Read Ebook: Nancy first and last by Blanchard Amy Ella Stecher William F William Frederick Illustrator

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Ebook has 1481 lines and 71840 words, and 30 pages

SHE DREW THE RING FROM HER FINGER AND WITH AVERTED FACE HELD IT OUT

"SPAIN," MURMURED THE GIRL

IT WAS LIKE A DREAM, A POEM

"AND IF THERE SHOULD BE WAR," SAID LILLIAN, SUDDENLY

HE HELD OUT HIS HAND WITH GROPING GESTURE

NANCY FIRST AND LAST

A PARTING OF THE WAYS

The garden was too peaceful and fair for a scene of discord. From behind the sun-warmed box hedges came the odor of clove pinks, hundred-leaf roses and heliotrope, while breezes, passing by the porch of the old-fashioned, high-pillared house, brought the cloying sweetness of honeysuckle and jessamine blooms. Along the gravelled paths paced a man and a girl, both young and good to look upon. The girl, slender, brown-eyed, fair-haired, white-skinned, discoursed passionately; the man, with steady blue eyes, broad brow and firm chin, listened, turning toward her once in a while a half-bewildered look.

"You do not understand, you cannot," the girl was saying excitedly. "You are nothing but ice and snow, a creature of marble. If you had ever met love face to face, had ever felt its real power I would not need to question you, but it has to filter through your body and never reaches your soul. There is so little spiritual essence in what you offer that it is valueless to me."

"But, Nancy, what is it you want me to do?" asked the man, still looking bewildered.

The girl made a despairing gesture. "You ask me to tell you what to do!" she cried. "If your own heart cannot tell you, it is no use, no use to go on. Have you ever stood at night in the shadows gazing at my window till my light went out?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so," he answered slowly.

"Did you ever lie awake, Terrence Wirt, thinking of me, and find yourself here in the garden at dawn waiting for me to appear?"

"Why, no. I didn't need to do that. I know your breakfast hour and I never like to intrude too early," replied the man still with a puzzled look. "Would you like me to come before breakfast?"

"Not unless you can't help coming."

"I hope I have myself well enough in hand not to act on an impulse which would mean impoliteness to your mother."

"It's no use, no use," Nancy repeated. "You cannot understand."

"But I do want you to be happy. It is my dearest wish to make you so. Can't you explain so I will understand wherein I fail?"

"It has been two whole days since you asked me if I loved you."

"But, dear, you told me so in the beginning. Do you want me not to believe you?"

Nancy turned away and, leaning against a tree began to weep convulsively. Terrence tried to take her hand but she snatched it away. "Go! Go!" she cried passionately. "Do not touch me. From henceforth we are parted forever." She drew the ring from her finger and with averted face, held it out.

Silence fell between them. The gentle rustle of leaves overhead, the drone of a bee making ready to clasp a flower, the opening and shutting of a door in the house, these were the only sounds audible. Presently Nancy felt the touch of fingers; the ring was withdrawn from her palm. In another moment she heard footsteps treading the gravel, the gate clicked and she knew she was alone. She stood for a moment leaning against the tree, then she dashed to the house, pushed open the outer door, darted up to her room and flung herself, face downward on the bed, where she sobbed her heart out, refusing her midday meal and asking to be left alone. The sun was low in the skies when, pale and still, she went slowly down stairs. Mrs. Loomis, who was sitting in the broad hall which opened east and west upon porticos, looked up as Nancy paused upon the lowest step before coming forward, but she made no remark. Nancy sat down on the carved bench opposite Mrs. Loomis's high-backed chair. She spread wide her arms and rested a hand on either arm of the bench, fixing her burning eyes upon space. She might have been posing for some figure of Tragedy.

"Is your headache better, daughter?" asked Mrs. Loomis, drawing a needle from the row of knitting she had just finished. She was a frail looking woman with fast-graying hair, a low voice and a quiet manner.

Nancy's great dark eyes rested somberly upon the questioner. "I didn't have a headache. I have parted forever from Terrence Wirt, and my heart is broken," she replied in an intense tone.

"Why, Nancy!" Mrs. Loomis laid down her knitting. "What in the world did you quarrel about?"

"We didn't quarrel. He doesn't love me. At least his love is of such poor quality that it might better be called a mild liking. Compared to mine it is as lukewarm as milk is to wine."

"Lukewarm milk is very nourishing and often to be greatly preferred to wine," remarked Mrs. Loomis with a little smile as she resumed her knitting. "You are too exacting, Nancy."

"I want no more than has been given to other women. I want only what Romeo gave to Juliet, what Dante gave to Beatrice."

"But Terrence is not a poet, my dear," Mrs. Loomis counted her stitches, "though he appears to me to be very true and steadfast. He may not be exactly what you might consider temperamental, but certainly he is appreciative and devoted to you; moreover, he is a young man of fine character, and that is worth everything. I am sure he loves you deeply."

"No, no," Nancy sprang to her feet and waved away the suggestion with a dramatic gesture, then she seated herself at her mother's feet on the doorsill, resting her chin in her hands. "No man who was devoted to a girl could be content with such a humdrum, settled state of affairs. No romance, no poetry, no jealousy, no wild heart yearnings, no sleepless nights. All these have been mine. I loved him so. Oh, I loved him so." Her lips trembled and she turned to bury her face in her mother's lap.

Mrs. Loomis stroked her hair softly. "Well, my dear, if you love him so much as all that I cannot imagine why you sent him away. Perhaps when you see him again it will all come right, since he seems to have had no fault to find with you."

"We shall not meet again. He took me at my word. He may have no fault to find, but he does not love me or he would not have gone," persisted Nancy, lifting wet eyes.

"He loves you in a very quiet, manly way, no doubt, but that is not saying that it is not a very strong and enduring love which is much better than a wild passion. However, if it does not satisfy you there is nothing more to say. You have dismissed him, which I consider a mistake, and there is nothing left for him but to accept your decree."

"But I don't want him to," cried Nancy. "Why didn't he get down on his knees and beg me not to give him up? Why didn't he tell me that I had broken his heart, that I had clouded his life, that existence would be unbearable to him without me? I expected him to. I thought the test would bring forth at least some anguished protest."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't say a word, not a word. He just took the ring when I gave it to him and walked away." Nancy gave a little choking sob.

"Still waters run deep; shallow streams make the most noise," remarked Mrs. Loomis.

"Do you think I am a shallow stream because I cry out in my pain?"

"No, dear, but you are a highly emotional child, and demand more of life than you are liable to receive."

"I flew to the very heights of love; he was content to grope below the stars."

"Oh, you child, you child, you are so young, and you do love to talk like a tragedy queen. When real trouble comes you will lose all those romantic ideas, and will not look to have a man express his deepest emotions in poetry. Real trouble will come soon enough; it is our portion in this life, and you must learn not to dwell in the clouds, but to gain a more practical outlook."

"And while I am learning I shall be very, very unhappy."

"Perhaps so; I am afraid so. Unhappiness comes to each one in some form or other, but we need not magnify it, dwell on it, nurse it, hug it to our breasts. We need not be selfish about it and imagine our griefs greater than those of any other. We must rise above them and try to help those whose sorrows are greater than ours."

Nancy gave a deep sigh. At that moment she did not think any sorrow could be greater than her present one. She was emotional, enthusiastic, with an eager belief that life must hold for her all that her ardent nature could demand. Unhappiness had been given no place in her dreams heretofore and she was not armed to meet it. She had planned out an interview with her lover, an interview which she believed would terminate exactly as she fancied it would. She had wanted to make this a supreme test and she was aghast that it had resulted so disastrously. Bubbling over with joy, full of appreciation, of fresh and pretty fancies, with a keen sense of humor, yet thrilled by more serious things, it is no wonder that Terrence Wirt found her charming. Her beauty, versatility of mind and her enthusiasm were liable to impress a more mature and more exacting man. That he had been the first to become her suitor was due to chance, Fate, Nancy called it, and the romantic manner of their meeting had much to do with the rapidity with which she fell in love. Probably her heart was standing tiptoe waiting for the possible prince, and any who bore the slightest semblance to a knightly figure would have been welcomed. As it was, when the girth of her saddle broke, she was dumped upon a country road and a good-looking young man suddenly galloped up, dismounted and insisted upon leading his and her own horse to her home, in her eyes he appeared as truly a Paladin as if he had worn shining armor and had carried a shield. Straightway he filled her dreams day and night. She did not fall in love; she flung herself in.

Indeed, Mrs. Loomis was not a born objector. The line of least resistance was usually hers, partly no doubt because of physical weakness. Ira and Parthenia, commonly known as Unc. Iry and Aunt Parthy, relieved her of most of her household cares. She occupied the ancestral home of the Loomises, which she was able to keep up by means of an income inherited from her husband. Her business matters were looked after by the old lawyer who had managed Loomis affairs since the day that he took his father's place in the dingy office on the main street of the county town.

As for Nancy, she had grown up pretty much as she pleased, had been under the care of governesses good, bad or indifferent, had read, not wisely but too well, whatever came her way, had been away at school for two years, coming home always for week-ends and between whiles, too, if she felt so disposed, but in one way or another absorbing a deal of information of a desultory sort. Languages she found easy and a French governess had trained her into a sufficient knowledge of her tongue to enable her to speak it rather fluently. Music was her chief talent. She played readily by ear, but hated to be bound down by technical exercises, and in her earlier years was not compelled to do so, since Mrs. Loomis did not insist. However, the old German professor at school scared her into a carefulness she had previously scorned, and at last she came to be his star pupil, continuing her lessons after she had left school. As for her schoolmates, most of them lived too far away for her to visit after her school days were over, and though she kept up a desultory correspondence with one or two she was not intimate with any special one. One or two holiday visits to New York had given her some idea of life in the metropolis, but the days spent in a big hotel did not specially charm her, and, while they dispelled some of her illusions, they did not interfere with her day dreams. Back again in her country home she was ready to enter again her world of romance and dream away the hours.

On this special evening she sat on the doorsill, silently brooding and looking off into the garden which so lately had been a paradise to her. It was impossible, she told herself, that she would never again pace the walk with Terrence by her side. She would go half way, yes, she was willing to do even more at the slightest sign from him. They could not avoid meeting; perhaps it would be at church, when she would find herself smiling wistfully across the aisle at him. He would be assured then that she was not angry with him; he would join her on the way out and ask if they could not be at least friends. She would accord him the privilege and after a while they would drift back into their old relation. Or it might be that they would meet at the house of some acquaintance. She would be making a call, would be waiting for her friend to appear. Suddenly Terrence would come in. "You!" he would exclaim agitatedly. She would hold out her hand and look up into his face beseechingly. "Let us be friends," she would say. Oh, she could not be content to accept the fact that they were parted forever!

Her musings were interrupted by the gray-haired old butler who came softly into the hall. "Miss Jenny, ma'am," he said, "Parthy say ef de ladies ready suppah is."

Mrs. Loomis drew Nancy close to her as they went out together into the lofty dining-room where pale shifting lights were playing over the wall and touching up the old mahogany and silver as the western sky received its last benefice from the sun.

A REVELATION

"He has gone!" quavered Nancy. "Gone without a word!"

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