CHAPTER XXII
Long before this Nancy was happily asleep. Thoughts of sun and moon had gone glimmering before the joy of her welcome. Helen and Elizabeth and their uncle had come far along the road to meet the chairs of their guests and out they pulled Nancy and Edward for a gay walk home. It was so like their coming a year ago and so different, the same dusky winding down the mountain path to the settlement, the same bright lights and noise of music from a score of summer homes, the glimpse of the verandah through the trees with servants bustling to set knives and forks on the table. But Nancy came now without fear, like one who had her own place in this merry family. She welcomed Mrs. Ferris's arms and Mrs. Ferris's kisses and followed the chattering twins to the room she was to share with them.
Not even dinner could frighten her, nor her place of honor at Nasmith's right. She caught sight of the amah's face beaming through the door and infectious echoes of her laughter over being once more, after all these years, with people whose ways she understood. The old servant was holding forth princely gossip in the kitchen and the same light-hearted key prevailed in the conversation of the table, so that Nancy's eyes glowed and her lips broke into more smiles than they had shown for months. Hosts and guests, one and all, as if by unquestioned consent, had put away troubling thoughts and forgotten the sorrows of the morrow in the joys of the day. Beresford's quips were never more brilliant. Even Nasmith himself forgot his pain and was satisfied to have Nancy next to him, where he could watch glints of light from beneath her long eyelashes as she answered the amused irony of his sentences.
By common arrangement it was decided that Nancy and Edward must be English during the two weeks of their visit. Yet it was a surprise to the man who hardly dared admit himself her lover when he saw the girl in the morning. Elizabeth and Helen had repeated their magic and led out a maiden who, save for a little hesitating awkwardness, might have belonged to the West through all her seventeen years. Edward with his usual carelessness of clothes had slipped easily into shirt and trousers, but Nancy wore her dress of blue muslin with a deliberate grace which charmed the attention of those who watched her walk slowly forward. The curve of her throat had never had fair play behind the high collar of her Chinese jacket; her hair was gathered loosely from her forehead and bound round her head with just that effect of wind-blown negligence which the twins, who had shared between them the task of dressing their guest, delighted in as the conspicuous triumph of their labor. But the girl still moved stiffly, not quite sure of herself before Nasmith's approving glance, not quite sure of her bare arms and the tenuous clothing of her legs, a little frightened for the exiguous under fabrics into which they had made her step, not thoroughly certain the men could not read the secret of these dainty garments and how insecurely they seemed to cling to her shoulders. She kept her hands stiffly at her sides lest her skirts, by which she was embarrassed enough to expect any mischief, part company from the black silk stockings which overreached her knees.
Helen and Elizabeth laughed at her qualms. They could not believe that trousers seemed more modest to Nancy than the very ordinary rough-and-tumble dress in which they had clothed her. As they predicted, her shyness soon passed, her shyness before all except Nasmith. On him her eyes persisted in lingering, yet she always flushed when he turned to look at her. The enigma of the couplet her father had written still drew her fancy toward him while it made her as quickly anxious to hide. And Nasmith, much as he tried to be cool, could never disguise his interest in this pale stranger who for the breadth of a year had lived like an incessant trouble in his brain.
His nieces, however, for the first few days took command of their guest. They postponed talk of Nancy's marriage,—they could not bear to broach the subject nor to think of it,—and gave up the time to picnics and swimming parties and tennis. Nancy enjoyed the long walks, the start in the cool of the morning, the chattering climb to some far-off temple where the trees provided shade and the bushes, tangling among boulders, gave covert in which the girls swiftly stripped off their clothes and climbed into swimming suits for an hour's diving and splashing in a clear warm pool. Though she envied them, she never could quite be persuaded to join them. Edward emerged fearlessly and was soon out with the men, swimming like a young spaniel, but his sister allowed herself only once to be led charily to the brink of the pool. She enjoyed watching the others at sport, the glossy figures of the girls as they climbed dripping on to the rocks, the antics of Beresford, who swam under water and seized his shrieking victims by the ankles, Nasmith's supple strength, which helped him, without apparent effort, to outdistance the whole of them in the length of his dives and the swiftness of his stroke through the water.
Then came tiffin, spread on a white cloth beneath the pines. There was a fastidious vein in Mrs. Ferris's nature which would not let her dispense with what she called the decencies of life, so that these meals, to the scoffing amusement of her brother, never lacked the cloth and the dishes or the glittering silver—she would die from starvation rather than eat without them, Nasmith declared. Nancy heard the approving comment of the old amah, who was telling the other servants that it was just this way that the first Mrs. Herrick, the real Hai t'ai-t'ai, used to serve picnics in those palmy days when she reigned as first Lady of Amoy. Nancy tried hard and gravely to connect this actual link with the legend of her mother.
Luncheon was followed invariably by a long, drowsy nap. This Nancy liked best of all, for she could stretch herself luxuriously in the shade of the bushes and talk idly with Helen and Elizabeth till the sun, shining through the leaves, filled her veins with its warmth and beguiled her into sleep. The birds sang more lazily, the breeze barely stirred the pines, the water went deviating through the rocks with a silver tinkle, the heat glimmered before her half-shut eyes; she would wake to find it was tea time and the girls hastily combing their hair or tightening the garters round their stockings. Then she too would jump up, shake her dress free of pine needles, dash cold water into her face, and hurry to take her place beside the festive cloth.
At tea time the party was always at its gayest. The picnickers lay or sat cross-legged on the ground and watched the golden sparkle of the tea as it was poured into cup after cup. The steaming liquid refreshed their spirits, gave them appetite for sandwiches and dainty frosted cakes. Nancy was so happy that she did not think of herself as a stranger but fell easily into family ways and smiled at the family jokes, at the teasing of the twins and their changeable-mooded sister, Patricia, who was blossoming into a child of mercurially gay and serious fancies. Edward adapted himself even more quickly; he both teased and was teased, flinging off banter as he flung the spray from his forehead when he was swimming.
He could swagger and brag up to the last inch of David's schoolboy manner. But Nancy, though she was a laughing partner to all this jesting, never quite became fair target for their jokes. Her destiny lurked, unspoken of yet not unregarded, in her eyes.
Nevertheless, she was braver than the others in putting it out of mind, and no one could have told, from watching her walk blithely home, now talking with one, now with another of the party, that a heavy doom hung over her, a doom which made the unpredictable future of her companions seem play by comparison. It was apparent, of course, how the interests and affection of the whole family hovered round her, but then she was singularly lovely; her grave beauty had been made to attract interest and affection.
She was enjoying herself, wholly careless of the passing of time, only content that days like these should go on forever. She looked eagerly for the lights of the bungalow gleaming through the trees, then the bustle, the washing, the changing of clothes for dinner. Such was the magic of the twins, who rifled their wardrobe between them, that she would appear in delicate silks trailing halfway to her ankles, a circle of amber beads flashing their fire at her throat, a ribbon of ivory satin half lost in her black hair, but always the pensive look in her eyes, her lips, her whole bearing, which suggested passion and desire so many ages older than the transient fashions she graced.
Nasmith watched her with hungry eyes and it was only Nancy's absorption in her two friends which kept his secret from being guessed. Her attention, for the moment, was gladly filled by the commonplaces which were such a luxurious novelty to her. The gramophone, the games, the bedroom gossip which trespassed on their sleep still made every evening exciting.
On Sunday they took her to the little Anglican church. They expected the occasion to be a great moment in her life, but they overestimated her capacity for religious feeling. The experience was neither more nor less than the many strange practices to which her eyes were being opened. Nancy had heard of the Christians,—she had been reminded that their religion had been her mother's,—but she felt no violent curiosity about their ways. It seemed natural enough that the foreigners should have their own religion, and one god the more was additional security in time of trouble. She thought the altar with its cross seemly enough, so far as she thought of it at all, but she was puzzled by the complications and the uncomfortable formality of the service and wondered why the priest wore vestments of funereal white and black. To the sermon she could give no response, having, even where she understood the sentences, not the faintest clue to its topic.
She did not criticize; no doubt this queer round of prayers and hymns pleased the gods; there were so many ways of pleasing the gods. But her attention was mainly caught by the people who sat round her. The presence of so many foreigners frightened her; she did not like their peculiarities of dress, the untidy personal touches of fashion, the hats of the women with their meaningless flowers and fruits and vegetables, nor did she like the beards and moustaches of the men. Instinctively she drew closer to her friends; she understood them even though she resented the ease with which they joined in this alien worship, but as for the others, they were strangers, no kin of hers.
Her hosts were disappointed because she could give no coherent impressions of the service. Not that their religion was too serious a burden to themselves; but it went with the proper order of things, with the established decencies of life, that they should be called "Dearly beloved brethren" once a week, and the shallowness of their own spiritual education, the very small teaching their Church had given them, the easiness of the demands it imposed, made them squirm at the thought that Nancy, after all, was a heathen. They had never analyzed the term beyond the vague notion that she must worship idols—a really undignified thing to do. They were too ignorant of what they themselves believed to venture into a debate with the girl. So they looked at her with concern, hoping the service might have saved their pains by prompting godly instincts, and feeling chagrin over so blank a failure. They were well-meaning people; they felt the presence of a duty, a duty they were both too helpless and too nice to perform. For a few hours Nancy was lonely and longed to be back in her father's house.
But by Monday religion had been comfortably stowed away for another week and the very faint shadow of misunderstanding between Nancy and her hosts had been dispelled. She was up early, batting a tennis ball with provoking awkwardness, but happy because she and Nasmith beat every combination the family could muster against them. The exercise, the brisk morning air, the smiles and applause of her friends, made her know she was in favor again. The girls would have laughed if they had guessed yesterday's scruples: to think that of all their many differences they should quarrel about religion! A more intriguing subject dawned upon their minds. Nasmith's secret, his passion for Nancy, became suddenly plain to eyes that had been blind.
"I do believe Ronald's in love with Nancy," Helen blurted to her sister. In the first delicious shock of discovery they matched notes. The fact could not be doubted. Although no special indiscretion had betrayed the man, the tale of his gaze which followed Nancy's every movement had spoken too clearly.
"How splendid!" cried Elizabeth. "Why didn't we ever guess it before?"
It was a match so suitable, the girls both agreed, that it ought to have been promoted, even without the convincing proof of Ronald Nasmith's affection. Here was the one acceptable way of saving Nancy.
They rushed to their mother with the news.
"Ronald loves Nancy," they declared in concert. "We are sure of it."
"I know he does," said Mrs. Ferris quietly.
"But why didn't you tell us? We ought to have helped them. What pigs we've been, keeping Nancy all to ourselves!"
"It's Ronald's problem," smiled the mother. "He will have to manage it in his own way."
"But aren't you glad?"
"I am—very glad, if everything turns out well. But it won't be easy. Nancy is in a difficult position, and she is young."
"Everything must turn out well," vowed Elizabeth. "Do you think Nancy likes him?"
"Nancy is a very inexperienced child. How can she know what she likes?"
"She's older than we are," Helen protested.
Mrs. Ferris smiled again.
"You are only children yourselves."
"Pooh, mother," the daughter exclaimed, "don't talk stuff like that to us. You ought to know better. Even Pat wouldn't swallow such old-fashioned language. What do you really think about Nancy? Does she like Ronald?"
"I should not be surprised if she did," Mrs. Ferris conceded, with the amused, secretive look which convinced them that she was stating only half of what she had seen.
"Then we must help them."
"Don't be too impetuous, my dears. I should like Ronald to have Nancy, mind you; she is a very sweet girl. But she isn't free, you know, and unless Ronald is sure of getting her, it might make her miserable for life if she liked him too well. You know how she's been brought up and you know that her father has arranged for her to be married. We have to reckon with the father. And we have to reckon with her too—alas, she is a more obedient daughter than mine. Suppose she should come to love Ronald and then be forced into marriage with that Chinese—what would her life be?"
"But you don't really consider such a ghastly event possible!" cried Elizabeth, her eyes ablaze with indignation. "We've got to prevent it, and this is our chance."
"We have to consider it, whether we wish to or not," the mother answered. For the first time she did not smile. Her eyes were sad.
Despite this reluctant warning, the twins were convinced of their duty to further the match. By fair means or foul it had to be achieved. They were not afraid of Nancy's father nor did they weigh very seriously the fact of her engagement.
"He seemed a nice old man," said Helen, "and if he were likely to disapprove, why should he let Nancy visit us?"
What appalled the girls was the time they had lost, the five precious days in which they had done nothing to help Nancy and Ronald to an understanding. They must make immediate amends, use every occasion to leave the man and the girl to themselves. But occasions did not come so easily as they wished. The habit of even five days could not easily be broken. Nancy seemed to detect each effort at desertion and cling more nearly to her friends. They could not lead her bluntly to Nasmith and say, "There you are; love him." They could only steal away on this pretext and that, but these manufactured meetings left an atmosphere of constraint, so that the girl grew shy in the presence of her lover and seized her own chance to escape. And there was always Patricia or David or Edward in the way. Half an evening was consumed in luring them out of the room, for the younger children, suspicious of being beguiled out of some advantage, like a child enticed to bed when fun is brewing downstairs, held their places with maddening obstinacy.
"I declare," stormed Elizabeth, "marriages may be made in heaven, but I wish there was a little more help in making them on earth!"