NANCY FIRST AND LAST
BY AMY E. BLANCHARD
AUTHOR OF "BETTY OF WYE," "GIRLS TOGETHER," ETC.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY_
WILL F. STECHER
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1917
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY AMY E. BLANCHARD
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1917
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
[Illustration: SHE DREW THE RING FROM HER FINGER AND WITH AVERTED FACE
HELD IT OUT]
CONTENTS
I. A PARTING OF THE WAYS
II. A REVELATION
III. CREEPING BACK
IV. MOTHER!
V. OTHER NAMES AND PLACES
VI. O LAS PIEDRAS!
VII. A CLUE
VIII. AT A FIESTA
IX. IN BARCELONA
X. A FRUITLESS SEARCH
XI. IN THE CATHEDRAL
XII. HELP FROM ENGLAND
XIII. PRIMROSE COTTAGE
XIV. WAR!
XV. THE NEWS OF A DAY
XVI. COUSIN PRUDENCIA WRITES
XVII. CONVALESCENTS
XVIII. A PUZZLED PATIENT
XIX. MY BOY!
XX. OPENED EYES
XXI. FAREWELL
ILLUSTRATIONS
SHE DREW THE RING FROM HER FINGER AND WITH AVERTED FACE HELD IT
OUT
"SPAIN," MURMURED THE GIRL
IT WAS LIKE A DREAM, A POEM
"AND IF THERE SHOULD BE WAR," SAID LILLIAN, SUDDENLY
HE HELD OUT HIS HAND WITH GROPING GESTURE
NANCY FIRST AND LAST
CHAPTER I
A PARTING OF THE WAYS
The garden was too peaceful and fair for a scene of discord. From
behind the sun-warmed box hedges came the odor of clove pinks,
hundred-leaf roses and heliotrope, while breezes, passing by the
porch of the old-fashioned, high-pillared house, brought the cloying
sweetness of honeysuckle and jessamine blooms. Along the gravelled
paths paced a man and a girl, both young and good to look upon. The
girl, slender, brown-eyed, fair-haired, white-skinned, discoursed
passionately; the man, with steady blue eyes, broad brow and firm chin,
listened, turning toward her once in a while a half-bewildered look.
"You do not understand, you cannot," the girl was saying excitedly.
"You are nothing but ice and snow, a creature of marble. If you had
ever met love face to face, had ever felt its real power I would not
need to question you, but it has to filter through your body and never
reaches your soul. There is so little spiritual essence in what you
offer that it is valueless to me."
"But, Nancy, what is it you want me to do?" asked the man, still
looking bewildered.
The girl made a despairing gesture. "You ask me to tell you what to
do!" she cried. "If your own heart cannot tell you, it is no use, no
use to go on. Have you ever stood at night in the shadows gazing at my
window till my light went out?"
He shook his head. "I don't think so," he answered slowly.
"Did you ever lie awake, Terrence Wirt, thinking of me, and find
yourself here in the garden at dawn waiting for me to appear?"
"Why, no. I didn't need to do that. I know your breakfast hour and I
never like to intrude too early," replied the man still with a puzzled
look. "Would you like me to come before breakfast?"
"Not unless you can't help coming."
"I hope I have myself well enough in hand not to act on an impulse
which would mean impoliteness to your mother."
"It's no use, no use," Nancy repeated. "You cannot understand."
"But I do want you to be happy. It is my dearest wish to make you so.
Can't you explain so I will understand wherein I fail?"
"It has been two whole days since you asked me if I loved you."
"But, dear, you told me so in the beginning. Do you want me not to
believe you?"
Nancy turned away and, leaning against a tree began to weep
convulsively. Terrence tried to take her hand but she snatched it away.
"Go! Go!" she cried passionately. "Do not touch me. From henceforth we
are parted forever." She drew the ring from her finger and with averted
face, held it out.
Silence fell between them. The gentle rustle of leaves overhead, the
drone of a bee making ready to clasp a flower, the opening and shutting
of a door in the house, these were the only sounds audible. Presently
Nancy felt the touch of fingers; the ring was withdrawn from her palm.
In another moment she heard footsteps treading the gravel, the gate
clicked and she knew she was alone. She stood for a moment leaning
against the tree, then she dashed to the house, pushed open the outer
door, darted up to her room and flung herself, face downward on the
bed, where she sobbed her heart out, refusing her midday meal and
asking to be left alone. The sun was low in the skies when, pale and
still, she went slowly down stairs. Mrs. Loomis, who was sitting in
the broad hall which opened east and west upon porticos, looked up as
Nancy paused upon the lowest step before coming forward, but she made
no remark. Nancy sat down on the carved bench opposite Mrs. Loomis's
high-backed chair. She spread wide her arms and rested a hand on either
arm of the bench, fixing her burning eyes upon space. She might have
been posing for some figure of Tragedy.
"Is your headache better, daughter?" asked Mrs. Loomis, drawing a
needle from the row of knitting she had just finished. She was a frail
looking woman with fast-graying hair, a low voice and a quiet manner.
Nancy's great dark eyes rested somberly upon the questioner. "I didn't
have a headache. I have parted forever from Terrence Wirt, and my heart
is broken," she replied in an intense tone.
"Why, Nancy!" Mrs. Loomis laid down her knitting. "What in the world
did you quarrel about?"
"We didn't quarrel. He doesn't love me. At least his love is of such
poor quality that it might better be called a mild liking. Compared to
mine it is as lukewarm as milk is to wine."
"Lukewarm milk is very nourishing and often to be greatly preferred
to wine," remarked Mrs. Loomis with a little smile as she resumed her
knitting. "You are too exacting, Nancy."
"I want no more than has been given to other women. I want only what
Romeo gave to Juliet, what Dante gave to Beatrice."
"But Terrence is not a poet, my dear," Mrs. Loomis counted her
stitches, "though he appears to me to be very true and steadfast. He
may not be exactly what you might consider temperamental, but certainly
he is appreciative and devoted to you; moreover, he is a young man of
fine character, and that is worth everything. I am sure he loves you
deeply."
"No, no," Nancy sprang to her feet and waved away the suggestion with a
dramatic gesture, then she seated herself at her mother's feet on the
doorsill, resting her chin in her hands. "No man who was devoted to a
girl could be content with such a humdrum, settled state of affairs. No
romance, no poetry, no jealousy, no wild heart yearnings, no sleepless
nights. All these have been mine. I loved him so. Oh, I loved him so."
Her lips trembled and she turned to bury her face in her mother's lap.
Mrs. Loomis stroked her hair softly. "Well, my dear, if you love him so
much as all that I cannot imagine why you sent him away. Perhaps when
you see him again it will all come right, since he seems to have had no
fault to find with you."
"We shall not meet again. He took me at my word. He may have no fault
to find, but he does not love me or he would not have gone," persisted
Nancy, lifting wet eyes.
"He loves you in a very quiet, manly way, no doubt, but that is not
saying that it is not a very strong and enduring love which is much
better than a wild passion. However, if it does not satisfy you there
is nothing more to say. You have dismissed him, which I consider a
mistake, and there is nothing left for him but to accept your decree."
"But I don't want him to," cried Nancy. "Why didn't he get down on his
knees and beg me not to give him up? Why didn't he tell me that I had
broken his heart, that I had clouded his life, that existence would be
unbearable to him without me? I expected him to. I thought the test
would bring forth at least some anguished protest."
"What did he say?"
"He didn't say a word, not a word. He just took the ring when I gave it
to him and walked away." Nancy gave a little choking sob.
"Still waters run deep; shallow streams make the most noise," remarked
Mrs. Loomis.
"Do you think I am a shallow stream because I cry out in my pain?"
"No, dear, but you are a highly emotional child, and demand more of
life than you are liable to receive."
"I flew to the very heights of love; he was content to grope below the
stars."
"Oh, you child, you child, you are so young, and you do love to talk
like a tragedy queen. When real trouble comes you will lose all those
romantic ideas, and will not look to have a man express his deepest
emotions in poetry. Real trouble will come soon enough; it is our
portion in this life, and you must learn not to dwell in the clouds,
but to gain a more practical outlook."
"And while I am learning I shall be very, very unhappy."
"Perhaps so; I am afraid so. Unhappiness comes to each one in some
form or other, but we need not magnify it, dwell on it, nurse it, hug
it to our breasts. We need not be selfish about it and imagine our
griefs greater than those of any other. We must rise above them and try
to help those whose sorrows are greater than ours."
Nancy gave a deep sigh. At that moment she did not think any sorrow
could be greater than her present one. She was emotional, enthusiastic,
with an eager belief that life must hold for her all that her ardent
nature could demand. Unhappiness had been given no place in her dreams
heretofore and she was not armed to meet it. She had planned out
an interview with her lover, an interview which she believed would
terminate exactly as she fancied it would. She had wanted to make this
a supreme test and she was aghast that it had resulted so disastrously.
Bubbling over with joy, full of appreciation, of fresh and pretty
fancies, with a keen sense of humor, yet thrilled by more serious
things, it is no wonder that Terrence Wirt found her charming. Her
beauty, versatility of mind and her enthusiasm were liable to impress a
more mature and more exacting man. That he had been the first to become
her suitor was due to chance, Fate, Nancy called it, and the romantic
manner of their meeting had much to do with the rapidity with which
she fell in love. Probably her heart was standing tiptoe waiting for
the possible prince, and any who bore the slightest semblance to a
knightly figure would have been welcomed. As it was, when the girth of
her saddle broke, she was dumped upon a country road and a good-looking
young man suddenly galloped up, dismounted and insisted upon leading
his and her own horse to her home, in her eyes he appeared as truly
a Paladin as if he had worn shining armor and had carried a shield.
Straightway he filled her dreams day and night. She did not fall in
love; she flung herself in.
Mrs. Loomis, at first amused, was next bewildered, then concerned at
discovering that a perfect stranger had so completely carried Nancy
off her feet. But when she learned that the young man was the guest
of a sister who had lately married into one of the old families of
the neighborhood, that his parents were people of standing in the
city, that he was just graduated from college and bore a record above
reproach,--"_sans peur, sans reproche_," as Nancy loved to say,--she
made no objection to the engagement.
Indeed, Mrs. Loomis was not a born objector. The line of least
resistance was usually hers, partly no doubt because of physical
weakness. Ira and Parthenia, commonly known as Unc. Iry and Aunt
Parthy, relieved her of most of her household cares. She occupied the
ancestral home of the Loomises, which she was able to keep up by means
of an income inherited from her husband. Her business matters were
looked after by the old lawyer who had managed Loomis affairs since the
day that he took his father's place in the dingy office on the main
street of the county town.
As for Nancy, she had grown up pretty much as she pleased, had been
under the care of governesses good, bad or indifferent, had read, not
wisely but too well, whatever came her way, had been away at school for
two years, coming home always for week-ends and between whiles, too,
if she felt so disposed, but in one way or another absorbing a deal of
information of a desultory sort. Languages she found easy and a French
governess had trained her into a sufficient knowledge of her tongue to
enable her to speak it rather fluently. Music was her chief talent.
She played readily by ear, but hated to be bound down by technical
exercises, and in her earlier years was not compelled to do so, since
Mrs. Loomis did not insist. However, the old German professor at school
scared her into a carefulness she had previously scorned, and at last
she came to be his star pupil, continuing her lessons after she had
left school. As for her schoolmates, most of them lived too far away
for her to visit after her school days were over, and though she kept
up a desultory correspondence with one or two she was not intimate with
any special one. One or two holiday visits to New York had given her
some idea of life in the metropolis, but the days spent in a big hotel
did not specially charm her, and, while they dispelled some of her
illusions, they did not interfere with her day dreams. Back again in
her country home she was ready to enter again her world of romance and
dream away the hours.
On this special evening she sat on the doorsill, silently brooding and
looking off into the garden which so lately had been a paradise to
her. It was impossible, she told herself, that she would never again
pace the walk with Terrence by her side. She would go half way, yes,
she was willing to do even more at the slightest sign from him. They
could not avoid meeting; perhaps it would be at church, when she would
find herself smiling wistfully across the aisle at him. He would be
assured then that she was not angry with him; he would join her on
the way out and ask if they could not be at least friends. She would
accord him the privilege and after a while they would drift back into
their old relation. Or it might be that they would meet at the house
of some acquaintance. She would be making a call, would be waiting for
her friend to appear. Suddenly Terrence would come in. "You!" he would
exclaim agitatedly. She would hold out her hand and look up into his
face beseechingly. "Let us be friends," she would say. Oh, she could
not be content to accept the fact that they were parted forever!
Her musings were interrupted by the gray-haired old butler who came
softly into the hall. "Miss Jenny, ma'am," he said, "Parthy say ef de
ladies ready suppah is."
Mrs. Loomis drew Nancy close to her as they went out together into the
lofty dining-room where pale shifting lights were playing over the wall
and touching up the old mahogany and silver as the western sky received
its last benefice from the sun.