IT was about a month after this, in the early autumn, when Lucy Curtis, coming down from the Hall upon one of her courses of visitation in the village, went, as she often did, to Cousin Julia to report herself as she passed, and inquire if there were any special troubles requiring her aid in the little community. Mrs. Rolt was not herself so active as her young cousin; but she heard of everything that was wanted, and was the universal medium of communication between the village and the Hall. The poor people came to her if she did not go to them, and her poor neighbours had unbounded reliance upon her kindness, liking her all the better perhaps that she never made any investigationsinto their cleanliness or providence, and did not trouble them with visits, but was sorry, indiscriminately, for everybody who was in trouble, and for everybody who was sick had port-wine to bestow and beef-tea. It was not entirely indolence, but rather a just knowledge of herself, combined with a love of keeping at home, which intercepted “parish work” on her part. “I know I should gossip,” she said, with looks of humility, when it was suggested to her that she should visit the poor; and there could be no doubt that she availed herself even of the lessened opportunities presented to her in this particular when the poor visited her. She was lying in wait for Lucy on this particular morning, which happened to be one of the days on which the young lady was expected in the village. Lucy had a great deal of business to do which is not reckoned in the management of an estate. She had the villagers to look after, which probably ought to have been the Rector’s business. But as the Rector did not take naturally to that portion of his work, it was she who did it.She had her little private savings-bank, her small provident societies, her clothing clubs, her parish library, all in her own management, with various additions to the formal educational processes of the place; classes for big girls and boys, and a private little school of cookery, and many small matters, all intended to make the people of Oakley happy; which object, perhaps, they did not succeed in fulfilling, but yet did infinitesimal scraps of good, such as is the utmost most human schemes attain to. One of these undertakings required her presence to-day. It was an October day; the leaves falling, the sky red; and the time was nearly three years from Arthur’s marriage. It was cold enough to make that warm jacket quite expedient which she had hesitated to put on; and as Lucy approached Mrs. Rolt’s house, Mrs. Rolt stationed herself at the window, ready to tap as she passed, and secure ten minutes’—conversation Cousin Julia called it, but gossip would be the proper word to say.
The house of the Rolts was a large substantial building of brick, very much likethe Rectory, but not with the same imposing grounds; a house of Queen Anne’s time, with a pediment, and rows of twinkling windows flush with the wall. There was an excellent garden behind, but in front nothing save one large very white doorstep between the door and the street; and the windows of the dining-room, where Mrs. Rolt sat in the morning, were so close upon the road that no one could escape her whom she chose to arrest in this way.
“I am coming,” said Lucy, nodding as she passed; and the neat housemaid, already on the alert, rushed to open the door.
“Missis has been looking for you all the morning,” Sally said. There was evidently something more than ordinary to say.
Nothing could be more warm and cosy than the Rolts’ dining-room. Its warm red curtains filled all the intervals between the windows, not, it is to be feared, as the canons of art would approve, at the present day, but with a comfortable fullness. The room itself was panelled, however, which would have redeemed it, notwithstandingthat the old mantelshelf had been tampered with, and was not so high up as it ought to have been. There was a big table in the centre of the room, and two easy-chairs by the fire. The newspaper thrown down in one of them showed that Mr. Rolt himself had but lately left this comfortable room. A big old mahogany sideboard, not handsome, but substantial, stood against the end wall, and a long row of low book-cases opposite the windows. There was not much room to move about because of the big table, upon which there was nothing decorative except a huge basin of China-asters, the last of the garden; but the room was warm, and very handy, Mrs. Rolt thought, when she had anything to do. The good soul never had anything to do; but what did that matter? She liked to have her big basket of odds and ends brought down and placed upon the table, where there was plenty of room; and there she would occupy herself very pleasantly looking out skeins of wool which might make a pair of socks for a poor child, and bits of cloth which would answerfor some one’s patchwork. These last were very useful whenever a bundle of children happened to come to Oakley. More dolls than tongue could reckon had been dressed out of Mrs. Rolt’s odds and ends; but they did not do so much good to the poor children who were in want of socks. Mrs. Rolt met Lucy at the door, and kissed her, and brought her in to the big chair.
“How-are-you-and-how-is-your-mamma-and-everybody?” she said in a breath, linking all the words together in her eagerness to get over preliminaries. “Will-you-have-a-cup-of-chocolate-after-your-walk? No? Then-sit-down-and-I-will-tell-you-something,” said Cousin Julia, out of breath.
“I knew you must have something to tell me when I saw your face. What is it? You don’t look as if anything very bad had happened.”
“Oh, it is nothing very bad. I don’t suppose it is of much consequence, and yet it is very funny, you know. Lucy, two ladies have come to live in the little WrenCottage. Did you ever hear of such a thing? two ladies, one of them tall and handsome. My old Sam has quite lost his heart; and the other not so pretty, and much commoner looking, and both complete strangers, nobody knowing about them, or where they came from, or whom they belong to; and quite young. Did you ever hear anything so strange?”
“Two ladies in the Wren Cottage! Yes, that is news,” said Lucy, with much composure. “I hope they will turn out pleasant neighbours; it will be very agreeable for you.”
“Won’t it? But it is not that, so much that I am thinking of. Who can they be, you know, Lucy? to choose a place like this to settle in, where there is no attraction, no society, no inducement whatever?”
“There is you, and Bertie at the Rectory; that is not bad; and it is very pretty, you know,” said Lucy. “I don’t wonder that anyone should choose Oakley. Where could you find so pretty a place?”
“That is all very well, my dear,” said Mrs. Rolt, who, not having been broughtup in Oakley, was less enthusiastic; “but how did they find out that it was a pretty place? No one has ever seen them here before. They could not find it out by instinct, you know, could they? To be sure, Wren Cottage has been advertised in the paper and is let for almost nothing at all. That might tempt them, perhaps, if they are poor.”
“Very likely indeed, I should think; and they must be poor, or else they would never come to Oakley. Is not that what you are thinking? I am glad you are going to have neighbours.”
“Going, Lucy! My love, they are there. Look—look out of the furthest window; don’t you see somebody’s back in the bedroom doing something? Look as plain as possible between the white curtains. Somebody’s back, and I do believe an ear!”
“I could not swear to the ear,” said Lucy, laughing; “but I see there is something; and there is Fanny Blunt at the door, charing; that is good,” she continued, warming into interest. “FannyBlunt is a good little girl. I am glad she has a place.”
“Listen, Lucy. I told you there were two of them. They don’t look like sisters, but Fanny says they are sisters.”
“Oh, Cousin Julia! you have been asking Fanny—”
“Only her mother, only her mother, dear.Of course, I would not for the world question the girl about her mistresses. You could not think I would be guilty of such a thing, Lucy; but her mother tells me they are two sisters. You would scarcely believe it. The little one is a nice common-looking person; but the other, the one who was at the window, and you saw her ear—”
“But I could not swear to the ear.”
“Don’t laugh, dear. I assure you I am quite serious, and very,verymuch interested. Their name is Arthur, and one of them is married; at least it is Mrs. Arthur that has taken the cottage. Of course, if the other is her sister, she can scarcely be Arthur too.”
“Mrs. Arthur!” said Lucy, startled.
“Do you know the name, Lucy? Do you know anyone of the name? I should like, I must say, to find out some clue.”
Lucy shook her head. She did not know anyone of the name, which is, of course, a respectable surname borne by many people. It could have nothing to do with anyone she knew.
“I know it only as a Christian name,” said Lucy.
“Ah, as a Christian name—everybody knows it as that,” said Mrs. Rolt. “Poor dear Arthur, I think of him every day, poor fellow.”
“He seems to be happy enough, Cousin Julia; we need not call him poor fellow now.”
“No; but then it is uncomfortable, you know, to be like that, separated from his wife. To be sure, if they did not get on it was better, perhaps; but what a pity, Lucy, they did not get on! There must be great faults, I always say, on the woman’s side.”
“On both sides, I should think,” said Lucy with a sigh.
“On the woman’s side chiefly, my dear; for we know we ought to give in. We may always be quite sure we ought to give in, whatever our husbands may do; and in that case things generally come right; for you know one person cannot quarrel by himself, can he? there must always be two. But that has nothing to do with the poor lady opposite.”
“Is she a poor lady? You seem to know more about her than you said at first.”
“Well, Fanny—or, rather, Fanny’s mother—she comes, you know, about her rent; poor thing, she is always behind with her rent; and she says she is either a widow or her husband is away. He may be a sailor, you know, or in India, or something of that sort; and she does not seem to expect him home. It is a sad position for a young woman. I am not quite sure which of them is Mrs. Arthur though; the little dumpy one is certainly the oldest, but then the tall one looks the most superior.”
“Perhaps it is not always the superiorwho is the married one,” said Lucy, again tempted to laugh; for such guesses throw gleams of reflection upon the hearers, and lead young women unconsciously to think of themselves.
“No, indeed; I was thirty-five myself before I married, Lucy. It would not become me to speak as if the best people were always the ones that married soonest. There is yourself; but then you are so hard to please. But it stands to reason in this case, don’t you think, that the married one should be the chief? for it is her house, you know, and she is the mistress. Now the tall one, whom you saw at the window, is evidently the principal; therefore she must be Mrs. Arthur. The little fat one seems a good little thing. She looks after everything, and helps to cook the dinner. The other—I wonder if she is a widow?—does very little about the house. I see her reading generally.”
“You speak as if they had been the objects of your observation for years.”
“No, not for years, of course; but when you live opposite to people for a fortnight,you find out a great deal about them. You know you have been away, Lucy. She reads a great deal, and I have seen her out sketching, and sometimes she talks to the poor people; but she looks shy and frightened. Whenever she sees me she hurries away.”
“And you have not called? I wonder you did not call when you take so much interest in her,” said Lucy, taking up her little basket again, and preparing to go.
“Do you think I ought to call?” cried Cousin Julia eagerly. “I have been turning it over and over in my own mind. I wonder if I ought to call, I have been saying to Sam. What would your mamma think, I wonder? You see, they have no introductions, no one to be, as it were, responsible for them; and they might be something very different, they might be not at all nice people for anything we can tell.”
“How unkind of you to imagine evil! Why shouldn’t they be nice people? I am afraid you are beginning to be hardhearted,” said Lucy, laughing. “Mammawill be very much surprised to hear that you have not called, I am sure.”
“Do you really think so? I amdyingto call,” cried Mrs. Rolt. “Hard-hearted—me! Oh, Lucy, how can you say so? When you know it is chiefly on your account that your mamma may always be quite certain you will meet no one whom you ought not to meet here.”
“I should like to meet her very much,” said Lucy, offering her pretty cheek for Cousin Julia’s kiss. “I shall come back for some luncheon if you will have me, and then you can tell me all the rest. My people will be waiting now.”
Mrs. Rolt stood at the window and looked after her admiringly as she went away. Such a young creature—to do so much—and to keep the parish together. But then the good woman reflected that she had now said this of Lucy for some years, and counting back, decided that she must be twenty-three—not so very young to be still unmarried, for Sir John Curtis’s daughter, who might marry anybody. “I wonder if there issome one,” said Cousin Julia to herself, making a private review in her own mind of all the gentlemen she knew—which took her thoughts off the new-comer in Wren Cottage, though she might already be seen at the window gazing out with a certain eagerness, and showing more than one ear.
Lucy went on her way with a little tremble of excitement about her, though she laughed at herself for this absurd fancy of hers about Mrs. Arthur. Why should she think of her brother’s wife? She was not aware that Nancy had left Underhayes, or that anything had happened to the family; and it was too foolish to suppose that the unknown sister-in-law who had left her husband and her duty rather than abandon her family would have thrown them aside again aimlessly to come here. Why should she come here? She had shown no symptom of any desire to make herself acquainted with Arthur’s home; but rather had defied and rejected everything that could connect her with it. And now, after all was over between them, why shouldshe come now? Arthur was a quite well-known surname, as Mrs. Rolt said; and she rebuked herself for the fantastic idea with some vehemence. She went about her business, however, with a mind a little discomposed, feeling she knew not how, as if some new chapter had begun; and half expecting the new-comer to rise up in her path, and interfere with her. But Lucy’s business went on as usual without disturbance from any one. She held her usual business levée, receiving the little savings of the poor women, the scrapings of pennies and threepennies they could put aside for the children’s frocks at Christmas, and heard all their stories of boys who were doing well, and boys who were doing ill, and girls that wanted “placing,” and those that were going to learn the dress-making, or away to Oakenden to service. Many a domestic tale she had to hear and sympathise with, and had to make several promises to “speak to” unruly sons and husbands. The village women had a great confidence in “somebody speaking to” those careless fellows, who would go with their wages to the public-house instead of taking them home. “It ain’t that he’s got a bad heart—but oh, Miss Lucy, he do want talking to!” they would say; and Lucy would request that the offending husband might be sent up to the Hall on some little commission, or inveigled in the afternoon into the school-room. “But he’s got that sharp, he won’t go nigh the school-room now as he knows as you’re there, and what’s a-coming,” one of these plaintive wives said shaking her head. “Then you must say I want to speak to him,” said Lucy, “don’t make any pretence of business, but just say I want to see him up at the House. I will give him a little job to do for me if he behaves himself rightly,” said Lucy. She had not, perhaps, so much faith in “talking to” as they had; but it was, at the worst, a flattering delusion, and the men themselves did not dislike the importance of the “talking to” which elevated them for the moment, though it was an undesirable elevation. She had come amongthem since she was a child. She had waged war with the public-house since it was half a joke to hear her small denunciations, and both women and men had laughed and cried at Miss Lucy. “Lord bless her! she do speak up bold,” they had said; and this early interference had given her a certain power such as the roughest ploughman will allow, holding his breath, to the child, who in baby rectitude and indignation may sometimes lecture a drunken father. She had done a great deal of business in this way before she went back to take luncheon with Cousin Julia, which was not one of the least of her kind offices. You would have supposed Lucy was the most dainty of epicures to see the little feasts Mrs. Rolt made for her on these parish days. Her husband was seldom at home at that hour, and Cousin Julia was ready to feed on nightingale’s tongues, had they been procurable, the young Lady Bountiful who saved her from a solitary meal. And in the afternoon there were the schools to visit, and the little Cottage Hospital, andthe cookery, and all that was going on for the good of her village subjects. Bertie, too, had a way of coming to Mrs. Rolt’s on these parish days, and though she was not fond of him, she avowed, as she was of Lucy, yet Bertie was a cousin too, and it was not possible for the gentle soul to forbear from a little feeble essay at matchmaking when she saw these handsome young people together. Bertie was not good enough for Lucy, but Lucy might like him for all that. Things much more unlikely had been known; while it was probable, indeed, that he, only a clergyman, and humble-minded (perhaps) was afraid to venture to open his mind to Sir John’s daughter. Mrs. Rolt felt that it was only doing as she would be done by—or rather as she would have been done by—to allow them to meet when they could. It was the Curtises who were her relations, not my Lady; and she had a little natural opposition in her mind to Lucy’s mother, who was understood to have little admiration for the Rector. “I hope you will not mind, my love, butpoor Bertie is coming to lunch,” she said, in deprecating tones on this particular “parish day.”
“Why do you say poor Bertie? I don’t think he considers himself poor,” said Lucy, half annoyed.
“Ah, my dear, he does not get everything he wishes for any more than the rest of us in this world,” Cousin Julia replied; and to such a very natural and likely fact what could anyone say?
BERTIE came to luncheon; and he had things his own way with Cousin Julia, much more than he ever had at the Hall—especially when Mr. Rolt was absent, Mr. Hubert Curtis was permitted to lay down the law. On ordinary occasions he was in the habit of saying that all these shows of interference with the public-house were a piece of womanish nonsense, and did no good, and that the public-house had its place in society, as well as any other institution. But Lucy, being known to entertain strong opinions on this point, the Rector modified his views, or at least the expression of them, when she was present. Sometimes, however, his indiscreet speeches during his absencewere brought home to him, even by Cousin Julia’s misdirected zeal and desire to show him at his cleverest.
“Tell Lucy what you were saying about interfering with the people’s liberty,” she said. “I thought it was very clever, Bertie. I should like Lucy to know your way of thinking.” At this Lucy pricked up her ears, and prepared for battle.
“It was nothing,” said the Rector, confused, and giving his simple patroness a murderous look. “Lucy knows that I don’t go so far as she does in using the influence which our position gives us.”
“Is it about the ‘Curtis Arms’?” said Lucy. “I know I would take away the license to-morrow, if I was papa.”
“But, my dearest, your papa must know best. Bertie can tell you a great deal better than I can; but he says it is a pity to force the people even to do what is good.”
“Perhaps,” said Lucy, tossing back her small head and preparing for the contest. “But I should risk it. Let me force them to do right, if you call it forcing, and let Bertie leave them to take their ownway—and just see at the end of six months which would be the most satisfactory. If Bertie,” said the young parish potentate relapsing into calm, and with a certainty which had some gentle scorn in it, “had worked in the parish as long as I have done—”
“One would think that had been a hundred years,” said the Rector, “and I yield to Lucy’s experience, Cousin Julia. Besides, nothing that I should do, as you very well know, would interfere with Lucy. To us the legal means of maintaining order, is by keeping up authority without interfering with freedom; but let her interfere with freedom as much as she pleases. Don’t I know that there is not a man in the parish who does not like to be bullied by Miss Lucy?—not one that I know of,” said the Rector with a little gentle emphasis. He meant to infer that he too was ready to be bullied, with that granting of all feminine eccentricities of influence, which is the gentlemanly way of letting women know that they have no real right to interfere.
“I did not think I bullied anyone,” said Lucy, reddening. Perhaps she deserved this for her implied superiority over the Rector in knowledge of the parish. But Mrs. Rolt here saw the mistake she had made, and rushed to the rescue.
“Dear, no. Bertie never thought so, my love. He is always saying what an influence you have, and always so beautifully employed. You must never live anywhere but in the country, Lucy. You could not have your poor people in a town, and you would miss them dreadfully. It gives one so many things to think of. And, Bertie, talking of things to think of, tell us about our new neighbours. You were talking to them yesterday, I heard from Fanny’s mother. And Lucy is like myself, she is dying to know.”
“You mean the ladies at the Wren Cottage? Yes, I saw them yesterday,” said Bertie; but he showed no disposition to say more.
“Tell Lucy about them. She has not seen them. And which is Mrs. Arthur—the tall one, or the little one? and is shea widow? and if she is not a widow, is her husband coming, or where is he? and what put it into her head to come to Oakley? Lucy is quite interested from what I told her; and she wants to know—”
“You must wait till I have mastered your questions before I can reply. Is it the tall one or the little one who is Mrs. Arthur? the tall one, I think. Is she a widow? I can’t tell. She wears an odd sort of dress.”
“It is more like a Sister’s dress than a widow’s. I know she wears a peculiar dress, Bertie. You need not tell me that. But you have talked to her—”
“Could I ask her if she was a widow? and if not, when her husband was coming, and why she came to Oakley? I can’t interrogate new parishioners like that; and only a lady can find out such things. I don’t know anything about them,” said the Rector hastily. Evidently he had no wish to talk of them; and Lucy, looking at him keenly, set down this reluctance as a proof that he knew more than he said. This however was not at all the case. TheRector did not choose to speak of the new-comers, because he felt more interest in them than it was perhaps quite right to feel. He admired “the tall one” very much, and would have been rather glad to make sure that she was a widow. But, on the other hand, he did not want Lucy to suspect this, or to take the idea into her head that Mrs. Arthur was the object of his admiration. Was not Lucy herself his chief object? And if he could win her, it would be of very little importance about Mrs. Arthur. But in the meantime there seemed very little appearance of winning her, and Mrs. Arthur was interesting, and he had no desire to betray to Lucy that he found her so. In this, of course, the Rector was very foolish, for if there had been any chance of awaking Lucy to pique or jealousy, nothing could have been more to his advantage than that he should allow her to perceive his interest in the new inhabitants; but few men are wise enough for this, and Bertie, to his credit, be it said, had in such matters no wisdom at all.
He owed it, however, to the impressionmade upon her mind by his reticence, that he could tell more about these strangers if he would, that Lucy almost invited his attendance on part of her way home.
“I will walk with you as far as our paths lie together,” she said, as she met him at the door of her cookery school; and he turned with her, well content, though he had not intended to walk that way. Was Lucy coming round to a sense of his excellencies? he asked himself. It seemed “just like” one of the usual aggravating ways of Providence, that this should come, just as he began to feel a new interest stealing into his mind.
“Our paths lie together, as far as you will permit,” he said, tempering however the largeness of this speech by a prudent limit. “I should like nothing better than to walk up the avenue with you this beautiful afternoon.”
“Oh no, don’t take that trouble;” said Lucy. She wanted to question him, but she did not want so much of him as that; while on the other hand, he, though conscious of the rising of a new interest, wouldon no account have done anything to spoil his chance with Lucy, had she shown the slightest appearance of turning favourable eyes on him. Whatever divergencies of sentiment there might be, Bertie knew well, without any foolishness, which was the right thing to do.
“How good of you to take so much pains with all these children,” he said. “Will they be really the better for it, I wonder? The cooking looked very nice; but will their fathers’ dinners be the better?”
“Their fathers are prejudiced—and perhaps their mothers too. It is their husbands and their mistresses who will be the better. We must always consent to lose a generation,” said Lucy, with youthful prudence. And he smiled. It was, perhaps, scarcely possible not to smile.
“Then if my uncle agreed with you,” he said, “and the rest of us—the girls who are learning to broil and stew in your schools would make nice dinners for the boys, who never would have been allowed to have a glass of beer in the ‘CurtisArms,’ and then the old generation once swept away, all would go well.”
“Why not?” said Lucy; “but I do not wish to touch the old generation, if not for good, certainly not for evil. I would not sweep them away, but I don’t hope to do much with them. Even the like of you and me,” she said, with meaning, “though we are not old yet, are too old to take up with a new order of things. But, Cousin Bertie, it was something else I meant to say to you. I am not in a flutter of curiosity, like poor dear old Julia; but—you know something more about these ladies, I could see, than what you told us, at least.”
“These ladies! what ladies?” he cried, a little confused by the question.
“The new people—at Wren Cottage; Mrs.—Arthur, I think you call her.”
“Oh!” he said, then made a little pause again, confirming all Lucy’s suspicions, “indeed I don’t know anything about them, more than I told you; why should I? I don’t suppose there is anything to know—and if there is why should I conceal it from you?”
But in his tone and in his look, there was such a distinct intention of holding back something that Lucy was more certain of it than ever.
“Yes,” she said, “why should you—from me? I felt there was something; if there is a mystery about them, surely, Bertie, I am the best person to confide it to. I think I have a right to know.”
What could she mean? did she mean that there being a secret understanding between them, any “new interest” on his part ought to be confided to her? The Rector was profoundly puzzled. He had never said anything to Lucy, nor Lucy to him, to warrant such a pretension as this.
“Of course,” he said, faltering, “you know that you are the first person I would confide in—if there was anything to confide. The idea that you care to know is too sweet to me, Lucy.”
She looked him full in the face; asking in her turn, what did he mean? sweet to him, why should it be sweet to him? What was there in her question to givehim this flattered yet confused look? She regarded him very gravely with inquiring steady eyes.
“I think you must fail to understand my question,” she said. “And of course I can’t help being anxious. Tell me; there can be no possible reason,” she added, with some impatience, “why you should not tellme!”
But there was something so comical in the perplexity which succeeded that expression of happy vanity in his face, that Lucy laughed out.
“I don’t believe, after all, you have anything to tell,” she said.
“Not I—not a scrap of anything; what could I have to tell? what could they be to me? I have eyes only for one,” said the Rector, still somewhat confused, and taking rather awkward advantage of the opportunity. They were just then approaching the gate, and Lucy gave her head that little toss of impatience which he was acquainted with, perceiving, with some anger, her mistake.
“Here we are at the end of our jointroad,” she said, abruptly; “thank you for carrying my basket so far, Bertie. Oh no, I prefer to carry it myself. I cannot indeed let you take any further trouble. Good morning. Papa expects you to-morrow, I believe.”
“But that need not hinder me from coming now.”
“Oh no, not at all, if you have any object in coming; but papa will be out, and you must not take any more trouble for me—Good-bye!” she said, abruptly, waving her hand to him. He had nothing to do but to acquiesce. He turned back, feeling that he had not come off well in the encounter—what did she mean? She was a troublesome squire’s daughter as ever young Rector was plagued with. She knew the parish better than he did, and took her own way in it, indifferent to his advice. She would not be guided, directed, nor made to see that he was the first person to be considered. And she would not be made love to—nor even receive compliments—much less consent that to settle down along with him in the Rectory,bringing with her all that Sir John could keep back from rebellious Arthur, was the natural arrangement. And, this being the case, if a “new interest” did enter his mind, why in the name of everything that was mysterious should she have a right to know it, and be the natural person to confide it to? He was more mystified and puzzled than words could say.
As for Lucy, she went on with a little tingling in her cheeks, feeling that she had made a mistake, but not clear as to what the mistake was. Could he think that it mattered to her whether he had eyes for one or half-a-dozen? what were his eyes to her? But still though she did not see how what he said could bear upon the subject, there was certainly a little confusion about Bertie; he knew something about Mrs. Arthur, if not what she, with so much excitement, permitted herself to suspect. It was a lovely October evening, with a sunset coming on which blazed behind the woods. The sunset is, perhaps, the one only scenic representation of which we are never tired. Lucy went on looking atit, lost in the beauty of it, as if she had never seen one before. There was a deep band of crimson round the lower horizon, all broken as it was with masses of trees, and rosy clouds flung about to all the airs stained into every gradation of red, till the colour melted in an ethereal blush upon the blue. And between the crimson below, and the rose tints above, how the very sky itself changed into magical tones of green, and faint lights of yellow, far too visionary to be called by such vulgar names. She went on slowly, her face turned towards it, and illuminated by the light. “Beginning to sink in the light he loves on a bed of daffodil sky,” she was saying to herself. At such moments there are thoughts which will intrude even into the peacefullest soul, thoughts of some one absent—of something lost—if there should happen to be anything lost or absent in our lives: and even with those who are altogether happy, a sweet pretence at unhappiness will invade the heart; the hour which turns the traveller’s desire homeward that day when he has bidden sweetfriends farewell. All this was in Lucy’s head, and in her heart, and she forgot what she had been so curious about only a few minutes before.
A path struck from the avenue across the Park, not much beyond the gate. Some sound of crackling twigs under passing footsteps disturbed her with the moisture, scarcely to be called tears, standing in her eyes. She half turned her head, and saw two figures against the light, one taller, the other shorter—figures unknown to her who knew everybody. Without intending it, Lucy made a half pause of suspicion, which looked almost like a question—though that was quite unintended too, for it was a thoroughfare, and she had neither the wish nor the right to interfere with anyone who might be there. The strangers had long wreaths of the wild clematis flowered out, with its great downy seedpods, and some clusters of scarlet and yellow leaves in their hands. They made a little alarmed pause too, and there was a kind of stumbling retreat backwards, and a momentary consultation. Lucy went on, but in amoment more, paused again, at the sound of some one pattering after her over the carpet of fallen leaves.
“Oh! if you please—”
Lucy turned round. It was a comely young woman who stood before her, in mourning, a little flush upon her face, her breath coming quick with the running. She was little and plump, a kind, good-tempered, homely little person, with good sense in her face.
“I hope we are not trespassing. I hope if we were trespassing you will forgive us, please, for we did not mean it. We are strangers here. All this is rubbish,” she said, looking down upon the leaves in her hands; “not even flowers. We thought it was no harm to pick them; they took my sister’s fancy, they were so bright-coloured. I hope we have done nothing wrong.”
The English was good enough, the h’s faint, yet not markedly absent; but the voice was not the voice of a lady; this Lucy divined at once.
“The road is free to everyone,” shesaid; “you are not trespassing; and you are quite welcome to the leaves. They are beautiful; you have very good taste to like them—but of course they are of no use.”
“Oh, they are of no use;” said the little woman, “it is my sister. She draws them sometimes. Indeed she paints them quite nicely, as like as possible. She takes such great pains.”
“Is she an artist?” said Lucy. It seemed necessary to say something, for the stranger with her good-humoured face stood still expecting a reply.
“Oh, no; she does not require to do anything. She does it for her pleasure. She has a great deal of education—now.” This was said with a look of some alarm behind her. Lucy turned and looked too; the other taller figure in sombre black garments had already reached the gate.
“It must be you who have come to the Wren Cottage,” she said; “everyone is known and talked about in a village; is it you that are Mrs. Arthur, or the other lady? I will come and see you, if you will allow me, on my next parish day.”
“O-oh!” the plump young woman gave a startled cry. “My sister is not seeing anybody.” Then her countenance recovered a little, and she said, “But I shall be glad—very glad to see you. Of course if she wishes to shut herself up, she can go upstairs.”
“I should not like to intrude upon anyone,” said Lucy, with a smile. She was a princess in her own kingdom, and no one could affront her. The idea indeed amused rather than offended her, thatshecould be supposed to intrude upon anyone in Oakley. The notion was delightfully absurd.
“Not intrude—oh, dear no, not intrude; but she has had a deal of trouble,” said the stranger, “a great deal of trouble; if she could be persuaded to see—anyone, it would do her good.”
“I will come,” said Lucy, with a friendly nod. She did not require to stand upon any ceremony with this homely little person; “and in the meantime the road across the Park is quite free. Good day,” she said, smiling. All other fancies flew away out of her mind at the sight of thisrational common-place little person. She was not vulgar, certainly not vulgar, for there was no pretension in her; but certainly not in the least like——. Lucy had seen the Bateses, the family of Arthur’s wife; she had seen Sarah Jane in her cheap finery, and the mother in her big bonnet and shawl. Nothing could be more unlike them than this sensible little person in her plain neat mourning dress. She had seen them but for a few minutes, it is true; but the recollection of florid beauty, of flowers and ribbons, and flimsy fine dresses, and boisterous manners of the free and easy kind was strong upon her; and this little woman was quite sensible and simple. What fantastic notions people take into their heads! there was evidently no mystery or difficulty here, she said to herself smiling, as nodding again to the new-comer, she resumed her walk at a quicker pace, and made her way henceforth undisturbed to the Hall.
“WHY did you speak to her? why didn’t you just make our excuses and come on?” said the younger to the elder. “I thought you would never be done talking.”
“I wanted to see her; I wanted to make out what kind of girl she was; and I will tell you this, she is a nice girl. No more stuck up than I am. A nice, smiling, pleasant girl, not a bit proud; not half nor a quarter so proud as you are, Nancy.”
“H-hush!Don’t call me by that name. Can’t you understand that is the only name they know? Call me Anna, and it will not matter; they would never think of that in connection with me.”
“Why should they think anything aboutyou?” said Matilda. “A young lady like Miss Curtis, why should she trouble her head with new people coming into the village? Or what would make her think of you? You know the reason why you came here, because it was the very last place Arthur would think of looking for you; though, indeed, he has not troubled you much with looking for you,” she added in a lower voice.
“You are very unfeeling,” said Nancy, with a quiver on her lip.
For it would be in vain to attempt to delude the reader into the idea that this tall young lady in mourning who had taken the Wren Cottage, and was called Mrs. Arthur, was anybody but Nancy. Her disguise was transparent, indeed, to anyone whose suspicions had ever been awakened, and the very transparence of her disguise was part of the character of the girl, who had suffered a great deal indeed, and learned something, but who was still herself at bottom, notwithstanding the progress she had made. She had made a great deal of progress. She had readnumbers of very heavy, very solid books, and could have passed an examination on various abstruse subjects which never could be of the slightest service to her. How was the poor girl to know? She was aware that reading books was the way to be educated, and she was too proud to be guided by anybody who knew better than she did. She had devoured a great deal of poetry, and many novels as well; though these she was rather ashamed of. But she knew that it must be right to work through the Encyclopædia, and to read history, and Locke upon the Human Understanding, and other volumes of solid reputation. No doubt they did her good, more or less, and the very effort to read them did her good. And she knew now all about those things which had puzzled her so much at Paris; about the Queen who was murdered, and the people whose heads were cut off; and had gone over all the collections of pictures open in London, and knew now, at least, the names of the painters with whom people are generally enraptured. Her mistakes in the old days thus gave her acertain enlightenment, revealing to her certain points on which she was very ignorant, and which it was right to know; but beyond these limits Nancy had not much information as to what was wanted for the education of a lady, and stumbled along in the dark, though with the best will in the world. But the occupation which this gave her was of the utmost importance to her, and had softened and consolidated her whole moral being. Further, she had tried music, which comes into the most elementary conception of a lady’s training, but had found this very hard work, neither her fingers nor her patience being equal to the strain upon them; but she had managed better with drawing, and had made a great many elaborate pencil copies, and some in chalk, which Matilda thought beautiful. When her father and mother both died, it was impossible to keep her longer in Underhayes. No one had any longer the smallest control over her. Matilda, though she was sensible, had never taken any lead in the family, and though she criticised, always obeyed the more potent impulse ofher younger sister. Nancy had been as impulsive and imprudent in her present action as in all the previous movements of her life. She had given up her income from Arthur without telling anyone, to the great dismay of her sisters. “What are you to live on?” they had both cried, with horror and alarm. But Nancy was not to be talked to then more than at other periods. She had informed them that she meant to live on her own little infinitesimal fortune, the two hundred and fifty pounds her aunt had left her; and in answer to all their representations that this would last a very short time, she would deign no reply. She had determined to do it, and that was enough—as she had determined to do other foolish things. Matilda had come with her in the spirit of a martyr. “We must do something to make our own living when she has spent it all,” Matilda said; “and I won’t forsake her.” Thus Nancy carried out her foolish intention. She was independent for the moment, obliged to nobody, whatever might happen to-morrow or next year. Two hundred and fiftypounds seems a large sum to the inexperienced. And as to the reason why she came to Oakley, it would have been still more difficult to tell that. Because it was the last place in the world where Arthur would be likely to find her, she said. Was it not rather because when Arthur came to find her (as she had no doubt he would as soon as he heard “what had happened,”) she would not permit herself to be found at Underhayes, yet would not either put herself out of his way? However, Nancy did not herself know what she meant upon this point. A great many confused and inarticulate feelings were in her mind. Her heart yearned towards her husband, whom she had loved in her way. Only when she had driven him from her had she realized how much he was to her; and though far too proud to make any overtures of reconciliation, all her forlorn studies, her foolish self-trainings had been one long silent overture, had anybody known. And now to come to the neighbourhood of his home, to hear of him, to see the people whom she had stigmatized so often as fine folks (how the educated Nancy blushed now at such a vulgar expression!) seemed the greatest attraction in the world to her. She would not put herself in the way of being noticed by them, but she would not, on the other hand, make any violent effort to keep out of their way; and there was something that pleased her fantastic condition of mind in the mere idea of living there, unknown, yet not too carefully concealed, indifferent as to whether she was found out or not; unrevealed, yet not disguised. She would not change her name. She was Mrs. Arthur, and there she would stay as Mrs. Arthur. If she were discovered she was harming no one. She had a right to live there if she pleased. Thus half in longing, half in defiance, Nancy took up her abode in the little cottage called, nobody knew why, the Wren Cottage, probably because it was not much bigger than a wren’s nest. Perhaps it had not occurred to her how much discussion would be raised in the tranquil little village by her arrival as a stranger; perhaps she did not carewhether she was talked of or not. Indeed, she did not think on the subject, but only wondered with all her mind whether they would find her out, whether they would not find her out, what they would think of her? but never asked herself, as Matilda said, why they should think of her at all. This, it was to be feared, was not at all a thing desirable to Nancy. That they should inquire about her, wonder who she was, suspect her, recognize her, these were the things she preferred to imagine, and which it pleased her to brood over. Lucy had seen her, and very likely would recognize her. She was sure she would recognize Lucy wherever she might see her. It was exciting to meet her in the avenue as they approached, and Nancy had a secret pleasure in sending Matilda to apologize and explain, although she was quite well aware that the thoroughfare was a public one, and that nobody could interfere with their movements. Though she would not let Matilda see it, she was trembling with suppressed excitement when her sister rejoined her. Nothing couldhappen in consequence of such a meeting; Lucy could not have divined who she was by the distant vision of her figure against the light, or through Matilda, whom she had never seen; but yet the wilful headstrong girl, who had resisted so much, trembled at this chance encounter. She went back to the Wren Cottage afterwards, excited and tingling all over; yet feeling a blankness in the air as if all the colour and expectation had passed away.
The Wren Cottage was very small. The door opened direct into the sitting-room without any passage or antechamber. Nancy of two years ago would have thought it very common, but Nancy of to-day, knowing a little about Art, in respect to modern dwelling-places, supposed it must be “quaint,” and called it so. A wooden staircase led up into the bedrooms. There was a deep recessed window at the side which gave a little more pretension to the room, and commanded the road as far as the Hall gates, and some small portion of the avenue. Here Nancy had ranged her books in thewindow sill. They were of a very heterogeneous description. There was a French book, something about the revolution, which she was reading “for practice,” and there was a philosophical work which she read—because she thought that was the right thing to do; but a little of it went a long way. Thus the few volumes which she liked made an imperfect balance with a great many which she did not like, but worked at conscientiously, as understood to be the proper means for her purpose. Her present solid study was of the most heterodox character, and might have compromised Nancy’s “soundness” in doctrine, had there been any critic here apt to judge; and might have confused her own brain, poor girl, had she paid any attention to it. But she used the book just as she used a chair—the one was to read, the other to sit down in; and Nancy did not trouble her mind about the one more than about the other. Besides these studies, there was a large cartoon in chalk hung up against the side of the window, which she was copying so carefully that it made one’s fingers acheto see. When she came in from her walk, however, Nancy put down her podded clematis, and all the autumnal leaves in her hands, upon the window sill, and arranged them somewhat mechanically, yet with a certain grace, upon a large sheet of paper, where she partly traced, partly drew them as they lay. This was her fancy—and she thought it very frivolous and childish; not at all a thing that had to do with the formation of the character, like the cartoon in chalk.
While Nancy settled her wreath to her satisfaction, Matilda made the tea. They had carpeted the little room with a common carpet all of one colour, ornamented with a narrow border. Among Nancy’s books there had been some which treated this question, and she had given to it a solemnity of consideration which might have satisfied the most severe critic. The little table in the middle of the room had a cover to correspond; the stairs had the same red carpeting, and there were similar curtains at the broad lattice window looking out to the street. This was but anelementary stage of decoration, but how important it seemed in Nancy’s eyes! as important as Queen Marie Antoinette and the fact, which she had learned so painfully, that old pictures were generally considered better than new ones. She was ashamed of herself as she painted her leaves very rapidly, and with a blush on her face, thinking it mere childishness, and when she read a novel, or even a new poem. But to keep Matilda from placing the chairs against the walls, and to keep the same colour in all the accessories of the room, that was serious. It was one of her proofs that she was becoming a real lady, and was no longer ignorant, fond of everything new and gaudy, as she had been, alas! when Arthur was with her; everything was changed and mended now. The tea went rather against Nancy’s notions of what she ought to be doing in her present state of self-culture. She ought to be preparing for dinner. But then there were practical considerations which told against theory here. Fanny, the little maid, came only in the morning and “late dinner,” that distinguishingfeature in the life of “the gentry,” would required cooking before it was eaten; and they both preferred tea; and it was much cheaper, and caused less trouble; and, lastly, no one visited them to see that they did not dine. Nancy was not indisposed to call the dinner luncheon that day the Rector had called.
As it was she sat down to her bread and butter with sufficient content. She had a great deal to do, and notwithstanding her precarious condition, separated from her husband, without an income, and living upon her little capital, she was not unhappy. She was too busy to be unhappy. She had been quite unfit to be Arthur’s companion when they were together; and there was so much to do to qualify herself for that post. But when the Curtises saw that she could draw so well, and that her room was so artistic, and that she had read so many books, what could they think but that she was truly a lady? And Arthur would come home for her, and all would be well. These hopes were in her mind as she read, and as she drew.She was occupied, and there was hope in her, and no one to cross her. Accordingly Nancy was not unhappy.
“I shouldn’t wonder at all if Miss Curtis was to call—she said something about it. Will you see her, or will you not see her? I said I was not sure you would like it.”
“Matilda, that was rude!”
“Nothing of the sort—what could I say? I couldn’t tell her, Nancy don’t want to be seen.”
“Don’t call me Nancy, please!”
“Well, Anna then—but I never can recollect. I said I didn’t know if you would like it—but anyhow you could go upstairs if you didn’t like it.”
“She must think me a pretty bear. She did not ask you—what your sister’s name was, nor where she came from, nor—anything about her?”
“Not a word. Why should she? You didn’t show at all; when you are seen you are a deal more interesting than me, I don’t deny it.”
“Please!” said Nancy clasping her hands, “don’t say ‘a deal,’ and ‘more interesting than me.’”
“What should I say,” said the good-humoured Matilda; “it is a good thing I am not nervous. When she comes, you can run upstairs. You can listen over the banisters, and hear all she is saying; and if you like her talk, you can come down next time. After all, Nancy, if you had not imagined that we would see them, why should we have come here?”
“But she will know me,” said Nancy, “she saw me once—”
“On your wedding day! You don’t think you are a bit like the same person in that funny stiff little cap, and white collar, as you were in your wedding dress with your veil? I don’t think Arthur himself would know you,” said her sister frankly. Nancy winced at this, in spite of herself. She did not want to be so changed as this. That she might be changed a little, that there might be a difficulty in recognising her, and a sense of mystery exciting their curiosity before they found her out—that would be nothing but pleasant; but to be so unlike herself as not to be recognised, even by Arthur, was not in her thoughts.
It was Matilda’s part to put the tea away, as it had been hers to make it. There was no question between them of their different positions. Matilda yielded to Nancy all that the other could require. It was not hers, heaven forbid it, to read these big books, to think so much about everything, to take such trouble to learn drawing, and to understand the arrangements of a room. But she liked getting the tea, and putting the things away, though she was apt to make Nancy angry by setting the chairs straight against the wall. And then they sat at the table with the lamp between them, Matilda with her needlework, Nancy reading her French for practice. Perhaps in her heart the elder sister might be sighing for the friendliness of Underhayes, where she could steal out in the evening and go through the blazing gas in Raisins’ shop, into the comfortable little parlour, to have a chat with Sarah Jane; but on the whole they were not at all unhappy; all the energies of Nancy’s active mind were fixed upon her French. She could now, she thought, understandvery well all that was said to her, if ever she went to France again; and understand the plays, and know what everything was about. Thus she revolved in her narrow circle, preparing for those contingencies which had once happened, and still hopeful that they were the same which would happen again.
But Nancy was taking a little rest from her occupations, painting again her tangled wreath of autumn leaves, but rather disposed to throw something over it, perhaps one of those wretched antimacassars, which proved her (though she did not know it) to be still in the land of bondage—for even Matilda, who entertained a profound admiration for the chalk cartoon, considered the other rubbish—when next morning there came a soft knock to the front door. Matilda opened it so quickly that her sister had neither time to disappear nor even to conceal her occupation, when Mrs. Rolt’s pleasant middle-aged face appeared at the door.
“I am Mrs. Rolt, a very near neighbour. May I come in and see Mrs. Arthur,if she is at home?” said Cousin Julia. Her soft eyes were quite keen with curiosity. She glanced to the very background of the picture, the depth of the recess in which Nancy stood, with her pencils in her hand. Her figure looked taller than it was in the long clinging black gown; and the little close cap of transparent net on her head, looked like a piece of conventual costume; and she wore a jet cross at her neck, which increased this effect. Mrs. Rolt thought she was like the mysterious lady in a novel with an interesting secret. She looked at Nancy, though Matilda stood so much the nearest. “I don’t even know which is Mrs. Arthur,” she said, with one of her ingratiating smiles. Nancy came forward, laying down the pencils. She made a nondescript kind of salutation, half bow, half curtsey, to the stranger. It was awkward and shy, but it was not ungraceful. Matilda only smiled cordially, which answered the purpose quite as well, it must be allowed; but there was no likelihood that Matilda would ever be anambassador’s wife, called upon by her duty to be solemnly civil to all the world. “I am so glad to make your acquaintance,” said Mrs. Rolt; “I daresay you see me sometimes, as I see you. I have often and often looked across; and I should have called, but I was afraid you might think I was intruding. However, being told yesterday—that is Miss Curtis, whom you are sure to have heard of, told me that I ought to come; and I was very glad to hear her say so. Have you met any of the Curtises, Mrs. Arthur? They are, as of course you know, the chief people here.”
“I have met—one of the family; long ago;” said Nancy, trembling as she said it. But she could not restrain herself, for she suddenly felt that she must hear of Arthur or die.
“Have you indeed? I wonder what one that would be. I should not wonder if it were Arthur—Arthur is the one that has been most in the world. And oh, such a sad fate for him, poor fellow! He married some common girl or other—Idon’t mean to say anything against her character, you know; but she was not a lady. And after a while he had to separate from her. Such a sad business! and poor dear Arthur was the nicest boy, poor fellow! I suppose you must have met him in London. How interested poor dear Lady Curtis will be.”
“Oh, don’t say I met him!” cried Nancy, whose cheeks were burning. “It—might not be the same; it might be a mistake. Was he—not happy—with his wife?”
Matilda got behind Mrs. Rolt, and made a warning sign to her sister. Nancy’s eyes were blazing, her face suffused with crimson. Any spectator less placid and unobservant would have fathomed her secret at once.
“Oh, poor fellow! he was dreadfully in love with her, I believe, as young men so often are when they marry out of their own station; but they separated, you know, so I suppose they can’t have been happy. We expected them down here, and all sorts of preparations weremade, and dear Lady Curtis so much excited. And then all at once everything was countermanded, and poor Arthur came down by himself, looking very wretched, poor fellow! I wonder often if they will ever come together again. It seems such a pity—a young man with everything before him! But, of course, this puts a stop to his life; what can he do? cut off from everything! For people don’t care to encourage in society an attractive young man like that who is married, and yet isn’t married, as it were. Ah!” said Mrs. Rolt, drawing a long breath; “how I run on! As if you, who are strangers to the place, could be as interested about the Curtises as we are. It is very good of you to listen, I am sure.”
NANCY’S agitation after this interview with Mrs. Rolt was great. It had never occurred to her before, to think of the feelings which might legitimately affect Arthur’s family and friends in respect to her marriage. That they “looked down upon” her—despised her as a poor girl, sneered at her as not a lady, was comprehensible enough, and woke her to a wild defiance. It was this that roused the principle that she was “as good as they were” in her undisciplined bosom, and led to all the subsequent woes. But when she heard thus simply what was the state of feeling on the other side, and especially the lamentation over Arthur’s spoiled life with which Mrs. Rolt had concluded,Nancy’s heart, which had been tremulously confident, began to sink. If this was how it was—and of course this must be how it was—could he forgive her for having by her perversity doomed him to such a fate? She had thought of him often jealously as “enjoying himself” in the unknown society of which she knew nothing; but it had never occurred to her that Arthur was in a false position in that society, a married man, yet not a married man; better off, no doubt, than a woman in the same position, yet but poorly off, all the same; looked upon doubtfully, not belonging to one class or another. Was this what she had sentenced him to? Had she been reasonable, had she come with him when Lady Curtis had made all those preparations for her reception, all this might have been avoided. It gave her a strange thrill to think that Lady Curtis, who was now so near her, had made preparations to receive her, and had even herself been agitated by the thought of meeting her son’s wife.
“If I went now and told her, whatwould she say?” Nancy asked herself. That would be entirely different. Arthur’s wife formerly had a right to everything. Arthur’s wife now, what had she a right to? nothing but the dislike and opposition of Arthur’s family. She was a stranger to them—an enemy!
“If it takes effect on you like this, just to see one that knows them, even though she don’t belong to them,” said Matilda, “what will they do to you if they come themselves? and that young lady said she would come herself—and oh! hasn’t she got quick eyes? she’ll read you all through and through in a moment.”
“Let me alone,” said Nancy; “do you think I care who comes? I have more control over myself than you think.”
“I’d like to see some more signs of it,” said Matilda; “I thought you had mended of your silly ways; but here you are again, walking up and down and rampaging as bad as you were at home. If this is all to begin over again at the first mention of Arthur, whatever in all the world did you leave Arthur for?”
“Because I was mad, I think;” said Nancy.
“Well, that was always my opinion. Your husband, a nice well-dispositioned young man, that would have done anything to please you! and all for us at home, that were fond of you to be sure; but didn’t want you very much, Nancy.”
“You are cruel, very cruel, to tell me so,” cried Nancy, “to tell me now!”
“Well, now is the only time I could have told you,” said Matilda, composedly. “I wouldn’t have said it then to hurt your feelings; but you can’t blame poor old father and mother now, and it is quite true. When a daughter has married and gone off with a husband, who wants her back again at home? But nobody would be unkind and hurt your feelings; and now you hear the same from the other side. When married folks are separated, what can anyone think but that there’s something wrong? on one side or on the other side, it’s all one. But between you there’s nothing wrong, only your tempers—only your temper, Nancy, I should say, forArthur, I will say that for him, always stood a deal more than he ought to have stood, a deal more than I’d have stood in his place.”
Nancy made no reply. She retreated into her recessed window, and put down her head into her hands among all the “rubbish” of autumn leaves which Matilda was so severe upon, and cried. It was all true. So long as her father and mother lived, there had been a kind of anchor to her wayward soul in the thought that Arthur and his family had slighted and condemned them, whom she was bound to defend and vindicate; and this gave a certain reason and excuse for her own conduct, which of itself did not bear any cooler examination. Her books, from which she had acquired such strange bits of heterogeneous information, had not guided her much in the way of thought; but to be at a distance from any exciting period of individual history is of itself sufficient to throw a cold gleam of uncomfortable light upon it, light which we would in most cases elude if we could. Nancyhad eluded it by impulsive action after the change which had compelled her to think, the two deaths which threw her, as it were, adrift upon the world. She had rushed at one thing and another, given up her allowance, resigned her villa, removed here, without leaving herself much time to consider; but now the retarded moment could be held off no longer, and she was obliged to think. There was not much that was satisfactory in the retrospect. Was it possible that they had not wanted her at home? and that she had spoiled Arthur’s life as well as her own? For what? She could not tell. Because his family “looked down upon her,” because he objected to live in Underhayes, because she was foolish, hot-headed, unreasonable. And now what prospect was there that the husband whom she had thus slighted, and his family whom she had defied and wounded through him, would be ready to forgive, to take her into favour? A temporary despair came over Nancy. The first time that an impetuous young mind sees its own faults, and thoroughly disapproves of itself, what amoment that is! Reproof of others most generally brings with it an impulse of self-defence which defeats self-judgment; but when first, in the silence, unaccused of any one, the soul rises up and judges itself, what a pang is there in the always tardy conviction—too late, perhaps, late always, after suffering and making to suffer, distracted in the best cases with the desperate question whether there may still be a place of repentance. Matilda, sitting calmly at her needlework, had not the least idea what passionate despairings were in Nancy’s mind as she sat there and cried. What was to become of her? The elder sister had been anxious enough over that question when Nancy was so foolish as to give up her allowance. Matilda herself had settled to join Charley in New Zealand, where useful young women like herself were, she knew, wanted, as men’s wives, and in other domestic capacities; but she would not forsake her foolish sister—and now Matilda awaited with sufficient composure the solution of the question, what was to become of them? If, when theirtransparent secret was found out, the Curtises showed themselves willing to take charge of Arthur’s wife, Matilda intended to give her so very distinct a piece of her mind that there could no longer be any possibility of self-deception on the part of Nancy; and to lay before her then and there the option of return to her duties or immediate emigration; but, in the meantime, until this crisis arrived, the sensible Matilda could wait. She was working quietly at her own outfit for New Zealand at this very moment, while Nancy studied her books, or drew, or “played” with the “rubbish” which littered the room. Matilda, like most people, had a respect for education, and perhaps there might be good in all that; but while this fantastic, undirected preparation for something, she could not tell what, was going on with Nancy, Matilda made those matter-of-fact preparations which can never be without their use. She made her chemises for the voyage while the other tried to make herself “a lady.” The one attempt might fail, but not the other; and thus she worked onsteadily, altogether unconscious of the wild surgings of despair and self-condemnation in Nancy’s mind. Matilda did not know what these sentiments were. She herself had always done her duty, and as for Nancy, she had been very silly, and there was an end of it. If she persevered in being silly, Matilda had fully settled within herself that she would take the command of affairs, and bring the fantastic young woman to her senses, by giving her at least a piece of her mind.
Things went on in this way for a week or two after Mrs. Rolt’s visit; nothing further occurred to disturb the sisters in their stillness, and Nancy at least required the stimulation of some new thing. She got into despair about her reading, her conscientious pursuit of knowledge and accomplishments. If things were always to go on as now, what was the good? Every day she got up hoping that something might happen, some encounter that would quicken the blood in her veins; but nothing happened. It was rainy weather, and not even a hairbreadth escape of meeting Lucy,or any chance of being recognized—that danger which she professed to fear and secretly longed for—had ever happened. The village life was very dull and still, and the sisters had no natural distractions, no breaks upon the heaviness and monotony of the rainy autumn days. To Matilda, indeed, it was occupation enough to get on steadily with her chemises, and she even rejoiced in the quiet which permitted her to “get so much done.” But Nancy, even without the sense of uncertainty in her fate which made her restless, was not sufficiently placid of nature to have lived without break or change; and her whole scheme of living, artificial as it had been from the beginning, was disorganized and broken up. She had hoped everything at first, making a little romance of the story: how Arthur would come to seek her as soon as he knew of “what had happened;” how, failing to find her at Underhayes, he would rush everywhere to look for her, advertise for her, pursue her far and near; how he would come sadly home to tell his mother that his Nancy was lost for everand his heart broken; and then would find her, turning all trouble into joy. This was the fancy the foolish girl had cherished in her heart; but there was no sign or appearance that anything would come of it. On the contrary, she began to perceive something like the real state of affairs; she saw what she had brought upon her husband by her causeless abandonment of him, and something of the light in which her conduct must appear to others; and how could she be sure that he was now ready to pardon, ready to open his arms to her again? This thought disturbed all Nancy’s confidence in her progress, in her reading, her French, her beautifully shadedétude. What folly these labours would all turn to if he despised them, and had no interest in her improvement! It could do her no good to be a lady unless she was reconciled to Arthur; and what if to be reconciled was no longer Arthur’s desire?