“We have nothing in our hands,” said Sara, indignantly—“even I, though papa is awfully good to me. I don’t mean to speak slang, but he is awfully good, you know; and what does it matter? I daren’t go anywhere by myself, or do any thing that every body else doesn’t do. And as for Fanny, she would not so much as take a walk if she thought you did not like it.”
“Fanny is a very good girl,” said Mr. Hardcastle, with a certain melting in his voice.
“We are all very good girls,” said Sara; “but what is the use of it? We have to do every thing we are told just the same; and have old Lady Motherwell, for example, sitting upon one, whenever she has a chance. And then you say we have the world in our hands! If you were to let us do a little as we pleased, and be happy our own way—”
“Then you have changed your mind,” said Mr. Brownlow. He was smiling, but yet underneath that he was very serious, not able to refrain from giving in his mind a thousand times more weight than they deserved to his daughter’s light and random words, though he knew well enough they were random and light. “I thought you were a dutiful child, who would do what I asked you, even in the most important transaction of your life—so you said once, at least.”
“Any thing you asked me, papa?” cried Sara, with a sudden change of countenance. “Yes, to be sure! any thing! Not because I am dutiful, but because—you are surely all very stupid to-day—because— Don’t you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” said young Powys, who all this time had not spoken a word. Perhaps in her impatience her eye had fallen upon him; perhaps it was because he could not help it; but however that might be, the monosyllable sent a little electric shock round the table. As for the speaker himself, he had no sooner uttered it than he reddened like a girl up to his very hair. Sara started a little, and became suddenly silent, looking at the unexpected interpreter she had got; and as for the Rector, he stared with the air of a man who asks himself, What next?
The sudden pause thus made in the conversation by his inadvertent reply, confused the young man most of all. He felt it down to the very tips of his fingers. It went tingling through him, as if he were the centre of the electricity—as indeed he was. His first impulse, to get up and run away, of course could not be yielded to; and as luncheon was over by this time, and the servants gone, and the business of the meal over, it was harder than ever to find any shelter to retire behind. Despair at last, however, gave him a little courage. “I think, sir,” he said, turning to Mr. Brownlow, “if you have no commands for me, that I had better go. Mr. Wrinkell will want to know your opinion; unless, indeed—”
“I am not well enough for work,” said Mr. Brownlow, “and you may as well take a holiday as you are here. It will do you good. Go and look at the horses, and take a stroll in the park. Of course you are fond of the country. I don’t think there is much to see in the house—”
“If Mr. Powys would like to see the Claude, I will take him into the drawing-room,” said Sara, with all her original benignity. Powys, to tell the truth, did not very well know whether he was standing on his head, or on the other and more ordinary extremity. He was confounded by the grace showed to him. And being a backwoodsman by nature, and knowing not much more than Masterton in the civilized world, the fact is that at first, before he considered the matter, he had not an idea what a Claude was. But that made no difference; he was ready to have gone to Pandemonium if the same offer had been made to show the way. Not that he had fallen in love at first sight with the young mistress of Brownlows. He was too much dazzled, too much surprised for that; but he had understood what she meant, and the finest little delicate thread of rapport had come into existence between them. As for Sara’s condescension and benignity, he liked it. Her brother would have driven him frantic with a tithe of the affability which Sara thought her duty under the circumstances; but from her it was what it ought to be. The young man did not think it was possible that such a privilege was to be accorded to him, but he looked at her gratefully, thanking her with his eyes. And Sara looked at him, and for an instant saw into those eyes, and became suddenly sensible that it was not her father’s clerk, but a man, a young man, to whom she had made this obliging offer. It was not an idea that had entered her head before; he was a clerk whom Mr. Brownlow chose to bring in to luncheon. He might have been a hundred for any thing Sara cared. Now, all at once it dawned upon her that the clerk was a man, and young, and also well-looking, a discovery which filled her with a certain mixture of horror and amusement. “Well, how was I to know?” she said to herself, although, to be sure, she had been sitting at the same table with him for about an hour.
“Certainly, if Powys likes, let him see the Claude; but I should think he would prefer the horses,” said Mr. Brownlow; and then Sara rose and shook out her long skirt, and made a little sign to the stranger to follow her. When the two young creatures disappeared, Mr. Hardcastle, who had been staring at them, open-mouthed, turned round aghast and pale with consternation upon his friend.