It was half past eleven at night. The Pullman was dimly lighted. Merwent had avoided a stateroom and every appearance that might indicate that he and Nannie were a bridal couple, but he felt that the fresh modishness of Nannie’s costume betrayed them. They sat down in a vacant seat while the beds were being made up. Arthur kept an unresponsive profile turned to his wife. He had resolved not to make any more advances.
The two swayed stiffly with the motion of the car. The woodwork creaked. Long shadows moved up and down at the end of the passage. Snoring from a curtained berth was audible.
Nannie touched Arthur’s arm lightly. He looked down at her in surprise. She was regarding him with a new and softened expression.
“Arthur!” Her voice shook slightly.
His face cleared.
“Nannie!” They kissed stealthily.
When the conductor came down the aisle they were sitting consciously far apart and Arthur’s face was flushed.
V
Lucy was born about a year after the Merwent wedding.
Although everything was normal and the baby a fine healthy child, Nannie persistently vowed that she had gone through an experience never before equalled and that she could never have another child.
Toward the end of their wedding journey, over some slight misunderstanding at a hotel, Nannie had given way to a hysterical fit of passion that amazed and dismayed her husband, but this was nothing compared with the scene when she discovered that she was pregnant. Tears, screams, striking Arthur in the face, with threats of killing herself, him, and the child were only the beginnings of the drama. However, Arthur had by this time begun to perfect his attitude of non-reaction to the stimuli she employed, and went to his office unworried.
Nannie afterward in a thousand ways suggested that the coming of the child was in the nature of a crime and a calamity, and that Arthur was to blame for it. Nannie’s father died a month before her confinement and she even implied that Arthur was responsible for this coincidence. To add to her sense of disappointment and injury Mr. Merwent senior, who had been ill for some time, died also, leaving an involved estate, and the hope that Nannie had secretly treasured of inheriting his money died with him. Arthur’s future, from the Lockhart standpoint, had ceased to be. Mrs. Lockhart, calling to ascertain the truth of the rumor already circulated by gossiping neighbors, met Nannie’s tearful announcement with, “I always thought so!” and when Arthur entered the house a few moments later, she greeted him with marked coldness. After her mother’s departure Nannie turned on him with fresh reproaches.
“Now we are penniless and you don’t seem to care!” she exclaimed.
Arthur did not reply.
“I seem to be the only one who ever thinks about the baby’s future. You haven’t opened your mouth since we got the letter!”
Arthur took out a cigar and lighted it.
“O‑oh! Why don’t you say something? I’ll go crazy!” she almost screamed.
“I don’t see just what there is to say,” Arthur answered quietly, and left the room.
Nannie’s bitterness was accentuated by the fact that Arthur could not afford to buy the Lockhart residence which had to be sold to clear her own father’s estate, and she was forced to see the property pass into the hands of “Cousin Minnie Sheldon” whom she cordially hated. The spirit of rivalry between Nannie and her cousin, the fruit of a childhood antipathy, had reached its climax in a contest for the affections of the well-to-do young business man who afterward became Minnie’s husband, and when he and his wife took formal possession of Nannie’s ancestral home she felt it as the cruel affirmation of her first defeat.
Mrs. Lockhart, who on previous occasions had not hesitated to express her own disapproval of “Cousin Minnie,” after feeble and unconvincing protestations to the effect that she did not wish to inconvenience her prosperous relatives, accepted a grudging offer which allowed her to remain in the old place on the bounty of its new owner.
Little Lucy was weaned soon after she was born, for Nannie declared that she could not nurse a baby. By great good fortune, however, sterilized cow’s milk agreed with the child and she thrived, thanks to the devoted care of old Martha who came to live with Nannie and Arthur and “bring up” their baby. Nannie continually quarreled with the old negress but Aunt Martha stayed on, partly from a habit of allegiance to the family and partly from real devotion to little Lucy.
Nannie gave scant attention to her baby until other people began to notice and praise the child, when she promptly asserted her proprietorship, pointing out with great pride the little thing’s remarkable feats and insisting that Lucy be given to her whenever visitors were present. Nevertheless, the child preferred Aunt Martha and even Arthur, as the latter often held his daughter during the evenings and sang lullabies to her. Nannie resented this deeply, and it made her secretly furious to see Lucy toddle toward him as he came into the room. She often said things to drive Arthur out of the house so that he need not divide the child’s affections.
Lucy did not begin to go to school until she was eight years old. Even then her mother objected to the separation, and in the little girl’s absence wandered restlessly about the house. Lucy, on her return, was covered with kisses. Acquaintances remarked on the unusual affection between the two, although Nannie spoke crossly and often cruelly to the child when they were alone, and not infrequently struck her. In attitude she placed herself on an equality with Lucy and at times depended on the little girl’s judgment and ideas.
Nannie could never help Lucy with her lessons at night, saying that the figures in the book made her head ache, and if Arthur attempted to offer any assistance
