Mrs. Fennell was sitting in her drawing-room with only her second-best cap on, and with less than her second-best temper. If she had known he was coming she would have received him with a very different state, and she was mortified by her unpreparedness. Also her dinner was ready. As for Mr. Brownlow, he was not thinking of dinners. He had something on his mind, and it was his object to conceal that he had any thing on his mind—a matter less difficult to a man of his profession than to ordinary mortals. But what he said was that he was anxious chiefly to know if his mother-in-law was comfortable, and if she had every thing according to her desires.
Mrs. Fennell smiled at this inquiry. She smiled, but she rushed into a thousand grievances. Her lodgings were not to her mind, nor her position. Sara, the little puss, had carriages when she pleased, but her grandmamma never had any conveyance at her disposal to take the air in. And the people of the house were very inattentive, and Nancy—but here the old woman, who was clever, put a sudden stop to herself and drew up and said no more. She knew that to complain of Nancy would be of no particular advantage to her, for Mr. Brownlow was not fond of old Mrs. Thomson’s maid, and was as likely as not to propose that she should be pensioned and sent away.
“I have told you before,” said Mr. Brownlow, “that the brougham should be sent down for you when you want to go out if you will only let me know in time. What Sara has is nothing—or you can have a fly; but it is not fit weather for you to go out at your age.”
“You are not so very young yourself, John Brownlow,” said the old lady, with a little offense.
“No indeed—far from it—and that is what makes me think,” he said abruptly; and then made a pause which she did not understand, referring evidently to something in his own mind. “Did you ever know any body of the name of Powys in the Isle of Man?” he resumed, with a certain nervous haste, and an effort which brought heat and color to his face.
“Powys!” said Mrs. Fennell. “I’ve heard the name; but I think it was Liverpool-ways and not in the Isle of Man. It’s a Welsh name. No; I never knew any Powyses. Do you?”
“It was only some one I met,” said Mr. Brownlow, “who had relations in the Isle of Man. Do you know of any body who married there and left? Knowing that you came from that quarter, somebody was asking me.”
“I don’t know of nobody but one,” said the old woman—“one that would make a deal of difference if she were to come back now.”
“You mean the woman Phœbe Thomson?” said Mr. Brownlow, sternly. “It is a very strange thing to me that her relatives should know nothing about that woman—not even whom she married or what was her name.”
“She married a soldier,” said Mrs. Fennell, “as I always heard. She wasn’t my relation—it was poor Fennell that was her cousin. As for us, we come of very different folks; and I don’t doubt as her name might have been found out,” said the old woman, nodding her spiteful old head. Mr. Brownlow kept his temper, but it was by a kind of miracle. This was the sort of thing which he was always subject to on his rare visits to his mother-in-law. “It’s for some folks’ good that her name couldn’t be found out,” added the old woman, with another significant nod.
“It would have been for some folks’ good if they had never heard of her,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I wish a hundred times in a year that I had never administered or taken any notice of the old hag’s bequest. Then it would have gone to the crown, I suppose, and all this trouble would have been spared.”
“Other things would have had to be spared as well,” said Mrs. Fennell, in her taunting voice.
“I should have known what was my own and what was not, and my children would have been in no false position,” said Mr. Brownlow, with energy: “but now—” Here he stopped short, and his looks alarmed his companion, unsympathetic as she was. She loved to have this means of taunting and keeping down his pride, as she said; but her grandchildren’s advantage was to a certain extent her own, and the thought of injury to them was alarming, and turned her thoughts into another channel. She took fright at the idea of Phœbe Thomson when she saw Mr. Brownlow’s face. It was the first time it had ever occurred to her as possible that he, a gentleman, a lawyer, and a clever man, might possibly have after all to give up to Phœbe Thomson should that poor and despised woman ever turn up.
“But she couldn’t take the law of you?” Mrs. Fennell said, with a gasp. “She wouldn’t know any thing about it. I may talk disagreeable by times, and I own that we never were fond of each other, you and I, John Brownlow; but I’m not the woman that would ever let on to her, to harm my poor Bessie’s children—not I—not if she was to come back this very day.”
It is useless to deny that Mr. Brownlow’s face at that moment looked as if he would have liked to strangle the old woman; but he only made an indignant movement, and looked at her with rage and indignation, which did her no harm. And, poor man, in his excitement perhaps it was not quite true what he himself said—
“If she should come back this very day, it would be your duty to send her to me instantly, that I might give up her mother’s trust into her hands,” he said. “You may be sure I will never permit poor Bessie’s children to enjoy what belongs to another.” And then he made a pause and his voice changed. “After all, I suppose you know just as little of her as I do. Did you ever see her?” he said.
“Well, no; I can’t say I ever did,” said Mrs. Fennell, cowed for the moment.
“Nor Nancy?” said Mr. Brownlow; “you two would be safe guides certainly. And you know of nobody else who left the Isle of Man and married—no relation of Fennell’s or of yours?”
“Nobody I know of,” said the old woman after a pause. “There might be dozens; but us and the Thomsons and all belonging to us, we’ve been out of the Isle of Man for nigh upon fifty years.”
After that Mr. Brownlow went away. He had got no information, no satisfaction, and yet he had made no discovery, which was a kind of negative comfort in its way; but it was clear that his mother-in-law, though she made so much use of Phœbe Thomson’s name, was utterly unable to give him any assistance either in discovering the real Phœbe Thomson or in exposing any false pretender. He went across the market place over the crisp snow in the sunshine with all his faculties, as it were, crisped and sharpened like the air he breathed. This was all the effect as yet which the frosts of age had upon him. He had all his powers unimpaired, and more entirely serviceable and under command than ever they were. He could trust himself not to betray himself, to keep counsel, and act with deliberation, and do nothing hastily. Thus, though his enemies were as yet unknown and