‘Would you promise me to be back by the end
of the year?’
’Not promise, Nancy. But do my best.
Letters take fourteen days, that’s all.
You should hear by every mail.’
‘Why not promise?’
’Because I can’t foresee how much I may
have to do there, and how long it will take me.
But you may be very sure that Vawdrey won’t
pay expenses for longer than he can help. It has
occurred to me that I might get materials for some
magazine articles. That would help to float me
with the editors, you know, if it’s necessary.’
Nancy sighed.
’If I consented—if I did my best
not to stand in your way— would you love
me better when you came back?’
The answer was a pleased laugh.
‘Why, there,’ he cried, ’you’ve
given in a nutshell the whole duty of a wife who wishes
to be loved!’
Nancy tried to laugh with him.
He must be a strong man whom the sudden stare of Penury
does not daunt and, in some measure, debase.
Tarrant, whatever the possibilities of his nature,
had fallen under a spell of indolent security, which
declared its power only when he came face to face
with the demand for vigorous action. The moment
found him a sheer poltroon. ’What!
Is it possible that I—I—am
henceforth penniless? I, to whom the gods were
so gracious? I, without warning, flung from sheltered
comfort on to the bare road side, where I must either
toil or beg?’ The thing seemed unintelligible.
He had never imagined such ruin of his hopes.
For the first time, he turned anxious thoughts upon
the money to which his wife was—would be—might
be—entitled. He computed the chances
of success in the deception he and she were practising,
and knew with shame that he must henceforth be party
to a vulgar fraud. Could Nancy be trusted to
carry through this elaborate imposition—difficult
for the strongest-minded woman? Was it not a
certainty that some negligence, or some accident, must
disclose her secret? Then had he a wife and child
upon his hands, to support even as common men support
wife and child, by incessant labour. The prospect
chilled him.
If he went to the West Indies, his absence would heighten
the probability of Nancy’s detection. Yet
he desired to escape from her. Not to abandon
her; of that thought he was incapable; but to escape
the duty—repulsive to his imagination—of
encouraging her through the various stages of their
fraud. From the other side of the Atlantic he
would write affectionate, consolatory letters; face
to face with her, could he support the show of tenderness,
go through an endless series of emotional interviews,
always reminding himself that the end in view was
hard cash? Not for love’s sake; he loved
her less than before she proved herself his wife in
earnest. Veritable love—no man knew
better—would have impelled him to save
himself and her from a degrading position.
