the curse of my life?" she bitterly exclaimed. "For, while I do not know where he is, if he is alive or dead, my life is accursed… How dare I-love-care for-any good man, saddle any one's life with my miserable folly, confess to any honest person my-my-association with him? Why, I blush and groan and grovel and tear my hair when I think of it, and if my uncle knew- Heavens! he might curse me and turn me out of doors and leave me to starve! He does not love me as if I were his own child, I know that-how can he when he was at daggers drawn with my father all those years? And auntie, kind though she is, she is only his wife-she is good to me because he wishes her to be! They are only pleased with me because I please in society-people like me, like my looks-if they knew-if they knew-oh! my God!"
She clasped her hands over her face, and writhed. The old woman's features worked, but her brilliant, unearthly eyes were riveted firmly on her darling.
"You were once a great fool, dearie! But don't 'ee be a fool now, never no more," she said, sonorously, solemnly. "There was summat you once used to say, poetry, when you was home from school-it did go right down into my heart like a bullet dropped into a well-summat like 'a dead past oughter bury its dead.' Can your uncle, or your aunt, or this lord who loves you, or you, or me, or the finest parson or king or pope or anything or body in this world, bring back one single blessed minnit, let alone hours or days? That's where common sense comes in, as your dear dead par used to say to me often and often! No, you can't bring it back, nor he can't! It's dead! He's dead-that brute-and if he ain't dead to you, he can't worry or annoy you, bein' in prison if he's alive, as a fellow of his sort is safe as sure to be-"
"Hush! For Heaven's sake, Nana, don't talk like that!" Joan trembled, and glanced a despairing, furtive glance out of the window-above the pots of arums, and prickly cactus, and geranium cuttings, where the long, attenuated tendrils of the "mother of thousands" in the wire basket dangled in the draught. Much and often as she thought of her past, that secret past which only this faithful old soul really knew the facts of, she felt as if she could not bear it put into words.
"Who's to hear? The girl's out!" exclaimed the old woman, who was roused, excited. Her nursling's troubles, the obstacles to her becoming a great lady, were to her the worst trials of her suffering, lonely life.
"I tell you this, dearie, if you won't have anything to do with that splendid lord who loves you, and you say you like, I shall think you hanker after him-that viper who ain't fit to live, let alone to black that noble gentleman's boots! What-you don't? Then what should stand between you and him as loves you? That-that nonsense of that fellow's? What do it matter if he's dead, or in prison? It's four years ago, ain't it? If you are so partickler, you could wait another three, and then he wouldn't have any sort of claim upon ye, if he has any now, which I doubt! He was humbuggin' of you, dearie! I'm not to talk about it? I must! I can't die happy till I know ye're safe with a good man as'll take care of ye, my pretty, and that's a fact. And I am sick and tired of all these aches and pains, it's such a weary world! Now, my dearie, when he asks ye to be his'n, and he'll do it, too-ah! I can see he's done it a'ready-just you listen to him. Be engaged as they call it, secret-like, for a time. Then don't go and tell him about all that which is dead and done with-never tell living soul a word about that! But let him think it's one of the whimsies beauties like you are supposed to have. Make him wait! And then-find out what's become of him! I'll help ye! I'll help ye!"
"You-you have heard-from-of him!" gasped Joan, wildly. "Nana! When! How?"
"Gawd is my witness, I've never set eyes on him, the vagabond, since ye showed him to me that day when he came with us in the fields, five year ago, when you was at school, and your poor mar was nearin' her end," she said, solemnly. "Letters? Not likely! You've had a letter from 'im? No, I knew you couldn't 'ave had. Them convicts-hush? All right, then! If you'll listen to me, I'll hush and welcome."
When Joan rose to go a few minutes later, her thoughts were in a frantic whirl, but there was a gleam of hope shining upon those dismal memories which stood between her and happiness.
Still she glanced round as she issued from the cottage, hoping that her escort would not be in sight, and they would happen to miss each other. She wanted time to think, to ponder over new possibilities suggested by her old nurse's words, possibilities which seemed to her, numbed by her long battle royal to overcome her passion for Vansittart, too magnificent ever to become probable. And she mounted, and after a pretence of waiting about for him as they walked their horses slowly uphill, she said to her groom, "We had better go on, Simms," and quickening her pace, was presently trotting homewards.
But Vansittart was calmly awaiting them at the cross roads, and reined round and accompanied her as a matter of course. She gave him a desperate glance as their eyes met, and it caused him to change his tactics. He had meditated an onslaught upon her emotions during their homeward ride. "It will keep," he sagely told himself, and after an uneventful canter and a little ordinary small talk he left her at her door without even an allusion to a next meeting.
CHAPTER III
She went to her room somewhat heavy-hearted. She was no woman of the world, and was taken aback by his unexpected change of manner. Her maid Julie was busy with a charming toilette de bal just arrived from Paris: a gauzy robe over satin, richly sewn with flowers and foliage made of tiny seed pearls.
"This will suit mademoiselle a merveille," exclaimed the little Frenchwoman. "And with that pearl garniture-"
"I shall not go out to-night," she said, with a disgusted glance at the finery which seemed such hollow mockery. And as soon as she had changed her habit for a tea-gown, she locked herself in her boudoir, and stormily pacing the room, asked herself what this sudden chill in her lover meant.
"I have gone too far-I have been too cold-I have lost him!" she told herself, wildly. "I cannot bear it! While there was the faintest of faint hope left-that I might be with him some day-I could bear-everything! But to see him look at me as if I were anybody, speak as if he did not care what became of me-no, no, I should soon go mad!"
Flinging herself prone on her sofa, she clasped her throbbing head in both hands, and asked herself passionately what could be done.
"I cannot, must not, lower myself by writing to him-and then, if he was the same again, I could not take advantage of it! Was ever poor wretched girl in such a miserable position as I am?"
All seemed hopeless, gloomy, dark, until a sudden thought came like a brilliant flash of light.
"He may be there, he will be there, to-night! Of course, he is a friend of the Duchess," she told herself. "That is what it meant! He knew we should meet there! He was teasing me-trying me!"
The suggestions comforted her as she rang, told Julie she had changed her mind, and would go to the ball; and she subsequently dined with her uncle and aunt, who seemed in exceedingly good spirits. (Sir Thomas' pet project was that Lord Vansittart should marry Joan, and he augured well from his appearance at this juncture, and went through the ceremony of dressing with a certain amount of patience.) When she stood before her long glass, with all the electric lights switched on, and saw herself in her gleaming white and shining pearls, tall, queenly, fair, with the glistening wreaths of golden hair crowning her small head, and her lustrous brown eyes alive with that peculiar, unfathomable expression which had gained her the epithet "sphinx-like" more than once when she was discussed as the Beauty who meant to flout every Beast that approached her, and did-she felt comforted. Only when she was shut into the carriage, her aunt prattling platitudes, and the flickering street lamps flashing stray gleams into the dimly-lit vehicle as they drove along, was she seized with a sudden panic.
"I feel as if-if he does not come-I shall break down, utterly-I shall not be able to bear my life any more!" she told herself, despondently. "I shall end it all-no one will care! There is only old Nana, who is barely alive, and she would follow me at once!"
