Half an hour after the proper time, when the others had finished their tea and bread and butter, Nora Rowley came down among them pale as a ghost. Her sister had gone to her while she was dressing, but she had declared that she would prefer to be alone. She would be down directly, she had said, and had completed her toilet without even the assistance of her maid. She drank her cup of tea and pretended to eat her toast; and then sat herself down, very wretchedly, to think of it all again. It had been all within her grasp all of which she had ever dreamed! And now it was gone! Each of her three companions strove from time to time to draw her into conversation, but she seemed to be resolute in her refusal. At first, till her utter prostration had become a fact plainly recognised by them all, she made some little attempt at an answer when a direct question was asked of her; but after a while she only shook her head, and was silent, giving way to absolute despair.
Late in the evening she went out into the garden, and Priscilla followed her. It was now the end of July, and the summer was in its glory. The ladies, during the day, would remain in the drawing-room with the windows open and the blinds down, and would sit in the evening reading and working, or perhaps pretending to read and work, under the shade of a cedar which stood upon the lawn. No retirement could possibly be more secluded than was that of the garden of the Clock House. No stranger could see into it, or hear sounds from out of it. Though it was not extensive, it was so well furnished with those charming garden shrubs which, in congenial soils, become large trees, that one party of wanderers might seem to be lost from another amidst its walls. On this evening Mrs Stanbury and Mrs Trevelyan had gone out as usual, but Priscilla had remained with Nora Rowley. After a while Nora also got up and went through the window all alone. Priscilla, having waited for a few minutes, followed her; and caught her in a long green walk that led round the bottom of the orchard.
‘What makes you so wretched?’ she said.
‘Why do you say I am wretched?’
‘Because it’s so visible. How is one to go on living with you all day and not notice it?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t notice it. I don’t think it kind of you to notice it. If I wanted to talk of it, I would say so.’
‘It is better generally to speak of a trouble than to keep it to oneself,’ said Priscilla.
‘All the same, I would prefer not to speak of mine,’ said Nora.
Then they parted, one going one way and one the other, and Priscilla was certainly angry at the reception which had been given to the sympathy which she had proffered. The next day passed almost without a word spoken between the two. Mrs Stanbury had not ventured as yet to mention to her guest the subject of the rejected lover, and had not even said much on the subject to Mrs Trevelyan. Between the two sisters there had been, of course, some discussion on the matter. It was impossible that it should be allowed to pass without it; but such discussions always resulted in an assertion on the part of Nora that she would not be scolded. Mrs Trevelyan was very tender with her, and made no attempt to scold her — tried, at last, simply to console her; but Nora was so continually at work scolding herself, that every word spoken to her on the subject of Mr Glascock’s visit seemed to her to carry with it a rebuke.
But on the second day she herself accosted Priscilla Stanbury. ‘Come into the garden,’ she said, when they two were for a moment alone together; ‘I want to speak to you.’ Priscilla, without answering, folded up her work and put on her hat. ‘Come down to the green walk,’ said Nora. ‘I was savage to you last night, and I want to beg your pardon.’
‘You were savage,’ said Priscilla, smiling, ‘and you shall have my pardon. Who would not pardon you any offence, if you asked it?’
‘I am so miserable!’ she said.
‘But why?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t tell. And it is of no use talking about it now, for it is all over. But I ought not to have been cross to you, and I am very sorry.’
‘That does not signify a straw; only so far, that when I have been cross, and have begged a person’s pardon, which I don’t do as often as I ought, I always feel that it begets kindness. If I could help you in your trouble I would.’
‘You can’t fetch him back again.’
‘You mean Mr Glascock. Shall I go and try?’
Nora smiled and shook her head. ‘I wonder what he would say if you asked him. But if he came, I should do the same thing.’
‘I do not in the least know what you have done, my dear. I only see that you mope about, and are more down in the mouth than any one ought to be, unless some great trouble has come.’
‘A great trouble has come.’
‘I suppose you have had your choice either to accept your lover or to reject him.’
‘No; I have not had my choice.’
‘It seems to me that no one has dictated to you; or, at least, that you have obeyed no dictation.’
‘Of course, I can’t explain it to you. It is impossible that I should.’
‘If you mean that you regret what you have done because you have been false to the man, I can sympathise with you. No one has ever a right to be false, and if you are repenting a falsehood, I will willingly help you to eat your ashes and to wear your sackcloth. But if you are repenting a truth —’
‘I am.’
‘Then you must eat your ashes by yourself, for me; and I do not think that you will ever be able to digest them.’
‘I do not want anybody to help me,’ said Nora proudly.
‘Nobody can help you, if I understand the matter rightly. You have got to get the better of your own covetousness and evil desires, and you are in the fair way to get the better of them if you have already refused to be this man’s wife because you could not bring yourself to commit the sin of marrying him when you did not love him. I suppose that is about the truth of it; and indeed, indeed, I do sympathise with you. If you have done that, though it is no more than the plainest duty, I will love you for it. One finds so few people that will do any duty that taxes their self-indulgence.’
‘But he did not ask me to marry him.’
‘Then I do not understand anything about it.’
‘He asked me to love him.’
‘But he meant you to be his wife?’
‘Oh yes he meant that of course.’
‘And what did you say?’ asked Priscilla.
‘That I didn’t love him,’ replied Nora.
‘And that was the truth?’
‘Yes it was the truth.’
‘And what do you regret? that you didn’t tell him a lie?’
‘No not that,’ said Nora slowly.
‘What then? You cannot regret that you have not basely deceived a man who has treated you with a loving generosity?’ They walked on silent for a few yards, and then Priscilla repeated her question. ‘You cannot mean that you are sorry that you did not persuade yourself to do evil?’
‘I don’t want to go back to the islands, and to lose myself there, and to be nobody; that is what I mean. And I might have been so much! Could one step from the very highest rung of the ladder to the very lowest and not feel it?’
‘But you have gone up the ladder if you only knew it,’ said Priscilla. ‘There was a choice given to you between the foulest mire of the clay of the world, and the sunlight of the very God. You have chosen the sunlight, and you are crying after the clay! I cannot pity you; but I can esteem you, and love you, and believe in you. And I do. You’ll ‘get yourself right at last, and there’s my hand on it, if you’ll take it.’ Nora took the hand that was offered to her, held it in her own for some seconds, and then walked back to the house and up to her own room in silence.
The post used to come into Nuncombe Putney at about eight in the morning, carried thither by a wooden-legged man who rode a donkey. There is a general understanding that the wooden-legged men in country parishes should be employed as postmen, owing to the great steadiness of demeanour which a wooden leg is generally found to produce. It may be that such men are slower in their operations than would be biped postmen; but as all private employers of labour demand labourers with two legs, it is well that the lame and halt should find a refuge in the less exacting service of the government. The one-legged man who rode his donkey into Nuncombe Putney would reach his post-office not above half an hour after his proper time; but he was very slow in stumping round the village, and seldom reached the Clock House much before ten. On a certain morning two or three days after the conversation just recorded it was past ten when he brought two letters to the door, one for Mrs Trevelyan, and one for Mrs Stanbury. The ladies had finished their breakfast, and were seated together at an open window. As was usual, the letters were given into Priscilla’s hands, and the newspaper which accompanied them into those of Mrs Trevelyan, its undoubted owner. When her letter was handed to her, she looked at the address closely and then walked away with it into her own room.
‘I think it’s from Louis,’ said Nora, as soon as the door was closed. ‘If so, he is telling her to come back.’
‘Mamma, this is for you,’ said Priscilla. ‘It is from Aunt Stanbury. I know her handwriting.’
‘From your aunt? What can she be writing about? There is something wrong with Dorothy.’ Mrs Stanbury held the letter but did not open it. ‘You had better read it, my dear. If she is ill, pray let her come home.’
But the letter spoke of nothing amiss as regarded Dorothy, and did not indeed even mention Dorothy’s name. Luckily Priscilla read the letter in silence, for it was an angry letter. ‘What is it, Priscilla? Why don’t you tell me? Is anything wrong?’ said Mrs Stanbury.
‘Nothing is wrong, mamma except that my aunt is a silly woman.’
‘Goodness me! what is it?’
‘It is a family matter,’ said Nora smiling, ‘and I will go.
‘What can it be?’ demanded Mrs Stanbury again as soon as Nora had left the room.
‘You shall hear what it can be. I will read it to you,’ said Priscilla. ‘It seems to me that of all the women that ever lived my Aunt Stanbury is the most prejudiced, the most unjust, and the most given to evil thinking of her neighbours. This is what she has thought fit to write to you, mamma.’ Then Priscilla read her aunt’s letter, which was as follows:
‘The Close, Exeter, July 31, 186-.
Dear Sister Stanbury,
I am informed that the lady who is living with you because she could not continue ............