In the Year of Jubilee Part 65

'How can you ask such a question? To write in that way after never answering my letter for months, leaving me without a word at such a time, making me think either that you were dead or that you would never let me hear of you again--'

'I told you it was a mere note, just to let you know I was back. I said you should hear more when we met.'

'Very well, we have met. What have you to say for yourself?'

'First of all, this. That you are mistaken in supposing I should ever consent to share your money. The thought was natural to you, no doubt; but I see things from a different point of view.'

His cold anger completely disguised the emotion stirred in him by Nancy's presence. Had he not spoken thus, he must have given way to joy and tenderness. For Nancy seemed more beautiful than the memory he had retained of her, and even at such a juncture she was far from exhibiting the gross characteristics attributed to her by his rebellious imagination.

'Then I don't understand,' were her next words, 'why you wrote to me again at all.'

'There are many things in me that you don't understand, and can't understand.'

'Yes, I think so. That's why I see no use in our talking.'

Tarrant was ashamed of what he had said--a meaningless retort, which covered his inability to speak as his heart prompted.

'At all events I wanted to see you, and it's fortunate you pa.s.sed just as I was coming out.'

Nancy would not accept the conciliatory phrase.

'I hadn't the least intention of seeing you,' she replied. 'It was a curiosity to know where you lived, nothing else. I shall never forgive you for the way in which you have behaved to me, so you needn't try to explain yourself.'

'Here and now, I should certainly not try. The only thing I will say about myself is, that I very much regret not having made known that you were married to me when plain honesty required it. Now, I look upon it as something over and done with, as far as I am concerned. I shall never benefit by the deception--'

She interrupted him.

'How do you know that _I_ shall benefit by it? How can you tell what has been happening since you last heard from me in America?'

'I have taken it for granted that things are the same.'

'Then you didn't even take measures to have news of me from any one else?'

'What need? I should always have received any letter you sent.'

'You thought it likely that I should appeal to you if I were in difficulties.'

He stood silent, glad of the obscurity which made it needless for him to command his features. At length:

'What is the simple fact? Has your secret been discovered, or not?'

'How does it concern you?'

'Only in this way: that if you are to be dependent upon any one, it must be upon me.'

Nancy gave a scornful laugh.

'That's very generous, considering your position. But happily you can't force me to accept your generosity, any more than I can compel you to take a share of my money.'

'Without the jibe at my poverty,' Tarrant said, 'that is a sufficient answer. As we can't even pretend to be friendly with each other, I am very glad there need be no talk of our future relations. You are provided for, and no doubt will take care not to lose the provision.

If ever you prefer to forget that we are legally bound, I shall be no obstacle.'

'I have thought of that,' replied Nancy, after a pause, her voice expressing satisfaction. 'Perhaps we should do better to make the understanding at once. You are quite free; I should never acknowledge you as my husband.'

'You seriously mean it?'

'Do I seem to be joking?'

'Very well. I won't say that I should never acknowledge you as my wife; so far from that, I hold myself responsible whenever you choose to make any kind of claim upon me. But I shall not dream of interfering with your liberty. If ever you wish to write to me, you may safely address to the house at Champion Hill.--And remember always,' he added sternly, 'that it was not I who made such a parting necessary.'

Nancy returned his look through the gloom, and said in like tone:

'I shall do my best never to think of it at all. Fortunately, my time and my thoughts are occupied.'

'How?' Tarrant could not help asking, as she turned away; for her tone implied some special significance in the words.

'You have no right to ask anything whatever about me,' came from Nancy, who was already moving away.

He allowed her to go.

'So it is to be as I wished,' he said to himself, with mock courage. 'So much the better.'

And he went home to a night of misery.

CHAPTER 6

Not long after the disappearance of f.a.n.n.y French, Mrs. Damerel called one day upon Luckworth Crewe at his office in Farringdon Street. Crewe seldom had business with ladies, and few things could have surprised him more than a visit from this lady in particular, whom he knew so well by name, and regarded with such special interest. She introduced herself as a person wis.h.i.+ng to find a good investment for a small capital; but the half-hour's conversation which followed became in the end almost a confidential chat. Mrs. Damerel spoke of her nephew Horace Lord, with whom, she understood, Mr. Crewe was on terms of intimacy; she professed a grave solicitude on his account, related frankly the unhappy circ.u.mstances which had estranged the young man from her, and ultimately asked whether Crewe could not make it worth his own while to save Horace from the shoals of idleness, and pilot him into some safe commercial haven. This meeting was the first of many between the fas.h.i.+onable lady and the keen man of affairs. Without a suspicion of how it had come about, Horace Lord presently found himself an informal partner in Crewe's business; he invested only a nominal sum, which might be looked upon as a premium of apprentices.h.i.+p; but there was an understanding that at the close of the term of tutelage imposed by his father's will, he should have the offer of a genuine partners.h.i.+p on very inviting terms.

Horace was not sorry to enter again upon regular occupation. He had considerably damaged his health in the effort to live up to his ideal of thwarted pa.s.sion, and could no longer entertain a hope that f.a.n.n.y's escapade was consistent with innocence. Having learnt how money slips through the fingers of a gentleman with fastidious tastes, he welcomed a prospect of increased resources, and applied himself with some energy to learning his new business. But with Mrs. Damerel he utterly refused to be reconciled, and of his sister he saw very little. Nancy, however, approved the step he had taken, and said she would be content to know that all was well with him.

Upon a Sunday morning, when the church bells had ceased to clang, Luckworth Crewe, not altogether at his ease in garb of flagrant respectability, sat by the fireside of a pleasant little room conversing with Mrs. Damerel. Their subject, as usual at the beginning of talk, was Horace Lord.

'He won't speak of you at all,' said Crewe, in a voice singularly subdued, sympathetic, respectful. 'I have done all I could, short of telling him that I know you. He's very touchy still on that old affair.'

'How would he like it,' asked the lady, 'if you told him that we are acquaintances?'

'Impossible to say. Perhaps it would make no difference one way or another.'

Mrs. Damerel was strikingly, yet becomingly, arrayed. The past year had dealt no less gently with her than its predecessors; if anything, her complexion had gained in brilliancy, perhaps a consequence of the hygienic precautions due to her fear of becoming stout. A stranger, even a specialist in the matter, might have doubted whether the fourth decade lay more than a month or two behind her. So far from seeking to impress her visitor with a pose of social superiority, she behaved to him as though his presence honoured as much as it delighted her; look, tone, bearing, each was a flattery which no obtuseness could fail to apprehend, and Crewe's countenance proved him anything but inappreciative. Hitherto she had spoken and listened with her head drooping in gentle melancholy; now, with a sudden change intended to signify the native buoyancy of her disposition, she uttered a rippling laugh, which showed her excellent teeth, and said prettily:

'Poor boy! I must suffer the penalty of having tried to save him from one of my own s.e.x.--Not,' she added, 'that I foresaw how that poor silly girl would justify my worst fears of her. Perhaps,' her head drooping again, 'I ought to reproach myself with what happened.'

'I don't see that at all,' replied Crewe, whose eyes lost nothing of the exhibition addressed to them. 'Even if you had been the cause of it, which of course you weren't, I should have said you had done the right thing. Every one knew what f.a.n.n.y French must come to.'

'Isn't it sad? A pretty girl--but so ill brought up, I fear. Can you give me any news of her sister, the one who came here and frightened me so?'