‘A disreputable witness,’ said Mr. Plowden, shaking his head, ‘is not much better than no witness at all.’
He was in a despondent mood, and ready to throw discouragement upon every hope.
‘I don’t know that she is disreputable; and at all events she was present,’ said Lady William. ‘That must always tell—in a court of justice, as you say: though God grant that it may never come there.’
‘I suppose you can lay your hand upon her without any difficulty, through Mr. Swinford,’ the Rector said, suddenly adopting an indifferent tone as if with the rest of the business he had nothing to do.
‘That is, perhaps, too much to say; but at least she may be found—or I hope so,’ Lady William replied.
‘And now I must go,’ said Mr. Plowden. ‘Of course, anything and everything I can do, Emily—when you have tried what is to be accomplished in your own way——’ He turned towards the door, and then returned again, with a still more cloudy face. ‘My dear sister,’ he said, in a tone of solemnity and tenderness adapted to the words, ‘you may have to seek his help for this; but for all our sakes do not, any more than you can help, have young Mr. Swinford here.’
Lady William looked up quickly with a half-defiant glance.
‘Above all’ said the Rector impressively, ‘while there is any sort of doubt, any sort of cloud, and when every step you take will be remarked—— Don’t make me enter into explanations, but, for all our sakes, don’t have Mr. Swinford always here.’
Itis almost needless to say that the Rector left his sister in a state of mind in which exasperation healthily and beneficially contended with despair. She might have been crushed altogether by his discovery; but he had managed to mingle with that so many other sentiments that Lady William felt herself no broken-down and miserable woman, but a creature all full of fight and resistance—tingling, indeed, with pain, and scorched with a fire of injury, feeling insulted and outraged to the depths of her being, but all the same full of angry strength and force, determined that nothing as yet was lost, and that sooner than yield herself to the tolerance of her sister-in-law and indulgent interpretations of her friends, who would pity and assure each other that whatever dreadful thing had really happened, poor Emily, a mere child at the time, was innocent—there was nothing she was not capable of doing. To change from Lady William—in a sort, the head of the little community—to poor Emily, was a thought which fired her blood. For that, as well as for her child, the small motive thrusting in in the immediate present into the foreground—there was nothing she would not do. To find Artémise was a trifle to her roused and indignant soul. If she went out herself on foot with a lanthorn, she said to herself with a vehemence which soon turned into an angry laugh, she would find her. The lanthorn and the search on foot turned it all into stormy ridicule, as the Rector’s suggestion that the little, dingy, dark private chapel had been burned and the books destroyed as a natural consequence of her folly in being married there, had done. Lady William felt the laughter burst out in the middle of the bitter pain. For the pain was bitter enough down in the breast from which that stormy humour burst, so sharp that she could not sit still, but went raging about like—as she said to herself—a wild beast, pushing the crowded furniture aside, holding her hands together as if to keep down the anguishby physical torture. A thumbscrew or a deadly boot to crush her flesh would have been something of a relief to her in the active anguish of her soul. Mab to hear that her mother was—— Oh no; never that her mother was—— but only that there was a doubt, a horrible peradventure, a failure of proof.
Lady William paused in her movement to and fro and tried to look at it for a moment through Mab’s eyes. That is often a very good thing to do, but a difficult. We forget nature when the question is one so all-important as this, what a child will think of its mother. Often we believe in an opinion too favourable, without inquiry, forgetting what a formidable criticism is that which our children make of us from their cradles, learning our habitual ways so much better than we know them ourselves. But there are some ways in which the natural judgment of candid and clear-sighted youth may give any who is unjustly accused comfort. In the light of Mab’s eyes (though they were neither bright nor beautiful) Lady William felt for a moment that her trouble melted away. Mab might not see the fun—that she should see fun at such a crisis of her life!—of James’s suggestion of the connection between the burning of the church and the folly of the marriage: but she would be utterly stolid like a block of stone to any idea of shame. No one could cast suspicion upon her mother’s honour to Mab. Lady William thought she could see the girl’s look of utter disdain on any one who could suggest such a suspicion even by a glance. There was once a lady known to fame who, moved by a hot fit of jealous pain and misery, left the house in which she was being entertained, and walked home alone at night up the long length of Piccadilly. A man who met her, moved, I suppose, by her solitude and the unusual sight, followed, and at last addressed her. When her attention was attracted she turned round upon him, looked at him, and uttering the one word ‘Idiot!’ walked on, as secure as if she had been surrounded by a bodyguard of chivalry. Somehow that incident floated into Lady William’s memory. That was what Mab would do. She would think, if she did not say ‘Idiot!’ and pass by, too contemptuous almost to be angry, feeling it unnecessary to answer a word to the depth of imbecility which was capable of such a thought.
Yes; it made her quieter, it calmed her down, it delivered her from that worst and deepest horror, to look at it through Mab’s sensible, quiet eyes. But when Lady William remembered that James would tolerate her, and be kind, and that everybody else would say, ‘Poor Emily!’ the intolerableness of the catastrophecaught her once more—and the advantage which even her brother even James, who loved her in his way, who would spare no trouble for her, had taken of it already. While there was a shade, while there was a shadow of a doubt upon her, she must not admit Leo Swinford ‘for all our sakes.’ Women do not habitually swear, or I think Lady William would have used bad words, had she known any, when this intolerable recollection came into her mind, just as, if she had not been bound by the inevitable bonds of education and natural self-control, she might have broken the china or the furniture to relieve herself. A gentlewoman cannot do either of these things, fortunately, or unfortunately, for her, and they are outlets which must sometimes be of use. But the quick movement with which she dashed her hands together when that last thought came into her mind, upset a little table upon which was a plant, one of Mab’s especial nurslings just shaping for flower, as well as various other nicknacks of less importance. The sense of guilt and shame with which she saw what she had done, the compunction with which she stooped over the broken flower-pot, and gathered up the fortunately uninjured plant, and the specially prepared soil in which it had been placed, and which was but dirt to Patty, who came dashing in at the sound of the crash to set matters right—did Lady William as much good as smashing a window or two might have done to a poor woman out of Society. She was very penitent and much ashamed of herself, and horribly amused all the same. To express her rage, her injured feelings, her pride and desperation, by breaking a flower-pot, was again where bathos and ridicule came in.
‘I’ll sweep it all up, my lady,’ cried Patty, ‘and there won’t be no harm.’
‘Miss Mab’s leaf-mould? No, you shan’t do anything of the kind. Find me another flower-pot, and let us gather it all up carefully, and put it back.’
‘Miss Mab’s full of fads,’ said Patty, under her breath.
But Lady William did not allow herself such freedom of criticism, and she had scarcely gathered up the mould and built it securely round the plant in the new pot before Mab came in. ‘Oh, are you filling it up with fresh mould, mother?. My poor auricula! It will never produce a prize bloom now, and I had such hopes.’
‘You ungrateful child! when I have gathered up every scrap of your famous mould with my own dirty hands!’
‘Poor mother,’ cried Mab, ‘that can never bear to dirty her hands! let me see them.’
Mab kissed the fingers which Lady William held out, smiling. ‘After all it is clean dirt, nice mould carefully made, and with everything nice in it both for the colour and the health. Mother, your hands are a little like the auriculas, velvety and soft.’
‘And brown, and purple,’ said Lady William, laughing. Who is it that says that if we would not cry we must laugh? Heaven knows how true it is.
‘It must have been Patty that did it,’ said Mab. ‘That child will never learn to take care. And, oh! the little Dresden shoe is broken that I got off the Christmas tree, and the silver things all scattered. I wish Patty might get a whipping; it is the only thing that would make her take care.’
‘Whip me, then, Mab, for it was I. I was vexed and angry——’
‘You! angry, mother?’
‘It is not a thing that never happens, Mab.’
‘No, said Mab judicially; ‘it is not a thing that never happens: but it only happens when you are put out. And I should like to know what had put you out.’
‘Nothing,’ said Lady William, with a smile.
‘Oh! mother; you may say that to other people—but to me! Of course, I shall find out.’
‘It was something your uncle James said to me, Mab.’
‘Oh!’ said Mab, satisfied; ‘I am not surprised if he was in it. He does say such strange things. But he means well enough. Come out, then, mother, for a walk. That always does you more good than anything.’
‘It is too early; it is not noon yet. It is dissipated going away from one’s work at this time of the day.’
But the conclusion was that the two ladies did go out, and went to the river-side, where Lady William sat down on a bench by the landing-place, while Mab made certain investigations in respect to the boats. It was a fine morning, but not over bright—one of those gray days in the beginning of May, when Nature seems to veil herself capriciously by way of making the after-glory more glorious. The day was gray, with breaks of quiet light, not bright enough to be called sunshine, through the clouds, and all the new foliage tempered and softened in its fresh greenness of spring by the neutral tints that enveloped everything. The river flowed quietly upon its way, stopping for nothing, indifferent whether overhead there was sunshine or clouds, working away at the tall growing reeds on the edge, and sweeping round them, pushing them back out of its way, sapping the camp-shedding on the other side,hollowing out the bank that intruded into the current. The soft, strong flowing carries one’s thoughts with it, whatever they may be, and Lady William gradually gave way to that silent coercion, and let her more painful reflections escape her, and the thoughts she could not get rid of swell round and round her mind like the circles of the stream. The scenery was not remarkable at that point. From the river, indeed, the pretty little landing-place, with its bit of green bank, its marshalled boats, and the old red-and-white houses behind, made a delightful touch of life and colour: but to the spectators on the bank there was nothing exciting to be seen, only the grassy shore opposite, the trees, a brown cow or two coming down to the river, or a passing boat full of travellers, or of merrymakers, as the chance might be. How softening, pacifying, composing it was! Mab’s voice talking to the boatman on the river’s edge came softly through the harmonious air. Who can think, in the mild calm of such a day, of confusion, or trouble, or shame?
‘I am in much luck,’ said Leo Swinford’s voice behind her, ‘to find you here; you are not usually to be found out in the morning.’
‘No,’ said Lady William, telling him the reason with a burst of assumed cheerfulness. ‘It is possible that all Mab’s hopes of her auricula are spoiled by my fault; yet she forgives me,’ she said. Then suddenly she put forth her hand and gripped his arm, with a change on her face—‘Leo, where is Artémise? Find me Artémise!’
‘What is the matter, dear lady?’ he said.
‘Ah! it is of no importance what is the matter. I will tell you afterwards. It is only this, that I must find Artémise—if I take a lanthorn myself and go out and search for her.’
‘Ah! you laugh,’ he said, ‘and I am relieved. It is Mrs. Mansfield you mean—is she Mansfield now?—I think not, nor can I tell what her name is. Certainly I can find her. I saw her once, as I told you—twice—here in this village, as if she were living here; and then she came to see my mother. I am sure she has been with my mother since; but I have not seen her again.’
‘With your mother is not the question. Your mother, I fear, Leo, would rather I did not see her. She likes no one to meddle with those she cares for.’
‘Does she really care for this woman?’
‘Can you ask me? They are near relations, and dear friends, and love each other.’
‘Are you sure of all that?’ he said; ‘from my mother I have never heard——’
‘But it is true.’
‘The last I suppose is true,’ said Leo reluctantly. ‘My mother is fond of her—though why——’
Lady William gave him a look, as if there might be two sides to the question; then she said: ‘It is of the utmost importance to me to see her, Leo—and soon. Will you give me your attention, and remember it is no mere wish—for an old friend.’
‘An old friend! I cannot conceive that she should ever have been a friend of yours.’
‘Yet, more than that; I desire to see her more than the dearest friend I have in the world.’
‘Your bidding shall be done, dear lady: should I go myself and take the lanthorn—as you say. But that will not be necessary. I shall find her; I hope, more easily—or whatever else you are pleased to wish for,’ he added in a lower tone. ‘That is too easy. Set me some task that will prove what I can do.’
Lady William cast at him a keen look from under her eyelids. She remembered her brother’s adjuration, ‘for all our sakes.’ ‘A romantic task,’ she said, ‘that would prove what you could do is quite different. I ask my friend to help me in a way I really want; but no one ever wanted a white cat that would go through a ring—or was it a shawl? I forget.’
‘I never thought,’ he said, with an uneasy laugh, ‘that you would send me off in search of a white cat.’
‘I might, though,’ she said, ‘if the white cat would turn out an enchanted princess and make you happy all your life after—which I hope is what will happen one of these days. And my gracious nephew, Leo, did he leave you as he said?’
Leo replied with another question: ‘How does Miss Mab like it that she is to be an heiress? I have not seen her to ask her.’
‘You can see her at once. She is there, you see, with her friends the boatmen; but you must not ask her, please, for she knows nothing of heiress-ship as yet.’
‘Ah!’ he said, ‘you are afraid to turn her head.’
‘I am not at all afraid of her head, but I am afraid of other things. Tell me, why did he come here? The Pakenhams are not generous people, and they are not rich, and I should have known nothing of Lord John’s fortune. Was it out of kindness to his cousin, whom he did not know, that he came here?’
‘Ah, who can tell?’ said Leo. ‘He thought, perhaps, that you were sure to see it in the papers.’
‘But even then I should not have known that Mab had any right.’
‘Who can tell?’ said Leo again, shaking his head, ‘what are the motives of these people who are above rule, who do not require to behave like ordinary mortals? He thought, perhaps, yes, of his little cousin—he thought, perhaps, most likely of himself. He might have thought with all that fortune that it might be well if Miss Mab, perhaps, should—what do you call it?—take a fancy to him, and return it all to his pocket, which is not too full. How can you tell what any one’s motives are, not to speak of a Lord Will?’
‘It is true,’ said Lady William, with a sigh; ‘but I suppose my best course now is to wait—to take no steps till I hear from the lawyers.’
‘Perhaps, instead, your own lawyer——’
‘Ah, I have had so little need of one—of course there is a man of business who used to manage my father’s affairs. One does not seem to care,’ she said, with a faint laugh, ‘we poor people, who have nothing but our poverty—to confide all our affairs even to such a man.’
‘Ah, but they are not men—they are like priests. There is a seal as of the confessional upon their lips. I should not have thought you, who are so transparent, so open, would have had such a scruple.’
This was a little duel, though neither suspected the object of the other. Lady William was eager to find out from Leo what ‘the family’ had intended to do by sending that messenger, and Leo was eager to persuade Lady William to confide in him, to show him what her difficulty was, and how far the broken revelations of his mother’s attack upon her were true. But neither ventured to unravel the motive which was foremost in their minds. Both endeavoured to extract the information which the other had no intention of revealing. But to the spectators who were looking on, the two people on the bench, who were in reality thus resisting and eluding each other, had an air of great and tender intimacy as they sat together, each turned towards the other, pursuing their mutual investigations by the study, not only of what was said, but what was looked, by the betrayals of the eyes as well as of the tongue. Even Mab, returning from her long talk with old George the boatman, was a little struck by the absorbed attention of Leo to her mother, and of her mother to Leo. With whatinterest they were talking; seeing no one else that was near; paying no attention to anything that passed! Lady William was not wont to lose herself thus in conversation. She had always an eye for what was going on; for the passing boats on the river, or even for the clouds and brightness of the sky—and much more for her little girl who was hanging about anxious to join her, yet daunted a little by this too animated, too eager talk. Mab had heard a stray word here and there on the subject of Leo Swinford and his visits, to which she had paid no attention, but such words will sometimes linger without any desire of hers in a little girl’s ear.
‘Iaskedold George to go to your fandango, Jim, and he said he would, and take another man or two. He said he’d like to hear the young ladies sing, if they’d sing something as an old man could understand; and he wouldn’t mind hearing Mr. Jim if he said somethin’ as was funny and would make a man laugh. Lord, you didn’t want to cry when you went out for something as pretended to be pleasuring. The old woman can do that fast enough at home. And as for Mr. Osborne, old George said as he draw’d the line at him.’
‘What a horrid old man!’ said Florence.
‘No, he’s not at all a horrid old man. He is a great friend of mine; but he doesn’t like, as he says, and I agree with him, to have some one always a-nagging at him. When one’s mother does it, it’s horrid: and the curate would be worse. Jim, do you really like Mr. Osborne that you have grown such friends?’
‘Well,’ said Jim, with much innocence and a touch of complaisance besides, ‘it’s him that looks as if he liked me.’
‘What excellent grammar, and what still more excellent humility!’ cried Florence. Florence was, it must be allowed, a little bitter. Jim’s acquaintance with the curate had gone on increasing daily. It had done him a great deal of good—in one way. The doors of the ‘Blue Boar’ were closed to him: he went there no longer. He thought of the vet. and Simpkinson, the landlord, with a sort of horror, asking himself whether it was true that he had actually sought their society. It had been in pure vacancy he knew now, and because there was no other to be had. But yet he had persuaded himself that they were very good fellows, and that to make acquaintance with their ways of thinking was a good thing, and expanded his knowledge of life and the world. He had all the fervour now of a new convert in respect to the superiority of his present surroundings, but stillwas pleased with the thought that it was Mr. Osborne who had sought him, and not he who had sought Mr. Osborne. The curate had thus fulfilled towards him all, and more than all, that Florence had ventured to suggest. In making Jim believe that it was pure liking that attracted him, Mr. Osborne had bettered the prayer that had been made to him. Had he done it for her sake?—who could tell? If it was so, it was a transfer complete and thorough, for he had never approached Florence, never spoken to her when he could avoid it, never looked at her since that day. He said, ‘How do you do, Miss Plowden?’ as if he had never known more of them than from a chance meeting in the village street, when he met the sisters. Not even his anxiety about his entertainment broke down the barrier he had raised between himself and the girl to whom he had all but offered his heart and life. ‘What is the matter with Mr. Osborne?’ Emmy had asked of her sister, in consternation, for it is needless to say that Florry’s sister and constant companion had been well enough aware of the previous state of affairs. Florence had not answered the question, but she had preserved her composure, which was a great thing, and had thus led her sister to believe that, whatever the matter was, it was a temporary one. Mrs. Plowden, too, had put a similar question, but had herself answered it in the most satisfactory way. ‘What has become of Mr. Osborne?’ she said, and then replied to herself, ‘I suppose since he sees so much of Jim at his own place, he doesn’t think it worth his while to come here. It isn’t perhaps very civil to the rest of us; but what does it matter to any of us? and it is quite an advantage to Jim. I am sure he may be as rude to me as he likes; if he is nice to Jim, what do I care?’
This did not perhaps make Florence feel less sore. She could not help feeling that all her own prospects might come to nothing, and so long as it was well for Jim her mother would not care or any one. To tell the truth, Mrs. Plowden was of opinion that the curate’s apparent admiration of Florence had been only a cover for his desire to secure the friendship of her son, so wonderfully had her mind changed since the evening when she had bemoaned the use that Mr. Osborne might, but would not, be to Jim, and when Florence had formed the heroic resolution of setting that duty before her lover, if he should ever become her lover. The poor girl had carried out that vow, and had achieved that purpose. She said to herself that she had nothing to regret. It was far more important that he should tide Jim over this dangerous period, that he should restore him to better aims and hopes, thanthat he should ‘pay attention,’ as the gossips said, to herself. Florry said to herself proudly that she wanted no ‘attentions,’ from Mr. Osborne. If he had loved her, as she once thought, that would have been a very different matter. But it was apparent enough now that this had never been the case; and what did she want with him and his attentions? He had been angry, furious with her for the suggestion she had made to him. Evidently he was one of the men who think that women should never open their mouths, should see only what they are told to see. But he was a man with a conscience, and even the suggestion of a despised girl had borne fruit. He had been able to put her out of his mind, but not to put the thing she had said out of his mind. So much the better! He had held out a rescuing hand to Jim. He was doing the work of a Christian knight towards her brother. And as for any little delusion of hers, what did it matter? It was far better so, so long as nobody suspected—as nobody should suspect, did it cost her her life!—the pang that was in poor Florry’s heart.
It had been suspected, however—nay, more, divined—by one person, who was one of the group, coming down the street of Watcham together from the practice which had been held in the schoolroom on the morning of Mr. Osborne’s entertainment. Emmy and Florence had gone through their song, with some applause from the other performers, but not a word from the curate, who seemed not to make even a pretence of listening, and whose indifferent aspect was actually rudeness to the two young ladies, his Rector’s daughters, who had the greatest call upon his attention. He made himself, on the other hand, very agreeable to the two young London ladies who abode in one of the villas at Riverbank, and whose performance upon the piano was not remarkable. Miss Grey, who was present in her capacity of lay or feminine curate, the official best known and most fully recognised in the parish, could not help but see this; and, indeed, there were plenty of other people who remarked it, wondering whether Mr. Osborne had quarrelled with the Rectory family, a supposition, however, which was untenable in sight of his intimacy with Jim. Jim’s reading had the curate’s warmest applause. He referred to Jim on everything, sent him off to arrange matters, consulted him about the programme, and the succession of the performances; in short, conducted himself as if Jim Plowden were his other self and as much the giver of the entertainment as he was. The last thing he did after the practice was over, was to call to Jim that he should expect him at five to look up the fellows at Riverside.In the meantime Mr. Osborne had to entertain the Winwick contingent. But all this was so strange, so marked, so unlike Mr. Osborne’s former behaviour, that little Miss Grey, between consternation and amusement, did not know what to think. She was an experienced little woman, and she saw very well what was coming when Florence and the curate left her house together, three weeks before. She had expected that very day to have another visit from one or both of them to tell her the great news. And, instead, there was to all appearance a total disruption between them; and not only so, but Jim—Jim!—received into the curate’s heart as closest friend and first favourite apparently, in his sister’s place.
Miss Grey felt that there must be an explanation of this, though she could not make it out as yet; and, above all, she was very sure that Mr. Osborne’s rudeness to the Plowdens did not come from nothing. There must be a reason for it. Whatever it meant, indifference was certainly the last thing it could mean. And Jim’s complaisance in respect to his new friendship with the curate made the whole question still more complicated. ‘It’s him that looks as if he liked me.’ Looks as if he liked Jim, and looks as if he disliked Florence! But that was more than Miss Grey, with all her knowledge of man, and even of curate-kind, could understand. And the slight sharpness in the tone of Florence threw an additional cloud upon the whole matter. Nobody but must feel that it was good for Jim to be engaged in the curate’s schemes instead of talking second-hand politics at the ‘Blue Boar.’ But Florence’s voice had a sharp tone in it, and in Florence’s self there was a sort of thrill of offended dignity, which Miss Grey was quick to see. The girl was wounded, and not much wonder. Her part of the performance was precisely the one in which Mr. Osborne seemed to take no interest. To be sure, Miss Grey was not aware that since that fated morning Florence and he had not exchanged one word that was not indispensable to the preservation of appearances. And yet she had not refused Mr. Osborne, which would have explained everything—at least, there was no reason to suppose that she had refused him. Had she done so it would somehow have oozed out. Birds of the air carry these matters. It shows upon the aspect of the rejected more surely than does the delight of acceptance. And besides, Florence Plowden had not intended to reject—there was no appearance of that purpose in her. The matter became more and more mysterious the longer Miss Grey thought it over. She could get no light upon this mysterious question.
They were all walking along together—a bevy of young people with Miss Grey in the midst, with a little excitement consequent upon the performances past and the performance to come, making a good deal of cheerful noise in the cheerful road. Two or three were always talking at the same time, and nobody was listening, though Jim found it possible to hear what Mab was saying to him, and Florence could not help but remark upon every word that concerned Mr. Osborne. The rest were discussing their own share in the performance and what the violinists from Winwick and the rest of the people were going to do. ‘Fiddlers are thought everything of nowadays,’ said the pianists, ‘and yet where would they be without an accompanist?’ They thought the same thing of the singers more or less, and the singers, who were aware that they were themselves the most popular part of the entertainment, returned that feeling. As for those who were merely to read, the musical part of the performers had a sort of impartial and indifferent contempt for them, as for people who were merely making a little exhibition of themselves—not rivals at all. Shakespeare or Ingoldsby, the young ladies from Riverbank did not think it mattered a bit which it was. And even Mab asked, more from civility than with interest, what Jim was going to do.
‘The “Ride to Ghent”? We have had the “Ride to Ghent” so often. If you had wanted a ride, you might have taken that other one from Browning, where the man thought “Perhaps the world will end to-night.”’
‘Do you think the boatmen would care about that?’ said Florence. ‘Oh no, you don’t know it, Jim. It is a man who is going to have a last ride with a girl who does not care for him. At all events, he thinks this is their last ride. And then perhaps he thinks the world may come to an end.’
‘I don’t see much meaning in that,’ said Jim. ‘I suppose there will always be plenty other girls in the world. Browning is always so far-fetched, except——’
‘When he isn’t,’ said Mab, laughing. ‘The “Ride to Ghent,” is not far-fetched.’
‘But what is it about?’ said Jim. ‘I’ve been asking Osborne, who did something tremendous in history, in Greats—and he can’t tell me. Now, if I could say before I begin, “This was after a great fight between the—what? the Spanish and the Dutch, or something——”’
‘You can say,’ said Mab, ‘that it was a starving time, and if they didn’t hear the good news they would have to give in—afterholding out till they were nearly dead: though I can’t make out,’ added that young lady, ‘if the country was so free as that, and Loris and the other two could ride a whole day without any one disturbing them, why the town should be starving? But you are not called upon to explain. They would like the “Pied Piper” still better, you know,’ she continued reflectively. ‘It’s easier to understand. They want a story, and they want it to go quick, without reflections—like this,’ said the experienced little woman of the parish, striking her hands together, which startled them all.
‘There are nothing but vulgar stories that do that—claptrap things, things that ladies and gentlemen could not listen to,’ said Emmy Plowden.
‘Oh, what does it matter about the ladies and gentlemen? I should not care a bit for them. There is that new Indian man, that writes the stories—a man with a curious name; but, then, they are notgoodstories at all. The soldiers drink and swear, and that would never do. Is it necessary to drink and swear in order to have “go” in you?’ said Mab. ‘As for your old Ingoldsby, they see it’s meant to be fun, and they laugh. But they don’t care.’
‘I fear,’ said Florence, always with that little sharp tone in her voice, ‘that Jim will have to take what he has got, instead of waiting till the right thing comes.’
‘Is the new schoolmistress going to do something?’ said Miss Grey. ‘I heard a report—— I don’t like the looks of that woman, but she is as clever as ever she can be. She could do Lady Macbeth, or—anything she likes. And she knows—quantities of things, far too much for a village schoolmistress. I have seen her somewhere before, I am certain, and she is quite out of her place here. But why doesn’t Mr. Osborne get hold of her, and see what she could do? She’d make them attend, I’ll warrant you! There wouldn’t be much wandering attention if she were there.’
‘It’s a pity,’ said Jim stiffly, ‘that she could not hear you, Miss Grey: for she said the ladies would not like it if she appeared.’
‘She thinks she could throw us all into the shade,’ said Florence—‘we should be jealous of her, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’ said Jim, ‘of course she would; she would throw everybody here into the shade.’
He spoke with a little fervour, forgetting, unhappy boy! that he had no right to know anything whatever of Mrs. Brown.
‘Jim, how should you know?’ said Emmy, mildly; and then,to make bad worse, Jim stumbled into an explanation how he had gone to her from Mr. Osborne, and how she had laughed, and ‘said’ something to him, ‘a piece of poetry,’ Jim called it, which made his hair stand upright on his head; but after that, she had refused, saying, ‘No, no; the ladies would not have it, the ladies would not like it.’
‘As if we should care!’ said Florence, with a little sneer. ‘You can go and tell her if you like, that the ladies have no objection. We are not jealous, are we—of Mrs. Brown?’
This was not poor Florry’s natural tone, and the sharpness of it went to one heart at least—that of Miss Grey, who discovered what it meant: and startled the rest, who did not understand any meaning in it at all.
‘Don’t send Jim,’ said Mab, ‘let me go. I’ll tell her we should all like her to do—Lady Macbeth or whatever she pleases—and that none of the ladies would mind—not you, Miss Grey, I may tell her—for perhaps she thinks the young ones don’t count.’
‘Don’t bother, Mab,’ said Jim hastily, ‘It is too late; even if she were willing we cannot change the programme now.’
‘Oh, but I am going! I have a fancy for Mrs. Brown,’ said Mab, waving her hand.
Mableft the others separating on every side towards their homes, and ran back to the schoolhouse, from which the children had all dispersed a little while before. She was full of her errand, in which there was a little sense of mischief as well as of pleasure, the one giving piquancy to the other. No doubt it was quite true that the ladies were not jealous of Mrs. Brown. It was to Mab the most amusing thing in the world that anybody should think so. Florence and Emmy, for instance, jealous—of a woman twice as old as they were, if she were the most beautiful and attractive woman in the world! How absurd it was! Youth has confidence in youth, in a manner as astonishing to the rest of the world as is the futility of that confidence in so many cases. And to a girl of seventeen a woman of forty is so entirely out of any sort of competition with herself that the suggestion is too ridiculous to be taken into the mind at all. Mrs. FitzStephen, perhaps, or Aunt Jane might be jealous of Mrs. Brown, but then they had nothing to do with it: and it was still more absurd to think that these good ladies could have anything in hand that would make it possible for jealousy to come in. All this ran through Mab’s cheerful mind as she went back, not noting the half-alarmed, half-displeased look which Jim threw after her, and his hesitating step in advance, as if he would have gone too. It was an exceedingly good joke to Mab, for though, of course, the ladies were not jealous, they would no doubt be much surprised to see Mrs. Brown appear—surprised, and perhaps not quite pleased. It was not that they habitually looked down upon the schoolmistress—even Mab in her short memory knew of some who had been much petted by the gentry in Watcham. There was one girl, who was delicate, and who was as much thought of as if she had been a princess in disguise, all ‘the best people’ uniting to spoil her, Mab thought, who, being more on this young woman’s level, sawthings with a clear eye. But Mrs. Brown was not a favourite though nobody could tell why. She had seen better days, which was nothing against her; but then she had none of that genteel decay about her, which ought to be characteristic of those who had seen better days. She appeared, indeed, to make a joke of it all, rather than to lament her fallen estate. There was always a twinkle in those eyes, which were so bright, so bold, and so all-seeing. Mab had felt, like all the rest, an instinctive revulsion against her. But this had died off in that appreciation of cheerfulness and courage, which was deep in Mab’s nature. To be less well off than you used to be, and yet take it, not with a moan, but with a jest, or even a gibe, laughing at yourself, seemed to Mab a much more attractive thing than the melancholy of decayed gentility; but this was not the aspect in which the other ladies regarded it. They would all have been sorry for Mrs. Brown had she taken her humiliation sadly. What they did not understand was the joke she made of it, which, to them, seemed impudence and defiance. Perhaps, Mab thought to herself in the abundance of her thoughts as she ran along, this feeling on the part of the ladies was what the gentlemen called jealousy. It was not so bad a guess for a little girl.
It may be added here that Lady William had not made acquaintance with the schoolmistress from the fact that Lady William, probably by right of having been herself the Rector’s daughter and born to that work, refused determinedly to have anything to do with the parish. She did not keep Mab back from that inevitable work, but she would not herself take any part. District visiting, schools, mothers’ or girls’ meetings, penny banks, clothing clubs, all the machinery of the parish, Lady William kept religiously apart from them all. She had a recipe for beef tea which was known far and near, the strongest and the most quickly made, everybody knew, that had ever been heard of, and would go to the kitchen and make it herself, if old Anne, who was the sovereign there, was out of the way or out of temper: and puddings came from her house for the sick people which would have tempted an anchorite to eat: and if warm things were wanted for the winter there was no end to the flannel petticoats, the children’s frocks, and the knitted comforters and stockings which Lady William could turn out. But that was all. She said lightly that there were plenty of people to manage the parish, and that it was not her rôle. She took no responsibility, and had not entered the schools since she was Emily Plowden aiding and abetting all manner of little rebellions in a way not at all becoming for theRector’s daughter. This was one reason she gave for taking no supervision of the schools now. ‘I should always be on the children’s side,’ she said, and thus it happened, which was so strange, that she had never even seen Mrs. Brown.
But Mab knew her very well, and burst into her little house at this hour which was Mrs. Brown’s own hour, in which the parish had no right to interfere with her, with an absence of regard which the girl did not realise, and which no doubt was an unthought-of result of the inferior position in which the schoolmistress was, though quite unintentional on the part of the young intruder. She gave the lightest little tap at the door of Mrs. Brown’s sitting-room, and burst in without waiting for any reply. Mab was, however, a little taken aback when she found Mrs. Brown seated at a little meal, which was not only very agreeable to the smell, but extremely dainty in appearance, much more so, Mab felt instinctively, than any table she was herself accustomed to. Perhaps it was the sight of this, so very different from the usual slovenly repast of the schoolmistresses, which brought Mab up suddenly with a little start, and cry: ‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ which she gave forth in spite of herself.
‘Why should you beg my pardon?’ said Mrs. Brown. She had what seemed a little silver dish before her—some dainty little twists and loaves of French bread—a cover on her table of exquisite linen, white and fresh. Mab knew how it feels when the table-cloth is not in its first freshness when any one comes, and how frequently that little domestic incident happens; but Mrs. Brown’s table-cloth shone like white satin, and was fresh in all its folds. ‘Why should you beg my pardon?’ she said. ‘Do you think I do not know, Miss Pakenham, that I belong to the parish, body and soul? I must eat, to be sure, in order to live, but I ought to know better than to expect that I am to eat undisturbed.’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ said Mab again, crimson with shame; ‘it was so silly of me not to think: but as it is so early——’
‘I must take my food when the children do so,’ said the schoolmistress; ‘pray sit down. I am not much of a sight when I feed, but still——’
‘I hope you don’t think I came on purpose to disturb you at your—lunch,’ said Mab. To the schoolmistress of the oldrégimeshe would have said dinner. ‘I came—to ask you if you wouldn’t say something—I mean recite something, or act something, at the entertainment to-night. We all think you would do it much better than any one here.’
‘Do what? How kind of you—almost as if I were on anequality: though, perhaps it is because of some one having failed that the schoolmistress may come in? Who has failed, Miss Pakenham, at the eleventh hour? I see, of course, that in these circumstances to apply to a dependent was the only way.’
‘Mrs. Brown,’ said Mab, ‘I have always thought you were a lady; but if you are so ready to think that we are not ladies, I shan’t think so any more.’
‘Well said!’ said the schoolmistress, laying down her fork. ‘Will you have a little of my ragout? I have taught my little maid to make it, and I think it’s very successful. I am fond of good cooking—that is one of the remnants, though, perhaps, at your age you will not think it a very romantic one—of my better days.’
‘I should have thought,’ said Mab, ‘if you were like most of the people who have seen better days, that you would not have cared what you eat.’
‘Ah, yes!’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘that is very true: but I am not like most of those people. I am not so sure that I regret my better days—or that if I liked I might not have them back.’
‘Then in the name of wonder,’ said Mab, ‘why do you stay here?—don’t they often drive you half-mad, those little things that never will learn to spell, and that can’t remember anything if you were to say it to them twenty times in an hour? I would not be a schoolmistress a moment longer than I could help it, if it were me.’
‘Then let us hope it will never be you,’ said Mrs. Brown. ‘The little girls are not alone in driving one half-mad, as you say. There are hundreds of things in the world that would drive you much madder if you knew them as I do.’
‘I suppose you have known—all kinds of things?’ said Mab, looking with curiosity at her companion, whose eyes were full of knowledge too strange for the little girl. Mab had forgotten all about her object in coming, in the interest with which she looked at this curious human creature, who was like an undiscovered country, a world unrealised to her young imagination. She felt like an explorer coasting about in a little skiff to discover unknown headlands and bays of some quaint island far at sea.
‘Yes, I have known a good many kinds of things,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘things that would make the hair of the ladies in Watcham stand on end. I have been in a great many places—and, I am sorry to say, in a great many wrong places. I am not, to tell the truth, a sort of a woman for you to associate with, my dear younglady. You ought to draw your petticoats close round you in case they should touch anything of mine.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Mat, greatly startled.
‘No; I did not suppose you would. You would be a capital confessor, for that reason; for I might pour all my sins into an innocent little ear like yours, and you would never understand them. Will you really refuse my ragout? It is very good, I assure you. Then have one of thosepommes au sucre; I rather pride myself on them.’
‘They are like apples of gold,’ said Mab, who was so young that a sweetmeat was a great temptation to her.
‘I wish they were in a dish of silver—for your sake; but here is a little Dresden plate, which is quite as pretty. And there is a little pot of cream. This is friendly, now, and gives me pleasure. Your cousin, Mr. Jim——’
‘Do you know Jim?’ cried Mab, looking up from her apple, which was very good, with great surprise.
‘Ah, I have known a great many people,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘your father among others, and old Lord John, who died the other day. You never saw your uncle John? Well, you had no great loss; but his money will do you just as much good as if he had been the greatest hero in the world.’
‘I do not know what you mean about my uncle John and money. Do you mean to say that you knew my father?’
‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘they have not told you—and I don’t doubt that was wise enough until all is settled. It was the right thing not to do.’
‘Did you know my father, Mrs. Brown?’
‘My dear, I told you I have known all sorts of people. I knew them all, more or less, in Paris. There was always plenty going on; and I love to be where a great many things are going on. I will tell you how I know your cousin Jim. I am in a very frank humour to-day—in a coming on mood like Rosalind. I had met him in Oxford, when I was not as I am now, at a very gay, noisy party indeed, where I was with some people—whom I would not name in your hearing. I spoke to him here out of prudence, thinking he might say to his father, the Rector, or his mother, the Rectoress—I have seen that woman before, and she is not fit to have charge of your school. So for a selfish motive I made friends with him. It took away his breath at first; but he is a lamb, poor innocent, like yourself, and was very sorry to think I should have so come down in the world.’
‘Mrs. Brown!’ cried Mab. She was put at a dreadful disadvantageby that apple, which was very good, especially with the little pot of cream poured over it in the most lavish hospitable way. When you have once accepted such a thing, and are in the middle of it with the spoon in your hand, and the sweetness melting in your mouth, it is very difficult to express your consternation, or indignation, or dismay.
‘And my opinion is,’ said the schoolmistress, ‘that he can be stopped and brought back, if anybody will take the trouble—judiciously—not in the driving and nagging way. I’m glad to see the curate has stepped in, though he is no friend of mine. Well! but you would like to hear a little more of my history. Do you know what a Bohemian is? You must have seen the word in books. Well, then, I was a Bohemian born. We were both so; but the other, who was the great lady, settled, as great ladies do, and had her irregularities about her, in her own kingdom, don’t you know; but I went out to seek mine. I never did very much harm, however, or I would not talk to a little girl like you about it. I looked on at other people’s fun, and that was fun enough for me. There is always mud about it in the end, and it sticks. I like best to look on——’
Mab had finished her apple by dint of taking large mouthfuls. She had felt that it would be something dreadful, ungrateful, uncivil beyond description to put it down and run away. So, though she was much troubled, she only hurried the more over the consumption of what was on her plate. When it was finished she put down the plate, thankful to have it over, yet feeling that even now she could not be so beggarly as to jump up at once and go away. ‘I wish,’ she said, faltering, ‘please, Mrs. Brown—that you would not tell me any more——’
‘Oh, don’t be afraid,’ cried Mrs. Brown, with a laugh; ‘I shall not bring a blush upon that cheek. I have always been in mischief, but I have not done much harm. I go wherever the whim takes me. I am sometimes in the heart of thedemi-monde—though you don’t know where that is—and sometimes in a great lady’s boudoir, and sometimes in a girls’ school. You may wonder how I got here; but my certificates were perfectly good, and no one had a word to say against me. Thedemi-monde, you know, either in London or Paris, has no connection with Watcham School.’
‘Oh, I wish you would not tell me any more—please don’t tell me any more!’ cried Mab, rising up (though still deeply sensible that it was too abrupt after the apple), ‘for,’ she added, in her trouble, ‘I don’t know at all what you mean.’
‘But my dear young lady,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘you have neither told me how you liked my apple, nor what you wanted me to do.’
‘Oh,’ cried Mab, arrested and feeling all the weight of that sin against the hospitality she had accepted. Her honest little face grew crimson-red, and her eyes sank for the moment before those bold and keen ones that seemed to read her very soul. ‘The apple was very nice, thank you,’ she said, faltering, ‘I—never tasted any like it: but—mother will be waiting for me for her dinner—I—think I must go.’
‘Tell me first,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘what you wanted me to do.’
Mab had very seldom been silenced or daunted in her life, or kept from saying out what was in her mind. For once she had been overcome—chiefly by the apple and its effects, the sense of familiarity and obligation thus brought into her embarrassed mind—but such an embarrassment could not last, nor was she cowed except for a moment by Mrs. Brown’s personality—potent though it was.
‘I wish,’ she cried, ‘you had not told me these things. You put a weight upon my mind, for, of course, I cannot tell them to anybody, and I shall have to carry them all about as if they were secrets of mine. It was not just or fair to tell me—when I can’t tell them again or free myself from knowing, or forget for a long time what you have said. And as for what we wanted you to do—it was when we thought you were only Mrs. Brown, a lady that was poor, and obliged to put up with the school to get her living. Which did not matter to anybody—but now—now——’
‘You are disappointed in me,’ said Mrs. Brown. ‘You think I am not a lady, or obliged to get my living—and you think you had better say no more about it. You are quite right, for I should not have done it whatever you had said to me. I have a great curiosity, however, I confess, to know what it was to be.’
‘Please!’ said Mab, ‘of course I know you are a lady, but it is all different; they thought you might have done—Lady Macbeth—or something. But all that doesn’t matter now.’
‘Lady Macbeth—or something. What other thing did their wisdom think could go beside Lady Macbeth? No, my dear Miss Pakenham, I will not do Lady Macbeth—or anything. Tell the ladies I make my courtesy down to the ground,’ she did so as she spoke with the greatest gravity, while Mab followed her every movement fascinated, ‘for their kindness and for their thought that I was good enough to exhibit myself among them. You know now that I am not good enough. I am not a decayed gentlewoman that has known better days; but don’t hesitate on my account toclear your bosom of that perilous stuff. Tell it out, my dear, run home and tell it all to my lady, your mamma.’
She stopped short suddenly, but as if she would have said a great deal more. Mab seemed to stop short, too, in the hot tide of her interest as the schoolmistress paused. It was as if some swift career and progress of horse or man had been drawn up and cut short in their midst. Mab’s breath, which she had held in the great fever of her interest, burst from her with a kind of gasp. She seemed to herself to have been stopped short on the edge of some precipice.
‘Did you know,’ she said, hesitating, and thinking over every word, ‘my—mother—too?’
Mrs. Brown apparently did not expect this question. She stared at her for a moment, and then burst into an uneasy laugh and turned away.
‘Sarah, Sarah,’ she cried, clapping her hands, ‘it is almost time for school; come and clear these things away.’
Mabwent home from her visit to Mrs. Brown a very different girl from that little person who had run off from the group of her friends to ask the co-operation of the schoolmistress—which had seemed to her a very amusing mission. She had wondered much how it would be taken—with satire or with pleasure. Mrs. Brown’s tongue was one which could sting, Mab knew; but a tongue is all the more amusing for that, when its sting is not for one’s self. Mab rather liked to hear her sending her arrows from right to left. She had thought that probably it was misfortune that caused this, and the sense which people who have seen better days are apt to entertain that it is somehow a wrong to themselves that other people should be prosperous. We are all, unfortunately, too apt to feel so. Blatant prosperity, smiling and smooth, how hard it is for the rest of us not to hate its superior well-being, even if we do not think that it is something taken from ourselves. But that was a very different thing from the dreadful confidences which Mab had received, and which made of her, even herself, who had certainly nothing to do with Mrs. Brown’s sin, a heavy-laden and burdened spirit. Little Mab, who had run down to the schoolhouse as light as a feather—though she was not, as the reader is aware, one of your thread-paper girls—came back from it as if she had carried that pack upon her back which Christian had in thePilgrim’s Progress. The pack belonged to Christian himself, and he had a right to bear it; but, I repeat, Mab had nothing to do with Mrs. Brown’s sins. And I am not at all sure what Mab conceived these sins to be; she knew nothing about them: they were something vaguely terrible, vaguely yet frightfully guilty to her childish sense of purity and rectitude. And yet Mrs. Brown was the schoolmistress, the woman who had all the Watcham girls in her hands; and Mab alone, of all the parish, knew that she was not fit to be trusted with that charge. Shewalked home with the tread and the air of a woman of fifty, her soft brow lined with prodigious scores of thought, her spiritual back bent under this burden. Mab knew, while all the parish lay in darkness. And Mab, the Rector’s niece, and a district visitor, and Lady Bountiful from her cradle, had a duty to the parish which a person less bound with ties of duty might not have thought of. There was her duty to the parish, and, on the other hand, there was her duty to her penitent; for, though she had not asked to have that high office, still Mab felt that she had been adopted as the confessor of the sinner. Sinner was a better name for her than penitent, for she was not penitent; but yet she had trusted Mab. And what was the person so trusted to do?—betray it to the parish, or to any one in the parish? Oh, no, no! And yet was not that to betray the parish and its trust and confidence in herself? If you can imagine any subject more likely to score with wrinkles a brow of seventeen, such a divination is beyond my powers. Mab thought and thought, turning the question over and over in her mind with more curiosity than if she had been a philosopher in search of a new theory. What it is right to do between two conflicting duties is a question for a moralist more than a philosopher, if there is, indeed, any difference between the two. It was a tremendous question. She did not see her friend, the General, though he took off his hat and waved it in cordial greeting as she passed his garden hedge; nor Miss Grey, who had run after her, but finally gave up the chase, unable to make Mab hear her call. Lady William was waiting, though not impatiently, for the mid-day meal, which was the chief repast in the cottage, when Mab reached home: her mother called out to her to make haste, for Anne in the kitchen was apt to lose her temper when her ladies were unpunctual. But Mab was too much confused to make haste. She did not come down for a quarter of an hour, until Anne was half-wild, and Patty in the highest agitation. The dinner had already been sent in, which should have pacified Anne, but she was something of an artiste, in feeling at least, and could not bear her dishes to be spoiled. Mab heard her voice from the depths of the kitchen intoning comminations, and saw that Patty had tears in her eyes, though they sent out pretty sparks of satisfaction at sight of the laggard.
‘Oh, Miss Mab, the soup’s cold,’ she ventured to say, even Patty thus raising a protest.
But Lady William was not very severe. ‘You little sluggish thing,’ she said. ‘What have you been doing? Patty and Ihave been suffering much from Anne. And I fear the soup will be quite cold.’
‘Oh, that’s all the better,’ said Mab, trying to pluck up a spirit, ‘for it’s a very warm day.’
‘I am glad you find it so,’ said Lady William, with a shiver. ‘May is seldom so hot in England as to make cold soup desirable. And how did the practice go off, and where have you been? for I saw Emmy and Florry go home a long time ago.’
‘I have been to Mrs. Brown. They wanted her to act something. She is a very funny woman. She was at her lunch, or dinner, or whatever she calls it. She gave me an apple, which she calledPomme au sucre, and I never tasted anything so nice.’
‘Oh, she is like that, is she?’ said Lady William; ‘the woman who has seen better days.’
‘Yes, mother, she is like that,’ said Mab; even to say so much as this relieved her mind a little, though she had no idea what was meant by the question or reply.
‘And is she going to—act? To act, did you say?—that will be an odd thing for the schoolmistress to do.’
‘They thought—she might do Lady Macbeth—or something.’
‘Or something!’ said Lady William, just as Mrs. Brown had done: ‘that will be still more odd,’ she added, with a laugh. ‘And is she going to do it, Mab? I shall see this woman, then, at last.’
‘No, she is not going to do it, mother. She laughed at the idea. She said, “Lady Macbeth—or something,” just as you did. She is a very strange woman, but I don’t think that you would like her.’
‘Probably not,’ said Lady William. ‘It is, perhaps, unkind to say it, but I am not very fond of the decayed gentlewoman in general. It would serve me right,’ she said, with half a smile and half a sigh, ‘to end like that myself.’
‘But how could that be?’ said Mab. It was one of those questions to which there is no answer possible. Nor did she expect an answer. But it brought a little cloud over Lady William’s brow. Indeed, it was all Lady William could do to keep her face tolerably unclouded, and her conversation as cheerful as usual for Mab’s sake. And this struggle on her mother’s part kept Mab’s unusually serious face from being noticed as it otherwise must have been. After that there were no further questions asked about Mrs. Brown, and Mab went out to her gardening andthe many other occupations which filled up her time. But whatever she was doing this heavy question hung upon her mind, and she carried with her the burden that was like Christian’s, yet which she had not, like him, any right to bear. Her duty to the parish was to denounce the woman who ought not, with her mysterious guiltiness, to have the training of the girls of Watcham. And her duty to her penitent was to keep everything jealously within her own breast which had been confided to her, so to speak, under the seal of confession. Mab had, as was natural, a tremendous sense of her responsibility to both, but how she was to reconcile the two was more than she could think of. She determined at last upon a compromise, which was not indeed half sufficient to meet the case, but which was the only thing she could think of. She herself, she concluded, would for the future go constantly to the school, and thus neutralise any evil that might be produced by Mrs. Brown. She would go and watch over the girls, and see that their morals were all right, and that nothing was said or done to lead them astray. By dint of thinking it over the whole afternoon, shutting herself up alone to wrestle with it, refraining even from tea in order that her deliberations might be unbroken—this was the middle course to which Mab attained. She could not betray Mrs. Brown. That was out of the question: and it was also dreadful to think of betraying the parish, which, alas! if it knew what Mab knew, would not continue Mrs. Brown in her place for a single day; but if Mab took it upon herself—her little innocent self—to watch over the girls, to be there early and late, guarding them from every allusion, from every lesson that could hurt them—would not that make up for the silence? She would watch the children as nobody else could watch. She would have eyes like the lynx and ears like those who heard the grass growing. This was what Mab determined upon in the anxiety of her soul.
She had persuaded her mother to go to the entertainment, though it was a dissipation to which Lady William was noways inclined. But Mab, notwithstanding the sad check that had been put upon her by the forenoon’s proceedings, was very anxious about the delights of the evening, which were of a kind unusual in Watcham, where there was so very little going on. A concert was of the rarest occurrence. A little comedy had once been known to be played in the large room of the ‘Blue Boar’ by a strolling company, and, as we are aware, there had been a dance at General FitzStephen’s. But the occasions that occurred in Watcham of putting on a best cap or a flower in your hair andsallying forth in the evening without your bonnet, to meet other persons under the same beatific conditions, were so very rare that nobody wished to miss the curate’s entertainment. There had been very grave and serious questions among the ladies as to the point of costume, some being of opinion that as the entertainment was primarily for the working people, it would be ‘better taste’ on the part of the ladies and gentlemen not to go in evening dress, or at all events to shroud their glories in bonnets on one side, and great-coats on the other. This, however, had been boldly combated by Mrs. Plowden, who maintained that it would be much better for ‘the poor things’ to have the exhilarating spectacle for once in a way of ladies in their evening toilettes, and gentlemen with shirt-fronts that could be seen half a mile off. It would do them good, the Rector’s wife said, to see that the best people were ready to mingle with them thus on a sort of equal terms, coming to enjoy themselves just as the boatmen did. And it was absolutely necessary that the young ladies who were to perform should be arrayed and made to look their best; it would have been very hard upon them to step down from the platform amongst a mass of bonnets, and thus be made conspicuous in the assembly even when they had finished their exertions in its behalf. I don’t think that Mrs. Plowden had the least difficulty in bringing the others to her opinion, and accordingly the front seats in the schoolroom where the performance was to take place, were peopled by a small, and select, but distinguished audience, which rather over-shadowed, it must be allowed, and put out the homely ranks behind, and made the curate gnash his teeth when he saw immediately in front of his presiding chair all the shining shirt-fronts and frizzed or smooth locks, or lace-covered heads of the familiar little society of Watcham. Poor higher classes! They wanted a little amusement to the full as much, or perhaps more, than the boatmen and their wives from Riverside. And, perhaps, had they been at the back and the others in front, Mr. Osborne would not have minded. As it was, perhaps in this as in greater matters all was for the best—for General FitzStephen’s high head prevented the curate from seeing how old George from the landing yawned over the quartette of the violinists from Winwick. Breeding is everything in such cases, for the General was quite as much bored as old George; yet he applauded when it was over (partly in thankfulness for that fact) as if he had never heard anything so beautiful before.
As for Mab, she was able to forget for the moment her interview with Mrs. Brown. Not only was it pleasant to be out in theevening—though only in a white frock high up to the neck, which was in reality a morning dress, but quite enough in Lady William’s opinion for such an entertainment; but the excitement of feeling that she had really a part in the performance through the songs of Emmy and Florence, and the recitation of Jim, enlivened her spirits and raised her courage. The Rectory girls sang two duets, far better in Mab’s opinion than all the other performers, and she felt sure that if Florence, whose voice was so much the strongest, had but had the courage to sing alone—! But this was a suggestion that Florence had crushed at once. It was bad enough to stand up there in face of all these people with Emmy to support her: but alone!
‘Don’t you think it was rather silly of Florry to be so particular,’ whispered Mab, ‘when they have all known her—almost since she was born?’
‘No. I don’t think it was silly,’ said Miss Grey decisively.
‘Oh! but you never think any one silly,’ said Mab.
‘Don’t I!’ said Miss Grey, with a truculence which left all the swearing roughs of Riverside far behind. ‘I know who I think silly,’ said that enraged dove.
Mab’s eyes ranged over all the people on the platform in astonishment, to see who could be the object of this outburst.
‘Not poor Jim?’ she said, faltering.
‘Jim is worth a dozen of him,’ said Miss Grey.
There was only one face that was not friendly and bright. And that was, Mab supposed, because Mr. Osborne was so anxious that everything should go off well. Florence, the duet just over, was standing within three steps of him, with a little group about her congratulating her on her success, and the sound of the applause behind was still riotous in the room. Old George was very audibly exclaiming at the top of his gruff voice: ‘That’s your sort now! that’s somethin’ as a man can understand;’ while some of the Riverside lads, the people Mr. Osborne had been so anxious about, kept on clapping their big rough hands persistently, when everybody else had stopped, not daring to cry encore to the young ladies, but signifying their wishes very clearly in that way. The two girls hesitated and lingered, kept by their friends from retiring while this noisy but timid call went on, which presently was joined in by all the front benches, under the leadership of the General, who was not at all shy, and cried ‘encore’ lustily. Mr. Osborne grew more gloomy than ever, and called imperiously for the next performers. ‘We must stick to the programme,’ hecried; ‘we shall never get done at this rate,’ and the Winwick amateurs came up again with their fiddles, while Emmy and Florry stole away, escaping abashed from their friends, who were discomfited too. It was then that Miss Grey said between her closed teeth, ‘I know who I think is silly;’ as if she would have liked to crush that person in her little hand which (in a very ill-fitting glove) she clenched as she spoke. If he had been a butterfly he would have had no chance in that clenched fist of Miss Grey.
And then Jim came up smiling and delivered his ‘Ride,’ and was applauded till the roof rang, chiefly, however, because he was Jim, and there was something about racing horses in what he had read. ‘That’s your sort,’ old George said again, but more doubtfully; ‘though I’d like to have known a little more about them horses,’ he added; and shortly after the entertainment came to an end. There was no doubt it had been a great success. While the common people streamed out, not sorry to be able to stretch their limbs and let loose their opinion, and indemnify themselves for having been silent so long, the audience in the front benches lingered to pay their respects and congratulations, and to assure the curate that everything had gone off beautifully. ‘I hope the Riverside people enjoyed it. I am sureIdid,’ said General FitzStephen. Mr. Osborne looked at that gallant officer as if he would have liked to knock him down. He could not have shown a more angry and clouded face had the entertainment been a failure. ‘Oh yes. I suppose it has done well enough,’ he said. Mab, who did not know what all this meant, but who was able to perceive that something was wrong, was fixing her wits upon this mystery, and very anxious to know what it meant, when she suddenly heard a little cry from her mother, whose eyes were fixed upon the last stragglers of the crowd going out, and who suddenly broke off in the midst of a conversation, and with every appearance of excitement suddenly rushed out after some one—Mab could not tell whom. Mab rushed after her mother full of astonishment and eager curiosity, but only to find Lady William standing outside looking vaguely round her with an anxious, bewildered look upon her face. ‘What is it, mother? Who is it?’ Mab cried. ‘Do you want to speak to somebody?’ ‘I am certain,’ cried Lady William, ‘I saw her in the crowd. She turned round for a moment and I saw her face.’ ‘Who is it, mother? Who is it, mother?’ cried Mab. But Lady William did not make any reply to her. She turned round to another who had rushed after her (‘ThatLeo Swinford, of course,’ Mabsaid to herself) and put out her hand to him, as if he, and not her child, could help her. ‘I have seen her, I am sure I have seen her!’ she cried—and she repeated in a tone of rising excitement what she had said before—‘with a black veil over her head. She turned round as she went out of the door; and there was Artémise. Oh, find her for me; find her, Leo!’ Lady William cried.