Mrs. Oliphant

“ At Sir John’s age a man need not hide his fatherly admiration for a lovely face. He looked at her with his white head uncovered, with pleasure and kindness and surprise in his eyes, and lavished thanks and excuses.
“I am glad I was here to do it,” Nancy said, feeling that corresponding sentiment of kindness in herself, which is the soul of good manners. He thought she was as gracious, as polished and graceful as she was handsome; and a sense of gratification that warmed her heart and softened it, came over her. Arthur’s father! she had not heard half so much of him as of my Lady and Lucy. ”

“ Why should there be anyone in the world who was not happy—who did not have all that the imagination desires, love and honour, and all the brightnesses and sympathy which love can give? Lucy had a private world to retire into at odd moments, a world so peopled that her fancy could not receive the idea of a lonely life. While her mother and Bertie talked, she had opened her secret door and gone in, entering into that vague sweet blessedness of dreams which is more than any vulgar reality of happiness. ”

“ The spot where Nancy and her sister were standing was quite near the avenue, and as Matilda, with her mind and eyes unoccupied, looked out for something to amuse her, she suddenly was aware of two people walking up and down in what might be called the side aisle of the avenue, under the shadow of the trees, which still were rich in autumn foliage. This “took her attention” immediately; for who could it be but a pair of lovers, wandering up and down in intimate intercourse; and what is there in heaven or earth more attractive to a young woman than a pair of lovers? ”

“ All this produced in Arthur’s mind an impression of painful unreality in the past than which there is nothing more wounding, more bitter on earth. That love should fail and hearts change is bad enough; but that the love which you have believed in implicitly should never have existed at all, that your affection should have been regarded as a matter of worldly advantage, and your conduct discussed with others, what thought can sting more deeply? It destroyed not only Arthur’s faith in his wife, but his faith in the life they had lived together. ”

“ Will you come to-morrow?”
“Not to-morrow,” said Nancy, her face changing like a sunset sky. “Oh, Lady Curtis, you are too good to me. You don’t know me—”
“No, not much; but everything must have a beginning,” said the gracious lady. “We must settle upon a day. If not to-morrow, let it be Saturday. That will give you four days to make up your mind. You must come up early to luncheon, and Lucy and I will show you all there is to see. If you meet Lucy, will you tell her I am going slowly up the avenue waiting for her. She should be on her way home now.” ”

“ If not love, then not money, no bargain, no mercenary advantage. Through the gloom, through the distance, flashing with anger, veiled with tears, Nancy’s eyes seemed suddenly to gleam upon him, Nancy’s voice, faltering yet firm, to fling at him a defiance, a challenge—was it an appeal? There came from Arthur’s breast a sudden burst of cries and laughter mingled, and his eyes in his solitude filled with tears, salt and scalding but sweet. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Lucy blushed crimson, then laughed. “He is the second son—and Arthur—”
“Arthur will never have any children,” said Lady Curtis gloomily, “if things do not change. And she is young and strong, as young as you are—why should she die to accommodate us? And Gerald Curtis is a wandering invalid. Ah! there is no fear of the Seymours—they will have their own flesh and blood after them whatever happens. But your father is growing an old man, Lucy; and Bertie—Bertie’s son will be the heir!” ”

“ And when Arthur went away, Nancy became as if she had never existed to the family. They had Arthur’s letters as in the days when nothing lay between him and home; nothing but mere distance and absence—time and space, innocent obstacles which harm no one, though they are hard enough to put up with. And his wife, whom he ceased to speak of, fell into the background with{26} his people. To be sure, when any young man in the county, or whom they knew, made a brilliant and satisfactory marriage, Lady Curtis and Lucy would look at each other with quick interchange of glances. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nancy, herself, thought it was rather pretty, but nothing of course to the étude in chalks.
“Oh no, not that! that is all nonsense. It isn’t fit for your ladyship to look at; but look here, my lady,” said Matilda, proudly. Lady Curtis cast a careless glance at the drawing, which the sister thought so superior; then turned with much admiration to the wreath that hung against the wall.
“I must try to coax you,” she said, “after a while, when you know us, to make some designs for me, for my crewels. How beautifully they would work! Look, Lucy!” ”

“ Lucy must marry, and she must marry well, or what is to become of the family?” Mrs. Rolt said with decision. “She, too, will have to suffer for her brother. The innocent are always involved with the guilty; and when once a wrong thing has been done, one never knows where it may end.”
Nancy had grown crimson with shame and resentment—and with pain too, pain that she could not fathom in all its complexities. She turned away coldly from Mrs. Rolt, scarcely attempting to separate from her with the pretence at civility, which good manners (she felt) demanded. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Durant was not superior to that almost fierce independence which, like all good that comes out of evil, has its false side. The dependence and incessant demands of his family had made him stern in his resolution to owe no man anything, to struggle out his own career unaided; and had also made him too proud to ask any favour in his own person, even a night’s lodging from the friends whom he had served with all the humbleness of true generosity when occasion offered. ”

“ The next bright day after this, Lady Curtis and her daughter were both in the village. After the first outburst of autumn rains, a bright day is very tempting; and the walk down the avenue was pleasant, and the village basked in the sunshine with{140} genuine enjoyment, as if the old red houses knew how expedient it was to make the most of the little warmth and brightness which remained possible. Lady Curtis sat at Cousin Julia’s window while she waited for Lucy, and looked out, not without satisfaction, upon the village, tranquil as it was. ”

“ Lucy’s heart beat so that she could not think. And would they be so hard, so cruel as to deny her her happiness, the father and mother who loved her so dearly? Most probably they would do so. She could not deceive herself. Most likely he would be sent away without hope, perhaps with disdain. A girl has a terrible moment to go through when she knows that her life, and the life of another still more dear to her, are thus being decided for her without any power of hers to interfere. If Lewis asked her for her love, she would tell him yes, she would give it, she had given it ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was bound for life to the wife who had become a stranger to him—who had thrust him away from her; and hopelessly cut off from all other honourable connections, from the happiness of home, from everything which makes up to a young man for the loss of his first freedom. Arthur had all the evils of that freedom without the good of it; he was bound yet let loose, tempted to every kind of license, yet in such a position that ordinary and innocent liberty was denied to him. Nothing could be{219} more cruel to a high-spirited young man not trained in the ways of self-denial. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An attaché of a foreign Legation is not supposed to be the most hardworking of men. Yet there are things which they may do when it is a matter of preference for them to be occupied; and Arthur went into society, almost vehemently, not caring to remember himself and his position. Perhaps he did not pass through the furnace entirely unscathed. He thrust Nancy’s image out of his heart, and shut the door on her, and pretended not to be conscious of the efforts that image made to get back. Not Nancy—Nancy herself made no attempt one way or another, no overture ”

“ It is not badness, it is stupidness. I make the same mistakes, and do the same faults, and speak as I ought not to speak.”
“Poor girl!” said Lady Curtis, touched by the tears that came while Mrs. Arthur spoke. “This is a sad experience for you. I hope it is not so serious as you seem to think. I am a great deal older than you are,” she went on, still more touched as a big tear fell, locking like a small ocean on Nancy’s black sleeve, “and if I can help you, or give you any advice, I should be glad to do so. Our experience is not worth much unless we can help younger people with it ”

“ If Arthur had married happily as we liked—as young Seymour has done—things might have been different. But now that Arthur has made such shipwreck, Lucy is all that is left to us. He will not let her speak to anyone whom he thinks inferior to 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. ”