Things were so when one morning he received a sudden message from old Mrs. Fennell. He had not been to see her for a long time. He had preferred, as far as possible, to ignore her very existence. His own conduct appeared to him in a different light when he saw her. It was blacker, more heinous, altogether vile, when he caught the reflection of it as in a distorted mirror in the old woman’s suggestions. And it made Mr. Brownlow very uncomfortable. But this morning the summons was urgent. It was conveyed in a note from his mother-in-law herself. The billet was written on a scrap of paper, in a hand which had never been good, and was now shaky and irregular with old age. “I want to speak to you particular.” Mrs. Fennell wrote. “It’s about old Nancy and her goings on. There’s something astir that is against your advantage and the children. Don’t waste any time, but come to me;” and across the envelope she had written Immediate in letters half an inch long. Mr. Brownlow had a momentary thrill, and then he smiled to himself in the imbecility of self-delusion. “Some fancy she has taken into her head,” he said. Last time she had sent for him her fears had come to nothing, and his fears, which were exaggerated, as he now thought, had worn out all his capabilities of feeling. He took it quite calmly now. When he had freed himself of his more pressing duties, he took his hat, and went leisurely across the market-place, to his mother-in-law’s lodgings. The door was opened to him by Nancy, in whose looks he discovered nothing particular; and it did not even strike him as singular that she followed him up stairs, and went in after him to Mrs. Fennell’s sitting-room. The old lady herself was sitting in a great chair, with her foot upon a high footstool, and all her best clothes on, as for an occasion of great solemnity. Her head was in continued palsied motion, and her whole figure trembling with excitement. She did not even wait until Mr. Brownlow had taken the chair which Nancy offered him with unusual politeness. “Shut the door,” she cried. “Nancy, don’t you go near Mr. Brownlow with your wiles, but shut the door and keep in your own place. Keep in your own place—do; and don’t fuss about a gentleman as if that was to change his opinion, you old fool, at your age.”
“I’m but doing my duty,” said Nancy; “it’s little change my wiles could make on a gentleman—never at no age as I know on—and never with Mr. Brownlow—”
“Hold your peace,” cried Mrs. Fennell. “I know your tricks. You’re old, and you should know better; but a woman never thinks as it’s all over with her. John Brownlow, you look in that woman’s face and listen to me. You’ve given her food and clothes and a roof over her head for years and years, and a wage that I never could see the reason for; and here she’s been a-conspiring and a-treating with your enemies. I’ve found her out, though I am old and feeble. Ne’er a one of them can escape me. I tell you she’s been conspiring with your enemies. I don’t say that you’ve been overkind to me; but I can’t sit by and see my Bessie’s children wronged; and I’ve brought you here to set you face to face and hear what she’s got to say.”
Mr. Brownlow listened to her without changing countenance; he held his breath hard, and when she ceased speaking he let it go with a long respiration, such as a man draws after a great shock. But that was the only sign of emotion he showed; partly because he was stunned by the unexpected blow; partly because he felt that her every word betrayed him, and that nothing but utter self-command could do him any good.
“What does this mean?” he said, turning from Mrs. Fennell to Nancy. “Who are my enemies? If you have any thing to say against Nancy, or if Nancy has any thing to say—”
“She’s a traitor,” cried Mrs. Fennell, with a voice which rose almost to a scream. “She’s a real traitor;—she eats your bread, and she’s betrayed you. That’s what I mean and it’s as clear as day.”
All this time Nancy stood steadily, stolidly by, with her hand on the back of the chair, not defiant but watchful. She had no wish to lose her place, and her wages, and her comforts; but yet, if she were sent away, she had a claim upon the other side. She had made herself a friend like the unjust steward. And she stood and watched and saw all that passed, and formed her conclusions.
Therefore she was in no way disturbed when Mr. Brownlow turned round and looked her in the face. He was very steady and self-possessed, yet she saw by the way that he turned round on his chair, by the grasp he took of the back of it, by the movement of his eyelids, that every word had told upon him. “You must speak a little more plainly,” he said, with an attempt at a smile. “Perhaps you will give me your own account of it, Nancy. Whom have you been conspiring with? Who are my enemies? I think I am tolerably at peace with all the world, and I don’t know.”
Nancy paused with momentary hesitation, whether to speak the simple truth, and see the earthquake which would ensue, which was a suggestion made by the dramatic instinct within her—or whether to keep on the safe side and deny all knowledge of it. If she had been younger, probably she would have preferred the former for the sake of excitement; but being old she chose the latter. She grew meek under Mr. Brownlow’s eyes, so meek that he felt it an outrage on his good sense, and answered softly as became a woman anxious to turn away wrath.
“Nor me, sir,” said Nancy, “I don’t know. If I heard of one as was your enemy, it would be reason enough to me for never looking nigh, him. I’ve served you and yours for long, and it’s my place to be faithful. I’ve been a-seeing of some old friends as lives a little bit out o’ Masterton. I’m but a servant, Mr. Brownlow, but I’ve some friends; and I never heard as you was one to think as poor folks had no heart. It was a widow woman, as has seen better days; it ain’t much I can do for her, but she’s old, and she’s poor, and I go to see her a bit times and times. I hope there ain’t nothing in that that displeases you. If I stayed longer than I ought last time—”