BREAKING DOWN.

Not only was she successful in this work of charity, but she must needs also institute a similar system of outdoor relief at her own end of the town; so that it was nearly dusk when she re-entered the house in Brunswick Terrace. She did not think of asking if there were any visitors; she went upstairs; perceived that the drawing-room door was an inch or two open, and was just about to enter when she heard voices. Inadvertently she paused.

It was Mr. Jacomb’s voice. Then her mother said

’I married happily myself, and I have never tried to influence my daughters ’

Nan shrank back, like a guilty thing. She had only listened to discover whether it was some one she knew who had called; but these few words of her mother’s made her heart jump. She stole away noiselessly to her own room. She sat down, anxious and agitated, fearing she scarcely knew what.

She was not long left in suspense. Her mother came into the room and shut the door.

‘I thought I heard you come in, Nan,’ she said; ’and it’s lucky you have, for Mr. Jacomb is here.’

‘But I don’t want to see Mr. Jacomb, mamma,’ she said, breathlessly.

‘He wants to see you,’ her mother said, quietly; ’and I suppose you know what it is about.’

‘I I suppose so yes, I can guess . Oh, mother, dear!’ cried Nan, going and clinging to her mother. ’Do me this great kindness! I can’t see him. I don’t want to see him. Mother, you will go and speak to him for me!’

‘Well, that is extraordinary,’ said Lady Beresford, who, however, had far too great a respect for her nerves to become excited over this matter or anything else. ’That’s a strange request. I have just told him I would not interfere. Of course I don’t consider it a good match; you might do a great deal better from a worldly point of view. But you have always been peculiar, Nan. If you think it would be for your happiness to become a poor clergyman’s wife, I will not oppose it. At the same time, I have always thought you might do better ’

‘Oh, mother, don’t you understand?’ Nan broke in. ’It’s to ask him to go away! I’m so sorry. If he had spoken before, I would have told him before ’

‘You mean you refuse him, and I am to take the message,’ said her mother, staring at her. ‘That is all?’

The girl was silent.

’I must say, Nan, you have been acting very strangely. You have lead us all to believe that you were going to marry him. Why did you let the man come about the house?’

‘Don’t speak like that to me, mother,’ said Nan, with her under lip beginning to quiver. ’I I tried to think of it. I knew he wanted me to be his wife; I thought it might be right; I thought I could do something that way; and and I tried to persuade myself. But I can’t marry him, mother I can’t I don’t wish to marry any one I never will marry ’

‘Don’t talk nonsense, child!’ said her mother, severely, for there was a sort of tendency towards excitement in the atmosphere. ’Let me understand clearly. I suppose you know your own mind. I am to go and tell this man definitely that you won’t marry him?’

’Mother, don’t put it in that harsh way. Tell him I am very sorry. Tell him I tried hard to think of it. Tell him I am sorry he has waited so long; but if he had asked sooner ’

‘He would have had the same answer?’

The girl’s faced flushed red, and she said in a strange sort of a way

’Yes perhaps so I think it must have been the same answer at any time. Oh, I never, never could have brought myself to marry him! Mother, does it look cruel does it look as if I had treated him badly?’ she added, in the same anxious way.

‘No, I would not say that,’ answered her mother, calmly. ’A man must take his chance; and until he speaks he can’t have an answer. I do not think Mr. Jacomb has any reason to complain except, perhaps, that you don’t go yourself and hear what he has to say ’

’Oh, mother, I couldn’t do that. It would only be pain for both of us. And then I don’t refuse him, you see, mother; that’s something ’

Lady Beresford was uncertain. The truth was, she was not at all sorry to be the bearer of this message even at the cost of a little trouble for she did think that her daughter ought to marry into a better position in life. But she had just been listening to what Mr. Jacomb had to say for himself; and he had said a good deal, not only about himself but about Nan, and her disposition, and what would best secure her happiness, and so forth. Lady Beresford had been just a little bit impressed, and the question was whether Nan ought not to be invited to a fair consideration of the matter as represented by Mr. Jacomb himself.

‘Well, Nan, if your mind is quite clear about it ’

‘Oh it is, mother,’ she answered eagerly, ‘quite quite ’

That was an end. Her mother left the room, slowly; Nan listened for her footsteps until she heard her go into the drawing-room and close the door. Her first thought was to lock herself in, so that there should be no appeal. Her next was that it was excessively mean and cruel of her to experience this wonderful sense of relief, now that the die was irrevocably cast.

‘If there was anything I could do for him,’ she was thinking ’anything anything but that;’ and then she listened again to the stillness until she heard a bell ring, and the drawing-room door open again, and some one descend the stairs into the hall. She felt guilty and sorry at the same time. She wished she could do something by way of compensation. He would not think it was mere heartlessness? For indeed she had tried. And would she not have done him a far greater wrong if she had married him without being able to give him her whole heart?

Nan went to the window; but it was too dark for her to see anything. She took it for granted he had gone away. She was glad, and ashamed of herself for being glad. She reproved herself. And then she had a vague sort of feeling that she would wear sackcloth and ashes or try to be ten times kinder to everybody or do something, anything, no matter what to atone for this very unmistakable sense of gladness that seemed to pervade her whole being. She couldn’t help it, because it was there; but she would do something by way of compensation. And the first thing she could think of was to go and brush the billiard-table with such thoroughness that Mr. Tom, when he came home should say he had never seen it in such good condition before.

That was a roaring party that somewhat later came in all flushed faces and high spirits and delight; for they had walked all the way from Falmer over the downs, under the guidance of the Canadian experience of Frank King; and they had had wonderful adventures with the snow-drifts; and the night was beautiful a crescent moon in the south, and high up in the south-east the gleaming belt of Orion. And Nan greatly entered into the joy of these adventurers, and wished to hear more of their futile efforts at skating; and was asking this one and the other about everything until she found Mr. Tom’s eyes fixed on her.

‘Nan,’ said he, with scrutiny and decision, ’you’ve been in the country to-day, walking.’

She admitted she had.

‘And you had for your luncheon a bit of bread and an apple.’

‘I generally take that as a precaution,’ Nan said, simply.

‘I thought so,’ said Mr. Tom, with great satisfaction at his own shrewdness. ’I can tell in a minute. For you always come back looking highly pleased with yourself and inclined to be cheeky. I don’t like the look of you when you’re too set up. Your tongue gets too sharp. I’d advise you people to look out.’

Nan’s conscience smote her. Was she so glad, then, that even outsiders saw it in her face? She became graver; and she vowed that she would be most reticent at dinner. Had she not promised to herself to try to be ten times kinder to everybody?

And she very soon, at dinner, had an opportunity of displaying her generosity. They were busy making havoc of the manner of a distinguished person who was much talked of at that time, and whom they had all chanced to meet. Now Nan ordinarily was very intolerant of affectation; but had she not promised to be ten times kinder to everybody? So she struck in in defence of this lady.

‘But it is her nature to be affected,’ said Nan. ’She is quite true to herself. That is her disposition. It wouldn’t be natural for her to try not to be affected. She was born with that disposition. Look at the idiotic grimaces that infants make when they try to show they are pleased. And Mrs. wouldn’t be herself at all if she wasn’t affected. She might as well try to leave off her affectations as her clothes. She couldn’t go about without any.’

‘She goes about with precious little,’ said Mr. Tom, who strongly disapproved of scanty ball-dresses. And then he added, ’But that’s Nan all over. She’s always for making the best of everything and everybody. It’s always the best possible world with her.’

‘And isn’t that wise,’ said Frank King, with a laugh, ’considering it’s the only one we’ve got to live in at present?’

Nan was very bright and cheerful during this dinner, and Captain Frank King was most markedly attentive to her, and interested in her talking. When Nan began to speak, he seemed to consider that the whole table ought to listen; and his was the first look that approved, and the first laugh that followed. Then he discovered that she knew all sorts of out-of-the-way things that an ordinary young lady could by no possibility have been expected to know. It was more than ever clear to him that these solitary wanderings had taught her something. Where had she acquired all this familiarity, for example, with details about his own profession or what had been his profession?

They went on to talk of the jeers of cabmen at each other, and how sharp some of them were. Then again they began to talk about other common sayings the very origin of which had been forgotten; and Frank King spoke of a taunt which was an infallible recipe for driving a bargee mad ’Who choked the boy with duff?’ though nobody, not the bargees themselves, now knew anything whatever about the tragic incident that must have happened sometime and somewhere.

‘Yes,’ said Nan at once, ’and there is another like that that the collier-boats can’t stand. If you call out to a collier, “There’s a rat in your chains” he’d drive his schooner ashore to get after you.’

‘I suppose you have tried,’ said her mother, with calm dignity.

‘I believe Nan spends most of her time,’ said the Beauty, ’in making mud-pies with the boys in Shoreham Harbour.’

‘Never you mind, Nan,’ her brother said to encourage her. ’Next time we go to Newhaven, you’ll call out to the colliers, “There’s a rat in your chains,” and I’ll stop behind a wall and watch them beating you.’

All during that dinner Nan was both amused and amusing, until a trifling little incident occurred. She and Frank King on the other side of the table had almost monopolised the conversation, although quite unwittingly; and everybody seemed to regard this as a matter of course. Now it happened that Madge, who sat next her betrothed, made some slight remark to him. Perhaps he did not hear. At all events, he did not answer, but addressed Nan instead, with reference to something she had just been saying about lifeboats. Instantly, a hurt expression came over Madge’s face, and as instantly Nan saw it. From that moment she grew more reserved. She avoided addressing herself directly to Captain Frank King. She devoted herself chiefly to her mother; and when, at the end of dinner, they adjourned in a body to the billiard-room (with the happy indifference of youth) she followed Lady Beresford up to the drawing-room and would herself make tea for her.

‘Do you know, Nan,’ she said, quite plainly, ’that whenever you are in the room Frank pays no attention to any one else?’

‘I thought he was doing his best to amuse everybody at dinner,’ Nan said though she did not raise her eyes. ’He told some very good stories.’

‘Yes, to you,’ Madge insisted. Then she added, ’You know I like it. I hope he will always be good friends with all the family: for you see, Nan, it will be lonely for me at Kingscourt for a while, and of course I should like to have somebody from Brighton always in the house. And I know he admires you very much. He’s always talking about your character, and your disposition, and your temperament, as if he had been studying you like a doctor. I suppose I’ve got no character, or he would talk about that sometimes. I don’t understand it that talking about something inside you, as if it was something separate from yourself; and calling it all kinds of sentiments and virtues, as if it was clockwork you couldn’t see. I don’t see anything like that in you, Nan except that you are very kind, you know but not so different from other people as he seems to think.’

‘It doesn’t much matter what he thinks, does it?’ suggested Nan, gently.

‘Oh no, of course not,’ Madge said, promptly. ’He said I was a very good skater, considering the horrid condition of the ice. They have a large lake at Kingscourt.’ Then after a pause, ’Nan, where did you learn all that about the lighthouses and the birds at night?’

’Oh, that? I really don’t know. What about it? it is of no consequence.’

‘But it interests people.’

’It ought not to interest you, or Captain King either. You will have to think of very different things at Kingscourt.’

‘When you and Mr. Jacomb come to Kings ’

‘Madge,’ said Nan, quickly, ’you must not say anything like that. I do not mean to marry Mr. Jacomb, if that is what you mean.’

‘No? Honour bright?’

‘I shall not marry Mr. Jacomb; and I am not likely to marry any one,’ she said, calmly. ’There are other things one can give one’s life to, I suppose. It would be strange if there were not.’

Madge thought for a second or two.

‘Oh, Nan,’ she said cheerfully, ’it would be so nice to have an old-maid sister at Kingscourt. She could do such a lot of things, and be so nice and helpful, without the fuss and pretension of a married woman. It would be really delightful to have you at Kingscourt!’

‘I hope, dear, you will be happy at Kingscourt,’ said Nan, in a somewhat lower voice.

‘I shall never be quite happy until you come to stay there,’ said Madge, with decision.

‘You will have plenty of occupation,’ said Nan, absently. ’I have been thinking if a war broke out I should like to go as one of the nurses; and of course that wants training beforehand. There must be an institution of some kind, I suppose. Now, good-night, dear.’

’Good-night, Mother Nan. But we are not going to let you go away into wars. You are coming to Kingscourt. I know Frank will insist on it. And it would just be the very place for you; you see you would be in nobody’s way; and you always were so fond of giving help. Oh, Nan,’ her sister suddenly said, ’what is the matter? You are crying! What is it, Nan?’

Nan rose quickly.

’Crying? No no never mind, Madge I am tired rather there good-night.’

She got her sister out of the room only in time. Her overstrained calmness had at length given way. She threw herself on the bed, and burst into a passion of weeping; and thus she lay far into the night, stifling her sobs so that no one should hear.