How they could have got through the evening it is impossible to tell, had not Sara appeared before dinner, very pale, with red eyes, and a melancholy face. Every body rushed at her when she appeared—in a kind of consternation. And for a moment it seemed to both her father and brother that their adversary had come alive, and that the struggle was to begin again. Sara’s explanation, however, was the simple one that Pamela had fallen asleep, and that she had thought they would want her at home for dinner. So she went and dressed herself, like a martyr, and carried them through the embarrassed meal. It was she upon whom the chief burden fell, and she took up the weight and carried it without flinching. So the long confused eventful day came to an end. When it was late and all the bewildered people had retired to their rooms, Mr. Brownlow and Jack took her down the avenue, guarding her tenderly, one on either side. There was little said between them, but their hearts were full—a kind of gratitude, a kind of sorrow, a certain pervading sense of union and sympathy had come into their minds; and the two men regarded with a half wondering, half pitying enthusiasm, a waking up of all the springs of natural love, the soft creature between them, the indulged, petted, faulty girl who now had every thing to do. They both kissed her when they left her, with an overflowing of their hearts, and stood and looked at the dark cottage with the faint lights in its windows, saying nothing. In the upper window was the dim glow of the light in the chamber of the dead—the needless pathetic glimmer which shone faintly over the covered face and closed eyes; below, in the little parlor, where a bed had been hastily prepared for her, Pamela was sleeping in her profound exhaustion, almost as pale as her mother, shaded from the dim candlelight. The father and son did not speak, but they grasped each other’s hands closely as they looked at the house, and turned away and walked home in silence. A certain confusion, consolation, and calm, all mingled with wonder and suspense, had come over them—words were of no use at that moment. And Sara went in and took up her guardianship—and slept and waked and watched all night long in the weakness and strength of her youth.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE LIGHT OF COMMON DAY.
Next morning Mr. Brownlow resumed his regular habits, and went down to the office, reassuring the household a little by this step, which seemed a return to ordinary life. He looked wistfully and with a certain solemnity at the closed windows of Mrs. Swayne’s cottage as he passed. The chief point of interest to him was that Sara was there; and yet it was impossible not to think at the same time of the woman who had crossed his path so fatally, and now had been taken out of his way. In one sense she was taken out of his way. It was not to be supposed that the lawyer could look at the situation in which he found himself with any sentimental or superlative resolutions. His mind was quieted out of all the terrors which had at first overwhelmed him. It was no longer ruin that stared him in the face. The mother could have exacted interest and compound interest; the daughter, who was Jack’s betrothed bride, could, of course, be dealt with in a different way. Jack’s sense that he was no longer her lover, but the guardian of her interests—that his business was to win every penny of her fortune for her, and then leave her to its enjoyment—did not, of course, affect Mr. Brownlow. He was thinking of nothing fantastical, nothing exaggerated. Pamela was Jack’s betrothed. She was in Sara’s guardianship. From this day he considered her as a member of his family; and after all the troubles he had undergone, this solution on the whole seemed to Mr. Brownlow a very easy, a very seemly and becoming one. She should have, as Jack’s wife, her mother’s fifty thousand pounds; and when he himself died, every thing except a moderate portion for Sara should go into his son’s hands. It was an arrangement which made his heart ache; for Sara would have to come down from all her grandeur, to become only what her father’s daughter had a right to be in the Masterton house, to have but an humble provision made for her, and to relinquish all her luxurious habits and ambitions. If it had been Jack upon whom such a necessity had fallen, Mr. Brownlow could have borne it; but Sara! Nevertheless it was just and right and necessary. There was nothing else to be done, nothing else to be thought of. And both Sara and her father would have to submit, unless, indeed, Sir Charles Motherwell—Mr. Brownlow’s eye kindled a little as he thought of his late visitor, and then he shook his head sadly in a kind of self-communing. If any thing had come of that, could Sara have been silent on the subject? Would Sir Charles himself have gone away without a sign? Yet every moment since then had been so full of excitement and occupation, that he still retained a hope. In the midst of the awe and agitation attending Mrs. Preston’s death his child could scarcely have paused to tell him of a love-tale. When he entered the familiar office and saw every thing going on just as it had done, Mr. Brownlow felt like a man fallen from the skies. It seemed to him years since he had been there, and he could not but feel a thrill of wonder to find all his papers in their places, and to listen to Mr. Wrinkell’s questions about business matters which seemed to have stood still while his own destiny was getting decided. “Are you still at that point?” he said, almost peevishly. “I should have thought that would have been decided long ago.”
“It is only three days, if you recollect, since I consulted you about it,” Mr. Wrinkell replied, with offended dignity, “and you gave me no distinct answer.” Only three days! It might have been three centuries, for any thing Mr. Brownlow knew.
Then he sat down at his desk and addressed himself very heartily to his business. A mass of work had accumulated of course, and he took it up with an energy he had not felt for ages. He had been working in the dark all this time, working languidly, not knowing who might be the better for it. Now his whole soul was in his occupation; every additional shilling he could make would be so much for his child. More and more as he became accustomed to the thought his mind cleared and courage and steadiness returned to him. It was true that he was at the age when men think of retiring from work, but he was a strong and vigorous man still, in possession of all his powers. Jack would withdraw, would marry, would enter on his independent career, and carry out probably the very programme his father had drawn out for him before that midnight visitor arrived whose appearance had changed every thing. Poor creature, after all she had not changed every thing. She had changed but little. Sara only had lost by her appearance. That was the sting of the whole matter; and Mr. Brownlow applied himself with double energy, with the eager impulse and vigor of a young man, to the work before him. Every thing he could add to his store would be the better for Sara, and he felt that this was motive sufficient for any man worthy of the name.
When it came to be time for luncheon he went out—not to refresh himself with food, for which he had little appetite, but to make a visit which perhaps was a kind of ill-natured relief to him amid the pressure of his many thoughts. He went to Mrs. Fennell’s lodgings to pay one of his generally unwilling but dutiful visits. This time he was not unwilling. He went with an unaffected quietness which was very different from the forced calm of his last appearance there. Mrs. Fennell was seated as usual in her great chair, but she had not on her best cap, and was accordingly cowed and discouraged to begin with; and Nancy, who was with her, made a pretense of leaving the room. “Stay,” said Mr. Brownlow, “I want you. It is best that you too should hear what I am going to say.”
“At your service, sir,” said Nancy, dropping him a defiant courtesy. As for Mrs. Fennell, she had begun to tremble immediately with excitement and curiosity.
“What is it, John Brownlow?” she said. “What’s happened? It’s a sight to see you so soon again. It isn’t for nothing, we may be sure. What do you want of me and Nancy now?”
“I want nothing of you,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I came to tell you something you ought to know. Phœbe Thomson is found, Mrs. Fennell. She came to me the other night.”