“Nancy, Nancy!” said Matilda, “oh, look here—oh, please come and look here! It’s her, as clear as daylight; and I do think it’s him.”
“Him!” Nancy began to tremble, and rose, but did not advance further. “What are you saying—who do you mean by him?”
“Will you come here and look?” cried Matilda. “Come! I tell you, it’s Miss Lucy, as sure as this is me; with her young man.”
“How dare you speak so!” cried Nancy, flushing crimson, “of any of them!”
To talk of Lucy’s young man seemed to her something like blasphemy. Naturally, she was becoming a purist about language as she learned what nicety of speech meant. She was a great deal more shocked than Lucy would have been.
“Well,” said Matilda, stoutly, “he is her young man. What is wrong in that? They’ve been going up and down like two young people keeping company this hour or more, while you have been watching the sky (of course she exaggerated the time), and nothing a bit wrong in it that I can see. You’ve done the same yourself—and so would I if it had come in my way,” said honest Matilda. Then, however, her voice sank, and she took her sister by the arm. “That’s not half,” she said, “Nancy, dear! and the most important’s to come. Do you remember Durant, that came to Underhayes with Arthur? You must remember Durant—him that Sarah Jane took such a fancy to.”
“I remember Mr. Durant,” said fastidious Nancy. “I don’t know why you should talk of him so familiarly.”
“Oh, have done with your fine talk and your nonsense!” cried Matilda. “Look here, he’s there, Nancy! I tell you he’s there, close by, courting Miss Lucy. You can come and look for yourself if you don’t trust me.”
Nancy came slowly, half forced by the eager Matilda, but already turning over in her mind what expedients would be necessary to escape this sudden turn of affairs. Durant! (She allowed herself to drop the Mr. in her thoughts.) He would find her out, she knew, before many hours were out. She could not keep her secret from him; he would find her, and write to Arthur, and make or mar everything. What was she to do? A great conflict arose within her. She was sick enough of this state of affairs, and if Durant did intervene to end it, would there be so very much to regret? Arthur would come home, he would come to her, and there would be a reconciliation, and all would be well. But then, on the other hand, she had to own, with a sickening sensation in her heart, that already Arthur must have been for some time aware of “what had happened,” and he had not hastened home to her. And the idea that Durant might write to him, send for him as a matter of duty, sent all the blood coursing through her veins. Never! never! She would die first. Even short of that, how much pleasanter it would be to manage everything herself, to leave it to Providence, than that, anyhow, Durant should step in. All these thoughts rushed in a heap into her mind, tumultuous, rolling and rushing over each other like clouds before the wind, as she took the half-dozen steps necessary to bring her to Matilda’s point of vision to verify what Matilda had seen. But it did not require any verification to Nancy. She had felt sure it was true from the first moment. It was exactly the thing that was most likely to happen. She looked through the thorn branches, however, with a wakening of sympathy, such as she had scarcely yet felt, in Lucy. Lucy of late had been lost in Sir John and her ladyship; and when she had thought of her specially it was with jealous fear rather than sympathy. Now she watched her with a curious mingling of interest and opposition. It seemed wrong to Nancy that Miss Curtis should be here with a young man without the knowledge of her father and mother; and Durant, Durant, who had his living to make like any common man! She remembered very well what Arthur had told her about him. He, it was clear, could be no match for Lucy; it was not right, it was not nice of Lucy. The forehead of Mrs. Arthur contracted. She did not like any coming down in the family with which she was connected. She liked to think of them all as very great people indeed, quite above that necessity of working for a living which brought down Durant to the ordinary level of man. All this, however, was by the way; and the immediate thing she had to consider was what she herself would do in this new emergency. She ended hastily at last, when the pair of lovers (since they could be nothing else) turned their faces towards the Hall. Nancy seized her sister’s arm, and without saying anything rushed hastily towards the stile. They got over it, and out of the gates, while still the backs of the others were turned; and then for the moment the two young women ventured to take breath and feel themselves safe.
“They were going up towards the house,” said Nancy; “we have no need to hurry.” But she gave looks of alarm behind her, and walked rapidly back to the cottage. As ill luck would have it they met the Rector, who stopped, as he always did, and kept them talking. When he had insisted on planting himself in their path for a full minute, Nancy got desperate. He was to be got rid of, she felt, at all hazards.