Mr Brown’s house was an old house in the middle of the town. The offices were in the lower floor, occupying one side of the building. On the other side of the wide old-fashioned hall was his dining-room. There he sat all by himself upon this agitating night. It was a large, lofty, barely-furnished room, with wainscoted walls, and curious stiff panelling, and a high mantel-shelf which he, though a tall man, could scarcely reach with his arm. It was dimly lighted, as well as barely furnished—altogether an inhuman, desert place—the poorest though the grandest of all we have yet looked into in Carlingford. Mr Brown was not sensible of its inhospitable aspect; he was used to it, and that was enough. It occurred to him as little to criticise his house as to criticise his manners. Thus they were, and thus they would continue; at least he had always believed so till to-night.
He sat in his easy-chair with his feet on the fender, and a little table at his elbow with his wine. As long as there was anything in his glass he sipped it by habit, without being aware of what he was doing; but when the glass was empty, though he had two or three times raised it empty to his lips, he was too much absorbed in his thoughts to replenish it. He was not by any means a handsome man; and he was five-and-forty or thereabouts, and had a habit of making portentous faces, when anyway specially engaged in thought; so that, on the whole, it was not a highly attractive or interesting figure which reclined back in the crimson chair, and stretched its slippered feet to the fire, sole inmate of the dim, spacious, vacant room. He was thinking over his new position with profound disgust and perplexity. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the subject lured him on, and drew out into stretches of imagination far beyond his wont;—hunting all the world over after Phœbe Thomson! But, after all, that was only a preliminary step; he was required only to use reasonable means, and for three years. If she turned up, there was an end of it; if she did not turn up—— Here Mr Brown sprang up hurriedly and assumed the favourite position of Englishmen in front of his fire. There, all glittering in the distance, rose up, solid and splendid, an appearance which few men could see without emotion—twenty thousand pounds! It was not life and death to him, as it was to poor Mrs Christian. It did not make all the difference between sordid want and comfortable existence; but you may well believe it did not appear before the lawyer’s eyes without moving him into a considerable degree of excitement. Such a fairy apparition had never appeared before in that cold, spacious, uninhabited room. Involuntarily to himself, Mr Brown saw his house expand, his life open out, his condition change. Roseate lights dropped into the warming atmosphere which had received that vision; the fairy wand waved through the dim air before him in spite of all his sobriety. The wiles of the enchantress lured John Brown as effectually as if he had not been five-and-forty, an old bachelor, and an attorney; and after half an hour of these slowly-growing, half-conscious, half-resisted thoughts, any chance that had brought the name of the dead woman’s lost daughter to his memory, would have called forth a very different “confound Phœbe Thomson!” from that which burst from his troubled lips in the house in Grove Street. Possibly it was some such feeling which roused him up a moment after, when the great cat came softly purring to his feet and rubbed against his slippers. Mr Brown started violently, thrust puss away, flung himself back into his chair, grew very red, and murmured something about “an ass!” ashamed to detect himself in his own vain imaginations. But that sudden waking up did not last. After he had filled his glass and emptied it—after he had stirred his fire, and made a little noise, with some vague idea of dispelling the spell he was under—the fairy returned and retook possession under a less agreeable aspect. Suppose he were to be enriched, what was to become of the poor Christians? They were not very near relations, and the old woman had a right to leave her money where she liked. Still there was a human heart in John Brown’s bosom. Somehow that little episode in the street returned to his recollection; Bessie running across, light and noiseless, with her message. How young the creature must be after all, to have so much to do. Poor little Bessie! she had not only lost her chance of being a great fortune, and one of the genteel young ladies of Carlingford, but she had lost her chance of the doctor, and his new house and rising practice. Shabby fellow! to leave the pretty girl he was fond off, because she was a good girl, and was everything to her old father and mother. “I wonder will they say that’s my fault too?” said John Brown to himself; and stumbled up to his feet again on the stimulus of that thought, with a kind of sheepish, not unpleasant embarrassment, and a foolish half-smile upon his face. Somehow at that moment, looking before him, as he had done so many hundred times standing on his own hearthrug, it occurred to him all at once what a bare room this was that he spent his evenings in—what an inhuman, chilly, penurious place! scarcely more homelike than that bit of open street, across which Bessie came tripping this afternoon, wanting to speak to him. Nobody wanted to speak to him here. No wonder he had a threatening of rheumatism last winter. What a cold, wretched barn of a room! He could not help wondering to himself whether the drawing-room was any better. In the new start his long-dormant imagination had taken, John Brown actually shivered in the moral coldness of his spacious, lonely apartment. In his mind he daresaid that the Christians looked a great deal more comfortable in that little box of theirs, with that poor little girl working, and teaching, and keeping all straight. What a fool that young doctor was! what if he did work a little harder to make the old people an allowance? However, it was no business of his. With a sigh of general discontent Mr Brown pulled his bell violently, and had the fire made up, and asked for his tea. His tea! he never touched it when it came, but sat pshawing and humphing at it, making himself indignant over that fool of a young doctor. And what if these poor people, sour and sore after their misfortune, should think that this too was his fault
CHAPTER III.
Next morning Mr Brown, with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders up to his ears as usual, went down at his ordinary rapid pace to old Mrs Thomson’s house. Nancy had locked the house-door, which, like an innocent almost rural door as it was, opened from without. She was upstairs, very busy in a most congenial occupation—turning out the old lady’s wardrobe, and investigating the old stores of lace and fur and jewellery. She knew them pretty well by heart before; but now that, according to her idea, they were her own, everything naturally acquired a new value. She had laid them out in little heaps, each by itself, on the dressing-table; a faintly-glittering row of old rings and brooches, most of them entirely valueless, though Nancy was not aware of that. On the bed—the bed where two days ago that poor old pallid figure still lay in solemn ownership of the “property” around it—Nancy had spread forth her mistress’s ancient boas and vast muffs, half a century old; most of them were absolutely dropping to pieces; but as long as they held together with any sort of integrity, Nancy was not the woman to lessen the number of her possessions. The bits of lace were laid out upon the old sofa, each at full length. With these delightful accumulations all round her, Nancy was happy. She had entered, as she supposed, upon an easier and more important life. Mistress of the empty house and all its contents, she carried herself with an air of elation and independence which she had never ventured to display before. No doubt had ever crossed her mind on the subject. She had taken it for granted that the expulsion of the Christians meant only her own triumph. She had even taken credit, both to herself and other people, for greater guiltiness than she really had incurred. The will was not her doing, though Mrs Christian said so and Nancy was willing to believe as much; but she was glad to be identified as the cause of it, and glad to feel that she was the person who would enjoy the benefit. She was in this holiday state of mind, enjoying herself among her supposed treasures, when she was interrupted by the repeated and imperative demands for entrance made by Mr Brown at the locked door.
Nancy went down to open it, but not in too great a hurry. She was rather disposed to patronise the attorney. She put on her white apron, and went to the door spreading it down with a leisurely hand. To Nancy’s surprise and amazement, Mr Brown plunged in without taking any notice of her. He went into the parlour, looked all round, then went up-stairs, three steps at a time, into the best parlour, uncomfortably near the scene of Nancy’s operations. There was the old cabinet for which he had been looking. When he saw it he called to her to look here. Nancy, who had followed him close, came forward immediately. He was shaking the door of the cabinet to see if it was locked. It was a proceeding of which Nancy did not approve.
“I suppose this is where she kept her papers,” said Mr Brown; “get me the keys. I want to see what’s to be found among her papers touching this daughter of hers. You had better bring me all the keys. Make haste, for I have not any time to lose.”
“Missis never kept any papers there,” said Nancy, alarmed and a little anxious. “There’s the best china tea-set and the silver service—that’s all you’ll find there.”
“Bring me the keys, however,” said Mr Brown. “Where did she keep her papers, eh? You know all about her, I suppose. Do you know anything about Phœbe Thomson, that I’ve got to hunt up? She was Mrs Thomson’s daughter, I understand. What caused her to leave her mother? I suppose you know. What is she? How much can you tell me about her?”
“As much as anybody living,” said Nancy, too well pleased to divert him from his inquiries after the keys. “I was but a girl when it happened; but I remember it like yesterday. She went off—missis never liked to have it mentioned,” said Nancy, coming to a dead stop.