And yet, if Jagger was a rebel, Inman was a despot whose whole bearing showed that he would break his neck sooner than bend it to any woman’s yoke; why then did she turn her thoughts to him with a more favourable inclination? Is it that after all, woman likes to be mastered, and is flattered by the attentions of a masterful man who promises her nothing but his name, and who, when he has fulfilled that promise will expect her to be content with such poor crumbs of attention as he can spare from his dogs? Or is it that her almost unconquerable spirit matches itself against man’s obstinacy and believes it can make it yield?
Although Nancy told herself with suspicious reiteration that Inman was obnoxious to her it was in reality an evil hour for Jagger’s prospects of early marriage when Nancy set the two men side by side and took their measures. On the physical side there was not much to choose. Jagger was as fine an animal as Inman; more agile if less weighty—“the spotted panther and the tusked boar” might figure them. Intellectually, the balance swayed heavily on Inman’s side, for Jagger had none of his father’s alertness and would have made a poor show in a duel of words with the towns-man. Inman’s mind was quick and had been well sharpened in debate; John Clegg had intimated that his name was known in certain political circles in Yorkshire as that of a man who might have to be reckoned with by and by when he had made money enough to be listened to with respect. As to the other branch of the spiritual; the branch that deals with morals and the soul; Nancy left that out of account altogether as people mostly do, forgetting that the kernel is of more importance than the shell.
Only once did the scale swing over to Jagger’s side and that was when Nancy weighted it with considerations that she did not recognise as spiritual when she put into it Jagger’s love for the moors, and, all that the moors stood for—for freedom and wild beauty and the joy of life; and his love for herself, which was of the same order; deep and unchangeable. She was so accustomed to all this that she perhaps failed to notice how heavily the scale banged.
At length she rose and dressed, spending more time than usual over her toilet because her thoughts refused to clothe themselves satisfactorily; and she was in an unsettled frame of mind when she went downstairs.
Keturah was kneading bread, and much more vigorously than the process required, when Nancy entered the kitchen. One sullen glance of inquiry she flung over her shoulders, and seeing neither illness nor penitence in the girl’s expression tightened her lips.
She was an elderly sharp-featured woman, rather tall and spare, with hair that had grown thin and scanty and was twisted into a bunch not much bigger than a walnut at the back of her head. It was pepper-coloured, like her brother’s, but of a warmer tint, as if damp had got to it, which was not improbable seeing that the reservoir that supplied the tears which self-pity always called forth must have been very near to her eyes. They were dry enough now because vexation was choking the ducts.
“I’d forgotten it was baking-day,” said Nancy, as she lifted the lid of the kettle and peeped inside, “but I had a bad night and wasn’t rested.”
Silence greeted the explanation, and Nancy said no more but proceeded to prepare her breakfast.
“Where’s the butter?” she asked, as she returned from the larder with a half loaf and the empty dish in her hand.
“I can’t help it if it’s finished,” Keturah snapped. “One pair o’ hands can’t get a man his breakfast, and put him up his dinner, and be off down t’ road for butter and get bread into t’ bowl so as it can be rising all in a minute. You should ha’ seen we were short o’ butter last night, i’stead o’ bending over fancy work, same as you’d naught to do but ring t’ bell and there’d be a toathri servant lassies to come and put you a cob on t’ fire. You mud well have a poor night, and naught but right too, making a slavey of one ’at’s nearhand old enough to be your gran’mother, and then expecting me to be running errands like a six-year-old, while you lie i’ bed and rest yourself.”