“Why do you come in like that, without knocking, when I’ve got some one with me?” said Mrs. Fennell, with tremulous wrath. “It’s like a common maid-of-all-work, that knows no better. I have told you that before.”
“It’s seldom as one of the family is here,” said Nancy, “or I’d think on’t. When things happen so rare, folks forgets. Often and often I say as you’re left too much alone; but what with the lady yesterday and Mr. Brownlow to-day—”
“What lady yesterday?” cried Mrs. Fennell. “What do you know about a lady yesterday? Who ever said there was a lady yesterday? If you speak up to me bold like that, I’ll send you away.”
“Oh, it’s nothing to me,” said Nancy. “You know as I was out. They most always comes when I’m out. Fine folks is not partial to me; but if you’re a-going to be better looked to, and your own flesh and blood to come and see you, at your age, it will be good news to me.”
“My own flesh and blood don’t think a great deal about an old woman,” said Mrs. Fennell, swallowing the bait. “I’m little good to any body now. I’ve seen the day when it was different. And I can still be of use to them that’s kind to me,” she said, with significance. Mr. Brownlow sat and listened to all this, and it smote him with disgust. He got up, and though it cost him an effort to do so, held out his hand to the old woman in her chair.
“Tell me, or tell Jack, if you want anything,” he said. “I can’t stay now; and if any thing occurs let me know,” he added. He took no notice of the vehement shaking of her hand as she turned toward Nancy. He looked at Nancy again, though he did not like her. She at least was not to be in the conspiracy, and he had a satisfaction in showing that at least he was not afraid of her. “If there is any thing that can make your mistress more comfortable,” he said, sternly, “I have already desired you to let me know; and you understand that she is not to be bullied either by you or any one else—good-day.”
“Bullied!” said Nancy, in consternation; but he did not condescend to look at her again. He went away silently, like a man in a dream. Up to this moment he had been able to doubt. It was poor comfort, yet there was some comfort in it. When the evidence looked the most clear and overwhelming, he had still been able to say to himself that he had no direct proof, that it was not his business, that still it might all be a mistake. Now that last standing-ground was taken from under his feet. Mrs. Thomson’s heir had made herself known, she had told her name and her parentage, and claimed kindred with his mother-in-law, who, if she had been an impostor, could have convicted her; and the old woman, on the contrary, had been convinced. It was a warm summer day, but Mr. Brownlow shivered with cold as he walked along the familiar streets. If she had but come twenty years, five-and-twenty years ago! If he had but followed his own instincts of right and wrong, and left this odious money untouched! It was for Bessie’s sake he had used it, to make his marriage practicable, and now the whirligig of time had brought about its revenges. Bessie’s daughter would have to pay for her mother’s good fortune. He felt himself swing from side to side as he went along, so confused was he with the multitude of his thoughts, and recovered himself only with a violent effort. The decisive moment had come. It had come too soon—before the time was out at which Phœbe Thomson would be harmless. He could not put himself off any longer with the pretext that he was not sure. And young Powys in the office, whom he had taken in, partly in kindness and partly with evil intent, sat under his eyes calculating the amount of that frightful interest which would ruin him. Mr. Brownlow passed several of his acquaintances in the street without noticing them, but not without attracting notice. He was so pale that the strangers who passed turned round to look at him. No farther delay—no putting off—no foolish excuses to himself. Whatever had to be done must be done quickly. Unconsciously he had quickened his pace, and went on at a speed which few men could have kept up with. He was strong, and his excitement gave him new strength. It must be done, one thing or another; there was no way of escaping the alternative now.
There are natures which are driven wild and frantic by a great excitement, and there are others which are calmed and steadied in face of an emergency. Mr. Brownlow entered his private office with the feeling of a man who was about to die there, and might never come out alive. He did not answer any one—even waved Wrinkell away, who was coming to him with a bag of papers. “I have some urgent private business,” he said; “take every thing to my son, and don’t let me be disturbed.” He said this in the office, so that every one heard him; and though he looked at nobody, he could see Powys look up from his calculations, and Jack come in some surprise to the open door of his room. They both heard him, both the young men, and wondered. Jack, too, was dark and self-absorbed, engaged in a struggle with himself. And they looked at the master, the father, and said to themselves, in their youthful folly, that it was easy for him to talk of not being disturbed. What could he have to trouble him—he who could do as he liked, and whom nobody interfered with? Mr. Brownlow, for his part, saw them both without looking at them, and a certain bitter smile at his son’s reserve and silence came to him inwardly. Jack thought it a great matter to be checked in his boyish love-making; while, good heavens! how different were the burdens, how much harder the struggles of which the boy was ignorant! Mr. Brownlow went in and shut the door. He was alone then—shut out from every body. No one could tell or even guess, the conflict in his mind—not even his young adversary outside, who was reckoning up the compound interest. He paused a little, and sat down, and bent his head on his hands. Was he praying? He could not have told what it was. It was not prayer in words. If it had been, it would have been a prayer for strength to do wrong. That was what he was struggling after—strength to shut out all compunctions—to be steadily cruel, steadily false. Could God have granted him that? but his habits were those of a good man all the same. He paused when he was in perplexity, and was silent, and collected his thoughts, not without a kind of mute customary appeal; and then flung his hands away from his face, and started to his feet with a thrill of horror. “Help me to sin!” was that what it had been in his heart to say?
He spent the whole day in the office, busy with very hard and heavy work. He went minutely into all those calculations which he supposed young Powys to be making. And when he had put down the last cipher, he opened all his secret places, took out all his memorandums, every security he possessed, all his notes of investments, the numberless items which composed his fortune. He worked at his task like a clerk making up ordinary accounts, yet there was something in his silent speed, his wrapt attention, the intense exactness of every note, which was very different from the steady indifference of daily work. When he had put every thing down, and made his last calculation, he laid the two papers together on his desk. A little glimmering of hope had, perhaps, awakened in him, from the very fact of doing something. He laid them down side by side, and the little color that had come into his face vanished out of it in an instant. If there had been but a little over! If he could have felt that he had something left, he might still, at the eleventh hour, have had strength to make the sacrifice; but the figures which stared him in the face meant ruin. Restitution would cost him every thing—more than every thing. It would leave him in debt; it would mortgage even that business which the Brownlows of Masterton had maintained so long. It would plunge his children down, down in an instant out of the place they had been educated to fill. It would take from himself the means of being as he was—one of the benefactors of the county, foremost in all good works. Good works! when it was with the inheritance of the widow and the orphans that he did them. All this came before him as clearly as if it had been written in lines of light—an uneducated, imprudent woman—a creature who had run away from her friends, abandoned her mother—a boy who was going to the bad—a family unaccustomed to wealth, who would squander and who would not enjoy it. And, on the other hand, himself who had increased it, used it well, served both God and man with it. The struggle was long, and it was hard, but in the end the natural result came. His half-conscious appeal was answered somehow, though not from on high. The strength came to him which he had asked for—strength to do wrong. But all the clerks started, and Mr. Wrinkell himself took off his spectacles, and seriously considered whether he should send for a doctor, when in the evening, just before the hour for leaving the office, Mr. Brownlow suddenly opened the door and called young Powys into his private room.