Mrs. Nash

“ She has volunteered to spend the morning with her aunt, and—”
“Then you must go to your room and rest.” Roberts started down the staircase. “I have promised Nash to return to-night. If an emergency arises, you have my telephone number,” and the busy physician hurried away just as Martha appeared in Mrs. Nash’s doorway.
“Please, Miss—Ma’am,” she came further into the hall at sight of Miriam. “Mrs. Nash is sleeping nicely. Can I get Miss Betty to come to her aunt?”
“Surely, Martha,” but the housekeeper still hung back, instead of going on her errand, and she added, “What is it?” ”

“ With a slight shiver, Martha faced about, thankful for the companionable warmth of the carefully shaded light in the bedroom. It was no night for any one to be out, and for the matter of that, it was time that a hard-working woman was allowed to go to bed. Martha’s lips quivered as her grievance increased in importance the more she dwelt upon it. Was she never to be considered? Well, she would go. What was Mrs. Nash to her? The master was dead—
“Paul!”
The name, pronounced with startling distinctness by Mrs. Nash, caused Martha to clutch the window curtains in sudden fright. ”

“ Nash’s hands lay perfectly quiet on the counterpane.
With eyes distended to twice their natural size, Martha watched the third hand slip under the pillow and then out again. As it approached the throat of the sleeping woman, she saw clearly the long, sensitive fingers and the heavy signet ring—
Martha’s frayed nerves gave way. Her mouth dropped open and sheer terror gave strength to the shriek which broke from her. When Miriam raced into the room she found her a crumpled, unconscious heap in the center of the floor and Mrs. Nash sitting up in bed regarding her with ashen face.
“Is she dead?” ”

“ She came further into the hall so as to speak more emphatically and yet not awaken Mrs. Nash. “I am on night duty. I cannot leave my patient alone.”
“You don’t have to; Mrs. Corbin will stay with her, and call you if there is the slightest need for your presence.” Sheriff Trenholm moved to one side and Miriam caught a glimpse beyond him of Martha loitering by the door to Paul Abbott’s old bedroom. “Come, Miss Ward, you will only be across the corridor from Mrs. Nash ”

“ Nash,” and not waiting to hear anything further, he left the dining room.
As Roberts reached the second floor, Miriam rose from her seat in the alcove, where she had been eating her breakfast, and accompanied him into the sick room. Mrs. Nash, with Martha sitting watchfully by the bed, was dozing, and Roberts refrained from arousing her. Once again in the hall he paused to speak to Miriam before going down the stairs.
“Keep up the same treatment,” he directed. “Do [Pg 112] not let her exert herself in any way, and no excitement, mind—”
Miriam hesitated. “Is she to see any one?” she asked. ”

“ Your niece will inherit a very handsome fortune.”
“Provided she remains single the rest of her natural life.” Mrs. Nash’s laugh smote unpleasantly on his ear. “Betty is so very young—not yet out of her twenties. Does wealth compensate, Mr. Trenholm, for a lonely old age?” ”

“ Morgan had only found it when he reclaimed the suit-case it might have provided him with the means of keeping Nora Lindsay out of her own for an indefinite length of time; the tragedy might have become a tragedy indeed.
In the morning, when Mr. Spencer reached the station, on the platform were two familiar figures. He advanced to greet them.
"Why, Mr. Nash, and Miss Harding! this is an unexpected pleasure; I didn't expect to find such pleasant memories of Cloverlea at Littlehampton."
"Miss Harding," exclaimed the gentleman, "is now my wife; she is Mrs. Nash. ”

“ Nash returned—"what you may do above all if she'll help you."
"I scarcely see how she can help me," said Nick with an air of thinking.
"She's extremely handsome as I remember her. You could do great things with her."
"Ah, there's the rub," Nick went on. "I wanted her to sit for me this week, but she wouldn't hear of it."
"Elle a bien tort. You should attack some fine strong type. Is Mrs. Dallow in London?" Nash inquired. ”

“ We"--he hesitated, and then went on--"we are just finishing our honeymoon."
Mr. Spencer's face expressed astonishment which was hardly flattering to either of the parties concerned.
"You--don't say so; then--that's another unexpected pleasure. Mrs. Nash, you must allow me to offer you my congratulations."
He was about to go with some of the banal remarks which are made on such occasions when he was struck by the look which was on the young wife's face, and by the singularity of her attitude. She seemed to be in mortal terror. ”

“ She admitted after a moment that they were quite right and the dressing-rooms of actresses nasty places; but she was sorry, for that was the sort of thing she had always figured in a corner—a distinguished man, slightly bald, in evening dress, with orders, admiring the smallness of a satin shoe and saying witty things. Nash was convulsed with hilarity at this—such a vision of the British political hero. Coming back from the glass and making that critic give her his place on the sofa, she [508] seated herself near Nick and continued to express her regret at his perversity. ”

“ To my astonishment, the good lady expressed neither surprise nor sympathy. “Fiddlesticks!” said she. “Come, get up!”
“Get up?” I cried, in astonishment. “I can’t possibly, Mrs Nash. I tried just now, and couldn’t stand!”
“Stuff and nonsense! You ought to be ashamed of yourself going and fighting with a parcel of young roughs over night, and then shamming illness in the morning because you daren’t show your black eyes to the governors! Come, you don’t get round me with any of your nonsense! Up you get, or I’ll start and sweep out the room before you’re dressed!” ”

“ Betty hastened to her side. “How imprudent of you to come all the way out here! You will surely be ill.”
“I haven’t a doubt of it,” declared Mrs. Nash, through chattering teeth. “I got out of a sick bed to come here, and Pierre, the wretch, ran out of gasoline a mile away and I had to walk through the snow or sit in the car and freeze to death. Good gracious, Alan! don’t stand there looking at me; get me something warm to drink. I am having a chill.”
“A hot water bag, also,” added Doctor Roberts, hastening to her assistance as Mrs. ”

“ She's very noble."
"Yes, that's the pity of it," said Nash. "She's a big more or less directed force, and I quite admit that she'll do for a while a lot of good. She'll have brightened up the world for a great many people—have brought the ideal nearer to them and held it fast for an hour with its feet on earth and its great wings trembling. That's always something, for blest is he who has dropped even the smallest coin into the little iron box that contains the precious savings of mankind. Miriam will doubtless have dropped a big gold-piece. ”

“ Nick introduced Gabriel Nash to his mother and to the other two as "a delightful old friend" whom he had just come across, and Sherringham acknowledged the act by saying to Mr. Nash, but as if rather less for his sake than for that of the presenter: "I've seen you very often before."
"Ah repetition—recurrence: we haven't yet, in the study of how to live, abolished that clumsiness, have we?" Mr. Nash genially inquired. "It's a poverty in the supernumeraries of our stage that we don't pass once for all, but come round and cross again like a procession or an army at the theatre. ”

“ Madame Carré motioned Mrs. Rooth out of her seat and took her place beside the girl, and Nash explained judiciously to the other men that she'd be worse should they leave her. Her mother begged them to remain, "so that there should be at least some English"; she spoke as if the old actress were an army of Frenchwomen. The young heroine of the occasion quickly came round, and Madame Carré, on the sofa beside her, held her hand and emitted a perfect music of reassurance. "The nerves, the nerves—they're half our affair. Have as many as you like, if you've got something else too. ”

“ Nash."
"Betray you? Do you mean about your recommending affectation?"
"Dear me, no; he recommends it himself. That is, he practises it, and on a scale!"
"But he makes one hate it." [180]
"He proves what I mean," said Sherringham: "that the great comedian's the one who raises it to a science. If we paid ten shillings to listen to Mr. Nash we should think him very fine. But we want to know what it's supposed to be."
"It's too odious, the way he talks about us!" Miriam cried assentingly.
"About 'us'?"
"Us poor actors."
"It's the competition he dislikes," Peter laughed. ”

“ Our young man coloured deeper and watched the footman spring down as the victoria drove up; he heard Nash say something about the honour of having met Mrs. Dallow in Paris. Nick wanted him to go into the house; he damned inwardly his lack of delicacy. He desired a word with Julia alone—as much alone as the two annoying servants would allow. But Nash was not too much discouraged to say: "You came for a glimpse of the great model? Doesn't she sit? ”

“ Nash continued, "if she's a fine humbug it will do as well, it will perfectly suit the time. We can all be saved by vulgarity; that's the solvent of all difficulties and the blessing of this delightful age. One doesn't die of it—save in soul and sense: one dies only of minding it. Therefore let no man despair—a new hope has dawned."
"She'll do her work like any other worker, with the advantage over many that her talent's rare," Peter obliquely answered. "Compared with the life of many women that's security and sanity of the highest order. Then she can't help her beauty. ”

“ As he dropped these remarks he lolled on a big divan with one of his long legs folded up, while his visitor stopped in front of him after moving about the room vaguely and softly, almost on tiptoe, so as not to interrupt him. "You speak," Nash said, "with [351] the special and dreadful eloquence that rises to a man's lips when he has practically, whatever his theory may be, renounced the right and dropped hideously into the wrong. Then his regret for the right, a certain exquisite appreciation of it, puts on an accent I know well how to recognise."
Nick looked up at him a moment. ”

“ Nick put a question about Peter's predicament and learned, rather to his disappointment, that it consisted only of the fact that he was in love with Miriam. He appealed to his visitor to do better than this, and Nash then added the touch that Sherringham wouldn't be able to have her. "Oh they've ideas!" he said when Nick asked him why.
"What ideas? So has he, I suppose." [490]
"Yes, but they're not the same."
"Well, they'll nevertheless arrange something," Nick opined.
"You'll have to help them a bit. She's in love with another man," Nash went on. ”

“ Biddy asked. "That's Nick's," she added, blushing and looking at this personage.
"Ah our divergence—yes!" Mr. Nash sighed. "There are all kinds of machinery for that—very complicated and ingenious. Your formulas, my dear Dormer, your formulas!"
"Hang 'em, I haven't got any!" Nick now bravely declared.
"To me personally the simplest ways are those that appeal most," Mr. Nash went on. "We pay too much attention to the ugly; we notice it, we magnify it. The great thing is to leave it alone and encourage the beautiful." [29]
"You must be very sure you get hold of the beautiful," said Nick. ”

“ Goddard would be very much surprized if she knew what had happened. I am sure Miss Nash would—for Miss Nash thinks her own sister very well married, and it is only a linen-draper.”
“One should be sorry to see greater pride or refinement in the teacher of a school, Harriet. I dare say Miss Nash would envy you such an opportunity as this of being married. Even this conquest would appear valuable in her eyes. As to any thing superior for you, I suppose she is quite in the dark. The attentions of a certain person can hardly be among the tittle-tattle of Highbury yet. ”

“ Lady Agnes repeated blankly.
"Into the House of Commons. That you don't get a high salary?"
"My dear Nash, you're delightful: don't leave me—don't leave me!" Nick cried; while his mother looked at him with an eye that demanded: "Who in the world's this extraordinary person?" [48]
"What then did you think pocket-boroughs were?" Peter Sherringham asked.
Mr. Nash's facial radiance rested on him. "Why, boroughs that filled your pocket. To do that sort of thing without a bribe—c'est trop fort!" ”

“ Nash."
"Nash? He only employed him in little local jobs; in no sense was he his man of business; I've reasons for knowing that his opinion of Herbert Nash's legal ability is not an unduly high one."
As before, Nora shook her head.
"He is the only lawyer I ever heard papa mention."
"But, my dear Miss Lindsay, your father is a man of affairs--of wealth; he lives here at the rate of I don't know how many thousand pounds a year, and has never owed a man a penny; you must know something of his affairs." ”

“ She rushed away in what seemed an agony of tears. The doctor stared at the door through which she had vanished; then he turned and stared at Nash; then he laughed queerly.
"Well! who'd have thought she'd such a temper! I like her better for it, the little whirlwind! She might as well have accused us of conspiracy to defraud Miss Lindsay; what do you think of that?"
"Women," observed Mr. Nash, with downcast eyes, and a wry smile, "are capable of anything."
CHAPTER VIII A PHILANTHROPIST
Nora went to her bedroom. ”