Nancy, however, had recollected herself. “Mean?” she said, with a look of innocence; “oh, I didn’t mean nothing; but that I’ve a kind of spite—I don’t deny it—at them grand Brownlows, that don’t take no notice to speak of their own flesh and blood. That’s all as I mean. I ain’t got no time to-day, but if you’ll say as Nancy Christian sends her compliments and wants badly to see Mrs. Preston, and is coming soon again, I’ll be as obliged as ever I can be. If it’s her, she’ll think on who Nancy Christian was; and if it ain’t her, it don’t make much matter,” she continued, with a sigh. She said these last words very slowly, looking at neither of her companions, fixing her eyes upon the door of Swayne’s cottage, at which Pamela had appeared. The sun came in at Betty’s door and dazzled the stranger’s eyes, and it was not easy for her at first to see Pamela, who stood in the shade. The girl had looked out for no particular reason, only because she was passing that way; and as she stood giving a glance up and a glance down the road—a glance which was not wistful, but full of a sweet confidence—Nancy kept staring at her, blinking her eyes to escape the sunshine. “Is that the girl?” she said, a little hoarsely. And then all the three looked out and gazed at Pamela in her tender beauty. Pamela saw them also. It did not occur to her whose the third head might be, nor did she care very much. She felt sure they were discussing her, shaking their heads over her imprudence; but Pamela at the moment was too happy to be angry. She said, “Poor old things,” to herself. They were poor old things; they had not the blood dancing in their veins as she had; they had not light little feet that flew over the paths, nor light hearts that leaped in their breasts, poor old souls. She waved her hand to them half kindly, half saucily, and disappeared again like a living bit of sunshine into the house which lay so obstinately in the shade. As for Nancy, she was moved in some wonderful way by this sight. She trembled when the girl made that half-mocking, half-sweet salutation; the tears came to her eyes. “She could never have a child so young,” she muttered half to herself, and then gazed and gazed as if she had seen a ghost. When Pamela disappeared she rose up and shook the dust, not from her feet, but from her skirts, outside old Betty’s door. “I’ve only a minute,” said Nancy, “but if I could set eyes on the mother I could tell if it was her I used to know.”
“I left her lyin’ down wi’ a bad headache,” said Mrs. Swayne. “If you like you can go and take a look through the parlor window; or I’ll ask if she’s better. Them sort of folks that have little to do gets headaches terrible easy. Of an afternoon when their dinner’s over, what has the likes of them to take up their time? They takes a sleep on my sofa, or they takes a walk, and a headache comes natural-like when folks has all that time on their hands. Come across and look in at the window. It’s low, and if your eyes are good you can just see her where she lays.”
Nancy followed her new companion across the road. As she went out of the gates she gave a glance up through the avenue, and made as though she would have shaken her fist at the great house. “If you but knew!” Nancy said to herself. But they did not know, and the sunshine lay as peacefully across the pretty stretch of road as if there had been no dangers there. The old woman crossed over to Mrs. Swayne’s cottage, and went into the little square of garden where Pamela sometimes watered the flowers. Nancy stooped over the one monthly rose and plucked a bit of the homely lads’-love in the corner which flourished best of all, and then she drew very close to the window and looked in. It was an alarming sight to the people within. Mrs. Preston had got a second cup of tea, and raised herself up on her pillow to swallow it, when all at once this gray visage, not unlike her own, surrounded with black much like her own dress, looked in upon her, a stranger, and yet somehow wearing a half-familiar aspect. As for Pamela, there was something awful to her in the vision. She turned round to her mother in a fright to compare the two faces. She was not consciously superstitious, but yet dim thoughts of a wraith, a double, a solemn messenger of doom, were in her mind. She had heard of such things. “Go and see who it is,” said Mrs. Preston; and Pamela rushed out, not feeling sure that the strange apparition might not have vanished. But it had not vanished. Nancy stood at the door, and when she was looked into in the open day-light she was not so dreadfully like Mrs. Preston’s wraith.
“Good-day, miss,” said Nancy; “I thought as may be I might have had a few words with your mother. If she’s the person I take her for, I used to know her long, long ago; and I’ve a deal that’s very serious to say.”
“You frightened us dreadfully looking in at the window,” said Pamela. “And mamma has such a bad headache; she has been a good deal—worried. Would you mind coming back another time?—or is it any thing I can say?”
“There’s something coming down the road,” said Nancy; “and I am tired and I can’t walk back. If it’s the carrier I’ll have to go, miss. And I can’t say the half nor the quarter to you. Is it the carrier? Then I’ll have to go. Tell her it was one as knew her when we was both young—knew her right well, and all her ways—knew her mother. And I’ve a deal to say; and my name’s Nancy Christian, if she should ask. If she’s the woman I take her for, she’ll know my name.”
“And you’ll come back?—will you be sure to come back?” asked Pamela, carelessly, yet with a girl’s eagerness for every thing like change and news. The cart had stopped by this time, and Mrs. Swayne had brought forth a chair to aid the stranger in her ascent. The place was roused by the event. Old Betty stood at her cottage, and Swayne had hobbled out from the kitchen, and even Mrs. Preston, forgetting the headache, had stolen to the window, and peeped out through the small Venetian blind which covered the lower part of it to look at and wonder who the figure belonged to which had so strange a likeness to herself. Amid all these spectators Nancy mounted, slowly shaking out once more the dust from her skirts.
“I’ll be late, and she’ll give me an awful talking to,” she said. “No; I can’t stop to-day. But I’ll come again—oh yes, I’ll come again.” She kept looking back as long as she was in sight, peeping round the hood of the wagon, searching them through and through with her anxious gaze; while all the bystanders looked on surprised. What had she to do with them? And then her looks, and her dress, and her black eager eyes, were so like Mrs. Preston’s. Her face bore a very doubtful, uncertain look as she was thus borne solemnly away. “I couldn’t know her after such a long time; and I don’t see as she could have had a child so young,” was what Nancy was saying to herself, shaking her head, and then reassuring herself. This visit made a sensation which almost diverted public attention from Mr. John; and when Nancy’s message was repeated to Mrs. Preston, it was received with an immediate recognition which increased the excitement. “Nancy Christian!” Mrs. Preston repeated all the evening long. She could think of nothing else. It made her head so much worse that she had to go to bed, where Pamela watched her to the exclusion of every other interest. This was Nancy’s first visit. She did not mean, even had she had time, to proceed to any thing more important that day.