“She shall not suffer,” said Mr. Brownlow, with impatience; and he rose and ended the consultation. By degrees a new and yet an old device had stolen into his mind. He had repulsed and shut it out, but it had come back like a pertinacious fairy shedding a curious light over his path. He could not have told whether he most liked or disliked this old-new thought. But he cherished it secretly, and never permitted himself to breathe a word about it to any one. And under its influence it began to seem possible to him that all might be for the best, as people say—that Brownlows might melt away like a vision and yet nobody suffer. Sara was going to Masterton with her father to the old house in which she was born. She had refused Sir Charles and his title, and all the honors and delights he could have given her. Perhaps another kind of reward which she could prize more might be awaiting her. Perhaps, indeed—it was just possible—she might like better to be happy and make every body happy round her, than to have a fine house and a pair of greys. Mr. Brownlow felt that such an idea was almost wicked on his part, but yet it would come, thrilling him with anticipations which were brighter than any visions he had ventured to entertain for many a long year. “Sara is going with me,” he said to every body who spoke to him on the subject. And grew a little irritated when he perceived the blank looks with which every body received the information. He forgot that he had thought it the most dreadful downfall that could overwhelm him once. That was not his opinion now.
Brownlows lost its agitated aspect from the moment when Mr. Brownlow and Jack came out of the library, having finished their consultation. Jack went off, whistling softly, taking three steps at a time, to the drawing-room, where Pamela still lay on the sofa under Sara’s care. Mr. Brownlow remained down stairs, but when he rung for lights the first glance at him satisfied Willis that all was right. Nothing was said, but every body knew that the crisis was over; and in a moment every thing fell, as if by magic, into its usual current. Willis went down to his cellar very quietly and brought the plate out of it, feeling a little ashamed of himself. And though the guests were dismissed, the house regained its composure, its comfort, and almost its gayety. The only thing was that the family had lost a relation, whose daughter had come to live at Brownlows—and were in mourning accordingly—a fact which prevented parties, or any special merry-making, when Christmas came.
Though indeed before Christmas came the little invalid of the party—she whom they all petted, and took care of—began to come out from behind the clouds with the natural elasticity of her youth. Pamela would shut herself up for a whole day now and then, full of remorse and compunction, thinking she had not enough wept. But she was only eighteen—her health was coming back to her—she was surrounded by love and tenderness, and saw before her, daily growing brighter and brighter, all the promises and hopes of a new life. It was not in nature that sorrow should overcome all these sweet influences. She brightened like a star over which the clouds come and go, and at every break shone sweeter, and got back the roses to her cheeks, and the light to her eyes. It was a pretty sight to watch her coming out of the shadows, and so Jack thought, who was waiting for her and counting the weeks. When the ice was bearing on Dewsbury Mere—which was rather late that year, for it was in the early spring that the frosts were hardest—he took her by the crisp frozen paths across the park to see the skaters. The world was all white, and Pamela stood in her mourning, distinct against the snow, leaning on Jack’s arm. As they stood and looked on, the carrier’s cart came lumbering along toward the Mere. Hobson walked before cracking his whip, with his red comforter, which was very effective in the frosty landscape; and the breath of the horses rose like steam into the chill air. Pamela and Jack looked at each other. They said both together, “You remember?” Little more than a year before they had looked at each other there for the first time. The carrier’s cart had been coming and going daily, and was no wonder to behold; and Hobson could not have been more surprised had the coin spun down upon his head out of the open sky, than he was when Jack tossed a sovereign at him as he passed. “For bringing me my little wife,” he said; but this was not in Hobson’s, but in Pamela’s ear.
CHAPTER XLV.
CONCLUSION.
Within six months all these changes had actually taken place, occasioning a greater amount of gossip and animadversion in the county than any other modern event has been known to do. Even that adventure of young Keppel’s of Ridley, when he ran away with the heiress, was nothing to it. Running away with heiresses, if you only can manage it, is a natural enough proceeding. But when a family melts somehow out of the position it has held for many years, and I glides uncomplainingly into a different one, and gives no distinct explanation, the neighborhood has naturally reason to feel aggrieved. There was nothing sudden or painful about the change. For half a year or so they all continued very quietly at Brownlows, seeing few people by reason of Pamela’s mourning, yet not rejecting the civilities of their friends; and then Pamela and Jack were married. Nobody knew very distinctly who she was. It was a pretty name, people said, and not a common name—not like the name of a girl he had picked up in the village, as some others suggested; and if that had been the case, was it natural that his father and sister should have taken up his bride so warmly, and received her into their house? Yet why should they have received her into their house? Surely she must have some friends. When the astounding events which followed became known, the county held its breath, and not without reason. As soon as the stir of the wedding was over, and the young people departed, it became known suddenly one morning that Mr. Brownlow and his daughter had driven down quietly in the carriage with the greys for the last time, and had settled themselves—heaven knew why!—in the house at Masterton for good. Brownlows was not to be sold: it was to be Jack’s habitation when he came home, or in the mean time, while he was away, it might be let if a satisfactory tenant should turn up. There was no house in the county more luxuriously fitted up or more comfortable; and many people invented friends who were in want of a house simply in order to have an excuse for going over it, and investigating all its details, unsubdued by the presence of any of the owners. And Sara Brownlow had gone to Masterton!—she, the young princess, for whom nothing was too good—who had taken all the dignities of her position as mistress of her father’s house so naturally—and who was as little like a Masterton girl, shut up in an old-fashioned town house, as can be conceived. How was she to bear it? Why should Jack have a residence which was so manifestly beyond his means and beyond his wants? Why should Mr. Brownlow deprive himself, at his age—a man still in the vigor and strength of life—of the handsome house and style of living he had been used to? It was a subject very mysterious to the neighborhood. For a long time no little assemblage of people could get together anywhere near without a discussion of these circumstances; and yet there was no fuss made about the change, and none of the parties concerned had a word of complaint or lamentation to say.
But when the two, who thus exiled themselves out of their paradise, were in the carriage together driving away after all the excitements of the period—after having seen Jack and his bride go forth into the world from their doors only two days before—Mr. Brownlow’s heart suddenly misgave him. They were rolling out of the familiar gates at the moment, leaving old Betty dropping her courtesy at the roadside. It was difficult to keep from an involuntary glance across the road to Mrs. Swayne’s cottage. Was it possible to believe that all this was over forever, and a new world begun? He looked at Sara in all her spring bravery—as bright, as fearless, as full of sweet presumption and confidence as ever—nestled into the corner of the carriage, which seemed her natural position, and casting glances of involuntary supervision and patronage around her, as became the queen of the place. He looked at her, and thought of the house in the High Street, and his heart misgave him. How could she bear it? Had she not miscalculated her strength?
“Sara,” he said, taking her hand in his, as he sat by her side, “this will be a hard trial for you—you don’t know how hard it will be.”
Sara looked round at him, having been busy with very different thoughts. “What will be a hard trial?” she said. “Leaving Brownlows? oh, yes! especially if it is let; but that can only be temporary, you know, papa. Jack and Pamela don’t mean to stay away forever.”
“But your reign is over forever, my poor child,” said Mr. Brownlow; and he clasped her hand between his, and patted and caressed it. “When Pamela comes back it will be a very different matter. You are saying farewell, my darling, to all your past life.”