Part 31

‘I have been to Mrs. Brown. They wanted her to act something. She is a very funny woman. She was at her lunch, or dinner, or whatever she calls it. She gave me an apple, which she called _Pomme au sucre_, and I never tasted anything so nice.’

‘Oh, she is like that, is she?’ said Lady William; ‘the woman who has seen better days.’

‘Yes, mother, she is like that,’ said Mab; even to say so much as this relieved her mind a little, though she had no idea what was meant by the question or reply.

‘And is she going to--act? To act, did you say?--that will be an odd thing for the schoolmistress to do.’

‘They thought--she might do Lady Macbeth--or something.’

‘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.

Mab’s eyes ranged over all the people on the platform in astonishment, to see who could be the object of this outburst.

‘Not poor Jim?’ she said, faltering.

‘Jim is worth a dozen of him,’ said Miss Grey.

There was only one face that was not friendly and bright. And that was, Mab supposed, because Mr. Osborne was so anxious that everything should go off well. Florence, the duet just over, was standing within three steps of him, with a little group about her congratulating her on her success, and the sound of the applause behind was still riotous in the room. Old George was very audibly exclaiming at the top of his gruff voice: ‘That’s your sort now! that’s somethin’ as a man can understand;’ while some of the Riverside lads, the people Mr. Osborne had been so anxious about, kept on clapping their big rough hands persistently, when everybody else had stopped, not daring to cry encore to the young ladies, but signifying their wishes very clearly in that way. The two girls hesitated and lingered, kept by their friends from retiring while this noisy but timid call went on, which presently was joined in by all the front benches, under the leadership of the General, who was not at all shy, and cried ‘encore’ lustily. Mr. Osborne grew more gloomy than ever, and called imperiously for the next performers. ‘We must stick to the programme,’ he cried; ‘we shall never get done at this rate,’ and the Winwick amateurs came up again with their fiddles, while Emmy and Florry stole away, escaping abashed from their friends, who were discomfited too. It was then that Miss Grey said between her closed teeth, ‘I know who I think is silly;’ as if she would have liked to crush that person in her little hand which (in a very ill-fitting glove) she clenched as she spoke. If he had been a butterfly he would have had no chance in that clenched fist of Miss Grey.

And then Jim came up smiling and delivered his ‘Ride,’ and was applauded till the roof rang, chiefly, however, because he was Jim, and there was something about racing horses in what he had read. ‘That’s your sort,’ old George said again, but more doubtfully; ‘though I’d like to have known a little more about them horses,’ he added; and shortly after the entertainment came to an end. There was no doubt it had been a great success. While the common people streamed out, not sorry to be able to stretch their limbs and let loose their opinion, and indemnify themselves for having been silent so long, the audience in the front benches lingered to pay their respects and congratulations, and to assure the curate that everything had gone off beautifully. ‘I hope the Riverside people enjoyed it. I am sure _I_ did,’ said General FitzStephen. Mr. Osborne looked at that gallant officer as if he would have liked to knock him down. He could not have shown a more angry and clouded face had the entertainment been a failure. ‘Oh yes. I suppose it has done well enough,’ he said. Mab, who did not know what all this meant, but who was able to perceive that something was wrong, was fixing her wits upon this mystery, and very anxious to know what it meant, when she suddenly heard a little cry from her mother, whose eyes were fixed upon the last stragglers of the crowd going out, and who suddenly broke off in the midst of a conversation, and with every appearance of excitement suddenly rushed out after some one--Mab could not tell whom. Mab rushed after her mother full of astonishment and eager curiosity, but only to find Lady William standing outside looking vaguely round her with an anxious, bewildered look upon her face. ‘What is it, mother? Who is it?’ Mab cried. ‘Do you want to speak to somebody?’ ‘I am certain,’ cried Lady William, ‘I saw her in the crowd. She turned round for a moment and I saw her face.’ ‘Who is it, mother? Who is it, mother?’ cried Mab. But Lady William did not make any reply to her. She turned round to another who had rushed after her (‘_That_ Leo Swinford, of course,’ Mab said to herself) and put out her hand to him, as if he, and not her child, could help her. ‘I have seen her, I am sure I have seen her!’ she cried--and she repeated in a tone of rising excitement what she had said before--‘with a black veil over her head. She turned round as she went out of the door; and there was Artémise. Oh, find her for me; find her, Leo!’ Lady William cried.

XLII

Next morning, however, there came a crisis which drove all thought of anything else for the moment out of Lady William’s mind.

It came in the shape of a letter laid upon her innocent breakfast table, along with the little bunch of correspondence, very small, and very unimportant, which was all that the post generally brought to that peaceable house. Lady William had, of course, a friend or two with whom occasionally she exchanged those utterly unimportant letters which form so large a portion in the lives of some unoccupied women. It would be hard to grudge these poor ladies so innocent a pleasure, but their letters were not exciting enough to make a woman like Lady William, who felt that she had herself a great deal to do, and did not want that gentle stimulant, very impatient for the arrival of the post: and her mild correspondence waited for her quite contentedly on both sides till she had performed various little morning duties, and was ready to sit down to breakfast. The long blue envelope, however, alarmed her a little whenever she saw it, and yet there was nothing so very alarming in it, for it was a similar envelope, directed in the same writing, as that which brought her the cheque for her quarterly allowance, which, as it happened, was now a little overdue. She lingered, however, over the letter--though it did enclose a cheque, which she took out and laid upon the table--much longer than she was wont to linger over the letters of Messrs. Fox and Round. She read it carefully over, and then she folded it up, put it in its envelope, and poured out the coffee. But before she touched her own cup, returned to the letter; took it once more from its envelope, read it all over again, and put it back once more. Mab had a little letter of her own to read, all about nothing, from a girl of her own age, so that she did not for a minute or so observe these proceedings of her mother. But she very soon did so, and divined not only from them, but from the manner in which Lady William swallowed her coffee and pushed away the innocent rolls on the table as if they had done her some harm, that all was not as usual. When Lady William spoke, however, it was in a voice elaborately calm.

‘Are you going out this morning, Mab?’

‘Yes, mother--I am going----’ Mab paused a moment. She had got up that morning with her mind full of the weighty determination of last night; but it seemed to her that if she said she was going to the school it might partly betray the secret which was not hers, but which lay so heavy on her soul. ‘I think,’ she went on, correcting herself, ‘I will run over and see how they feel at the Rectory, now it’s over, about last night. And I will probably look in at the school,’ she added, for to have a secret from her mother was dreadful to her, ‘before I come back.’

‘If you are going to the Rectory,’ said Lady William, ‘tell your Uncle James that I should like to see him, Mab.’

‘Yes, mother;’ but Mab could not help glancing aside at the letter with an awakened interest, and wondering what Uncle James, so infrequent a visitor on ordinary occasions, could be wanted for--again.

‘You are right, Mab,’ said her mother, ‘it is about business and about this letter in particular. And if you can give him my message without anybody else knowing, I shall be all the better pleased.’

‘Is it about--Uncle Reginald, mother?’

‘About Reginald! Oh no, you may make your mind easy. It is not about Reginald. It is,’ she said, with a sudden desire for sympathy, ‘something much more important to you and me; but I cannot tell you now,’ she added, remembering herself, ‘you will know of it all in time.’

‘Is it from Mr. Leo, mother?’ said Mab, growing very pale, and towering over the table as she looked at her mother, with severity, yet terror, as if she had suddenly grown a foot in stature. Lady William, altogether engrossed in other thoughts, gave her a look of astonishment which was balm to Mab’s soul.

‘From Leo!’ she said, amazed. ‘Why should it be from Leo? I told you,’ she said, with a little impatience, ‘that it was a letter of importance, which none of his little communications could be. Tell your uncle,’ she continued, falling into her usual tone, ‘that I have received a letter on which I wish to consult him. Remember that I have no secrets,’ she said, suddenly looking up; ‘I don’t want you to make a mystery; but if you could see him--by himself, to give him my message----’

‘Oh yes, I can do that easily,’ said Mab, in the relief of her mind. ‘I want to say something to him about Mrs. Brown.’

‘I must see this Mrs. Brown,’ said Lady William, with a smile. ‘She seems to have a fascination for you, Mab.’

At this unexpected and most unintentional carrying of the war into her own country Mab flushed crimson, and cried quickly: ‘Oh no, nothing of the sort. I don’t even _like_ her. She is not like any one else I ever saw.’

‘I must see her--one of these days,’ said Lady William vaguely: and then the faint smile died off her face, and she turned to contemplate the long blue letter which lay by her plate. It looked a dangerous thing among the little inoffensive white and gray envelopes. Lady William’s letters were chiefly gray, written upon that ugly paper which people, and especially ladies, use out of economy, and which is one of the additional (small) miseries of life.

Mab felt much ashamed of her foolish question as she went out, but hoped her mother had forgotten, or had not attached any meaning to it. It was all the fault of the horrid people who talked--as if there was anything strange in Mr. Swinford’s visits. ‘Where else should he go?’ Mab said indignantly to herself. ‘To the FitzStephens or the Kendalls, who are six times as old as he is? or to the Rectory, where Aunt Jane would talk to him all the time, and the girls never could get in a word? How different mother is! I don’t think I have ever seen any one so nice as mother! Well, of course, she is mother, which is a great thing in her favour; but not, perhaps, in the way of society. Emmy and Florry are very fond of Aunt Jane. She is very nice and kind if you are ill, and all that; but I am sure they would rather talk a little themselves sometimes, rather than just listen to her, especially when it is Mr. Leo.’ This was the result of Mab’s unprejudiced observation, and she was much ashamed of herself for having been moved to ask the very inappropriate question which her mother had not paid any attention to, thank heaven. Mab, as good luck would have it, met the Rector at his own door, and conveyed her message in the most natural way in the world. ‘Mother would like to see you, Uncle James. Would you go into the cottage as you pass? She has got a letter.’

‘Oh, she has got a letter?’ said the Rector.

Mab longed to say, ‘Not a letter from Leo Swinford, an important letter, a letter about business,’ but she restrained her inclination. Probably Uncle James had never thought upon that other subject. She went on quickly to the Rectory, in order to carry out her own programme which she had in a way bound herself to by announcing it to her mother. But she did not find the girls at the Rectory very anxious to talk over the events of the previous night. Mrs. Plowden, indeed, had no objection to discuss it fully; but it was in its connection with Jim that she thought of it most.

‘If it had not been for Jim,’ Mrs. Plowden said, ‘Mr. Osborne might just have kept all his music and his things to himself. Oh yes, I daresay, the FitzStephens, and Kendalls, and ourselves, and those people from the villas would have come; but, as for the men from Riverside, they came for Jim, not for him. And did you hear, Mab, what a noise they made with their cheers and their clappings after Jim’s piece? They thought that the gem of the whole evening. They came chiefly to hear that. As for Mr. Osborne, with his little speeches and his fiddles from Winwick----’

‘Oh, mamma,’ cried Emmy, ‘the violins were a great treat. We have not heard any music like that in Watcham for ever so long.’

‘Well, you may say what you like about fiddles,’ said the Rector’s wife, ‘but there’s always something a little like a village fair in them to me. And the poor people were bored beyond anything. They liked your songs, girls, and wanted to encore them if Mr. Osborne would have allowed it; and they liked that piano bit, with the tunes from the _Pinafore_. They understood that, and so do I, I allow; but what do they care for a classical quartette? I don’t myself, and I know more about music than they can be supposed to do. But a fine, stirring thing like Jim’s “Ride to Aix”----’

‘It was Mr. Browning’s “Ride to Aix,” mamma.’

‘As if I did not know that! But, all the same, it was Jim’s ride to me. Don’t you think he did it great justice, Mab? I never heard it come off so well. The people were so attentive. That and the duets were certainly the success of the evening; and what it would have been without them I can’t tell.’

‘It would have been much more satisfactory without them, mamma,’ cried Florry, half turning a shadowed countenance towards her mother. ‘Mr. Osborne did not want mere amusement for the people--he wanted them to take pledges, and turn from drinking. That was his object, don’t you know--and a far better object than hearing two poor little country birds like Emmy and me sing. And I approve of it,’ said Florence a little loudly, as if she would have liked all the world to hear.

Mrs. Plowden looked at Mab and shrugged her shoulders behind her daughter. ‘I can’t think what has come over Florry,’ she said. ‘She has grown so domineering of late--I dare not say a word.’

What Mab thought was that poor Florry looked dark, and pale, and out of heart--she seemed to be losing her good looks and her merry ways. It was rare, very rare, when she put forth any of her old arts of mimicry which the elders laughed yet pretended to frown at, and which all the young ones delighted in; but I will not have it supposed that Mab was so precocious as to divine what was the matter with Florence--for this, to tell the truth, never came into her unconscious thoughts.

The Rector hurried along to see his sister after he had received Mab’s message. He was anxious and disturbed about the state of affairs, and very desirous to find some way of setting his poor Emily straight, and making her independent, as she would be gloriously, did this great fortune come to Mab. If, perhaps, he was at the same time not quite sorry that she had been brought to see she was not so able to do everything for herself as she supposed, and had it proved to her in the most effectual way that to have respectable relatives to fall back upon was the greatest blessing a woman could have, it was no more than natural: and certainly above all, his desire was to be able to help her, and ‘pull her through:’ but it would be uphill work he felt, and require all the efforts that he himself could make. His brow was full of care when he went into the room in which she sat expecting him; not, indeed, looking so serious as he did, but, still, with work enough for all her thoughts.