NANCY was not less moved by the morning’s adventure than Sir John had been. She had strayed much farther than usual, taking her walk alone in the park while Matilda was busy with her outfit. The gate was close to a bit of wood where the trees were painted in all their most gorgeous autumn tints; and since Lady Curtis had admired her simple garland of leaves, her enthusiasm for them had increased. She had come out here in perfect good faith to find others which she could copy, which might please the lady who had been so kind, and whom, though only herself knew this, it was so important to please. The morning was fine, though the grass was wet, and Nancy, tired with her walk, was sitting resting on a fallen tree. Her heart had given a little jump when she saw Sir John driving along towards her. It was all he could do to manage the high-spirited young horse. She knew him well enough by sight, and she had no fear of him such as she had felt of the ladies; her secret was safe from him. It did not even occur to her, as it might have done, that to conciliate Arthur’s father would be something in her favour, so that everything occurred naturally without motive or artificial stimulus. It was, indeed, the most natural impulse which moved her to get up hastily as soon as she saw his doubtful glance at the gate, and open it. In all probability she would not have budged for Lady Curtis. The suspicion and terror in her heart would have represented to her that the readiness to do such an office might be misconstrued; but she obeyed her impulse in respect to Sir John with the most spontaneous readiness. It was agreeable to her to do him the kindly service which it always becomes the young to render to the old. She looked up and smiled at him, and said, “You are very welcome,” as he exhausted himself in thanks. And it did not make Nancy’s look less gracious, or less fair, that she saw the old gentleman’s admiring wonder, his evident anxiety to make out who she was. At Sir John’s age a man need not hide his fatherly admiration for a lovely face. He looked at her with his white head uncovered, with pleasure and kindness and surprise in his eyes, and lavished thanks and excuses.
“I am glad I was here to do it,” Nancy said, feeling that corresponding sentiment of kindness in herself, which is the soul of good manners. He thought she was as gracious, as polished and graceful as she was handsome; and a sense of gratification that warmed her heart and softened it, came over her. Arthur’s father! she had not heard half so much of him as of my Lady and Lucy. She was not afraid of him, and to serve him gave her a sensation of innocent and real pleasure, which made Nancy feel affectionate to the old man. He looked back at her as he drove away, waving his hand and smiling; and she looked after him with friendly eyes. They were friends from that moment. Lady Curtis’s kindness had half broken her heart; but the encounter with Sir John made Nancy happy, made her feel herself approved, flattered, raised in her own opinion. And when a great many things have happened to lower one in one’s own opinion, could anything be more grateful than this? She walked home exhilarated in mind and body, no longer languid or tired, and surprised Matilda by the news that she had met Sir John, and made acquaintance with him, “I think he is the nicest of all,” said Nancy, “old gentlemen are so kind; they do not frighten you like ladies.”
“Oh, frighten you!” cried Matilda, “how could her Ladyship frighten you—the kindest lady! but that your evil conscience must be always saying, what would she say if she knew? Are you going to waste your time with that rubbish again, Nancy, littering all the floor? Why can’t you go on with your beautiful drawing? that was worth while—I thought of getting a frame for it as soon as it was done.”
“You can frame the original; it must be better than my copy,” said Nancy, arranging her leaves. Matilda looked at her with an impatience scarcely to be restrained; but she remembered that her Ladyship had taken notice of the rubbish, and shrugged her shoulders over the strange fancies of the gentlefolks. Nancy was just the same as they were. She might have been born in that rank of life herself, she took such fancies. Matilda was thankful, as she went on with her hemming, that no such nonsense had ever occupied her. But to know all the details of the interview pleased her much, and she would have sat all day long stitching and listening, had not her sister commanded her, later in the afternoon, to get her hat and come out to see the sunset. “Oh, the sunset! a great deal of good that will do me; and not half my chemises done yet,” Matilda murmured to herself, but she obeyed Nancy, who indeed did not like to be disobeyed. They took the usual walk down through the village to the Hall gates, and by the stile on the left hand, the same stile over which they had come the first day they met Lucy. Since then there had always been the excitement of some possible encounter to anticipate, and as this idea occurred to her, Matilda’s bosom swelled with natural exultation to think how entirely they had got into high life. Sir John and her Ladyship had become, as it were, their daily bread. If dear father had but known!
A sunset is a fine thing no doubt; but if you think of it, after all, it is not much of a sight, a thing that happens almost every day, and costs nobody a penny; a thing that the very poorest tramp may enjoy as well as you. To think how many people there are that will gaze and gaze at such a thing, and look as if they never could have enough of it! Matilda was more clever; she saw it at a glance, and did not require to look again; and, indeed, it was very hard not to believe that it was affectation on Nancy’s part to look at it so long. Matilda looked round her. There was not much to see, but it is astonishing how much you can see when your wits are about you. The spot where Nancy and her sister were standing was quite near the avenue, and as Matilda, with her mind and eyes unoccupied, looked out for something to amuse her, she suddenly was aware of two people walking up and down in what might be called the side aisle of the avenue, under the shadow of the trees, which still were rich in autumn foliage. This “took her attention” immediately; for who could it be but a pair of lovers, wandering up and down in intimate intercourse; and what is there in heaven or earth more attractive to a young woman than a pair of lovers? This sight woke Matilda out of the indifference into which the sunset had thrown her. She peered through the bushes with the liveliest interest and sympathy, not wishing to act the part of eavesdropper—and, indeed, she was too far off for that—but with the most purely benevolent regard, doing as she would be done by. Had any disagreeable interruption of the interview threatened, Matilda would have been but too glad to act as scout and give the alarm; and soon a fact became apparent which added immensely to her interest, and, indeed, turned it into excitement: she perceived that the lady was no other than Miss Curtis. Here was a startling discovery! She made herself a little peep-hole through the branches of a gnarled hawthorn that pricked her fingers as she separated the twigs. Who was the gentleman? Matilda thought his aspect was strangely familiar. It was not the Rector, who was said in the village to be going to marry Miss Lucy. Who was it? Matilda gazed long, and then she gave a start which nearly upset her into the midst of all the prickles of the thorn. This was, indeed, something more interesting than such a cheap exhibition as a sunset. After a moment she came and plucked at her sister’s arm.
“Nancy, Nancy! look here. I want you to look at something.”
“What is it?” said Nancy languidly.
She was sitting on the bank, though it was damp, with her hands folded in her lap, and her face all illuminated with the golden light which dropped lower and lower every moment. It had filled Nancy’s soul with thoughts. She was wondering what was to come of all this, half hopefully, half drearily; wondering if Arthur and she were to meet again, if they would ever live together again, if her life was to change into such a beautiful life as they lived, those people in the great house; or if it was to be spent dully in the cottage, obscure and hidden from all eyes. The sunset filled her eyes and glittered in the dew that filled them, and insensibly as that dew rose, the thoughts welled up into her heart.
“Nancy, Nancy!” said Matilda, “oh, look here—oh, please come and look here! It’s her, as clear as daylight; and I do think it’s him.”
“Him!” Nancy began to tremble, and rose, but did not advance further. “What are you saying—who do you mean by him?”
“Will you come here and look?” cried Matilda. “Come! I tell you, it’s Miss Lucy, as sure as this is me; with her young man.”
“How dare you speak so!” cried Nancy, flushing crimson, “of any of them!”
To talk of Lucy’s young man seemed to her something like blasphemy. Naturally, she was becoming a purist about language as she learned what nicety of speech meant. She was a great deal more shocked than Lucy would have been.
“Well,” said Matilda, stoutly, “he is her young man. What is wrong in that? They’ve been going up and down like two young people keeping company this hour or more, while you have been watching the sky (of course she exaggerated the time), and nothing a bit wrong in it that I can see. You’ve done the same yourself—and so would I if it had come in my way,” said honest Matilda. Then, however, her voice sank, and she took her sister by the arm. “That’s not half,” she said, “Nancy, dear! and the most important’s to come. Do you remember Durant, that came to Underhayes with Arthur? You must remember Durant—him that Sarah Jane took such a fancy to.”
“I remember Mr. Durant,” said fastidious Nancy. “I don’t know why you should talk of him so familiarly.”
“Oh, have done with your fine talk and your nonsense!” cried Matilda. “Look here, he’s there, Nancy! I tell you he’s there, close by, courting Miss Lucy. You can come and look for yourself if you don’t trust me.”
Nancy came slowly, half forced by the eager Matilda, but already turning over in her mind what expedients would be necessary to escape this sudden turn of affairs. Durant! (She allowed herself to drop the Mr. in her thoughts.) He would find her out, she knew, before many hours were out. She could not keep her secret from him; he would find her, and write to Arthur, and make or mar everything. What was she to do? A great conflict arose within her. She was sick enough of this state of affairs, and if Durant did intervene to end it, would there be so very much to regret? Arthur would come home, he would come to her, and there would be a reconciliation, and all would be well. But then, on the other hand, she had to own, with a sickening sensation in her heart, that already Arthur must have been for some time aware of “what had happened,” and he had not hastened home to her. And the idea that Durant might write to him, send for him as a matter of duty, sent all the blood coursing through her veins. Never! never! She would die first. Even short of that, how much pleasanter it would be to manage everything herself, to leave it to Providence, than that, anyhow, Durant should step in. All these thoughts rushed in a heap into her mind, tumultuous, rolling and rushing over each other like clouds before the wind, as she took the half-dozen steps necessary to bring her to Matilda’s point of vision to verify what Matilda had seen. But it did not require any verification to Nancy. She had felt sure it was true from the first moment. It was exactly the thing that was most likely to happen. She looked through the thorn branches, however, with a wakening of sympathy, such as she had scarcely yet felt, in Lucy. Lucy of late had been lost in Sir John and her ladyship; and when she had thought of her specially it was with jealous fear rather than sympathy. Now she watched her with a curious mingling of interest and opposition. It seemed wrong to Nancy that Miss Curtis should be here with a young man without the knowledge of her father and mother; and Durant, Durant, who had his living to make like any common man! She remembered very well what Arthur had told her about him. He, it was clear, could be no match for Lucy; it was not right, it was not nice of Lucy. The forehead of Mrs. Arthur contracted. She did not like any coming down in the family with which she was connected. She liked to think of them all as very great people indeed, quite above that necessity of working for a living which brought down Durant to the ordinary level of man. All this, however, was by the way; and the immediate thing she had to consider was what she herself would do in this new emergency. She ended hastily at last, when the pair of lovers (since they could be nothing else) turned their faces towards the Hall. Nancy seized her sister’s arm, and without saying anything rushed hastily towards the stile. They got over it, and out of the gates, while still the backs of the others were turned; and then for the moment the two young women ventured to take breath and feel themselves safe.
“They were going up towards the house,” said Nancy; “we have no need to hurry.” But she gave looks of alarm behind her, and walked rapidly back to the cottage. As ill luck would have it they met the Rector, who stopped, as he always did, and kept them talking. When he had insisted on planting himself in their path for a full minute, Nancy got desperate. He was to be got rid of, she felt, at all hazards.
“We met Miss Curtis in the avenue just now,” she said. “She had a gentleman with her. Do you know if there is a gentleman of the name of Durant, or something like that, visiting at the Hall?”
“Oh, Durant is there, is he?” said the Rector, with a look of annoyance. “Yes, I know him. He used to be very intimate then; but I had hoped he had not been so much in favour of late. I say frankly, ‘I hope,’ for I am not fond of him. He is a nobody, a—perhaps you have met him, Mrs. Arthur. He has got into very good society, somehow or other; but he is nobody.”
“I think I have seen him somewhere; but you will find him now in the avenue with Miss Curtis; and we must hurry back,” she said, nodding and smiling as she went on. She liked Durant a great deal better than she liked Bertie; but to escape from her present dilemma was more important than either. “Now, Matilda, make haste; let us get home,” she said. She had sent the Rector “after them,” not without a certain malicious pleasure. She had freed herself from the immediate danger in which she lay. He would talk, and they would be obliged to listen, as, otherwise, Nancy would have been; and with another anxious look behind, she sped along the road. But it was an unlucky day. In the village street they met Mrs. Rolt, who also had a thousand things to say. She rushed across the street with a budget full of news, and laughed and joked, and congratulated the young stranger on having made such an impression upon Sir John. Mrs. Rolt told Nancy that she had been at the Hall immediately after luncheon, and that Sir John would talk of nothing else.
“And he is a very good friend, a faithful friend, though he is not very demonstrative,” said Cousin Julia; “but, indeed, my dear, he was quite demonstrative about you, and talked of you all the time. Mr. Durant was there,” she added confidentially, “and I don’t think he much wanted Mr. Durant. You know there was always a kindness between him and Lucy; but it would be quite out of the question for Lucy, quite out of the question, especially since her brother’s unfortunate marriage.”
“What has her brother’s marriage got to do with it?” cried Nancy, forgetting, in this unexpected attack, even her fears.
“Oh, my dear, don’t you know what a dreadful thing it is for the family? It has spoiled Arthur’s life, poor fellow. Where are the heirs to come from?” Cousin Julia cried pathetically. “However bad she might be, it would not be quite so bad, you know, if there were any heirs; but the succession, my dear! Lucy must marry, and she must marry well, or what is to become of the family?” Mrs. Rolt said with decision. “She, too, will have to suffer for her brother. The innocent are always involved with the guilty; and when once a wrong thing has been done, one never knows where it may end.”
Nancy had grown crimson with shame and resentment—and with pain too, pain that she could not fathom in all its complexities. She turned away coldly from Mrs. Rolt, scarcely attempting to separate from her with the pretence at civility, which good manners (she felt) demanded. The innocent involved with the guilty! how dared anyone so speak of her? She went on to her cottage, forgetting her previous alarms, holding her head high, and she did not take any notice of the sound of wheels behind her, the rapid dash of a dog-cart which came whirling along and round the corner from the Hall. But she came to herself with a start and cry, when turning round suddenly she met Durant’s look, which flashed from the ordinary calm of an indifferent passer-by into profound surprise and instant eagerness at sight of her. The dog-cart was going so fast, with so much “way” upon it, that it was a minute before it could be drawn up and he could spring down from it. In that minute, Nancy aroused to the necessity of the case, had darted down a little side alley, by which she knew she could reach the back-door of the cottage. Fortunately there was nobody about to see her fly along past the little gardens to the open kitchen door. She darted in to the alarm of Fanny, and flying breathless upstairs rushed to the shelter of her own room.
“If anyone calls I am ill in bed,” she cried, as she passed, to the consternation of the little maid. Matilda, by this time was quietly seated in the little sitting-room at work. “Come up with me, come up with me. Durant is after me!” cried Nancy, breathless. Matilda had presence of mind to obey without a word, though she made a mental memorandum as she went upstairs after her sister. “She says Durant, too,” Matilda said to herself—but she made no audible protest; and from a corner between the curtains she watched and reported how the dog-cart waited, and how long a time it was before the visitor came back baffled, after following down the alley and finding nothing.
“He is looking very suspicious-like at all the houses,” said Matilda.
“Oh, keep close, keep close!” cried Nancy, from the bed on which she was crouching—as if he could see in through the curtains. They spent an anxious half-hour watching his proceedings, for the dog-cart drove away and then came back, and their fears were renewed for another tremulous moment. But Durant fortunately did not apply to anyone who could give him information. He trusted apparently to his own sharp-sightedness, or to the hope that Nancy had hidden herself, and would reappear again. The sisters did not venture to draw breath until it was clear that he was gone.
Here was another and important embarrassment and difficulty in their way. They did not know that Durant’s day’s occupation had been so very important to himself as to eclipse all other interests. They thought he would come back next day to search thoroughly, and make sure that they did not escape him. For to Nancy in the present crisis it was evident that nothing else could be half so important; her own affairs naturally appeared to her the most likely subject to absorb Durant’s thoughts.