommend it to savour, for it owed nothing to colour or to clear fine outline. His beautiful eyes, and the little eager, passionate soul that lived in his frail body, and shone out through them, gave Johnny his only claim to that dower of beauty which the sons and daughters of Adam would all so gladly possess. He now sat on his high chair, his short legs dangling down, an open book on his knee. He was looking, as we said, at the fire, wondering why his mother did not come back ; also listen ing to the kettle's low song, and waiting patiently till some bright flame should shoot up and let him go on with ' Aladdin's Lamp.' It came at length — a magic flame, that took him straight into the wonderful garden, where Aladdin, alias Johnny, plucked rubies, sapphires, and emeralds to his heart's content.

That flame lit up to advantage the room in which the boy sat. The low ceiling showed that it belonged to a second floor ; but it looked a pleasant room, for all that. In that bright yet un certain light there was no detecting the worn carpet, the faded damask curtains, the tarnished gilding of the frames on the wall. Everything looked warm and pleasant, and everything, after a fashion, was so. Mrs. Dorrien had been affluent once, and had preserved some relics of better days. A few pictures, some good china, an old Japanese cabinet, adorned her second floor sitting-room. Moreover, she had a woman's art in making the best of everything ; and if Mrs. Dorrien had lived in a garret, she would have contrived so that it should not look a depressing one. The flame, by suddenly dying away, took Johnny out of the marvellous garden, where trees bore precious stones by way of fruit, to the dim world of a London room.

The water in the kettle was boiling now, and surely Mrs. Dorrien must soon return. ' I think I shall make the tea,' said Johnny, talking aloud to himself. He led a rather lonely life, and had acquired that habit. So jumping down from his chair, he climbed up on another, to reach down the tea-caddy from the chiffonier* and in so doing he knocked down an old china teacup and saucer on the floor, where they were at once shattered to pieces. ' Oh ! what will mamma say ?' cried Johnny, bursting into tears — ' oh ! what will she say ?' For the cup was not merely valuable in itself, but it had been the gift of his dear father to his mother, and, of all her relics of the past, it was perhaps that which she held most dear. The question of what Mrs. Dorrien would say was soon solved. Johnny was still sobbing bitterly over the fragments of the tea cup, when the door opened, and his mother entered the room. ' Johnny !' she cried, in an alarmed voice, ' what is the matter?

Are you hurt? — what is it?' ' Oh ! I — I have broken the — the cup,' sobbed Johnny desperately. ' I wanted to make the tea, and I broke it.' ' But you are not hurt ?' said his mother anxiously. ' No * but I wanted to make the tea, and ' Here Johnny gave way to another burst of sorrow. Mrs. Dorrien could have cried too, for the loss of her cup, if the relief of finding that Johnny had come to no harm had not been the stronger feeling of the two. She never left him— and she had to leave him often— but she thought, ' What will happen to him whilst I am out ?' And she never opened her own door when she came home that her heart did not throb with a name less fear. So, though the cup was broken, it was a relief to find Johnny safe and sound. Mrs. Dorrien lit the lamp, and Johnny, picking up the pieces of the broken cup and saucer, placed them on the table before his mother, and, looking up eagerly in her face, asked if they could not be mended. ' I am afraid not, my dear,' she replied sadly. ' What is there that, being once broken, can really be mended in this world?' With which despondent remark Mrs. Dorrien seemed to dis miss the subject of the broken cup, and, taking off her cloak and bonnet, made the tea.

Johnny's mother had married late in life, and was now forty five. She had been lovely in her youth, and was pretty still, with a fresh colour, and very black hair and eyes. She was an active, energetic woman, and when her husband's death left her and Johnny, then one year old, destitute, she scarcely gave her self time to grieve before she sought for the means of earning a livelihood. She had been reared in comfort, she had never worked unless for her pleasure, but she fought the battle of life, when her turn came to do so, as bravely as if she had been brought up in the din of that fierce war where the strong never think of sparing the weak. For seven years she had struggled on, taking up and dropping various trades on the way, until she had at length found what, after some poverty, seemed a handsome competence, in the colouring of photographs.

She had been this day to town on business, and Johnny, her sole friend and confidant, now questioned her concerning her success whilst they took their tea; a late dinner, or, in plain speech, more than one substantial meal a day, being out of the question for Mrs. Dorrien and Johnny. ' Little mother ' — he always called her so — ' did you get that order ?' he asked, fastening his brilliant, searching eyes on her face. ' Yes, dear, I did. It is such a relief to be sure of that money. We are going to be quite rich now. And what have you been doing, Johnny ?' ' Well, little mother, I learned my lessons, of course, and then I read about Aladdin. And oh ! little mother, if I only had his lamp, how I would rub and rub it again, and give you heaps of everything — such heaps !' cried Johnny, bursting out into a peal of joyous, triumphant laughter ; ' and then,' he re sumed, relapsing into sudden gravity, ' you need never colour photographs no more.' ' Any more,' corrected Mrs. Dorrien, a little sharply. ' I wish you would talk correctly.

Your father was a gentleman, and a thorough scholar, as I have often told you. Give me your Latin grammar.' ' I know my Latin lesson, little mother, indeed I do ; but learning it in that French grammar of L'Homond's makes it so difficult,' pleaded Johnny. ' Nonsense ! Your father spoke French like a Frenchman ; and learning Latin in a French grammar is the very best thing for you.' Johnny handed her L'Homond, and went through his task very creditably. At least his mother, who had to study her own lesson* — and hard work she found it — before she heard him repeat his, expressed herself satisfied. ' And you will teach me Greek, little mother, will you not ?' asked Johnny, with sparkling eyes. 'No, my dear, I cannot.' 'But you said I was to know Greek,' he cried, in blank disappointment. 'Well, I do hope that you will know it,' replied Mrs. Dorrien. 'Your father knew Greek thoroughly, I have been told, and so must you be a good Greek scholar.

Only' — here Mrs. Dorrien's voice faltered, and her black eyes, though there was not much tenderness in them, rested very fondly on her boy — ' only, my dear little lad, I must send you to school. I have not the knowledge, and I have not the time, to feach you myself. I must send you to school.' Johnny's colour came and went. ' To a day-school ?' he suggested. ' No, dear, to a boarding-school.' j-ohnny's lip twitched and his little pale face lengthened visibly; but he was brave by nature, and had been accustomed by his mother to much self-restraint, so he only said : ' Is the school far away, little mother ?' ' Very far away, my dear.' ' Twenty miles ?' suggested Johnny. ,5 \o^ (5/ "~ 4? a Large Bar* TBE WORLD'S MOST MARVELLOUS CLEANSER AND POLISHER Makes Tin like Silver, Copper like Gold, Paint like New, Spotless Earthenware.

Crockery like Marble, Marble White, Brass Ware like Mirrors ' My dear, it is not in England,' replied his mother a little nervously ; and to get rid at once of the bitter subject, she informed him that she was going to send him to a boarding school on the coast of France, and as, though she expected and received unquestioning obedience, she was never unwilling to give good reason for what she did, Mrs. Dorrien explained to Johnny why she had taken and now acted upon this resolution. 'You see, my darling,' she said with a sigh, 'it is all very well for me to colour photographs, but you must have a classical education, and be a gentleman as your father was. You must be an accomplished man,' said Mrs. Dorrien, warming with her subject — 'equal to any position. Perhaps you will have to colour photographs after all,' she added, with a touch of bitterness ; ' but one thing I will do for you : I will give you an education fit for a peer's son.

I cannot do it in this country, but there is a place on the French coast called Saint Ives, where living is almost for nothing, and schooling — good schooling — is amazingly cheap. I shall keep you there for a few years, and, cheap though it is, I need not tell you how heavy a sacrifice it will be for me to do this. Only, Johnny, bear in mind that, if you do not work hard — very hard, mind you — I might just as well keep you here and save the money.' 'I will work hard,' said Johnny in a low voice. ' I want you to have a gentleman's education,' resumed Mrs. Dorrien, with a persistency which showed how bitterly she felt her downfall in the world, ' because you must be a gentleman. If you should have to colour photographs, Greek and Latin will not prevent you from doing it ; and if, as I trust, you will have some better work to do, why, they can only help you with that work.

But know them you shall — that is, if you will learn,' she added, giving him a sharp look. 'Indeed, little mother, I will,' protested Johnny, who was ready to cry from very earnestness. ' French you will learn, of course ; English you will keep up with the English teacher; and if I can afford it, you shall study German. Your father knew every language in Europe— Prussian excepted.' If Mrs. Dorrien had there and then asked him to include Russian in his studies, Johnny would have said Yes without hesitation. They were wholly unlike in person, mind, and temper, but ambition was common to both mother and son. ' Of course you will have many things to learn besides Greek and Latin,' resumed Mrs. Dorrien, after a pause. ' I suppose you cannot excel in all -' 'Why not, if I try?' interrupted Johnny, his little face kindling all over with excitement. ' You must try,' decisively said his mother ; ' but of course you cannot excel in all ; only, Johnny, you must not fail en tirely in anything that you do attempt.

It would half break my heart ; for, what with the money and the being left alone, I do not know how I shall bear it all !' Mrs. Dorrien took out her pocket-handkerchief and began to cry, but no sooner did Johnny attempt to follow her example than she checked her own tears and dried his with an emphatic ' Nonsense !' Then, as if repenting the harshness of her tone, she bade the lad come and sit by her on the sofa — it was Johnny's bed at night — and, with her arm caressingly passed round his neck, she spoke to him about the school to which she was sending him, and gave him every particular concerning its head, teachers, and management which she had been able to ascertain. ' You see, Johnny,' said Mrs. Dorrien, ' the head of that school is the Abbe Veran — one of the most learned men in France, I am told.

It is a school of the highest class, though very cheap (of course it is very dear for my means, but never mind that), and the teachers belonging to it are first-rate. The Abbe is a rich man, and does not want to make money by his pupils. He wants to make great scholars of them,' said Mrs. Dorrien, speaking in capitals. Johnny opened his eyes wide and nodded. ' So when they are stupid or idle he turns them out at the end of a year,' coolly remarked Mrs. Dorrien, giving Johnny a sharp look. The boy looked more excited than alarmed at the implied threat. His little eager face plainly said that he did not mean to be turned out by the Abbe' Veran. ' He turned oat a great many last year, I am told,' resumed Mrs. Dorrien, drawing a little upon her imagination for the latter fact. ' " Because," as he properly remarks, " why should I, who have established this school — not for profit, but for the honour of the thing — why should I keep boys so stupid or so idle that they would only disgrace my teaching ?"

Of course it takes some interest to gel into a school of that kind ; and if Mr. Perry had not answered for you, also if you had not been the child of Catholic parents, you could not have been admitted.' 'Oh ! mother,' cried Johnny, turning white, ' will Mr. Perry give you no more photographs to colour if — if I do not please the Abbe" ?' Mrs. Dorrien had a great mind to say that such would be Mr. Perry's undoubted line of action if Johnny did not behave himself at school; but her heart relented at the frightened look of the child, and she hoped that Mr. Perry would not be quite so severe. Indeed, thinking that she might have gone too far, she" proceeded to give him quite a glowing account of the beautiful place he was going to, and of the happy life he was to lead there. ' And when do we go, little mother ?' asked Johnny. ' You go this day week,' answered Mrs. Dorrien, looking at the fire. ' Don't you come with me ?' he asked in blank dismay. ' I can't, dear.' Johnny looked up in his mother's face, as if he could scarcely trust his ears.

She had been so jealous of his personal safety that she had rarely allowed him to go to the end of the street alone, and now she was sending him across the sea ' all alone by himself,' as Johnny said in his own thoughts. But even this solitary journey to a strange land was nothing to what followed. ' And shall I come back all alone, too, for the holidays ?' asked Johnny wistfully. ' I must try to go and see you for the holidays,' answered his mother ; but she looked at the fire again. Johnny was truth itself; to tell no lies cost him no effort, and as he was, so he held all others to be. Words spoken by his mother especially were to him as certain realities as if they had been uttered by the fair Goddess who lives in a well ; but if he was truthful and trusting, he was also singularly penetrating for so young a child, and he now looked at his mother in sore perplexity.

She said that she must try to go and see him, and therefore that must be true ; and yet Johnny knew that she had no intention of trying — that she would never come, and that his holidays were to be spent in solitude. He was too young to say as much to himself in the clear speech which thought utters to us in our riper years, but he felt it, and it was the feeling which brought to his face that earnest, perplexed look before which his mother shrank. Poor woman ! she liked truth well enough, and, to do her justice, practised it nine times out of the ten; but when truth would be a stumbling-block in her path, why, she stepped aside, and asked of herself, ' How could I help it ?' Truth in the present case she considered one of these stumbling-blocks, and therefore she looked at the fire. Johnny was much depressed, and his mother, not knowing how to cheer him, decreed, in her peremptory way, that he was cross and sleepy, and must go to bed.

Johnny submitted; it never occurred to him to dispute her will. Accordingly, the sofa was turned down, and Johnny, having said his prayers and undressed, was tucked in; but he could not sleep, and the look of his large brilliant eyes never left his mother. She came and stood over him, half fond, half reproving. ' I wonder where you get your eyes from ?' she said, smiling down at his little pale face. ' They are not like mine — they are not like your father's. They are Irish eyes. I believe you had an Irish great-grandmother. I suppose the eyes came from her.' Johnny had no doubt on the subject, having heard his mother utter the above remark a hundred times at least. ' Well, they are lovely eyes,' resumed Mrs. Dorrien, with a sigh, ' and clever eyes, too ; and if you don't learn, Johnny, I shall always say the fault was yours.' ' But I will learn — indeed I will, little mother,' cried Johnny, with strong symptoms of forthcoming tears. ' Hush !' said Mrs. Dorrien — ' go to sleep directly ;' and to enforce her commands by the aid of darkness, she carried away the lamp to the next room, where she at once busied herself in looking over Johnny's clothes.

At first Johnny's mother saw very well that three little shirts were past mending, and that there was no cure to the frayed edges of two white collars ; but after awhile there came such a mist over her eyes that she saw nothing more. The natural grief which she had hidden and repressed now overpowered her ; her poor hands shook as she put away one of Johnny's silk neckties, and remembered that other hands than her own would have to settle and tie it round the neck of her boy for many a day to come — unless, indeed, as was most likely, his own little awkward hands were left to perform that office. ' Oh ! how can I do without him ? — how can I ?' thought the poor mother, sinking down on a chair by the side of her bed, and burying her face in her pillow, that Johnny might not hear her sobbing. ' I could be so happy alone with him in a desert.

How can I let him go away from me ? Must I let others nurse him when he is ill, and must I die, perhaps, and not see him again ? My boy, my Johnny, all that is left to me out of my poor wasted life, how can I do it ?' Cruel, bitter question ! But though Mrs. Dorrien was not a ■3 high-minded woman, she had, as we have already said, plenty of courage and energy. Grief and repining being utterly useless, she now bade them begone. Maternal ambition, the feeling that she was sacrificing her own happiness for that of her darling, and a firm faith that, if she surrendered her child to the keeping of Providence, the trust would be redeemed, gave her strength to bear this sorrow. She raised her face from her pillow, she returned to the survey of Johnny's clothes, and when it was at length time for her to go to bed, she only allowed herself one indulgence — that of going to look at her sleeping boy.

But Johnny was not asleep ; his bright eyes were open, his cheeks were flushed. ' Little mother,' he said excitedly, ' I will be a great scholar, I will indeed. And you need not be afraid of Mr. Perry, and I will earn plenty of money for you when I grow up and ' ' Hush, darling, you must sleeep,' soothingly said his mother. She kissed him fondly ; she sat down by his side ; she took his little fevered hands in her own ; she talked to him coaxingly, and little by little she led his thoughts away from the school and Mr. Perry. ' You were talking to me about Aladdin, were you not ?' said Mrs. Dorrien. ' What were you saying, Johnny ?' ' Oh, little mother ! I was saying that, if I had his lamp, I would rub and rub it till you should have heaps and heaps of gold, and ' ' There, that will do,' interrupted Mrs. Dorrien, vexed to see the excited look coming back to his eyes ; ' I wish Mr. Perry had never given you that book.

Shut your eyes and go to sleep, child. People can always fall asleep, if they will only shut their eyes.' Obedient Johnny closed his eyes, and was indeed very fast asleep ere long. But alas for Mrs. Dorrien's infallible recipe ! In vain she tried its efficacy that night. Sleep came not to her until long after gray morning had stolen into her room.

Chapter II

It is bitter to linger over a parting, and there is no need for us to linger over this one. The week had gone by pitilessly swift in its course, thought Johnny's mother. She had worked night and day at his little outfit, she had drained her scanty resources almost dry, that he might want for nothing, and she had gone down to Newhaven to see him on board the steamer that was to bear him away, and commended him to the care of captain and steward, with a sharp sort of earnestness that plainly said : ' You have nothing on board your boat so valuable as my boy.' And having done this, Mrs. Dorrien had kissed Johnny, strictly forbidden him to cry, and left him to all appearance for the purpose of taking the train, and going straight home to Kensington, and there resuming that colouring of photographs which his departure had sadly interrupted.

In reality, Mrs. Dorrien had retired to the gloom of a dingy corner of the station, and thence she watched the little solitary figure that stood on the deck, so little and so lonely in its plain gray suit, and with its leather bag strapped round its tiny body, the little figure and pale face that were all in all to her. She did not see them long. There was a great stir, a great confusion, and no little noise; then the steamer glided away, and when it could be seen no more, even by her straining eyes, Mrs. Dorrien took the train, and went home — if that place whence her boy was gone could be called home now. Sadly and silently, with her veil down, she went home, a lonely, childless mother. Never in all the ten years of his little life had Johnny felt so forlorn as he felt when he found himself standing alone on the deck of the boat that was bearing him away to a strange country.

He did not cry, he had promised his mother that he would not, and the somewhat severe discipline to which Mrs. Dorrien had subjected him had done him this much good, that he could restrain the manifestation of his feelings ; but he looked around him slowly and wistfully, with that gravity of aspect which is so remarkable an attribute of childhood. Mrs. Dorrien little suspected that by thus sending her boy adrift she had in a great measure shaken the very foundations of his moral world. Johnny had not been a spoiled child, nor yet an indulged one ; but he had been cared for, and watched over, as spoiled and pampered children are not always. Mrs. Dorrien washed him, combed him, dressed and undressed him, with her own hands. She learned Latin to teach it to him, no book ever met his eyes without first being read by her, and no child was allowed to say a word to Johnny until Mrs. Dorrien had sifted him thoroughly, and, as she said herself, ' turned him inside out.' Johnny did not grow up very like his mother, in mind or in temper, for all that ; but he grew up in blind re liance on her superior wisdom and judgment.

And now she had left him, nay, she had sent him forth, and Johnny felt in the condition of a fledgling whom the parent bird has just turned out of the nest. He did not say in thought that he must rely on himself alone for the future, but such was his feeling ; and as Johnny, though quick and susceptible, did not be long to the tribe of the weak, but to that of the strong, on that feeling he was to act henceforth. The bond — the great bond between him and his mother — was really broken from that hour of their first parting. To his dying day he loved her fondly, but he never gave her back the authority she had relinquished by sending him amongst strangers. Of this great change Johnny was so far conscious that, even whilst he looked about him with the keen, observant looks of childhood, he could not forget it.