Brownlows

“Then tell me what it is,” said Mrs. Preston, sitting down in the black old-fashioned high-backed easy-chair. Her heart was melting to him more and more every moment, the sight of his confusion being sweet to her eyes, but of course he did not know this—neither, it is to be feared, would Jack have very much cared.

“Yes,” he said again; “the fact was—I—wanted to speak to you—about your daughter. I suppose this sort of thing is always an awkward business. I have seen her with—with my sister, you know—we couldn’t help seeing each other; and the fact is, we’ve—we’ve grown fond of each other without knowing it: that is about the state of the case.”

“Fond of each other?” said Mrs. Preston, faltering. “Mr. Brownlow, I don’t think that is how you ought to speak. You mean you have grown fond of Pamela. I am very, very sorry; but Heaven forbid that my poor girl—”

“I mean what I say,” said Jack, sturdily—“we’ve grown fond of each other. If you ask her she will tell you the same. We were not thinking of any thing of the kind—it came upon us unawares. I tell you the whole truth, that you may not wonder at me coming so unprepared. I don’t come to you as a fellow might that had planned it all out and turned it over in his mind, and could tell you how much he had a year, and what he could settle on his wife, and all that. I tell you frankly the truth, Mrs. Preston. We were not thinking of any thing of the kind; but now, you see, we have both of us found it out.”

“I don’t understand you,” said the astonished mother; “what have you found out?”

“We’ve found out just what I’ve been telling you,” said Jack—“that we’re fond of each other. You may say I should have told you first; but the truth was, I never had the opportunity—not that I would have been sure to have taken advantage of it if I had. We went on without knowing what we were doing, and then it came upon us all at once.”

He sat down abruptly as he said this, in an abstracted way; and he sighed. He had found it out, there could be no doubt of that; and he did not hide from himself that this discovery was a very serious one. It filled his mind with a great many thoughts. He was no longer in a position to go on amusing himself without any thought of the future. Jack was but mortal, and it is quite possible he might have done so had it been in his power. But it was not in his power, and his aspect, when he dropped into the chair, and looked into the vacant air before him and sighed, was rather that of a man looking anxiously into the future—a future that was certain—than of a lover waiting for the sentence which (metaphorically) is one of life or death; and Mrs. Preston, little experienced in such matters, and much agitated by the information so suddenly conveyed to her, did not know what to think. She bent forward and looked at him with an eagerness which he never perceived. She clasped her hands tightly together, and gazed as if she would read his heart; and then what could she say? He was not asking any thing from her—he was only intimating to her an unquestionable fact.

“But, Mr. Brownlow,” she said at last, tremulously, “I think—I hope you may be mistaken. My Pamela is very young—and so are you—very young for a man. I hope you have made a mistake. At your age it doesn’t matter so much.”

“Don’t it, though?” said Jack, with a flash in his eyes. “I can’t, say to you that’s our business, for I know, of course, that a girl ought to consult her mother. But don’t let us discuss that, please. A fact can’t be discussed, you know. It’s either true or it’s false—and we certainly are the only ones who can know.”

Then there was another pause, during which Jack strayed off again into calculations about the future—that unforeseen future which had leaped into existence for him only about an hour ago. He had sat down on the other side of the table, and was gazing into the blank hearth as if some enlightenment might have been found there. As for Mrs. Preston, her amazement and agitation were such that it cost her a great effort to compose herself and not to give way.

“Is this all you have to say to me?” she said at last, with trembling lips.

Then Jack roused himself up. Suddenly it occurred to him that the poor woman whom he had been so far from admiring was behaving to him with a generosity and delicacy very different from his conduct to her; and the blood rushed to his face at the thought.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I have already explained to you why it is that I come in such an unprepared way. I met her to-night. Upon my life I did not lay any trap for her. I was awfully cut up about not seeing her; but we met by accident. And the fact was, when we met we couldn’t help showing that we understood each other. After that it was my first duty,” said Jack, with a thrill of conscious grandeur, “to come to you.”

“But do you mean to say,” said Mrs. Preston, wringing her hands, “that my Pamela—? Sir, she is only a child. She could not have understood you. She may like you in a way—”

“She likes me as I like her,” said Jack, stoutly. “It’s no use struggling against it. It is no use arguing about it. You may think her a child, but she is not a child; and I can’t do without her, Mrs. Preston. I hope you haven’t any dislike to me. If you have,” said Jack, warming up, “I will do any thing a man can do to please you; but you couldn’t have the heart to make her unhappy, and come between her and me.”

“I make her unhappy?” said Mrs. Preston, with a gasp. She who had no hope or desire in the world but Pamela’s happiness! “But I don’t even see how it came about. I—I don’t understand you. I don’t even know what you want of me.”

“What I want?” said Jack, turning round upon her with wondering eyes—“What could I want but one thing? I want Pamela—that’s very clear. Good heavens, you are not going to be ill, are you? Shall I call somebody? I know it’s awfully sudden,” said the young fellow ruefully. Nobody could be more sensible of that than he was. He got up in his dismay and went to a side-table where there stood a carafe of water and brought her some. It was the first act of human fellowship, as it were, that had passed between the two, and somehow it brought them together. Mrs. Preston took the water with that strange half-sacramental feeling with which a soul in extremity receives the refreshment which brings it back to life. Was it her friend, her son, or her enemy that thus ministered to her? Oh, if she could only have seen into his heart! She had no interest in the world but Pamela, and now the matter in hand was the decision for good or for evil of Pamela’s fate.

“I am better, thank you,” she said faintly. “I am not very strong, and it startled me. Sit down, Mr. Brownlow, and let us talk it over. I knew this was what it would have come to if it had gone on; but I have been talking a great deal to my child, and keeping her under my eye—”

“Yes,” said Jack, with some indignation, “keeping her out of my way. I knew you were doing that.”

“It was the only thing I could do,” said Mrs. Preston. “I did try to find another means, but it did not succeed. When I asked you what you wanted of me, I was not doubting your honor. But things are not so easy as you young people think. Your father never will consent.”

“I don’t think things are easy,” said Jack. “I see they are as crooked and hard as possible. I don’t pretend to think it’s all plain sailing. I believe he won’t consent. It might have been all very well to consider that three months ago, but you see we never thought of it then. We must just do without his consent now.”

“And there is more than that,” said Mrs. Preston. “It would not be right for him to consent, nor for me either. If you only found it out so suddenly, how can you be sure of your own mind, Mr. John—and you so young? I don’t say any thing of my own child. I don’t mean to say in my heart that I think you too grand for her. I know if ever there was a lady born it’s—; but that’s not the question,” she continued, nervously wringing her hands again. “If she was a princess, she’s been brought up different from you. I did think once there might have been a way of getting over that; but I know better now; and you’re very young; and from what you say,” said Pamela’s mother, who, after all, was a woman, a little romantic and very proud, “I don’t think you’re one that would be content to give up every thing for love.”

Jack had been listening calmly enough, not making much in his own mind of her objections; but the last words did strike home. He started, and he felt in his heart a certain puncture, as if the needle in Mrs. Preston’s work, which lay on the table, had gone into him. This at least was true. He looked at her with a certain defiance, and yet with respect. “For love—no,” said Jack half fiercely, stirred, like a mere male creature as he was, by the prick of opposition; and then a softening came over his eyes, and a gleam came into them which, even by the light of the one pale candle, made itself apparent; “but for Pamela—yes. I’ll tell you one thing, Mrs. Preston,” he added, quickly, “I should not call it giving up. I don’t mean to give up. As for my father, I don’t see what he has to do with it. I can work for my wife as well as any other fellow could. If I were to say it didn’t matter, you might mistrust me; but when a man knows it does matter,” said Jack, again warming with his subject, “when a man sees it’s serious, and not a thing to be done without thinking, you can surely rely upon him more than if he went at it blindly? I think so at least.”

So saying, Jack stopped, feeling a little sore and incompris. If he had made a fool of himself, no doubt the woman would have believed in him; but because he saw the gravity of what he was about to do, and felt its importance, a kind of doubt was in his hearer’s heart. “They not only expect a man to be foolish, but they expect him to forget his own nature,” Jack said to himself, which certainly was hard.

“I don’t mistrust you,” said Mrs. Preston, but her voice faltered, and did not quite carry out her words; “only, you know, Mr. John, you are very young. Pamela is very young, but you are even younger than she is—I mean, you know, because you are a man; and how can you tell that you know your own mind? It was only to-day that you found it out, and to-morrow you might find something else out—”

Here she stopped half frightened, for Jack had risen up, and was looking at her over the light of the candle, looking pale and somewhat threatening. He was not in a sentimental attitude, neither was there any thing about him that breathed the tender romance for which in her heart Mrs. Preston sighed, and without which it cost her an effort to believe in his sincerity. He was standing with his hands thrust down to the bottom of his pockets, his brow a little knitted, his face pale, his expression worried and impatient. “What is the use of beginning over and over again?” said Jack. “Do you think I could have found out like this a thing that hadn’t been in existence for months and months? Why, the first time I saw you in Hobson’s cart—the time I carried her in out of the snow—” When he had got this length, he walked away to the window and stood looking out, though the blind was down, with his back turned upon her—“with her little red cloak, and her pretty hair,” said Jack, with a curious sound which would not bear classification. It might have been a laugh, or a sob, or a snort—and it was neither; anyhow, it expressed the emotion within him better than half a hundred fine speeches. “And you don’t believe in me after all that!” he said, coming back again and looking at her once more over the light of the candle. Perhaps it was something in Jack’s eyes, either light or moisture, it would be difficult to tell which, that overpowered Mrs. Preston, for the poor woman faltered and began to cry.

“I do believe in you,” she said. “I do—and I love you for saying it; but oh, Mr. John, what am I to do? I can’t let you ruin yourself with your father. I can’t encourage you when I know what it will cost you; and then, my own child—”

“That’s it,” said Jack, drawing his chair over to her side of the table, with his first attempt at diplomacy—“that’s what we’ve got to think of. It doesn’t matter for a fellow like me. If I got disappointed and cut up I should have to bear it; but as for Pamela, you know—dear little soul! You may think it strange, but,” said Jack, with a little affected laugh, full of that supreme vanity and self-satisfaction with which a man recognizes such a fact, “she is fond of me; and if she were disappointed and put out, you know—why, it might make her ill—it might do her no end of harm—it might—Seriously, you know,” said Jack, looking in Mrs. Preston’s face, and giving another and another hitch to his chair. Though her sense of humor was not lively, she dried her eyes and looked at him with a little bewilderment, wondering was he really in earnest? did he mean it? or what did he mean?

“She is very young,” said Mrs. Preston; “no doubt it would do her harm; but I should be there to nurse her—and—and—she is so young.”

“It might kill her,” said Jack, impressively; “and then whom would you have to blame? Not my father, for he has nothing to do with it; but yourself, Mrs. Preston—that’s how it would be. Just look at what a little delicate darling she is—a little bit of a thing that one could carry away in one’s arms,” he went on, growing more and more animated—“a little face like a flower; and after the bad illness she had. I would not take such a responsibility for any thing in the world,” he added, with severe and indignant virtue. As for poor Mrs. Preston, she did not know what to do. She wrung her hands; she looked at him beseechingly, begging him with her eyes to cease. Every feature of the picture came home to her with a much deeper force than it did to her mentor. Jack no more believed in any danger to Pamela than he did in his own ultimate rejection; but the poor mother beheld her daughter pining, dying, breaking her heart, and trembled to her very soul.

“Oh, Mr. John,” she cried, with tears, “don’t break my heart! What am I to do? If I must either ruin you with your father—”

“Or kill your child,” said Jack, looking at her solemnly till his victim shuddered. “Your child is more to you than my father: besides,” said the young man, unbending a little, “it would not ruin me with my father. He might be angry. He might make himself disagreeable; but he’s not a muff to bear malice. My father,” continued Jack, with emphasis, feeling that he owed his parent some reparation, and doing it magnificently when he was about it, “is as true a gentleman as I know. He’s not the man to ruin a fellow. You think of Pamela, and never mind me.”

But it took a long time and much reiteration to convince Mrs. Preston. “If I could but see Mr. Brownlow, I could tell him something that would perhaps soften his heart,” she said; but this was far from being a pleasant suggestion to Jack. He put it down summarily, not even asking in his youthful impatience what the something was. He had no desire to know. He did not want his father’s heart to be softened. In short, being as yet unaccustomed to the idea, he did not feel any particular delight in the thought of presenting Pamela’s mother to the world as belonging to himself. And yet this same talk had made a wonderful difference in his feeling toward Pamela’s mother. The thought of the explanation he had to make to her was repugnant to him when he came in. He had all but run away from it when he was left to wait alone. And now, in less than an hour, it seemed so natural to enter into every thing. Even if she had bestowed a maternal embrace upon him, Jack did not feel as if he would have resisted; but she gave him no motherly kiss. She was still half frightened at him, half disposed to believe that to get rid of him would be the best thing; and Jack had no mind to be got rid of. Neither of them could have told very exactly what was the understanding upon which they parted. There was an understanding, that was certain—an arrangement, tacit, inexpressible, which, however, was not hostile. He was not permitted in so many words to come again; but neither was he sent away. When he had the assurance to ask to see Pamela before he left, Mrs. Preston went nervously through the passage before him and opened the door, opening up the house and their discussion as she did so, to the big outside world and wakeful sky, with all its stars, which seemed to stoop and look in. Poor little Pamela was in the room up stairs, speechless, motionless, holding her breath, fixed as it were to the window from which she must see him go out; hearing the indistinct hum of voices underneath, and wondering what her mother was saying to him. When the parlor door opened, her heart leaped up in her breast. She could hear his voice, and distinguish, as she thought, every tone of it, but she could not hear what he said. For an instant it occurred to her too that she might be called down stairs. But then the next moment the outer door opened, a breath of fresh air stole into the house, and she knew he was dismissed. How had he been dismissed? For the moment? for the night? or forever? The window was open to which Pamela clung in the darkness, and she could hear his step going out. And as he went he spoke out loud enough to be heard up stairs, to be heard by any body on the road, and almost for that matter to be heard at Betty’s cottage. “If I must not see her,” he said, “give her my dear love.” What did it mean. Was his dear love his last message of farewell? or was it only the first public indication that she belonged to him? Pamela sank down on her knees by the window, noiseless, with her heart beating so in her ears that she felt as if he must hear it outside. The whole room, the whole house, the whole air, seemed to her full of that throbbing. His dear love! It seemed to come in to her with the fresh air—to drop down upon her from the big stars as they leaned out of heaven and looked down; and yet she could not tell if it meant death or life. And Mrs. Preston was not young, and could not fly, but came so slowly, so slowly, up the creaking wooden stair!

Poor Mrs. Preston went slowly, not only because of her age, but because of her burden of thoughts. She could not have told any one whether she was very happy or deadly sad. Her heart was not fluttering in her ears like Pamela, but beating out hard throbs of excitement. He was good, he was true; her heart accepted him. Perhaps he was the friend she had so much longed for, who would guard Pamela when she was gone. At present, however, she was not gone; and yet her sceptre was passing away out of her hands, and her crown from her head. Anyhow, for good or for evil, this meant change; the sweet sceptre of love, the crown of natural authority and duty, such as are the glory of a woman who is a mother, were passing away from her. She did not grudge it. She would not have grudged life, nor any thing dearer than life, for Pamela; but she felt that there was change coming: and it made her sick—sick and cold and shivering, as if she was going to have a fever. She would have been glad to have had wings and flown to carry joy to her child; but she could not go fast for the burden and heaviness of her thoughts.

Meanwhile Jack crossed the road briskly, and went up the avenue under the big soft lambent stars. If it was at him in his character of lover that they were looking, they might have saved themselves the trouble, for he took no notice whatever of these sentimental spectators. He went home, not in a lingering meditative way, but like a man who has made up his mind. He had no sort of doubt or disquietude for his part about the acceptance of his love. He knew that Pamela was his, though her mother would not let him see her. He knew he should see her, and that she belonged to him, and nobody on earth could come between them. He had known all this from the first moment when the simple little girl had told him that life was hard; and as for her mother or his father, Jack did not in his mind make much account of the opposition of these venerable personages—such being his nature. What remained now was to clear a way into the future, to dig out a passage, and make it as smooth as possible for these tremulous little feet. Such were the thoughts he was busy with as he went home—not even musing about his little love. He had mused about her often enough before. Now his practical nature resumed the sway. How a household could be kept up, when it should be established, by what means it was to be provided, was the subject of Jack’s thoughts. He went straight to the point without any circumlocution. As it was to be done, it would be best to be done quickly. And he did not disguise from himself the change it would make. He knew well enough that he could not live as he had lived in his father’s house. He would have to go into lodgings, or to a little house; to have one or two indifferent servants—perhaps a “child-wife”—perhaps a resident mother-in-law. All this Jack calmly faced and foresaw. It could not come on him unawares, for he considered the chances, and saw that all these things were possible. There are people who will think the worse of him for this; but it was not Jack’s fault—it was his constitution. He might be foolish like his neighbors on one point, but on all other points he was sane. He did not expect that Pamela, if he translated her at once into a house of her own, should be able to govern him and it on the spot by natural intuition. He knew there would be, as he himself expressed it, many “hitches” in the establishment, and he knew that he would have to give up a great many indulgences. This was why he took no notice of the stars, and even knitted his brows as he walked on. The romantic part of the matter was over. It was now pure reality, and that of the most serious kind, that he had in hand.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A NEW CONSPIRATOR

“I don’t say as you’re to take my advice,” said Mrs. Swayne. “I’m not one as puts myself forward to give advice where it ain’t wanted. Ask any one as knows. You as is church folks, if I was you, I’d send for the rector; or speak to your friends. There ain’t one living creature with a morsel of sense as won’t say to you just what I’m saying now.”

“Oh please go away—please go away,” said Pamela, who was standing with crimson cheeks between Mrs. Preston and her would-be counselor; “don’t you see mamma is ill?”

“She’ll be a deal worse afore all’s done, if she don’t listen in time; and you too, Miss Pamela, for all so angry as you are,” said Mrs. Swayne. “It ain’t nothing to me. If you like it, it don’t do me no harm; contrairaways, it’s my interest to keep you quiet here, for you’re good lodgers—I don’t deny it—and ain’t folks as give trouble. But I was once a pretty lass myself,” she added, with a sigh; “and I knows what it is.”

Pamela turned with unfeigned amazement and gazed upon the big figure that stood in the door-way. Once a pretty lass herself! Was this what pretty lasses came to? Mrs. Swayne, however, did not pause to inquire what were the thoughts that were passing through the girl’s mind; she took a step or two farther into the room, nearer the sofa on which Mrs. Preston lay. She was possessed with that missionary zeal for other people’s service, that determination to do as much as lay in her power to keep her neighbors from having their own way, or to make them very uncomfortable in the enjoyment of the luxury, which is so common a development of virtue. Her conscience was weighted with her responsibility: when she had warned them what they were coming to, then at least she would have delivered her own soul.

“I don’t want to make myself disagreeable,” said Mrs. Swayne; “it ain’t my way; but, Mrs. Preston, if you go on having folks about, it’s right you should hear what them as knows thinks of it. I ain’t a-blaming you. You’ve lived in foreign parts, and you’re that silly about your child that you can’t a-bear to cross her. I’m one as can make allowance for that. But I just ask you what can the likes of that young fellow want here? He don’t come for no good. Poor folks has a deal of things to put up with in this world, and women folks most of all. I don’t make no doubt Miss Pamela is pleased to have a gentleman a-dancing after her. I don’t know one on us as wouldn’t be pleased; but them as has respect for their character and for their peace o’ mind—”

“Mrs. Swayne, you must not speak like this to me,” said Mrs. Preston, feebly, from the sofa. “I have a bad headache, and I can’t argue with you; but you may be sure, though I don’t say much, I know how to take care of my own child. No, Pamela dear, don’t cry; and you’ll please not to say another word to me on this subject—not another word, or I shall have to go away.”