In the Year of Jubilee Part 66

'Oh, she's going on as usual.'

Crewe checked himself, and showed hesitation.

'She almost threatened me,' Mrs. Damerel pursued, with timid sweetness.

'Do you think she is the kind of person to plot any harm against one?'

'She had better not try it on,' said Crewe, in his natural voice. Then, as if recollecting himself, he pursued more softly: 'But I was going to speak of her. You haven't heard that Miss. Lord has taken a position in the new branch of that Dress Supply a.s.sociation?'

Mrs. Damerel kept an astonished silence.

'There can't be any doubt of it; I have been told on the best authority.

She is in what they call the "club-room," a superintendent. It's a queer thing; what can have led her to it?'

'I must make inquiries,' said Mrs. Damerel, with an air of concern. 'How sad it is, Mr. Crewe, that these young relatives of mine,--almost the only relatives I have,--should refuse me their confidence and their affection. Pray, does Horace know of what his sister is doing?'

'I thought I wouldn't speak to him about it until I had seen you.'

'How very kind! How grateful I am to you for your constant thoughtfulness!'

Why Crewe should have practised such reticence, why it signified kindness and thoughtfulness to Mrs. Damerel, neither he nor she could easily have explained. But their eyes met, with diffident admiration on the one side, and touching amiability on the other. Then they discussed Nancy's inexplicable behaviour from every point of view; or rather, Mrs.

Damerel discussed it, and her companion made a pretence of doing so.

Crewe's manner had become patently artificial; he either expressed himself in trivial phrases, which merely avoided silence, or betrayed an embarra.s.sment, an abstraction, which caused the lady to observe him with all the acuteness at her command.

You haven't seen her lately?' she asked, when Crewe had been staring at the window for a minute or two.

'Seen her?--No; not for a long time.'

'I think you told me you haven't called there since Mr. Lord's death?'

'I never was there at all,' he answered abruptly.

'Oh, I remember your saying so. Of course there is no reason why she shouldn't go into business, if time is heavy on her hands, as I dare say it may be. So many ladies prefer to have an occupation of that kind now-a-days. It's a sign of progress; we are getting more sensible; Society used to have such silly prejudices. Even within my recollection--how quickly things change!--no lady would have dreamt of permitting her daughter to take an engagement in a shop or any such place. Now we have women of t.i.tle starting as milliners and modistes, and soon it will be quite a common thing to see one's friends behind the counter.'

She gave a gay little laugh, in which Crewe joined unmelodiously,--for he durst not be merry in the note natural to him,--then raised her eyes in playful appeal.

'If ever I should fall into misfortune, Mr. Crewe, would you put me in the way of earning my living.'

'You couldn't. You're above all that kind of thing. It's for the rough and ready sort of women, and I can't say I have much opinion of them.'

'That's a very nice little compliment; but at the same time, it's rather severe on the women who are practical.--Tell me frankly: Is my--my niece one of the people you haven't much opinion of?'

Crewe shuffled his feet.

'I wasn't thinking of Miss. Lord.'

'But what is really your opinion of her?' Mrs. Damerel urged softly.

Crewe looked up and down, smiled in a vacant way, and appeared very uncomfortable.

'May I guess the truth?' said his playful companion.

'No, I'll tell you. I wanted to marry her, and did my best to get her to promise.'

'I thought so!' She paused on the note of arch satisfaction, and mused.

'How nice of you to confess!--And that's all past and forgotten, is it?'

Never man more unlike himself than the bold advertising-agent in this colloquy. He was subdued and shy; his usual racy and virile talk had given place to an insipid mildness. He seemed bent on showing that the graces of polite society were not so strange to him as one might suppose. But under Mrs. Damerel's interrogation a restiveness began to appear in him, and at length he answered in his natural blunt voice:

'Yes, it's all over--and for a good reason.'

The lady's curiosity was still more provoked.

'No,' she exclaimed laughingly, 'I am _not_ going to ask the reason.

That would be presuming too far on friendship.'

Crewe fixed his eyes on a corner of the room, and seemed to look there for a solution of some difficulty. When the silence had lasted more than a minute, he began to speak slowly and awkwardly.

'I've half a mind to--in fact, I've been thinking that you ought to know.'

'The good reason?'

'Yes. You're the only one that could stand in the place of a mother to her. And I don't think she ought to be living alone, like she is, with no one to advise and help her.'

'I have felt that very strongly,' said Mrs. Damerel. 'The old servant who is with her can't be at all a suitable companion--that is, to be treated on equal terms. A very strange arrangement, indeed. But you don't mean that you thought less well of her because she is living in that way?'

'Of course not. It's something a good deal more serious than that.'

Mrs. Damerel became suddenly grave.

'Then I certainly ought to know.'

'You ought. I think it very likely she would have been glad enough to make a friend of you, if it hadn't been for this--this affair, which stood in the way. There can't be any harm in telling you, as you couldn't wish anything but her good.'

'That surely you may take for granted.'

'Well then, I have an idea that she's trying to earn money because some one is getting all he can out of her--leaving her very little for herself; and if so, it's time you interfered.'

The listener was so startled that she changed colour.

'You mean that some man has her in his power?'

'If I'm not mistaken, it comes to that. But for her father's will, she would have been married long ago, and--she ought to be.'

Having blurted out these words, Crewe felt much more at ease. As Mrs.

Damerel's eyes fell, the sense of s.e.xual predominance awoke in him, and he was no longer so prostrate before the lady's natural and artificial graces.

'How do you know this?' she asked, in an undertone.