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Brownlows

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.”

Again Mr. Brownlow groaned within himself, but he could not free himself from this associate. It was one of the consequences of evil-doing, the first obvious one which had come in his way. He had to bear her insults, to put himself on her level, even to be, as she was, without compunction. Their positions were changed, and it was he now who was in the old woman’s power; she had a hundred supposed injuries hoarded up in her mind to avenge upon him, even while she did him substantial service. And she was cruel with the remorseless cold-blooded cruelty of a creature whose powers of thought and sympathy were worn out. He wondered at her as he sat and saw her old eyes glisten with pleasure at the thought of having sent this poor injured robbed woman away. And he was her accomplice, her instigator, and it was for Bessie’s children. The thought made him sick and giddy. It was only with an effort that he recovered himself.

“When a woman comes back after twenty-five years, she does not disappear again,” he said. “I am not blaming you. You did as was natural to you. But tell me everything. It might have been an impostor—you never saw her. How can you be sure it was Phœbe Thomson? If Nancy even had been here—”

“I tell you it was Phœbe Thomson,” said Mrs. Fennell, raising her voice. And then all of a sudden she became silent. Nancy had come quietly up stairs, and had opened the door, and was looking in upon her mistress. She might have heard more, she might not even have heard that. She came in and put down some small purchases on the table. She was quite self-possessed and observant, looking as she always did, showing no signs of excitement. And Mr. Brownlow looked at her steadily. Like Nancy! but Mrs. Powys was not like Nancy. He concluded as this passed through his mind that Mrs. Fennell had named Nancy only as the first person that occurred to her. There was no likeness—not the slightest. It went for nothing, and yet it was a kind of relief to him all the same.

“Why do you come in like that, without knocking, when I’ve got some one with me?” said Mrs. Fennell, with tremulous wrath. “It’s like a common maid-of-all-work, that knows no better. I have told you that before.”

“It’s seldom as one of the family is here,” said Nancy, “or I’d think on’t. When things happen so rare, folks forgets. Often and often I say as you’re left too much alone; but what with the lady yesterday and Mr. Brownlow to-day—”

“What lady yesterday?” cried Mrs. Fennell. “What do you know about a lady yesterday? Who ever said there was a lady yesterday? If you speak up to me bold like that, I’ll send you away.”

“Oh, it’s nothing to me,” said Nancy. “You know as I was out. They most always comes when I’m out. Fine folks is not partial to me; but if you’re a-going to be better looked to, and your own flesh and blood to come and see you, at your age, it will be good news to me.”

“My own flesh and blood don’t think a great deal about an old woman,” said Mrs. Fennell, swallowing the bait. “I’m little good to any body now. I’ve seen the day when it was different. And I can still be of use to them that’s kind to me,” she said, with significance. Mr. Brownlow sat and listened to all this, and it smote him with disgust. He got up, and though it cost him an effort to do so, held out his hand to the old woman in her chair.

“Tell me, or tell Jack, if you want anything,” he said. “I can’t stay now; and if any thing occurs let me know,” he added. He took no notice of the vehement shaking of her hand as she turned toward Nancy. He looked at Nancy again, though he did not like her. She at least was not to be in the conspiracy, and he had a satisfaction in showing that at least he was not afraid of her. “If there is any thing that can make your mistress more comfortable,” he said, sternly, “I have already desired you to let me know; and you understand that she is not to be bullied either by you or any one else—good-day.”

“Bullied!” said Nancy, in consternation; but he did not condescend to look at her again. He went away silently, like a man in a dream. Up to this moment he had been able to doubt. It was poor comfort, yet there was some comfort in it. When the evidence looked the most clear and overwhelming, he had still been able to say to himself that he had no direct proof, that it was not his business, that still it might all be a mistake. Now that last standing-ground was taken from under his feet. Mrs. Thomson’s heir had made herself known, she had told her name and her parentage, and claimed kindred with his mother-in-law, who, if she had been an impostor, could have convicted her; and the old woman, on the contrary, had been convinced. It was a warm summer day, but Mr. Brownlow shivered with cold as he walked along the familiar streets. If she had but come twenty years, five-and-twenty years ago! If he had but followed his own instincts of right and wrong, and left this odious money untouched! It was for Bessie’s sake he had used it, to make his marriage practicable, and now the whirligig of time had brought about its revenges. Bessie’s daughter would have to pay for her mother’s good fortune. He felt himself swing from side to side as he went along, so confused was he with the multitude of his thoughts, and recovered himself only with a violent effort. The decisive moment had come. It had come too soon—before the time was out at which Phœbe Thomson would be harmless. He could not put himself off any longer with the pretext that he was not sure. And young Powys in the office, whom he had taken in, partly in kindness and partly with evil intent, sat under his eyes calculating the amount of that frightful interest which would ruin him. Mr. Brownlow passed several of his acquaintances in the street without noticing them, but not without attracting notice. He was so pale that the strangers who passed turned round to look at him. No farther delay—no putting off—no foolish excuses to himself. Whatever had to be done must be done quickly. Unconsciously he had quickened his pace, and went on at a speed which few men could have kept up with. He was strong, and his excitement gave him new strength. It must be done, one thing or another; there was no way of escaping the alternative now.

There are natures which are driven wild and frantic by a great excitement, and there are others which are calmed and steadied in face of an emergency. Mr. Brownlow entered his private office with the feeling of a man who was about to die there, and might never come out alive. He did not answer any one—even waved Wrinkell away, who was coming to him with a bag of papers. “I have some urgent private business,” he said; “take every thing to my son, and don’t let me be disturbed.” He said this in the office, so that every one heard him; and though he looked at nobody, he could see Powys look up from his calculations, and Jack come in some surprise to the open door of his room. They both heard him, both the young men, and wondered. Jack, too, was dark and self-absorbed, engaged in a struggle with himself. And they looked at the master, the father, and said to themselves, in their youthful folly, that it was easy for him to talk of not being disturbed. What could he have to trouble him—he who could do as he liked, and whom nobody interfered with? Mr. Brownlow, for his part, saw them both without looking at them, and a certain bitter smile at his son’s reserve and silence came to him inwardly. Jack thought it a great matter to be checked in his boyish love-making; while, good heavens! how different were the burdens, how much harder the struggles of which the boy was ignorant! Mr. Brownlow went in and shut the door. He was alone then—shut out from every body. No one could tell or even guess, the conflict in his mind—not even his young adversary outside, who was reckoning up the compound interest. He paused a little, and sat down, and bent his head on his hands. Was he praying? He could not have told what it was. It was not prayer in words. If it had been, it would have been a prayer for strength to do wrong. That was what he was struggling after—strength to shut out all compunctions—to be steadily cruel, steadily false. Could God have granted him that? but his habits were those of a good man all the same. He paused when he was in perplexity, and was silent, and collected his thoughts, not without a kind of mute customary appeal; and then flung his hands away from his face, and started to his feet with a thrill of horror. “Help me to sin!” was that what it had been in his heart to say?

He spent the whole day in the office, busy with very hard and heavy work. He went minutely into all those calculations which he supposed young Powys to be making. And when he had put down the last cipher, he opened all his secret places, took out all his memorandums, every security he possessed, all his notes of investments, the numberless items which composed his fortune. He worked at his task like a clerk making up ordinary accounts, yet there was something in his silent speed, his wrapt attention, the intense exactness of every note, which was very different from the steady indifference of daily work. When he had put every thing down, and made his last calculation, he laid the two papers together on his desk. A little glimmering of hope had, perhaps, awakened in him, from the very fact of doing something. He laid them down side by side, and the little color that had come into his face vanished out of it in an instant. If there had been but a little over! If he could have felt that he had something left, he might still, at the eleventh hour, have had strength to make the sacrifice; but the figures which stared him in the face meant ruin. Restitution would cost him every thing—more than every thing. It would leave him in debt; it would mortgage even that business which the Brownlows of Masterton had maintained so long. It would plunge his children down, down in an instant out of the place they had been educated to fill. It would take from himself the means of being as he was—one of the benefactors of the county, foremost in all good works. Good works! when it was with the inheritance of the widow and the orphans that he did them. All this came before him as clearly as if it had been written in lines of light—an uneducated, imprudent woman—a creature who had run away from her friends, abandoned her mother—a boy who was going to the bad—a family unaccustomed to wealth, who would squander and who would not enjoy it. And, on the other hand, himself who had increased it, used it well, served both God and man with it. The struggle was long, and it was hard, but in the end the natural result came. His half-conscious appeal was answered somehow, though not from on high. The strength came to him which he had asked for—strength to do wrong. But all the clerks started, and Mr. Wrinkell himself took off his spectacles, and seriously considered whether he should send for a doctor, when in the evening, just before the hour for leaving the office, Mr. Brownlow suddenly opened the door and called young Powys into his private room.