MAB went home from her visit to Mrs. Brown a very different girl from that little person who had run off from the group of her friends to ask the co-operation of the schoolmistress—which had seemed to her a very amusing mission. She had wondered much how it would be taken—with satire or with pleasure. Mrs. Brown’s tongue was one which could sting, Mab knew; but a tongue is all the more amusing for that, when its sting is not for one’s self. Mab rather liked to hear her sending her arrows from right to left. She had thought that probably it was misfortune that caused this, and the sense which people who have seen better days are apt to entertain that it is somehow a wrong to themselves that other people should be prosperous. We are all, unfortunately, too apt to feel so. Blatant prosperity, smiling and smooth, how hard it is for the rest of us not to hate its superior well-being, even if we do not think that it is something taken from ourselves. But that was a very different thing from the dreadful confidences which Mab had received, and which made of her, even herself, who had certainly nothing to do with Mrs. Brown’s sin, a heavy-laden and burdened spirit. Little Mab, who had run down to the schoolhouse as light as a feather—though she was not, as the reader is aware, one of your thread-paper girls—came back from it as if she had carried that pack upon her back which Christian had in the Pilgrim’s Progress. The pack belonged to Christian himself, and he had a right to bear it; but, I repeat, Mab had nothing to do with Mrs. Brown’s sins. And I am not at all sure what Mab conceived these sins to be; she knew nothing about them: they were something vaguely terrible, vaguely yet frightfully guilty to her childish sense of purity and rectitude. And yet Mrs. Brown was the schoolmistress, the woman who had all the Watcham girls in her hands; and Mab alone, of all the parish, knew that she was not fit to be trusted with that charge. She walked home with the tread and the air of a woman of fifty, her soft brow lined with prodigious scores of thought, her spiritual back bent under this burden. Mab knew, while all the parish lay in darkness. And Mab, the Rector’s niece, and a district visitor, and Lady Bountiful from her cradle, had a duty to the parish which a person less bound with ties of duty might not have thought of. There was her duty to the parish, and, on the other hand, there was her duty to her penitent; for, though she had not asked to have that high office, still Mab felt that she had been adopted as the confessor of the sinner. Sinner was a better name for her than penitent, for she was not penitent; but yet she had trusted Mab. And what was the person so trusted to do?—betray it to the parish, or to any one in the parish? Oh, no, no! And yet was not that to betray the parish and its trust and confidence in herself? If you can imagine any subject more likely to score with wrinkles a brow of seventeen, such a divination is beyond my powers. Mab thought and thought, turning the question over and over in her mind with more curiosity than if she had been a philosopher in search of a new theory. What it is right to do between two conflicting duties is a question for a moralist more than a philosopher, if there is, indeed, any difference between the two. It was a tremendous question. She did not see her friend, the General, though he took off his hat and waved it in cordial greeting as she passed his garden hedge; nor Miss Grey, who had run after her, but finally gave up the chase, unable to make Mab hear her call. Lady William was waiting, though not impatiently, for the mid-day meal, which was the chief repast in the cottage, when Mab reached home: her mother called out to her to make haste, for Anne in the kitchen was apt to lose her temper when her ladies were unpunctual. But Mab was too much confused to make haste. She did not come down for a quarter of an hour, until Anne was half-wild, and Patty in the highest agitation. The dinner had already been sent in, which should have pacified Anne, but she was something of an artiste, in feeling at least, and could not bear her dishes to be spoiled. Mab heard her voice from the depths of the kitchen intoning comminations, and saw that Patty had tears in her eyes, though they sent out pretty sparks of satisfaction at sight of the laggard.
‘Oh, Miss Mab, the soup’s cold,’ she ventured to say, even Patty thus raising a protest.
But Lady William was not very severe. ‘You little sluggish thing,’ she said. ‘What have you been doing? Patty and I have been suffering much from Anne. And I fear the soup will be quite cold.’
‘Oh, that’s all the better,’ said Mab, trying to pluck up a spirit, ‘for it’s a very warm day.’
‘I am glad you find it so,’ said Lady William, with a shiver. ‘May is seldom so hot in England as to make cold soup desirable. And how did the practice go off, and where have you been? for I saw Emmy and Florry go home a long time ago.’
‘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.