“Well, dear, I won’t press you for any promise; but you know it will be a very poor Christmas without you. Life itself feels poor without my boy. There! I did not mean to have said it; but I am a foolish woman, and it is quite true.”
“Life is so poor in any case. I don’t know how it can matter one way or another,” said John, with a shrug of his shoulders. He was not touched so much as impatient; and unconsciously he quickened his pace and drew her on with him, faster than it was easy for her to go.
“We are in plenty of time for the train,” Mrs Mitford said; “not so quick, if you please, my dear. Oh, John, it is so strange to hear you say that life is poor! Have you nothing to tell me, my own boy? I have never asked a question, though you may think my heart has been sore enough sometimes. What is the matter? won’t you tell me now?”
“There is nothing to tell--nothing is the matter,” said John.
“But you are not happy, my dear boy. Do you think your mother could help seeing that? Oh, John, what is it? Is it her father? Do you feel the change? It must be something about Kate?”
“It is nothing at all, mother,” said John, with hasty impatience; and then it suddenly occurred to him that he was going away into utter solitude, and that here was the only being in the world to whom he could even partially open his heart. She felt the change of his voice, though she had no clue to the fitfulness of his thoughts. “It is quite true,” he continued, “there is nothing to tell; and yet all is not well, mother. I can’t tell you how or why. I am jangled somehow out of tune--that is all; there is nobody to blame.”
“I could see that, my dear,” she said, looking wistfully at him; “but is that all you have to say to your mother, John?”
“There is nothing more to say,” he repeated. “I cannot tell you, I can’t tell myself what is the matter. There is nothing the matter. It is a false position somehow, I suppose--that is all.”
“In the bank, and in the house, and in the world, mother,” he cried, with sudden vehemence. “I don’t seem able to take root anywhere; everything looks false and forced and miserable. I can neither go on nor go back, and I stagnate standing still. Never mind; I suppose it is just an experience like any other, and will have to be borne.”