Brownlows. Mrs. Oliphant
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man’s housekeeper. It is all very well when it’s papa.”
“You will not always think so,” said Lady Motherwell, laughing; “that is a thing a girl always changes her mind about. Of course you will marry some day, as every body does.”
“I don’t see,” said Sara, very decidedly, “why it should be of course. If there was any body that papa had set his heart on, and wanted me to marry—or any good reason—of course I would do what ever was my duty. But I don’t think papa is a likely sort of man to stake me at cards, or get into any body’s power, or any thing of that sort.”
“Sara, you are the most frightful little cynic,” cried Lady Motherwell, laughing; “don’t you believe that girls sometimes fall in love?”
“Oh yes, all the silly ones,” said Sara, calmly, out of her corner. She was not saying any thing that she did not to a certain extent feel; but there is no doubt that she had a special intention at the moment in what she said.
Lady Motherwell had another laugh, for she was amused, and not nearly so much alarmed for the consequences as the young speaker intended she should be. “If all girls had such sentiments, what would become of the world?” she said. “The world would come to an end.”
“I wish it would,” said Sara. “Why shouldn’t it come to an end? It would be easy to make a nicer world. People are very aggravating in this one. I am sure I don’t see why we should make ourselves unhappy about its coming to an end. It would always be a change if it did. And some of the poor people might have better luck. Do you think it is such a very nice world?”
“My dear, don’t be profane,” said Lady Motherwell. “I never did think Mr. Hardcastle was very settled in his principles. I declare you frighten me, Sara, sitting and talking in that sceptical way, in the dark.”
“Oh, I can ring for lights,” said Sara; “but that isn’t sceptical. It’s sceptical to go on wishing to live forever, and to make the world last forever, as if we mightn’t have something better. At least so I think. And as for Mr. Hardcastle, I don’t know what he has to do with it—he never said a word on the subject to me.”
“Yes, my dear, but there is a general looseness,” said the old lady. “I know the sort of thing. He lets you think whatever you like, and never impresses any doctrines on you as he ought. We are not in Dewsbury parish, you know, and I feel I ought to speak. There are such differences in clergymen. Our vicar is very pointed, and makes you really feel as if you knew what you believed. And that is such a comfort, my dear. Though, to be sure, you are very young, and you don’t feel it now.”
“No, I don’t feel it at all,” said Sara; “but, Lady Motherwell, perhaps you would like to go to your room. I think I hear papa’s cart coming up the avenue—will you wait and see him before you go?”
Thus the conversation came to an end, though Lady Motherwell elected to wait, and was as gracious to Mr. Brownlow as if he had been twenty county people. Even if Sara did not have Brownlows, as everybody supposed, still she would be rich and bring money enough with her to do a vast deal of good at Motherwell, where the family for a long time had not been rich. Sir Charles’s father, old Sir Charles, had not done his duty by the property. Instead of marrying somebody with a fortune, which was clearly the object for which he had been brought into the world, he had married to please a fancy of his own in a very reprehensible way. His wife herself felt that he had failed to do his duty, though it was for her sake; and she was naturally all the more anxious that her son should fulfill this natural responsibility. Sir Charles was not handsome, nor was he bright, nor even so young as he might have been; but all this, if it made the sacrifice less, made the necessity more, and accordingly Lady Motherwell was extremely friendly to Mr. Brownlow. When she came down for dinner she took a sort of natural protecting place, as if she had been Sara’s aunt, or bland, flattering, uninterfering mother-in-law. She called the young mistress of the house to her side, and held her hand, and patted it and caressed it. She told Mr. Brownlow how pleased she was to see how the dear child had developed. “You will not be allowed to keep her long,” she said, with tender meaning; “I think if she were mine I would go and hide her up so that nobody might see her. But one has to make up one’s mind to part with them all the same.”
“Not sooner than one can help,” said Mr. Brownlow, looking not at Lady Motherwell, but at his child, who was the subject of discourse. He knew what the old lady meant as well as Sara did, and he had been in the way of smiling at it, wondering how any body could imagine he would give his child to a good-tempered idiot; but this night another kind of idea came into his mind. The man was stupid, but he was a gentleman of long-established lineage, and he could secure to Sara all the advantages of which she had so precarious a tenure here. He could give her even a kind of title, so far as that went, though Mr. Brownlow was not much moved by a baronet’s title; and if any thing should happen to endanger Brownlows, it would not matter much to Jack or himself. They could return to the house in Masterton, and make themselves as comfortable as life, without Sara, could be anywhere. This was the thought that was passing through Mr. Brownlow’s mind when he said, “Not sooner than one can help.” He was thinking for the first time that such a bestowal of his child might not be so impossible after all.
Beside her, in the seat she had taken when she escaped from Lady Motherwell, Sir Charles had already taken up his position. He was talking to her through his hard little black mustache—not that he said a great deal. He was a tall man, and she was seated in a low chair, with the usual billows of white on the carpet all round her, so that he could not even approach very near; and she had to look up at him and strain her ear when he spoke, if she wanted to hear—which was a trouble Sara did not choose to take. So she said, “What?” in her indifferent way, playing with her fan, and secretly doing all she could to extend the white billows round her; while he, poor man, bent forward at a right angle till he was extremely uncomfortable, and repeated his very trivial observations with a vain attempt to reach her ear.
“I think I am growing deaf,” said Sara; “perhaps it was that dreadful frost—I don’t think I have ever got quite thawed yet. When I do, all you have been saying will peal out of the trumpet like Baron Munchausen, you know. So you didn’t go to the stables? Wasn’t that rather naughty? I am sure it was to the stables your mamma sent you when you went away.”
“Tell you what, Miss Brownlow,” said Sir Charles, “you are making game of me.”
“Oh, no,” said Sara; “or did you go to the gate and see such a pretty girl in the cottage opposite? I don’t know whether you would fall in love with her, but I have; I never saw any one look so sweet. She has such pretty dark little curls, and yet not curls—something prettier—and such eyes—”
“Little women with black hair are frights,” said Sir Charles—“always thought so, and more than ever now.”
“Why more than ever now?” said Sara, with the precision of contempt; and then she went on—“If you don’t care either for pretty horses or pretty girls, we shan’t know how to amuse you. Perhaps you are fond of reading; I think we have a good many nice books.”
Sir Charles said something to his mustache, which was evidently an expletive of some kind. He was not the sort of man to swear by Jove, or even by George, much less by any thing more tangible; but still he did utter something in an inarticulate exclamatory way. “A man would be difficult to please if he didn’t get plenty to amuse him here,” was how it ended. “I’m not afraid—”
“It is very kind of you to say so,” said Sara, so very politely that Sir Charles did not venture upon any more efforts, but stood bending down uneasily, looking at her, and pulling at his respirator in an embarrassed way; not that he was remarkable in this, for certainly the moment before dinner is not favorable to animated or genial conversation. And it was not much better at dinner. Sara had Mr. Keppel of Ridley, the eldest brother, at her other side, who talked better than Sir Charles did. His mother kept her eye upon them as well as that was possible from the other end of the table, and she was rather hard upon him afterward for the small share he had taken in the conversation. “You should have