Nancy.
‘From what you have told me of him, I think we should have agreed in a good many things.’
‘And how unfortunate we were! If he had recovered from that illness, –if he had lived only a few months,–everything would have been made easy.’
‘For me altogether too easy,’ Tarrant observed.
‘It has been a good thing for you to have to work,’ Nancy assented. ‘I understand the change for the better in you. But’–she smiled –‘you have more self-will than you used to have.’
‘That’s just where I have gained.–But don’t think that I find it easy or pleasant to resist your wish. I couldn’t do it if I were not so sure that I am acting for your advantage as well as my own. A man who finds himself married to a fool, is a fool himself if he doesn’t take his own course regardless of his wife. But I am in a very different position; I love you more and more, Nancy, because I am learning more and more to respect you; I think of your happiness most assuredly as much as I think of my own. But even if my own good weighed as nothing against yours, I should be wise to resist you just as I do now. Hugger-mugger marriage is a defilement and a curse. We know it from the experience of the world at large,– which is perhaps more brutalised by marriage than by anything else. –No need to test the thing once more, to our own disaster.’
‘What I think is, that, though you pay me compliments, you really have a very poor opinion of me. You think I should burden and worry you in endless silly ways. I am not such a simpleton. In however small a house, there could be your rooms and mine. Do you suppose I should interfere with your freedom in coming and going?’
‘Whether you meant to or not, you would–so long as we are struggling with poverty. However self-willed I am, I am not selfish; and to see you living a monotonous, imprisoned life would be a serious hindrance to me in my own living and working. Of course the fact is so at present, and I often enough think in a troubled way about you; but you are out of my sight, and that enables me to keep you out of mind. If I am away from home till one or two in the morning, there is no lonely wife fretting and wondering about me. For work such as mine, I must live as though I were not married at all.’
‘But suppose we got out of our poverty,’ urged Nancy, ‘you would be living the same life, I suppose; and how would it be any better for you or me that we had a large house instead of a small one?’
‘Your position will be totally changed. When money comes, friends come. You are not hiding away from Society because you are unfit for it, only because you can’t live as your social equals do. When you have friends of your own, social engagements, interests on every hand, I shall be able to go my own way without a pang of conscience. When we come together, it will be to talk of your affairs as well as of mine. Living as you do now, you have nothing on earth but the baby to think about–a miserable state of things for a woman with a mind. I know it is miserable, and I’m struggling tooth and nail to help you out of it.’
Nancy sighed.
‘Then there are years of it still before me.’
‘Heaven forbid! Some years, no doubt, before we shall have a home; but not before I can bring you in contact with the kind of people you ought to know. You shall have a decent house–socially possible–somewhere out west; and I, of course, shall still go on in lodgings.’
He waited for Nancy’s reply, but she kept silence.
‘You are still dissatisfied?’
She looked up, and commanded her features to the expression which makes whatever woman lovely–that of rational acquiescence. On the faces of most women such look is never seen.
‘No, I am content. You are working hard, and I won’t make it harder for you.’
‘Speak always like that!’ Tarrant’s face was radiant. ‘That’s the kind of thing that binds man to woman, body and soul. With the memory of that look and speech, would it be possible for me to slight you in my life apart? It makes you my friend; and the word friend is better to my ear than wife. A man’s wife is more often than not his enemy. Harvey Munden was telling me of a poor devil of an author who daren’t be out after ten at night because of the fool-fury waiting for him at home.’
Nancy laughed.
‘I suppose she can’t trust him.’
‘And suppose she can’t? What is the value of nominal fidelity, secured by mutual degradation such as that? A rational woman would infinitely rather have a husband who was often unfaithful to her than keep him faithful by such means. Husband and wife should interfere with each other not a jot more than two friends of the same sex living together. If a man, under such circumstances, worried his friend’s life out by petty prying, he would get his head punched. A wife has no more justification in worrying her husband with jealousies.’
‘How if it were the wife that excited suspicion?’ asked Nancy.
‘Infidelity in a woman is much worse than in a man. If a man really suspects his wife, he must leave her, that’s all; then let her justify herself if she can.’
Nancy cared little to discuss this point. In argument with any one else, she would doubtless have maintained the equality of man and woman before the moral law; but that would only have been in order to prove herself modern-spirited. Tarrant’s dictum did not revolt her.
‘Friends are equals,’ she said, after a little thought. ‘But you don’t think me your equal, and you won’t be satisfied with me unless I follow your guidance.’
Tarrant laughed kindly.
‘True, I am your superior in force of mind and force of body. Don’t you like to hear that? Doesn’t it do you good–when you think of the maudlin humbug generally talked by men to women? We can’t afford to disguise that truth. All the same, we are friends, because each has the other’s interest at heart, and each would be ashamed to doubt the other’s loyalty.’
The latter part of the evening they spent with Mary, in whom Tarrant always found something new to admire. He regarded her as the most wonderful phenomenon in nature–an uneducated woman who was neither vulgar nor foolish.
Baby slept in a cot beside Nancy’s bed. For fear of waking him, the wedded lovers entered their room very softly, with a shaded candle. Tarrant looked at the curly little head, the little clenched hand, and gave a silent laugh of pleasure.
On the breakfast-table next morning lay a letter from Horace. As soon as she had opened it, Nancy uttered an exclamation which prepared her companion for ill news.
‘Just what I expected–though I tried not to think so. “I write aline only to tell you that my marriage is broken off. You will know the explanation before long. Don’t trouble yourself about it. I should never have been happy with Winifred, nor she with me. We may not see each other for some time, but I will write again soon.” He doesn’t say whether he or she broke it off. I hope it was Winifred.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Tarrant, ‘from the tone of that letter.’
‘I’m afraid not, too. It means something wretched. He writes from his London lodgings. Lionel, let me go back with you, and see him.’
‘By all means.’
Her gravest fear Nancy would not communicate. And it hit the truth.
CHAPTER 4
They parted at Baker Street, Tarrant for his lodgings and the work that awaited him there, Nancy to go westward by another train.
When she reached the house from which her brother had dated his letter, it was half-past ten. At the door stood a cab, and a servant was helping the driver to hoist a big trunk on to the top.
‘Is Mr. Lord still here?’ Nancy asked of the girl.
‘He’s just this minute a-goin’, miss. This is his luggage.’
She sent her name, and was quickly led up to the first floor. There stood Horace, ready for departure.
‘Why have you come?’ he asked, with annoyance.
‘What else could I do on hearing such news?’
‘I told you I should write again, and I said plainly that it was better we shouldn’t see each other for some time.–Why will people pester me out of my life?–I’m not a child to be hunted like this!’
On the instant, he had fallen into a state of excitement which alarmed his sister. There were drops of sweat on his forehead, and tears in his eyes; the blood had rushed to his cheeks, and he trembled violently.
‘I am so troubled about you,’ said Nancy, with anxious tenderness. ‘I have been looking forward with such hope to your marriage,–and now–‘
‘I can’t tell you anything about it just now. It was all Mrs. Damerel’s doing; the engagement, I mean. It’s a good thing I drew back in time.–But I have a train to catch; I really mustn’t stay talking.’
‘Are you going far, Horace?’
‘To Bournemouth again,–for the present. I’ve given up these rooms, and I’m taking all my things away. In a month or two I may go abroad; but I’ll let you know.’
Already he was out of the room; his sister had no choice but to follow him downstairs. He looked so ill, and behaved with such lack of self-restraint, that Nancy kept her eyes upon him in an awestricken gaze, as though watching some one on the headlong way to destruction. Pouring rain obliged her to put up her umbrella as she stepped down on to the pavement. Horace, having shouted a direction to the driver, entered the cab.
‘You haven’t even shaken hands with me, Horace,’ Nancy exclaimed, standing at the window.
‘Good-bye, dear; good-bye! You shouldn’t have come in weather such as this. Get home as fast as you can. Good-bye!–Tell the fellow to drive sharp.’
And the cab clattered away, sending spurts of mud on to Nancy’s waterproof.
She walked on for a few paces without reflection, until the vehicle disappeared round a corner. Coming to herself, she made for the railway again, which was at only a few minutes’ distance, and there she sat down by the fire in the waiting-room. Her health for the last year had been sound as in the days of girlhood; it was rarely that she caught cold, and weather would have been indifferent to her but for the discomfort which hindered her free movement.
Vexed at so futile a journey, she resolved not to return home without making another effort to learn something about Horace. The only person to whom she could apply was the one who would certainly be possessed of information,–Mrs. Damerel. At the time of Horace’s engagement, Nancy had heard from Mrs. Damerel, and replied to the letter; she remembered her aunt’s address, and as the distance was not great, the temptation to go there now proved irresistible. Her husband would dislike to hear of such a step, but he had never forbidden communication with Mrs. Damerel.
By help of train and omnibus she reached her new destination in half-an-hour, and felt a relief on learning that Mrs. Damerel was at home. But it surprised her to be conducted into a room where lamps were burning, and blinds drawn close; she passed suddenly from cheerless day to cosy evening. Mrs. Damerel, negligently attired, received her with a show of warm welcome, but appeared nervous and out of spirits.
‘I am not very well,’ she admitted, ‘and that’s why I have shut out the dreadful weather. Isn’t it the most sensible way of getting through the worst of a London winter? To pretend that there is daylight is quite ridiculous, so one may as well have the comforts of night.’
‘I have come to speak about Horace,’ said Nancy, at once. In any case, she would have felt embarrassment, and it was increased by the look with which Mrs. Damerel kept regarding her,–a look of confusion, of shrinking, of intense and painful scrutiny.
‘You know what has happened?’
‘I had a letter from him this morning, to say that his marriage was broken off–nothing else. So I came over from Harrow to see him. But he had hardly a minute to speak to me. He was just starting for Bournemouth.’
‘And what did he tell you?’ asked Mrs. Damerel, who remained standing,–or rather had risen, after a pretence of seating herself.
‘Nothing at all. He was very strange in his manner. He said he would write.’
‘You know that he is seriously ill?’
‘I am afraid he must be.’
‘He has grown much worse during the last fortnight. Don’t you suspect any reason for his throwing off poor Winifred?’
‘I wondered whether he had met that girl again. But it seemed very unlikely.’
‘He has. She was at Bournemouth for her health. She, too, is ill; consumptive, like poor Horace,–of course a result of the life she has been leading. And he is going to marry her.’Nancy’s heart sank. She could say nothing. She remembered Horace’s face, and saw in him the victim of ruthless destiny.
‘I have done my utmost. He didn’t speak of me?’
‘Only to say that his engagement with Winifred was brought about by you.’
‘And wasn’t I justified? If the poor boy must die, he would at least have died with friends about him, and in peace. I always feared just what has happened. It’s only a few months ago that he forgave me for being, as he thought, the cause of that girl’s ruin; and since then I have hardly dared to lose sight of him. I went down to Bournemouth unexpectedly, and was with him when that creature came to the door in a carriage. You haven’t seen her. She looks what she is, the vilest of the vile. As if any one can be held responsible for that! She was born to be what she is. And if I had the power, I would crush out her hateful life to save poor Horace!’
Nancy, though at one with the speaker in her hatred of Fanny French, found it as difficult as ever to feel sympathetically towards Mrs. Damerel. She could not credit this worldly woman with genuine affection for Horace; the vehemence of her speech surprised and troubled her, she knew not how.
‘He said nothing more about me?’ added Mrs. Damerel, after a silence.
‘Nothing at all.’
It seemed to Nancy that she heard a sigh of relief. The other’s face was turned away. Then Mrs. Damerel took a seat by the fire.
‘They will be married to-morrow, I dare say, at Bournemouth–no use trying to prevent it. I don’t know whether you will believe me, but it is a blow that will darken the rest of my life.’
Her voice sounded slightly hoarse, and she lay back in the chair, with drooping head.
‘You have nothing to reproach yourself with,’ said Nancy, yielding to a vague and troublous pity. ‘And you have done as much as any one could on his behalf.’
‘I shall never see him again–that’s the hardest thought. She will poison him against me. He told me I had lied to him about a letter that girl wrote from Brussels; she has made him think her a spotless innocent, and he hates me for the truth I told about her.’
‘However short his life,’ said Nancy, ‘he is only too likely to find out what she really is.’
‘I am not sure of that. She knows he is doomed, and it’s her interest to play a part. He will die thinking the worst of me.– Nancy, if he writes to you, and says anything against me, you will remember what it means?’
‘My opinion of people is not affected by hearsay,’ Nancy replied.
It was a remark of dubious significance, and Mrs. Damerel’s averted eyes seemed to show that she derived little satisfaction from it. As the silence was unbroken, Nancy rose.
‘I hope you will soon get rid of your cold.’
‘Thank you, my dear. I haven’t asked how the little boy is. Well, I hope?’
‘Very well, I am glad to say.’
‘And your husband–he is prospering?’
‘I shouldn’t like to say he is prospering; it seems to mean so much; but I think he is doing good work, and we are satisfied with the results.’
‘My dear, you are an admirable wife.’
Nancy coloured; for the first time, a remark of Mrs. Damerel’s had given her pleasure. She moved forward with hand offered for leave-taking. They had never kissed each other, but, as if overcoming diffidence, Mrs. Damerel advanced her lips; then, as suddenly, she drew back.
‘I had forgotten. I may give you my sore throat.’
Nancy kissed her cheek.
That night Mrs. Damerel was feverish, and the next day she kept her bed. The servant who waited upon her had to endure a good many sharp reproofs; trouble did not sweeten this lady’s temper, yet she never lost sight of self-respect, and even proved herself capable of acknowledging that she was in the wrong. Mrs. Damerel possessed the elements of civilisation.
This illness tried her patience in no slight degree. Something she had wished to do, something of high moment, was vexatiously postponed. A whole week went by before she could safely leave the house, and even then her mirror counselled a new delay. But on the third day of the new year she made a careful toilette, and sent for a cab,–the brougham she had been wont to hire being now beyond her means.
She drove to Farringdon Street, and climbed to the office of Mr Luckworth Crewe. Her knowledge of Crewe’s habits enabled her to choose the fitting hour for this call; he had lunched, and was smoking a cigar.
‘How delightful to see you here!’ he exclaimed. ‘But why did you trouble to come? If you had written, or telegraphed, I would have saved you the journey. I haven’t even a chair that’s fit for you to sit down on.’
‘What nonsense! It’s a most comfortable little room. Haven’t you improved it since I called?’
‘I shall have to look out for a bigger place. I’m outgrowing this.’
‘Are you really? That’s excellent news. Ah, but what sad things have been happening!’
‘It’s a bad business,’ Crewe answered, shaking his head.
‘I thought I should have heard from you about it.’
The reason of his silence she perfectly understood. Since Horace’s engagement, there had been a marked change in her demeanour towards the man of business; she had answered his one or two letters with such cold formality, and, on the one occasion of his venturing to call, had received him with so marked a reserve, that Crewe, as he expressed it to himself, ‘got his back up.’ His ideas of chivalrous devotion were anything but complex; he could not bend before a divinity who snubbed him; if the once gracious lady chose to avert her countenance, he would let her know that it didn’t matter much to him after all. Moreover, Mrs. Damerel’s behaviour was too suggestive; he could hardly be wrong in explaining it by the fact that her nephew, about to be enriched by marriage, might henceforth be depended upon for all the assistance she needed. This, in the Americanism which came naturally to Crewe’s lips, was ‘playing it rather low down,’ and he resented it.
The sudden ruin of Horace Lord’s prospects (he had learnt the course of events from Horace himself) amused and gratified him. How would the high and mighty Mrs. Damerel relish this catastrophe? Would she have the ‘cheek’ to return to her old graciousness? If so, he had the game in his hands; she should see that he was not to be made a fool of a second time.
Yet the mere announcement of her name sufficed to shatter his resolve. Her smile, her soft accents, her polished manners, laid the old spell upon him. He sought to excuse himself for having forsaken her in her trial.
‘It really floored me. I didn’t know what to say or do. I was afraid you might think I was meddling with what didn’t concern me.’
‘Oh, how could I have thought that? It has made me ill; I have suffered more than I can tell you.’
‘You don’t look quite the thing,’ said Crewe, searching her face.
‘Have you heard all?’
‘I think so. He is married, and that’s the end of it, I suppose.’
Mrs. Damerel winced at this blunt announcement.
‘When was it?’ she asked, in an undertone. ‘I only knew he had made up his mind.’
Crewe mentioned the date; the day after Nancy’s call upon her.
‘And are they at Bournemouth?’
‘Yes. Will be for a month or so, he says.’
‘Well, we won’t talk of it. As you say, that’s the end. Nothing worse could have happened. Has he been speaking of me again like he used to?’
‘I haven’t heard him mention your name.’
She heaved a sigh, and began to look round the office.
‘Let us try to forget, and talk of pleasanter things. It seems such a long time since you told me anything about your business. You remember how we used to gossip. I suppose I have been so absorbed in that poor boy’s affairs; it made me selfish–I was so overjoyed, I really could think of nothing else. And now–! But I must and will drive it out of my mind. I have been moping at home, day after day, in wretched solitude. I wanted to write to you, but I hadn’t the heart–scarcely the strength. I kept hoping you might call–if only to ask howl was. Of course everything had to be explained to inquisitive people–how I hate them all! It’s the nature of the world to mock at misfortunes such as this. It would really have done me good to speak for a few minutes with such a friend as you–a real friend. I am going to live a quiet, retired life. I am sick of the world, its falsity, and its malice, and its bitter, bitter disappointments.’
Crewe’s native wit and rich store of experience availed him nothing when Mrs. Damerel discoursed thus. The silvery accents flattered his ear, and crept into the soft places of his nature. He felt as when a clever actress in a pathetic part wrought upon him in the after-dinner mood.
‘You must bear up against it, Mrs. Damerel. And I don’t think a retired life would suit you at all. You are made for Society.’
‘Don’t seek for compliments. I am speaking quite sincerely. Ah, those were happy days that I spent at Whitsand! Tell me what you have been doing. Is there any hope of the pier yet?’
‘Why, it’s as good as built!’ cried the other. ‘Didn’t you see the advertisements, when we floated the company a month ago? I suppose you don’t read that kind of thing. We shall begin at the works in early spring.–Look here!’
He unrolled a large design, a coloured picture of Whitsand pier as it already existed in his imagination. Not content with having the mere structure exhibited, Crewe had persuaded the draughtsman to add embellishments of a kind which, in days to come, would be his own peculiar care; from end to end, the pier glowed with the placards of advertisers. Below, on the sands, appeared bathing-machines, and these also were covered with manifold advertisements. Nay, the very pleasure-boats on the sunny waves declared the glory of somebody’s soap, of somebody’s purgatives.
‘I’ll make that place one of the biggest advertising stations in England–see if I don’t! You remember the caves? I’m going to have them lighted with electricity, and painted all round with advertisements of the most artistic kind.’
‘What a brilliant idea!’
‘There’s something else you might like to hear of. It struck me I would write a Guide to Advertising, and here it is.’ He handed a copy of the book. ‘It advertises _me_, and brings a little grist to the mill on its own account. Three weeks since I got it out, and we’ve sold three thousand of it. Costs nothing to print; the advertisements more than pay for that. Price, one shilling.’
‘But how you do work, Mr. Crewe! It’s marvellous. And yet you look so well,–you have really a seaside colour!’
‘I never ailed much since I can remember. The harder I work, the better I feel.’
‘I, too, have always been rather proud of my constitution.’ Her eyes dropped. ‘But then I have led a life of idleness. Couldn’t you make me useful in some way? Set me to work! I am convinced I should be so much happier. Let me help you, Mr. Crewe. I write a pretty fair hand, don’t I?’
Crewe smiled at her, made a sound as if clearing his throat, grasped his knee, and was on the very point of momentous utterance, when the door opened. Turning his head impatiently, he saw, not the clerk whose duty it was to announce people, but a lady, much younger than Mrs. Damerel, and more fashionably dressed, who for some reason had preferred to announce herself.
‘Why do you come in like that?’ Crewe demanded, staring at her. ‘I’m engaged.’
‘Are you indeed?’
‘You ought to send in your name.
‘They said you had a lady here, so I told them another would make no difference.–How do you do, Mrs. Damerel? It’s so long since I had the pleasure of seeing you.’
Beatrice French stepped forward, smiling ominously, and eyeing first Crewe then his companion with curiosity of the frankest impertinence. Mrs. Damerel stood up.
‘We will speak of our business at another time, Mr. Crewe.’
Crewe, red with anger, turned upon Beatrice.
‘I tell you I am engaged–‘
‘To Mrs. Damerel?’ asked the intruder airily.
‘You might suppose,’–he addressed the elder lady,–‘that this woman has some sort of hold upon me–‘
‘I’m sure I hope not,’ said Mrs. Damerel, ‘for your own sake.’
‘Nothing of the kind. She has pestered me a good deal, and it began in this way.’
Beatrice gave him so fierce a look, that his tongue faltered.
‘Before you tell that little story,’ she interposed, ‘you had better know what I’ve come about. It’s a queer thing that Mrs. Damerel should be here; happens more conveniently than things generally do. I had something to tell you about her. You may know it, but most likely you don’t.–You remember,’ she faced the other listener, ‘when I came to see you a long time ago, I said it might be worth while to find out who you really were. I haven’t given much thought to you since then, but I’ve got hold of what I wanted, as I knew I should.’
Crewe did not disguise his eagerness to hear the rest. Mrs. Damerel stood like a statue of British respectability, deaf and blind to everything that conflicts with good-breeding; stony-faced, she had set her lips in the smile appropriate to one who is braving torture.
‘Do you know who she is–or not?’ Beatrice asked of Crewe.
He shuffled, and made no reply.
‘Fanny has just told me in a letter; she got it from her husband. Our friend here is the mother of Horace Lord and of Nancy. She ran away from her first husband, and was divorced. Whether she really married afterwards, I don’t quite know; most likely not. At all events, she has run through her money, and wants her son to set her up again.’
For a few seconds Mrs. Damerel bore the astonished gaze of her admirer, then, her expression scarcely changing, she walked steadily to the door and vanished. The silence was prolonged till broken by Beatrice’s laugh.
‘Has she been bamboozling you, old man? I didn’t know what was going on. You had bad luck with the daughter; shouldn’t wonder if the mother would suit you better, all said and done.’
Crewe seated himself and gave vent to his feelings in a phrase of pure soliloquy: ‘Well, I’m damned!’
‘I cut in just at the right time, did I?–No malice. I’ve had my hit back at her, and that’s enough.’
As the man of business remained absorbed in his thoughts, Beatrice took a chair. Presently he looked up at her, and said savagely:
‘What the devil do you want?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then take it and go.’
But Beatrice smiled, and kept her seat.
CHAPTER 5
Nancy stood before her husband with a substantial packet in brown paper. It was after breakfast, at the moment of their parting.
‘Here is something I want you to take, and look at, and speak about the next time you come.’
‘Ho, ho! I don’t like the look of it.’ He felt the packet. ‘Several quires of paper here.’
‘Be off, or you’ll miss the train.’
‘Poor little girl! _Et tu_!’
He kissed her affectionately, and went his way. In the ordinary course of things Nancy would not have seen him again for ten days or a fortnight. She expected a letter very soon, but on the fourth evening Tarrant’s fingers tapped at the window-pane. In his hand was the brown paper parcel, done up as when he received it.
Nancy searched his face, her own perturbed and pallid.
‘How long have you been working at this?’
‘Nearly a year. But not every day, of course. Sometimes for a week or more I could get no time. You think it bad?’
‘No,’–puff–‘not in any sense’–puff–‘bad. In one sense, it’s good. But’–puff–‘that’s a private sense; a domestic sense.’
‘The question is, dear, can it be sold to a publisher.’
‘The question is nothing of the kind. You mustn’t even try to sell it to a publisher.’
‘Why not? You mean you would be ashamed if it came out. But I shouldn’t put my own name to it. I have written it only in the hope of making money, and so helping you. I’ll put any name to it you like.’
Tarrant smoked for a minute or two, until his companion gave a sign of impatience. He wore a very good-humoured look.
‘It’s more than likely you might get the thing accepted–‘
‘Oh, then why not?’ she interrupted eagerly, with bright eyes.
‘Because it isn’t literature, but a little bit of Nancy’s mind and heart, not to be profaned by vulgar handling. To sell it for hard cash would be horrible. Leave that to the poor creatures who have no choice. You are not obliged to go into the market.’
‘But, Lionel, if it is a bit of my mind and heart, it must be a good book. You have often praised books to me just on that account because they were genuine.’
‘The books I praised were literature. Their authors came into the world to write. It isn’t enough to be genuine; there must be workmanship. Here and there you have a page of very decent English, and you are nowhere on the level of the ordinary female novelist. Indeed–don’t take it ill–I was surprised at what you had turned out. But–‘
He finished the sentence in smoke wreaths.
‘Then I’ll try again. I’ll do better.’
‘Never _much_ better. It will never be literature.’
‘What does that matter? I never thought myself a Charlotte Bronte or a George Eliot. But so many women make money out of novels, and as I had spare time I didn’t see why I shouldn’t use it profitably. We want money, and if it isn’t actually disgraceful–and if I don’t use my own name–‘
‘We don’t want money so badly as all that. I am writing, because I must do something to live by, and I know of nothing else open to me except pen-work. Whatever trash I turned out, I should be justified; as a man, it’s my duty to join in the rough-and-tumble for more or less dirty ha’pence. You, as a woman, have no such duty; nay, it’s your positive duty to keep out of the beastly scrimmage.’
‘It seemed to me that I was _doing_ something. Why should a woman be shut out from the life of the world?’
‘It seems to me that your part in the life of the world is very considerable. You have given the world a new inhabitant, and you are shaping him into a man.’
Nancy laughed, and reflected, and returned to her discontent.
‘Oh, every woman can do that.’
‘Not one woman in a thousand can bear a sound-bodied child; and not one in fifty thousand can bring up rightly the child she has borne. Leisure you must have; but for Heaven’s sake don’t waste it. Read, enjoy, sit down to the feast prepared for you.’
‘I wanted to _do_ something,’ she persisted, refusing to catch his eye. ‘I have read enough.’
‘Read enough? Ha, then there’s no more to be said.’
His portentous solemnity overcame her. Laughter lighted her face, and Tarrant, laying down his pipe, shouted extravagant mirth.
‘Am I to burn it then?’
‘You are not. You are to seal it with seven seals, to write upon it _peche de jeunesse_, and to lay it away at the back of a very private drawer. And when you are old, you shall some day bring it out, and we’ll put our shaky heads together over it, and drop a tear from our dim old eyes.–By-the-bye, Nancy, will you go with me to a music-hall to-morrow night?’
‘A music-hall?’
‘Yes. It would do us both good, I think. I feel fagged, and you want a change.–Here’s the end of March; please Heaven, another month shall see us rambling in the lanes somewhere; meantime, we’ll go to a music-hall. Each season has its glory; if we can’t hear the lark, let us listen to the bellow of a lion-comique.–Do you appreciate this invitation? It means that I enjoy your company, which is more than one man in ten thousand can say of his wife. The ordinary man, when he wants to dissipate, asks–well, not his wife. And I, in plain sober truth, would rather have Nancy with me than anyone else.’
‘You say that to comfort me after my vexation.’
‘I say it because I think it.–The day after to-morrow I want you to come over in the morning to see some pictures in Bond Street. And the next day we’ll go to the theatre.’
‘You can’t afford it.’
‘Mind your own business. I remembered this morning that I was young, and that I shall not be so always. Doesn’t that ever come upon you?’
The manuscript, fruit of such persevering toil, was hidden away, and its author spoke of it no more. But she suffered a grave disappointment. Once or twice a temptation flashed across her mind; if she secretly found a publisher, and if her novel achieved moderate success (she might alter the title), would not Tarrant forgive her for acting against his advice? It was nothing more than advice; often enough he had told her that he claimed no coercive right; that their union, if it were to endure, must admit a genuine independence on both sides. But herein, as on so many other points, she subdued her natural impulse, and conformed to her husband’s idea of wifehood. It made her smile to think how little she preserved of that same ‘genuine independence;’ but the smile had no bitterness.
Meanwhile, nothing was heard of Horace. The winter passed, and June had come before Nancy again saw her brother’s handwriting. It was on an ordinary envelope, posted, as she saw by the office-stamp, at Brighton; the greater her surprise to read a few lines which coldly informed her that Horace’s wife no longer lived. ‘She took cold one evening a fortnight ago, and died after three days’ illness.’
Nancy tried to feel glad, but she had little hope of any benefit to her brother from this close of a sordid tragedy. She answered his letter, and begged that, as soon as he felt able to do so, he would come and see her. A month’s silence on Horace’s part had led her to conclude that he would not come, when, without warning, he presented himself at her door. It was morning, and he stayed till nightfall, but talked very little. Sitting in the same place hour after hour, he seemed overcome with a complete exhaustion, which made speech too great an effort and kept his thoughts straying idly. Fanny’s name did not pass his lips; when Nancy ventured an inquiry concerning her, he made an impatient gesture, and spoke of something else.
His only purpose in coming, it appeared, was to ask for information about the Bahamas.
‘I can’t get rid of my cough, and I’m afraid it may turn to something dangerous. You said, I remember, that people with weak chests wintered in the Bahamas.’
‘Lionel can tell you all about it. He’ll be here to-morrow. Come and have a talk with him.’
‘No.’ He moved pettishly. ‘Tell me as much as you know yourself. I don’t feel well enough to meet people.’
Looking at him with profound compassion, Nancy thought it very doubtful whether he would see another winter. But she told him all she could remember about Nassau, and encouraged him to look forward with pleasure and hopefulness to a voyage thither.
‘How are you going to live till then?’
‘What do you mean?’ he answered, with a startled and irritated look. ‘I’m not so bad as all that.’
‘I meant–how are you going to arrange your life?’ Nancy hastened to explain.
‘Oh, I have comfortable lodgings.’
‘But you oughtn’t to be quite alone.–I mean it must be so cheerless.’
She made a proposal that he should have a room in this little house, and use it as a home whenever he chose; but Horace so fretted under the suggestion, that it had to be abandoned. His behaviour was that of an old man, enfeebled in mind and body. Once or twice his manner of speaking painfully reminded Nancy of her father during the last days of his life.
With a peevish sort of interest he watched his little nephew toddling about the room, but did not address a word to the child.
A cab was sent for to convey him to the railway station. Nancy had known few such melancholy days as this.
On the morning when, by agreement, she was to go into town to see her brother, there arrived a note from him. He had been advised to try a health-resort in Switzerland, and was already on the way. Sorry he could not let Nancy know before; would visit her on his return. Thus, in the style of telegraphy, as though he wrote in hot haste.
From Switzerland came two letters, much more satisfactory in tone and contents. The first, written in July, announced a distinct improvement of health. No details being supplied, Nancy could only presume that her brother was living alone at the hotel from which he dated. The second communication, a month later, began thus: ‘I think I forgot to tell you that I came here with Mrs. Damerel. She will stay till the end of the summer, and then, perhaps, go with me to the Bahamas, if that seems necessary. But I am getting wonderfully well and strong. Mrs. Damerel is kinder to me than any one in the world ever was. I shall tell you more about her some day.’ The writer went on to describe a project he had of taking a small farm in Devonshire, and living upon it as a country gentleman.
Tarrant warned his wife not to build hopes upon this surprising report, and a few weeks brought news that justified him. Horace wrote that he had suffered a very bad attack, and was only now sufficiently recovered to hold a pen. ‘I don’t know what we shall do, but I am in good hands. No one was ever better nursed, night and day–More before long.’
Indeed, it was not long. A day or two after Nancy’s return from a seaside holiday, Mary brought in a telegram. It came from Mrs. Damerel. ‘Your brother died at ten o’clock last night, suddenly, and without pain. I am posting a letter he had written for you.’
When the promised letter arrived, it was found to bear a date two months ago. An unwonted tenderness marked the opening words.
MY DEAREST SISTER–What I am going to write is not to be sent to you at once. Sometimes I feel afraid that I can’t live very long, so I have been making a will, and I want you to know why I have left you only half of what I have to leave. The other half will go to some one who has an equal claim on me, though you don’t know it. She has asked me to tell you. If I get thoroughly well again, there will be no need of this letter, and I shall tell you in private something that will astonish you very much. But if I were to die, it will be best for you to learn in this way that Mrs. Damerel is much more to us than our mother’s sister; she is our own mother. She told me at the time when I was behaving like an idiot at Bournemouth. It ought to have been enough to stop me. She confessed that she had done wrong when you and I were little children; that was how she came to marry again whilst father was still alive. Though it seemed impossible, I have come to love her for her great kindness to me. I know that I could trust you, dearest Nancy, to let her share whatever you have; but it will be better if I provide for her in my will. She has been living on a small capital, and now has little left. What I can give her is little enough, but it will save her from the worst extremities. And I beg you, dear sister, to forgive her fault, if only for my sake, because she has been so loving to a silly and useless fellow.
I may as well let you know about my wife’s death. She was consumptive, but seemed to get much better at Bournemouth; then she wanted to go to Brighton. We lived there at a boardinghouse, and she behaved badly, very badly. She made acquaintances I didn’t like, and went about with them in spite of my objections. Like an obstinate fool, I had refused to believe what people told me about her, and now I found it all out for myself. Of course she only married me because I had money. One evening she made up her mind to go with some of her friends in a boat, by moonlight. We quarrelled about it, but she went all the same. The result was that she got inflammation of the lungs, and died. I don’t pretend to be sorry for her, and I am thankful to have been released from misery so much sooner than I deserved.
And now let me tell you how my affairs stand–
At the first reading, Nancy gave but slight attention to this concluding paragraph. Even the thought of her brother’s death was put aside by the emotions with which she learnt that her mother still lived. After brooding over the intelligence for half a day, she resolved to question Mary, who perhaps, during so long a residence in Grove Lane, had learnt something of the trouble that darkened her master’s life. The conversation led to a disclosure by Mary of all that had been confided to her by Mr. Lord; the time had come for a fulfilment of her promise to the dead man.
CHAPTER 6
Horace’s letter Nancy sent by post to her husband, requesting him to let her know his thoughts about it in writing before they again met. Of her own feeling she gave no sign. ‘I want you to speak of it just as if it concerned a stranger, plainly and simply. All I need say is, that I never even suspected the truth.’
Tarrant did not keep her long in suspense, and his answer complied in reasonable measure with the desire she had expressed.
‘The disclosure has, of course, pained you. Equally, of course, you wish it were not necessary to let me know of it; you are in doubt as to how it will affect me; you perhaps fear that I shall–never mind about phrasing. First, then, a word on that point. Be assured once for all that nothing external to yourself can ever touch the feeling which I now have for you. “One word is too often profaned”; I will say simply that I hold you in higher regard that any other human being.
‘Try not to grieve, my dearest. It is an old story, in both senses. You wish to know how I view the matter. Well, if a wife cannot love her husband, it is better she should not pretend to do so; if she love some one else, her marriage is at an end, and she must go. Simple enough–provided there be no children. Whether it is ever permissible for a mother to desert her children, I don’t know. I will only say that, in you yourself, I can find nothing more admirable than the perfect love which you devote to your child. Forsake it, you could not.
‘In short, act as feeling dictates. Your mother lives; that fact cannot be ignored. In your attitude towards her, do not consult me at all; whatever your heart approves, I shall find good and right. Only, don’t imagine that your feeling of to-day is final–I would say, make no resolve; they are worth little, in any concern of life.
‘Write to me again, and say when you wish to see me.
After reading this, Nancy moved about with the radiance of a great joy on her countenance. She made no haste to reply; she let a day elapse; then, in the silence of a late hour, took pen and paper.
‘When do I wish to see you? Always; in every moment of my day. And yet I have so far conquered “the unreasonable female”–do you remember saying that?–that I would rather never see you again than bring you to my side except when it was your pleasure to be with me. Come as soon as you can–as soon as you will.
‘My mother–how shall I word it? She is nothing to me. I don’t feel that Nature bids me love her. I could pardon her for leaving my father; like you, I see nothing terrible in that; but, like you, I _know_ that she did wrong in abandoning her little children, and her kindness to Horace at the end cannot atone for it. I don’t think she has any love for _me_. We shall not see each other; at all events, that is how I feel about it at present. But I am very glad that Horace made provision for her–that of course was right; if he had not done it, it would have been my duty.
‘I had better tell you that Mary has known my mother’s story for a long time–but not that she still lived. My father told her just before his death, and exacted her promise that, if it seemed well, she would repeat everything to me. You shall know more about it, though it is bad all through. My dear father had reason bitterly to regret his marriage long before she openly broke it.
‘But come and see me, and tell me what is to be done now that we are free to look round. There is no shame in taking what poor Horace has given us. You see that there will be at least three thousand pounds for our share, apart from the income we shall have from the business.’
He was sure to come on the evening of the morrow. Nancy went out before breakfast to post her letter; light-hearted in the assurance that her husband’s days of struggle were over, that her child’s future no longer depended upon the bare hope that its father would live and thrive by a profession so precarious as that of literature, she gave little thought to the details of the new phase of life before her. Whatever Tarrant proposed would be good in her sight. Probably he would wish to live in the country; he might discover the picturesque old house of which he had so often spoken. In any case, they would now live together. He had submitted her to a probation, and his last letter declared that he was satisfied with the result.
Midway in the morning, whilst she was playing with her little boy, –rain kept them in the house,–a knock at the front door announced some unfamiliar visit. Mary came to the parlour, with a face of surprise.
‘Who is it?’
‘Miss. Morgan.’
‘What? Jessica?’
Mary handed an envelope, addressed to ‘Mrs. Tarrant.’ It contained a sheet of paper, on which was written in pencil: ‘I beg you to see me, if only for a minute.’
‘Yes, I will see her,’ said Nancy, when she had frowned in brief reflection.
Mary led away the little boy, and, a moment after, introduced Jessica Morgan. At the appearance of her former friend, Nancy with difficulty checked an exclamation; Miss. Morgan wore the garb of the Salvation Army. Harmonious therewith were the features shadowed by the hideous bonnet: a face hardly to be recognised, bloodless, all but fleshless, the eyes set in a stare of weak-minded fanaticism. She came hurriedly forward, and spoke in a quick whisper.
‘I was afraid you would refuse to see me.’
‘Why have you come?’
‘I was impelled–I had a duty to perform.’
Coldly, Nancy invited her to sit down, but the visitor shook her head.
‘I mustn’t take a seat in your house. I am unwelcome; we can’t pretend to be on terms of friendliness. I have come, first of all,’ –her eyes wandered as she spoke, inspecting the room,–‘to humble myself before you–to confess that I was a dishonourable friend,–to make known with my lips that I betrayed your secret–‘
Nancy interrupted the low, hurrying, panting voice, which distressed her ear as much as the facial expression that accompanied it did her eyes.
‘There’s no need to tell me. I knew it at the time, and you did me no harm. Indeed, it was a kindness.’
She drew away, but Jessica moved after her.
‘I supposed you knew. But it is laid upon me to make a confession before you. I have to ask your pardon, most humbly and truly.’
‘Do you mean that some one has told you to do this?’
‘Oh no!’ A gleam of infinite conceit shot over the humility of Jessica’s countenance. ‘I am answerable only to my own soul. In the pursuit of an ideal which I fear you cannot understand, I subdue my pride, and confess how basely I behaved to you. Will you grant me your forgiveness?’
She clasped her gloveless hands before her breast, and the fingers writhed together.
‘If it is any satisfaction to you,’ replied Nancy, overcome with wonder and pity, ‘I will say those words. But don’t think that I take upon myself–‘
‘Only say them. I ask your pardon–say you grant it.’
Nancy uttered the formula, and with bowed head Jessica stood for a minute in silence; her lips moved.
‘And now,’ she said at length, ‘I must fulfil the second part of the duty which has brought me here.’ Her attitude changed to one of authority, and her eyes fixed themselves on Nancy’s, regarding her with the mild but severe rebuke of a spiritual superior. ‘Having acknowledged my wrong-doing, I must remind you of your own. Let me ask you first of all–have you any religious life?’
Nancy’s eyes had turned away, but at these words they flashed sternly upon the speaker.
‘I shall let you ask no such question.’
‘I expected it,’ Jessica sighed patiently. ‘You are still in the darkness, out of which _I_ have been saved.’
‘If you have nothing more to say than this, I must refuse to talk any longer.’
‘There is a word I must speak,’ pursued Jessica. ‘If you will not heed it now, it will remain in your memory, and bear fruit at the appointed time. I alone know of the sin which poisons your soul, and the experiences through which I have passed justify me in calling you to repentance.’
Nancy raised her hand.
‘Stop! That is quite enough. Perhaps you are behaving conscientiously; I will try to believe it. But not another word, or I shall speak as I don’t wish to.’
‘It is enough. You know very well what I refer to. Don’t imagine that because you are now a married woman–‘
Nancy stepped to the door, and threw it open.
‘Leave the house,’ she said, in an unsteady tone. ‘You said you were unwelcome, and it was true. Take yourself out of my sight!’
Jessica put her head back, murmured some inaudible words, and with a smile of rancorous compassion went forth into the rain.
On recovering from the excitement of this scene, Nancy regretted her severity; the poor girl in the hideous bonnet had fallen very low, and her state of mind called for forbearance. The treachery for which Jessica sought pardon was easy to forgive; not so, however, the impertinent rebuke, which struck at a weak place in Nancy’s conscience. Just when the course of time and favour of circumstances seemed to have completely healed that old wound, Jessica, with her crazy malice grotesquely disguised, came to revive the half-forgotten pangs, the shame and the doubt that had seemed to be things gone by. It would have become her, Nancy felt, to treat her hapless friend of years ago in a spirit of gentle tolerance; that she could not do so proved her–and she recognised the fact– still immature, still a backward pupil in the school of life.– ‘And in the Jubilee year I thought myself a decidedly accomplished person!’
Never mind. Her husband would come this evening. Of him she could learn without humiliation.
His arrival was later than of wont. Only at eleven o’clock, when with disappointment she had laid aside her book to go to bed, did Tarrant’s rap sound on the window.
‘I had given you up,’ said Nancy.
‘Yet you are quite good-tempered.’
‘Why not?’
‘It is the pleasant custom of wives to make a husband uncomfortable if he comes late.’
‘Then I am no true wife!’ laughed Nancy.
‘Something much better,’ Tarrant muttered, as he threw off his overcoat.
He began to talk of ordinary affairs, and nearly half-an-hour elapsed before any mention was made of the event that had bettered their prospects. Nancy looked over a piece of his writing in an evening paper which he had brought; but she could not read it with attention. The paper fell to her lap, and she sat silent. Clearly, Tarrant would not be the first to speak of what was in both their minds. The clock ticked; the rain pattered without; the journalist smoked his pipe and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling.
‘Are you sorry,’ Nancy asked, ‘that I am no longer penniless?’
‘Ah–to be sure. We must speak of that. No, I’m not sorry. If I get run over, you and the boy–‘
‘Can make ourselves comfortable, and forget you; to be sure. But for the present, and until you do get run over?’
‘You wish to make changes?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘In one or two respects, perhaps. But leave me out of the question. You have an income of your own to dispose of; nothing oppressively splendid, I suppose. What do you think of doing?’
‘What do you advise?’
‘No, no. Make your own suggestion.
Nancy smiled, hesitated, and said at length:
‘I think we ought to take a house.’
‘In London?’
‘That’s as you wish.’
‘Not at all. As _you_ wish. Do you want society?’
‘In moderation. And first of all, yours.
Tarrant met her eyes.
‘Of my society, you have quite as much as is good for you,’ he answered amiably. ‘That you should wish for acquaintances, is reasonable enough. Take a house somewhere in the western suburbs. One or two men I know have decent wives, and you shall meet them.’
‘But you? You won’t live with me?’
‘You know my view of that matter.’
Nancy kept her eyes down, and reflected.
‘Will it be known to everybody that we don’t live together?’
‘Well,’ answered Tarrant, with a laugh, ‘by way of example, I should rather like it to be known; but as I know _you_ wouldn’t like it, let the appearances be as ordinary as you please.’
Again Nancy reflected. She had a struggle with herself.
‘Just one question,’ she said at length. ‘Look me in the face. Are you–ever so little–ashamed of me?’
He regarded her steadily, smiling.
‘Not in the least.’
‘You were–you used to be?’
‘Before I knew you; and before I knew myself. When, in fact, _you_ were a notable young lady of Camberwell, and _I_–‘
He paused to puff at his pipe.
‘And you?’
‘A notable young fool of nowhere at all.’