Brownlows
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She was not just then thinking of consolation. On the contrary, she would have refused any consolation Sara could have offered her with a kind of youthful fury. She rushed home, poor child, thinking of nothing but of taking refuge in her mother’s bosom, and communicating her griefs and injuries. She was still but a child, and the child’s impulse was strong upon her; notwithstanding that all the former innocent mystery of Mr. John’s attentions had been locked in her own bosom, not so much for secrecy’s sake as by reason of that “sweet shamefacedness” which made her reluctant, even to herself, to say his name, or connect it anyhow with her own. Now, as was natural, the lesser pressure yielded to the greater. She had been insulted, as she thought, her feelings outraged in cold blood, reproach cast upon her which she did not deserve, and all by the secret inexorable spectator whose look had destroyed her young happiness, and dispelled all her pleasant dreams. She rushed in just in time to hide from the world—which was represented by old Betty at her lodge window, and Mrs. Swayne at her kitchen door—the great hot scalding tears, big and sudden, and violent as a thunder-storm, which were coming in a flood. She threw the door of the little parlor open, and rushed in and flung herself down at her mother’s feet. And then the passion of sobs that had been coming burst forth. Poor Mrs. Preston in great alarm gathered up the little figure that lay at her feet into her arms, and asked, “What was it?—what was the matter?” making a hundred confused inquiries; until at last, seeing all reply was impossible, the mother only soothed her child on her bosom, and held her close, and called her all the tender names that ever a mother’s fancy could invent. “My love, my darling, my own child,” the poor woman said, holding her closer and closer, trembling with Pamela’s sobs, beginning to feel her own heart beat loud in her bosom, and imagining a thousand calamities. Then by degrees the short broken story came. Mr. John had been very kind. He used to pass sometimes, and to say a word or two, and Mr. Brownlow had seen them together. No, Mr. John had never said any thing—never, oh, never any thing that he should not have said—always had been like—like—Rude! Mamma! No, never, never, never! And Mr. Brownlow had come and spoken to her. He had said—but Pamela did not know what he had said. He had been very cruel, and she knew that for her sake he had sent Mr. John away. The dog-cart had come up without him. The cruel, cruel father had come alone, and Mr. John was banished—“And it is all for my sake!” This was Pamela’s story. She thought in her heart that the last was the worst of all, but in fact it was the thing which gave zest and piquancy to all. If she had known that Mr. John was merely out to dinner, the chances are that she would never have found courage to tell her pitiful tale to her mother. But when the circumstances are so tragical the poor little heroine-victim becomes strong. Pamela’s disappointment, her anger, and the budding sentiment with which she regarded Mr. John, all found expression in this outburst. She was not to see him to-night, nor perhaps ever again. And she had been seeing him most days and most evenings, always by chance, with a sweet unexpectedness which made the expectation always the dearer. When that was taken out of her life, how grey it became all in a moment. And then Mr. Brownlow had presumed to scold her, to blame her for what she had been doing, she whom nobody ever blamed, and to talk as if she sought amusement at the cost of better things. And Pamela was virtuously confident of never seeking amusement. “He spoke as if I were one to go to balls and things,” she said through her tears, not remembering at the moment that she did sometimes think longingly of the youthful indulgences common enough to other young people from which she was shut out. All this confused and incoherent story Mrs. Preston picked up in snatches, and had to piece them together as best she could. And as she was not a wise woman, likely to take the highest ground, she took up what was perhaps the best in the point of view of consolation at least. She took her child’s part with all the unhesitating devotion of a partisan. True, she might be uneasy about it in the bottom of her heart, and startled to see how much farther than she thought things had gone; but still in the first place and above all, she was Pamela’s partisan, which was of all devices that could have been contrived the one most comforting. As soon as she had got over her first surprise, it came to her naturally to pity her child, and pet and caress her, and agree with her that the father was very cruel and unsympathetic, and that poor Mr. John had been carried off to some unspeakable banishment. Had she heard the story in a different way, no doubt she would have taken up Mr. Brownlow’s rôle, and prescribed prudence to the unwary little girl; but as soon as she understood that Pamela had been blamed, Mrs. Preston naturally took up arms in her child’s defense. She laid her daughter down to rest upon the horse-hair sofa, and got her a cup of tea, and tended her as if she had been ill; and as she did so all her faculties woke up, and she called all her reason together to find some way of mending matters. Mr. John! might he perhaps be the protector—the best of all protectors—with whom she could leave her child in full security? Why should it not be so? When this wonderful new idea occurred to her, it made a great commotion in her mind, and called to life a project which she had put aside some time before. It moved her so much, and took such decided and immediate form, that Mrs. Preston even let fall hints incomprehensible to Pamela, and to which, indeed, absorbed as she was, she gave but little attention. “Wait a little,” Mrs. Preston said, “wait a little; we may do better than you think for. Your poor mother can do but little for you, my pet, but yet we may find friends—” “I don’t know who can do any thing for us,” Pamela answered, disconsolately. And then her mother nodded her head as if to herself, and went with the gleam of a superior constantly in her eye. The plan was one that could not be revealed to the child, and about which, indeed, the child, wrapped up in her own thoughts, was not curious. It was not a new intention. It was a plan she had been hoarding up to be made use of should she be ill—should there be any danger of leaving her young daughter alone in the world. Now, thank heaven, the catastrophe was not so appalling as that, and yet it was appalling, for Pamela’s happiness was concerned. She watched over her child through all that evening, soothed, took her part, adopted her point of view with a readiness that even startled Pamela; and all the time she was nursing her project in her own heart. Under other circumstances, no doubt, Mrs. Preston would have been grieved, if not angry, to hear of the sudden rapid development of interest in Mr. John and all their talks and accidental meetings of which she now heard for the first time. But Pamela’s outburst of grief and rage had taken her mother by storm; and then, if some one else had assailed the child, whom had she but her mother to take her part? This was Mrs. Preston’s reasoning. And it was quite as satisfactory to her as if it had been a great deal more convincing. She laid all her plans as she soothed her little daughter, shaking as it were little gleams of comfort from the lappets of her cap, as she nodded reasoningly at her child. “We may find friends yet, Pamela,” she would say; “we are not so badly off as to be without friends.” Thus she concealed her weakness with a mild hopefulness, knowing no more what results they were to bring about, what unknown wonders would come out of them, than did the little creature by her side, whose narrow thoughts were bounded by the narrow circle which centred in Mr. John. Pamela was thinking, where was he now? was he thinking of her? was he angry because it was through her he was suffering? and then with bitter youthful disdain of the cruel father who had banished him and reproved her, and who had no right—no right! Then the little girl, when her passion was spent, took up another kind of thought—the light of anger and resistance began to fade out of her eyes. After all, she was a poor girl—they were all poor, every body belonging to her. And Mr. John was a rich man’s son. Would it, perhaps, be right for the two poor women to steal away, softly, sadly, as they came; and go out into the world again, and leave the man who was rich and strong and had a right to be happy to come back and enjoy his good things? Pamela’s tears and her looks both changed with her thoughts—her wavering pretty color, the flush of agitation and emotion went off her cheeks, and left her pale as the sky is when the last sunset tinge has disappeared out of it. Her tears became cold tears, wrung out as from a rock, instead of the hot, passionate, abundant rain. She did not say any thing, but shivered and cried piteously on her mother’s shoulders, and complained of cold. Mrs. Preston took her to bed, as if she had been still a child, and covered her up, and dried her eyes, and sat by the pale little creature till sleep stepped in to her help. But the mother had not changed this time in sympathy with her child. She was supported by something Pamela heard not of. “We may find friends—we are not so helpless as that,” she said to herself; and even Pamela’s sad looks did not change her. She knew what she was going to do. And it seemed to her, as to most inexperienced plotters, that her plan was elaborate and wise in the extreme, and that it must be crowned with success.
CHAPTER XIX.
PHŒBE THOMSON
It was only two days after this when Mr. Brownlow received that message from old Mrs. Fennell which disturbed him so much. The message was brought by Nancy, who was in the office waiting for him when he made his appearance in the morning. Nancy, who had been old Mrs. Thomson’s maid, was not a favorite with Mr. Brownlow, and both she and her present mistress were aware of that; but Mrs. Fennell’s message was urgent, and no other messenger was to be had. “You was to come directly, that was what she said.” Such was Nancy’s commission. She was a very tall gaunt old woman, and she stood very upright and defiant, as in an enemy’s country, and no questions could draw any more from her. “She didn’t tell me what she was a-wanting of. I’m not one as can be trusted,” said Nancy. “You was to go directly, that was what she said.”
“Is she ill?” said Mr. Brownlow.
“No, she ain’t ill. She’s crooked; but she’s always crooked since ever I knew her. You was to come directly; that’s all as I know.”
“Is it about something she wants?” said Mr. Brownlow again; he was keeping himself down, and trying not to allow his anxiety to be reawakened. “I am very busy. My son shall go over. Or if she will let me know what it is she wants.”
“She wants you,” said Nancy. “That’s what she wants. I can’t say no more, for, I scorn to deny it, I don’t know no more; but it ain’t Mr. John she wants, it’s you.”
“Then tell her I will come about one o’clock,” said Mr. Brownlow; and he returned to his papers. But this was only a pretense. He would not let even such a despicable adversary as old Nancy see that the news disturbed him. He went on with his papers, pretending to read them, but he did not know what he was reading. Till one o’clock! It was but ten o’clock then. No doubt it might be some of her foolish complaints, some of the grievances she was constantly accumulating; or, on the other hand, it might be—Mr. Brownlow drew his curtain aside for a minute, and he saw that young Powys was sitting at his usual desk. The young man had fallen back again into the cloud from which he had seemed to be delivered at the time of his visit to Brownlows. He was not working at that moment; he was leaning his head on his hand, and gazing with a very downcast look at some minute characters on a bit of paper before him—calculations of some kind it seemed. Looking at him, Mr. Brownlow saw that he began to look shabby—white at the elbows, as well as clouded and heavy over the eyes. He drew back the curtain again and returned to his place, but with his mind too much agitated even for a pretense at work. Had the old woman’s message any thing to do with this youth? Had his calculations which he was attending to when he ought to have been doing his work any connection with Mrs. Fennell’s sudden summons? Mr. Brownlow was like a man surrounded by ghosts, and he did not know from what quarter or in what shape they might next assail him. But he had so far lost his self-command that he could not wait and fight with his assailants till the hour he mentioned. He took up his hat at last, hurriedly, and called to Mr. Wrinkell to say that he was going out. “I shall be back in half an hour,” Mr. Brownlow said. The head-clerk stood by and watched his employer go out, and shook his head. “He’ll retire before long,” Mr. Wrinkell said to himself. “You’ll see he will; and I would not give a sixpence for the business after he is gone.” But Mr. Brownlow was not aware of this thought. He was thinking nothing about the business. He was asking himself whether it was the compound interest that young Powys was calculating, and what Mrs. Fennell knew about it. All his spectres, after a moment of ineffectual repression, were bursting forth again.
Mrs. Fennell had put on her best cap. She had put it on in the morning before even she had sent Nancy with her message. It was a token to herself of a great emergency, even if her son-in-law did not recognize it as such. And she sat in state in her little drawing-room, which was not adorned by any flowers from Brownlows at that moment, for Sara had once more forgotten her duties, and had not for a long time gone to see her grandmother. But there was more than the best cap to signalize the emergency. The fact was, that its wearer was in a very real and genuine state of excitement. It was not pretense but reality which freshened her forehead under her grim bands of false hair, and made her eyes shine from amid their wrinkles. She had seated herself in state on a high arm-chair, with a high foot-stool: but it was because, really and without pretense, she had something to say which warranted all her preparations. A gleam of pleasure flashed across her face when she heard Mr. Brownlow knock at the door. “I thought he’d come sooner than one,” she said, with irrepressible satisfaction, even though Nancy was present. She would not betray the secret to the maid whom she did not trust, but she could not but make a little display to her of the power she still retained. “I knew he’d come,” she went on, with exultation; to which Nancy, on her part, could not but give a provoking reply.
“Them as plots against the innocent always comes early,” said Nancy. “I’ve took notice of that afore now.”
“And who is it in this house that plots against the innocent?” said Mrs. Fennell, with trembling rage. “Take you care what you say to them that’s your mistress, and more than your mistress. You’re old, and you’d find it harder than you think to get another home like this. Go and bring me the things I told you of. You’ve got the money. If it wasn’t for curiosity and the key-hole, you’d been gone before now.”
“And if it wasn’t as there’s something to be cur’us about it you wouldn’t have sent me, not you,” said Nancy, which was so near the truth that Mrs. Fennell trembled in her chair. But Nancy did not feel disposed to go to extremities, and as Mr. Brownlow entered she disappeared. He had grown pale on his way up the stairs. The moment had come when, perhaps, he must hear his own secret discovery proclaimed as it were on the housetop, and it can not be denied that he had grown pale.
“Well?” he said, sitting down opposite to his mother-in-law on the nearest chair. His breath and his courage were both gone, and he could not find another word to say.
“Well, John Brownlow,” she said, not without a certain triumph mingled with her agitation. “But before I say a word let us make sure that Nancy and her long ears is out of the way.”
Mr. Brownlow rose with a certain reluctance, opened the door, and looked up and down the stair. When he came in again a flush had taken the place of his paleness, and he came and drew his chair close to Mrs. Fennell, bending forward toward her. “What is the matter?” he said; “is it any thing you want, or any thing I can do for you? Tell me what it is!”
“If it was any thing as I wanted it might pass,” said Mrs. Fennell, with a little bitterness; “you know well it wasn’t that you were thinking of. But I don’t want to lose time. There’s no time to be lost, John Brownlow. What I’ve got to say to you is that she’s been to see me. I’ve seen her with my own eyes.”
“Who?” said Mr. Brownlow.
Then the two looked at each other. She, keen, eager, and old, with the cunning of age in her face, a heartless creature beyond all impressions of honesty or pity—he, a man, very open to such influences, with a heart both true and tender, and yet as eager, more anxious than she. They faced each other, he with eyes which, notwithstanding their present purpose, “shone clear with honor,” looking into her bleared and twinkling orbs. What horrible impulse was it that, for the first time, united two such different beings thus?
“I’ve seen her,” said Mrs. Fennell. “There’s no good in naming names. She’s turned up at last. I might have played you false, John Brownlow, and made better friends for myself, but I thought of my Bessie’s bairns, and I played you true. She came to see me yesterday. My heart’s beating yet, and I can’t get it stopped. I’ve seen her—seen her with my own eyes.”
“That woman? Phœbe—?” Mr. Brownlow’s voice died away in his throat; he could not pronounce the last word. Cold drops of perspiration rose to his forehead. He sank back in his chair, never taking his eyes from the weird old woman who kept nodding her head at him, and gave no other reply. Thus it had come upon him at last without any disguise. His face was as white as if he had fainted; his strong limbs shook; his eyes were glassy and without expression. Had he been any thing but a strong man, healthy in brain and in frame, he would have had a fit. But he was healthy and strong; so strong that the horrible crisis passed over him, and he came to himself by degrees, and was not harmed.
“But you did not know her,” he said, with a gasp. “You never saw her; you told me so. How could you tell it was she?”
“Tell, indeed!” said Mrs. Fennell, with scorn; “me that knew her mother so well, and Fennell that was her blood relation! But she did not make any difficulty about it. She told me her name, and asked all about her old mother, and if she ever forgave her, and would have cried about it, the fool, though she’s near as old as me.”
“Then she did not know?” said Mr. Brownlow, with a great jump of his laboring breast.
“Know! I never gave her time to say what she knew or what she did not know,” cried Mrs. Fennell; “do you think I was going to have her there, hanging on, a-asking questions, and may be Nancy coming in that knew her once? I hope I know better than that, for my Bessie’s children’s sake. I packed her off, that was what I did. I asked her how she could dare to come nigh me as was an honest woman, and had nothing to do with fools that run away. I told her she broke her mother’s heart, and so she would, if she had had a heart to break. I sent her off quicker than she came. You have no call to be dissatisfied with me.”
Here John Brownlow’s heart, which was in his breast all this time, gave a great throb of indignation and protest. But he stifled it, and said nothing. He had to bring himself down to the level of his fellow-conspirator. He had no leisure to be pitiful: a little more courtesy or a little less, what did it matter? He gave a sigh, which was almost like a groan, to relieve himself a little, but he could not speak.
“Oh yes, she came to me to be her friend,” said the old woman, with triumph: “talking of her mother, indeed! If her mother had had the heart of a Christian she would have provided for my poor Fennell and me. And to ask me to wrong my Bessie’s children for a woman I never saw—”
“What did she ask you?” said Mr. Brownlow, sternly; “better not to talk about hearts. What did she know? what did she say?”
“John Brownlow,” said Mrs. Fennell, “you’ve not to speak like that to me, when I’ve just been doing you a service against myself, as it were. But it was not for you. Don’t you think it was for you. It was for my Bessie’s bairns. What do you think she would know? She’s been away for years and years. She’s been a-soldiering at the other side of the world. But I could have made her my friend forever, and got a good provision, and no need to ask for any thing I want. Don’t you think I can’t see that. It was for their sake.”
Mr. Brownlow waved his hand impatiently; but still it was true that he had brought himself to her level, and was in her power. After this there was a silence, broken only by the old woman’s exclamations of triumph. “Oh yes; I sent her away. I am not one that thinks of myself, though I might have made a kind friend,” said Mrs. Fennell; and her son intently sat and listened to her, gradually growing insensible to the honor, thinking of the emergency alone.
“Did she say any thing about her son?” he asked at last; he glanced round the room as he did so with a little alarm. He would scarcely have been surprised had he seen young Powys standing behind him with that calculation of compound interest in his hand.
“I don’t know about no son,” said Mrs. Fennell. “Do you think I gave her time to talk? I tell you I packed her off faster, a deal faster, than she came. The impudence to come to me! But she knows you, John Brownlow, and if she goes to you, you had best mind what you say. Folk think you’re a good lawyer, but I never had any opinion of your law. You’re a man that would blurt a thing out, and never think if it was prudent or not. If she goes to you, she’ll get it all out of you, unless you send her to me—ay, send her to me. To come and cry about her mother, the old fool, and not far short of my age!”
“What was she like?” said Mr. Brownlow again. He did not notice the superfluous remarks she made. He took her answer into his mind, and that was all; and as for her opinion of himself, what did that matter to him? At any other time he would have smiled.
“Like? I don’t know what she was like,” said Mrs. Fennell; “always a plain thing all her life, though she would have made me think that Fennell once—stuff and nonsense, and a pack of lies—like? She was like—Nancy, that kind of tall creature. Nancy was a kind of a relation, too. But as for what she was like in particular, I didn’t pay no attention. She was dressed in things I wouldn’t have given sixpence for, and she was in a way—”
“What sort of a way? what brought her here? How did she find you out?” said Mr. Brownlow. “Afterward I will listen to your own opinions. I beg of you to be a little more exact. Tell me simply the facts now. Remember of how much importance it is.”
“If I had not known it was of importance I should not have sent for you,” said Mrs. Fennell; “and as for my opinions, I’ll give them when I think proper. You are not the man to dictate to me. She was in a way, and she came to me to stand her friend. She thought I had influence, like. I didn’t tell her, John Brownlow, as she was all wrong, and I hadn’t no influence. It’s what I ought to have, me that brought the mother of these children into the world; but folks forget that, and also that it was of us the money came. I told her nothing, not a word. It’s least said that’s soonest mended. I sent her away, that’s all that you want to know.”
Mr. Brownlow shook his head. It was not all he wanted to know. He knew it was not over, and ended with this one appearance, though his dreadful auxiliary thought so in her ignorance. For him it was but the beginning, the first step in her work. There were still five months in which she could make good her claims, and find them out first if she did not know them, prove any thing, every thing, as people did in such cases. But he did not enter into vain explanations.
“It is not all over,” he said. “Do not think so. She will find something out, and she will turn up again. I want to know where she lives, and how she found you out. We are not done with her yet,” said Mr. Brownlow, again wiping the heavy moisture from his brow.
“You are done with her if you are not a fool to go and seek her,” said Mrs. Fennell. “I can’t tell you what she is, nor where she is. She’s Phœbe Thomson. Oh, yes, you’re frightened when I say her name—frightened that Nancy should hear; but I sent Nancy out on purpose. I am not one to forget. Do you think I got talking with her to find out every thing? I sent her away. That’s what I did for the children, not asking and asking, and making a talk, and putting things into her head as if she was of consequence. I turned her to the door, that’s what I did; and if you’re not a fool, John Brownlow, or if you have any natural love for your children, you’ll do the same.”