And Nance, though her impulse was to laugh, was subdued by those blundering, poignant words, “their indoor loneliness.” Nance was a child of the open fields, meeting all chances of life better in the free wind than in the stifled houses. Not until her coming to Windyhough had she understood the heartache, the repression, summed up by “their indoor loneliness.” A fierce resentment took hold of her.
“Men have all the pleasure,” she said, in a low, hard voice. “It was so always.”
She would have been the better for a glimpse of the Prince’s tattered army, fighting through sleet and mud and jealousy for the privilege of setting a Stuart on the throne. But Nance was young and untried yet, and thought herself ill-used because she had a roof above her.
And then Rupert came in, with Simon Foster close behind him.
“You’ve been at the ale-house, Simon,” said Lady Royd shrewishly.
“No, by your leave. I’ve been on the King’s business, and other needs must wait, my lady. So I was taught, leastways, when I was a bairn at my father’s knee.”
“What is the mystery, Rupert?” asked Nance, after Simon had grumbled his way toward the servants’ quarters.
“Mystery? None, my dear, except that I’m tired to death, and have the round of the house to go before I get to bed.”
He spoke the truth. Mystery there was none, except that out of his great love for her he was learning many lessons. And she tempted him, meanwhile, to tell her what this business was that had taken Simon and himself to the open fields; but he gave no answer.
And that evening passed, as many another had done, with a monotony that seemed to tick the seconds out, deliberate as the eight-day clock in the hall--a passionless, grave clock that had seen many generations of the Royds go through their hot youth, their fiery middle-age, their last surrender--surrender honourable, upright, staunch in the last hour, to that great general, Death, who has taken more citadels than any human hero of renown.
The eight-day clock knew that life was not meant to be taken at the gallop, each moment packed with ambush, high romance, fine-spoken wooing that could not outlast the honeymoon. It knew that fine deeds--big moments when the heart finds room to know itself--are earned by steady preparation, ticked out by the slow-moving seconds. But Nance had all this to learn as yet, and this evening, of all evenings she had spent at Windyhough, seemed the longest and the dreariest. And my lady’s little spaniel--a nervous, unlicked lap-dog--annoyed her beyond reason.