‘Neither do I,’ said Mrs. Brown; ‘but judging by what I know of your character, Miss Pakenham, that is what I should expect you to do.’
This happened on the morning of the day after Leo’s chase in the rain. Mab went home very soberly when the children were dismissed for dinner and in a very uncertain state of mind. She did not know how to take Mrs. Brown’s apologue, which already was being circulated through the village in a dozen different versions as a thing which Miss Mab had actually done, until it came to the ears of White, the baker, who contradicted it indignantly, and declared that he’d give a stale loaf as soon as look at it if the children were starving; but let a man off as stole it because he come and offered to pay up after was what he wouldn’t never do.
In the meantime Leo had been turning over in his mind that idea of Mrs. Brown, the schoolmistress. At first it amused him to think that so harmless a visitor to the servants’ hall might have been the object of his very unnecessary pursuit, and in this sense he laughed at the situation, which was so ludicrous, and longed to cross over to the cottage in the rain, when he left the Rectory, to make Lady William the partaker of so good a joke. But as he drove home in Jim’s clothes and the sober Watcham fly, which Mrs. Plowden, in her motherly care, had ordered for him, a different view suddenly occurred to Leo. The joke was good, but not good enough to last out that slow drive through the deep dark and the falling rain. It occurred to him as he thought of it that a visitor to the servants’ hall might, indeed, be disconcerted by the curiosity of the master of the house, but would not, unless she had some very dishonest meaning, turn back and fly. Why should the schoolmistress, probably acquainted with the housekeeper and entertaining a very good opinion of herself, fly from Leo? There was no reason in the world why she should fly. She would probably have quickened her steps, and arrived at the little side entrance puffing and blowing, but chiefly with indignation, and given very warmly her opinion of the young master who spied upon the back-door visitors. But to turn back at the sight of him and get herself out of the way meant something more than a respectable visit to the housekeeper. What did it mean? A village schoolmistress was not one to visit the young maids, or get them into mischief; but why, why did she turn and flee? It was impossible to assign a sufficient reason for this to himself.
And then there was suddenly shot into his mind, as our best intuitions come, suddenly and with a sharp shock—almost a pang—the question, Who was the schoolmistress? Artémise was nothing if not a woman of variety. He had himself known her go through the most extraordinary transformation; one time dazzling in splendour, the next almost a beggar. Why should not she herself be the schoolmistress? There could be no such concealment, no such unlikely place to look for her, as in the parish school of Watcham. There she would be at his mother’s very door, accessible on every occasion, ever within call. He had thought it scarcely possible that she could come constantly from London and disappear again unseen; but if she were in Watcham, at hand, in such a place, where nobody could think of looking for her, the difficulty would disappear. And she was an excellent actress; a woman to take anybody in, not to say an unsophisticated and artless company like the Rector and his churchwardens. He could scarcely help smiling to himself in the dark as he suddenly thought of the perfect representation of a model schoolmistress which Artémise would get up for the edification of the authorities. No schoolmistress in the world was ever so excellent a type of the class as Artémise would make herself look—her voice, her gestures, her demeanour would be all perfect. And she would have the satisfaction of being perfectly safe, for who would think of looking for her there?
But then there were the ladies, who were different. Would she take in the ladies, too? Would not they suspect the representation to be too complete? And then Lady William—Lady William could not have been deceived. She must have recognised at once the woman of whom she was in search. Leo did not know Lady William’s peculiarity about the parish. He was aware that Mab knew everybody and all their circumstances, and it did not occur to him that her mother would hold apart. This seemed to cut the ground from under his feet again. But he determined to see for himself next day who the schoolmistress was.
Next day, however, was a half-holiday, and he did not reach the school till the afternoon, when all the children were dispersed and the house shut up. Mrs. Brown, he was informed at the nearest cottage, where it appeared her little maid-servant lived, had gone away for the afternoon, so that his inquiries made no further progress that day. He went to tell his adventure to Lady William, and, if not to suggest this solution, at least to ask what she knew of Mrs. Brown. But Lady William also was out of doors, and nothing more was to be done. He hesitated whether he should not go to the Rectory to make a call of thanks, and to see (perhaps) if Emmy Plowden resembled her aunt as much by daylight as she had done in the unusually favourable circumstances of last night. But this intention he did not carry out. Unfortunately for romance, Leo was so ungrateful as to recall what he called the bourgeois dinner, the drab-coloured comfort, the petty little anxieties and cares (chiefly on his own account) of the Rectory party, with more amusement than admiration, though with a compunction, too. Kind excellent people! How abominable it was to laugh at them! But his laughter was not checked by the compunction—it only gave a certain piquancy to all that was ludicrous in the picture.
The third person whose mind was full of Mrs. Brown was Jim Plowden. He had seen her little of late, partly that the many calls Mr. Osborne made upon him left him less time for those strolls about the village, which had ended so often in the ‘Blue Boar,’ but sometimes, to his advantage, in the schoolhouse; partly because, now that the evenings were so much lighter, he could not go there unseen. This reason had acted with the others in the partial reformation of Jim. It was scarcely possible to go into the ‘Blue Boar’ in the lingering daylight while all the village folk were about. Had he been altogether uninterrupted in his former habits, it is possible that by this time he might not have cared. But Mr. Osborne’s warm and exacting friendship had begun with the lengthening days, and after an interval, even of a week or two, such a hindrance told. On this occasion, however, Jim felt that he must risk a little danger for the sake of a woman who had been kind to him, who had certainly amused him, and, he sometimes began to think, had done him good. It could be nothing to her advantage to have a visitor such as he was. She had done it, he thought vaguely, out of kindness, and now he would risk something for kindness too; and then he could always say he had brought a message about the school from his father, or Florence, who took an interest in the school, or Mab, or somebody. Fortified by his good intention he walked into the schoolmistress’s house about six o’clock that evening when all the people were about, several of whom stared, he could see, at Mrs. Brown’s visitor—in which, however, I need not say, Jim deceived himself, for the village people were already aware that he visited Mrs. Brown, as well as that he visited the ‘Blue Boar,’ and held these secrets in store against the time when they might be of use either for or against the Rector’s son. He went in, however, boldly, to the surprise of Mrs. Brown, who did not expect him, and who was engaged in some sort of operation that looked very much like packing. She invited him to come in, and cleared one of the chairs from a number of miscellaneous articles with which it was covered, and which she was putting away.
‘You are not—going on a journey?’ he said, alarmed.
‘Oh no, not that I know of; but you know, Mr. Jim, a woman in such a humble position as mine, with so many people to please, has but an uncertain tenure. I am putting some old things in order, so that should anything untoward happen——’
‘But I hear nothing except praise,’ said Jim; ‘they say no one ever kept the school in such order, or the children so bright, or——’