IN WHICH NANCY SPEAKS HER MIND
ALTHOUGH Keturah had been up and busy for the better part of two
hours, and Nancy was in the habit of rising at the same time and taking
a subordinate share in such household duties as the older woman’s
methodical housewifery allocated to the period before breakfast, the
girl still lay in bed with her eyes wide open and her arms behind her
head, and listened unmoved to the clatter downstairs, the increasing
volume of which told her quite plainly that mistress Keturah was in a
bad temper. The result of the ebullition she could have foretold with
accuracy; and she smiled as it occurred to her that in similar
circumstances, if she had been living in a city like Airlee, she could
have found a café within a hundred yards of her home which would have
spared her the trouble of preparing a meal for herself. That everything
would be cleared away, and the kettle cold upon its iron stand when she
should presently appear in the kitchen was as certain as the tides.
The thought amused her, but set no machinery in motion save that of the
brain which, indeed had been running for some time. For a few minutes
Nancy let her mind contrast the conditions of town and country life. At
her uncle’s a maid had brought her an early cup of tea at an hour when
in Mawm the breakfast things had all been washed up and put away; and
had drawn back the curtains, perhaps in order that the sight of bricks
and chimney-pots through a smoke-laden atmosphere might beget a desire
to rise and escape. To Nancy that “early” cup was just softness and a
nuisance, not to be compared with the breezes that blew straight from
the moors upon her bed, through the window which was never closed except
when northerly gales drove rain before them.
From the maid Nancy turned her thoughts to the master, and admitted to
herself, not for the first time, that she would have liked Uncle John
better if he had held up his head and looked at people like a man,
instead of glancing at them sideways with the look of a dog that has
been in mischief and is afraid somebody knows. His own daughter, her
cousin Ellen, said he was a “screw”; but Nancy saw no signs of that
characteristic in the home; and he had always seemed fond of her and
treated her as generously as could be expected of a man of his type.
Still there was something—and because of that indefinable something
Nancy banked her profits in Keepton, and allowed her uncle—who was too
deeply absorbed in his own affairs to trouble himself about hers—to
think she was as extravagant as her cousin. Aunt Eleanor, on the other
hand, was a downright nice woman, with only one fault worth speaking of,
and which she had transmitted to her daughter—that she looked upon
country places as “holes,” and upon Mawm as the least endurable of them
all. Aunt and cousin were towns-women through and through, and the
latter had certain superficialities of education that Nancy lacked and
despised; but though they had money, “society” closed its doors to them,
and their friends were all of the lower middle classes from which both
parents had sprung and to which by every right save that of money they
still belonged. That was how she had made the acquaintance of Inman,
with whose mother Uncle John had lodged when he began business for
himself, and whom the so-called “banker” held in high esteem as a young
fellow who knew how to use his elbows in “pushing along.”
She was stopping in bed to think about Inman and to try to determine
what her relations with him in these new circumstances were to be; where
too she must place him in her scale of values. Apart from his rough
wooing and the complacency with which he took its rejection she had
nothing against the man; there was, indeed, something in his sturdy
independence and almost impudent conceit that appealed to her
moorwoman’s spirit; though her lips curled scornfully as she recalled
the air of calm certainty with which on two occasions—once in Airlee
and again on the night of his arrival in the village—he had received
her cold refusal. It was evident enough that he thought he had only to
wait, and the bird would be found in the snare. Would it! The curl on
the girl’s lips straightened into a thin line of defiance at the mental
suggestion. It would have paid the man, she said to herself, to be a
little less cocksure, and a little more humble; to have given the leaven
time to work instead of wanting to bake his cake and eat it within five
minutes. Then, perhaps—
That was a greater concession than she had made before; and it startled
her to discover how far and how quickly she had advanced since her last
interview with Jagger. Jagger was in disgrace. He had developed a quite
unaccountable stubbornness that she was determined to punish, and she
quite forgot in her vexation how often she had called him a “lad in
leading-strings,” and bidden him shake a loose leg. Nancy’s objection to
leading-strings did not extend to those she held in her own hands.
And yet, if Jagger was a rebel, Inman was a despot whose whole bearing
showed that he would break his neck sooner than bend it to any woman’s
yoke; why then did she turn her thoughts to him with a more favourable
inclination? Is it that after all, woman likes to be mastered, and is
flattered by the attentions of a masterful man who promises her nothing
but his name, and who, when he has fulfilled that promise will expect
her to be content with such poor crumbs of attention as he can spare
from his dogs? Or is it that her almost unconquerable spirit matches
itself against man’s obstinacy and believes it can make it yield?
Although Nancy told herself with suspicious reiteration that Inman was
obnoxious to her it was in reality an evil hour for Jagger’s prospects
of early marriage when Nancy set the two men side by side and took their
measures. On the physical side there was not much to choose. Jagger was
as fine an animal as Inman; more agile if less weighty—“the spotted
panther and the tusked boar” might figure them. Intellectually, the
balance swayed heavily on Inman’s side, for Jagger had none of his
father’s alertness and would have made a poor show in a duel of words
with the towns-man. Inman’s mind was quick and had been well sharpened
in debate; John Clegg had intimated that his name was known in certain
political circles in Yorkshire as that of a man who might have to be
reckoned with by and by when he had made money enough to be listened to
with respect. As to the other branch of the spiritual; the branch that
deals with morals and the soul; Nancy left that out of account
altogether as people mostly do, forgetting that the kernel is of more
importance than the shell.
Only once did the scale swing over to Jagger’s side and that was when
Nancy weighted it with considerations that she did not recognise as
spiritual when she put into it Jagger’s love for the moors, and, all
that the moors stood for—for freedom and wild beauty and the joy of
life; and his love for herself, which was of the same order; deep and
unchangeable. She was so accustomed to all this that she perhaps failed
to notice how heavily the scale banged.
At length she rose and dressed, spending more time than usual over her
toilet because her thoughts refused to clothe themselves satisfactorily;
and she was in an unsettled frame of mind when she went downstairs.
Keturah was kneading bread, and much more vigorously than the process
required, when Nancy entered the kitchen. One sullen glance of inquiry
she flung over her shoulders, and seeing neither illness nor penitence
in the girl’s expression tightened her lips.
She was an elderly sharp-featured woman, rather tall and spare, with
hair that had grown thin and scanty and was twisted into a bunch not
much bigger than a walnut at the back of her head. It was
pepper-coloured, like her brother’s, but of a warmer tint, as if damp
had got to it, which was not improbable seeing that the reservoir that
supplied the tears which self-pity always called forth must have been
very near to her eyes. They were dry enough now because vexation was
choking the ducts.
“I’d forgotten it was baking-day,” said Nancy, as she lifted the lid of
the kettle and peeped inside, “but I had a bad night and wasn’t rested.”
Silence greeted the explanation, and Nancy said no more but proceeded to
prepare her breakfast.
“Where’s the butter?” she asked, as she returned from the larder with a
half loaf and the empty dish in her hand.
“_I_ can’t help it if it’s finished,” Keturah snapped. “One pair o’
hands can’t get a man his breakfast, and put him up his dinner, and be
off down t’ road for butter and get bread into t’ bowl so as it can be
rising all in a minute. You should ha’ seen we were short o’ butter last
night, i’stead o’ bending over fancy work, same as you’d naught to do
but ring t’ bell and there’d be a toathri servant lassies to come and
put you a cob on t’ fire. You mud well have a poor night, and naught but
right too, making a slavey of one ’at’s nearhand old enough to be your
gran’mother, and then expecting me to be running errands like a
six-year-old, while you lie i’ bed and rest yourself.”
What had begun as a snap ended as a wail; but Nancy was unmoved.
“Well, you’ve salted the bread already I suppose,” she returned coolly;
“and you’ll not improve the dough by crying over it. Dry toast’ll do for
me nicely, for there’s a bit of dripping with the ham, I see, and I’d as
soon have it cold as not.”
“I’ll warrant you!” said Keturah, with a note of disappointment added to
that of vexation. “If there’s a bit o’ something tasty hidden away
you’ll nose it out like a dog with a bone. I’d meant that mouthful o’
ham for my own supper, for it’s little enough support I get ’at has all
t’ weight o’ t’ house on my shoulders. But it’s t’ way o’ t’ world; them
’at work their fingers to t’ bone for fine ladies must be content to
lick t’ dish out for their share o’ t’ pudding.”
“It’s the rule of the house, isn’t it?” replied Nancy indifferently.
“‘Catch as catch can.’ You should bury your bones deeper, Keturah, if
you don’t want ’em to be found.”
The woman flashed into temper; but her spirit was too moist to fire and
the spark ended in a sizzle.
“You’ve been that aggravating, Nancy, since you came back from your
uncle’s I could find it i’ my heart to box your ears. But well you know
I’m past it, and I was always too soft wi’ you when you were a child.
Many and many’s the time I’ve screened and petted you, when a good
hiding ’ud ha’ been a better kindness, and I’m rightly served for acting
silly. I might ha’ known that there is them that bites the hand that
strokes ’em.”
The pathos in the metaphor opened the water-gates and made it necessary
for Keturah to pass the rolled-up sleeve of her blouse across her eyes;
but Nancy was not melted by the exhibition; on the contrary, her tone
was distinctly cold and superior.
“You’re forgetting yourself, Keturah, and I’ll thank you not to talk
about boxing my ears as if I was a child. I’m my own mistress and I
intend to be, and if you don’t like it, you’ve only to say so, and I’ll
find other quarters where my money’ll perhaps be more acceptable, and
there’ll be less spite and malice dished up instead of breakfast.”
With these words, the water having boiled by this time, Nancy seated
herself at the table in the window and began to eat, turning her back
upon Keturah, who sighed heavily as she set the baking bowl on a stool
in front of the fire. The tears hung in her eyes, however, for whatever
her faults, Keturah was admittedly economical, and there was no sense in
allowing tears to run to waste, especially as Nancy would be sure to
assume that they were flowing.
The atmosphere remained heavy and humid throughout the day, though Nancy
caught up with her work (which was never very exacting) long before
noon, and might have been considered to have atoned for her morning
lapse. On her way home with the butter towards tea-time she caught sight
of Baldwin and Maniwel standing together in the street, and guessed from
their manner that relations were strained. After a while Baldwin entered
the kitchen and having hung his hat on the peg, kicked a small stool
which had the temerity to stand in his way into a corner, and seated
himself at the table with a scowl on his face that was as threatening as
a thundercloud.
“So you’ve managed to get down, have you?” he growled, as he turned his
weasel eyes on Nancy who was buttering bread.
“I’ve been down an hour or two,” she replied with studied indifference;
“just long enough to get the dust out of my eyes.”
“It was nigh on ten before she landed,” Keturah explained, exaggerating
the hour by something like forty minutes. “What we’re coming to I
dursn’t think, but it’s plain to see who’s missus and who’s maid——”
Nancy dropped the knife and faced them both with flashing eyes.
“If it’s the maid you expect me to be then I hand in my notice,” she
said scornfully. “As to being missus, it isn’t of _this_ house I’d want
the job, anyway. I’m neither missus nor maid I’d have you to know, but a
lodger; and a lodger who pays well, as you don’t need to be told; and I
don’t know that lodgers have to be at the beck and call of them they
pay. You’ve only to say another word and I’ll leave to-morrow—they’d be
glad enough to have me at Uncle John’s. I’m sick to death of your
snappiness and bad temper, and you may as well know it.”
Keturah had lifted her apron to her eyes, cowed by this display of hot
resolution which was much fiercer than anything that had preceded it;
and Baldwin pushed back his chair and stamped his foot.
“Have done, will you!” he shouted. “Do you think I care if you take
yourself to blazes this minute, and your brass with you? Am I fast,
think you, for t’ few shillings a week you seem to think keeps t’ house
going——?”
“Of course you’re not,” Nancy broke in with a cold disdain that lashed
like a whip, “but you make a profit on them, and you’d sooner lose a
tooth than lose money. You’ve stung me into saying this. I’ve held
myself in till I’ve nearly choked, but I’ve stood your sneers and nasty
talk as long as I’m going to. You quarrel with a man like Maniwel, and
because you can’t get the best of him you come home and try to take it
out of me. I’m not having any more—Good Heavens! Why should I? Here!
you can butter the bread for yourself!”
She pushed the loaf towards the angry man and crossed over to the rug,
where she leaned her head against the mantelpiece, and Baldwin’s anger
bubbled up so furiously that at first he could only splutter out a
succession of oaths. Then he said:
“But what can you expect?”—he was apparently directing the inquiry to
Keturah, but his eyes were on Nancy’s averted head. “She’s like to side
wi’ Maniwel, seeing ’at he’s Jagger’s father! Aye, even though he’s
taking bite and sup out of her mouth. Isn’t her interests and mine t’
same? What ’ud John Clegg think to a man ’at reckons he’s fain to wed a
lass, and at t’ same time sets up to rob her of her business...?”
“What would he think of a master who sacked his best man rather than pay
him a fair wage?” she asked, wheeling round and speaking hotly. “Who was
it forced him to begin for himself? You wind the clock up and then blame
it for going!”
“If I sacked my best man I found a better,” he answered, somewhat
discomfited by the logic of the attack. “Inman’s worth six of Jagger.”
“Then what are you grumbling about?” she replied still fiercely. “What
harm can Jagger do you with a non-such like Inman to help you? But
whether he hurts you or he doesn’t I’m not going to be the ash-heap
where you throw all your nasty tempers, and you may as well make your
mind up to it.”
“But you can’t deny, Nancy, ’at you’ve been same as a dog with a sore
tail ever since Jagger left,” pleaded Keturah whose idea of storms fell
short of whirlwinds, and who, like many another nagging woman was a
coward at heart. “I’m sure there’s been no living with you, you’ve been
that contrairy.”
“Then we’d better part,” rejoined Nancy, “and that’ll maybe suit us
all.”
Hereupon Baldwin growled a suggestion that instead of clacking like a
couple of condemned hens it would be advisable to get on with the tea.
Although his brain worked slowly it worked accurately along a certain
brass-lined groove, and he had already repented of his attack on Nancy,
with whom it was not policy to quarrel beyond remedy. The girl, however,
was not so easily appeased.
“I can have mine when you’ve finished,” she said, “then foul looks won’t
turn the milk sour.”
“And that’ll be making work,” protested Keturah, “or anyway it’ll be
spreading it out. Draw your chair up and take no notice of Baldwin. You
ought to know by this time ’at he’s either to uncork his-self or burst,
same as other men.”
“I’m going to uncork _my_self,” said Nancy with a fierceness that
surprised herself and which was the outcome of her own disturbed mind.
“Father might have guessed if he’d looked at your faces what a life
you’d lead me between you, and what a life you would have led me if it
hadn’t been for my money-bags. But you knew how to use the oil-can when
he was alive, and he’d too much to bear to think things out for himself
or he’d have put Maniwel in your place. Oh, yes he would——” she
continued, as Baldwin’s face grew red and his hands tightened on the
arms of his chair—“I’ve thought it many a thousand times same as all t’
rest o’ t’ village, and I may as well let it come out. You have to
uncork yourself, have you, or else burst? Well, you can see how you like
other folk to uncork _them_selves!”
Keturah was standing horrified, but sundry soliloquies such as “Eh,
dear, dear!” “Now, hark to t’ lass!” “If this doesn’t beat all!” showed
that her breath had not been altogether lost, whereas anger had
momentarily paralysed Baldwin’s tongue. When he recovered himself he
rose, and seizing Nancy roughly by the shoulder pushed her towards the
door.
“Outside wi’ you!” he shouted, and the oaths he poured out called forth
a protest even from his sister whose “Nay, for shame, Baldwin!” fell on
deaf ears. “Way wi’ you to Maniwel, you ungrateful——” But why continue
to string together the coarse language that made Keturah hold her apron
to her ears and caused Nancy to wrench herself free and wheel round upon
him with a face that was white but strangely composed.
“That’ll do, Baldwin Briggs,” she said. “This house is mine, not yours,
and if anyone goes it’ll not be me. You’d perhaps forgotten that, same
as I had. You’ve had the use of it so long that you’d come to think it
was yours. I said I was your lodger, but it’s _you_ who’re lodgers, and
I’ll leave when it suits me. You’d best get your teas, if you can eat
any. I want none. Maybe we shall all have cooled by morning.”
With these words she crossed the room and went upstairs; and Baldwin and
Keturah looked at each other, and finding nothing to say turned to the
table and made a sorry meal.