‘Or something!’ said Lady William, just as Mrs. Brown had done: ‘that will be still more odd,’ she added, with a laugh. ‘And is she going to do it, Mab? I shall see this woman, then, at last.’
‘No, she is not going to do it, mother. She laughed at the idea. She said, “Lady Macbeth—or something,” just as you did. She is a very strange woman, but I don’t think that you would like her.’
‘Probably not,’ said Lady William. ‘It is, perhaps, unkind to say it, but I am not very fond of the decayed gentlewoman in general. It would serve me right,’ she said, with half a smile and half a sigh, ‘to end like that myself.’
‘But how could that be?’ said Mab. It was one of those questions to which there is no answer possible. Nor did she expect an answer. But it brought a little cloud over Lady William’s brow. Indeed, it was all Lady William could do to keep her face tolerably unclouded, and her conversation as cheerful as usual for Mab’s sake. And this struggle on her mother’s part kept Mab’s unusually serious face from being noticed as it otherwise must have been. After that there were no further questions asked about Mrs. Brown, and Mab went out to her gardening and the many other occupations which filled up her time. But whatever she was doing this heavy question hung upon her mind, and she carried with her the burden that was like Christian’s, yet which she had not, like him, any right to bear. Her duty to the parish was to denounce the woman who ought not, with her mysterious guiltiness, to have the training of the girls of Watcham. And her duty to her penitent was to keep everything jealously within her own breast which had been confided to her, so to speak, under the seal of confession. Mab had, as was natural, a tremendous sense of her responsibility to both, but how she was to reconcile the two was more than she could think of. She determined at last upon a compromise, which was not indeed half sufficient to meet the case, but which was the only thing she could think of. She herself, she concluded, would for the future go constantly to the school, and thus neutralise any evil that might be produced by Mrs. Brown. She would go and watch over the girls, and see that their morals were all right, and that nothing was said or done to lead them astray. By dint of thinking it over the whole afternoon, shutting herself up alone to wrestle with it, refraining even from tea in order that her deliberations might be unbroken—this was the middle course to which Mab attained. She could not betray Mrs. Brown. That was out of the question: and it was also dreadful to think of betraying the parish, which, alas! if it knew what Mab knew, would not continue Mrs. Brown in her place for a single day; but if Mab took it upon herself—her little innocent self—to watch over the girls, to be there early and late, guarding them from every allusion, from every lesson that could hurt them—would not that make up for the silence? She would watch the children as nobody else could watch. She would have eyes like the lynx and ears like those who heard the grass growing. This was what Mab determined upon in the anxiety of her soul.
She had persuaded her mother to go to the entertainment, though it was a dissipation to which Lady William was noways inclined. But Mab, notwithstanding the sad check that had been put upon her by the forenoon’s proceedings, was very anxious about the delights of the evening, which were of a kind unusual in Watcham, where there was so very little going on. A concert was of the rarest occurrence. A little comedy had once been known to be played in the large room of the ‘Blue Boar’ by a strolling company, and, as we are aware, there had been a dance at General FitzStephen’s. But the occasions that occurred in Watcham of putting on a best cap or a flower in your hair and sallying forth in the evening without your bonnet, to meet other persons under the same beatific conditions, were so very rare that nobody wished to miss the curate’s entertainment. There had been very grave and serious questions among the ladies as to the point of costume, some being of opinion that as the entertainment was primarily for the working people, it would be ‘better taste’ on the part of the ladies and gentlemen not to go in evening dress, or at all events to shroud their glories in bonnets on one side, and great-coats on the other. This, however, had been boldly combated by Mrs. Plowden, who maintained that it would be much better for ‘the poor things’ to have the exhilarating spectacle for once in a way of ladies in their evening toilettes, and gentlemen with shirt-fronts that could be seen half a mile off. It would do them good, the Rector’s wife said, to see that the best people were ready to mingle with them thus on a sort of equal terms, coming to enjoy themselves just as the boatmen did. And it was absolutely necessary that the young ladies who were to perform should be arrayed and made to look their best; it would have been very hard upon them to step down from the platform amongst a mass of bonnets, and thus be made conspicuous in the assembly even when they had finished their exertions in its behalf. I don’t think that Mrs. Plowden had the least difficulty in bringing the others to her opinion, and accordingly the front seats in the schoolroom where the performance was to take place, were peopled by a small, and select, but distinguished audience, which rather over-shadowed, it must be allowed, and put out the homely ranks behind, and made the curate gnash his teeth when he saw immediately in front of his presiding chair all the shining shirt-fronts and frizzed or smooth locks, or lace-covered heads of the familiar little society of Watcham. Poor higher classes! They wanted a little amusement to the full as much, or perhaps more, than the boatmen and their wives from Riverside. And, perhaps, had they been at the back and the others in front, Mr. Osborne would not have minded. As it was, perhaps in this as in greater matters all was for the best—for General FitzStephen’s high head prevented the curate from seeing how old George from the landing yawned over the quartette of the violinists from Winwick. Breeding is everything in such cases, for the General was quite as much bored as old George; yet he applauded when it was over (partly in thankfulness for that fact) as if he had never heard anything so beautiful before.
As for Mab, she was able to forget for the moment her interview with Mrs. Brown. Not only was it pleasant to be out in the evening—though only in a white frock high up to the neck, which was in reality a morning dress, but quite enough in Lady William’s opinion for such an entertainment; but the excitement of feeling that she had really a part in the performance through the songs of Emmy and Florence, and the recitation of Jim, enlivened her spirits and raised her courage. The Rectory girls sang two duets, far better in Mab’s opinion than all the other performers, and she felt sure that if Florence, whose voice was so much the strongest, had but had the courage to sing alone—! But this was a suggestion that Florence had crushed at once. It was bad enough to stand up there in face of all these people with Emmy to support her: but alone!
‘Don’t you think it was rather silly of Florry to be so particular,’ whispered Mab, ‘when they have all known her—almost since she was born?’
‘No. I don’t think it was silly,’ said Miss Grey decisively.
‘Oh! but you never think any one silly,’ said Mab.
‘Don’t I!’ said Miss Grey, with a truculence which left all the swearing roughs of Riverside far behind. ‘I know who I think silly,’ said that enraged dove.