Brownlows

“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 bestir herself. 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.

“Mamma!” she cried. “I did not mean to go to sleep. Are you better? Shall I run and get you a cup of tea?”

“Come and speak to me, Pamela,” said Mrs. Preston. “I am quite well—at least I think I am well. My poor darling, have you been sitting up all night?”

“It does not matter,” said Pamela; “it will not hurt me; but I was frightened. Are you sure you are better? Poor mamma, how ill you have been! You looked—I can not tell you how you looked. But you have your own eyes again this morning. Let me go and get you some tea.”

“I don’t want any tea,” said Mrs. Preston. “I want to speak to you. I am not so strong as I used to be, and you must not cross me, Pamela. I have something to do before I die. It upset me to hear of it, and to think of all that might happen. But I must get well and do it. It is all for your sake; and you must not cross me, Pamela. You must think well of what I say.”

“No,” said Pamela, though her heart sank a little. “I never did any thing to cross you, mamma; but Mrs. Swayne said you were not to talk; and she left the kettle by the fire that you might have some tea.”

“I do not care for tea; I care for nothing but to get up and do what has to be done,” said her mother. “It is all for your sake. Things will be very different, Pamela, from what you think: but you must not cross me. It is all for you—all for you.”

“Oh, mamma, don’t mind me,” said Pamela, kissing her grey cheek. “I am all right, if you will only be well; and I don’t know any thing you can have to do. You are not fit for any thing but to lie still. It is very early yet. I will draw the curtains if you will try to go to sleep.”

“I must get up and go,” said Mrs. Preston. “This is no time to go to sleep; but you must not cross me—that is the chief thing of all; for Pamela, every thing will be yours—every thing; and you are not to be deceived and taken in, and throw it all away.”

“Oh, mamma dear, lie still and have a little more rest,” cried Pamela, ready to cry with terror and distress. She thought it was delirium, and was frightened and overwhelmed by the unexpected calamity. Mrs. Preston, however, did not look like a woman who was raving; she looked at the old silver watch under her pillow, drawing it out with a feeble hand, which still trembled, and when she saw how early it still was, she composed herself again as with an effort. “Come and lie down, my poor darling,” she said. “We must not spend our strength; and my Pamela will be my own good child and do what I say.”

“Yes, mamma,” said the poor child, answering her mother’s kiss; but all the while her heart sank in her breast. What did it mean? What form was her submission to take? What was she pledging herself to? She lay down in reluctant obedience, trembling and agitated; but she was young and weary, and fell fast asleep in spite of herself and all her fears. And the morning light, as it brightened and filled the little room, fell upon the two together, who were so strange a contrast—the young round sweet face, to which the color returned as the soft sleep smoothed and soothed it, with eyes so fast closed, and the red lips a little apart, and the sweet breath rising and falling: and the dark, weary countenance, worn out of all freshness, now stilled in temporary slumber, now lighting up with two big dark eyes, which would wake suddenly, and fix upon the window, eager with thought, and then veil over again in the doze of weakness. They lay thus till the morning had advanced, and the sound of Mrs. Swayne’s entrance made Pamela wake, and spring ashamed from her dead sleep. And finally, the cup of tea, the universal cordial, was brought. But when Mrs. Preston woke fully, and attempted to get up, with the eager look and changed manner which appalled her daughter, it was found to be impossible. The shock, whatever it was, had been too much for her strength. She fell back again upon her bed with a look of anguish which went to Pamela’s heart. “I can’t do it—I can’t do it,” she said to herself, in a voice of despair. The convulsive trembling of the previous night was gone; but she could not stand, could not walk, and still shook with nervous weakness. “I can’t do it—I can’t do it,” she said over and over, and in her despair wept; which was a sight overwhelming even to Mrs. Swayne, who was standing looking on.

“Hush, hush,” said that surprised spectator. “Bless your poor soul, don’t take on. If you can’t do it to-day, you’ll do it to-morrow; though I don’t know, no more than Adam, what she’s got to do, Miss Pamela, as is so pressing. Don’t take on. Keep still, and you’ll be better to-morrow. Don’t go and take no liberties with yourself. You ain’t fit to stand, much less to do any thing. Bless you, you’ll be as lively as lively to-morrow, if you lie still and take a drop of beef-tea now and again, and don’t take on.”

“Yes, I’ll do it to-morrow. It’ll do to-morrow; a day don’t signify,” said Mrs. Preston; and she recovered herself, and was very quiet, while Pamela took her place by the bedside. Either she was going to be ill, perhaps to die, or something had happened to change her very nature, and turn the current of her life into another channel. Which of these things it was, was beyond the discrimination of the poor girl who watched by her bedside.

CHAPTER XXXI.

SUSPICION

Neither the next day, however, nor the next again, was Mrs. Preston able to move. The doctor had to be brought at last, and he enjoined perfect quiet and freedom from care. If she had any thing on her mind, it was to be exorcised and put away, he ordered, speaking to Mrs. Swayne and Pamela, who had not a notion what she had on her mind. As for the patient, she made her effort to rise every morning, and failed, and turned upon her watchers such looks of despair as bewildered them. Every morning Jack Brownlow would come to ask for her, which was the only moment of the day in which Pamela found a little comfort; but her mother found it out instinctively, and grew so restless, and moaned so pitifully when her child left her, that even that sorrowful pleasure had to be given up. The young people did not know what to think. They persuaded themselves sometimes that it was only the effect of illness, and that a fancy so sudden and unexplainable would, when she was better, vanish as unreasonably as it came; but then, what was it she had to do? When she had lain for several days in this state of feebleness, always making vain efforts after strength, another change came over Mrs. Preston. The wild look went out of her eyes. One morning she called Pamela to her with more than her usual energy. “I am going to be very quiet and still for a week,” she said; “if I am not better then, I will tell you what you must do, Pamela. You must send for the rector and for Nancy Christian from old Mrs. Fennell’s in Masterton. This is Tuesday, and it is the 30th; and I will try for a week. If I am not better next Tuesday, you must send for the rector. Promise me to do exactly what I say.”

“Yes, mamma,” said Pamela; “but oh! what for?—if you would only tell me what it is for! You never kept any thing secret from me.”

Mrs. Preston turned a wistful look upon her child. “I must not tell you,” she said; “I can not tell you. If I did you would not thank me. You will know it soon enough. Don’t ask me any questions for a week. I mean to try and get well to do it myself; but if I don’t get well, no more time must be lost. You must not cross me, Pamela. What do you think I should care if it was not for you?”

“And perhaps if I knew I should not care,” cried the poor little girl, wringing her hands. She did not know what it was; but still it became as clear as daylight to her that it was something against Jack.

“You would tell it to him,” Mrs. Preston said, with a deep sigh. Perhaps Pamela did not hear her, for the words were spoken almost under her breath; but the girl heard the sigh, and divined what it meant. It was bitter to her, poor child, and hard to think that she could not be true to both—that her mother was afraid of trusting her—and that Jack and Mrs. Preston were ranged on different sides, with her love and faith, as a bone of contention, between them. Perhaps it was all the harder that she could not cry over it, or get any relief to her soul. Things by this time had become too serious for crying. The little soft creature grew without knowing into a serious woman. She had to give up such vain pleasures as that of tears over her trouble. No indulgence of the kind was possible to her. She sat by her mother’s bedside all day long, and with her mother’s eye upon her, had to feign composure when she little possessed it. Mrs. Preston was unreasonable for the first time in her life as regarded Pamela. She forgot what was needful for the child’s health, which was a thing she had never done in her life before. She could not bear her daughter out of her sight. If she went down stairs for half an hour, to breathe the fresh air, her mother’s eyes would follow her to the door with keen suspicion and fear. Pamela was glad to think that it must be her illness, and that only, which had this effect. Even Mrs. Swayne was more considerate. She was ready to come as often as it was possible to watch by the sick-bed and let the poor little nurse free; but Mrs. Preston was not willing to let her free. As it happened, however, Mrs. Swayne was in the room when her lodger gave Pamela instructions about calling the rector if she were not better in a week, and it startled the curious woman. She told it to her neighbor and tenant in the next house, and she told it to old Betty; and the thing by degrees grew so patent to the parish that at last, and that no later than the Friday, it came to Mr. Hardcastle’s ears. Naturally it had changed in the telling. Whereas Mrs. Preston had directed him to be sent for in a certain desperate case, and as a last resource, the rector heard that Mrs. Swayne’s inmate was troubled in her mind, and was anxious to confide some secret to him. What the secret was was doubtful, or else it would not have been a secret; but all Dewsbury believed that the woman was dying, and that she had done something very bad indeed, and desired the absolution of a priest before she could die in peace. When he heard this, it was equally natural that Mr. Hardcastle should feel a little excited. He was disposed toward High Church views, though he was not a man to commit himself, and approved of people who wanted absolution from a priest. Sometimes he had even a nibble at a confession, though unfortunately the people who confessed to him had little on their minds, and not much to tell. And the idea of a penitent with a real burden on her conscience was pleasant. Accordingly he got himself up very carefully on the Saturday, and set out for Mrs. Swayne’s. He went with the wisdom of a serpent and the meekness of a dove, not professedly to receive a confession, but to call, as he said, on his suffering parishioner; and he looked very important and full of his mission when he went up stairs. Mrs. Swayne had gone astray after the new lights of Dissent, and up to this moment the dwellers under her roof had received no particular notice from Mr. Hardcastle, so that it was a little difficult to account for his solicitude now.

“I heard you were ill,” said the rector; “indeed I missed you from church. As you are a stranger, and suffering, I thought there might be something that we could do—”

“You are very kind,” said Mrs. Preston; and then she looked askance both at Mrs. Swayne and Pamela, keenly searching in their eyes to see if they had sent for him. And as Pamela, who knew nothing about it, naturally looked the guiltiest, her mother’s heart was smitten with a sharp pang at the thought that she had been betrayed.

“Not kind at all,” said Mr. Hardcastle, with animation. “It is my duty, and I am never tired of doing my duty. If you have any thing to say to me now—”

Once more Mrs. Preston cast a keen glance at her daughter. And she asked slowly, “What should I have to say?” looking not at the rector, but suspiciously into Pamela’s face.

“My dear friend, how can I tell?” said Mr. Hardcastle. “I have seen a great deal of the world in my time, and come through a great deal. I know how suffering tries and tests the spirit. Don’t be shy of speaking to me. If,” the rector added, drawing a little nearer her pillow, “you would like me to send your attendants away—”

“Am I dying?” said Mrs. Preston, struggling up upon her bed, and looking so pale that Pamela ran to her, thinking it was so. “Am I so ill as that? Do they think I can not last out the time I said?”

“Mamma, mamma, you are a great deal better—you know you are a great deal better. How can you say such dreadful things?” said Pamela, kneeling by the bedside.

“If I am not dying, why do you forestall my own time?” said Mrs. Preston. “Why did you trouble Mr. Hardcastle? It was soon enough on the day I said.”

“My dear friend,” said the rector, “I hope you don’t think it is only when you are dying that you have need of good advice and the counsel of your clergyman. I wish it was more general to seek it always. What am I here for but to be at the service of my parishioners night and day? And every one who is in mental difficulty or distress has a double claim upon me. You may speak with perfect freedom—whatever is said to me is sacred.”

“Then you knew I wanted to speak to you?” said Mrs. Preston. “Thank you, you are very kind. I am not ungrateful. But you knew I wanted to ask your assistance? Somebody sent for you, perhaps?”

“I can not say I was sent for,” said Mr. Hardcastle—with a little confusion, “but I heard—you know, in a country place the faintest wish you can express takes wings to itself, and becomes known everywhere. I understood—I heard—from various quarters—that if I came here—I might be of use to you.”

All the answer Mrs. Preston made to this was to turn round to the head of the bed where Pamela stood, half hidden, in the corner. “That you might have something to tell him a little sooner!” she said. Her voice, though it was very low, so low as to be inaudible to the visitor, was bitter and sharp with pain, and she cast a glance full of reproach and anguish at her only child. She thought she had been betrayed. She thought that, for the lover’s sake, who was dearer than father or mother, her own nursling had forfeited her trust. It was a bitter thought, and she was ill, and weak, and excited, and her mind distorted, so that she could not see things in their proper light. The bitterness was such that Pamela, utterly innocent as she was, sank before it. She did not know what she had done. She did not understand what her mother’s look meant; but she shrank back among the curtains as if she had been really guilty, and it brought to a climax her sense of utter confusion and dismay.

“I will tell you what the case is,” Mrs. Preston added quickly, the color coming back to her cheek. “I am not in very good health, as you see, but I have something very important to do before I die. It concerns the comfort of my child. So far as I am involved, it would not matter—it would not matter—for I shall not live long,” she added with a certain plaintive tremor of self-pity in her voice. “It is all for Pamela, sir—though Pamela—but lately I grew frightened, and thought myself worse; and I told them—I told her—that if I was no better next Tuesday, they were to send for you. I would not trouble you if I were well enough myself. It was in case I should not be able, and I thought of asking your help; that is how it was. I suppose it was their curiosity. Curiosity is not a sin: but—they say I am not worse—they say I am even a little better. So I will not trouble you, Mr. Hardcastle. By that time I shall be able for what I have to do.”

“You must not be too sure of that,” said the rector; and he meant it kindly, though the words had but a doubtful sound; “and you must not think I am prying or intrusive. I was not sent for: but I understood—that—I might be of use. It is not giving me trouble. If there is any thing I can do for you if you have no friends—”

“We shall soon have plenty of friends,” said Mrs. Preston quickly, with a certain mocking tone in her voice; “plenty of friends. We have not had many hitherto; but all that will soon change. Yes, I shall be able for what I have to do. I feel quite sure of it. You have done me a great deal of good. After it is done,” she said, with that desolate look which Pamela felt to the bottom of her heart, but could not understand, “there will be time enough to be ill, and to die too, if God pleases. I will not mind it much when I leave her with many friends.”

“Mamma!” cried Pamela, with a mingled appeal and reproach; but though she bent over her she could not catch her mother’s eyes.

“It is true,” said Mrs. Preston. “I was like to break my heart when I thought how old I was, and that I might die and leave you without any body to care for you; but now you will have many friends—plenty of friends. And it don’t so much matter.” She ended with such a sigh as moved even the heart of the rector, and touched Mrs. Swayne, who was not of a very sympathetic disposition, to tears.

“You must not talk of leaving your child without a protector,” said Mr. Hardcastle; “if you knew what it was to have a motherless girl to bring up, you would not speak of it lightly. That is my case. My poor little Fanny was left motherless when she was only ten. There is no misfortune like it to a girl. Nobody knows how to manage a young creature but a mother. I feel it every day of my life,” said the rector, with a sigh. It was very, very different from Mrs. Preston’s sigh. There was neither depth in it nor despair like that which breathed in hers. Still, its superficial sadness was pathetic to the women who listened. They believed in him in consequence, more perhaps than he believed in himself, and even Mrs. Swayne was affected against her will.