In the Year of Jubilee Part 54

'I am not married.'

The words cost her little effort. Practically, she had uttered them before; her overbold replies were an admission of what, from the first, she supposed Beatrice to charge her with--not secret wedlock, but secret shame. Beatrice, however, had adopted that line of suggestion merely from policy, hoping to sting the proud girl into avowal of a legitimate union; she heard the contrary declaration with fresh surprise.

'I should never have believed it of Miss. Lord,' was her half ingenuous, half sly comment.

Nancy, beginning to realise what she had done, sat with head bent, speechless.

'Don't distress yourself,' continued the other. 'Not a soul will hear of it from me. If you like to tell me more, you can do it quite safely; I'm no blabber, and I'm not a rascal. I should never have troubled to make inquiries about you, down yonder, if it hadn't been that I suspected Crewe. That's a confession, you know; take it in return for yours.'

Nancy was tongue-tied. A full sense of her humiliation had burst upon her. She, who always condescended to Miss. French, now lay smirched before her feet, an object of vulgar contempt.

'What does it matter?' went on Beatrice genially. 'You've got over the worst, and very cleverly. Are you going to marry him when you come in for your money?'

'Perhaps--I don't know--'

She faltered, no longer able to mask in impudence, and hardly restraining tears. Beatrice ceased to doubt, and could only wonder with amus.e.m.e.nt.

'Why shouldn't we be good friends, Nancy? I tell you, I am no rascal.

I never thought of making anything out of your secret--not I. If it had been Crewe, marriage or no marriage--well, I might have shown my temper.

I believe I have a pretty rough side to my tongue; but I'm a good enough sort if you take me in the right way. Of course I shall never rest for wondering who it can be--'

She paused, but Nancy did not look up, did not stir.

'Perhaps you'll tell me some other time. But there's one thing I should like to ask about, and it's for your own good that I should know it.

When Crewe was down there, don't you think he tumbled to anything?'

Perplexed by unfamiliar slang, Nancy raised her eyes.

'Found out anything, you mean? I don't know.'

'But you must have been in a jolly fright about it?'

'I gave it very little thought,' replied Nancy, able now to command a steady voice, and retiring behind a manner of frigid indifference.

'No? Well, of course I understand that better now I know that you can't lose anything. Still, it is to be hoped he didn't go asking questions.

By-the-bye, you may as well just tell me: he has asked you to marry him, hasn't he?'

'Yes.'

Beatrice nodded.

'Doesn't matter. You needn't be afraid, even if he got hold of anything.

He isn't the kind of man to injure you out of spite.'

'I fear him as little as I fear you.'

'Well, as I've told you, you needn't fear me at all. I like you better for this--a good deal better than I used to. If you want any help, you know where to turn; I'll do whatever I can for you; and I'm in the way of being useful to my friends. You're cut up just now; it's natural. I won't bother you any longer. But just remember what I've said. If I can be of any service, don't be above making use of me.'

Nancy heard without heeding; for an anguish of shame and misery once more fell upon her, and seemed to lay waste her soul.

Part V: Compa.s.sed Round

CHAPTER 1

There needed not Mary Woodruff's suggestion to remind Nancy that no further away than Champion Hill were people of whom, in extremity, she might inquire concerning her husband. At present, even could she have entertained the thought, it seemed doubtful whether the Vawdrey household knew more of Tarrant's position and purposes than she herself; for, only a month ago, Jessica Morgan had called upon the girls and had ventured a question about their cousin, whereupon they answered that he was in America, but that he had not written for a long time. To Mrs.

Baker, Jessica did not like to speak on the subject, but probably that lady could have answered only as the children did.

Once, indeed, a few days after her return, Nancy took the familiar walk along Champion Hill, and glanced, in pa.s.sing, at Mr. Vawdrey's house; afterwards, she shunned that region. The memories it revived were infinitely painful. She saw herself an immature and foolish girl, behaving in a way which, for all its affectation of reserve and dignity, no doubt offered to such a man as Lionel Tarrant a hint that here, if he chose, he might make a facile conquest. Had he not acted upon the hint? It wrung her heart with shame to remember how, in those days, she followed the lure of a crude imagination. A year ago? Oh, a lifetime!

Unwilling, now, to justify herself with the plea of love; doubtful, in very truth, whether her pa.s.sion merited that name; she looked back in the stern spirit of a woman judging another's frailty. What treatment could she have antic.i.p.ated at the hands of her lover save that she had received? He married her--it was much; he forsook her--it was natural.

The truth of which she had caught troublous glimpses in the heyday of her folly now stood revealed as pitiless condemnation. Tarrant never respected her, never thought of her as a woman whom he could seriously woo and wed. She had a certain power over his emotions, and not the sensual alone; but his love would not endure the test of absence. From the other side of the Atlantic he saw her as he had seen her at first, and shrank from returning to the bondage which in a weak moment he had accepted.

One night about this time she said to herself:

'I was his mistress, never his wife.'

And all her desperate endeavours to obscure the history of their love, to a.s.sert herself as worthy to be called wife, mother, had fallen fruitless. Those long imploring letters, despatched to America from her solitude by the Cornish sea, elicited nothing but a word or two which sounded more like pity than affection. Pity does not suffice to recall the wandering steps of a man wedded against his will.

In her heart, she absolved him of all baseness. The man of ign.o.ble thought would have been influenced by her market value as a wife.

Tarrant, all the more because he was reduced to poverty, would resolutely forget the crude advantage of remaining faithful to her.

Herein Nancy proved herself more akin to her father than she had ever seemed when Stephen Lord sought eagerly in her character for hopeful traits.

The severity of her self-judgment, and the indulgence tempering her att.i.tude towards Tarrant, declared a love which had survived its phase of youthful pa.s.sion. But Nancy did not recognise this symptom of moral growth. She believed herself to have become indifferent to her husband, and only wondered that she did not hate him. Her heart seemed to spend all its emotion on the little being to whom she had given life--a healthy boy, who already, so she fancied, knew a difference between his mother and his nurse, and gurgled a peculiar note of contentment when lying in her arms. Whether wife or not, she claimed every privilege of motherhood. Had the child been a weakling, she could not have known this abounding solace: the defect would have reproached her. But from the day of his birth he manifested so vigorous a will to live, clung so hungrily to the fountain-breast, kicked and clamoured with such irresistible self-a.s.sertion, that the mother's pride equalled her tenderness. 'My own brave boy! My son!' Wonderful new words: honey upon the lips and rapture to the ear. She murmured them as though inspired with speech never uttered by mortal.

The interval of a day between her journeys to see the child taxed her patience; but each visit brought a growth of confidence. No harm would befall him: Mary had chosen wisely.

Horace kept aloof and sent no message. When at length she wrote to him a letter all of sisterly kindness, there came a stinted reply. He said that he was going away for a holiday, and might be absent until September. 'Don't bother about me. You shall hear again before long.

There's just a chance that I may go in for business again, with prospect of making money. Particulars when I see you.'

Nancy found this note awaiting her after a day's absence from home, and with it another. To her surprise, Mrs. Damerel had written. 'I called early this afternoon, wishing particularly to see you. Will you please let me know when I should find you at home? It is about Horace that I want to speak.' It began with 'My dear Nancy,' and ended, 'Yours affectionately.' Glad of the opportunity thus offered, she answered at once, making an appointment for the next day.

When Mrs. Damerel came, Nancy was even more struck than at their former meeting with her resemblance to Horace. Eyes and lips recalled Horace at every moment. This time, the conversation began more smoothly. On both sides appeared a disposition to friendliness, though Nancy only marked her distrust in the hope of learning more about this mysterious relative and of being useful to her brother.

'You have a prejudice against me,' said the visitor, when she had inquired concerning Nancy's health. 'It's only natural. I hardly seem to you a real relative, I'm afraid--you know so little about me; and now Horace has been laying dreadful things to my charge.'

'He thinks you responsible for what has happened to f.a.n.n.y French,' Nancy replied, in an impartial voice.

'Yes, and I a.s.sure you he is mistaken. Miss. French deceived him and her own people, leading them to think that she was spending her time with me, when really she was--who knows where? To you I am quite ready to confess that I hoped something might come between her and Horace; but as for plotting--really lam not so melodramatic a person. All I did in the way of design was to give Horace an opportunity of seeing the girl in a new light. You can imagine very well, no doubt, how she conducted herself. I quite believe that Horace was getting tired and ashamed of her, but then came her disappearance, and that made him angry with me.'