“Outside wi’ you!” he shouted, and the oaths he poured out called forth a protest even from his sister whose “Nay, for shame, Baldwin!” fell on deaf ears. “Way wi’ you to Maniwel, you ungrateful——” But why continue to string together the coarse language that made Keturah hold her apron to her ears and caused Nancy to wrench herself free and wheel round upon him with a face that was white but strangely composed.
“That’ll do, Baldwin Briggs,” she said. “This house is mine, not yours, and if anyone goes it’ll not be me. You’d perhaps forgotten that, same as I had. You’ve had the use of it so long that you’d come to think it was yours. I said I was your lodger, but it’s you who’re lodgers, and I’ll leave when it suits me. You’d best get your teas, if you can eat any. I want none. Maybe we shall all have cooled by morning.”
With these words she crossed the room and went upstairs; and Baldwin and Keturah looked at each other, and finding nothing to say turned to the table and made a sorry meal.
CHAPTER VIII
IN WHICH NANCY QUESTIONS HER HEART AND
MANIWEL QUESTIONS HIS SON
ALAS! for Nancy. Heroics, she discovered, were all very well in their way, but they were only the husks of satisfaction, containing nourishment for neither body nor soul, and leaving behind them a bitter task and the beginnings of a headache. And though to retire to one’s room some five hours before the usual time might be a picturesque way of registering a protest it was one that reacted awkwardly on the protestor, obliging her to fast when hungry, and (for lack of a candle) to company with darkness; the only alternative being to swallow her pride and return for supplies. Rather than eat so nauseous a dish of humble pie Nancy preferred to treat herself as a prisoner, and she flung up the window and let the cold night air blow upon her hot cheeks as she sat there, resting her elbows on the sill.
The breath of the uplands is tonic at all times; but on the wild moors of Mawm when winter grips the Pennines and forges its weapons of offence on the rocky heights, the tonic is that of iron and steel, a tonic that spurs and goads. “According to its quality and temperature air hath an effect on manners,” the old physiologists affirmed, “and that of mountains is a potent predisposer to rebellion.” We have let the theory die; but these forefathers of our scientists were no fools, and we find the proof of their hypothesis in the high places of the land, where rebels are bred and flourish. Nancy may have cooled as she sat there, watching the stars light their lamps in the black sky; but the cooling was that of iron that has been bent to a purpose and is no longer malleable.
For half an hour she never changed her position, and was unconscious that her elbows were sore from the pressure of her weight upon the window-frame; but even when she saw that a splinter had pierced the flesh and drawn blood she scarcely moved, being too busy with her thoughts to concern herself with trifles.
The house and the shop to which it was attached, were hers, though Baldwin rented them, and the sum was included in the payment she received once a year; if she were married she would live there and Baldwin might find other quarters. If she were married a great many problems would solve themselves automatically, therefore, obviously, the one thing to do was to marry.
It was significant that in this crisis Inman was banished from her mind and Jagger occupied all her thoughts. If her head busied itself with speculations now and then, her heart told her that it was Jagger whom she loved, and Jagger had only been waiting until his prospects were brighter and his savings more considerable. He would see the matter from her point of view, and if he was a little stupid at first she would easily talk him round. Nancy, it will be seen, like most women who have experimented in love, was not disposed to under-estimate her powers; and her plan of campaign took no account of opposition. In drafting it she forgot hunger and headache and became mildly exhilarated. Jagger and she would marry as soon as possible, and Baldwin would be made to understand that in his own interests something in the nature of a partnership with her husband would have to be arranged. Baldwin would be awkward but no more awkward than she; and there was always Uncle John in the background—a reserve force that she did not doubt could be used on her side in an emergency.