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—”