In the Year of Jubilee

There came into view a familiar figure, crossing from the other side of the way. Nancy started, waved her hand, and went to open the door. Her look had wholly altered; she was bright, mirthful, overflowing with affectionate welcome.

This friend of hers, Jessica Morgan by name, had few personal attractions. She looked overwrought and low-spirited; a very plain and slightly-made summer gown exhibited her meagre frame with undue frankness; her face might have been pretty if health had filled and coloured the flesh, but as it was she looked a ghost of girlhood, a dolorous image of frustrate sex. In her cotton-gloved hand she carried several volumes and notebooks.

‘I’m so glad you’re in,’ was her first utterance, between pants after hasty walking and the jerks of a nervous little laugh. ‘I want to ask you something about Geometrical Progression. You remember that formula—’

‘How can I remember what I never knew?’ exclaimed Nancy. ‘I always hated those formulas; I couldn’t learn them to save my life.’

‘Oh, that’s nonsense! You were much better at mathematics than I was. Do just look at what I mean.’

She threw her books down upon a chair, and opened some pages of scrawled manuscript, talking hurriedly in a thin falsetto.

Her family, a large one, had fallen of late years from a position of moderate comfort into sheer struggle for subsistence. Jessica, armed with certificates of examinational prowess, got work as a visiting governess. At the same time, she nourished ambitions, discernible perhaps in the singular light of her deep-set eyes and a something of hysteric determination about her lips. Her aim, at present, was to become a graduate of London University; she was toiling in her leisure hours—the hours of exhaustion, that is to say—to prepare herself for matriculation, which she hoped to achieve in the coming winter. Of her intimate acquaintances only one could lay claim to intellectual superiority, and even she, Nancy Lord to wit, shrank from the ordeals of Burlington House. To become B.A., to have her name in the newspapers, to be regarded as one of the clever, the uncommon women—for this Jessica was willing to labour early and late, regardless of failing health, regardless even of ruined complexion and hair that grew thin beneath the comb.

She talked only of the ‘exam,’ of her chances in this or that ‘paper,’ of the likelihood that this or the other question would be ‘set.’ Her brain was becoming a mere receptacle for dates and definitions, vocabularies and rules syntactic, for thrice-boiled essence of history, ragged scraps of science, quotations at fifth hand, and all the heterogeneous rubbish of a ‘crammer’s’ shop. When away from her books, she carried scraps of paper, with jottings to be committed to memory. Beside her plate at meals lay formulae and tabulations. She went to bed with a manual and got up with a compendium.

Nancy, whose pursuit of ‘culture’ followed a less exhausting track, regarded the girl with a little envy and some compassion. Esteeming herself in every respect Jessica’s superior, she could not help a slight condescension in the tone she used to her; yet their friendship had much sincerity on both sides, and each was the other’s only confidante. As soon as the mathematical difficulty could be set aside, Nancy began to speak of her private troubles.

‘The Prophet was here last night,’ she said, with a girlish grimace. ‘He’s beginning again. I can see it coming. I shall have to snub him awfully next time.’

‘Oh, what a worry he is!’

‘Yes, but there’s something worse. I suspected that the Pasha knew of it; now I feel sure he’s encouraging him.’

By this oriental style Nancy signified her father. The Prophet was her father’s partner in business, Mr. Samuel Bennett Barmby.

‘I feel sure now that they talked it over when the Prophet was taken into partnership. I was thrown in as a “consideration.”’

‘But how could your father possibly think—?’

‘It’s hard to say what he does think about me. I’m afraid I shall have to have a talk with him. If so, it will be a long talk, and a very serious talk. But he isn’t well just now, and I must put it off.’

‘He isn’t well?’

‘A touch of gout, he says. Two days last week he didn’t go to business, and his temper was that ‘orrible!’ Nancy had a habit of facetiously quoting vulgarities; this from an acquaintance of theirs who often supplied them with mirth. ‘I suppose the gout does make one bad-tempered.’

‘Has he been coming often?—Mr. Barmby, I mean.’

‘Pretty well. I think I must turn matchmaker, and get him married to some one. It oughtn’t to be difficult. The Prophet “has points.”’

‘I dare say some people would think him handsome,’ assented Miss Morgan, nibbling a finger which showed an ink-stain, and laughing shyly.

‘And his powers of conversation!—Don’t you know any one that would do for him?’

They jested on this theme until Nancy chose to become serious again.

‘Have you any lessons to-morrow?’

‘No. Thank goodness every one is going to see the procession, or the decorations, or the illuminations, and all the rest of the nonsense,’ Jessica replied. ‘I shall have a good long day of work; except that I’ve promised to go in the afternoon, and have tea with the little girls at Champion Hill. I wish you’d come too; they’d be delighted to see you, and there’ll be nobody except the governess.’

Nancy looked up in doubt.

‘Are you sure? Won’t the dowager be at home?’

‘She hasn’t left her room for three weeks.’

They exchanged a look of some special significance.

‘Then I suppose,’ said Nancy, with a peculiar smile, ‘that’s why Mr Tarrant has been calling?’

‘Has he? How do you know?’

Again they looked at each other, and Nancy laughed.

‘I have happened to meet him twice, the last few days.’ She spoke in an off-hand way. ‘The first time, it was just at the top of the lane; he was coming away. The second time, I was walking along Champion Hill, and he came up behind me, going to the house.’

‘Did he talk?’

Nancy gave a nod.

‘Yes, both times. But he didn’t tell me that the dowager was worse.’

‘High and mighty?’ asked Jessica.

‘Not quite so majestic as usual, I thought. I didn’t feel quite so much of a shrimp before him. And decidedly he was in better spirits. Perhaps the dowager’s death would be important to him?’

‘Very likely. Will you come to-morrow?’

Miss. Lord hesitated—then, with a sudden frankness:

‘To tell you the truth, I’m afraid he might be there.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so, not on Jubilee Day.’

‘But that’s the very reason. He may come to be out of the uproar.’

‘I meant he was more likely to be out of town altogether.’

Nancy, still leaning over the table, propped her chin on her hands, and reflected.

‘Where does he go, I wonder?’

‘Oh, all sorts of places, no doubt. Men of that kind are always travelling. I suppose he goes shooting and fishing—’

Nancy’s laugh made an interruption.

‘No, no, he doesn’t! He told me once that he didn’t care for that sort of thing.’

‘Oh, well, you know much more about him than I do,’ said Miss Morgan, with a smile.

‘I’ve often meant to ask you—have they anything to do with Tarrant’s black-lead?’

Jessica declared that she had never heard of it.

‘Never heard of it? nonsense! A few years ago it used to be posted up everywhere, and I see it sometimes even now, but other kinds seem to have driven it out of the market. Now that’s just like you! Pray, did you ever hear of Pears’ Soap?’

‘Of course.’

‘Really? Oh, there’s hope of you. You’ll be a woman of the world some day.’

‘Don’t tease, Nancy. And what would it matter if he was there to-morrow?’

‘Oh! I don’t know. But I shouldn’t particularly like his lordship to imagine that I went in the hope of paying my respects to him, and having the reward of a gracious smile.’

‘One can’t always be thinking about what other people think,’ said Jessica impatiently. ‘You’re too sensitive. Any one else in your position would have lots of such friends.’

‘In my position! What is my position?’

‘Culture is everything now-a-days,’ observed Miss. Morgan, with the air of one who feels herself abundantly possessed of that qualification.

But Nancy laughed.

‘You may depend upon it, Mr. Tarrant doesn’t think so.’

‘He calls himself a democrat.’

‘And talks like one: doesn’t he?’

‘Oh! that’s only his way, I think. He doesn’t really mean to be haughty, and—and so on.’

‘I wish I knew if he had any connection with Tarrant’s blacklead,’ said Miss. Lord mischievously.

‘Why not ask him?’

They laughed merrily, Jessica’s thin note contrasting with the mellow timbre of her friend’s voice.

‘I will some day.’

‘You would never dare to!’

‘I daren’t? Then I will!’

‘It would be dreadfully rude.’

‘I don’t mind being thought rude,’ replied Nancy, with a movement of the head, ‘if it teaches people that I consider myself as good as they are.’

‘Well, will you come to-morrow?’

‘Ye-es; if you’ll go somewhere else with me in the evening.’

‘Where to?’

‘To walk about the streets after dark, and see the crowds and the illuminations.’

Nancy uttered this with a sly mirthfulness. Her friend was astonished.

‘Nonsense! you don’t mean it.’

‘I do. I want to go for the fun of the thing. I should feel ashamed of myself if I ran to stare at Royalties, but it’s a different thing at night. It’ll be wonderful, all the traffic stopped, and the streets crammed with people, and blazing with lights. Won’t you go?’

‘But the time, the time! I can’t afford it. I’m getting on so wretchedly with my Greek and my chemistry.’

‘You’ve time enough,’ said Nancy. ‘And, you know, after all it’s a historical event. In the year 3000 it will be ‘set’ in an examination paper, and poor wretches will get plucked because they don’t know the date.’

This was quite a new aspect of the matter to Jessica Morgan. She pondered it, and smiled.

‘Yes, I suppose it will. But we should have to be out so late.’

‘Why not, for once? It needn’t be later than half-past eleven.’ Nancy broke off and gesticulated. ‘That’s just why I want to go! I should like to walk about all night, as lots of people will. The public-houses are going to be kept open till two o’clock.’

‘Do you want to go into public-houses?’ asked Jessica, laughing.

‘Why not? I should like to. It’s horrible to be tied up as we are; we’re not children. Why can’t we go about as men do?’

‘Won’t your father make any objection?’ asked Jessica.

‘We shall take Horace with us. Your people wouldn’t interfere, would they?’

‘I think not. Father is away in Yorkshire, and will be till the end of the week. Poor mother has her rheumatism. The house is so dreadfully damp. We ought never to have taken it. The difference of rent will all go in doctors’ bills.—I don’t think mother would mind; but I must be back before twelve, of course.’

‘I don’t see the “of course,”’ Nancy returned impatiently, ‘but we could manage that. I’ll speak to the Pasha to-night, and either come, or let you have a note, to-morrow morning. If there’s any objection, I’m not sure that I shan’t make it the opportunity for setting up my standard of revolt. But I don’t like to do that whilst the Pasha is out of sorts—it might make him worse.’

‘You could reason with him quietly.’

‘Reason with the Pasha—How innocent you are, Jess! How unworldly! It always refreshes me to hear you talk.’

CHAPTER 4

Only twelve months ago Stephen Lord had renewed the lease of his house for a period of seven years. Nancy, had she been aware of this transaction, would assuredly have found courage to enter a protest, but Mr. Lord consulted neither son nor daughter on any point of business; but for this habit of acting silently, he would have seemed to his children a still more arbitrary ruler than they actually thought him.

The dwelling consisted of but eight rooms, one of which, situated at the rear of the entrance passage, served Mr. Lord as sitting-room and bed-chamber; it overlooked a small garden, and afforded a side glimpse of the kitchen with its outer appurtenances. In the front room the family took meals. Of the chambers in the storey above, one was Nancy’s, one her brother’s; the third had, until six years ago, been known as ‘Grandmother’s room,’ and here its occupant, Stephen Lord’s mother, died at the age of seventy-eight. Wife of a Norfolk farmer, and mother of nine children, she was one of the old-world women whose thoughts found abundant occupation in the cares and pleasures of home. Hardship she had never known, nor yet luxury; the old religion, the old views of sex and of society, endured with her to the end.

After her death the room was converted into a parlour, used almost exclusively by the young people. At the top of the house slept two servants, each in her own well-furnished retreat; one of them was a girl, the other a woman of about forty, named Mary Woodruff. Mary had been in the house for twenty years; she enjoyed her master’s confidence, and, since old Mrs. Lord’s death, exercised practical control in the humbler domestic affairs.

With one exception, all parts of the abode presented much the same appearance as when Stephen Lord first established himself antiquated, and in primitive taste. Nancy’s bedroom alone here. The furniture was old, solid, homely; the ornaments were displayed the influence of modern ideas. On her twentieth birthday, the girl received permission to dress henceforth as she chose (a strict sumptuary law having previously been in force), and at the same time was allowed to refurnish her chamber. Nancy pleaded for modern reforms throughout the house, but in vain; even the drawing-room kept its uninviting aspect, not very different, save for the removal of the bed, from that it had presented when the ancient lady slept here. In her own little domain, Miss. Lord made a clean sweep of rude appointments, and at small expense surrounded herself with pretty things. The woodwork and the furniture were in white enamel; the paper had a pattern of wild-rose. A choice chintz, rose-leaf and flower on a white ground, served for curtains and for bed-hangings. Her carpet was of green felt, matching in shade the foliage of the chintz. On suspended shelves stood the books which she desired to have near her, and round about the walls hung prints, photographs, chromolithographs, selected in an honest spirit of admiration, which on the whole did no discredit to Nancy’s sensibilities.

To the best of Nancy’s belief, her father had never seen this room. On its completion she invited him to inspect it, but Mr. Lord coldly declined, saying that he knew nothing, and cared nothing, about upholstery.

His return to-day was earlier than usual. Shortly after five o’clock Nancy heard the familiar heavy step in the passage, and went downstairs.

‘Will you have a cup of tea, father?’ she asked, standing by the door of the back room, which was ajar.

‘If it’s ready,’ replied a deep voice.

She entered the dining-room, and rang the bell. In a few minutes Mary Woodruff appeared, bringing tea and biscuits. She was a neat, quiet, plain-featured woman, of strong physique, and with set lips, which rarely parted save for necessary speech. Her eyes had a singular expression of inquietude, of sadness. A smile seldom appeared on her face, but, when it did, the effect was unlooked for: it touched the somewhat harsh lineaments with a gentleness so pleasing that she became almost comely.

Having set down the tray, she went to Mr. Lord’s door, gave a soft tap, and withdrew into the kitchen.

Nancy, seated at the table, turned to greet her father. In early life, Stephen Lord must have been handsome; his face was now rugged, of unhealthy tone, and creased with lines betokening a moody habit. He looked much older than his years, which were fifty-seven. Dressed with excessive carelessness, he had the appearance rather of one at odds with fortune than of a substantial man of business. His short beard was raggedly trimmed; his grizzled hair began to show the scalp. Judging from the contour of his visage, one might have credited him with a forcible and commanding character; his voice favoured that impression; but the countenance had a despondent cast, the eyes seemed to shun observation, the lips suggested a sullen pride, indicative of some defect or vice of will.

Yet in the look which he cast upon her, Nancy detected a sign of more amiability than she had found in him of late. She addressed him with confidence.

‘Early to-day, father.’

‘Yes.’

The monosyllable sounded gruff, but again Nancy felt satisfaction. Mr. Lord, who disliked to seat himself unless he were going to keep his position for some time, took the offered beverage from his daughter’s hand, and stood with it before the fireplace, casting glances about the room.

‘How have you felt, father?’

‘Nothing to complain of.’

His pronunciation fell short of refinement, but was not vulgar. Something of country accent could still be detected in it. He talked like a man who could strike a softer note if he cared to, but despises the effort.

‘I suppose you will have a rest to-morrow?’

‘I suppose so. If your grandmother had lived,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘she would have been eighty-four this week on Thursday.’

‘The 23rd of June. Yes, I remember.’

Mr. Lord swallowed his tea at two draughts, and put down the cup. Seemingly refreshed, he looked about him with a half smile, and said quietly:

‘I’ve had the pleasure of punishing a scoundrel to-day. That’s worth more than the Jubilee.’

Nancy waited for an explanation, but it was not vouchsafed.

‘A scoundrel?’ she asked.

Her father nodded—the nod which signified his pleasure that the subject should not be pursued. Nancy could only infer that he spoke of some incident in the course of business, as indeed was the case.

He had no particular aptitude for trade, and that by which he lived (he had entered upon it thirty years ago rather by accident than choice) was thoroughly distasteful to him. As a dealer in pianofortes, he came into contact with a class of people who inspired him with a savage contempt, and of late years his business had suffered considerably from the competition of tradesmen who knew nothing of such conflicts between sentiment and interest. A majority of his customers obtained their pianos on the ‘hire-purchase system,’ and oftener than not, they were persons of very small or very precarious income, who, rabid in the pursuit of gentility, signed agreements they had little chance of fulfilling; when in pecuniary straits, they either raised money upon the instruments, or allowed them to fall into the hands of distraining creditors. Inquiry into the circumstances of a would-be customer sometimes had ludicrous results; a newly-married couple, for instance, would be found tenanting two top-floor rooms, the furnishing whereof seemed to them incomplete without the piano of which their friends and relatives boasted. Not a few professional swindlers came to the office; confederate rogues, vouching for each other’s respectability, got possession of pianos merely to pawn or sell them, having paid no more than the first month’s charge. It was Mr Lord’s experience that year by year the recklessness of the vulgar became more glaring, and deliberate fraud more artful. To-day he had successfully prosecuted a man who seemed to have lived for some time on the hire-purchase system, and it made him unusually cheerful.

‘You don’t think of going to see the Queen to-morrow?’ said his daughter, smiling.

‘What have I to do with the Queen? Do you wish to go?’

‘Not to see Her Majesty. I care as little about her as you do. But I thought of having a walk in the evening.’

Nancy phrased it thus with intention. She wished to intimate that, at her age, it could hardly be necessary to ask permission. But her father looked surprised.

‘In the evening? Where?’

‘Oh, about the main streets—to see the people and the illuminations.’

Her voice was not quite firm.

‘But,’ said her father, ‘there’ll be such a swarm of blackguards as never was known. How can you go into such a crowd? It’s astonishing that you should think of it.’

‘The blackguards will be outnumbered by the decent people, father.’

‘You suppose that’s possible?’ he returned gloomily.

‘Oh, I think so,’ Nancy laughed. ‘At all events, there’ll be a great majority of people who pretend to be decent. I have asked Jessica Morgan to go with me.’

‘What right had you to ask her, without first finding out whether you could go or not?’

It was spoken rather gravely than severely. Mr. Lord never looked fixedly at his daughter, and even a glance at her face was unusual; but at this juncture he met her eyes for an instant. The nervous motion with which he immediately turned aside had been marked by Nancy on previous occasions, and she had understood it as a sign of his lack of affection for her.

‘I am twenty-three years old, father,’ she replied, without aggressiveness.

‘That would be something of an answer if you were a man,’ observed the father, his eyes cast down.

‘Because I am a woman, you despise me?’

Stephen was startled at this unfamiliar mode of address. He moved uneasily.

‘If I despised you, Nancy, I shouldn’t care very much what you did. I suppose you must do as you like, but you won’t go with my permission.’

There was a silence, then the girl said:

‘I meant to ask Horace to go with us.’

‘Horace—pooh!’

Again a silence. Mr. Lord laid down his cup, moved a few steps away, and turned back.

‘I didn’t think this kind of thing was in your way,’ he said gruffly. ‘I thought you were above it.’

Nancy defended herself as she had done to Jessica, but without the playfulness. In listening, her father seemed to weigh the merits of the case conscientiously with wrinkled brows. At length he spoke.

‘Horace is no good. But if Samuel Barmby will go with you, I make no objection.’

A movement of annoyance was Nancy’s first reply. She drummed with her fingers on the table, looking fixedly before her.

‘I certainly can’t ask Mr. Barmby to come with us,’ she said, with an effort at self-control.

‘Well, you needn’t. I’ll speak about it myself.’

He waited, and again it chanced that their eyes met. Nancy, on the point of speaking, checked herself. A full minute passed, and Stephen stood waiting patiently.

‘If you insist upon it,’ said Nancy, rising from her chair, ‘we will take Mr. Barmby with us.’

Without comment, Mr. Lord left the room, and his own door closed rather loudly behind him.

Not long afterwards Nancy heard a new foot in the passage, and her brother made his appearance. Horace had good looks, but his face showed already some of the unpleasant characteristics which time had developed on that of Stephen Lord, and from which the daughter was entirely free; one judged him slow of intellect and weakly self-willed. His hair was of pale chestnut, the silky pencillings of his moustache considerably darker. His cheek, delicately pink and easily changing to a warmer hue, his bright-coloured lips, and the limpid glistening of his eyes, showed him of frail constitution; he was very slim, and narrow across the shoulders. The fashion of his attire tended to a dandiacal extreme,—modish silk hat, lavender necktie, white waistcoat, gaiters over his patent-leather shoes, gloves crushed together in one hand, and in the other a bamboo cane. For the last year or two he had been progressing in this direction, despite his father’s scornful remarks and his sister’s good-natured mockery.

‘Father in yet?’ he asked at the door of the dining-room, in subdued voice.

Nancy nodded, and the young man withdrew to lay aside his outdoor equipments.

‘What sort of temper?’ was his question when he returned.

‘Pretty good—until I spoilt it.’

Horace exhibited a pettish annoyance.

‘What on earth did you do that for? I want to have a talk with him to-night.’

‘About what?’

‘Oh, never mind; I’ll tell you after.’

Both kept their voices low, as if afraid of being overheard in the next room. Horace began to nibble at a biscuit; the hour of his return made it unnecessary for him, as a rule, to take anything before dinner, but at present he seemed in a nervous condition, and acted mechanically.