Next morning Mr Brown, with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders up to his ears as usual, went down at his ordinary rapid pace to old Mrs Thomson’s house. Nancy had locked the house-door, which, like an innocent almost rural door as it was, opened from without. She was upstairs, very busy in a most congenial occupation—turning out the old lady’s wardrobe, and investigating the old stores of lace and fur and jewellery. She knew them pretty well by heart before; but now that, according to her idea, they were her own, everything naturally acquired a new value. She had laid them out in little heaps, each by itself, on the dressing-table; a faintly-glittering row of old rings and brooches, most of them entirely valueless, though Nancy was not aware of that. On the bed—the bed where two days ago that poor old pallid figure still lay in solemn ownership of the “property” around it—Nancy had spread forth her mistress’s ancient boas and vast muffs, half a century old; most of them were absolutely dropping to pieces; but as long as they held together with any sort of integrity, Nancy was not the woman to lessen the number of her possessions. The bits of lace were laid out upon the old sofa, each at full length. With these delightful accumulations all round her, Nancy was happy. She had entered, as she supposed, upon an easier and more important life. Mistress of the empty house and all its contents, she carried herself with an air of elation and independence which she had never ventured to display before. No doubt had ever crossed her mind on the subject. She had taken it for granted that the expulsion of the Christians meant only her own triumph. She had even taken credit, both to herself and other people, for greater guiltiness than she really had incurred. The will was not her doing, though Mrs Christian said so and Nancy was willing to believe as much; but she was glad to be identified as the cause of it, and glad to feel that she was the person who would enjoy the benefit. She was in this holiday state of mind, enjoying herself among her supposed treasures, when she was interrupted by the repeated and imperative demands for entrance made by Mr Brown at the locked door. Nancy went down to open it, but not in too great a hurry. She was rather disposed to patronise the attorney. She put on her white apron, and went to the door spreading it down with a leisurely hand. To Nancy’s surprise and amazement, Mr Brown plunged in without taking any notice of her. He went into the parlour, looked all round, then went up-stairs, three steps at a time, into the best parlour, uncomfortably near the scene of Nancy’s operations. There was the old cabinet for which he had been looking. When he saw it he called to her to look here. Nancy, who had followed him close, came forward immediately. He was shaking the door of the cabinet to see if it was locked. It was a proceeding of which Nancy did not approve.
“I suppose this is where she kept her papers,” said Mr Brown; “get me the keys. I want to see what’s to be found among her papers touching this daughter of hers. You had better bring me all the keys. Make haste, for I have not any time to lose.”
“Missis never kept any papers there,” said Nancy, alarmed and a little anxious. “There’s the best china tea-set and the silver service—that’s all you’ll find there.”
“Bring me the keys, however,” said Mr Brown. “Where did she keep her papers, eh? You know{606} all about her, I suppose. Do you know anything about Ph?be Thomson, that I’ve got to hunt up? She was Mrs Thomson’s daughter, I understand. What caused her to leave her mother? I suppose you know. What is she? How much can you tell me about her?”
“As much as anybody living,” said Nancy, too well pleased to divert him from his inquiries after the keys. “I was but a girl when it happened; but I remember it like yesterday. She went off—missis never liked to have it mentioned,” said Nancy, coming to a dead stop.
“Go on,” cried Mr Brown; “she can’t hear you now, can she? Go on.”
“She went off with a soldier—that’s the truth. They were married after; but missis never thought that mattered. He was a common man, and as plain a looking fellow as you’d see anywhere. Missis cast her off, and would have nothing to say to her. She over-persuaded me, and I let her in one night; but missis wouldn’t look at her. She never came back. She was hurt in her feelin’s. We never heard of her more.”
“Nor asked after her, I suppose?” said the lawyer, indignantly. “Do you mean the old wretch never made any inquiry about her own child?”
“Meaning missis?” said Nancy. “No—I don’t know as she ever did. She said she’d disown her; and she was a woman as always kept her word.”
“Old beast!” said John Brown between his teeth; “but, look here; if she’s married, she is not Ph?be Thomson. What’s her name?”
“I can’t tell,” said Nancy, looking a little frightened. “Sure, neither she is—to think of us never remarking that! But dear, dear! will that make any difference to the will?”
Mr Brown smiled grimly, but made no answer. “Have you got anything else to tell me about her? Did she ever write to her mother? Do you know what regiment it is, or where it was at that time?” said the attorney. “Think what you are about, and tell me clearly—what year was she married, and where were you at the time?”
Nancy grew nervous under this close questioning. She lost her self-possession and all her fancied importance. “We were in the Isle o’ Man, where the Christians come from. I was born there myself. Missis’s friends was mostly there. It was by her husband’s side she belonged to Carlingford. It was about a two miles out of Douglas—a kind of a farmhouse. It was the year—the year—I was fifteen,” said Nancy, faltering.
“And how old are you now?” said the inexorable questioner, who had taken out his memorandum-book.
Nancy dropped into a chair and began to sob. “It’s hard on a person bringing things back,” said Nancy,—“and to think if she should actually turn up again just as she was! As for living in the house with her, I couldn’t think of such a thing. Sally Christian, or some poor-spirited person might do it, but not me as am used to be my own mistress,” cried Nancy, with increasing agitation. “She had the temper of —— oh! she was her mother’s temper. Dear, dear! to think as she might be alive, and come back to put all wrong! It was in the year ’eight—that’s the year it was.”
“Then you didn’t think she would come back,” said Mr Brown.
“It’s a matter o’ five-and-thirty years; and not knowing even her name, nor the number of the regiment, nor nothing—as I don’t,” said Nancy, cautiously; “and never hearing nothing about her, what was a person to think? And if it’s just Ph?be Thomson you’re inquiring after, and don’t say nothing about the marriage nor the regiment, you may seek long enough before you find her,” said Nancy, with a glance of what was intended to be private intelligence between herself and her{607} questioner, “and all correct to the will.”
Mr Brown put up his memorandum-book sharply in his pocket. “Bring me the keys. Look here, bring me all the keys,” he said. “What’s in this other room, eh? It was her bedroom, I suppose. Hollo, what’s all this?”
For all Nancy’s precautions had not been able to ward off this catastrophe. He pushed into the room she had left to admit him, where all her treasures were exhibited. His quick eye glanced round in an instant, and understood it. Trembling as Nancy was with new alarms, she had still strength to make one struggle.
“Missis’s things fall to me,” said Nancy, half in assertion, half in entreaty; “that’s how it always is; the servant gets the lady’s wardrobe—the servant as has nursed her and done for her, when there’s no daughter—that’s always understood.”
“Bring me the keys,” said Mr Brown.
The keys were in the open wardrobe, a heavy bunch. John Brown seized hold of the furs on the bed and began to toss them into the wardrobe. Some of them dropped in pieces in his hands and were tossed out again. He took no notice of the lace or the trinkets, but swiftly-locked every keyhole he could find in the room—drawers, boxes, cupboards, everything. Nancy looked on with fierce exclamations. She would have her rights—she was not to be put upon. She would have the law of him. She would let everybody know how he was taking upon himself as if he was the master of the house.
“And so I am, my good woman; when will you be ready to leave it?” said Mr Brown. “You shall have due time to get ready, and I won’t refuse you the trumpery you’ve set your heart upon. Judging from the specimen, it won’t do Ph?be Thomson much good. But not in this sort of way, you know. I must put a stop to this. Now let me hear what’s the earliest day you can leave the house.”
“I’m not going to leave the house!” cried Nancy; “I’ve lived here thirty years, and here I’ll die. Missis’s meaning was to leave me in the house, and make me commforable for life. Many’s the time she’s said so. Do you think you’re going to order me about just as you please? What do you suppose she left the property like that for but to spite the Christians, and to leave a good home to me?............