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In the Year of Jubilee

by George Gissing · English · Gutenberg #4307 · 755,315 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: In the Year of Jubilee

Author: George Gissing


        
Release date: August 1, 2003 [eBook #4307]
                Most recently updated: October 27, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4307

Credits: Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Janet Blenkinship, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE YEAR OF JUBILEE ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo and Janet Blenkinship





IN THE YEAR OF JUBILEE

By George Gissing




Part I: Miss. Lord



CHAPTER 1


At eight o’clock on Sunday morning, Arthur Peachey unlocked his front
door, and quietly went forth. He had not ventured to ask that early
breakfast should be prepared for him. Enough that he was leaving
home for a summer holiday--the first he had allowed himself since his
marriage three years ago.

It was a house in De Crespigny Park; unattached, double-fronted, with
half-sunk basement, and a flight of steps to the stucco pillars at
the entrance. De Crespigny Park, a thoroughfare connecting Grove
Lane, Camberwell, with Denmark Hill, presents a double row of similar
dwellings; its clean breadth, with foliage of trees and shrubs in front
gardens, makes it pleasant to the eye that finds pleasure in suburban
London. In point of respectability, it has claims only to be appreciated
by the ambitious middle-class of Camberwell. Each house seems to remind
its neighbour, with all the complacence expressible in buff brick, that
in this locality lodgings are _not_ to let.

For an hour after Peachey’s departure, the silence of the house was
unbroken. Then a bedroom door opened, and a lady in a morning gown of
the fashionable heliotrope came downstairs. She had acute features;
eyes which seemed to indicate the concentration of her thoughts upon a
difficult problem, and cheeks of singular bloom. Her name was Beatrice
French; her years numbered six and twenty.

She entered the dining-room and drew up the blind. Though the furniture
was less than a year old, and by no means of the cheapest description,
slovenly housekeeping had dulled the brightness of every surface. On
a chair lay a broken toy, one of those elaborate and costly playthings
which serve no purpose but to stunt a child’s imagination. Though
the time was midsummer, not a flower appeared among the pretentious
ornaments. The pictures were a strange medley--autotypes of some
artistic value hanging side by side with hideous oleographs framed in
ponderous gilding. Miss. ------ then violently rang the bell. When the
summons had been twice French looked about her with an expression of
strong disgust, repeated, there appeared a young woman whose features
told of long and placid slumbers.

‘Well? what does this mean?’

‘The cook doesn’t feel well, miss; she can’t get up.’

‘Then get breakfast yourself, and look sharp about it.’

Beatrice spoke with vehemence; her cheeks showed a circle of richer hue
around the unchanging rose. The domestic made insolent reply, and there
began a war of words. At this moment another step sounded on the stairs,
and as it drew near, a female voice was raised in song.

‘_And a penny in his pocket, la-de-da, la-de-da,--and a penny in his
pocket, la-de-da_!’

A younger girl, this, of much slighter build; with a frisky gait, a
jaunty pose of the head; pretty, but thin-featured, and shallow-eyed;
a long neck, no chin to speak of, a low forehead with the hair of
washed-out flaxen fluffed all over it. Her dress was showy, and in a
taste that set the teeth on edge. Fanny French, her name.

‘What’s up? Another row?’ she asked, entering the room as the servant
went out.

‘I’ve known a good many fools,’ said Beatrice, ‘but Ada’s the biggest
I’ve come across yet.’

‘Is she? Well, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Fanny admitted impartially. And
with a skip she took up her song again. ‘_A penny paper collar round his
neck, la-de-da_--’

‘Are you going to church this morning?’ asked her sister.

‘Yes. Are you?’

‘Come for a walk instead. There’s something I want to talk to you
about.’

‘Won’t it do afterwards? I’ve got an appointment.’

‘With Lord?’

Fanny laughed and nodded.

Interrupted by the reappearance of the servant, who brought a tray and
began to lay the table, they crossed the hall to the drawing-room. In
half-an-hour’s time a sluttish meal was prepared for them, and whilst
they were satisfying their hunger, the door opened to admit Mrs.
Peachey. Ada presented herself in a costume which, at any season but
high summer, would have been inconveniently cool. Beneath a loose thin
dressing-gown her feet, in felt slippers, showed stockingless, her neck
was bare almost to the bosom, and the tresses of pale yellow, upon which
she especially prided herself, lay raggedly pinned together on the top
of her flat head. She was about twenty-eight years old, but at present
looked more than thirty. Her features resembled Fanny’s, but had a much
less amiable expression, and betokened, if the thing were possible, an
inferior intellect. Fresh from the morning basin, her cheeks displayed
that peculiar colourlessness which results from the habitual use of
paints and powders; her pale pink lips, thin and sullen, were curiously
wrinkled; she had eyes of slate colour, with lids so elevated that she
always seemed to be staring in silly wonder.

‘So you’ve got breakfast, have you?’ were her first words, in a thin and
rather nasal voice. ‘You may think yourselves lucky.’

‘You have a cheek of your own,’ replied Beatrice. ‘Whose place is it to
see that we get meals?’

‘And what can any one do with servants like I’ve got?’ retorted the
married sister.

‘It’s your own fault. You should get better; and when you’ve got them,
you should manage them. But that’s just what you can’t do.’

‘Oh, _you_‘d be a wonderful housekeeper, we know all about that. If
you’re not satisfied, you’d better find board and lodging somewhere
else, as I’ve told you often enough. You’re not likely to get it as
cheap.’

They squabbled for some minutes, Fanny looking on with ingenuous
amusement, and putting in a word, now for this side, now for that.

‘And what am I going to have for breakfast?’ demanded Mrs. Peachey
at length, surveying the table. ‘You’ve taken jolly good care of
yourselves, it seems to me.’

She jumped up, and rang the bell. When a minute’s interval brought no
reply, she rang again. Beatrice thought it probable that the bell might
be rung without effect, ‘till all was blue.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ answered her sister, and forthwith invaded the
lower parts of the house. Thence, presently, her voice became audible,
rising gradually to shrillness; with it there blended the rougher
accents of the housemaid, now in reckless revolt. Beatrice listened for
a minute or two in the hall, then passed on into the drawing-room with a
contemptuous laugh. Fanny, to whom the uproar seemed to bring a renewal
of appetite, cut herself a slice of bread and butter, and ate it as she
stood at the window.

‘Dirty cat! beast! swine!’

The mistress of the house, fairly beaten away by superior force of
vocabulary, reappeared with these and other exclamations, her face
livid, her foolish eyes starting from their sockets. Fanny, a sort of
Mother Cary’s chicken, revelled in the row, and screamed her merriment.

It was long before the domestic uproar wholly subsided, but
towards eleven o’clock the sisters found themselves together in the
drawing-room. Ada sprawled limply on a sofa; Beatrice sat with legs
crossed in the most comfortable chair; and Fanny twirled about on a
music stool.

The only books in the room were a few show-volumes, which belonged to
Arthur Peachey, and half-a-dozen novels of the meaner kind, wherewith
Ada sometimes beguiled her infinite leisure. But on tables and chairs
lay scattered a multitude of papers: illustrated weeklies, journals of
society, cheap miscellanies, penny novelettes, and the like. At the end
of the week, when new numbers came in, Ada Peachey passed many hours
upon her sofa, reading instalments of a dozen serial stories, paragraphs
relating to fashion, sport, the theatre, answers to correspondents
(wherein she especially delighted), columns of facetiae, and gossip
about notorious people. Through a great deal of this matter Beatrice
followed her, and read much besides in which Ada took no interest;
she studied a daily newspaper, with special note of law suits, police
intelligence, wills, bankruptcies, and any concern, great or small,
wherein money played a part. She understood the nature of investments,
and liked to talk about stocks and shares with her male acquaintances.

They were the daughters of a Camberwell builder, lately deceased; to
each of them had fallen a patrimony just sufficient for their support
in elegant leisure. Ada’s money, united with a small capital in her
husband’s possession, went to purchase a share in the business of
Messrs. Ducker, Blunt & Co., manufacturers of disinfectants; Arthur
Peachey, previously a clerk to the firm, became a junior partner, with
the result that most of the hard work was thrown upon his shoulders. At
their marriage, the happy pair first of all established themselves in a
modest house near Camberwell Road; two years later, growing prosperity
brought about their removal to De Crespigny Park, where they had now
resided for some twelve months. Unlike their elder sister, Beatrice and
Fanny had learnt to support themselves, Beatrice in the postal service,
and Fanny, sweet blossom! by mingling her fragrance with that of a
florist’s shop in Brixton; but on their father’s death both forsook
their employment, and came to live with Mrs. Peachey. Between them,
these two were the owners of house-property, which produced L140 a year.
They disbursed, together, a weekly sum of twenty-four shillings for
board and lodging, and spent or saved the rest as their impulses
dictated.



CHAPTER 2



Ada brooded over her wrongs; Beatrice glanced over _The Referee_. Fanny,
after twirling awhile in maiden meditation, turned to the piano and
jingled a melody from ‘The Mikado.’ She broke off suddenly, and, without
looking round, addressed her companions.

‘You can give the third seat at the Jubilee to somebody else. I’m
provided for.’

‘Who are you going with?’ asked Ada.

‘My masher,’ the girl replied with a giggle.

‘Where?’

‘Shop-windows in the Strand, I think.’

She resumed her jingling; it was now ‘Queen of my Heart.’ Beatrice,
dropping her paper, looked fixedly at the girl’s profile, with an eyelid
droop which signified calculation.

‘How much is he really getting?’ she inquired all at once.

‘Seventy-five pounds a year. “_Oh where, oh where, is my leetle dog
gone?_“’

‘Does he say,’ asked Mrs. Peachey, ‘that his governor will stump up?’

They spoke a peculiar tongue, the product of sham education and mock
refinement grafted upon a stock of robust vulgarity. One and all
would have been moved to indignant surprise if accused of ignorance
or defective breeding. Ada had frequented an ‘establishment for young
ladies’ up to the close of her seventeenth year; the other two had
pursued culture at a still more pretentious institute until they were
eighteen. All could ‘play the piano;’ all declared--and believed--that
they ‘knew French.’ Beatrice had ‘done’ Political Economy; Fanny had
‘been through’ Inorganic Chemistry and Botany. The truth was, of course,
that their minds, characters, propensities had remained absolutely proof
against such educational influence as had been brought to bear upon
them. That they used a finer accent than their servants, signified only
that they had grown up amid falsities, and were enabled, by the help of
money, to dwell above-stairs, instead of with their spiritual kindred
below.

Anticipating Fanny’s reply, Beatrice observed, with her air of sagacity:

‘If you think you’re going to get anything out of an old screw like
Lord, you’ll jolly soon find your mistake.’

‘Don’t you go and make a fool of yourself, Fanny,’ said Mrs. Peachey.
‘Why, he can’t be more than twenty-one, is he?’

‘He’s turned twenty-two.’

The others laughed scornfully.

‘Can’t I have who I like for a masher?’ cried Fanny, reddening a little.
‘Who said I was going to marry him? I’m in no particular hurry to get
married. You think everybody’s like yourselves.’

‘If there was any chance of old Lord turning up his toes,’ said Beatrice
thoughtfully. ‘I dare say he’ll leave a tidy handful behind him, but
then he may live another ten years or more.’

‘And there’s Nancy,’ exclaimed Ada. ‘Won’t she get half the plunder?’

‘May be plenty, even then,’ said Beatrice, her head aside. ‘The piano
business isn’t a bad line. I shouldn’t wonder if he leaves ten or
fifteen thousand.’

‘Haven’t you got anything out of Horace?’ asked Ada of Fanny. ‘What has
he told you?’

‘He doesn’t know much, that’s the fact.’

‘Silly! There you are. His father treats him like a boy; if he talked
about marrying, he’d get a cuff on the ear. Oh, I know all about old
Lord,’ Ada proceeded. ‘He’s a regular old tyrant. Why, you’ve only to
look at him. And he thinks no small beer of himself, either, for all he
lives in that grubby little house; I shouldn’t wonder if he thinks us
beneath him.’

She stared at her sisters, inviting their comment on this _ludicrous_
state of things.

‘I quite believe Nancy does,’ said Fanny, with a point of malice.

‘She’s a stuck-up thing,’ declared Mrs. Peachey. ‘And she gets worse as
she gets older. I shall never invite her again; it’s three times she has
made an excuse--all lies, of course.

‘Who will _she_ marry?’ asked Beatrice, in a tone of disinterested
speculation.

Mrs. Peachey answered with a sneer:

‘She’s going to the Jubilee to pick up a fancy Prince.’

‘As it happens,’ objected Fanny, ‘she isn’t going to the Jubilee at all.
At least she says she isn’t. She’s above it--so her brother told me.’

‘I know who _wants_ to marry her,’ Ada remarked, with a sour smile.

‘Who is that?’ came from the others.

‘Mr. Crewe.’

With a significant giggle, Fanny glanced at the more sober of her
sisters; she, the while, touched her upper lip with the point of her
tongue, and looked towards the window.

‘Does he?’ Fanny asked of the ceiling.

‘He wants money to float his teetotal drink,’ said Beatrice. ‘Hasn’t he
been at Arthur about it?’

‘Not that I know,’ answered the wife.

‘He tried to get round me, but I--’

A scream of incredulity from Fanny, and a chuckle from Mrs. Peachey,
covered the rest of the sentence. Beatrice gazed at them defiantly.

‘Well, idiots! What’s up now?’

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘There’s nobody knows Luckworth Crewe better than I do,’ Beatrice
pursued disdainfully, ‘and I think he knows _me_ pretty well. He’ll make
a fool of himself when he marries; I’ve told him so, and he as good as
said I was right. If it wasn’t for that, I should feel a respect for
him. He’ll have money one of these days.’

‘And he’ll marry Nancy Lord,’ said Ada tauntingly.

‘Not just yet.’

Ada rolled herself from the sofa, and stood yawning.

‘Well, I shall go and dress. What are you people going to do? You
needn’t expect any dinner. I shall have mine at a restaurant.’

‘Who have you to meet?’ asked Fanny, with a grimace.

Her sister disregarded the question, yawned again, and turned to
Beatrice.

‘Who shall we ask to take Fan’s place on Tuesday? Whoever it 15, they’ll
have to pay. Those seats are selling for three guineas, somebody told
me.’

Conversation lingered about this point for a few minutes, till Mrs.
Peachey went upstairs. When the door was open, a child’s crying could
be heard, but it excited no remark. Presently the other two retired, to
make themselves ready for going out. Fanny was the first to reappear,
and, whilst waiting for her sister, she tapped out a new music-hall
melody on the piano.

As they left the house, Beatrice remarked that Ada really meant to
have her dinner at Gatti’s or some such place; perhaps they had better
indulge themselves in the same way.

‘Suppose you give Horace Lord a hint that we’ve no dinner at home? He
might take us, and stand treat.’

Fanny shook her head.

‘I don’t think he could get away. The guv’nor expects him home to dinner
on Sundays.’

The other laughed her contempt.

‘You see! What good is he? Look here, Fan, you just wait a bit, and
you’ll do much better than that. Old Lord would cut up rough as soon as
ever such a thing was mentioned; I know he would. There’s something I
have had in my mind for a long time. Suppose I could show you a way
of making a heap of money--no end of money--? Shouldn’t you like it
better,--to live as you pleased, and be independent?’

The listener’s face confessed curiosity, yet was dubious.

‘What do you say to going into business with me?’ pursued Miss French.
‘We’ve only to raise a little money on the houses, and in a year or two
we might be making thousands.’

‘Business? What sort of business?’

‘Suppose somebody came to you and said: Pay me a sovereign, and I’ll
make you a member of an association that supplies fashionable clothing
at about half the ordinary price,--wouldn’t you jump at it?’

‘If I thought it wasn’t a swindle,’ Fanny replied ingenuously.

‘Of course. But you’d be made to see it wasn’t. And suppose they went on
to say: Take a ten-pound share, and you shall have a big interest on it,
as well as your dresses for next to nothing. How would you like that?’

‘Can it be done?’

‘I’ve got a notion it can, and I think I know two or three people who
would help to set the thing going. But we must have some capital to
show. Have you the pluck to join in?’

‘And suppose I lose my money?’

‘I’ll guarantee you the same income you’re getting now--if that will
satisfy you. I’ve been looking round, and making inquiries, and I’ve got
to know a bit about the profits of big dressmakers. We should start in
Camberwell, or somewhere about there, and fish in all the women who want
to do the heavy on very little. There are thousands and thousands of
them, and most of them’--she lowered her voice--‘know as much about cut
and material as they do about stockbroking. Do you twig? People like
Mrs. Middlemist and Mrs. Murch. They spend, most likely, thirty or forty
pounds a year on their things, and we could dress them a good deal more
smartly for half the money. Of course we should make out that a dress we
sold them for five guineas was worth ten in the shops, and the real cost
would be two. See? The thing is to persuade them that they’re getting an
article cheap, and at the same time making money out of other people.’

Thus, and at much greater length, did Miss. French discourse to her
attentive sister. Forgetful of the time, Fanny found at length that it
would be impossible to meet Horace Lord as he came out of church; but it
did not distress her.



CHAPTER 3



Nancy Lord stood at the front-room window, a hand grasping each side of
her waist, her look vaguely directed upon the limetree opposite and the
house which it in part concealed. She was a well-grown girl of three
and twenty, with the complexion and the mould of form which indicate,
whatever else, habitual nourishment on good and plenteous food. In her
ripe lips and softly-rounded cheeks the current of life ran warm. She had
hair of a fine auburn, and her mode of wearing it, in a plaited diadem,
answered the purpose of completing a figure which, without being tall,
had some stateliness and promised more. Her gown, trimmed with a collar
of lace, left the neck free; the maiden cincture at her waist did no
violence to natural proportion.

This afternoon--it was Monday--she could not occupy or amuse herself in
any of the familiar ways. Perhaps the atmosphere of national Jubilee had
a disturbing effect upon her,--in spite of her professed disregard
for the gathering tumult of popular enthusiasm. She had not left home
to-day, and the brilliant weather did not tempt her forth. On the
table lay a new volume from the circulating library,--something about
Evolution--but she had no mind to read it; it would have made her too
conscious of the insincerity with which she approached such profound
subjects. For a quarter of an hour and more she had stood at the window,
regarding a prospect, now as always, utterly wearisome and depressing to
her.

Grove Lane is a long acclivity, which starts from Camberwell suburban
dwellings. The houses vary considerably in size and Green, and, after
passing a few mean shops, becomes a road of aspect, also in date,--with
the result of a certain picturesqueness, enhanced by the growth of fine
trees on either side. Architectural grace can nowhere be discovered,
but the contract-builder of today has not yet been permitted to work
his will; age and irregularity, even though the edifices be but so many
illustrations of the ungainly, the insipid, and the frankly hideous,
have a pleasanter effect than that of new streets built to one pattern
by the mile. There are small cottages overgrown with creepers, relics
of Camberwell’s rusticity; rows of tall and of squat dwellings that lie
behind grassy plots, railed from the road; larger houses that stand in
their own gardens, hidden by walls. Narrow passages connect the Lane
with its more formal neighbour Camberwell Grove; on the other side are
ways leading towards Denmark Hill, quiet, leafy. From the top of
the Lane, where Champion Hill enjoys an aristocratic seclusion, is
obtainable a glimpse of open fields and of a wooded horizon southward.

It is a neighbourhood in decay, a bit of London which does not keep pace
with the times. And Nancy hated it. She would have preferred to live
even in a poor and grimy street which neighboured the main track of
business and pleasure.

Here she had spent as much of her life as she remembered, from the end
of her third year. Mr. Lord never willingly talked of days gone by,
but by questioning him she had learnt that her birthplace was a vaguely
indicated part of northern London; there, it seemed, her mother had
died, a year or so after the birth of her brother Horace. The relatives
of whom she knew were all on her father’s side, and lived scattered
about England. When she sought information concerning her mother, Mr.
Lord became evasive and presently silent; she had seen no portrait of
the dead parent. Of late years this obscure point of the family history
had often occupied her thoughts.

Nancy deemed herself a highly educated young woman,--‘cultured’ was the
word she would have used. Her studies at a day-school which was reputed
‘modern’ terminated only when she herself chose to withdraw in her
eighteenth year; and since then she had pursued ‘courses’ of
independent reading, had attended lectures, had thought of preparing for
examinations--only thought of it. Her father never suggested that she
should use these acquirements for the earning of money; little as she
knew of his affairs, it was obviously to be taken for granted that
he could ensure her life-long independence. Satisfactory, this; but
latterly it had become a question with her how the independence was to
be used, and no intelligible aim as yet presented itself to her roving
mind. All she knew was, that she wished to live, and not merely to
vegetate. Now there are so many ways of living, and Nancy felt no
distinct vocation for any one of them.

She was haunted by an uneasy sense of doubtfulness as to her social
position. Mr. Lord followed the calling of a dealer in pianos; a
respectable business, to be sure, but, it appeared, not lucrative enough
to put her above caring how his money was made. She knew that one’s
father may be anything whatever, yet suffer no social disability,
provided he reap profit enough from the pursuit. But Stephen Lord,
whilst resorting daily to his warehouse in Camberwell Road--not
a locality that one would care to talk about in ‘cultured’
circles--continued, after twenty years, to occupy this small and ugly
dwelling in Grove Lane. Possibly, owing to an imperfect education, he
failed to appreciate his daughter’s needs, and saw no reason why she
should not be happy in the old surroundings.

On the other hand, perhaps he cared very little about her.
Undoubtedly his favourite was Horace, and in Horace he had suffered a
disappointment. The boy, in spite of good schooling, had proved unequal
to his father’s hope that he would choose some professional career,
by preference the law; he idled away his schooldays, failed at
examinations, and ultimately had to be sent into ‘business.’ Mr Lord
obtained a place for him in a large shipping agency; but it still seemed
doubtful whether he would make any progress there, notwithstanding the
advantage of his start; at two-and-twenty he was remunerated with a mere
thirty shillings a week, a nominal salary,’ his employers called it.
Nancy often felt angry with her brother for his lack of energy and
ambition; he might so easily, she thought, have helped to establish,
by his professional dignity, her own social status at the level she
desired.

There came into view a familiar figure, crossing from the other side of
the way. Nancy started, waved her hand, and went to open the door. Her
look had wholly altered; she was bright, mirthful, overflowing with
affectionate welcome.

This friend of hers, Jessica Morgan by name, had few personal
attractions. She looked overwrought and low-spirited; a very plain
and slightly-made summer gown exhibited her meagre frame with undue
frankness; her face might have been pretty if health had filled and
coloured the flesh, but as it was she looked a ghost of girlhood, a
dolorous image of frustrate sex. In her cotton-gloved hand she carried
several volumes and notebooks.

‘I’m so glad you’re in,’ was her first utterance, between pants after
hasty walking and the jerks of a nervous little laugh. ‘I want to
ask you something about Geometrical Progression. You remember that
formula--’

‘How can I remember what I never knew?’ exclaimed Nancy. ‘I always hated
those formulas; I couldn’t learn them to save my life.’

‘Oh, that’s nonsense! You were much better at mathematics than I was. Do
just look at what I mean.’

She threw her books down upon a chair, and opened some pages of scrawled
manuscript, talking hurriedly in a thin falsetto.

Her family, a large one, had fallen of late years from a position of
moderate comfort into sheer struggle for subsistence. Jessica, armed
with certificates of examinational prowess, got work as a visiting
governess. At the same time, she nourished ambitions, discernible
perhaps in the singular light of her deep-set eyes and a something
of hysteric determination about her lips. Her aim, at present, was to
become a graduate of London University; she was toiling in her leisure
hours--the hours of exhaustion, that is to say--to prepare herself for
matriculation, which she hoped to achieve in the coming winter. Of
her intimate acquaintances only one could lay claim to intellectual
superiority, and even she, Nancy Lord to wit, shrank from the ordeals of
Burlington House. To become B.A., to have her name in the newspapers, to
be regarded as one of the clever, the uncommon women--for this Jessica
was willing to labour early and late, regardless of failing health,
regardless even of ruined complexion and hair that grew thin beneath the
comb.

She talked only of the ‘exam,’ of her chances in this or that ‘paper,’
of the likelihood that this or the other question would be ‘set.’
Her brain was becoming a mere receptacle for dates and definitions,
vocabularies and rules syntactic, for thrice-boiled essence of history,
ragged scraps of science, quotations at fifth hand, and all the
heterogeneous rubbish of a ‘crammer’s’ shop. When away from her books,
she carried scraps of paper, with jottings to be committed to memory.
Beside her plate at meals lay formulae and tabulations. She went to bed
with a manual and got up with a compendium.

Nancy, whose pursuit of ‘culture’ followed a less exhausting track,
regarded the girl with a little envy and some compassion. Esteeming
herself in every respect Jessica’s superior, she could not help a slight
condescension in the tone she used to her; yet their friendship had much
sincerity on both sides, and each was the other’s only confidante. As
soon as the mathematical difficulty could be set aside, Nancy began to
speak of her private troubles.

‘The Prophet was here last night,’ she said, with a girlish grimace.
‘He’s beginning again. I can see it coming. I shall have to snub him
awfully next time.’

‘Oh, what a worry he is!’

‘Yes, but there’s something worse. I suspected that the Pasha knew of
it; now I feel sure he’s encouraging him.’

By this oriental style Nancy signified her father. The Prophet was her
father’s partner in business, Mr. Samuel Bennett Barmby.

‘I feel sure now that they talked it over when the Prophet was taken
into partnership. I was thrown in as a “consideration.”’

‘But how could your father possibly think--?’

‘It’s hard to say what he _does_ think about me. I’m afraid I shall
have to have a talk with him. If so, it will be a long talk, and a very
serious talk. But he isn’t well just now, and I must put it off.’

‘He isn’t well?’

‘A touch of gout, he says. Two days last week he didn’t go to business,
and his temper was _that ‘orrible_!’ Nancy had a habit of facetiously
quoting vulgarities; this from an acquaintance of theirs who
often supplied them with mirth. ‘I suppose the gout does make one
bad-tempered.’

‘Has he been coming often?--Mr. Barmby, I mean.’

‘Pretty well. I think I must turn matchmaker, and get him married to
some one. It oughtn’t to be difficult. The Prophet “has points.”’

‘I dare say some people would think him handsome,’ assented Miss Morgan,
nibbling a finger which showed an ink-stain, and laughing shyly.

‘And his powers of conversation!--Don’t you know any one that would do
for him?’

They jested on this theme until Nancy chose to become serious again.

‘Have you any lessons to-morrow?’

‘No. Thank goodness every one is going to see the procession, or the
decorations, or the illuminations, and all the rest of the nonsense,’
Jessica replied. ‘I shall have a good long day of work; except that I’ve
promised to go in the afternoon, and have tea with the little girls at
Champion Hill. I wish you’d come too; they’d be delighted to see you,
and there’ll be nobody except the governess.’

Nancy looked up in doubt.

‘Are you sure? Won’t the dowager be at home?’

‘She hasn’t left her room for three weeks.’

They exchanged a look of some special significance.

‘Then I suppose,’ said Nancy, with a peculiar smile, ‘that’s why Mr
Tarrant has been calling?’

‘Has he? How do you know?’

Again they looked at each other, and Nancy laughed.

‘I have happened to meet him twice, the last few days.’ She spoke in an
off-hand way. ‘The first time, it was just at the top of the lane; he
was coming away. The second time, I was walking along Champion Hill, and
he came up behind me, going to the house.’

‘Did he talk?’

Nancy gave a nod.

‘Yes, both times. But he didn’t tell me that the dowager was worse.’

‘High and mighty?’ asked Jessica.

‘Not quite so majestic as usual, I thought. I didn’t feel quite so much
of a shrimp before him. And decidedly he was in better spirits. Perhaps
the dowager’s death would be important to him?’

‘Very likely. Will you come to-morrow?’

Miss. Lord hesitated--then, with a sudden frankness:

‘To tell you the truth, I’m afraid he might be there.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so, not on Jubilee Day.’

‘But that’s the very reason. He may come to be out of the uproar.’

‘I meant he was more likely to be out of town altogether.’

Nancy, still leaning over the table, propped her chin on her hands, and
reflected.

‘Where does he go, I wonder?’

‘Oh, all sorts of places, no doubt. Men of that kind are always
travelling. I suppose he goes shooting and fishing--’

Nancy’s laugh made an interruption.

‘No, no, he doesn’t! He told me once that he didn’t care for that sort
of thing.’

‘Oh, well, you know much more about him than I do,’ said Miss Morgan,
with a smile.

‘I’ve often meant to ask you--have they anything to do with Tarrant’s
black-lead?’

Jessica declared that she had never heard of it.

‘Never heard of it? nonsense! A few years ago it used to be posted up
everywhere, and I see it sometimes even now, but other kinds seem to
have driven it out of the market. Now that’s just like you! Pray, did
you ever hear of Pears’ Soap?’

‘Of course.’

‘Really? Oh, there’s hope of you. You’ll be a woman of the world some
day.’

‘Don’t tease, Nancy. And what would it matter if he _was_ there
to-morrow?’

‘Oh! I don’t know. But I shouldn’t particularly like his lordship to
imagine that I went in the hope of paying my respects to him, and having
the reward of a gracious smile.’

‘One can’t always be thinking about what other people think,’ said
Jessica impatiently. ‘You’re too sensitive. Any one else in your
position would have lots of such friends.’

‘In my position! What _is_ my position?’

‘Culture is everything now-a-days,’ observed Miss. Morgan, with the air
of one who feels herself abundantly possessed of that qualification.

But Nancy laughed.

‘You may depend upon it, Mr. Tarrant doesn’t think so.’

‘He calls himself a democrat.’

‘And talks like one: doesn’t he?’

‘Oh! that’s only his way, I think. He doesn’t really mean to be haughty,
and--and so on.’

‘I wish I knew if he had any connection with Tarrant’s blacklead,’ said
Miss. Lord mischievously.

‘Why not ask him?’

They laughed merrily, Jessica’s thin note contrasting with the mellow
timbre of her friend’s voice.

‘I will some day.’

‘You would never dare to!’

‘I daren’t? Then I will!’

‘It would be dreadfully rude.’

‘I don’t mind being thought rude,’ replied Nancy, with a movement of the
head, ‘if it teaches people that I consider myself as good as they are.’

‘Well, will you come to-morrow?’

‘Ye-es; if you’ll go somewhere else with me in the evening.’

‘Where to?’

‘To walk about the streets after dark, and see the crowds and the
illuminations.’

Nancy uttered this with a sly mirthfulness. Her friend was astonished.

‘Nonsense! you don’t mean it.’

‘I do. I want to go for the fun of the thing. I should feel ashamed of
myself if I ran to stare at Royalties, but it’s a different thing at
night. It’ll be wonderful, all the traffic stopped, and the streets
crammed with people, and blazing with lights. Won’t you go?’

‘But the time, the time! I can’t afford it. I’m getting on so wretchedly
with my Greek and my chemistry.’

‘You’ve time enough,’ said Nancy. ‘And, you know, after all it’s a
historical event. In the year 3000 it will be ‘set’ in an examination
paper, and poor wretches will get plucked because they don’t know the
date.’

This was quite a new aspect of the matter to Jessica Morgan. She
pondered it, and smiled.

‘Yes, I suppose it will. But we should have to be out so late.’

‘Why not, for once? It needn’t be later than half-past eleven.’ Nancy
broke off and gesticulated. ‘That’s just why I want to go! I should like
to walk about all night, as lots of people will. The public-houses are
going to be kept open till two o’clock.’

‘Do you want to go into public-houses?’ asked Jessica, laughing.

‘Why not? I should like to. It’s horrible to be tied up as we are; we’re
not children. Why can’t we go about as men do?’

‘Won’t your father make any objection?’ asked Jessica.

‘We shall take Horace with us. Your people wouldn’t interfere, would
they?’

‘I think not. Father is away in Yorkshire, and will be till the end of
the week. Poor mother has her rheumatism. The house is so dreadfully
damp. We ought never to have taken it. The difference of rent will all
go in doctors’ bills.--I don’t think mother would mind; but I must be
back before twelve, of course.’

‘I don’t see the “of course,”’ Nancy returned impatiently, ‘but we could
manage that. I’ll speak to the Pasha to-night, and either come, or let
you have a note, to-morrow morning. If there’s any objection, I’m not
sure that I shan’t make it the opportunity for setting up my standard of
revolt. But I don’t like to do that whilst the Pasha is out of sorts--it
might make him worse.’

‘You could reason with him quietly.’

‘Reason with the Pasha--How innocent you are, Jess! How unworldly! It
always refreshes me to hear you talk.’



CHAPTER 4



Only twelve months ago Stephen Lord had renewed the lease of his
house for a period of seven years. Nancy, had she been aware of this
transaction, would assuredly have found courage to enter a protest, but
Mr. Lord consulted neither son nor daughter on any point of business;
but for this habit of acting silently, he would have seemed to his
children a still more arbitrary ruler than they actually thought him.

The dwelling consisted of but eight rooms, one of which, situated at
the rear of the entrance passage, served Mr. Lord as sitting-room and
bed-chamber; it overlooked a small garden, and afforded a side glimpse
of the kitchen with its outer appurtenances. In the front room the
family took meals. Of the chambers in the storey above, one was Nancy’s,
one her brother’s; the third had, until six years ago, been known as
‘Grandmother’s room,’ and here its occupant, Stephen Lord’s mother, died
at the age of seventy-eight. Wife of a Norfolk farmer, and mother of
nine children, she was one of the old-world women whose thoughts found
abundant occupation in the cares and pleasures of home. Hardship she had
never known, nor yet luxury; the old religion, the old views of sex and
of society, endured with her to the end.

After her death the room was converted into a parlour, used almost
exclusively by the young people. At the top of the house slept two
servants, each in her own well-furnished retreat; one of them was a
girl, the other a woman of about forty, named Mary Woodruff. Mary had
been in the house for twenty years; she enjoyed her master’s confidence,
and, since old Mrs. Lord’s death, exercised practical control in the
humbler domestic affairs.

With one exception, all parts of the abode presented much the same
appearance as when Stephen Lord first established himself antiquated,
and in primitive taste. Nancy’s bedroom alone here. The furniture was
old, solid, homely; the ornaments were displayed the influence of modern
ideas. On her twentieth birthday, the girl received permission to dress
henceforth as she chose (a strict sumptuary law having previously been
in force), and at the same time was allowed to refurnish her chamber.
Nancy pleaded for modern reforms throughout the house, but in vain; even
the drawing-room kept its uninviting aspect, not very different, save
for the removal of the bed, from that it had presented when the ancient
lady slept here. In her own little domain, Miss. Lord made a clean
sweep of rude appointments, and at small expense surrounded herself with
pretty things. The woodwork and the furniture were in white enamel; the
paper had a pattern of wild-rose. A choice chintz, rose-leaf and flower
on a white ground, served for curtains and for bed-hangings. Her carpet
was of green felt, matching in shade the foliage of the chintz. On
suspended shelves stood the books which she desired to have near her,
and round about the walls hung prints, photographs, chromolithographs,
selected in an honest spirit of admiration, which on the whole did no
discredit to Nancy’s sensibilities.

To the best of Nancy’s belief, her father had never seen this room.
On its completion she invited him to inspect it, but Mr. Lord coldly
declined, saying that he knew nothing, and cared nothing, about
upholstery.

His return to-day was earlier than usual. Shortly after five o’clock
Nancy heard the familiar heavy step in the passage, and went downstairs.

‘Will you have a cup of tea, father?’ she asked, standing by the door of
the back room, which was ajar.

‘If it’s ready,’ replied a deep voice.

She entered the dining-room, and rang the bell. In a few minutes Mary
Woodruff appeared, bringing tea and biscuits. She was a neat, quiet,
plain-featured woman, of strong physique, and with set lips, which
rarely parted save for necessary speech. Her eyes had a singular
expression of inquietude, of sadness. A smile seldom appeared on her
face, but, when it did, the effect was unlooked for: it touched the
somewhat harsh lineaments with a gentleness so pleasing that she became
almost comely.

Having set down the tray, she went to Mr. Lord’s door, gave a soft tap,
and withdrew into the kitchen.

Nancy, seated at the table, turned to greet her father. In early life,
Stephen Lord must have been handsome; his face was now rugged, of
unhealthy tone, and creased with lines betokening a moody habit. He
looked much older than his years, which were fifty-seven. Dressed with
excessive carelessness, he had the appearance rather of one at odds
with fortune than of a substantial man of business. His short beard was
raggedly trimmed; his grizzled hair began to show the scalp. Judging
from the contour of his visage, one might have credited him with a
forcible and commanding character; his voice favoured that impression;
but the countenance had a despondent cast, the eyes seemed to shun
observation, the lips suggested a sullen pride, indicative of some
defect or vice of will.

Yet in the look which he cast upon her, Nancy detected a sign of more
amiability than she had found in him of late. She addressed him with
confidence.

‘Early to-day, father.’

‘Yes.’

The monosyllable sounded gruff, but again Nancy felt satisfaction. Mr.
Lord, who disliked to seat himself unless he were going to keep his
position for some time, took the offered beverage from his daughter’s
hand, and stood with it before the fireplace, casting glances about the
room.

‘How have you felt, father?’

‘Nothing to complain of.’

His pronunciation fell short of refinement, but was not vulgar.
Something of country accent could still be detected in it. He talked
like a man who could strike a softer note if he cared to, but despises
the effort.

‘I suppose you will have a rest to-morrow?’

‘I suppose so. If your grandmother had lived,’ he added thoughtfully,
‘she would have been eighty-four this week on Thursday.’

‘The 23rd of June. Yes, I remember.’

Mr. Lord swallowed his tea at two draughts, and put down the cup.
Seemingly refreshed, he looked about him with a half smile, and said
quietly:

‘I’ve had the pleasure of punishing a scoundrel to-day. That’s worth
more than the Jubilee.’

Nancy waited for an explanation, but it was not vouchsafed.

‘A scoundrel?’ she asked.

Her father nodded--the nod which signified his pleasure that the subject
should not be pursued. Nancy could only infer that he spoke of some
incident in the course of business, as indeed was the case.

He had no particular aptitude for trade, and that by which he lived (he
had entered upon it thirty years ago rather by accident than choice) was
thoroughly distasteful to him. As a dealer in pianofortes, he came into
contact with a class of people who inspired him with a savage contempt,
and of late years his business had suffered considerably from the
competition of tradesmen who knew nothing of such conflicts between
sentiment and interest. A majority of his customers obtained their
pianos on the ‘hire-purchase system,’ and oftener than not, they were
persons of very small or very precarious income, who, rabid in the
pursuit of gentility, signed agreements they had little chance of
fulfilling; when in pecuniary straits, they either raised money upon
the instruments, or allowed them to fall into the hands of distraining
creditors. Inquiry into the circumstances of a would-be customer
sometimes had ludicrous results; a newly-married couple, for instance,
would be found tenanting two top-floor rooms, the furnishing whereof
seemed to them incomplete without the piano of which their friends and
relatives boasted. Not a few professional swindlers came to the office;
confederate rogues, vouching for each other’s respectability, got
possession of pianos merely to pawn or sell them, having paid no more
than the first month’s charge. It was Mr Lord’s experience that year by
year the recklessness of the vulgar became more glaring, and deliberate
fraud more artful. To-day he had successfully prosecuted a man who
seemed to have lived for some time on the hire-purchase system, and it
made him unusually cheerful.

‘You don’t think of going to see the Queen to-morrow?’ said his
daughter, smiling.

‘What have I to do with the Queen? Do you wish to go?’

‘Not to see Her Majesty. I care as little about her as you do. But I
thought of having a walk in the evening.’

Nancy phrased it thus with intention. She wished to intimate that, at
her age, it could hardly be necessary to ask permission. But her father
looked surprised.

‘In the evening? Where?’

‘Oh, about the main streets--to see the people and the illuminations.’

Her voice was not quite firm.

‘But,’ said her father, ‘there’ll be such a swarm of blackguards as
never was known. How can you go into such a crowd? It’s astonishing that
you should think of it.’

‘The blackguards will be outnumbered by the decent people, father.’

‘You suppose that’s possible?’ he returned gloomily.

‘Oh, I think so,’ Nancy laughed. ‘At all events, there’ll be a great
majority of people who pretend to be decent. I have asked Jessica Morgan
to go with me.’

‘What right had you to ask her, without first finding out whether you
could go or not?’

It was spoken rather gravely than severely. Mr. Lord never looked
fixedly at his daughter, and even a glance at her face was unusual; but
at this juncture he met her eyes for an instant. The nervous motion with
which he immediately turned aside had been marked by Nancy on previous
occasions, and she had understood it as a sign of his lack of affection
for her.

‘I am twenty-three years old, father,’ she replied, without
aggressiveness.

‘That would be something of an answer if you were a man,’ observed the
father, his eyes cast down.

‘Because I am a woman, you despise me?’

Stephen was startled at this unfamiliar mode of address. He moved
uneasily.

‘If I despised you, Nancy, I shouldn’t care very much what you did. I
suppose you must do as you like, but you won’t go with my permission.’

There was a silence, then the girl said:

‘I meant to ask Horace to go with us.’

‘Horace--pooh!’

Again a silence. Mr. Lord laid down his cup, moved a few steps away, and
turned back.

‘I didn’t think this kind of thing was in your way,’ he said gruffly. ‘I
thought you were above it.’

Nancy defended herself as she had done to Jessica, but without the
playfulness. In listening, her father seemed to weigh the merits of the
case conscientiously with wrinkled brows. At length he spoke.

‘Horace is no good. But if Samuel Barmby will go with you, I make no
objection.’

A movement of annoyance was Nancy’s first reply. She drummed with her
fingers on the table, looking fixedly before her.

‘I certainly can’t ask Mr. Barmby to come with us,’ she said, with an
effort at self-control.

‘Well, you needn’t. I’ll speak about it myself.’

He waited, and again it chanced that their eyes met. Nancy, on the point
of speaking, checked herself. A full minute passed, and Stephen stood
waiting patiently.

‘If you insist upon it,’ said Nancy, rising from her chair, ‘we will
take Mr. Barmby with us.’

Without comment, Mr. Lord left the room, and his own door closed rather
loudly behind him.

Not long afterwards Nancy heard a new foot in the passage, and her
brother made his appearance. Horace had good looks, but his face showed
already some of the unpleasant characteristics which time had developed
on that of Stephen Lord, and from which the daughter was entirely free;
one judged him slow of intellect and weakly self-willed. His hair was
of pale chestnut, the silky pencillings of his moustache considerably
darker. His cheek, delicately pink and easily changing to a warmer hue,
his bright-coloured lips, and the limpid glistening of his eyes, showed
him of frail constitution; he was very slim, and narrow across
the shoulders. The fashion of his attire tended to a dandiacal
extreme,--modish silk hat, lavender necktie, white waistcoat, gaiters
over his patent-leather shoes, gloves crushed together in one hand,
and in the other a bamboo cane. For the last year or two he had been
progressing in this direction, despite his father’s scornful remarks and
his sister’s good-natured mockery.

‘Father in yet?’ he asked at the door of the dining-room, in subdued
voice.

Nancy nodded, and the young man withdrew to lay aside his outdoor
equipments.

‘What sort of temper?’ was his question when he returned.

‘Pretty good--until I spoilt it.’

Horace exhibited a pettish annoyance.

‘What on earth did you do that for? I want to have a talk with him
to-night.’

‘About what?’

‘Oh, never mind; I’ll tell you after.’

Both kept their voices low, as if afraid of being overheard in the next
room. Horace began to nibble at a biscuit; the hour of his return made
it unnecessary for him, as a rule, to take anything before dinner, but
at present he seemed in a nervous condition, and acted mechanically.

‘Come out into the garden, will you?’ he said, after receiving a brief
explanation of what had passed between Nancy and her father. ‘I’ve
something to tell you.’

His sister carelessly assented, and with heads uncovered they went
through the house into the open air. The garden was but a strip of
ground, bounded by walls of four feet high; in the midst stood a
laburnum, now heavy with golden bloom, and at the end grew a holly-bush,
flanked with laurels; a border flower-bed displayed Stephen Lord’s taste
and industry. Nancy seated herself on a rustic bench in the shadow of
the laburnum, and Horace stood before her, one of the branches in his
hand.

‘I promised Fanny to take her to-morrow night,’ he began awkwardly.

‘Oh, you have?’

‘And we’re going together in the morning, you know.’

‘I know now. I didn’t before,’ Nancy replied.

‘Of course we can make a party in the evening.’

‘Of course.’

Horace looked up at the ugly house-backs, and hesitated before
proceeding.

‘That isn’t what I wanted to talk about,’ he said at length. ‘A very
queer thing has happened, a thing I can’t make out at all.’

The listener looked her curiosity.

‘I promised to say nothing about it, but there’s no harm in telling you,
you know. You remember I was away last Saturday afternoon? Well, just
when it was time to leave the office, that day, the porter came to say
that a lady wished to see me--a lady in a carriage outside. Of course I
couldn’t make it out at all, but I went down as quickly as possible,
and saw the carriage waiting there,--a brougham,--and marched up to the
door. Inside there was a lady--a great swell, smiling at me as if we
were friends. I took off my hat, and said that I was Mr. Lord. “Yes,”
 she said, “I see you are;” and she asked if I could spare her an hour
or two, as she wished to speak to me of something important. Well, of
course I could only say that I had nothing particular to do,--that I was
just going home. “Then will you do me the pleasure,” she said, “to come
and have lunch with me? I live in Weymouth Street, Portland Place.”

The young man paused to watch the effect of his narrative, especially of
the last words. Nancy returned his gaze with frank astonishment.

‘What sort of lady was it?’ she asked.

‘Oh, a great swell. Somebody in the best society--you could see that at
once.’

‘But how old?’

‘Well, I couldn’t tell exactly; about forty, I should think.’

‘Oh!--Go on.’

‘One couldn’t refuse, you know; I was only too glad to go to a house in
the West End. She opened the carriage-door from the inside, and I got
in, and off we drove. I felt awkward, of course, but after all I
was decently dressed, and I suppose I can behave like a gentleman,
and--well, she sat looking at me and smiling, and I could only smile
back. Then she said she must apologise for behaving so strangely, but I
was very young, and she was an old woman,--one couldn’t call her that,
though,--and she had taken this way of renewing her acquaintance with
me. Renewing? But I didn’t remember to have ever met her before, I said.
“Oh, yes, we have met before, but you were a little child, a baby in
fact, and there’s no wonder you don’t remember me?” And then she said,
“I knew your mother very well.”

Nancy leaned forward, her lips apart.

‘Queer, wasn’t it? Then she went on to say that her name was Mrs.
Damerel; had I ever heard it? No, I couldn’t remember the name at all.
She was a widow, she said, and had lived mostly abroad for a great many
years; now she was come back to settle in England. She hadn’t a house of
her own yet, but lived at a boarding-house; she didn’t know whether to
take a house in London, or somewhere just out in the country. Then she
began to ask about father, and about you; and it seemed to amuse her
when I looked puzzled. She’s a jolly sort of person, always laughing.’

‘Did she say anything more about our mother?’

‘I’ll tell you about that presently. We got to the house, and went in,
and she took me upstairs to her own private sitting-room, where the
table was laid for two. She said that she usually had her meals with
the other people, but it would be better for us to be alone, so that we
could talk.’

‘How did she know where to find you?’ Nancy inquired.

‘Of course I wondered about that, but I didn’t like to ask. Well, she
went away for a few minutes, and then we had lunch. Everything was A-1
of course; first-rate wines to choose from, and a rattling good cigar
afterwards--for me, I mean. She brought out a box; said they were her
husband’s, and had a laugh about it.’

‘How long has she been a widow?’ asked Nancy.

‘I don’t know. She didn’t wear colours, I noticed; perhaps it was a
fashionable sort of mourning. We talked about all sorts of things; I
soon made myself quite at home. And at last she began to explain. She
was a friend of mother’s, years and years ago, and father was the cause
of their parting, a quarrel about something, she didn’t say exactly
what. And it had suddenly struck her that she would like to know how we
were getting on. Then she asked me to promise that I would tell no one.’

‘She knew about mother’s death, I suppose?’

‘Oh yes, she knew about that. It happened not very long after the affair
that parted them. She asked a good many questions about you. And she
wanted to know how father had got on in his business.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Oh, I told her I really didn’t know much about it, and she laughed at
that.’

‘How long did you stay there?’

‘Till about four. But there’s something else. Before I went away she
gave me an invitation for next Saturday. She wants me to meet her at
Portland Road Station, and go out to Richmond, and have dinner there.’

‘Shall you go?’

‘Well, it’s very awkward. I want to go somewhere else on Saturday, with
Fanny. But I didn’t see how to refuse.’

Nancy wore a look of grave reflection, and kept silence.

‘It isn’t a bad thing, you know,’ pursued her brother, ‘to have a friend
of that sort. There’s no knowing what use she might be, especially just
now.’

His tone caused Nancy to look up.

‘Why just now?’

‘I’ll tell you after I’ve had a talk with father to-night,’ Horace
replied, setting his countenance to a show of energetic resolve.

‘Shall I guess what you’re going to talk about?’

‘If you like.’

She gazed at him.

‘You’re surely not so silly as to tell father about all that nonsense?’

‘What nonsense?’ exclaimed the other indignantly.

‘Why, with Fanny French.’

‘You’ll find that it’s anything but nonsense,’ Horace replied, raising
his brows, and gazing straight before him, with expanded nostrils.

‘All right. Let me know the result. It’s time to go in.’

Horace sat alone for a minute or two, his legs at full length, his
feet crossed, and the upper part of his body bent forward. He smiled to
himself, a smile of singular fatuity, and began to hum a popular tune.



CHAPTER 5



When they assembled at table, Mr. Lord had recovered his moderate
cheerfulness. Essentially, he was anything but ill-tempered; Horace and
Nancy were far from regarding him with that resentful bitterness which
is produced in the victims of a really harsh parent. Ten years ago, as
they well remembered, anger was a rare thing in his behaviour to them,
and kindness the rule. Affectionate he had never shown himself; reserve
and austerity had always distinguished him. Even now-a-days, it was
generally safe to anticipate mildness from him at the evening meal. In
the matter of eating and drinking his prudence notably contradicted his
precepts. He loved strong meats, dishes highly flavoured, and partook of
them without moderation. At table his beverage was ale; for wine--unless
it were very sweet port--he cared little; but in the privacy of his
own room, whilst smoking numberless pipes of rank tobacco, he indulged
freely in spirits. The habit was unknown to his children, but for some
years he had seldom gone to bed in a condition that merited the name of
sobriety.

When the repast was nearly over, Mr. Lord glanced at his son and said
unconcernedly:

‘You have heard that Nancy wants to mix with the rag-tag and bobtail
to-morrow night?’

‘I shall take care of her,’ Horace replied, starting from his reverie.

‘Doesn’t it seem to you rather a come-down for an educated young lady?’

‘Oh, there’ll be lots of them about.’

‘Will there? Then I can’t see much difference between them and the
servant girls.’

Nancy put in a word.

‘That shows you don’t in the least understand me, father.’

‘We won’t argue about it. But bear in mind, Horace, that you bring
your sister back not later than half-past eleven. You are to be here by
half-past eleven.’

‘That’s rather early,’ replied the young man, though in a submissive
tone.

‘It’s the hour I appoint. Samuel Barmby will be with you, and he will
know the arrangement; but I tell you now, so that there may be no
misunderstanding.’

Nancy sat in a very upright position, displeasure plain upon her
countenance. But she made no remark. Horace, who had his reasons for
desiring to preserve a genial tone, affected acquiescence. Presently he
and his sister went upstairs to the drawing-room, where they sat down at
a distance apart--Nancy by the window, gazing at the warm clouds above
the roofs opposite, the young man in a corner which the dusk already
shadowed. Some time passed before either spoke, and it was Horace’s
voice which first made itself heard.

‘Nancy, don’t you think it’s about time we began to behave firmly?’

‘It depends what you mean by firmness,’ she answered in an absent tone.

‘We’re old enough to judge for ourselves.’

‘I am, no doubt. But I’m not so sure about you.’

‘Oh, all right. Then we won’t talk about it.’

Another quarter of an hour went by. The room was in twilight. There came
a knock at the door, and Mary Woodruff, a wax-taper in her hand, entered
to light the gas. Having drawn the blind, and given a glance round
to see that everything was in order, she addressed Nancy, her tone
perfectly respectful, though she used no formality.

‘Martha has been asking me whether she can go out to-morrow night for an
hour or two.’

‘You don’t wish to go yourself?’ Miss. Lord returned, her voice
significant of life-long familiarity.

‘Oh no!’

And Mary showed one of her infrequent smiles.

‘She may go immediately after dinner, and be away till half-past ten.’

The servant bent her head, and withdrew. As soon as she was gone, Horace
laughed.

‘There you are! What did father say?’

Nancy was silent.

‘Well, I’m going to have a word with him,’ continued the young man,
sauntering towards the door with his hands in his pockets. He looked
exceedingly nervous. ‘When I come back, I may have something to tell
you.’

‘Very likely,’ remarked his sister in a dry tone, and seated herself
under the chandelier with a book.

Horace slowly descended the stairs. At the foot he stood for a moment,
then moved towards his father’s door. Another hesitancy, though briefer,
and he knocked for admission, which was at once granted. Mr. Lord sat in
his round-backed chair, smoking a pipe, on his knees an evening paper.
He looked at Horace from under his eyebrows, but with good humour.

‘Coming to report progress?’

‘Yes, father,--and to talk over things in general.’

The slim youth--he could hardly be deemed more than a lad tried
to assume an easy position, with his elbow on the corner of the
mantelpiece; but his feet shuffled, and his eyes strayed vacantly. It
cost him an effort to begin his customary account of how things were
going with him at the shipping-office. In truth, there was nothing
particular to report; there never was anything particular; but Horace
always endeavoured to show that he had made headway, and to-night he
spoke with a very pronounced optimism.

‘Very well, my boy,’ said his father. ‘If you are satisfied, I shall try
to be the same. Have you your pipe with you?--At your age I hadn’t begun
to smoke, and I should advise you to be moderate; but we’ll have a whiff
together, if you like.’

‘I’ll go and fetch it,’ Horace replied impulsively.

He came back with a rather expensive meerschaum, recently purchased.

‘Hollo! luxuries!’ exclaimed his father.

‘It kept catching my eye in a window,--and at last I couldn’t resist.
Tobacco’s quite a different thing out of a pipe like this, you know.’

No one, seeing them thus together, could have doubted of the
affectionate feeling which Stephen Lord entertained for his son. It
appeared in his frequent glances, in the relaxation of his features,
in a certain abandonment of his whole frame, as though he had only just
begun to enjoy the evening’s repose.

‘I’ve something rather important to speak about, father,’ Horace began,
when he had puffed for a few minutes in silence.

‘Oh? What’s that?’

‘You remember telling me, when I was one and twenty, that you wished me
to work my way up, and win an income of my own, but that I could look to
you for help, if ever there was need of it--?’

Yes, Stephen remembered. He had frequently called it to mind, and
wondered whether it was wisely said, the youth’s character considered.

‘What of that?’ he returned, still genially. ‘Do you think of starting a
new line of ocean steamships?’

‘Well, not just yet,’ Horace answered, with an uncertain laugh. ‘I have
something more moderate in view. I may start a competition with the P.
and O. presently.’

‘Let’s hear about it.’

‘I dare say it will surprise you a little. The fact is, I--I am thinking
of getting married.’

The father did not move, but smoke ceased to issue from his lips, and
his eyes, fixed upon Horace, widened a little in puzzled amusement.

‘Thinking of it, are you?’ he said, in an undertone, as one speaks
of some trifle. ‘No harm in thinking. Too many people do it without
thinking at all.’

‘I’m not one of that kind,’ said Horace, with an air of maturity which
was meant to rebuke his father’s jest. ‘I know what I’m about. I’ve
thought it over thoroughly. You don’t think it too soon, I hope?’

Horace’s pipe was going out; he held it against his knee and regarded it
with unconscious eyes.

‘I dare say it won’t be,’ said Mr. Lord, ‘when you have found a suitable
wife.’

‘Oh, but you misunderstand me. I mean that I have decided to marry a
particular person.’

‘And who may that be?’

‘The younger Miss. French--Fanny.’

His voice quivered over the name; at the end he gave a gasp and a
gulp. Of a sudden his lips and tongue were very dry, and he felt a
disagreeable chill running down his back. For the listener’s face had
altered noticeably; it was dark, stern, and something worse. But Mr.
Lord could still speak with self-control.

‘You have asked her to marry you?’

‘Yes, I have; and she has consented.’

Horace felt his courage returning, like the so-called ‘second wind’ of
a runner. It seemed to him that he had gone through the worst. The
disclosure was made, and had resulted in no outbreak of fury; now he
could begin to plead his cause. Imagination, excited by nervous stress,
brought before him a clear picture of the beloved Fanny, with fluffy
hair upon her forehead and a laugh on her never-closed lips. He spoke
without effort.

‘I thought that there would be no harm in asking you to help us. We
should be quite content to start on a couple of hundred a year--quite.
That is only about fifty pounds more than we have.’

Calf-love inspires many an audacity. To Horace there seemed nothing
outrageous in this suggestion. He had talked it over with Fanny French
several times, and they had agreed that his father could not in decency
offer them _less_ than a hundred a year. He began to shake out the ashes
from his pipe, with a vague intention of relighting it.

‘You really imagine,’ said his father, ‘that I should give you money to
enable you to marry that idiot?’

Evidently he put a severe restraint upon himself. The veins of his
temples were congested; his nostrils grew wide; and he spoke rather
hoarsely. Horace straightened his back, and, though in great fear,
strung himself for conflict.

‘I don’t see--what right--to insult the young lady.’

His father took him up sternly.

‘Young lady? What do you mean by “young lady”? After all your education,
haven’t you learnt to distinguish a lady from a dressed-up kitchen
wench? _I_ had none of your advantages. There was--there would have been
some excuse for _me_, if I had made such a fool of myself. What were you
doing all those years at school, if it wasn’t learning the difference
between real and sham, getting to understand things better than poor
folks’ children? You disappointed me, and a good deal more than I ever
told you. I had hoped you would come from school better able to make a
place in the world than your father was. I made up my mind long ago that
you should never go into my business; you were to be something a good
deal better. But after all you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do what I wanted.
Never mind--I said to myself--never mind; at all events, he has learnt
to _think_ in a better way than if I had sent him to common schools,
and after all that’s the main thing. But here you come to me and talk
of marrying a low-bred, low-minded creature, who wouldn’t be good enough
for the meanest clerk!’

‘How do you know that, father? What--what right have you to say such
things, without knowing more of her than you do?’

There was a brief silence before Mr. Lord spoke again.

‘You are very young,’ he said, with less vehement contempt. ‘I must
remember that. At your age, a lad has a sort of devil in him, that’s
always driving him out of the path of common sense, whether he will or
no. I’ll try my best to talk quietly with you. Does your sister know
what has been going on?’

‘I daresay she does. I haven’t told her in so many words.’

‘I never thought of it,’ pursued Mr. Lord gloomily. ‘I took it for
granted that everybody must see those people as I myself did. I have
wondered now and then why Nancy kept up any kind of acquaintance with
them, but she spoke of them in the rational way, and that seemed enough.
I may have thought that they might get some sort of good out of _her_,
and I felt sure she had too much sense to get harm from _them_. If it
hadn’t been so, I should have forbidden her to know them at all. What
have you to say for yourself? I don’t want to think worse of you than I
need. I can make allowance for your age, as I said. What do you see in
that girl? Just talk to me freely and plainly.’

‘After all you have said,’ replied Horace, his voice still shaky,
‘what’s the use? You seem to be convinced that there isn’t a single good
quality in her.’

‘So I am. What I want to know is, what good _you_ have found.’

‘A great deal, else I shouldn’t have asked her to marry me.’

A vein of stubbornness, unmistakable inheritance from Stephen Lord,
had begun to appear in the youth’s speech and bearing. He kept his head
bent, and moved it a little from side to side.

‘Do you think her an exception in the family, then?’

‘She’s a great deal better in every way than her sisters. But I don’t
think as badly of them as you do.’

Mr. Lord stepped to the door, and out into the passage, where he shouted
in his deep voice ‘Nancy!’ The girl quickly appeared.

‘Shut the door, please,’ said her father. All three were now standing
about the room. ‘Your brother has brought me a piece of news. It ought
to interest you, I should think. He wants to marry, and out of all the
world, he has chosen Miss. French--the youngest.’ Horace’s position was
trying. He did not know what to do with his hands, and he kept balancing
now on one foot, now on the other. Nancy had her eyes averted from him,
but she met her father’s look gravely.

‘Now, I want to ask you,’ Mr. Lord proceeded, ‘whether you consider
Miss. French a suitable wife for your brother? Just give me a plain yes
or no.’

‘I certainly don’t,’ replied the girl, barely subduing the tremor of her
voice.

‘Both my children are not fools, thank Heaven! Now tell me, if you can,
what fault you have to find with the “young lady,” as your brother calls
her?’

‘For one thing, I don’t think her Horace’s equal. She can’t really be
called a lady.’

‘You are listening?’

Horace bit his lip in mortification, and again his head swung doggedly
from side to side.

‘We might pass over that,’ added Mr. Lord. ‘What about her character? Is
there any good point in her?’

‘I don’t think she means any harm. But she’s silly, and I’ve often
thought her selfish.’

‘You are listening?’

Horace lost patience.

‘Then why do you pretend to be friends with her?’ he demanded almost
fiercely.

‘I don’t,’ replied his sister, with a note of disdain. ‘We knew each
other at school, and we haven’t altogether broken off, that’s all.’

‘It isn’t all!’ shouted the young man on a high key. ‘If you’re not
friendly with her and her sisters, you’ve been a great hypocrite. It’s
only just lately you have begun to think yourself too good for them.
They used to come here, and you went to them; and you talked just like
friends would do. It’s abominable to turn round like this, for the sake
of taking father’s side against me!’

Mr. Lord regarded his son contemptuously. There was a rather long
silence; he spoke at length with severe deliberation.

‘When you are ten years older, you’ll know a good deal more about young
women as they’re turned out in these times. You’ll have heard the talk
of men who have been fools enough to marry choice specimens. When common
sense has a chance of getting in a word with you, you’ll understand
what I now tell you. Wherever you look now-a-days there’s sham and
rottenness; but the most worthless creature living is one of these
trashy, flashy girls,--the kind of girl you see everywhere, high and
low,--calling themselves “ladies,”--thinking themselves too good for
any honest, womanly work. Town and country, it’s all the same. They’re
educated; oh yes, they’re educated! What sort of wives do they make,
with their education? What sort of mothers are they? Before long,
there’ll be no such thing as a home. They don’t know what the word
means. They’d like to live in hotels, and trollop about the streets day
and night. There won’t be any servants much longer; you’re lucky if you
find one of the old sort, who knows how to light a fire or wash a dish.
Go into the houses of men with small incomes; what do you find but filth
and disorder, quarrelling and misery? Young men are bad enough, I know
that; they want to begin where their fathers left off, and if they can’t
do it honestly, they’ll embezzle or forge. But you’ll often find there’s
a worthless wife at the bottom of it,--worrying and nagging because she
has a smaller house than some other woman, because she can’t get silks
and furs, and wants to ride in a cab instead of an omnibus. It is
astounding to me that they don’t get their necks wrung. Only wait a bit;
we shall come to that presently!’

It was a rare thing for Stephen Lord to talk at such length. He ceased
with a bitter laugh, and sat down again in his chair. Horace and his
sister waited.

‘I’ve no more to say,’ fell from their father at length. ‘Go and talk
about it together, if you like.’

Horace moved sullenly towards the door, and with a glance at his sister
went out. Nancy, after lingering for a moment, spoke.

‘I don’t think you need have any fear of it, father.’

‘Perhaps not. But if it isn’t that one, it’ll be another like her.
There’s not much choice for a lad like Horace.’

Nancy changed her purpose of leaving the room, and drew a step nearer.

‘Don’t you think there _might_ have been?’

Mr. Lord turned to look at her.

‘How? What do you mean?’

‘I don’t want to make you angry with me--’

‘Say what you’ve got to say,’ broke in her father impatiently.

‘It isn’t easy, when you so soon lose your temper.’

‘My girl,’--for once he gazed at her directly,--‘if you knew all I
have gone through in life, you wouldn’t wonder at my temper being
spoilt.--What do you mean? What could I have done?’

She stood before him, and spoke with diffidence.

‘Don’t you think that if we had lived in a different way, Horace and I
might have had friends of a better kind?’

‘A different way?--I understand. You mean I ought to have had a big
house, and made a show. Isn’t that it?’

‘You gave us a good education,’ replied Nancy, still in the same tone,
‘and we might have associated with very different people from those you
have been speaking of; but education alone isn’t enough. One must live
as the better people do.’

‘Exactly. That’s your way of thinking. And how do you know that I could
afford it, to begin with?’

‘Perhaps I oughtn’t to have taken that for granted.’

‘Perhaps not. Young women take a good deal for granted now a-days. But
supposing you were right, are you silly enough to think that richer
people are better people, as a matter of course?’

‘Not as a matter of course,’ said Nancy. ‘But I’m quite sure--I know
from what I’ve seen--that there’s more chance of meeting nice people
among them.’

‘What do you mean by “nice”?’ Mr. Lord was lying back in his chair, and
spoke thickly, as if wearied. ‘People who can talk so that you forget
they’re only using words they’ve learnt like parrots?’

‘No. Just the contrary. People who have something to say worth listening
to.’

‘If you take my advice, you’ll pay less attention to what people say,
and more to what they do. What’s the good of a friend who won’t come to
see you because you live in a small house? That’s the plain English of
it. If I had done as I thought right, I should never have sent you to
school at all. I should have had you taught at home all that’s necessary
to make a good girl and an honest woman, and have done my best to keep
you away from the kind of life that I hate. But I hadn’t the courage to
act as I believed. I knew how the times were changing, and I was weak
enough to be afraid I might do you an injustice. I did give you the
chance of making friends among better people than your father. Didn’t
I use to talk to you about your school friends, and encourage you when
they seemed of the right kind? And now you tell me that they don’t
care for your society because you live in a decent, unpretending way. I
should think you’re better without such friends.’

Nancy reflected, seemed about to prolong the argument, but spoke at
length in another voice.

‘Well, I will say good-night, father.’

It was not usual for them to see each other after dinner, so that a
good-night could seldom be exchanged. The girl, drawing away, expected a
response; she saw her father nod, but he said nothing.

‘Good-night, father,’ she repeated from a distance.

‘Good-night, Nancy, good-night,’ came in impatient reply.



CHAPTER 6



On Tuesday afternoon, when, beneath a cloudless sky, the great London
highways reeked and roared in celebration of Jubilee, Nancy and her
friend Miss. Morgan walked up Grove Lane to Champion Hill. Here and
there a house had decked itself with colours of loyalty; otherwise the
Lane was as quiet as usual.

Champion Hill is a gravel byway, overhung with trees; large houses and
spacious gardens on either hand. Here the heat of the sun was tempered.
A carriage rolled softly along; a nurse with well-dressed children
loitered in the shade. One might have imagined it a country road, so
profound the stillness and so leafy the prospect.

A year ago, Jessica Morgan had obtained a three months’ engagement as
governess to two little girls, who were sent under her care to the house
of their grandmother at Teignmouth. Their father, Mr Vawdrey of Champion
Hill, had recently lost his wife through an illness contracted at a
horse-race, where the lady sat in wind and rain for some hours. The
children knew little of what is learnt from books, but were surprisingly
well informed on matters of which they ought to have known nothing; they
talked of theatres and race-courses, of ‘the new murderer’ at Tussaud’s,
of police-news, of notorious spendthrifts and demi-reps; discussed
their grown-up acquaintances with precocious understanding, and repeated
scandalous insinuations which could have no meaning for them. Jessica
was supposed to teach them for two hours daily; she found it an
impossibility. Nevertheless a liking grew up between her and her
charges, and, save by their refusal to study, the children gave her no
trouble; they were abundantly good-natured, they laughed and sported
all day long, and did their best to put life into the pale, overworked
governess.

Whilst living thus at the seaside, Jessica was delighted by the arrival
of Nancy Lord, who came to Teignmouth for a summer holiday. With her
came Mary Woodruff. The faithful servant had been ill; Mr Lord sent
her down into Devon to make a complete recovery, and to act as Nancy’s
humble chaperon. Nancy’s stay was for three weeks. The friends saw
a great deal of each other, and Miss. Lord had the honour of being
presented to Mrs. Tarrant, the old lady with whom Jessica lived, Mr.
Vawdrey’s mother-in-law. At the age of three score and ten, Mrs. Tarrant
still led an active life, and talked with great volubility, chiefly of
herself; Nancy learnt from her that she had been married at seventeen,
and had had two children, a son and a daughter, both deceased; of
relatives there remained to her only Mr Vawdrey and his family, and a
grandson, Lionel Tarrant.

One evening, as Jessica returned from a ramble with the children,
they encountered a young man who was greeted, without much fervour,
as ‘cousin Lionel.’ Mr. Tarrant professed himself merely a passing
visitant; he had come to inquire after the health of his grandmother,
and in a day or two must keep an appointment with friends elsewhere.
Notwithstanding this announcement, he remained at Teignmouth for a
fortnight, exhibiting a pious assiduity in his attendance upon the old
lady. Naturally, he made acquaintance with Miss. Lord, whom his cousins
regarded as a great acquisition, so vivacious was she, so ready to take
part in any kind of lively amusement. Mr. Tarrant had been at Oxford;
his speech was marked with the University accent; he talked little, and
seemed to prefer his own society. In conversation with Nancy, though
scrupulously courteous and perfectly good-natured, he never forgot that
she was the friend of his cousins’ governess, that their intercourse
must be viewed as an irregular sort of thing, and that it behoved him
to support his dignity whilst condescending to a social inferior. So, at
all events, it struck Miss. Lord, very sensitive in such matters. Fond
of fitting people with nicknames, she called this young man sometimes
‘His Royal Highness,’ sometimes ‘His Majesty.’

Of Mr. Tarrant’s station in life nothing was discovered. His
grandmother, though seemingly in possession of ample means, betrayed
an indifferent education, and in her flow of gossip never referred to
ancestral dignities, never made mention of the calling her husband had
pursued. Mr. Vawdrey was known to be ‘in business,’--a business which
must be tolerably lucrative.

On their return to London, the children passed from Miss. Morgan’s care
into that of Mrs. Baker, who kept house for the widower at Champion
Hill; but Jessica did not wholly lose sight of them, and, at their
request, she persuaded Nancy Lord to make an occasional call with her.
Mrs. Baker (relict, it was understood, of a military officer who
had fallen in Eastern warfare) behaved to the young ladies with much
friendliness. They did not meet Mr. Vawdrey.

Early in the following year, old Mrs. Tarrant, forsaking Teignmouth,
came to live under her son-in-law’s roof; the winter had tried her
health, and henceforth she seldom left home.

To-day, as on former occasions (only two or three in all), Nancy was
reluctant to approach the big house; its imposing front made her feel
that she came only on sufferance; probably even Mrs. Baker did not
regard her as having a right to call here on terms of equality. Yet the
place touched her curiosity and her imagination; she liked to study
the luxurious appointments within, and to walk about the neglected but
pleasant garden, quiet and secluded as if whole counties divided it from
Camberwell. In the hall she and Jessica were at once welcomed by the
children, who first informed them that tea would be served out of doors,
and next made known that ‘cousin Lionel’ was here, in Mrs. Tarrant’s
drawing-room. The second piece of news vexed Nancy; she resolved never
to come again, unless on formal invitation.

Mrs. Baker, an agreeable woman, received them as if she were the
mistress of the house. With Jessica she chatted about matters
examinational, which she seemed thoroughly to understand; with Miss Lord
she talked of wider subjects, in a tone not unpleasing to Nancy, seeing
that it presumed, on her part, some knowledge of the polite world.
It was observable that Mr. Vawdrey’s daughters had benefited by the
superintendence of this lady; they no longer gossiped loudly about
murders and scandals, but demeaned themselves more as became their
years.

On the arrival of other ladies to call upon Mrs. Baker, the children
drew their friends away into the garden, where tea now awaited them.
Amid the trees and flowers time passed not unpleasantly, until,
on happening to turn her head, Nancy perceived at a distance the
approaching figure of Mr. Lionel Tarrant. He sauntered over the grass
with easy, indolent step; his straw hat and light lounge costume
(excellent tailoring) suited the season and the place. Jessica, who
regarded the young man with something of awe, stood up to shake hands,
but Miss. Lord kept her place in the garden chair.

‘Did you see the procession?’ Tarrant inquired. ‘Ah, then I can give you
very important news--thrilling news. I know the colour of the Queen’s
bonnet, and of her parasol.’

‘Please don’t keep us in suspense,’ said Nancy.

‘They were of pale primrose. Touching, don’t you think?’

He had seated himself crosswise on a camp-stool, and seemed to be
admiring the contour of his brown boots. Lionel’s age was not more
than seven-and-twenty; he enjoyed sound health, and his face signified
contentment with the scheme of things as it concerned himself; but a
chronic languor possessed him. It might be sheer laziness, possibly a
result of that mental habit, discernible In his look, whereby he had
come to regard his own judgment as the criterion of all matters in
heaven and earth. Yet the conceit which relaxed his muscles was in
the main amiable; it never repelled as does the conceit of a fop or a
weakling or a vulgar person; he could laugh heartily, even with his
own affectations for a source of amusement. Of personal vanity he had
little, though women esteemed him good-looking; his steady, indolent
gaze made denial of such preoccupation. Nor could he be regarded as
emasculate; his movements merely disguised the natural vigour of a manly
frame, and his conversational trifling hinted an intellectual reserve, a
latent power of mind, obvious enough in the lines of his countenance.

Nancy was excusable for supposing that he viewed her slightingly. He
spoke as one who did not expect to be quite understood by such a hearer,
addressing her, without the familiarity, much as he addressed his
young cousins. To her, his careful observance of formalities seemed the
reverse of flattering; she felt sure that with young women in his
own circle he would allow himself much more freedom. Whether the
disparagement applied to her intellect or to her social status might be
a question; Nancy could not decide which of the two she would prefer.
Today an especial uneasiness troubled her from the first moment of
his appearance; she felt a stronger prompting than hitherto to assert
herself, and, if possible, to surprise Mr. Tarrant. But, as if he
understood her thought, his manner became only more bland, his calm
aloofness more pronounced.

The children, who were never at ease in their cousin’s presence,
succeeded in drawing Jessica apart, and chattered to her about the
educational methods imposed by Mrs. Baker, airing many grievances. They
nourished a hope that Miss. Morgan might again become their governess;
lessons down at Teignmouth had been nothing like so oppressive as here
at Champion Hill.

Tarrant, meanwhile, having drunk a cup of tea, and touched his moustache
with a silk handkerchief, transferred himself from the camp-stool to
the basket chair vacated by Jessica. He was now further from Nancy, but
facing her.

‘I have been talking with Mrs. Bellamy,’ fell from him, in the same
tone of idle good nature. ‘Do you know her? She has but one subject of
conversation; an engrossing topic, to be sure; namely, her servants.
Do you give much thought to the great servant question? I have my own
modest view of the matter. It may not be novel, but my mind has worked
upon it in the night watches.’

Nancy, resolved not to smile, found herself smiling. Not so much at what
he said, as at the manner of it. Her resentment was falling away; she
felt the influence of this imperturbable geniality.

‘Shall I tell you my theory?’

He talked with less reserve than on the last occasion when they had sat
together. The mellow sunlight, the garden odours, the warm, still air,
favoured a growth of intimacy.

‘By all means,’ was Nancy’s reply.

‘We must begin by admitting that the ordinary woman hates nothing so
much as to have another woman set in authority over her.’ He paused,
and laughed lazily. ‘Now, before the triumph of glorious Democracy, only
those women kept servants who were capable of rule,--who had by birth
the instinct of authority. They knew themselves the natural superiors
of their domestics, and went through an education fitting them to rule.
Things worked very well; no servant-difficulty existed. Now-a-days,
every woman who can afford it must have another woman to wait upon her,
no matter how silly, or vulgar, or depraved she may be; the result, of
course, is a spirit of rebellion in the kitchen. Who could have expected
anything else?’

Nancy played with a dandelion she had plucked, and gave sign neither of
assent nor disagreement.

‘Mrs. Bellamy,’ continued the young man, ‘marvels that servants revolt
against her. What could be more natural? The servants have learnt that
splendid doctrine that every one is as good as everybody else, and Mrs.
Bellamy is by no means the person to make them see things differently.
And this kind of thing is going on in numberless houses--an utterly
incompetent mistress and a democratic maid in spirited revolt. The
incompetents, being in so vast a majority, will sooner or later spoil
all the servants in the country.’

‘You should make an article of it,’ said Nancy, ‘and send it to _The
Nineteenth Century_.’

‘So I might.’ He paused, and added casually, ‘You read _The Nineteenth
Century_?’

‘Now and then.’

Nancy felt herself an impostor, for of leading reviews she knew
little more than the names. And Tarrant’s look, so steady, yet so
good-tempered, disturbed her conscience with the fear that he saw
through her. She was coming wretchedly out of this dialogue, in which
she had meant to make a figure.

He changed the subject; was it merely to spare her?

‘Shall you go to Teignmouth again this year?’

‘I don’t know yet. I think not.’

Silence followed. Tarrant, to judge from his face, was absorbed in
pleasant thought; Nancy, on the other hand, felt so ill at ease that she
was on the point of rising, when his voice checked her.

‘I have an idea’--he spoke dreamily--‘of going to spend next winter in
the Bahamas.’

‘Why the Bahamas?’

Speaking with all the carelessness she could command, Nancy shivered a
little. Spite of her ‘culture,’ she had but the vaguest notion where the
Bahamas were. To betray ignorance would be dreadful. A suspicion awoke
in her that Tarrant, surprised by her seeming familiarity with current
literature, was craftily testing the actual quality of her education.
Upon the shiver followed a glow, and, in fear lest her cheeks would
redden, she grew angry.

He was replying.

‘Partly because it is a delightful winter climate; partly because I have
a friend there; partly because the islands are interesting. A man I knew
at Oxford has gone out there, and is likely to stay. His father owns
nearly the whole of an island; and as he’s in very bad health, my friend
may soon come into possession. When he does, he’s going to astonish the
natives.’

‘How?’

A vision of savages flashed before Nancy’s mind. She breathed more
freely, thinking the danger past.

‘Simply by making a fortune out of an estate that is lying all but
barren. Before the emancipation of the niggers, the Bahamas flourished
wonderfully; now they are fallen to decay, and ruled, so far as I
understand it, by a particularly contemptible crew of native whites, who
ought all to be kicked into the sea. My friend’s father is a man of
no energy; he calls himself magistrate, coroner, superintendent of the
customs, and a dozen other things, but seems to have spent his time for
years in lying about, smoking and imbibing. His son, I’m afraid, waits
impatiently for the old man’s removal to a better world. He believes
there are immense possibilities of trade.’

Trying hard to recollect her geography, Miss. Lord affected but a slight
interest.

‘There’s no direct way of getting there,’ Tarrant pursued. ‘What route
should you suggest?’

She was right, after all. He wished to convict her of ignorance. Her
cheeks were now burning, beyond a doubt, and she felt revengeful.

‘I advise you to make inquiries at a shipping-office,’ was her distant
reply.

‘It seems’--he was smiling at Nancy--‘I shall have to go to New York,
and then take the Cuba mail.’

‘Are you going to join your friend in business?’

‘Business, I fear, is hardly my vocation.’

There was a tremor on Nancy’s lips, and about her eyelids. She said
abruptly:

‘I thought you were perhaps in business?’

‘Did you? What suggested it?’

Tarrant looked fixedly at her; in his expression, as in his voice, she
detected a slight disdain, and that decided her to the utterance of the
next words.

‘Oh’--she had assumed an ingenuous air--‘there’s the Black Lead that
bears your name. Haven’t you something to do with it?’

She durst not watch him, but a change of his countenance was distinctly
perceptible, and for the moment caused her a keen gratification.
His eyes had widened, his lips had set themselves; he looked at once
startled and mortified.

‘Black lead?’ The words fell slowly, in a voice unlike that she had been
hearing. ‘No. I have nothing to do with it.’

The silence was dreadful. Nancy endeavoured to rise, but her limbs would
not do their office. Then, her eyes fixed on the grass, she became aware
that Tarrant himself had stood up.

‘Where are the children?’ he was saying absently.

He descried them afar off with Miss. Morgan, and began to saunter in
that direction. As soon as his back was turned, Nancy rose and began to
walk towards the house. In a few moments Jessica and the girls were with
her.

‘I think we must go,’ she said.

They entered, and took leave of Mrs. Baker, who sat alone in the
drawing-room.

‘Did you say good-bye to Mr. Tarrant?’ Jessica asked, as they came forth
again.

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t. But I suppose it doesn’t matter.’

Nancy had thought of telling her friend what she had done, of boasting
that she had asked the impossible question. But now she felt ashamed of
herself, and something more than ashamed. Never again could she enter
this garden. And it seemed to her that, by a piece of outrageous, of
wanton, folly, she had for ever excluded herself from the society of all
‘superior’ people.



CHAPTER 7



‘Now, _I_ look at it in this way. It’s to celebrate the fiftieth year
of the reign of Queen Victoria--yes: but at the same time, and far more,
it’s to celebrate the completion of fifty years of Progress. National
Progress, without precedent in the history of mankind! One may say,
indeed, Progress of the Human Race. Only think what has been done in
this half-century: only think of it! Compare England now, compare the
world, with what it was in 1837. It takes away one’s breath!’

Thus Mr. Samuel Bennett Barmby, as he stood swaying forward upon his
toes, his boots creaking. Nancy and Jessica listened to him. They were
ready to start on the evening’s expedition, but Horace had not yet come
home, and on the chance of his arrival they would wait a few minutes
longer.

‘I shall make this the subject of a paper for our Society next
winter--the Age of Progress. And with special reference to one
particular--the Press. Only think now, of the difference between our
newspapers, all our periodicals of to-day, and those fifty years ago.
Did you ever really consider, Miss. Morgan, what a marvellous thing one
of our great newspapers really is? Printed in another way it would
make a volume--absolutely; a positive volume; packed with thought and
information. And all for the ridiculous price of one penny!’

He laughed; a high, chuckling, crowing laugh; the laugh of triumphant
optimism. Of the man’s sincerity there could be no question; it beamed
from his shining forehead, his pointed nose; glistened in his prominent
eyes. He had a tall, lank figure, irreproachably clad in a suit of grey:
frock coat, and waistcoat revealing an expanse of white shirt. His cuffs
were magnificent, and the hands worthy of them. A stand-up collar, of
remarkable stiffness, kept his head at the proper level of self-respect.

‘By the bye, Miss. Lord, are you aware that the Chinese Empire, with
four _hundred_ MILLION inhabitants, has only _ten_ daily papers?
Positively; only ten.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Nancy.

‘I saw it stated in a paper. That helps one to _grasp_ the difference
between civilisation and barbarism. One doesn’t think clearly enough
of common things. Now that’s one of the benefits one gets from Carlyle.
Carlyle teaches one to see the marvellous in everyday life. Of course
in many things I don’t agree with him, but I shall never lose an
opportunity of expressing my gratitude to Carlyle. Carlyle and
Gurty! Yes, Carlyle and Gurty; those two authors are an education in
themselves.’

He uttered a long ‘Ah!’ and moved his lips as if savouring a delicious
morsel.

‘Now here’s an interesting thing. If all the cabs in London were put
end to end,’--he paused between the words, gravely,--‘what do you think,
Miss. Morgan, would be the total length?’

‘Oh, I have no idea, Mr. Barmby.’

‘Forty miles--positively! Forty miles of cabs!’

‘How do you know?’ asked Nancy.

‘I saw it stated in a paper.’

The girls glanced at each other, and smiled. Barmby beamed upon them
with the benevolence of a man who knew his advantages, personal and
social.

And at this moment Horace Lord came in. He had not the fresh appearance
which usually distinguished him; his face was stained with perspiration,
his collar had become limp, the flower at his buttonhole hung faded.

‘Well, here I am. Are you going?’

‘I suppose you know you have kept us waiting,’ said his sister.

‘Awf’ly sorry. Couldn’t get here before.’

He spoke as if he had not altogether the command of his tongue, and with
a fixed meaningless smile.

‘We had better not delay,’ said Barmby, taking up his hat. ‘Seven
o’clock. We ought to be at Charing Cross before eight; that will allow
us about three hours.’

They set forth at once. By private agreement between the girls, Jessica
Morgan attached herself to Mr. Barmby, allowing Nancy to follow with her
brother, as they walked rapidly towards Camberwell Green. Horace kept
humming popular airs; his hat had fallen a little to the side, and he
swung his cane carelessly. His sister asked him what he had been doing
all day.

‘Oh, going about. I met some fellows after the procession. We had a
splendid view, up there on the top of Waterloo House.’

‘Did Fanny go home?’

‘We met her sisters, and had some lunch at a restaurant. Look here;
you don’t want me to-night. You won’t mind if I get lost in the crowd?
Barmby will be quite enough to take care of you.’

‘You are going to meet her again, I suppose?’

Horace nodded.

‘We had better agree on a rendezvous at a certain time. I say, Barmby,
just a moment; if any of us should get separated, we had better know
where to meet, for coming home.’

‘Oh, there’s no fear of that.’

‘All the same, it _might_ happen. There’ll be a tremendous crush,
you know. Suppose we say the place where the trams stop, south of
Westminster Bridge, and the time a quarter to eleven?’

This was agreed upon.

At Camberwell Green they mingled with a confused rush of hilarious
crowds, amid a clattering of cabs and omnibuses, a jingling of tram-car
bells. Public-houses sent forth their alcoholic odours upon the hot air.
Samuel Barmby, joyous in his protectorship of two young ladies, for
he regarded Horace as a mere boy, bustled about them whilst they stood
waiting for the arrival of the Westminster car.

‘It’ll have to be a gallant rush! You would rather be outside, wouldn’t
you, Miss. Lord? Here it comes: charge!’

But the charge was ineffectual for their purpose. A throng of far more
resolute and more sinewy people swept them aside, and seized every
vacant place on the top of the vehicle. Only with much struggle did they
obtain places within. In an ordinary mood, Nancy would have resented
this hustling of her person by the profane public; as it was, she half
enjoyed the tumult, and looked forward to get more of it along the
packed streets, with a sense that she might as well amuse herself in
vulgar ways, since nothing better was attainable. This did not, however,
modify her contempt of Samuel Barmby; it seemed never to have occurred
to him that the rough-and-tumble might be avoided, and time gained, by
the simple expedient of taking a cab.

Sitting opposite to Samuel, she avoided his persistent glances by
reading the rows of advertisements above his head. Somebody’s ‘Blue;’
somebody’s ‘Soap;’ somebody’s ‘High-class Jams;’ and behold, inserted
between the Soap and the Jam--‘God so loved the world, that He gave His
only-begotten Son, that whoso believeth in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life.’ Nancy perused the passage without perception of
incongruity, without emotion of any kind. Her religion had long since
fallen to pieces, and universal defilement of Scriptural phrase by
the associations of the market-place had in this respect blunted her
sensibilities.

Barmby was talking to Jessica Morgan. She caught his words now and then.

‘Can you tell me what is the smallest tree in the world?--No, it’s the
Greenland birch. Its full-grown height is only three inches--positively!
But it spreads over several feet.’

Nancy was tempted to lean forward and say, ‘How do you know?’ But the
jest seemed to involve her in too much familiarity with Mr Barmby; for
her own peace it was better to treat him with all possible coldness.

A woman near her talked loudly about the procession, with special
reference to a personage whom she called ‘Prince of Wiles.’ This
enthusiast declared with pride that she had stood at a certain street
corner for seven hours, accompanied by a child of five years old, the
same who now sat on her lap, nodding in utter weariness; together they
were going to see the illuminations, and walk about, with intervals
devoted to refreshments, for several hours more. Beyond sat a
working-man, overtaken with liquor, who railed vehemently at the
Jubilee, and in no measured terms gave his opinion of our Sovereign
Lady; the whole thing was a ‘lay,’ an occasion for filling the Royal
pocket, and it had succeeded to the tune of something like half a
million of money, wheedled, most of it, from the imbecile poor. ‘Shut
up!’ roared a loyalist, whose patience could endure no longer. ‘We’re
not going to let a boozing blackguard like you talk in that way about
‘er Majesty!’ Thereupon, retort of insult, challenge to combat, clamour
from many throats, deep and shrill. Nancy laughed, and would rather have
enjoyed it if the men had fought.

At Westminster Bridge all jumped confusedly into the street and ran
for the pavement. It was still broad daylight; the sun--a potentate who
keeps no Jubilee--dropping westward amid the hues of summer eventide,
was unmarked, for all his splendour, by the roaring multitudes.

‘Where are you going to leave us?’ Nancy inquired of her brother.

‘Charing Cross, or somewhere about there.’

‘Keep by me till then.’

Barmby was endeavouring to secure her companionship. He began to cross
the bridge at her side, but Nancy turned and bade him attend upon Miss.
Morgan, saying that she wished to talk with her brother. In this order
they moved towards Parliament Street, where the crowd began to thicken.

‘Now let us decide upon our route,’ exclaimed Barmby, with the air of a
popular leader planning a great demonstration. ‘Miss. Lord, we will be
directed by your wishes. Where would you like to be when the lighting-up
begins?’

‘I don’t care. What does it matter? Let us go straight on and see
whatever comes in our way.’

‘That’s the right spirit! Let us give ourselves up to the occasion! We
can’t be wrong in making for Trafalgar Square. Advance!’

They followed upon a group of reeling lads and girls, who yelled in
chorus the popular song of the day, a sentimental one as it happened--

‘_Do not forget me, Do not forget me, Think sometimes of me still_’--

Nancy was working herself into a nervous, excited state. She felt it
impossible to walk on and on under Barmby’s protection, listening to
his atrocious commonplaces, his enthusiasms of the Young Men’s Debating
Society. The glow of midsummer had entered into her blood; she resolved
to taste independence, to mingle with the limitless crowd as one of its
units, borne in whatever direction. That song of the streets pleased
her, made sympathetic appeal to her; she would have liked to join in it.

Just behind her--it was on the broad pavement at Whitehall--some one
spoke her name.

‘Miss. Lord! Why, who would have expected to see you here? Shouldn’t
have dared to think of such a thing; upon my word, I shouldn’t!’

A man of about thirty, dressed without much care, middle-sized, wiry,
ruddy of cheek, and his coarse but strong features vivid with festive
energy, held a hand to her. Luckworth Crewe was his name. Nancy had come
to know him at the house of Mrs. Peachey, where from time to time she
had met various people unrecognised in her own home. His tongue bewrayed
him for a native of some northern county; his manner had no polish, but
a genuine heartiness which would have atoned for many defects. Horace,
who also knew him, offered a friendly greeting; but Samuel Barmby, when
the voice caught his ear, regarded this intruder with cold surprise.

‘May I walk on with you?’ Crewe asked, when he saw that Miss. Lord felt
no distaste for his company.

Nancy deigned not even a glance at her nominal protector.

‘If you are going our way,’ she replied.

Barmby, his dignity unobserved, strode on with Miss. Morgan, of whom he
sought information concerning the loud-voiced man. Crewe talked away.

‘So you’ve come out to have a look at it, after all. I saw the Miss
Frenches last Sunday, and they told me you cared no more for the Jubilee
than for a dog-fight. Of course I wasn’t surprised; you’ve other things
to think about. But it’s worth seeing, that’s my opinion. Were you out
this morning?’

‘No. I don’t care for Royalties.’

‘No more do I. Expensive humbugs, that’s what I call ‘em. But I had a
look at them, for all that. The Crown Prince was worth seeing; yes, he
really was. I’m not so prejudiced as to deny that. He’s the kind of chap
I should like to get hold of, and have a bit of a talk with, and ask him
what he thought about things in general. It’s been a big affair, hasn’t
it? I know a chap who made a Jubilee Perfume, and he’s netting something
like a hundred pounds a day.’

‘Have you any Jubilee speculation on hand?’

‘Don’t ask me! It makes me mad. I had a really big thing,--a Jubilee
Drink,--a teetotal beverage; the kind of thing that would have sold
itself, this weather. A friend of mine hit on it, a clerk in a City
warehouse, one of the cleverest chaps I ever knew. It really was _the_
drink; I’ve never tasted anything like it. Why, there’s the biggest
fortune on record waiting for the man who can supply _the_ drink for
total-abstainers. And this friend of mine had it. He gave me some to
taste one night, about a month ago, and I roared with delight. It was
all arranged. I undertook to find enough capital to start with, and
to manage the concern. I would have given up my work with Bullock and
Freeman. I’d have gone in, tooth and nail, for that drink! I sat up all
one night trying to find a name for it; but couldn’t hit on the right
one. A name is just as important as the stuff itself that you want to
sell. Next morning--it was Sunday--I went round to my friend’s lodgings,
and’--he slapped his thigh--‘I’m blest if the chap hadn’t cut his
throat!’

‘Why?’

‘Betting and forgery. He would have been arrested next day. But the
worst of it was that his beverage perished with him. I hadn’t a notion
how it was made; he wouldn’t tell me till I planked down money to start
with; and not a drop of it could be found anywhere. And to think that he
had absolutely struck oil, as they say; had nothing to do but sit down
and count the money as it came in! That’s the third man I’ve known
go wrong in less than a year. Betting and embezzlement; betting and
burglary; betting and forgery. I’ll tell you some time about the chap
who went in for burglary. One of the best fellows I ever knew; when he
comes out, I must give him a hand. But ten to one he’ll burgle again;
they always do; burglary grows on a man, like drink.’

His laughter rang across the street; Barmby, who kept looking back,
surprised and indignant that this acquaintance of Miss. Lord’s was
not presented to him, paused for a moment, but Nancy waved to him
commandingly, ‘Straight on!’

They reached Charing Cross. Horace, who took no part in the
conversation, and had dropped behind, at this point found an opportunity
of stealing away. It was Crewe who first remarked his absence.

‘Hollo! where’s your brother?’

‘Gone, evidently.--Hush! Don’t say anything. Will you do something for
me, Mr. Crewe?’

‘Of course I will. What is it?’

Nancy pursued in a low voice.

‘He’s gone to meet Fanny French. At least, he told me so; but I want to
know whether it is really Fanny, or some one else. He said they were to
meet in front of the Haymarket Theatre. Will you go as quickly as you
can, and see if Fanny is there?’

Crewe laughed.

‘Like a bird!--But how am I to meet you again?’

‘We’ll be at the top of Regent Street at nine o’clock,--by Peter
Robinson’s. Don’t lose time.’

He struck off in the westerly direction, and Barmby, looking round at
that moment, saw him go. Engrossed in thought of Nancy, Samuel did not
yet perceive that her brother had vanished.

‘Your friend isn’t coming any further?’ he said, in a tone of
forbearance.

‘No.’

‘But where’s Mr. Lord?’ exclaimed Jessica.

Nancy pretended to look back for him, and for a minute or two they
waited. Barmby, glad to be delivered from both male companions, made
light of the matter; Horace could take care of himself; they had the
appointment for a quarter to eleven;--on! And he now fixed himself
resolutely at Nancy’s side.

She, delighted with the success of her stratagem, and careless of what
might result from it, behaved more companionably. To Luckworth Crewe’s
society she had no objection; indeed, she rather liked him; but his
presence would have hindered the escape for which she was preparing.
Poor Jessica might feel it something of a hardship to pass hours alone
with ‘the Prophet,’ but that could not be helped. Nancy would be free
to-night, if never again. They turned into the Strand, and Barmby voiced
his opinion of the public decorations.

‘There’s very little of what can be called Art,--very little indeed. I’m
afraid we haven’t made much progress in Art.--Now what would Ruskin say
to this kind of thing? The popular taste wants educating. My idea is
that we ought to get a few leading men Burne Jones and--and William
Morris--and people of that kind, you know, Miss. Lord,--to give lectures
in a big hall on the elements of Art. A great deal might be done in that
way, don’t you think so, Miss. Morgan?’

‘I have no faith in anything popular,’ Jessica replied loftily.

‘No, no. But, after all, the people have got the upper hand now-a-days,
and we who enjoy advantages of education, of culture, ought not to
allow them to remain in darkness. It isn’t for our own interest, most
decidedly it isn’t.’

‘Did your sisters go to see the procession?’ Nancy asked.

‘Oh, they were afraid of the crowd. The old gentleman took them out to
Tooting Common this afternoon, and they enjoyed themselves. Perhaps
I should have been wiser if I had imitated their example; I mean this
morning; of course I wouldn’t have missed this evening for anything
whatever. But somehow, one feels it a sort of duty to see something of
these great public holidays. I caught a glimpse of the procession. In
its way it was imposing--yes, really. After all, the Monarchy is a great
_fact_--as Gurty would have said. I like to keep my mind open to facts.’

The sun had set, and with approach of dusk the crowds grew denser. Nancy
proposed a return westwards; the clubs of Pall Mall and of St James’s
Street would make a display worth seeing, and they must not miss
Piccadilly.

‘A little later,’ said their escort, with an air of liberality, ‘we
must think of some light refreshment. We shall be passing a respectable
restaurant, no doubt.’

Twilight began to obscure the distance. Here and there a house-front
slowly marked itself with points of flame, shaping to wreath, festoon,
or initials of Royalty. Nancy looked eagerly about her, impatient for
the dark, wishing the throng would sweep her away. In Pall Mall, Barmby
felt it incumbent upon him to name the several clubs, a task for which
he was inadequately prepared. As he stood staring in doubt at one of the
coldly insolent facades, Jessica gazing in the same direction, Nancy
saw that her moment had come. She darted off, struggled through a moving
crowd, and reached the opposite pavement. All she had now to do was to
press onward with the people around her; save by chance, she could not
possibly be discovered.

Alarm at her daring troubled her for a few minutes. As a matter of
course Barmby would report this incident to her father,--unless she
plainly asked him not to do so, for which she had no mind. Yet what did
it matter? She had escaped to enjoy herself, and the sense of freedom
soon overcame anxieties. No one observed her solitary state; she was one
of millions walking about the streets because it was Jubilee Day, and
every moment packed her more tightly among the tramping populace. A
procession, this, greatly more significant than that of Royal personages
earlier in the day. Along the main thoroughfares of mid-London,
wheel-traffic was now suspended; between the houses moved a double
current of humanity, this way and that, filling the whole space, so
that no vehicle could possibly have made its way on the wonted track.
At junctions, pickets of police directed progress; the slowly advancing
masses wheeled to left or right at word of command, carelessly obedient.
But for an occasional bellow of hilarious blackguardism, or for a song
uplifted by strident voices, or a cheer at some flaring symbol that
pleased the passers, there was little noise; only a thud, thud of
footfalls numberless, and the low, unvarying sound that suggested some
huge beast purring to itself in stupid contentment.

Nancy forgot her identity, lost sight of herself as an individual. Her
blood was heated by close air and physical contact. She did not think,
and her emotions differed little from those of any shop-girl let loose.
The ‘culture,’ to which she laid claim, evanesced in this atmosphere
of exhalations. Could she have seen her face, its look of vulgar
abandonment would have horrified her.

Some one trod violently on her heel, and she turned with a half-angry
laugh, protesting. ‘Beg your pardon, miss,’ said a young fellow of the
clerkly order. ‘A push be’ind made me do it.’ He thrust himself to a
place beside her, and Nancy conversed with him unrestrainedly, as though
it were a matter of course. The young man, scrutinising her with much
freedom, shaped clerkly compliments, and, in his fashion, grew lyrical;
until, at a certain remark which he permitted himself, Nancy felt it
time to shake him off. Her next encounter was more noteworthy. Of a
sudden she felt an arm round her waist, and a man, whose breath declared
the source of his inspiration, began singing close to her ear the
operatic ditty, ‘Queen of my Heart.’ He had, moreover, a good tenor
voice, and belonged, vaguely, to some stratum of educated society.

‘I think you had better leave me alone,’ said Nancy, looking him
severely in the face.

‘Well, if you really think so,’--he seemed struck by her manner of
speech,--‘of course I will: but I’d much rather not.’

‘I might find it necessary to speak to a policeman at the next corner.’

‘Oh, in that case.’--He raised his hat, and fell aside. And Nancy felt
that, after all, the adventure had been amusing.

She was now in Regent Street, and it came to her recollection that she
had made an appointment with Luckworth Crewe for nine o’clock. Without
any intention of keeping it; but why not do so? Her lively acquaintance
would be excellent company for the next hour, until she chose to bring
the escapade to an end. And indeed, save by a disagreeable struggle,
she could hardly change the direction of her steps. It was probably past
nine; Crewe might have got tired of waiting, or have found it impossible
to keep a position on the pavement. Drawing near to the top of Regent
Street, she hoped he might be there. And there he was, jovially
perspiring; he saw her between crowded heads, and crushed through to her
side.



CHAPTER 8



‘Where are your friends?’

‘That’s more than I can tell you.’

They laughed together.

‘It’s a miracle we’ve been able to meet,’ said Crewe. ‘I had to thrash a
fellow five minutes ago, and was precious near getting run in. Shall we
go the Tottenham Court Road way? Look out! You’d better hold on to my
arm. These big crossings are like whirlpools; you might go round and
round, and never get anywhere. Don’t be afraid; if any one runs up
against you, I’ll knock him down.’

‘There wouldn’t be room for him to fall,’ said Nancy, wild with
merriment, as they swayed amid the uproar. For the first time she
understood how perilous such a crowd might be. A band of roisterers,
linked arm in arm, were trying to break up the orderly march of
thousands into a chaotic fight. The point for which Crewe made was
unattainable; just in front of him a woman began shrieking hysterically;
another fainted, and dropped into her neighbour’s arms.

‘Don’t get frightened!’

‘Not I! I like it. It’s good fun.’

‘You’re the right sort, you are. But we must get out of this. It’s worse
than the pit-door on the first night of a pantomime. I must hold you up;
don’t mind.’

His arm encircled her body, and for a moment now and then he carried
rather than led her. They were safe at length, in the right part of
Oxford Street, and moving with the stream.

‘I couldn’t find your brother,’ Crewe had leisure to say; ‘and I didn’t
see Fanny French. There weren’t many people about just then, either.
They must have gone off before I came.’

‘Yes, they must. It doesn’t matter.’

‘You have some life in you.’ He gazed at her admiringly. ‘You’re worth
half a million of the girls that squeak and wobble when there’s a bit of
rough play going on.’

‘I hope so. Did you set me down as one of that kind?’

Nancy found that her tongue had achieved a liberty suitable to the
occasion. She spoke without forethought, and found pleasure in her
boldness.

‘Not I,’ Crewe answered. ‘But I never had a chance before now of telling
you what I thought.’

Some one in front of them ignited a Bengal light and threw it into the
air; the flame flashed across Nancy’s features, and fell upon the hat of
a man near her.

‘How do you mean to get home?’ asked Crewe presently. Nancy explained
that all her party were to meet on the other side of the river.

‘Oh, then, there’s plenty of time. When you’ve had enough of this kind
of thing we can strike off into the quiet streets. If you were a man,
which I’m glad you’re not, I should say I was choking for a glass of
beer.’

‘Say it, and look for a place where you can quench your thirst.’

‘It must be a place, then, where you can come in as well. You don’t
drink beer, of course, but we can get lemonade and that kind of thing.
No wonder we get thirsty; look up there.’

Following the direction of his eyes, Nancy saw above the heads of the
multitude a waving dust-canopy, sent up by myriad tramplings on the
sun-scorched streets. Glare of gas illumined it in the foreground;
beyond, it dimmed all radiance like a thin fog.

‘We might cut across through Soho,’ he pursued, ‘and get among the
restaurants. Take my arm again. Only a bit of cross-fighting, and we
shall be in the crowd going the other way. Did you do physics at school?
Remember about the resultant of forces? Now _we_‘re a force tending
to the right, and the crowd is a force making for straight on; to find
the--’

His hat was knocked over his eyes, and the statement of the problem
ended in laughter.

With a good deal of difficulty they reached one of the southward byways;
and thenceforth walking was unimpeded.

‘You know that I call myself Luckworth Crewe,’ resumed Nancy’s companion
after a short silence.

‘Of course I do.’

‘Well, the fact is, I’ve no right to either of the names. I thought I’d
just tell you, for the fun of the thing; I shouldn’t talk about it to
any one else that I know. They tell me I was picked up on a doorstep
in Leeds, and the wife of a mill-hand adopted me. Their name was Crewe.
They called me Tom, but somehow it isn’t a name I care for, and when I
was grown up I met a man called Luckworth, who was as kind as a father
to me, and so I took his name in place of Tom. That’s the long and short
of it.’

Nancy looked a trifle disconcerted.

‘You won’t think any worse of me, because I haven’t a name of my own?’

‘Why should I? It isn’t your fault.’

‘No. But I’m not the kind of man to knuckle under. I think myself just
as good as anybody else I’ll knock the man down that sneers at me; and
I won’t thank anybody for pitying me; that’s the sort of chap I am.
And I’m going to have a big fortune one of these days. It’s down in the
books. I know I shall live to be a rich man, just as well as I know that
I’m walking down Dean Street with Miss. Lord.’

‘I should think it very possible,’ his companion remarked.

‘It hasn’t begun yet. I can only lay my hand on a few hundred pounds,
one way and another. And I’m turned thirty. But the next ten years are
going to do it. Do you know what I did last Saturday? I got fifteen
hundred pounds’ worth of advertising for our people, from a chap that’s
never yet put a penny into the hands of an agent. I went down and talked
to him like a father. He was the hardest nut I ever had to crack, but in
thirty-five minutes I’d got him--like a roach on a hook. And it’ll be
to his advantage, mind you. That fifteen hundred ‘ll bring him in more
business than he’s had for ten years past. I got him to confess he was
going down the hill. “Of course,” I said, “because you don’t know how to
advertise, and won’t let anybody else know for you?” In a few minutes
he was telling me he’d dropped more than a thousand on a patent that
was out of date before it got fairly going. “All right,” said I. “Here’s
your new cooking-stove. You’ve dropped a thousand on the other thing;
give your advertising to us, and I’ll guarantee you shall come home on
the cooking-stove.”’

‘Come home on it?’ Nancy inquired, in astonishment.

‘Oh, it’s our way of talking,’ said the other, with his hearty laugh.
‘It means to make up one’s loss. And he’ll do it. And when he has, he’ll
think no end of me.’

‘I daresay.’

‘Not long ago, I boxed a chap for his advertising. A fair turn-up with
the gloves. Do you suppose I licked him? Not I; though I could have done
it with one hand. I just let him knock me out of time, and two minutes
after he put all his business into my hands.’

‘Oh, you’ll get rich,’ declared Nancy, laughing. ‘No doubt about it.’

‘There was a spot down the South Western Railway where we wanted to
stick up a board, a great big board, as ugly as they make ‘em. It was in
a man’s garden; a certain particular place, where the trains slow, and
folks have time to read the advertisement and meditate on it. That
chap wouldn’t listen. What! spoil his garden with our da----with our
confounded board! not for five hundred a year! Well, I went down, and I
talked to him--’

‘Like a father,’ put in Nancy.

‘Just so, like a father. “Look here,” said I, “my dear sir, you’re
impeding the progress of civilisation. How could we have become what we
are without the modern science and art of advertising? Till advertising
sprang up, the world was barbarous. Do you suppose people kept
themselves clean before they were reminded at every corner of the
benefits of soap? Do you suppose they were healthy before every wall and
hoarding told them what medicine to take for their ailments? Not they
indeed! Why, a man like you--an enlightened man, I see it in your face
(he was as ugly as Ben’s bull-dog), ought to be proud of helping on the
age.” And I made him downright ashamed of himself. He asked me to have a
bit of dinner, and we came to terms over the cheese.’

In this strain did Luckworth Crewe continue to talk across the gloomy
solitudes of Soho. And Nancy would on no account have had him cease.
She was fascinated by his rough vigour and by his visions of golden
prosperity. It seemed to her that they reached very quickly the
restaurant he had in view. With keen enjoyment of the novelty, she
followed him between tables where people were eating, drinking, smoking,
and took a place beside him on a cushioned seat at the end of the room.

‘I know you’re tired,’ he said. ‘There’s nearly half-an-hour before you
need move.’

Nancy hesitated in her choice of a refreshment. She wished to have
something unusual, something that fitted an occasion so remarkable,
yet, as Crewe would of course pay, she did not like to propose anything
expensive.

‘Now let me choose for you,’ her companion requested. ‘After all that
rough work, you want something more than a drop of lemonade. I’m going
to order a nice little bottle of champagne out of the ice, and a pretty
little sandwich made of whatever you like.’

‘Champagne--?’

It had been in her thoughts, a sparkling audacity. Good; champagne let
it be. And she leaned back in defiant satisfaction.

‘I didn’t expect much from Jubilee Day,’ observed the man of business,
‘but that only shows how things turn out--always better or worse than
you think for. I’m not likely to forget it; it’s the best day I’ve had
in my life yet, and I leave you to guess who I owe _that_ to.’

‘I think this is good wine,’ remarked Nancy, as if she had not heard
him.

‘Not bad. You wouldn’t suppose a fellow of my sort would know anything
about it. But I do. I’ve drunk plenty of good champagne, and I shall
drink better.’

Nancy ate her sandwich and smiled. The one glass sufficed her; Crewe
drank three. Presently, looking at her with his head propped on his
hand, he said gravely:

‘I wonder whether this is the last walk we shall have together?’

‘Who can say?’ she answered in a light tone.

‘Some one ought to be able to say.’

‘I never make prophecies, and never believe other people’s.’

‘Shows your good sense. But _I_ make wishes, and plenty of them.’

‘So do I,’ said Nancy.

‘Then let us both make a wish to ourselves,’ proposed Crewe, regarding
her with eyes that had an uncommon light in them.

His companion laughed, then both were quiet for a moment.

They allowed themselves plenty of time to battle their way as far
as Westminster Bridge. At one point police and crowd were in brief
conflict; the burly guardians of order dealt thwacking blows, right and
left, sound fisticuffs, backed with hearty oaths. The night was young;
by magisterial providence, hours of steady drinking lay before the
hardier jubilants. Thwacks and curses would be no rarity in another hour
or two.

At the foot of Parliament Street, Nancy came face to face with Samuel
Barmby, on whose arm hung the wearied Jessica. Without heeding their
exclamations, she turned to her protector and bade him a hearty
good-night. Crewe accepted his dismissal. He made survey of Barmby, and
moved off singing to himself, ‘_Do not forget me--do not forget me_--’




Part II: Nature’s Graduate



CHAPTER 1



The disorder which Stephen Lord masked as a ‘touch of gout’ had in
truth a much more disagreeable name. It was now twelve months since his
doctor’s first warning, directed against the savoury meats and ardent
beverages which constituted his diet; Stephen resolved upon a change
of habits, but the flesh held him in bondage, and medical prophecy was
justified by the event. All through Jubilee Day he suffered acutely;
for the rest of the week he remained at home, sometimes sitting in the
garden, but generally keeping his room, where he lay on a couch.

A man of method and routine, sedentary, with a strong dislike of
unfamiliar surroundings, he could not be persuaded to try change of
air. The disease intensified his native stubbornness, made him by turns
fretful and furious, disposed him to a sullen solitude. He would accept
no tendance but that of Mary Woodruff; to her, as to his children, he
kept up the pretence of gout. He was visited only by Samuel Barmby, with
whom he discussed details of business, and by Mr. Barmby, senior, his
friend of thirty years, the one man to whom he unbosomed himself.

His effort to follow the regimen medically prescribed to him was even
now futile. At the end of a week’s time, imagining himself somewhat
better, he resumed his daily walk to Camberwell Road, but remained at
the warehouse only till two or three o’clock, then returned and sat
alone in his room. On one of the first days of July, when the weather
was oppressively hot, he entered the house about noon, and in a few
minutes rang his bell. Mary Woodruff came to him. He was sitting on the
couch, pale, wet with perspiration, and exhausted.

‘I want something to drink,’ he said wearily, without raising his eyes.

‘Will you have the lime-water, sir?’

‘Yes--what you like.’

Mary brought it to him, and he drank two large glasses, with no pause.

‘Where is Nancy?’

‘In town, sir. She said she would be back about four.’

He made an angry movement.

‘What’s she doing in town? She said nothing to me. Why doesn’t she come
back to lunch? Where does she go to for all these hours?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

The servant spoke in a low, respectful voice, looking at her master with
eyes that seemed to compassionate him.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter.’ He waved a hand, as if in dismissal.
‘Wait--if I’m to be alone, I might as well have lunch now. I feel
hungry, as if I hadn’t eaten anything for twenty-four hours. Get me
something, Mary.’

Later in the afternoon his bell again sounded, and Mary answered it. As
he did not speak at once,--he was standing by the window with his hands
behind him,--she asked him his pleasure.

‘Bring me some water, Mary, plain drinking-water.’

She returned with a jug and glass, and he took a long draught.

‘No, don’t go yet. I want to--to talk to you about things. Sit down
there for a minute.’

He pointed to the couch, and Mary, with an anxious look, obeyed him.

‘I’m thinking of leaving this house, and going to live in the country.
There’s no reason why I shouldn’t. My partner can look after the
business well enough.’

‘It might be the best thing you could do, sir. The best for your
health.’

‘Yes, it might. I’m not satisfied with things. I want to make a decided
change, in every way.’

His face had grown more haggard during the last few days, and his eyes
wandered, expressing fretfulness or fear; he spoke with effort, and
seemed unable to find the words that would convey his meaning.

‘Now I want you to tell me plainly, what do you think of Nancy?’

‘Think of her, sir?’

‘No, no--don’t speak in that way. I don’t want you to call me ‘sir’; it
isn’t necessary; we’ve known each other so long, and I think of you as
a friend, a very good friend. Think of me in the same way, and speak
naturally. I want to know your opinion of Nancy.’

The listener had a face of grave attention: it signified no surprise, no
vulgar self-consciousness, but perhaps a just perceptible pleasure. And
in replying she looked steadily at her master for a moment.

‘I really don’t feel I can judge her, Mr. Lord. It’s true, in a way, I
ought to know her very well, as I’ve seen her day by day since she was
a little thing. But now she’s a well-educated and clever young lady, and
she has got far beyond me--’

‘Ay, there it is, there it is!’ Stephen interrupted with bitterness.
‘She’s got beyond us--beyond me as well as you. And she isn’t what
I meant her to be, very far from it. I haven’t brought them up as I
wished. I don’t know--I’m sure I don’t know why. It was in own hands.
When they were little children, I said to myself: hey shall grow up
plain, good, honest girl and boy. I said that I wouldn’t educate them
very much; I saw little good that came of it, in our rank of life.
I meant them to be simple-minded. I hoped Nancy would marry a plain
countryman, like the men I used to know when I was a boy; a farmer, or
something of that kind. But see how it’s come about. It wasn’t that I
altered my mind about what was best. But I seemed to have no choice.
For one thing, I made more money at business than I had expected, and
so--and so it seemed that they ought to be educated above me and mine.
There was my mother, did a better woman ever live? She had no education
but that of home. She could have brought up Nancy in the good,
old-fashioned way, if I had let her. I wish I had, yes, I wish I had.’

‘I don’t think you could have felt satisfied,’ said the listener, with
intelligent sympathy.

‘Why not? If she had been as good and useful a woman as _you_ are--’

‘Ah, you mustn’t think in that way, Mr. Lord. I was born and bred to
service. Your daughter had a mind given her at her birth, that would
never have been content with humble things. She was meant for education
and a higher place.’

‘What higher place is there for her? She thinks herself too good for the
life she leads here, and yet I don’t believe she’ll ever find a place
among people of a higher class. She has told me herself it’s my fault.
She says I ought to have had a big house for her, so that she might make
friends among the rich. Perhaps she’s right. I have made her neither
one thing nor another. Mary, if I had never come to London, I might have
lived happily. My place was away there, in the old home. I’ve known that
for many a year. I’ve thought: wait till I’ve made a little more money,
and I’ll go back. But it was never done; and now it looks to me as if
I had spoilt the lives of my children, as well as my own. I can’t trust
Nancy, that’s the worst of it. You don’t know what she did on Jubilee
night. She wasn’t with Mr. Barmby and the others--Barmby told me about
it; she pretended to lose them, and went off somewhere to meet a man
she’s never spoken to me about. Is that how a good girl would act? I
didn’t speak to her about it; what use? Very likely she wouldn’t tell me
the truth. She takes it for granted I can’t understand her. She thinks
her education puts her above all plain folk and their ways--that’s it.’

Mary’s eyes had fallen, and she kept silence.

‘Suppose anything happened to me, and they were left to themselves. I
have money to leave between them, and of course they know it. How could
it do them anything but harm? Do you know that Horace wants to marry
that girl Fanny French--a grinning, chattering fool--if not worse.
He has told me he shall do as he likes. Whether or no it was right to
educate Nancy, I am very sure that I ought to have done with _him_ as I
meant at first. He hasn’t the brains to take a good position. When his
schooling went on year after year, I thought at last to make of him
something better than his father--a doctor, or a lawyer. But he hadn’t
the brains: he disappointed me bitterly. And what use can he make of
my money, when I’m in my grave? If I die soon he’ll marry, and ruin
his life. And won’t it be the same with Nancy? Some plotting, greedy
fellow--the kind of man you see everywhere now-a-days, will fool her for
the money’s sake.’

‘We must hope they’ll be much older and wiser before they have to act
for themselves,’ said Mary, looking into her master’s troubled face.

‘Yes!’ He came nearer to her, with a sudden hopefulness. ‘And whether I
live much longer or not, I can do something to guard them against their
folly. They needn’t have the money as soon as I am gone.’

He seated himself in front of his companion.

‘I want to ask you something, Mary. If they were left alone, would you
be willing to live here still, as you do now, for a few more years?’

‘I shall do whatever you wish--whatever you bid me, Mr. Lord,’ answered
the woman, in a voice of heartfelt loyalty.

‘You would stay on, and keep house for them?’

‘But would they go on living here?’

‘I could make them do so. I could put it down as a condition, in my
will. At all events, I would make Nancy stay. Horace might live where he
liked--though not with money to throw about. They have no relatives that
could be of any use to them. I should wish Nancy to go on living here,
and you with her; and she would only have just a sufficient income, paid
by my old friend Barmby, or by his son. And that till she was--what?
I have thought of six-and-twenty. By that time she would either have
learnt wisdom, or she never would. She must be free sooner or later.’

‘But she couldn’t live by herself, Mr. Lord.’

‘You tell me you would stay,’ he exclaimed impulsively.

‘Oh, but I am only her servant. That wouldn’t be enough.’

‘It would be. Your position shall be changed. There’s no one living to
whom I could trust her as I could to you. There’s no woman I respect so
much. For twenty years you have proved yourself worthy of respect--and
it shall be paid to you.’

His vehemence would brook no opposition.

‘You said you would do as I wished. I wish you to have a new position
in this house. You shall no longer be called a servant; you shall be
our housekeeper, and our friend. I will have it, I tell you!’ he cried
angrily. ‘You shall sit at table with us, and live with us. Nancy still
has sense enough to acknowledge that this is only your just reward; from
her, I know, there won’t be a word of objection. What can you have to
say against it?’

The woman was pale with emotion. Her reserve and sensibility shrank from
what seemed to her an invidious honour, yet she durst not irritate the
sick man by opposition.

‘It will make Nancy think,’ he pursued, with emphasis. ‘It will help
her, perhaps, to see the difference between worthless women who put
themselves forward, and the women of real value who make no pretences.
Perhaps it isn’t too late to set good examples before her. I’ve never
found her ill-natured, though she’s wilful; it isn’t her heart that’s
wrong--I hope and think not--only her mind, that’s got stuffed with
foolish ideas. Since her grandmother’s death she’s had no guidance. You
shall talk to her as a woman can; not all at once, but when she’s used
to thinking of you in this new way.’

‘You are forgetting her friends,’ Mary said at length, with eyes of
earnest appeal.

‘Her friends? She’s better without such friends. There’s one thing I
used to hope, but I’ve given it up. I thought once that she might have
come to a liking for Samuel Barmby, but now I don’t think she ever will,
and I believe it’s her friends that are to blame for it. One thing I
know, that she’ll never meet with any one who will make her so good a
husband as he would. We don’t think alike in every way; he’s a young
man, and has the new ideas; but I’ve known him since he was a boy, and
I respect his character. He has a conscience, which is no common thing
now-a-days. He lives a clean, homely life--and you won’t find many of
his age who do. Nancy thinks herself a thousand times too good for him;
I only hope he mayn’t prove a great deal too good for _her_. But I’ve
given up that thought. I’ve never spoken to her about it, and I never
shall; no good comes of forcing a girl’s inclination. I only tell you of
it, Mary, because I want you to understand what has been going on.’

They heard a bell ring; that of the front door.

‘It’ll be Miss. Nancy,’ said Mary, rising.

‘Go to the door then. If it’s Nancy, tell her I want to speak to her,
and come back yourself.’

‘Mr. Lord--’

‘Do as I tell you--at once!’

All the latent force of Stephen’s character now declared itself. He
stood upright, his face stern and dignified. In a few moments, Nancy
entered the room, and Mary followed her at a distance.

‘Nancy,’ said the father, ‘I want to tell you of a change in the house.
You know that Mary has been with us for twenty years. You know that for
a long time we haven’t thought of her as a servant, but as a friend, and
one of the best possible. It’s time now to show our gratitude. Mary will
continue to help us as before, but henceforth she is one of our family.
She will eat with us and sit with us; and I look to you, my girl, to
make the change an easy and pleasant one for her.’

As soon as she understood the drift of her father’s speech, Nancy
experienced a shock, and could not conceal it. But when silence came,
she had commanded herself. An instant’s pause; then, with her brightest
smile, she turned to Mary and spoke in a voice of kindness.

‘Father is quite right. Your place is with us. I am glad, very glad.’

Mary looked from Mr. Lord to his daughter, tried vainly to speak, and
left the room.



CHAPTER 2



His father’s contemptuous wrath had an ill effect upon Horace. Of an
amiable disposition, and without independence of character, he might
have been guided by a judicious parent through all the perils of his
calf-love for Fanny French; thrown upon his own feeble resources, he
regarded himself as a victim of the traditional struggle between prosaic
age and nobly passionate youth, and resolved at all hazards to follow
the heroic course--which meant, first of all, a cold taciturnity towards
his father, and, as to his future conduct, a total disregard of the
domestic restraints which he had hitherto accepted. In a day or two
he sat down and wrote his father a long letter, of small merit as a
composition, and otherwise illustrating the profitless nature of the
education for which Stephen Lord had hopefully paid. It began with
a declaration of rights. He was a man; he could no longer submit
to childish trammels. A man must not be put to inconvenience by
the necessity of coming home at early hours. A man could not brook
cross-examination on the subject of his intimacies, his expenditure, and
so forth. Above all, a man was answerable to no one but himself for his
relations with the other sex, for the sacred hopes he cherished, for
his emotions and aspirations which transcended even a man’s
vocabulary.--With much more of like tenor.

To this epistle, delivered by post, Mr. Lord made no answer.

Horace flattered himself that he had gained a victory. There was nothing
like ‘firmness,’ and that evening, about nine, he went to De Crespigny
Park. As usual, he had to ring the bell two or three times before any
one came; the lively notes of a piano sounded from the drawing-room,
intimating, no doubt, that Mrs. Peachey had guests. The door at length
opened, and he bade the servant let Miss. Fanny know that he was here;
he would wait in the dining-room.

It was not yet dark, but objects could only just be distinguished; the
gloom supplied Horace with a suggestion at which he laughed to himself.
He had laid down his hat and cane, when a voice surprised him.

‘Who’s that?’ asked some one from the back of the room.

‘Oh, are _you_ there, Mr. Peachey?--I’ve come to see Fanny. I didn’t
care to go among the people.’

‘All right. We’d better light the gas.’

With annoyance, Horace saw the master of the house come forward, and
strike a match. Remains of dinner were still on the table. The two
exchanged glances.

‘How is your father?’ Peachey inquired. He had a dull, depressed look,
and moved languidly to draw down the blind.

‘Oh, he isn’t quite up to the mark. But it’s nothing serious, I think.’

‘Miss. Lord quite well?--We haven’t seen much of her lately.’

‘I don’t know why, I’m sure.--Nobody can depend upon her very much.’

‘Well, I’ll leave you,’ said the other, with a dreary look about the
room. ‘The table ought to have been cleared by now--but that’s nothing
new.’

‘Confounded servants,’ muttered Horace.

‘Oh yes, the servants,’ was Peachey’s ironical reply.

As soon as he was left alone, Horace turned out the gas. Then he stood
near the door, trembling with amorous anticipation. But minutes went
by; his impatience grew intolerable; he stamped, and twisted his fingers
together. Then of a sudden the door opened.

‘Why, it’s dark, there’s nobody here.’

Fanny discovered her mistake. She was seized and lifted off her feet.

‘Oh! Do you want to eat me? I’ll hit you as hard as I can, I will!
You’re spoiling my dress?’

The last remonstrance was in a note that Horace did not venture to
disregard.

‘Strike a light, silly! I know you’ve done something to my dress.’

Horace pleaded abjectly to be forgiven, and that the room might remain
shadowed; but Fanny was disturbed in temper.

‘If you don’t light the gas, I’ll go at once.’

‘I haven’t any matches, darling.’

‘Oh, just like you! You never have anything. I thought every man carried
matches.’

She broke from him, and ran out. Wretched in the fear that she might not
return, Horace waited on the threshold. In the drawing-room some one
was singing ‘The Maid of the Mill.’ It came to an end, and there sounded
voices, which the tormented listener strove to recognise. For at least
ten minutes he waited, and was all but frantic, when the girl made her
appearance, coming downstairs.

‘Never do that again,’ she said viciously. ‘I’ve had to unfasten my
things, and put them straight. What a nuisance you are!’

He stood cowed before her, limp and tremulous.

‘There, light the gas. Why couldn’t you come into the drawing-room, like
other people do?’

‘Who is there?’ asked the young man, when he had obeyed her.

‘Go and see for yourself.’

‘Don’t be angry, Fanny.’ He followed her, like a dog, as she walked
round the table to look at herself in the mirror over the fireplace. ‘It
was only because I’m so fond of you.’

‘Oh, what a silly you are!’ she laughed, seating herself on the arm of
an easy-chair. ‘Go ahead! What’s the latest?’

‘Well, for one thing, I’ve had a very clear understanding with the
gov’nor about my independence. I showed him that I meant having my own
way, and he might bully as much as he liked.’

It was not thus that Horace would naturally have spoken, not thus
that he thought of his father. Fanny had subdued him to her own level,
poisoned him with the desires excited by her presence. And he knew his
baseness; he was not ignorant of the girl’s ignoble nature. Only the
fury of a virgin passion enabled him to talk, and sometimes think, as
though he were in love with ideal purity.

‘I didn’t think you had the pluck,’ said Fanny, swinging one of her feet
as she tittered.

‘That shows you haven’t done me justice.’

‘And you’re going to stay out late at night?’

‘As late as I like,’ Horace answered, crossing his arms.

‘Then where will you take me to-morrow?’

It happened that Horace was in funds just now; he had received his
quarter’s salary. Board and lodging were no expense to him; he provided
his own clothing, but, with this exception, had to meet no serious
claim. So, in reply to Fanny’s characteristic question, he jingled
coins.

‘Wherever you like.--“Dorothy,” “Ruddigore--“’

Delighted with his assent, she became more gracious, permitted a modest
caress, and presently allowed herself to be drawn on to her lover’s
knee. She was passive, unconcerned; no second year graduate of the
pavement could have preserved a completer equanimity; it did not appear
that her pulse quickened ever so slightly, nor had her eyelid the
suspicion of a droop. She hummed ‘Queen of my Heart,’ and grew absent in
speculative thought, whilst Horace burned and panted at the proximity of
her white flesh.

‘Oh, how I do love you, Fanny!’

She trod playfully on his toe.

‘You haven’t told the old gentleman yet?’

‘I--I’m thinking about it. But, Fanny, suppose he was to--to refuse
to do anything for us. Would it make any difference? There are lots of
people who marry on a hundred and fifty a year--oh lots!’

The maiden arched her brows, and puckered her lips. Hitherto it had been
taken for granted that Mr. Lord would be ready with subsidy; Horace,
in a large, vague way, had hinted that assurance long ago. Fanny’s
disinclination to plight her troth--she still deemed herself absolutely
free--had alone interfered between the young man and a definite project
of marriage.

‘What kind of people?’ she asked coldly.

‘Oh--respectable, educated people, like ourselves.’

‘And live in apartments? Thank you; I don’t quite see myself. There
isn’t a bit of hurry, dear boy. Wait a bit.’ She began to sing ‘Wait
till the clouds roll by.’

‘If you thought as much of me as I do of you--’

Tired of her position, Fanny jumped up and took a spoonful of sweet
jelly from a dish on the table.

‘Have some?’

‘Come here again. I’ve something more to tell you. Something very
important.’

She could only be prevailed upon to take a seat near him. Horace, beset
with doubts as to his prudence, but unable to keep the secret, began to
recount the story of his meeting with Mrs. Damerel, whom he had now seen
for the second time. Fanny’s curiosity, instantly awakened, grew eager
as he proceeded. She questioned with skill and pertinacity, and elicited
many more details than Nancy Lord had been able to gather.

‘You’ll promise me not to say a word to any one?’ pleaded Horace.

‘I won’t open my lips. But you’re quite sure she’s as old as you say?’

‘Old enough to be my mother, I assure you.’

The girl’s suspicions were not wholly set at rest, but she made no
further display of them.

‘Now just think what an advantage it might be to you, to know her,’
Horace pursued. ‘She’d introduce you at once to fashionable society,
really tip-top people. How would you like that?’

‘Not bad,’ was the judicial reply.

‘She must have no end of money, and who knows what she might do for me!’

‘It’s a jolly queer thing,’ mused the maiden.

‘There’s no denying that. We must keep it close, whatever we do.’

‘You haven’t told anybody else?’

‘Not a soul!’ Horace lied stoutly.

They were surprised by the sudden opening of the door; a servant
appeared to clear the table. Fanny reprimanded her for neglecting to
knock.

‘We may as well go into the drawing-room. There’s nobody particular.
Only Mrs. Middlemist, and Mr. Crewe, and--’

In the hall they encountered Crewe himself, who stood there conversing
with Beatrice. A few words were exchanged by the two men, and Horace
followed his enchantress into the drawing-room, where he found, seated
in conversation with Mrs. Peachey, two persons whom he had occasionally
met here. One of them, Mrs. Middlemist, was a stout, coarse,
high-coloured woman, with fingers much bejewelled. Until a year or
two ago she had adorned the private bar of a public-house kept by her
husband; retired from this honourable post, she now devoted herself to
society and the domestic virtues. The other guest, Mrs. Murch by name,
proclaimed herself, at a glance, of less prosperous condition, though
no less sumptuously arrayed. Her face had a hungry, spiteful, leering
expression; she spoke in a shrill, peevish tone, and wriggled nervously
on her chair. In eleven years of married life, Mrs. Murch had borne six
children, all of whom died before they were six months old. She lived
apart from her husband, who had something to do with the manufacture of
an Infants’ Food.

Fanny was requested to sing. She sat down at the piano, rattled a
prelude, and gave forth an echo of the music-halls:

‘_It’s all up with poor Tommy now. I shall never more be happy, I vow.
It’s just a week to-day Since my Sairey went away, And it’s all up with
poor Tommy now_.’

Mrs. Middlemist, who prided herself upon serious vocal powers, remarked
that comic singing should be confined to men.

‘You haven’t a bad voice, my dear, if you would only take pains with it.
Now sing us “For Ever and for Ever.”’

This song being the speaker’s peculiar glory, she was of course
requested to sing it herself, and, after entreaty, consented. Her eyes
turned upward, her fat figure rolling from side to side, her mouth very
wide open, Mrs. Middlemist did full justice to the erotic passion of
this great lyric:

‘_Perchawnce if we ‘ad never met, We ‘ad been spared this mad regret,
This hendless striving to forget--For hever--hand--for he-e-e-ver!_’

Mrs. Murch let her head droop sentimentally. Horace glanced at Fanny,
who, however, seemed absorbed in reflections as unsentimental as could
be.

In the meanwhile, on a garden seat under the calm but misty sky, sat
Luckworth Crewe and Beatrice French. Crewe smoked a cigar placidly;
Beatrice was laying before him the suggestion of her great commercial
scheme, already confided to Fanny.

‘How does it strike you?’ she asked at length.

‘Not bad, old chap. There’s something in it, if you’re clever enough to
carry it through. And I shouldn’t wonder if you are.’ ‘Will you help to
set it going?’

‘Can’t help with money,’ Crewe replied.

‘Very well; will you help in other ways? Practical hints, and so on?’

‘Of course I will. Always ready to encourage merit in the money-making
line. What capital are you prepared to put into it?’

‘Not much. The public must supply the capital.’

‘A sound principle,’ Crewe laughed. ‘But I shouldn’t go on the old
lines. You didn’t think of starting a limited company? You’d find
difficulties. Now what you want to start is a--let us call it the South
London Dress Supply Association, or something of that kind. But you
won’t get to that all at once. You ought to have premises to begin
with.’

‘I’m aware of it.’

‘Can you raise a thousand or so?’

‘Yes, I could--if I chose.’

‘Now, look here. Your notion of the Fashion Club is a deuced good one,
and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be pretty easily started. Out of every
five hundred women, you can reckon on four hundred and ninety-nine being
fools; and there isn’t a female fool who wouldn’t read and think about
a circular which promised her fashionable dresses for an unfashionable
price. That’s a great and sound basis to start on. What I advise is,
that you should first of all advertise for a dress-making concern that
would admit a partner with a small capital. You’ll have between ten
and twelve hundred replies, but don’t be staggered; go through
them carefully, and select a shop that’s well situated, and doing a
respectable trade. Get hold of these people, and induce them to make
changes in their business to suit your idea. Then blaze away with
circulars, headed “South London Fashion Club;” send them round the whole
district, addressed to women. Every idiot of them will, at all events,
come and look at the shop; that can be depended upon; in itself no bad
advertisement. Arrange to have a special department--special entrance,
if possible--with “The Club” painted up. Yes, by jingo! Have a big room,
with comfortable chairs, and the women’s weekly papers lying about,
and smart dresses displayed on what-d’ye-call-’ems, like they have in
windows. Make the subscription very low at first, and give rattling good
value; never mind if you lose by it. Then, when you’ve got hold of a lot
of likely people, try them with the share project. By-the-bye, if you
lose no time, you can bring in the Jubilee somehow. Yes, start with the
“Jubilee Fashion Club.” I wonder nobody’s done it already.’

Beatrice was growing elated.

‘The public has to wait for its benefactors,’ she replied.

‘I’ll tell you what, would you like me to sketch you out a prospectus of
the Club?’

‘Yes, you might do that if you like. You won’t expect to be paid?’

‘Hang it! what do you take me for?’

‘Business is business,’ Miss. French remarked coldly.

‘So it is. And friendship is friendship. Got a match?’ He laughed. ‘No,
I suppose you haven’t.’

‘I’ll go and get you one if you like.’

‘There’s a good fellow. I’ll think in the meantime.’

Beatrice rose lazily, and was absent for several minutes. When she
returned, Crewe re-lit his cigar.

‘Why shouldn’t I start the shop on my own account?’ Beatrice asked.

‘You haven’t capital enough. A little place wouldn’t do.’

‘I think I can get Fanny to join me.’

‘Can you? What will young Lord have to say to that?’

‘Psh! That’s all fooling. It’ll never come to anything. Unless, of
course, the old man turned up his toes, and left the boy a tidy sum. But
he won’t just yet. I’ve told Fanny that if she’ll raise something on her
houses, I’ll guarantee her the same income she has now.’

‘Take my advice,’ said Crewe weightily, ‘and hook on to an established
business. Of course, you can change the name if you like; and there’d
have to be alterations, and painting up, to give a new look.’

‘It’s risky, dealing with strangers. How if they got hold of my idea,
and then refused to take me in?’

‘Well now, look here. After all, I’ll make a bargain with you, old chap.
If I can introduce you to the right people, and get you safely started,
will you give me all your advertising, on the usual commission?’

‘You mean, give it to Bullock and Freeman?’

‘No, I don’t. It’s a secret just yet, but I’m going to start for
myself.’

Beatrice was silent. They exchanged a look in the gloom, and Crewe
nodded, in confirmation of his announcement.

‘How much have you got?’ Miss. French inquired carelessly.

‘Not much. Most of the capital is here.’ He touched his forehead. ‘Same
as with you.’

The young woman glanced at him again, and said in a lower voice:

‘You’d have had more by now, if--’

Crewe waited, puffing his cigar, but she did not finish.

‘Maybe,’ he replied impartially. ‘Maybe not.’

‘Don’t think I’m sorry,’ Beatrice hastened to add. ‘It was an idea, like
any other.’

‘Not half a bad idea. But there were obstacles.’

After a pause, Beatrice inquired:

‘Do you still think the same about women with money?’

‘Just the same,’ Crewe replied at once, though with less than his usual
directness; the question seemed to make him meditative. ‘Just the same.
Every man looks at it in his own way, of course. I’m not the sort
of chap to knuckle under to my wife; and there isn’t one woman in a
thousand, if she gave her husband a start, could help reminding him of
it. It’s the wrong way about. Let women be as independent as they
like as long as they’re not married. I never think the worse of them,
whatever they do that’s honest. But a wife must play second fiddle, and
think her husband a small god almighty--that’s my way of looking at the
question.’

Beatrice laughed scornfully.

‘All right. We shall see.--When do you start business?’

‘This side Christmas. End of September, perhaps.’

‘You think to snatch a good deal from B. & F., I daresay?’

Crewe nodded and smiled.

‘Then you’ll look after this affair for me?’ said Beatrice, with a
return to the tone of strict business.

‘Without loss of time. You shall be advised of progress. Of course I
must debit you with exes.’

‘All right. Mind you charge for all the penny stamps.’

‘Every one--don’t you forget it.’

He stood up, tilted forward on his toes, and stretched himself.

‘I’ll be trotting homewards. It’ll be time for by-by when I get to
Kennington.’



CHAPTER 3



Nancy was undisturbed by the promotion of Mary Woodruff. A short time
ago it would have offended her; she would have thought her dignity, her
social prospects, imperilled. She was now careless on that score, and
felt it a relief to cast off the show of domestic authority. Henceforth
her position would be like that of Horace. All she now desired was
perfect freedom from responsibility,--to be, as it were, a mere lodger
in the house, to come and go unquestioned and unrestrained by duties.

Thus, by aid of circumstance, had she put herself into complete accord
with the spirit of her time. Abundant privilege; no obligation. A
reference of all things to her sovereign will and pleasure. Withal, a
defiant rather than a hopeful mood; resentment of the undisguisable fact
that her will was sovereign only in a poor little sphere which she would
gladly have transcended.

Now-a-days she never went in the direction of Champion Hill, formerly
her favourite walk. If Jessica Morgan spoke of her acquaintances there,
she turned abruptly to another subject. She thought of the place as
an abode of arrogance and snobbery. She recalled with malicious
satisfaction her ill-mannered remark to Lionel Tarrant. Let him think of
her as he would; at all events he could no longer imagine her overawed
by his social prestige. The probability was that she had hurt him in a
sensitive spot; it might be hoped that the wound would rankle for a long
time.

Her personal demeanour showed a change. So careful hitherto of feminine
grace and decorum, she began to affect a mannishness of bearing, a
bluntness of speech, such as found favour at De Crespigny Park. In a
few weeks she had resumed friendly intercourse with Mrs. Peachey and
her sisters, and spent an occasional evening at their house. Her father
asked no questions; she rarely saw him except at meals. A stranger must
have observed the signs of progressive malady in Mr. Lord’s face, but
Nancy was aware of nothing to cause uneasiness; she thought of him as
suffering a little from ‘gout;’ elderly people were of course subject
to such disorders. On most days he went to business; if he remained
at home, Mary attended him assiduously, and he would accept no other
ministration.

Nancy was no longer inclined to study, and cared little for reading of
any sort. That new book on Evolution, which she had brought from the
library just before Jubilee Day, was still lying about; a dozen times
she had looked at it with impatience, and reminded herself that it must
be returned. Evolution! She already knew all about Darwinism, all she
needed to know. If necessary she could talk about it--oh, with an air.
But who wanted to talk about such things? After all, only priggish
people,--the kind of people who lived at Champion Hill. Or idiots like
Samuel Bennett Barmby, who bothered about the future of the world. What
was it to _her_--the future of the world? She wanted to live in the
present, to enjoy her youth. An evening like that she had spent in the
huge crowd, with a man like Crewe to amuse her with his talk, was worth
whole oceans of ‘culture.’

‘Culture’ she already possessed, abundance of it. The heap of books she
had read! Last winter she had attended a course of lectures, delivered
by ‘a young University gentleman with a tone of bland omniscience,
on ‘The History of Hellenic Civilisation;’ her written answers to the
little ‘test papers’ had been marked ‘very satisfactory.’ Was it not a
proof of culture achieved? Education must not encroach upon the years of
maturity. Nature marked the time when a woman should begin to live.

There was poor Jessica. As July drew on, Jessica began to look
cadaverous, ghostly. She would assuredly break down long before the time
of her examination. What a wretched, what an absurd existence! Her
home, too, was so miserable. Mrs. Morgan lay ill, unable to attend to
anything; if she could not have a change of air, it must soon be all
over with her. But they had no money, no chance of going to the seaside.

It happened at length that Mr. Lord saw Jessica one evening, when she
had come to spend an hour in Grove Lane. After her departure, he
asked Nancy what was the matter with the girl, and Nancy explained the
situation.

‘Well, why not take her with you, when you go away?’

‘I didn’t know that I was going away, father. Nothing has been said of
it.’

‘It’s your own business. I leave you to make what plans you like.’

Nancy reflected.

‘_You_ ought to have a change,’ she said considerately. ‘It would do you
good. Suppose we all go to Teignmouth? I should think that would suit
you.’

‘Why Teignmouth?’

‘I enjoyed it last year. And the lodgings were comfortable. We could
have the same, from the first week in August.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I wrote the other day, and asked,’ Nancy replied with a smile.

But Mr. Lord declined to leave home. Mary Woodruff did her best to
persuade him, until he angrily imposed silence. In a day or two he said
to Nancy:

‘If you wish to go to Teignmouth, take Jessica and her mother. People
mustn’t die for want of a five-pound note. Make your arrangements, and
let me know what money you’ll need.’

‘It’s very kind of you, father.’

Mr. Lord turned away. His daughter noticed that he walked feebly, and
she felt a moment’s compunction.

‘Father--you are not so well to-day.’

Without looking round, he replied that he would be well enough if left
alone; and Nancy did not venture to say more.

A few days later, she called in De Crespigny Park after dinnertime. Mrs.
Peachey and Fanny were at Brighton; Beatrice had preferred to stay in
London, being very busy with her great project. Whilst she talked of
it with Nancy, Peachey and Luckworth Crewe came in together. There was
sprightly conversation, in which the host, obviously glad of his wife’s
absence, took a moderate part. Presently, Miss. Lord and he found
themselves gossiping alone; the other two had moved aside, and, as a
look informed Nancy, were deep in confidential dialogue.

‘What do you think of that business?’ she asked her companion in an
undertone.

‘I shouldn’t wonder if it answers,’ said the young man, speaking as
usual, with a soft, amiable voice. ‘Our friend is helping, and he
generally knows what he’s about.’

Crewe remained only for half-an-hour; on shaking hands with him, Nancy
made known that she was going to the seaside next Monday for a few
weeks, and the man of business answered only with ‘I hope you’ll enjoy
yourself.’ Soon afterwards, she took leave. At the junction of De
Crespigny Park and Grove Lane, some one approached her, and with no
great surprise Nancy saw that it was Crewe.

‘Been waiting for you,’ he said. ‘You remember you promised me another
walk.’

‘Oh, it’s much too late.’

‘Of course it is. I didn’t mean now. But to-morrow.’

‘Impossible.’ She moved on, in the direction away from her home. ‘I
shall be with friends in the evening, the Morgans.’

‘Confound it! I had made up my mind to ask you for last Saturday, but
some country people nabbed me for the whole of that day. I took them up
the Monument, and up St Paul’s.’

‘I’ve never been up the Monument,’ said Nancy.

‘Never? Come to-morrow afternoon then. You can spare the afternoon.
Let’s meet early somewhere. Take a bus to London Bridge. I’ll be at the
north end of London Bridge at three o’clock.’

‘All right; I’ll be there,’ Nancy replied off-hand.

‘You really will? Three, sharp. I was never late at an appointment,
business or pleasure.’

‘Which do you consider this?’ asked his companion, with a shrewd glance.

‘Now that’s unkind. I came here to-night on business, though. You quite
understand that, didn’t you? I shouldn’t like you to make any mistake.
Business, pure and simple.’

‘Why, of course,’ replied Nancy, with an ingenuous air. ‘What else could
it be?’ And she added, ‘Don’t come any further. Ta-ta!’

Crewe went off into the darkness.

The next afternoon, Nancy alighted at London Bridge a full quarter of an
hour late. It had been raining at intervals through the day, and clouds
still cast a gloom over the wet streets. Crewe, quite insensible to
atmospheric influence, came forward with his wonted brisk step and
animated visage. At Miss. Lord’s side he looked rather more plebeian
than when walking by himself; his high-hat, not of the newest, utterly
misbecame his head, and was always at an unconventional angle, generally
tilting back; his clothes, of no fashionable cut, bore the traces of
perpetual hurry and multifarious impact. But he carried a perfectly new
and expensive umbrella, to which, as soon as he had shaken hands with
her, he drew Nancy’s attention.

‘A present this morning, from a friend of mine in the business. I ran
into his shop to get shelter. Upon my word, I had no intention; didn’t
think anything about it. However, he owed me an acknowledgment;
I’ve sent him three customers from our office since I saw him last.
By-the-bye, I shall have half a day at the seaside on Monday. There’s
a sale of building-plots down at Whitsand. The estate agents run a
complimentary special train for people going down to bid, and give a
lunch before the auction begins. Not bad business.’

‘Are _you_ going to bid?’ asked Nancy.

‘I’m going to have a look, at all events; and if I see anything that
takes my fancy--. Ever been to Whitsand? I’m told it’s a growing place.
I should like to get hold of a few advertising stations.--Where is it
you are going to on Monday? Teignmouth? I don’t know that part of the
country. Wish I could run down, but I shan’t have time. I’ve got my work
cut out for August and September. Would you like to come and see the
place where I think of opening shop?’

‘Is it far?’

‘No. We’ll walk round when we’ve been up the Monument. You don’t often
go about the City, I daresay. Nothing doing, of course, on a Saturday
afternoon.’

Nancy made him moderate his pace, which was too quick for her. Part of
the pleasure she found in Crewe’s society came from her sense of being
so undeniably his superior; she liked to give him a sharp command,
and observe his ready obedience. To his talk she listened with a
good-natured, condescending smile, occasionally making a remark which
implied a more liberal view, a larger intelligence, than his. Thus, as
they stood for a moment to look down at the steamboat wharf, and Crewe
made some remark about the value of a cargo just being discharged, she
said carelessly:

‘I suppose that’s the view you take of everything? You rate everything
at market price.’

‘Marketable things, of course. But you know me well enough to
understand that I’m not always thinking of the shop. Wait till I’ve made
money.--Now then, clumsy!’

A man, leaning over the parapet by Nancy’s side, had pushed against her.
Thus addressed he glared at the speaker, but encountered a bellicose
look which kept him quiet.

‘I shall live in a big way,’ Crewe continued, as they walked on towards
Fish Street Hill. ‘Not for the swagger of it; I don’t care about that,
but because I’ve a taste for luxury. I shall have a country house, and
keep good horses. And I should like to have a little farm of my own, a
model farm; make my own butter and cheese, and know that I ate the real
thing. I shall buy pictures. Haven’t I told you I like pictures? Oh yes.
I shall go round among the artists, and encourage talent that hasn’t
made itself known.’

‘Can you recognise it?’ asked Nancy.

‘Well, I shall learn to. And I shall have my wife’s portrait painted by
some first-rate chap, never mind what it costs, and hung in the Academy.
That’s a great idea of mine--to see my wife’s portrait in the Academy.’

His companion laughed.

‘Take care, then, that your wife is ornamental.’

‘I’ll take precious good care of that!’ Crewe exclaimed merrily. ‘Do you
suppose I should dream of marrying a woman who wasn’t good-looking?’

‘Don’t shout, please. People can hear you.’

‘I beg your pardon.’ His voice sank to humility. ‘That’s a bad habit of
mine. But I was going to say--I went to the Academy this year just to
look at the portraits of men’s wives. There was nothing particular in
that line. Not a woman I should have felt particularly proud of. Tastes
differ, of course. Mine has altered a good deal in the last ten years. A
man can’t trust himself about women till he’s thirty or near it.’

‘Talk of something else,’ Nancy commanded.

‘Certainly. There’s the sun coming out. You see, I was afraid it would
keep on raining, and you would have an excuse for staying at home.’

‘I needed no excuse,’ said Nancy. ‘If I hadn’t wished to come, you may
be sure I should have said so.’

Crewe flashed a look at her.

‘Ah, that’s how I like to hear you speak! That does one good. Well,
here we are. People used to be fond of going up, they say, just to
pitch themselves down. A good deal of needless trouble, it seems to
me. Perhaps they gave themselves the off-chance of changing their minds
before they got to the top.’

‘Or wanted to see if life looked any better from up there,’ suggested
Nancy.

‘Or hoped somebody would catch them by the coat-tails, and settle a
pension on them out of pity.’

Thus jesting, they began the ascent. Crewe, whose spirits were at high
pressure, talked all the way up the winding stairs; on issuing into
daylight, he became silent, and they stood side by side, mute before the
vision of London’s immensity. Nancy began to move round the platform.
The strong west wind lashed her cheeks to a glowing colour; excitement
added brilliancy to her eyes. As soon as she had recovered from the
first impression, this spectacle of a world’s wonder served only to
exhilarate her; she was not awed by what she looked upon. In her conceit
of self-importance, she stood there, above the battling millions of men,
proof against mystery and dread, untouched by the voices of the past,
and in the present seeing only common things, though from an odd point
of view. Here her senses seemed to make literal the assumption by which
her mind had always been directed: that she--Nancy Lord--was the mid
point of the universe. No humility awoke in her; she felt the stirring
of envies, avidities, unavowable passions, and let them flourish
unrebuked.

Crewe had his eyes fixed upon her; his lips parted hungrily.

‘Now _that’s_ how I should like to see you painted,’ he said all at
once. ‘Just like that! I never saw you looking so well. I believe you’re
the most beautiful girl to be found anywhere in this London!’

There was genuine emotion in his voice, and his sweeping gesture suited
the mood of vehemence. Nancy, having seen that the two or three other
people on the platform were not within hearing, gave an answer of which
the frankness surprised even herself.

‘Portraits for the Academy cost a great deal, you know.’

‘I know. But that’s what I’m working for. There are not many men down
yonder,’ he pointed over the City, ‘have a better head for money-making
than I have.’

‘Well, prove it,’ replied Nancy, and laughed as the wind caught her
breath.

‘How long will you give me?’

She made no answer, but walked to the side whence she could look
westward. Crewe followed close, his features still set in the hungry
look, his eyes never moving from her warm cheek and full lips.

‘What it must be,’ she said, ‘to have about twenty thousand a year!’

The man of business gave a gasp. In the same moment he had to clutch at
his hat, lest it should be blown away.

‘Twenty thousand a year?’ he echoed. ‘Well, it isn’t impossible. Men get
beyond that, and a good deal beyond it. But it’s a large order.’

‘Of course it is. But what was it you said? The most beautiful girl in
all London? That’s a large order, too, isn’t it? How much is she worth?’

‘You’re talking for the joke now,’ said Crewe. ‘I don’t like to hear
that kind of thing, either. You never think in that way.’

‘My thoughts are my own. I may think as I choose.’

‘Yes. But you have thoughts above money.’

‘Have I? How kind of you to say so.--I’ve had enough of this wind; we’ll
go down.’

She led the way, and neither of them spoke till they were in the street
again. Nancy felt her hair.

‘Am I blown to pieces?’ she asked.

‘No, no; you’re all right. Now, will you walk through the City?’

‘Where’s the place you spoke of?’

‘Farringdon Street. That’ll bring you round to Blackfriars Bridge, when
you want to go home. But there’s plenty of time yet.’

So they rambled aimlessly by the great thoroughfares, and by hidden
streets of which Nancy had never heard, talking or silent as the mood
dictated. Crewe had stories to tell of this and that thriving firm, of
others struggling in obscurity or falling from high estate; to him the
streets of London were so many chapters of romance, but a romance always
of to-day, for he neither knew nor cared about historic associations.
Vast sums sounded perpetually on his lips; he glowed with envious
delight in telling of speculations that had built up great fortunes.
He knew the fabulous rents that were paid for sites that looked
insignificant; he repeated anecdotes of calls made from Somerset House
upon men of business, who had been too modest in returning the statement
of their income; he revived legends of dire financial disaster, and
of catastrophe barely averted by strange expedients. To all this Nancy
listened with only moderate interest; as often as not, she failed to
understand the details which should have excited her wonder. None the
less, she received an impression of knowledge, acuteness, power, in the
speaker; and this was decidedly pleasant.

‘Here’s the place where I think of starting for myself,’ said Crewe, as
he paused at length before a huge building in Farringdon Street.

‘This?--Can you afford such a rent?’

Her companion burst into laughter.

‘I don’t mean the whole building. Two or three rooms, that’s all,
somewhere upstairs.’

Nancy made a jest of her mistake.

‘An advertising agent doesn’t want much space,’ said Crewe. ‘I know
a chap who’s doing a pretty big business in one room, not far from
here.--Well, we’ve had a long walk; now you must rest a bit, and have a
cup of tea.’

‘I thought you were going to propose champagne.’

‘Oh--if you like--’

They went to a restaurant in Fleet Street, and sat for half an hour over
the milder beverage. Crewe talked of his projects, his prospects; and
Nancy, whom the afternoon had in truth fatigued a little, though her
mind was still excited, listened without remark.

‘Well,’ he said at length, leaning towards her, ‘how long do you give
me?’

She looked away, and kept silence.

‘Two years:--just to make a solid start; to show that something worth
talking ‘about is to come?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

He kept his position, and gazed at her.

‘I know it isn’t money that would tempt you.’ He spoke in a very low
voice, though no one was within earshot. ‘Don’t think I make any mistake
about _that_! But I have to show you that there’s something in me.
I wouldn’t marry any woman that thought I made love to her out of
interest.’

Nancy began to draw on her gloves, and smiled, just biting her lower
lip.

‘Will you give me a couple of years, from to-day? I won’t bother you.
It’s honour bright!’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Nancy repeated.

‘Whilst you’re away?’

‘Yes, whilst I’m away at Teignmouth.’

‘And tell me when you come back?’

‘Tell you--how long. Yes.’

And she rose.



CHAPTER 4



From the mouth of Exe to the mouth of Teign the coast is uninteresting.
Such beauty as it once possessed has been destroyed by the railway.
Cliffs of red sandstone drop to the narrow beach, warm between the blue
of sky and sea, but without grandeur, and robbed of their native
grace by navvy-hewing, which for the most part makes of them a mere
embankment: their verdure stripped away, their juttings tunnelled, along
their base the steel parallels of smoky traffic. Dawlish and Teignmouth
have in themselves no charm; hotel and lodging-house, shamed by the
soft pure light that falls about them, look blankly seaward, hiding what
remains of farm or cottage in the older parts. Ebb-tide uncovers no fair
stretch of sand, and at flood the breakers are thwarted on a bulwark of
piled stone, which supports the railway, or protects a promenade.

But inland these discontents are soon forgotten; there amid tilth and
pasture, gentle hills and leafy hollows of rural Devon, the eye rests
and the mind is soothed. By lanes innumerable, deep between banks of
fern and flower; by paths along the bramble-edge of scented meadows;
by the secret windings of copse and brake and stream-worn valley--a way
lies upward to the long ridge of Haldon, where breezes sing among the
pines, or sweep rustling through gorse and bracken. Mile after mile
of rustic loveliness, ever and anon the sea-limits blue beyond grassy
slopes. White farms dozing beneath their thatch in harvest sunshine;
hamlets forsaken save by women and children, by dogs and cats and
poultry, the labourers afield. Here grow the tall foxgloves, bending a
purple head in the heat of noon; here the great bells of the convolvulus
hang thick from lofty hedges, massing their pink and white against dark
green leafage; here amid shadowed undergrowth trail the long fronds
of lustrous hartstongue; wherever the eye falls, profusion of summer’s
glory. Here, in many a nook carpeted with softest turf, canopied with
tangle of leaf and bloom, solitude is safe from all intrusion--unless it
be that of flitting bird, or of some timid wild thing that rustles for a
moment and is gone. From dawn to midnight, as from midnight to dawn, one
who would be alone with nature might count upon the security of these
bosks and dells.

By Nancy Lord and her companions such pleasures were unregarded. For the
first few days after their arrival at Teignmouth, they sat or walked on
the promenade, walked or sat on the pier, sat or walked on the Den--a
long, wide lawn, decked about with shrubs and flower-beds, between
sea-fronting houses and the beach. Nancy had no wish to exert herself,
for the weather was hot; after her morning bathe with Jessica, she found
amusement enough in watching the people--most of whom were here simply
to look at each other, or in listening to the band, which played
selections from Sullivan varied with dance music, or in reading a novel
from the book-lender’s,--that is to say, gazing idly at the page, and
letting such significance as it possessed float upon her thoughts.

She was pleasantly conscious that the loungers who passed by, male and
female, gave something of attention to her face and costume. Without
attempting to rival the masterpieces of fashion which invited envy or
wonder from all observers, she thought herself nicely dressed, and had
in fact, as always, made good use of her father’s liberality. Her taste
in garments had a certain timidity that served her well; by avoiding the
extremes of mode, and in virtue of her admirable figure, she took the
eye of those who looked for refinement rather than for extravagance. The
unconsidered grace of her bearing might be recognised by all whom such
things concerned; it by no means suggested that she came from a small
house in Camberwell. In her companions, to be sure, she was unfortunate;
but the over-modest attire and unimpressive persons of Mrs. Morgan and
Jessica at least did her the office of relief by contrast.

Nancy had made this reflection; she was not above it. Yet her actual
goodness of heart saved her from ever feeling ashamed of the Morgans. It
gratified her to think that she was doing them a substantial kindness;
but for her, they would have dragged through a wretched summer in their
unwholesome, jimcrack house, without a breath of pure air, without a
sight of the free heaven. And to both of them that would probably have
meant a grave illness.

Mrs. Morgan was a thin, tremulous woman, with watery eyes and a singular
redness about the prominent part of her face, which seemed to indicate a
determination of blood to the nose. All her married life had been spent
in a cheerless struggle to maintain the externals of gentility. Not
that she was vain or frivolous--indeed her natural tendencies made for
homeliness in everything--but, by birth and by marriage connected with
genteel people, she felt it impossible to abandon that mode of living
which is supposed to distinguish the educated class from all beneath it.
She had brought into the world three sons and three daughters; of the
former, two were dead, and of the latter, one,--in each case, poverty of
diet having proved fatal to a weak constitution. For close upon thirty
years the family had lived in houses of which the rent was out of all
reasonable proportion to their means; at present, with a total income
of one hundred and sixty pounds (Mr. Morgan called himself a commission
agent, and seldom had anything to do), they paid in rent and rates a
matter of fifty-five, and bemoaned the fate which neighboured them with
people only by courtesy to be called gentlefolk. Of course they kept
a servant,--her wages nine pounds a year. Whilst the mother and elder
daughter were at Teignmouth, Mr Morgan, his son, and the younger girl
felt themselves justified in making up for lack of holiday by an extra
supply of butcher’s meat.

Well-meaning, but with as little discretion in this as in other things,
Mrs. Morgan allowed scarce an hour of the day to pass without uttering
her gratitude to Nancy Lord for the benefit she was enjoying. To escape
these oppressive thanks, Nancy did her best never to be alone with the
poor lady; but a _tete-a-tete_ was occasionally unavoidable, as, for
instance, on the third or fourth day after their arrival, when Mrs.
Morgan had begged Nancy’s company for a walk on the Den, whilst Jessica
wrote letters. At the end of a tedious hour Jessica joined them, and her
face had an unwonted expression. She beckoned her friend apart.

‘You’ll be surprised. Who do you think is here?’

‘No one that will bore us, I hope.’

‘Mr. Tarrant. I met him near the post-office, and he stopped me.’

Nancy frowned.

‘Are they all here again?’

‘No; he says he’s alone.--One minute, mamma; please excuse us.’

‘He was surprised to see you?’ said Nancy, after reflecting.

‘He said so. But--I forgot to tell you--in a letter to Mrs. Baker I
spoke of our plans. She had written to me to propose a pupil for after
the holidays.--Perhaps she didn’t mention it to Mr. Tarrant.’

‘Evidently not!’ Nancy exclaimed, with some impatience. ‘Why should you
doubt his word?’

‘I can’t help thinking’--Jessica smiled archly--‘that he has come just
to meet--somebody.’

‘Somebody? Who do you mean?’ asked her friend, with a look of sincere
astonishment.

‘I may be mistaken’--a glance completed the suggestion.

‘Rubbish!’

For the rest of that day the subject was unmentioned. Nancy kept rather
to herself, and seemed meditative. Next morning she was in the same
mood. The tide served for a bathe at eleven o’clock; afterwards, as
the girls walked briskly to and fro near the seat where Mrs. Morgan had
established herself with a volume of Browning,--Jessica insisted on her
reading Browning, though the poor mother protested that she scarcely
understood a word,--they came full upon the unmistakable presence of Mr.
Lionel Tarrant. Miss. Morgan, in acknowledging his salute, offered her
hand; it was by her that the young man had stopped. Miss. Lord only bent
her head, and that slightly. Tarrant expected more, but his half-raised
hand dropped in time, and he directed his speech to Jessica. He had
nothing to say but what seemed natural and civil; the dialogue--Nancy
remained mute--occupied but a few minutes, and Tarrant went his way,
sauntering landwards.

As Mrs. Morgan had observed the meeting, it was necessary to offer her
an explanation. But Jessica gave only the barest facts concerning their
acquaintance, and Nancy spoke as though she hardly knew him.

The weather was oppressively hot; in doors or out, little could be done
but sit or lie in enervated attitudes, a state of things accordant with
Nancy’s mood. Till late at night she watched the blue starry sky from
her open window, seeming to reflect, but in reality wafted on a stream
of fancies and emotions. Jessica’s explanation of the arrival of Lionel
Tarrant had strangely startled her; no such suggestion would have
occurred to her own mind. Yet now, she only feared that it might not
be true. A debilitating climate and absolute indolence favoured that
impulse of lawless imagination which had first possessed her on the
evening of Jubilee Day. With luxurious heedlessness she cast aside every
thought that might have sobered her; even as she at length cast off all
her garments, and lay in the warm midnight naked upon her bed.

The physical attraction of which she had always been conscious in
Tarrant’s presence seemed to have grown stronger since she had dismissed
him from her mind. Comparing him with Luckworth Crewe, she felt only a
contemptuous distaste for the coarse vitality and vigour, whereto
she had half surrendered herself, when hopeless of the more ambitious
desire.

Rising early, she went out before breakfast, and found that a little
rain had fallen. Grass and flowers were freshened; the air had an
exquisite clearness, and a coolness which struck delightfully on the
face, after the close atmosphere within doors. She had paused to watch a
fishing-boat off shore, when a cheery voice bade her ‘good-morning,’ and
Tarrant stepped to her side.

‘You are fond of this place,’ he said.

‘Not particularly.’

‘Then why do you choose it?’

‘It does for a holiday as well as any other.’

He was gazing at her, and with the look which Nancy resented, the look
which made her feel his social superiority. He seemed to observe her
features with a condescending gratification. Though totally ignorant of
his life and habits, she felt a conviction that he had often bestowed
this look upon girls of a class below his own.

‘How do you like those advertisements of soaps and pills along the
pier?’ he asked carelessly.

‘I see no harm in them.’

Perversity prompted her answer, but at once she remembered Crewe, and
turned away in annoyance. Tarrant was only the more good-humoured.

‘You like the world as it is? There’s wisdom in that. Better be in
harmony with one’s time, advertisements and all.’ He added, ‘Are you
reading for an exam?’

‘I? You are confusing me with Miss. Morgan.’

‘Oh, not for a moment! I couldn’t possibly confuse you with any one
else. I know Miss. Morgan is studying professionally; but I thought you
were reading for your own satisfaction, as so many women do now-a-days.’

The distinction was flattering. Nancy yielded to the charm of his voice
and conversed freely. It began to seem not impossible that he found some
pleasure in her society. Now and then he dropped a word that made her
pulses flutter; his eyes were constantly upon her face.

‘Don’t you go off into the country sometimes?’ he inquired, when she had
turned homewards.

‘We are thinking of having a drive to-day.’

‘And I shall most likely have a ride; we may meet.’

Nancy ordered a carriage for the afternoon, and with her friends drove
up the Teign valley; but they did not meet Tarrant. But next morning
he joined them on the pier, and this time Jessica had no choice but to
present him to her mother. Nancy felt annoyed that this should have come
about; Tarrant, she supposed, would regard poor Mrs. Morgan with secret
ridicule. Yet, if that were his disposition, he concealed it perfectly;
no one could have behaved with more finished courtesy. He seated
himself by Mrs. Morgan, and talked with her of the simplest things in a
pleasant, kindly humour. Yesterday, so he made known, he had ridden to
Torquay and back, returning after sunset. This afternoon he was going by
train to Exeter, to buy some books.

Again he strolled about with Nancy, and talked of idle things with an
almost excessive amiability. As the girl listened, a languor crept upon
her, a soft and delicious subdual of the will to dreamy luxury. Her
eyes were fixed on the shadows cast by her own figure and that of her
companion. The black patches by chance touched. She moved so as to part
them, and then changed her position so that they touched again--so that
they blended.



CHAPTER 5



Nancy had written to her father, a short letter but affectionate,
begging him to let her know whether the improvement in his health, of
which he had spoken before she left home, still continued. The answer
came without delay. On the whole, said Mr. Lord, he was doing well
enough; no need whatever to trouble about him. He wrote only a few
lines, but closed with ‘love to you, my dear child,’ an unwonted
effusiveness.

At the same time there came a letter from Horace.

‘You will be surprised,’ it began, ‘at the address I write from. As you
know, I had planned to go to Brighton; but on the day before my holiday
commenced I heard from F. F., saying that she and Mrs. Peachey had had a
quarrel, and she was tired of Brighton, and was coming home. So I waited
a day or two, and then, as I had half promised, I went to see Mrs. D.
We had a long talk, and it ended in my telling her about F., and all the
row there’s been. Perhaps you will think I had better have kept it to
myself, but Mrs. D. and I are on first-rate terms, and she seems
to understand me better than any one I ever met. We talked about my
holiday, and she persuaded me to come to Scarborough, where she herself
was going for a week or two. It’s rather an expensive affair, but worth
the money. Of course I have lodgings of my own. Mrs. D. is at a big
hotel, where friends of hers are staying. I have been introduced to two
or three people, great swells, and I’ve had lunch with Mrs. D. at the
hotel twice. This kind of life suits me exactly. I don’t think I get on
badly with the swells. Of course I say not a word about my position, and
of course nobody would think of asking questions. You would like this
place; I rather wish you were here. Of course father thinks I have come
on my own hook. It’s very awkward having to keep a secret of this kind;
I must try and persuade Mrs. D. to have a talk with father. But one
thing I can tell you,--I feel pretty sure that she will get me, somehow
or other, out of that beastly City life; she’s always talking of things
I might do. But not a word to any one about all this--be sure.’

This news caused Nancy to ponder for a long time. The greater part of
the morning she spent at home, and in her own room; after lunch, she sat
idly on the promenade, little disposed for conversation.

It was the second day since Tarrant had told her that he was going to
Exeter, and they had not again met; the Morgans had not seen him either.
The next morning, however, as all three were sitting in one of their
favourite places, Tarrant approached them. Mrs. Morgan, who was
fluttered by the natural supposition of a love affair between Miss. Lord
and the interesting young man, made it easy for them to talk together.

‘Did you get your books?’ Nancy asked, when silence followed on
trivialities.

‘Yes, and spent half a day with them in a favourite retreat of mine,
inland. It’s a very beautiful spot. I should like you to see it. Indeed,
you ought to.’

Nancy turned her eyes to the sea.

‘We might walk over there one afternoon,’ he added.

‘Mrs. Morgan can’t walk far.’

‘Why should we trouble her? Are you obliged to remain under Mrs.
Morgan’s wing?’

It was said jestingly, but Nancy felt piqued.

‘Certainly not. I am quite independent.’

‘So I should have supposed. Then why not come?’

He seemed perfectly self-possessed, but the voice was not quite his own.
To Nancy, her eyes still looking straight forward, it sounded as though
from a distance; it had an effect upon her nerves similar to that she
had experienced three days ago, when they were walking about the pier.
Her hands fell idly; she leaned back more heavily on the seat; a weight
was on her tongue.

‘A country ramble of an hour or two,’ pursued the voice, which itself
had become languorous. ‘Surely you are sometimes alone? It isn’t
necessary to give a detailed account of your time?’

She answered impatiently. ‘Of course not.’ In this moment her thoughts
had turned to Luckworth Crewe, and she was asking herself why this
invitation of Tarrant’s affected her so very differently from anything
she had felt when Crewe begged her to meet him in London. With him
she could go anywhere, enjoying a genuine independence, a complete
self-confidence, thinking her unconventional behaviour merely good fun.
Tarrant’s proposal startled her. She was not mistress of the situation,
as when trifling with Crewe. A sense of peril caused her heart to beat
quickly.

‘This afternoon, then,’ the voice was murmuring.

She answered mechanically. ‘It’s going to rain, I think.’

‘I think not. But, if so, to-morrow.’

‘To-morrow is Sunday.’

‘Yes. Monday, then.’

Nancy heard him smother a laugh. She wished to look at him, but could
not.

‘It won’t rain,’ he continued, still with the ease of one who speaks of
everyday matters. ‘We shall see, at all events. Perhaps you will want to
change your book at the library.’ A novel lay on her lap. ‘We’ll leave
it an open possibility--to meet there about three o’clock.’

Nancy pointed out to sea, and asked where the steamer just passing might
be bound for. Her companion readily turned to this subject.

The rain--she half hoped for it--did not come. By luncheon-time every
doubtful cloud had vanished. Before sitting down to table, she observed
the sky at the open window.

‘Lovely weather!’ sighed Mrs. Morgan behind her. ‘But for you, dear
Nancy, I should have been dreaming and wishing--oh, how vainly!--in the
stifling town.’

‘We’ll have another drive this afternoon,’ Nancy declared.

‘Oh, how delightful! But pray, pray, not on our account--’

‘Jessica,’--Nancy turned to her friend, who had just entered the
room,--‘we’ll have the carriage at three. And a better horse than last
time; I’ll take good care of that. Pen, ink, and paper!’ she cried
joyously. ‘The note shall go round at once.’

‘You’re a magnificent sort of person,’ said Jessica. ‘Some day, no
doubt, you’ll keep a carriage and pair of your own.’

‘Shan’t I, just! And drive you down to Burlington House, for your exams.
By-the-bye, does a female Bachelor of Arts lose her degree if she gets
married?’

Nancy was sprightlier than of late. Her mood maintained itself
throughout the first half of the drive, then she seemed to be overcome
by a sudden weariness, ceased to talk, and gave only a listless look at
things which interested her companions. By when they reached home again,
she had a pale troubled countenance. Until dinner nothing more was seen
of her, and after the meal she soon excused herself on the plea of a
headache.

Again there passed two days, Sunday and Monday, without Tarrant’s
appearing. Mrs. Morgan and Jessica privately talked much of the
circumstance. Sentimental souls, they found this topic inexhaustible;
Jessica, having her mind thus drawn away from Burlington House,
benefited not a little by the mystery of her friend’s position;
she thought, however, that Nancy might have practised a less severe
reticence. To Mrs. Morgan it never occurred that so self-reliant a
young woman as Miss. Lord stood in need of matronly counsel, of strict
chaperonage; she would have deemed it an impertinence to allow herself
the most innocent remark implying such a supposition.

On Wednesday afternoon, about three o’clock, Nancy walked alone to the
library. There, looking at books and photographs in the window, stood
Lionel Tarrant. He greeted her as usual, seemed not to remark the hot
colour in her cheeks, and stepped with her into the shop. She had meant
to choose a novel, but, with Tarrant looking on, felt constrained to
exhibit her capacity for severe reading. The choice of grave works was
not large, and she found it difficult to command her thoughts even for
the perusal of titles; however, she ultimately discovered a book that
promised anything but frivolity, Helmholtz’s ‘Lectures on Scientific
Subjects,’ and at this she clutched.

Two loudly-dressed women were at the same time searching the shelves.

‘I wonder whether this is a pretty book?’ said one to the other, taking
down a trio of volumes.

‘Oh, it looks as if it might be pretty,’ returned her friend, examining
the cover.

They faced to the person behind the counter.

‘Is this a pretty book?’ one of them inquired loftily.

‘Oh yes, madam, that’s a very pretty book--very pretty.’

Nancy exchanged a glance with her companion and smiled. When they were
outside again Tarrant asked:

‘Have you found a pretty book?’

She showed the title of her choice.

‘Merciful heavens! You mean to read that? The girls of to-day! What mere
man is worthy of them? But--I must rise to the occasion. We’ll have a
chapter as we rest.’

Insensibly, Nancy had followed the direction he chose. His words took
for granted that she was going into the country with him.

‘My friends are on the pier,’ she said, abruptly stopping.

‘Where doubtless they will enjoy themselves. Let me carry your book,
please. Helmholtz is rather heavy.’

‘Thanks, I can carry it very well. I shall turn this way.’

‘No, no. My way this afternoon.’

Nancy stood still, looking up the street that led towards the sea.
She was still bright-coloured; her lips had a pathetic expression, a
child-like pouting.

‘There was an understanding,’ said Tarrant, with playful firmness.

‘Not for to-day.’

‘No. For the day when you disappointed me. The day after, I didn’t think
it worth while to come here; yesterday I came, but felt no surprise that
I didn’t meet you. To-day I had a sort of hope. This way.’

She followed, and they walked for several minutes in silence.

‘Will you let me look at Helmholtz?’ said the young man at length. ‘Most
excellent book, of course. “Physiological Causes of Harmony in Music,”
 “Interaction of Natural Forces,” “Conservation of Force.”--You enjoy
this kind of thing?’

‘One must know something about it.’

‘I suppose so. I used to grind at science because everybody talked
science. In reality I loathed it, and now I read only what I like.
Life’s too short for intellectual make-believe. It is too short for
anything but enjoyment. Tell me what you read for pure pleasure.
Poetry?’

They had left the streets, and were pursuing a road bordered with
gardens, gardens of glowing colour, sheltered amid great laurels,
shadowed by stately tr

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