“I beg your pardon,” he said. “It is all a mistake—an entire mistake, on my part. I did not know what I was saying. It was a sudden pain. But never mind, I am better. What did you mean me to learn from these papers?” he added, after a pause, with a forced smile.
Then Powys knew his fate. There was a change which could not be described. In an instant, tone, look, manner, every thing was altered. It was his master who said these last words to him; his employer, very kind and just, but unapproachable as a king. One moment before, and Mr. Brownlow had been in his power, he did not know how or why; and in an instant, still without his knowing wherefore, his power had totally departed. Powys saw this in all the darkness of utter ignorance. His consternation was profound and his confusion. In a moment his own presumption, his own hopelessness, the misery of loss and disappointment, overwhelmed him, and yet not a word bearing upon the real matter at issue had been said.
“They are my father’s papers,” said poor Powys. “I thought—that is, I supposed—I hoped there might be some indication in them—I am sorry if I have troubled you unnecessarily. He belonged to a good family, and I imagined I might perhaps have reclaimed—but it doesn’t matter. If that is what you think—”
“Oh yes, I see,” said Mr. Brownlow; “you can leave them, and perhaps another time—But in the mean time, if you feel inclined, my groom can drive you down to-morrow morning. I am not sure that I shall be going myself; and I will not detain you any longer to-night.”
“Very well, sir,” said Powys. He stood for a moment looking for something more—for some possible softening; but not one word of kindness came except an abrupt good-night. Good-night—yes, good-night to every thing—hope, love, happiness, fortune. Farewell to them all; and Sara, she who had almost seemed to belong to him. It seemed to Powys as if he was walking on his own heart as he left the room, trampling on it, stamping it down, crying fool, fool! Poor fellow, no doubt he had been a fool; but it was a hard awakening, and the fault, after all, was not his own.
Mr. Brownlow, however, was too much occupied with his own deliverance to think of Powys. He said that new name over to himself again and again, to realize what had happened. Mary Christian—Mary Christian—surely he had heard it before; but so long as it was not Phœbe Thomson, what did it matter who was his mother? Not Phœbe Thomson. She was dead perhaps—dead, and in a day or two more it would not matter. Two days, that was all—for it was now October. She might turn up a week hence if she would; but now he was free—free, quite free; without any wrong-doing or harm to any body; Brownlows and every thing else his own. Could it be true? Mary Christian—that was the name. And she came from the Isle of Man. But there was plenty of time to inquire into all that. The thing in the mean time was that he was released. When he got up and roused himself he found he could scarcely stand. He had been steady enough during all the time of his trial; but the sudden relief took all his forces from him. He shook from head to foot, and had to hold by the tables and chairs as he went out. And he left the lamp burning in forlorn dreariness on the library-table. The exertion of walking up stairs was almost too much for him. He had no attention to give to the common things surrounding him. All his powers, all his senses were absorbed in the one sensation of being free. Only once as he went up stairs did his ordinary faculties return to him, as it were, for a moment. It was when he was passing the great window in the staircase, and glancing out saw the white moonlight glimmering over all the park, and felt the cold of the night. Then it occurred to him to wonder if the pale old woman whom he had seen getting into the carrier’s cart could be traveling through this cold night. Poor old soul! He could not but think for the moment how chilly and frozen it would be. And then he bethought himself that he was safe, might go where he liked, do what he liked, had nobody menacing him, no enemy looking on to watch an opportunity—and no harm done! Thus Mr. Brownlow paused in the weakness of deliverance, and his heart melted within him. He made not vows to the saints of new churches or big tapers, but secret, tender resolutions in his heart. For this awful danger escaped, how should he show his gratitude to God? He was himself delivered, and goodness seemed to come back to him, his natural impulse. He had been saved from doing wrong, and without doing wrong all he wanted had been secured to him. What reason had not he to be good to every body; to praise God by serving his neighbor? This was the offering of thanksgiving he proposed to render. He did not at the moment think of young Powys sitting at his window looking out on the same moonlight, very dumb and motionless and heart-stricken, thinking life henceforward a dreary desert. No harm was done, and Mr. Brownlow was glad. But it did not occur to him to offer any healing in Powys’s case. If there was to be a victim at all, it was best that he should be the victim. Had he not brought it on himself?
CHAPTER XXXV.
AN UNLOOKED-FOR VISITOR.
Powys was proud, and his pride was up in arms. He slept little that night, and while he sat and brooded over it all, the hopelessness and folly of his hope struck him with tenfold distinctness. Early next morning, before any one was up, he came down the great silent staircase, and left the house in the morning sunshine. The distance to Masterton was nothing to him. It was the second time he had left the house with despair in his heart. It would be the last time, he said to himself as he paused to look up at the closed windows; he would never suffer himself to be deluded—never be led away by deceptive hopes again; and he went away, not without bitterness, yet with a certain stern sense of the inevitable which calmed down his passion. Whenever he had been in his right senses, he had felt that this must be the end; and the thing for him now was to bear it with such courage and steadiness as he could muster to face the emergency. It was all over at least. There were no intermediary tortures to go through, and there was always some comfort in that.
His absence was not taken any notice of at the breakfast-table, though Sara gave many a wondering glance at the door, and had a puzzled, half-irritated look upon her face, which some of her friends perceived, though her father did not observe it. He, for his part, came down radiant. He looked weary, and explained that he had not slept very well; but he had never been in more genial spirits, never more affectionate or full of schemes for every body’s pleasure. He called Jack apart, to tell him that, after looking over matters, he found he could let him have the hunter he wanted, a horse upon which his heart was set. When they were all talking at the table in the usual morning flutter of letters and mutual bits of news, Mr. Brownlow intimated that he had thoughts of taking Sara to Italy, where she had so long desired to go; “making up a party, and enjoying ourselves,” he said. Sara looked up with a gleam of delight, but her eyes were immediately after diverted to the door, where somebody was coming in—somebody, but not the person she was looking for. As for Jack, he received the intimation of his father’s liberality in perplexed silence; for if he was to marry, and sink into the position of a clerk in Masterton, hunters would be little in his way. But their father was too much absorbed in his own satisfaction to remark particularly how they both took his proposed kindness. He was overflowing to every body. Though he was always kind, that morning he was kinder than ever; and the whole party brightened up under his influence, notwithstanding Jack’s perplexity, and Sara’s wondering impatient glances at the door. Nobody asked what had become of the stranger. Mr. Brownlow’s guests were free to come to breakfast when they liked, and no notice was taken of the defaulters. The meal, however, was so merry and friendly, that every body sat longer over it than usual. Several of the visitors were going away, and the sportsmen had laid aside their guns for the day to join the ladies in an excursion. There was plenty of time for every thing; pleasant bustle, pleasant idleness, no “wretched business,” as Sara said, to quicken their steps; and she was, perhaps, the only one in the party who was ill at ease. She could not make out how it was that Powys did not come. She sat and joined with forced gayety in the general conversation, and she had not courage to ask frankly what had become of him. When they all began at last to disperse from the table, she made one feeble effort to satisfy herself. “Mr. Powys has never come down to breakfast,” she said to Jack, avoiding his eye; “had not you better see if there is any reason?”