MR. and Mrs. Arthur Curtis settled down in a day or two into No. 6, Rose Villas, where Nancy had her two maids to manage, and all that had seemed to her most delightful and desirable in life. The little drawing-room was not a particularly genial place in winter weather; the carpet was covered with a white linen cloth tightly strained, there were white muslin curtains at the windows, the walls were white and gold, after the approved fashion of little drawing-rooms in little villas. All this, if it was very clean-looking, as Nancy said, was chilly in December, and the little fireplace was so near the long French window, and both were so near the door, that the room was draughty, and scarcely socosy as might have been desired. There was a piano in it, upon which Nancy could not play, though she had received lessons on the piano during those five quarters in which she had been at school; and a work-table, which she did not employ much for work; but no books, nor any pictures on the white-and-gold walls. When Arthur had exerted himself in the re-arrangement of the furniture, which Nancy did not go into with any enthusiasm—for she was still of opinion that a row of chairs set against the wall were “in their proper place,” and that to disturb them was almost an immorality—the discovery that he had nothing to do pressed with more and more force upon him. What did he want with anything to do? Nancy thought. Was it not the best thing in the world not to require to do anything, the true sign of being a gentleman? A certain scorn of people who worked for their living had taken possession of Mrs. Arthur Curtis. Why should they give themselves airs when they were all as one as a bricklayer, working for their bread? But anyone couldsee that Arthur was a gentleman. It is to be hoped that gentlemen in general were more at their ease under the burden of their gentility than Arthur. It was not—let no one be deceived—that he wanted to work. Work when he had read with Mr. Eagles had been extremely irksome to the young man. It was true he had not remained very long to try it, but he had not loved his studies, especially under the spur of the sharp and urgent “coach.” There are other things, however, which young men think of when they talk of having “something to do,” which do not tell very much in an industrial point of view. In his natural condition and at home, Arthur had many occupations. He shot, he hunted, he rode about the country, he paid visits; he was appealed to by people in trouble; he was consulted about the affairs of the estate. Sometimes he had to appear on the hustings in support of his father’s election; he had speeches to make now and then, and that interest in public business which is indispensable to one who may sometimes have to take part in it. All this was at an end now. The calm, not to stay stagnationof his present existence dropped over him as the curtain drops in a theatre upon the animated and busy scene. After the drama is over, or in the moment of repose between its acts, it is some immoveable representation of life or scenery, an unchangeable incident or landscape, that closes for us the brilliant stage upon which human life in all its changeableness and variety of emotion has been represented. Arthur’s domestic bliss was like this drop scene. His life was gone from him, with all its hopes and occupations; he was no longer the young Squire, as potent within his small territory as any Prince of Wales, no longer the budding magnate of the county, with responsibilities rising round him, with the covers to think of (if nothing more), and poachers to take in hand, and public life to look forward to. All that fuller existence had departed. The drop scene, representing a white-and-gold bower of bliss, with two figures seated (before the fire, but that was a matter of detail), all in all to each other, as romantic people say, had fallen with a remorseless completeness, hiding everything. He took a long walkwith his wife every afternoon. Often he went out in the evening to fetch her from her father’s, or else he had the pleasure of entertaining her father and mother at home; and he would stroll out on his own account here and there, in the mornings, while Nancy was pretending to do her housekeeping, or read theTimeslanguidly in the room appropriated to him, feeling as if all the busy commotion of the world indicated in it had gone away to such a distance from him that he could but faintly apprehend or understand it. The drop scene! To what innocent bosom would not that picture have commended itself? Two figures, young and fair to behold, the world forgetting, by the world forgot; living for each other, all for love, and the world well lost.
This went on for what was really a long time without disturbance. The establishment of the Arthur Curtises in Rose Villas gave the little world of Underhayes many causes of deliberation. Should they call? was a question hotly discussed. Call? on Bates the tax-collector’s daughter! Couldanything be more absurd? the elder ladies said. But the younger ones were interested; who would not be interested in such a romantic business? and the gentlemen were either sorry for or curious about the young husband who had thus sacrificed everything to “a pretty face.” For the girl was just an uneducated girl like any other in her position, everybody said. There was no innate superiority in Nancy to justify her elevation, neither had her husband taken pains as even a romantic young fool, now and then, did, to educate her before making her his wife. Even now, so far as anyone knew, no attempt was being made to qualify Mrs. Arthur for her husband’s position in society. They had settled at Rose Villas, avowedly that she might be near her mother—with whom she was said to spend half her time; and no judicious governess or master able to impart instruction in those accomplishments which must have been wanting in her, was ever seen to enter her gates. Not even trying to improve her mind! She got the pick of the novels which camein Mudie’s box to the local library, in right of an unusually liberal subscription; but what could novels do for her? Under these circumstances, it became a doubly difficult question to know what to do. When she came home at first she had been very well dressed, which had made an impression in her favour. Her dark blue “silk” had filled the Green with admiration and envy. “Paris, of course!” the ladies said, who, notwithstanding their disapproval of such a marriage, were very curious indeed about the bride; and some added a joke or a sigh at the idea of putting delicate garments from Paris, not upon such as themselves, who could appreciate them, but upon Nancy Bates! However, this mingled approbation and disdain soon came to an end, for it was not long before the dark blue silk was thrown aside in favour of more showy garments. “If that is all they can do in Paris!” Sarah Jane had said, at the sight of it, and she had spent some time at a milliner’s in town and ought to know. Her own family all thought Nancy’s dressesdowdy, and ridiculously quiet for a bride; and the original “silk” which her parents had given her had been brought to the front again, with others of a similar character.
“I made myself a dowdy to please Arthur. He likes it,” said Nancy; “but one can’t go on humouring one’s husband for ever, can one, mamma? One must think for one’s self sooner or later, and ladies surely know best about their own dress.”
Arthur had not attempted any remonstrance, what was the use? And Nancy had reappeared with a brightness of colour and breadth of ornament, which pleased her family a great deal better.
“Now you look something like a newly-married lady, with a husband that grudges you nothing,” Mrs. Bates said proudly, on that day when the Green shuddered at Mrs. Arthur’s new costume, and resolved with one mind, now at least, that nobody could be expected to call. But such resolutions did not always overcome the stronger inducements of curiosity, or of that pity and interest which moved some bosoms. Mrs.Eagles was the first to break the reserve. Her husband insisted upon it, she said. And she not only called, but asked “the Arthur Curtises” to dinner. Mrs. Eagles was a mild little woman, as soft-voiced as her husband was peremptory. She avowed frankly that she had been “very fond” of Arthur while he lived in her house. “He was so nice, he never would give any trouble that he could help, so unlike yourparvenus; he was always so ready to do anything for you. Yes, I was very fond of him. The pupils are not attractive as a rule, but young Mr. Curtis was charming.” This was what she said to her neighbours when it was known that she had asked the bride to dinner, the boldest thing that had been done on the Green for many a day.
“I hope you foundhercharming, too,” said the Vicar’s wife, who was not disposed to compromise her dignity in such a way. Mrs. Eagles took a little time to answer the question, and cleared her throat.
“She is—quite unformed—I almostwonder that associating with a well-bred man should have had so little effect upon her manners. But then, she is natural—she has no affectations; that is always something,” said Mrs. Eagles, which was not the case with the Vicar’s wife. She did not, however, ask the dignified couple from the vicarage, but only a humbler newly married curate to meet the young pair, who, for their part, were thrown into considerable excitement by the invitation. How Nancy might have taken it on her own account is doubtful; but the delight of her family had driven all thoughts from her mind but those of delightful elevation in the world and entrance into society.
“It’s only a schoolmaster, it is true,” said Mrs. Bates; “no better, indeed not so good as ourselves, for I never was brought to such a pass that I had to take in lodgers to interfere with the family. I always was able to keep ourselves to ourselves, and of course the pupils are all the same as lodgers; but still you’ll meet the real gentry there, my pet, and it will bea beginning, and you needn’t be shy with people like them.” Thus encouraged, Nancy allowed herself to feel that to go out to a party was pleasant. For she too, though she had the distractions of her family and her housekeeping, was growing a little tired perhaps of the drop scene.
They were all very indignant, however, when Arthur suggested that she should wear a simple white dress for this first appearance. White, like an unmarried girl! and as if her husband was not well enough off to afford her a “silk!” Finally, with great hurry and strain of all their efforts to get it ready in time, Nancy appeared in light blue, which was becoming enough, though rather incomplete in those finishing touches which mark the difference between a home-made garment and one which has come from the hands of the initiated. As for Arthur he laughed at himself, not without a little bitterness, as he made his simple toilet. He was pleased to be asked out to dinner by his former “coach.” It excited him vaguely, partly with pleasure, partly withanxiety. It was “revisiting the glimpses of the moon,” for the first time for all these months; for the slow winter had crept round to March again, and all the world was stirring into life. To describe the kind of Christmas this poor young fellow had spent would be too much for ordinary powers—exiled as he was from everything belonging to himself, and driven into close, too close encounter with all the jollities of so different a sphere. He had borne them, and kept them at arm’s length, as far as he could, and thank heaven, they were over. But the impatience in his heart grew stronger as the days grew longer, and the world turned to spring. He was as glad of Mr. Eagles’ invitation as if the “coach” had been Prime Minister with all manner of advantages to bestow. That impetuous little personage could not, had he gained first places for all his pupils in all the examinations under the sun, have put himself in the same position with the son of such a rural magnate as Sir John Curtis; but Arthur was as glad of his notice and his wife’s notice, as if thelevel of the Bates family had been his own original level. Nevertheless, there were difficulties in launching Nancy even into this mild little scholastic world. Arthur did not feel that he could venture to give her those hints about the manners of ordinary society, which might have steered her safely through the not appalling dangers of a dinner party. He did what he could by way of suggestion and supposition, taking it for granted that she would know; but even that simple mode of communicating instruction aroused her suspicions. “Oh, you needn’t be afraid, I know how to behave myself,” she said, with a toss of her head. How did she know—was it by instinct? instinct is a doubtful guide through the usages of society; but anyhow, Arthur did not venture to say any more. When she came downstairs, however, ready to start, with her blue dress all decorated and looped up with orange-blossoms, Arthur made a determined stand. He said, “You must take those things off, they are ridiculous,” with a peremptoriness which she could not resist,saucy as she was. Arthur at this moment did not seem a person to be trifled with. “Do you want to make a laughing-stock of your sister?” the young man said, confounding them all; and the obnoxious decorations were taken off with a silent speed that was wonderful. It was wonderful, as being inspired by a mysterious sense of having made a mistake. They had no idea what the mistake was; and their pride would not permit them to ask enlightenment; but they felt it the more from its mysterious and unknown character. When Nancy was ready, and wrapped in the warm whitesortie du balwhich they had bought in Paris, the effect of this error was sufficiently obliterated; and the young husband’s heart swelled with a little pride when he presented her to the man who had sent him out of his house because of Nancy. That practical protestation had not done much more good than all the other efforts which had been made to sever Arthur from his love; and here she was now, fair and blooming, an unquestionable fact, which they wereall compelled to recognize. But as he left her in charge of Mrs. Eagles, and dropped off behind, what anxiety was in Arthur’s thoughts! It was her first essay in society; would she take the trouble to please? He stood furtively watching her as he talked to the Curate, whose wife was also on her trial, but caused him no such tremour. The Curate’s wife was a small young lady of ordinary breeding and appearance, not to be compared with Nancy in any possible respect. But she had been born a clergyman’s, not a tax-collector’s daughter. She knew the outside of social ways, and how not to commit herself, which was exactly what Nancy did not know.
And it must be allowed that, when Arthur saw that only this Curate and his wife had been invited to meet them, he was wroth with a savage sort of anger and scornful humiliation. He gave no sign of his feelings; but he had been accustomed to be somebody wherever he went, and the sense that he had now dropped into a doubtful position, in which onlythe Curate could be supposed likely to countenance him, gave him a sense of what had befallen him more sharp and sudden than anything else that had happened, even than the familiarities of the Bates family. To say that Nancy was angry too, would be little. Her whole soul rose up in a blaze of wrath. She had expected to see everything that was fine and famous on the Green, and to receive, in a way, the homage of the assembled aristocracy. Nobody with a title lived at Underhayes, and Nancy considered that she herself had all but a title, and was to be admired in proportion; yet there was no one here but the little Curate’s wife. She talked largely to Mr. Eagles during dinner, giving him her opinion of Society in England.
“Of course being brought up in a place like this, I have seen but little; and here not much to speak of,” she said, with a frankness that prepossessed her host—himself so trenchant and decided at all times.
“You are right, very right, Mrs. Curtis.The people about here are not much to speak of. We have to put up with it, for we can get no better. Retired people are mostly a set of nuisances; having done all the mischief they can in the world in their own persons, they revile everybody who is beginning, and put mischief into their heads.”
“Yes, Dr. Eagles.” He was called Doctor by the common people about, and he did not like it. “Yes; there never was such a gossiping place, I’ve heard many people say. They have nothing to do themselves, and they pull everybody to pieces. I have never gone into it, but I can’t abide that sort of thing. They are so stuck up; don’t you think they are dreadfully stuck up? and what is there in them to make them better than their neighbours? Don’t you think so, Dr. Eagles? I do hate everything like that,” said Nancy, energetically. “I suppose you did not like to ask them to meet Arthur and me?”
“I—I don’t ask anyone,” said Mr. Eagles, taken aback for the moment. “It is my wife that asks the people.” Thenhe began to realize that getting out of a difficulty by putting it upon his wife, was not a noble proceeding. “The fact is, I don’t think anyone was asked. We thought, I suppose, that you didn’t care for it. I don’t myself; I hope Curtis is not giving up work altogether. He may be tempted to do so, having no immediate object, but he ought never to interrupt his course of study. He was getting on very well with me.”
“What should he go on with his studies for?” said Nancy; “he does not require it to make a living. He may please himself what he does. Oh, I shouldn’t like my husband to have to work! When a man is born a gentleman, Dr. Eagles—”
“You have been good enough to bestow a degree upon me to which I have no right,” said Mr. Eagles. “I am simple Mr., like all the rest, though I am obliged to work for my living, and it would be of use to me. A man ought to work, however, when he’s young like Curtis. If he doesn’t now, he will miss it after. I’ve always told him so.”
“I am sure I don’t think so at all,” said Nancy. “Why should he work? oranyone in the position of a gentleman? You know what I mean by a gentleman. Father is as good as Arthur, or anyone, and he has to work.”
This mollified Mr. Eagles.
“I hope we are all gentlemen,” he said, as lightly as was possible for him, “whether we work or not.”
“Oh yes, in a kind of a way,” said Nancy, with careless scorn, “in your manners, and so forth. And clergymen, and teachers, and those sort of people are called so out of civility; but I never think anybody is a gentleman that has his own living to make.”
“I think you are a little hard upon us, Mrs. Curtis,” said the Curate, with a smile.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to be hard,” said Nancy. “You are just as good as anyone else. Those that have plenty to live on are the best off, but I don’t say that I despise those that have to work. They are good enough in their way. It isn’t their fault they were born as they are, nor was it any virtue in my husband to be born Arthur Curtis. He couldn’t help it, neither can you.”
Thus Nancy vanquished the adversary at the dinner-table. When the ladies went back to the drawing-room, which was not till a late hour, for it took a long time to make Nancy understand Mrs. Eagles’ little nods and signs from the other end of the table—but when they got upstairs at last, the Curate’s wife benevolently interfered to set Nancy at her ease after this mistake.
“I daresay you have been used to the French way of the men coming upstairs along with the ladies; and a far better plan it is, I think.”
Nancy looked coolly at the questioner. She was more comfortable when Arthur’s eyes were not upon her, watching everything she said and did.
“I didn’t make any mistake,” she said, “but gentlemen’s conversation is the best, isn’t it? I wanted to have as much as I could of that. I didn’t want to be left to women’s society—three petticoats together,” and she laughed with insolent meaning. Nancy had read a great many novels, and she knew that these were the sentiments generally attributed to a heroine, and she was determined that thereshould be nothing in her mind which she would not have the courage to say.
“I hope we shall not be so very tiresome to you,” said Mrs. Eagles, with an involuntary glance at the other. “We hear you have been in Paris, Mrs. Curtis. You must have enjoyed that. It is always so bright and gay.”
“I did not think it was gay at all,” said Nancy, “a very stupid place. Everybody talked so queerly, not at all like the French one learns at school; and they have such queer dishes, and altogether they are so queer. Have you been in Paris? I did not find it at all gay.”
“There are so many things to see,” Mrs. Eagles suggested.
“Oh, what sort of things to see! Places where things have happened that nobody knows anything about, or if one ever heard of them one has forgotten. I don’t call that amusing,” said Nancy. “There are very handsome shops, but I did not care much for French taste, do you? they are so fond of dingy colours; nothing clean-looking nor bright. I was so glad to get back to England.”
“So was I,” said the Curate’s wife, “when we were abroad; but I thought it all so interesting. I did enjoy it when we were there. The very names of the places that one had read about in history!”
“I never read history,” said Nancy, carelessly. “I like to see things happening now; and nothing seemed to happen, but just hearing about old dusty rubbish. Oh, yes, the streets were nice. Arthur says that in summer there are races, and amusements, and concerts out of doors, and all that sort of thing, but it was too cold when we were there. I went to hear the men speaking in Parliament, but it was dull; what is the good of listening to long speeches? One of Arthur’s friends took us—Sir John Denham—you may have heard of him. He was always offering us boxes for the theatre, but that was dull too.”
“I am afraid you were difficult to please,” said Mrs. Eagles; but the Curate’s wife began to listen with a certain interest. It is always pleasant to hear familiarly about the Sir Johns of this world.
“Yes, they all said I was difficult toplease,” said Nancy, sweeping out of the chair she had just chosen, and nearly knocking down a small table on which stood a lamp. “Did you get your furniture from town, Mrs Eagles? Did you have one of the tip-top upholsterers to do it, or did you pick up things cheap?”
“I am afraid we tried as much as we could to pick up things cheap,” said Mrs. Eagles, restraining the inclination to laugh which was gaining upon her. The other young woman was listening anxiously, seeing no fun in it, and their entertainer thought she liked Mrs. Arthur best.
“I thought so,” said Nancy, calmly, fixing her eyes upon an Italian cabinet which was the pride of the house, “but I should just put my house into the hands of some tip-top man. I don’t like making up with part old and part new. I shall have everything of the best and the newest fashion,” she said, looking round with a delightful glow of complaisant superiority. But then she was Sir John Curtis’s daughter-in-law, and Mrs. Eagles was but a schoolmaster’s wife.
“PARTY! it was no party at all!” said Nancy, “I have just been giving Arthur a piece of my mind. If he thinks I am going to take the trouble to have a dress made, and go out among folks I don’t know, to meet the Curate and his wife! why, we are just as good as they are! or rather, I should say, a deal better.” She was sitting over the fire next morning, by no means pleased with her entertainment. Now, indeed, was the time when she felt it most—for it had been sweet to think of dazzling her mother and sisters with an account of the grand ladies of the Green; and there was nothing now to comment upon, save poor little Mrs. Curate in her muslin frock! Arthur wasin the room behind, shut off with folding doors from this; and she spoke loud that he might have the benefit of her remarks.
“The Curate!” said Mrs. Bates, “my dear, it’s no compliment, it’s an insult to ask you; as if you are not good enough to meet the best.”
“That is just what I said. I tell Arthur, if he were to stick up for me as he ought, nobody would dare to treat me like that. I consider,” said Nancy, “that we paid those Eagles a great compliment going; and to meet the Curate! as if we were not good enough to sit down with the finest folks in this wretched little hole of a place.”
“The Curate is a very nice young man,” said Sarah Jane. “I should not mind him a bit.Icall him handsome; but then he’s married,” she added with lessened satisfaction. “And so are you married, so it comes to the same thing. I dare say they thought as you were both young couples—”
“I wish you would think a little what you’re saying,” said Nancy. “Me! andher! a bit of a girl in white muslin! with a hundred and fifty a year, at the outside, to live on; and obliged to work hard among the poor, as hard as if she was a curate too—and me!”
“Yes, indeed, there is no comparison,” said Mrs. Bates. “For shame, Sarah Jane! But, Nancy, you mustn’t forget that your sister has chosen her lot very different. John Raisins is an excellent young man; but he can’t open the doors of high life to her, as Arthur can open them to you. And it’s best that she should make up her mind to what she can have—not hanker after what she can’t. It’s very different, my darling child, with you.”
“I am sure I don’t know if it’s different,” said Nancy. “He hasn’t opened many doors to me yet, and I think he’d shut your door if he could, which is the only one that’s left. Oh, why do girls marry? they are a deal better, if they could only think it, at home.” And with this Nancy began to cry.
Arthur heard everything in the nextroom. He had himself felt the change in his position sorely on the previous night; and Mr. Eagles’ sharp, yet somewhat mournful adjurations to him not to lose his time, to go on with his work, to do something, had intensified the effect. He had come upstairs early enough to hear the style of Nancy’s conversation with the two ladies, and this also had touched him deeply. What is more painful than to see those whom we love giving what, to our eyes, is a false representation of themselves to the outside world, which does not know them? Arthur felt this tingle to his very finger-points—a painful shame; her foolish rudeness, and the wrong which she did herself by this misrepresentation had made him miserable. If they could but see her as he knew her—as she was on other occasions? This, he said to himself, was not Nancy; it was a foolish braggart of the village, the type of the Bates family, not his wife, who was as much above the Bates in fine taste and perception as she was in beauty. To be sure, her taste had not lately toldfor very much. But that had been the influence of the uncomfortable position in which she had felt herself, or of her connections, whom she had so unfortunately insisted on coming back to. The pain had been exquisite with which Arthur watched his bride through this first appearance in society. It brought back to him the feelings which he had tried to forget, with which he had come in upon the violent termination of her interview with Mrs. Anthony Curtis. Was there nothing he could do, or say, which would persuade her that this was not the way to meet strangers who might turn out to be friends? He was sitting unhappy enough over his fire, having taken out a book or two, which lay on the table beside the “Times,” the usual occupation of his aimless morning. He had been trying to “read” as Mr. Eagles understood reading; but what were Demosthenes and Cicero to him? He could not go back now, and toil over the intricacies of language and argument which wanted all his attention ceaselessly, with happyease of mind, not with painful pre-occupation of it, as he had pursued those studies in their earlier stages. He had never been a hard student, and why should he read now? What good would it do him? Would all the reading in the world, or his degree, when he had taken it, restore him to the world in which his wife could not accompany him, and would not try to accompany him, and where he could not go without her? He had been sitting dreamily over the fire, thinking it all over. The vague plan in his mind had been when Nancy was a little better prepared for it, a little more likely to incline in her own mind towards it, and willing to try to make the experiment successful, to take her home and present her to his father and mother, hoping that the surprise and the pleasure of his own return might procure them a welcome; this is what he had thought of even when he had written formal letters to Sir John, and those brief notes to Lucy or his mother, in which there was no reference to Nancy. When he could get her guided to that point—when he could feel that she could bear the trial, then to go. It had been his hope all through, a something vaguely looked forward to, though never brought down to any settled moment of time. But, alas! it had receded before him point by point. Nancy was not willing to do anything to please. She was of opinion that by herself, without any effort, she ought to rule easily over a subject world. She felt herself—not as he did, to be upon the painful threshold of an unexplored country, full of perils, in which all her efforts were needed to find herself a place—but rather to have conquered all that could be put in her way and attained every object—with the exception of the homage of those “stuck up” and disagreeable people, who were envious of her, and therefore would not pay her the attention to which she had a right, and whom Nancy would scorn to do anything to conciliate. What a difference between their points of view! And he who ought to have been the strongest, who was infinitely better educated, and more reasonable than Nancy, he waspowerless to convey any other conviction to her mind; although she succeeded in agitating his with all sorts of tumults, with shame that she should show her worse qualities, and earn the disapproval she incurred—yet with hot resentment towards those who disapproved of her. Such sentiments are not unusual in human bosoms. Husbands feel so for their wives, and wives for their husbands, and parents for their children. Why will they show themselves at their worst to make strangers laugh, or wonder, or despise; and at the same time, how do they dare, these strangers, to despise, or laugh, or wonder? A more painful conflict of feeling cannot be.
This was what Arthur was thinking, sitting drearily, not among the ruins of his domestic happiness, but before the sunny, common-place, too trimly new and flimsy altar of those capricious deities who rule the hearth. He had not yet been six months married: but how the bloom had gone off all his hopes, and with how little confidence he regarded the future, whichonce had seemed to him so bright! And as he sat there, with his books thrown down at his elbow, and the “Times” thrust away from him upon the table, with a sort of loathing in his mind both of the studies which could now, he thought, do him no good if he returned to them, and of the public life, once certain, which now seemed to have become impossible and undesirable, he heard Mrs. Bates and Sarah Jane come in and the conversation that followed. Even now Arthur had sense enough (and it was creditable to him) to throw himself into no vulgar vituperation of his mother-in-law. The woman was well enough; she was kind, and almost fierce in independence, taking nothing from him, giving not receiving hospitality, and in no way disposed to encourage his wife in anything disagreeable to him. It was not Mrs. Bates that was in fault, but Nancy herself—she who had seemed to him such a lily of grace and sweetness among all these common-place people. She was so still, he believed; she was not like them, who were natural to their sphere, and suggestednothing better. He was faithful notwithstanding all imperfections to his first ideal of her; but her words thrilled through and through him, scarring him as with burning arrows. “He had not opened any doors to her. Oh, why did girls marry!” was this what his wife asked after five months of marriage with him? Arthur’s veins seemed to fill full as if some essence of pain had been poured into them. He darted up overcome by sharp misery and shame, and a passionate resentment which he could not restrain. It took him but a moment to throw open the folding doors. If one minute more had elapsed, it would have brought a second thought, but there was no interval in which this was possible. He threw open the door and stood looking at her, for the moment too tremulous and agitated to speak. She had put shame upon him before those women who were the only visitors she cared for. When she saw him, Nancy jumped up too and confronted him.
“Well?” she said, loudly, with a sharp and tremulous voice of interrogation. What had he to say for himself? She hadsaid nothing which she was not ready to stand to, which she would not defend with all her powers. No one had ever known Nancy to flinch. However hot and hasty had been her assertions, however lightly said, she had always stood up for them; and to such a palpable challenge and trumpet call to conflict, it was not likely she would give in now.
He stood and looked at her for a moment almost wavering. It was not the first time she had said such things, why should he resent it so much more than usual?
“Did you mean that?” he said. “Do you really think that I have closed doors but opened none, and that girls would not marry if they knew—”
“I said it, therefore I must have meant it,” cried Nancy, with a flush of angry red. “If you sit and listen to what women are saying! But I never say anything I will not stand to. Yes: what door have you opened to me, Arthur? it was mother’s words first. Not your father and mother’s, which was the first tobe thought of, nor any of your friends’; but mother’s has always been open to you.”
“Oh, hush, hush!” cried Mrs. Bates. “Oh, children, you don’t know what you’re doing. Why should you quarrel? Nancy, hold your tongue—you’ll be sorry after that you ever said a word.”
“Not I!” cried Nancy. “I am not one to bottle things up. I’ll say it out plain before you both, and you can be my witness, mother. When I knew Arthur first, I never thought what he was. Gentleman or poor man it was all one to me. He was my fancy, and that was all I thought of. When that man came, that Durant, then I began to see what I was bringing on me; but it was too late to draw back. And I said to myself, I’d let him see it wasn’t his money I wanted, and that I’d never kootoo to one of his grand friends. And I never have,” she cried, with angry energy, “and I never will. You’ve opened no doors to me—nor I don’t want you to; but you shan’t think that it’s been a grand thing for me to marry you, neither you nor anyone belonging to you. It hasn’t. You’d separate me from my own people if you could, and you don’t give me any other; and I say again, if girls only knew—”
“Mrs. Bates,” said Arthur, with trembling lips. “I do not think I have tried to separate your daughter from you. I may defend myself so far as this; and I had hoped that some time or other she would have gone with me to knock at that door which you upbraid me with not having opened. But what am I to do if, as she tells you, she never will? she never has shown the slightest inclination to do so, that is the truth indeed.”
“It was them that should have come to her—that’s what she thinks,” said Mrs. Bates, “and she’s hot-tempered. You know she’s hot-tempered. She don’t mean half of what she says. Oh, don’t now, don’t quarrel, children!” cried the mother. In themêléeSarah Jane thought she might as well take a part too.
“I don’t wonder that Nancy was affronted. That stuck up Miss Curtis coming with her ‘dear Arthur’s,’ and her ‘dear brother’s,’ and taking no notice, no morethan if we were cabbages, of us; but as for Nancy not thinking of who he was, and that it was a grand marriage, oh, didn’t she just! You may tell that to those that will believe it, you had better not tell it to me.”
“You nasty, spiteful, tale-telling disagreeable thing!” cried Nancy, furious, turning upon her sister, who laughed in her face, and ran round in fright, which was half real, half pretended, to the other side of the round table. Arthur stood aghast while this playful episode, so much out of keeping with his feelings, went on. It was out of keeping to Nancy too. No smile came upon her face. “I thought it was a great marriage I was making, if you please,” she said, after she too had paused with the sense of a crisis, and stared at her sister’s pretended sportiveness. No smile relaxed the lips of either of the contending pair. “I thought so, you may say it. I thought I should be a lady, and mix with the best in the land; what’s come of it? Have I ever set foot among the folks you belong to, or theirkind? No, I said the truth, there’s no door been open to me—the other way! You would shut mother’s door upon me if you could, you would keep me away from my own folks—the only friends I have. But you’ll never do it, Arthur, you may as well give it up at once. I’ll stick to them that’s good to me, and I won’t stir a step to court your people, nor to curry favour—no, not if you would ask me on your knees. I wrote to my lady, because I promised, but my lady wouldn’t make much of my letter; and never will I make myself so cheap again, never if I should live hundreds of years.”
“Nancy, Nancy, my child!” cried her mother, “you must not make rash vows. You don’t know what you’ll do till the time comes. She’s hot-tempered. That’s all about. And if Arthur will say he is sorry—”
“What shall I say I am sorry for, Mrs. Bates?”
“Oh, now this is too bad. Don’t you see it will please her? She always was a bit unreasonable and high-tempered. Youcan’t help your temper, it’s a thing that’s born with you. Say you’re sorry, and smooth her down a little, and she’ll soon come round and promise anything you like. I know my Nancy. She is hot-headed, and she’s contrairy, but her heart’s in the right place,” said the mother. Mrs. Bates was frightened by the contraction in Arthur’s face.
“I have nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “I have made no accusations against anyone; but I cannot always give in. I have come here to please her, and she is not pleased. Let us go away. Let Nancy second me in my attempt to get back into a natural life. It is not natural that I should be cooped up here, doing nothing, wasting my time. I must get out of it somehow. Either you will go with me, Nancy, or I must go alone. I cannot go on in this way any longer.”
“You shan’t then!” she cried, with redoubled heat. “Go—wherever you like for me. Oh, yes, go back to your family that you’re so fond of. You and your friends do nothing but despise me, even abit of a schoolmaster’s wife! Don’t hold me, don’t keep me back, mamma. I’ll not be left, whatever happens; it’s me that will go, and he can do what he pleases. Don’t I tell you! Nobody shall hold me, nobody shall keep me in one place rather than another against my will. But I shan’t stay to be forsaken. Oh, don’t think it, Arthur! It’s me that will go.”
“I have said nothing about forsaking you,” he said; but he was wearied out with such struggles, and he made no appeal to her to stay. This decided Nancy. She rushed impetuously from the room, leaving them all staring at each other, without giving a word of explanation. Mrs. Bates, whose face was somewhat blank, called to Sarah Jane to follow her sister, and herself turned to Arthur with an attempt at a smile.
“It will soon be over now,” she said. “You mustn’t be hard upon her, Arthur. For all we know, there may be something working with her that she can’t resist. Young women have queer ways, and you can’t tell what’s the cause of it till after.Don’t you mind; go back to your books, there’s a dear, and take no notice. She’ll have a good cry, and she’ll come to herself, and you mustn’t mind.”
It was not this address that quieted him; but what could he do? The position was so impossible that he was glad to withdraw from it. It was worse than ever, now that one of these altercations had taken place before witnesses; he went back sadly to his fire and sat down again, blaming himself for the exasperation which had made him speak. Probably Mrs. Bates was right, and it was all over. She might come downstairs, looking as if nothing had happened, or she might come down penitent, as she sometimes did; and this got the better of him at once. But anyhow, he would not insist upon continuing the altercation, he was too glad that it was over. He sat down, sighing, and drearily drew towards him the Demosthenes that lay on the table. How unimportant all that dead eloquence was, side by side with living passion! The petty stir of domestic dissensions was too near to let him hearthe ring of the old disputations, the flow and flood of the old eloquence. Nancy’s voice, in all the warmth of passion, rang more clear on the ear than the greatest of orators. He sat with his nerves all thrilling, and his mind vainly striving to get a little instruction through his eyes. Those eyes read easily enough, hot though they were with the strain they had been subjected to, but the mind received no impression. It was more busy in his ears, listening to what was going on. He heard the hasty sound of Nancy’s footstep upstairs; then he heard her come down, and there were voices in the little hall, confused and undertoned, one voice mingling with another; and then there was the sound of the hall-door closing. He sat after this with a strange sensation, as if that sound of the door had jarred him in every limb. He did not seem able to move to see what it was. But the stillness that fell upon the little house was ominous. Instead of the excited voices which had been audible a little while ago, filling the place with contention, what a strange deadlysort of quiet! Arthur was wearied out. So many vicissitudes of feeling had not occurred in all his previous life as had come to him within these five months past. Happiness, delight, disappointment, vexation, irritated nerves, wounded affection, mortified pride, and that combination of impassioned love and disenchanted vision which is of all things in the world the hardest to bear. How different, how different from his anticipations! How lightly the lovers’ quarrels had gone off, quenched in tears and smiles, and mutual confessions and warmer fondness. “The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love.” But then that must not go too far, or continue too long, and the shiver of hot shame which she had brought over him so often, the uncertainty as to how she would acquit herself which was always present, the passionate mortification with which he had seen other people’s smiles, or heard other people’s comments, all these were very different from the lovers’ quarrels. He held his Demosthenes steadily in his hand, and attempted to read. How far off itwas! and the other so near; and of all the things that can occupy a man’s ear, what is so absorbing as the dead silence of vacancy after a struggle which has threatened everything, and had ended in—what? Nothing, silence, vacancy, probably bringing no consequence at all.
Nancy did not come in at the hour of luncheon. He waited for her, refusing that refreshment until it was clear she did not mean to come back. Then he swallowed a glass of wine hastily, and prepared in his turn to go out—not to seek her. He was resolved that this time, at least, she should be left in tranquillity, left to do what pleased her best. He had just gone into the hall to get his hat when some one came to the door. How his heart jumped! and how sick it grew again when it turned out to be only Mr. Eagles, who had come to make a serious remonstrance.
“You oughtn’t to lose your time,” the “coach” said, bending his brows. “If you can’t do anything better, you should come back to me. The old set are still hard at work, and there are two or three new menthat will make their mark. It can’t be lively here, doing nothing. Why, you’ve nothing to do, not even fishing or football, eh? I never hear of you playing football. What do you do?”
“Nothing,” said Arthur; “and I can’t say I like it; but what’s the good? I am too old for football and that sort of thing.”
“Ah, four-and-twenty, that’s a great age; but I know what you mean. Married! there’s the rub—feel yourself too grand for it. But look here, Curtis. A man can’t live with nothing to do.”
“The wonder to me is how long a man can live with nothing to do,” said Arthur. “But as I say, what’s the good? I’m too old now to care about my degree. What does it matter, one way or the other? I have got beyond that stage.”
“Married, again!” said Mr. Eagles; “that is what drives me wild—not the fact, which is harmless enough; but Lord, how grand you all think yourselves! However, it don’t last. You can’t feed upon strawberries and cream all your lives, my dear fellow. You must buckle to at something, or you will be nobody. I don’t like anyone who has passed through my hands, to be nobody. You had better read, Curtis, you had better read.”
“Yes,” said Arthur, vaguely.
He was quite willing to pledge himself to anything so long as Mr. Eagles would but go away, and leave him to listen and make sure if anyone came: or get out into the air and distract his mind from listening. One or the other, he felt, he must do.
“The best thing will be to come back to me,” said Mr. Eagles; “at least you won’t lose your time completely, and you’ll find it a relief. Too many sweets will pall upon you; take them in measure and they are delightful enough. Come, Curtis, I make you an offer I needn’t say, for you know, that I don’t require to go hunting for pupils; but, my good fellow, for your own sake you had better come back.”
“Yes,” said Arthur, with a sudden lightening and ease which diffused itself all over him. There was another sound at the door; and this time it must, therecould be no doubt, be Nancy. This relief made it possible for him to listen. His countenance cleared. He had not really known what his fears were, but he felt the vague greatness of them in this sense of immediate ease and relief.
But all the blood rushed to his head again, and the pulses began to beat in his brow when the door opened, and not Nancy appeared, but the maid, showing in the unexpected, and in the circumstances, alarming figure of Durant.
“THERE is something wrong at home!”
This most natural of all the ideas with which foreboding human nature sees a sudden arrival, sprang to Arthur’s lips almost in spite of himself. He was already so torn by anxiety and alarm that it seemed perfectly appropriate that other griefs should come to distract him, and he scarcely understood the eager “No” with which Durant replied. It was not till they were seated together, one at each side of the fire—Mr. Eagles having taken his departure—that Arthur realized that the burning confusion and pain in his head arose from the fact that his wife had gone out in a fit of passion a few hours ago and had not yet come back, not so very serious amatter—and was not owing to any suddenly heard of calamity, at home.
“No, things are all well, but I have something to say to you, Arthur,” said Durant. And he began a long commission, which Arthur heard vaguely and did not understand. It was to the effect that the post of attaché to a foreign embassy which the young man had wished for, was open to him, and this was coupled with overtures from the parents whose hearts were yearning over Arthur. Probably there is after all nothing so well calculated as long silence to wear out the indignation and resentment of fathers and mothers. However hot these may be at first, the blank misery of knowing nothing about a child beloved, damps and quenches the ardour of offence, and in a great many cases the cruel son or daughter has his or her will out of the sheer intolerableness of this break, and anxiety of the tender hearts on whom this unfeeling passiveness tells more severely than any more actively offensive treatment. This had been working for all these months at Oakley. Hearingnothing! it was almost worse than death, of which this miserable certainty that we shall hear no more of those we have lost, is the greatest bitterness—tempered, however, with the counterbalancing certainty which alone makes us capable of bearing it, that human events are over to them, and that none of the calamities with which we are familiar can happen to those who are beyond the veil. But the Curtises knew that anything or everything might be happening to Arthur, while they had no news of him, and were as ignorant of all his ways as if he had been dead. And when the information came of this vacancy which he had desired so much, the opportunity was not to be resisted. They had said nothing about it to each other for twenty-four hours, and then had burst forth the universal feeling. Let him accept this, and let him come home and bring his wife, if no better might be. She had been insolent, what did it matter? She was the price that must be paid for Arthur; and the moment it became possible to have Arthur, they all felt that they were tooready to pay any price. Lady Curtis had telegraphed for Durant when the general conviction burst forth, and the household at Oakley were now full of excitement, already beginning to prepare rooms for Arthur and his wife, and forgetting all other feelings in the pleasure of seeing their boy again. Durant had lost no time. He was too faithful a friend to consider that Arthur had all but repulsed his friendly offices after the marriage, and that not a word of recollection had reached him from Underhayes during the entire winter. He went down to Oakley at once to receive his commission, and here he was with full credentials. The father and mother made no conditions. If Arthur accepted this appointment, which was the best thing he could do, let him come home and bring his wife. That was all. And it may be supposed that Durant, feeling himself the bearer of proposals both generous and tender, was startled and affronted by the confused and pre-occupied way in which Arthur seemed to listen, not understanding him, starting at every soundoutside, continually disturbed, and with a look of nervous agitation which had evidently nothing to do with the question in hand.
“Do you not understand me?” he cried at last, indignant: and then the rising excitement in Arthur’s mind burst forth.
“Durant, my wife has gone away to her mother’s. I—I can’t answer all at once.”
“What do you mean, Arthur? How disturbed you look! Has anything happened?” cried Durant. Arthur made an effort to recover himself. He laughed tremulously.
“You know me, Lewis,” he said, “I am a—nervous sort of fellow, though I don’t look it perhaps.”
“I know. Thereissomething the matter, Arthur. What is it? Is your wife ill? What has happened?”
“Well—nothing has happened. I have been living rather a solitary life, and one gets irritable—and easily put out.”
“You have had a—difficulty, as the Americans call it—a lover’s quarrel,” saidDurant, with a laugh, which was far from according with his feelings.
“That is just it. No, not a lover’s quarrel, but a difficulty. We see things from different points of view; and I don’t know how she will like this, I must wait. I cannot decide until I know.”
“Arthur, it is all very well, all very right to consult your wife; but you can’t think of neglecting such an opportunity. It is altogether unconditional. They will receive her, as if she were a Duke’s daughter; you know, when once they have made up their minds to it, there will be no stint, she will have no reason to complain of her reception.”
Arthur’s head was turned to the door.
“You will think me silly,” he said; “a fool! but I cannot help it. One thing I will tell you, Durant; I will go to Vienna. I don’t think it’s too late; five months is not long enough at my age to put a man out altogether, is it? But as for Nancy, I can’t answer. If she will go with me home, if she will go with me to Vienna, I can’t tell you. We must see her first. She is at her mother’s—”
“You don’t mean to say that she has left you, Arthur?”
“Oh no, no,” he said; “that is rather too absurd, the most ridiculous idea. Come along, Durant, let us get out and stretch our legs. I have not had a real walk for ages. Of course, as it’s Saturday you are going to stay till Monday? That is right, that is a true pleasure. She is at—her mother’s,” he added, changing the subject abruptly, and dropping his voice.
What did it mean? Durant could not tell. He had not disliked Nancy; though she had defied him too, it had been done in a way which did not offend the young man. He had admired her, even when she attacked himself personally; and he had been inclined to think as Arthur did, that she was a lily among those weeds. He had not been surprised at his friend’s infatuation. He had thought her a beautiful high-spirited girl, full of a generous if over vehement disdain for the conventional judgment that made her appear an unfit wife for a man of worldly position superior to herown. Her threat to give up her lover, and her counter decision to marry him disinherited, in order to show his friends how little she cared about his money, were fresh in his mind. And he had liked Nancy; though he had been formally on the other side as Lady Curtis’s agent, he had never really been unfriendly; he remembered well his old difficulties when he had tried to persuade Arthur to relinquish his faith to this girl who trusted in him, and with what a sense of relief he had found that all his arguments were vain, and Arthur’s honour and love invulnerable. He was mystified and perplexed, as well as grieved, by Arthur’s painful pre-occupation now, not knowing what could have happened. They went out in the teeth of the March wind, which blew sharp and keen along the suburban roads.
“I have not had anything to call a walk for weeks,” Arthur said, with a feverish look of eagerness, as they reached the fresh breadth of the common, with the green fields and country paths beyond. The hedgerows were bristling with buds,the skies softly blue, where they could be seen through the masses of cloud that swept across the great vault overhead. The young man sped along like a loosened greyhound, and his friend, fresh from the confinement of town, had hard ado to follow him. He talked little as he went along. Was he walking so fast to escape some care that weighed upon him? If it was not for that there was no other motive, for the walk was without any object. Now and then he would break forth for a moment about this prospect which Durant had come to offer him. “It would be the best thing,” he would say, “far the best thing. I must get rid of this one way or other.” Then he would be silent, and after a mile or so say to himself again, “Yes,thiswill not do—I must go, it is plain. Going may be salvation.” Durant did not know what irrepressible cares were plucking at his friend’s skirts and compelling him to these resolutions; and he himself talked calmly of Oakley, of the desires of the family there, and the haste they were in to send him off upon hismission, and all the anticipations of Arthur’s return which they had already begun to entertain. At this Arthur did nothing but shake his head, “Willsheconsent?” he said once. Would Nancy consent? was that what he meant? Consent! what excuse could she have not to consent? They walked far, at a great pace, and Durant was almost worn out. He lagged behind his friend as he approached the house. It was still all dark, one faint gleam of firelight in the drawing-room contending feebly with the grey of the twilight, no one at the window looking out for them, no lamp lighted. “Has Mrs. Curtis returned?” Arthur asked of the maid, as they went on, and was answered No. They went into her part of the house, the white little drawing-room, where indeed there were no pretty signs of Nancy’s presence, no work or books to mar the trimness of the place, but all the chairs set against the wall, and the fire flickering dimly in the grate. And the dinner hour came without any appearance of Nancy. Arthur got more and more agitated as thetime went on—and Durant more and more surprised.
“Is your wife dining out?” he said, when he found they were about to sit down at the table without her. Arthur made no distinct answer; he said after a while, as if he had then heard the question for the first time—“She is at her mother’s.” He did not change his dress before dinner, or show any recollection of the need of such preliminaries, but sat over the fire, vaguely replying now and then when his friend spoke to him, and starting at every sound.
“Shall you not wait for Mrs. Curtis?” Durant said, as Arthur took him into the little dining-room.
“She is at her mother’s,” was all Arthur replied. Altogether it was very mysterious, and Durant could not but feel that there was mischief in the air.
At last when the clock had struck ten, and there was no appearance of Nancy, Arthur sprang to his feet. “I must go and fetch her,” he said, “this will never do—this will never do!” Durant took hishat mechanically also, and they walked out without another word into the windy night. The sky looked widened and enlarged by the boisterous breeze which drove mass after mass of clouds across the blue, and across the face of the waning moon, which shone out at intervals only to be swallowed up again by those floating vapours. There was a certain hurry, and coldness, and agitation in the night. The way from Rose Villas into the lighted street of Underhayes was dark, and the alternations of gloom and light in the sky made the vision uncertain. Durant could see how anxiously his friend peered at all the figures they met on the darkling road; but Nancy was not on her way home. They went on in silence to the street which Durant remembered perfectly, and to the door, at which Arthur left him standing as he went in. He had stood there before, and heard the voices in the parlour when he came here first in search of Arthur; how strange to come here now in search of Arthur’s runaway wife! for this was what it seemed to be now. He couldhear the silence which followed Arthur’s entrance—a pause which was impressive from the confusion of voices that had been audible before. “I have come for Nancy,” he heard him say.
Arthur had gone in without any question. He had left his friend at the door, neither thinking nor caring that some revelation might be made which it was better Durant should not hear. He steadied his own countenance not to look angry or anxious. “Are you ready?” he said, addressing his wife, “I did not think you meant to stay so long.”
“You have not given yourself much trouble to look after me,” said Nancy. “No, I am not ready. I don’t mean to go.”
“What does she mean?” he said with a tremble in his voice, turning to Mrs. Bates.
“Oh, Arthur, I don’t know what she means. She is as hot-tempered and as contrary as possible. She takes up things quite wrong. You never meant to drive her away, did you? You had not thought of leaving her—tell her for heaven’s sake! She will not listen to me.”
There was no one in the parlour but Mrs. Bates and Sarah Jane. It was a night when the tax-collector was busy adding up one of his lists of defaulters, and it was the same party which had witnessed the dispute of the morning which was assembled now. That was one reason of the sudden quiet; the other was, the awe and horror that had come over the family at Nancy’s obstinate resolution to stay at home, and return to her husband no more—a resolution which he had divined, and which had weighed on him for the whole day.
“I—leave her!” said Arthur, “what did I say that looked like leaving her? Nancy, come home. I have been very unhappy, not knowing why you stayed away from me, and now I have something to consult you about. Come home.”
“I am at home,” said Nancy, sullenly. “It is no use talking. I have taken my resolution. Go away, Arthur, as you said, I mean to stay here.”
“What does she mean?” he cried in dismay.
“Oh! I mean what I say. You toldme you were going. You said I might come if I pleased. I—who hate strangers—I, after all the slights you’ve brought upon me! but that any how you were going. I’ve left for good and all. Mother can go and pack up the things, and dismiss the servants, and leave you free; but one word’s enough to me, Arthur, you shall never have occasion to say another. I don’t budge from here unless mother turns me out. And as soon as you please, you can go.”
They all looked at each other—the others pale, Nancy red with excitement and passion.
“You don’t mean this, Nancy,” Arthur said. “You cannot mean, for a hasty word, to forsake me; it is not possible. A hasty word! how many have you said to me. Come—come, you are angry; but how little there is to be angry about! We have had more serious discussions before,” he added with a faint smile, “and you have said much worse things to me.”
“It does not matter what I said, but what you said. No, Arthur, you may putup with whatever you like; but I won’t put up with it,” she said, in all the unreasonableness of passion. “You might think it didn’t matter what I say; but I think it does matter what you say. No, I am not going back. You may talk till you’re sick—it won’t make any difference to me.”
“Nancy! don’t be such a fool,” said Sarah Jane. “Why, only think how people will talk. Not six months married, and coming back home! And after all the fuss that was made about your marrying, and the grand catch we fancied it was. When you come to think of it you can’t be such a fool.”
“Nancy—Nancy, my dear, you’re unreasonable! indeed you’re unreasonable—when Arthur says he did not mean it.”
“Nancy!” cried the young man, “why do you torment me like this—what have I done to you? You make my life a constant contention. We never have a quiet moment. Have I failed in love to you—have I not thought of you in everything?You will drive me mad, I think. Have I ever neglected you, or injured you?”
“You said you would leave me,” said Nancy, “that’s enough, I told you at the time. Oh! never a man in this world shall say that he has forsakenme! I am not one that will be forsaken. Go, Arthur, go where you please. I shall stay here.”
“Nancy, Lewis Durant is at the door. He has brought a message of the greatest importance from Oakley.”
“Lewis Durant!” she started to her feet with fresh impetuosity, “that was all that was wanted. Do you think I will stay behind to see Lewis Durant—to let him spy and tell my Lady. No, mamma, no! That’s decided me. Good night to you all. You may do what you please—but here I’ll stay.”
And Nancy darted out of the midst of them, quick as thought, while they all stood stupefied, and rushed out of the room and upstairs, where, as they listened they heard her quick steps overhead thrilling through the little house, and the quick closing and locking of the door.
The shock affected the three in different ways. Sarah Jane began to cry. Mrs. Bates, trembling, went up to Arthur and caught him by the arm. This strange, terrible incident changed him from her son-in-law, with whom she was familiar, into her daughter’s judge, before whom she trembled.
“Oh, Mr. Curtis, Mr. Curtis!” she said. “The girl’s wild and out of her senses. Don’t think too badly of her. It’s like a madness. Oh, forgive her!” The mother was in too deadly earnest to be able for tears.
“What am I to do?” said Arthur, overcome, with a gasp as if for breath.
“Oh, my dear, my dear! Leave her; she is out of her senses, she is out of her senses, she is out of her mind! Leave her to me, and I’ll bring her to you to-morrow to beg your pardon. I will, Arthur, if anything in this world can do it,” Mrs. Bates said, clasping her hands.
“There is nothing else to be done,” said Arthur. He was as pale as death. He seemed to get his breath with difficulty ashe stood there, struck with wonder, paralyzed with the sense of impotence in his mind, and the dire injury that had been done him. A friend may leave a friend, or even a child a parent; but when a wife, a six months’ bride, leaves her husband even for a day, even in the house of her father, it is as if some horrible convulsion had happened which turns the world upside down. He said nothing more to anyone, but went out, and caught at Durant’s arm to support him, and walked home under the flying clouds, through the stormy, agitated night. The night was like his mind, swept by wild thoughts, overclouded by profound glooms. He scarcely said anything to Durant, who seemed to divine all that happened, though nothing was said to him. It was well he was there. When they went back to the villa, the poor little villa, which was at once so desolate and so meaningless without Nancy, the young man gave a heavy groan, which seemed to echo through the mean little rooms. Could anything change this fact, any coming back again, any penitence?His wife had forsaken him. Nancy had gone back to her mother’s. It might be only for a night, but could anything change the fact? His life had come to a stop; no making up could alter that. As he had been even this morning, he could never be again any more.
It was Durant who told that little falsehood to the servants about why their mistress stayed away. She was not well, he said, and they need not wait up, as it was doubtful whether she would come home. And he stayed by Arthur through the long dull hours, hearing in breaks and snatches something of the story which poor Arthur felt was now over: how they had lived together, and how, according to all he could tell, they had parted. When the flood-tides were opened, it relieved Arthur to speak. He showed his friend in his despair all that was in his heart, his love for Nancy, which was ready to forgive everything, and yet the wounds which she had given to him.
“It is not her fault,” he said. “It is the want of training. She has neverrealised it, what she married for. She thinks it was only to be happy, to be loved and flattered, to have everything happy round her.” This the poor young fellow said as if it was the best excuse in the world. “That is how she has been brought up. It is not her fault. She has not considered me, nor that there is a duty; and was I to be the one to remind her of her duty, Durant? I did not want her to love me because it was her duty. I wanted her to do her duty because of her love,” said Arthur, unconsciously antithetical. Durant listened to everything, and made few comments. If he said anything in sympathy for his friend which meant condemnation of Nancy, Arthur rose up and stopped him. “How can you tell how she was aggravated?” he said. It was not till the middle of the night that Durant could persuade him to go to bed; and by that time the desolateness of the dreary little house without Nancy, which had no soul or meaning but Nancy, struck Lewis almost as much as it did Arthur. Poor little miserable shell of a place, which had outgrown its sense and its use!
Next day was a busy but a miserable day. Durant was at the Bates’ little house as soon as it was opened in the morning, hoping that his eloquence might be more effectual than that of the poor young husband, and that he might be able, through her mother, to induce Nancy to come back. He found Mrs. Bates very anxious and tearful, very well disposed, but powerless. He gave her a hint of the proposal he had brought from Oakley, and of the unconditional surrender of the Curtises, which the mother carried to her daughter upstairs, but without any favourable issue. Later he came back with Arthur. Nancy kept upstairs, she would not show—and all the household was against her.