Itwas nearly two hours after this when Jack Brownlow met Powys at the gate. It was a moonlight night, and the white illumination which fell upon the departing visitor perhaps increased the look of excitement and desperation which might have been apparent even to the most indifferent passer-by. He had been walking very quickly down the avenue; his boots and his dress gleamed in the moonlight as if he had been burying himself among the wet grass and bushes in the park. His hat was over his brows, his face haggard and ghastly. No doubt it was partly the effect of the wan and ghostly moonlight, but still there must have been something more in it, or Jack, who loved him little, would not have stopped as he did to see what was the matter. Jack was all the more bent upon stopping that he could see Powys did not wish it, and all sorts of hopes and suspicions sprang up in his mind. His father had dismissed the intruder, or he had so far forgotten himself as to betray his feelings to Sara, and she had dismissed him. Once more curiosity came in Powys’s way. Jack was so resolute to find out what it was, that, for the first time in his life, he was friendly to his father’s clerk. “Are you walking?” he said; “I’ll go with you a little way. It is a lovely night.”
“Yes,” said Powys; and he restrained his headlong course a little. It was all he could do—that, and to resist the impulse to knock Jack down and be rid of him. It might not have been so very easy, for the two were tolerably well matched; but poor Powys was trembling with the force of passion, and would have been glad of any opportunity to relieve himself either in the way of love or hatred. Nothing of this description, however, seemed practicable to him. The two young men walked down the road together, keeping a little apart, young, strong, tall, full of vigor, and with a certain likeness in right of their youth and strength. There should even have been the sympathy between them which draws like to like. And yet how unlike they were! Jack had taken his fate in his hand, and was contemplating with a cheerful daring, which was half ignorance, a descent to the position in which his companion stood. It would be sweetened in his case by all the ameliorations possible, or so at least he thought; and, after all, what did it matter? Whereas Powys was smarting under the miserable sense of having been placed in a false position in addition to all the pangs of unhappy love, and of having betrayed himself and the confidence put in him, and sacrificed his honor, and cut himself off forever from the delight which still might have been his. All these pains and troubles were struggling together within him. He would have felt more keenly still the betrayal of the trust his employer had placed in him, had he not felt bitterly that Mr. Brownlow had subjected him to temptations which it was not in flesh and blood to bear. Thus every kind of smart was accumulated within the poor young fellow’s spirit—the sense of guilt, the sense of being hardly used, the consciousness of having shut himself out from paradise, the knowledge, beyond all, that his love was hopeless and all the light gone out of his life. It may be supposedhow little inclination he had to enter into light conversation, or to satisfy the curiosity of Jack.
They walked on together in complete silence for some minutes, their footsteps ringing in harmony along the level road, but their minds and feelings as much out of harmony as could be conceived. Jack was the first to speak. “It’s pleasant walking to-night,” he said, feeling more conciliatory than he could have thought possible; “how long do you allow yourself from here to Masterton? It is a good even road.”
“Half an hour,” said Powys, carelessly.
“Half an hour! that’s quick work,” said Jack. “I don’t think you’ll manage that to night. I have known that mare of mine do it in twenty minutes; but I don’t think you could match her pace.”
“She goes very well,” said the Canadian, with a moderation which nettled Jack.
“Very well! I never saw any thing go like her,” he said—“that is, with a cart behind her. What kind of cattle have you in Canada? I suppose there’s good sport there of one kind or another. Shouldn’t you like to go back?”
“Iamgoing back,” said Powys. He said it in the depth of his despair, and it startled himself as soon as it was said. Go back? yes! that was the only thing to do—but how?
“Really?” said Jack with surprise and no small relief, and then a certain human sentiment awoke within him. “I hope you haven’t had a row with the governor?” he said; “it always seemed to me he had too great a fancy for you. I beg your pardon for saying so just now, especially if you’re vexed; but look here—I’m not much of a one for a peace-maker; but if you don’t mind telling me what it’s about—”
“I have had no row with Mr. Brownlow; it is worse than that,” said Powys; “it is past talking of; I have been both an ass and a knave, and there’s nothing for me but to take myself out of every body’s way.”
Once more Jack looked at him in the moonlight, and saw that quick heave of his breast which betrayed the effort he was making to keep himself down, and a certain spasmodic quiver in his lip.
“I wouldn’t be too hasty if I were you,” he said. “I don’t think you can have been a knave. We’re all of us ready enough to make fools of ourselves,” the young philosopher added, with a touch of fellow-feeling. “You and I haven’t been over-good friends, you know, but you might as well tell me what it’s all about.”
“You were quite right,” said Powys, hastily. “I ought never to have come up here. And it was not my doing. It was a false position all along. A man oughtn’t to be tempted beyond his strength. Of course I have nobody to blame but myself. I don’t suppose I would be a knave about money or any thing of that sort. But it’s past talking of; and besides I could not, even if it were any good, make a confidant of you.”
It was not difficult for Jack to divine what this despair meant, and he was touched by the delicacy which would not name his sister’s name. “I lay a hundred pounds it’s Sara’s fault,” he said to himself. But he gave no expression to the sentiment. And of course it was utterly beyond hope, and the young fellow in Powys’s position who should yield to such a temptation must indeed have made an ass of himself. But in the circumstances Jack was not affronted at the want of confidence in himself.
“I don’t want to pry into your affairs,” he said. “I don’t like it myself; but I would not do any thing hastily if I were you. A man mayn’t be happy, but, so far as I can see, he must live all the same.”
“Yes, that’s the worst,” said Powys; “a fellow can’t give in and get done with it. Talk is no good; but I shall have to go. I shall speak to your father to-morrow, and then—Good-night. Don’t come any farther. I’ve been all about the place to say good-bye. I am glad to have had this talk with you first. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” said Jack, grasping the hand of his fellow. Their hands had never met in the way of friendship before. Now they clasped each other warmly, closely, with an instinctive sympathy. Powys’s mind was so excited with other things, so full of supreme emotion, that this occurrence, though startling enough, did not have much effect upon him. But it made a very different impression upon Jack, who was full of surprise and compunction, and turned, after he had made a few steps in the direction of Brownlows, with a reluctant idea of “doing something” for the young fellow who was so much less lucky than himself. It was a reluctant idea, for he was prejudiced, and did not like to give up his prejudices, and at the same time he was generous, and could not but feel for a brother in misfortune. But Powys was already far on his way, out of hearing, and almost out of sight. “He will do it in the half-hour,” Jack said to himself, with admiration. “By Jove! how the fellow goes! and I’ll lay you any thing it’s all Sara’s fault.” He was very hard upon Sara in the revulsion of his feelings. Of course she could have done nothing but send her presumptuous admirer away. But, then, had she not led him on and encouraged him? “The little flirt!” Jack said to himself; and just then he was passing Swayne’s cottage, which lay in the deep blackness of the shadow made by the moonlight. He looked up tenderly at the light that burned in the upper window. He had grown foolish about that faint little light, as was only natural. There was one who was no flirt, who never would have tempted any man and drawn him on to the breaking of his heart. From the height of his own good fortune Jack looked down upon poor Powys speeding along with despair in his soul along the Masterton road. Something of that soft remorse which is the purest bloom of personal happiness softened his thoughts. Poor Powys! And there was nothing that could be done for him. He could not compel his fate as Jack himself could do. For him there was nothing in store but the relinquishment of all hope, the giving up of all dreams. The thought made Jack feel almost guilty in his own independence and well-being. Perhaps he could yet do or say something that would smooth the other’s downfall—persuade him to remain at least at Masterton, where he need never come in the way of the little witch who had beguiled him, and afford him his own protection and friendship instead. As Jack thought of the little house that he himself, separated from Brownlows and its comforts, was about to set up at Masterton, his benevolence toward Powys grew still stronger.He was a fellow with whom a man could associate on emergency; and no doubt this was all Sara’s fault. He went home to Brownlows disposed to stand Powys’s friend if there was any question of him. But when Jack reached home there was no question of Powys. On the whole it was not a cheerful house into which he entered. Lights were burning vacantly in the drawing-room, but there was nobody there. Lights were burning dimly down stairs. It looked like a deserted place as he went up and down the great staircase, and through the silent rooms, and found nobody. Mr. Brownlow himself was in the library with the door shut, where, in the present complexion of affairs, Jack did not care to disturb him; and Miss Sara had gone to bed with a headache, he was told, when, after searching for her everywhere, he condescended to inquire. Sara was not given to headaches, and the intimation startled her brother. And he went and sat in the drawing-room alone, and stared at the lights, and contrasted this solitary grandeur with the small house whose image was in his mind. The little cozy, tiny, sunshiny place, where one little bright face would always smile; where there would always be some one ready to listen, ready to be interested, ready to take a share in every thing. The picture looked very charming to him after the dreariness of this great room, and Sara gone to bed, and poor Powys banished and broken-hearted. That was not to be his own fate, and Jack grew pious and tender in his self-gratulations. After all, poor Powys was a very good sort of fellow; but as it happened, it was Jack who had drawn all the prizes of life. He did think at one time of going down stairs notwithstanding the delicate state of his own relations with his father, and making such excuses as were practicable for the unfortunate clerk, who had permitted himself to be led astray in this foolish manner. “Of course it was a great risk bringing him here at all,” Jack thought of saying, that Mr. Brownlow might be brought to a due sense of his own responsibility in the matter; but after long consideration, he wisely reflected that it would be best to wait until the first parties to the transaction had pronounced themselves. If Sara did not mean to say any thing about it, nor Powys, why should he interfere? upon which conclusion, instead of going down stairs, he went to bed, thinking again how cheerless it was for each member of the household to start off like this without a single good-night, and how different it would be in the new household that was to come.
Sara came to breakfast next morning looking very pale. The color had quite gone out of her cheeks, and she had done herself up in a warm velvet jacket, and had the windows closed as soon as she came into the room. “They never will remember that the summer’s over,” she said, with a shiver, as she took her place; but she made no farther sign of any kind. Clearly she had no intention of complaining of her rash lover;—so little, indeed, that when Mr. Brownlow was about to go away, she held out a book to him timidly, with a sudden blush. “Mr. Powys forgot to take this with him last night; would you mind taking it to him, papa?” she said, very meekly; and as Jack looked at her, Sara blushed redder and redder. Not that she had any occasion to blush. It might be meant as an olive-branch or even a pledge of hope; but still it was only a book that Powys had left behind him. Mr. Brownlow accepted the charge with a little surprise, and he, too, looked at her so closely that it was all she could do to restrain a burst of tears.
“Is it such a wonder that I should send back a book when it is left?” she cried, petulantly. “You need not take it unless you like, papa; it can always go by the post.”
“I will take it,” said Mr. Brownlow; and Jack sat by rather grimly, and said nothing. Jack was very variable and uncertain just at that moment in his own feelings. He had not forgotten the melting of his heart on the previous night; but if he had seen any tokens of relenting on the part of his sister toward the presumptuous stranger, Jack would have again hated Powys. He even observed with suspicion that his father took little notice of Sara’s agitation; that he shut his eyes to it, as it were, and took her book, and evaded all farther discussion. Jack himself was not going to Masterton that day. He had to see that every thing was in order for the next day, which was the 1st of September. So far had the season wheeled round imperceptibly while all the variations of this little domestic drama were ripening to their appointed end.
Jack, however, did not go to inspect his gun, and consult with the gamekeeper, immediately on his father’s departure. He waited for a few minutes, while Sara, who had been so cold, rushed to the window, and threw it open. “There must be thunder in the air—one can scarcely breathe,” she said. And Jack watched her jealously, and did not lose a single look.
“You were complaining of cold just now,” he said. “Sara, mind what you are about. If you think you can play that young Powys at the end of your line, you’re making a great mistake.”
“Play whom?” cried Sara, blazing up. “You are a nice person to preach to me! I am playing nobody at the end of my line. I have no line to play with; and you that are making a fool of that poor little simple Pamela—”
“Be quiet, will you?” said Jack, furious. “That poor little simple Pamela, as you call her, is going to be my wife.”
Sara gazed at him for a moment thunderstruck, standing like something made into stone, with her velvet jacket, which she had just taken off, in her hands. Then the color fled from her cheeks as quickly as it had come to them, and her great eyes filled suddenly, like crystal cups, with big tears. She threw the jacket down out of her hands, and rushed to her brother’s side, and clasped his arm. “You don’t mean it, Jack?—do you mean it?” she cried, piteously, gazing up into his face; and a crowd of different emotions, more than Jack could discriminate or divine, was in her voice. There was pleasure and there was sorrow, and sharp envy and pride and regret. She clasped his arm, and looked at him with a look which said—“How could you?—how dare you?—and, oh, how lucky you are to be able to do it!”—all in a breath.
“Of course I mean it,” said Jack, a little roughly; but he did not mean to be rough. “And that is why I tell you it is odious of you, Sara, to tempt a man to his destruction, when you know you can do nothing for him but break his heart.”
“Can’t I?” said Sara, dropping away fromhis arm, with a faint little moan; and then she turned quickly away, and hid her face in her hands. Jack, for his part, felt he was bound to improve the occasion, though his heart smote him. He stood secure on his own pedestal of virtue, though he did not want her to copy him. Indeed, such virtue in Sara would have been little short of vice.
“Nothing else,” said Jack, “and yet you creatures do it without ever thinking of the sufferings you cause. I saw the state that poor fellow was in when he left you last night; and now you begin again sending him books! What pleasure can you have in it! It is something inconceivable to me.”
This Jack uttered with a superiority and sense of goodness so lofty that Sara’s tears dried up. She turned round in a blaze of indignation, too much offended to trust herself to answer. “You may be an authority to Pamela, but you are not an authority to me,” she cried, drawing herself up to her fullest state. But she did not trust herself to continue the warfare. The tears were lying too near the surface, and Sara had been too much shaken by the incident of the previous night. “I am not going to discuss my own conduct; you can go and talk to Pamela about it,” she added, pausing an instant at the door of the room before she went out. It was spiteful, and Jack felt that it was spiteful; but he did not guess how quickly Sara rushed up stairs after her dignified progress to the door, nor how she locked herself in, nor what a cry she had in her own room when she was safe from all profane eyes. She was not thinking of Pamela, and yet she could have beaten Pamela.Shewas to be happy, and have her own way; but as for Sara, it was an understood duty that the only thing she could do for a man was to break his heart! Her tears fell down like rain at this thought. Why should Jack be so free and she so fettered? Why should Pamela be so well off? Thus a sudden and wild little hail-storm of rage and mortification went over Sara’s head, or rather heart.
Meanwhile Mr. Brownlow went very steadily to business with the book in his pocket. He had been a little startled by Sara’s look, but by this time it was going out of his mind. He was thinking that it was a lovely morning, and still very warm, though the child was so chilly; and then he remembered, with a start, that next day was the 1st of September. Another six weeks, and the time of his probation was over. The thought sent the blood coursing through his veins, as if he had been a young man. Every thing had gone on so quietly up to that moment—no farther alarms—nothing to revive his fears—young Powys lulled to indifference, if indeed he knew any thing; and the time of liberation so near. But with that thrill of satisfaction came a corresponding excitement. Now that the days were numbered, every day was a year in itself. It occurred to him suddenly to go away somewhere, to take Sara with him and bury himself in some remote corner of the earth, where nobody could find him for those fated six weeks; and so make it quite impossible that any application could reach him. But he dismissed the idea. In his absence might she not appear, and disclose herself? His own presence somehow seemed to keep her off, and at arm’s length; but he could not trust events for a single day if he were gone. And it was only six weeks. After that, yes, he would go away, he would go to Rome or somewhere, and take Sara, and recover his calm after that terrible tension. He would need it, no doubt;—so long as his brain did not give way.
Mr. Brownlow, however, was much startled by the looks of Powys when he went into the office. He was more haggard than he had ever been in the days when Mr. Wrinkell was suspicious of him. His hair hung on his forehead in a limp and drooping fashion—he was pale, and there were circles round his eyes. Mr. Brownlow had scarcely taken his place in his own room when the impatient young man came and asked to speak to him. The request made the lawyer’s hair stand up on his head, but he could not refuse the petition. “Come in,” he said, faintly. The blood seemed to go back on his heart in a kind of despair. After all his anticipations of approaching freedom, was he to be arrested after all, before the period of emancipation came?
As for Powys, he was too much excited himself to see any thing but the calmest composure in Mr. Brownlow, who indeed, throughout all his trials, though they were sharp enough, always looked composed. The young man even thought his employer methodical and matter of fact to the last degree. He had put out upon the table before him the book Sara had intrusted him with. It was a small edition of one of the poets which poor Powys had taken with him on his last unhappy expedition to Brownlows; and Mr. Brownlow put his hand on the book, with a constrained smile, as a school-master might have put his hand on a prize.
“My daughter sent you this, Powys,” he said, “a book which it appears you left last night; and why did you go away in such a hurry without letting me know?”
“Miss Brownlow sent it?” said Powys, growing crimson; and for a minute the poor young fellow was so startled and taken aback that he could not add another word. He clutched at the book, and gazed at it hungrily, as if it could tell him something, and then he saw Mr. Brownlow looking at him with surprise, and his color grew deeper and deeper. “That was what I came to speak to you about, sir,” he said, hot with excitement and wretchedness. “You have trusted me, and I am unworthy of your trust. I don’t mean to excuse myself; but I could not let another day go over without telling you. I have behaved like an idiot—and a villain—”
“Stop, stop!” said Mr. Brownlow. “What is all this about? Don’t be excited. I don’t believe you have behaved like a villain. Take time and compose yourself, and tell me what it is.”
“It is that you took me into your house, sir, and trusted me,” said Powys, “and I have betrayed your trust. I must mention her name. I saw your daughter too often—too much. I should have had the honor and honesty to tell you before I betrayed myself. But I did not mean to betray myself. I miscalculated my strength; and in a moment, when I was not thinking, it gave way. Don’t think I have gone on with it,” he added, looking beseechingly at his employer, who sat silent, not so much as liftinghis eyes. “It was only last night—and I am ready at the moment, if you wish it, to go away.”
Mr. Brownlow sat at his table and made no reply. Oh, those hasty young creatures, who precipitated every thing! It was, in a kind of way, the result of his own scheming, and yet his heart revolted at it, and in six weeks’ time he would be free from all such necessity. What was he to do? He sat silent, utterly confounded and struck dumb—not with surprise and horror, as his young companion in the fullness of his compunction believed, but with confusion and uncertainty as to what he ought to say and do. He could not offend and affront the young man on whose quietness and unawakened thoughts so much depended. He could not send Powys away, to fall probably into the hands of other advisers, and rise up against himself. Yet could he pledge himself, and risk Sara’s life, when so short a time might set him free? All this rushed through his mind while he sat still in the same attitude in which he had listened to the young fellow’s story. All this pondering had to be done in a moment, for Powys was standing beside him in all the vehemence of passion, thinking every minute an hour, and waiting for his answer. Indeed he expected no answer. Yet something there was that must be said, and which Mr. Brownlow did not know how to say.
“You betrayed yourself?” he said, at last; “that means, you spoke. And what did Sara say?”
The color on Powys’s face flushed deeper and deeper. He gave one wild, half-frantic look of inquiry at his questioner. There was nothing in the words, but in the calm of the tone, in the naming of his daughter’s name, there was something that looked like a desperate glimmer of hope; and this unexpected light flashed upon the young man all of a sudden, and made him nearly mad. “She said nothing,” he answered, breathlessly. “I was not so dishonorable as to ask for any answer. What answer was possible? It was forced out of me, and I rushed away.”
Mr. Brownlow pushed his chair away from the table. He got up and went to the window, and stood and looked out, he could not have told why. There was nothing there that could help him in what he had to say. There was nothing but two children standing in the dusty road, and a pale, swarthy organ-grinder, with two big eyes, playing “Ah, che la morte” outside. Mr. Brownlow always remembered the air, and so did Powys, standing behind, with his heart beating loud, and feeling that the next words he should listen to might convey life or death.
“If she has said nothing,” said Mr. Brownlow at last from the window, speaking with his back turned, “perhaps it will be as well for me to follow her example.” When he said this he returned slowly to his seat, and took his chair without ever looking at the culprit before him. “Of course you were wrong,” he added; “but you are young. You ought not to have been placed in such temptation. Go back to your work, Mr. Powys. It was a youthful indiscretion; and I am not one of those who reject an honorable apology. We will forget it for ever—we, and every body concerned—”
“But, sir—” cried Powys.
“No more,” said Mr. Brownlow. “Let by-gones be by-gones. You need not go up to Brownlows again till this occurrence has been forgotten. I told you Sara had sent you the book you left. It has been an unfortunate accident, but no more than an accident, I hope. Go back to your work, and forget it. Don’t do any thing rash. I accept your apology. Such a thing might have happened to the best of us. But you will be warned by it, and do not err again. Go back to your work.”
“Then I am not to leave you?” said Powys, sorely tossed between hope and despair, thinking one moment that he was cruelly treated, and the next overwhelmed by the favor shown him. He looked so wistfully at his employer, that Mr. Brownlow, who saw him though he was not looking at him, had hard ado not to give him a little encouragement with his eyes.
“If you can assure me this will not be repeated, I see no need for your leaving,” said Mr. Brownlow. “You know I wish you well, Powys. I am content that it should be as if it had never been.”
The young man did not know what to say. The tumult in his mind had not subsided. He was in the kind of condition to which every thing which is not despair is hope. He was wild with wonder, bewilderment, confusion. He made some incoherent answer, and the next moment he found himself again at his desk, dizzy like a man who has fallen from some great height, yet feels himself unhurt upon solid ground after all. What was to come of it all? And Sara had sent him his book. Sara? Never in his wildest thoughts had he ventured to call her Sara before. He did not do it wittingly now. He was in a kind of trance of giddiness and bewilderment. Was it all real, or had it happened in a dream?
Meanwhile Mr. Brownlow too sat and pondered this new development. What was it all to come to? He seemed to other people to be the arbiter of events; but that was what he himself asked, in a kind of consternation, of time and fate.
Itwas the beginning of September, as we have said, and the course of individual history slid aside as it were for the moment, and lost itself in the general web. Brownlows became full of people—friends of Jack’s, friends of Mr. Brownlow, even friends of Sara—for ladies came of course to break the monotony of the shooting-party—and in the press of occupation personal matters had to be put aside. Mr. Brownlow himself almost forgot, except by moments when the thought came upon him with a certain thrill of excitement, that the six weeks were gliding noiselessly on, and that soon his deliverance would come. As for Sara, she did not forget the agitating little scene in which she had been only a passive actor, but which had woven a kind of subtle link between her and the man who had spoken to her in the voice of real passion. The sound of it had scared and perplexed her at first, and it had roused her to a sense of the real difference, as well as the real affinities, between them; but whatever she might feel,the fact remained that there was a link between them—a link which she could no more break than the Queen could—a something that defied all denial or contradiction. She might never see him again, but—he loved her. When a girl is fancy-free, there is no greater charm; and Sara was, or had been, entirely fancy-free, and was more liable than most girls to this attraction. When the people around her were stupid or tiresome, as to be sure the best of people are sometimes, her thoughts would make a sudden gleam like lightning upon the man who had said he would never see her face again. Perhaps he might have proved tiresome too, had he gone out in the morning with his gun, and come home tired to dinner; but he was absent; and there are times when the absent have the best of it, notwithstanding all proverbs. She was much occupied, and by times sufficiently well amused at home, and did not feel it in the least necessary to summon Powys to her side; but still the thought of him came in now and then, and gave an additional zest to her other luxuries. It was a supreme odor and incense offered up to her, as he had thought it would be—a flower which she set her pretty foot upon, and the fragrance of which came up poignant and sweet to her delicate nostril. If any body had said as much to Sara it would have roused her almost to fury; but still such were the facts of the case.
Jack, for his part, was less excusable if he was negligent, and he was rather negligent just then, in the first fervor of the partridges, it must be allowed—not that he cared a straw for the ladies of the party, and their accomplishments, and their pretty dresses, and their wiles, poor Pamela believed in her heart. Apart from Pamela, Jack was a stoic, and wasted not a thought on womankind; but when a man is shooting all day, and is surrounded by a party of fellows who have to be dined and entertained in the evening, and is, besides, quite confident in his mind that the little maiden who awaits him has no other seductive voice to whisper in her ear, he may be pardoned for a little carelessness or unpunctuality—at least Jack thought he ought to be pardoned, which comes very much to the same thing. Thus the partridges, if they did not affect the affairs of state, as do their Highland brethren the grouse, at least had an influence upon the affairs of Brownlows, and put a stop, as it were, to the undivided action of its private history for the time.
It was during this interval that the carrier’s cart once more deposited a passenger on the Brownlows road. She did not get down at the gate, which, she already knew, was a step calculated to bring upon her the eyes of the population, but was set down at a little distance, and came in noiselessly, as became her mission. It was a September afternoon, close and sultry. The sky was a whitish blue, pale with the blaze that penetrated and filled it. The trees looked parched and dusty where they overhung the road. The whole landscape round Brownlows beyond the line of these dusty trees was yellow with stubble, for the land was rich, and there had been a heavy crop. The fields were reaped, and the kindly fruits of earth gathered in, and there seemed no particular need for all that blaze of sunshine. But the sun blazed all the same, and the pedestrian stole slowly on, casting a long oblique shadow across the road. Every thing was sleepy and still. Old Betty’s door and windows were open, but the heat was so great as to quench even curiosity; or perhaps it was only that the stranger’s step was very stealthy, and until it suddenly fell upon a treacherous knot of gravel, which dispersed under her weight and made a noise, had given no sign of its approach. Betty came languidly to her door when she heard this sound, but she went in again and dropped back into her doze upon her big chair when she saw it was but the slow and toiling figure of a poor woman, no way attractive to curiosity. “Some poor body a-going to Dewsbury,” she said to herself; and thus Nancy stole on unnoticed. The blind was down in the parlor window of Mrs. Swayne’s neighbor, and her door closed, and Mrs. Swayne herself was out of the way for the moment, seeing to the boiling of the afternoon kettle. Nancy crept in, passing like a vision across Mrs. Preston’s open window. Her step made no appreciable sound even in the sleepy stillness of the house, and the sole preface they had to her appearance in the parlor was a shadow of something black which crossed the light, and the softest visionary tap at the door. Then the old woman stood suddenly before the mother and the daughter, who were sitting together dull enough. Mrs. Preston was still poorly, and disturbed in her mind. And as for Pamela, poor child, it was a trying moment for her. As from a watch-tower, she could see what was going on at Brownlows, and knew that they were amusing themselves, and had all kinds of pleasant parties, in which Jack, who was hers and no other woman’s, took the chief part; and that amid all these diversions he had no time to come to see her though she had the only right to him, and that other girls were by, better born, better mannered, better dressed, and more charming than her simple self. Would it be his fault if he were fickle? How could he help being fickle with attractions so much greater around him? This was how Pamela was thinking as she sat by the sofa on which her mother lay. It was not weather for much exertion, and in the peculiar position of affairs, it was painful for these two to run the risk of meeting anybody from Brownlows; therefore they did not go out except furtively now and then at night, and sat all day in the house, and brooded, and were not very cheerful. Every laugh she heard sounding down the avenue, every carriage that drove out of or into the gates, every stray bit of gossip about the doings at the great house, and the luncheon parties at the cover-side, and the new arrivals, sounded to poor little Pamela like an injury. She had meant to be so happy and she was not happy. Only the sound of the guns was a little comfort to her. To be sure when he was shooting he was still amusing himself away from her; but at the same time he was not near the fatal beauties whom every evening Pamela felt in her heart he must be talking to, and smiling upon, and growing bewitched by. Such was the tenor of her thoughts as she sat by the sofa working, when old Nancy came in so suddenly at the door.
Pamela sprang up from her seat. Her nerves were out of order, and even her temper, poor child! and all her delicate organization set onedge “It isheragain! and oh, what do you want?” said Pamela, with a little shriek. As for Mrs. Preston, she too sat bolt upright on the sofa and started not without a certain fright, at the sudden apparition. “Nancy Christian!” she said, clasping her hands together; “Nancy Christian! Is thisyou?”
“Yes, it’s me,” said Nancy; “I said I would come, and here I am, and I’ve a deal to say. If you don’t mind, I’ll take a chair, for it’s a long way walking in this heat, all the way from Masterton.” This she said without a blush, though she had been set down not fifty yards off from the carrier’s cart.
“Sit down,” said Mrs. Preston, anxiously, herself rising from the sofa. “It is not often I lie down,” (though this was almost as much a fiction as Nancy’s), “but the heat gets the better of one. I remember your name as long as I remember any thing; I always hoped you would come back. Pamela, if there is any thing that Nancy would like after her long walk—”
“A cup of tea is all as I care for,” said Nancy. “It’s a many years since we’ve met, and you’ve changed, ma’am,” she added, with a cordiality that was warmer than her sincerity; “but I could allays see as it was you.”
“I have reason to be changed,” said Mrs. Preston. “I was young when you saw me last, and now I’m an old woman. I’ve had many troubles. I’ve had a hard fight with the world, and I’ve lost all my children but this one. She’s a good child, but she can’t stand in the place of all that I’ve lost—And oh, Nancy Christian, you’re a woman that can tell me about my poor old mother. Many a thought I have had of her, and often, often it seemed a judgment that my children should be taken from me. If you could but tell me she forgave me before she died!”
Nancy made no direct answer to this appeal, but she looked at Pamela, and then at her mother, with a significant gesture. The two old women had their world to go back into of which the young creature knew nothing, and where there were many things which might not bear her inspection; while she, on the other hand, was absorbed in her own new world, and scarcely heard or noticed what they were saying. She stood between them in her youth, unaware of the look they exchanged, unaware that she was in the way of their confidences—thinking, in fact, nothing of much importance in the world except what might be going on in the great house over the way.
“Pamela,” said Mrs. Preston, “go and see about the tea, and run out to the garden, dear, and get a breath of air; for I have a deal to ask, and Nancy has a deal to tell me; and there will be no one passing at this time of the day.”
“If they were all passing it would not matter to me,” said Pamela, and she sighed, and put down her languid work, and went away to make the tea. But she did not go out to the garden; though she said it did not matter, it did matter mightily. She went up stairs to the window and sat down behind the curtain, and fixed her hungry eyes upon the gate and the avenue beyond; and then she made little pictures to herself of the ladies at Brownlows, and how Jack must be enjoying himself, and gathered some big bitter tears in her eyes, and felt herself forsaken. It was worse than the Peri at the gate of Eden. So long as Jack had come to the cottage, it mattered little to Pamela who was at the great house. In those days she could think, “They are finer than I am, and better off, and even prettier, but he likes me best;” but now this was all changed—the poor little Peri saw the blessed walking in pairs and pleasant companies, and her own young archangel, who was the centre of the Paradise, surrounded and taken possession of by celestial sirens—if such things can be. To be sure Jack Brownlow was not much like an archangel, but that mattered little. What a change it was! and all to come about in a week or two. She, too, was like the flower upon which the conqueror set his foot; and Pamela was not passive, but resisted and struggled. Thus she was not curious about what old Nancy could be saying to her mother. What could it be? some old gossip or other, recollections of a previous state of existence before any body was born—talk about dead things and dead people that never could affect the present state of being. If Pamela thought of it at all, she was half glad that poor mamma should have some thing to amuse her, and half jealous that her mother could think of any thing except the overwhelming interest of her own affairs. And she lingered at the window unawares, until the tea was spoiled oblivious of Nancy’s fatigue; and saw the gentlemen come in from their shooting, with their dogs and guns and keepers, and the result of their day’s work, and was aware that Jack lingered, and looked across the road, and waited till everybody was gone; then her heart jumped up and throbbed loudly as he came toward the house. She was about to rush down to him, to forget her griefs, and understand how it was and that he could not help it. But Pamela was a minute too late. She was on her way to the door, when suddenly her heart stood still and the color went out of her face, and she stopped short like one thunderstruck. He was going away again, astonished, like a man in a dream, with the birds in his hand which he had been bringing as a peace-offering. And Pamela heard her mother’s voice, sharp and harsh, speaking from the door. “I am much obliged to you, Mr. Brownlow, but I never eat game, and we are both very much engaged, and unable to see any one to-day;” these were the words the poor girl heard; and then the door, which always stood open—the fearless hospitable cottage door, was closed sharply, and with a meaning. Pamela stood aghast, and saw him go away with his rejected offering; and then the disappointment and wonder and quick change of feeling came raining down from her eyes in big tears. Poor Jack! It was not his fault—he was not unfaithful nor careless—but her own; and her mother to send him away! It all passed, in a moment, and she had not time or self-possession to throw open the window and hold out her hands to him and call him back, but only stood speechless and watched him disappearing, himself speechless with amazement, crossing the road backward with his birds in his hand. Then Pamela’s dreams came suddenly to an end. She dried her eyes indignantly—or rather the sudden hot flush on her cheeks dried them without any aid—and smoothed back herhair, and went down flaming in youthful wrath to call her mother to account. But Mrs. Preston too was a changed creature. Pamela did not know what to make of it when she went into the little parlor. Old Nancy was sitting on a chair by the wall, just as she had done when she came in, and looking the same; but as for Mrs. Preston, she was a different woman. If wings had suddenly budded at her shoulders the revolution could scarcely have been greater. She stood upright near the window, with no stoop, no headache, no weariness—ten years younger at least—her eyes as bright as two fires, and even her black dress hanging about her in different folds. Pamela’s resentment and indignation and rebellious feelings came to an end at this unwonted spectacle. She could only stand before her mother and stare at her, and wonder what it could mean.
“It is nothing,” said Mrs. Preston. “Mr. Brownlow, who brought us some game—you know I don’t care for game; and then people change their minds about things. Sit down, Pamela, and don’t stare at me. I have been getting too languid about every thing, and when one rouses up every body wonders what one means.”
“Mamma,” said Pamela, too much astonished to know what to answer, “you sent him away!”
“Yes, I sent him away; and I will send any one away that I think mercenary and selfish,” said Mrs. Preston. Was it she who spoke? Could it be her mild uncertain lips from which such words came; and then what could it mean? How could he be mercenary—he who was going to give up every thing for his love’s sake? No words could express Pamela’s consternation. She sat down weak with wonder, and gazed at her mother. The change was one which she could not in any way explain to herself.
“Old Mrs. Fennell was very rude to me,” said Mrs. Preston. “I fear you have not a very comfortable place, Nancy Christian; but we can soon change that. You that were so faithful to my poor mother, you may be sure you’ll not be forgotten. You are not to think of walking back to Masterton. If I had known you were coming I would have spoken to Hobson the carrier. I never was fond of the Fennells from the earliest I remember; though Tom, you know, poor fellow—but he was a great deal older than me.”
“He was nigh as old as your mother,” said Nancy; “many’s the time I’ve heard her say it. ‘He wanted my daughter,’ she would say; ‘her a slip of a girl, and him none so much younger than I am myself; but now he’s catched a tartar;’ and she would laugh, poor old dear; but when she knew as they were after what she had—that’s what drove her wild you may say—”
“Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Preston; “yes, yes; you need say no more Nancy; I see it all—I see it all. Wherever there’s money it’s a snare, and no mortal that I can see escapes. If I had but known a month ago! but after this they shall see they can’t do what they please with me. No; though it may be hard upon us—hard upon us. Oh, Nancy Christian,” she said, flinging up her arms into the air, “if you had but come to tell me a month ago!”
Pamela listened to this conversation with gradually increasing dismay. She did not know what it meant; but yet by some instinctive sense, she knew that it concerned herself—and Jack. She rose up and went to her mother with vague terrors in her heart. “Mamma, what is it? tell me what it is,” she said, putting two clinging hands around her arm.
At these words Mrs. Preston suddenly came to herself. “What is what?” she said. “Sit down, Pamela, and don’t ask foolish questions; or rather go and see after the tea. It has never come, though I told you Nancy was tired. If you left it by Mrs. Swayne’s fire it will be boiled by this time; and you know when it stands too long I can’t bear it. Go, dear, and get the tea.”
“But, mamma,” said Pamela, still clinging to her, and speaking in her ear, “mamma! I know there must be something. Why did you send him away?”
Mrs. Preston gave her child a look which Pamela, driven to her wits’ end, could not interpret. There was pity in it and there was defiance, and a certain fierce gleam as of indignation. “Child, you know nothing about it,” she said, with suppressed passion; “nothing; and I can’t tell you now. Go and get us the tea.”
Pamela gazed again, but she could make nothing of it. It was, and yet it was not her mother—not the old, faded, timid, hesitating woman who had nothing in the world but herself; but somebody so much younger, so much stronger—with those two shining, burning eyes, and this sudden self-consciousness and command. She gave a long look, and then she sighed and dropped her mother’s arm, and went away to do her bidding. It was the first appeal she had ever made in vain, and naturally it filled her with a painful amaze. It was such a combination of events as she could not understand. Nancy’s arrival, and Jack’s dismissal and this curious change in Mrs. Preston’s appearance. Her little heart had been full of pain when she left the room before, but it was pain of a very different kind. Now the laggard had come who was all the cause of the trouble then, and he had been sent away without reason or explanation, and what could it mean? “If I had but known a month ago!” What could it be that she had heard? The girl’s heart took to beating again very loud and fast, and her imagination began to work, and it is not difficult to divine what sort of theories of explanation rose in her thoughts. The only thing that Pamela could think of as raising any fatal barrier between herself and Jack was unfaithfulness or a previous love on his part. This, without doubt, was Nancy’s mission. She had come to tell of his untruthfulness; that he loved somebody else; perhaps had pledged himself to somebody else; and that between him and his new love, instant separation, heartbreak, and despair must ensue. “He need not have been afraid to tell me,” Pamela said to herself, with her heart swelling till it almost burst from her breast. All her little frame, all her sensitive nerves, thrilled with pain and pride. This was what it was. She was not so much stunned by the blow as roused up to the fullest consciousness. Her lip would have quivered sadly had she been compelled to speak; her voice might have broken for any thing she could tell, and risen into hard tones and shrieks of pain. But she was not obliged to speak to any one, and so could shut herself in and keep it down. She went about mechanically, but with nervous haste and swiftness, and covered the little table with its whitecloth, and put bread on it, and the tea for which Nancy and her mother sighed; and she thought they looked at her with cruel coldness, as if it was they who were concerned and not she. As if it could be any thing to any body in comparison to what it was to her! As if she must not be at all times the principal in such a matter! Thus they sat down at the little round table. Nancy, who was much in her ordinary, ate, drank and was very comfortable, and pleased with the country cream in her tea; but the mother and the daughter neither ate nor drank. Mrs. Preston sat, saying now and then a word or two to Nancy which Pamela could not understand, but mostly was silent, pondering and full of thoughts, while Pamela, with her eyes cast down, and a burning, crimson color on her cheeks, sat still and brooded over the cruelty she thought they were showing her. Nancy was the only one who “enjoyed,” as she said, “her tea.”
“You may get a drop of what’s called cream in a town, but it ain’t cream,” said Nancy. “It’s but skim-milk frothed up, and you never get the taste of the tea. It’s a thing as I always buys good. It’s me as lays in all the things, and when there ain’t a good cup o’ tea at my age there ain’t nothing as is worth in life. But the fault’s not in the tea. It’s the want of a drop of good cream as does it. It’s that as brings out the flavor, and gives it a taste. A cup o’ good tea’s a cheering thing; but I wouldn’t say as you was enjoying it, Mrs. Preston, like me.”
“I have other things in my mind,” said Mrs. Preston; “you’ve had a long walk, and you must want it. As for me, my mind’s all in a ferment. I don’t seem to know if it’s me, or what has happened. You would not have come and told me all this if you had not been as sure as sure of what you had to say!”
“Sure and sure enough,” said Nancy. “I’ve knowed it from first to last, and how could I go wrong! If you go to London, as you say, you can judge for yourself, and there won’t be nothing for me to tell; but you’ll think on as I was the first—for your old mother’s sake—”
“You’ll not be forgot,” said Mrs. Preston; “you need not fear. I am not the one to neglect a friend—and one that was good to my poor mother; you may reckon on me.” She sat upright in her chair, and every line in her face had changed. Power, patronage, and protection were in her tone—she who had been herself so poor and timid and anxious. Her very words were uttered more clearly, and with a distincter intonation. And Pamela listened with all her might, and grew more and more bewildered, and tried vainly to make out some connection between this talk and the discovery which she supposed must have been made. But what could Jack’s failure in good faith have to do with any body’s old mother! It was only Nancy who was quite at her ease. “I will take another cup, if you please, Miss Pamela,” said Nancy, “and I hope as I’ll live to see you in your grandeur, feasting with lords and ladies, instead of pouring out an old woman’s tea—for them as is good children is rewarded. Many’s the day I’ve wished to see you, and wondered how many of you there was. It’s sad for your mother as there’s only you; but it’s a fine thing for yourself, Miss Pamela—and you must always give your mind to do what your mamma says.”
“How should it be a fine thing for me!” said Pamela; “or how should I ever feast with lords and ladies? I suppose you mean to make fun of us. As for doing what mamma says, of course I always do—and she never tells me to do any thing unreasonable,” the girl added, after a momentary pause, looking doubtfully at her mother. If she were told to give up Jack, Pamela felt that it would be something unreasonable, and she had no inclination to pledge herself. Mrs. Preston was changed from all her daughter’s previous knowledge of her; and it might be that her demands upon Pamela’s obedience would change too.
“It’s nigh my time to go,” said Nancy. “I said to the carrier as he was to wait for me down the road. I wouldn’t be seen a-getting into the wagon here. Folks talks awful when they’re so few; and thank you kindly, Mrs. Preston, for the best cup of tea as I’ve tasted for ten years. Them as can get cream like that, has what I calls some comfort in this life.”
“Pamela,” said Mrs. Preston, “you can walk along with Nancy as far as Merryfield Farm, and give my compliments; and if they’d put a drop of their best cream in a bottle—It’s all I can do just now, Nancy Christian; but I am not one that forgets my friends, and the time may come—”
“The timewillcome, ma’am,” said Nancy, getting up and making her patroness a courtesy, “and I’m none afraid as you’ll forget; and thank you kindly for thinking o’ the cream—if it ain’t too much trouble to Miss Pamela. If you go up there, as you think to do, and find all as I say, you’ll be so kind as to let me know?”
“I’ll let you know, you may be sure,” said Mrs. Preston, in her short decisive tones of patronage. And then the girl, much against her will, had to put on her hat and go with Nancy. She did it, but it was with an ill grace; for she was longing to throw herself upon her mother and have an explanation of all this—what had happened, and what it meant. The air had grown cool, and old Betty had come out to her door, and Mrs. Swayne was in the little garden watering the mignonnette. And it was not easy to pass those two pairs of eyes and preserve a discreet incognito. To do her justice, Nancy tried her best; but it was a difficult matter to blind Mrs. Swayne.
“I thought as it was you,” said that keen observer. “I said as much to Swayne when he told me there was a lady to tea in the parlor. I said, ‘You take my word it’s her as come from Masterton asking after them.’ And I hope, mum, as I see you well. Mrs. Preston has been but poorly; and you as knows her constitootion and her friends—”
“She knows nothing about us,” said Pamela, with indignation; “not now; I never saw her in my life before. And how can she know about mamma’s constitution, or her friends either? Nancy, come along; you will be too late for Hobson if you stand talking here.”
“It’s never no loss of time to say a civil word, Miss Pamela,” said Nancy. “It’s years and years since I saw her, and she’s come through a deal since then. And having a family changes folks’ constitootions. If it wasn’t asking too much, I’d ask for a bit o’ mignonnette. Town folks is terrible greedy when they comes tothe country—and it’s that sweet as does one’s heart good. Nice cream and butter and new-laid eggs, and a bit o’ lad’s love, or something as smells sweet—give me that, and I don’t ask for none o’ your grandeurs. That’s the good o’ the country to me.”
“They sends all that country stuff to old Mrs. Fennell, don’t they?” said Betty, who in the leisure of the evening had crossed the road. “I should have thought you’d been sick of all them things—and the fruit and the partridges as I see packed no later then this very afternoon. I should have said you had enough for six, if any one had asked me.”
“When the partridges is stale and the fruit rotten,” said Nancy, shrugging her shoulders; “and them as has such plenty, where’s the merit of it? I suppose there’s fine doings at the house, with all their shootings and all the strangers as is about—”
“They was at a picnic to-day,” said Betty. “Mr. John, he’s the one! He makes all them ladies leave their comfortable lunch, as is better than many a dinner, and down to the heath with their cold pies and their jellies and such like. Give me a bit of something ’ot. But they think he’s a catch, being the only son; and there ain’t one but does what he says.”
Pamela had been standing plucking a bit of mignonnette to pieces, listening with tingling ears. It was not in human nature not to listen; but she roused herself when Betty’s voice ceased, and went softly on, withdrawing herself from the midst of them. Her poor little heart was swelling and throbbing, and every new touch seemed to add to its excitement; but pride, and a sense of delicacy and dignity, came to her aid. Jack’s betrothed, even if neglected or forsaken, was not in her fit place amid this gossip. She went on quietly, saying nothing about it, leaving her companion behind. And the three women gave each other significant glances as soon as she had turned her back on them. “I told ’em how it would be,” said Mrs. Swayne, under her breath, “it’s allays the way when a girl is that mad to go and listen to a gentleman.” And Betty, though she sneered at her employers with goodwill, had an idea of keeping up their importance so far as other people were concerned. “Poor lass!” said Betty, “she’s been took in. She thought Mr. John was one as would give up every thing for the like of her; but he has her betters to choose from. He’s affable like, but he’s a deal too much pride for that.”
“Pride goes afore a fall,” said Nancy, with meaning; “and the Brownlows ain’t such grand folks after all. Nothing but attorneys, and an old woman’s money to set them up as wasn’t a drop’s blood to them. I don’t see no call for pride.”
“The old squires was different, I don’t deny,” said Betty, with candor; “but when folks is bred gentlefolks, and has all as heart can desire—”
“There’s gentlefolks as might do worse,” said Nancy, fiercely; “but it ain’t nothing to you nor me—”
“It ought to be a deal to both of you,” said Mrs. Swayne, coming in as moderator, “eating their bread as it were, and going on like that. And both of you with black silks to put on of a Sunday, and sure of your doctor and your burial if you was to fall ill. I wouldn’t be that ungrateful if it was me.”
“It’s no use quarreling,” said Nancy; “and I’ll say good-night, for I’ve a long way to go. If ever you should want any thing in Masterton, I’d do my best to serve you. Miss Pamela’s a long way on, and walking fast ain’t for this weather; so I’ll bid you both good-night. We’ll have time for more talk,” she added significantly, “next time I come back; and I’d like a good look at that nice lodge you’ve got.” Old Betty did not know what the woman meant, but those black eyes “went through and through her,” she said; and so Nancy’s visit came to an end.
Pamelacould make nothing of her companion. Nancy was very willing to talk, and indeed ran on in an unceasing strain; but what she said only confused the more the girl’s bewildered faculties; and she saw her mount at last into the carrier’s cart, and left her with less perception than ever of what had happened. Then she went straying home in the early dusk, for already the days had begun to grow short, and that night in especial a thunder-storm was brewing, and the clouds were rolling down darkly after the sultry day. Pamela crossed over to the shade of the thick hedge and fence which shut in the park, that nobody might see her, and her thoughts as she went along were not sweet. She thought of Jack and the ladies at Brownlows, and then she thought of the wish her mother had uttered—Had she but known this a month ago! and between the terrible suspicion of a previous love, and the gnawing possibility of present temptation, made herself very miserable, poor child. Either he had deceived her, and was no true man; or if he had not yet deceived her, he was in hourly peril of doing so, and at any moment the blow might come. While she was thus lingering along in the twilight, something happened which gave Pamela a terrible fright. She was passing a little stile when suddenly a man sprang out upon her and caught hold of her hands. She was so sure that Jack was dining at Brownlows, and yielding to temptation then, that she did not recognize him, and screamed when he sprang out; and it was dark, so dark that she could scarcely see his face. Jack, for his part, had been so conscience-stricken when Mrs. Preston refused him entrance that he had done what few men of this century would be likely to do. He had gone in with the other men, and gulped down some sherry at the sideboard, and instead of proceeding to his dressing-room as they all did after, had told a very shocking fib to Willis the butler, for the benefit of his father and friends, and rushed out again. He might have been proof against upbraiding, but compunction seized him when Mrs. Preston closed the door. He had deserved it, but he had not expected such summary measures; and “that woman,” as he called her in his dismay, was capable of taking his little love away and leaving him no sign. He saw it in her eye; for he, too, saw the change in her. Thus Jack was alarmed, and in his fright his conscience spoke. And hehad seen Pamela go out, and waylaid her; and was very angry and startled to see she did not recognize him. “Good heavens, do you mean to say you don’t know me?” he cried, almost shaking her as he held her by the hands. To scream and start as if the sight of him was not the most natural thing in the world, and the most to be looked for! Jack felt it necessary to begin the warfare, to combat his own sense of guilt.
“I thought you were at dinner,” said Pamela, faintly. “I never thought it could be you.”
“And you don’t look a bit glad to see me. What do you mean by it?” said Jack. “It is very hard, when a fellow gives up every thing to come and see you. And your mother to shut the door upon me! She never did it before. A man has his duties to do, whatever happens. I can’t go and leave these fellows loafing about by themselves. I must go out with them. I thought you were going to take me for better for worse, Pamela, not for a month or a week.”
“Oh, don’t speak so,” said Pamela. “It was never me. It must have been something mamma had heard. She does not look a bit like herself; and it is all since that old woman came.”
“What old woman?” said Jack, calming down. “Look here, come into the park. They are all at dinner, and no one will see; and tell me all about it. So long as you are not changed, nothing else is of any consequence. Only for half an hour—”
“I don’t think I ought,” said Pamela; but she was on the other side of the stile when she said these words; and her hand was drawn deeply through Jack’s arm, and held fast, so that it was clearly a matter of discreet submission, and she could not have got away had she wished it. “I don’t think I ought to come,” said Pamela, “you never come to us now; and it must have been something that mamma had heard. I think she is going away somewhere; and I am sure, with all these people at Brownlows, and all that old Nancy says, and you never coming near us, I do not mind where we go, for my part.”
“As if I cared for the people at Brownlows!” said Jack, holding her hand still more tightly. “Don’t be cruel to a fellow, Pamela. I’ll take you away whenever you please, but without me you shan’t move a step. Who is old Nancy, I should like to know? and as for any thing you could have heard—Who suffers the most, do you suppose, from the people at Brownlows? To know you are there, and that one can’t have even a look at you—”
“But then you can have a great many looks at other people,” said Pamela, “and perhaps there was somebody else before me—don’t hold my hand so tight. We are poor, and you are rich—and it makes a great difference. And I can’t do just what I like. You sayyoucan’t, and you are a man, and older than I am. I must do what mamma says.”
“But you know you can make her do what you like; whereas, with a lot of fellows—” said Jack. “Pamela, don’t—there’s a darling! You have me in your power, and you can put your foot upon me if you like. But you have not the heart to do it. Not that I should mind your little foot. Be as cruel as you please; but don’t talk of running away. You know you can make your mother do whatever you like.”
“Not now,” said Pamela, “not now—there is such a change in her; and oh, Jack, I do believe she is angry, and she will make me go away.”
“Tell me about it,” said Jack, tenderly; for Pamela had fallen into sudden tears, without any regard for her consistency. And then the dialogue became a little inarticulate. It lasted a deal longer on the whole than half an hour, and the charitable clouds drooped lower, and gave them shade and shelter as they emerged at last from the park, and stole across the deserted road to Swayne’s cottage. They were just in time; the first drops of the thunder-shower fell heavy and big upon Pamela before they gained shelter. But she did not mind them much. She had unburdened her heart, and her sorrows had flown away; and the ladies at Brownlows were no longer of any account in her eyes. She drew her lover in with her at the door, which so short a time before had been closed on him. “Mamma, I made him come in with me, not to get wet,” said Pamela; and both the young people looked with a little anxiety upon Mrs. Preston, deprecating her wrath. She was seated by the window, though it had grown dark, perhaps looking for Pamela; but her aspect was rather that of one who had forgotten every thing external for the moment, than of an anxious mother watching for her child. They could not see the change in her face, as they gazed at her so eagerly in the darkness; but they both started and looked at each other when she spoke.
“I would not refuse any one shelter from a storm,” she said, “but if Mr. Brownlow thinks a little, he will see that this is no place for him.” She did not even turn round as she spoke, but kept at the window, looking out, or appearing to look out, upon the gathering clouds.
Jack was thunderstruck. There was something in her voice which chilled him to his very bones. It was not natural offense for his recent short-comings, or doubt of his sincerity. He felt himself getting red in the darkness. “It was as if she had found me out to be a scoundrel, by Jove,” he said to himself afterward, which was a very different sort of thing from mere displeasure or jealousy. And in the silence that ensued, Mrs. Preston took no notice of anybody. She kept her place at the window, without looking round or saying another word; and in the darkness behind stood the two bewildered, trying to read in each other’s faces what it could mean.
“Speak to her,” said Pamela, eagerly whispering close to his ear; but Jack, for his part, could not tell what to say. He was offended, and he did not want to speak to her; but, on the contrary, held Pamela fast, with almost a perverse desire to show her mother that the girl was his, and that he did not care. “It is you I want, and not your mother,” he said. They could hear each other speak, and could even differ and argue and be impassioned without anybody else being much the wiser. The only sound Mrs. Preston heard was a faint rustle of whispers in the darkness behind her. “No,” said Jack, “if she will be ill-tempered, I can’t help it. It is you I want,” and he stood by and held his ground. When the first lightning flashed into the room, this was howit found them. There was a dark figure seated at the window, relieved against the gleam, and two faces which looked at each other, and shone for a second in the wild illumination. Then Pamela gave a little shriek and covered her face. She was not much more than a child, and she was afraid. “Come in from the window, mamma! do come, or it will strike you; and let us close the shutters,” cried Pamela. There was a moment during which Mrs. Preston sat still, as if she did not hear. The room fell into blackness, and then blazed forth again, the window suddenly becoming “a glimmering square,” with the one dark outline against it. Jack held his little love with his arm, but his eyes were fascinated by that strange sight. What could it mean? Was she mad? Had something happened in his absence to bring about this wonderful change? The mother, however, could not resist the cry that Pamela uttered the second time. She rose up, and closed the shutters with her own hands, refusing Jack’s aid. But when the three looked at each other, by the light of the candles, they all looked excited and disturbed. Mrs. Preston sat down by the table, with an air so different from her ordinary looks, that she seemed another woman. And Jack, when her eyes fell upon him, could not help feeling something like a prisoner at the bar.
“Mr. Brownlow,” she said, “I dare say you think women are very ignorant, especially about business—and so they are; but you and your father should remember—you should remember that weak folks, when they are put to it—Pamela! sit down, child, and don’t interfere; or, if you like, you can go away.”
“What have I done, Mrs. Preston!” said Jack. “I don’t know what you mean. If it is because I have been some days without coming, the reason is—But I told Pamela all about it. If that is the reason—”
“That!” cried Mrs. Preston, and then her voice began to tremble; “if you think your coming or—or going is—any—any thing—” she said, and then her lips quivered so that she could articulate no more. Pamela, with a great cry, rushed to her and seized her hands, which were trembling too, and Jack, who thought it was a sudden “stroke,” seized his hat and rushed to the door to go for a doctor; but Mrs. Preston held out her shaking hands to him so peremptorily that he stopped in spite of himself. She was trembling all over—her head, her lips, her whole frame, yet keeping entire command of herself all the time.
“I am not ill,” she said; “there is no need for a doctor.” And then she sat resolutely looking at him, holding her feet fast on the floor and her hand flat on the table to stop the movement of her nerves. It was a strange sight. But when the two who had been looking at her with alarmed eyes, suddenly, in the height of their wonder, turned to each other with a glance of mutual inquiry and sympathy, appealing to each other what it could mean, Mrs. Preston could not bear it. Her intense self-command gave way. All at once she fell into an outbreak of wailing and tears. “You are two of you against me,” she said. “You are saying to each other, What does she mean! and there is nobody on earth—nobody to take my part.” The outcry went to Jack Brownlow’s heart. Somehow he seemed to understand better than even Pamela did, who clung to her mother and cried, and asked what was it—what had she done! Jack was touched more than he could explain. The thunder was rolling about the house, and the rain falling in torrents; but he had not the heart to stay any longer and thrust his happiness into her face, and wound her with it. Somehow he felt ashamed; and yet he had nothing to be ashamed about, unless, in presence of this agitation and pain and weakness, it was his own strength and happiness and youth.
“I don’t mind the storm,” he said. “I am sure you don’t want any one here just now. Don’t let your mother think badly of me, Pamela. You know I would do any thing—and I can’t tell what’s wrong; and I am going away. Good-night.”
“Not till the storm is over,” cried Pamela. “Mamma, he will get killed—you know he will, among those trees.”
“Not a bit,” said Jack, and he waved his hand to them and went away, feeling, it must be confessed, a good deal frightened—not for the thunder, however, or the storm, but for Mrs. Preston’s weird look and trembling nerves, and his poor little Pamela left alone to nurse her. That was the great point. The poor woman was right. For herself there was nobody to care much. Jack was frightened because of Pamela. His little love, his soft little darling, whom he would like to take in his arms and carry away from every trouble—that she should be left alone with sickness in its most terrible shape, perhaps with delirium, possibly with death! Jack stepped softly into Mrs. Swayne’s kitchen, and told her his fears. He told her he would go over to Betty’s lodge and wait there, in case the doctor should be wanted, and that she was not to let Miss Pamela wear herself out. As for Mrs. Swayne, though she made an effort to be civil, she scoffed at his fears. When she had heard what he had to say she showed him out grimly, and turned with enjoyment the key in the door. “The doctor!” she said to herself in disdain; “a fine excuse! But I don’t hold with none o’ your doctors, nor with gentlemen a-coming like roaring lions. I ain’t one to be caught like that, at my time of life; and you don’t come in here no more this night, with your doctors and your Miss Pamelas.” In this spirit Mrs. Swayne fastened the house up carefully, and shut all the shutters, before she knocked at the parlor door to see what was the matter. But when she did take that precaution she was not quite so sure of her own wisdom. Mrs. Preston was lying on the sofa, shivering and trembling, with Pamela standing frightened by her. She had forbidden the girl to call any one, and was making painful efforts by mere resolution to stave it off. She said nothing, paid no attention to any body, but with her whole force was struggling to put down the incipient illness, and keep disease at bay. And Pamela, held by her glittering eye, too frightened to cry, too ignorant to know what to do, stood by, a white image of terror and misery, wringing her hands. Mrs. Swayne was frightened too; but there was some truth in her boast of experience. And, besides, her character was at stake. She had sent Jack away, and disdained his offer of the doctor, and it was time to bestirherself. So they got the stricken woman up stairs and laid her in her bed, and chafed her limbs, and comforted her with warmth. Jack, waiting in old Betty’s, saw the light mount to the higher window and shine through the chinks of the shutters, until the storm was over, and he had no excuse for staying longer. It was still burning when he went away, and it burned all night through, and lighted Pamela’s watch as she sat pale at her mother’s bedside. She sat all through the night and watched her patient—sat while the lightning still flashed and the thunder roared, and her young soul quaked within her; and then through the hush that succeeded, and through the black hours of night and the dawning of the day. It was the first vigil she had ever kept, and her mind was bewildered with fear and anxiety, and the confusion of ignorance. She sat alone, wistful and frightened, afraid to move lest she should disturb her mother’s restless sleep, falling into dreary little dozes, waking up cold and terrified, hearing the furniture, and the floor, and the walls and windows—every thing about her, in short—giving out ghostly sounds in the stillness. She had never heard those creaks and jars before with which our inanimate surroundings give token of the depth of silence and night. And Mrs. Preston’s face looked grey in the faint light, and her breathing was disturbed; and by times she tossed her arms about, and murmured in her sleep. Poor Pamela had a weary night; and when the morning came with its welcome light, and she opened her eyes after a snatch of unwitting sleep, and found her mother awake and looking at her, the poor child started up with a sharp cry, in which there was as much terror as relief.