Brownlows

“It was on business,” said Pamela, not daring to lift her eyes. “She said she would be soon back.”

“Then you must take great care of yourself while she is away,” Mr. Brownlow said, and took off his hat as he left her, with the courtesy which was natural to him. He was so kind to every body, and that day in particular he looked after the pretty creature with a pang of compunction. He did not care much for Powys, but he was sorry for Pamela. “Poor little thing!” he said to himself—for while he said it he thought of launching Jack, as it was Jack’s ambition to be launched, upon public life, getting him into the House of Commons, sending him out to the world, where he would soon forget his humble little love. Mr. Brownlow felt that this was what would happen, and his heart for the moment ached over poor Pamela. She was so pretty, and soft, and young, and then she reminded him—though of whom he could not quite say.

Thus the day went on; and the next day Mr. Brownlow went to the office, where every thing was as usual. He saw by his first glance that Powys was at his desk, and he was pleased, though he took no notice. Perhaps a certain unacknowledged compunction, after all, was in his mind. He even sent for Mr. Wrinkell and consulted him as to the fitness of the junior clerk for a more responsible post. Mr. Wrinkell was a cautious man, but he could not conceal a certain favoritism. “Ever since that first little cloud that passed over him, he has been worth any two in the office,” he said—“any two, sir; but I don’t think he is happy in his mind.”

“Not happy?” said Mr. Brownlow; “but you know, Wrinkell, we can not be expected to remedy that.”

“No, of course not,” said Mr. Wrinkell; “it may be only seriousness, and then it will be all the better for him; but if it is not that, it is something that has gone wrong. At his age a cross in some fancy is enough sometimes—not that I have any ground for saying so; but still I think sometimes when I look at him that some little affair of that description may have gone wrong.”

“It is possible enough,” said Mr. Brownlow, with a smile, which was somewhat grim; “fortunately that sort of thing don’t kill.”

“N-no,” said Mr. Wrinkell, gravely; but he did not say anymore, and his employer did not feel more comfortable after he was gone; and Powys was promoted accordingly, and did his business with a certain sternness, never moving, never looking round when Mr. Brownlow came into the office, taking no notice of him; till the lawyer, who had come to have a certain fondness for the young man, felt hurt and vexed, he could not have told why. He was glad to see him there—glad he was too manful and stouthearted to have disappeared and abandoned his work; but he would have felt grateful and indebted to him had he once raised his head and seemed conscious of his presence. Powys, however, was no more than human, and there was a limit to his powers. He was busy with his work, but yet the sense of his grievance was full in his mind. He was saying to himself, with less vehemence but more steadiness, what Sara had said. He never would have thought of it but for Mr. Brownlow—never would have gone back after that time but for him; and his heart was sore, and he could not forgive him like a Christian—not the first day.

However they had a cheerful evening at Brownlows that night. There were more reasons than one why it should be a night of triumph for the master of the house. His terrors had all died out of his mind. The cloud that had so long overshadowed him had vanished, and it was the last day! Nobody knew it but himself; doubtless nobody was thinking of any special crisis. Mr. Brownlow went, he scarcely knew from what feeling, in a kind of half-conscious bravado, to see old Mrs. Fennell, and found her still raving of something which seemed to him no longer alarming, but the merest idiocy. He was so genial and charitable that he even thought of Nancy and her troubles, and told her she must get a nurse to help her, and then she could be free to go and see her friends. “For I think you told me you had some friends,” Mr. Brownlow said, with an amiability that cowed Nancy, and made her tremble. Nancy Christian! When he heard her mistress call her, he suddenly recollected the other name which he had seen so lately, and came back to ask her about a Mary Christian of the Isle of Man, and got certain particulars which were startling to him. Nancy could tell him who she was. She was a farmer’s daughter related to the Fennells, and had married “a gentleman’s son.” The information gave Mr. Brownlow a curious shock, but he was a good deal exhausted with various emotions, and did not feel that much. So he went home, carrying a present for Sara—a pretty locket—though she had too many of such trinkets already. He meant to tell her it was an anniversary, though not what anniversary it was. And he took his check-book and wrote a check for a large amount for the chief charities in Masterton, but did not tear it out, leaving it there locked up with the book till to-morrow, for it was late, and the banks were shut. If any poor supplicant had come to him that day with a petition, right or wrong its prayer would have been granted. Mr. Brownlow had received a great deliverance from God—so he phrased it—and it was but his simple duty to deliver others if possible in sign of his gratitude. All but young Powys, whom he had deluded, and who had deluded him; all but Phœbe Thomson, who was just about to be consigned to oblivion, and about whom and whose fortunes henceforward no soul would have any inducement to care.

Sara, too, had softened a little out of that first rebellion which Mr. Brownlow knew could not last. She was not particularly cordial to her father, but still she wore the locket he had given her in sign of amity, and exerted herself at dinner to amuse the guests. Fresh people had arrived that day, and the house was very full—so full, that Mr. Brownlow had no chance of a moment’s conversation with his children, except by positively detaining them after every body was gone, as Jack had done on the night of Powys’s arrival. He took this step, though it was a very decided one, for he felt it necessary that some clear understanding should be come to. And he had such bribes to offer them. After every body else had retired, Jack and Sara came to him in the library. This room, which a little while ago had been the least interesting in the house, was gradually collecting associations round it, and becoming the scene of all the most important incidents in this eventful period of the family life. Jack came in half careless, half anxious, thinking something might be about to be said about his personal affairs, yet feeling that his father had no particular right to interfere, and no power to decide. And Sara was sulky. It is an ugly word, but it was the actual state of the case. She was injured, and sore in her heart, and yet she was too young and too much accustomed to her own way to consider the matter desperate, or to have reached the dignity of despair. So she was only sullen, offended, disposed to make herself disagreeable. It was not a promising audience whom Mr. Brownlow thus received with smiles in his own room. It was only about eleven o’clock, his impatience having hastened the hour of general separation; and the young people were not perfectly pleased with that, any more than with his other arrangements. Both the lamps in the library were lighted, and there was a fire burning. The room, too, seemed to have brightened up. Mr. Brownlow put Sara into one of the big chairs, with a tenderness which almost overcame her, and himself took up an Englishman’s favorite position on the hearth.

“I want to speak to you both,” he said. He was eager, and yet there was a certain embarrassment in his tone. “This is an important night in my life. I can’t enter into particulars—indeed there is no room for them—but I have been waiting for this night to speak seriously to you both. Jack, I doubt whether you will ever do much at the business. I should have liked, had you given your mind to it, to keep it up; for a business like mine is a capital backing to a fortune, and without it you can’t hope to be rich—not rich beyond competence, you know. However, it does not seem to me, I confess, that business, of our kind at least, is your turn.”

“I was not aware I had been unsatisfactory, sir,” said Jack. “I don’t think I have been doing worse than usual—”

“That is not what I mean,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I mean you are better adapted for something else. I wrote to my old friend Lord Dewsbury about you to-day. If any thing should turn up in the way he once proposed, I should not mind releasing you altogether from the office—and increasing your allowance. It could not be a great deal, recollect; but still if that is what you would really give your mind to—I should see that you had enough to keep your place.”

Jack’s eyes had gradually brightened as his father proceeded. Now he made a step forward, and a gleam of delight came to his face. “Do you really mean it?” he cried; “it is awfully good of you. Of course I should give my mind to it. It is what I most care for in the world—except—the business—” Jack paused, and other things besides the business came into his mind. “If you are making a sacrifice to please me—” he began slowly.

“We have all to make sacrifices,” said Mr. Brownlow. “A few days ago I thought I should have had to make a sacrifice of a very different kind. Providence has been good to me, and now I should like to do the best for my children. There are only two of you,” said Mr. Brownlow, softening. “It would be hard if I did not do all I could to make the best of your lives.”

And then there was a pause. He meant what he said, and he had always been a good father, and they loved him dearly. But at this moment, though he was offering to his son the realization of his dreams, they both distrusted him, and he felt it. They looked at him askance, these two young creatures who owed every thing to him. They were doubtful of his great offers. They thought he was attempting to bribe them, beguile them out of the desire of their hearts. And he stood looking at them, feeling in his own heart that he was not natural but plausible and conciliatory, thinking of their good, no doubt, but also of his own will. He felt this, but still he was angry that they should feel it. And it was with still more conscious embarrassment that he began again.

“The time has come in my own life when I am ready to make a change,” he said. “I want a little rest. I want to go away and see you enjoy yourselves, and take a holiday before I die. I can afford it after working so long. I want to take you to Italy, my darling, where you have so long wanted to go; but I should like to establish things on a new footing first. I should make some arrangement about the business; unless, indeed, Jack has changed his ideas. Public life is very uncertain. If you think,” said Mr. Brownlow, not without a certain tinge of derision in his tone, “that you would rather be Brownlow of Masterton, with a safe, long-established hereditary connection to fall back upon, it is not for me to precipitate your decision. You can take time and think over what I say.”

“There is no occasion for taking time to think,” said Jack, with a little irritation. But there he stopped. It was getting toward midnight; the house was quiet; everything was still, except the wind sighing outside among the falling leaves. Sara, who was the least occupied of the three, had thought she heard the sound of wheels in the avenue, but it was so unlikely at that time of the night that she concluded it must be only the wind. As they all stood there, however, silent, the quiet was suddenly broken. All at once, into the midst of their conversation, came the sound of the great house-bell, rung violently. It made them all start, so unexpected was the sound, and so perfect was the stillness. At that hour who could be coming to disturb them? The bell was unusually large and loud, and the sound of it echoing down into the bowels, as it were, of the silent house, was startling enough. And then there was the sound of a voice outside. The library was at the back of the house; but still, when their attention was thus violently aroused, they could hear that there was a voice. And the bell rang again loudly—imperiously—wildly. Jack was the first to move. “Willis must be asleep,” he said. “But who on earth can it be?” and he hastened toward the door, to give the untimely visitor entrance. But his father called him back.

“I hear Willis moving,” he said; “never mind. It must be somebody by the last train from town. Did you ask any one? There is just time to have driven over from the last train.”

“It must be some telegram,” said Jack. “I expect nobody this week,” and they all stood and waited; Sara, too, having risen from her chair. The young people were a little disturbed, though they feared nothing; and Mr. Brownlow looked at them tenderly, like a man who had nothing to fear.

“Happily we are all here,” he said. “If it is a telegram, it can only be about business.” He stood leaning against the mantle-piece, with his eyes fixed on the door. There was a flutter at his heart somehow, but he did not feel that he was afraid. And they could hear Willis fumbling over the door, and an impatient voice outside. Whatever it was, it was very urgent, and Jack, growing anxious in spite of himself, would have gone to see. But again his father called him back. Something chill and terrible was stealing over Mr. Brownlow; he was growing pale—he was hoarse when he spoke. But he neither moved, nor would he let his son move, and stood propping himself up, with a livid countenance, and gazing at the door.

When it opened they all started, and Mr. Brownlow himself gave a hoarse cry. It was not a telegram, nor was it a stranger. It was a figure they were well used to see, and with which they had no tragic associations. She came in like a ghost, black, pale, and swift, in a passion of eagerness, with a large old silver watch in her hand. “I am not too late,” she said, with a gasp, and held it up close to Mr. Brownlow’s face. And then she stood still and looked at him, and he knew it all if she had not said, another word. It was Pamela’s mother, the woman whom, two days before, he had helped into the carrier’s cart at his own gate.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

MOMENTARY MADNESS

It would be difficult to describe the looks of the assembled party in the library at Brownlows at this moment. Jack, to whom every thing was doubly complicated by the fact that the intruder was Pamela’s mother, and by the feeling that his own affairs must be somehow in question, made a step forward, thinking that her business must be with him, and fell back in double consternation when she passed him, looking only at his father. Sara stood aghast, knowing nothing—not even aware that there could be any thing to be anxious about—an impersonation of mere wonder and surprise. The two elder people were not surprised. Both of them knew what it meant. Mr. Brownlow in a moment passed from the shock of horror and dismay which had prostrated him at first, into that perfect calm which is never consistent with ignorance or innocence. The wonder of his children would have convinced any observer of their perfect unacquaintance with the matter. But he knew all about it—he was perfectly composed and master of himself in a second. Life goes fast at such a crisis. He felt at once as if he had always known it was to end like this—always foreseen it—and had been gradually prepared and wound up by degrees to meet the blow. All his uncertainty and doubt and self-delusions vanished from him on the spot. He knew who his visitor was without any explanation, and that she had come just in time—and that it was all over. Somehow he seemed to cease on the moment to be the principal in the matter. By the time Mrs. Preston had come up to him, he had become a calm professional spectator, watching the case on behalf of a client. The change was curious to himself, though he had no time just then to consider how it came about.

But the intruder was not calm. On the contrary, she was struggling with intense excitement, panting, trembling, compelled to stop on her way across the room to put her hand to her side, and gasp for the half-stifled breath. She took no notice of the young people who stood by. It is doubtful even whether she was aware of their presence. She went up gasping to the man she thought her enemy. “I am in time,” she said. “I have come to claim my mother’s money—the money you have robbed us of. I am in time—I know I am just in time! I have been at Doctors’ Commons; it’s no use telling me lies. I know every thing. I’ve come for my mother’s money—the money you’ve robbed from me and mine!”

Jack came forward bewildered by these extraordinary words. “This is frenzy,” he said. “The Rector is right. She must be mad. Mrs. Preston, come and I’ll take you home. Don’t let us make any row about it. She is Pamela’s mother. Let me take her quietly away.”

“I might be mad,” said the strange apparition, “if wrong could make a woman mad. Don’t talk to me of Pamela. Sir, you understand it’s you I come to—it’s you! Give me my mother’s money! I’ll not go away from here till I have justice. I’ll have you taken up for a robber! I’ll have you put in prison! It’s justice I want—and my rights.”

“Be quiet, Jack,” said Mr. Brownlow; “let her alone. Go away—that is the best service you can do me. Mrs. Preston, you must explain yourself. Who was your mother, and what do you want with me?”

Then she made a rush forward to him and clutched his arm. He was standing in his former position leaning against the mantle-piece, firm, upright, pale, a strong man still, and with his energies unbroken. She rushed at him, a tottering, agitated woman, old and weak and half-frantic with excitement. “Give me my mother’s money!” she cried, and gasped and choked, her passion being too much for her. At this instant the clock struck: it was a silvery, soft-tongued clock, and made the slow beats of time thrill into the silence. Mr. Brownlow laughed when he heard it—laughed not with triumph, but with that sense of the utter futility of all calculations which sometimes comes upon the mind with a strange sense of the humor of it, at the most terrible crisis. Let it strike—what did it matter?—nothing now could deliver him from his fate.

“I take you to witness I was here and claimed my money before it struck,” cried the woman. “I was here. You can’t change that. You villain give me my mother’s money! Give me my money: you’ve had it for five-and-twenty years!”

“Compose yourself,” said Mr. Brownlow, speaking to her as he might have done had he been the professional adviser of the man who was involved; “sit down and take your time; you were here before twelve, you shall have all the benefit of that; now tell me what your name is, and what is your claim.”

Mrs. Preston sat down as he told her, and glared at him with her wild bright eyes; but notwithstanding the overwrought condition in which she was, she could not but recognize the calm of the voice which addressed her: a certain shade of uncertainty flickered over her countenance—she grew confused in the midst of her assurance—it seemed impossible that he could take it so quietly if he knew what she meant. And then her bodily fatigue, sleeplessness, and exhaustion were beginning to tell.

“You are trying to cheat me,” she said, with difficulty restraining the impulse of her weakness to cry. “You are trying to cheat me! you know it better than I do, and I read it with my own eyes: you have had it for five-and-twenty years: and you try to face it out and cheat me now!”

Then the outburst came which had been kept back so long; she had eaten nothing all day; she had not slept the previous night; she had been traveling and rushing about till the solid earth seemed to be going round and round with her; she burst into sobbing and crying as she spoke; not tears—she was not capable of tears. When Mr. Brownlow, in his extraordinary self-possession, went to a side-table to bring a decanter of sherry which had been placed there, she made an effort to rise to stop him, but even that she was unable to do. He walked across the room while his astonished children still stood and looked on. He alone had all his wits about him, and sense enough to be compassionate. He filled out a glass of wine with a steady hand and brought it to her. “Take this,” he said, “and then you will be more able to tell me what you mean.”

Mrs. Preston looked up at him, struck dumb with wonder in the midst of her agitation. She was capable of thinking he meant to poison her—probably that was the first idea in her mind; but when she looked up and saw the expression in his face, it calmed her in spite of herself. She took the glass from him as if she could not help it, and swallowed the wine in an unwilling yet eager way—for her bodily exhaustion craved the needful support, though her mind was against it. She began to shake and tremble all over as Mr. Brownlow took the glass from her hand: his quietness overwhelmed her. If he had turned her out of the room, out of the house, it would have seemed more natural than this.

“Father,” said Jack, interposing, “I have seen her like this before—I don’t know what she has in her head, but of course I can’t stand by and see her get into trouble: if you will go away I will take her home.”

Mr. Brownlow smiled again, a curious smile of despair, once more seeing the humor, as it were, of the situation. “It will be better for you to take Sara away,” he said; “go both of you—it does not matter.” Then, having fallen into this momentary incoherence, he recovered himself and turned round to his visitor. “Now tell me,” he said gently, “who you are and what you mean?”

But by this time it did not seem as if she were able to speak—she sat and stared at him, her dark eyes shining wildly out of her old pallid face. “I have seen the will—I have been at Doctors’ Commons,” she gulped out by degrees; “I know it must be true.”

“Who are you?” said Mr. Brownlow.

The poor trembling creature got up and made a rush toward him again. “You know who I am,” she said, “but that don’t matter, as you say: I was Phœbe Thomson; give me my mother’s money—ah! give me the money that belongs to my child! give me my fortune! there’s witnesses that I came in time; I came in time—I came in time!” screamed forth the exhausted woman. She had lost all command of herself by this time, and shrieked out the words, growing louder and louder; then all at once, without any warning, she fell down at the feet of the man she was defying—fell in a dead bundle on the floor, in a faint—almost, as it seemed for the moment, dead.

Mr. Brownlow, for one dreadful second, thought she was dead. The moment was terrible beyond all description, worse than any thing that had yet befallen him; a thrill of hope, an awful sickening of suspense came over him; for the first time he, too, lost his senses: he did not stoop to raise her, nor take any means for her restoration, but stood looking down upon her, watching, as a man might watch the wild beast which had been about to kill him, writhing under some sudden shot. A man would not interpose in such a case with surgical aid for the wounded lion or tiger. Neither did Mr. Brownlow feel himself moved to interfere. He only stood and looked on. But his children were not wound up to the same state of feeling. Jack rushed forward and lifted his Pamela’s mother from the floor, and Sara flew to her aid with feminine succors. They laid her on the sofa, and put water on her face, and did every thing they knew to restore her. Mr. Brownlow did not interfere; he could not bid them stop; it never even occurred to him to attempt to restrain their charitable offices. He left them to themselves, and walked heavily up and down the room on the other side, waiting till she should come to herself. For of course she would come to herself—he had no doubt of that. After the first instant it was clearly enough apparent to him that such a woman at such a moment would not die.

When Mrs. Preston came to herself, she tried to get up from the sofa, and looked at them all with a piteous look of terror and helplessness. She was a simply uneducated woman, making little distinction between different kinds of crime—and it seemed to her as if a man who had defrauded her (as she thought) all these years, might very well mean to murder her when he was found out. She did not see the difference. She shuddered as she fell back on the cushions unable to rise. “Would you like to kill me?” she said faintly, looking in their faces. She was afraid of them, and she was helpless and alone. She did not feel even as if she had the strength to cry out. And there were three of them—they could put out her feeble flickering flame of life if they pleased. As for the two young people whom she addressed in the first place, they supposed simply that she was raving. But Mr. Brownlow, who was, in his way, as highly strained as she was, caught the words. And the thought flashed through his mind as if some one had held up a picture to him. What would it matter if she were to die? She was old—she had lived long enough—she was not so happy that she should wish to live longer; and her child—others might do better for her child than she could. It was not his fault. It was her words that called up the picture before him, and he made a few steps forward and put his children away, and came up to the sofa and looked at her. An old, faint, feeble, worn-out woman. A touch would do it;—her life was like the last sere leaves fluttering on the end of the branches; a touch would do it. He came and looked at her, not knowing what he did, and put his children away. And there was something in his eyes which made her shrink into the corner of her couch and tremble, and be silent. He was looking to see how it could be done—by some awful unconscious impulse, altogether apart from any will or thought of his. And a touch would do it. This was what was in his eyes when he told his children to go away.