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Brownlows

Powys started violently, and gave her a look under which Sara, courageous as she was, actually trembled; and the next thing he did was to turn his back upon her, and look long and intently at the nearest picture. It was not the Claude this time. It was a picture of a woman holding out a piece of bread to a beggar at her door. The wretch, in his misery, was crouching by the wall and holding out his hand for it, and within were the rosy children, well-fed and comfortable, looking large-eyed upon the want without. The young man thought it was symbolical, as he stood looking at it, quivering all over with emotion which he was laboring to shut up in his own breast. She was holding out the bread of life to him, but it would never reach his lips. He stood struggling to command himself, forgetting every thing but the desperation of that struggle, betraying himself more than any words could have done—fighting his fight of honor and truth against temptation. Sara saw all this, and the little temptress was not satisfied. It would be difficult to tell what impulse possessed her. She had driven him very far, but not yet to the farthest point; and she could not give up her experiment at its very height.

“But you do not answer my question,” she said, very softly. The words were scarcely out of her lips, the tingle of compunction had not begun in her heart, when her victim’s strength gave way. He turned round upon her with a wild breathlessness that struck Sara dumb. She had seen more than one man who supposed he was “in love” with her; but she had never seen passion before.

“I would regret it,” he said, “if I had any sense or spirit left; but I have not, and I don’t regret. Take it all—take it!—and then scorn it. I know you will. What could you do but scorn it? It is only my heart and my life; and I am young and shall have to live on hundreds of years, and never see your sweetest face again.”

“Mr. Powys!” said Sara in consternation, turning very pale.

“Yes,” he said, melting out of the momentary swell of excitement, “I think I am mad to say so. I don’t grudge it. It is no better than a flower that you will put your foot on; and now that I have told you, I know it is all over. But I don’t grudge it. It was not your doing; and I would rather give it to you to be flung away than to any other woman. Don’t be angry with me—I shall never see you again.”

“Why?” said Sara, not knowing what she said—“what is it?—what have I done? Mr. Powys, I don’t think you—either of us—know what you mean. Let us forget all about it. You said you did not know what you were saying to-day.”

“But I have said it,” said the young man in his excitement. “I did not mean to betray myself, but now it is all over. I can never come here again. I can never dare look at you again. And it is best so; every day was making it worse. God bless you, though you have made me miserable. I shall never see your face again.”

“Mr. Powys!” cried Sara, faintly. But he was gone beyond hearing of her voice. He had not sought even to kiss her hand, as a despairing lover has a prescriptive right to do, much less the hem of her robe, as they do in romances. He was gone in a whirlwind of wild haste, and misery, and passion. She sat still, with her lips apart, her eyes very wide open, her face very white, and listened to his hasty steps going away into the outside world. He was gone—quite gone, and Sara sat aghast. She could not cry; she could not speak; she could but listen to his departing steps, which echoed upon her heart as it seemed. Was it all over? Would he never see her face again, as he said? Had she made him miserable? Sara’s face grew whiter and whiter as she asked herself these questions. Of one thing there could be no doubt, that it was she who had drawn this explanation from him. He had not wished to speak, and she had made him speak. And this was the end. If a sudden thunder-bolt had fallen before her, she could not have been more startled and dismayed. She never stirred for an hour or more after he had left her. She let the evening darken round her, and never asked for lights. Every thing was perfectly still, yet she was deafened by the noises in her ears, her heart beating, and voices rising and contending in it which she had never heard before. And was this the end? She was sitting still in the window like a thing in white marble when the servant came in with the lamp, and he had almost stumbled against her as he went to shut the window, and yelled with terror, thinking it was a ghost. It was only then that Sara regained command of herself. Was it all over from to-night?

CHAPTER XXVIII.
DESPAIR

It was nearly two hours after this when Jack Brownlow met Powys at the gate. It was a moonlight night, and the white illumination which fell upon the departing visitor perhaps increased the look of excitement and desperation which might have been apparent even to the most indifferent passer-by. He had been walking very quickly down the avenue; his boots and his dress gleamed in the moonlight as if he had been burying himself among the wet grass and bushes in the park. His hat was over his brows, his face haggard and ghastly. No doubt it was partly the effect of the wan and ghostly moonlight, but still there must have been something more in it, or Jack, who loved him little, would not have stopped as he did to see what was the matter. Jack was all the more bent upon stopping that he could see Powys did not wish it, and all sorts of hopes and suspicions sprang up in his mind. His father had dismissed the intruder, or he had so far forgotten himself as to betray his feelings to Sara, and she had dismissed him. Once more curiosity came in Powys’s way. Jack was so resolute to find out what it was, that, for the first time in his life, he was friendly to his father’s clerk. “Are you walking?” he said; “I’ll go with you a little way. It is a lovely night.”

“Yes,” said Powys; and he restrained his headlong course a little. It was all he could do—that, and to resist the impulse to knock Jack down and be rid of him. It might not have been so very easy, for the two were tolerably well matched; but poor Powys was trembling with the force of passion, and would have been glad of any opportunity to relieve himself either in the way of love or hatred. Nothing of this description, however, seemed practicable to him. The two young men walked down the road together, keeping a little apart, young, strong, tall, full of vigor, and with a certain likeness in right of their youth and strength. There should even have been the sympathy between them which draws like to like. And yet how unlike they were! Jack had taken his fate in his hand, and was contemplating with a cheerful daring, which was half ignorance, a descent to the position in which his companion stood. It would be sweetened in his case by all the ameliorations possible, or so at least he thought; and, after all, what did it matter? Whereas Powys was smarting under the miserable sense of having been placed in a false position in addition to all the pangs of unhappy love, and of having betrayed himself and the confidence put in him, and sacrificed his honor, and cut himself off forever from the delight which still might have been his. All these pains and troubles were struggling together within him. He would have felt more keenly still the betrayal of the trust his employer had placed in him, had he not felt bitterly that Mr. Brownlow had subjected him to temptations which it was not in flesh and blood to bear. Thus every kind of smart was accumulated within the poor young fellow’s spirit—the sense of guilt, the sense of being hardly used, the consciousness of having shut himself out from paradise, the knowledge, beyond all, that his love was hopeless and all the light gone out of his life. It may be supposed how little inclination he had to enter into light conversation, or to satisfy the curiosity of Jack.

They walked on together in complete silence for some minutes, their footsteps ringing in harmony along the level road, but their minds and feelings as much out of harmony as could be conceived. Jack was the first to speak. “It’s pleasant walking to-night,” he said, feeling more conciliatory than he could have thought possible; “how long do you allow yourself from here to Masterton? It is a good even road.”

“Half an hour,” said Powys, carelessly.

“Half an hour! that’s quick work,” said Jack. “I don’t think you’ll manage that to night. I have known that mare of mine do it in twenty minutes; but I don’t think you could match her pace.”

“She goes very well,” said the Canadian, with a moderation which nettled Jack.

“Very well! I never saw any thing go like her,” he said—“that is, with a cart behind her. What kind of cattle have you in Canada? I suppose there’s good sport there of one kind or another. Shouldn’t you like to go back?”

“I am going back,” said Powys. He said it in the depth of his despair, and it startled himself as soon as it was said. Go back? yes! that was the only thing to do—but how?

“Really?” said Jack with surprise and no small relief, and then a certain human sentiment awoke within him. “I hope you haven’t had a row with the governor?” he said; “it always seemed to me he had too great a fancy for you. I beg your pardon for saying so just now, especially if you’re vexed; but look here—I’m not much of a one for a peace-maker; but if you don’t mind telling me what it’s about—”

“I have had no row with Mr. Brownlow; it is worse than that,” said Powys; “it is past talking of; I have been both an ass and a knave, and there’s nothing for me but to take myself out of every body’s way.”

Once more Jack looked at him in the moonlight, and saw that quick heave of his breast which betrayed the effort he was making to keep himself down, and a certain spasmodic quiver in his lip.

“I wouldn’t be too hasty if I were you,” he said. “I don’t think you can have been a knave. We’re all of us ready enough to make fools of ourselves,” the young philosopher added, with a touch of fellow-feeling. “You and I haven’t been over-good friends, you know, but you might as well tell me what it’s all about.”

“You were quite right,” said Powys, hastily. “I ought never to have come up here. And it was not my doing. It was a false position all along. A man oughtn’t to be tempted beyond his strength. Of course I have nobody to blame but myself. I don’t suppose I would be a knave about money or any thing of that sort. But it’s past talking of; and besides I could not, even if it were any good, make a confidant of you.”

It was not difficult for Jack to divine what this despair meant, and he was touched by the delicacy which would not name his sister’s name. “I lay a hundred pounds it’s Sara’s fault,” he said to himself. But he gave no expression to the sentiment. And of course it was utterly beyond hope, and the young fellow in Powys’s position who should yield to such a temptation must indeed have made an ass of himself. But in the circumstances Jack was not affronted at the want of confidence in himself.

“I don’t want to pry into your affairs,” he said. “I don’t like it myself; but I would not do any thing hastily if I were you. A man mayn’t be happy, but, so far as I can see, he must live all the same.”

“Yes, that’s the worst,” said Powys; “a fellow can’t give in and get done with it. Talk is no good; but I shall have to go. I shall speak to your father to-morrow, and then—Good-night. Don’t come any farther. I’ve been all about the place to say good-bye. I am glad to have had this talk with you first. Good-night.”

“Good-night,” said Jack, grasping the hand of his fellow. Their hands had never met in the way of friendship before. Now they clasped each other warmly, closely, with an instinctive sympathy. Powys’s mind was so excited with other things, so full of supreme emotion, that this occurrence, though startling enough, did not have much effect upon him. But it made a very different impression upon Jack, who was full of surprise and compunction, and turned, after he had made a few steps in the direction of Brownlows, with a reluctant idea of “doing something” for the young fellow who was so much less lucky than himself. It was a reluctant idea, for he was prejudiced, and did not like to give up his prejudices, and at the same time he was generous, and could not but feel for a brother in misfortune. But Powys was already far on his way, out of hearing, and almost out of sight. “He will do it in the half-hour,” Jack said to himself, with admiration. “By Jove! how the fellow goes! and I’ll lay you any thing it’s all Sara’s fault.” He was very hard upon Sara in the revulsion of his feelings. Of course she could have done nothing but send her presumptuous admirer away. But, then, had she not led him on and encouraged him? “The little flirt!” Jack said to himself; and just then he was passing Swayne’s cottage, which lay in the deep blackness of the shadow made by the moonlight. He looked up tenderly at the light that burned in the upper window. He had grown foolish about that faint little light, as was only natural. There was one who was no flirt, who never would have tempted any man and drawn him on to the breaking of his heart. From the height of his own good fortune Jack looked down upon poor Powys speeding along with despair in his soul along the Masterton road. Something of that soft remorse which is the purest bloom of personal happiness softened his thoughts. Poor Powys! And there was nothing that could be done for him. He could not compel his fate as Jack himself could do. For him there was nothing in store but the relinquishment of all hope, the giving up of all dreams. The thought made Jack feel almost guilty in his own independence and well-being. Perhaps he could yet do or say something that would smooth the other’s downfall—persuade him to remain at least at Masterton, where he need never come in the way of the little witch who had beguiled him, and afford him his own protection and friendship instead. As Jack thought of the little house that he himself, separated from Brownlows and its comforts, was about to set up at Masterton, his benevolence toward Powys grew still stronger. He was a fellow with whom a man could associate on emergency; and no doubt this was all Sara’s fault. He went home to Brownlows disposed to stand Powys’s friend if there was any question of him. But when Jack reached home there was no question of Powys. On the whole it was not a cheerful house into which he entered. Lights were burning vacantly in the drawing-room, but there was nobody there. Lights were burning dimly down stairs. It looked like a deserted place as he went up and down the great staircase, and through the silent rooms, and found nobody. Mr. Brownlow himself was in the library with the door shut, where, in the present complexion of affairs, Jack did not care to disturb him; and Miss Sara had gone to bed with a headache, he was told, when, after searching for her everywhere, he condescended to inquire. Sara was not given to headaches, and the intimation startled her brother. And he went and sat in the drawing-room alone, and stared at the lights, and contrasted this solitary grandeur with the small house whose image was in his mind. The little cozy, tiny, sunshiny place, where one little bright face would always smile; where there would always be some one ready to listen, ready to be interested, ready to take a share in every thing. The picture looked very charming to him after the dreariness of this great room, and Sara gone to bed, and poor Powys banished and broken-hearted. That was not to be his own fate, and Jack grew pious and tender in his self-gratulations. After all, poor Powys was a very good sort of fellow; but as it happened, it was Jack who had drawn all the prizes of life. He did think at one time of going down stairs notwithstanding the delicate state of his own relations with his father, and making such excuses as were practicable for the unfortunate clerk, who had permitted himself to be led astray in this foolish manner. “Of course it was a great risk bringing him here at all,” Jack thought of saying, that Mr. Brownlow might be brought to a due sense of his own responsibility in the matter; but after long consideration, he wisely reflected that it would be best to wait until the first parties to the transaction had pronounced themselves. If Sara did not mean to say any thing about it, nor Powys, why should he interfere? upon which conclusion, instead of going down stairs, he went to bed, thinking again how cheerless it was for each member of the household to start off like this without a single good-night, and how different it would be in the new household that was to come.

Sara came to breakfast next morning looking very pale. The color had quite gone out of her cheeks, and she had done herself up in a warm velvet jacket, and had the windows closed as soon as she came into the room. “They never will remember that the summer’s over,” she said, with a shiver, as she took her place; but she made no farther sign of any kind. Clearly she had no intention of complaining of her rash lover;—so little, indeed, that when Mr. Brownlow was about to go away, she held out a book to him timidly, with a sudden blush. “Mr. Powys forgot to take this with him last night; would you mind taking it to him, papa?” she said, very meekly; and as Jack looked at her, Sara blushed redder and redder. Not that she had any occasion to blush. It might be meant as an olive-branch or even a pledge of hope; but still it was only a book that Powys had left behind him. Mr. Brownlow accepted the charge with a little surprise, and he, too, looked at her so closely that it was all she could do to restrain a burst of tears.

“Is it such a wonder that I should send back a book when it is left?” she cried, petulantly. “You need not take it unless you like, papa; it can always go by the post.”

“I will take it,” said Mr. Brownlow; and Jack sat by rather grimly, and said nothing. Jack was very variable and uncertain just at that moment in his own feelings. He had not forgotten the melting of his heart on the previous night; but if he had seen any tokens of relenting on the part of his sister toward the presumptuous stranger, Jack would have again hated Powys. He even observed with suspicion that his father took little notice of Sara’s agitation; that he shut his eyes to it, as it were, and took her book, and evaded all farther discussion. Jack himself was not going to Masterton that day. He had to see that every thing was in order for the next day, which was the 1st of September. So far had the season wheeled round imperceptibly while all the variations of this little domestic drama were ripening to their appointed end.

Jack, however, did not go to inspect his gun, and consult with the gamekeeper, immediately on his father’s departure. He waited for a few minutes, while Sara, who had been so cold, rushed to the window, and threw it open. “There must be thunder in the air—one can scarcely breathe,” she said. And Jack watched her jealously, and did not lose a single look.

“You were complaining of cold just now,” he said. “Sara, mind what you are about. If you think you can play that young Powys at the end of your line, you’re making a great mistake.”

“Play whom?” cried Sara, blazing up. “You are a nice person to preach to me! I am playing nobody at the end of my line. I have no line to play with; and you that are making a fool of that poor little simple Pamela—”

“Be quiet, will you?” said Jack, furious. “That poor little simple Pamela, as you call her, is going to be my wife.”

Sara gazed at him for a moment thunderstruck, standing like something made into stone, with her velvet jacket, which she had just taken off, in her hands. Then the color fled from her cheeks as quickly as it had come to them, and her great eyes filled suddenly, like crystal cups, with big tears. She threw the jacket down out of her hands, and rushed to her brother’s side, and clasped his arm. “You don’t mean it, Jack?—do you mean it?” she cried, piteously, gazing up into his face; and a crowd of different emotions, more than Jack could discriminate or divine, was in her voice. There was pleasure and there was sorrow, and sharp envy and pride and regret. She clasped his arm, and looked at him with a look which said—“How could you?—how dare you?—and, oh, how lucky you are to be able to do it!”—all in a breath.

“Of course I mean it,” said Jack, a little roughly; but he did not mean to be rough. “And that is why I tell you it is odious of you, Sara, to tempt a man to his destruction, when you know you can do nothing for him but break his heart.”

“Can’t I?” said Sara, dropping away from his arm, with a faint little moan; and then she turned quickly away, and hid her face in her hands. Jack, for his part, felt he was bound to improve the occasion, though his heart smote him. He stood secure on his own pedestal of virtue, though he did not want her to copy him. Indeed, such virtue in Sara would have been little short of vice.

“Nothing else,” said Jack, “and yet you creatures do it without ever thinking of the sufferings you cause. I saw the state that poor fellow was in when he left you last night; and now you begin again sending him books! What pleasure can you have in it! It is something inconceivable to me.”

This Jack uttered with a superiority and sense of goodness so lofty that Sara’s tears dried up. She turned round in a blaze of indignation, too much offended to trust herself to answer. “You may be an authority to Pamela, but you are not an authority to me,” she cried, drawing herself up to her fullest state. But she did not trust herself to continue the warfare. The tears were lying too near the surface, and Sara had been too much shaken by the incident of the previous night. “I am not going to discuss my own conduct; you can go and talk to Pamela about it,” she added, pausing an instant at the door of the room before she went out. It was spiteful, and Jack felt that it was spiteful; but he did not guess how quickly Sara rushed up stairs after her dignified progress to the door, nor how she locked herself in, nor what a cry she had in her own room when she was safe from all profane eyes. She was not thinking of Pamela, and yet she could have beaten Pamela. She was to be happy, and have her own way; but as for Sara, it was an understood duty that the only thing she could do for a man was to break his heart! Her tears fell down like rain at this thought. Why should Jack be so free and she so fettered? Why should Pamela be so well off? Thus a sudden and wild little hail-storm of rage and mortification went over Sara’s head, or rather heart.

Meanwhile Mr. Brownlow went very steadily to business with the book in his pocket. He had been a little startled by Sara’s look, but by this time it was going out of his mind. He was thinking that it was a lovely morning, and still very warm, though the child was so chilly; and then he remembered, with a start, that next day was the 1st of September. Another six weeks, and the time of his probation was over. The thought sent the blood coursing through his veins, as if he had been a young man. Every thing had gone on so quietly up to that moment—no farther alarms—nothing to revive his fears—young Powys lulled to indifference, if indeed he knew any thing; and the time of liberation so near. But with that thrill of satisfaction came a corresponding excitement. Now that the days were numbered, every day was a year in itself. It occurred to him suddenly to go away somewhere, to take Sara with him and bury himself in some remote corner of the earth, where nobody could find him for those fated six weeks; and so make it quite impossible that any application could reach him. But he dismissed the idea. In his absence might she not appear, and disclose herself? His own presence somehow seemed to keep her off, and at arm’s length; but he could not trust events for a single day if he were gone. And it was only six weeks. After that, yes, he would go away, he would go to Rome or somewhere, and take Sara, and recover his calm after that terrible tension. He would need it, no doubt;—so long as his brain did not give way.

Mr. Brownlow, however, was much startled by the looks of Powys when he went into the office. He was more haggard than he had ever been in the days when Mr. Wrinkell was suspicious of him. His hair hung on his forehead in a limp and drooping fashion—he was pale, and there were circles round his eyes. Mr. Brownlow had scarcely taken his place in his own room when the impatient young man came and asked to speak to him. The request made the lawyer’s hair stand up on his head, but he could not refuse the petition. “Come in,” he said, faintly. The blood seemed to go back on his heart in a kind of despair. After all his anticipations of approaching freedom, was he to be arrested after all, before the period of emancipation came?

As for Powys, he was too much excited himself to see any thing but the calmest composure in Mr. Brownlow, who indeed, throughout all his trials, though they were sharp enough, always looked composed. The young man even thought his employer methodical and matter of fact to the last degree. He had put out upon the table before him the book Sara had intrusted him with. It was a small edition of one of the poets which poor Powys had taken with him on his last unhappy expedition to Brownlows; and Mr. Brownlow put his hand on the book, with a constrained smile, as a school-master might have put his hand on a prize.

“My daughter sent you this, Powys,” he said, “a book which it appears you left last night; and why did you go away in such a hurry without letting me know?”

“Miss Brownlow sent it?” said Powys, growing crimson; and for a minute the poor young fellow was so startled and taken aback that he could not add another word. He clutched at the book, and gazed at it hungrily, as if it could tell him something, and then he saw Mr. Brownlow looking at him with surprise, and his color grew deeper and deeper. “That was what I came to speak to you about, sir,” he said, hot with excitement and wretchedness. “You have trusted me, and I am unworthy of your trust. I don’t mean to excuse myself; but I could not let another day go over without telling you. I have behaved like an idiot—and a villain—”

“Stop, stop!” said Mr. Brownlow. “What is all this about? Don’t be excited. I don’t believe you have behaved like a villain. Take time and compose yourself, and tell me what it is.”

“It is that you took me into your house, sir, and trusted me,” said Powys, “and I have betrayed your trust. I must mention her name. I saw your daughter too often—too much. I should have had the honor and honesty to tell you before I betrayed myself. But I did not mean to betray myself. I miscalculated my strength; and in a moment, when I was not thinking, it gave way. Don’t think I have gone on with it,” he added, looking beseechingly at his employer, who sat silent, not so much as lifting his eyes. “It was only last night—and I am ready at the moment, if you wish it, to go away.”

Mr. Brownlow sat at his table and made no reply. Oh, those hasty young creatures, who precipitated every thing! It was, in a kind of way, the result of his own scheming, and yet his heart revolted at it, and in six weeks’ time he would be free from all such necessity. What was he to do? He sat silent, utterly confounded and struck dumb—not with surprise and horror, as his young companion in the fullness of his compunction believed, but with confusion and uncertainty as to what he ought to say and do. He could not offend and affront the young man on whose quietness and unawakened thoughts so much depended. He could not send Powys away, to fall probably into the hands of other advisers, and rise up against himself. Yet could he pledge himself, and risk Sara’s life, when so short a time might set him free? All this rushed through his mind while he sat still in the same attitude in which he had listened to the young fellow’s story. All this pondering had to be done in a moment, for Powys was standing beside him in all the vehemence of passion, thinking every minute an hour, and waiting for his answer. Indeed he expected no answer. Yet something there was that must be said, and which Mr. Brownlow did not know how to say.

“You betrayed yourself?” he said, at last; “that means, you spoke. And what did Sara say?”

The color on Powys’s face flushed deeper and deeper. He gave one wild, half-frantic look of inquiry at his questioner. There was nothing in the words, but in the calm of the tone, in the naming of his daughter’s name, there was something that looked like a desperate glimmer of hope; and this unexpected light flashed upon the young man all of a sudden, and made him nearly mad. “She said nothing,” he answered, breathlessly. “I was not so dishonorable as to ask for any answer. What answer was possible? It was forced out of me, and I rushed away.”

Mr. Brownlow pushed his chair away from the table. He got up and went to the window, and stood and looked out, he could not have told why. There was nothing there that could help him in what he had to say. There was nothing but two children standing in the dusty road, and a pale, swarthy organ-grinder, with two big eyes, playing “Ah, che la morte” outside. Mr. Brownlow always remembered the air, and so did Powys, standing behind, with his heart beating loud, and feeling that the next words he should listen to might convey life or death.

“If she has said nothing,” said Mr. Brownlow at last from the window, speaking with his back turned, “perhaps it will be as well for me to follow her example.” When he said this he returned slowly to his seat, and took his chair without ever looking at the culprit before him. “Of course you were wrong,” he added; “but you are young. You ought not to have been placed in such temptation. Go back to your work, Mr. Powys. It was a youthful indiscretion; and I am not one of those who reject an honorable apology. We will forget it for ever—we, and every body concerned—”