The little house called Greenbank was like a hundred other little houses in the country, the superior houses of the village, the homes of small people with small incomes, who still are ladies and gentlemen, the equals of those in the hall, not those in the cottage. The drawing-room was darkened in the winter days by the veranda, which was very desirable and pleasant in the summer, and chilled a little by the windows which opened to the floor on a level with the little terrace on which the house stood. It looked most comfortable and bright in the evening when the lamps were lighted and there was a good fire and the curtains were drawn. Mrs. Nugent was considered to have made a great difference in the house since the doctor’s time. His heavy, old furniture was still in the dining-room, and indeed, more or less, throughout the rooms; but chintz or cretonne and appropriate draperies go a long way, according to the taste of the time. The new resident had been moderate and had not overdone it; she had not piled the stuffs and ornaments of Liberty into the old-fashioned house, but she had brightened the whole in a way which was less commonplace. Tiny was perhaps the great ornament of all—Tiny and indeed herself, a young woman not more than thirty, in the fulness of her best time, with a little dignity, which became her isolated position and her widowhood, and showed that, as the ladies in the neighborhood said, she was fully able to take care of herself. He would have been a bold man indeed who would have been rude or, what was more dangerous, overkind to Mrs. Nugent. She was one of those women, who, as it is common to say, keep people in their place. She was very gracious, very kind; but either she never forgot that she was alone and needed to be especially circumspect, or else it was her nature always to hold back a little, to be above impulse. I think this last was the case; for to be always on one’s guard is painful, and betrays a suspicion of others or doubt of one’s self, and neither of these was in Mrs. Nugent’s mind. She liked society, and she did not shut herself out from the kind people who had adopted her, though she did not bring introductions or make any appeal to their kindness. There was no reason why she should shut them out; but she was not one who much frequented her neighbors’ houses. She was always to be found in her own, with her little girl at her knee. Tiny was a little spoiled, perhaps, or so the ladies who had nurseries and many children to regulate, thought. She was only five, yet she sat up till eight, and had her bread-and-milk when her mother had her small dinner, at the little round table before the dining-room fire. Some of the ladies had even said to Mrs. Nugent that this was a self-indulgence on her part, and bad for the child; but, if so, she did not mind, but went on with the custom, which it was evident, for the moment did Tiny no harm.
The excitement of Tiny’s escapade had been got over, and the child was sitting on the carpet in the firelight playing with her doll and singing to herself. She was always singing to herself or to the waxen companion in her arms, which was pale with much exposure to the heat of the fire. Tiny had a little tune which was quite different from the little snatches of song which she picked up from every one—from the butcher’s boy and the postman and the maids in the kitchen, as well as from her mother’s performances. The child was all ear, and sang everything, whatever she heard. But besides all this she had her own little tune, in which she kept singing sometimes the same words over and over again, sometimes her dialogues with her doll, sometimes scraps of what she heard from others, odds and ends of the conversation going on over her head. It was the prettiest domestic scene, the child sitting in front of the fire, in the light of the cheerful blaze, undressing her doll, hushing it in her arms, going through all the baby routine with which she was so familiar, singing, talking, cooing to the imaginary baby in her arms, while the pretty young mother sat at the side of the hearth, with the little table and work-basket overflowing with the fine muslin and bits of lace, making one of Tiny’s pretty frocks or pinafores, which was her chief occupation. Sometimes Tiny’s monologue was broken by a word from her mother; but sewing is a silent occupation when it is pursued by a woman alone, and generally Mrs. Nugent said nothing more than a word from time to time, while the child’s little voice ran on. Was there something wanting to the little bright fireside—the man to come in from his work, the woman’s husband, the child’s father? But it was too small, too feminine a place for a man. One could not have said where he would sit, what he would do—there seemed no place for him, if such a man there had been.
Nevertheless a place was made for Mr. Wradisley when he came in, as he did immediately, announced by the smart little maid, carrying his hat in his hand. A chair was got for him out of the glow of the firelight, which affected his eyes. He made a little apology for coming so late.
“But I have a liking for the twilight; I love the park in the dusk; and as you have been so good as to let me in once or twice, and in the confidence that when I am intrusive you will send me away—”
“If you had come a little sooner,” said Mrs. Nugent, in a frank, full voice, different from her low tones, “you might have taken care of Lucy, who ran in to see me.”
“Lucy was well accompanied,” said her brother; “besides, a walk is no walk unless one is alone; and the great pleasure of a conversation, if you will allow me to say so, is doubled when there are but two to talk. I know all Lucy’s opinions, and she,” he said, pausing with a smile, as if there was something ridiculous in the idea, “knows, or at least thinks she knows, mine.”
“She knows more than she has generally credit for,” said Mrs. Nugent; “but your brother was with her. It has pleased her so much to have him back.”
“Raaf? yes. He has been so long away, it is like a stranger come to the house. He has forgotten the old shibboleths, and it takes one a little time to pick up his new ones. He is a man of the desert.”
“Perhaps he has no shibboleths at all.”
“Oh, don’t believe that! I have always found the more unconventional a man is supposed to be, the furthest from our cut-and-dry systems, the more conventional he really is. We are preserved by the understood routine, and keep our independence underneath; but those who have to make new laws for themselves are pervaded by them. The new, uneasy code is on their very soul.”