Miss Tarrant

“ It isn't you, the least in the world, but an inflated little figure (very remarkable in its way too) whom you have invented and set on its feet, pulling strings, behind it, to make it move and speak, while you try to conceal and efface yourself there. Ah, Miss Tarrant, if it's a question of pleasing, how much you might please some one else by tipping your preposterous puppet over and standing forth in your freedom as well as in your loveliness!"
While Basil Ransom spoke—and he had not spoken just that way yet—Verena sat there deeply attentive, with her eyes on the ground ”

“ The straight-featured woman with bands of glossy hair and eyebrows that told at a distance, could only be Mrs. Farrinder, just as the gentleman beside her, in a white overcoat, with an umbrella and a vague face, was probably her husband Amariah. At the opposite end of the row were another pair, whom Ransom, unacquainted with certain chapters of Verena's history, perceived without surprise to be Mrs. Burrage and her insinuating son. Apparently their interest in Miss Tarrant was more than a momentary fad, since—like himself—they had made the journey from New York to hear her. ”

“ But for us?" suggested Miss Birdseye.
"It's worth any woman's while to be admired as I admire you. Miss Tarrant, of whom we were speaking, affected me, as you say, in this way—that I think more highly still, if possible, of the sex which produced such a delightful young lady." ”

“ When a girl is as charming, as original, as Miss Tarrant, it doesn't in the least matter who she is; she makes herself the standard by which you measure her; she makes her own position. And then Miss Tarrant has such a future!" Mrs. Burrage added, quickly, as if that were the last thing to be overlooked. "The whole question has come up again—the feeling that Henry tried to think dead, or at least dying, has revived, through the—I hardly know what to call it, but I really may say the unexpectedly great effect of her appearance here. She was really wonderful on Wednesday evening ”

“ I remembered what Miss Tarrant had said in her note, that it was a place where people could lie on the ground and wear their old clothes. I delight to lie on the ground, and all my clothes are old. I hope to be able to stay three or four weeks."
Olive listened till he had done speaking; she stood a single moment longer, and then, without a word, a glance, she rushed into the house. Ransom saw that Miss Birdseye was immersed in her letters; so he went straight to Verena and stood before her, looking far into her eyes. He was not smiling now, as he had been in speaking to Olive. ”

“ Isn't Miss Chancellor your cousin?"
"We don't insist on the relationship," said Ransom, smiling. "Are they very much united, the two young ladies?"
"You would say so if you were to see Miss Chancellor when Verena rises to eloquence. It's as if the chords were strung across her own heart; she seems to vibrate, to echo with every word. It's a very close and very beautiful tie, and we think everything of it here. They will work together for a great good!"
"I hope so," Ransom remarked. "But in spite of it Miss Tarrant spends a part of her time with her father and mother." ”

“ No one heeded or challenged him; Miss Tarrant's auditors were still pouring in (the occasion was evidently to have been an unprecedented success of curiosity) , and had all the attention of the ushers. Ransom opened a door at the end of the passage, and it admitted him into a sort of vestibule, quite bare save that at a second door, opposite to him, stood a figure at the sight of which he paused for a moment in his advance. ”

“ She realises that I can help her now, and as I ain't rancorous I am willing to help her all she'll let me. The trouble is, she won't let me enough, yet; it seems as if she couldn't believe it of me. At any rate," he pursued, addressing himself more particularly to Ransom, "half an hour ago, at the Hall, they knew nothing whatever about Miss Tarrant, beyond the fact that about a month ago she came there, with Miss Chancellor, to try her voice, which rang all over the place, like silver, and that Miss Chancellor guaranteed her absolute punctuality to-night." ”

“ In the upward climbing lanes, no breeze yet tempered the still air; the sky of misted sapphire showed not a cloud from verge to verge. Tarrant, as if to make up for his companion’s silence, talked ceaselessly, and always in light vein. Sunshine, he said, was indispensable to his life; he never passed the winter in London; if he were the poorest of mortals, he would, at all events, beg his bread in a sunny clime.
‘Are you going to the Bahamas this winter?’ Nancy asked, mentioning the matter for the first time since she heard of it at Champion Hill. ”

“ A temporary parting might mature in the hearts of both that affection of which the seed was undeniably planted. With passion they had done; the enduring tenderness of a reasonable love must now unite them, were they to be united at all. And to give such love a chance of growing in him, Tarrant felt that he must lose sight of Nancy until her child was born. ”

“ He was a fresh, pleasant, handsome young man, with a bright friendly manner; he recommended Ransom to take a seat in the other room, without delay; if he had never heard Miss Tarrant he would have one of the greatest pleasures of his life.
"Oh, Mr. Ransom only comes to ventilate his prejudices," Miss Chancellor said, as she turned her back to her kinsman. He shrank from pushing into the front of the company, which was now rapidly filling the music-room, and contented himself with lingering in the doorway, where several gentlemen were stationed. ”

“ Love, in that sense of the word which Tarrant respected, could not be said to influence him. He had uttered the word; yes, of course he had uttered it; as a man will who is goaded by his raging blood. But he was as far as ever from loving Nancy Lord. Her beauty, and a certain growing charm in her companionship, had lured him on; his habitual idleness, and the vagueness of his principles, made him guilty at last of what a moralist would call very deliberate rascality. He himself was inclined to see his behaviour in that light; yet why had Nancy so smoothed the path of temptation? ”

“ Harrop. “That’s what Tom Cranch the poacher did, and he was hung.”
“An alias, I believe, is the correct term,” said Miss Tarrant. “It means the assumption of a name which is not your own, a most discreditable device, one to which actresses and women to whose occupation I can only allude, uniformly resort. How thankful we ought to be that our respected Rector’s eyes must now be opened and that he has escaped the snare! It was impossible that he could be permanently attracted by vice and vulgarity. It is singular how much more acute a woman’s perception often is than a man’s. ”

“ All the same, we are friends, because each has the other’s interest at heart, and each would be ashamed to doubt the other’s loyalty.’
The latter part of the evening they spent with Mary, in whom Tarrant always found something new to admire. He regarded her as the most wonderful phenomenon in nature—an uneducated woman who was neither vulgar nor foolish.
Baby slept in a cot beside Nancy’s bed. For fear of waking him, the wedded lovers entered their room very softly, with a shaded candle. Tarrant looked at the curly little head, the little clenched hand, and gave a silent laugh of pleasure. ”

“ The hall was more and more full of premonitory sounds; people making a noise as they unfolded, on hinges, their seats, and itinerant boys, whose voices as they cried out "Photographs of Miss Tarrant—sketch of her life!" or "Portraits of the Speaker—story of her career!" sounded small and piping in the general immensity. Before Ransom was aware of it several of the arm-chairs, in the row behind the lecturer's desk, were occupied, with gaps, and in a moment he recognised, even across the interval, three of the persons who had appeared. ”

“ Nancy gave a scornful laugh.
‘That’s very generous, considering your position. But happily you can’t force me to accept your generosity, any more than I can compel you to take a share of my money.’
‘Without the jibe at my poverty,’ Tarrant said, ‘that is a sufficient answer. As we can’t even pretend to be friendly with each other, I am very glad there need be no talk of our future relations. You are provided for, and no doubt will take care not to lose the provision. ”

“ So had he thought of Nancy till a few months ago. But in the spring-time, when his emotions blossomed with the blossoming year, he met the girl after a long interval, and saw her with changed eyes. She had something more than prettiness; her looks undeniably improved. It seemed, too, that she bore herself more gracefully, and even talked with, at times, an approximation to the speech of a lady. These admissions signified much in a man of Tarrant’s social prejudice—so strong that it exercised an appreciable effect upon his every-day morals. ”

“ Voice and countenance joined in utter dismay.
‘It doesn’t seem to me,’ said Tarrant slowly, ‘a downright impossibility. It might be managed, with the help of your friend Mary, and granting that you yourself have the courage. But’—he made a large gesture—‘of course I can’t exact any such thing of you. It must seem practicable to you yourself.’
‘What are we to do if my money is lost?’
‘Don’t say we.’ He smiled generously, perhaps too generously. ‘A man must support his wife. I shall arrange it somehow, of course, so that you have no anxiety. ”

“ Tarrant, but a step or two behind her, saw at almost the same moment the spectacle which had arrested her flight. Before them stood two little donkeys munching eagerly at a crop of rosy-headed thistles. They—the human beings—looked at each other; Tarrant burst into extravagant laughter, and Nancy joined him. Neither’s mirth was spontaneous; Nancy’s had a note of nervous tension, a ring of something like recklessness. ”

“ She could not have informed you wherein it would profit her daughter (for the way those ladies shrank from any new gospel was notorious) ; nevertheless she was vexed that Verena shouldn't come back to her with a little more of the fragrance of Beacon Street. The girl herself would have been the most interested person in the world if she had not been the most resigned; she took all that was given her and was grateful, and missed nothing that was withheld; she was the most extraordinary mixture of eagerness and docility. Mrs. Tarrant theorised about temperaments and she loved her daughter ”

“ It might have been the first time she really felt her age. "There's a blue car," she said, in a tone of mild relief.
"It will be some moments before it gets here. Moreover, I don't believe that at bottom they are Miss Tarrant's opinions," Ransom added.
"You mustn't think she hasn't a strong hold of them," his companion exclaimed, more briskly. "If you think she is not sincere, you are very much mistaken. Those views are just her life."
"Well, she may bring me round to them," said Ransom, smiling.
Miss Birdseye had been watching her blue car, the advance of which was temporarily obstructed. ”

“ The inner life, of course, is the greatest interest, but there is some fine architecture, if you are not familiar with Europe." She paused a moment, looking at him with an eye that seemed to brighten, and continued quickly, like a person who had collected herself for a little jump, "If you would like to walk round a little, I shall be very glad to show you."
"To walk round—with you to show me?" Ransom repeated. "My dear Miss Tarrant, it would be the greatest privilege—the greatest happiness—of my life. What a delightful idea—what an ideal guide!"
Verena got up; she would go and put on her hat ”

“ Tarrant thought not of the peril to her material prospects; on that score he was indifferent, save in so far as Mr Lord’s will helped to maintain their mutual independence. But he feared for his liberty, in the first place, and in the second, abhorred the change that must come over Nancy herself. Nancy a mother—he repelled the image, as though it degraded her.
Delicacy, however, constrained him to a disguise of these emotions. He recognised the human sentiments that should have weighed with him; like a man of cultivated intelligence, he admitted their force, their beauty. ”

“ Tarrant nodded.
‘I quite understand. The social difficulty. Well, there’s no doubt it is a difficulty; I feel it on your account. I wish it were possible for you to be invited wherever I am. Some day it will be, if I don’t get run over in the Strand; but—’
‘I should like the invitations,’ Nancy broke in, ‘but you still don’t understand me.’
‘Yes, I think I do. You are a woman, and it’s quite impossible for a woman to see this matter as a man does. Nancy, there is not one wife in fifty thousand who retains her husband’s love after the first year of marriage. ”

“ It was Tarrant's conviction that if Matthias Pardon should seek Verena in marriage, it would be with a view to producing her in public; and the advantage for the girl of having a husband who was at the same time reporter, interviewer, manager, agent, who had the command of the principal "dailies," would write her up and work her, as it were, scientifically—the attraction of all this was too obvious to be insisted on. Matthias had a mean opinion of Tarrant, thought him quite second-rate, a votary of played-out causes. ”

“ No matter what Tarrant's state of mind, he'd never try to face down Weir."
"Why?" asked Anthony.
"Well, any man who knows Weir properly—and Tarrant does, for he once sailed under him—would not care to measure skill with him in a struggle. Tarrant is a swift, courageous blade, and like a whip for giving offense or taking it. But Weir is of another kind. He has something in him," and Whitaker shook his head, "that most rufflers, no matter how desperate, fear." ”