People do not wish to ally themselves with family quarrels. But if the chance came in her way she would accept it. She had made up her mind to that, when she turned round from off the last knoll on which she had stood, to return to her sister and Priscilla Stanbury.
Nora tries to make herself believe.
They two had sat still under the shade of a thorn bush, looking at Nora as she was wandering about, and talking together more freely than they had ever done before on the circumstances that had brought them together. “How pretty she looks,” Priscilla had said, as Nora was standing with her figure clearly marked by the light.
“Yes; she is very pretty, and has been much admired. This terrible affair of mine is a cruel blow to her.”
“You mean that it is bad for her to come and live here—without society.”
“Not exactly that,—though of course it would be better for her to go out. And I don’t know how a girl is ever to get settled in the world unless she goes out. But it is always an injury to be connected in any way with a woman who is separated from her husband. It must be bad for you.”
“It won’t hurt me,” said Priscilla. “Nothing of that kind can hurt me.”
“I mean that people say such illnatured things.”
“I stand alone, and can take care of myself,” said Priscilla. “I defy the evil tongues of all the world to hurt me. My personal cares are limited to an old gown and bread and cheese. I like a pair of gloves to go to church with, but that is only the remnant of a prejudice. The world has so very little to give me, that I am pretty nearly sure that it will take nothing away.”
“And you are contented?”
“Well, no; I can’t say that I am contented. I hardly think that anybody ought to be contented. Should my mother die and Dorothy remain with my aunt, or get married, I should be utterly alone in the world. Providence, or whatever you call it, has made me a lady after a fashion, so that I can’t live with the ploughmen’s wives, and at the same time has so used me in other respects, that I can’t live with anybody else.”
“Why should not you get married, as well as Dorothy?”
“Who would have me? And if I had a husband I should want a good one,—a man with a head on his shoulders, and a heart. Even if I were young and good-looking, or rich, I doubt whether I could please myself. As it is I am as likely to be taken bodily to heaven, as to become any man’s wife.”
“I suppose most women think so of themselves at some time, and yet they are married.”
“I am not fit to marry. I am often cross, and I like my own way, and I have a distaste for men. I never in my life saw a man whom I wished even to make my intimate friend. I should think any man an idiot who began to make soft speeches to me, and I should tell him so.”
“Ah; you might find it different when he went on with it.”
“But I think,” said Priscilla, “that when a woman is married there is nothing to which she should not submit on behalf of her husband.”
“You mean that for me.”
“Of course I mean it for you. How should I not be thinking of you, living as you are under the same roof with us? And I am thinking of Louey.” Louey was the baby. “What are you to do when after a year or two his father shall send for him to have him under his own care?”
“Nothing shall separate me from my child,” said Mrs. Trevelyan eagerly.
“That is easily said; but I suppose the power of doing as he pleased would be with him.”
“Why should it be with him? I do not at all know that it would be with him. I have not left his house. It is he that has turned me out.”
“There can, I think, be very little doubt what you should do,” said Priscilla, after a pause, during which she had got up from her seat under the thorn bush.
“What should I do?” asked Mrs. Trevelyan.
“Go back to him.”
“I will tomorrow if he will write and ask me. Nay; how could I help myself? I am his creature, and must go or come as he bids me. I am here only because he has sent me.”
“You should write and ask him to take you.”
“Ask him to forgive me because he has illtreated me?”
“Never mind about that,” said Priscilla, standing over her companion, who was still lying under the bush. “All that is twopenny-halfpenny pride, which should be thrown to the winds. The more right you have been hitherto the better you can afford to go on being right. What is it that we all live upon but self-esteem? When we want praise it is only because praise enables us to think well of ourselves. Every one to himself is the centre and pivot of all the world.”
“It’s a very poor world that goes round upon my pivot,” said Mrs. Trevelyan.
“I don’t know how this quarrel came up,” exclaimed Priscilla, “and I don’t care to know. But it seems a trumpery quarrel,—as to who should beg each other’s pardon first, and all that kind of thing. Sheer and simple nonsense! Ask him to let it all be forgotten. I suppose he loves you?”
“How can I know? He did once.”
“And you love him?”
“Yes. I love him certainly.”
“I don’t see how you can have a doubt. Here is Jack with the carriage, and if we don’t mind he’ll pass us by without seeing us.”
Then Mrs. Trevelyan got up, and when they had succeeded in diverting Jack’s attention for a moment from the horse, they called to Nora, who was still moving about from one knoll to another, and who showed no desire to abandon the contemplations in which she had been engaged.
It had been mid-day before they left home in the morning, and they were due to be at home in time for tea,—which is an epoch in the day generally allowed to be more elastic than some others. When Mrs. Stanbury lived in the cottage her hour for tea had been six; this had been stretched to half-past seven when she received Mrs. Trevelyan at the Clock House; and it was half-past eight before Jack landed them at their door. It was manifest to them all as they entered the house that there was an air of mystery in the face of the girl who had opened the door for them. She did not speak, however, till they were all within the passage. Then she uttered a few words very solemnly. “There be a gentleman come,” she said.
“A gentleman!” said Mrs. Trevelyan, thinking in the first moment of her husband, and in the second of Colonel Osborne.
“He be for you, miss,” said the girl, bobbing her head at Nora.
Upon hearing this Nora sank speechless into the chair which stood in the passage.
Chapter XVII.
A Gentleman Comes to Nuncombe Putney
It soon became known to them all as they remained clustered in the hall that Mr. Glascock was in the house. Mrs. Stanbury came out to them and informed them that he had been at Nuncombe Putney for the last five hours, and that he had asked for Mrs. Trevelyan when he called. It became evident as the affairs of the evening went on, that Mrs. Stanbury had for a few minutes been thrown into a terrible state of amazement, thinking that “the Colonel” had appeared. The strange gentleman, however, having obtained admittance, explained who he was, saying that he was very desirous of seeing Mrs. Trevelyan,—and Miss Rowley. It may be presumed that a glimmer of light did make its way into Mrs. Stanbury’s mind on the subject; but up to the moment at which the three travellers arrived, she had been in doubt on the subject. Mr. Glascock had declared that he would take a walk, and in the course of the afternoon had expressed