In the Year of Jubilee Part 38

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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sionate 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?'

'Ashamed? not at all.'

'Who did he think I was?'

'I don't know. He doesn't know anything about you, at all events. As you may guess, I have something not very pleasant to tell. I didn't mean to be unkind; it was only the surprise at seeing you when I opened the door. I had calculated the exact time. But never mind. You look cold; warm yourself at the fire. You shall drink a gla.s.s of wine; it will put your nerves right again.'

'No, I want nothing. Tell me at once what it is.'

But Tarrant quietly brought a bottle and gla.s.s from his cupboard. Nancy again refused, pettishly.

'Until you have drunk,' he said, with a smile of self-will, 'I shall tell you nothing.'

'I don't know what I've done to make you like this.'

Her sobs and tears returned. After a moment of impatience, Tarrant went up to her with the gla.s.s, laid a hand upon her shoulder, and kissed her.

'Now, come, be reasonable. We have uncommonly serious things to talk about.'

'What did your friend think of me?'

'That you were one of the prettiest girls he had ever been privileged to see, and that I was an enviable fellow to have such a visitor. There now, another sip, and let us have some colour back into your cheeks.

There's bad news, Nancy; confoundedly bad news, dear girl. My grandmother was dead when I got there. Well, the foolish old woman has been muddling her affairs for a long time, speculating here and there without taking any one's advice, and so on; and the result is that she leaves nothing at all.'

Nancy was mute.

'Less than nothing, indeed. She owed a few hundreds that she had no means of paying. The joke of the thing is, that she has left an elaborate will, with legacies to half-a-dozen people, myself first of all. If she had been so good as to die two years ago, I should have come in for a thousand a year or so. No one suspected what was going on; she never allowed Vawdrey, the one man who could have been useful to her, to have an inkling of the affair. An advertising broker got her in his clutches. Vawdrey's lawyer has been going through her papers, and finds everything quite intelligible. The money has gone in lumps, good after bad. Swindling, of course, but perfectly legal swindling, nothing to be done about it. A minute or two before her death she gasped out some words of revelation to the nurse, enough to set Vawdrey on the track, when he was told.'

Still the listener said nothing.

'Well, I had a talk with Vawdrey. He's a blackguard, but not a bad fellow. Wished he could help me, but didn't quite see how, unless I would go into business. However, he had a suggestion to make.'

For Nancy, the pause was charged with apprehensions. She seemed to discover in her husband's face a purpose which he knew would excite her resistance.

'He and I have often talked about my friend Sutherland, in the Bahamas, and Vawdrey has an idea that there'll be a profitable opening in that quarter, before long. Sutherland has written to me lately that he thinks of bestirring himself in the projects I've told you about; he has got the old man's consent to borrow money on the property. Now Vawdrey, naturally enough, would like Sutherland to join him in starting a company; the thoughts of such men run only on companies. So he offers, if I will go out to the Bahamas for a month or two, and look about me, and put myself in a position to make some kind of report--he offers to pay my expenses. Of course if the idea came to anything, and a company got floated, I should have shares.'

Again he paused. The listener had wide, miserable eyes.

'Well, I told him at once that I would accept the proposal. I have no right to refuse. All I possess in the world, at this moment, is about sixty pounds. If I sold all my books and furniture, they might bring another sixty or so. What, then, is to become of me? I must set to work at something, and here's the first work that comes to hand. But,' his voice softened, 'this puts us face to face with a very grave question; doesn't it? Are we to relinquish your money, and be both of us penniless? Or is there any possibility of saving it?'

'How _can_ we? How could the secret be kept?'

Voice and countenance joined in utter dismay.

'It doesn't seem to me,' said Tarrant slowly, 'a downright impossibility. It _might_ be managed, with the help of your friend Mary, and granting that you yourself have the courage. But'--he made a large gesture--'of course I can't exact any such thing of you. It must seem practicable to you yourself.'

'What are we to do if my money is lost?'

'Don't say _we_.' He smiled generously, perhaps too generously. 'A man must support his wife. I shall arrange it somehow, of course, so that _you_ have no anxiety. But--'

His voice dropped.

'Lionel!' She sprang up and approached him as he stood by the fireplace.

'You won't leave me, dear? How can you think of going so far away--for months--and leaving me as I am now? Oh, you won't leave me!'

He arched his eyebrows, and smiled gently.

'If that's how you look at it--well, I must stay.'

'You can do something here,' Nancy continued, with rapid pleading. 'You can write for the papers. You always said you could--yes, you did say so. We don't need very much to live upon--at first. I shall be content--'

'A moment. You mean that the money must be abandoned.'

She had meant it, but under his look her confused thoughts took a new direction.

'No. We needn't lose it. Only stay near me, and I will keep the secret, through everything. You will only need, then, just to support yourself, and that is so easy. I will tell Mary how it is. She can be trusted, I am sure she can. She would do anything for me. She knows that father was not thinking of a man such as you. It would be cruelly wrong if I lost everything. I will tell her, and she will help me. Scarcely any one comes to the house, as it is; and I will pretend to have bad health, and shut myself up. And then, when the time comes, Mary will go away with me, and--and the child shall be taken care of by some people we can trust to be kind to it. Horace is going to live in lodgings; and Mrs.

Damerel, I am sure, won't come to see me again; and I can get rid of other people. The Barmbys shall think I am sulking about the will; I'm sure they think already that I dislike them because of it. Let them think it; I will refuse, presently, to see them at all. It's only a few months. If I tell people I'm not well, n.o.body will feel surprised if I go away for a month or two--now--soon. Mary would go with me, of course.