Brownlows: A Novel

by Mrs. Oliphant

Pamela listened to this conversation with gradually increasing dismay. She did not know what it meant; but yet by some instinctive sense, she knew that it concerned herself—and Jack. She rose up and went to her mother with vague terrors in her heart. “Mamma, what is it? tell me what it is,” she said, putting two clinging hands around her arm.

At these words Mrs. Preston suddenly came to herself. “What is what?” she said. “Sit down, Pamela, and don’t ask foolish questions; or rather go and see after the tea. It has never come, though I told you Nancy was tired. If you left it by Mrs. Swayne’s fire it will be boiled by this time; and you know when it stands too long I can’t bear it. Go, dear, and get the tea.”

“But, mamma,” said Pamela, still clinging to her, and speaking in her ear, “mamma! I know there must be something. Why did you send him away?”

Mrs. Preston gave her child a look which Pamela, driven to her wits’ end, could not interpret. There was pity in it and there was defiance, and a certain fierce gleam as of indignation. “Child, you know nothing about it,” she said, with suppressed passion; “nothing; and I can’t tell you now. Go and get us the tea.”

Pamela gazed again, but she could make nothing of it. It was, and yet it was not her mother—not the old, faded, timid, hesitating woman who had nothing in the world but herself; but somebody so much younger, so much stronger—with those two shining, burning eyes, and this sudden self-consciousness and command. She gave a long look, and then she sighed and dropped her mother’s arm, and went away to do her bidding. It was the first appeal she had ever made in vain, and naturally it filled her with a painful amaze. It was such a combination of events as she could not understand. Nancy’s arrival, and Jack’s dismissal and this curious change in Mrs. Preston’s appearance. Her little heart had been full of pain when she left the room before, but it was pain of a very different kind. Now the laggard had come who was all the cause of the trouble then, and he had been sent away without reason or explanation, and what could it mean? “If I had but known a month ago!” What could it be that she had heard? The girl’s heart took to beating again very loud and fast, and her imagination began to work, and it is not difficult to divine what sort of theories of explanation rose in her thoughts. The only thing that Pamela could think of as raising any fatal barrier between herself and Jack was unfaithfulness or a previous love on his part. This, without doubt, was Nancy’s mission. She had come to tell of his untruthfulness; that he loved somebody else; perhaps had pledged himself to somebody else; and that between him and his new love, instant separation, heartbreak, and despair must ensue. “He need not have been afraid to tell me,” Pamela said to herself, with her heart swelling till it almost burst from her breast. All her little frame, all her sensitive nerves, thrilled with pain and pride. This was what it was. She was not so much stunned by the blow as roused up to the fullest consciousness. Her lip would have quivered sadly had she been compelled to speak; her voice might have broken for any thing she could tell, and risen into hard tones and shrieks of pain. But she was not obliged to speak to any one, and so could shut herself in and keep it down. She went about mechanically, but with nervous haste and swiftness, and covered the little table with its white cloth, and put bread on it, and the tea for which Nancy and her mother sighed; and she thought they looked at her with cruel coldness, as if it was they who were concerned and not she. As if it could be any thing to any body in comparison to what it was to her! As if she must not be at all times the principal in such a matter! Thus they sat down at the little round table. Nancy, who was much in her ordinary, ate, drank and was very comfortable, and pleased with the country cream in her tea; but the mother and the daughter neither ate nor drank. Mrs. Preston sat, saying now and then a word or two to Nancy which Pamela could not understand, but mostly was silent, pondering and full of thoughts, while Pamela, with her eyes cast down, and a burning, crimson color on her cheeks, sat still and brooded over the cruelty she thought they were showing her. Nancy was the only one who “enjoyed,” as she said, “her tea.”

“You may get a drop of what’s called cream in a town, but it ain’t cream,” said Nancy. “It’s but skim-milk frothed up, and you never get the taste of the tea. It’s a thing as I always buys good. It’s me as lays in all the things, and when there ain’t a good cup o’ tea at my age there ain’t nothing as is worth in life. But the fault’s not in the tea. It’s the want of a drop of good cream as does it. It’s that as brings out the flavor, and gives it a taste. A cup o’ good tea’s a cheering thing; but I wouldn’t say as you was enjoying it, Mrs. Preston, like me.”

“I have other things in my mind,” said Mrs. Preston; “you’ve had a long walk, and you must want it. As for me, my mind’s all in a ferment. I don’t seem to know if it’s me, or what has happened. You would not have come and told me all this if you had not been as sure as sure of what you had to say!”

“Sure and sure enough,” said Nancy. “I’ve knowed it from first to last, and how could I go wrong! If you go to London, as you say, you can judge for yourself, and there won’t be nothing for me to tell; but you’ll think on as I was the first—for your old mother’s sake—”

“You’ll not be forgot,” said Mrs. Preston; “you need not fear. I am not the one to neglect a friend—and one that was good to my poor mother; you may reckon on me.” She sat upright in her chair, and every line in her face had changed. Power, patronage, and protection were in her tone—she who had been herself so poor and timid and anxious. Her very words were uttered more clearly, and with a distincter intonation. And Pamela listened with all her might, and grew more and more bewildered, and tried vainly to make out some connection between this talk and the discovery which she supposed must have been made. But what could Jack’s failure in good faith have to do with any body’s old mother! It was only Nancy who was quite at her ease. “I will take another cup, if you please, Miss Pamela,” said Nancy, “and I hope as I’ll live to see you in your grandeur, feasting with lords and ladies, instead of pouring out an old woman’s tea—for them as is good children is rewarded. Many’s the day I’ve wished to see you, and wondered how many of you there was. It’s sad for your mother as there’s only you; but it’s a fine thing for yourself, Miss Pamela—and you must always give your mind to do what your mamma says.”

“How should it be a fine thing for me!” said Pamela; “or how should I ever feast with lords and ladies? I suppose you mean to make fun of us. As for doing what mamma says, of course I always do—and she never tells me to do any thing unreasonable,” the girl added, after a momentary pause, looking doubtfully at her mother. If she were told to give up Jack, Pamela felt that it would be something unreasonable, and she had no inclination to pledge herself. Mrs. Preston was changed from all her daughter’s previous knowledge of her; and it might be that her demands upon Pamela’s obedience would change too.