“WHY cannot we go home?” said Nancy. “I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to go to your Rome, and places. What is the good of taking me away to make a show of me? I can speak English, but I don’t know any of those jargons. I am sure it is not good French here; and as for Italian, I never heard a word of it. It is only to make me look ridiculous. Denham thinks so, Arthur. He comes and looks at me, and asks me about old Lady So-and-So. I tell him I don’t know her, and I don’t want to know her. I shall tell him some day I never knew Lady Anybody in my life, and that I am a nobody. I will, if you do not take me away!”
“Do tell him so,” said Arthur, “if you please. I don’t mind what you tell him. You don’t think I want you to make believe? You are all I wish for, Nancy, yourself—better than if you had known a dozen Lady So-and-So’s.”
“Oh, but I am sure you watch me,” she cried. “I always feel that your eye is upon me, Arthur. You are afraid I will say something wrong; and I am afraid too, except when I want to do it: and if I should do it some time, as I am sure I will if we go on, you will not like it. Arthur, don’t let us go further off; let us go home.”
“Home? where is home?” he said. “I don’t know if I should have any welcome.”
“But I should,” cried Nancy. “Mother and all of them would dance for joy. And think how much better we should be. We must be spending a mint of money here. You talk of going further, but I don’t believe you will be able to go further when you look into it. And I don’t know what we have to spend: you don’t tell me anything.”
“I scarcely know myself,” said Arthur, with rather a bewildered look upon his face. “I don’t know what my father—things should be different now.”
“And you are going away travelling without knowing? You will find,” said Nancy, becoming practical all at once, “that we have spent a great deal of money; always having carriages and going to the play—”
“Not to many plays.”
“Two; and that music Denham gave us tickets for—”
“My darling, don’t be angry—but would you mind saying Sir John?”
“Why should I say Sir John? You always call him Denham. And when we went to that Assembly there was another carriage. I suppose it would always be the same if we were going to other places; but at Underhayes it would not be like that. We could take a little house and furnish it, and you have such good taste, Arthur. We would make it so pretty, and everybody would be delighted to see us. I should manage everything, and keep the expenses right, and you—you—”
“Yes!” said Arthur, taking her hands into his as she stood by him, “What for me? I should have nothing to do.”
“Well! when one has plenty to live on, what does it matter? It will always be delightful. We shall take walks. Don’t you remember the common, how beautiful it was? And now and then we will go to London; and in the evening we can—you can read out loud to me,” said Nancy, stopping, with a little confusion. “We can go and see mother,” was what she was about to say; but she stopped instinctively, and kept that in the background. She was standing by his chair, putting her fingers through his hair, arranging and re-arranging it with soft touches, each one of which was a caress. It was seldom that she was in this tender mood, and he felt himself melting under it. Sometimes she would stoop down and put her cheek against his. “You would teach me all sorts of things,” said Nancy. “Sometimes I know I am not good-tempered, Arthur. I give you a great deal of trouble. It makes me wild to think that I am not like you, that I don’t do you credit; and then my temper gets the better of me, and I say I am as good as they are, why should I trouble?”
As she made this confession, tears came trembling into Nancy’s eyes and stole into her voice. She had never before revealed to her husband the state of mind which made her so capricious, and as she told it, all those vagaries of temper which had tormented Arthur, became sacred things to him, and beautiful in the light of love and penitence. He took into his arms this tender culprit, whose avowal made all her faults into virtues.
“Don’t, my darling!” he cried; “don’t! Not like me? You are far better than I am. Not do me credit? Nancy! don’t you know I am as proud of you as I am fond of you—and can anything be more than that? Teach you! What could I teach you? It is you who teach me.”
And he meant what he said, and she meant it, to the bottom of their foolish young hearts, and it was all true and all false, as only human things can be. Nancy, though her heart was melting and running over with the tenderness of her confession, was as ready to be defiant as ever at half a moment’s notice, and Arthur as sure soon to be doubtful of her, alarmed and anxious, uncertain as to what she might do or say. But neither of them was at all aware of this as they clung together and mutually repented, and declared that never again, never again should anything disturb their harmony and full understanding of each other.
“There are so many things you could teach me,” Nancy said, smiling through her tears, “in our own little house at home! You could make a lady of me. Oh, yes, we all thought you had done that when we were married, but now I know better. But you can make a lady of me, Arthur, if you will try.”
“You are a lady already, my darling,” he said; but how sweet was this consciousness of what was wanting in herself, and the confidence that he could communicate all she wanted! It was like an inspiration direct from Heaven.
“I will study whatever you wish,” said Nancy. “We could give ourselves up to it if we were only in a little house of our own. Whatever you please, Arthur; French if you like, for I am ashamed not to understand it when you talk it so well, and I don’t think it can have been much good what I learned at school; and about pictures and buildings, and everything. I don’t know anything, Arthur. I could not understand the things you were talking about, Denham and you; and I know you were vexed about the pictures, and the theatre.”
“No, my sweetest, I was not vexed—perhaps a little disappointed; but I knew it was because you had not seen any before.”
“That was all. I know a little better already; and, Arthur, if you were to give this winter to it, and help me, in our own little house! So near London as Underhayes is, we could go up and see things; and you could read books to me. I think I can see it all,” said Nancy, smiling upon him with her wet eyes; “a little drawing-room with lace curtains and windows that opened to the garden, and another nice little room with your pipes in it, where I could come and sit by your side while you smoked your cigar!”
“But, Nancy, might not all this beautiful picture come to pass, just as well in Italy? You don’t know what Italy is. None of your dull wet days, but always soft, bright, sunshiny weather, and the bluest sky, and such moonlight nights. We need not go to Rome at all. I know a little village up amongst the woods with a view of the sea. Nancy! you can’t think how beautiful it is!”
“I don’t care,” she said, with a little pout. “I don’t want to go to Italy. It is so far, so far away; and I cannot speak the language; and it is so dreary to live among people, and hear them chattering, and not understand.”
“But you would very soon learn Italian. It is the easiest language—everybody says so,” said Arthur. “You could pick it up in a few weeks. You would so soon feel at home there. The good people are fond of everything that is beautiful. Oh, they are not all good people, I suppose. Sometimes they will ask too much from you; they will, perhaps, cheat you a little, in quite a friendly way—”
“I could not endure that!” cried Nancy. “That is the one thing I could not put up with; and foreigners are all like that, Arthur; they pretend kindness so long as they have something to gain; but they don’t really care. Oh! there is nothing like England,” she cried, clasping her hands, “and a little house of our own! And in the summer, when, perhaps, your people may have changed their mind, Arthur, then I should not be afraid to meet with them. I should know a great many things that I don’t know now. And we should be so happy, both together, and no one to interfere with us.”
Arthur was moved to the bottom of his heart. It did not occur to him to think of her own description of “foreigners,” who pretend kindness as long as they have something to gain. Nay, more than that, she did not think of it either. Nancy was quite sincere. By talking about it, she had made a certainty in her own mind that this was really all she wanted, that in such circumstances happiness would come of itself, without frets or interruption; and in what other way could that be secured? She was so earnest in carrying her point, that she really felt all she expressed. Whereas, if he took her away, if he insisted on his plan, Nancy felt that she could not answer for herself. It was for his sake as well as hers; it was for their good as well as for their happiness. And what could Arthur answer to all this? The fact that she wanted anything, was not that the most powerful argument for having it? His own inclinations were strongly in favour of absence, and he believed that this teaching of which she spoke, and which he had fully intended, could get itself accomplished far better on the Riviera, or in the villa among the chestnut woods at Castellamare than anywhere near the house of the Bates’. But what could he do or say against her? He tried to beguile her into talk of what might happen after, when they would go into society, and when, perhaps, he should be able to take her to Oakley to see all its beauties. But this was a subject of which Nancy was very shy. She would not speak of Arthur’s “people,” whom she no longer called “folks.” When she did make their acquaintance, she wanted to do so in a way which would dazzle them. She could not tolerate the idea of any condescension on their part to Arthur’s wife. No, she must have surmounted all difficulties, and feel able to consider herself as much a lady as any of them, before she met those ladies who were her natural enemies and rivals. For Arthur’s sake she would avoid them until she could burst upon them in full glory of new instruction and knowledge.
“Don’t speak to me about Oakley,” she said. “It was all I could do to make sure Oakley was its name when Denham talked of it. It makes me angry to hear of it. I, your wife, not to know it, not to know anything about it or them! when every poor creature of an ambassador’s flunkey goes there.”
“Don’t be too hard upon old Denham,” said Arthur, laughing. “How he would be pleased to hear you! But not Denham, Nancy, if you love me. Your mouth was not made to drop words in that careless way.”
“Oh, nonsense, Arthur! What should I say? Sir John is so formal. You would not say Denham if it was wrong,” said Nancy, recovering a little from the too great amiability of this episode; and then she added, “You have asked me to do something for you. I will do it. I will not bargain with you, but I will do it; only you must not see my letter, or school me. I will write out of my own head.”
“Will you, Nancy? You are always a darling, always kinder than I deserve; but at least you will let me see it—send it with mine?”
“No,” she said; “no, no, no; but I will write. Now, will that please you? And you will yield to me, like a dear good Arthur, and take me home. I do so wish to go home.”
“That looks as if you were tired of me, Nancy.”
“Does it?” she said with a smile, putting her arm softly about his neck.
She was not addicted to caresses. There was a kind of rude delicacy and reserve in her, which a little more gentleness of manner would have made into that exquisite bloom of modesty which is the crown of all graces. That soft touch said more from her than the utmost abandon of lovingness from another. Poor Arthur was all subdued; he could not resist her; her tenderness filled him with happiness beyond expression. If she would but be always thus, in spite of all he might have to pay for it, what man was there in the world so blessed as he? That even at this exquisite moment he had the strength of mind not to commit himself finally to the carrying out of her wish, was more than could have been expected. It was, perhaps, because “Denham” arrived at that moment to accompany them to a morning performance at the “Conservatoire,” for which his zeal had with difficulty got them tickets. They had not wanted to go, but “Denham” had insisted upon it. Nancy went away to put on her bonnet as he came upstairs. How near she had been to success! Her heart was full of confidence and pleasure in the thought, and this gave a brightness to her countenance which was all it wanted.
“What have you been doing to your wife? She is radiant. She will have a great succès, and you and I will shine in her lustre,” said their companion to Arthur, as they arrived at the concert-rooms.
How proudly Arthur looked at her, exhilarated yet subdued as she was by that delightful sense of having got, or nearly got, her own way! This happiness had taken from Nancy the look of defiant watchfulness which generally gave a sense of unrest and discomfort to her beauty. For the first time since their marriage she looked at her ease and unafraid. He was so absorbed in her that he did not see a well-known face close to him, nor dream of any interruption of his felicity until, at the first interval in the music, some one reached a fan across from another bench and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Why, Arthur, Arthur! don’t you know us?” a voice said. It seemed to curdle the blood in his veins. He turned round with a sense of absolute dismay.
Behind him—how could he have missed the grey head of the old Indian, the overwhelming bonnet of his aunt, the demure correctness of the English young lady, all three in a row?—sat General Curtis, his uncle, father of the Rev. Hubert, who was Rector of Oakley, with the two ladies who ministered to him. What so natural as that these excellent people should be in Paris? They were on their way home from the German baths where the General went for his gout. And the wife and daughter, worn to death by the process which screwed the General up for the rest of the year, had need of a little taste of Paris to refresh their jaded souls. It was Mrs. Curtis who called “Arthur, Arthur!” A discussion had gone on between the three from the moment that Arthur appeared with the young woman, whose advent filled these ladies with a thrill of curiosity. “Don’t you meddle with what don’t concern you,” growled the General. Arthur was known to have made a dreadful connection, to have married somebody who was nobody, and generally to be in a bad way; and the sight of Nancy had startled this group beyond expression, as she came in looking happy and beautiful in her dainty Parisian bonnet.
“She looks a perfect lady, mamma; why shouldn’t we?” said Mary Curtis, who was charitable and disposed to be “gushing.”
“It concerns us as much as it concerns anyone, except his father and mother,” Mrs. Curtis said. Both wife and daughter were disposed to be rebellious to the dictum of the head of the house. They had gone through so much for him. Now they were on ground which they felt to be their own, and on which he was no longer supreme, and his opposition quickened their desire to penetrate Arthur’s mystery. No one in the family had seen her, they would be the first, and even that thought was pleasant. “That is Sir John Denham on the other side; if she was very bad would he show himself with them in public,” said Mrs. Curtis.
“What does a fellow like that care?” the General growled back, “the demimonde is what he likes best.”
“Oh, hush, Anthony, think of Mary,” said his wife, “he may like the demimonde, as you say; but I don’t think he’d like to show himself with them in public. And really she looks very nice. What a pretty bonnet! Anthony, you cannot pass by your own nephew.”
“I won’t have anything to say to him; if you do, you must take the consequence,” said the General.
“Oh do, mamma, do!” cried Mary at her other side. And the result was that Mrs. Curtis put her fan over somebody’s shoulder and called “Arthur, Arthur!” and filled the young man’s mind with unutterable dismay.
“Aunt Curtis!” said Arthur, rising to his feet. He grew crimson with the sudden emergency, with the surprise, “Who would have thought of seeing you here?”
“Indeed if you had thought at all on the subject, you might have made sure we should be here,” said Mrs. Curtis, and then she stooped forward and raised her head to whisper: “She is very pretty, Arthur, and of course you think her as nice as she is pretty. Would she like to be introduced to me?”
“She must be now that you are here,” said Arthur, not with any great eagerness. He took her offer a great deal too easily as a matter of course, not as the distinguished kindness she intended it to be. But her curiosity had reached to a very high point, and there was a touch of kindness as well as of self-importance in the idea of being able to mediate in the family affairs. Besides Sir John Denham was chatting familiarly on the other side of the bride, whose looks in her Paris bonnet were unexceptionable; and Sir John Denham was a very useful man to know in Paris, and one before whom many doors opened. And though her husband grumbled and held back, her daughter was still more anxious than she was.
“Oh, Arthur, how pretty she is!” Mary Curtis murmured to her cousin, while her mother made up her mind. It was Mary or some one like her who ought to have been elected to fill the post Nancy had secured, to become the future Lady Curtis. If that post had been filled up by competitive examination, as men’s situations are nowadays, no doubt Mary would have got it; and looking at it entirely as a public position without reference to Arthur (who after all was but a necessary adjunct, and not everything) Mary felt a lively interest, touched with doubt of her qualifications, in the successful candidate. She was anxious to inspect her, to have the satisfaction of feeling, which is a very general sentiment, that she herself could have done it better. Would this girl have the least idea how to behave in so important a post? Mary gave her mother little pushes and pinches to urge her on.
“I hope you have taken her to see your mother, Arthur,” said Mrs. Curtis, “she is of course the first person to be thought of. Ah, you have not, you naughty boy! well, if you wish it I will go and speak to her before the music begins again. No, Mary, not you, you had better stay where you are. Papa will be vexed if we both go.”
“Oh, papa! it is always papa,” said Mary, as her mother swept past her, almost sweeping her out of her seat. Mrs. Curtis was large and ample both in figure and drapery, and looked like Society impersonated as she swept round in front into the vacant space before Nancy, with a solemnity becoming the occasion. Nancy looked up alarmed at the coming of this large lady, and if it was partly defiance and resistance, it was also partly shyness, and fright, and ignorance as to what it was right to do, that kept her from rising to receive this imposing introduction. Mrs. Curtis made her a curtsey, which the girl blushing hotly, and confused between pride and shame and helpless ignorance, returned only with a little tremulous inclination of her head. Oh, if she only knew what was the most polite yet the most disdainful thing to do!
“I am afraid you scarcely know who I am,” said the large lady, “Arthur has not had much time yet to tell you about his relations. I am your husband’s aunt, Mrs. Arthur; we are all very fond of him. But you have not seen any of the family yet, I am sorry to hear.”
“No,” said Nancy, feeling waves of hot blood come up to her temples. She confronted her new acquaintance without looking at her, with eyes half concealed by her eyelids, dumbly defiant. Arthur’s relations might come and stare at her, and talk to her as they pleased, but she would make no advances. And they could not make much, she thought, out of yes and no.
“Arthur shall tell me where you are, and I will come to see you to-morrow,” said Mrs. Curtis. “I think it is only right for his sake, and I hope you will not be frightened of me. I will do anything I can to be of use to you, for Arthur’s sake, that is, of course, if you wish it. Sir John Denham, I think,” she added, turning to him. Denham had withdrawn a few steps from the family meeting, as courtesy demanded. “I met you, I think, years and years ago at the Carringtons’, though I see you have forgotten me.”
“As if that were possible!” said Denham, in a tone which half offended Nancy. He had pretended to be her friend and Arthur’s; yet here he was just as friendly with the enemy. “But they are going to begin again, I am afraid. Will you take this place,” he said, offering her his vacant chair. Mrs. Curtis paused to reflect that to place herself beside Arthur’s wife in public, was more than was required of her; more, indeed, than was perfectly discreet in the circumstances. So she made her doubtful niece-in-law a bow, and took Arthur’s arm again.
“I must return to my own party I fear,” she said, “but I shall hope to see you to-morrow.” Nancy found herself for a moment left entirely alone, while this unexpected intruder upon her happiness squeezed back again into her place, for Denham too had deserted her, as she saw by a backward glance, to renew acquaintance with the fine young lady behind, with whom Arthur too lingered, leaving her seated there in front alone. The din of the orchestra recommenced, which Nancy was not sufficiently instructed to admire, and her head began to ache with jealous pain and misery. The heat of the place, the languor of the afternoon, the crash of the music, made an atmosphere of confusion and sickening incongruity all around her. Oh, to be in the little parlour at home again! oh, to be Nancy Bates, with no fine ladies to question, or fine gentlemen to thrust the village girl to the front of this alien assembly, where all the people knew each other, and understood what was going on, except only she. These women! she had never expected any inquisition of this kind. She would have liked to jump up and rush away, no matter where, only to be free of it all. She said to herself she could not bear it. She would go home whatever happened; with Arthur or without Arthur, it did not seem to matter now.