"She says she thinks he is good."
"She don't think so in her heart. She wants to believe it."
"And she said she wouldn't go against father, nor marry a man who drinks: only she won't hear that he does. It's all a mistake, she says."
"I'll see what I can do," said Nurse. "I know what it is when a young thing like her gets caught, and marries before she knows what it means. There's hundreds of wives now, this minute, who 'd give everything they have in the world, if they could just undo the past and be free again. It's an awful thing to be tied for life to a drunkard, or a swearer, or even to a great lolloping idle fellow, who never sticks to nothing, and wants his wife to put bread into his mouth."
"Oh dear! I shouldn't like that, I don't think I'll ever marry," said Narcissus, appalled at the picture presented.
"Well, you needn't make up your mind to that neither. There's good and true and God-fearing men in the world, though there's none too many of them. If you marry one of that sort, why, you'll have troubles of course, because there's no going through life without 'em, but you'll be happy. If you marry one of the other sort, you'll just be miserable," said Nurse. "I wouldn't have such a husband—not I!—I'd sooner starve any day! A husband ought to be the sort of man a wife can look up to, and lean upon, and go to for advice; not a miserable drinking wretch, nor a great lazy lump who wants nothing but to be waited on. James Todd is the one, if he isn't the other; and I'm afraid there's no sort of mistake about his being seen the worse for drink last week. Likely as not he should be! A man must do something; and if he won't work, he's pretty sure to take to drinking! See if he don't."
"I can't understand Marigold. She's so particular—some ways—and so anxious to do right. And she don't seem to think about it here. At least she won't see what's wrong."
"That's just it exactly, Narcissus. She won't see. She could if she liked, and she won't. But Marigold's a good girl, and I shouldn't wonder if she was soon to wake up out of this. She's taken in, maybe, for the moment; but I doubt it won't last. I hope it won't, for Marigold's own sake. Things haven't gone too far yet; but they might."
Marigold did not enjoy her walk home with Todd. The little talk with Narcissus, though seemingly a failure, had thoroughly awakened her conscience. Although she had not at the time seemed convinced, she knew that Narcissus had spoken truth. She knew that her stepmother's warning would not have been uttered entirely without cause. She knew that her father did not in the least realise the state of matters between herself and Todd.
Marigold would have scorned to utter a falsehood; but she had kept silence at home about her frequent meetings with Todd, to an extent which she well knew was not absolutely true, and which she would have been the first to condemn in anybody else.