“Oh! I did not say she was not sincere,” said Lucy with compunction; and then the luncheon bell roused them, and they went across the hall to the dining-room, following Sir John, who issued from his library at the same moment, and led the way with his courtly old-gentlemanly politeness leading the stranger. Age is the period in which politeness becomes most exquisite—like that cortesia which the old Italians make into an attribute of God himself. Sir John placed Nancy next to himself at table. She had never sat at a table so daintily served. The big silent footmen almost filled her with awe. She had never seen anything of the kind but in the Paris hotel, which after all was only an hotel, served by chattering rapid waiters, not solemn buckram men like this. Nancy was awed, every moment more and more.
“Now you have had her long enough,” said Lady Curtis. “She has to see the drawing-room now, and all the state rooms.”
“I hope you have had the drawing-room properly aired. I never had any confidence in that room. I have known it to be cold,” said Sir John with a look of horror. “Come back to your own room, my lady, for tea. It is the most comfortable in the house.”
“That is on his own account, not ours,” said Lady Curtis, as she, in her turn, led Nancy away. The drawing-room, was a very large, noble room divided by pillars, and its magnificence again took away Nancy’s breath. They took her all round to look at the pictures, and then my Lady placed the stranger in a large chair before the fire to rest. Never had any one been so anxious about her, afraid to overtire her. Overtire her! if my Lady only knew? Nancy, vigorous and young, could have carried her conductor about as easily as a child; but she could not carry the load under which she was tottering—the load of concealment and, as she represented it to herself, deception. This overwhelmed her with a feverish incapacity. She was glad when they bade her be still. What agitation was in all her veins! and yet she was happy—wrapped in a strange, delicious, overwhelming, painful dream. Was it her home, really her home in which she was thus reposing, or a house which to-day she would leave for ever? She was not able to answer the question, but sat still there, in the winter afternoon, while the sun was still shining outside, in a trance of strange and mingled sensation, lifted out of herself.
The drawing-room did not look towards the front of the house. Its large windows opened into my Lady’s flower-garden, a kind of fairy paradise, Nancy had thought, in which the grass was very green, and where there were still flowers. Arrivals or departures did not disturb the dwellers in this Elysian place; but as they sat together, not talking very much for the moment, for the sake of Nancy who was “resting,” some kind of indescribable wave of sound seemed to rise in the house. Something of wheels, something of quick steps, then a little distant hubbub of voices, then the ring of several doors opened and shut. “Some one calling, I suppose,” Lady Curtis said calmly, “but you must not stir, my dear.” Lucy was near the door. What she heard that roused her curiosity, or suggested to her the impossible occurrence which had really come to pass, it would be impossible to say. Her mind was in a state of high tension and excitement, and this confers a kind of second sight and second hearing. She stole behind the great screen that guarded the room from the possibility of a draught, and softy opened the door. She heard her father’s heavy step come suddenly out of his library, and then a tremulous outcry in his usually placid voice. Lady Curtis had begun to listen too. “What is all that commotion,” she said, “ring, Lucy, and ask?” But Lucy was out of hearing. She had rushed along the corridor to see with her own eyes, and hear with her own ears. “Yes, Sir, it is I; I didn’t write, for I did not know I could get here to-day. Where is my mother?” was what she heard. Lucy’s impulse was to cry out too, to rush out to the hall and throw herself upon her brother, and it took her no small effort to restrain herself. Her heart gave a wild leap into her throat—and then she turned and hurried back. What was going to happen? “Lucy—Lucy! have you asked what is the matter?” said Lady Curtis, getting up with natural agitation. She thought of Arthur at once, as was to be expected; but she found time even in the tide of rising anxiety to give a kind word to her visitor. “Never mind,” she said, “don’t stir—there is no need for you to disturb yourself—Lucy! where are you? what is it?” said my Lady. And then she gave a half scream, and rushed towards the door, pushing back the screen which had veiled the space before the fire.
“Yes, mother, here I am,” said Arthur, coming in.
One of the party, at least, had no eyes for him, no thought for him. Lucy did not even look at her brother; and when his eye caught her standing there, and saw this, Arthur, with his arm still encircling his mother, followed instinctively to see what interest could keep his sister from him. Nancy had risen from her seat at the sound of his voice. Every tinge of colour had gone from her cheeks, her eyes looked as if they had been forced wide open by a passion of wonder which was almost agony, her lips had dropped apart. She stood motionless, gazing, but able to see nothing.
“My God!” he cried, and put his mother aside.
Sir John had followed him into the room. They were all there, all who were most interested, and all felt by instinct that something greater and stranger had happened than Arthur’s coming home.
“What is it, what is it?” cried Lady Curtis, in sharp tones of pain.