"Yes, Nansie," said Mr. Loveday, "I will keep the promise I made to my dead brother."
Nansie took his hand and kissed it, and then burst into tears.
[CHAPTER XX.]
From that day a new life commenced for Mr. Loveday. It was not that there was any great improvement in the ordinary domestic arrangements of his modest establishment, because the reign of Timothy had introduced beneficial changes in this respect before Nansie was made queen. It was more in its spiritual than its material aspect that the new life was made manifest. To have a lady moving quietly about the house, to be greeted by a smile and a kind glance whenever he turned towards her, to hear her gentle voice addressing him without invitation on his part--all this was not only new, but wonderful and delightful. Mr. Loveday very soon discovered that Nansie was indeed a lady, and far above the worldly station to which her circumstances relegated her; it was an agreeable discovery, and he appreciated it keenly. He found himself listening with pleasure to her soft footfall on the stairs or in the rooms above, and he would even grow nervous if any length of time elapsed without evidence of her presence in the house. Perhaps Nansie's crowning virtue was her unobtrusiveness. Everything she did was done quietly, without the least fuss or noise; no slamming of doors to jar the nerves, nothing to disturb or worry.
"Where did you learn it all, Nansie?" asked Mr. Loveday.
"It is what all women do," she replied.
He did not dispute with her, although his experience was not favorable to her view. Inwardly he said: "What all women could not do, if they tried ever so hard, but then Nansie had perfection for a mother." His thoughts travelled frequently now to the early days when he loved the woman who was not to become his wife, and it may be that he accepted Nansie's companionship and presence as in some sense a recompense for his youthful disappointment, a meting out of poetical justice, as it were.
Of all the hours of day and night the evening hours were the most delightful, not only to him, but to Timothy, between whom and Nansie there swiftly grew a bond of sympathy and friendship. Before Nansie's appearance Mr. Loveday's house was a comfortable one to live and work in; but from the day she first set foot in it, it became a home. Neither Timothy nor Mr. Loveday could have given an intelligible explanation of the nature of the change; but they accepted it in wonder and gratitude. Everything was the same and yet not the same. There was no addition to the furniture; but it appeared to be altogether different furniture from that to which they had been accustomed. It was brighter, cleaner, and in its new and improved arrangement acquired a new value. There were now white curtains to the windows, and the windows themselves were not coated with dust. The fireplaces were always trim and well brushed up, the fires bright and twinkling, the candlesticks and all the metalwork smartly polished, the table-linen white and clean, clothes with never a button missing, socks and stockings with never a hole in them. Nansie could have accomplished all these things unaided; but Timothy was so anxious to be employed that she would not pain him by refusing his assistance. She had another reason--a reason which she did not disclose, and which Mr. Loveday and Timothy were too inexperienced to suspect--for accepting the lad's willing service. She knew that a time was approaching when it would be invaluable, and when she would be unable to devote herself to these domestic duties.
The evenings were the most delightful, as has been stated. Then, the day's labor over and everything being in order, they would sit together in the little room at the back of the shop and chat, or read, or pursue some study or innocent amusement. Mr. Loveday fished out an old draught-board, with draughts and a set of chessmen, and was surprised to find that Nansie was by no means an indifferent draught-player, and that she knew the moves of chess, in which her skill was not so great. At one time of his life he had been fond of backgammon, and he taught Nansie the game, Timothy looking on and learning more quickly than the fair pupil whose presence brightened the home. Timothy also made himself proficient in the intricacies of chess, and within a few months justified himself master, and gave odds. An evening seldom passed without a reading from a favorite author, Nansie's sweet, sympathetic voice imparting a charm to passages from which something valuable might have been missed had they not been read aloud. From this brief description it will be gathered that Nansie's influence was all for good.
Thus time sped on, and Kingsley was still absent. He wrote to Nansie regularly, and she as regularly replied to his letters, never missing a post. She wrote in her bedroom always, and generally at night when the others were abed. In silence and solitude she was better able to open her heart to her husband. To say that she was entirely happy apart from Kingsley would not be true, but she had a spirit of rare hope and contentment, and her gratitude for the shelter and comfort of her new home was a counterbalance to the unhappiness she would otherwise have experienced.