Brownlows

“I don’t want to see my mother,” he said, with a slight shudder, she thought; and then he made a very bold effort. “Fine morning,” said Sir Charles; “aw—would you mind taking a little walk?”

“Taking a walk?” said Sara, in amaze.

“Aw—yes—or—I’d like to speak to you for ten minutes,” said Sir Charles, with growing embarrassment; “fact is, Miss Brownlow, I don’t want to see my mother.”

“That is very odd,” said Sara, tempted to laughter; “but still you might walk by yourself, without seeing Lady Motherwell. There would not be much protection in having me.”

“It was not for—protection, nor—nor that sort of thing,” stammered Sir Charles, growing very red—“fact is, Miss Brownlow, it was something I had to say—to you—”

“Oh!” said Sara: she saw it was coming now; and fortified by her resolution, she made no farther effort to smother it. This, at least, she could do, and nobody had any right to interfere with her. She might be in her very last days of sovereignty; a few hours might see her fallen—fallen from her high estate; but at least she could refuse Charley Motherwell. That was a right of which neither cruel father nor adverse fortune could deprive her. She made no farther resistance, or attempt to get away. “If it is only to speak to me, we can talk in the library,” she said; “it is too early to go out.” And so saying she led the way into Mr. Brownlow’s room. Notwithstanding the strange scenes she had seen in it, it did not chill Sara in her present mood. But it evidently had a solemnizing effect on Sir Charles. She walked across to the fire, which was burning cheerfully, and placed herself in one of the big chairs which stood by, arranging her pretty skirts within its heavy arms, which was a troublesome operation; and then she pointed graciously to the other. “Sit down,” she said, “and tell me what it is about.”

It was not an encouraging opening for a bashful lover. It was not like this that she had received Powys’s sudden wild declarations, his outbursts of passionate presumption. She had been timid enough then, and had faltered and failed to herself, somewhat as poor Sir Charles was doing. He did not accept her kind invitation to seat himself, but stood before her in front of the fire, and looked more awkward than ever. Poor fellow, he had a great deal on his mind.

“Miss Brownlow,” he burst out, all at once, after he had fidgeted about for five minutes, pulling his mustache and looking at her, “I am a bad fellow to talk. I never know what to say. I’ve got into heaps of scrapes from people mistaking what I mean.”

“Indeed, I am sure I am very sorry,” said Sara; “but I think I always understand what you mean.”

“Yes,” he said, with relief, “aw—I’ve observed that. You’re one that does, and my mother’s one; but never mind my mother just now,” he went on precipitately. “For instance, when a fellow wants to ask a girl to marry him, every thing has to be understood—a mistake about that would be awful—would be dreadful—I mean, you know, it wouldn’t do.”

“It wouldn’t do at all,” said Sara, looking at him with terrible composure, and without even the ghost of a smile.

“Yes,” said Sir Charles, revolving on his own axis, “it might be a horrid mess. That’s why I wanted to see you, to set out with, before I spoke to my mother. My mother’s a little old-fashioned. I’ve just been talking to Mr. Brownlow. I can make my—aw—any girl very comfortable. It’s not a bad old place; and as for settlements and that sort of thing—”

“I should be very glad to give you my advice, I am sure,” said Sara, demurely; “but I should like first to know who the lady is.”

“The lady!” cried Sir Charles—“aw—upon my word, it’s too bad. That’s why I said every thing must be very plain. Miss Brownlow, there’s not a girl in the world but yourself—not one!—aw—you know what I mean. I’d go down on my knees, or any thing; only you’d laugh, I know, and I’d lose my—my head.” All this he said with immense rapidity, moving up and down before her. Then he suddenly came to a stand-still and looked into her face. “I know I can’t talk,” he said; “but you know, of course, it’s you. What would be the good of coming like this, and—and making a fool of myself, if it wasn’t you?”

“But it can’t be me, Sir Charles,” said Sara, growing, in spite of herself, out of sympathy, a little agitated, and forgetting the humor of the situation. “It can’t be me—don’t say any more. If you only knew what has been happening to us—”

“I know,” cried Sir Charles, coming a step closer; “that’s why—though I don’t mean that’s why from the commencement, for I only heard this morning; and that’s why I don’t want to see my mother. You need not think it matters to me—I’ve got plenty, and we could have your father to live with us, if you like.”

Sara stood up with the intention of making him a stately and serious answer, but as she looked at his eager face, bent forward and gazing down at her, a sudden change came over her feelings. She had been laughing at him a moment before; now all at once, without any apparent provocation, she burst into tears. Sir Charles was very much dismayed. It did not occur to him to take advantage of her weeping, as Powys had done. He stared, and he drew a step farther back, and fell into a state of consternation. “I’ve said something I ought not to have said,” he exclaimed; “I know I’m a wretched fellow to talk; but then I thought you would understand.”

“I do understand,” cried Sara, in her impulsive way; “and papa was quite right, and I am a horrid wretch, and you are the best man in the world!”

“Not so much as that,” said Sir Charles, with a smile of satisfaction, which showed all his teeth under his black mustache; “but as long as you are pleased—Don’t cry. We’ll settle it all between us, and make him comfortable; and as for you and me—”

He made a step forward, beaming with content as he spoke, and poor Sara, drying her eyes hastily, and waking up to the urgency of the situation, retreated as he advanced.

“But, Sir Charles,” she cried, clasping her hands—“oh! what a wretch I am to take you in and vex you. Stop! I did not mean that. I meant—oh! I could kill myself—I think you are the best and kindest and truest man in the world, but it can never be me!”

Sir Charles stopped short. That air of flattered vanity and imbecile self-satisfaction with which most men receive the idea of being loved, suddenly yielded in his face to intense surprise. “Why? how? what? I don’t understand,” he stammered; and stood amazed, utterly at a loss to know what she could mean.

“It can never be me!” cried Sara. “I am not much good. I don’t deserve to be cared for. You will find somebody else a great deal nicer. There are girls in the house even—there is Fanny. Don’t be angry. I don’t think there is any thing particular in me.”

“But it is only you I fancy,” cried Sir Charles, deluded, poor man, by this humility, and once more lighting up with complaisance and self-satisfaction. “Fact is, we could be very comfortable together. I don’t know about any other girls. You’re nice enough for me.”

Then Sara sank once more into the chair where a few minutes before she had established herself with such state and dignity. “Don’t say any more,” she cried again, clasping her hands. “Don’t! I shall like you and be grateful to you all my life; but it can never be me!”

If Sara had been so foolish as to imagine that her unimpassioned suitor would be easily got rid of, she now found out her error. He stared at her, and he took a little walk around the table, and then he came back again. The facts of the case had not penetrated his mind. Her delicate intimations had no effect upon him. “If you like me,” he said, “that’s enough—fact is, I don’t see how any girl could be nicer. They say all girls talk like this at first. You and I might be very comfortable; and as for my mother—you know if you wanted to have the house to yourself—”

“Would you be so wicked as to go and turn out your mother?” cried Sara, suddenly flashing into indignation, “and for a girl you know next to nothing about? Sir Charles, I never should have expected this of you.”

Poor Sir Charles fell back utterly disconcerted. “It was all to make you comfortable,” he said. “Of course I’d like my mother to stay. It was all for you.”

“And I told you it could never be me,” cried Sara—“never! I am going to Masterton with papa to take care of him. It is he who wants me most. And then I must say good-bye to every body; I shall only be the attorney’s daughter at Masterton; we shall be quite different; but, Sir Charles, I shall always like you and wish you well. You have been so very good and kind to me.”

Then Sara waved her hand to him and went toward the door. As for Sir Charles, he was too much bewildered to speak for the first moment. He stood and stared and let her pass him. It had never entered into his mind that this interview was to come to so abrupt an end. But before she left the room he had made a long step after her. “We could take care of him at Motherwell,” he said, “just as well. Miss Brownlow, look here. It don’t make any difference to me. If you had not a penny, you are just the same as you always were. If you like me, that is enough for me.”

“But I don’t like you!” said Sara, in desperation, turning round upon him with her eyes flashing fiercely, her mouth quivering pathetically, her tears falling fast. “I mean I like somebody else better. Don’t, please, say any more—thanks for being so good and kind to me; and good-bye—good-bye!”

Then she seized his hand like the vehement creature she was, and clasped it close in her soft hands, and turned and fled. That was the only word for it. She fled, never pausing to look back. And Sir Charles, utterly bewildered and disconcerted, stayed behind. The first thing he did was to walk back to the fire, the natural attraction of a man in trouble. Then he caught a glimpse of his own discomfited countenance in the glass. “By George!” he said to himself, and turned his back upon the rueful visage. It was the wildest oath he ever permitted himself, poor fellow, and he showed the most overwhelming perturbation. He stood there a long time, thinking it over. He was not a man of very fine feelings, and yet he felt very much cast down. Though his imagination was not brilliant, it served to recall her to him with all her charms. And his honest heart ached. “What do I care for other girls?” he said to himself. “What good is Fanny to me?” He stood half the morning on the hearth-rug, sometimes turning round to look at his own dejected countenance in the glass, and sometimes to poke the fire. He had no heart to put himself within reach of his mother, or to look at the other girls. When the bell rang for luncheon he rushed out into the damp woods. Such a thing had never happened in his respectable life before: and this was the end of Sir Charles Motherwell’s little romance.

Sara, though she did not regret Sir Charles, was more agitated than she could have supposed possible when she left the library; there are young ladies, no doubt, who are hardened to it; but an ordinary mortal feels a little sympathetic trouble in most cases, when she has had to decide (so far) upon another creature’s fate. And though he was not bright, he had behaved very well; and then her own affairs were in such utter confusion. She could not even look her future in the face, and say she had any prospects. If she were to live a hundred years, how could she ever marry her father’s clerk? and how could he so much as dream of marrying her—he who had nothing, and a family to maintain? Poor Sara went to her own room, and had a good cry over Sir Charles in the first (but least) place, and herself in the second. What was to become of her? To be the attorney’s daughter in Masterton was not the brightest of fates—and beyond that—She cried, and she did not get any satisfaction from the thought of having refused Sir Charles. It was very, very good and nice of him—and oh, if it had only been Fanny on whom he had set his fancy! Her eyes were still red when she went down stairs, and it surprised her much to see her father leaving the morning-room as she approached. Lady Motherwell was there with a very excited and pale face, and one or two other ladies with a look of consternation about them. One who was leaving the room stopped as she did so, took Sara in her arms, though it was quite uncalled for, and gave her a hasty kiss. “My poor dear!” said this kind woman. As for Lady Motherwell, she was in quite a different state of mind.

“Where is Charley?” she cried. “Miss Brownlow, I wish you would tell me where my son is. It is very strange. He is a young man who never cares to be long away from his mother; but since we have been in this house, he has forsaken me.”

“I saw him in the library,” said Sara. “I think he is there now. I will go and call him, if you like.” This she said because she was angry; and without any intention of doing what she said.

“I am much obliged to you, I am sure,” said the old lady, who, up to this moment, had been so sweet to Sara, and called her by every caressing name. “I will ring and send a servant, if you will permit me. We have just been hearing some news that my dear boy ought to know.”

“If it is something papa has been telling you, I think Sir Charles knows already,” said Sara. Lady Motherwell gave her head an angry toss, and rang the bell violently. She took no farther notice of the girl whom she had professed to be so fond of. “Inquire if Sir Charles Motherwell is below,” she said. “Tell him I have ordered my carriage, and that his man is putting up his things. We are going in half an hour.”

It was at this moment the luncheon bell rang, and Sir Charles plunged wildly out into the woods. Perhaps the sound of the bell mollified Lady Motherwell. She was an old lady who liked luncheon. Probably it occurred to her that to have some refreshment before she left would do nobody any harm. Her son could not make any proposals at table under her very eyes; or perhaps a touch of human feeling came over her. “I meant to say we are going directly after luncheon,” she said, turning to Sara. “You will be very glad to get rid of us all, if Mr. Brownlow really means what he says.”

“Oh, yes, he means it,” said Sara, with a little smile of bitterness, “but it is always best to have luncheon first. I think you will find your son down stairs.”

“You seem to know,” said Lady Motherwell; “perhaps that is why we have had so little of your company this morning. The society of young men is pleasanter than that of old ladies like me.”

“The society of some young men is pleasant enough,” said Sara, unable to suppress the retort; and she stood aside and let her guest pass, sweeping in her long silken robes. Lady Motherwell headed the procession; and of the ladies who followed, two or three made little consoling speeches to Sara as they clustered after her. “It will not turn out half so bad as your papa supposes,” said one. “I don’t see that he had any need to tell. We have all had our losses—but we don’t go and publish them to all the world.”

“And if it should be as bad, never mind, Sara,” said another. “We shall all be as fond of you as ever. You must not think it hard-hearted if we go away.”

“Oh, Sara dear, I shall be so sorry to leave you; but he would not have told us,” said a third, “if he had not wanted us to go away.”

“I don’t know what you all mean,” said Sara. “I think you want to make me lose my senses. Is it papa that wants you to go away?”

“He told us he had lost a great deal of money, and perhaps he might be ruined,” said the last of all, twining her arm in Sara’s. “You must come to us, dear, if there is any breaking-up. But perhaps it may not be as bad as he says.”

“Perhaps not,” said Sara, holding up her head proudly. It was the only answer she made. She swept past them all to her place at the head of the table, with a grandeur that was quite unusual, and looked round upon her guests like a young queen. “Papa,” she said, at the top of her sweet young voice, addressing him at the other end of the table, “when you have unpleasant news to tell, you should not tell it before luncheon. I hope it will not hurt any body’s appetite.” This was all the notice she took of the embarrassing information that had thrown such a cloud of confusion over the guests. Mr. Brownlow, too, had recovered his calm. He had meant only to tell Lady Motherwell, knowing at the moment that her son was pleading his suit with Sara down stairs. He had told Sir Charles, and the news had but made him more eager; and, with a certain subtle instinct that came of his profession, Mr. Brownlow, that nobody might be able to blame him, went and told the mother too. It was Lady Motherwell’s amazed and indignant exclamations that spread the news. And now both he and the old lady were equally on tenter-hooks of expectation. They wanted to know what had come of it. Sara, for any thing they knew, might be Sir Charley’s betrothed at this moment. Mr. Brownlow, with a kind of hope, tried to read what was in his child’s face, and Lady Motherwell looked at her with a kind of despair. Sara, roused to her full strength, smiled and baffled them both.

“Sir Charles is in the library,” she said. “Call him, Willis; he might be too much engaged—he might not hear the bell.”

But at this moment another bell was heard, which struck strangely upon the excited nerves of the company. It was the bell at the door, which, as that door was always open, and there was continually some servant or other in the hall, was never rung. On this occasion it was pulled wildly, as by some one in overwhelming haste. The dining-room door was open at the moment, and the conversation at table was so hushed and uncomfortable, that the voice outside was clearly audible. It was something about “Miss Sara,” and “to come directly.” They all heard it, their attention being generally aroused. Then came a rush which made every one start and turn round. It was Mrs. Swayne, with her bonnet thrust over her eyes, red and breathless with running. “She’s a-dying—she’s a-dying,” said the intruder. “And I’m ready to drop. And, Miss Sara, she’s a-calling for you.”

Sara rose up, feeling her self-command put to the utmost test. But before she could even ask a question, Jack, who had been sitting very silently at the middle of the table, started up and rushed to the door. Mrs. Swayne put him back with her hand. “It’s Miss Sara,” she said—“Miss Sara—Miss Sara—that’s who she’s a-calling of. Keep out of her sight, and don’t aggravate her. Miss Sara, it’s you.”

And then the room seemed to reel round poor Sara, who had come to the end of her powers. She knew no more about it until she felt the fresh air blowing in her face, as she was half led, half carried, down the avenue. What she was to do, or what was expected from her, she knew not. The fate of the house and of all belonging to it had come into her innocent hands.

CHAPTER XLII.

A GUARDIAN

It was Jack who hurried his sister down the avenue in obedience to that peremptory summons. The effects of the fresh air and rapid movement roused her, as we have said, and nobody but herself had been aware that her strength had ever failed her. Jack was wound up to the last pitch of suspense and agitation; but he could not say a word to her—would not tell her what she was to do. “How can I tell till I see what is wanted of you?” he said, savagely. She did not know what might be laid upon her, or why she was sent for; but she was left to accept the office alone. He gave her no help except his arm to support her down the avenue—a support which was not of much use to Sara, for her brother walked at such a pace that she was scarcely able to keep up with him. He was walking a great deal more rapidly than he was at all aware. Things had come to a climax in Jack’s mind. He was burning with feverish irritation, anxiety, eagerness, and panic. He had thought that his mind was made up, and that nothing farther would disturb him. But in a moment he had become more disturbed than ever. The end that must decide every thing had come.

There was a certain air of excitement about Swayne’s cottages as they approached. Old Betty’s lodge was closed and vacant for one thing, and the gates set wide open; and the blinds were down in Mrs. Swayne’s windows, and her neighbor stood in the little garden outside watching, with her hand on the door. She was waiting for their coming; and Betty within, who was utterly useless so far as the patient was concerned, flitted up and down stairs looking for the arrival of the visitor who was so anxiously expected. They received Sara with a mixture of eager curiosity and deference. “She’s been a-calling for you, Miss,” said Mrs. Swayne’s neighbor, “as if she would go out of her mind.” “She’s a-calling for you now,” cried old Betty; “she don’t seem to have another thought in her head—and the rector by the bedside all the same, and her so near her latter end!” Even Mr. Swayne himself, with his wife’s shawl round him, had come to the kitchen door to join in the general sentiment. “The Lord be praised as you’ve come, Miss Sara,” he said. “I thought as she’d have driven me wild.” This preface was not of a kind to calm Sara’s nerves. She went up stairs confused with all the salutations addressed to her, and full of awe, almost of fear. To be sent for by a woman on her death-bed was of itself something alarming and awful. And this woman above all.

As for Jack, all that he heard of this babble was the intimation that the rector was there. It added another spark, if that were possible, to the fire in his heart. The doctor knew all about it—now here was another, yet another, to be taken into the dying woman’s confidence. Though nobody asked for him, and though his presence seemed little desirable, he went up after his sister without saying a word to any one. They could hear the voice of the patient as they approached—a voice almost unintelligible, thick and babbling, like the voice of an idiot, and incessant. Mrs. Preston’s eyes still blazing with wild anxiety and suspicion met Sara’s wondering, wistful gaze as she went timidly into the room. Pamela stood by like a ghost with utter weariness and a kind of dull despair in her pallid face. She could not understand what it all meant. To her the mot of the enigma, which had been wanting at the commencement, could now never be supplied, for she was too completely worn out in body and mind to be able to receive a new idea. She beckoned to Sara almost impatiently as she opened the door. “Yes, mamma, she has come—she has come,” said Pamela. Mr. Hardcastle was standing behind her with his prayer-book in his hand, looking concerned and impatient. He was amazed at the neglect with which he was being treated in the first place, and, to do him justice, he also felt strongly that, as Betty said, she was near her latter end, and other interests should be foremost in her mind. Old Betty herself came pressing in after Jack, and Mrs. Swayne followed her a few minutes later, and the neighbor stood outside on the landing. Their curiosity was roused to such a pitch that it eclipsed every other feeling—not that the women were hard-hearted or indifferent to the solemn moment which was at hand, they all wanted to know what she could have to say to Sara, and they were all curious to witness the tragedy about to be enacted and to see whether she made a good end.

“Ah, she’s come,” said Mrs. Preston in her thick voice. “Bring her here to me. Not him—I don’t want him. Sara! come here! It’s you I can speak to—only you. Give me something. I have a dozen words to say, and I must say them strong.”

“Here, mamma,” said Pamela, who watched with a sort of mechanical accuracy every indication of her mother’s will; and she put her soft arm under Mrs. Preston’s head and raised her with a strain of her slight girlish form, which at another moment would have been impossible. Jack made a step forward involuntarily to help her, but stopped short, arrested by the dying woman’s eyes, which she fixed upon him over Pamela’s shoulder as the cordial which was to give her strength to speak was put to her lips. She stopped even at that moment to look at him. “Not you,” she said, hoarsely—“not you.” It was not that he cared what she said, or even understood it, in his own excitement; but Pamela had her back turned upon him as she supported her mother; and Jack felt with a pang of poignant humiliation that there was no place for him there. Even her interests, the charge of her, seemed to be passing out of his hands.

“If you are going to speak to me—about—any thing,” cried Sara, “I don’t know what it is—nor why you should send for me; but do you want all these people too?”