Brownlows

When Pamela had rested for a few days, and regained her self-command, and become capable of looking at the people who surrounded her, Mr. Brownlow, who considered an explanation necessary, called together a solemn meeting of every body concerned. It was Sara’s desire too, for Sara felt the responsibilities of her guardianship great, and was rather pleased that they should be recognized. They met round the fire in the drawing-room, as Pamela was not able yet to go down stairs. Mr. Brownlow’s dispatch-box in which he had kept his papers lately was brought up and put on the table; and Jack was there, not sitting with the rest, but straying about the other end of the room in an agitated way, looking at the pictures, which he knew by heart. He had scarcely exchanged a word with Pamela since she came to Brownlows. They had never seen each other alone. It was what he had himself thought proper and necessary under the circumstances, but still it chafed him notwithstanding. Pamela sat by the fire in her deep mourning, looking a little more like herself. Her chair was close to the bright fire, and she held out her hands to it with a nervous shiver. Sara too was in a black dress, and stood on the other side, looking down with a certain affectionate importance upon her ward. She was very sorry for Pamela, and deeply aware of the change which had taken place in the circumstances of all the party. But Sara was Sara still. She was very tender, but she was important. She felt the dignity of her position; and she did not mean that any one should forget how dignified and authoritative that position was.

“Papa, I have brought Pamela as you told me,” said Sara; “but there must not be too much said to her. She is not strong enough yet. Only what is indispensable must be said.”

“I will try not to weary her,” said Mr. Brownlow, and then he went to Pamela’s side in his fatherly way, and took one of her chilly little hands. “My dear,” he said, “I have some things to speak of that must be explained to you. You must know clearly why you have been brought here, and what are your prospects, and the connection between us. You have been very brave, and have trusted us, and I thank you; but you must hear how it is. Tell me if I tire you; for I have a great deal to say.”

“Indeed I am quite content, quite content!” cried Pamela; “why should you take all this trouble? You brought me here because you are very kind. It is I who have to thank you.”

“That is what she wants to think,” said Sara. “I told her we were not kind, but she will not believe me. She prefers her own way.”

“Oh, please!” said poor little Pamela; “it is not for my own way. If you liked me, that would be the best. Yes, that was what I wanted to think—”

She broke off faltering, and Jack, who had been at the other end of the room, and whom her faint little voice could not have reached, found himself, he did not know how, at the back of her chair. But he did not speak—he could not speak, his lips were sealed.

“You must not be foolish, Pamela,” said her guardian, solemnly; “of course we love you, but that has nothing to do with it. Listen to papa, and he will tell you every thing. Only let me know when you are tired.”

Then Mr. Brownlow tried again. “You are quite right,” he said, soothing the trembling girl; “in every case this house would have been your proper shelter. Do you know you are Sara’s cousin, one of her relations? Perhaps that will be a comfort to you. Long ago, before you were born, your grandmother, whom you never saw, made a will, and left her money to me in trust for your mother. My poor child! She is not able to be spoken to yet.”

“Oh, no, I am not able, I will never be able,” cried Pamela, before any one else could interfere. “I don’t want ever to hear of it. Oh, Mr. Brownlow, if I am Sara’s cousin, let me stay with her, and never mind any more. I don’t want any more.”

“But there must be more, my dear child,” said Mr. Brownlow, again taking her cold little hand into his. “I will wait, if you prefer it, till you are stronger. But we must go through this explanation, Pamela, for every body’s sake. Would you rather it should be on another day?”

She paused before she answered, and Sara, who was watching her, saw, without quite understanding, a pathetic appealing glance which Pamela cast behind her. Jack would have understood, but he did not see. And though he was still near her, he was not, as he had been for a moment, at the back of her chair. Pamela paused as if she were waiting for help. “If there was any one you could say it to for me—” she said, hesitating; and then the sudden tears came dropping over her white cheeks. “I forgot I was alone and had nobody,” she continued in a voice which wrung her lover’s heart. “I will try to listen now.”

Then Mr. Brownlow resumed. He told her the story of the money truly enough, and with hearty belief in his story, yet setting every thing, as was natural, in its best light. He was not excusing himself, but he was unconsciously using all his power to show how naturally every thing had happened, how impossible it was that he could have foreseen, and how anxious he had always been for news of the heir. It was skillfully told, and yet Mr. Brownlow did not mean it to be skillful. Now that it was all over, he had forgotten many things that told against himself, and his narrative was not for Pamela only, but for his own children. His children listened with so great an interest, that they did not for the moment observe Pamela. She sat with her hands clasped on her knees, bending forward toward the fire. She gave no sign of interest, but listened passively without a change on her face. She was going through an inevitable and necessary trial. That was all. Her thoughts strayed away from it. They strayed back into the beaten paths of grief; they strayed into wistful wonderings why Jack did not answer her; why he did not assume his proper place, and act for her as he ought to do. Could he have changed? Pamela felt faint and sick as that thought mingled with all the rest. But still she could bear it, whatever might be required of her. It was simply a matter of time. She would listen, but she had never promised to understand. Mr. Brownlow’s voice went on like the sound of an instrument in her ears. He was speaking of things she knew nothing about, cared nothing about. Jack would have understood, but Jack had not undertaken this duty for her. Even Sara, no doubt, would understand. And Pamela sat quiet, and looked as if she were listening. That was all that could be expected of her. At last there came certain words that roused her attention in spite of herself.

“My poor child, I don’t want to vex you,” Mr. Brownlow said; “if your mother had lived we should probably have gone to law, for she would have accepted no compromise, and I should have been obliged to defend myself. You inherit all her rights, but not her prejudices, Pamela. You must try to understand what I am saying. You must believe that I mean you well, that I will deal honorably with you. If she had done so, she might have been—”

Pamela started up to her feet, taking them all utterly by surprise. “I don’t want to know any thing about it,” she cried. “Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know! It changed her so. She was never like that before. She was as kind, and as tender, and as soft! There never was any one like her. You don’t know what she was! It changed her. Oh, Jack,” cried the poor girl, turning round to him and holding out her hands in appeal, “you can tell! She never was like that before. You know she never was like that before!”

Sara had rushed to Pamela’s aid before Jack. She supported her in her arms, and did all she could to soothe her. “We know that,” she said, with the ready unquestioning partisanship of a woman. “I can tell. I have seen her. Dear Pamela, don’t tremble so. We were all fond of her; sit down and listen to papa.”

Then poor Pamela sat down again to undergo the rest of her trial. She dried her eyes and grew dull and stupid in her mind, and felt the words flowing on without any meaning in them. She could bear it. They could not insist upon her understanding what they meant. When Mr. Brownlow came to an end there followed a long pause. They expected she would say something, but she had nothing to say; her head was dizzy with the sound that had been in her ears so long. She sat in the midst of them, all waiting and looking at her, and was silent. Then Mr. Brownlow touched her arm softly, and bent over her with a look of alarm in his eyes.

“Pamela,” he said, “you have heard all? You know what I mean? My dear, have you nothing to say?”

Pamela sat upright and looked round the room, and shook off his hand from her arm. “I have nothing to say,” she cried, with a petulant outburst of grief and wretchedness, “if he has nothing. He was to have done every thing for me. He has said so hundreds and hundreds of times. But now—And how can I understand? Why does not he speak and say he has given me up, if he has given me up? And what does it all matter to me? Let me go away.”

“I give you up!” cried Jack. He made but one step to her from the other end of the room, and caught her as she turned blindly to the door. It was with a flush of passion and confusion that he spoke, “I give you up? Not for my life.”

“Then why don’t you speak for me, and tell them?” cried Pamela, with the heat of momentary desperation. Then she sank back upon his supporting arm. She had no need now to pretend to listen any longer. She closed her eyes when they laid her on the sofa, and laid down her head with a certain pleasant helplessness. “Jack knows,” she said softly. It was to herself rather than to others she spoke. But the words touched them all in the strangest way. As for Jack, he stood and looked at her with an indescribable face. Man as he was, he could have wept. The petulance, the little outburst of anger, the blind trust and helplessness broke up all the restraints in which he had bound himself. In a moment he had forgotten all his confused reasonings. Natural right was stronger than any thing conventional. Of course it was he who ought to speak for her—ought to act for her. Sara’s guardianship, somewhat to Sara’s surprise, came to an instant and summary end.

Mr. Brownlow was as much relieved as Pamela, and as glad as she was when the conference thus came to an end. He would have done his duty to her now in any circumstances, however difficult it might have been, but Jack’s agency of course made every thing easier. They talked it all over afterward apart, without the confusing presence of the two girls; and Jack had his own opinions, his own ideas on that subject as on most others. It was all settled about the fifty thousand pounds, and the changed life that would be possible to the heiress and her husband. Jack’s idea was, that he would take his little bride abroad, and show her every thing, and accustom her to her altered existence, which was by no means a novel thought. And on his return he would be free to enter upon public life, or any thing else he pleased. But he was generous in his prosperity. His sister had been preferred to him all his life—was she to be sacrificed to him now? He interfered, with that natural sense of knowing best, which comes so easily to a young man, and especially to one who has just had a great and unlooked-for success in the world—on Sara’s behalf.

“I don’t like to think of Sara being the sufferer,” he said. “I feel as if Pamela was exacting every thing, or I at least on her behalf. It would not be pleasant either for her or me to feel so. I don’t think we are considering Sara as much as we ought.”

Mr. Brownlow smiled. He might have been offended had he not been amused. That any one should think of defending his darling from his thoughtlessness! “Sara is going with me,” he said.

“But she can not carry on the business,” insisted Jack. “Pamela’s claims are mine now. I am not going to stand by and see Sara suffer.”

“She shall not suffer,” said Mr. Brownlow, with impatience; and he rose and ended the consultation. By degrees a new and yet an old device had stolen into his mind. He had repulsed and shut it out, but it had come back like a pertinacious fairy shedding a curious light over his path. He could not have told whether he most liked or disliked this old-new thought. But he cherished it secretly, and never permitted himself to breathe a word about it to any one. And under its influence it began to seem possible to him that all might be for the best, as people say—that Brownlows might melt away like a vision and yet nobody suffer. Sara was going to Masterton with her father to the old house in which she was born. She had refused Sir Charles and his title, and all the honors and delights he could have given her. Perhaps another kind of reward which she could prize more might be awaiting her. Perhaps, indeed—it was just possible—she might like better to be happy and make every body happy round her, than to have a fine house and a pair of greys. Mr. Brownlow felt that such an idea was almost wicked on his part, but yet it would come, thrilling him with anticipations which were brighter than any visions he had ventured to entertain for many a long year. “Sara is going with me,” he said to every body who spoke to him on the subject. And grew a little irritated when he perceived the blank looks with which every body received the information. He forgot that he had thought it the most dreadful downfall that could overwhelm him once. That was not his opinion now.

Brownlows lost its agitated aspect from the moment when Mr. Brownlow and Jack came out of the library, having finished their consultation. Jack went off, whistling softly, taking three steps at a time, to the drawing-room, where Pamela still lay on the sofa under Sara’s care. Mr. Brownlow remained down stairs, but when he rung for lights the first glance at him satisfied Willis that all was right. Nothing was said, but every body knew that the crisis was over; and in a moment every thing fell, as if by magic, into its usual current. Willis went down to his cellar very quietly and brought the plate out of it, feeling a little ashamed of himself. And though the guests were dismissed, the house regained its composure, its comfort, and almost its gayety. The only thing was that the family had lost a relation, whose daughter had come to live at Brownlows—and were in mourning accordingly—a fact which prevented parties, or any special merry-making, when Christmas came.

Though indeed before Christmas came the little invalid of the party—she whom they all petted, and took care of—began to come out from behind the clouds with the natural elasticity of her youth. Pamela would shut herself up for a whole day now and then, full of remorse and compunction, thinking she had not enough wept. But she was only eighteen—her health was coming back to her—she was surrounded by love and tenderness, and saw before her, daily growing brighter and brighter, all the promises and hopes of a new life. It was not in nature that sorrow should overcome all these sweet influences. She brightened like a star over which the clouds come and go, and at every break shone sweeter, and got back the roses to her cheeks, and the light to her eyes. It was a pretty sight to watch her coming out of the shadows, and so Jack thought, who was waiting for her and counting the weeks. When the ice was bearing on Dewsbury Mere—which was rather late that year, for it was in the early spring that the frosts were hardest—he took her by the crisp frozen paths across the park to see the skaters. The world was all white, and Pamela stood in her mourning, distinct against the snow, leaning on Jack’s arm. As they stood and looked on, the carrier’s cart came lumbering along toward the Mere. Hobson walked before cracking his whip, with his red comforter, which was very effective in the frosty landscape; and the breath of the horses rose like steam into the chill air. Pamela and Jack looked at each other. They said both together, “You remember?” Little more than a year before they had looked at each other there for the first time. The carrier’s cart had been coming and going daily, and was no wonder to behold; and Hobson could not have been more surprised had the coin spun down upon his head out of the open sky, than he was when Jack tossed a sovereign at him as he passed. “For bringing me my little wife,” he said; but this was not in Hobson’s, but in Pamela’s ear.

CHAPTER XLV.

CONCLUSION

Within six months all these changes had actually taken place, occasioning a greater amount of gossip and animadversion in the county than any other modern event has been known to do. Even that adventure of young Keppel’s of Ridley, when he ran away with the heiress, was nothing to it. Running away with heiresses, if you only can manage it, is a natural enough proceeding. But when a family melts somehow out of the position it has held for many years, and I glides uncomplainingly into a different one, and gives no distinct explanation, the neighborhood has naturally reason to feel aggrieved. There was nothing sudden or painful about the change. For half a year or so they all continued very quietly at Brownlows, seeing few people by reason of Pamela’s mourning, yet not rejecting the civilities of their friends; and then Pamela and Jack were married. Nobody knew very distinctly who she was. It was a pretty name, people said, and not a common name—not like the name of a girl he had picked up in the village, as some others suggested; and if that had been the case, was it natural that his father and sister should have taken up his bride so warmly, and received her into their house? Yet why should they have received her into their house? Surely she must have some friends. When the astounding events which followed became known, the county held its breath, and not without reason. As soon as the stir of the wedding was over, and the young people departed, it became known suddenly one morning that Mr. Brownlow and his daughter had driven down quietly in the carriage with the greys for the last time, and had settled themselves—heaven knew why!—in the house at Masterton for good. Brownlows was not to be sold: it was to be Jack’s habitation when he came home, or in the mean time, while he was away, it might be let if a satisfactory tenant should turn up. There was no house in the county more luxuriously fitted up or more comfortable; and many people invented friends who were in want of a house simply in order to have an excuse for going over it, and investigating all its details, unsubdued by the presence of any of the owners. And Sara Brownlow had gone to Masterton!—she, the young princess, for whom nothing was too good—who had taken all the dignities of her position as mistress of her father’s house so naturally—and who was as little like a Masterton girl, shut up in an old-fashioned town house, as can be conceived. How was she to bear it? Why should Jack have a residence which was so manifestly beyond his means and beyond his wants? Why should Mr. Brownlow deprive himself, at his age—a man still in the vigor and strength of life—of the handsome house and style of living he had been used to? It was a subject very mysterious to the neighborhood. For a long time no little assemblage of people could get together anywhere near without a discussion of these circumstances; and yet there was no fuss made about the change, and none of the parties concerned had a word of complaint or lamentation to say.

But when the two, who thus exiled themselves out of their paradise, were in the carriage together driving away after all the excitements of the period—after having seen Jack and his bride go forth into the world from their doors only two days before—Mr. Brownlow’s heart suddenly misgave him. They were rolling out of the familiar gates at the moment, leaving old Betty dropping her courtesy at the roadside. It was difficult to keep from an involuntary glance across the road to Mrs. Swayne’s cottage. Was it possible to believe that all this was over forever, and a new world begun? He looked at Sara in all her spring bravery—as bright, as fearless, as full of sweet presumption and confidence as ever—nestled into the corner of the carriage, which seemed her natural position, and casting glances of involuntary supervision and patronage around her, as became the queen of the place. He looked at her, and thought of the house in the High Street, and his heart misgave him. How could she bear it? Had she not miscalculated her strength?

“Sara,” he said, taking her hand in his, as he sat by her side, “this will be a hard trial for you—you don’t know how hard it will be.”

Sara looked round at him, having been busy with very different thoughts. “What will be a hard trial?” she said. “Leaving Brownlows? oh, yes! especially if it is let; but that can only be temporary, you know, papa. Jack and Pamela don’t mean to stay away forever.”

“But your reign is over forever, my poor child,” said Mr. Brownlow; and he clasped her hand between his, and patted and caressed it. “When Pamela comes back it will be a very different matter. You are saying farewell, my darling, to all your past life.”

When he said this, Sara stood up in the carriage suddenly, and looked back at Brownlows, and across the field to where the spire of Dewsbury church rose up among the scanty foliage of the trees. She waved her hand to them with a pretty gesture of leave-taking. “Then farewell to all my past life!” said Sara, gayly. She had a tear in her eye, but that she managed to hide. “I like the present best of all. Papa, you must be satisfied that I am most happy with you.”

With him! was that indeed the explanation of all? Mr. Brownlow looked at her anxiously, but he could not penetrate into the mysteries that lay under Sara’s smile. If she thought of some one else besides her father, his thoughts too were traveling in the same direction. Thus they took possession of the house in the High Street. Whether Sara suffered from the change nobody could tell. She was full of delight in the novelty and all the quaint half-remembered details of the old family house. She was never done making discoveries—old portraits, antique bits of furniture—things that had been considered old-fashioned lumber, but which, under her touch, became gracious heir-looms and relics of the past. Old Lady Motherwell, having recovered her temper, took the lead in visiting the fallen princess. The old lady felt that a sign of her approval was due to the girl who had been so considerate and Christian-minded as to refuse Sir Charles when she lost her fortune. She went full of condolences, and found to her consternation nothing but gayety. Sara was so full of the excellence and beauty of her new surroundings that she was incapable of any other thought. Even Lady Motherwell allowed that her satisfaction was either real or so very cleverly feigned as to be as good as real; and the county finally grew bewildered, and asked itself whether the removal was really a downfall at all, or simply a new caprice on the part of a capricious girl, whose indulgent father could never say her nay?

All the time Powys kept steadily at work. Six months had passed, and he had seen her only in the company of others. They had never met alone since that moment in the dining-room at Brownlows, when Sara’s fortitude had given way, and he had comforted her. In the mean time his position too had changed. Old Lady Powys, who once had lived near Masterton, had put the whole matter into Mr. Brownlow’s hands. She had written volumes of letters to him, and required from him not only investigation into the circumstances, but full details, moral and physical, about her son’s family—their looks, their manners, their character, every thing about them. It is too late to introduce Lady Powys here; perhaps an occasion may arise for presenting her ladyship to the notice of persons interested in her grandson’s fortunes. She was as much a miser as was consistent with the character and habits of a great lady; if, indeed, she was not, as she asserted herself to be, a poor woman. But anyhow she was prepared to do her duty toward her grandchildren. She had little to leave them, she declared. All the family possessions were in the hands of Sir Alberic Powys, her other grandson, who was like his mother’s family, and no favorite with the old lady; but her poor Charley’s son should have something if she had any interest left; and as for the girls and their mother, she had a cottage vacant in her own immediate neighborhood, where they could live and be educated. Mr. Brownlow, for the moment, kept the greater part of this information to himself. He said nothing about it to his daughter. He did not even profess to notice the wistful looks which Sara, sometimes in spite of herself, cast at the office. He never invited Powys, though he was so near at hand; and the young man himself, still more tantalized and doubtful than Sara, did not yet venture to storm the castle in which his princess was confined. She saw him from her window sometimes, and knew what the look meant which he directed wistfully at the house, scanning it all over, as if every red brick in its wall, and every shining twinkling pane, had become precious to him. Perhaps such a moment of suspense has a certain secret sweetness in it, if not to the man involved, at least to the woman, who is in no doubt about the devotion she inspires, and knows that she can reward it when she so pleases. Perhaps Sara had come to be tacitly aware that no opposition was to be expected from her father. Perhaps it was a sudden impulse of mingled compassion and impatience which moved her at last.