Latein the afternoon Mr. Brownlow did really look as if he were taking a holiday. He came forth into the avenue as Sara was going out, and joined her, and she seized her opportunity, and took his arm, and led him up and down in the afternoon sunshine. It is a pretty sight to see a girl clinging to her father, pouring all her guesses and philosophies into his ears, and claiming his confidence. It is a different kind of intercourse, more picturesque, more amusing, in some ways even more touching, than the intercourse of a mother and daughter, especially when there is, as with these two, no mother in the case, and the one sole parent has both offices to fulfill. Sara clung to her father’s arm, and congratulated herself upon having got him out, and promised herself a good long talk. “ForI never see you, papa,” she said; “you know I never see you. You are at that horrid office the whole long day.”
“Only all the mornings and all the evenings,” said Mr. Brownlow, “which is a pretty good proportion, I think, of life.”
“Oh, but there is always Jack or somebody,” said Sara, tightening her clasp on his arm; “and sometimes one wants only you.”
“Have you something to say to me then,” said her father, with a little curiosity, even anxiety,—for of course his own disturbed thoughts accompanied him everywhere, and put meanings into every word that was said.
“Something!” said Sara, with indignation; “heaps of things. I want to tell you and I want to ask you;—but, by-the-by, answer me first, before I forget, is this Mr. Powys very poor?”
“Powys!” said Mr. Brownlow, with a suppressed thrill of excitement. “What of Powys? It seems to me I hear of nothing else. Where has the young fellow gone?”
“Idid not do any thing to him,” said Sara, turning her large eyes full of mock reproach upon her father’s face. “You need not ask him from me in that way. I suppose he has gone home—to his mother and his little sisters,” she added, dropping her voice.
“And what do you know about his mother and his little sisters?” said Mr. Brownlow, startled yet amused by her tone.
“Well, he told me he had such people belonging to him, papa,” said Sara; “and he gave me a very grand description before that of what it is to be poor. I want to know if he is very poor? and could I send any thing to them, or do any thing? or are they too grand for that? or couldn’t you raise his salary or something? You ought to do something, since he is a favorite of your own.”
“Did he complain to you?” said Mr. Brownlow, in consternation; “and I trust in goodness, Sara, you did not propose to do any thing for them as you say?”
“No indeed; I had not the courage,” said Sara. “I never have sense enough to do such things. Complain! oh, dear no; he did not complain. But he was so much in earnest about it, you know,aproposof that silly speech I made at luncheon, that he made me quite uncomfortable. Is he a—a gentleman, papa?”
“He is my clerk,” said Mr. Brownlow, shortly; and then the conversation dropped. Sara was not a young woman to be stopped in this way in ordinary cases, though she did stop this time, seeing her father fully meant it; but all the same she did not stop thinking, which indeed, in her case, was a thing very difficult to do.
Then Mr. Brownlow began to nerve himself for a great effort. It excited him as nothing had excited him for many a long year. He drew his child’s arm more closely through his own, and drew her nearer to him. They were going slowly down the avenue, upon which the afternoon sunshine lay warm, all marked and lined across by columns of trees, and the light shadows of the half-developed foliage. “Do you know,” he said, “I have been thinking a great deal lately about a thing you once said to me. I don’t know whether you meant it—”
“I never say any thing I don’t mean,” said Sara, interrupting him; but she too felt that something more than usual was coming, and did not enlarge upon the subject. “What was it, papa?” she said, clinging still closer to his arm.
“You refused Motherwell,” said Mr. Brownlow, “though he could have given you an excellent position, and is, they tell me, a very honest fellow. I told you to consider it, but you refused him, Sara.”
“Well, no,” said Sara, candidly; “refusing people is very clumsy sort of work, unless you want to tell of it after, and that is mean. I did not refuse him. I only contrived, you know, that he should not speak.”
“Well, I suppose that it comes to about the same thing,” said Mr. Brownlow. “What I am going to say now is very serious. You once told me you would marry the man I asked you to marry. Hush, my darling, don’t speak yet. I dare say you never thought I would ask such a proof of confidence from you; but there are strange turns in circumstances. I am not going to be cruel, like a tyrannical father in a book; but if I were to ask you to do such a great thing for me—to do it blindly without asking questions, to try to love and to marry a man, not of your own choice, but mine—Sara, would you do it? Don’t speak yet. I would not bind you. At the last moment you should be free to withdraw from the bargain—”
“Let me speak, papa!” cried Sara. “Do you mean to say that youneedthis—that you reallywantit? Is it something that can’t be done any other way? first tell me that.”
“I don’t think it can be done any other way,” said Mr. Brownlow sadly, with a sigh.
“Then of course I will do it,” said Sara. She turned to him as she spoke, and fixed her eyes intently on his face. Her levity, her lightness, her careless freedom were all gone. No doubt she had meant the original promise, as she said, but she had made it with a certain gay bravado, little dreaming of any thing to follow. Now she was suddenly sobered and silenced. There was no mistaking the reality in Mr. Brownlow’s face. Sara was not a careful, thoughtful woman; she was a creature who leaped at conclusions, and would not linger over the most solemn decision. And then she was not old enough to see both sides of a question. She jumped at it, and gave her pledge, and fixed her fate more quickly than another temperament would have chosen a pair of gloves. But for all that she was very grave. She looked up in her father’s face, questioning him with her eyes. She was ready to put her life in his hands, to give him her future, her happiness, as if it had been a flower for his coat. But yet she was sufficiently roused to see that this was no laughing matter. “Of course I will do it,” she repeated without any grandeur of expression; but she never looked so grave, or had been so serious all her life.
As for her father, he looked at her with a gaze that seemed to devour her. He wanted to see into her heart. He wanted to look through and through those two blue spheres into the soul which was below, and he could not do it. He was so intent upon this that he did not even perceive at the first minute that she had consented. Then the words caught his ear and went to his heart—“Of course I will do it.” When he caught the meaning, strangely enough his object went altogether out of his mind, and he thought of nothing but of the half pathetic, unhesitating,magnificent generosity of his child. She had not asked a question, why or wherefore, but had given herself up at once with a kind of prodigal readiness. A sudden gush of tears, such as had not refreshed them for years, came into Mr. Brownlow’s eyes. Not that they ran over, or fell, or displayed themselves in any way, but they came up under the bushy eyebrows like water under reeds, making a certain glimmer in the shade. “My dear child!” he said, with a voice that had a jar in it such as profound emotion gives; and he gathered up her two little hands into his, and pressed them together, holding her fast to him. He was so touched that his impulse was to give her back her word, not to take advantage of it; to let every thing go to ruin if it would, and keep his child safe. But was it not for herself? It was in the moment when this painful sweetness was going to his very heart that he bent over her and kissed her on the forehead. He could not say any thing, but there are many occasions, besides those proper to lovers, when that which is inexpressible may be put into a kiss. The touch of her father’s lips on Sara’s forehead told her a hundred things; love, sorrow, pain, and a certain poignant mixture of joy and humiliation. He could not have uttered a word to save his life. She was willing to do it, with a lavish youthful promptitude; and he, was he to accept the sacrifice? This was what John Brownlow was thinking when he stooped over her and pressed his lips on his child’s brow. She had taken from him the power of speech.
Such a supreme moment can not last. Sara, too, not knowing why, had felt thatserrement du cœur, and had been pierced by the same poignant sweetness. But she knew little reason for it, and none in particular why her father should be so moved, and her spirits came back to her long before his did. She walked along by his side in silence, feeling by the close pressure of her hands that he had not quite come to himself for some time aftershehad come back to herself. With every step she took the impression glided off Sara’s mind; her natural light-heartedness returned to her. Moreover, she was not to be compelled to marry that very day, so there was no need for being miserable about it just yet at least. She was about to speak half a dozen times before she really ventured on utterance; and when at last she took her step out of the solemnity and sublimity of the situation, this was how Sara plunged into it, without any interval of repose.
“I beg your pardon, papa; I would not trouble you if I could help it. But please, now it is all decided, will you just tell me—am I to marry any body that turns up? or is there any one in particular? I beg your pardon, but one likes to know.”
Mr. Brownlow was struck by this demand, as was to be expected. It affected his nerves, though nobody had been aware that he had any nerves. He gave an abrupt, short laugh, which was not very merry, and clasped her hands tighter than ever in his.
“Sara,” he said, “this is not a joke. Do you know there is scarcely any thing I would not have done rather than ask this of you? It is a very serious matter to me.”
“I am sure I am treating it very seriously,” said Sara. “I don’t take it for a joke; but you see, papa, there is a difference. What you care for is that it should be settled. It is not you that have the marrying to do; but for my part it isthatthat is of the most importance. I should rather like to know who it was, if it would be the same to you.”
Once more Mr. Brownlow pressed in his own the soft, slender hands he held. “You shall know in time—you shall know in good time,” he said, “if it is inevitable;” and he gave a sort of moan over her as a woman might have done. His beautiful[B]child! who was fit for a prince’s bride, if any prince were good enough. Perhaps even yet the necessity might be escaped.
[B]The fact was, Sara was not beautiful. There was not the least trace of perfection about her; but her father had prepossessions and prejudices, such as parents are apt to have, unphilosophical as it may be.
[B]The fact was, Sara was not beautiful. There was not the least trace of perfection about her; but her father had prepossessions and prejudices, such as parents are apt to have, unphilosophical as it may be.
“But I should like to know now,” said Sara; and then she gave a little start, and colored suddenly, and looked him quickly, keenly in the face. “Papa!” she said;—“you don’t mean—do you mean—this Mr. Powys, perhaps?”
Mr. Brownlow actually shrank from her eye. He grew pale, almost green; faltered, dropped her hands—“My darling!” he said feebly. He had not once dreamt of making any revelation on this subject. He had not even intended to put it to her at all, had it not come to him, as it were, by necessity; and consequently he was quite unprepared to defend himself. As for Sara, she clung to him closer, and looked him still more keenly in the eyes.
“Tell me,” she said; “I will keep my word all the same. It will make no difference to me. Papa, tell me! it is better I should know at once.”
“You ought not to have asked me that question, Sara,” said Mr. Brownlow, recovering himself; “if I ask such a sacrifice of you, you shall know all about it in good time. I can’t tell; my own scheme does not look so reasonable to me as it did—I may give it up altogether. But in the mean time don’t ask me any more questions. And if you should repent, even at the last moment—”
“But if it is necessary to you, papa?” said Sara, opening her eyes—“if it has to be done, what does it matter whether I repent or not?”
“Nothing is necessary to me that would cost your happiness,” said Mr. Brownlow. And then they went on again for some time in silence. As for Sara, she had no inclination to have the magnificence of her sacrifice thus interfered with. For the moment her feeling was that, on the whole, it would even be better that the marriage to which she devoted herself should be an unhappy and unfit one. If it were happy it would not be a sacrifice; and to be able to repent at the last, like any commonplace young woman following her own inclinations, was not at all according to Sara’s estimation of the contract. She went on by her father’s side, thinking of that and of some other things in silence. Her thoughts were of a very different tenor from his. She was not taking the matter tragically as he supposed—no blank veil had been thrown over Sara’s future by this intimation, though Mr. Brownlow, walking absorbed by her side, was inclined to think so. On the contrary, her imagination had begun to play with the idea lightly,as with a far-off possibility in which there was some excitement, and even some amusement possible. While her father relapsed into painful consideration of the whole subject, Sara went on demurely by his side, not without the dawnings of a smile about the corners of her mouth. There was nothing said between them for a long time. It seemed to Mr. Brownlow as if the conversation had broken off at such a point that it would be hard to recommence it. He seemed to have committed and betrayed himself without doing any good whatever by it; and he was wroth at his own weakness. Softening of the brain! there might be something in what the Rector said. Perhaps it was disease, and not the pressure of circumstances, which had made him take so seriously the first note of alarm. Perhaps his whole scheme to secure Brownlows and his fortune to Sara was premature, if not unnecessary. It was while he was thus opening up anew the whole matter, that Sara at last ventured to betray the tenor of her thoughts.
“Papa,” she said, “I asked you a question just now, and you did not answer me; but answer me now, for I want to know. This—this—gentleman—Mr. Powys. Is he—a gentleman, papa?”
“I told you he was my clerk, Sara,” said Mr. Brownlow, much annoyed by the question.
“I know you did, but that is not quite enough. A man may be a gentleman though he is a clerk. I want a plain answer,” said Sara, looking up again into her father’s face.
And he was not without the common weakness of Englishmen for good connections—very far from that. He would not have minded, to tell the truth, giving a thousand pounds or so on the spot to any known family of Powys which would have adopted the young Canadian into its bosom. “I don’t know what Powys has to do with the matter,” he said; and then unconsciously his tone changed. “It is a good name; and I think—I imagine—he must belong somehow to the Lady Powys who once lived near Masterton. His father was well born, but, I believe,” added Mr. Brownlow, with a slight shiver, “that he married—beneath him. I think so. I can’t say I am quite sure.”
“I should have thought you would have known every thing,” said Sara. “Of course, papa, you know I am dying to ask you a hundred questions, but I won’t, if you will only just tell me one thing. A girl may promise to accept any one—whom—whom her people wish her to have; but is it as certain,” said Sara, solemnly, “that he—will have me?”
Then Mr. Brownlow stood still for a moment, looking with wonder, incomprehension, and a certain mixture of awe and dismay upon his child. Sara, obeying his movement, stood still also with her eyes cast down, and just showing a glimmer of malice under their lids, with the color glowing softly in her cheeks, with the ghost of a smile coming and going round her pretty mouth. “Oh child, child!” was all Mr. Brownlow said. He was moved to smile in spite of himself, but he was more moved to wonder. After all, she was making a joke of it—or was it really possible that, in this careless smiling way, the young creature, who had thrust her life into his hands like a flower, to be disposed of as he would, was going forward to meet all unknown evils and dangers? The sober, steady, calculating man could understand a great many things more abstruse, but he could not understand this.
This, however, was about the end of their conference, for they had reached old Betty’s cottage by this time, who came out, ungrateful old woman as she was, to courtesy as humbly to Mr. Brownlow as if he had been twenty old squires, and to ask after his health. And Sara had occasion to speak to her friend Pamela on the other side of the way. It was not consistent with the father’s dignity, of course, to go with her to visit those humble neighbors, but he stood at the gate with old Betty behind in a whirl of courtesies, watching while Sara’s tall, straight, graceful figure went across the road, and Pamela with her little, fresh, bright, dewy face, like an April morning, came running out to meet her. “Poor little thing!” Mr. Brownlow said to himself—though he could not have explained why he was sorry for Pamela; and then he turned back slowly and went home, crossing the long shadows of the trees. He was not satisfied with himself or with his day’s work. He was like a doctor accustomed to regard with a cool and impartial eye the diseases of others, but much at a loss when he had his own personal pains in hand. He was uneasy and ashamed when he was alone, and reminded himself that he had managed very badly. What was he to do? Was he to act as a doctor would, and put his domestic malady into the hands of a brother practitioner? But this was a suggestion at which he shuddered. Was he to take Jack into his counsel and get the aid of his judgment?—but Jack was worse, a thousand times worse, than a stranger. He had all his life been considered a very clever lawyer, and he knew it; he had got scores of people out of scrapes, and, one way or other, half the county was beholden to him; and he could do nothing but get himself deeper and deeper into his own miserable scrape. Faint thoughts of making it into “a case” and taking opinions on it—taking Wrinkell’s opinion, for instance, quietly, his old friend who had a clear head and a great deal of experience—came into his mind. He had made a muddle of it himself. And then the Rector’s question recurred to him with still greater force—could it be softening of the brain? Perhaps it would be best to speak to the doctor first of all.
Meanwhile Sara had gone into Mrs. Swayne’s little dark parlor, out of the sunshine, and had seated herself at Pamela’s post in the window, very dreamy and full of thought. She did not even speak for a long time, but let her little friend prattle to her. “I saw you and Mr. Brownlow coming down the avenue,” said Pamela; “what a long time you were, and how strange it looked! Sometimes you had a great deal to say, and then for a long time you would walk on and on, and never look at each other. Was he scolding you? Sometimes I thought he was.”
Sara made no answer to this question; she only uttered a long, somewhat demonstrative sigh, and then went off upon a way of her own. “I wonder how it would have felt to have had a mother?” she said, and sighed again, to her companion’s great dismay.
“How it would have felt!” said Pamela; “that is just the one thing that makes me feel I don’t envy you. You have quantities and quantities of fine things, but I have mamma.”
“And I have papa,” said Sara, quickly, not disposed to be set at a disadvantage; “that was not what I meant. Sometimes, though you may think it very wicked, I feel as if I was rather glad; for, of course, if mamma had been living it would have been very different for me; and then sometimes I think I would give a great deal—Look here. I don’t like talking of such things; but did you ever think what you would do if you were married? Fanny Hardcastle likes talking of it. How do you think you should feel? to the gentleman, you know?”
“Think,” said Pamela; “does one need to think about it? love him, to be sure.” And this she said with a rising color, and with two rays of new light waking up in her eyes.
“Ah, love him,” said Sara; “it is very easy to talk; but how are you to love him? that does not come of itself just when it is told, you know; at least I suppose it doesn’t—I am sure I never tried.”
“But if you did not love him, of course you would not marry him,” said Pamela, getting confused.
“Yes—that is just one of the things it is so easy to say,” said Sara; “and I suppose at your age you don’t know any better. Don’t you know that peoplehaveto marry, whether they like it or not? and when they never, never would have thought of it themselves? I suppose,” said Sara, in the strength of her superior knowledge, “that most of us are married like that. Because it suits our people, or because— I don’t know what—any thing but one’s own will.” And this little speech the young martyr again rounded with a sigh.
“Are you going to be married?” said Pamela, drawing a footstool close to her friend’s feet, and looking up with awe into her face. “I wish you would tell me. Mamma has gone to Dewsbury, and she will not be back for an hour. Oh, do tell me—I will never repeat it to any body. And, dear Miss Brownlow, if you don’t love him—”
“Hush,” said Sara; “I never said any thing about ahim. It is you who are such a romantic little girl. What I was speaking of was one’s duty; one has to do one’s duty, whether one likes it or not.”
This oracular speech was very disappointing to Pamela. She looked up eagerly with her bright eyes, trying to make out the romance which she had no doubt existed. “I can fancy,” she said, softly, “why you wanted your mother;” and her little hand stole into Sara’s, which lay on her knee. Sara did not resist the soft caress. She took the hand, and pressed it close between her own, which were longer, and not so rounded and childlike; and then, being a girl of uncertain disposition, she laughed, to Pamela’s great surprise and dismay.
“I think, perhaps, I like to be my own mistress best,” she said; “if mamma had lived she never would have let me do any thing I wanted to do—and then most likely she would not have known what I meant. It is Jack, you know, who is most like mamma.”
“But he is very nice,” said Pamela, quickly; and then she bent down her head as quickly, feeling the hot crimson rushing to her face, though she did not well know why. Sara took no notice of it—never observed it, indeed—and kept smoothing down in her own her little neighbor’s soft small hand.
“Oh yes,” she said, “and I am very fond of my brother; only he and I are not alike, you know. I wonder who Jack will marry, if he ever marries; but it is very fine to hear him talk of that—perhaps he never did to you. He is so scornful of every body who falls in love, and calls them asses, and all sorts of things. I should just like to see him fall in love himself. If he were to make a very foolish marriage it would be fun. They say those dreadfully wise people always do.”
“Do they?” said Pamela; and she bent down to look at the border of her little black silk apron, and to set it to rights, very energetically, with her unoccupied hand. But she did not ask any farther question; and so the two girls sat together for a few minutes, hand clasped in hand, the head of the one almost touching the other, yet each far afield in her own thoughts; of which, to tell the truth, though she was so much the elder and the wiser, Sara’s thoughts were the least painful, the least heavy, of the two.
“You don’t give me any advice, Pamela,” she said at last. “Come up the avenue with me at least. Papa has gone home, and it is quite dark here out of the sun. Put on your hat and come with me. I like the light when it slants so, and falls in long lines. I think you have a headache to-day, and a walk will do you good.”
“Yes, I think I have a little headache,” said Pamela, softly; and she put on her hat and followed her companion out. The sunshine had passed beyond Betty’s cottage, and cut the avenue obliquely in two—the one end all light, the other all gloom. The two young creatures ran lightly across the shady end, Sara, as always, leading the way. Her mind, it is true, was as full as it could be of her father’s communication, but the burden sat lightly on her. Now and then a word or two would tingle, as it were, in her ears; now and then it would occur to her that her fate was sealed, as she said, and a sigh, half false half true, would come to her lips, but in the mean time she was more amused by the novelty of the position than discouraged by the approach of fate.
“What are you thinking of?” she said, when they came into the tender light in the farther part of the avenue; for the two, by this time, had slackened their pace, and drawn close together, as is the wont of girls, though they did not speak.
“I was only looking at our shadows going before us,” said Pamela, and this time the little girl echoed very softly Sara’s sigh.
“They are not at all beautiful to look at; they are shadows on stilts,” said Sara; “you might think of something more interesting than that.”
“But I wish something did go before us like that to show the way,” said Pamela. “I wish it was true about guardian angels—if we could only see them, that is to say; and then it is so difficult to know—”
“What?” said Sara; “you are too young to want a guardian angel; you are not much more than a little angel yourself. When one has begun to go daily farther from the cast, one knows the good of being quite a child.”
“But I am not quite a child,” said Pamela, under her breath.
“Oh yes, you are. But look, here Jack must be coming; don’t you hear the wheels? I didnot know it was so late. Shall you mind going back alone, for I must run and dress? And please come to me in the morning as soon as ever they are gone, I have such heaps of things to say.”
Saying this, Sara ran off, flying along under the trees, she and her shadow; and poor little Pamela, not so much distressed as perhaps she ought to have been to be left alone, turned back toward the house. The dog-cart was audible before it dashed through the gate, and Pamela’s heart beat, keeping time with the ringing of the mare’s feet and the sound of the wheels. But it stopped before Betty’s door, and some one jumped down, and the mare and the dog-cart and the groom dashed past Pamela in a kind of whirlwind. Mr. John had keen eyes, and saw something before him in the avenue; and he was quick-witted, and timed his inquiries after Betty in the most prudent way. Before Pamela, whose heart beat louder than ever, was half way down the avenue, he had joined her, evidently, whatever Betty or Mrs. Swayne might say to the contrary, in the most purely accidental way.
“This is luck,” said Jack; “I have not seen you for two whole days, except at the window, which doesn’t count. I don’t know how we managed to endure the dullness before that window came to be inhabited. Come this way a little, under the chestnuts—you have the sun in your eyes.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Pamela, “and I must not wait; I am going home.”
“I suppose you have been walking with Sara, and she has left you to go home alone,” said Jack; “it is like her. She never thinks of any thing. But tell me what you have been doing these two frightfully long days?”
From which it will be seen that Mr. John, as well as his sister, had made a little progress toward intimacy since he became first acquainted with the lodgers at Mrs. Swayne’s.
“I don’t think they have been frightfully long days,” said Pamela, making the least little timid response to his emphasis and to his eyes—wrong, no doubt, but almost inevitable. “I have been doing nothing more than usual; mamma has wanted me, that’s all.”
“Then it is too bad of mamma,” said Jack; “you know you ought to be out every day. I must come and talk to her about it—air and exercise, you know.”
“But you are not a doctor,” said Pamela, with a soft ring of laughter—not that he was witty, but that the poor child was happy, and showed it in spite of herself; for Mr. John had turned, and was walking down the avenue, very slowly, pausing almost every minute, and not at all like a man who was going home to dinner. He was still young. I suppose that was why he preferred Pamela to the more momentous fact which was in course of preparation at the great house.
“I am a little of every thing,” he said; “I should like to go out to Australia, and get a farm, and keep sheep. Don’t you like the old stories and the old pictures with the shepherdesses? If you had a little hut all covered with flowers, and a crook with ribbons—”
“Oh, but I should not like to be a shepherdess,” cried Pamela, in haste.
“Shouldn’t you? Well, I did not mean that; but to go out into the bush, or the backwoods, or whatever they call it, and do every thing and get every thing for one’s self. Shouldn’t you like that? Better than all the nonsense and all the ceremony here,” said Jack, bending down to see under the shade of her hat, which as it happened was difficult enough.
“Wedon’t have much ceremony,” said Pamela, “but if I was a lady like your sister—”
“Like Sara!” said Jack, and he nodded his head with a little brotherly contempt. “Don’t be any thing different from what you are, please. I should like people to wear always the same dress, and keep exactly as they were when—the first time, you know. I like you, for instance, in your red cloak. I never see a red cloak without thinking of you. I hope you will keep that one forever and ever,” said the philosophical youth. As for Pamela, she could not but feel a little confused, wondering whether this, or Sara’s description of her brother, was the reality. And she should not have known what to answer but that the bell at the house interfered in her behalf, and began to send forth its touching call—a sound which could not be gainsayed.
“There is the bell,” she cried; “you will be too late for dinner. Oh, please don’t come any farther. There is old Betty looking out.”
“Bother dinner,” said Mr. John, “and old Betty too,” he added, under his breath. He had taken her hand, the same hand which Sara had been holding, to bid her good-bye, no doubt in the ordinary way. At all events, old Betty’s vicinity made the farewell all that politeness required. But he did not leave her until he had opened the gate for her, and watched her enter at her own door. “When my sister leaves Miss Preston in the avenue,” he said, turning gravely to Betty, with that severe propriety for which he was distinguished, “be sure you always see her safely home; she is too young to walk about alone.” And with these dignified words Mr. John walked on, having seen the last of her, leaving Betty speechless with amazement. “As if I done it!” Betty said. And then he went home to dinner. Thus both Mr. Brownlow’s children, though he did not know it, had begun to make little speculations for themselves in undiscovered ways.
Afterthat day of curious abandonment and imprudence, Mr. Brownlow returned to his natural use and wont. He could not account to himself next day even for his want of control, for his injudiciousness. What end could it serve to lay open his plans to Sara? He had supposed she would take it seriously, as he had done, and, lo! she had taken it very lightly, as something at the first glance rather amusing than otherwise. Nothing could have so entirely disconcerted her father. His position, his good name, his very life, seemed to hang upon it, and Sara had taken it as a singularly piquant novelty, and nothing more. Then it was that it had occurred to him about that softening of the brain, and the thought had braced him up, had reawakened all his energies, and sealed his lips, and made him himself again. He went to the office next day, and all the following days, and took no more noticeof young Powys than if he had never tried to win his confidence, and never introduced him to his daughter. No doubt it was a disappointment to the young man. No doubt a good deal of the intoxication of the moment had remained in Powys’s brain. He had remembered and dwelt upon the effect of that passing sunbeam on Miss Brownlow’s hair and her dress, much more than he need have done. And though he did not look at it much, the young Canadian had hung up the Claude in his memory—the Claude with a certain setting round it more important than its actual frame. This he had done naturally, as a kind of inevitable consequence. And it was not to be denied that he watched for Mr. Brownlow’s coming next morning, and waited for some little sign of special friendship, something that should show, on his employer’s part as well, a consciousness of special favor extended. But no such sign came. He might have been a cabbage for all the notice Mr. Brownlow took of him as he passed to his own office. Not a glance, not a word, betrayed any thing different from the ordinary not unkind but quite indifferent demeanor of the lawyer to his clerks. Then, as was to be expected, a certain surprise and painful enlightenment—such as every body has to encounter, more or less, who are noticed by their social superiors—came upon the young man. It was all a caprice, then, only momentary and entirely without consequences, which had introduced him to Mr. Brownlow’s table and his daughter. He belonged to a different world, and it was vain to think that the other world would ever open to him. He was too unimportant even to be kept at a distance. He was her father’s clerk. In Canada that would not have mattered so much, but in this old hard long-established England— Poor young fellow! he knew so little. The thought brought with it a gush of indignation. He set his teeth, and it seemed to him that he was able to face that horrible conventional system, and break a lance upon it, and make good his entrance. He forgot his work even, and laid down his pen and stared at Mr. John, who was younger than himself. How was he better than himself? that was the question. Then an incipient sneer awoke in the soul of the young backwoodsman. If there was such a difference between the son of a country solicitor and his clerk, what must there be between the son and the clients, all the county people who came to have their difficulties solved? But then Mr. Brownlow was something more than a solicitor. If these two men—the one old and full of experience, the other young and ignorant, with only a screen of glass and a curtain between them—could have seen into each other’s thoughts, how strange would have been the revelation. But happily that is one refuge secured for humanity. They were each safe, beyond even their own powers of self-interpretation, in the recesses of their hearts.
Mr. Brownlow, by a superhuman effort not only took no notice of young Powys, but, so far as that was possible, dismissed all thought of him from his mind. It was a difficult thing to do, but yet he all but did it, plunging into the Wardell case, and other cases, and feeling with a certain relief that, after all,hehad not any particular symptoms of softening of the brain. The only thing he could not do was to banish from his own mind the consciousness of the young man’s presence. Busy as he was, occupied to the full extent of his powers, considering intently and with devotion fine points of law and difficult social problems, he never for one minute actually forgot that young Powys was sitting on the other side of the screen. He could forget any thing else without much difficulty. Neither Sara nor Brownlows were in his mind as he labored at his work. He thought no more of Jack’s presence in the office, though he knew very well he was there, than of the furniture; but he could have made a picture of the habitual attitude in which his clerk sat, of the way he bent over his work, and the quick upward glance of his eyes. He could not forget him. He could put out of his mind all his own uncomfortable speculations, and even the sense that he had conducted matters unwisely, which is a painful thought to such a man. All this he could do, but he could not get rid of Powys’s presence. He was there a standing menace, a standing reminder. He did not even always recall to himself, in the midst of his labors, why it was that this young man’s presence disturbed him, but he never could for a moment get free of the consciousness that he was there.
At the same time he regarded him with no unfriendly feelings. It was not hatred any more than it was love that moved him. He carried the thought with him, as we carry about with us, as soon as they are gone, that endless continual thought of the dead which makes our friends in the unseen world so much closer to us than any body still living to be loved and cherished. Mr. Brownlow carried his young enemy, who at the same time was not his enemy, about with him, as he would have carried the thought of a son who had died. It came to his mind when he got up in the morning. It went side by side with him wherever he went—not a ghost, but yet something ghostly in its perseverance and steady persistency. When he laid down his pen, or paused to collect his thoughts for a moment, the spectre of this youth would cross him, whatever he might be doing. While Mr. Wrinkell was talking to him, there would suddenly glide across Mr. Wrinkell’s substantial person the apparition of a desk and a stool and the junior clerk. All this was very trying; but still Mr. Brownlow wisely confined himself to this one manifestation of Powys’s presence, and sternly silenced in his own mind all thought on the subject. On that one unlucky day of leisure he had gone too far; in the rebound he determined to do nothing, to say nothing—to wait.
This was perhaps as little satisfactory to Sara as it was to young Powys. She had, there can not be a doubt, been much amused and a little excited by her father’s extraordinary proposal. She had not taken it solemnly indeed, but it had interested her all the same. It was true he was only her father’s clerk, but he was young, well-looking, and he had amused her. She felt in her soul that she could (or at least so she thought) make an utter slave of him. All the absurdities that ever were perpetrated by a young man in love would be possible to that young man, or else Sara’s penetration failed her, whereas the ordinary young men of society were incapable of absurdities. They were too much absorbed in themselves, too conscious of the possibility of ridicule, to throw themselves at a girl’s feet heart and soul;and the girl who was still in the first fantastic freshness of youth despised a sensible and self-respecting lover. She would have been pleased to have had the mysterious Canadian produced again and again to be operated upon. He was notblaséand instructed in every thing like Jack. And as for having to marry him, if he was the man, that was still a distant evil, and something quite unexpected no doubt would come of it; he would turn out a prince in disguise, or some perfectly good reason which her father was now concealing from her, would make every thing suitable. For Sara knew too well the important place she held in her father’s opinion to imagine for a moment that he meant to mate her unworthily. This was how the tenor of her thoughts was turned, and Mr. Brownlow was not insensible to the tacit assaults that were made upon him about hisprotégé. She gave up her judgment to him as she never had done before, with a filial self-abandonment that would have been beautiful had there been noarrière penséein it. “I will do as papa thinks proper. You know best, papa,” she said, in her new-born meekness, and Mr. Brownlow understood perfectly what she meant.
“You have turned dreadfully good all of a sudden,” said Jack. “I never knew you so dutiful before.”
“The longer one lives, one understands one’s duties the better,” said Sara, sententiously; and she looked at her father with a mingled submission and malice which called forth a smile about the corners of his mouth.
“I hope so,” said Mr. Brownlow; “though you have not made the experiment long enough to know much about it yet.”
“There are moments which give one experience as much as years,” said Sara, in the same lofty way, which was a speech that tempted the profane Jack to laughter, and made Mr. Brownlow smile once more. But though he smiled, the suggestion did not please him much. He laid his hand caressingly on her head, and smoothed back her pretty hair as he passed her; but he said nothing, and showed no sign of consciousness in respect to those moments which give experience. And the smile died off his lip almost before his hand was withdrawn from her hair. His thought as he went away was that he had been very weak; he had betrayed himself to the child who was still but a child, and knew no better than to play with such rude edge-tools. And the only remedy now was to close his lips and his heart, to tell nobody any thing, never to betray himself, whatever might happen. It was this thought that made him look so stern as he left Brownlows that morning—at least that made Pamela think he looked stern, as the dog-cart came out at the gate. Pamela had come to be very learned in their looks as they flashed past in that rapid moment in the early sunshine. She knew, or she thought she knew, whether Mr. John and his father were quite “friends,” or if there had been a little inevitable family difference between them, as sometimes happened; and it came into her little head that day that Mr. Brownlow was angry with his son, perhaps because— She would not put the reason into words, but it filled her mind with many reflections. Was it wrong for Mr. John to come home early so often?—to stay at home so often the whole day?—to time his expeditions so fortunately that they should end in stray meetings, quite accidental, almost every day? Perhaps he ought to be in the office helping his father instead of loitering about the avenue and elsewhere, and finding himself continually in Pamela’s way. This she breathed to herself inarticulately with that anxious aim at his improvement which is generally the first sign of awakening tenderness in a girl’s heart. It occurred to her that she would speak to him about it when she saw him next; and then it occurred to her with a flash of half guilty joy that he had not been in the dog cart as it dashed past, and that, accordingly, some chance meeting was very sure to take place that day. She meant to remonstrate with him, and put it boldly before him whether it was his duty to stay from the office; but still she could not but feel rather glad that he had stayed from the office that day.
As for Mr. John, he had, or supposed he had—or at least attempted to make himself suppose that he had—something to do at home on that particular day. His fishing-tackle had got out of order, and he had to see to that, or there was something else of equal importance which called his attention, and he had been in Masterton for two days in succession. Thus his conscience was very clear. It is true that he dawdled the morning away looking for Pamela, who was not to be found, and was late in consequence—so late that young Keppel, whom he had meant to join, had gone off with his rod on his shoulder to the Rectory to lunch, and was on his way back again before Jack found his way to the water-side. There are certain states of mind in which even dinner is an indifferent matter to a young man; and as for luncheon, it was not likely he would take the trouble to think of that.
“You are a nice fellow,” said Keppel, “to keep a man lounging here by himself all the time that’s any good; and here you are now when the sun is at its height. I don’t understand that sort of work. What have you been about all day?”
“I have not been lunching at the Rectory,” said Jack. “Have a cigar, old fellow? Now we are here, let’s make the best of it. I’ve been waiting about, kicking my heels, while you’ve been having lunch with Fanny Hardcastle. But I’ll tell you what, Keppel; I’d drop that if I were you!”
“Drop what?” cried Mr. Keppel, guiltily.
“Dancing about after every girl who comes in your way,” said Jack. “Why, you were making an ass of yourself only the other day at Brownlows.”
“Ah, that was out of my reach,” said Keppel, shaking his head solemnly, and he sighed. The sigh was such that Jack (who, as is well known, was totally impervious to sentimental weaknesses) burst into a fit of laughter.
“I suppose you think little Fanny is not out of your reach,” he said; “but Fanny is very wide awake, I can tell you. You haven’t got any money; you’re neglecting your profession.”
“It is my profession that is neglecting me,” said Keppel, meekly. “Don’t be hard upon a fellow, Jack. They say here that is you who are making an ass of yourself. They say you are to be seen about all the lanes—”
“Who says?” said Jack; and he could not prevent a certain flush from rising to his face. “Let every man mind his own business, andwoman too. As for you, Keppel, you would be inexcusable if you were to do any thing ridiculous in that way. A young fellow with a good profession that may carry him as high as he likes—as high as he cares to work for, I mean; of course nothing was ever done without work—and you waste your time going after every girl in the place—Fanny Hardcastle one day, somebody else the next. You’ll come to a bad end, if you don’t mind.”
“What is a fellow to do?” said Keppel. “When I see a nice girl—I am not a block of wood, like you—I can’t help seeing it. When a man has got eyes in his head, what is the use of his being reasoned with by a man who has none?”
“As good as yours any day,” said Jack, with natural indignation. “What use do you make of your eyes? I have always said marrying early was a mistake; but, by Jove, marrying early is better than following every girl about like a dog. Fanny Hardcastle would no more have you than Lady Godiva—”
“How do you know that?” said Keppel, quickly. “Besides—I—don’t—want her to have me,” he added, with deliberation; and thereupon he occupied himself for a long time very elaborately in lighting his cigar.
“It is all very well to tell me that,” said Jack. “You want every one of them, till you have seen the next. But look here, Keppel; take my advice: never look at a woman again for ten years, and then get married off-hand, and you’ll bless me and my good counsel for all the rest of your life.”
“Thank you,” said Keppel. “You don’t say what I’m to do with myself during the ten years; but, Jack, good advice is admirable, only one would like to know that one’s physician healed himself.”
“Physicians never heal themselves; it is an impossibility upon the face of it,” said Jack, calmly. “A doctor is never such an idiot as to treat his own case. Don’t you know that? When I want ghostly counsel, I’ll go to—Mr. Hardcastle. I never attempt to advise myself—”
“You think he’d give Fanny to you,” said Keppel, ruefully, “all for the sake of a little money. I hate moneyed people,—give us another cigar;—but she wouldn’t have you, Jack. I hope I know a little better than that.”
“So much the better,” said Jack; “nor you either, my boy, unless you come into a fortune. Mr. Hardcastle knows better than that. Are we going to stay here all day? I’ve got something to do up at the house.”
“What have you got to do? I’ll walk up that way with you,” said Keppel, lifting his basket from the grass.
“Well, it is not exactly at the house,” said Jack. “The fact is, I am in no particular hurry; I have somebody to see in the village—that is, on the road to Ridley; let’s walk that way, if you like.”
“Inhospitable, by Jove!” said Keppel. “I believe, after all, what they say must be true.”
“What do they say?” said Jack, coldly. “You may be sure, to start with, that it is not true; what they say never is. Come along, there’s some shade to be had along the river-side.”
And thus the two young men terminated the day’s fishing for which Jack had abandoned the office. They strayed along by the river-side until he suddenly bethought himself of business which led him in quite an opposite direction. When this recollection occurred to his mind, Jack took leave of his friend with the air of a man very full of occupation, and marched away as seriously and slowly as if he had really been going to work. He was not treating his own case. He had not even as yet begun to take his own case into consideration. He was simply intent upon his own way for the moment, and not disposed to brook any contradiction, or even inquiry. No particular intention, either prudent or imprudent, made his thoughts definite as he went on; no aims were in his mind. A certain soft intoxication only possessed him. Somehow to Jack, as to every body else, his own case was entirely exceptional, and not to be judged by ordinary rules. And he neither criticised nor even inquired into his personal symptoms. With Keppel the disease was plain, and the remedy quite apparent; but as for himself, was he ill at all, that he should want any physician’s care?
This question, which Jack did not consider for himself, was resolved for him in the most unexpected way. Mr. Brownlow had gone thoughtful and almost stern to the office, reflecting upon his unfortunate self-betrayal—vexed and almost irritated by the way in which Sara essayed to keep up the private understanding between them. He came back, no doubt, relieved of the cloud on his face; but still very grave, and considering within himself whether he could not tell his daughter that the events of that unlucky day were to count for nothing, and that the project he had proposed to her was given over forever. His thoughts were still so far incomplete, that he got down at the gate in order to walk up the avenue and carry them on at leisure. As he did so he looked across, as he too had got a habit of doing, at Mrs. Swayne’s window—the bright little face was not there. It was not there; but, in place of it, the mother was standing at the door, shading her eyes from the rare gleam of evening sun which reached the house, and looking out. Mr. Brownlow did not know any thing about this mother, and she was not so pleasant to look at as Pamela; yet, unawares, there passed through his mind a speculation, what she was looking for? Was she too, perhaps, in anxiety about her child? He felt half disposed to turn back and ask her, but did not do it; and by the time he had found old Betty’s cottage the incident had passed entirely from his mind. Once more the sunshine was slanting through the avenue, throwing the long tree-shadows and the long softly-moving figure of the wayfarer before him as he went on. He was not thinking of Jack, or any thing connected with him, when that startling apparition met his eyes, and brought him to a stand-still. The sight which made him suddenly stop short was a pretty one, had it been regarded with indifferent eyes; and, indeed, it was the merest chance, some passing movement of a bird or flicker of a branch, that roused Mr. Brownlow from his own thoughts and revealed that pretty picture to him. When the little flutter, whatever it was, roused him and he raised his eyes, he saw among the trees, at no great distance from him, a pair such as was wont to wander over soft sod, under blue sky, and amid all the sweet interlacements of sunshine and shade—two creatures—young, hopeful, and happy—the little one half-timid, half-trustful, looking up into her companion’s face; he so much taller, so much stronger, so much bolder, looking down upon her—taking the shy hand which she still withdrew, and yet still left to be retaken;—two creatures, unaware as yet why they were so happy—glad to be together, to look at each other, to touch each other—thinking no evil. Mr. Brownlow stood on the path and looked, and his senses seemed to fail him. It was a bit out of Arcadia, out of fairy-land, out of Paradise; and he himself once in his life had been in Arcadia too. But in the midst of this exquisite little poem one shrill discord of fact was what most struck the father’s ear—was it Jack? Jack!—he who was prudence itself—too prudent, even so far as words went, for Mr. Brownlow’s simple education and habits. And, good heavens! the little neighbor, the little bright face at the window which had won upon them all with its sweet friendly looks! Mr. Brownlow was a man, and not sentimental, but yet the sight after the first surprise gave him a pang at his heart. What did it mean? or could it mean any thing but harm and evil? He waited, standing on the path, clearly visible while they came softly forward absorbed in each other. He was fixed, as it were, in a kind of silent trance of pain and amazement. She was Sara’s little humble friend—she was the little neighbor, whose smiles had won even his own interest—she was the child of the worn woman at the cottage door, who stood shading her eyes and looking out for her with that anxious look in her face. All these thoughts filled Mr. Brownlow’s eyes with pity and even incipient indignation. And Jack! was this the result of his premature prudence, his character as a man of the world? His father’s heart ached as they came on so unconsciously. At last there came a moment when that curious perception of another eye regarding them, which awakens even sleepers, came over the young pair. Poor little Pamela gave a start and cry, and fell back from her companion’s side. Jack, for perhaps the first time in his life thoroughly confounded and overwhelmed, stood stock-still, gazing in consternation at the unthought-of spectator. Mr. Brownlow’s conduct at this difficult conjuncture was such as some people might blame. When he saw their consternation he did not at that very moment step in to improve the occasion. He paused that they might recognize him; and then he took off his hat very gravely, with a certain compassionate respect for the woman—the little weak fool-hardy creature who was thus playing with fate; and then he turned slowly and went on. It was as if a thunderbolt had fallen at the feet of the foolish young pair. Hitherto, no doubt, these meetings had been clandestine, though they did not know it; but now all at once illumination flashed upon both. They were ashamed to be found together, and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, both of them became conscious of the shame. They gave one glance at each other, and then looked no more. What had they been doing all those stolen hours?—all those foolish words, all those soft touches of the warm rosy young fingers—what did they all mean? The shock was so great that they scarcely moved or spoke for a minute, which felt like an age. Perhaps it was greatest to Jack, who saw evidently before him a paternal remonstrance, against which his spirit rose, and a gulf of wild possibilities which made him giddy. But still Pamela was the one whom it overwhelmed the most. She grew very pale, poor child! the tears came to her eyes. “Oh, what will he think of me?” she said, wringing her poor little hands. “Never mind what he thinks,” said Jack; but he could not keep out of his voice a certain tone which told the effect which this scene had had upon him also. He walked with her to the gate, but it was in a dutiful sort of way. And then their shame flashed upon them doubly when Pamela saw her mother in the distance waiting for her at the door. “Don’t come any farther,” she said, under her breath, not daring to look at him; and thus they parted ashamed. They had not only been seen by others; they had found themselves out.
Itmay be imagined after this with what sort of feelings the unhappy Jack turned up the avenue in cold blood, and walked home to dinner. He thought he knew what awaited him, and yet he did not know, for up to this moment he had never come seriously in collision with his father. He did not know what was going to be said to him, what line of reproach Mr. Brownlow would take, what he could reply; for in reality he himself had made as great or a greater discovery than his father had done. He was as totally unaware what he meant as Mr. Brownlow was. What did he mean? Nothing—to be happy—to see the other fair little creature happy, to praise her, to admire her, to watch her pretty ways—to see her look up with her dewy eyes, tender and sweet, into his face. That was all he had meant; but now that would answer no longer. If he had been a little less brave and straightforward, Jack would have quailed at the prospect before him. He would have turned his back upon the awful dinner-table, the awful hour after dinner, which he felt awaited him. But at the same time his spirit was up, and he could not run away. He went on doggedly, seeing before him in the distance his father still walking slowly, very slowly he thought, up to the house. Jack had a great respect for his father, but he had been so differently educated, his habits and ways of thinking were so different, that perhaps in ordinary cases the young man was a little impatient of paternal direction; and he did not know now how he could bear it, if Mr. Brownlow took matters with a high hand. Besides, even that was not the most urgent question. How could he answer any one? what could he say for himself? He did not know what he meant. He could not acknowledge himself a fool, and admit that he meant nothing. His thoughts were not pleasant as he went slowly after his father up the avenue. Perhaps it would convey but an uncomfortable impression of Jack were I to say that he had been quite sincere, and was quite sincere even now in what he had said about marriage. He had no particular desire to change his own condition in any way. The idea of taking new responsibilities upon him had not enteredinto his mind. He had simply yielded to a very pleasurable impulse, meaning no harm; and all at once, without any warning, his pleasure had turned into something terrible, and stood staring at him with his father’s eyes—with eyes still more severe and awful than his father’s. In an hour or two, perhaps even in a minute or two, he would be called to account; and he could not tell what to answer. He was utterly confounded and stupefied by the suddenness of the event, and by the startling revelation thus made to him; and now he was to be called up to the bar, and examined as to what he meant. These thoughts were but necessary companions as he went home, where all this awaited him; and he did not know whether to be relieved or to feel more disconcerted still, when he met a messenger at the door, who had just been sent in hot haste to the Rectory to ask Mr. Hardcastle to join the Brownlows party—a kind of thing which the Rector, in a general way, had no great objection to do. Was Mr. Hardcastle to be called in to help to lecture him? This was the thought that crossed Jack’s mind as he went—it must be acknowledged, very softly and quietly—up stairs to his own room. He met nobody on the way, and he was glad. He let the bell ring out, and made sure that every body was ready, before he went down stairs. And he could not but feel that he looked like a culprit when finally he stole into the drawing-room, where Mr. Hardcastle was waiting along with his father and sister. Mr. Brownlow said, “You are late, Jack,” and Jack’s guilty imagination read volumes in the words; but nothing else was said to him. The dinner passed on as all dinners do; the conversation was just as usual. Jack himself was very silent, though generally he had his own opinion to give on most subjects. As he sat and listened, and allowed the talk to float over his head, as it were, a strong conviction of the nothingness of general conversation came over him. He was full to brimming with his own subject, and his father at least might be also supposed to be thinking more of that than of any thing else. Yet here they were talking of the most trifling matters, feeling bound to talk of any thing but the one thing. He had known this before, no doubt, in theory, but for the first time it now appeared to him in reality. When Sara left the room, it is not to be denied that his heart gave a jump, thinking now perhaps they would both open upon him. But still not a word was said. Mr. Hardcastle talked in his usual easy way, and with an evident unconsciousness of any particular crisis. Mr. Brownlow was perhaps more silent than usual, and left the conversation more in the hands of his guest. But he did not speakathis son, or show him any displeasure. He was grave, but otherwise there was no difference in him. Thus the evening passed on, and not a word was said. When Mr. Hardcastle went away Jack went out with him to walk part of the way across the park, and then only a certain consciousness showed itself in his father’s face. Mr. Brownlow gave his son a quick warning look—one glance, and no more. And when Jack returned from his walk, which was a long and not a comfortable one, his father had gone to his room, and all chances of collision were over for that evening at least. He had escaped, but he had not escaped from himself. On the contrary, he sat half the night through thinking over the matter. What was he to do?—to go away would be the easiest, perhaps in every way the best. But yet, as he sat in the silence of the night, a little fairy figure came and stood beside him. Could he leave her, give her up, let her remain to wake out of the dream, and learn bitterly by herself that it was all over? He had never seen any one like her. Keppel might rave about his beauties, but not one of them was fit to be named beside Pamela. So sweet too, and fresh and innocent, with her dear little face like a spring morning. Thinking of that, Jack somehow glided away from his perplexities. He made a leap back in his mind to that frosty, icy day on which he had seen her in the carrier’s cart—to the moment when she sprained her ankle—to all the trifling pleasant events by which they had come to this present point. And then all at once, with a start, he came back to their last meeting, which had been the sweetest of all, and upon which hard fate, in the shape of Mr. Brownlow, had so solemnly looked in. Poor Jack! it was the first time any thing of the kind had ever happened to him. He had gone through a little flirtation now and then before, no doubt, as is the common fate of man; but as for any serious crisis, any terrible complication like this, such a thing had never occurred in his life; and the fact was, after all, that the experienced-man-of-the-world character he was in the habit of putting on did him no service in the emergency. It enabled him to clear his brow, and dismiss his uncomfortable feelings from his face during the evening, but it did him no good now that he was by himself; and it threw no light upon his future path. He could talk a little polite cynicism now and then, but in his heart he was young, and fresh, and honest, and not cynical. And then Pamela. It was not her fault. She had suffered him to lead her along those primrose paths, but it was always he who had led the way, and now was he to leave her alone to bear the disappointment and solitude, and possibly the reproach? She had gone home confused, and near crying, and probably she had been scolded when she got home, and had been suffering for him. No doubt he too was suffering for her; but still the sternest of fathers can not afflict a young man as a well-meaning mother can afflict a girl. Poor little Pamela! perhaps at this moment her pretty eyes were dim with tears. And then Jack melted altogether and broke down. There was not one of them all that was fit to hold a candle to her—Sara! Sara was handsome, to be sure, but no more to be compared to that sweet little soul—So he went on, the foolish young fellow. And if he did not know what he meant at night, he knew still less in the morning, after troublous hours of thought, and a great deal of discomfort and pain.
In the morning, however, what he had been dreading came. As bad luck would have it he met his father on the stairs going down to breakfast; and Mr. Brownlow beckoned his son to follow him into the library, which Jack did with the feelings of a victim. “I want to speak to you, Jack,” Mr. Brownlow said; and then it came.
“When I met you yesterday you were walking with the—with Mrs. Swayne’s young lodger,” said Mr. Brownlow, “and it was evidently not for the first time. You must know, Jack, that—that—this sort of thing will not do. It puts me out as much—perhaps more than it can put you out—to have to speak to you on such a subject. I believe the girl is an innocent girl—”
“There can be no doubt about that, sir,” cried Jack, firing up suddenly and growing very red.
“I hope not,” said Mr. Brownlow, “and I hope—and I may say I believe—that you don’t mean any harm. But it’s dangerous playing with edge-tools; harm might come of it before you knew what you were doing. Now look here, Jack; I know the time for sermons is passed, and that you are rather disposed to think you know the world better than I do, but I can’t leave you without warning. I believe the girl is an innocent girl, as I have said; but there are different kinds of innocence—there is that which is utterly beyond temptation, and there is that which has simply never been tempted.”
“It is not a question I can discuss, sir,” cried Jack. “I beg your pardon. I know you don’t mean to be hard upon me, but as for calling in question—her—innocence, I can’t have it. She is as innocent as the angels; she doesn’t understand what evil means.”
“I am glad you think so,” said Mr. Brownlow; “but let me have out my say. I don’t believe in seduction in the ordinary sense of the word—”
“Sir!” cried Jack, starting to his feet with a countenance flaming like that of an angry angel. Mr. Brownlow only waved his hand and went on.
“Let me have out my say. I tell you I don’t believe in seduction; but there are people in the world—and the most part of the people in the world—who are neither good nor bad, and to such a sudden impulse one way or other may be every thing. I would not call down upon a young man’s foolish head all the responsibility of such a woman’s misery,” said Mr. Brownlow, thoughtfully, “but still it would be an awful thought that somebody else might have turned the unsteady balance the right way, and that your folly had turned it the wrong. See, I am not going into it as a question of personal vice. That your own heart would tell you of; but I don’t believe, my boy—I don’t believe you mean any harm. I say this to you once for all. You could not, if you were a hundred times the man you are, turn one true, good, pure-hearted girl wrong. I don’t believe any man could; but you might develop evil that but for you would only have smouldered and never come to positive harm. Who can tell whether this poor child is of the one character or the other? Don’t interrupt me. You think you know, but you can’t know. Mind what you are about. This is all I am going to say to you, Jack.”
“It is too much,” cried Jack, bursting with impatience, “or it is not half, not a hundredth part enough. I, sir—do you think I would harm her? Not for any thing that could be offered me—not for all the world!”
“I have just said as much,” said Mr. Brownlow, calmly. “If I had thought you capable of a base intention, I should have spoken very differently; but intention is one thing and result another. Take care. You can’t but harm her. To a girl in her position every word, every look of that kind from a young man like you is a kind of injury. You must know that. Think if it had been Keppel—ah, you start—and how is it different, being you?”
“It may not be different, sir,” exclaimed Jack, “but this I know, I can’t carry on this conversation. Keppel! any man in short—that is what you mean. Good heavens, how little you know the creature you are talking of! She talk to Keppel or to any one! If it was not you who said it—”
Mr. Brownlow’s grave face relaxed for one half moment. It did not come the length of a smile, but it had unawares the same effect upon his son which a momentary lightening of the clouds has, even though no break is visible. The atmosphere, as it were, grew lighter. The young man stopped almost without knowing it, and his indignation subsided. His father understood better than he thought.
“If all you say is true,” said Mr. Brownlow, “and I am glad to see that you believe it at least, how can you reconcile yourself to doing such a girl such an injury? You and she belong to different spheres. You can do her nothing but harm, she can do you no good. What result can you look for? What do you mean? You must see the truth of what I say.”
Upon which Jack fell silent, chilled in the midst of his heat, struck dumb. For he knew very well that he had not meant any thing; he had no result to propose. He had not gone so far as to contemplate actual practical consequences, and he was ashamed and had nothing to say.
“This is the real state of the case,” said Mr. Brownlow, seeing his advantage. “You have both been fools, both you and she, but you the worst, as being a man and knowing better; and now you see how matters stand. It may give you a little pang, and I fear it will give her a pang too; but when I say you ought to make an immediate end of it, I know I advise what is best for both. I am not speaking to you as your judge, Jack. I am speaking to you as your friend.”
“Thanks,” said Jack, briefly; his heart was full, poor fellow, and to tell the truth, he said even that much reluctantly, but honesty drew it out of him. He felt that his father was his friend, and had not been dealing hardly with him. And then he got up and went to the window, and looked out upon the unsuspicious shrubberies full of better thoughts. Make an end of it! make an end of the best part of his life—make an end of her probably. Yes, it was a very easy thing to say.
“I will not ask any answer or any promise,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I leave it to your own good sense and good feeling, Jack. There, that is enough; and if I were you I would go to the office to-day.”
This was all he said. He went out of the library leaving his son there, leaving him at liberty to follow out his own reflections. And poor Jack’s thoughts were not pleasant. When his father was gone he came from the window, and threw himself into the nearest chair. Make an end of it! Yes, that was it. Easy to say, very easy to advise, but how to do it? Was he simply to skulk away like a villain, and leave her to pine and wonder—for she would wonder and pine, bless her! She believed in him, whatever other people might do. Keppel, indeed! as if she would look at Keppel, much less talk to him, walk with him, lift her sweet eyes to him as she had begunto do. And good heavens, this was to end! Would it not be better that life itself should end? That, perhaps, would please every body just as well. Poor Jack! this was the wild way he got on thinking, until the solemn butler opened the door and begged his pardon, and told him breakfast was ready. He could have pitched something at poor Willis’s head with pleasure, but he did not do it. He even got up and thrust back his thoughts into the recesses of his brain, as it were, and after a while settled his resolution and went to breakfast. That was one good of his higher breeding. It did not give him much enlightenment as to what he should do, but it taught him to look as if nothing was the matter with him and to put his trouble in his pocket, and face the ordinary events of life without making a show of himself or his emotions, which is always a triumph for any man. He could not manage to eat much, but he managed to bear himself much as usual, though not entirely to conceal from Sara that something had happened; but then she was a woman, and knew every change of his face. As for Mr. Brownlow, he was pleased by his son’s steadiness. He was pleased to see that he bore it like a man, and bore no malice; and he was still more pleased when Jack jumped into the dogcart and took the reins without saying any thing about his intention. It is true the mare had her way that morning, and carried them into Masterton at the speed of an express train, scattering every body on her route as if by magic. Their course was as good as a charge of cavalry through the streets of the suburb they had to go through. But notwithstanding his recklessness, Jack drove well, and nobody came to any harm. When he threw the reins to the groom the mare was straining and quivering in every muscle, half to the admiration, half to the alarm of her faithful attendant, whose life was devoted to her. “But, bless you, she likes it,” he said in confidence to his friends, when he took the palpitating animal to her stable at the Green Man. “Nothing she likes better, though he’s took it out of her this morning, he have. I reckon the governor have been a-taking it out of ’im.”