He turned the sharp corner, and disappeared. For two or three minutes

Nancy stood alone, watching the patient little grey beasts, whose

pendent ears, with many a turn and twitch, expressed their joy in the

feast of thistles. She watched them in seeming only; her eyes beheld

nothing.

A voice sounded from behind her--‘Nancy!’ Startled, she saw Tarrant

standing high up, in a gap of the hedge, on the bank which bordered the

wood.

‘How did you get there?’

‘Went round.’ He showed the direction with his hand. ‘I can see no one,

but somebody may come. It’s wonderful here, among the trees. Come over.’

‘How can I?--We will drive the donkeys away.’

‘No; it’s much better here; a wild wood, full of wonderful things. The

bank isn’t too steep. Give me your hand, and you can step up easily,

just at this place.’

She drew near.

‘Your sunshade first.’

‘Oh, it’s too much trouble,’ she said languidly, all but plaintively.

‘I’d rather be here.’

‘Obey!--Your sunshade--’

She gave it.

‘Now, your hand.’

He was kneeling on the top of the bank. With very little exertion,

Nancy found herself beside him. Then he at once leapt down among the

brushwood, a descent of some three feet.

‘We shall be trespassing,’ said Nancy.

‘What do I care? Now, jump!’

‘As if you could catch me!’ Again she uttered her nervous laugh. ‘I am

heavy.’

‘Obey! Jump!’ he cried impatiently, his eyes afire.

She knelt, seated herself, dropped forward. Tarrant caught her in his

arms.

‘You heavy! a feather weight! Why, I can carry you; I could run with

you.’

And he did carry her through the brushwood, away into the shadow of the

trees.

At dinner-time, Mrs. Morgan and her daughter were alone. They agreed to

wait a quarter of an hour, and sat silent, pretending each to be engaged

with a book. At length their eyes met.

‘What does it mean, Jessica?’ asked the mother timidly.

‘I’m sure I don’t know. It doesn’t concern us. She didn’t mean to be

back, by what she said.’

‘But--isn’t it rather--?’

‘Oh, Nancy is all right. I suppose she’ll have something to tell you,

to-night or to-morrow. We must have dinner; I’m hungry.’

‘So am I, dear.--Oh, I’m quite afraid to think of the appetites we’re

taking back. Poor Milly will be terrified.’

Eight o’clock, nine o’clock. The two conversed in subdued voices; Mrs.

Morgan was anxious, all but distressed. Half-past nine. ‘What _can_ it

mean, Jessica? I can’t help feeling a responsibility. After all,

Nancy is quite a young girl; and I’ve sometimes thought she might be

steadier.’

‘Hush! That was a knock.’

They waited. In a minute or two the door was opened a few inches, and a

voice called ‘Jessica!’

She responded. Nancy was standing in the gloom.

‘Come into my room,’ she said curtly.

Arrived there, she did not strike a light. She closed the door, and took

hold of her friend’s arm.

‘We can’t go back the day after to-morrow, Jessica. We must wait a day

longer, till the afternoon of Friday.’

‘Why? What’s the matter, Nancy?’

‘Nothing serious. Don’t be frightened, I’m tired, and I shall go to

bed.’

‘But why must we wait?’

‘Listen: will you promise me faithfully--as friend to friend, faith

fully--not to tell the reason even to your mother?’

‘I will, faithfully.’

‘Then, it’s this. On Friday morning I shall be married to Mr Tarrant.’

‘Gracious!’

‘I may tell you more, before then; but perhaps not. We shall be married

by licence, and it needs one day between getting the licence and the

marriage. You may tell your mother, if you like, that I want to stay

longer on _his_ account. I don’t care; of course she suspects something.

But not a syllable to hint at the truth. I have been your best friend

for a long time, and I trust you.’

She spoke in a passionate whisper, and Jessica felt her trembling.

‘You needn’t have the least fear of me, dear.’

‘I believe it. Kiss me, and good-night!’

Part III: Into Bontage

CHAPTER 1

During his daughter’s absence, Stephen Lord led a miserable life. The

wasting disease had firm hold upon him; day by day it consumed his

flesh, darkened his mind. The more need he had of nursing and restraint,

the less could he tolerate interference with his habits, invasion of

his gloomy solitude. The doctor’s visits availed nothing; he listened to

advice, or seemed to listen, but with a smile of obstinate suspicion on

his furrowed face which conveyed too plain a meaning to the adviser.

On one point Mary had prevailed with him. After some days’ resistance,

he allowed her to transform the cabin-like arrangements of his room, and

give it the appearance of a comfortable bed-chamber. But he would not

take to his bed, and the suggestion of professional nursing excited his

wrath.

‘Do you write to Nancy?’ he asked one morning of his faithful attendant,

with scowling suspicion.

‘No.’

‘You are telling me the truth?’

‘I never write to any one.’

‘Understand plainly that I won’t have a word said to her about me.’

This was when Horace had gone away to Scarborough, believing, on his

father’s assurance, that there was no ground whatever for anxiety.

Sometimes Mr. Lord sat hour after hour in an unchanging position, his

dull eyes scarcely moving from one point. At others he paced his room,

or wandered about the house, or made an attempt at gardening--which

soon ended in pain and exhaustion. Towards night he became feverish,

his hollow cheeks glowing with an ominous tint. In the morning he

occasionally prepared himself as if to start for his place of business;

he left the house, and walked for perhaps a couple of hundred yards,

then slackened his pace, stopped, looked about him in an agony of

indecision, and at length returned. After this futile endeavour, he

had recourse to the bottles in his cupboard, and presently fell into a

troubled sleep.

At the end of the second week, early one evening, three persons came to

him by appointment: his partner Samuel Barmby, Mr. Barmby, senior, and a

well-dressed gentleman whom Mary--she opened the door to them--had never

seen before. They sat together in the drawing-room for more than

an hour; then the well-dressed gentleman took his leave, the others

remaining for some time longer.

The promoted servant, at Mr. Lord’s bidding, had made a change in her

dress; during the latter part of the day she presented the appearance

of a gentlewoman, and sat, generally with needlework, sometimes with

a book, alone in the dining-room. On a Sunday, whilst Nancy and

her brother were away, the Barmby family--father, son, and two

daughters--came to take tea and spend the evening, Mary doing the

honours of the house; she bore herself without awkwardness, talked

simply, and altogether justified Mr. Lord’s opinion of her. When the

guests were gone, Stephen made no remark, but, in saying good-night to

her, smiled for an instant--the first smile seen upon his face for many

days.

Mary remained ignorant of the disease from which he was suffering;

in the matter of his diet, she consulted and obeyed him, though often

enough it seemed to her that his choice suited little with the state of

an invalid. He ate at irregular times, and frequently like a starving

man. Mary suspected that, on the occasions when he went out for

half-an-hour after dark, he brought back food with him: she had seen him

enter with something concealed beneath his coat. All his doings were to

her a subject of ceaseless anxiety, of a profound distress which, in

his presence, she was obliged to conceal. If she regarded him sadly,

the sufferer grew petulant or irate. He would not endure a question

concerning his health.

On the day which was understood to be Nancy’s last at Teignmouth, he

brightened a little, and talked with pleasure, as it seemed, of her

return on the morrow. Horace had written that he would be home this

evening, but Mr. Lord spoke only of his daughter. At about six o’clock

he was sitting in the garden, and Mary brought him a letter just

delivered; he looked at the envelope with a smile.

‘To tell us the train she’s coming by, no doubt.’

Mary waited. When Mr. Lord had read the brief note, his face darkened,

first with disappointment, then with anger.

‘Here, look at it,’ he said harshly. ‘What else was to be expected?’

‘Dearest Father,’ wrote Nancy, ‘I am sorry that our return must be put

off; we hope to get back on Friday evening. Of course this will make no

difference to you.--With best love, dear father, and hoping I shall find

you much better--’

‘What does she mean by behaving in this way?’ resumed the angry voice,

before Mary had read to the end. ‘What does she mean by it? Who gave her

leave to stay longer? Not a word of explanation. How does she know it

will make no difference to me? What does she mean by it?’

‘The fine weather has tempted them,’ replied Mary. ‘I daresay they want

to go somewhere.’

‘What right has she to make the change at a moment’s notice?’

vociferated the father, his voice suddenly recovering its old power,

his cheeks and neck suffused with red wrath. ‘And hopes she will find me

better. What does _she_ care whether she finds me alive or dead?’

‘Oh, don’t say that! You wouldn’t let her know that you were worse.’

‘What does it mean? I hate this deceitful behaviour! She knew before, of

course she knew; and she left it to the last moment, so that I couldn’t

write and prevent her from staying. As if I should have wished to! As

if I cared a brass farthing how long she stays, or, for that matter,

whether I ever see her again!’

He checked the course of his furious speech, and stood staring at the

letter.

‘What did you say?’ He spoke now in a hoarse undertone. ‘You thought

they were going somewhere?’

‘Last year there used to be steamers that went to places on certain

days--’

‘Nonsense! She wouldn’t alter all their plans for that. It’s something I

am not to know--of course it is. She’s deceitful--like all women.’

He met Mary’s eye, suddenly turned upon him. His own fell before it, and

without speaking again he went into the house.

In half-an-hour’s time his bell rang, and not Mary, but the young

servant responded. According to her directions, she knocked at the door,

and, without opening it, asked her master’s pleasure. Mr. Lord said that

he was going out, and would not require a meal till late in the evening.

It was nearly ten o’clock when he returned. Mary, sitting in the front

room, rose at his entrance.

‘I want nothing,’ he said. ‘I’ve been to the Barmbys’.’ Voice and

movements proved how the effort had taxed him. In sitting down,

he trembled; fever was in his eyes, and pain in every line of his

countenance.

Mary handed him a letter; it came from Horace, and was an intimation

that the young gentleman would not return to-night, but to-morrow. When

Mr. Lord had read it, he jerked a contemptuous laugh, and threw the

sheet of note-paper across the table.

‘There you are. Not much to choose between daughter and son. He’s due at

business in the morning; but what does that matter? It doesn’t suit his

lordship to keep time.’

He laughed again, his emphasis on ‘lordship’ showing that he consciously

played with the family name.

‘But I was a fool to be angry. Let them come when they will.’

For a few minutes he lay back in the chair, gazing at vacancy.

‘Has the girl gone to bed?’

‘I’ll tell her she can go.’

Mary soon returned, and took up the book with which she had been

engaged. In a low voice, and as if speaking without much thought,

Stephen asked her what she was reading. It was a volume of an old

magazine, bought by Mr. Lord many years ago.

‘Yes, yes. Nancy laughs at it--calls it old rubbish. These young people

are so clever.’

His companion made no remark. Unobserved, he scrutinised her face for a

long time, and said at length:

‘Don’t let _us_ fall out, Mary. You’re not pleased with me, and I know

why. I said all women were deceitful, and you took it too seriously.

You ought to know me better. There’s something comes on me every now and

then, and makes me say the worst I can no matter who it hurts. Could I

be such a fool as to think ill of _you_?’

‘It did hurt me,’ replied the other, still bent over her book. ‘But it

was only the sound of it. I knew you said more than you meant.’

‘I’m a fool, and I’ve been a fool all my life. Is it likely I should

have wise children? When I went off to the Barmbys’, I thought of

sending Samuel down to Teignmouth, to find out what they were at. But I

altered my mind before I got there. What good would it have done? All

I _can_ do I’ve done already. I made my will the other day; it’s signed

and witnessed. I’ve made it as I told you I should. I’m not much longer

for this world, but I’ve saved the girl from foolishness till she’s

six-and-twenty. After that she must take care of herself.’

They sat silent whilst the clock on the mantelpiece ticked away a

few more minutes. Mr. Lord’s features betrayed the working of turbid

thought, a stern resentment their prevailing expression. When reverie

released him, he again looked at his companion.

‘Mary, did you ever ask yourself what sort of woman Nancy’s mother may

have been?’

The listener started, like one in whom a secret has been surprised. She

tried to answer, but after all did not speak.

‘I’ll tell you,’ Stephen pursued. ‘Yes, I’ll tell you. You must know it.

Not a year after the boy’s birth, she left me. And I made myself free of

her--I divorced her.’

Their eyes just met.

‘You needn’t think that it cost me any suffering. Not on her account;

not because I had lost my wife. I never felt so glad, before or since,

as on the day when it was all over, and I found myself a free man again.

I suffered only in thinking how I had fooled away some of the best

years of my life for a woman who despised me from the first, and was as

heartless as the stones of the street. I found her in beggary, or close

upon it. I made myself her slave--it’s only the worthless women who

accept from a man, who expect from him, such slavish worship as she had

from me. I gave her clothing; she scarcely thanked me, but I thought

myself happy. I gave her a comfortable home, such as she hadn’t

known for years; for a reward she mocked at my plain tastes and quiet

ways--but I thought no ill of it--could see nothing in it but a girlish,

lighthearted sort of way that seemed one of her merits. As long as we

lived together, she pretended to be an affectionate wife; I should

think no one ever matched her in hypocrisy. But the first chance she

had--husband, children, home, all flung aside in a moment. Then I saw

her in the true light, and understood all at once what a blind fool I

had been.’

He breathed quickly and painfully. Mary sat without a movement.

‘I thought I had done a great thing in marrying a wife that was born

above me. Her father had been a country gentleman; horse-racing and

such things had brought him down, and from her twelfth year his daughter

lived--I never quite knew how, but on charity of some kind. She grew up

without trying to earn her own living; she thought herself too good for

that, thought she had a claim to be supported, because as a child she

was waited upon by servants. When I asked her once if she couldn’t have

done something, she stared at me and laughed in my face. For all that

she was glad enough to marry a man of my sort--rough and uneducated as

I was. She always reminded me of it, though--that I had no education;

I believe she thought that she had a perfect right to throw over such

a husband, whenever she chose. Afterwards, I saw very well that _her_

education didn’t amount to much. How could it, when she learnt nothing

after she was twelve? She was living with very poor people who came from

my part of the country--that’s how I met her. The father led some sort

of blackguard life in London, but had no money for her, nor yet for his

other girl, who went into service, I was told, and perhaps made herself

a useful, honest woman. He died in a hospital, and he was buried at my

expense--not three months before his daughter went off and left me.’

‘You will never tell your children,’ said Mary, when there had been a

long pause.

‘I’ve often thought it would only be right if I told them. I’ve often

thought, the last year or two, that Nancy ought to know. It might make

her think, and do her good.’

‘No, no,’ returned the other hurriedly. ‘Never let her know of

it--never. It might do her much harm.’

‘You know now, Mary, why I look at the girl so anxiously. She’s not like

her mother; not much like her in face, and I can’t think she’s like her

in heart. But you know what her faults are as well as I do. Whether I’ve

been right or wrong in giving her a good education, I shall never know.

Wrong, I fear--but I’ve told you all about that.’

‘You don’t know whether she’s alive or not?’ asked Mary, when once more

it was left to her to break silence.

‘What do I care? How should I know?’

‘Don’t be tempted to tell them--either of them!’ said the other

earnestly.

‘My friend Barmby knows. Whether he’s told his son, I can’t say; it’s

twenty years since we spoke about it. If he _did_ ever mention it to

Samuel, then it might somehow get known to Horace or the girl, when I’m

gone.--I won’t give up the hope that young Barmby may be her husband.

She’ll have time to think about it. But if ever she should come to you

and ask questions--I mean, if she’s been told what happened--you’ll set

me right in her eyes? You’ll tell her what I’ve told you?’

‘I hope it may never--’

‘So do I,’ Stephen interrupted, his voice husky with fatigue. ‘But

I count on you to make my girl think rightly of me, if ever there’s

occasion. I count on you. When I’m dead, I won’t have her think that I

was to blame for her mother’s ill-doing. That’s why I’ve told you. You

believe me, don’t you?’

And Mary, lifting her eyes, met his look of appeal with more than a

friend’s confidence.

CHAPTER 2

From chambers in Staple Inn, Lionel Tarrant looked forth upon the

laborious world with a dainty enjoyment of his own limitless leisure.

The old gables fronting upon Holborn pleased his fancy; he liked to pass

under the time-worn archway, and so, at a step, estrange himself from

commercial tumult,--to be in the midst of modern life, yet breathe an

atmosphere of ancient repose.

He belonged to an informal club of young men who called themselves,

facetiously, the Hodiernals. _Vixi hodie_! The motto, suggested by some

one or other after a fifth tumbler of whisky punch, might bear more than

a single interpretation. Harvey Munden, the one member of this genial

brotherhood who lived by the sweat of his brow, proposed as a more

suitable title, Les Faineants; that, however, was judged pedantic,

not to say offensive. For these sons of the Day would not confess to

indolence; each deemed himself, after his own fashion, a pioneer in art,

letters, civilisation. They had money of their own, or were supported by

some one who could afford that privilege; most of them had, ostensibly,

some profession in view; for the present, they contented themselves with

living, and the weaker brethren read in their hodiernity an obligation

to be ‘up to date.’

Tarrant professed himself critical of To-day, apprehensive of To-morrow;

he cast a backward eye. None the less, his avowed principle was to

savour the passing hour. When night grew mellow, and the god of whisky

inspired his soul, he shone in a lyrical egoism which had but slight

correspondence with the sincerities of his solitude. His view of

woman--the Hodiernals talked much of woman--differed considerably from

his thoughts of the individual women with whom he associated; protesting

oriental sympathies, he nourished in truth the chivalry appropriate to

his years and to his education, and imaged an ideal of female excellence

whereof the prime features were moral and intellectual.

He had no money of his own. What could be saved for him from

his father’s squandered estate--the will established him sole

inheritor--went in the costs of a liberal education, his grandmother

giving him assurance that he should not go forth into the world

penniless. This promise Mrs. Tarrant had kept, though not exactly in the

manner her grandson desired. Instead of making him a fixed allowance,

the old lady supplied him with funds at uncertain intervals; with the

unpleasant result that it was sometimes necessary for him to call to her

mind his dependent condition. The cheques he received varied greatly in

amount,--from handsome remittances of a hundred pounds or so, down to

minim gifts which made the young man feel uncomfortable when he received

them. Still, he was provided for, and it could not be long before this

dependency came to an end.

He believed in his own abilities. Should it ever be needful, he could

turn to journalism, for which, undoubtedly, he had some aptitude. But

why do anything at all, in the sense of working for money? Every year he

felt less disposed for that kind of exertion, and had a greater relish

of his leisurely life. Mrs. Tarrant never rebuked him; indeed she had

long since ceased to make inquiry about his professional views. Perhaps

she felt it something of a dignity to have a grandson who lived as

gentleman at large.

But now, in the latter days of August, the gentleman found himself, in

one most important particular, at large no longer. On returning

from Teignmouth to Staple Inn he entered his rooms with a confused,

disagreeable sense that things were not as they had been, that his

freedom had suffered a violation, that he could not sit down among

his books with the old self-centred ease, that his prospects were

completely, indescribably changed, perchance much for the worse. In

brief, Tarrant had gone forth a bachelor, and came back a married man.

Could it be sober fact? Had he in very deed committed so gross an

absurdity?

He had purposed no such thing. Miss. Nancy Lord was not by any means the

kind of person that entered his thoughts when they turned to marriage.

He regarded her as in every respect his inferior. She belonged to the

social rank only just above that of wage-earners; her father had a small

business in Camberwell; she dressed and talked rather above her station,

but so, now-a-days, did every daughter of petty tradesfolk. From

the first he had amused himself with her affectation of intellectual

superiority. Miss. Lord represented a type; to study her as a sample of

the pretentious half-educated class was interesting; this sort of girl

was turned out in thousands every year, from so-called High Schools;

if they managed to pass some examination or other, their conceit grew

boundless. Craftily, he had tested her knowledge; it seemed all sham.

She would marry some hapless clerk, and bring him to bankruptcy by the

exigencies of her ‘refinement.’

So had he thought of Nancy till a few months ago. But in the

spring-time, when his emotions blossomed with the blossoming year, he

met the girl after a long interval, and saw her with changed eyes. She

had something more than prettiness; her looks undeniably improved. It

seemed, too, that she bore herself more gracefully, and even talked

with, at times, an approximation to the speech of a lady. These

admissions signified much in a man of Tarrant’s social prejudice--so

strong that it exercised an appreciable effect upon his every-day

morals. He began to muse about Miss. Lord, and the upshot of his musing

was that, having learnt of her departure for Teignmouth, he idly betook

himself in the same direction.

But as for marriage, he would as soon have contemplated taking to wife a

barmaid. Between Miss. Lord and the young lady who dispenses refreshment

there were distinctions, doubtless, but none of the first importance.

Then arose the question, in what spirit, with what purpose, did he seek

her intimacy? The answer he simply postponed.

And postponed it very late indeed. Until the choice was no longer

between making love in idleness, and conscientiously holding aloof;

but between acting like a frank blackguard, and making the amends of an

honest man.

The girl’s fault, to be sure. He had not credited himself with this

power of fascination, and certainly not with the violence of passion

which recklessly pursues indulgence. Still, the girl’s fault; she had

behaved--well, as a half-educated girl of her class might be expected

to behave. Ignorance she could not plead; that were preposterous. Utter

subjugation by first love; that, perhaps; she affirmed it, and possibly

with truth; a flattering assumption, at all events. But, all said and

done, the issue had been of her own seeking. Why, then, accuse himself

of blackguardly conduct, if he had turned a deaf ear to her pleading?

Not one word of marriage had previously escaped his lips, nor anything

that could imply a promise.

Well, there was the awkward and unaccountable fact that he _felt_

himself obliged to marry her; that, when he seemed to be preparing

resistance, downright shame rendered it impossible. Her face--her

face when she looked at him and spoke! The truth was, that he had not

hesitated at all; there was but one course open to him. He gave glances

in the other direction; he wished to escape; he reviled himself for his

folly; he saw the difficulties and discontents that lay before him; but

choice he had none.

Love, in that sense of the word which Tarrant respected, could not be

said to influence him. He had uttered the word; yes, of course he had

uttered it; as a man will who is goaded by his raging blood. But he was

as far as ever from loving Nancy Lord. Her beauty, and a certain growing

charm in her companionship, had lured him on; his habitual idleness,

and the vagueness of his principles, made him guilty at last of what a

moralist would call very deliberate rascality. He himself was inclined

to see his behaviour in that light; yet why had Nancy so smoothed the

path of temptation?

That _her_ love was love indeed, he might take for granted. To a certain

point, it excused her. But she seemed so thoroughly able to protect

herself; the time of her green girlhood had so long gone by. For

explanation, he must fall back again on the circumstances of her origin

and training. Perhaps she illustrated a social peril, the outcome of

modern follies. Yes, that was how he would look at it. A result of

charlatan ‘education’ operating upon crude character.

Who could say what the girl had been reading, what cheap philosophies

had unsettled her mind? Is not a little knowledge a dangerous thing?

Thus far had he progressed in the four and twenty hours which followed

his--or Nancy’s--conquest. Meanwhile he had visited the office of the

registrar, had made his application for a marriage licence, a proceeding

which did not tend to soothe him. Later, when he saw Nancy again, he

experienced a revival of that humaner mood which accompanied his pledge

to marry her, the mood of regret, but also of tenderness, of compassion.

A tenderness that did not go very deep, a half-slighting compassion. His

character, and the features of the case, at present allowed no more; but

he preferred the kindlier attitude.

Of course he preferred it. Was he not essentially good-natured? Would he

not, at any ordinary season, go out of his way to do a kindness? Did

not his soul revolt against every form of injustice? Whom had he ever

injured? For his humanity, no less than for his urbanity, he claimed a

noteworthy distinction among young men of the time.

And there lay the pity of it. But for Nancy’s self-abandonment, he might

have come to love her in good earnest. As it was, the growth of their

intimacy had been marked with singular, unanticipated impulses on

his side, impulses quite inconsistent with heartless scheming. In the

compunctious visitings which interrupted his love-making at least twice,

there was more than a revolt of mere honesty, as he recognised during

his brief flight to London. Had she exercised but the common prudence of

womanhood!

Why, that she did not, might tell both for and against her. Granting

that she lacked true dignity, native refinement, might it not have been

expected that artfulness would supply their place? Artful fencing

would have stamped her of coarse nature. But coarseness she had never

betrayed; he had never judged her worse than intellectually shallow. Her

self-surrender might, then, indicate a trait worthy of admiration. Her

subsequent behaviour undeniably pleaded for respect. She acquainted

him with the circumstances of her home life, very modestly, perhaps

pathetically. He learnt that her father was not ill to do, heard of her

domestic and social troubles, that her mother had been long dead, things

weighing in her favour, to be sure.

If only she had loved him less!

It was all over; he was married. In acting honourably, it seemed

probable that he had spoilt his life. He must be prepared for anything.

Nancy said that she should not, could not, tell her father, yet awhile;

but that resolution was of doubtful stability. For his own part, he

thought it clearly advisable that the fact should not become known at

Champion Hill; but could he believe Nancy’s assurance that Miss. Morgan

remained in the dark? Upon one catastrophe, others might naturally

follow.

Here, Saturday at noon, came a letter of Nancy’s writing. A long letter,

and by no means a bad one; superior, in fact, to anything he thought

she could have written. It moved him somewhat, but would have moved him

more, had he not been legally bound to the writer. On Sunday she could

not come to see him; but on Monday, early in the afternoon--

Well, there were consolations. A wise man makes the best of the

inevitable.

CHAPTER 3

Since his return he had seen no one, and none of his friends knew where

he had been. A call from some stray Hodiernal would be very unseasonable

this Monday afternoon; but probably they were all enjoying their elegant

leisure in regions remote from town. As the hour of Nancy’s arrival drew

near, he sat trying to compose himself--with indifferent success. At

one moment his thoughts found utterance, and he murmured in a strange,

bewildered tone--‘My wife.’ Astonishing words! He laughed at their

effect upon him, but unmirthfully. And his next murmur was--‘The devil!’

A mere ejaculation, betokening his state of mind.

He reached several times for his pipe, and remembered when he had

touched it that the lips with which he greeted Nancy ought not to be

redolent of tobacco. In outward respect, at all events, he would not

fall short.

Just when his nervousness was becoming intolerable, there sounded a

knock. The knock he had anticipated--timid, brief. He stepped hastily

from the room, and opened. Nancy hardly looked at him, and neither of

them spoke till the closing of two doors had assured their privacy.

‘Well, you had no difficulty in finding the place?’

‘No--none at all.’

They stood apart, and spoke with constraint. Nancy’s bosom heaved, as

though she had been hastening overmuch; her face was deeply coloured;

her eyes had an unwonted appearance, resembling those of a night-watcher

at weary dawn. She cast quick glances about the room, but with

the diffidence of an intruder. Her attitude was marked by the same

characteristic; she seemed to shrink, to be ashamed.

‘Come and sit down,’ said Tarrant cheerfully, as he wheeled a chair.

She obeyed him, and he, stooping beside her, offered his lips. Nancy

kissed him, closing her eyes for the moment, then dropping them again.

‘It seems a long time, Nancy--doesn’t it?’

‘Yes--a very long time.’

‘You couldn’t come on Sunday?’

‘I found my father very ill. I didn’t like to leave home till to-day.’

‘Your father ill?--You said nothing of it in your letter.’

‘No--I didn’t like to--with the other things.’

A singular delicacy this; Tarrant understood it, and looked at her

thoughtfully. Again she was examining the room with hurried glance;

upon him her eyes did not turn. He asked questions about Mr. Lord. Nancy

could not explain the nature of his illness; he had spoken of gout, but

she feared it must be something worse; the change in him since she went

away was incredible and most alarming. This she said in short, quick

sentences, her voice low. Tarrant thought to himself that in her too,

a very short time had made a very notable change; he tried to read its

significance, but could reach no certainty.

‘I’m sorry to hear all this--very sorry. You must tell me more about

your father. Take off your hat, dear, and your gloves.’

Her gloves she removed first, and laid them on her lap; Tarrant took

them away. Then her hat; this too he placed on the table. Having done

so, he softly touched the plaits of her hair. And, for the first time,

Nancy looked up at him.

‘Are you glad to see me?’ she asked, in a voice that seemed subdued by

doubt of the answer.

‘I am--very glad.’

His hand fell to her shoulder. With a quick movement, a stifled

exclamation, the girl rose and flung her arms about him.

‘Are you really glad?--Do you really love me?’

‘Never doubt it, dear girl.’

‘Ah, but I can’t help. I have hardly slept at night, in trying to get

rid of the doubt. When you opened the door, I felt you didn’t welcome

me. Don’t you think of me as a burden? I can’t help wondering why I am

here.’

He took hold of her left hand, and looked at it, then said playfully:

‘Of course you wonder. What business has a wife to come and see her

husband without the ring on her finger?’

Nancy turned from him, opened the front of her dress, unknotted a string

of silk, and showed her finger bright with the golden circlet.

‘That’s how I must wear it, except when I am with you. I keep

touching--to make sure it’s there.’

Tarrant kissed her fingers.

‘Dear,’--she had her face against him--‘make me certain that you love

me. Speak to me like you did before. Oh, I never knew in my life what it

was to feel ashamed!’

‘Ashamed? Because you are married, Nancy?’

‘Am I really married? That seems impossible. It’s like having dreamt

that I was married to you. I can hardly remember a thing that happened.’

‘The registry at Teignmouth remembers,’ he answered with a laugh. ‘Those

books have a long memory.’

She raised her eyes.

‘But wouldn’t you undo it if you could?--No, no, I don’t mean that. Only

that if it had never happened--if we had said good-bye before those last

days--wouldn’t you have been glad now?’

‘Why, that’s a difficult question to answer,’ he returned gently. ‘It

all depends on your own feeling.’

For whatever reason, these words so overcame Nancy that she burst into

tears. Tarrant, at once more lover-like, soothed and fondled her, and

drew her to sit on his knee.

‘You’re not like your old self, dear girl. Of course, I can understand

it. And your father’s illness. But you mustn’t think of it in this way.

I do love you, Nancy. I couldn’t unsay a word I said to you--I don’t

wish anything undone.’

‘Make me believe that. I think I should be quite happy then. It’s the

hateful thought that perhaps you never wanted me for your wife; it

_will_ come, again and again, and it makes me feel as if I would rather

have died.’

‘Send such thoughts packing. Tell them your husband wants all your heart

and mind for himself.’

‘But will you never think ill of me?’

She whispered the words, close-clinging.

‘I should be a contemptible sort of brute.’

‘No. I ought to have--. If we had spoken of our love to each other, and

waited.’

‘A very proper twelvemonth’s engagement,--meetings at five o’clock

tea,--fifty thousand love-letters,--and all that kind of thing. Oh, we

chose a better way. Our wedding was among the leaves and flowers. You

remember the glow of evening sunlight between the red pine and the

silver birch? I hope that place may remain as it is all our lives; we

will go there--’

‘Never! Never ask me to go there. I want to forget--I hope some day I

may forget.’

‘If you hope so, then I will hope the same.’

‘And you love me--with real, husband’s love--love that will last?’

‘Why should _I_ answer all the questions?’ He took her face between his

hands. What if the wife’s love should fail first?’

‘You can say that lightly, because you know--’

‘What do I know?’

‘You know that I am _all_ love of you. As long as I am myself, I must

love you. It was because I had no will of my own left, because I lived

only in the thought of you day and night--’

Their lips met in a long silence.

‘I mustn’t stay past four o’clock,’ were Nancy’s next words. ‘I don’t

like to be away long from the house. Father won’t ask me anything, but

he knows I’m away somewhere, and I’m afraid it makes him angry with me.’

She examined the room. ‘How comfortable you are here! what a delightful

old place to live in!’

‘Will you look at the other rooms?’

‘Not to-day--when I come again. I must say good-bye very soon--oh, see

how the time goes! What a large library you have! You must let me look

at all the books, when I have time.’

‘Let you? They are yours as much as mine.’

Her face brightened.

‘I should like to live here; how I should enjoy it after that hateful

Grove Lane! Shall I live here with you some day?’

‘There wouldn’t be room for two. Why, your dresses would fill the whole

place.’

She went and stood before the shelves.

‘But how dusty you are! Who cleans for you?’

‘No one. A very rickety old woman draws a certain number of shillings

each week, on pretence of cleaning.’

‘What a shame! She neglects you disgracefully. You shall go away some

afternoon, and leave me here with a great pile of dusters.’

‘You can do that kind of thing? It never occurred to me to ask you: are

you a domestic person?’

She answered with something of the old confident air.

‘That was an oversight, wasn’t it? After all, how little you know about

me!’

‘Do you know much more of me?’

Her countenance fell.

‘You are going to tell me--everything. How long have you lived here?’

‘Two years and a half.’

‘And your friends come to see you here? Of course they do. I meant, have

you many friends?’

‘Friends, no. A good many acquaintances.’

‘Men, like yourself?’

‘Mostly men, fellows who talk about art and literature.’

‘And women?’ Nancy faltered, half turning away.

‘Oh, magnificent creatures--Greek scholars--mathematicians--all that is

most advanced!’

‘That’s the right answer to a silly question,’ said Nancy humbly.

Whereat, Tarrant fixed his gaze upon her.

‘I begin to think that--’

He checked himself awkwardly. Nancy insisted on the completion of his

thought.

‘That of all the women I know, you have the most sense.’

‘I had rather hear you say that than have a great fortune.’ She blushed

with joy. ‘Perhaps you will love me some day, as I wish to be loved.’

‘How?’

‘I’ll tell you another time. If it weren’t for my father’s illness, I

think I could go home feeling almost happy. But how am I to know what

you are doing?’

‘What do you wish me to do?’

‘Just tell me how you live. What shall you do now, when I’m gone?’

‘Sit disconsolate,’--he came nearer--‘thinking you were just a little

unkind.’

‘No, don’t say that.’ Nancy was flurried. ‘I have told you the real

reason. Our housekeeper says that father was disappointed and angry

because I put off my return from Teignmouth. He spoke to me very coldly,

and I have hardly seen him since. He won’t let me wait upon him; and

I have thought, since I know how ill he really is, that I must seem

heartless. I will come for longer next time.’

To make amends for the reproach he had uttered in spite of himself,

Tarrant began to relate in full the events of his ordinary day.

‘I get my own breakfast--the only meal I have at home. Look, here’s

the kitchen, queer old place. And here’s the dining-room. Cupboards

everywhere, you see; we boast of our cupboards. The green paint is _de

rigueur_; duck’s egg colour; I’ve got to like it. That door leads into

the bedroom. Well, after breakfast, about eleven o’clock that’s to say,

I light up--look at my pipe-rack--and read newspapers. Then, if it’s

fine, I walk about the streets, and see what new follies men are

perpetrating. And then--’

He told of his favourite restaurants, of his unfashionable club, of

a few houses where, at long intervals, he called or dined, of the

Hodiernals, of a dozen other small matters.

‘What a life,’ sighed the listener, ‘compared with mine!’

‘We’ll remedy that, some day.’

‘When?’ she asked absently.

‘Wait just a little.--You don’t wish to tell your father?’

‘I daren’t tell him. I doubt whether I shall ever dare to tell him face

to face.’

‘Don’t think about it. Leave it to me.’

‘I must have letters from you--but how? Perhaps, if you could

promise always to send them for the first post--I generally go to the

letter-box, and I could do so always--whilst father is ill.’

This was agreed upon. Nancy, whilst they were talking, took her hat from

the table; at the same moment, Tarrant’s hand moved towards it. Their

eyes met, and the hand that would have checked her was drawn back.

Quickly, secretly, she drew the ring from her finger, hid it somewhere,

and took her gloves.

‘Did you come by the back way?’ Tarrant asked, when he had bitten his

lips for a sulky minute.

‘Yes, as you told me.’

He said he would walk with her into Chancery Lane; there could be no

risk in it.

‘You shall go out first. Any one passing will suppose you had business

with the solicitor underneath. I’ll overtake you at Southampton

Buildings.’

Impatient to be gone, she lingered minute after minute, and broke

hurriedly from his restraining arms at last. The second outer door,

which Tarrant had closed on her entrance, surprised her by its

prison-like massiveness. In the wooden staircase she stopped timidly,

but at the exit her eyes turned to an inscription above, which she had

just glanced at when arriving: _Surrexit e flammis_, and a date. Nancy

had no Latin, but guessed an interpretation from the last word.

Through the little court, with its leafy plane-trees and white-worn

cobble-stones, she walked with bent head, hearing the roar of Holborn

through the front archway, and breathing more freely when she gained the

quiet garden at the back of the Inn.

Tarrant’s step sounded behind her. Looking up she asked the meaning of

the inscription she had seen.

‘You don’t know Latin? Well, why should you? _Surrexit e flammis_, “It

rose again from the flames.”

‘I thought it might be something like that. You will be patient with my

ignorance?’

A strange word upon Nancy’s lips. No mortal ere this had heard her

confess to ignorance.

‘But you know the modern languages?’ said Tarrant, smiling.

‘Yes. That is, a little French and German--a very little German.’

Tarrant mused, seemingly with no dissatisfaction.

CHAPTER 4

In her brother’s looks and speech Nancy detected something mysterious.

Undoubtedly he was keeping a secret from her, and there could be just as

little doubt that he would not keep it long. Whenever she questioned him

about the holiday at Scarborough, he put on a smile unlike any she

had ever seen on his face, so profoundly thoughtful was it, so loftily

reserved. On the subject of Mrs. Damerel he did not choose to be very

communicative; Nancy gathered little more than she had learnt from his

letter. But very plainly the young man held himself in higher esteem

than hitherto; very plainly he had learnt to think of ‘the office’ as a

burden or degradation, from which he would soon escape. Prompted by her

own tormenting conscience, his sister wondered whether Fanny French

had anything to do with the mystery; but this seemed improbable. She

mentioned Fanny’s name one evening.

‘Do you see much of her?’

‘Not much,’ was the dreamy reply. ‘When are you going to call?’

‘Oh, not at present,’ said Nancy.

‘You’ve altered again, then?’

She vouchsafed no answer.

‘There’s something I think I ought to tell you,’ said Horace, speaking

as though he were the elder and felt a responsibility. ‘People have been

talking about you and Mr. Crewe.’

‘What!’ She flashed into excessive anger. ‘Who has been talking?’

‘The people over there. Of course I know it’s all nonsense. At

least’--he raised his eyebrows--‘I suppose it is.’

‘_I_ should suppose so,’ said Nancy, with vehement scorn.

Their father’s illness imposed a restraint upon trifling conversation.

Mary Woodruff, now attending upon Mr. Lord under the doctor’s

directions, had held grave talk with Nancy. The Barmbys, father and

son, called frequently, and went away with gloomy faces. Nancy and her

brother were summoned, separately, to the invalid’s room at uncertain

times, but neither was allowed to perform any service for him; their

sympathy, more often than not, excited irritation; the sufferer always

seemed desirous of saying more than the few and insignificant words

which actually passed his lips, and generally, after a long silence, he

gave the young people an abrupt dismissal. With his daughter he spoke

at length, in language which awed her by its solemnity; Nancy could only

understand him as meaning that his end drew near. He had been reviewing,

he said, the course of her life, and trying to forecast her future.

‘I give you no more advice; it would only be repeating what I have said

hundreds of times. All I can _do_ for your good, I have done. You will

understand me better if you live a few more years, and I think, in the

end, you will be grateful to me.’

Nancy, sitting by the bedside, laid a hand upon her father’s and sobbed.

She entreated him to believe that even now she understood how wisely he

had guided her.

‘Tried to, Nancy; tried to, my dear. Guidance isn’t for young people

now-a-days. Don’t let us shirk the truth. I have never been satisfied

with you, but I have loved you--’

‘And I you, dear father--I have! I have!--I know better now how good

your advice was. I wish--far, far more sincerely than you think--that

I had kept more control upon myself--thought less of myself in every

way--’

Whilst she spoke through her tears, the yellow, wrinkled face upon the

pillow, with its sunken eyes and wasted lips, kept sternly motionless.

‘If you won’t mock at me,’ Stephen pursued, ‘I will show you an example

you would do well to imitate. It is our old servant, now my kindest,

truest friend. If I could hope that you will let her be _your_ friend,

it would help to put my mind at rest. Don’t look down upon her,--that’s

such a poor way of thinking. Of all the women I have known, she is the

best. Don’t be too proud to learn from her, Nancy. In all these twenty

years that she has been in my house, whatever she undertook to do, she

did well;--nothing too hard or too humble for her, if she thought it her

duty. I know what that means; I myself have been a poor, weak creature,

compared with her. Don’t be offended because I ask you to take pattern

by her. I know her value now better than I ever knew it before. I owe

her a debt I can’t pay.’

Nancy left the room burdened with strange and distressful thoughts. When

she saw Mary she looked at her with new feelings, and spoke to her less

familiarly than of wont. Mary was very silent in these days; her face

had the dignity of a profound unspoken grief.

To his son, Mr. Lord talked only of practical things, urging sound

advice, and refraining, now, from any mention of their differences.

Horace, absorbed in preoccupations, had never dreamt that this illness

might prove fatal; on finding Nancy in tears, he was astonished.

‘Do you think it’s dangerous?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid he will never get well.’

It was Sunday morning. The young man went apart and pondered. After the

mid-day meal, having heard from Mary that his father was no worse, he

left home without remark to any one, and from Camberwell Green took a

cab to Trafalgar Square. At the Hotel Metropole he inquired for Mrs.

Damerel; her rooms were high up, and he ascended by the lift. Sunk in a

deep chair, her feet extended upon a hassock, Mrs. Damerel was amusing

herself with a comic paper; she rose briskly, though with the effort of

a person who is no longer slim.

‘Here I am, you see!--up in the clouds. Now, _did_ you get my letter?’

‘No letter, but a telegram.’

‘There, I thought so. Isn’t that just like me? As soon as I had sent

out the letter to post, I said to myself that I had written the wrong

address. What address it _was_, I couldn’t tell you, to save my life,

but I shall see when it comes back from the post-office. I rather

suspect it’s gone to Gunnersbury; just then I was thinking about

somebody at Gunnersbury--or somebody at Hampstead, I can’t be sure

which. What a good thing I wired!--Oh, now, Horace, I _don’t_ like that,

I don’t really!’

The young man looked at her in bewilderment.

‘What don’t you like?’

‘Why, that tie. It won’t do at all. Your taste is generally very good,

but that tie! I’ll choose one for you to-morrow, and let you have it

the next time you come. Do you know, I’ve been thinking that it might

be well if you parted your hair in the middle. I don’t care for it as a

rule; but in your case, with your soft, beautiful hair, I think it would

look well. Shall we try? Wait a minute; I’ll run for a comb.’

‘But suppose some one came--’

‘Nobody will come, my dear boy. Hardly any one knows I’m here. I like to

get away from people now and then; that’s why I’ve taken refuge in this

cock-loft.’

She disappeared, and came back with a comb of tortoise-shell.

‘Sit down there. Oh, what hair it is, to be sure! Almost as fine as my

own. I think you’ll have a delicious moustache.’

Her personal appearance was quite in keeping with this vivacity. Rather

short, and inclining--but as yet only inclining--to rotundity of figure,

with a peculiarly soft and clear complexion, Mrs. Damerel made a gallant

battle against the hostile years. Her bright eye, her moist lips, the

admirable smoothness of brow and cheek and throat, bore witness to

sound health; as did the rows of teeth, incontestably her own, which she

exhibited in her frequent mirth. A handsome woman still, though not

of the type that commands a reverent admiration. Her frivolity did not

exclude a suggestion of shrewdness, nor yet of capacity for emotion, but

it was difficult to imagine wise or elevated thought behind that narrow

brow. She was elaborately dressed, with only the most fashionable

symbols of widowhood; rings adorned her podgy little hand, and

a bracelet her white wrist. Refinement she possessed only in the

society-journal sense, but her intonation was that of the idle class,

and her grammar did not limp.

‘There--let me look. Oh, I think that’s an improvement--more

_distingue_. And now tell me the news. How is your father?’

‘Very bad, I’m afraid,’ said Horace, when he had regarded himself in a

mirror with something of doubtfulness. ‘Nancy says that she’s afraid he

won’t get well.’

‘Oh, you don’t say that! Oh, how very sad! But let us hope. I can’t

think it’s so bad as that.’

Horace sat in thought. Mrs. Damerel, her bright eyes subduing their

gaiety to a keen reflectiveness, put several questions regarding the

invalid, then for a moment meditated.

‘Well, we must hope for the best. Let me know to-morrow how he gets

on--be sure you let me know. And if anything _should_ happen--oh, but

that’s too sad; we won’t talk about it.’

Again she meditated, tapping the floor, and, as it seemed, trying not to

smile.

‘Don’t be downcast, my dear boy. Never meet sorrow half-way--if you knew

how useful I have found it to remember that maxim. I have gone through

sad, sad things--ah! But now tell me of your own affairs. Have you seen

_la petite_?’

‘I just saw her the other evening,’ he answered uneasily.

‘Just? What does that mean, I wonder? Now you don’t look anything like

so well as when you were at Scarborough. You’re worrying; yes, I know

you are. It’s your nervous constitution, my poor boy. So you just saw

her? No more imprudences?’

She examined his face attentively, her lips set with tolerable firmness.

‘It’s a very difficult position, you know,’ said Horace, wriggling in

his chair. ‘I can’t get out of it all at once. And the truth is, I’m not

sure that I wish to.’

Mrs. Damerel drew her eyebrows together, and gave a loud tap on the

floor.

‘Oh, that’s weak--that’s very weak! After promising me! Now listen;

listen seriously.’ She raised a finger. ‘If it goes on, I have

nothing--more--whatever to do with you. It would distress me very, very

much; but I can’t interest myself in a young man who makes love to a

girl so very far beneath him. Be led by me, Horace, and your future

will be brilliant. Prefer this young lady of Camberwell, and lose

everything.’

Horace leaned forward and drooped his head.

‘I don’t think you form anything like a right idea of her,’ he said.

The other moved impatiently.

‘My dear boy, I know her as well as if I’d lived with her for years. Oh,

how silly you are! But then you are so young, so very young.’

With the vexation on her face there blended, as she looked at him, a

tenderness unmistakably genuine.

‘Now, I’ll tell you what. I have really no objection to make Fanny’s

acquaintance. Suppose, after all, you bring her to see me one of these

days. Not just yet. You must wait till I am in the mood for it. But

before very long.’

Horace looked up with pleasure and gratitude.

‘Now, that’s really kind of you!’

‘Really? And all the rest is only pretended kindness? Silly boy! Some

day you will know better. Now, think, Horace; suppose you were so

unhappy as to lose your father. Could you, as soon as he was gone, do

something that you know would have pained him deeply?’

The pathetic note was a little strained; putting her head aside, Mrs.

Damerel looked rather like a sentimental picture in an advertisement.

Horace did not reply.

‘You surely wouldn’t,’ pursued the lady, with emphasis, watching him

closely; ‘you surely wouldn’t and couldn’t marry this girl as soon as

your poor father was in his grave?’

‘Oh, of course not.’

Mrs. Damerel seemed relieved, but pursued her questioning.

‘You couldn’t think of marrying for at least half a year?’

‘Fanny wouldn’t wish it.’

‘No, of course not,--well now, I think I must make her acquaintance.

But how weak you are, Horace! Oh, those nerves! All finely, delicately

organised people, like you, make such blunders in life. Your sense of

honour is such a tyrant over you. Now, mind, I don’t say for a moment

that Fanny isn’t fond of you,--how could she help being, my dear boy?

But I do insist that she will be very much happier if you let her marry

some one of her own class. You, Horace, belong to a social sphere so

far, far above her. If I could only impress that upon your modesty.

You are made to associate with people of the highest refinement. How

deplorable to think that a place in society is waiting for you, and you

keep longing for Camberwell!’

The listener’s face wavered between pleasure in such flattery and the

impulse of resistance.

‘Remember, Horace, if anything _should_ happen at home, you are your own

master. I could introduce you freely to people of wealth and fashion. Of

course you could give up the office at once. I shall be taking a house

in the West-end, or a flat, at all events. I shall entertain a good

deal--and think of your opportunities! My dear boy, I assure you that,

with personal advantages such as yours, you might end by marrying an

heiress. Nothing more probable! And you can talk of such a girl as Fanny

French--for shame!

‘I mustn’t propose any gaieties just now,’ she said, when they had been

together for an hour. ‘And I shall wait so anxiously for news of your

father. If anything _did_ happen, what would your sister do, I wonder?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know--except that she’d get away from Camberwell.

Nancy hates it.’

‘Who knows? I may be able to be of use to her. But, you say she is such

a grave and learned young lady? I am afraid we should bore each other.’

To this, Horace could venture only an uncertain reply. He had not much

hope of mutual understanding between his sister and Mrs. Damerel.

At half-past five he was home again, and there followed a cheerless

evening. Nancy was in her own room until nine o’clock. She came down

for supper, but had no appetite; her eyes showed redness from weeping;

Horace could say nothing for her comfort. After the meal, they went up

together to the drawing-room, and sat unoccupied.

‘If we lose father,’ said Nancy, in a dull voice very unlike her

ordinary tones, ‘we shall have not a single relative left, that is

anything to us.’

Her brother kept silence.

‘Has Mrs. Damerel,’ she continued, ‘ever said anything to you about

mother’s family?’

After hesitation, Horace answered, ‘Yes,’ and his countenance showed

that the affirmative had special meaning. Nancy waited with an inquiring

look.

‘I haven’t told you,’ he added, ‘because--we have had other things to

think about. But Mrs. Damerel is mother’s sister, our aunt.’

‘How long have you known that?’

‘She told me at Scarborough.’

‘But why didn’t she tell you so at first?’

‘That’s what I can’t understand. She says she was afraid I might mention

it; but I don’t believe that’s the real reason.’

Nancy’s questioning elicited all that was to be learnt from her brother,

little more than she had heard already; the same story of a disagreement

between Mrs. Damerel and their father, of long absences from England,

and a revival of interest in her relatives, following upon Mrs.

Damerel’s widowhood.

‘She would be glad to see you, if you liked. But I doubt whether you

would get on very well.’

‘Why?’

‘She doesn’t care about the same things that you do. She’s a woman of

society, you know.’

‘But if she’s mother’s sister. Yes, I should like to know her.’ Nancy

spoke with increasing earnestness. ‘It makes everything quite different.

I must see her.’

‘Well, as I said, she’s quite willing. But you remember that I’m

supposed not to have spoken about her at all. I should have to get her

to send you a message, or something of that kind. Of course, we have

often talked about you.’

‘I can’t form an idea of her,’ said Nancy impatiently. ‘Is she good? Is

she really kind? Couldn’t you get her portrait to show me?’

‘I should be afraid to ask, unless she had given me leave to speak to

you.’

‘She really lives in good society?’

‘Haven’t I told you the sort of people she knows? She must be very well

off; there can’t be a doubt of it.’

I don’t care so much about that,’ said Nancy in a brooding voice. ‘It’s

herself,--whether she’s kind and good and wishes well to us.

The next day there was no change in Mr. Lord’s condition; a deep silence

possessed the house. In the afternoon Nancy went to pass an hour with

Jessica Morgan; on her return she met Samuel Barmby, who was just

leaving after a visit to the sick man. Samuel bore himself with

portentous gravity, but spoke only a few commonplaces, affecting hope;

he bestowed upon Nancy’s hand a fervent pressure, and strode away with

the air of an undertaker who had called on business.

Two more days of deepening gloom, then a night through which Nancy sat

with Mary Woodruff by her father’s bed. Mr. Lord was unconscious, but

from time to time a syllable or a phrase fell from his lips, meaningless

to the watchers. At dawn, Nancy went to her chamber, pallid, exhausted.

Mary, whose strength seemed proof against fatigue, moved about the room,

preparing for a new day; every few minutes she stood with eyes fixed

on the dying face, and the tears she had restrained in Nancy’s presence

flowed silently.

When the sun made a golden glimmer upon the wall, Mary withdrew, and was

absent for a quarter of an hour. On returning, she bent at once over the

bed; her eyes were met by a grave, wondering look.

‘Do you know me?’ she whispered.

The lips moved; she bent lower, but could distinguish no word. He was

speaking; the murmur continued; but she gathered no sense.

‘You can trust me, I will do all I can.’

He seemed to understand her, and smiled. As the smile faded away,

passing into an austere calm, Mary pressed her lips upon his forehead.

CHAPTER 5

After breakfast, and before Arthur Peachey’s departure for business,

there had been a scene of violent quarrel between him and his wife. It

took place in the bed-room, where, as usual save on Sunday morning, Ada

consumed her strong tea and heavily buttered toast; the state of her

health--she had frequent ailments, more or less genuine, such as afflict

the indolent and brainless type of woman--made it necessary for her to

repose till a late hour. Peachey did not often lose self-control, though

sorely tried; the one occasion that unchained his wrath was when Ada’s

heedlessness or ill-temper affected the well-being of his child. This

morning it had been announced to him that the nurse-girl, Emma, could no

longer be tolerated; she was making herself offensive to her mistress,

had spoken insolently, disobeyed orders, and worst of all, defended

herself by alleging orders from Mr. Peachey. Hence the outbreak of

strife, signalled by furious shrill voices, audible to Beatrice and

Fanny as they sat in the room beneath.

Ada came down at half-past ten, and found Beatrice writing letters. She

announced what any who did not know her would have taken for a final

resolve.

‘I’m going--I won’t put up with that beast any longer. I shall go and

live at Brighton.’

Her sister paid not the slightest heed; she was intent upon a business

letter of much moment.

‘Do you hear what I say? I’m going by the first train this afternoon.’

‘All right,’ remarked Beatrice placidly. ‘Don’t interrupt me just now.

The result of this was fury directed against Beatrice, who found herself

accused of every domestic vice compatible with her position. She was a

sordid creature, living at other people’s expense,--a selfish, scheming,

envious wretch--

‘If I were your husband,’ remarked the other without looking up, ‘I

should long since have turned you into the street--if I hadn’t broken

your neck first.’

Exercise in quarrel only made Ada’s voice the clearer and more shrill.

It rose now to the highest points of a not inconsiderable compass. But

Beatrice continued to write, and by resolute silence put a limit to her

sister’s railing. A pause had just come about, when the door was thrown

open, and in rushed Fanny, hatted and gloved from a walk.

‘He’s dead!’ she said excitedly. ‘He’s dead!’

Beatrice turned with a look of interest. ‘Who? Mr. Lord?’

‘Yes. The blinds are all down. He must have died in the night.’

Her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled, as though she had brought the

most exhilarating news.

‘What do I care?’ said Mrs. Peachey, to whom her sister had addressed

the last remark.

‘Just as much as I care about your affairs, no doubt,’ returned Fanny,

with genial frankness.

‘Don’t be in too great a hurry,’ remarked Beatrice, who showed the

calculating wrinkle at the corner of her eye. ‘Because he’s dead, that

doesn’t say that your masher comes in for money.’

‘Who’ll get it, then?’

‘There may be nothing worth speaking of to get, for all we know.’

Beatrice had not as yet gained Fanny’s co-operation in the commercial

scheme now being elaborated; though of far more amiable nature than Mrs.

Peachey, she heartily hoped that the girl might be disappointed in her

expectations from Mr. Lord’s will. An hour later, she walked along Grove

Lane, and saw for herself that Fanny’s announcement was accurate; the

close-drawn blinds could mean but one thing.

To-day there was little likelihood of learning particulars, but on the

morrow Fanny might perchance hear something from Horace Lord. However,

the evening brought a note, hand-delivered by some stranger. Horace

wrote only a line or two, informing Fanny that his father had died about

eight o’clock that morning, and adding: ‘Please be at home to-morrow at

twelve.’

At twelve next day Fanny received her lover alone in the drawing-room.

He entered with the exaggerated solemnity of a very young man who

knows for the first time a grave bereavement, and feels the momentary

importance it confers upon him. Fanny, trying to regard him without a

smile, grimaced; decorous behaviour was at all times impossible to her,

for she neither understood its nature nor felt its obligation. In a few

minutes she smiled unrestrainedly, and spoke the things that rose to her

lips.

‘I’ve been keeping a secret from you,’ said Horace, in the low voice

which had to express his sorrow,--for he could not preserve a gloomy

countenance with Fanny before him. ‘But I can tell you now.’

‘A secret? And what business had you to keep secrets from me?’

‘It’s about Mrs. Damerel. When I was at the seaside she told me who she

really is. She’s my aunt--my mother’s sister. Queer, isn’t it? Of course

that makes everything different. And she’s going to ask you to come and

see her. It’ll have to be put off a little--now; but not very long, I

dare say, as she’s a relative. You’ll have to do your best to please

her.’

‘I’m sure I shan’t put myself out of the way. People must take me as

they find me.’

‘Now don’t talk like that, Fanny. It isn’t very kind--just now. I

thought you’d be different to-day.’

‘All right.--Have you anything else to tell me?’

Horace understood her significant glance, and shook his head.

‘I’ll let you know everything as soon as I know myself.’

Having learnt the day and hour of Mr. Lord’s funeral, Ada and Fanny

made a point of walking out to get a glimpse of it. The procession of

vehicles in Grove Lane excited their contempt, so far was it from the

splendour they had anticipated.

‘There you are!’ said Ada; ‘I shouldn’t wonder if it’s going to be a

jolly good take in for you, after all. If he’d died worth much, they

wouldn’t have buried him like that.’

Fanny’s heart sank. She could conceive no other explanation of a simple

burial save lack of means, or resentment in the survivors at the

disposition made of his property by the deceased. When, on the morrow,

Horace told her that his father had strictly charged Mr Barmby to have

him buried in the simplest mode compatible with decency, she put it down

to the old man’s excessive meanness.

On this occasion she learnt the contents of Mr. Lord’s will, and having

learnt them, got rid of Horace as soon as possible that she might

astonish her sisters with the report.

In the afternoon of that day, Beatrice had an appointment with Luckworth

Crewe. She was to meet him at the office he had just taken in

Farringdon Street, whence they would repair to a solicitor’s in the same

neighbourhood, for the discussion of legal business connected with Miss.

French’s enterprise. She climbed the staircase of a big building, and

was directed to the right door by the sound of Crewe’s voice, loudly and

jocularly discoursing. He stood with two men in the open doorway, and at

the sight of Beatrice waved a hand to her.

‘Take your hook, you fellows; I have an engagement.’ The men, glancing

at Miss. French facetiously, went their way. ‘How do, old chum? It’s all

in a mess yet; hold your skirts together. Come along this way.’

Through glue-pots and shavings and an overpowering smell of paint,

Beatrice followed to inspect the premises, which consisted of three

rooms; one, very much the smallest, about ten feet square. Three

workmen were busy, and one, fitting up shelves, whistled a melody with

ear-piercing shrillness.

‘Stop that damned noise!’ shouted Crewe. ‘I’ve told you once already.

Try it on again, my lad, and I’ll drop you down the well of the

staircase--you’ve too much breath, you have.’

The other workmen laughed. It was evident that Crewe had made friends

with them all.

‘Won’t be bad, when we get the decks cleared,’ he remarked to Beatrice.

‘Plenty of room to make twenty thousand a year or so.’

He checked himself, and asked in a subdued voice, ‘Seen anything of the

Lords?’

Beatrice nodded with a smile. ‘And heard about the will. Have you?’

‘No, I haven’t. Come into this little room.’

He closed the door behind them, and looked at his companion with

curiosity, but without show of eagerness.

‘Well, it’s a joke,’ said Miss. French.

‘Is it? How?’

‘Fanny’s that mad about it! She’d got it into her silly noddle that

Horace Lord would drop in for a fortune at once. As it is, he gets

nothing at all for two years, except what the Barmbys choose to

give him. And if he marries before he’s four-and-twenty, he loses

everything--every cent!’

Crewe whistled a bar of a street-melody, then burst into laughter.

‘That’s how the old joker has done them, is it? Quite right too. The

lad doesn’t know his own mind yet. Let Fanny wait if she really wants

him--and if she can keep hold of him. But what are the figures?’

‘Nothing startling. Of course I don’t know all the ins and outs of it,

but Horace Lord will get seven thousand pounds, and a sixth share in the

piano business. Old Barmby and his son are trustees. They may let Horace

have just what they think fit during the next two years. If he wants

money to go into business with, they may advance what they like. But

for two years he’s simply in their hands, to be looked after. And if he

marries--pop goes the weasel!’

‘And Miss. Lord?’ asked Crewe carelessly.

Beatrice pointed a finger at him.

‘You want to know badly, don’t you? Well, it’s pretty much the same

as the other. To begin with, if she marries before the age of

six-and-twenty, she gets nothing whatever. If she doesn’t marry, there’s

two hundred a year to live on and to keep up the house.--Oh, I was

forgetting; she must not only keep single to twenty-six, but continue to

live where she does now, with that old servant of theirs for companion.

At six-and-twenty she takes the same as her brother, about seven

thousand, and a sixth share in Lord and Barmby.’

Again Crewe whistled.

‘That’s about three years still to live in Grove Lane,’ he said

thoughtfully. ‘Well, the old joker has pinned them, and no mistake. I

thought he had more to leave.’

‘Of course you did,’ remarked Beatrice significantly.

‘Look here, old fellow, don’t talk to me like that,’ he replied

good-humouredly, but with a reproof not to be mistaken. ‘I thought

nothing about it in the way that _you_ mean. But it isn’t much, after

living as he has done. I suppose you don’t know how the money lies?’

‘I have it all from Fanny, and it’s a wonder she remembered as much as

she did.’

‘Oh, Fanny’s pretty smart in L. s. d. But did she say what becomes of

the money if either of them break the terms?’

‘Goes to a girl’s orphanage, somewhere in the old man’s country. But

there’s more than I’ve accounted for yet. Young Barmby’s sisters get

legacies--a hundred and fifty apiece. And, last of all, the old servant

has an annuity of two hundred. He made her a sort of housekeeper not

long ago, H. L. says; thought no end of her.’

‘Don’t know anything about her,’ said Crewe absently. ‘I should like to

know the business details. What arrangement was made, I wonder, when he

took Barmby into partnership?’

‘I shouldn’t be surprised if he simply gave him a share. Old Barmby and

Lord were great chums. Then, you see, Samuel Barmby has a third of his

profits to pay over, eventually.’

Beatrice went on to speak of the mysterious Mrs. Damerel, concerning

whom she had heard from Fanny. The man of business gave particular ear

to this story, and asked many questions. Of a sudden, as if dismissing

matters which hardly concerned him, he said mirthfully:

‘You’ve heard about the row at Lillie Bridge yesterday?’

‘I saw something about it in the paper.’

‘Well, I was there. Pure chance; haven’t been at that kind of place

for a year and more. It was a match for the Sprint Championship and a

hundred pounds. Timed for six o’clock, but at a quarter past the

chaps hadn’t come forward. I heard men talking, and guessed there was

something wrong; they thought it a put-up job. When it got round that

there’d be no race, the excitement broke out, and then--I’d have given

something for you to see it! First of all there was a rush for the

gate-money; a shilling a piece, you know, we’d all paid. There were a

whole lot of North-of-England chaps, fellow countrymen of mine, and I

heard some of them begin to send up a roar that sounded dangerous. I

was tumbling along with the crowd, quite ready for a scrimmage--I rather

enjoy a fight now and then,--and all at once some chap sang out just

in front, ‘Let’s burst up the blooming show!’--only he used a stronger

word. And a lot of us yelled hooray, and to it we went. I don’t mean I

had a hand in the pillaging and smashing,--it wouldn’t have done for

a man just starting in business to be up at the police-court,--but I

looked on and laughed--laughed till I could hardly stand! They set

to work on the refreshment place. It was a scene if you like! Fellows

knocking off the heads of bottles, and drinking all they could, then

pouring the rest on the ground. Glasses and decanters flying right and

left,--sandwiches and buns, and I don’t know what, pelting about. They

splintered all the small wood they could lay their hands on, and set

fire to it, and before you could say Jack Robinson the whole place was

blazing. The bobbies got it pretty warm--bottles and stones and logs of

wood; I saw one poor chap with the side of his face cut clean open. It

does one good, a real stirring-up like that; I feel better to-day than

for the last month. And the swearing that went on! It’s a long time

since I heard such downright, hearty, solid swearing. There was one chap

I kept near, and he swore for a full hour without stopping, except when

he had a bottle at his mouth; he only stopped when he was speechless

with liquor.’

‘I wish I’d been there,’ said Miss. French gaily. ‘It must have been no

end of fun.’

‘A right down good spree. And it wasn’t over till about eight o’clock.

I stayed till the police had cleared the grounds, and then came home,

laughing all the way. It did me good, I tell you!’

‘Well, shall we go and see the lawyer?’ suggested Beatrice.

‘Right you are.--Have a drink first? Nice quiet place round in Fleet

Street--glass of wine. No? As you please, old chum.--Think this shop

‘ll do, don’t you? You must come round when it’s finished. But I daresay

you’ll be here many a time--on biz.’

‘Oh, I daresay.’

And as they went down the stairs, Crewe laughed again at his

recollections of yesterday’s sport.

CHAPTER 6

Gusts of an October evening swept about the square of the old Inn,

and made rushes at the windows; all the more cosy seemed it here in

Tarrant’s room, where a big fire, fed into smokeless placidity,

purred and crackled. Pipe in mouth, Tarrant lay back in his big chair,

gracefully indolent as ever. Opposite him, lamp-light illuminating her

face on one side, and fire-gloom on the other, Nancy turned over an

illustrated volume, her husband’s gift today. Many were the presents he

had bestowed upon her, costly some of them, all flattering the recipient

by a presumption of taste and intelligence.

She had been here since early in the afternoon, it was now near seven

o’clock.

Nancy looked at the pictures, but inattentively, her brows slightly

knitted, and her lips often on the point of speech that concerned some

other matter. Since the summer holiday she had grown a trifle thinner in

face; her beauty was no longer allied with perfect health; a heaviness

appeared on her eyelids. Of course she wore the garb of mourning,

and its effect was to emphasise the maturing change manifest in her

features.

For several minutes there had passed no word; but Tarrant’s face,

no less than his companion’s, signalled discussion in suspense. No

unfriendly discussion, yet one that excited emotional activity in both

of them. The young man, his pipe-hand falling to his knee, first broke

silence.

‘I look at it in this way. We ought to regard ourselves as married

people living under exceptionally favourable circumstances. One has to

bear in mind the brutal fact that man and wife, as a rule, see a great

deal too much of each other--thence most of the ills of married life:

squabblings, discontents, small or great disgusts, leading often

enough to _altri guai_. People get to think themselves victims of

incompatibility, when they are merely suffering from a foolish

custom--the habit of being perpetually together. In fact, it’s an

immoral custom. What does immorality mean but anything that tends

to kill love, to harden hearts? The common practice of man and wife

occupying the same room is monstrous, gross; it’s astounding that

women of any sensitiveness endure it. In fact, their sensitiveness is

destroyed. Even an ordinary honeymoon generally ends in quarrel--as

it certainly ought to. You and I escape all that. Each of us lives a

separate life, with the result that we like each other better as time

goes on; I speak for myself, at all events. I look forward to our

meetings. I open the door to you with as fresh a feeling of pleasure

as when you came first. If we had been ceaselessly together day and

night--well, you know the result as well as I do.’

He spoke with indulgent gravity, in the tone of kindness to which his

voice was naturally attuned. And Nancy’s reply, though it expressed a

stronger feeling, struck the same harmonious note.

‘I can agree with all that. But it applies to people married in the

ordinary way. I was speaking of ourselves, placed as we are.’

‘I don’t pretend to like the concealment,’ said Tarrant. ‘For one thing,

there’s a suggestion of dishonour about it. We’ve gone over all that--’

‘Oh, I don’t mean that for a moment. It isn’t really dishonourable. My

father could never have objected to _you_ for my husband. He only wanted

to guard me--Mary says so, and he told her everything. He thought me a

silly, flighty girl, and was afraid I should be trapped for the sake of

my money. I wish--oh how I wish I had had the courage to tell him! He

would have seen you, and liked and trusted you--how could he help?’

‘It might have been better--but who knows whether he would have seen me

with your eyes, Nancy?’

‘Yes, yes. But I was going to say----’

She hesitated.

‘Say on.’

‘There are so many difficulties before us, dear.’

‘Not if we continue to think of each other as we do now. Do you mean it

might be discovered?’

‘Yes, through no fault of ours.’

She hesitated again.

‘Quite sure you haven’t told anybody?’

‘No one.’

Tarrant had a doubt on this point. He strongly suspected that Jessica

Morgan knew the truth, but he shrank from pressing Nancy to an avowal of

repeated falsehood.

‘Then it’s very unlikely we should be found out. Who would dream of

tracking you here, for instance? And suppose we were seen together

in the street or in the country, who would suspect anything more than

love-making? and that is not forbidden you.’

‘No. But--’

‘But?’

‘But suppose I--’

She rose, crossed to him, seated herself on his knee and put an arm

about his neck. Before she had spoken another word, Tarrant understood;

the smile on his face lost its spontaneity; a bitter taste seemed to

distort his lips.

‘You think--you are afraid--’

He heard a monosyllable, and sat silent. This indeed had not entered

into his calculations; but why not? He could hardly say; he had ignored

the not unimportant detail, as it lurked among possibilities. Perhaps

had willingly ignored it, as introducing a complication oppressive

to his indolence, to his hodiernal philosophy. And now he arraigned

mother-nature, the very divinity whom hitherto he had called upon to

justify him. All at once he grew cold to Nancy. The lulled objections to

matrimony awoke in him again; again he felt that he had made a fool of

himself. Nancy was better than he had thought; he either loved her, or

felt something towards her, not easily distinguishable from love. His

inferior she remained, but not in the sense he had formerly attributed

to the word. Her mind and heart excelled the idle conception he had

formed of them. But Nancy was not his wife, as the world understands

that relation; merely his mistress, and as a mistress he found her

charming, lovable. What she now hinted at, would shatter the situation.

Tarrant thought not of the peril to her material prospects; on that

score he was indifferent, save in so far as Mr Lord’s will helped to

maintain their mutual independence. But he feared for his liberty, in

the first place, and in the second, abhorred the change that must come

over Nancy herself. Nancy a mother--he repelled the image, as though it

degraded her.

Delicacy, however, constrained him to a disguise of these emotions. He

recognised the human sentiments that should have weighed with him; like

a man of cultivated intelligence, he admitted their force, their beauty.

None the less, a syllable on Nancy’s lips had arrested the current of

his feelings, and made him wish again that he had been either more or

less a man of honour down at Teignmouth.

‘And yet,’ he said to himself, ‘could I have resisted an appeal for

marriage _now_? That comes of being so confoundedly humane. It’s a

marvel that I didn’t find myself married to some sheer demirep long

ago.’

Nancy was speaking.

‘Will it make you love me less?’

‘I have always refused to prophesy about love,’ he answered, with forced

playfulness.

‘But you wouldn’t--you wouldn’t?’

‘We should find ourselves in a very awkward position.’

‘I know,’ said Nancy hurriedly. ‘I can’t see what would be done. But you

seem colder to me all at once, Lionel. Surely it oughtn’t to--to turn

you away from me. Perhaps I am mistaken.’

This referred to the alarming possibility, and Tarrant caught at hope.

Yes, she might be mistaken; they wouldn’t talk about it; he shook it

away.

‘Let me fill my pipe again. Yes, you can do it for me. That reminds me

of a story Harvey Munden tells. A man he knew, a doctor, got married,

and there was nothing his wife wouldn’t do for him. As he sat with her

one evening, smoking, a patient called him into the consulting-room. He

had only just lighted a fresh pipe, and laid it down regretfully. ‘I’ll

keep it in for you,’ said his wife. And she did so, with dainty and

fearful puffs, at long intervals. But the doctor was detained, and when

he came back--well, the poor wife had succumbed to her devotion. She

never kept in his pipe again.

Nancy tried to laugh. She was in her own chair again, and sat resting

her cheek upon her hand, gazing at the fire.

‘How is it, Lionel, that no one ever knocks at your door when I’m here.’

‘Oh, very simple. I sport the oak--as you know.’

‘But don’t you think some friend of yours might see a light in your

window, and come up?’

‘If so, _il respecte la consigne_.’

‘No, no; I don’t like you when you begin to use French words. I think

it reminds me of once when you did it a long time ago,--and I thought

you--never mind.’

Tarrant laughed.

‘Weren’t they strange--those meetings of ours at Champion Hill? What did

you think me? Arrogant? Insolent? That is my tendency with strangers, I

admit.’

‘But I was asking you a question,’ said Nancy. ‘You mean that no one

would knock, if he saw your outer door closed. But what would they

think?’

‘No doubt--that I was working. I am supposed to be secretly engaged on

some immortal composition.’

Nancy pondered.

‘I do hope no one that knows you will ever see me coming or going.’

‘What could it matter? They wouldn’t know who you were.’

‘But to have such things thought. I should feel it just as if they knew

me. I believe I could never come again.’

‘Why, what’s the matter with you?’ Tarrant asked. ‘You have tears in

your eyes. You’re not well to-day.’ He checked himself on an unwelcome

thought, and proceeded more carelessly. ‘Do you suppose for a moment

that any friend of mine is ass enough to think with condemnation of a

girl who should come to my rooms--whatever the circumstances? You must

get rid of that provincialism--let us call it Camberwellism.’

‘They wouldn’t think it any harm--even if--?’

‘My dear girl, we have outgrown those ancestral prejudices.’ Tarrant’s

humour never quite deserted him, least of all when he echoed the talk

of his world; but his listener kept a grave face. ‘We have nothing to do

with Mrs. Grundy’s morals.’

‘But you believe in a morality of some kind?’ she pursued with

diffidence. ‘You used the word “immoral” just now.’

Nancy felt no consciousness of the gulf that yawned between herself as

she spoke now and the old self which had claimed ‘superiority.’ Her mind

was so completely unsettled that she never tried to connect its present

state with its earlier phases. For the most part, her sensations and

her reflections were concerned with the crude elements of life; the

exceptional moments she spent in a world of vague joys and fears,

wherein thought, properly speaking, had no share. Before she could

outlive the shock of passion which seemed at once to destroy and to

re-create her, she was confronted with the second supreme crisis of

woman’s existence,--its natural effects complicated with the trials of

her peculiar position. Tarrant’s reception of her disclosure came as a

new disturbance--she felt bewildered and helpless.

He, preoccupied with the anxiety he affected to dismiss, had no

inclination to debate ethical problems. For a while he talked jestingly,

and at length fell into a mood of silence. Nancy did not stay much

longer; they parted without mention of the subject uppermost in their

thoughts.

They had no stated times of meeting. Tarrant sent an invitation whenever

it pleased him. When the next arrived, in about a week, Nancy made reply

that she did not feel well enough to leave home. It was the briefest

letter Tarrant had yet received from her, and the least affectionate. He

kept silence for a few days, and wrote again. This time Nancy responded

as usual, and came.

To the involuntary question in his eyes, hers answered unmistakably. For

the first few minutes they said very little to each other. Tarrant was

struggling with repulsions and solicitudes of which he felt more than

half ashamed; Nancy, reticent for many reasons, not the least of them a

resentful pride, which for the moment overcame her fondness, endeavoured

to speak of trivial things. They kept apart, and at length the

embarrassment of the situation held them both mute.

With a nervous movement, the young man pushed forward the chair on which

Nancy usually sat.

‘I see that you don’t look well.’

Nancy turned to the window. She had unbuttoned her jacket, and taken off

her gloves, but went no further in the process of preparing herself for

the ordinary stay of some hours.

‘Did something in my letter displease you?’ inquired her husband.

‘You mean--because I didn’t come? No; I really didn’t feel well enough.’

Tarrant hesitated, but the softer feeling prevailed with him. He helped

to remove her jacket, seated her by the fire, and led her to talk.

‘So there’s no doubt of it?’

Her silence made answer.

‘Then of course there’s just as little doubt as to what we must do.’

His voice had not a convincing sincerity; he waited for the reply.

‘You mean that we can’t keep the secret?’

‘How is it possible?’

‘But you are vexed about it. You don’t speak to me as you used to. I

don’t think you ever will again.’

‘It will make no change in _me_,’ said Tarrant, with resolute good

humour. ‘All I want to be sure of is that you are quite prepared for the

change in your prospects.’

‘Are _you_, dear?’

Her tone and look deprived the inquiry of unpleasant implication. He

answered her with a laugh.

‘You know exactly how I regard it. In one way I should feel relief. Of

course I don’t like the thought that I shall have caused you to suffer

such a loss.’

‘I should never have that thought. But are you quite sure about the

result to yourself? You remember saying that you couldn’t be certain

how--’

‘How it will be taken at Champion Hill? I was going to tell you the

latest report from there. It is very doubtful whether I should ever have

to break the news.’

They did not look at each other.

‘Everything, in that quarter, must be long since settled. Pray remember

that I have no vast expectations. Quite certainly, it won’t be a large

fortune; very likely not more than your own. But enough to live on, no

doubt. I know the value of money--no man better. It would be pleasant

enough to play with thousands a year. But I don’t grumble so long as I

have a competency.’

Nancy meditated, and sighed.

‘Oh, it’s a pity. Father never meant me to be penniless if I married

wisely.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Of course not!’

They both meditated.

‘It wouldn’t be possible--would it?’

‘Why,’ he answered with a laugh, ‘last time you were here you spoke in

quite the other way. You were utterly miserable at the thought of living

through it alone.’

‘Yes--I don’t know whether I could--even if--’

‘What are you thinking of?’

‘I’ve been talking with Mary,’ she replied, after an uneasy pause.

‘She has lived with us so long; and since father’s death it seems quite

natural to make a friend of her. No one could be more devoted to me than

she is. I believe there’s nothing she wouldn’t do. I believe I might

trust her with any secret.’

The obvious suggestion demanded thought.

‘By-the-bye,’ said Tarrant, looking up, ‘have you seen your aunt again?’

Nancy’s face changed to a cold expression.

‘No. And I don’t think I shall.’

‘Probably you were as little sympathetic to her as she to you.’

‘I don’t like her,’ was the brief reply.

‘I’ve had curious thoughts about that lady,’ said Tarrant, smiling. ‘The

mystery, it seems to me, is by no means solved. You think she really

_is_ your aunt?’

‘Impossible to doubt it. Any one could see her likeness to Horace at

once.’

‘Ah, you didn’t mention that. I had a fear that she might be simply an

adventuress, with an eye to your brother’s money.’

‘She is what she says, I’m sure. But I shall never ask her to come and

see me again, and I don’t think she’ll want to. That would be fortunate

if--if we wished--’

Tarrant nodded. At the same moment they heard a sound that startled

them.

‘That’s a knock at the door,’ said Nancy, rising as if to escape.

‘So it is. Banging with a stick. Let him bang. It must be a stranger, or

he’d respect the oak.’

They sat listening. The knock sounded again, loud and prolonged. Tarrant

joked about it; but a third time came the summons.

‘I may as well go and see who it is.’

‘Oh--you won’t let any one--’

‘Of course not. Sit quietly.’

He went out, closing the room-door behind him, and opened the heavy door

which should have ensured his privacy. For five minutes he was absent,

then returned with a face portending news.

‘It was Vawdrey. He knew my habit of sporting the oak, and wouldn’t go

away till he had made sure. My grandmother is dying. They telegraphed

to Vawdrey in the City, and he came here at once to tell me. I must go.

Perhaps I shall be too late.’

‘What did he think of your keeping him outside?’

‘I made some sort of excuse. He’s a good-natured fellow; it didn’t

matter. Stay a little after I’m gone; stay as long as you like, In fact.

You can pull to the inner door when you go.’

‘What did the telegram say?’

‘Mrs. Tarrant sinking. Come immediately.’ Of course we expected it. It’s

raining hard: wait and see if it stops; you must take care of yourself.’

For this, Nancy was not slow in exhibiting her gratitude, which served

as mask of the pleasure she could not decently betray. When her husband

had hastened off, she sat for a few minutes in thought; then, alone

here for the first time, she began to walk about the rooms, and to make

herself more intimately acquainted with their contents.

CHAPTER 7

Whilst she was thus occupied, darkness came on. She did not care to

light the lamp, so made herself ready, and stole forth.

The rain had ceased. Walking alone at night was a pleasure in which

she now indulged herself pretty frequently; at such times Mary Woodruff

believed her in the company of Miss. Morgan. The marked sobriety of

her demeanour since Mr. Lord’s death, and the friendliness, even the

affection, she evinced in their common life at home, had set Mary’s

mind at ease concerning her. No murmur at her father’s will had escaped

Nancy, in this respect very unlike her brother, who, when grief was

forgotten, declared himself ill-used; she seemed perfectly content with

the conditions laid upon her, and the sincerity of her mourning could

not be doubted. Anxious to conciliate the girl in every honest way, Mary

behaved to her with the same external respect as ever, and without a

hint of express guardianship. The two were on excellent terms. It seemed

likely that before long they would have the house to themselves; already

Horace had spoken of taking lodgings in a part of London more congruous

with the social aspirations encouraged by his aunt, Mrs. Damerel.

From Chancery Lane she passed into Fleet Street, and sauntered along

with observation of shop-windows. She was unspeakably relieved by the

events of the afternoon; it would now depend upon her own choice whether

she preserved her secret, or declared herself a married woman. Her

husband had proved himself generous as well as loving; yes, she repeated

to herself, generous and loving; her fears and suspicions had

been baseless. Mrs. Tarrant’s death freed them from all sordid

considerations. A short time, perhaps a day or two, might put an end to

irregularities, and enable her to hold up her head once more.

Feeling hungry, she entered a restaurant, and dined. Not carelessly, but

with fastidious choice of viands. This was enjoyable; she began to look

more like herself of a few months ago.

She would return to Camberwell by train from Ludgate Hill. At the

circus, crowding traffic held her back for a minute or two; just as

she ran forward, a familiar voice caused her to stop again. She became

flurried, lost her head, stood still amid a tumult of omnibuses, cabs

and carts; but a hand grasped her by the arm, and led her safely to the

opposite pavement.

‘What do you mean by shouting at me in the street?’ were her first

words.

The person addressed was Luckworth Crewe; he had by no means anticipated

such wrathful greeting, and stood in confusion.

‘I beg your pardon, Miss. Lord. I didn’t think I shouted. I only meant

to call your attention.’

‘Why should you call my attention?’ Her cheeks were flushed with anger;

she regarded him as though he were a stranger guilty of mere insolence.

‘I don’t wish to speak to you.’

With astonishment, Crewe found himself alone. But a rebuff such as this,

so irrational as he thought it, so entirely out of keeping with Miss.

Lord’s behaviour, he could by no means accept. Nancy was walking towards

the railway-station; he followed. He watched her as she took a ticket,

then put himself in her way, with all the humility of countenance he

could command.

‘I’m so sorry I offended you. It wasn’t the right thing to do; I ought

to have waited till you were across. I’m a blundering sort of fellow in

those things. Do let me beg your pardon, and forgive me.’

She was calmer now, though still tremulous. But for the attack of

nervousness, she would have met Crewe with nothing worse than a slight

reserve, to mark a change in their relations. Very soon after her

father’s death he had written a becoming letter, though it smacked of

commercial phraseology. To the hope expressed in it, that he might be

allowed to call upon her in a few weeks’ time, Nancy made no reply. A

fortnight later he wrote again, this time reminding her, with modest

propriety, of what had occurred between them before she left town in

August. Nancy responded, and in grave, friendly language, begged him to

think of her no more; he must not base the slightest hope upon anything

she might have said. To her surprise, Crewe held his peace, and she saw

him now for the first time since their ascent of the Monument.

‘I’m ashamed that I lost my temper, Mr. Crewe. I am in a hurry to get

home.’

In the booking-office at Ludgate Hill it is not easy to detain, by

chivalrous discourse, a lady bent on escaping; but Crewe attempted it.

He subdued his voice, spoke rapidly and with emotion, implored that he

might be heard for a moment. Would she not permit him to call upon her?

He had waited, respecting her seclusion. He asked for nothing whatever

but permission to call, as any acquaintance might.

‘Have you heard I have opened an office in Farringdon Street? I should

so like to tell you all about it--what I’m doing--’

‘No one calls to see me,’ said Nancy, with firmness. ‘I wish to live

quite alone. I’m very sorry to seem unfriendly.’

‘Is it anything I’ve done?’

‘No--nothing whatever. I assure you, nothing. Let us say good-bye; I

can’t stop another moment.’

They shook hands and so parted.

‘You’re back early,’ said Mary, when Nancy entered the drawing-room.

‘Yes. I left Jessica to her books sooner than usual. The examination

draws near.’

Quiet, sad, diligent ever, Mary kept unchanged the old domestic routine.

There was the same perfect order, the same wholesome economy, as when

she worked under the master’s eyes. Nancy had nothing to do but enjoy

the admirable care with which she was surrounded; she took it all as a

matter of course, never having considered the difference between her own

home and those of her acquaintances.

Horace had dined, and was gone out again. They talked of him; Mary said

that he had spoken of moving into lodgings very soon.

‘Of course he doesn’t tell us everything,’ said Nancy. ‘I feel pretty

sure that he’s going to leave the office, but how he means to live I

don’t understand. Perhaps Mrs. Damerel will give him money, or lend it

him. I only hope she may break it off between him and Fanny.’

‘Hasn’t he told you that Fanny is often with Mrs. Damerel?’

‘With her?’ Nancy exclaimed. ‘He never said a word of it to me.’

‘He said so to me this evening, and laughed when I looked surprised.’

‘Well then, I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on. We can’t do

anything.’

About nine o’clock the servant entered the room, bringing Miss. Lord a

note, which had just been left by a cab-driver. Nancy, seeing that the

address was in Tarrant’s hand, opened it with a flutter of joy; such

a proceeding as this, openly sending a note by a messenger, could

only mean that her husband no longer cared to preserve secrecy. To her

astonishment, the envelope contained but a hurried line.

‘Not a word yet to any one. Without fail, come to-morrow afternoon, at

four.’

With what show of calmness she could command, she looked up at her

companion.

‘The idea of his sending in this way! It’s that Mr. Crewe I’ve told

you of. I met him as I was coming home, and had to speak to him rather

sharply to get rid of him. Here comes his apology, foolish man!’

Living in perpetual falsehood, Nancy felt no shame at a fiction such as

this. Mere truth-telling had never seemed to her a weighty matter of

the law. And she was now grown expert in lies. But Tarrant’s

message disturbed her gravely. Something unforeseen must have

happened--something, perhaps, calamitous. She passed a miserable night.

When she ascended the stairs at Staple Inn, next afternoon, it wanted

ten minutes to four. As usual at her coming, the outer door stood open,

exposing the door with the knocker. She had just raised her hand,

when, with a sound of voices from inside, the door opened, and Tarrant

appeared in company with a stranger. Terror-stricken, she stepped back.

Tarrant, after a glance, paid no attention to her.

‘All right,’ he was saying to his friend, ‘I shall see you in a day or

two. Good-bye, old man.’

The stranger had observed Nancy, but withheld his eyes from her, and

quickly vanished down the stairs.

‘Who was that?’ she whispered.

‘I told you four o’clock.’

‘It is four.’

‘No--ten minutes to at least. It doesn’t matter, but if you had been

punctual you wouldn’t have had a fright.’

Nancy had dropped into a chair, white and shaking. Tarrant’s voice,

abruptly reproachful, affected her scarcely less than the preceding

shock. In the struggle to recover herself she sobbed and choked, and at

length burst into tears. Tarrant spoke impatiently.

‘What’s the matter? Surely you are not so childish’--

She stood up, and went into the bedroom, where she remained for several

minutes, returning at length without her jacket, but with her hat still

on.

‘I couldn’t help it; and you shouldn’t speak to me in that way. I have

felt ill all the morning.’

Looking at her, the young man said to himself, that love was one thing,

wedded life another. He could make allowance for Nancy’s weakness--but

it was beyond his power to summon the old warmth and tenderness. If

henceforth he loved her, it must be with husband’s love--a phrase which

signified to him something as distinct as possible from the ardour he

had known; a moral attachment instead of a passionate desire.

And there was another reason for his intolerant mood.

‘You hadn’t spoken to any one before you got my note?’

‘No.--Why are you treating me like this? Are you ashamed that your

friend saw me?’