ALTHOUGH Keturah had been up and busy for the better part of two hours, and Nancy was in the habit of rising at the same time and taking a subordinate share in such household duties as the older woman’s methodical housewifery allocated to the period before breakfast, the girl still lay in bed with her eyes wide open and her arms behind her head, and listened unmoved to the clatter downstairs, the increasing volume of which told her quite plainly that mistress Keturah was in a bad temper. The result of the ebullition she could have foretold with accuracy; and she smiled as it occurred to her that in similar circumstances, if she had been living in a city like Airlee, she could have found a cafÉ within a hundred yards of her home which would have spared her the trouble of preparing a meal for herself. That everything would be cleared away, and the kettle cold upon its iron stand when she should presently appear in the kitchen was as certain as the tides.

The thought amused her, but set no machinery in motion save that of the brain which, indeed had been running for some time. For a few minutes Nancy let her mind contrast the conditions of town and country life. At her uncle’s a maid had brought her an early cup of tea at an hour when in Mawm the breakfast things had all been washed up and put away; and had drawn back the curtains, perhaps in order that the sight of bricks and chimney-pots through a smoke-laden atmosphere might beget a desire to rise and escape. To Nancy that “early” cup was just softness and a nuisance, not to be compared with the breezes that blew straight from the moors upon her bed, through the window which was never closed except when northerly gales drove rain before them.

From the maid Nancy turned her thoughts to the master, and admitted to herself, not for the first time, that she would have liked Uncle John better if he had held up his head and looked at people like a man, instead of glancing at them sideways with the look of a dog that has been in mischief and is afraid somebody knows. His own daughter, her cousin Ellen, said he was a “screw”; but Nancy saw no signs of that characteristic in the home; and he had always seemed fond of her and treated her as generously as could be expected of a man of his type. Still there was something—and because of that indefinable something Nancy banked her profits in Keepton, and allowed her uncle—who was too deeply absorbed in his own affairs to trouble himself about hers—to think she was as extravagant as her cousin. Aunt Eleanor, on the other hand, was a downright nice woman, with only one fault worth speaking of, and which she had transmitted to her daughter—that she looked upon country places as “holes,” and upon Mawm as the least endurable of them all. Aunt and cousin were towns-women through and through, and the latter had certain superficialities of education that Nancy lacked and despised; but though they had money, “society” closed its doors to them, and their friends were all of the lower middle classes from which both parents had sprung and to which by every right save that of money they still belonged. That was how she had made the acquaintance of Inman, with whose mother Uncle John had lodged when he began business for himself, and whom the so-called “banker” held in high esteem as a young fellow who knew how to use his elbows in “pushing along.”

She was stopping in bed to think about Inman and to try to determine what her relations with him in these new circumstances were to be; where too she must place him in her scale of values. Apart from his rough wooing and the complacency with which he took its rejection she had nothing against the man; there was, indeed, something in his sturdy independence and almost impudent conceit that appealed to her moorwoman’s spirit; though her lips curled scornfully as she recalled the air of calm certainty with which on two occasions—once in Airlee and again on the night of his arrival in the village—he had received her cold refusal. It was evident enough that he thought he had only to wait, and the bird would be found in the snare. Would it! The curl on the girl’s lips straightened into a thin line of defiance at the mental suggestion. It would have paid the man, she said to herself, to be a little less cocksure, and a little more humble; to have given the leaven time to work instead of wanting to bake his cake and eat it within five minutes. Then, perhaps—

That was a greater concession than she had made before; and it startled her to discover how far and how quickly she had advanced since her last interview with Jagger. Jagger was in disgrace. He had developed a quite unaccountable stubbornness that she was determined to punish, and she quite forgot in her vexation how often she had called him a “lad in leading-strings,” and bidden him shake a loose leg. Nancy’s objection to leading-strings did not extend to those she held in her own hands.

And yet, if Jagger was a rebel, Inman was a despot whose whole bearing showed that he would break his neck sooner than bend it to any woman’s yoke; why then did she turn her thoughts to him with a more favourable inclination? Is it that after all, woman likes to be mastered, and is flattered by the attentions of a masterful man who promises her nothing but his name, and who, when he has fulfilled that promise will expect her to be content with such poor crumbs of attention as he can spare from his dogs? Or is it that her almost unconquerable spirit matches itself against man’s obstinacy and believes it can make it yield?

Although Nancy told herself with suspicious reiteration that Inman was obnoxious to her it was in reality an evil hour for Jagger’s prospects of early marriage when Nancy set the two men side by side and took their measures. On the physical side there was not much to choose. Jagger was as fine an animal as Inman; more agile if less weighty—“the spotted panther and the tusked boar” might figure them. Intellectually, the balance swayed heavily on Inman’s side, for Jagger had none of his father’s alertness and would have made a poor show in a duel of words with the towns-man. Inman’s mind was quick and had been well sharpened in debate; John Clegg had intimated that his name was known in certain political circles in Yorkshire as that of a man who might have to be reckoned with by and by when he had made money enough to be listened to with respect. As to the other branch of the spiritual; the branch that deals with morals and the soul; Nancy left that out of account altogether as people mostly do, forgetting that the kernel is of more importance than the shell.

Only once did the scale swing over to Jagger’s side and that was when Nancy weighted it with considerations that she did not recognise as spiritual when she put into it Jagger’s love for the moors, and, all that the moors stood for—for freedom and wild beauty and the joy of life; and his love for herself, which was of the same order; deep and unchangeable. She was so accustomed to all this that she perhaps failed to notice how heavily the scale banged.

At length she rose and dressed, spending more time than usual over her toilet because her thoughts refused to clothe themselves satisfactorily; and she was in an unsettled frame of mind when she went downstairs.

Keturah was kneading bread, and much more vigorously than the process required, when Nancy entered the kitchen. One sullen glance of inquiry she flung over her shoulders, and seeing neither illness nor penitence in the girl’s expression tightened her lips.

She was an elderly sharp-featured woman, rather tall and spare, with hair that had grown thin and scanty and was twisted into a bunch not much bigger than a walnut at the back of her head. It was pepper-coloured, like her brother’s, but of a warmer tint, as if damp had got to it, which was not improbable seeing that the reservoir that supplied the tears which self-pity always called forth must have been very near to her eyes. They were dry enough now because vexation was choking the ducts.

“I’d forgotten it was baking-day,” said Nancy, as she lifted the lid of the kettle and peeped inside, “but I had a bad night and wasn’t rested.”

Silence greeted the explanation, and Nancy said no more but proceeded to prepare her breakfast.

“Where’s the butter?” she asked, as she returned from the larder with a half loaf and the empty dish in her hand.

“I can’t help it if it’s finished,” Keturah snapped. “One pair o’ hands can’t get a man his breakfast, and put him up his dinner, and be off down t’ road for butter and get bread into t’ bowl so as it can be rising all in a minute. You should ha’ seen we were short o’ butter last night, i’stead o’ bending over fancy work, same as you’d naught to do but ring t’ bell and there’d be a toathri servant lassies to come and put you a cob on t’ fire. You mud well have a poor night, and naught but right too, making a slavey of one ’at’s nearhand old enough to be your gran’mother, and then expecting me to be running errands like a six-year-old, while you lie i’ bed and rest yourself.”

What had begun as a snap ended as a wail; but Nancy was unmoved.

“Well, you’ve salted the bread already I suppose,” she returned coolly; “and you’ll not improve the dough by crying over it. Dry toast’ll do for me nicely, for there’s a bit of dripping with the ham, I see, and I’d as soon have it cold as not.”

“I’ll warrant you!” said Keturah, with a note of disappointment added to that of vexation. “If there’s a bit o’ something tasty hidden away you’ll nose it out like a dog with a bone. I’d meant that mouthful o’ ham for my own supper, for it’s little enough support I get ’at has all t’ weight o’ t’ house on my shoulders. But it’s t’ way o’ t’ world; them ’at work their fingers to t’ bone for fine ladies must be content to lick t’ dish out for their share o’ t’ pudding.”

“It’s the rule of the house, isn’t it?” replied Nancy indifferently. “‘Catch as catch can.’ You should bury your bones deeper, Keturah, if you don’t want ’em to be found.”

The woman flashed into temper; but her spirit was too moist to fire and the spark ended in a sizzle.

“You’ve been that aggravating, Nancy, since you came back from your uncle’s I could find it i’ my heart to box your ears. But well you know I’m past it, and I was always too soft wi’ you when you were a child. Many and many’s the time I’ve screened and petted you, when a good hiding ’ud ha’ been a better kindness, and I’m rightly served for acting silly. I might ha’ known that there is them that bites the hand that strokes ’em.”

The pathos in the metaphor opened the water-gates and made it necessary for Keturah to pass the rolled-up sleeve of her blouse across her eyes; but Nancy was not melted by the exhibition; on the contrary, her tone was distinctly cold and superior.

“You’re forgetting yourself, Keturah, and I’ll thank you not to talk about boxing my ears as if I was a child. I’m my own mistress and I intend to be, and if you don’t like it, you’ve only to say so, and I’ll find other quarters where my money’ll perhaps be more acceptable, and there’ll be less spite and malice dished up instead of breakfast.”

With these words, the water having boiled by this time, Nancy seated herself at the table in the window and began to eat, turning her back upon Keturah, who sighed heavily as she set the baking bowl on a stool in front of the fire. The tears hung in her eyes, however, for whatever her faults, Keturah was admittedly economical, and there was no sense in allowing tears to run to waste, especially as Nancy would be sure to assume that they were flowing.

The atmosphere remained heavy and humid throughout the day, though Nancy caught up with her work (which was never very exacting) long before noon, and might have been considered to have atoned for her morning lapse. On her way home with the butter towards tea-time she caught sight of Baldwin and Maniwel standing together in the street, and guessed from their manner that relations were strained. After a while Baldwin entered the kitchen and having hung his hat on the peg, kicked a small stool which had the temerity to stand in his way into a corner, and seated himself at the table with a scowl on his face that was as threatening as a thundercloud.

“So you’ve managed to get down, have you?” he growled, as he turned his weasel eyes on Nancy who was buttering bread.

“I’ve been down an hour or two,” she replied with studied indifference; “just long enough to get the dust out of my eyes.”

“It was nigh on ten before she landed,” Keturah explained, exaggerating the hour by something like forty minutes. “What we’re coming to I dursn’t think, but it’s plain to see who’s missus and who’s maid——”

Nancy dropped the knife and faced them both with flashing eyes.

“If it’s the maid you expect me to be then I hand in my notice,” she said scornfully. “As to being missus, it isn’t of this house I’d want the job, anyway. I’m neither missus nor maid I’d have you to know, but a lodger; and a lodger who pays well, as you don’t need to be told; and I don’t know that lodgers have to be at the beck and call of them they pay. You’ve only to say another word and I’ll leave to-morrow—they’d be glad enough to have me at Uncle John’s. I’m sick to death of your snappiness and bad temper, and you may as well know it.”

Keturah had lifted her apron to her eyes, cowed by this display of hot resolution which was much fiercer than anything that had preceded it; and Baldwin pushed back his chair and stamped his foot.

“Have done, will you!” he shouted. “Do you think I care if you take yourself to blazes this minute, and your brass with you? Am I fast, think you, for t’ few shillings a week you seem to think keeps t’ house going——?”

“Of course you’re not,” Nancy broke in with a cold disdain that lashed like a whip, “but you make a profit on them, and you’d sooner lose a tooth than lose money. You’ve stung me into saying this. I’ve held myself in till I’ve nearly choked, but I’ve stood your sneers and nasty talk as long as I’m going to. You quarrel with a man like Maniwel, and because you can’t get the best of him you come home and try to take it out of me. I’m not having any more—Good Heavens! Why should I? Here! you can butter the bread for yourself!”

She pushed the loaf towards the angry man and crossed over to the rug, where she leaned her head against the mantelpiece, and Baldwin’s anger bubbled up so furiously that at first he could only splutter out a succession of oaths. Then he said:

“But what can you expect?”—he was apparently directing the inquiry to Keturah, but his eyes were on Nancy’s averted head. “She’s like to side wi’ Maniwel, seeing ’at he’s Jagger’s father! Aye, even though he’s taking bite and sup out of her mouth. Isn’t her interests and mine t’ same? What ’ud John Clegg think to a man ’at reckons he’s fain to wed a lass, and at t’ same time sets up to rob her of her business...?”

“What would he think of a master who sacked his best man rather than pay him a fair wage?” she asked, wheeling round and speaking hotly. “Who was it forced him to begin for himself? You wind the clock up and then blame it for going!”

“If I sacked my best man I found a better,” he answered, somewhat discomfited by the logic of the attack. “Inman’s worth six of Jagger.”

“Then what are you grumbling about?” she replied still fiercely. “What harm can Jagger do you with a non-such like Inman to help you? But whether he hurts you or he doesn’t I’m not going to be the ash-heap where you throw all your nasty tempers, and you may as well make your mind up to it.”

“But you can’t deny, Nancy, ’at you’ve been same as a dog with a sore tail ever since Jagger left,” pleaded Keturah whose idea of storms fell short of whirlwinds, and who, like many another nagging woman was a coward at heart. “I’m sure there’s been no living with you, you’ve been that contrairy.”

“Then we’d better part,” rejoined Nancy, “and that’ll maybe suit us all.”

Hereupon Baldwin growled a suggestion that instead of clacking like a couple of condemned hens it would be advisable to get on with the tea. Although his brain worked slowly it worked accurately along a certain brass-lined groove, and he had already repented of his attack on Nancy, with whom it was not policy to quarrel beyond remedy. The girl, however, was not so easily appeased.

“I can have mine when you’ve finished,” she said, “then foul looks won’t turn the milk sour.”

“And that’ll be making work,” protested Keturah, “or anyway it’ll be spreading it out. Draw your chair up and take no notice of Baldwin. You ought to know by this time ’at he’s either to uncork his-self or burst, same as other men.”

“I’m going to uncork myself,” said Nancy with a fierceness that surprised herself and which was the outcome of her own disturbed mind. “Father might have guessed if he’d looked at your faces what a life you’d lead me between you, and what a life you would have led me if it hadn’t been for my money-bags. But you knew how to use the oil-can when he was alive, and he’d too much to bear to think things out for himself or he’d have put Maniwel in your place. Oh, yes he would——” she continued, as Baldwin’s face grew red and his hands tightened on the arms of his chair—“I’ve thought it many a thousand times same as all t’ rest o’ t’ village, and I may as well let it come out. You have to uncork yourself, have you, or else burst? Well, you can see how you like other folk to uncork themselves!”

Keturah was standing horrified, but sundry soliloquies such as “Eh, dear, dear!” “Now, hark to t’ lass!” “If this doesn’t beat all!” showed that her breath had not been altogether lost, whereas anger had momentarily paralysed Baldwin’s tongue. When he recovered himself he rose, and seizing Nancy roughly by the shoulder pushed her towards the door.

“Outside wi’ you!” he shouted, and the oaths he poured out called forth a protest even from his sister whose “Nay, for shame, Baldwin!” fell on deaf ears. “Way wi’ you to Maniwel, you ungrateful——” But why continue to string together the coarse language that made Keturah hold her apron to her ears and caused Nancy to wrench herself free and wheel round upon him with a face that was white but strangely composed.

“That’ll do, Baldwin Briggs,” she said. “This house is mine, not yours, and if anyone goes it’ll not be me. You’d perhaps forgotten that, same as I had. You’ve had the use of it so long that you’d come to think it was yours. I said I was your lodger, but it’s you who’re lodgers, and I’ll leave when it suits me. You’d best get your teas, if you can eat any. I want none. Maybe we shall all have cooled by morning.”

With these words she crossed the room and went upstairs; and Baldwin and Keturah looked at each other, and finding nothing to say turned to the table and made a sorry meal.