“I am drawing something for LadyCurtis to work,” said Nancy, with some solemnity. “When I go into the house the first time, I shall take something with meto give her. I suppose you will say that is silly too, but I like to do it.Shethinks they are good for something. She was quite interested, you know. Did I tell you, Matilda, she called me, my dear?”
“Oh, yes, you told me, sure enough,” said Matilda, with a little impatience, “three times over;” and she got up to put away the seventh chemise along with the others. It was trimmed with her own work, nice little scallops worked in buttonhole stitch, with three holes in each curve, very neat and strong; and she was pleased, at once with the feeling of successful production and personal property. She gave the little heap another affectionate pat as she laid this one on the top. Seven new chemises, every stitch of which would bear inspection! Matilda felt that she had justification for a little pride. She did not sit down again to begin another, but put on the kettle, that it might come to the point of perfect boiling before she made the tea;and it was pleasant to see her moving about in the pleasant firelight, her substantial and round, but neat person, clothed in a black and white gown, her brown hair smooth and shining. Matilda was very particular about the due amount of crape on her Sunday dress, and you may be sure would not put off her mourning a day sooner than the most rigid rule allowed. But in the house, with all her little domestic occupations, she thought the black and white best. “For crape goes if you look at it, and black so soon gets rusty,” she said. It looked more natural, as well as more cheerful and pleasant that the fire should have something to brighten upon and throw ruddy tints over; and it was comfortable to see her make the tea. What a lucky New Zealander that man would be who got Matilda, with all her nicely trimmed chemises, for his wife!
But with Nancy, poor Nancy! it was altogether another affair. It is a rash thing to come out of the world in which you were born. She had done it unintentionally, vowing with vehement asserverations that nothing would change her. And how she had struggled against all poor Arthur’s attempts! how she had clung, as it were, with clutching of desperate hands to the fabric of her original home! Those very corrections which she made in Matilda’s honest diction, had she not hotly resented them, fiercely refused them when Arthur had tried to suggest them to herself? But all that was changed. Nancy had drifted away from her own world—drifted into his; if she clutched at anything now, it was not at her old ark, but at the slippery rocks and sands of the other hemisphere on which she had been cast ashore. Falling upon it in her first footing, she had secretly kissed the soil as conquering invaders have done to avert the evil omen. She belonged no longer to that old universe which had been buried with the father and mother, the last lingering traces of which were to be carried away in Matilda’s trunks along with her careful outfit; but the other world had not yet received the trembling unavowed neophyte. Even now, rather than be brought into it by any formal force, by sense of duty, by the necessity laid upon her husband and his family, or by their pity, or by anything that could be construed into either, Nancy would have kept her wild word, and rushed away into the distant wilds with her sister. Had there been a word, or thought, of “arrangement,” of negotiation, even of right on the other side to claim her, or of right on her side to a certain place as Arthur’s wife, no request, no persuasion would have induced Nancy to accept what was thus settled for her. She did not even know what she would accept as a solution of the difficulty—even Arthur, did he stand before holding out his arms to her, might by some chance glance, some inadvertent word, turn her from him instead of bringing her to him. Her mind was still high-fantastical, though changed in so many other ways. But all that had happened since she came to Oakley had chimed in with her humour. The advances she had made in knowledge of her husband’s surroundings, and in the favour of his family had been of a kind that pleased and flattered her. The Curtises had been aware of no reason for modifying their criticism of her, or pretending to a liking they did not feel; but they had all “taken to” Nancy; and Lady Curtis had called her “my dear!” How haughtily would she have rejected that expression of kindness had it been applied to Arthur’s wife in the old days; but as given to the young stranger at Oakley, whose looks and ways had attracted my Lady, it was sweet. Yes! she had attracted them, she herself, not anything outside of her. Lucy—Lucy, indeed, had made doubtful response; but Sir John had “raved about her,” and Lady Curtis called her my dear! These thoughts made Nancy’s countenance glow.
And the three intervening days passed quickly in the excitement that possessed her; everybody seemed to know that she was going to the Hall on Saturday. The Doctor’s wife, who had kept aloof “till she saw what other people were going to do,” called at the door in her husband’s phaeton, and left a stately card, which seemed to Matilda, when it was brought to her, much more impressive than Lady Curtis’s. And kind Mrs. Rolt ran over twice a day at least, and asked what she was going to wear. “If it is wet, Sam shall drive you there, before he goes to Oakenden,” she said. She was as fussy about it as if Lady Curtis had been the Queen; and, indeed, she was the Queen of the district, and made the laws for the neighbourhood.
“You will have everybody coming to see you now,” said Cousin Julia. “When Lady Curtis calls on anyone, everybody goes. Yes, it is silly perhaps; but then we think a great deal of Lady Curtis, my dear. She is very amiable, and so clever. Did you ever hear that she sometimes writes for the Reviews? She does indeed; and one must have real genius, you know, to do that; not like little bits of newspapers. And people must have some sort of rule—some will not call unless they have an introduction, and some will call on everybody. But wemake Lady Curtis our rule. If she goes, we all go.”
“You did not wait till Lady Curtis came,” said Nancy gratefully.
“Oh, no! I don’t think I could have done it. I fell in love with you the first time I saw you my dear. I told Lucy of it directly.Sopretty, I said, (as you are, though people don’t generally say it to your face like me), and quite a lady. ‘Then, of course you should call. I wonder you did not call instantly,’ said Lucy; and I did not lose much time, did I, Mrs. Arthur? Then, of course, I was dying to know who you were.”
“You are very—very kind; but how could you know who I am? I am nobody,” said Nancy with a smile; and then she added impulsively, “but I am so glad you thought me—a lady.” When these unadvised words were out of her mouth, Nancy changed colour, and grew defiant. But her horror at her own mistake was entirely turned away by Cousin Julia’s soft disposition, which was well fitted to be a buckler against wrath.
“As if there could be any doubt ofthat!” she said, “Lady Curtis says you have such pretty manners, and Sir John! Sir John is really not himself. He thought you must be young Seymour’s wife, whom I was telling you of, who made such an admirable marriage. He married one of the Glencoe family, quite a near relative of the Earl, the most unexceptionable delightful match. How we all thought of poor Arthur when young Seymour was married! But I told Sir John (now you must not be vain, my dear, but of course one must say what one thinks) I told Sir John you were a great deal prettier than Mrs. Henry Seymour; not quite so tall perhaps, butmuchprettier. What is the matter, my dear, you turn white and you turn red?”
Here Nancy confounded her sister, who was present, and bewildered herself, and won Mrs. Rolt’s tenderest sympathies by telling the merest simple truth. “When you speak of Arthur,” she said, “you make me think of my husband; and—I can’t help it!” she said, putting her head down on Cousin Julia’s kind shoulder and bursting into a passion of tears. Howtouched and interested and gratified that good woman was! She insisted on taking Nancy upstairs and making her lie down for a little. “You poor dear child!” she said, longing to ask a thousand questions, but heroically refraining; “but you must rest a little, and get back your pretty looks. You must not look pale to-morrow. I want you to look your best to-morrow.” But when she came down stairs again, it was not in human nature not to make an effort to get something out of Matilda. “She never said anything to me about her husband before,” said Mrs. Rolt. “It would do her good to talk a little, not to shut up everything in her own heart, poor dear. Is it long since?” she asked delicately. She did not know what it was, whether death or separation. The question had to be put vaguely, and Cousin Julia had a consciousness that she had put it in a very successful way.
“She will tell you herself,” said Matilda. “She does not like other people to talk about it,” and she opened the door with great alacrity that the visitor might go away.
ARTHUR went to Durant’s chambers again next morning, with a forlorn hope that something or other might have brought his friend back, without whom, it appeared to him, that he did not know what measures to take. Durant had held the keys of his fortune one way or another, and could guide him with the right thing to do, the right way to set about everything. He had never doubted that Durant would be in town, and would help him, and the first sensation in his mind was one of irritation mingled with disappointment. Of course, the only thing to be done, failing Durant, was to go to Underhayes, where he knew his friend had already gone without success. But what else was there to do, what other clew was there? At thegreat railway-station, where he got the train to Underhayes, it was his bad fortune to meet again with Denham, whom he had seen not very long ago in Vienna. Arthur gnashed his teeth at sight of this butterfly fluttering in his way again, no doubt to disturb his mind with some foolish buzz or other—and did his best to avoid him; but he was not a man to be avoided. He came forward with all his usual warmth of friendliness and surprise to see the other in England.
“You here, Curtis!” he said.
“You always say, ‘you here,’ whenever we meet,” said Arthur, half-annoyed, half-amused, remembering so clearly the greeting which this man had given him at Paris, in the Bois. Denham was the first of his own world whom Nancy had met, and how many little mistakes and disagreements, quarrels which looked so ridiculously causeless at this distance, which might have been so easily avoided, yet which raised such rapid pulses then in their foolish young bosoms—had arisen while they were meeting him, going to thetheatre with him, or resisting his invitations; for after all he had always been friendly, and had tried to please the bride, hard though she was to please.
“Yes, you always turn up so unexpectedly, just when one thinks you a hundred miles off. The other day you were in Vienna, and you said nothing of coming here.”
“And you were the other day in Vienna, and said nothing of coming here.”
“Of course, we are both the Queen’s servants,” said Denham; “and public business, eh? consumes a great deal of our time. But do you know, Curtis, I wanted to see you. I hope I did not lead you into delusion? I told you I thought I met Mrs. Curtis on the other side of the water.”
“Yes;” Arthur’s tone was curt and sharp; he had no intention of listening to anything about Nancy, as if it was news to him, and yet he knew so little, and would have been so thankful to hear anything from anybody! His voice sounded harsh and peremptory in its agitation.
“Meaning no offence,” said Denham, with a scrap of mock humility; “but I find I made a mistake. It was at one of the stations on this line I met Mrs. Curtis, that was my blunder. I forgot till I came here to-day, when it suddenly flashed across me, that it was here or somewhere near. I hope I have not caused you any anxiety.”
“Not at all,” said Arthur, with a blank countenance, which his diplomatic experience had taught him to wear when he chose; but then Denham was a brother of the trade, and it was scarcely worth while wasting it on him. “My—wife’s family lived near. It is very natural that you should have met her hereabouts. I thought it a mistake, you may remember.”
“Ah, did you? I did not recollect. I thought I might have been giving you deluding information. I hope you have good reports?”
He did not know what to say. He was a dealer in gossip, and would have given much to hear the full details of this separation, especially now when he was on theverge of half-a-dozen country houses; but at the same time he did not want to worry the man whom he was sorry for, by betraying his partial knowledge of the facts. He had made a great deal of Nancy in Paris, betraying her peculiarities, her ignorance to many admiring listeners, and he would have liked a second chapter, which probably would have amused society still more. But he did not want to affront Arthur or wound his feelings. What could he say? ought he to make believe that he had never heard anything? or delicately that there was a something, a mist of report, which he knew?
“Perfectly,” said Arthur, with cold self-restraint. “I am going to her now. Her mother, to whom she was much attached, is lately dead.”
“Oh, really!” said Denham; and he watched the young man’s face with keen scrutiny. Fortunately, he himself was not going by the train which went to Underhayes. He accompanied Arthur to the door of his carriage, and stood there talking. “Myhommagesto Mrs. Curtis,” he said, “I daresay she has forgotten me; but lay me at her feet, Curtis, all the same. One does not easily forget a face like hers; you won’t mind me saying so much?”
“Oh no—surely not;” said Arthur, smiling. He put himself into a corner of the train, glad to escape the other’s eyes. No, there were not many such faces as hers. Then, all suddenly, her aspect as she sat in the little Victoria in the Bois, that cold bright winter day, came up before him, he could not tell how; how bright she had looked! no wonder that Denham said one did not easily forget such a face. Her husband had been trying to forget it for two years, and now, the moment he had suspended that effort, how it came back! And where was she, where was he to find her? How slowly the train seemed to go! Might she be visible perhaps somewhere on one of the crowded railway platforms which they passed, where Denham had seen her? He gazed out anxiously whenever they stopped. Why should it be Denham, Denham! who cared nothing about her, that had seen her, and notArthur, to whom such a meeting would have been new life? This was what was called providential; but what strange mistakes—mistakes that the poorest clerk in an office would be discharged if he made—were set down to Providence. Ifhehad but met her, and not Denham, what trouble might have been spared!
It was about noon when he reached Underhayes; and he went direct, remembering what Durant had written, to the shop of Raisins, the grocer. Sarah Jane was dusting her drawing-room, when her maid brought her word that a gentleman wanted to see her. It was her pleasure, and not necessity (she liked people to know this), that made her dust the drawing-room herself. Servants were negligent, they chipped the china ornaments, and were not half particular enough about the gilding; but Sarah Jane had nearly completed this self-imposed task. She put down the long feather brush which she had been using in a corner, and took off her housemaid’s gloves.
“Show the gentleman in,” she said,with some grandeur; but when she saw who it was, Sarah Jane screamed out with surprise and excitement. “Arthur!” she cried. She was almost as much startled as if he had come back from the dead.
“Where is Nancy?” he said. He had got into such a state of excitement now that he forgot all preliminaries, and plunged at once into the subject which interested himself.
“Nancy? Oh, Arthur, wait a bit, I am so startled. You made my heart jump! Whoever thought of seeing you here?”
“It is not so very wonderful to see me when you reflect that my wife has been here for years. Where is she? You used to be kind and sympathetic, Sarah Jane. Tell me where my wife is! Where is Nancy? There can be no reason why I should not know.”
“Oh, it is so nice to see you again,” said Sarah Jane. “Such a long time you have been away, two years and a half. It is a long time. Oh, how I wish Nancy was here! I tried all I could to make her write to you when poor mother died. But she was always so self-willed, you know.”
“Where is she?” said Arthur. He went up to Sarah Jane and grasped her by the arm. He was beginning to lose the little self-control he had, and his very eyes were dim with the heat of his excitement. It is impossible to believe that he really hurt her, but it pleased her to assume that he did, which came to much the same thing.
“Oh, you monster!” cried Sarah Jane. “Oh, you savage! If that is how you used poor Nancy, I don’t wonder she wouldn’t take any notice. Let go, or I’ll call my husband. Oh, my arm! I am sure it is black and blue.”
“Pardon me, pardon me!” said poor Arthur. “I did not mean to hurt you, God knows; but I am almost out of my senses. My good girl, tell me where she is. I have been travelling night and day. If I am impatient, you must forgive me. Tell me, where is my wife?”
“Oh, Arthur, I am so sorry. I never thought you would take on so. Nancy might be very proud if she saw you like that. I never thought a man would mind so much, they take things so easy. Raisinsnever would. If I were to go and leave him, I’m sure he’d let me. Oh, don’t you be afraid, I ain’t so silly as to try.”
Arthur had to make a violent effort to restrain himself; but it was clear she must be treated with in a more cunning way.
“Will you answer me a simple question? Do you know where Nancy is?” he said; then with truer policy, “I will hear all about Raisins and yourself after, and you must tell me what you will like for a wedding present.”
“Oh, Arthur, how kind you are! I always said you were nice. Oh, anything thatyoulike, I am sure! You would be sure to choose something delightful; and we are brother and sister, ain’t we, Arthur? I must give you a kiss to thank you,” said Sarah Jane.
There was no harm in the kiss, and Arthur accepted it meekly. He drew a little further off when it was over, but took her hand and held it fast.
“All that afterwards,” he said. “You may be sure I will do all I can to please you. But tell me first, tell me now, doyou know where she is? I must hear this first. You can’t tell me unless you know.”
“That is just it,” said Sarah Jane. “Of course, I should have told you directly. They promised to write, but they never wrote but once.”
“What doestheymean? Who was with her, and where was the letter from?”
“Don’t hold me so fast, you frighten me,” cried Sarah Jane. “It was Matilda that was with her. Charley has gone to New Zealand, and Matilda is going after him; and Raisins and me, we don’t know whether we mayn’t follow. Don’t crush my hand like that, Arthur, you hurt me. There was no date to the letter. No, I can’t say that I expected to hear again just yet; five weeks, it is not so very long.”
“And did not you want to write? You might have wished to see your sister again.”
“In five weeks, and me married?” said Sarah Jane naïvely, “Oh, no; I knew they’d write when they wanted me, and what should I want them for? Whenyou’re in trouble, it’s natural you should think of your friends; but when you’re doing very nicely, and quite happy, what do you want with them? But, Arthur, to show you I’m speaking true, I’ll fetch you the letter, if you will let me go; and then if you can make anything out of it—let me go, Arthur. I promise I’ll bring you the letter. Oh, please, I can’t tell you any more. Let me go!”
When he did so, which he was half afraid of doing, she kept her word, and produced out of a gay little desk, lined with red, a crumpled note, with the marks of greasy fingers upon it, the sight of which gave Arthur, poor fellow, a sickening sensation. Small feelings so mingle with great that the thought that such a greasy scrap was a relic of his wife gave him as distinct a pang as if some great disappointment had happened to him. A lover, such as he felt himself still to be, ought to have been ready to take to his lips or his heart the meanest message that came from the beloved; but this gave him a feeling of disgust. And yet how he loved Nancy, and how hisheart struggled and throbbed at the idea of finding some trace of her. It was at once a relief and a terrible disappointment to find that the greasy letter was not from Nancy at all, but from Matilda, though, as it was the fingers of Mr. Raisins and the pocket of his bride which had produced the stains upon the letter, Nancy’s own autograph might have been in precisely the same condition, unprotected by the divinity that should hedge a woman beloved.
“I don’t know where she means to settle, nor what we’re going to do,” wrote Matilda. “She’s always the same hoity-toity creature as ever. She talks about a house she has heard of somewhere right in the country. I can’t tell you any more; but I’ll write again; and in the meantime you’ll be glad to hear that I’ve got some very nice calico, and begun my outfit.”
This was all.
“Sheisso taken up about her outfit,” said Sarah Jane. “You would think nobody had ever got such a thing before. But poor Matilda was always old-maidish in her ways. Lord, Arthur! what’s thematter? Have you found out anything? What a turn you did give me, to be sure!” cried Sarah Jane.
It was something which gave Arthur “a turn” too, as far as that effect can be produced upon a male subject. It was simply the postmark “Oakenden” on the envelope of the letter. He had not seen it before, nor looked for it, being too anxious for the information inside. It startled him beyond measure now. “Oakenden!” he repeated to himself as in a dream. Something more than chance, some design which he could not fathom, some vague trembling of meaning not yet comprehensible, but tending towards light, seemed to flicker through the word. It was the post-town ofhome. He knew it as well as he knew the village at his father’s park gates. What had taken her there of all places in the world?
“Thank you,” he said, speaking, he felt, out of a mist of vague wonder and dawning hope that seemed to envelope him in an atmosphere of his own. “Thank you; I think this will be of some use. Iknow the place. Good-bye. I must go directly and see if they are there.”
“Stop a moment,” said Sarah Jane. “Stop and have some dinner with us. Raisins would like to see you, and—where is the place, Arthur? I should like to know too, for one never knows what may happen, and they are two lone women with nobody to look after them. It is so different when there is a man.”
“I will let you know when I have found them,” said Arthur. “Good-bye, I cannot wait longer now.”
“But, Arthur, do stop and have some dinner! Look here,” said Sarah Jane, getting between him and the door, “do you mean to take her back? Is that what you mean?”
“Take her back?” he said, with a half groan. “Was it I who sent her away?”
“For look here,” said Sarah Jane, “I don’t say you haven’t a right to be angry. Raisins would not stand the half, no, nor a tenth part from me what you stood from Nancy. But she’s not the same now. She’s that proud she’ll never let you see itif she can help it; but she’s very changed. She can’t live with her own folks now. Her and me are not such friends as we were because of that; but I suppose it will please you. She’s taken to study and so forth, and she don’t find her own folks good enough company. She’ll be all for us, I shouldn’t wonder, the moment she sees you; but don’t you believe her, Arthur. It was all she could do to keep one of us as long as poor mother lived. She’s as changed as possible. She’s a lady, that’s what she is nowadays,” said Sarah Jane.
Arthur only partially heard this long speech; he had no patience with it. He watched the door, and seized his opportunity, when Sarah Jane had ended her peroration, to hasten away, waving his hand to her.
“Well, I’m sure!” she said, as he darted down the stairs; and Mr. Raisins made many jokes at dinner upon the folly of the man who left a slice of “thatbeef” to run after a rebellious wife.
“She should stay where she was if Ihad her in hand,” said the grocer, not without an idea that the example was a dangerous one for Sarah Jane. “You wouldn’t find me leaving my dinner for her, a woman as had given me up.” He did not mean that his wife should entertain any delusions on this respect. Whatever “swells” might be, grocers were not such fools.
Arthur rushed direct to the railway without losing a moment. He did not make a pilgrimage to the Bates’ house, as Durant had done; he brushed past the old haircloth sofa standing out exposed to rain and damp at the broker’s door, and was not conscious of its existence. There was a train about to start, that was all he knew. When he got back to London he drove, without losing a moment, to the other railway, and went off at the earliest possible moment to Oakenden. He arrived there late in the afternoon, with nothing, not so much as a bag, remembering nothing beyond the fact that Nancy had been there. But what could he do when he got there? He did not know how to find such a needlein that bottle of hay. The town was not large, but it was bustling and busy. It had new streets even since Arthur left home; and through what weary labour must he go before he could find the two, who might have veiled themselves in any one of five hundred new little brick houses? He took a rapid walk through the new streets in the dusk of the evening, gazing at all the parlour windows. It was not likely that fortune would answer his appeal by bringing Nancy to look out just at the moment he passed. Such a thing might happen to Denham, who had nothing to do with it, but not to him, to whom it was everything. If he had been seeking a criminal there might have been hope for him, or had he been in one of the blessed countries where everybody hasses papiers. Why has not everybodyses papiersin England? Arthur was ready, in the heat of his feelings, to give up his birthright if that might have helped him to find his wife.
At last he bethought himself of the post office, and pulling his hat down over hisbrows, and his coat-collar up over his chin, he betook himself there to see if he could find any clue. Curtis? Oh, yes, there were the Curtises of Oakley, Sir John and her ladyship, the best known people in the county; and the Reverend Hubert at the Rectory, and old Miss Curtis at Oakley Dene. In the town? Well, yes, there was a Mrs. Curtis in Acorn Terrace, No. 12; hadn’t been there long; did not get very many letters. “Yes, probably that is the lady,” said Arthur, his heart beating loudly. He went off without a moment’s hesitation to the little new brick terrace. It seemed to him that there could now be no doubt on the subject. He knew that Nancy would not take a false name. How unconscious she must be who was coming to her through the night—for it was quite dark now, the lamps lighted, the parlour windows shining. There was bright firelight in the window of No. 12, Acorn Terrace, and the sound of a piano, and some one singing. Could it beher? He knocked, his heart sounding louder than any knocker, and was admitted with innocent confidence. Yes, Mrs. Curtis was at home; and the maid had prepared the lamp, which she carried in before him, announcing simply, “A gentleman, please, Ma’am.” The inhabitants made Arthur out before he made them out, and a mild old lady in a widow’s cap rose from a chair by the fire. What could Arthur do but stammer forth apologies, his very voice choked with disappointment. “I beg a thousand pardons, it is a mistake,” he said, rushing out again, leaving the ladies in the parlour half angry, half interested. What a blank of helplessness he felt closing round him as he got outside again, hot with shame, and quivering with the shock of his disappointment. This was no use it was evident, and where could he go to inquire further? Not to the police, as if his innocent wife had been a culprit. He could not subject Nancy to that indignity. He walked about the streets for an hour or two longer, wondering what he could do. A directory? Her name would not be in it. The post-office had failed him; and he could not go calling her namethrough the streets as the Eastern princess did. Nancy! Nancy! He might make it echo to all the four winds, but what would that do for him? It occurred to him at last to try the hotels, as he remembered the date of Matilda’s letter; but no ladies bearing the names of Mrs. Curtis and Miss Bates had been heard of anywhere. At one of the hotels (probably at all) they recognised him, and as he was by this time prostrate with exhaustion and disappointment, he decided to remain all night, telegraphing to his servant to meet him there next day. He must go home now that he was so near; not to-night, but to-morrow, when he was more fit to meet strangers. Strangers! his own father and mother, his familiar friends, the servants who had nursed him from his childhood and loved him all his life; but a preoccupied mind is always unnatural. They were as strangers to him now.
SATURDAY morning! very bright but cold, a sprinkling of snow on the ground, crisp and slight like a permanent hoar frost, the trees all frosted, too, with edges of white, like the lights in a snow-landscape. Nancy in her blackness came out doubly distinct upon this white background, the long sweeping line of her simple dress and cloak, her face all glowing with animation and health, and repressed excitement. Pleasure, yet pain, a happy sense of having pleased, an eager wistful longing to please more, were all mingled with the feeling that she stood on the edge of an abyss, and that nothingcould excuse this deception, except the fact that it was for once, only for once, and that when that was over, all should be told. She kissed her sister as she went out, which was very unusual for her. “Think of me, till I come back,” she said. Nancy felt that as yet there had been no more desperate moment in her life. She was not afraid of it, and yet she was all one pulsation, all one throb. She could scarcely speak to the people she met on the road, but nodded, with a wistful sense of friendliness. If they were all to think kindly of her, would not that support her in the present trial, and those that were still harder that must come after? For after she had done this, all would be over, there would be no more excuse for staying here. She could not live under the shadow of their wing, and go on deceiving them. And she had got to be “fond” of Oakley. It was Arthur’s place, where everybody knew him, and to live there was a protection to her, a shield to her imprudence, whatever happened. What else had she in the world? even ifMatilda left her she might have gone on there, living quietly; but for that deception which she could not keep up, which she would take advantage of this once—only this once, but no more. This was one of the rare cases in which the person most immediately concerned judged herself more hardly than others did. Neither Durant nor Lucy blamed her for living here secretly; but rather were both touched by the idea that she wished thus unknown to recommend herself humbly to the good opinion of her husband’s parents; but Nancy’s simpler straightforward mind felt the tacit falsehood of her position to be untenable. Whatever advantages it might bring her, her duty was to tell the truth, and take the consequences. She had done much that was wrong; but she had never told a lie.
Lady Curtis saw her coming from the window of the morning-room, and could not but make observations to herself upon the fine elastic figure, instinct she felt with some special energy, as the young stranger came up the avenue. What wasit that made her walk to-day with such firm certainty and grace? usually there was a touch of shyness about her, almost awkwardness, the awkwardness which is a kind of grace in its way, the wavering of youth, not quite sure about its own movements. But Nancy was not thinking of her appearance, or that anyone was looking at her; but only of the great moment that was approaching. Lady Curtis came to the door of the morning-room to meet her, holding out her hand.
“This is my pet room, my dear,” she said, smiling; “you must come here first. Sit down by the fire, and get thawed, and then you shall see everything. It is not according to the present taste, but for all that I am fond of it. Won’t you take off your cloak? We can put it here, or take it upstairs with us when we go. It must be very cold out of doors.”
“Not when one is walking,” said Nancy, and as she put off her cloak, a little roll of paper became visible. “I brought you the—sketches,” she said, with a blush; “they are not worth calling patterns.”
“They are a great deal better than patterns.Icall them drawings,” said Lady Curtis, with flattering kindness, spreading them out on the table. What pains Nancy had taken over them! and consequently they wanted the spontaneous grace of the first design, which Lady Curtis had so praised. But my lady applauded them as if they had come from the pencil of Raffaele himself, and showed her crewels and her pieces of work executed, which filled Nancy with awe.
“Mine are not so good as these,” she said, shaking her head; “I will take them back and try to do better.” She was disappointed, and tears started suddenly to her eyes. But Lady Curtis took the drawings away carefully, and smiled and shook her head.
“They are mine,” she said, “you have given them to me. Now look, here is my private picture-gallery, Mrs. Arthur; my son, whom you thought you had met, do you remember? You will be able to make sure by looking at his portrait; and Lucy—you know Lucy? I have been veryextravagant about my children, here they are at all ages. Here is the first of my boy—and there is the last,” said Lady Curtis, pointing to a framed photograph on the table. She wondered that the visitor did not move to look at it. Nancy was holding the child’s miniature in her trembling hands. She could not have spoken or risen up to save her life. Look at him—she who belonged to him, to whom he belonged more than to his mother—she could not do it! There was something almost more than she could bear even in the child’s face.
“The connoisseurs of the present day will have nothing to say to my pretty room,” said Lady Curtis; “but perhaps you are of that way of thinking, and like darkness and neutral tints. No? I am glad of that. This is where I have spent almost all my life,” she said, dropping into that tempting strain of gentle reminiscence which seems to come natural to us all, when we grow old among the young, as just the other day we were young among the old, and liked to draw that soft babbleof memory from elder lips. Nancy felt the charm of it, which soothed her even in her excitement, and looked up listening with eyes that grew bigger and bigger, like the listening eyes of a child.
“I furnished it at my own pleasure, after I was married, when I came first to Oakley;” she said. “Sir John does not care for these sort of things, he was always pleased when I was always pleased; and all our little talks we did here; and then the children—all that they had to say to mamma, this was the place. When Arthur was a boy at school, he always came rushing in here the moment he arrived; and here they made all their plans, he and his school friend, Lewis, who is a very dear friend still. I think I can see their little faces with the firelight upon them,” said Lady Curtis. “My Arthur! Ah, if he had always been as open with me as he was then!”
Nancy was choking with her tears. It was all that she could do not to cry out—it was my fault, it was my fault! all she could to keep herself from creeping toLady Curtis’s feet, and kissing them, and crying her heart out. She sat still and kept silent, she could not tell how.
“But I must not talk of that, and make myself cry,” said my lady, “that would be poor entertainment for you. All these things are presents, they have been brought me one time or another. Sir John gave me my clock; it is a genuine seventeenth century one, and we picked it up by the merest chance. Arthur brought me that Sèvres the first time he went abroad. Come, I have upset you with my absurd talk. I can see you know what it is to be in trouble about those you love.”
My lady was behind Nancy at the moment, and suddenly put her arms round her, and gave her a little half-embrace. It was gratitude for her supposed feeling. Nancy stumbled up to her feet with a great cry, “Oh, my lady—my lady! if you knew! if you only knew!”
Lady Curtis looked at her fixedly, her cheek flushed a little. After all she knew nothing of this strange young womanwhom she had received so rashly. What if she should turn out to be—something not fit for the company of good women? She looked at her with a momentary suspicion.
“If there was any serious reason why you should not come into my house, I think you would not have come,” she said, with meaning. Nancy did not reply—her thoughts were occupied by a wholly different preventing cause from that which was in Lady Curtis’s thoughts; but neither did she quail from the look, which she did not understand. The impulse was strong upon her to tell everything, to go no further, to disclose the whole story now.
“After to-day,” she said, with her lips quivering, “I meant, if you would listen, to tell you everything about me. But perhaps, I thought to myself, you would not like me then—perhaps you would be angry; and I thought I might give myself first this one day.”
“Poor child!” said Lady Curtis, half smiling. “It cannot be very great wickedness, at which you think I would beangry, which you tell with such an innocent face. Hush, hush!” she added, “no more of this, here is Lucy. You shall have your day, and tell me after. Before her not a word.”
Was Lady Curtis afraid of Lucytoo? She came in looking as she always did, not suspicious perhaps, butas if she knew—did she know anything? and shook hands with Nancy. “You are showing Mrs. Arthur your own room first, mamma; you are telling her exactly what you expect to be said, and coaxing her to praise it. That is what you always do; but papa wishes her to be brought to the library. No, here he is coming after me,” said Lucy, as a heavy step came towards the door. Nancy was standing up, tremulous and shaken, her lips with still a quiver in them, the tears not gone out of her eyes, when Sir John came in. He came up to her holding out his large, soft, old man’s hand.
“You need not introduce me, Lucy. I know this lady already. She was very kind to me, as I told you. I assure youthat to allow a young lady, and one whom I should have been so happy to serve, to take so much trouble for me, was much against my liking. But my excuse is one we must all come to, even the fairest. When a man is old—”
“I was so very glad,” said Nancy, in a low tone, and her eyes, with the moisture in them, looked so appealing that Sir John’s heart was touched. He gave a look round, lifting his heavy eyelids to see if there was anything visible that could account for this emotion. Then, seeing that his wife also showed signs of fellow-feeling, he concluded that the poor young widow (as he supposed her) had been telling her story to my lady’s sympathetic ear.
“I believe you are going to be shown over the house,” he said, offering his arm, “and you must let me show you my library myself. I have not very much,” said Sir John with that tone of mock humility which never deceives the experienced, “that is worth looking at; but there are one or two pictures, and someold Roman rubbish, which, perhaps, you may not care about. Are you fond of antiquities? I know that you are kind to them, at least,” he said, giving her hand a little fatherly pat as she put it shyly on his arm. Nancy felt her head swim as she walked through the great hall leaning on Sir John’s arm. He talked to her all the way, pointing out one thing and another. “This is one of our treasures—it is a bit of bas-relief found in an old temple near Rome. Have you ever been so far? Ah! then you have the pleasure to come. I think it is much better than going when you are too young to appreciate what you see. Yes, this is my favourite room. There are plenty of books you see—a great many more than I make any use of nowadays—some of them, perhaps, are not quite lady’s reading; but there are a great many which I daresay you would like, and which you will always be welcome to. This is one of the pictures we are proud of. It is a Sir Joshua. It is the portrait of my grandfather. Ah! you start, you see the likeness? Itisvery like my son. My lady has been telling you of him, no doubt? Yes, Arthur was the apple of her eye; and will be yet—and will be yet, please God.”
Nancy did not hear much more. The choking of those tears she dared not shed, and those words she did not say, was more than she could bear. “Oh! please forgive me!” she said, sobbing aloud, “I can’t help it. No, no, I am not ill—but it brings so many things back—”
“My dear young lady,” said Sir John alarmed. “You have got upset. Shall I take you back to Lady Curtis, or will you rest here?”
“Oh, only for a moment!” cried Nancy. The outbreak had relieved her. He made her sit down in his own great chair, and was silent for a few minutes, looking at her with serious sympathy. She was not afraid of Sir John. He (she divined) would never find her out, however she might betray herself. He was not quick, like needles, like the ladies. There was safety in him. And this sense of securityhelped her to conquer herself. She got up presently with a smile, and said she was better. The old man was in no hurry—he was pleased with his pretty companion, and quite willing to humour her. After this, he took her all round the library, not sparing her a single relic. He had not been so much interested for ever so long. She listened to all he said with the prettiest interest, and if she did not say much, what did that matter? “I am very ignorant,” she said to begin with, and he liked her all the better. They suited each other entirely. She did not get impatient as my lady did, or make fun of everything, which Lucy would sometimes have the audacity to do; but listened with the greatest interest as if she never could hear too much. The library was nearly exhausted when the bell rang for luncheon. “Lady Curtis will wonder what has become of us,” he said, giving her his arm again, “and I am sure I have worn you out.”
Meanwhile Lucy and her mother were smiling at each other. “We have nochance you see, even with your father, against a pretty stranger,” Lady Curtis said, “but I hope she is not tired of all these antiquities, as you and I are, Lucy, when we oughtn’t to be.”
“Oh, she will not show it,” said Lucy, with a little slight involuntary touch of scorn; but Lady Curtis did not find this sentiment out.
“Yes, she is a sympathetic young creature. She was all but crying with me about Arthur, though she can’t know anything of Arthur. It may not be what hard people call quite sincere, but it is very charming and goes to one’s heart.”
“Oh! I did not say she was not sincere,” said Lucy with compunction; and then the luncheon bell roused them, and they went across the hall to the dining-room, following Sir John, who issued from his library at the same moment, and led the way with his courtly old-gentlemanly politeness leading the stranger. Age is the period in which politeness becomes most exquisite—like thatcortesiawhich the old Italians make into an attributeof God himself. Sir John placed Nancy next to himself at table. She had never sat at a table so daintily served. The big silent footmen almost filled her with awe. She had never seen anything of the kind but in the Paris hotel, which after all was only an hotel, served by chattering rapid waiters, not solemn buckram men like this. Nancy was awed, every moment more and more.
“Now you have had her long enough,” said Lady Curtis. “She has to see the drawing-room now, and all the state rooms.”
“I hope you have had the drawing-room properly aired. I never had any confidence in that room. I have known it to be cold,” said Sir John with a look of horror. “Come back to your own room, my lady, for tea. It is the most comfortable in the house.”
“That is on his own account, not ours,” said Lady Curtis, as she, in her turn, led Nancy away. The drawing-room, was a very large, noble room divided by pillars, and its magnificence again tookaway Nancy’s breath. They took her all round to look at the pictures, and then my Lady placed the stranger in a large chair before the fire to rest. Never had any one been so anxious about her, afraid to overtire her. Overtire her! if my Lady only knew? Nancy, vigorous and young, could have carried her conductor about as easily as a child; but she could not carry the load under which she was tottering—the load of concealment and, as she represented it to herself, deception. This overwhelmed her with a feverish incapacity. She was glad when they bade her be still. What agitation was in all her veins! and yet she was happy—wrapped in a strange, delicious, overwhelming, painful dream. Was it her home, really her home in which she was thus reposing, or a house which to-day she would leave for ever? She was not able to answer the question, but sat still there, in the winter afternoon, while the sun was still shining outside, in a trance of strange and mingled sensation, lifted out of herself.
The drawing-room did not look towards the front of the house. Its large windows opened into my Lady’s flower-garden, a kind of fairy paradise, Nancy had thought, in which the grass was very green, and where there were still flowers. Arrivals or departures did not disturb the dwellers in this Elysian place; but as they sat together, not talking very much for the moment, for the sake of Nancy who was “resting,” some kind of indescribable wave of sound seemed to rise in the house. Something of wheels, something of quick steps, then a little distant hubbub of voices, then the ring of several doors opened and shut. “Some one calling, I suppose,” Lady Curtis said calmly, “but you must not stir, my dear.” Lucy was near the door. What she heard that roused her curiosity, or suggested to her the impossible occurrence which had really come to pass, it would be impossible to say. Her mind was in a state of high tension and excitement, and this confers a kind of second sight and second hearing. She stole behind the great screen thatguarded the room from the possibility of a draught, and softy opened the door. She heard her father’s heavy step come suddenly out of his library, and then a tremulous outcry in his usually placid voice. Lady Curtis had begun to listen too. “What is all that commotion,” she said, “ring, Lucy, and ask?” But Lucy was out of hearing. She had rushed along the corridor to see with her own eyes, and hear with her own ears. “Yes, Sir, it is I; I didn’t write, for I did not know I could get here to-day. Where is my mother?” was what she heard. Lucy’s impulse was to cry out too, to rush out to the hall and throw herself upon her brother, and it took her no small effort to restrain herself. Her heart gave a wild leap into her throat—and then she turned and hurried back. What was going to happen? “Lucy—Lucy! have you asked what is the matter?” said Lady Curtis, getting up with natural agitation. She thought of Arthur at once, as was to be expected; but she found time even in the tide of rising anxiety to give a kindword to her visitor. “Never mind,” she said, “don’t stir—there is no need for you to disturb yourself—Lucy! where are you? what is it?” said my Lady. And then she gave a half scream, and rushed towards the door, pushing back the screen which had veiled the space before the fire.
“Yes, mother, here I am,” said Arthur, coming in.
One of the party, at least, had no eyes for him, no thought for him. Lucy did not even look at her brother; and when his eye caught her standing there, and saw this, Arthur, with his arm still encircling his mother, followed instinctively to see what interest could keep his sister from him. Nancy had risen from her seat at the sound of his voice. Every tinge of colour had gone from her cheeks, her eyes looked as if they had been forced wide open by a passion of wonder which was almost agony, her lips had dropped apart. She stood motionless, gazing, but able to see nothing.
“My God!” he cried, and put his mother aside.
Sir John had followed him into the room. They were all there, all who were most interested, and all felt by instinct that something greater and stranger had happened than Arthur’s coming home.
“What is it, what is it?” cried Lady Curtis, in sharp tones of pain.
Her son made but one step away from her, and caught their unknown visitor, their strange neighbour, the young woman they had all been so kind to, in his arms.
“No, no, no!” they all heard Nancy cry, shrill and high in terror or anguish, they could not tell which; and then she dropped out of his arms in a heap upon the floor.
“Have I killed her?” he said, looking round upon them with a scared and blanched face, while Sir John and his mother looked at him, speechless with astonishment.
“No, no,” cried Lucy, who had possession of her senses; “it is no worse than fainting. Oh, don’t you see, don’t you see what it is, all of you? She has scarcely been able to keep from telling you.”
“What had she to tell me? What do you mean? What is this, what is this, Lucy? I don’t understand.”
Arthur had one arm under his wife’s head.
“She is better, she is coming back,” he cried, and stretched out his other hand with one glance round. “Mother, God bless you! You have been keeping her here safe while I have been looking everywhere for her,” he said. “If I had not owed you everything before, I should owe you my life now.”
“Arthur! What has he to do with her? Her name is—Ah!” Lady Curtis ended with a great cry.
And Sir John, who was altogether puzzled, came forward a step and looked at her where she lay, holding up his spectacles solemnly in his hand.
“I am afraid she has fainted,” he said. “I thought she was not very well. It will be better to leave your mother and a maid to manage her, Arthur. We are interested in the young lady, but we are more interested in you.”
Nancy came to herself as he spoke, and struggling up, got upon her knees.
“I did not faint,” she said, hoarsely; “only the light went from me. I did not mean to deceive any one. I said just this one day; I wanted to see you, and Arthur’s home. I did not mean to deceive you. If you please, I will go away, and never trouble you any more.”
“Nancy!” cried Arthur, “Nancy!” He put his arm round her, holding her. He had been kneeling beside her while she lay there, and he was not aware of the suppliant attitude which accident made him assume. “Look at me,” he said, “look atme! If you cared for Arthur’s home, did you not care forme, Nancy? You shall never go away, except with me.”
Nancy got up hastily, drawing herself away from him. She was at the turn of her capricious soul. Would she burst away again, rush out into the cold and the twilight? Everything hung on the impulse of the moment. She gave a wild look round upon all those agitated faces. Sir John had put on his spectacles thebetter to understand the extraordinary position of affairs which had begun to dawn upon him now.
“It appears to me,” he said slowly, “if I understand, that there can be no question here of going away, no more for this young lady than for any of us. Is it possible—I do not mean to be uncivil, but you will excuse the question—is it possible that you are, as I understand, my son’s wife?”
Nancy was caught at the moment of doubt. She herself turned and looked at Arthur. Her eyes softened, her paleness began to glow. He drew her arm within his, and she did not resist.
“Yes,” she said, with a long soft sigh. It was hardly possible to tell which was the word and which the lingering flutter of breath.
“Then, my dear—though I have forgotten your name,” said the old gentleman, going up to her, taking her disengaged hand, and kissing her very solemnly on the forehead, “you are very welcome in his father’s house.”
“And me?” said Lady Curtis, with alittle moan. Grammar and emotion do not always go together. “I have only half seen Arthur, and must I turn all at once to Arthur’s wife?”
“If you care for me, mother!—”
“Carefor you! Do you hear how he blasphemes—you, young woman, that are his wife? And he was my little boy, my child before he ever saw you. Care for him! that is what he calls it,” the mother said, crying, yet smiling, too, as her manner was. “What is your name? Nancy! Yes, I know it well enough; I only ask it out of contradiction. Here is my kiss, Nancy. I did not know you were my daughter, but I liked you; and that is better than giving you a kiss only for his sake. If you care for him, as he calls it, you will like me too. Where is Lucy all this time, who was in the plot—who knew—”
“I only divined,” said Lucy, coming forward in her turn.
But Lucy was the one of all whose salutations were the least cordial. She was glad, but she did not like it somehow. She did not like to hear my lady say “mydaughter.” That was an unexpected stab. She went through her salutations very prettily, but in such a way as brought the excited party back to common life.
“And I think you will find your own room more comfortable,” said Sir John; “and you are surely later than usual this afternoon, my lady, in having tea.”
This tea, it may be supposed, was not the tranquillizing draught it usually proved to these agitated people; and it was a relief to everybody when it was settled that Arthur should walk down with his wife to the village to tell her sister of the extraordinary event which had happened, and to make arrangements for Nancy’s removal to the Hall. They went out into the dark avenue together, arm-in-arm, glad of the darkness, and feeling it had been made for them, as—if it had been morning and bright, they would have felt that to have been made for them. To repeat what they had to say to each other is none of our business. People do not meet again after such separations without having intheir happiness pain enough to make them humble; and yet that walk down to the village in the wintry evening was worth some pain. Sir John was still standing between the two rococo cupids of the mantelpiece, with his cup in his hand, when they went away. He had come back to the ordinary habits of his life, which, after any disturbance, it is always a pleasant thing to do.
“It seems to me,” he said, “that it was a very fortunate thing we got hold of Arthur’s wife accidentally, and found her to be so unexceptionable a person, before we knew who she was; and it was pretty that she called herself Mrs. Arthur. I did not perceive it just at first, but of course it was her right name. And all things considered, I think we may be very thankful to Providence, my lady, that things have turned out so well,” said Sir John, putting down his cup, and going slowly away, as was his wont. When the door was closed, which he always did so carefully, my lady caught Lucy by the waist, who was going away too.
“My darling,” she said, “we must strike while the iron is hot, while your father is so satisfied. Go this moment, and write before the post goes. Tell Lewis to come at once, to-morrow; he ought not to lose a day.”
“Shall I, mamma?” Lucy crept a little closer to her mother, who was not forgetting her after all.
“Yes, at once. I hate them all!” cried Lady Curtis with a little outburst, “taking my children from me. But I suppose you will be happier; and you know, as Arthur says, I do care—a little—foryou.”
THE END.London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street.