There was a silence. Then the young man spoke
gravely:
’You are welcome, mother, to half my income.
But you must leave me free to marry as I like.’
‘Then I can’t take a penny from you,’
she answered, weeping. ’If you ruin yourself,
you ruin me as well.’
’The ruin would come if I married Winifred.
I love Fanny; I love her with all my heart and soul,
and have never ceased to love her. Tell me what
you like about her, it will make no difference.’
A fit of violent coughing stopped his speech; he turned
away, and stood by the window, holding his handkerchief
to his mouth.
Mrs. Damerel sank upon a chair in mute misery.
Below the hill at Harrow, in a byway which has no
charm but that of quietness, stands a row of small
plain houses, built not long ago, yet at a time when
small houses were constructed with some regard for
soundness and durability. Each contains six rooms,
has a little strip of garden in the rear, and is,
or was in 1889, let at a rent of six-and-twenty pounds.
The house at the far end of the row (as the inhabitants
described it) was then tenanted by Mary Woodruff,
and with her, as a lodger, lived Mrs. Tarrant.
As a lodger, seeing that she paid a specified weekly
sum for her shelter and maintenance; in no other respect
could the wretched title apply to her. To occupy
furnished lodgings, is to live in a house owned and
ruled by servants; the least tolerable status known
to civilisation. From her long experience at Falmouth,
Nancy knew enough of the petty miseries attendant
upon that condition to think of it with dread when
the stress of heroic crisis compelled her speedy departure
from the old home. It is seldom that heroic crisis
bears the precise consequence presumed by the actors
in it; supreme moments are wont to result in some
form of compromise. So Nancy, prepared to go
forth into the wilderness of landladies, babe in arm,
found that so dreary a self-sacrifice neither was exacted
of her, nor would indeed be permitted; she had to
reckon with Mary Woodruff. Mary, thanks to her
old master, enjoyed an income more than sufficient
to her needs; if Nancy must needs go into lodgings,—
inevitable, perhaps, as matters stood,—her
friend was ready with kind and practical suggestion;
to wit, that she should take and furnish a house for
herself, and place a portion of it at Mrs. Tarrant’s
disposal. To this even Tarrant could offer no
objection; he stipulated only that his wife should
find a temporary refuge from the home she had occupied
on false pretences until Mary had her new house in
readiness. This was managed without difficulty.
Nancy went to Dulwich, and for several weeks dwelt
with the honest woman who took care of her child.
Of the dealings between Nancy and her legal guardians
Tarrant learned nothing, save the bare fact that her
marriage was avowed, and all benefit under her father’s
will renounced. He did not visit the house at
Dulwich, and only saw his child after the removal to
Harrow. On this occasion he asked Nancy what arrangements
had been made concerning the money that must be reimbursed
to the Messrs Barmby; she replied that justice would
be done, but the affair was hers alone, and to her
must be left.
