In the Year of Jubilee Part 51

When, next morning, Horace entered the sitting-room, brother and sister viewed each other with surprise. Neither was prepared for the outward change wrought in both by the past half-year. Nancy looked what she in truth had become, a matronly young woman, in uncertain health, and possessed by a view of life too grave for her years; Horace, no longer a mere lad, exhibited in sunken cheeks and eyes bright with an unhappy recklessness, the acquisition of experience which corrupts before it can mature. Moving to offer her lips, Nancy was checked by the young man's exclamation.

'What on earth has been the matter with you? I never saw any one so altered.'

His voice, with its deepened note, and the modification of his very accent, due to novel circ.u.mstances, checked the hearer's affectionate impulse. If not unfeeling, the utterance had nothing fraternal. Deeply pained, and no less alarmed by this warning of the curiosity her appearance would excite in all who knew her, Nancy made a faltering reply.

'Why should you seem astonished? You know very well I have had an illness.'

'But what sort of illness? What caused it? You used always to be well enough.'

'You had better go and talk to my medical attendant,' said Nancy, in a cold, offended voice.

Horace resumed with irritability.

'Isn't it natural for me to ask such questions? You're not a bit like yourself. And what did you mean by telling me you were coming back at once, when I wanted to join you at Falmouth?'

'I meant to. But after all, I had to stay longer.'

'Oh well, it's nothing to me.'

They had not even shaken hands, and now felt no desire to correct the omission, which was at first involuntary. Horace seemed to have lost all the amiability of his nature; he looked about him with restless, excited eyes.

'Are you in a hurry?' asked his sister, head erect.

'No hurry that I know of.--You haven't heard what's been going on?'

'Where?'

'Of course it won't interest you. There's something about you I can't understand. Is it father's will that has spoilt your temper, and made you behave so strangely?'

'It is not _my_ temper that's spoilt. And as for behaving strangely--.'

She made an effort to command herself. 'Sit down, Horace, and let me know what is the matter with you. Why we should be unfriendly, I really can't imagine. I have suffered from ill health, that's all. I'm sorry I behaved in that way when you talked of coming to Falmouth; it wasn't meant as you seem to think. Tell me what you have to tell.'

He could not take a reposeful att.i.tude, but, after struggling with some reluctance, began to explain the agitation that beset him.

'Mrs. Damerel has done something I didn't think any woman would be capable of. For months she has been trying to ruin f.a.n.n.y, and now it has come--she has succeeded. She made no secret of wanting to break things off between her and me, but I never thought her plotting could go as far as this. f.a.n.n.y has run away--gone to the Continent with a man Mrs.

Damerel introduced to her.'

'Perhaps they are married,' said Nancy, with singular impulsiveness.

'Of course they're not. It's a fellow I knew to be a scoundrel the first time I set eyes on him. I warned f.a.n.n.y against him, and I told Mrs.

Damerel that I should hold her responsible if any harm came of the acquaintance she was encouraging between him and f.a.n.n.y. She did encourage it, though she pretended not to. Her aim was to separate me and f.a.n.n.y--she didn't care how.'

He spoke in a high, vehement note; his cheeks flushed violently, his clenched fist quivered at his side.

'How do you know where she is gone?' Nancy asked.

'She as good as told her sister that she was going to Brussels with some one. Then one day she disappeared, with her luggage. And that fellow--Mankelow's his name--has gone too. He lived in the same boarding-house with Mrs. Damerel.'

'That is all the evidence you have?'

'Quite enough,' he replied bitterly.

'It doesn't seem so to me. But suppose you're right, what proof have you that Mrs. Damerel had anything to do with it? If she is our mother's sister--and you say there can be no doubt of it--I won't believe that she could carry out such a hateful plot as this.'

'What does it matter who she is? I would swear fifty times that she has done it. You know very well, when you saw her, you disliked her at once.

You were right in that, and I was wrong.'

'I can't be sure. Perhaps it was she that disliked me, more than I did her. For one thing, I don't believe that people make such plots. And what plotting was needed? Couldn't any one have told you what a girl like f.a.n.n.y French would do if she lost her head among people of a higher cla.s.s?'

'Then Mrs. Damerel must have foreseen it. That's just what I say. She pretended to be a friend to the girl, on purpose to ruin her.'

'Have you accused her of it?'

'Yes, I have.' His eyes flashed. Nancy marvelled at this fire, drawn from a gentle nature by what seemed to her so inadequate, so contemptible a cause. 'Of course she denied it, and got angry with me; but any one could see she was glad of what had happened. There's an end between us, at all events. I shall never go to see her again; she's a woman who thinks of nothing but money and fashion. I dislike her friends, every one of them I've met. I told her that what she had done ought to be a punishable crime.'

Nancy reflected, then said quietly:

'Whether you are right or wrong, I don't think you would have got any good from her. But will you tell me what you are going to do? I told you that I thought borrowing money only to live on it in idleness was very foolish.'

Her brother stiffened his neck.

'You must allow me to judge for myself.'

'But have you judged for yourself? Wasn't it by Mrs. Damerel's advice that you gave up business?'

'Partly. But I should have done it in any case.'

'Have you any plans?'

'No, I haven't,' he answered. 'You can't expect a man to have plans whose life has been thoroughly upset.'

Nancy, reminded of his youthfulness by the tone in which he called himself a 'man,' experienced a revival of natural feeling. Though revolting against the suggestion that a woman akin to them had been guilty of what her brother believed, she was glad to think that f.a.n.n.y French had relinquished all legitimate claim upon him, and that his connection with 'smart' society had come to an end. Obvious enough were the perils of his situation, and she, as elder sister, recognised a duty towards him; she softened her voice, and endeavoured to re-establish the confidence of old time. Impossible at once, though with resolution she might ultimately succeed. Horace, at present, was a mere compound of agitated and inflamed senses. The life he had been leading appeared in a vicious development of his previously harmless conceit and egoism.

All his characteristics had turned out, as it were, the seamy side; and Nancy with difficulty preserved her patience as he showed point after point of perverted disposition. The result of their talk was a careless promise from Horace that he would come to Grove Lane not seldomer than once a week.

He stayed only an hour, resisting Nancy's endeavour to detain him at least for the mid-day meal. To Mary he spoke formally, awkwardly, as though unable to accept her position in the house, and then made his escape like one driven by an evil spirit.

CHAPTER 7

With the clearing of the sky, Nancy's spirit grew lighter. She went about London, and enjoyed it after her long seclusion in the little Cornish town; enjoyed, too, her release from manifold restraints and perils. Her mental suffering had made the physical harder to bear; she was now recovering health of mind and body, and found with surprise that life had a new savour, independent of the timorous joy born with her child. Strangely, as it seemed to her, she grew conscious of a personal freedom not unlike what she had vainly desired in the days of petulant girlhood; the sense came only at moments, but was real and precious; under its influence she forgot everything abnormal in her situation, and--though without recognising this significance--knew the exultation of a woman who has justified her being.

A day or two of roaming at large gave her an appet.i.te for activity.

Satisfied that her child was safe and well cared for, she turned her eyes upon the life of the world, and wished to take some part in it--not the part she had been wont to picture for herself before reality supplanted dreams. Horace's example on the one hand, and that of Jessica Morgan on the other, helped her to contemn mere social excitement and the idle vanity which formerly she styled pursuit of culture. Must there not be discoverable, in the world to which she had, or could obtain, access, some honest, strenuous occupation, which would hold in check her unprofitable thoughts and soothe her self-respect?

That her fraud, up to and beyond the crucial point, had escaped detection, must be held so wonderful, that she felt justified in an a.s.surance of impunity. The narrowest escape of which she was aware had befallen only a few weeks ago. On the sixth day after the birth of the child, there was brought to her lodgings at Falmouth a note addressed to 'Miss. Lord.' Letters bearing this address had arrived frequently, and by the people of the house were supposed to be for Mary Woodruff, who went by the name of 'Miss. Lord,' Nancy having disguised herself as 'Mrs. Woodruff;' but they had always come by post, and the present missive must be from some acquaintance actually in the town. Nancy could not remember the handwriting. Breaking open the envelope as she lay in bed, she saw with alarm the signature 'Luckworth Crewe.' He was at Falmouth on business, Crewe wrote, and, before leaving London, he had ventured to ask Miss Lord's address from her brother, whom he casually met somewhere. Would Nancy allow him to see her, were it but for a minute or two? Earnestly he besought this favour. He desired nothing more than to see Miss. Lord, and to speak with her in the way of an ordinary acquaintance. After all this time, she had, he felt sure, forgiven his behaviour at their last meeting. Only five minutes of conversation--