NEXT day Arthur made a further experiment with his bride. It was one of the things he had promised her when they talked of Paris, and it had not occurred to him that the very name of the Louvre conveyed no idea to Nancy’s mind. She had been quite willing to accept it as something vaguely splendid which she was to see, but that was all. He took her across the broad sunshiny courts with a little thrill of expectation, chiefly pleasurable, yet with a touch of doubt in it which perhaps made it more exciting. Arthur was not himself very learned in art, nor an enthusiast about it. He knew what a young man of his breeding could scarcely escape knowing—he knew which were the pictures that everybody admires; he had all his life been accustomed to believe that he admired them, and what with association, what with faith, what with some natural sense of beauty, such as few minds are quite destitute of, he had liked to go and look at them from time to time when he was in the way of it, and had a certain acquaintance with the great galleries in all the places he had visited. He knew the Louvre well enough to know his way about, to be able to lead a neophyte from one great picture to another, and even to have his favourites in the Salon Carré. This does not necessitate a very high appreciation of art, or much real acquaintance with its productions; but yet it was as the highest knowledge and the wildest furore in comparison with the absolute ignorance and indifference which exists in the class from which Nancy was taken. A less intelligent girl than Nancy, proceeding from the slightly elevated social position at which it has become known that pictures are things to be admired, and that admiration of them is a proof of superiority both in rank and intellect, would have known how to acquit herself in such an emergency. She would have gone through these galleries with a gush of indiscriminate delight, finding everything beautiful, or at the worst would have taken her cue from her husband, and admired what he admired. But Nancy had not been educated even up to this point. She knew nothing about them, had never heard of Raffaelle or Murillo, and when Arthur said, “This is the famous Assumption,” stared blankly, never having heard of it before; then turned her eyes up and down, gazing about her with that idea that one thing is as good as another, which is the very essence of ignorance. She had not even knowledge enough to be aware that it was becoming to feign an interest.
“What nice rooms to dance in—are they all kept up for nothing but pictures?” she said, in deference to his apparent interest. Nancy did not say stupid pictures, as she had intended; and it is impossible to describe the disappointed feeling, the eager instructiveness of poor Arthur, who felt his own hitherto superficial conviction that every ordinarily well-endowed mind must care for pictures, at once confounded and intensified by the absolute blankness of his bride.
“My dear Nancy, France is more proud of these than of anything she possesses. It is one of the finest collections in the world.”
“I suppose they are worth a great deal of money,” she said, looking at them calmly, yet with a certain respect founded on this consideration. She was looking up at that divine wall upon which hangs the great Murillo, the Virgin of the Garden, and Her of the Veil, the sidelong penetrating fascination of the Gioconda, and many a wonder more; and her calm of incomprehension was almost sublime. Some were “pretty” she thought; but she pulled Arthur’s arm a little to go on, not knowing why he should wish to stay so long, and keep looking when she had seen everything. To be sure it was natural enough to respect things which were worth a great deal of money—the big vases, for instance, in the vestibules, of which she had felt that they must be worth a great deal, though they were not pretty. It was difficult to associate the same idea of value with the pictures, yet Nancy supposed nobody would make so much fuss about them but for this.
“Money!” Arthur said, with a little groan, then making the best of it as he was learning to do: “Yes, dear, a great deal of money—and more than money. Any one of them, almost, is worth more, even in money, than all you and I have in the world.”
“What a shame!” cried Nancy, “nasty old things,” and she pulled him on a little. Then she stopped for a second before the Leonardo in the corner, and laughed out. “What funny women! what are they sitting in each other’s laps for? That is the funniest I have seen yet,” she said.
“Hush, Nancy! this is by a very famous painter; but I cannot say I am fond of it,” said Arthur, in his didactic vein. “That on the other side is his, too—the Gioconda it is called—I like it better.”
“Not I,” said Nancy; “isn’t she deep! I can’t bear people with that look in their eyes. She is exactly like Lizzie Brown at home in Underhayes—you remember Lizzie Brown, Arthur? Come on, I am sure we have stayed long enough here.”
“As you like,” he said, with a sigh; “but there are some more I should have liked to point out to you—”
“That is pretty,” said Nancy, pointing to a bright-coloured copy which one of the many workers in the Salon Carré was making. “Mayn’t one look what they are doing? they would paint at home if they didn’t want to be seen. Oh, they are copying, are they? I am sure that is a great deal prettier than the old thing on the wall. What do they copy for?”
“To sell chiefly,” said Arthur, with a certain sullenness in his despair.
“Oh, to sell! I suppose people like to have them to hang in their rooms? how curious! I would much rather have a picture of you.”
Now Arthur had been falling into lower and lower depths of despondency up to this moment. He had said to himself that all his efforts were mere failures—that he could do nothing, and must give up the attempt; but now he cheered up quite unaccountably, quite unreasonably. There was nothing in what she had said to throw a new light upon Nancy’s capacity and rehabilitate her in his eyes, yet somehow it did so. A sudden tender compunction for the harsh judgment he had been forming came into his mind, softening and melting him. He felt disposed to beg her pardon on his knees.
“You silly girl,” he said, “what do you want with my picture? If it was of you, it might be worth something; but tell me, Nancy, if I were to buy you some of those copies, which would you choose?”
“I don’t want one; you are buying too many things already. Well, perhaps that,” said Nancy at random, pointing at the picture which French taste entitles La Belle Jardinière. It was a lucky guess enough.
“You shall have it, my darling,” cried Arthur delighted, “I knew you had real taste at the bottom of your heart.”
“Oh no, not I,” cried Nancy, shrugging her shoulders and dragging him on, “I don’t care about it. It was only the first that caught my eye. Let us go on quickly through the other rooms; we have been such a long time here. You must not buy that thing, what should I do with it? I don’t really care for pictures. To be sure they make a room rather nice when they have nice frames; but we have not even a room to hang them in. But I will tell you what I should like to do,” she continued, leading him out and in of the smaller rooms. “Let us go and get photographed, Arthur, together, in a nice large size. It will be a much nicer memorial of Paris. And then mamma would like it so much to hang up in the parlour and show to everybody. We must take her a present of some sort, and that would please ourselves too. She would like it a great deal better than that pink lady with the little boy.”
“For heaven’s sake don’t describe the picture like that! Do you know it is a famous Raffaelle,” said Arthur, all the more horrified that some one had heard her young confident voice and had turned round to admire.
“What is a famous Raffaelle? I don’t pretend to know anything about it; and I’d much rather have a picture of you; but what would be really delightful would be to be photographed together. I wonder I never thought of it before. Let us go and find some one as soon as we get out of this stupid place. Oh yes, I have seen everything I want to see.”
Poor Arthur! he was pleased that she should want a portrait of himself. This flattering touch mended his wounds a little, and as she hurried him out again into the bright wintry streets (breathing, herself, a sigh of relief when they got fairly clear of the galleries), he said to himself with the new philosophy which had come to his aid: Well! how was it to be expected she should care for pictures, she who had never seen any? Of course the anticipation was quite absurd on his part. Art demands a special education. To plunge an unsophisticated mind without any training, without any preface, straight into the profundities of Leonardo, of Raffaelle, of Perugino, was ever anything so unreasonable? and then to expect her to understand at once! The poor young fellow felt that he had been hard upon his Nancy, though heaven knows, without meaning it. And then what a pretty idea that was of hers about the photograph! He had winced a little at the idea of having it hung up in Mrs. Bates’s parlour, and exhibited to all her friends; but that was a paltry feeling—and what could be more natural and delightful than that she should wish for such a memento of their honeymoon? That she should be so eager about it, was not that a proof that she was happy, notwithstanding all the little frets of her new position, and those ill-advised efforts of his to force her into his own conventional code of the right things to be admired? That was all a matter of education, he felt sure. He had not thought it to be so before. He had supposed in his ignorance that a fine picture was like a fine landscape, comprehensible to everybody; but then Arthur recollected what he had read somewhere that it was very long even before people began to admire nature, that a generation or two back the Alps were only horrible snowy deserts, and mountains generally were looked upon as obstructions and eyesores by the common mind. This showed clearly (he said to himself) that education was everything. It not only trained the eye but might be said to create it, giving perceptions of beauty that actually had not existed before. This thread of thought kept him occupied as he went on through the bright streets, drawn by Nancy’s eagerness to one of the shops where they had made their previous purchases, to ask about a photographer. She was in such spirits over the idea that she kept up the conversation and covered his silence; and he had conducted his cogitation to a most satisfactory end, the conclusion that Nancy had really shown originality in her remarks and that it was a mere absurdity on his part to look for art knowledge from her—by the time they reached the shop, where they were received with the most cordial satisfaction, and where there were a great many new things to see which Nancy admired greatly. The shopkeeper had no difficulty in indicating an artist of his own acquaintance who, he had no doubt, would do justice to Madame, and would be too proud and happy to have such a subject. Arthur, however, came to himself when they had got this length, whether by the touch of the practical involved in buying some more pretty things for Nancy, or by the fact that he had proved her to his entire satisfaction to be quite justified in her indifference to the pictures in the Louvre; and he had sufficient good sense left to avoid the recommendation of the modiste, and take Nancy to a really good photographer who gave them an appointment for the next day. They were both quite exhilarated by this engagement. It was something to do! They went back to their hotel in the afternoon, consoled and happy, talking about it. And while Nancy reposed herself and took out her dress for the evening, Arthur went to look at the newspapers as in duty bound. He took up the latest “Times,” and hid himself behind its ample sheet; but he did not get much good of his reading. However distinctly you may make out that it is unreasonable to expect your bride to be interested in the interesting things of the place in which you are living, it is impossible to deny that it is very embarrassing when she is not. A girl who was frightened and chilled by Notre Dame, wearied at the Français, uninterested in the Louvre, what was her poor young husband to do with her? The weather was not favourable for those excursions which are so easy in summer. And besides what interest could there be in Versailles, for example, to one who knew nothing about the Grand Monarque, and probably had never heard of Marie Antoinette? People do not marry their wives or their husbands because they understand Molière, and love the Great Masters, and know Continental history; but it is bewildering to be in Paris, or anywhere else for that matter, with a new companion who has no associations with anything, and is at once indifferent and ignorant of all that is in the past. What was he to do with her? Where was he to take her? Poor Arthur puzzled behind his “Times,” and did not know.
That evening he took her to the Gymnase, and at first the spell seemed to tell. Nancy for the first act gave her attention to the stage, and certainly it was not such a failure as the Français. There was a good deal of love-making, and that interested her. But it ended as before, in disgust and weariness.
“I wish you would not take me to such places,” she cried, “is it because you are afraid of an evening at home? When we are settled at home at Underhayes you will be obliged to put up with me, there will be no play there.”
This speech was particularly galling to Arthur, because he had not the slightest intention of settling at Underhayes, and to have it taken for granted gave him a pang which was chiefly terror. Should he be able to resist the foregone conclusion which thus had established itself in Nancy’s mind?
“Indeed,” he said, “I should be glad to stay at home. Indeed I don’t mind where I am, so long as you are there too. I do not care for the play.”
“Then what do you go for? Ah! I know, to polish me up, to teach me how to behave, to remedy my defective education.” This was once more said in the carriage as they were driving home.
“Nancy, you are unkind,” said Arthur, “why should you speak to me so? I know nothing about defective education. I took you to amuse you. You thought you would like it.”
“I did not know they were such poor sticks,” said Nancy, “I did not suppose they would gabble their French so. The people in the shops talk a great deal better. I never mistake them; and it worries me to look so stupid,” she added relenting. “I should not mind for myself; but it looks so bad for you having a wife that does not understand.”
“For me, my darling!” cried Arthur delighted. “Do I care? An evening at home will be a great deal more pleasant; but my wife never looks stupid, cannot look stupid,” said the foolish young man. And again all was well.
Thus the course of their honey-days went on not without fluctuations. What he said in his foolishness, was true so far, that Nancy did not look stupid. She looked careless, defiant, indifferent, scornful of what she saw, as of something which was not worth the trouble even of an effort to understand; but there was nothing stupid in her aspect at any time, and in spite of herself, stray gleams of understanding came in to the girl’s mind. Gleams which did not enlighten her then; but which worked in the chaos, apart from any will of hers. Her will was all set steadfastly the other way, to reject all possibilities of improvement, and the idea of being educated up to her husband’s level. Was not she as good as he to start with, was not her family as good as his family, if not better? Not so rich, but nicer, kinder people, to be upheld in their plainness above any attempt to pull them down. Nancy’s native energy of mind all ran into vigorous scorn of any attempt to separate her from her own race and identify her with his. To think of her old self in the pit, admiring her new self triumphant in a private box was a sensation which, all delicious as it was, originated in herself and was not betrayed to anyone. Had Arthur seemed to think of this difference, Nancy would have proposed at once to descend to the pit as the preferable plan. She had made an immense ascent in the social scale by her marriage; but she never meant to acknowledge, not if she should die for it, that the ascent was of any consequence to her, or that it was expedient to change her manners or her smallest actions because of it; was she not “good enough” for Arthur? Then why did Arthur choose to marry her? It was he who had asked her, she would have said, not she who had asked him. He had pledged himself to take her for better for worse; but she had not pledged herself to change anything in her life or habits on his account. And she did not mean to do it. She was not a fine lady; she did not wish to look like a fine lady. It was far better that everybody should know what she was and who she was from the beginning. The idea that Arthur had begun a process of education struck her suddenly after that visit to the Louvre; why had he been so anxious that she should admire everything? Why should he take her to the theatre? He wanted her to learn French; but she would not learn French. She had not asked Arthur to marry her; he it was who had asked her, and he must take the consequences. She had no wish to be here in Paris. It would be far better to have a little house in Underhayes, where she could show her advancement to those who knew her, and distinguish herself in the only circle where as yet she wished to be distinguished. Such was the course of thought in Nancy’s mind. This was curiously interfered with by the new thoughts which arose in her in spite of herself; but she clung to it all the same. She would go back upon the first grievance of her dress, the pink silk which he would not let her travel in, long after she had been convinced that the blue serge was better and more comfortable, and even looked better, which was the most difficult doctrine of all. She was quite aware that if she had known then as much even as she knew now, she would never have dreamed of setting out upon her journey in her salmon-coloured “silk,” yet still resented the fact that Arthur had objected to her “silk.” She would not yield. She would not try to adapt herself to the “ways” he had been accustomed to. The Bateses were as good as the Curtises, and so she would prove. But every day, in spite of herself, Nancy became more and more aware how far different her habits were from her husband’s, how unlike his were all her ways of thinking. But she would never, never give in, she said to herself. It was he who had asked her, not she who had asked him.
This was very different from Arthur’s eager desire to make out, after every new demonstration of the difference between them, that Nancy could not act in any other way, that it was absurd to expect other things from her. He was by far the humblest of the two, the most tolerant and forbearing. Indeed Nancy was not forbearing at all. She took offence at a look, and blazed into sudden wrath at the merest possibility of a suggestion of anything derogatory; whereas he bore numberless little shafts launched at his family, at fine people who thought themselves superior, at dainty ways and prejudices about dress and modes of living. Whenever she showed her ignorance more conspicuously than usual, or was more painfully unequal to some claim upon her, poor Arthur plunged once again into thought proving to himself that this was what he ought to have looked for, that nothing else would have been natural. He justified her in this way for everything she did, and everything she proved unable to do. But still it was rather a trying process, and the conclusion he came to at the end of a week was that Paris had not been a successful place to think of for the honeymoon. Honeymooning is more difficult in winter than in summer. There is so much more to be done in the latter season, and the open air harmonizes a great many things. Whereas two people not used to each other’s society, not interested in the same pursuits, brought up in perfectly different ways, and with no resources, shut up together even in a beautiful little apartment in a fine hotel on the Rue de Rivoli, what are they to do? The photograph was a charming occupation for one day, and it was tolerably successful, as successful as photographs ever are, and was the object of great admiration in Underhayes, when done up in a velvet frame. Nancy sent it home.
“I hope you are soon going to follow,” Mrs. Bates wrote, and Nancy gave the letter to her husband to read. Certainly Paris had not been very successful. They had contented themselves with drives and walks after that mournful day at the Louvre, had gone to the Bois, which was rather naked at this time of the year, and walked about and got tired. And in the evening they had sat “at home” in the hotel. But Nancy had nothing to do, not even a scrap of fancy work, and when Arthur read to her, fell asleep; and they went to bed very early, which both of them felt was always a virtuous thing to do, if rather dull. And thus a fortnight of the honeymoon came not very cheerfully to an end.