Complete Story. Brown’s Feelings.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XV, 14 April 1900, Page 677

Complete Story. Brown’s Feelings.

(By

Mary Angela Dickens.

■‘ln local parentis—that’s what 1 am and intend to be. Miss Dot s got no one else —bless her—now. In —local — parentis.” Brown made a pause between each word, partly to give due force to each, and partly because the intervals were occupied with the arrangement of a coffee pot and a cup upon their silver tray. He was a short spare man upon whom age seemed to have laid a shrivelling rather than an enfeebling touch. The fringe of hair that surrounded his non-committal baldness was of that sandy hue over which time is more or less powerless. The deep lines upon his face seemed to be mainly the result of a preternatural solemnity of expression. His eyes were the watery blue of old age, but their glance, if slow, was as shrewd as that of a young man. “Lor’, Mr Brown, what things yon do say!” The comment came from Miss heltram’s maid, who was standing* by Brown’s pantry fire. Denton was a young woman, who, as she phrased it, “enjoyed a little chat.” “And what may that mean in English, now?” she added. '* ’Tisn’t English, by the sound of it.” “No.”

Brown spoke with grim superiority. He was at that moment making the coffee, a task he would give to no other hand. “It’s Latin,” he went on as he put the coffee-pot down. “And it means—it means a deal; in especial it means that I am going* to let Miss Dot understand my mind about this bicycle James brought. I can’t have Miss Dot bicycling; it’s not a fit thing for Miss Eeltram to do; I won’t have her go bicycling out of Eeltram Court, and that’s the fact.” “Brown’s was not the ty*pe of mind that moves with the times. It held few tenets, but the firmest consisted of the thesis that every invention to which the mind of man had attained since he himself had arrived at maturity was an invention from which no good could possibly come. He disapproved of the telegraph; he disbelieved in the telephone. He looked upon an express train as a new fangled crotchet, and he regarded a bicycle as a machine calculated to wreck the very foundations of society. “Won’t yon?” said Denton, laughin»*. “You think you’ve a deal ot a say with Miss Eeltram, Mr Brown, you do.” “I have,” said he calmly. "And l mean to have.”

“She’s as well-intentioned a mistress as ever I wish to have,” said Denton. “But the meekest has a way of thenown, and, you mark me, Mr Brown, you won’t have your say for ever, that’s what 1 think.” Brown only answered this by a dissentient cough and the clatter of a cup. .... Meanwhile Miss Feltram was sitting in her own rather stately dining-room, which had remained unchanged to all intents and purposes ever smee she could remember. She was just a trifle nervous. It was not easy to say how the fact betrayed itself, for hers was not a physique which lent itself readily to signs of discomposure. She was a very handsome woman; though she was nearly thirty-seven there was no touch of grey in her thick black hair. It was drawn softly back from her forehead, leaving only a few little curls to soften the outline, in a way which added to her height mid to the effect of dignity produced by a very* well shaped and well jMiised head. She had particularly bright dark eyes, a pleasant mouth always ready' to curve into a smile, and a clear dark complexion against which the level line of her eyebrows stood out with an effect which gave an added character to her face.

The remains of a banana lay on her plate, and she was carefully cutting it into small squares as if the fate oi nations depended upon the accuracy of this action. And herein, perhaps, lay the one sign of the nervousness which culminated in a slight start as the door opened. Brown came up to his mistress, held the tray while she poured out her coffee, then put it on the table and withdrew a step or two so that he stood facing her, respectful, servantlike in every line of his black-clad figure.

Miss Eeltram began to play with her teaspoon. Apparently* she found matter for study in her own crest as displayed thereon. "Well, Brown,” she said, at length, "is there any news to-night?"

Brown shook his head. His natural solemnity of demeanour was accentuated. "Not that I’m aware of. Miss Dot.” lie said, and then he paused. The pause was full of portent. Miss Eeltram sipped her eoffee with deliberation. “Oh, by the bye,” she said with an assumption of having been struck by a sudden thought which would not have deceived an infant and obviously did not deceive Brown, "has James come back from the station?” "He have, Miss Dot.” It was only in moments of crisis that Brown’s grammar was wont to fail. Miss Eeltram suddenly became aware of an imaginary foreign body to be fished out of her coffee cup. “Were there any parcels for me?" she asked. "There were some seeds for the gardener and there was a bicycle. 1 couldn’t hardly believe it, but it was addressed to you, Miss Dot.” Miss Eeltram evidently made a determined effort to take the bull by’ the horns. She lifted her head and faced her old servant. “Ah. yes,” she said. “That’s right. I’m glad it’s come. Did I tell you, Brown, I can't remember, that I’m going to take to bicycling? This is a capital time of year to begin, they tell me. The roads are so nice, and it won’t be too hot for a long* time yet.” “Am 1 to understand as you know how to do it, Miss Dot?” Brown’s tone was such as to convey unmistakeably that to his mind the knowledge of the art of bicycling* was even a blacker fault than the possession of a bicycle. Miss Eeltram felt the subtle degradation she was undergoing and faltered. “Well, not yet,” she said humbly. “I ought to have taken to it long ago,” she added, growing bolder. “Miss Manisty and Mr Cecil are coming tomorrow to give me my first lesson. I shall soon learn,” she ended, with unexpected self-assertion. “Do yon think so, Miss Dot?” said Brown. There was a respectfully veiled disdain in his tone, and Miss Eeltram, her little flash of self-assertion over, passed to the only form of defence she could think of. “And then, you see,” she said, “it will be an immense convenience. One may not always want to have the horses out. Besides, one can go such long* distances. Miss Manisty and her brother think nothing* of sixty miles a day. They go like the wind!”

“Am I to understand that you are thinking* of going* sixty miles in a day. Miss Dot? And on them two wheels?” Brown’s tone was perfectly respectful. No one could have accused him at any time of taking* a liberty with his mistress; but there was that in his tone and manner which reduced bicyling* to the level of a nursery entertainment for children of impaired intellect. "I do not think,” he added with the solemnity belonging to intense conviction. “as it’s a suitable thing for you to do. Miss Dot —going like Unwind. I can't give no agreement to riding a bicycle—not for a lady in your position. I should have thought, if I may say so, as you'd have felt the same yourself.” This crushing innuendo was delivered very* slowly. Brown meant every word to strike home, and it did so. Miss Eeltram's aspirations obviously grew cold within her. “I—well, we shall see," she said. “Perhaps after all I shan't care much about it.” She rose as she spoke and Brown said no more. He simply opened the door for her deferentially. But as into all his preceding speech so also into this small action he contrived Io linfitse something of pitying regret that the necessity for speech on such a subject should'have been laid upon him. Miss Eeltram passed him with her head held rather high, but she did not ask what had beeh done with the new bicycle nor did she suggest that sh? should like to see it. She went into the drawing-room in silence.

It was of course not of the slightest consequence to Miss Eeltram of Feltram Court whether or no her butler approved of her bicycling. But, paradoxical as it may appear, it was of the very highest importance to Miss Dot that Brown should look with a favourable eye upon her proceedings. How it had come about that Brown had been allowed to go on using the name by which he had known his mistress when she was two years old. now that there was no one in the world who dreamed of calling her anything but Miss Feltram, or Dorothea, was a point not very easy of explanation. Dot had been her father’s name for her. and as long as he lived he had never spoken of her or to her by any more ceremonious term. After the cheery, domineering old gentleman had been gathered to his fathers, one or two of her intimate friends had suggested to Miss Feltram that it was advisable that Brown should now adopt a more respectful form of address. But Miss Feltram had laughed and sighed, and shaken her head. “It would hurt Brown's feelings,"

she said. So Brown continued to address his mistress as Miss Dot, and moreover he continued to think of her as Miss Dot. During old Mr Feltram's lifetime he had ruled alike over his daughter and his servants. But Brown's submission to his master was merely the submission of one strong character to an-

other which happened to have the advantage of circumstances on its side; and it have been altogether impossible to Brown to submit in like fashion to the authority of Miss Dot.

He had stepped into his |M>sition ax critic and general sujierintendeiit of Miss Dot’s actions before Miss Dot’s father was well laid in his grave. And every one of the five years that had passed since then had strengthened that dominion. Miss Felt ram gave way to Brown at first because she had been in the habit of g’ving way ro her father and life seemed «t very onesided business without him. She gave way later, partly because Brown would have made her life a burden to her-— respectfully but firmly—if she had not done so, and partly, as she told herself when his yoke was particularly grievous, because he was an old man. and she “couldn’t bear to hurt bis feelings.”

Brown did not speak on the subject of the bicycle at breakfast or lunch' eon next day, but it was with an expression that would have done him credit at his mistress's funeral that be opened the door of the drawing-room at about half-past three in tin* afternoon ami announced in sepulchral tones: “Miss Manisty and Mr Cecil ManIt was a brisk looking girl, and a boy in bicycling things who were thus

ushered in, and the girl flung herself upon Miss Feltram with effusion. Miss Feltram was very popular with her neighbours, young and old. But that liveliness whieh was one of her charms was conspicuous rather by its absence as she answered her j»oung visitors’ eager questions. “Well, it has come,” she said slowly. “Well, really I—l haven’t seen it yet, Kitty. It—only came last night, yon see.”

"You don’t mean to say that it is not even unpacked,” said Cecil Manisty. “Why, 1 thought you were no end keen, Miss Feltram. Come, and let's get it out.”

An alert young groom, however, had seen to the unpacking of the new machine, and as he wheeled it out spick and span and shining; “It’s ripping!” pronounced Cecil. "Come along, Miss Feltram!”

Miss Feltram paused suddenly. “You don’t mean me to try here, Cecil?” she said, and she glanced involuntarily at the house.

“Bather!” responded the boy cheerfully. “Couldn’t have a better place!” But Kitty Manisty was quicker than her brother.

“The Kong Walk would be ever so much better, Cecil,” she said. “It’s so straight, don’t you know.” She took the bicycle and wheeled it away, followed by her brother loudly protesting-, and by Miss Feltram silently grateful. Miss Feltram had an inward trembling- sense of the near presence of Brown. /His disapproval seemed to cloud the bright, new plating before her eyes.

Was bicycling really suitable to her age and position? She had argued the point with herself at great length on the previous evening after Brown had had his "say.” And when she had settled in her mind that it was certainly quite suitable she had found her naturally tender heart pierced by another qualm; was it kind to hurt poor old Brown’s feelings for her own pleasure, even if the action itself was light? Before she went to bed she had nearly decided to give it all up. Now, carried away by the impetuosity of the young Manistys, she could only say feebly to herself that the Long Walk was nearly out of sight of the house.

Nearly, but not quite. From a passage window near Brown’s pantry part of it could be seen, and at that window Brown, as his mistress and her guests went out, had posted himself. He did this with a vague idea of facing the worst. If proceedings he entirely disapproved of must take place, let them take place under his eye, he thought. Also, his whole soul was full of bitterness at having his remonstrance thus set aside, and he felt he could not possesss it in patience in the pantry. He honestly adored Miss Dot from 4he depths of a grim and faithful old heart, and he honestly thought bicycling entirely derogatory to her dignity. The spectacle before him certainly lent colour to his views. The man or woman whose first attempt at bicycling shall be dignified has yet to be born. Miss Feltram went through all the usual humiliations. She was pushed up on one side, pulled up on the other. She swayed hither and thither with Kitty Manisty clutching at the gathers of her skirt, and finally, after much indecision as to which side she should fall off, she east herself into Cecil Manisty’s arms with a fervour not warranted by their everyday relations. Brown’s groan on beholding this was still echoing in the passage, when Denton’s voiee said innocently over his shoulder: "Well, Mr Brown, seems to me your say ain’t what it was; I s’pose you had it, about the bicycle? How’s Miss Feltram getting on? You’ll excuse me mentioning it, but your front door bell’s ringing second time, too.”

If there was one thing Brown prided himself upon more than another it was that no one ever waited at the door of Feltram Court, and Denton knew it. He went off growling as she disap|H‘ared chuckling. He flung open the door with an accentuation of his usual style, and then the growl was succeeded by something like a gasp.

"Mr Richard Manisty?” It was Brown who asked the question. The visitor smiled. “Colonel Manisty,” he said. “Is Miss Feltram at home?” What Brown said he did not know, but he murmured something as he took the visitor into the drawingroom. The result of this murmur was that .Miss Feltram, who, held by Kitty in front and Cecil behind, was at last going gingerly down the Long

Walk, was thrown off her guard and her bicycle together, by a solemn voice from behind her:

"Am 1 to understand, Miss Dot, as you are at home or not at home?” With such a start as might have been produced by an explosion in the neighbourhood, M Feltram regained her equilibrium. She turned to Brown with a positively guilty air, which sat funnily enough upon her tall and dignified person, and she drew a step or two away from the bicycle as though disclaiming connection with it. “I’m—l’m at home, Brown,” she said. "i>—we were just coming to tea.”

"I took the liberty of inquiring, Miss Dot,” said Brown, with a gloom which can only be described as purposeful, "because Colonel Manisty has called.” A little gasp broke from Miss Feltram, and the flush with which she had confronted Brown faded very suddenly. "Colonel Manisty?” she said almost blankly. Then she turned to Kitty. "You didn’t tell me that your uncle had come back,” she said. “I —I had no idea that he was expected.” "He wasn’t,” said Kitty, carelessly. “Didn’t we tell you? No, we were so full of the bike, you see. He only turned up yesterday. Telegraphed from Southampton to say that he was coming. He said perhaps he’d ride over and go back with us to-day.” “Am 1 to understand as you are coming in, Miss Dot?” inquired Brown.

"I—l’m—oh, yes,” said Miss Feltram vaguely; and she moved up the Long Walk, with Kitty by her side chattering on about her uncle’s arrival. Miss Feltram did not speak a word, and during those two or three minutes a soft colour came to her cheek and a strange shining to her eyes, whieh made her, as she opened the drawingroom door, look little older in the eyes of the man who rose to meet her than she had looked when he had seen her last, fifteen years before. She advanced and held out her hand, saying, simply: “1 am very glad to see you.” He was a handsome man, tall, soldierly, bronzed by many years of Indian suns. His keen grey eyes looked for one instant searchingly into hers, and then they softened strangely. “Thank you,” he said. “When I heard this girl and boy were coming here this afternoon I thought I might perhaps come over and go back with them.”

“I had no idea you were in England,” said Miss Feltram, as one who makes conversation, “Your arrival was rather sudden, Kitty tells me.” “The whole thing was rather sudden,” he answered. “I found it could be managed and I thought I’d come.” “Are—are you strong?” said Miss Feltram. “We heard of your splendid doings, and of your wound.” “I am quite strong again, thank you,” he answered in a low voice. And then Brown appeared with tea. Not even the dispensing of tea. and the ordinary talk of the neighbourhood, in which Kitty Manisty and her brother joined eagerly, seemed quite to restore to Miss Feltram her normal manner. She moved and spoke like a woman in a dream. Like a woman in a dream, her visitors being gone, she went to her own room; like a woman in a dream she was sitting with her chin resting on her hand when Brown appeared with coffee after dinner. Brown considered his mistress attentively under pretence of waiting for her cup, and then seemed to think better of an inclnation to speak, and betook himself to his pantry. By ten o’clock all his work there was done, even to the final chastening of the most inferior subordinate, and he was sitting by the fire, lie was a great reader in a patronising sort of way, and had been known to allow that Shakespeare was “quite interestin’ to the mind, in parts,” but no book, interesting or otherwise, filled his thoughts tonight.

“So you knew Colonel Manisty before, did you, Mr Brown?” Denton had inquired at supper time. Brown had let. fall earlier in the evening some words to that effect in the presence of what he generally stigmatised as “that giggling set of women”—his fellow servants. Brown growled an affirmative. Denton was young and quick-witted, and she drew a bow at a venture.

“They were sweethearts, him and Miss Feltram, I suppose?” she said.

Brown feigned to be occupied with his supper for a moment, then he said very grimly: “Whatever they were, they won’t be it again. I shall have a say in that, so I tell you.” And it was the purpose conveyed in this cryptic remark that was engrossing Brown’s mind now. Fifteen years before, Colonel Manisty had been plain Mr Richard Manisty, and a younger sou at Ferries, where his’ elder brother, Kitty and Cecil’s father, was master to-day. Ferries was two miles from Feltram Court, and one summer, fifteen years before, “Mr Richard” had spent most of his days and hours at the latter place. It was not difficult to discover what brought him there: Brown, as well as everyone else, knew well enough that he came to “see Miss Dot,” whatever his ostensible pretexts might be. Brown’s queer old heart, grim even in those days, thought no one good enough for Miss Dot, least of all “a young lad with his work to do.” So Brown expressed the fact that Richard Manisty’s career in the army was as yet all before him. Suddenly there came a day when “Mr Richard’s” comings and goings ended. When Brown learned that he had “asked the master for Miss Dot,” and had been peremptorily refused by Mr Feltram on account of his youth, he felt strongly if silently with h’s master, and equally silently, rejoiced greatly. That was all in the past. To-day, to Brown’s mind, the whole situation had re-opened itself, and presented the old difficulties. He forgot the passing of fifteen years, he forgot the difference those years had brought to both man and woman, he forgot that his mistress was her own mistress too, now, nominally, at all events, and he forgot most of all that the whole affair did not concern him. To him, Colonel Manisty was still the young man to whose suit Mr Feltram had objected, and M’ss Dot was still a girl—a girl with no father now io guide her erring fancies aright.

He thought and thought; pondered and pondered. The pantry fire cracked, sighed, fell together and went out. Not until it was black and dead did Brown rise and loek up the sleeping house with the air of one who has made up his mind. It was the afternoon of the next day, and Brown had brought his mistress some letters. She took them but he did not move, he stood at about five paces from her quite still. Miss Feltram, surprised at his unusual behaviour, looked up. “Well, Brown,” she said, “do you want me?” Brown’s answer began with the

phrase which with him was wont to be surcharged with meaning. “Am I to understand,” he said, “as Colonel Manisty is making a long stay, Miss Dot?”

Miss Feltram stared at him in still deeper surprise. “I don’t know,” she said. Her voice had an unusual coldness in its tones. But coldness was as nothing to Brown. “I wished to say, Miss Dot,” he went on, “that Colonel Manisty isn’t changed, not in no important particular, from what Mr Richard Manisty was.” There was a certain /significance about Brown’s tone, and Miss Feltram started slightly. Her eyebrows were drawn together and she looked astonishingly like her father as she said, very haughtily: “No, Brown.” Still Brown was not to be daunted. “Am I to understand as Colonel Manisty will be here mucn, Miss Dot?” he asked. “If I may say so, it’s not what your father would have wished, Miss Dot.” Miss Feltram flushed angrily, and her eyes flashed. “And you havin’ no one to guide you but me, Miss Dot,” went on Brown, before she could speak, “I shouldn’t feel I’d done my duty if I didn’t warn you against listening to any gentleman as my master disapproved of.” Miss Feltram rose. Her face was as Brown had never seen it in all her life.

"Colonel Manisty’s comings and goings can never concern you, Brown,” she said. “You forget yourself, entirely.”

It was a flash of old Mr Feltram’s force that dictated the words, and the same force was expressed in every line of Miss Feltram's face and figure as she swept out of the open French window into the garden. Crimson and confused, her mouth quivering and her heart beating, she turned into the drive. Coming up it and close to her, was Colonel Manisty. "How are you?” he said as he reached her. She held out her hand with a curious constraint, and the colour that rushed anew over her face made her very handsome. Colonel Manisty did not see the constraint, but he saw the beauty. “You are surprised to see me, perhaps,” he said. “But Kitty was talking about another cycling lesson for you. She can’t come over to-day and I thought perhaps you would accept me as a substitute.” His manner was very frank and simple, but the look in his eyes as they rested on her seemed to increase Miss Feltram’s confusion.

“It’s very kind of you,” she said nervously. “But do you know I don’t think I care about it. I—l think I shall give it up.” She spoke with growing constraint. Colonel Manisty made a quick movement of surprise. “Oh, you musn’t!” he said cheerfully. “You can’t tell whether you will like, it or not till you have mastered the first difficulties. And if I may say so I think you will probably get on better with me for a teacher than with that girl or boy! Give me a trial anyhow, won’t you?” Miss Feltram could not have told how it happened. Perhaps consideration for her visitor’s feelings was at the bottom of it. But a few minutes later she was walking by the side of Colonel Manisty, who wheeled her new bicycle. “Do you—do you find them much changed at Ferries?” she asked with a desperate attempt at an easy demeanour.

“Not a bit,” he answered.“ The children have gij>wn up, of course. 1 don’t count that. For the jest the fifteen years I have been away seem to go for nothing! I don’t know how to believe that it is fifteen years,” he went on in a low voice. “It seemed to me yesterday that not a day had passed since I saw you last.” He paused, and then he suddenly stood still and looked across the bicycle at Miss Feltram.

“I must be mad, I suppose, to speak so soon,” he said. “Of course I meant to have waited and—and felt my way' —but when I saw you yesterday 1 knew that I shouldn’t wait. Do you know why I have come home?" Miss Feltram was turning from white to red and then to white again. She turned away with a quick little gesture and no words.

“I have come because I have never been able to forget you,” he said quietly. “And I suddenly realised that 1 could go on no longer without knowing whether you had forgotten me. Your father thought ours was only a girl and boy passion. Dot —” h s voice was very low and deep—•“ was it only a girl and boy passion?” She made a swift sign of denial, and as she did so he caught her hand in his.

“I’ve wanted you all these fifteen years,” he said. “Won’t you come to me at last?” She tore her hand from his hold and covered her face. Then she dropped her hands again, and turned her face, flushing and quivering, to him. “I love you, Dick,” she said quite simply. “1 always loved you. If you want me—after all these fifteen years —l’ll come to you.”

Denton met Brown as he came out of the drawing-room. “Been having your say about Colonel Manisty?” she asked. “Doesn’t seem to have done you any good, any way! ” Some hours later Denton rushed down into Brown’s pantry. She had just finished dressing her mistress for dinner. “Says is off!” she cried. “Miss Feltram’s just told me she and Colonel Manisty’s engaged to be married!” But she spoke to an empty pantry. Brown had been summoned to the drawing-room. “1 must tell him myself,” his mistress had pleaded. “1 hurt his feelings this afternoon and I don’t want to do it again, poor old Brown! Besides, Dick,” she added, half laughing and half crying, “do you know that this —that it —is really Brown’s doing! Just before you came he had told me that he felt that it was his duty to warn me against you, and — and—the worm will turn!”