From her point of view, everything should be foreseen, cut and dried, punctual to a second, and absolutely proper and correct. This sudden marriage of her little girl to an acquaintance no better than a stranger, figuratively swept her off her feet! However, like a prudent woman, she said little. Nancy was looking desperately ill, a different creature from the buoyant Nancy of Fairplains: so silent, haggard, and lifeless. What further information Mrs. Simpson required was eagerly supplied by the ayah, who though not actually present, had witnessed the marriage ceremony in the drawing-room,—through an obliging crack in the door.
"Mayne Sahib and the Missy, standing before the Padre, both looking too sorry. Mayne, he very nice gentleman. His butler telling, a good sahib, and no evil liver,—everyone liking. He money got, too. Yesterday giving me twenty rupees," and the ayah's black eyes glistened greedily.
"Do you think he will come down here after Miss Nancy?" anxiously inquired Mrs. Simpson.
"How I telling, Memsahib?" throwing up her small brown hands, "but for what good? My Missy plenty sick, soon, soon, very sick—and maybe die.—Ah ye yoh!" and she wrung her hands.
Part of this augury came true. The dreaded reaction set in, Nancy had a bad attack of fever, and was seriously ill. She was lucky to find herself in Jane Simpson's care, and with the help of a good doctor, and the best of nursing, at the end of three weeks, she had recovered; but rose from her bed a shattered wreck, wasted to a shadow, with a small wan white face, from which all trace of sunburn and tan had now completely disappeared.
During the fever, Mrs. Simpson kept all visitors steadily at bay. Training as a professional nurse, had invested her with an inflexible attitude, and even Mrs. Ffinch, who had motored down on two occasions, could not succeed in interviewing the invalid; but when Nancy was convalescent, the position was stormed.
Mrs. Ffinch brought her neighbour, Mrs. Hicks, with her in the car, and during most of the journey, the two ladies wrangled, for they held diametrically opposite views with respect to the protégée they were about to visit. Mrs. Hicks declared "that it would be a great pity there should be a complete breach between Nancy and Captain Mayne." She was sentimental, and soft-hearted in her way,—fond of the girl, and well disposed towards the man.
"By and by, if they're let alone, believe you me, they'll make friends! After all, Mayne is a fairly good match. I am told he has five hundred a year, and expectations from an uncle."
"Yes," broke in Mrs. Ffinch, who was not soft-hearted, and whose own love affair had been strangled. "You can imagine the uncle's delight—I know the old man—when he hears that his nephew and heir, has picked up a little nobody off an Indian coffee estate!"
"I don't think that's a very nice, or kind, way to speak of Nancy," gobbled Mrs. Hicks, swelling with indignation.