Tarrant, meanwhile, having drunk a cup of tea, and touched his moustache with a silk handkerchief, transferred himself from the camp-stool to the basket chair vacated by Jessica. He was now further from Nancy, but facing her.
‘I have been talking with Mrs. Bellamy,’ fell from him, in the same tone of idle good nature. ‘Do you know her? She has but one subject of conversation; an engrossing topic, to be sure; namely, her servants. Do you give much thought to the great servant question? I have my own modest view of the matter. It may not be novel, but my mind has worked upon it in the night watches.’
Nancy, resolved not to smile, found herself smiling. Not so much at what he said, as at the manner of it. Her resentment was falling away; she felt the influence of this imperturbable geniality.
‘Shall I tell you my theory?’
He talked with less reserve than on the last occasion when they had sat together. The mellow sunlight, the garden odours, the warm, still air, favoured a growth of intimacy.
‘By all means,’ was Nancy’s reply.
‘We must begin by admitting that the ordinary woman hates nothing so much as to have another woman set in authority over her.’ He paused, and laughed lazily. ‘Now, before the triumph of glorious Democracy, only those women kept servants who were capable of rule—who had by birth the instinct of authority. They knew themselves the natural superiors of their domestics, and went through an education fitting them to rule. Things worked very well; no servant-difficulty existed. Now-a-days, every woman who can afford it must have another woman to wait upon her, no matter how silly, or vulgar, or depraved she may be; the result, of course, is a spirit of rebellion in the kitchen. Who could have expected anything else?’
Nancy played with a dandelion she had plucked, and gave sign neither of assent nor disagreement.
‘Mrs. Bellamy,’ continued the young man, ‘marvels that servants revolt against her. What could be more natural? The servants have learnt that splendid doctrine that every one is as good as everybody else, and Mrs. Bellamy is by no means the person to make them see things differently. And this kind of thing is going on in numberless houses—an utterly incompetent mistress and a democratic maid in spirited revolt. The incompetents, being in so vast a majority, will sooner or later spoil all the servants in the country.’
‘You should make an article of it,’ said Nancy, ‘and send it to The Nineteenth Century.’
‘So I might.’ He paused, and added casually, ‘You read The Nineteenth Century?’
‘Now and then.’
Nancy felt herself an impostor, for of leading reviews she knew little more than the names. And Tarrant’s look, so steady, yet so good-tempered, disturbed her conscience with the fear that he saw through her. She was coming wretchedly out of this dialogue, in which she had meant to make a figure.
He changed the subject; was it merely to spare her?
‘Shall you go to Teignmouth again this year?’
‘I don’t know yet. I think not.’
Silence followed. Tarrant, to judge from his face, was absorbed in pleasant thought; Nancy, on the other hand, felt so ill at ease that she was on the point of rising, when his voice checked her.
‘I have an idea’—he spoke dreamily—‘of going to spend next winter in the Bahamas.’
‘Why the Bahamas?’
Speaking with all the carelessness she could command, Nancy shivered a little. Spite of her ‘culture,’ she had but the vaguest notion where the Bahamas were. To betray ignorance would be dreadful. A suspicion awoke in her that Tarrant, surprised by her seeming familiarity with current literature, was craftily testing the actual quality of her education. Upon the shiver followed a glow, and, in fear lest her cheeks would redden, she grew angry.
He was replying.
‘Partly because it is a delightful winter climate; partly because I have a friend there; partly because the islands are interesting. A man I knew at Oxford has gone out there, and is likely to stay. His father owns nearly the whole of an island; and as he’s in very bad health, my friend may soon come into possession. When he does, he’s going to astonish the natives.’
‘How?’
A vision of savages flashed before Nancy’s mind. She breathed more freely, thinking the danger past.
‘Simply by making a fortune out of an estate that is lying all but barren. Before the emancipation of the niggers, the Bahamas flourished wonderfully; now they are fallen to decay, and ruled, so far as I understand it, by a particularly contemptible crew of native whites, who ought all to be kicked into the sea. My friend’s father is a man of no energy; he calls himself magistrate, coroner, superintendent of the customs, and a dozen other things, but seems to have spent his time for years in lying about, smoking and imbibing. His son, I’m afraid, waits impatiently for the old man’s removal to a better world. He believes there are immense possibilities of trade.’
Trying hard to recollect her geography, Miss. Lord affected but a slight interest.
‘There’s no direct way of getting there,’ Tarrant pursued. ‘What route should you suggest?’
She was right, after all. He wished to convict her of ignorance. Her cheeks were now burning, beyond a doubt, and she felt revengeful.
‘I advise you to make inquiries at a shipping-office,’ was her distant reply.
‘It seems’—he was smiling at Nancy—‘I shall have to go to New York, and then take the Cuba mail.’
‘Are you going to join your friend in business?’
‘Business, I fear, is hardly my vocation.’
There was a tremor on Nancy’s lips, and about her eyelids. She said abruptly:
‘I thought you were perhaps in business?’
‘Did you? What suggested it?’
Tarrant looked fixedly at her; in his expression, as in his voice, she detected a slight disdain, and that decided her to the utterance of the next words.
‘Oh’—she had assumed an ingenuous air—‘there’s the Black Lead that bears your name. Haven’t you something to do with it?’
She durst not watch him, but a change of his countenance was distinctly perceptible, and for the moment caused her a keen gratification. His eyes had widened, his lips had set themselves; he looked at once startled and mortified.
‘Black lead?’ The words fell slowly, in a voice unlike that she had been hearing. ‘No. I have nothing to do with it.’
The silence was dreadful. Nancy endeavoured to rise, but her limbs would not do their office. Then, her eyes fixed on the grass, she became aware that Tarrant himself had stood up.
‘Where are the children?’ he was saying absently.
He descried them afar off with Miss. Morgan, and began to saunter in that direction. As soon as his back was turned, Nancy rose and began to walk towards the house. In a few moments Jessica and the girls were with her.
‘I think we must go,’ she said.
They entered, and took leave of Mrs. Baker, who sat alone in the drawing-room.
‘Did you say good-bye to Mr. Tarrant?’ Jessica asked, as they came forth again.
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t. But I suppose it doesn’t matter.’
Nancy