“You strain Mr. Powys’s powers too far,” said Jack. “You can not expect him to explain every thing to you from the vicar’s principles upward—or downward. Mr. Powys is only mortal, I presume, like the rest of us. He can’t know every thing in heaven or earth.”
“I know a little of that,” said Powys. “Out there we are Jacks-of-all-trades. I once made the designs for a church myself. Miss Brownlow might think it original, but I don’t think she would admire it. We have to think less of beauty than of use.”
“As if use and beauty could not go together,” said Sara, with a little indignation. “Please don’t say those things that every body says. Then you can draw if you have made designs? and I want some cottages so much. Papa, you promised me these cottages; and now Mr. Powys will come and help me with the plans.”
“There is a certain difference between a cottage and a church,” said Mr. Brownlow; but he made no opposition to the suggestion, to the intense amazement and indignation of Jack.
“You forget that Mr. Powys’s time is otherwise engaged,” he said; “people can’t be Jacks-of-all-trades here.”
Mr. Brownlow gave his son a warning glance, and Sara, who had been very patient, could bear it no longer.
“Why are you so disagreeable, Jack?” she said; “nobody was speaking to you. It was to Mr. Powys I was speaking. He knows best whether he will help me or not.”
“Oh, it was to Mr. Powys you were speaking!” said Jack. “I am a very unimportant person, and I am sorry to have interposed.”
Then there came a very blank disagreeable pause. Powys felt that offense was meant, and his spirit rose. But at the same time it was utterly impossible to take offense; and he sat still and tried to appear unconscious, as people do before whom the veil of family courtesy is for a moment blown aside. There are few things which are more exquisitely uncomfortable. He had to look as if he did not observe any thing; and he had to volunteer to say something to cover the silence, and found it very hard to make up his mind as to what he ought to say.
Perhaps Jack was a little annoyed at himself for his freedom of speech, for he said nothing farther that was disagreeable, until he found that his father had ordered the dog-cart to take the visitor back to Masterton. When he came out in the summer twilight, and found the mare harnessed for such an ignoble purpose, his soul was hot within him. If it had been any other horse in the stable—but that his favorite mare should carry the junior clerk down to his humble dwelling-place, was bitterness to Jack. He stood and watched in a very uncomfortable sort of way, with his hands in his pockets, while Powys took his leave. The evening was as lovely as the day had been, and Sara too had come out, and stood on the steps, leaning on her father’s arm. “Shall you drive, sir?” the groom had asked, with a respect which sprang entirely from his master’s cordiality. It was merely a question of form, for the man expected nothing but a negative; but Powys’s countenance brightened up. He held out his hands for the reins with a readiness which perhaps savored more of transatlantic freedom than ought to have been the case; but then he had been deprived of all such pleasures for so long. “Good heavens!” cried Jack, “Tomkins, what do you mean? It’s the bay mare you have in harness. He can’t drive her. If she’s lamed, or if she lames you—”