‘MOTHER, I want you to come with me to the school,’ said Mab. She had lost no time in carrying out Mrs. Brown’s previsions, though she was quite unaware of them.
‘Me—to go with you to the school? You know I have never had anything to do with the school. There are plenty of ladies to look after the school.’
‘Yes, I know what you always say, mother: and I never asked you before. You will never have anything to do with the parish; but this is not the parish, it is me. Mrs. Brown is a very queer woman. She has them all in the most excellent order; but—I want you to see with your own eyes and tell me what you think.’
‘I have a very important letter to write, Mab.’
‘You are always writing important letters now, mother. What is it about? You never tell me anything now. I used to know all about your letters, and lately you never tell me anything. You are always conspiring with Uncle James. You never trust anything to me!’
‘Poor Uncle James! How much perplexity and trouble I have brought him—and everybody connected with me.’
‘You—mother!’
Mab stood and stared at her with wide-open eyes.
‘No,’ said Lady William, with a blush and a laugh. ‘You do well to stare, Mab. I suppose that is one of the conventional things that people say when they are in trouble. No, I have not brought perplexity upon any one, or trouble, for a great number of years; but it is true that I have begun again now——’
‘What is it, mother?’ Mab came to the back of her mother’s chair, put her arms round Lady William’s neck, and rubbed her downy girlish cheek against the other, which was paler, but not less soft. Then Mab made a guess at the trouble in the only form that occurred to her. ‘Have we been spending too much money? Have we got into debt? Has anything happened about—Uncle Reginald——’
‘Poor Reginald!’ cried Lady William. ‘That is what it is to be the prodigal of the family—everything is laid upon him. No, it is quite another matter. It is—why shouldn’t I tell her? It is your father’s brother, who has died and left a great deal of money. And there are things to arrange. If I can settle everything, as I wish—you will be a rich girl. But it is all uncertain, and it has stirred up so much that was gone and past.’
‘Then it is about money,’ said Mab in a relieved tone. ‘And perhaps we may be rich! Well, that is nothing to trouble about, mother. I should like it, on the contrary. Come out, and leave the letter till to-morrow. Come anyhow—whether you come to the school or not——’
‘What a little pertinacity you are! But, Mab, there is another side to the question. If it is not settled that you are to be rich—an heiress, as people call it—we shall, perhaps, be very poor, poorer than you can imagine: with nothing—less than nothing!’ cried Lady William, thinking with a pang of the good name and honour—the loss of which Mab never could understand.
‘Well!’ said Mab, with another rub of her cheek upon her mother’s, ‘that’s nothing so very dreadful either. Most people are poor—far, far more people than are rich. We shall be no worse than our neighbours. I daresay we shall be able to do something for our living. We are not useless people, mother, you and me. And now come out, come out, mother dear! You will write your letter much better after you have had a walk. The fresh air puts things into your head, the right things to say——’
‘Ah, Mab,’ cried Lady William, ‘if you only knew how willing I am to be tempted, how much rather I would put it off—for ever if I could——’
‘Well, mother, putting it off till the afternoon is not putting it off for ever,’ said sensible Mab.
And when Lady William went to get her hat, Mab, who had always a hundred things to do within as well as outside the house, in the course of her moving about as she put things straight upon the table, saw her mother’s letter upon the blotting-book, which Lady William had left open. Mab had no idea that she did anything wrong in looking at it. She had had no hesitation in all her life before, about anything that was her mother’s, and why now? It began, ‘Gentlemen,’ which was a queer mode of address, Mab thought, and this was how it went on:
‘I had already heard of Lord John Pakenham’s death, and expected your letter accordingly. I have no certificates to send you, as it never occurred to me to provide myself with anything of the kind, and circumstances, as I hear from my brother, have occurred to make it somewhat difficult to obtain them but you will perhaps know better how to act in the matter than I do. I was married on the 13th May, in St. Alban’s Proprietary Chapel, Stone Street, Marylebone, by the Rev. Mr. Gepps, who is since dead. And I am informed by my brother that the Chapel was burnt down some years ago. It seems an unfortunate concatenation of accidents, but I don’t doubt that you will know how to proceed in the matter. There is no witness of the marriage still alive—except——’
Here the writing broke off, and Mab stopped short with a curious sensation as if she had been pulled up suddenly. It startled her a little; she could scarcely tell why. What did people mean, inquiring into matters so long past? Her mother’s marriage! Why, everybody knew all about her mother’s marriage. ‘Am not I a proof of it? Mab said to herself. ‘I hope they don’t mean to suggest that I am not my mother’s child!’ It disturbed her a little, though she could not have told why. Poor mother! she never liked talking about her marriage. Why should she be troubled? Mab had long ago made up her mind that it could not have been a happy marriage, though natural piety (which was strong in her) prevented her from blaming her father. They did not understand each other, she supposed. Many married people failed in that: strange to think how anybody could fail to understand mother, who was so very easy to get on with, not jealous or touchy, or any of those things! And that anybody should worry her about her marriage after all this time when she had been a widow for such years and years! Mab could not bear that her mother should be worried in this or any other way.
‘Mother,’ she said, when they set out, ‘I want to say something to you. I read your letter, you know, in the writing-book——’
‘You read my letter, Mab?’
‘Well, you never said I mustn’t; I never thought you could be writing anything you did not want me to see.’
‘And you are quite right, my dear,’ said Lady William seriously; but all the same, she asked herself with a shudder, ‘How far she had gone, what she had said?’
‘And, mother, if they are raking up everything, all those things you prefer not to talk of, that you have never even told me—because of this money that might or should come to me—mother, I don’t want their money. Let them keep it to themselves. I will not have you worried or get that look over the eyes for anything of the kind. I ought to have a say in it, if it is for me.’
‘My love, it is very sweet of you to say that—and quite what I might have expected from my Mab; but unfortunately they, if you mean the lawyers, won’t keep it to themselves, nor can they keep it from you, if—— The family would keep it willingly, I have no doubt, but then it is not in their hands.’
‘If—what, mother?’
To think—among all her mother had said—that this little straightforward, practical mind should have seized on the one little word which she had not meant to say! Lady William was pale, besides having, as Mab remarked, a look over her eyes. ‘If—I can settle it all as I wish,’ she replied.
Mab gave a dissatisfied look, but said no more on the subject. Lady William’s tone admitted of no more questioning, and the little girl knew when to stop. She took her advantage, however, in another direction, and seizing her mother’s arm as they reached the village street, said: ‘Now, mother, come with me to the school.’
Lady William laughed, and consented. A laugh, an escape from present anxiety, a run with a little coaxing, not-to-be-denied girl through the morning air and sunshine—how pleasant these things are! She had been a little vexed about the letter, and had checked Mab’s inquiries in a manner which does not at all show in print, but which was very effectual, and now she could not fail to make up for all this by giving in to Mab. When they reached the schoolroom, however, it did not present the same aspect of quiet without and occupation within which it generally did. There was a little crowd round the door, in the midst of which were some of the elder girls talking volubly. And at the moment when Lady William and her daughter appeared upon the scene, Mr. Osborne was visible coming towards them on one side and Leo Swinford on the other. What was the matter? Mab, whom everybody knew, pushed into the midst of the agitated group.
‘Oh, Miss, teacher’s gone,’ the girls cried, hurrying round as to a new listener.
‘Gone! Mrs. Brown!’ cried Mab, with almost a shriek of dismay: and then the story was told by half-a-dozen eager voices at once. Mrs. Brown had returned last evening in a grand carriage—the carriage from the Hall—to the wonder and awe of the nearest neighbours who were witnesses of the event; but whether she went away again late that night or by the first train in the morning no one knew. What was certain was that when the children came to school in the morning the schoolroom (oh, joy!) was locked up, and no trace to be found of Mrs. Brown. Later, when the schoolmaster decided upon the strong step of breaking open the doors, it was found that Mrs. Brown’s trunks were fastened, her house stripped of all its embellishments, and no sign of her left anywhere. The boxes were addressed to a railway station in London to be left till called for. There was no letter, no statement of any excuse. She was gone, that was all that could be said.
This, of course, was by no means all that was said as the schoolgirls chattered and the women compared notes. A number of them had perceived as something was up. Some had seen from the first as she wasn’t the kind of woman for our school, and it wouldn’t answer long; though several acknowledged as it must be allowed she pushed the girls on.
‘There’s my Lizzie,’ said an admiring mother, ‘passed all the standards and done with schooling, and she but twelve; and the help it is to have her at home!’
‘But teacher was allays fond of me, mother,’ said Lizzie, ‘and pushed me on.’
Then a great many had burst in to declare that teacher was very fond of them individually, and had pushed them all on. A little Babel of talk arose at the schoolroom door, which was only partially stayed when Mr. Osborne arrived, to whom the whole story had to be told over again. And then Mr. Swinford came up breathless, who received the news with more excitement than any one.
‘Gone!’ he cried, ‘gone!’ as if he could not believe his ears. ‘Have they searched the house?’ he inquired anxiously.
‘Well, sir, what’s the good o’ searching the house? She can’t be hiding upstairs,’ the women said.
Leo was not satisfied with this, however, but ran into the schoolmistress’s house with a very white and anxious face, making his way upstairs to her bedroom and into the little kitchen and every corner. He came down again and took Lady William by the arm, leading her aside. He did not even observe the scrutiny of Mab, who, full of curiosity which she herself did not understand, watched and followed them.
‘Did you see her?’ he asked anxiously.
‘See her?’ cried Lady William—‘the schoolmistress? Mrs. Brown?’
‘Then you had not found out,’ he said, ‘that she was Artémise?’
And then Mab thought that her mother would have fainted. She threw up her arms and cried: ‘Artémise!’ almost with a shriek. ‘And she has been here at my door—here—and I never knew!’
‘Mr. Leo,’ said Mab, ‘mother has been worried until she is almost ill. She has had business and all sorts of things to worry her. Why did you tell her this, whatever it means, to make her worse?’ She had drawn Lady William into a chair and stood behind her, supporting her head upon her own breast, with her arms over her mother’s shoulders like the wings of some homely angel half-fledged and not in full heavenly state.
‘Somebody must go after her,’ Lady William cried hurriedly. ‘She must not, she must not escape. Here! do you mean to say here, at my very door? And I had been told to go and see her, and Mab, my wise Mab, had made me come at last. Oh, child, why was it not yesterday—why was it not——? And Leo, to think you should never have told me. The woman that can make all right, that can save Mab’s fortune, and my—— Leo, Leo, why didn’t you tell me? Oh, Mab, why did you not make me come before to-day?’
‘I only made the discovery last night,’ he said, while she sat wringing her hands, ‘and that she should fly like this never came into my mind. I was on my way to tell you, to bring you here.’
‘Mab did that. Mab, though she knows nothing, understands. And who is to follow that woman and secure her now? Some one must go at once, before the scent is cold, before—before——’
‘Dear lady, I am ready to go—wherever you please to send me. I am here only for your service. I will go to where the address is and wait, wait till she comes. It is easy. I will never forgive myself for letting her go last night.’
Lady William had been slowly coming to herself, the giddiness going out of her head, and the dimness from her eyes. When she recovered her composure, she saw that a little crowd had gathered round her—some of the women from outside, one of whom held a glass of water, while another had rolled forward Mrs. Brown’s sofa and was entreating her ladyship to lie down; while behind stood two tall figures looking on, Mr. Osborne and Jim. The curate had on that mask of disapproval which he was too apt to show to any weakness. Why Lady William should get up a little faint because this schoolmistress, of whom he himself had never approved, had gone, he found it impossible to divine. A faint! As if it were anything to her—the schoolmistress! of whom she had never taken any notice. It was like the folly of women, making a fuss upon every possible occasion. Mr. Osborne did not pause to consider that Lady William was not the woman to faint in order to make a fuss, or even to remember that she had not fainted at all. Such considerations interfere sadly with the solid foundations of tradition. Jim stood beside his friend with a very different expression upon his face. It was anxious, full of sympathy, and of something more than sympathy, eager to interfere, to speak; but nobody took any notice of Jim.
‘Mother, do you think you could walk home now?’ said Mab in her ear. ‘Please, please, mother, come away if you can.’
‘I ought to go after her, Mab.’
‘Dear lady, I will go,’ cried Leo. ‘Surely you can trust me?’
‘Oh, mother,’ cried Mab, more and more impatient, ‘come home now, come home.’
Mab could scarcely tell why it was that she was so anxious for her mother to come away. Other people were arriving from moment to moment. Miss Grey, on one of her parochial rounds, startled by the commotion and the sight of so many children about during school hours: and General FitzStephen, who, seeing that something had happened (always such a godsend in a village), had walked over to inquire into it. Mab could not bear that her mother’s agitation should be seen by so many curious pairs of eyes. And by Mr. Osborne above all, looking disapproval over the heads of the little crowd.
‘There is no train,’ she said, ‘till the afternoon; and if the things are not sent off, how can she come to claim them? And you could not hang about a railway station waiting. Oh, mother, come home.’
‘Mab,’ said Jim, making his way to her, ‘I’ll do anything. You can send me anywhere. And let me take Aunt Emily home.’
Lady William rose from among the attendants, recalled to herself by these offers of aid.
‘Mab has always the most sense of all of us,’ she said with a smile. Of course nobody can go when there is no train. Thanks; but I don’t think I need your arm, Jim. No, no; I am not ill at all. I was only much startled to find that Mrs. Brown, who has just gone away so hastily, was an old friend whom I had many reasons for wishing to see: and I never knew she was here.’
‘Do you know,’ cried Miss Grey, ‘I always thought her face was familiar to me; but I could not put a name to it. Who was she? I ought to have known her, too.’
‘And she has gone away—without any notice!’ said the General. ‘I never heard of such a thing. The schoolmistress! And what is to be done to fill her place?’
Lady William, under cover of this discussion, which was immediately taken up by the curate and Miss Grey, left the house, which had never before, perhaps, been so invaded by the crowd. The released children were in full émeute outside—those who had not already been secured by their mothers—filling the village street with commotion, and sorely trying the patience of the boys on the other side, who heard but could not understand those sounds of jubilee. To think that there were no means of checking the riot, and that half of the children in the parish had thus an unexpected holiday, was grievous to the soul of Mr. Osborne, who formed a sort of committee instantly in the abandoned house over Mrs. Brown’s boxes. Miss Grey called to Mab that she would come in the afternoon and tell them how things were arranged, as they went away. That little lay-curate could not imagine, sympathetic as she was, that there could be any question so interesting as this.
And, indeed, nothing had happened in Watcham for years that had been so exciting. The schoolmistress! without a word of warning, without a thought, apparently, of the embarrassment or trouble it would cause to the parish, without any consideration even of her own interest—for how could she ever obtain another situation, having left her charge like this? People came out to their doors to ask, as Lady William passed, could it be true? and groups stood discussing the strange event all along the street. The schoolmistress! that functionary of all others in an English parish is the least apt to be revolutionary. What could this portent mean?