Perhaps his mind misgave him, or his heart smote him with regard to the jest he was about to make, as he looked round on the familiar dwelling—small, not without evidence of narrow means, but scrupulously clean and well ordered, from the gay patched quilt on the crib, in which the two children slept, to the well-scoured pewter mug with his beer flanking the plate of cold bacon, the better part of the dinner saved for his supper.
It would be no jesting matter to Nanse to hear that the property of which he had been summoned to take possession had gone past them. When they had parted, she had not been able to help building on it, in her impulsive woman’s fashion, as what should render them easy in their worldly affairs, lighten the load on their backs, provide a welcome substitute when his strength must fail, and, above all, supply better schooling for the children, and raise them above all fear of want when she alone was left to labour for them.
But Mr. Miles Noakes was not a man easily turned from a purpose, and, it might be, he thought the quip would break the weight of the fall. He said at last, as he took off his hat and placed it carefully beyond the reach of damage, while he gave a jerk of his elbow in the direction of Prince, standing uncertain on the threshold, a most unattractive object in his skeleton leanness, his unthrifty coat, and the greed which the glimpse of the victuals called up—in spite of his clumsy efforts to conceal his feelings—in his winking eyes and sniffing nose—“Well, Nanse, there is our legacy.”
The woman stood bewildered; her colour went and came. “Oh, Miles! you cannot mean it?” she cried at last; “Uncle Jerry and you could not be so cruel?”
“Woman, I had nothing to do with it,” he said, flinging himself heavily into the chair set for him; “and was it not better than to come back empty-handed?”
She understood now that he was in earnest—that he and she had been defrauded, as she called it in her hot heart, of the time, trouble, and expense of his journey, as well as of their justifiable expectations, and that there was nothing left for Miles but to be grimly merry at her expense.
She hesitated, for she was a quick-tempered woman, prone to resent fun of which she was the butt, and any advantage taken of her ignorance. Yet she had loved her husband for the very oddity which expressed itself in this shape. She had been proud of her conquest of him when she had been a pretty, smart, popular servant-girl, and he had enjoyed the reputation of being the most “humoursome,” no less than the most long-headed, steady, middle-aged bachelor in the place. His humour, even in company with his long-headedness and steadiness, had not brought him great worldly prosperity, yet she had never regretted her choice. There must have been a strain of something uncommon in Nanse herself, which had enabled her, in the first instance, to appreciate what was remarkable in her future husband and to triumph in astonishing the world by accepting him from her host of wooers, and, in the second, to remain content with her bargain.
But it is one thing to relish a queer fish’s cranky wit played off on other people and on things in general, and quite another to value the same rare quality turned against one’s self in a supreme moment of mortification and vexation.
Nanse stood motionless for an instant, and was on the verge of getting into a white heat and saying something she would have regretted afterwards, when the corner of her eye caught sight of her husband’s grey hairs, while her ears seemed to take in the echo of a break in his voice. Her heart was as warm as her temper was quick. With a flash of sympathy she realised all his fatigue and chagrin, and pain for her pain, which he was seeking to carry off by his poor joke. She was at his side in a moment, entering into his humour, though with a lump in her throat and a dimness before her eyes.
“Dear heart alive!” she exclaimed, borrowing one of her old mother’s expressions; “it must be a rare monster, Miles; I should have said it was not worth the carriage, but Uncle Jerry and you must know best. In the meantime, let it be, and eat your supper like a good man. I’m right down thankful to have you safe home again, and the children are both pretty well, and fell asleep an hour ago wearying for your kisses.”