Brownlows. Маргарет Олифант

and overwhelming. He sat a long time without moving, almost without breathing, feeling as if it was some kind of fate that approached him. After so many years that he had not thought of this danger, it seemed to him at last that the thoughts which had entered his mind in the morning must have been premonitions sent by Providence; and at a glance he went over the whole position—the new claimant, the gradually expanding claim, the conflict over it, the money he had locked up in that one doubtful speculation, the sudden diminution of his resources, perhaps the necessity of selling Brownlows and bringing Sara back to the old house in the High Street where she was born. Such a downfall would have been nothing for himself: for him the old wainscot dining-parlor and all the well-known rooms were agreeable and full of pleasant associations; but Sara—Then John Brownlow gave another wide glance over his social firmament, asking himself if there was any one whom, between this time and that, Sara’s heart might perhaps incline to, whom she might marry, and solve the difficulty. A few days before he used to dread and avoid the idea of her marriage. Now all this rushed upon him in a moment, with the violent impulse of his awakened fears. By-and-by, however, he came to himself. A woman might be a soldier’s wife, and might come from the Isle of Man, and might have had friends in Masterton who were dead, without being Phœbe Thomson. Perhaps if he had been bold, and listened to the name which was on his young visitor’s lips, it might have reassured him, and settled the question; but he had been afraid to do it. At this early stage of his deliberations he had not a moment’s doubt as to what he would do—what he must do—at once and without delay, if Phœbe Thomson really presented herself before him. But it was not his business to seek her out. And who could say that this was she? The Isle of Man, after all, was not so small a place, and any one who had come to Masterton to ask after old Mrs. Thomson would have been referred at once to her executor. This conviction came slowly upon Mr. Brownlow’s mind as he got over the first wild thrill of fear. He put his terror away from him gradually and slowly. When a thought has burst upon the mind at once, and taken possession of it at a stroke, it is seldom dislodged in the same complete way. It may cease to be a conviction, but it never ceases to be an impression. To this state, by degrees, his panic subsided. He no longer thought it certain that young Powys was Phœbe Thomson’s representative; but only that such a thing was possible—that he had something tangible to guard against and watch over. In place of his quiet every-day life, with all its comforts, an exciting future, a sudden whirl of possibilities opened before him. But in one year all this would be over. One year would see him, would see his children, safe in the fortune they had grown used to, and come to feel their own. Only one year! There are moments when men are fain to clog the wheels of time and retard its progress; but there are also moments when, to set the great clock forward arbitrarily and to hasten the measured beating of that ceaseless leisurely pendulum, is the desire that goes nearest the heart. Thus it came to appear to Mr. Brownlow as if it was now a kind of race between time and fate; for as yet it had not occurred to him to think of abstract justice nor of natural rights higher than those of any legal testament. He was thinking only of the letter, of the stipulated year. He was thinking if that time were past that he would feel himself his own master. And this sentiment grew and settled in his mind as he sat alone, and waited for Sara’s carriage—for his child, whom in all this matter he thought of the most. He was disturbed in the present, and eager with the eagerness of a boy for the future. It did not even occur to him that ghosts would arise in that future even more difficult to exorcise. All his desire in the mean time was—if only this year were over—if only anyhow a leap could be made through this one interval of danger. And the sharp and sudden pain he had come through gave him at the same time a sense of lassitude and exhaustion. Thus Sara’s headache and her fatigue and fanciful little indisposition were very lucky accidents for her father. They gave him an excuse for the deeper compunctious tenderness with which he longed to make up to her for a possible loss, and occupied both of them, and hid his disturbed air, and gave him a little stimulus of pleasure when she mended and resumed her natural chatter. Thus reflection and the fresh evening air, and Sara’s headache and company, ended by almost curing Mr. Brownlow before he reached home.

      CHAPTER IV.

      A LITTLE DINNER

      There was a very pleasant party that evening at Brownlows—the sort of thing of which people say, that it is not a party at all, you know, only ourselves and the Hardcastles, or whoever else it may happen to be. There was the clergyman of the parish, of course—who is always, if he happens to be at all agreeable, the very man for such little friendly dinners; and there was his daughter; for he was a widower, like Mr. Brownlow—and his Fanny was half as much to him, to say the least, as Sara was to her admiring father. And there was just one guest besides—young Keppel, to wit, the son of old Keppel of Ridley, and brother of the present Mr. Keppel—a young fellow who was not just precisely what is called eligible, so far as the young ladies were concerned, but who did very well for all secondary purposes, and was a barrister with hopes of briefs, and a flying connection with literature, which helped him to keep his affairs in order, and was rather of service to him than otherwise in society, as it sometimes is to a perfectly well-connected young man. Thus there were two girls and two young men, and two seniors to keep each other company; and there was a great deal of talk and very pleasant intercourse, enough to justify the rector in his enthusiastic utterance of his favorite sentiment, that this was true society, and that he did not know what people meant by giving dinners at which there were more than six. Mr. Hardcastle occasionally, it is true, expressed under other circumstances opinions which might be supposed a little at variance with this one; but then a man can not always be in the same mind, and no doubt he was quite sincere in what he said. He was a sort of man that exists, but is not produced now-a-days. He was neither High Church nor Low Church, so to speak. If you had offered to confess your sins to him he would have regarded you with as much terror and alarm as if you had presented a pistol at his head; and if you had attempted to confess your virtues under the form of spiritual experience, he would have turned from you with disgust. Neither was he in the least freethinking, but a most correct orthodox clergyman, a kind of man, as I have said, not much produced in these times. Besides this indefinite clerical character he had a character of his own, which was not at all indefinite. He was a little red-faced, and sometimes almost jovial in his gayety, and at the same time he was in possession of a large stock of personal griefs and losses, which had cost him many true tears and heartaches, poor man, but which were very useful to him in the way of his profession. And he had an easy way of turning from the one phase of life to the other, which had a curious effect sometimes upon impartial spectators. But all the same it was perfectly true and genuine. He made himself very agreeable that night at Brownlows, and was full of jest and frolic; but if he had been called to see somebody in trouble as he went home, he would have gone in and drawn forth from his own private stores of past pain, and manifested plainly to the present sufferer that he himself had suffered more bitterly still. He had “come through” all the pangs that a man can suffer in this world. He had lost his wife and his children, till nothing was left to him but this one little Fanny—and he loved to open his closed-up chambers to your eyes, and to meet your pitiful looks and faltering attempt at consolation; and yet at the same time you would find him very jolly in the evening at Mr. Brownlow’s, which hurt the feelings of some sensitive people. His daughter, little Fanny, was pretty and nice, and nothing particular, which suited her position and prospects perfectly well. These were the two principal guests, young Keppel being only a man, as ladies who are in the habit of giving dinners are wont to describe such floating members of the community. And they all talked and made themselves pleasant, and it was as pretty and as lively a little party as you could well have seen. Quantities of flowers and lights, two very pretty girls, and two good-looking young men, were enough to guarantee its being a very pretty scene; and nobody was afraid of any body, and every body could talk, and did so, which answered for the latter part of the description. Such little parties were very frequent at Brownlows.

      After dinner the two girls had a little talk by themselves. They came floating into the great drawing-room with those heaps of white drapery about them which make up for any thing that may be intrinsically unamiable1 in crinoline. Before they went up stairs, making it ready for them, a noble fire, all red, clear, and glowing, was in the room, and made it glorious; and the pretty things which glittered and reddened and softened in the bright warm atmosphere were countless.

      There

1

If there is anything; most of us think there is not. If the unthinking male creatures who abuse it only knew the comfort of it! and what a weariness it saves us! and as for the people who are burnt, it is not because of their crinolines, but because of losing their heads—a calamity to which in all kinds of dresses we are constantly liable.