Brownlows

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BROWNLOWS BROWNLOWS BY MBS OLIPHANT AUTHOR OF ' CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,' ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXVIII ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD's MAGAZINE CONTENTS OF THE FIBST VOLUME. CHAP. PAGE I. MR BROWNLOW'S MONET, 1 II. SARA, 14 HI. A SUDDEN ALARM, 37 IV. A LITTLE DINNER, 50 v. sara's speculations, 64 VI. AN ADVENTURE, 81 VII. the father's day at the OFFICE, ... 97 VIU. YOUNG POWYS, 117 IX. NEW NEIGHBOURS, 133 X. at the gate, 151 XI. THE YOUNG PEOPLE, 172 xn. news of friends, 197 xiii. a crisis, 216 xiv 238 xv. luncheon, - 261 xvi. a promise, BROWNLOWS.

Chapter I. Me Brownlow's Money

Everybody in the neighbourhood was perfectly aware what was the origin of John Brownlow's fortune. There was no possibUity of any mistake about it. "When people are very weU known and respectable, and inspire their neighbours with a hearty interest, some little penalty must be paid for that pleasant state of affairs. It is only when no body cares for you, when you are of no importance to the world in general, that you can shroud your concerns in mystery ; but the Brownlows were very weU known, much respected, and quite unable to hide themselves in a corner. In aU Dartfordshire there was no family better known; not that they were county people, or had any pretensions to high VOL. I. A BROWNLOWS. 2 connection, but then there was not one famUy in the county of whom John Brownlow did not know more than they knew themselves, and in his hands, and in the hands of his fathers before him, had reposed the papers and affairs of aU the squires about, titled or otherwise, for more years than could be counted.

It was clever of the Brownlows to have had so much business in their hands and yet not to be rich ; but virtue, when it is exceptional, is perhaps always a Uttle extreme, and so it is probable that an honest lawyer is honester than most honest men who have no particular temptation. They were not rich, and yet, of course, they were far from being poor. They had the kind of substantial old brick house, standing close up to the pavement in the best end of the High Street of Masterton, which would be described as a mansion in an auctioneer's advertisement. It was very red and infinitely clean, and had a multitude of windows all blinking in the sun, and lighting up in to impromptu iUuminations every winter afternoon, when that blazing red luminary went down, not over the river and the open country, as he ought to have done, but into the Bectory garden, which happened to he in his way as he halted along towards the west.

The Brownlows for generations back had lived very comfortably in this red house. It had a <reat, rich luxuriant, warm garden behind, with all sorts of BROWNLOWS. 3 comforts attached to it, and the rooms were handsome and old-fashioned, as became a house that had served generations; and once upon a time many good dinners, and much good wine, and the most beautiful stores of fine hnen, and crystal, and silver were in the house, for comfort, and not for show. All this was very weU, and John Brownlow was born to the possession of it ; but there can be no doubt that the house in the High Street was very different from the house he now inhabited and the establishment he kept up in the country. Even the house in the High Street had been more burdened than was usual in the family when it came to his turn to be its master.

Arthur, the younger brother, who was never good for much, had just had his debts paid for the second time before his father died. It was not considered by many people as quite fair to John, though some did say that it was he above aU who urged the step upon old Mr Brownlow. Persons who professed to know, even asserted that the elder sou, in his generosity, had quite a struggle with his father, and that his argument was always " for my mother's sake." If this was true, it was all the more generous of him, because his mother was weU known to have thought nothing of John in comparison with the handsome Arthur, whom she spoiled as long as she lived. Anyhow, the result was that BROWNLOWS. 4 John inherited the house and the business, the fur niture and old crystal and silver, and a very com fortable income, but nothing that could be caUed a fortune, or that would in any way have justified him in launching out into a more expensive description of life.

At this time he was thirty at least, and not of a speculative turn of mind ; and when old Mrs Thom son's wiU — a wiU not even drawn up in his office, which would have been a kind of preparation — was read to him, it is said that he lost his temper on the occasion, and used very unbecoming language to the poor woman in her coffin. " What had he to do with the old hag ? What did she mean by bothering Mm with her filthy money ? " he said, and did not show at all the frame of mind that might have been ex pected under the circumstances. Mrs Thomson was an old woman, who had lived in a very miserly sort of way, with an old servant, in a httle house in the outskirts of the town. Nobody could ever tell what attracted her towards John Brownlow, who never, as he himself said, had anything to do with her ; and she had relations of her own in Masterton, the Fen nells, who always knew she had money, and counted upon being her heirs.

But they were distant rela tions, and perhaps they did not know all her story-. "What petrified the town, however, was, when it was BROWNLOWS. 5 found out that old Mrs Thomson had left a fortune, not of a few hundreds, as people supposed, but of more than fifty thousand pounds, behind her, and that it was aU left in a way to John Brownlow. It was left to him in trust for Mrs Thomson's daughter Phœbe, a person whose existence no one in Master ton had ever dreamt of, but who, it appeared, had married a common soldier, and gone off with him ages before, and had been cursed and cast off by her hard-hearted mother. That was long, long ago, and perhaps the solitary old creature's heart, if she had a heart, had relented to her only child ; perhaps, as John Brownlow thought, it was a mere suggestion of Satan to trouble and annoy him, a man who had nothing to do with Phœbe Thomson.

Anyhow, this was the substance of the wUl. The money was aU left to John Brownlow in trust for this woman, who had gone nobody knew where, and whose very name by marriage her mother did not state, and nobody could tell. If Phœbe Thomson did not make her appearance within the next twenty-five years, then the money was to pass to John Brownlow and his heirs in perpetuity beyond all power of reclamation. This was the strange event which feU Uke a shell into the young lawyer's quiet hfe, and brought re volution and change to everything around. He was very much annoyed and put out about it BROWNLOWS. at first ; and the Fennells, who had expected to be Mrs Thomson's heirs, were furious, and not disin clined to turn upon him, blameless as he was. To tell the truth, theirs was a very hard case. They were very poor.

Good-for-nothing sons are not ex clusively reserved for the weU-to-do portion of the community; and poor Mrs Fennell, as weU as the Brownlow famUy, had a good-for-nothing son, upon whom she had spent aU her Uving. He had disap peared at this time into the darkness, as such people do by times, but of course it was always on the cards that he might come back and be a burden upon his people again. And the father was paralytic and helpless, not only incapable of doing anything, but requiring to have everything done for him, that last aggravation of poverty. Mrs FenneU herseU' was not a prepossessing woman. She had a high temper and an eloquent tongue, and her disappointment was tragic and desperate. Poor soul ! it was not much to be wondered at — she was so poor and so helpless and burdened ; and this money would have made them aU so comfortable.

It was not that she thought of herself, the poor woman said, but there was Fen neU, who was cousin to the Thomsons, and there was Tom out in the world toUing for his bread, and kiU ing himself with work. And then there was Bessie and her prospects. AYhen she had talked it aU over BROWNLOWS. 7 at the highest pitch of her voice, and stormed at everybody, and made poor Fennell shake worse than ever in his paralytic chair, and overwhelmed Bessie with confusion and misery, the poor woman would sit down and cry. Only one thousand pounds of it would have done them such a great deal of good ; and there was fifty thousand, and it was aU going to be tied up and given to John Brownlow. It was hard upon a woman with a hot head and a warm heart, and no temper or sense to speak of; and to storm at it was the onlything she took any comfort from, or that did her any good.

This money which Mrs FenneU regretted so bitterly for a long time was nothing but a nuisance to John Brownlow. He advertised and employed detectives, and did everything a man could do to find Phœbe Thomson and reheve himself of the burden. But Phœbe Thomson was not to be found. He sought her far and near, but no such person was to be heard of — for, to be sure, a poor soldier's wife was not very likely to be in the way of seeing the second column of the ' Times ; ' and if she should happen to be Mrs Smith or Mrs Doherty by marriage, nobody but herself and her husband might be aware that she had ever been Phœbe Thomson. Anyhow, all the advertisements and all the detectives faded ; and after working very hard at it for a year or more, BROWNLOWS. 8 John Brownlow very quietly, and to his own con sciousness alone, d— d Phœbe Thomson, and gave up the useless investigation.

But he was a man who had eyes, and a strong sense of justice. WThen he thought of the poor FenneUs, his anger rose against the wretched old woman who had laid on him the burden of her money. Poor Mrs FenneU's son was good for nothing, but she had a daughter who was good for much ; and Bessie had a lover who would gladly have married her, had that wicked old miser, as John Brownlow in his indignation said, left only a thousand pounds out of her fifty to help the paralytic father and passionate mother. Bessie's lover was not mercenary — he was not covetous of a fortune with his wife ; but he could not marry aU the family, or work for the old people, as their daughter had to do. This was what Mrs FenneU meant when she raved of poor Bessie and her prospects. But Bessie herself said nothing. The lover went very sorrowfuUy away, and Bessie was sUent and went on with her work, and made no show of her trouble- John Brownlow, without knowing it, got to watch her.

He was not aware for a long time why it was that, though he always had so much to do, he never missed seeing Bessie when by chance she passed his windows. As luck would have it, it BROWNLOWS. 9 wa3 always at that moment he raised his eyes ; and he did his best to get pupUs for her, "taking an interest" in her which was quite unusual in so quiet a man. But it was not probable that Bessie could have had much of an education herself, much less was qualified to give it to others. And whether it was her want of skill, or the poverty of her surroundings, her poor dress, or her mother's aspect and temper, it is certain that, dUigent and patient and "nice" as she was, pupils faded her. She did not get on ; yet she kept struggling on, and toiling, keeping a smUe in her eyes for everybody that looked friendly on her, whatever sinking there might be in her heart.

And she was a shght fragile little creature to bear all that weight on her shoulders. John Brownlow, without knowing it, watched her little figure about the streets aU the year through, marveUing at that " soft invincibility," that steady standing up against defeat and every kind of ill which the gentle soul was capable of. And as he watched her, he had many thoughts in his mind. He was not rich, as we have said ; on the contrary, it would have been his bounden duty, had he done his duty, to have married somebody with a modest little fortune, who would have helped him to keep up the house in the High Street, and give the traditionary dinners ; and to maintain his wife's BROWNLOWS. 10 famUy, if he were to marry, was something out of the question. But then that fifty thousand pounds —this money which did not belong to him, but to Phœbe Thomson, whosoever she was, and where soever she might be.

AU this produced a confusion of thought which was of very strange occurrence in Mr Brownlow's office, where his ancestors for generations had pondered over other people's difficulties — a more pleasing operation than attending to one's own. GraduaUy, as time wore on, Phœbe Thomson grew into a more and more mythical figure to Mr Brownlow's mind, and Bessie FenneU became more and more real. "When he looked up one winter's afternoon and saw her passing the office window in the glow of the frosty sunset, which pointed at her in its clear-sighted way, and made thrice visible the thinness of her cheek and the shabbiness of her dress, Mr Brownlow's pen feU from his fingers in amaze and self-reproach. She was wearing herself out, and he had permitted her to do so, and had sat at his window thinking about it for two whole years.

Two years had passed since Mrs Thomson's death. All the investigations in the world had not been able to find Phœbe; and John Brownlow was master of the old woman's fifty thousand pounds; and the FenneUs might be starving for any-thin^ he could teU. The result was, that he proposed to BROWNLOWS. 11 Bessie, to the unbounded amazement not only of the town of Masterton, but even of the county people, who aU knew Mr Brownlow. Probably Bessie was as much surprised as anybody ; but she married him after a while, and made him a very good wife. And he pensioned her father and mother in the most liberal way, and saw as little of them as possible. And for a few years, though they did not give many dinners, everything went on very weU in the brick house. I teU the story thus briefly, instead of introducing these people to show their existence for themselves, because aU this is much prior to the real date of this history.

Mrs Brownlow made a very good and sweet wife ; and my own opinion is that she was fond of her husband in a quiet way. But, of course, people said she had married him for his money, and Bessie was one of those veUed souls who go through the world without much faculty of reveahng themselves even to their nearest and dearest. When she died, nobody could make quite sure whether she had en joyed her hfe or merely supported it. She had ful fiUed aU her duties, been very kind to everybody, very faithful and tender to her husband, very devoted to her family ; but she died, and carried away a heart within her of which no man seemed ever to have found the key. Sara and Jack were very little at BROWNLOWS. the time of her death— so Uttle, that they scarcely remembered their mother. And they were not like her.

Little Jack, for his part, was like big John, as he had a right to be ; and Sara was Uke nobody else that ever had been seen in Masterton. But that is a subject which demands fuller exposition. Mr Brown low lived very quietly for some years after he lost his wife ; but then, as was natural, the ordinary course of affairs was resumed. And then it was that the change in his fortunes became fuUv evident. His little daughter was delicate, and he got a carriage for her. He got ponies for her, and costly governesses, and masters down from town at the wildest expense ; and then he bought that place in the country which had once been Something Hall or Manor, but which Dartfordshire, in its consternation, henceforward called Brownlow's. Brownlow's it w7as, without a doubt; and Brownlows it became — without the apos trophe — in the most natural way-, when things settled down.

It was, as old Lady MotherweU said, "quite a place, my dear ; not one of your Uttle bits of villas, you know." And though it was so near Masterton that Mr Brownlow drove or rode in every day to his office, its grounds and gardens and park were equal to those of any nobleman in the county. Old Mrs Thomson's fifty thousand pounds had doubled them selves, as money skilfully managed has a way of BROWNLOWS. 13 doing. It had got for her executor everything a man could desire. First, the wife of his choice — though that gift had been taken from him — and every other worldly good which the man wished or could wish for. He was able to surround the daughter, who was everything to him — who was more to him, perhaps, than even his wife had ever been — with every kind of dehghtsome thing ; and to provide for his son, and establish him in the world according to his inclina tions ; and to assume, without departing from his own place, such a position as no former Brownlow had ever occupied in the county.

All this came to John Brownlow through old Mrs Thomson; and Phœbe Thomson, to whom the money in reality belonged, had never turned up to claim it ; and now there was but one year to run of the five-and-twenty which limited his responsibilities. AU this being made apparent, it is the history of this one year that I have now to tell.

Chapter II. Sara

Mr Brownlow had one son and one daughter — the boy, a very good-natured, easy-minded, honest sort of young feUow, approaching twenty-one, and not made much account of either at home or abroad. The daughter was Sara. For people who know her, or indeed who are at aU acquainted with society in Dartfordshire, it is unnecessary to say more ; but perhaps the general public may prefer a clearer description. She was the queen of John Brown low's house, and the apple of his eye. At the period of which we speak she was between nine teen and twenty, just emerging from what had alw-ays been considered a dehcate girlhood, into the full early bloom of woman. She had too much character, too much nonsense, too many wiles, and too much simplicity in her, to be, strictly speaking beautiful; and she was not good enough or "entle BROWNLOWS. 15 enough to be lovely.

And neither was she beloved by aU, as a heroine ought to be. There were some people who did not hke her, as well as some who did, and there were a great many who fluctuated between love and dislike, and were sometimes fond of her, and sometimes affronted with her ; which, indeed, was a very common state of mind with herself. Sara was so much a girl of her age that she had even the hair of the period, as the spring flowers have the colours of spring. It was light brown, with a golden tint, and abundant as locks of that colour generaUy are ; but it cannot be denied that it was darker than the fashionable shade, and that Sara was not above being annoyed by this fact, nor even above a vague and shadowy idea of doing something to it to bring it to the correct tint ; which may Tank as one of the constantly recurring proofs that young women are in fact the least vain portion of the creation, and have less faith in the efficacy of their natural charms than any other section of the race.

She had a little rosebud mouth, dewy and pearly, and fuU eyes, which were blue, or grey, or hazel, according as you looked at them, and ac cording to the sentiment which they might happen to express. She was very taU, very slight and flex ible, and wavy like a tall lily, with the slightest variable stoop in her pretty shoulders, for which BROWNLOWS. 16 her life had been rendered miserable by many weU meaning persons, but which, in reahty, was one of her charms. To say that she stooped, is an ugly expression, and there was nothing ugly about Sara. It was rather that by times her head drooped a little, hke the aforesaid lily swayed by the softest of visionary breezes. This, however, was the only thing lily-like or angehc about her. She was not a model of anything, nor noted for any special virtues.

She was Sara. That was about aU that could be said for her; and it is to be hoped that she may be able to evidence what httle bits of good there were in her during the course of this history, for herself. " Papa," she said, as they sat together at the breakfast-table, " I wUl call for you this afternoon, and bring you home. I have something to do in Masterton." " Something to do in Masterton ? " said Mr Brown low ; " I thought you had got everything you could possibly want for three months at least when y-ou were in town." " Yes," said Sara, " everything one wants for one's boddy necessities— pins and needles and music, and all that sort of thing — but one has a heart though you might not think it, papa ; and I have an idea that one has a soul." BROWNLOWS. 17 " Do you think so ? " said her father, with a smUe ; " but I can't imagine what your soul can have to do in Masterton.

We don't cultivate such superfluities there." " I am going to see grandmamma," said Sara. " I think it is my duty. I am not fond of her, and I ought to be. I think if I went to see her oftener perhaps it might do me good." " Oh ! if it's orfly for grandmamma," said young John, " I go to see her often enough. I don't think you need take any particular trouble to do her good." Upon which Sara sighed, and drooped a httle upon its long stem her lUy head. " I hope I am not so stupid and conceited as to think I can do anybody good," she said. " I may be sidy enough, but I am not hke that; but I am going to see grandmamma. It is my duty to be fond of her, and see after her ; and I know I never go except when I can't help it. I am going to turn over a new leaf." Mr Brownlow's face had been overshadowed at the first mention of the grandmother, as by a faint mist of annoyance.

It did not go so far as to be a cloud. It was not positive displeasure or dislike, but only a shade of dissatisfaction, which he ex pressed by his sUence. Sara's resolutions to turn over a new leaf were not rare, and her father was B VOL. I. BROWNLOWS. generaUy much amused and interested by her good intentions ; but at present he only went on with his breakfast and said nothing. Like his daughter, he was not fond of the grandmamma, and perhaps her sympathy with his own sentiments in this respect was satisfactory to him at the bottom of his heart ; but it was not a thing he could talk about. " There is a great deal in habit," said Sara, in that experienced way which belongs to the speculatist of nineteen. " I beheve y-ou can train yourself to any thing, even to love people whom you don't love by nature.

I flunk one could get to do even that if one was to try." " I should not care much for your love if that was how it came," said y-oung John. " That would only show you did not understand," said Sara, mildly. " To like people for a good reason, is not that better than liking them merely because you can't help it ? If there was anybody that it suited papa, for instance, to make me marry, don't you think I would be very foohsh if I could not make myself fond of him ? — and ungrateful too." " Would you reaUy do as much for me as that ? " said Mr Brownlow, looking up at her with a <dini mer of weakness in his eyes, half amused, and yet flattered ; " but I hope I shaU never require to put you to the test." BROWNLOWS. 19 " Why not, papa ? " said Sara, cheerfully. " I am sure it would be a much more sensible reason for being fond of anybody that you wished it, than just my own fancy.

I should do it, and I would never hesitate about it," said the confident young woman ; and the father, though he was a man of some experi ence, felt his heart melt and glow over this rash statement with a fond gratification, and really be lieved it, foolish as it was. " And I shaU drive down," said Sara, " and look as fine as possible; though, of course, I would far rather have Meg out, and ride home with you in the afternoon. And it would do Meg a world of good," she added, pathetically. "But you know if one goes in for pleasing one's grandmamma, one ought to be content to please her in her own way. She hkes to see the carriage and the greys, and a great noise and fuss. If it is worth taking the trouble for at all, it is worth doing it in her own way." " / walk, and she is always very glad to see me," said John, in what it must be aUowed was an un pleasant manner.

" Ah ! you are different," said Sara, with a momentary bend of her graceful head. And, of course, he was very different. He was a mere man or boy — whichever you prefer — not in the least ornamen- BROWNLOWS. 20 tal, nor of very much use to anybody — whereas Sara ! But it is not a difference that could be described or argued about; it was a thing which could be perceived with half an eye. "When breakfast was over, the two gentlemen went off to Master ton to their business ; for young John had gone into his father's office, and was preparing to take up in his turn the hereditary profession. Indeed, it is not clear that Mr Brownlow ever intended poor Jack to profit at aU by his wealth, or the additional state and grandeur the famUy had taken upon itself. To his eyes, so far as it appeared, Sara alone was the centre of all his magnificence ; whereas Jack was simply the heir and successor of the Brownlows, who had been time out of mind the solicitors of Masterton.

For Jack, the brick house in the High Street waited with aU its old stores ; and the fairy accessories of their present existence, aU the luxury and grace and beauty — the greys — the conservatories — the park — the place in the country — seemed a kind of natural appanage to the fair creature in whom the race of Brownlow had come to flower, the father could not tell how ; for it seemed strange to think that he himself, who was but a homely indi vidual, shoidd have been the means of bringing any thing so fair and fine into the world. Probably Mr Brownlow, when it came to making his will, would BROWNLOWS. 21 be strictly just to his two chUdren ; but in the mean time, in his thoughts, that was, no doubt, how things stood ; and Jack accordingly was brought up as he himself had been, rather as the heir of the Brown lows' business, their exceUent connection and long established practice, than as the heir of Brow-nlows — twro very different things, as wiU be perceived.

When they went away Sara betook herself to her own business. She saw the cook in the most correct and exemplary way. Fortunately the cook was also the housekeeper, and a very good-tempered woman, who received all her young mistress's suggestions with amiability, and only complained sometimes that Miss Brownlow would order everything that was out of season. " Not for the sake of extravagance," Mrs Stock said, in answer to Sara's maid, who had made that impertinent suggestion ; " oh, no, nothin' of the sort — only out of always forgettin', poor dear, and always wantin' me to believe as she knows." But as Sara fortunately paid but little attention to the dinner when produced, making no particular criticism — not for want of will, but for w-ant of knowledge — her interview with the cook at least did t no harm.