The Purple Heights Part 24

Mrs. MacGregor plumed herself upon the improvement in her pupil, which she ascribed to her own civilizing and potent influence, for she was a G.o.d-fearing woman. She didn't understand that the greatest Power in heaven and earth was at work with Nancy.

But although Glenn became daily more enamored of the girl, he wasn't so satisfied with things as they were. He couldn't say that Nancy really avoided him, of course. He drove her and Mrs. MacGregor, whom at times he wished in Jericho, out in the car every afternoon. He sat opposite her at table thrice daily. Sometimes in the evening he spent an hour or two with her and Mrs. MacGregor, before going to his own room to study. But it so happened that he never was able to see her alone any more; and Nancy certainly made no effort to bring about that desirable situation. This made him restive and at the same time increased his pa.s.sion for her.

For her part, she was perfectly content just to look at him, to know that he was near. But Glenn was more impatient. He wanted the fragrance of her hair against his shoulder; he wanted the straight, strong young body in his arms; he wished to kiss her. And she held aloof. Although she no longer veiled her eyes from him, although he was quite sure she loved him, she was always tantalizingly out of his reach. She didn't seem to understand the lover's desire to be alone with the beloved, he thought. He grew moody. The weeks seemed years to his ardent and impetuous spirit. One night, happening to need a book he had noticed in the library, he went after it. And there, oh blessed vision, sat Nancy! She had been sleepless and restless, and had stolen out of her room for something to read that hadn't been selected by Mrs. MacGregor. It was rather late, but finding the quiet library pleasanter to her mood than her own room, she curled up in a comfortable chair and began to read. The book was Hardy's "Tess," and its strong and somber pa.s.sion and tragedy filled her with pity and terror. Something in her was roused by the story; she felt that she understood and suffered with that simple and pa.s.sionate soul.

She looked up, startled, as Glenn entered the room. He came to her swiftly, his arms outstretched, his face alight.

"You!" he cried, radiant and elate. "You!"

Nancy rose, torn between the desire to retreat, and to fling herself into those waiting arms. Glenn left her no choice. He seized her, roughly and masterfully, and held her close, pressing her against his body. His lips fastened upon hers. Nancy closed her eyes and shivered. She felt small and helpless, a leaf before the wind, and she was afraid.

"Nancy!" he whispered. "Nancy! You've got to marry me. We'll just have to risk it, degree or no degree! What's the use of waiting all our lives, maybe, when we love each other? When will you marry me, Nancy?"

She knew then that she had to tell him the truth, and she trembled.

"Glenn, I--I--" she stammered. Her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth.

"Soon? Say yes, Nancy! I'm crazy about you, don't you know that? Why don't you say when, Nancy?"

She felt desperate, as if some force were closing in upon her, relentlessly. She had to speak, and yet she couldn't. She tried to escape from the arms that held her, but they clasped her all the closer. His eager lips closed on hers.

"Nancy! Ah, darling, why not let everything go and marry me at once?"

Ah, why not, indeed? As if Peter Champneys had reached across the sea to divide her and Glenn, a stern voice answered Glenn's question.

"Because she has a husband already," it said harshly. Chalky white, with blazing eyes, Chadwick Champneys confronted Peter's wife in another man's arms. "She is married to my nephew, Peter Champneys.

Is it possible you do not know?"

Glenn's arms dropped. Intuitively he moved away from her. His visage blanched, and he stared at her strangely.

"Nancy, is this thing true?"

Nancy nodded. She said in a lifeless voice: "Oh yes, it's true. I was trying to tell you, but--" And then she broke into a cry: "Glenn, you don't understand! Glenn, listen, please listen! I did love you, I do love you, Glenn! You--you don't know--you don't understand--"

The boy staggered. He was an honorable, clean-souled boy, heir to old heritages of pride, and faith, and chivalry. A dull, shamed red crept from cheek to brow, replacing his pallor. His gesture, as he turned away from her, made her feel as if she had been struck across the face. She winced. She saw herself judged and condemned.

"Mr. Champneys," stammered Glenn, painfully, "surely you know I didn't understand--don't you? I--we--fell in love, sir. We'd meant to wait--that's why I didn't come to you at once--but I--that is, I was very much in love with her, and I was going to make a clean breast of it and ask you what we'd better do. And you're not to think I'm--dishonorable--" he choked over the word.

Knowing the boy's breed, Champneys laid a not unkindly hand on his shoulder.

"I see how it was," he said. "And--I guess you're punished enough, without any reproaches from me."

Glenn turned to Nancy. "Why did you do it?" he cried. "I loved you, I trusted you. Nancy, why did you do such a thing--to _me_?"

She twisted her fingers. Well, this was the end. She was to be thrust out of the new brightness, back into the drab dreariness, the emptiness that was her fate. She lifted tragic eyes.

"I never expected you to love me. But when you did--I just _had_ to let you! n.o.body else cared--ever. And I loved you for loving me--I couldn't help it, Glenn; I couldn't help it!" Her voice broke. She stood there, twisting her fingers.

An old, wise, kind woman, or an old priest who had seen and forgiven much, or men who knew and pitied youth, would have understood.

Neither of the men to whom she spoke realized the significance of that childishly pitiful confession. Champneys felt that she had shamed his name, belittled the sacred Family which was his fetish; Glenn thought she had made a fool of him for her own amus.e.m.e.nt.

Never again would he trust a woman, he told himself. And in his pain and shame, his smarting sense of having been duped, his hideous revulsion of feeling, he spoke out brutally. Nancy was left in no doubt as to the estimation in which he now held her. And she understood that it was his pride, even more than his love, that suffered.

She made no further attempt to explain or to exculpate herself; what was the use? She knew that had they changed places, had Glenn been in her shoes and she in his, her judgment had not been thus swift and merciless. Her larger love would have understood, and pitied, and forgiven. Pride! They talked of Pride, and they talked of Name.

But she could only feel that the one love she had ever known, or perhaps ever was to know, was going from her, must go from her, unforgiving, as if she had done it some irreparable wrong. She looked from one wrathful, accusing face to the other, like a child that has been beaten. How could Glenn, who had seemed to love her so greatly, turn against her so instantly? Not even--Peter Champneys--had looked at her as Glenn was looking at her now! And of a sudden she felt cold, and old, and sad, and inexpressibly tired.

So this was what men were like, then! They always blamed. And they never, never understood. She would not forget.

She checked the impulse to cry aloud to Glenn, to try once more to make him understand. Her eyes darkened, and two bright spots burnt in her cheeks. Without a further word or glance she walked out of the room and left the two standing close together. So stepped Anne Champneys into her womanhood.

She locked her door upon herself. Then she went over, after her fashion, and stared at herself in her mirror. The herself staring back at her startled her--the flushed cheeks, the mouth like coral, the eyes glowing like jewels under straight black brows. The ropes of red hair seemed alive, too; the whole figure radiated a personality that could be dynamic, once its powers should be fully aroused.

She viewed the woman in the gla.s.s impersonally, as if it had been a stranger's face looking at her. That vivid creature couldn't be Nancy Simms, not quite three years ago the Baxter slavey, the same Nancy that Peter Champneys had shrunk from with aversion, and that Glenn had repudiated to-night!

"Yes,--it's me," she murmured. "But I ain't--I mean I am not really ugly any more. I'm--I don't know just _what_ I am--or whether I ought to like or hate me--" But even while she shook her head, the face in the gla.s.s changed; the mouth drooped, the color faded, the light in the eyes went out. "But whatever I am, I'm not enough to make anybody keep on loving me." Then, because she was just a girl, and a very bewildered, sad, and undisciplined girl, she put her red head down on her dressing-table and wept despairingly.

The next morning Mr. Champneys explained to the concerned and regretful Mrs. MacGregor that Mr. Mitch.e.l.l had been called away suddenly, last night, and didn't think he would be able to return.

The ladies were to accept Mr. Mitch.e.l.l's regrets that he hadn't been able to bid them good-by in person. Mr. Champneys bowed for Mr.

Mitch.e.l.l, in a very stately manner. He went on with his breakfast, while Nancy made a pretense of eating hers, hating life and wishing with youthful intensity that she was dead, and Glenn with her. His empty place mocked and tortured her. He had gone, and he didn't, wouldn't, couldn't understand. She could never, never hope to make Glenn understand! She rather expected Mr. Champneys to sit in judgment upon her that morning, but a whole week pa.s.sed before Hoichi brought the message that Mr. Champneys wished to see her in the library. Her uncle was standing by the window when she entered, and he turned and bowed to her politely. He was thinner, gaunter, more Don Quixotish than usual. If only he had been kind! But his face was set, and hers instinctively hardened to match it.

"Nancy," he began directly, "I have not sent for you to load you with reproaches for your inexplicable conduct. But I must say this: deliberately to deceive and befool an honest gentleman, to trifle with his affections out of mere greedy vanity, is so base that I have no words strong enough to condemn it."

"I didn't mean to fool him. He fooled himself, and I let him do it,"

said she, dully. He thought her listlessness indifference, and any bluntness in moral tone in a woman, scandalized him. He could understand a Mrs. MacGregor, who was without subtleties; or soft, loving, courageous women like Milly and his sister-in-law, Peter's mother. But this girl he couldn't fathom. He beat his hands together, helplessly.

"I--you--" he groaned. And then: "Oh, Peter, what have I done to you!"

"I can't see you've done anything to him, except pay him to go away and learn how to make something out of himself," returned Nancy, practically. It brought him up short. "Uncle Chadwick, please keep quiet for a few minutes: I want you to listen to me." She met his eyes fully. "I didn't do Glenn Mitch.e.l.l any real harm: he'll fall in love with somebody else pretty soon. I suppose it's easy for Glenn to love people because it's easier for people to love Glenn. And he's done me this much good: I won't be so ready to believe it's easy for folks to love _me_, Uncle Chadwick. I guess I'm the sort they mostly--_don't_. I'll not forget." She spoke without bitterness, even with dignity. "One thing more, please. If ever Peter Champneys finds out he loves somebody, and he'll let me know, I'll give him his freedom. Fortune or no fortune, I won't hold him.

I know now--a little--what loving somebody means," she finished.

Her voice was so steady, her eyes so clear and direct, her manner so contained, that he was uncomfortably impressed. He felt put upon the defensive. As a matter of fact, in his first anger and surprise at what he still considered her shameless behavior, he had seriously considered the advisability of having Peter's marriage annulled. As soon as he had become calmer, his pride and obstinacy rejected such a course. After all, no harm had been done. She was very young. And he hoped Glenn's outspoken condemnation had taught her a needed and salutary lesson. Looking at her this morning, he realized that she had been punished. But that she should so calmly speak of divorcing Peter, of making way for some other woman, horrified him.

"You are talking immoral nonsense!" he said, angrily. "Let him go, indeed! Divorce your husband! What are we coming to? In my day marriage was binding. No respectable husband or wife ever dreamed of divorce!"

"But they were real husbands and wives, weren't they?" asked Nancy.

"All husbands and wives are real husbands and wives!" he thundered.

She considered this--and him--carefully. "Then you don't want Mr.

Peter Champneys and me ever to be divorced? I thought maybe you might."

"I forbid you even to _think_ such wickedness," cried he, alarmed.

"A girl of your age talking in such a manner! It's scandalous, that's what it is,--scandalous! Shows the dry-rot of our national moral sense, when the very children"--he glared at Nancy--"gabble about divorce!"

"Then I--I mean, things are just to go along, the same as they have been?" She looked at him pleadingly.

For a few minutes he drummed on the library table with his thin brown fingers. His bushy brows contracted. He asked unexpectedly:

"Would you like to go away for a while? To travel?"

"Where?"