In the Year of Jubilee Part 67

'From some one who had it from Miss. Lord herself.'

'Are you quite sure that it isn't a malicious falsehood?'

'As sure as I am that I sit here. I know the man's name, and where he lives, and all about him. And I know where the child is at nurse.

'The child?--Oh--surely--never!'

A genuine agitation possessed her; she had a frightened, pain-stricken look, and moved as if she must act without delay.

'It's nearly six months old,' Crewe continued. 'Of course that's why she was away so long.'

'But why haven't you told me this before? It was your duty to tell me--your plain duty. How long have you known?'

'I heard of it first of all about three months ago, but it was only the other day that I was told the man's name, and other things about him.'

'Is it known to many people? Is the poor girl talked about?'

'No, no,' Crewe replied, with confidence. 'The person who told me is the only one who has found it out; you may depend upon that.'

'It must be a woman,' said Mrs. Damerel sharply.

'Yes, it's a woman. Some one _I_ know very well. She told me just because she thought I was still hoping to marry Miss. Lord, and--well, the truth is, though we're good friends, she has a little spite against me, and I suppose it amused her to tell me something disagreeable.'

'I have no doubt,' said Mrs. Damerel, 'that the secret has been betrayed to a dozen people.'

'I'll go bail it hasn't!' returned Crewe, falling into his vernacular.

'I can hardly believe it at all. I should never have dreamt that such a thing was possible. What is the man's name? what is his position?'

'Tarrant is his name, and he's related somehow to a Mr. Vawdrey, well known in the City, who has a big house over at Champion Hill. I have no notion how they came together, or how long it was going on. But this Mr.

Tarrant has been in America for a year, I understand; has only just come back; and now he's living In poorish lodgings,--Great College Street, Westminster. I've made a few inquiries about him, but I can't get at very much. A man who knows Vawdrey tells me that Tarrant has no means, and that he's a loafing, affected sort of chap. If that's true,--and it seems likely from the way he's living,--of course he will be ready enough to marry Miss. Lord when the proper time has come; I'm only afraid that's all he had in view from the first. And I can't help suspecting, as I said, that she's supporting him now. If not, why should she go and work in a shop? At all events, a decent man wouldn't allow her to do it.'

'A decent man,' said the listener, 'would never have allowed her to fall into disgrace.'

'Certainly not,' Crewe a.s.sented with energy. 'And as for my keeping quiet about it, Mrs. Damerel, you've only to think what an awkward affair it was to mention. I'm quite sure you'll have a little feeling against me, because I knew of it--'

'I beg you not to think that!' She returned to her manner of suave friendliness. 'I shall owe you grat.i.tude for telling me, and nothing but grat.i.tude. You have behaved with very great delicacy; I cannot say how highly I appreciate your feeling on the poor girl's behalf.'

'If I can be of any use, I am always at your service.'

'Thank you, dear Mr. Crewe, thank you! In you I have found a real friend,--and how rarely they are met with! Of course I shall make inquiries at once. My niece must be protected. A helpless girl in that dreadful position may commit unheard-of follies. I fear you are right.

He is making her his victim. With such a secret, she is absolutely at his mercy. And it explains why she has shunned me. Oh, do you think her brother knows it?'

'I'm quite sure he doesn't; hasn't the least suspicion.'

'Of course not. But it's wonderful how she has escaped. Your informant--how did she find it out? You say she had the story from the girl's own lips. But why? She must have shown that she knew something.'

Crewe imparted such details as had come to his knowledge; they were meagre, and left many obscurities, but Mrs. Damerel rewarded him with effusive grat.i.tude, and strengthened the spell which she had cast upon this knight of Farringdon Street.

CHAPTER 7

Every day Tarrant said to himself: 'I am a free man; I was only married in a dream.' Every night he thought of Nancy, and suffered heartache.

He thought, too, of Nancy's child, his own son. That Nancy was a tender mother, he knew from the letter she had written him after the baby's birth,--a letter he would have liked to read again, but forbore. Must not the separation from her child be hard? If he saw the poor little mortal, how would the sight affect him? At moments he felt a longing perhaps definable as the instinct of paternity; but he was not the man to grow sentimental over babies, his own or other people's. Irony and sarcasm--very agreeable to a certain cla.s.s of newspaper readers--were just now his stock-in-trade, and he could not afford to indulge any softer mode of meditation.

His acquaintances agreed that the year of absence had not improved him.

He was alarmingly clever; he talked well; but his amiability, the poetry of his mind, seemed to have been lost in America. He could no longer admire or praise.

For his own part, he did not clearly perceive this change. It struck him only that the old friends were less interesting than he had thought them; and he looked for reception in circles better able to appreciate his epigrams and paradoxes.

A few weeks of such life broke him so completely to harness, that he forgot the seasonable miseries which had been wont to drive him from London at the approach of November. When the first fog blackened against his windows, he merely lit the lamp and wrote on, indifferent. Two years ago he had declared that a London November would fatally blight his soul; that he must flee to a land of suns.h.i.+ne, or perish. There was little time, now, to think about his soul.

One Monday morning arrived a letter which surprised and disturbed him.

It ran thus:

'Mrs. Eustace Damerel presents her compliments to Mr. Tarrant, and would take it as a great favour if he could call upon her, either to-morrow or Tuesday, at any hour between three and seven. She particularly desires to see Mr. Tarrant on a private matter of mutual interest.'

Now this could have but one meaning. Mrs. Eustace Damerel was, of course, Nancy's relative; from Nancy herself, or in some other way, she must have learnt the fact of his marriage. Probably from Nancy, since she knew where he lived. He was summoned to a judicial interview.

Happily, attendance was not compulsory.

Second thoughts advised him that he had better accept the invitation.

He must know what measures were in progress against him. If Nancy had already broken her word, she might be disposed to revenge herself in every way that would occur to an angry woman of small refinement; she might make life in London impossible for him.

He sat down and penned a reply, saying that he would call upon Mrs.

Damerel at five to-morrow. But he did not post this. After all, a day's delay would only irritate him; better to go this afternoon, in which case it was not worth while sending an answer.

It seemed to him very probable that Nancy would be with her aunt, to confront him. If so,--if indeed she were going to act like any coa.r.s.e woman, with no regard but for her own pa.s.sions and Interests,--he would at least have the consolation of expelling from his mind, at once and for ever, her haunting image.

Mrs. Damerel, who during the past twelve months had changed her abode half-a-dozen times, now occupied private lodgings in Tyburnia. On his admittance, Tarrant sat alone for nearly five minutes in a pretentiously furnished room--just the room in which he had expected to find Nancy's relative; the delay and the surroundings exasperated his nervous mood, so that, when the lady entered, he behaved with slighter courtesy than became his breeding. Nothing in her appearance surprised or interested him. There was a distant facial resemblance to Nancy, natural in her mother's sister; there was expensive, though not particularly tasteful dress, and a gait, a manner, distinguishable readily enough from what they aimed at displaying--the grace of a woman born to social privilege.

It would be a humiliating conversation; Tarrant braced himself to go through with it. He stood stiffly while his hostess regarded him with shrewd eyes. She had merely bent her head.

'Will you sit down, Mr. Tarrant?'

He took a chair without speaking.

'I think you know me by name?'

'I have heard of a Mrs. Damerel.'

'Some time ago, I suppose? And in that you have the advantage of me. I heard your name yesterday for the first time.'

It was the sharp rejoinder of a woman of the world. Tarrant began to perceive that he had to do with intelligence, and would not be allowed to perform his share of the talking _de haut en bas._

'In what can I be of service to you?' he asked with constrained civility.