“I tell you I’m not agoing to leave!” screamed Nancy. “To leave?—me!—no, not for all the upstarts in Carlingford, if they was doubled and tripled. My missis meant me to stay here commforable all my days. She meant me to have a girl and make myself commforable. Many and many’s the time she’s said so.”
“But she did not say so in the will,” said the inexorable executor; “and so out you must go, and that very shortly. Now don’t say anything. It is no use fighting with me. You’ll be well treated if you leave directly and quietly; otherwise, you shan’t have anything. The other keys, please. Now mind what I say. You’re quite able to make a noise and a disturbance, but you’re not able to resist me. You shall have time to make your preparations and look out another home for yourself; but take care you don’t compel me to use severe measures—that’s enough.”
“But I won’t!—not if you drag me over the stones. I won’t go. I’ll speak to Mr Curtis,” cried the unfortunate Nancy.
“Pshaw!” said John Brown. Mr Curtis was the other attorney in Carlingford, the one whom probably Mrs Christian had in her mind when she threatened him with her solicitor. He laughed to himself angrily as he went down-stairs. If he was to undertake this troublesome business, at least he was not going to be hampered by a parcel of furious women. When he had locked up everything and was leaving the house, Nancy threw open an upper window and threw a malediction after him. “You’ll never find her! It’ll go back to them as it belongs to,” shouted Nancy. He smiled to himself again as he turned away. Was it possible that John Brown began to think it might be as well if he never did find her? The prophecy certainly was not unpleasant to him, though poor Nancy meant it otherwise. Mr Brown hurried up the monotonous side of Grove Street, we are afraid not without a little private exhilaration in the thought that Phœbe Thomson was not unlike the proverbial needle in the bundle of hay. The chances were she was dead years ago; and though he would neither lose a minute in beginning, nor leave any means unused in pursuing the search for her, it was certain he would not be inconsolable if he never heard any more of Phœbe Thomson. Doubtless he would not have acknowledged as much in words, and did not even have any express confidences with himself on the subject, lest his own mind might have been shocked by the disclosure of its involuntary sentiment. Still he took an interest in Mrs Thomson’s bequest, greater than he took in the properties intrusted to him by his other clients. He could not help himself. He felt affectionately interested in that twenty thousand pounds.
But as he came up to it, John Brown remembered, with a little interest, that spot of the quiet street where Bessie, yesterday, ran across to speak to him. He could not help recalling her appearance as she approached him, though young girls were greatly out of his way. Poor Bessie! The baker’s cart occupied at that moment the spot which Bessie had crossed; and one of the Carlingford ladies was leaving the door of the Christians’ little house. Mr Brown, though no man was less given to colloquies with his acquaintances in the street, crossed over to speak to her. He could not help being interested in everything about that melancholy little house, nor feeling that the very sight of it was a reproach to his thoughts. Poor Bessie! there she stood yesterday in her black frock—the light-footed, soft-voiced creature—not much more than a child beside the middle-aged old bachelor who could find it in his heart to be harsh to her. Across that very spot he passed hastily, with many compunctions in the mind which had been roused so much out of its usual ways of thinking by the events and cogitations of the last four-and-twenty hours. The lady to whom he paid such a marked token of respect was quite flattered and excited to meet him. He was the hero of the day at Carlingford. The last account of this extraordinary affair was doubtless to be had from himself.
“You’ve been at the Christians’. I suppose you were there for some purpose so early in the morning,” said the abrupt Mr Brown, after the necessary salutations were over.
“Yes—but I am a very early person,” said the lady. “Oh, forgive me. I know quite well you don’t care to hear what sort of a person I am; but really, Mr Brown, now that you are quite the hero of the moment yourself, do let me congratulate you. They say there is not a chance of finding this Phœbe Thomson. Some people even say she is a myth and never existed; and that it was only a device of the old lady to give her an excuse for leaving you the money. Dear me! did you ask me a question? I forget. I am really so interested to see you”
“I like an answer when it’s practicable,” said the lawyer. “I said I supposed you were about some business at Miss Christian’s house?”
“I must answer you this time, mustn’t I, or you won’t talk to me any longer?” said the playful interlocutor, whom John Brown could have addressed in terms other than complimentary. “Yes, poor thing, I’ve been at Miss Christian’s, and on a disagreeable business too, in the present circumstances. We are going to send our Mary away to a finishing-school. So I had to tell poor Bessie we shouldn’t want any more music-lessons after this quarter. I was very sorry, I am sure—and there was Mrs Mayor taking her little girls away from the morning-class. When they expected to get Mrs Thomson’s money they had been a little careless, I suppose; and to give three days’ holiday in the middle of the quarter, without any reason for it but an old person’s death, you know—a death out of the house—is trying to people’s feelings; and Mrs Christian had given everybody to understand that her daughter would soon have no occasion for teaching. People don’t like these sort of things; and Mrs Mayor heard of somebody else a little nearer, who is said to be very good at bringing on little children. I said all I could to induce her to change her mind; but I believe they’re to leave next quarter. Poor Bessie! I am very sorry for her, I am sure.”
“And this is how you ladies comfort a good young woman when she meets with a great disappointment?” said John Brown.