THE explanation between Durant and Lucy, of which Nancy had been, so to speak, a spectator, and which had filled her with such doubtful feelings, before the moment when she apprehended peril to herself—had taken place under difficulties. It was only when driven up into a corner by his repeated appeals that Lady Curtis had given a doubtful and reluctant assent—it did not deserve so cordial a title as consent—to his petition—which was only that he might be allowed to refer the question to Lucy herself. “If she says no, there will not be another word to say,” he had represented. Lady Curtis had only replied by shaking her head, a gesture which filled him with exhilaration, though after all it might have meant something different from the conclusion he drew from it. But after the confused meal, which he was so anxious to get over and so impatient of, it was some time before Lucy’s attention could be secured. She was coy and unwilling, and half-angry, he thought, while her mother, though so affectionate to himself, would have been glad enough to stave off the interview which she had reluctantly promised might take place between them. She would not go back from her word; but if she could manage to get it postponed, deferred till the last moment, Lady Curtis would have felt that something was gained. And things seemed to fall out in harmony with her purpose as the afternoon went on. Sir John took possession of Durant in the first place to show him something, and then Lady Curtis managed to keep by Lucy’s side, hoping that the time at which he had settled to leave them would have come too near for any explanation before the opportunity came. But Durant was not the kind of man to be so baffled by circumstances. When he saw the policy she was pursuing (and which, with an hypocrisy which half-maddened, half-amused, half-touched him, she seemed to confess and beg pardon for, with deprecating beseeching looks) he broke openly through the maze she was entangling his feet in. He went up to Lucy boldly as she sat by her mother’s side.
“There is something that I want to say to you,” he said, with a tremulousness very unlike his usual steady tones. “Your mother has permitted me to ask you—to hear me—”
“Do not say that, Lewis, do not say that,” cried Lady Curtis. “I could not forbid it—that was all.”
“It comes to the same thing. Will you hear what I have to say—will you listen to me? It may be nothing to you, but it is everything in the world to me!”
Lucy grew crimson red, then pale, then red again. “Can you say it here?” she asked, in a scarcely audible voice.
“Anywhere, wherever you will, no place can change what I have to say; but rather alone,” he cried, growing so agitated that his words were half inarticulate too. Lady Curtis got up with a sigh to leave them. But Lucy felt the atmosphere of the room, the sense of constraint in the very air, stifle her. She sprang up hurriedly. “Stay here, mamma, I will go out with Lewis,” she said, scarcely knowing what she said. It was quite unawares that this unconscious familiar utterance of his name anticipated everything more she could say on her side, as his appeal had forestalled everything on his. She caught up her hat and a shawl as she went out, then turned to him with a question in her eyes—was it a question? She knew as well as he did, and he knew as well she did. Had it not all been settled years ago?
Lady Curtis was very restless when she was thus left behind. She had given her unwilling assent only on hard conditions—that nothing more than this one interview should at present pass between the lovers—that no formal engagement should be made or correspondence begun, and nothing as yet be said to Sir John. She was to “manage” him as best she could, taking her opportunity; nothing was to be hurried or forced. They were to wait the next change in the drama of Arthur’s fortunes. If anything happened in that, Sir John might be more easy to manage. But though she set up all these imaginary defences round her, Lady Curtis knew very well that in ceding one point she had virtually ceded all. How keep two persons who understood each other, who were faithful to each other, who could neither be coerced nor frightened, apart? the thing was impossible. It might be done for a time making everybody uncomfortable, but the means of permanently afflicting Lucy, whom her parents loved, who was more precious to them than all the rest of the world! This was folly she knew. Sir John might resist, and he would regret—but yield he must if they insisted. And what could Lucy do else? Lady Curtis was, as she avowed to herself, with a smile and a tear, a little in love with Lewis too. He was so kind, so true, so good a stay and support to all belonging to him; he was—what need to prolong descriptions—Lewis; and had not all been said in that word for years? Of course Lucy would insist: not undutifully, not untenderly, but steadily, and to the end of her days; there would be no passion, no tragedy—but she would never change. Her mother knew this as well as she knew her child’s name, and began to consider, as she wandered about restless, wondering when they would come back again, wondering what they could find to say to each other so long, wondering at Durant’s determination and Lucy’s courage, how she could make the best of it and reconcile herself to the inevitable. He would be successful in his profession, that there seemed no doubt of now—he would reach, perhaps, the bench, and then Lucy might be Lady Durant. Lady Curtis shrugged her shoulders at this prospect. She was apt to gibe at her own position, and talk of “we Commoners;” but legal honours of that description were lowlier than any lowliness which could be affected by the head of a great county family, tenth baronet, with dormant titles in his race which he did not care to claim. Lady Durant! “granddaughter-in-law of old Durant, you know, the saddler.” This was what would be said. Lady Curtis thought she could hear the very sound of the voices lightly tripping over these syllables. To be sure many greater ladies than she had accepted the sons of parvenus for their daughters. Duchesses did it every day; but then dukes were made for that sort of thing, she said to herself with a smile; were they not a kind of coroneted steam-engines to drag up the lower classes? very different from us, Commoners. There was always the woolsack it is true, an institution which does a great deal for the noblesse of the robe. With a whimsical half-amusement she began to calculate whether she was likely to live to see Lewis Lord Chancellor. He might do it (if he was ever going to do it) in twenty years. Twenty years would suffice as well as a hundred. Lady Curtis was but forty-seven, there was no particular reason why she should not live as long as that, and such an elevation of course would very much sweeten the Lady Durant.
But how long these two were? What could they possibly find to say to each other? It was close upon the hour at which Lewis had ordered his dog-cart, and he had a long drive before him. Then she went to her room and put on her outdoor garments, and went out to meet the lovers. She walked down the avenue half-satisfied, half-vexed that they had gone so far. Why should they have preferred to get out of sight of the house? and yet it was better that they should not thus suddenly thrust themselves under the observation of Sir John. With a flutter in her bosom of mingled pleasure and pain, she perceived them in the distance. It hurt her infinitesimally, yet consciously, to see her Lucy, her shy, delicate, fastidious flower of maidenhood, leaning upon any man’s arm so; and yet the happiness in Lucy’s bosom was it not almost her own. When she came up to them herself blushing, and half abashed to meet their eyes, the young man was so bold as to come up to her, under her own trees, and kiss her cheek. He had done it once before when she clung to him in the depths of her trouble; but there was a dauntless assurance in this kiss which startled her. She might, perhaps, have crushed him under her frown with severe disapproval, but that the dog-cart at that moment was audible, coming rapidly down upon them. There was no time to be angry when he was going away. She took her daughter’s arm when he was gone, drawing it closely into hers as they stood aside to watch him dash down the avenue, for he was late. Lady Curtis held Lucy close, and the daughter clung to the mother; but is the clinging ever so close again, after a man’s arm has had that softest, warmest pressure? Lady Curtis, with a sigh, felt the difference—or thought she did, which comes to the same thing.
And as Durant drove away, with his head full of Lucy, he was suddenly transfixed, shot point-blank, as it were, by the eyes of Mrs. Arthur, raised in surprise and alarm to his face. Nancy! here! It was so incredible, and his mind was so preoccupied, that he almost upset his dog-cart, pulling it up with a jerk, then dropped the reins, which had been held so firmly, on the horse’s neck. He did not know if he was awake or dreaming as he stumbled down, the surprise was so great, the shock so sudden. Nancy! It seemed to him that there was a kind of suggestion of help, a thread of guidance thrown out to him by this sudden apparition. He rushed after her, asking one or two gaping wayfarers who had not perceived her, who the lady was, as he followed her track; but fear had given wings to Nancy, and she had reached shelter before he came in sight. He wandered about aimlessly for some little time, as has been seen, asking vague questions, and gazing about at the houses. But as nobody had seen the lady to whom he referred, and as in his excitement his description, perhaps, was less clear than usual, he made nothing by his inquiries. They pointed out Mrs. Rolt’s house to him, which he knew, and everything in it; and as the evening was already falling, Durant felt himself forced at last to resume his way. He could not make out all that he expected, all that seemed to flutter about through the confusion in his thoughts—possibilities for the future, new lights, new likelihoods; for it must be remembered that his mind was already in a whirl with all that had happened to himself within the last half-dozen hours—more than had happened for the half-dozen years before, or, indeed, during all his life.
There was to be no correspondence; yet Lady Curtis was not surprised to get a letter next day, enclosing one for Lucy.
“Just this once,” he pleaded; “and not for mere gratification of writing to her. There is something I want to tell her. You will not refuse me this once.”
Lady Curtis did not refuse him. She gave the note to Lucy with a smile and a sigh, and a little shrug of her shoulders.
“What is this great thing he has to tell you, I wonder? The same thing, I suppose, that he took so long to tell you the other day.”
“Indeed, it must be something he has forgotten,” said Lucy, with simple seriousness; but she took the note upstairs to read in her own room, running off on pretence of wanting something—a pretence which her mother, with another sigh and shrug of her shoulders, understood well enough. And, indeed, Durant had not failed to take advantage of his opportunity. The little letter was a love-letter, a kind of thing which is too exquisite for common touch; but it had a postscript, which was its raison d’être.
“This is what I shall want to be always telling you, what I shall tell you in my heart daily and hourly till I have you there in real presence, my Lucy,” the deceiver wrote; and then, with a twist of his hand, in a changed writing even, “But I should not have dared to write but for a strange fact I found out after I left you—ARTHUR’S WIFE IS IN OAKLEY. It seems incredible, but it is true. I saw her on the road. She disappeared at the sight of me by a back-lane, and must have gone into some house. You will tell them or not, as you please; but I must tell you. There seems, I can’t quite tell how, hope for ourselves in it. My darling!” And then the other kind of writing began again, with which we sober-minded persons have nothing to do.
Lucy, it may be supposed, was extremely excited by this communication; not just at first, it must be allowed, not till she had read it about six times over did the real point of it strike her mind. At first it was the other part of the letter that occupied her; and when Lady Curtis said, smiling, “What was the great piece of news—an old enough story, I suppose?” Lucy meant no deception in her response. But by and by the fact began to acquire its real importance in her mind. She had no longer a moment’s doubt on the subject; had not instinct whispered it to her at once? Nancy was here, within her reach, within her influence; and only one thing could be meant by this, that the rebellious young woman who had made Arthur so unhappy, had seen the error of her ways, and was willing to depart from them, to seek the favour of her husband’s family, to endeavour to please them, that there might be a reconciliation and universal pardoning of all offences, in prospect. Lucy, when she wholly realized the important fact thus communicated to her, was lost in perplexity. What was she to do? A strange reluctance sprang up in her mind to speak of it, to bring it to any one’s observation. Would it not be better to let this strange young woman, by whom Lucy had at once been attracted and repelled, work out her intentions, whatever they were? It was not natural that the young lady should think with special kindness, or, indeed, without a certain prejudice, of this interloper. Lucy’s feeling, to start with, had been all in her sister-in-law’s favour. Before the marriage had taken place, when the question was whether Arthur should be persuaded or forced into faithlessness to his promise, Lucy had been Nancy’s faithful, if reserved, supporter. She had been horrified by the suggestion that a man’s plighted word and promised love were not binding, when the woman to whom they were pledged was in an inferior class. This doctrine had shocked and revolted every feeling in her heart, and when her family had made ignoble efforts to buy off Nancy, Lucy had been as indignant as Arthur was. But now everything was changed. The resemblances in nature and the diversity in circumstances, which gave her a fellow-feeling with this girl in one stage of her history, gave her a certain sense of repulsion now. She had thought it a mere foolish imagination on her part to identify Mrs. Arthur at the Wren Cottage with Nancy; but even while doing so, Lady Curtis’s ready prepossession in her favour, and the easy fascination she had exercised over Sir John, had given Lucy a slight involuntary prick of displeasure. What did they see in this young woman to be so readily pleased by her? She was pretty. Was that all that was necessary? Lucy was in no way injured by it, it took nothing from her, yet she felt more than half angry at the rapid conquest of her parents which the stranger had made. They were quite absurdly interested in her. Why? Sir John spoke of her as if she had been a princess, and even her mother, who, as a woman, should have had more discrimination, had been disposed to rave about this new face, in which, after all, there was no such dazzling beauty as to carry the world by storm. Lucy had been a little vexed with herself for feeling this, yet she had felt it. She had been inclined in her own person to bestow her attention upon the homely sister, who was a good modest little body and claimed no one’s admiration. And when this strange certainty came to confirm the guess, which even to herself had seemed too fantastic for fact, Lucy felt an instant increase of prejudice, an almost dislike for which she could give no reason, and which was at once impolitic and unkind. Why should her mind turn against Nancy now? Was it not for the interest of the family as well as her own that she should in every way cultivate the possibility of reunion between Arthur and his wife? It must be for Arthur’s good that he should be delivered out of his false position, and should live out his life honestly, having chosen it; and it must be to the advantage of the family that its heir should be replaced in his natural place, both for the present and the future. Finally, there could be no doubt whatever that it would be for Lucy’s own interest in the new development of her lot. If Arthur was like any other young married man, united to a wife whom his parents had learned to like at least, whether they approved of her or not, how much easier would everything be for the now impossible marriage of the daughter who at present was their only hope! But it cannot be said that this suggestion of her own lessened value and importance, and the likelihood that Nancy might free her by taking her place in her father’s house, was at all an agreeable thought to Lucy Curtis. It might promote her “happiness;” but it certainly, for the moment, did not make her more happy. She was unreasonable—as we all are more or less. Yes, she would be glad that Arthur should be “happy,” that all should go well; but to think of her mother’s sudden fancy for this stranger, of her father’s swift subjugation, of Nancy holding her own place at Oakley, doing all the things she had done, accepted by everybody as the young lady of the place, this was hard upon Lucy. For the moment it gave her an almost intolerable prick—though she took herself to task for it instantly with hot rage and self-contempt. How mean and poor, what a wretched pitiful creature she was!
Then, however, after all this feeling, came the practical side of the matter. Should she let her mother know? Lucy had no secrets from her mother, except indeed that one of her love, before her love had been openly asked for—a thing which not the most tenderly confidential of daughters could be expected to disclose. She made an heroic effort to clear from her mind all prejudice, all momentary and accidental irritation of feeling. Which was best? To let this incognito have its full value, to permit Arthur’s wife to have the entire advantage of the effort she was visibly making, and keep her secret? If it were prematurely revealed it was possible that the effort itself would tell against Nancy, at least with Lady Curtis. To let her do her best, to say nothing, to give her the chance of making them her friends, would not that be the kindest thing that Arthur’s sister could do? The conclusion is very easily stated, but it took a long time to arrive at; but it was on this that Lucy decided at last.
“Will you reply for me?” she said to her mother; “no—I am not going to exceed your permission, mamma. I will abide by my promise not to write. Say from me,” said Lucy with a blush, “that I—respond in my heart to all he says; but that, at present, on all subjects it is best not to speak. Will you tell him that word for word.”
“Faithfully, my darling—and thank you, my Lucy,” said the mother, kissing her, with the quick moisture rising in her eyes. Then she added with a smile, “I suppose I may give him—your love?”