As it happened, however, there were several people much occupied about
Mrs. Brown on the morning after that wonderful chase with all its
consequences. Mab, under one pretext or another, had spent most of the
previous day in the school. She had heard the bigger girls say their
lessons; she had hovered about the classes taught by the schoolmistress;
she had watched over the course of instruction in general with anxious
eyes. Was there any tampering with the morals of the girls of Watcham?
Were the little ones taught their hymns and collects? Were the big ones
kept up to their catechism now that the time for their confirmation
began to approach? Mab had never hitherto felt herself one of the clergy
of the parish, as the Rector’s niece might have been permitted to do.
But now she was torn with those sensations which we may suppose to be
felt by a priest who has received under the seal of confession a new
light upon the proceedings and motives of an important official. This is
a drawback of the priestly office which has rarely struck the general
observer. To know that a man who is largely influential in life, who has
important issues on hand, is using his powers for evil and not for good,
and yet to be powerless to do anything, to prevent anything, to give any
warning on the subject! Many a good priest no doubt has been bowed down
under this unthought-of weight. And so was Mab, whose young shoulders
were quite unfit for the part. Should she tell it all to Lady William,
this knowledge that was too much for her to bear? Should she give her
uncle a hint that she had discovered something which made the
schoolmistress unfit for her place? Mab felt that in all likelihood
Uncle James would laugh at her discovery, and to repeat Mrs. Brown’s
confidences, even to Lady William, would be a breach of trust. Thus the
only thing Mab could do was to come in, in her own person, to hold Mrs.
Brown (perhaps) in awe, to watch over the instruction, to correct what
was wrong, to see how far it might be her bounden duty to interfere. One
wonders how a priest would act in a similar case, or whether the
possession of many secret responsibilities in his consciousness may
perhaps neutralise the weight of each. Nothing neutralised this dreadful
weight in Mab’s case. She watched Mrs. Brown as a cat watches a mouse.
She did not like to let that enigmatical person out of her sight. She
even followed down the ranks of the girls whose heads were bent over
their copybooks, to see that the line so beautifully written in round
hand at the head of each page was orthodox. Mab gave herself a great
deal more to do than if she had herself been the mistress of the school.
She asked the girls all sorts of unexpected questions to test their
views of morality.
‘What would you do if you saw somebody take something out of a shop?
Suppose you saw a very poor person take a loaf from the baker’s?’ said
Mab, with an anxious pucker in her forehead.
‘Oh, miss!’ cried two or three girls together; ‘tell Mr. White that
minute, and if he runned away, catch him up.’
‘But if he were very, very poor--starving?’ said Mab.
There was a pause, for of course all the girls studied her countenance
to know what she wished them to reply; and Mab’s little round,
blunt-featured face, with an anxious cloud upon its childish brow, was
void of all expression that could be taken as guidance.
‘If we knowed the man we could tell after--when he was gone,’ said one
Jesuitical little person.
‘And then ‘e could run after ‘im to ‘is ‘ouse--or send the police,’
cried the rest. The idea of sending the police was the most popular. It
seemed somehow to take off the responsibility. But the girls soon
perceived that this was not the solution required.
‘If you please, miss,’ said a sharp little girl who was well acquainted
with Mab’s ways, ‘if I ‘ad a penny I’d pay instead of ‘im, and then it
wouldn’t be stealing at all.’
This was received, however, by a spontaneous groan from the class. ‘Oh,
Lizzie Jones! that would be cheating as well.’
‘And it ain’t likely as I’d ‘ave the penny,’ said Lizzie meekly. She
drew from Mab’s countenance the consolation that, after all, it was she
who had answered the best.
To describe the delight with which Mrs. Brown looked on and listened to
all this would be difficult. She read little Mab like a book, and her
sense of humour was tickled beyond description. That she was herself
upon her trial, and that the sentiments of her scholars were to be
considered in justification or condemnation--while, at the same time,
Mab was covertly consulting their ignorance and (supposed)
spontaneousness of perception like an oracle, was as clear as daylight
to this clever woman. She had never met anything so funny in her life;
and it delighted her as a good joke delights people who are given that
way, whether it is against themselves or not. But the gravity of her
aspect was equally beyond description. She seemed to take this question
in ethics with the most perfect good faith and all the seriousness in
the world.
‘If the man was starving,’ she said, taking up the argument, ‘and Lizzie
Jones had not a penny, as is most likely, and he was known not to be a
dishonest man, but only driven mad by the poor children hungry at
home----’
‘Yes, teacher,’ said Lizzie Jones, who felt that she herself had thrown
most light on the subject.
‘Well,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘of course it is never right to shield a wrong
act.’
This was so unlike what the girls expected after her exordium that there
was a little cry of surprise, swiftly modified into one of cordial
assent.
‘But,’ said the schoolmistress, ‘knowing that this is so--which you must
never forget--I’ll tell you what this young lady would do. She would go
after the man to his house--which most likely she would know: and I’m
not sure that she would not stop and buy some things on the way--at the
butcher’s, perhaps----’
At this the girls manifested a little doubt; while one murmured ‘Tea,
teacher,’ and another said ‘Potatoes’ loud out that she might not be
overlooked; at which the class, consulting Mrs. Brown’s face by a
lightning glance, burst into a laugh.
‘Hush!’ said Mrs. Brown. ‘This is a very interesting question that is
set to us--as good as a story; but you mustn’t laugh. The young lady
would go to the man’s house, and she would probably see the children
devouring the bread; and she would ask a number of questions--far more
than she has asked you to-day, though she has asked a great many. She
would discover there was no fire (supposing it to be cold, which it
isn’t to-day) and nothing to eat in the house, and that the man was out
of work and the wife ill and the children starving. She would
immediately send off for all that was wanted----’
‘Please, teacher,’ said Lizzie Jones, holding out her hand, ‘she’d give
’em a coal ticket, and a bread ticket and bid ’em send one of the little
ones up with a basket for the pieces.’
‘Well, perhaps she would do that. And when she had supplied their wants,
she would take the man aside, and she would say to him, “I saw you steal
that loaf at Mr. White’s.”’
There was a long breath and a cry of ‘Oh!’ from the girls, and Lizzie
Jones, who was soft-hearted--or was it only that she was forward?--began
to cry.
‘“Now,” the young lady would say, “come back with me and pay for it.
You’re going to get work again presently, and the children shall not
starve; but you must not have anything against you when you get work.”’
There was another very large round ‘Oh!’ from the girls, who turned
their eyes with one accord from Mrs. Brown’s to Mab’s face.
‘I don’t know if I would do that,’ said Mab.
‘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----’
‘Do they really say so? How truly good of them!’ said Mrs. Brown, with a
laugh. It was a laugh of so much amusement that Jim, who did not see the
joke, was disposed to be angry, but she ended by shaking her head and
putting on a comically doleful look. ‘But I do not please everybody,’
she said; ‘oh, far from it. Your friend, Mr. Osborne, does not like me:
and your cousin, Miss Mab, is full of suspicions.’
‘Mab,’ said Jim in high disdain, ‘as if it mattered what Mab thought!’
‘Don’t you know,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘that Miss Mab will probably be an
heiress one of these days, and that it will matter a great deal what she
thinks?’
‘Nonsense,’ cried Jim, ‘as much an heiress as I am! We have no rich
relations, alas! to leave us money.’
‘But she may have,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘and if you will take my advice you
will go in for your cousin, Mr. Jim; that would make everything straight
if you got a nice little bit of money with your wife.’
‘Nonsense,’ cried Jim, becoming scarlet, and feeling the very tips of
his ears burn. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘if I ever have a wife I’d rather
keep her than that she should keep me.’
‘A very excellent sentiment,’ said his adviser, ‘but I don’t quite see
how you are going to carry it out.’
‘I shall carry it out by having no wife at all,’ said Jim: and then he
added hastily, ‘that’s not what I came to tell you. Have you any reason
for not wanting Swinford to know that you are here?’
‘For not wanting--Swinford--to know----?’ A little colour seemed to
rise, too, in her dark countenance. ‘This change of subject,’ she cried,
‘takes away my breath. You are too quick for me. Have I any reason----?
It is Leo Swinford you mean, at the Hall?’ As if she did not know who it
was! Even Jim was clever enough to perceive that she was simply gaining
time. ‘No,’ she answered slowly, ‘I have no particular reason. I do not,
perhaps, in a general way wish--to receive--friends who have known me
elsewhere, here----’ She looked round upon her little room, with a
laugh. ‘You may, perhaps, if you think of it, understand why. Have you
come to warn me that I am found out?’
‘Oh no,’ said Jim. ‘And I’m sure I don’t want to interfere; but he was
at the Rectory last night. He said he had caught a glimpse of a lady he
knew, and had followed her all the way down to the village to speak to
her, and she had disappeared. Some one said that no one had passed but
Mrs. Brown. And then he laughed and said, “Perhaps it was Mrs. Brown he
had seen going to pay a visit to some one in the servants’ hall.”’
A sudden flash shot out of Mrs. Brown’s dark eyes. ‘I hope,’ she said,
‘you encouraged the idea that I paid visits in the servants’ hall?’
‘I didn’t say anything--good or bad,’ said Jim.
Which was not strictly true; but then nobody heard him, which came to
the same thing.
‘Good friend,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘true friend! but you can tell Leo
Swinford when you see him again that one of these days Mrs. Brown is
coming to call on him, with important information, at the Hall, and he
will never need to hunt her through the rain any more!’