George Gissing
In the Year of Jubilee
CHAPTER 5
After breakfast, and before Arthur Peachey’s departure for business, there had been a scene of violent quarrel between him and his wife. It took place in the bed-room, where, as usual save on Sunday morning, Ada consumed her strong tea and heavily buttered toast; the state of her health—she had frequent ailments, more or less genuine, such as afflict the indolent and brainless type of woman—made it necessary for her to repose till a late hour. Peachey did not often lose self-control, though sorely tried; the one occasion that unchained his wrath was when Ada’s heedlessness or ill-temper affected the well-being of his child. This morning it had been announced to him that the nurse-girl, Emma, could no longer be tolerated; she was making herself offensive to her mistress, had spoken insolently, disobeyed orders, and worst of all, defended herself by alleging orders from Mr. Peachey. Hence the outbreak of strife, signalled by furious shrill voices, audible to Beatrice and Fanny as they sat in the room beneath.
Ada came down at half-past ten, and found Beatrice writing letters. She announced what any who did not know her would have taken for a final resolve.
‘I’m going—I won’t put up with that beast any longer. I shall go and live at Brighton.’
Her sister paid not the slightest heed; she was intent upon a business letter of much moment.
‘Do you hear what I say? I’m going by the first train this afternoon.’
‘All right,’ remarked Beatrice placidly. ‘Don’t interrupt me just now.
The result of this was fury directed against Beatrice, who found herself accused of every domestic vice compatible with her position. She was a sordid creature, living at other people’s expense,—a selfish, scheming, envious wretch—
‘If I were your husband,’ remarked the other without looking up, ‘I should long since have turned you into the street—if I hadn’t broken your neck first.’
Exercise in quarrel only made Ada’s voice the clearer and more shrill. It rose now to the highest points of a not inconsiderable compass. But Beatrice continued to write, and by resolute silence put a limit to her sister’s railing. A pause had just come about, when the door was thrown open, and in rushed Fanny, hatted and gloved from a walk.
‘He’s dead!’ she said excitedly. ‘He’s dead!’
Beatrice turned with a look of interest. ‘Who? Mr. Lord?’
‘Yes. The blinds are all down. He must have died in the night.’
Her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled, as though she had brought the most exhilarating news.
‘What do I care?’ said Mrs. Peachey, to whom her sister had addressed the last remark.
‘Just as much as I care about your affairs, no doubt,’ returned Fanny, with genial frankness.
‘Don’t be in too great a hurry,’ remarked Beatrice, who showed the calculating wrinkle at the corner of her eye. ‘Because he’s dead, that doesn’t say that your masher comes in for money.’
‘Who’ll get it, then?’
‘There may be nothing worth speaking of to get, for all we know.’
Beatrice had not as yet gained Fanny’s co-operation in the commercial scheme now being elaborated; though of far more amiable nature than Mrs. Peachey, she heartily hoped that the girl might be disappointed in her expectations from Mr. Lord’s will. An hour later, she walked along Grove Lane, and saw for herself that Fanny’s announcement was accurate; the close-drawn blinds could mean but one thing.
To-day there was little likelihood of learning particulars, but on the morrow Fanny might perchance hear something from Horace Lord. However, the evening brought a note, hand-delivered by some stranger. Horace wrote only a line or two, informing Fanny that his father had died about eight o’clock that morning, and adding: ‘Please be at home to-morrow at twelve.’
At twelve next day Fanny received her lover alone in the drawing-room. He entered with the exaggerated solemnity of a very young man who knows for the first time a grave bereavement, and feels the momentary importance it confers upon him. Fanny, trying to regard him without a smile, grimaced; decorous behaviour was at all times impossible to her, for she neither understood its nature nor felt its obligation. In a few minutes she smiled unrestrainedly, and spoke the things that rose to her lips.
‘I’ve been keeping a secret from you,’ said Horace, in the low voice which had to express his sorrow,—for he could not preserve a gloomy countenance with Fanny before him. ‘But I can tell you now.’
‘A secret? And what business had you to keep secrets from me?’
‘It’s about Mrs. Damerel. When I was at the seaside she told me who she really is. She’s my aunt—my mother’s sister. Queer, isn’t it? Of course that makes everything different. And she’s going to ask you to come and see her. It’ll have to be put off a little—now; but not very long, I dare say, as she’s a relative. You’ll have to do your best to please her.’
‘I’m sure I shan’t put myself out of the way. People must take me as they find me.’
‘Now don’t talk like that, Fanny. It isn’t very kind—just now. I thought you’d be different to-day.’
‘All right.—Have you anything else to tell me?’
Horace understood her significant glance, and shook his head.
‘I’ll let you know everything as soon as I know myself.’
Having learnt the day and hour of Mr. Lord’s funeral, Ada and Fanny made a point of walking out to get a glimpse of it. The procession of vehicles in Grove Lane excited their contempt, so far was it from the splendour they had anticipated.
‘There you are!’ said Ada; ‘I shouldn’t wonder if it’s going to be a jolly good take in for you, after all. If he’d died worth much, they wouldn’t have buried him like that.’
Fanny’s heart sank. She could conceive no other explanation of a simple burial save lack of means, or resentment in the survivors at the disposition made of his property by the deceased. When, on the morrow, Horace told her that his father had strictly charged Mr Barmby to have him buried in the simplest mode compatible with decency, she put it down to the old man’s excessive meanness.
On this occasion she learnt the contents of Mr. Lord’s will, and having learnt them, got rid of Horace as soon as possible that she might astonish her sisters with the report.
In the afternoon of that day, Beatrice had an appointment with Luckworth Crewe. She was to meet him at the office he had just taken in Farringdon Street, whence they would repair to a solicitor’s in the same neighbourhood, for the discussion of legal business connected with Miss. French’s enterprise. She climbed the staircase of a big building, and was directed to the right door by the sound of Crewe’s voice, loudly and jocularly discoursing. He stood with two men in the open doorway, and at the sight of Beatrice waved a hand to her.
‘Take your hook, you fellows; I have an engagement.’ The men, glancing at Miss. French facetiously, went their way. ‘How do, old chum? It’s all in a mess yet; hold your skirts together. Come along this way.’
Through glue-pots and shavings and an overpowering smell of paint, Beatrice followed to inspect the premises, which consisted of three rooms; one, very much the smallest, about ten feet square. Three workmen were busy, and one, fitting up shelves, whistled a melody with ear-piercing shrillness.
‘Stop that damned noise!’ shouted Crewe. ‘I’ve told you once already. Try it on again, my lad, and I’ll drop you down the well of the staircase—you’ve too much breath, you have.’
The other workmen laughed. It was evident that Crewe had made friends with them all.
‘Won’t be bad, when we get the decks cleared,’ he remarked to Beatrice. ‘Plenty of room to make twenty thousand a year or so.’
He checked himself, and asked in a subdued voice, ‘Seen anything of the Lords?’
Beatrice nodded with a smile. ‘And heard about the will. Have you?’
‘No, I haven’t. Come into this little room.’
He closed the door behind them, and looked at his companion with curiosity, but without show of eagerness.
‘Well, it’s a joke,’ said Miss. French.
‘Is it? How?’
‘Fanny’s that mad about it! She’d got it into her silly noddle that Horace Lord would drop in for a fortune at once. As it is, he gets nothing at all for two years, except what the Barmbys choose to give him. And if he marries before he’s four-and-twenty, he loses everything—every cent!’
Crewe whistled a bar of a street-melody, then burst into laughter.
‘That’s how the old joker has done them, is it? Quite right too. The lad doesn’t know his own mind yet. Let Fanny wait if she really wants him—and if she can keep hold of him. But what are the figures?’
‘Nothing startling. Of course I don’t know all the ins and outs of it, but Horace Lord will get seven thousand pounds, and a sixth share in the piano business. Old Barmby and his son are trustees. They may let Horace have just what they think fit during the next two years. If he wants money to go into business with, they may advance what they like. But for two years he’s simply in their hands, to be looked after. And if he marries—pop goes the weasel!’
‘And Miss. Lord?’ asked Crewe carelessly.
Beatrice pointed a finger at him.
‘You want to know badly, don’t you? Well, it’s pretty much the same as the other. To begin with, if she marries before the age of six-and-twenty, she gets nothing whatever. If she doesn’t marry, there’s two hundred a year to live on and to keep up the house.—Oh, I was forgetting; she must not only keep single to twenty-six, but continue to live where she does now, with that old servant of theirs for companion. At six-and-twenty she takes the same as her brother, about seven thousand, and a sixth share in Lord and Barmby.’
Again Crewe whistled.
‘That’s about three years still to live in Grove Lane,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Well, the old joker has pinned them, and no mistake. I thought he had more to leave.’
‘Of course you did,’ remarked Beatrice significantly.
‘Look here, old fellow, don’t talk to me like that,’ he replied good-humouredly, but with a reproof not to be mistaken. ‘I thought nothing about it in the way that you mean. But it isn’t much, after living as he has done. I suppose you don’t know how the money lies?’
‘I have it all from Fanny, and it’s a wonder she remembered as much as she did.’
‘Oh, Fanny’s pretty smart in L. s. d. But did she say what becomes of the money if either of them break the terms?’
‘Goes to a girl’s orphanage, somewhere in the old man’s country. But there’s more than I’ve accounted for yet. Young Barmby’s sisters get legacies—a hundred and fifty apiece. And, last of all, the old servant has an annuity of two hundred. He made her a sort of housekeeper not long ago, H. L. says; thought no end of her.’
‘Don’t know anything about her,’ said Crewe absently. ‘I should like to know the business details. What arrangement was made, I wonder, when he took Barmby into partnership?’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised if he simply gave him a share. Old Barmby and Lord were great chums. Then, you see, Samuel Barmby has a third of his profits to pay over, eventually.’
Beatrice went on to speak of the mysterious Mrs. Damerel, concerning whom she had heard from Fanny. The man of business gave particular ear to this story, and asked many questions. Of a sudden, as if dismissing matters which hardly concerned him, he said mirthfully:
‘You’ve heard about the row at Lillie Bridge yesterday?’
‘I saw something about it in the paper.’
‘Well, I was there. Pure chance; haven’t been at that kind of place for a year and more. It was a match for the Sprint Championship and a hundred pounds. Timed for six o’clock, but at a quarter past the chaps hadn’t come forward. I heard men talking, and guessed there was something wrong; they thought it a put-up job. When it got round that there’d be no race, the excitement broke out, and then—I’d have given something for you to see it! First of all there was a rush for the gate-money; a shilling a piece, you know, we’d all paid. There were a whole lot of North-of-England chaps, fellow countrymen of mine, and I heard some of them begin to send up a roar that sounded dangerous. I was tumbling along with the crowd, quite ready for a scrimmage—I rather enjoy a fight now and then,—and all at once some chap sang out just in front, ‘Let’s burst up the blooming show!’—only he used a stronger word. And a lot of us yelled hooray, and to it we went. I don’t mean I had a hand in the pillaging and smashing,—it wouldn’t have done for a man just starting in business to be up at the police-court,—but I looked on and laughed—laughed till I could hardly stand! They set to work on the refreshment place. It was a scene if you like! Fellows knocking off the heads of bottles, and drinking all they could, then pouring the rest on the ground. Glasses and decanters flying right and left,—sandwiches and buns, and I don’t know what, pelting about. They splintered all the small wood they could lay their hands on, and set fire to it, and before you could say Jack Robinson the whole place was blazing. The bobbies got it pretty warm—bottles and stones and logs of wood; I saw one poor chap with the side of his face cut clean open. It does one good, a real stirring-up like that; I feel better to-day than for the last month. And the swearing that went on! It’s a long time since I heard such downright, hearty, solid swearing. There was one chap I kept near, and he swore for a full hour without stopping, except when he had a bottle at his mouth; he only stopped when he was speechless with liquor.’
‘I wish I’d been there,’ said Miss. French gaily. ‘It must have been no end of fun.’
‘A right down good spree. And it wasn’t over till about eight o’clock. I stayed till the police had cleared the grounds, and then came home, laughing all the way. It did me good, I tell you!’
‘Well, shall we go and see the lawyer?’ suggested Beatrice.
‘Right you are.—Have a drink first? Nice quiet place round in Fleet Street—glass of wine. No? As you please, old chum.—Think this shop ‘ll do, don’t you? You must come round when it’s finished. But I daresay you’ll be here many a time—on biz.’
‘Oh, I daresay.’
And as they went down the stairs, Crewe laughed again at his recollections of yesterday’s sport.
CHAPTER 6
Gusts of an October evening swept about the square of the old Inn, and made rushes at the windows; all the more cosy seemed it here in Tarrant’s room, where a big fire, fed into smokeless placidity, purred and crackled. Pipe in mouth, Tarrant lay back in his big chair, gracefully indolent as ever. Opposite him, lamp-light illuminating her face on one side, and fire-gloom on the other, Nancy turned over an illustrated volume, her husband’s gift today. Many were the presents he had bestowed upon her, costly some of them, all flattering the recipient by a presumption of taste and intelligence.
She had been here since early in the afternoon, it was now near seven o’clock.
Nancy looked at the pictures, but inattentively, her brows slightly knitted, and her lips often on the point of speech that concerned some other matter. Since the summer holiday she had grown a trifle thinner in face; her beauty was no longer allied with perfect health; a heaviness appeared on her eyelids. Of course she wore the garb of mourning, and its effect was to emphasise the maturing change manifest in her features.
For several minutes there had passed no word; but Tarrant’s face, no less than his companion’s, signalled discussion in suspense. No unfriendly discussion, yet one that excited emotional activity in both of them. The young man, his pipe-hand falling to his knee, first broke silence.
‘I look at it in this way. We ought to regard ourselves as married people living under exceptionally favourable circumstances. One has to bear in mind the brutal fact that man and wife, as a rule, see a great deal too much of each other—thence most of the ills of married life: squabblings, discontents, small or great disgusts, leading often enough to altri guai. People get to think themselves victims of incompatibility, when they are merely suffering from a foolish custom—the habit of being perpetually together. In fact, it’s an immoral custom. What does immorality mean but anything that tends to kill love, to harden hearts? The common practice of man and wife occupying the same room is monstrous, gross; it’s astounding that women of any sensitiveness endure it. In fact, their sensitiveness is destroyed. Even an ordinary honeymoon generally ends in quarrel—as it certainly ought to. You and I escape all that. Each of us lives a separate life, with the result that we like each other better as time goes on; I speak for myself, at all events. I look forward to our meetings. I open the door to you with as fresh a feeling of pleasure as when you came first. If we had been ceaselessly together day and night—well, you know the result as well as I do.’
He spoke with indulgent gravity, in the tone of kindness to which his voice was naturally attuned. And Nancy’s reply, though it expressed a stronger feeling, struck the same harmonious note.
‘I can agree with all that. But it applies to people married in the ordinary way. I was speaking of ourselves, placed as we are.’
‘I don’t pretend to like the concealment,’ said Tarrant. ‘For one thing, there’s a suggestion of dishonour about it. We’ve gone over all that—’
‘Oh, I don’t mean that for a moment. It isn’t really dishonourable. My father could never have objected to you for my husband. He only wanted to guard me—Mary says so, and he told her everything. He thought me a silly, flighty girl, and was afraid I should be trapped for the sake of my money. I wish—oh how I wish I had had the courage to tell him! He would have seen you, and liked and trusted you—how could he help?’
‘It might have been better—but who knows whether he would have seen me with your eyes, Nancy?’
‘Yes, yes. But I was going to say–’
She hesitated.
‘Say on.’
‘There are so many difficulties before us, dear.’
‘Not if we continue to think of each other as we do now. Do you mean it might be discovered?’
‘Yes, through no fault of ours.’
She hesitated again.
‘Quite sure you haven’t told anybody?’
‘No one.’
Tarrant had a doubt on this point. He strongly suspected that Jessica Morgan knew the truth, but he shrank from pressing Nancy to an avowal of repeated falsehood.
‘Then it’s very unlikely we should be found out. Who would dream of tracking you here, for instance? And suppose we were seen together in the street or in the country, who would suspect anything more than love-making? and that is not forbidden you.’
‘No. But—’
‘But?’
‘But suppose I—’
She rose, crossed to him, seated herself on his knee and put an arm about his neck. Before she had spoken another word, Tarrant understood; the smile on his face lost its spontaneity; a bitter taste seemed to distort his lips.
‘You think—you are afraid—’
He heard a monosyllable, and sat silent. This indeed had not entered into his calculations; but why not? He could hardly say; he had ignored the not unimportant detail, as it lurked among possibilities. Perhaps had willingly ignored it, as introducing a complication oppressive to his indolence, to his hodiernal philosophy. And now he arraigned mother-nature, the very divinity whom hitherto he had called upon to justify him. All at once he grew cold to Nancy. The lulled objections to matrimony awoke in him again; again he felt that he had made a fool of himself. Nancy was better than he had thought; he either loved her, or felt something towards her, not easily distinguishable from love. His inferior she remained, but not in the sense he had formerly attributed to the word. Her mind and heart excelled the idle conception he had formed of them. But Nancy was not his wife, as the world understands that relation; merely his mistress, and as a mistress he found her charming, lovable. What she now hinted at, would shatter the situation. Tarrant thought not of the peril to her material prospects; on that score he was indifferent, save in so far as Mr Lord’s will helped to maintain their mutual independence. But he feared for his liberty, in the first place, and in the second, abhorred the change that must come over Nancy herself. Nancy a mother—he repelled the image, as though it degraded her.
Delicacy, however, constrained him to a disguise of these emotions. He recognised the human sentiments that should have weighed with him; like a man of cultivated intelligence, he admitted their force, their beauty. None the less, a syllable on Nancy’s lips had arrested the current of his feelings, and made him wish again that he had been either more or less a man of honour down at Teignmouth.
‘And yet,’ he said to himself, ‘could I have resisted an appeal for marriage now? That comes of being so confoundedly humane. It’s a marvel that I didn’t find myself married to some sheer demirep long ago.’
Nancy was speaking.
‘Will it make you love me less?’
‘I have always refused to prophesy about love,’ he answered, with forced playfulness.
‘But you wouldn’t—you wouldn’t?’
‘We should find ourselves in a very awkward position.’
‘I know,’ said Nancy hurriedly. ‘I can’t see what would be done. But you seem colder to me all at once, Lionel. Surely it oughtn’t to—to turn you away from me. Perhaps I am mistaken.’
This referred to the alarming possibility, and Tarrant caught at hope. Yes, she might be mistaken; they wouldn’t talk about it; he shook it away.
‘Let me fill my pipe again. Yes, you can do it for me. That reminds me of a story Harvey Munden tells. A man he knew, a doctor, got married, and there was nothing his wife wouldn’t do for him. As he sat with her one evening, smoking, a patient called him into the consulting-room. He had only just lighted a fresh pipe, and laid it down regretfully. ‘I’ll keep it in for you,’ said his wife. And she did so, with dainty and fearful puffs, at long intervals. But the doctor was detained, and when he came back—well, the poor wife had succumbed to her devotion. She never kept in his pipe again.
Nancy tried to laugh. She was in her own chair again, and sat resting her cheek upon her hand, gazing at the fire.
‘How is it, Lionel, that no one ever knocks at your door when I’m here.’
‘Oh, very simple. I sport the oak—as you know.’
‘But don’t you think some friend of yours might see a light in your window, and come up?’
‘If so, il respecte la consigne.’
‘No, no; I don’t like you when you begin to use French words. I think it reminds me of once when you did it a long time ago,—and I thought you—never mind.’
Tarrant laughed.
‘Weren’t they strange—those meetings of ours at Champion Hill? What did you think me? Arrogant? Insolent? That is my tendency with strangers, I admit.’
‘But I was asking you a question,’ said Nancy. ‘You mean that no one would knock, if he saw your outer door closed. But what would they think?’
‘No doubt—that I was working. I am supposed to be secretly engaged on some immortal composition.’
Nancy pondered.
‘I do hope no one that knows you will ever see me coming or going.’
‘What could it matter? They wouldn’t know who you were.’
‘But to have such things thought. I should feel it just as if they knew me. I believe I could never come again.’
‘Why, what’s the matter with you?’ Tarrant asked. ‘You have tears in your eyes. You’re not well to-day.’ He checked himself on an unwelcome thought, and proceeded more carelessly. ‘Do you suppose for a moment that any friend of mine is ass enough to think with condemnation of a girl who should come to my rooms—whatever the circumstances? You must get rid of that provincialism—let us call it Camberwellism.’
‘They wouldn’t think it any harm—even if—?’
‘My dear girl, we have outgrown those ancestral prejudices.’ Tarrant’s humour never quite deserted him, least of all when he echoed the talk of his world; but his listener kept a grave face. ‘We have nothing to do with Mrs. Grundy’s morals.’
‘But you believe in a morality of some kind?’ she pursued with diffidence. ‘You used the word “immoral” just now.’
Nancy felt no consciousness of the gulf that yawned between herself as she spoke now and the old self which had claimed ‘superiority.’ Her mind was so completely unsettled that she never tried to connect its present state with its earlier phases. For the most part, her sensations and her reflections were concerned with the crude elements of life; the exceptional moments she spent in a world of vague joys and fears, wherein thought, properly speaking, had no share. Before she could outlive the shock of passion which seemed at once to destroy and to re-create her, she was confronted with the second supreme crisis of woman’s existence,—its natural effects complicated with the trials of her peculiar position. Tarrant’s reception of her disclosure came as a new disturbance—she felt bewildered and helpless.
He, preoccupied with the anxiety he affected to dismiss, had no inclination to debate ethical problems. For a while he talked jestingly, and at length fell into a mood of silence. Nancy did not stay much longer; they parted without mention of the subject uppermost in their thoughts.
They had no stated times of meeting. Tarrant sent an invitation whenever it pleased him. When the next arrived, in about a week, Nancy made reply that she did not feel well enough to leave home. It was the briefest letter Tarrant had yet received from her, and the least affectionate. He kept silence for a few days, and wrote again. This time Nancy responded as usual, and came.
To the involuntary question in his eyes, hers answered unmistakably. For the first few minutes they said very little to each other. Tarrant was struggling with repulsions and solicitudes of which he felt more than half ashamed; Nancy, reticent for many reasons, not the least of them a resentful pride, which for the moment overcame her fondness, endeavoured to speak of trivial things. They kept apart, and at length the embarrassment of the situation held them both mute.
With a nervous movement, the young man pushed forward the chair on which Nancy usually sat.
‘I see that you don’t look well.’
Nancy turned to the window. She had unbuttoned her jacket, and taken off her gloves, but went no further in the process of preparing herself for the ordinary stay of some hours.
‘Did something in my letter displease you?’ inquired her husband.
‘You mean—because I didn’t come? No; I really didn’t feel well enough.’
Tarrant hesitated, but the softer feeling prevailed with him. He helped to remove her jacket, seated her by the fire, and led her to talk.
‘So there’s no doubt of it?’
Her silence made answer.
‘Then of course there’s just as little doubt as to what we must do.’
His voice had not a convincing sincerity; he waited for the reply.
‘You mean that we can’t keep the secret?’
‘How is it possible?’
‘But you are vexed about it. You don’t speak to me as you used to. I don’t think you ever will again.’
‘It will make no change in me,’ said Tarrant, with resolute good humour. ‘All I want to be sure of is that you are quite prepared for the change in your prospects.’
‘Are you, dear?’
Her tone and look deprived the inquiry of unpleasant implication. He answered her with a laugh.
‘You know exactly how I regard it. In one way I should feel relief. Of course I don’t like the thought that I shall have caused you to suffer such a loss.’
‘I should never have that thought. But are you quite sure about the result to yourself? You remember saying that you couldn’t be certain how—’
‘How it will be taken at Champion Hill? I was going to tell you the latest report from there. It is very doubtful whether I should ever have to break the news.’
They did not look at each other.
‘Everything, in that quarter, must be long since settled. Pray remember that I have no vast expectations. Quite certainly, it won’t be a large fortune; very likely not more than your own. But enough to live on, no doubt. I know the value of money—no man better. It would be pleasant enough to play with thousands a year. But I don’t grumble so long as I have a competency.’
Nancy meditated, and sighed.
‘Oh, it’s a pity. Father never meant me to be penniless if I married wisely.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Of course not!’
They both meditated.
‘It wouldn’t be possible—would it?’
‘Why,’ he answered with a laugh, ‘last time you were here you spoke in quite the other way. You were utterly miserable at the thought of living through it alone.’
‘Yes—I don’t know whether I could—even if—’
‘What are you thinking of?’
‘I’ve been talking with Mary,’ she replied, after an uneasy pause. ‘She has lived with us so long; and since father’s death it seems quite natural to make a friend of her. No one could be more devoted to me than she is. I believe there’s nothing she wouldn’t do. I believe I might trust her with any secret.’
The obvious suggestion demanded thought.
‘By-the-bye,’ said Tarrant, looking up, ‘have you seen your aunt again?’
Nancy’s face changed to a cold expression.
‘No. And I don’t think I shall.’
‘Probably you were as little sympathetic to her as she to you.’
‘I don’t like her,’ was the brief reply.
‘I’ve had curious thoughts about that lady,’ said Tarrant, smiling. ‘The mystery, it seems to me, is by no means solved. You think she really is your aunt?’
‘Impossible to doubt it. Any one could see her likeness to Horace at once.’
‘Ah, you didn’t mention that. I had a fear that she might be simply an adventuress, with an eye to your brother’s money.’
‘She is what she says, I’m sure. But I shall never ask her to come and see me again, and I don’t think she’ll want to. That would be fortunate if—if we wished—’
Tarrant nodded. At the same moment they heard a sound that startled them.
‘That’s a knock at the door,’ said Nancy, rising as if to escape.
‘So it is. Banging with a stick. Let him bang. It must be a stranger, or he’d respect the oak.’
They sat listening. The knock sounded again, loud and prolonged. Tarrant joked about it; but a third time came the summons.
‘I may as well go and see who it is.’
‘Oh—you won’t let any one—’
‘Of course not. Sit quietly.’
He went out, closing the room-door behind him, and opened the heavy door which should have ensured his privacy. For five minutes he was absent, then returned with a face portending news.
