“She is very young,” said Mrs. Preston; “no doubt it would do her harm; but I should be there to nurse her—and—and—she is so young.”
“It might kill her,” said Jack, impressively; “and then whom would you have to blame? Not my father, for he has nothing to do with it; but yourself, Mrs. Preston—that’s how it would be. Just look at what a little delicate darling she is—a little bit of a thing that one could carry away in one’s arms,” he went on, growing more and more animated—“a little face like a flower; and after the bad illness she had. I would not take such a responsibility for any thing in the world,” he added, with severe and indignant virtue. As for poor Mrs. Preston, she did not know what to do. She wrung her hands; she looked at him beseechingly, begging him with her eyes to cease. Every feature of the picture came home to her with a much deeper force than it did to her mentor. Jack no more believed in any danger to Pamela than he did in his own ultimate rejection; but the poor mother beheld her daughter pining, dying, breaking her heart, and trembled to her very soul.
“Oh, Mr. John,” she cried, with tears, “don’t break my heart! What am I to do? If I must either ruin you with your father—”
“Or kill your child,” said Jack, looking at her solemnly till his victim shuddered. “Your child is more to you than my father: besides,” said the young man, unbending a little, “it would not ruin me with my father. He might be angry. He might make himself disagreeable; but he’s not a muff to bear malice. My father,” continued Jack, with emphasis, feeling that he owed his parent some reparation, and doing it magnificently when he was about it, “is as true a gentleman as I know. He’s not the man to ruin a fellow. You think of Pamela, and never mind me.”
But it took a long time and much reiteration to convince Mrs. Preston. “If I could but see Mr. Brownlow, I could tell him something that would perhaps soften his heart,” she said; but this was far from being a pleasant suggestion to Jack. He put it down summarily, not even asking in his youthful impatience what the something was. He had no desire to know. He did not want his father’s heart to be softened. In short, being as yet unaccustomed to the idea, he did not feel any particular delight in the thought of presenting Pamela’s mother to the world as belonging to himself. And yet this same talk had made a wonderful difference in his feeling toward Pamela’s mother. The thought of the explanation he had to make to her was repugnant to him when he came in. He had all but run away from it when he was left to wait alone. And now, in less than an hour, it seemed so natural to enter into every thing. Even if she had bestowed a maternal embrace upon him, Jack did not feel as if he would have resisted; but she gave him no motherly kiss. She was still half frightened at him, half disposed to believe that to get rid of him would be the best thing; and Jack had no mind to be got rid of. Neither of them could have told very exactly what was the understanding upon which they parted. There was an understanding, that was certain—an arrangement, tacit, inexpressible, which, however, was not hostile. He was not permitted in so many words to come again; but neither was he sent away. When he had the assurance to ask to see Pamela before he left, Mrs. Preston went nervously through the passage before him and opened the door, opening up the house and their discussion as she did so, to the big outside world and wakeful sky, with all its stars, which seemed to stoop and look in. Poor little Pamela was in the room up stairs, speechless, motionless, holding her breath, fixed as it were to the window from which she must see him go out; hearing the indistinct hum of voices underneath, and wondering what her mother was saying to him. When the parlor door opened, her heart leaped up in her breast. She could hear his voice, and distinguish, as she thought, every tone of it, but she could not hear what he said. For an instant it occurred to her too that she might be called down stairs. But then the next moment the outer door opened, a breath of fresh air stole into the house, and she knew he was dismissed. How had he been dismissed? For the moment? for the night? or forever? The window was open to which Pamela clung in the darkness, and she could hear his step going out. And as he went he spoke out loud enough to be heard up stairs, to be heard by any body on the road, and almost for that matter to be heard at Betty’s cottage. “If I must not see her,” he said, “give her my dear love.” What did it mean. Was his dear love his last message of farewell? or was it only the first public indication that she belonged to him? Pamela sank down on her knees by the window, noiseless, with her heart beating so in her ears that she felt as if he must hear it outside. The whole room, the whole house, the whole air, seemed to her full of that throbbing. His dear love! It seemed to come in to her with the fresh air—to drop down upon her from the big stars as they leaned out of heaven and looked down; and yet she could not tell if it meant death or life. And Mrs. Preston was not young, and could not fly, but came so slowly, so slowly, up the creaking wooden stair!
Poor Mrs. Preston went slowly, not onlybecause of her age, but because of her burden of thoughts. She could not have told any one whether she was very happy or deadly sad. Her heart was not fluttering in her ears like Pamela, but beating out hard throbs of excitement. He was good, he was true; her heart accepted him. Perhaps he was the friend she had so much longed for, who would guard Pamela when she was gone. At present, however, she was not gone; and yet her sceptre was passing away out of her hands, and her crown from her head. Anyhow, for good or for evil, this meant change; the sweet sceptre of love, the crown of natural authority and duty, such as are the glory of a woman who is a mother, were passing away from her. She did not grudge it. She would not have grudged life, nor any thing dearer than life, for Pamela; but she felt that there was change coming: and it made her sick—sick and cold and shivering, as if she was going to have a fever. She would have been glad to have had wings and flown to carry joy to her child; but she could not go fast for the burden and heaviness of her thoughts.
Meanwhile Jack crossed the road briskly, and went up the avenue under the big soft lambent stars. If it was at him in his character of lover that they were looking, they might have saved themselves the trouble, for he took no notice whatever of these sentimental spectators. He went home, not in a lingering meditative way, but like a man who has made up his mind. He had no sort of doubt or disquietude for his part about the acceptance of his love. He knew that Pamela was his, though her mother would not let him see her. He knew he should see her, and that she belonged to him, and nobody on earth could come between them. He had known all this from the first moment when the simple little girl had told him that life was hard; and as for her mother or his father, Jack did not in his mind make much account of the opposition of these venerable personages—such being his nature. What remained now was to clear a way into the future, to dig out a passage, and make it as smooth as possible for these tremulous little feet. Such were the thoughts he was busy with as he went home—not even musing about his little love. He had mused about her often enough before. Now his practical nature resumed the sway. How a household could be kept up, when it should be established, by what means it was to be provided, was the subject of Jack’s thoughts. He went straight to the point without any circumlocution. As it was to be done, it would be best to be done quickly. And he did not disguise from himself the change it would make. He knew well enough that he could not live as he had lived in his father’s house. He would have to go into lodgings, or to a little house; to have one or two indifferent servants—perhaps a “child-wife”—perhaps a resident mother-in-law. All this Jack calmly faced and foresaw. It could not come on him unawares, for he considered the chances, and saw that all these things were possible. There are people who will think the worse of him for this; but it was not Jack’s fault—it was his constitution. He might be foolish like his neighbors on one point, but on all other points he was sane. He did not expect that Pamela, if he translated her at once into a house of her own, should be able to govern him and it on the spot by natural intuition. He knew there would be, as he himself expressed it, many “hitches” in the establishment, and he knew that he would have to give up a great many indulgences. This was why he took no notice of the stars, and even knitted his brows as he walked on. The romantic part of the matter was over. It was now pure reality, and that of the most serious kind, that he had in hand.
“I don’tsay as you’re to take my advice,” said Mrs. Swayne. “I’m not one as puts myself forward to give advice where it ain’t wanted. Ask any one as knows. You as is church folks, if I was you, I’d send for the rector; or speak to your friends. There ain’t one living creature with a morsel of sense as won’t say to you just what I’m saying now.”
“Oh please go away—please go away,” said Pamela, who was standing with crimson cheeks between Mrs. Preston and her would-be counselor; “don’t you see mamma is ill?”
“She’ll be a deal worse afore all’s done, if she don’t listen in time; and you too, Miss Pamela, for all so angry as you are,” said Mrs. Swayne. “It ain’t nothing to me. If you like it, it don’t do me no harm; contrairaways, it’s my interest to keep you quiet here, for you’re good lodgers—I don’t deny it—and ain’t folks as give trouble. But I was once a pretty lass myself,” she added, with a sigh; “and I knows what it is.”
Pamela turned with unfeigned amazement and gazed upon the big figure that stood in the door-way. Once a pretty lass herself! Was this what pretty lasses came to? Mrs. Swayne, however, did not pause to inquire what were the thoughts that were passing through the girl’s mind; she took a step or two farther into the room, nearer the sofa on which Mrs. Preston lay. She was possessed with that missionary zeal for other people’s service, that determination to do as much as lay in her power to keep her neighbors from having their own way, or to make them very uncomfortable in the enjoyment of the luxury, which is so common a development of virtue. Her conscience was weighted with her responsibility: when she had warned them what they were coming to, then at least she would have delivered her own soul.
“I don’t want to make myself disagreeable,” said Mrs. Swayne; “it ain’t my way; but, Mrs. Preston, if you go on having folks about, it’s right you should hear what them as knows thinks of it. I ain’t a-blaming you. You’ve lived in foreign parts, and you’re that silly about your child that you can’t a-bear to cross her. I’m one as can make allowance for that. But I just ask you what can the likes of that young fellow want here? He don’t come for no good. Poor folks has a deal of things to put up with in this world, and women folks most of all. I don’t make no doubt Miss Pamela is pleased to have a gentleman a-dancing after her. I don’t know one on us as wouldn’t be pleased;but them as has respect for their character and for their peace o’ mind—”
“Mrs. Swayne, you must not speak like this to me,” said Mrs. Preston, feebly, from the sofa. “I have a bad headache, and I can’t argue with you; but you may be sure, though I don’t say much, I know how to take care of my own child. No, Pamela dear, don’t cry; and you’ll please not to say another word to me on this subject—not another word, or I shall have to go away.”
“To go away!” said Mrs. Swayne, crimson with indignation. But this sudden impulse of self-defense in so mild a creature struck her dumb. “Go away!—and welcome to!” she added; but her consternation was such that she could say no more. She stood in the middle of the little dark parlor, in a partial trance of astonishment. Public opinion itself had been defied in her person. “When it comes to what it’s sure to come to, then you’ll remember as I warned you,” she said, and rushed forth from the room, closing the door with a clang which made poor Mrs. Preston jump on her sofa. Her visit left a sense of trouble and dismay on both their minds, for they were not superior women, nor sufficiently strong-minded to laugh at such a monitor. Pamela threw herself down on her knees by her mother’s side and cried—not because of Mrs. Swayne, but because the fright and the novelty overwhelmed her, not to speak of the lively anger and disgust and impatience of her youth.
“Oh, mamma, if we had only some friends!” said Pamela; “everybody except us seems to have friends. Had I never any uncles nor any thing? It is hard to be left just you and me in the world.”
“You had brothers once,” said Mrs. Preston, with a sigh. Then there was a pause, for poor Pamela knew and could not help knowing that her brothers, had they been living, would not have improved her position now. She kept kneeling by her mother’s side, but though there was no change in her position, her heart went away from her involuntarily—went away to think that the time perhaps had come when she would never more want a friend—when somebody would always be at hand to advise her what to do, and when no such complications could arise. She kept the gravity, even sadness of her aspect, with the innocent hypocrisy which is possible at her age; but her little heart went out like a bird into the sunny world outside. A passing tremor might cross her, ghosts might glide for a moment across the way, but it was only for a moment, and she knew they were only ghosts. Her mother was in a very different case. Mrs. Preston had a headache, partly because of the shock of last night, partly because a headache was to her, as to so many women, a kind of little feminine chapel, into which she could retire to gain time when she had any thing on her mind. The course of individual history stops when those headaches come on, and the subject of them has a blessed moment to think. Nothing could be done, nothing could be said, till Mrs. Preston’s head was better. It was but a small matter had it been searched to its depths, but it was enough to arrest the wheels of fate.
“Pamela,” she said, after a while, “we must be doubly wise because we have no friends. I can’t ask any body’s advice, as Mrs. Swayne told me to do. I am not going to open up our private affairs to strangers: but we must be wise. I think we must go away.”
“Go away!” said Pamela, looking up with a face of despair—“away! Mamma, you don’t think of—of—himas she does?Youknow what he is. Go away! and perhaps never, never see him again. Oh, mamma!”
“I did not mean that,” said Mrs. Preston; “but we can’t stop here, and live at his father’s very door, and have him coming under their eyes to vex them. No, my darling; that would be cruel, and it would not be wise.”
“Do you think they will mind so very much?” said Pamela, looking wistfully in her mother’s face. “What should I do if they hated me? Miss Brownlow, you know—Sara—she always wanted me to call her Sara—she would never turn against me. I know her too well for that.”
“She has not been here for a long time,” said Mrs. Preston; “you have not noticed it, but I have, Pamela. She has never come since that day her father spoke to you. There is a great difference, my darling, between the sister’s little friend and the brother’s betrothed.”
“Mamma, you seem to know all about those wretched things,” cried Pamela, impulsively. “Why did you never tell me before? I never, never would have spoken to him—if I had known.”
“How wasIto know, Pamela?” said Mrs. Preston. “It appears you did not know yourselves. And then, when you told me what Mr. Brownlow said, I thought I might find you a friend. I think yet, if I could but see him; but when I spoke last night of seeing Mr. Brownlow,hewould not hear of it. It is very hard to know what to do.”
Then there ensued another pause—a long pause, during which the mother, engaged with many thoughts, did not look at her child. Pamela, too, was thinking; she had taken her mother’s long thin hand into her own, and was smoothing it softly with her soft fingers; her head was bent over it, her eyes cast down; now and then a sudden heaving, as of a sob about to come, moved her pretty shoulders. And her voice was very tuneless and rigid when she spoke. “Mamma,” she said, “speak to me honestly, once for all. Ought I to give it all up? I don’t mean to say it would be easy. I never knew a—a—any one before—never any body was likethatto me. You don’t know—oh, you don’t know how he can talk, mamma. And then it was not like any thing new—it felt natural, as if we had always belonged to each other. I know it’s no use talking. Tell me, mamma, once for all, would it really be better for him and—every body, if I were to give him quite up?”
Pamela held herself upright and rigid as she asked the question. She held her mother’s hand fast, and kept stroking it in an intermittent way. When she had finished she gave her an appealing look—a look which did not ask advice. It was not advice she wanted, poor child: she wanted to be told to do what she longed to do—to be assured that that was the best; therefore she looked not like a creature wavering between two opinions, but like a culprit at the bar, awaiting her sentence. As for Mrs. Preston, she only shook her head.
“It would not do any good,” she said. “You might give him up over and over, but you would never get him to give you up, Pamela. He is that sort of a young man; he would not have taken a refusal from me. It would be of no use, my dear.”
“Are you sure?—are you quite sure?” cried Pamela, throwing her arms round her mother’s neck, and giving her a shower of kisses. “Oh you dear, dear mamma. Are you sure, you are quite sure?”
“You are kissing me for his sake,” said Mrs. Preston, with a little pang; and then she smiled at herself. “I never was jealous before,” she said. “I don’t mean to be jealous. No, he will never give in, Pamela; we shall have to make the best of it; and perhaps,” she continued, after a pause, “perhaps this was the friend I was always praying for to take care of my child before I die.”
“Oh, mamma,” said Pamela, “how can you talk of dying at such a time as this? when, perhaps, we’re going to have—every thing we want in the world; when, perhaps, we are going to be—as happy as the day is long!” she said, once more kissing the worn old face which lay turned toward her, in a kind of sweet enthusiasm. The one looked so young and the other so old; the one so sure of life and happiness, the other so nearly done with both. Mrs. Preston took the kiss and the clasp, and smiled at her radiant child; and then she closed her eyes, and retreated into her headache.Shewas not going to have every thing she wanted in the world, or to be as happy as the day was long; so she retreated and took to her handy domestic little malady. The child could not conceive that there were still a thousand things to be thought over, and difficulties without number to be overcome.
As for Pamela, she sprang to her feet lightly, and went off to make the precious cup of tea which is good for every feminine trouble. As she went she fell into song, not knowing it. She was as near dancing as decorum would permit. She went into the kitchen where Mr. Swayne was, and cheered him up more effectually than if he had been well for a week. She made him laugh, though he was in low spirits. She promised him that he should be quite well in three months. “Ready to dance if there was any thing to dance at,” was what Pamela said.
“At your wedding, Miss Pamela,” said poor Swayne, with his shrill little chuckle. And Pamela too laughed with a laugh that was like a song. She stood by the fire while the kettle boiled, with the fire-light glimmering in her pretty eyes, and reddening her white forehead under the rings of her hair. Should she have to boil the kettle, to spread the homely table forhim? or would he take her to Brownlows, or some other such house, and make her a great little lady like Sara? On the whole Pamela thought she would like the first best. She made the tea before the bright fire in such perfection as it never was made at Brownlows, and poured it out hot and fragrant, like one who knew what she was about. But the tea was not so great a cordial as the sight of her own face. She had come clear out of all her perplexities. There was no longer even a call upon that anxious faculty for self-sacrifice which belongs to youth. In short, self-sacrifice would do no good—the idol would simply decline to receive the costly offering. It was in his hands, and nothing that she could do would make any difference. Perhaps, if Pamela had been a self-asserting young woman, her pride would have suffered from this thought; but she was only a little girl of seventeen, and it made her as light as a bird. No dreadful responsibility rested on her soft shoulders—no awful question of what was best remained for her to consider. What use could there be in giving up when he would not be given up? What end would it serve to refuse a man who would not take a refusal? She had made her tragic little effort in all sincerity, and it had come to the sweetest and most complete failure. And now her part had been done, and no farther perplexity could overwhelm her. So she thought, flitting out and in upon a hundred errands, and thinking tenderly in her heart that her mother’s headache and serious looks and grave way of looking at every thing was not so much because there was any thing serious in the emergency, as because the dear mother was old—a fault of nature, not of circumstances, to be mended by love and smiles, and all manner of tender services on the part of the happy creature who was young.
When Mrs. Swayne left the parlor in the manner which we have already related, she rushed out, partly to be relieved of her wrath, partly to pour her prophecies of evil into the ears of the other Cassandra on the other side of the road, old Betty of the Gates. The old woman was sitting before her fire when her neighbor went in upon her. To be sure it was summer, but Betty’s fire was eternal, and burned without intermission on the sacred hearth. She was mending one of her gowns, and had a whole bundle of bits of colored print—“patches,” for which some of the little girls in Miss Brownlow’s school would have given their ears—spread out upon the table before her. Bits of all Betty’s old gowns were there. It was a parti-colored historical record of her life, from the gay calicoes of her youth down to the sober browns and olives of declining years. With such a gay centre the little room looked very bright. There was a geranium in the window, ruby and emerald. There were all manner of pretty confused cross-lights from the open door and the latticed window in the other corner and the bright fire; and the little old face in its white cap was as brown and as red as a winter apple. Mrs. Swayne was a different sort of person. She came in, filling the room with shadows, and put herself away in a big elbow-chair, with blue and white cushions, which was Betty’s winter throne, but now stood pushed into a corner out of reach of the fire. She uttered a sigh which blew away some of the patches on the table, and swayed the ruby blossoms of the big geranium. “Well,” she said, “I’ve done my best—I can say I’ve done my best. If the worst comes to the worst, there’s none as can blame me.”
“What is it?—what is it, Mrs. Swayne?” said Betty, eagerly, dropping her work, “though I’ve something as tells me it’s about that poor child and our Mr. John.”
“I wash my hands of them,” said the visitor, doing so in a moist and demonstrative way. “I’ve done all as an honest woman can do. Speak o’ mothers!—mothers is a pack o’ fools. I’d thinko’ that child’s interest if it was me. I’d think what was best for her character, and for keeping her out o’ mischief. As for cryin’, and that sort, they all cry—it don’t do them no harm. If you or me had set our hearts on marryin’ the first gentleman as ever was civil, what would ha’ become of us? Oh the fools as some folks is! It’s enough to send a woman with a bit of sense out o’ her mind.”
“Marryin’?” said Betty, with a little shriek; “you don’t mean to say as they’ve gone as far as that.”
“If they don’t go farther afore all’s done, it’ll be a wonder to me,” said Mrs. Swayne; “things is always like that. I don’t mean to take no particular credit to myself; but if she had been mine, I’d have done my best for her—that’s one thing as I can say. She’d not have got into no trouble if she had been mine. I’d have watched her night and day.Iknow what the gentlemen is. But that’s allays the way with Providence. A woman like me as has a bit of experience has none to be the better of it; and the likes of an old stupid as don’t know her right hand from her left, it’s her as has the children. I’d have settled all that different if it had been me. Last night as ever was, I found the two in the open road—in the road, I give you my word. It’s over all the parish by this, as sure as sure; and after that what does my gentleman do but come to the house as bold as brass. It turns a body sick—that’s what it does; but you might as well preach to a stone wall as make ’em hear reason; and that’s what you call a mother! much a poor girl’s the better of a mother like that.”
“All mothers is not the same,” said Betty, who held that rank herself. “For one as don’t know her duty, there’s dozens and dozens—”
“Don’t speak to me,” said Mrs. Swayne, “I know ’em—as stuck up as if it was any virtue in them, and a shuttin’ their ears to every one as gives them good advice. Oh, if that girl was but mine! I’d keep her as snug as if she was in a box, I would. Ne’er a gentleman should get a chance of so much as a look at her. It’s ten times worse when a girl is pretty; but, thank heaven, I know what the gentlemen is.”
“But if he comed to the house, he must have made some excuse,” said Betty. “Isee him. He come by himself, as if it was to see your good gentleman, Mrs. Swayne. Knowing as Miss Pamela was out, I don’t deny as that was my thought. And he must have made some excuse.”
“Oh, they find excuses ready enough—don’t you be afeard,” said Mrs. Swayne; “they’re plenty ready with their tongues, and don’t stick at what they promise neither. It’s all as innocent as innocent if you was to believe them; and them as believes comes to their ruin. I tell you it’s their ruin—that and no less; but I may speak till I’m hoarse,” said Cassandra, with melancholy emphasis—“nobody pays no attention to me.”
“You must have knowed a deal of them to be so earnest,” said old Betty, with the deepest interest in her eyes.
“I was a pretty lass mysel’,” said Mrs. Swayne; and then she paused; “but you’re not to think as I ever give in to them. I wasn’t that sort; and I had folks as looked after me. I don’t say as Swayne is much to look at, after all as was in my power; but if Miss Pamela don’t mind, she’ll be real thankful afore she’s half my age to take up with a deal worse than Swayne; and that’s my last word, if I was never to draw a breath more.”
“Husht!” said Betty. “Don’t take on like that. There’s somebody a-coming. Husht! It’s just like as if it was a child of your own.”
“And so I feel,” said Mrs. Swayne; “worse luck for her, poor lass. If she was mine—”
“Husht!” said Betty again; and then the approaching steps which they had heard for the last minute reached the threshold, and a woman presented herself at the door. She was not a woman that either of them knew. She was old, very tall, very thin, and very dusty with walking. “I’m most dead with tiredness. May I come in and rest a bit?” she said. She had a pair of keen black eyes, which gleamed out below her poke bonnet, and took in every thing, and did not look excessively tired; but her scanty black gown was white with dust. Old Betty, for her own part, did not admire the stranger’s looks, but she consented to let her come in, “manners” forbidding any inhospitality, and placed her a chair as near as possible to the door.
“I come like a stranger,” said the woman, “but I’m not to call a stranger neither. I’m Nancy as lives with old Mrs. Fennell, them young folks’ grandmamma. I had summat to do nigh here, and I thought as I’d like to see the place. It’s a fine place for one as was nothing but an attorney once. I allays wonder if they’re good folks to live under, such folks as these.”
“So you’re Nancy!” said the old woman of the lodge. “I’ve heard tell of you. I heard of you along of Stevens as you recommended here. I haven’t got nothing to say against the masters; they’re well and well enough; Miss Sara, she’s hasty, but she’s a good heart.”
“She don’t show it to her own flesh and blood,” said Nancy, significantly. “Is this lady one as lives about here?”
Then it was explained to the stranger who Mrs. Swayne was. “Mr. Swayne built them cottages,” said Betty; “they’re his own, and as nice a well-furnished house and as comfortable; and his good lady ain’t one of them that wastes or wants. She has a lodger in the front parlor, and keeps ’em as nice as it’s a picture to see, and as respected in the whole parish—”
“Don’t you go on a-praising me before my face,” said Mrs. Swayne, modestly; “we’re folks as are neither rich nor poor, and can give our neighbors a hand by times and times. You’re a stranger, as is well seen, or you wouldn’t be cur’ous about Swayne and me.”
“I’m a stranger sure enough,” said Nancy. “We’re poor relations, that’s what we are; and the likes of us is not wanted here. If I was them I’d take more notice o’ my own flesh and blood, and one as can serve them yet, likeshecan. It ain’t what you call a desirable place,” said Nancy; “she’s awful aggravating sometimes, like the most of old women; but all the same they’re her children’s children, and I’d allays let that count if it was me.”
“That’s old Mrs. Fennell?” said Betty; “she never was here as I can think on but once. Miss Sara isn’t one that can stand being interfered with; but they sends her an immensity of game, and vegetables, and flowers, and suchthings, and I’ve always heard as the master gives her an allowance. I don’t see as she’s any reason to complain.”
“A woman as knows as much as she does,” said Nancy, solemnly, “she ought to be better looked to;” and then she changed her tone. “I’ve walked all this long way, and I have got to get back again, and she’ll be as cross as cross if I’m long. And I don’t suppose there’s no omnibus or nothing going my way. If it was but a cart—”
“There’s a carrier’s cart,” said Betty; “but Mrs. Swayne could tell you most about that. Her two lodgers come in it, and Mrs. Preston, that time she had something to do in Masterton—”
“Who is Mrs. Preston?” said Nancy quickly. “I’ve heard o’ that name. And I’ve heard in Masterton of some one as came in the carrier’s cart. If I might make so bold, who is she? Is she your lodger? I once knew some folks of that name in my young days, and I’d like to hear.”
“Oh yes, she’s my lodger,” said Mrs. Swayne, “and a terrible trouble to me. I’d just been a-grumbling to Betty when you came in. She and that poor thing Pamela, they lay on my mind so heavy, I don’t know what to do. You might give old Mrs. Fennell a hint to speak to Mr. John. He’s a-running after that girl, he is, till it turns one sick; and a poor silly woman of a mother as won’t see no harm in it. If the old lady was to hear in a sort of a side way like, she might give Mr. John a talking to. Not as I have much confidence in his mending. Gentlemen never does.”
“Oh,” said Nancy, with a strange gleam of her dark eyes, “so she’s got a daughter! and it was her as came into Masterton in the carrier’s cart? I just wanted to know. May be you could tell me what kind of a looking woman she was. There was one as I knew once in my young days—”
“She ain’t unlike yourself,” said Mrs. Swayne, with greater brevity than usual; and she turned and began to investigate Nancy with a closeness for which she was not prepared. Another gleam shot from the stranger’s black eyes as she listened. It even brought a tinge of color to her gray cheek, and though she restrained herself with the utmost care, there was unquestionably a certain excitement in her. Mrs. Swayne’s eyes were keen, but they were not used to read mysteries. A certain sense of something to find out oppressed her senses; but, notwithstanding her curiosity, she had not an idea what secret there could be.
“If it’s the same person, it’s years and years since I saw her last,” said Nancy; “and so she’s got a daughter! I shouldn’t think it could be a very young daughter if it’s hers; she should be as old as me. And it was her as came in to Masterton in the carrier’s cart! Well, well! what droll things does happen to be sure.”
“I don’t know what’s droll about that,” said Mrs. Swayne; “but I don’t know nought about her. She’s always been quiet and genteel as a lodger—always till this business came on about Mr. John. But I’d be glad to know where her friends was, if she’s got any friends. She’s as old as you, or older, and not to say any thing as is unpleasant—it’s an awful thing to think of—what if folks should go and die in your house, and you not know their friends?”
“If it’s that you’re thinking of, she’s got no friends,” said Nancy, with a vehemence that seemed unnatural and uncalled-for to her companions—“none as I know of nowheres—but may be me. And it isn’t much as I could do. She’s a woman as has been awful plundered and wronged in her time. Mr. John! oh, I’d just like to hear what it is about Mr. John. If that was to come after all, I tell you it would call down fire from heaven.”
“Goodness gracious me!” said Mrs. Swayne, “what does the woman mean?” And Betty too uttered a quavering exclamation, and they both drew their chairs closer to the separated seat, quite apart from the daïs of intimacy and friendship, upon which the dusty stranger had been permitted to rest.
Nancy, however, had recollected herself. “Mean?” she said, with a look of innocence; “oh, I didn’t mean nothing; but that I’ve a kind of spite—I don’t deny it—at them grand Brownlows, that don’t take no notice to speak of their own flesh and blood. That’s all as I mean. I ain’t got no time to-day, but if you’ll say as Nancy Christian sends her compliments and wants badly to see Mrs. Preston, and is coming soon again, I’ll be as obliged as ever I can be. If it’s her, she’ll think on who Nancy Christian was; and if it ain’t her, it don’t make much matter,” she continued, with a sigh. She said these last words very slowly, looking at neither of her companions, fixing her eyes upon the door of Swayne’s cottage, at which Pamela had appeared. The sun came in at Betty’s door and dazzled the stranger’s eyes, and it was not easy for her at first to see Pamela, who stood in the shade. The girl had looked out for no particular reason, only because she was passing that way; and as she stood giving a glance up and a glance down the road—a glance which was not wistful, but full of a sweet confidence—Nancy kept staring at her, blinking her eyes to escape the sunshine. “Is that the girl?” she said, a little hoarsely. And then all the three looked out and gazed at Pamela in her tender beauty. Pamela saw them also. It did not occur to her whose the third head might be, nor did she care very much. She felt sure they were discussing her, shaking their heads over her imprudence; but Pamela at the moment was too happy to be angry. She said, “Poor old things,” to herself. They were poor old things; they had not the blood dancing in their veins as she had; they had not light little feet that flew over the paths, nor light hearts that leaped in their breasts, poor old souls. She waved her hand to them half kindly, half saucily, and disappeared again like a living bit of sunshine into the house which lay so obstinately in the shade. As for Nancy, she was moved in some wonderful way by this sight. She trembled when the girl made that half-mocking, half-sweet salutation; the tears came to her eyes. “She could never have a child so young,” she muttered half to herself, and then gazed and gazed as if she had seen a ghost. When Pamela disappeared she rose up and shook the dust, not from her feet, but from her skirts, outside old Betty’s door. “I’ve only a minute,” said Nancy, “but if I could set eyes on the mother I could tell if it was her I used to know.”
“I left her lyin’ down wi’ a bad headache,” said Mrs. Swayne. “If you like you can go andtake a look through the parlor window; or I’ll ask if she’s better. Them sort of folks that have little to do gets headaches terrible easy. Of an afternoon when their dinner’s over, what has the likes of them to take up their time? They takes a sleep on my sofa, or they takes a walk, and a headache comes natural-like when folks has all that time on their hands. Come across and look in at the window. It’s low, and if your eyes are good you can just see her where she lays.”
Nancy followed her new companion across the road. As she went out of the gates she gave a glance up through the avenue, and made as though she would have shaken her fist at the great house. “If you but knew!” Nancy said to herself. But they did not know, and the sunshine lay as peacefully across the pretty stretch of road as if there had been no dangers there. The old woman crossed over to Mrs. Swayne’s cottage, and went into the little square of garden where Pamela sometimes watered the flowers. Nancy stooped over the one monthly rose and plucked a bit of the homely lads’-love in the corner which flourished best of all, and then she drew very close to the window and looked in. It was an alarming sight to the people within. Mrs. Preston had got a second cup of tea, and raised herself up on her pillow to swallow it, when all at once this gray visage, not unlike her own, surrounded with black much like her own dress, looked in upon her, a stranger, and yet somehow wearing a half-familiar aspect. As for Pamela, there was something awful to her in the vision. She turned round to her mother in a fright to compare the two faces. She was not consciously superstitious, but yet dim thoughts of a wraith, a double, a solemn messenger of doom, were in her mind. She had heard of such things. “Go and see who it is,” said Mrs. Preston; and Pamela rushed out, not feeling sure that the strange apparition might not have vanished. But it had not vanished. Nancy stood at the door, and when she was looked into in the open day-light she was not so dreadfully like Mrs. Preston’s wraith.
“Good-day, miss,” said Nancy; “I thought as may be I might have had a few words with your mother. If she’s the person I take her for, I used to know her long, long ago; and I’ve a deal that’s very serious to say.”
“You frightened us dreadfully looking in at the window,” said Pamela. “And mamma has such a bad headache; she has been a good deal—worried. Would you mind coming back another time?—or is it any thing I can say?”
“There’s something coming down the road,” said Nancy; “and I am tired and I can’t walk back. If it’s the carrier I’ll have to go, miss. And I can’t say the half nor the quarter to you. Is it the carrier? Then I’ll have to go. Tell her it was one as knew her when we was both young—knew her right well, and all her ways—knew her mother. And I’ve a deal to say; and my name’s Nancy Christian, if she should ask. If she’s the woman I take her for, she’ll know my name.”
“And you’ll come back?—will you be sure to come back?” asked Pamela, carelessly, yet with a girl’s eagerness for every thing like change and news. The cart had stopped by this time, and Mrs. Swayne had brought forth a chair to aid the stranger in her ascent. The place was roused by the event. Old Betty stood at her cottage, and Swayne had hobbled out from the kitchen, and even Mrs. Preston, forgetting the headache, had stolen to the window, and peeped out through the small Venetian blind which covered the lower part of it to look at and wonder who the figure belonged to which had so strange a likeness to herself. Amid all these spectators Nancy mounted, slowly shaking out once more the dust from her skirts.
“I’ll be late, and she’ll give me an awful talking to,” she said. “No; I can’t stop to-day. But I’ll come again—oh yes, I’ll come again.” She kept looking back as long as she was in sight, peeping round the hood of the wagon, searching them through and through with her anxious gaze; while all the bystanders looked on surprised. What had she to do with them? And then her looks, and her dress, and her black eager eyes, were so like Mrs. Preston’s. Her face bore a very doubtful, uncertain look as she was thus borne solemnly away. “I couldn’t know her after such a long time; and I don’t see as she could have had a child so young,” was what Nancy was saying to herself, shaking her head, and then reassuring herself. This visit made a sensation which almost diverted public attention from Mr. John; and when Nancy’s message was repeated to Mrs. Preston, it was received with an immediate recognition which increased the excitement. “Nancy Christian!” Mrs. Preston repeated all the evening long. She could think of nothing else. It made her head so much worse that she had to go to bed, where Pamela watched her to the exclusion of every other interest. This was Nancy’s first visit. She did not mean, even had she had time, to proceed to any thing more important that day.
A fewdays after these events, caprice or curiosity led Sara to Swayne’s cottage. She had very much given up going there—why, she could scarcely have explained. In reality she knew nothing about the relationship between her brother and her friend; but either that, unknown to herself, had exercised some kind of magnetic repulsion upon her, or her own preoccupation had withdrawn Sara from any special approach to her little favorite. She would have said she was as fond of her as ever; but in fact she did not want Pamela as she had wanted her. And the consequence was that they had been much longer apart than either of them, occupied with their own concerns, had been aware. The motive which drew Sara thither after so long an interval was about as mysterious as that which kept her away. She went, but did not know why; perhaps from some impulse of those secret threads of fate which are ever being drawn unconsciously to us into another and another combination; perhaps simply from a girlish yearning toward the pleasant companion of whom for a time she had made so much. Mrs. Preston had not recovered when Sara went to see her daughter—she was still lying on the sofa with one ofher nervous attacks, Pamela said—though the fact was that neither mother nor daughter understood what kind of attack it was. Anxiety and excitement and uncertainty had worn poor Mrs. Preston out; and then her headache was so handy—it saved her from making any decision—it excused her to herself for not settling immediately what she ought to do. She was not able to move, and she was thankful for it. She could not undergo the fatigue of finding some other place to live in, of giving Mr. John his final answer. To be sure he knew and she knew that his final answer had been given—that there could be no doubt about it; but still every practical conclusion was postponed by the attack, and in this point of view it was the most fortunate thing which could have occurred.
Things were thus with them when Sara, after a long absence, one day suddenly lighted down upon the shady house in the glory of her summer attire, like a white dove lying into the bosom of the clouds. Perhaps it would be wrong to say that Pamela in her black frock stood no chance in the presence of her visitor; but it is certain that when Miss Brownlow came floating in with her light dress, and her bright ribbons and her shining hair, every thing about her gleaming with a certain reflection from the sunshine, Pamela and her mother could neither of them look at any thing else. She dazzled them, and yet drew their eyes to her, as light itself draws every body’s eyes. Pamela shrank a little from her friend’s side with a painful humility, asking herself whether it was possible that this bright creature should ever be her sister; while even Mrs. Preston, though she had all a mother’s admiration for her own child, could not but feel her heart sink as she thought how this splendid princess would ever tolerate so inferior an alliance. This consciousness in their minds made an immediate estrangement between them. Sara was condescending, and she felt she was condescending, and hated herself; and as for the mother and daughter, they were constrained and stricken dumb by the secret in their hearts. And thus there rose a silent offense on both sides. On hers because they were so cold and distant; on theirs because it seemed to them that she had come with the intention of being affable and kind to them, they who could no longer accept patronage. The mother lay on the sofa in the dark corner, and Sara sat on the chair in the window, and between the two points Pamela went straying, ashamed of herself, trying to smooth over her own secret irritation and discontent, trying to keep the peace between the others, and yet at the same time wishing and longing that her once welcome friend would leave them to themselves. The circumstances of their intercourse were changed, and the intercourse itself had to be organized anew. Thus the visit might have passed over, leaving only an impression of pain on their minds, but for an accident which set the matter in a clearer light. Pamela had been seated at the window with her work before Sara entered, and underneath the linen she had been stitching lay an envelope directed to her by Jack Brownlow. Jack had not seen his little love for one entire day, and naturally he had written her a little letter, which was as foolish as if he had not been so sensible a young man. It was only the envelope which lay thus on the table under Pamela’s work. Its enclosure was laid up in quite another sanctuary, but the address was there, unquestionably in Jack’s hand. It lay the other way from Sara’s eyes, tantalizing her with the well-known writing. She tried hard—without betraying herself, in the intervals of the conversation—to read the name on it upside down, and her suspicion had not, as may be supposed, an enlivening effect upon the conversation. Then she stooped and pretended to look at Pamela’s work; then she gave the provoking envelope a little stealthy touch with the end of her parasol. Perhaps scrupulous honor would have forbidden these little attempts to discover the secret; but when a sister perceives her brother’s handwriting on the work-table of her friend, it is hard to resist the inclination to make sure in the first place that it is his, in the second place to whom it is addressed. This was all that Sara was guilty of. She would not have peeped into the note for a kingdom, but she did want to know whom it was written to. Perhaps it was only some old scrap of paper, some passing word about mendings or fittings to Mr. Swayne. Perhaps—and then Sara gave the envelope stealthily that little poke with her parasol.
A few minutes after she got up to go: her complexion had heightened suddenly in the strangest way, her eyes had taken a certain rigid look, which meant excitement and wrath. “Will you come out with me a little way? I want to speak to you,” she said, as Pamela went with her to the door. It was very different from those old beseeching, tender, undeniable invitations which the one had been in the habit of giving to the other; but there was something in it which constrained Pamela, though she trembled to her very heart, to obey. She did not know any thing about the envelope; she had forgotten it—forgotten that she had left it there, and had not perceived Sara’s stealthy exertions to secure a sight of it. But nevertheless she knew there was something coming. She took down her little black hat, trembling, and stole out, a dark little figure, beside Sara, stately in her light flowing draperies. They did not say a word to each other as they crossed the road and entered at the gates and passed Betty’s cottage. Betty came to the door and looked after them with a curiosity so great that she was tempted to follow and creep under the bushes, and listen; but Sara said nothing to betray herself as long as they were within the range of old Betty’s eye. When they had got to the chestnut-trees, to that spot where Mr. Brownlow had come upon his son and his son’s love, and where there was a possibility of escaping from the observation of spectators at the gate, Sara’s composure gave way. All at once she seized Pamela’s arm, who turned round to her with her lips apart and her heart struggling up into her mouth with terror. “Jack has been writing to you,” said Sara; “tell me what it has been about.”
“What it has been about!” said Pamela, with a cry. The poor little girl was so taken by surprise that all her self-possession forsook her. Her knees trembled, her heart beat, fluttering wildly in her ears; she sank down on the grass in her confusion, and covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Miss Brownlow!” was all that she was able to say.
“That is no answer,” said Sara, with all hernatural vehemence. “Pamela, get up, and answer me like a sensible creature. I don’t mean to say it is your fault. A man might write to you and you might not be to blame. Tell me only what it means. What did he write to you about?”
Then Pamela bethought herself that she too had a certain dignity to preserve; not her own so much as that which belonged to her in right of her betrothed. She got up hastily, blushing scarlet, and though she did not meet Sara’s angry questioning eyes, she turned her downcast face toward her with a certain steadfastness. “It is not any harm,” she said, softly, “and, Miss Brownlow, you are no—no—older than me.”
“I am two years older than you,” said Sara, “and I know the world, and you don’t; and I am his sister. Oh, you foolish little thing! don’t you know it is wicked? If you had told me, I never, never would have let him trouble you. I never thought Jack would have done any thing so dreadful. It’s because you don’t know.”
“Mamma knows,” said Pamela, with a certain self-assertion; and then her courage once more failed her. “I tried to stop him,” she said with the tears coming to her eyes, “and so did mamma. But I could not force him; not when he—he—would not. What I think of,” cried Pamela, “is him, not myself; but if he won’t, whatcanI do?”
“If he won’t what?” said Sara, in her amazement and wrath.
But Pamela could make no answer; half with the bitterness of it, half with the sweetness of it, her heart was full. It was hard to be questioned and taken to task thus by her own friend; but it was sweet to know that what she could do was nothing, that her efforts had been vain, thathewould not give up. All this produced such a confusion in her that she could not say another word. She turned away, and once more covered her face with her hand; not that she was at all miserable—or if indeed it was a kind of misery, misery itself is sometimes sweet.
As for Sara, she blazed upon her little companion with an indignation which was splendid to behold. “Your mamma knows,” she said, “and permits it! Oh, Pamela! that I should have been so fond of you, and that you should treat me like this!”
“I am not treating you badly—it is you,” said Pamela, with a sob which she could not restrain, “who are cruel to me.”
“If you think so, we had better part,” said Sara, with tragic grandeur. “We had better part, and forget that we ever knew each other. I could have borne any thing from you but being false. Oh, Pamela! how could you do it? To be treacherous to me who have always loved you, and to correspond with Jack!”
“I—don’t—correspond—with Jack,” cried Pamela, the words being wrung out of her; and then she stopped short, and dried her eyes, and grew red, and looked Sara in the face. It was true, and yet it was false; and the consciousness of this falsehood in the spirit made her cheeks burn, and yet startled her into composure. She stood upright for the first time, and eyed her questioner, but it was with the self-possession not of innocence but of guilt.
“I am very glad to hear it,” said Sara—“very glad; but you let him write to you. And when I see his handwriting on your table, what am I to think? I will speak to him about it to-night; I will not have him tease you. Pamela, if you will trust in me, I will bring you through it safe. Surely it would be better for you to have me for a friend than Jack?”
Poor Pamela’s eyes sank to the ground as this question was addressed to her. Her blush, which had begun to fade, returned with double violence. Such a torrent of crimson rushed to her face and throat that even Sara took note of it. Pamela could not tell a lie—not another lie, as she said to herself in her heart; for the fact was she did prefer Jack—preferred him infinitely and beyond all question; and such being the case, could not so much as look at her questioner, much less breathe a word of assent. Sara marked the silence, the overwhelming blush, the look which suddenly fell beneath her own, with the consternation of utter astonishment. In that moment a renewed storm of indignation swept over her. She stamped her foot upon the grass in the impatience of her thoughts.
“You prefer Jack,” she cried, in horror—“you prefer Jack! Oh, heaven! but in that case,” she added, gathering up her long dress in her arms, and turning away with a grandeur of disdain which made an end of Pamela, “it is evident that we had better part. I do not know that there is any thing more I can say. I have thought more of you than I ought to have done,” said Sara, making a few steps forward and then turning half round with the air of an injured princess, “but now it is better that we should part.”
With this she waved her hand and turned away. It was in her heart to have turned and gone back five-and-twenty times before she reached the straight line of the avenue from which they had strayed. Before she got to the first laurel in the shrubberies her heart had given her fifty pricks on the subject of her cruelty; but Sara was not actually so moved by these admonitions as to go back. As for Pamela, she stood for a long time where her friend had left her, motionless under the chestnut-trees, with tears dropping slowly from her downcast eyes, and a speechless yet sweet anguish in her heart. Her mother had been right. The sister’s little friend and the brother’s betrothed were two different things. This was how she was to be received by those who were nearest in the world to him; and yet he was a man, and his own master; all she could do was in vain, and he could not be forced to give up. Pamela stood still until his sister’s light steps began to sound on the gravel; and when it was evident the parting had been final, and that Sara did not mean to come back, the poor child relieved her bosom by a long sob, and then went home very humbly by the broad sunny avenue. She went and poured her troubles into her mother’s bosom, which naturally was so much the worse for Mrs. Preston’s headache. It was very hard to bear, and yet there was one thing which gave a little comfort; Jack was his own master, and giving him up, as every body else adjured her to do, would be a thing entirely without effect.
The dinner-table at Brownlows was very grave that night. Mr. Brownlow, it is true, was much as usual, and so was Jack; they were very much as they always were, notwithstanding that very grave complications surrounded the footsteps ofboth. But as for Sara, her aspect was solemnity itself; she spoke in monosyllables only; she ate little, and that little in a pathetic way; when her father or her brother addressed her she took out her finest manners and extinguished them. Altogether she was a very imposing and majestic sight; and after a few attempts at ordinary conversation, the two gentlemen, feeling themselves very trifling and insignificant personages indeed, gave in, and struggled no longer against an influence which was too much for them. There was something, too, in her manner—something imperceptible to Mr. Brownlow, perceptible only to Jack—which made it clear to the latter that it was on his account his sister was so profoundly disturbed. He said “Pshaw!” to himself at first, and tried to think himself quite indifferent; but the fact was he was not indifferent. When she left the room at last, Jack had no heart for a chat with his father over the claret. He too felt his secret on his mind, and became uncomfortable when he was drawn at all into a confidential attitude; and to-day, in addition to this, there was in his heart a prick of alarm. Did Sara know? was that what she meant? Jack knew very well that sooner or later every body must know; but at the present moment a mingled sense of shame and pride and independence kept him silent. Even supposing it was the most prudent marriage he could make, why should a fellow go and tell every body like a girl? It might be well enough for a girl to do it—a girl had to get every body’s consent, and ask every body’s advice, whereas he required neither advice nor consent. And so he had not felt himself called upon to say any thing about it; but it is nervous work, when you have a secret on your mind, to be left alone with your nearest relative, the person who has the best right to know, and who in a way possesses your natural confidence and has done nothing to forfeit it. So Jack escaped five minutes after Sara, and hastened to the drawing-room looking for her. Perhaps she had expected it—at all events she was there waiting for him, still as solemn, pathetic and important as it is possible to conceive. She had some work in her hands which of itself was highly significant. Jack went up to her, and she looked at him, but took no farther notice. After that one glance she looked down again, and went on with her work—things were too serious for speech.
“What’s the matter?” said Jack. “Why are you making such a tragedy-queen of yourself? What has every body done? My opinion is you have frightened my father to death.”
“I should be very sorry if I had frightened papa,” said Sara, meekly; and then she broke forth with vehemence, “Oh, how can you, Jack? Don’t you feel ashamed to look me in the face?”
“Iashamed to look you in the face?” cried Jack, in utter bewilderment; and he retired a step, but yet stared at her with the most straightforward stare. His eyes did not fall under the scrutiny of hers, but gradually as he looked there began to steal up among his whiskers an increasing heat. He grew red, though there was no visible cause for it. “I should like to know what I have done,” he said, with an affected laugh. “Anyhow, you take high ground.”
“I couldn’t take too high ground,” said Sara solemnly. “Oh, Jack! how could you think of meddling with that innocent little thing? To see her about so pretty and sweet as she was, and then to go and worry her and tease her to death!”
“Worry and tease—whom?” cried Jack in amaze. This was certainly not the accusation he expected to hear.
“As if you did not know whom I mean!” said his sister. “Wasn’t it throwing themselves on our kindness when they came here? And to make her that she dares not walk about or come out anywhere—to tease her with letters even! I think you are the last man in the world from whom I should have expected that.”
Jack had taken to bite his nails, not well knowing what else to do. But he made no direct reply even to the solemnity of this appeal. A flush of anger sprang up over his face, and yet he was amused. “Has she been complaining to you?” he said.
“Complaining,” said Sara. “Poor little thing! No, indeed. She never said a word. I found it out all by myself.”
“Then I advise you to keep it all to yourself,” said her brother. “She don’t want you to interfere, nor I either. We can manage our own affairs; and I think, Sara,” he added, with an almost equal grandeur, “if I were you I would not notice the mote in my brother’s eye till I had looked after the beam in my own.”
The beam in her own! what did he mean? But Jack went off in a lofty way, contenting himself with this Parthian arrow, and declining to explain. The insinuation, however, disturbed Sara. What was the beam in her own? Somehow, while she was puzzling about it, a vision of young Powys crossed her mind, papa’s friend, who began to come so often. When she thought of that, she smiled at her brother’s delusion. Poor Jack! he did not know that it was in discharge of her most sacred duty that she was civil to Powys. She had been very civil to him. She had taken his part against Jack’s own refined rudeness, and delivered him even from the perplexed affabilities of her father, though he was her father’s friend. Both Mr. Brownlow and Jack were preoccupied, and Sara had been the only one to entertain the stranger. And she had done it so as to make the entertainment very amusing and pleasant to herself. But what had that to do with a beam in her eye? She had made a vow, and she was performing her vow. And he was her father’s friend; and if all other arguments should be exhausted, still the case was no parallel to that of Pamela. He was not a poor man dwelling at the gate. He was a fairy prince, whom some enchantment had transformed into his present shape. The case was utterly different. Thus it was with a certain magnificent superiority over her brother’s weakness that Sara smiled to herself at his delusion. And yet she was grieved to think that he should take refuge in such a delusion, and did not show any symptom of real sorrow for his own sin.
Jack had hardly gone when Mr. Brownlow came up stairs. And he too asked Sara why it was that she sat apart in such melancholy majesty. When he had heard the cause, he was more disturbed than either of his children had been. Sara had supposed that Jack might be trifling with her poor little friend—she thought that he might carry the flirtation so far as to break poor Pamela’s heart, perhaps. But Mr. Brownlow knew that there were sometimes consequences more seriousthan even the breaking of hearts. To be sure he judged, not with the awful severity of a woman, but with the leniency of a man of the world; but yet it seemed to him that worse things might happen to poor Pamela than an innocent heart-break, and his soul was disturbed within him by the thought. He had warned his son, with all the gravity which the occasion required; but Jack was young, and no doubt the warning had been ineffectual. Mr. Brownlow was grieved to his soul; and, what was strange enough, it never occurred to him that his son could have behaved as he had done, like a Paladin. Jack’s philosophy, which had so little effect upon himself, had deceived his father. Mr. Brownlow felt that Jack was not the man to sacrifice his position and prospects and ambitions to an early marriage, and the only alternative was one at which he shuddered. For the truth was, his eye had been much attracted by the bright little face at the gate. It recalled some other face to him—he could not recall whose face. He had thought she was like Sara at first, but it was not Sara. And to think of that fresh sweet blossoming creature all trodden down into dust and ruin! The thought made Mr. Brownlow’s heart contract with positive pain. He went down into the avenue, and walked about there for hours waiting for his son. It must not be, he said to himself—it must not be! And all this time Jack, not knowing what was in store for him, was hearing over and over again, with much repetition, the story of the envelope and Sara’s visit, and was drying Pamela’s tears, and laughing at her fright, and asking her gloriously what any body could do to separate them?—what could any body do? A girl might be subject to her parents; but who was there who could take away his free will from a Man? This was the scope of Jack’s conversation, and it was very charming to his hearer. What could any one do against that magnificent force of resolution? Of course his allowance might be taken from him; but he could work. They had it all their own way in Mrs. Swayne’s parlor, though Mrs. Swayne herself did not hesitate to express her disapproval; but as yet Mr. John knew nothing about the anxious parent who walked up and down waiting for him on the other side of the gate.