ARTHUR CURTIS had not been leading a self-denying or ascetic life; indeed he had been nearer the depths of moral decadence in the recent months than ever before. He had got reckless about himself and his life; not coarsely reckless, as men are who plunge into the ruder dissipations, but so discouraged and weary that by mere dint of ceasing to care what he did, he had ceased to do well, and almost dropped into the gulf on the opposite side. He had been foolish enough in the past, but his aim had been towards, if not the most exalted objects of ambition, yet those of honesty, truth, faithfulness, and pure living. It might have been unwise to love as he did, so far out of the region he himself belonged to; but, at least, his love brought no harm to any one, and had no evil thought in it. He had been faithful to it, notwithstanding everything that had come in his way; opposition and entreaty on the side of his family, and partial disgust and discontent on his own, had not moved him; but of what good had all his faithfulness been? What good had his honesty and pure intentions done him? He was stranded upon the shore—laid aside helpless and with little hope from the graver developments of existence. 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 more cruel to a high-spirited young man not trained in the ways of self-denial. And by the time these two years were over he had become sick of it all: The restraints that confined him, the conscience which reminded him of these restraints, and the injured love that gnawed at his heart and felt like rage. What good had come to him of all his efforts to do well—of all the honest meaning of his soul? The gayest and least self-denying of his comrades was better off than he; and he had been on the borders of vice—not compelled by any force of passion, but rather by disgust and unwilling cynicism, the what does it matter? of the despairing soul. On the borders of vice—and half-unbelieving in anything better—half giving up all that was better in this world—trying to persuade himself that nothing mattered. Youth comes to this alternative of happiness very easily. The wisdom which has found out that in happiness, or unhappiness, life jogs on much the same, and that all is not unmitigated evil in the worst circumstances, nor unmitigated good in the best; is an elderly kind of wisdom. But Arthur was impatient of his own hopelessness—he felt his own weariness intolerable; which is as much as to say that neither the hopelessness nor the impatience was entirely genuine, or had half the sway he thought of in his heart.
Their immediate effect however, was a great bitterness and restlessness, and distaste for everything around him. He had got to hate his new life, his occupations, and the pleasures which perhaps palled more quickly than his occupations; and all that flutter of diplomatic talk, which is so like the flutter of the smallest parish business, but that the topics are more important. Those personal discussions and reports, the “he said” and “she said” which pretend to be of vital importance when the hes and the shes are kings and queens, but are so like common gossip in every other respect became tiresome beyond description. All this which had carried him away from his own presumably small affairs at first, and had sounded great and magnificent, sickened him now with its paltriness. “Depend upon it the Emperor meant so and so.” “But I assure you Count A—— said—” What was a man the better for this? he asked himself with disdain Nothing at all the better, much the worse, as having it urged upon his attention that mere gossip and nonsensical bustle, and officious fussiness thrust themselves in at the gravest moments, and have a part in the greatest events. Mrs. Bates discussing the affairs of her chapel and the private dissensions between the minister and the deacons, or a Secretary of Legation busily calculating how the Emperor and Count A. and Prince B. contradicted each other, what was the difference? Was it not all petty, miserable, unworthy? What was a man the better of it? And though the salons were more lovely and the style of conversation more graceful, was not the subject everywhere much the same as in the parlour at Underhayes, in which Arthur had made such close acquaintance with the vulgarities of life? He was disgusted with them all. The only good under the sun was surely to enjoy as much as you could where you could, leaving all other considerations aside. Be happy—if that come within your powers—but if not happy, then be amused, if you are able to be so, distracted from your own thoughts, entertained, if not by the love and kindness, at least by the folly, and affectations, and self-regard of others. This creed was not naturally to the taste of a frank and open-hearted young man, sympathetic with his fellow-creatures, manly, and friendly, and gentle of heart; but his unhappiness had given him a twist, and all the training he was at present subject, to all the influences round him, led him that way. What did it matter? Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die. Arthur was on the eve of ceding to this creed. He was on the edge of that pit which is bottomless, and in which there is so little hope; and he might have ended by being a gay infidel, a chill but laughing cynic, even an unbeliever in everything good, who should not only accept that negative of every virtue, but be amused by it, the last degradation. He had all but given in, when Durant’s letter telling him of the disappearance of Nancy came suddenly into his life like a thunderbolt. He had thought as little about Nancy as possible, poor fellow! She was living the life she had chosen to live under the protection of her parents in the home she preferred. Arthur knew the half-savage reserve and purity of the girl too well to have any doubt of her honour to him. It was not that she could transfer her heart to another; but that she had no heart at all so far as he was concerned; not that she was unfaithful in love, but that she could live without love. He had written to her without eliciting any answer at first; then he had ceased to write; he had heard nothing of her for about eighteen months, except that her money was paid; not a sign of her had come to him in all that time. His heart had gone through all the stages of longing, of waiting, of dire anxiety, of lingering hope against hope. And then he had turned resolutely away from the ungrateful one. He never mentioned so much as her name to anyone, he gave up his correspondence with Durant, he dropped this past of his in that grave of obscurity into which so many men cast, one after another, in broken pieces, the lives they have thrown away. It was not his fault, or at least it was very far from being all his fault that these chances of life had been thrown away; but now let them go and let no one attempt to make any wail over them. She was well off, among the people she liked best, well cared for, cherished as she chose to be cherished, though not as he would have cherished her. Let her be. She was his, but she was not for him, nor could anyone else be for him. She had desolated the life which he had consecrated to her. Henceforward there was a blank in it which she would not, and which no one else could fill. The legitimate ties, the purer hopes were over. But there were other solaces more cheaply to be had—if he could have persuaded himself to accept those husks which the swine eat; and to these last degrading feasts he was making up his mind.
When suddenly Durant’s news came into his life like a thunderbolt, breaking the stagnation of the unwholesome air. This woman who belonged to him was, like himself, alone in the world. The humble coterie which she had preferred to him was broken up. All that she had loved and clung to had gone from her. Perhaps she too might have felt, even before this, the dreariness of that existence deprived of its closest tie, to which she had condemned him; but at least she must feel it now. Everything had gone from her, the shelter of her father’s house, the natural protection and moral support which perhaps had kept her in her error; but which must have failed her now along with everything else. The first feeling in Arthur’s mind was a keen pity for Nancy. She had done him grievous wrong, she had wasted all their mutual chances of happiness; but she was young, inexperienced, foolish, a child playing with the most dangerous elements, not knowing any better, and now the time had come when she must bear the penalty too. But when he realized the results of the misfortune that had befallen his wife, and heard that she had left Underhayes and thrown up the allowance which he had been so much surprised, and disappointed, and satisfied to find her accept at first, Arthur’s heart swelled with a more generous, more happy sentiment than had touched it for months before. Had not this been one of the things which had disgusted him most with human nature, though he had never put it into words? The thought that his wife when she left him, though she would not accept love from him, would accept money, humiliating, degrading thought! With a start and sudden thrill of recognition he heard that she had thrown it aside now, and this one fact threw light to him upon all that went before, and seemed to bring her back to him cleared of a thousand misapprehensions. At last he recognised again his Nancy, proud, rash, daring, imprudent, capable of any outburst of passionate folly, but not of mercenary calculation or the prudence of a deliberate bargain.
He saw it all now, he thought; and in his thoughts, did, could anyone wonder? as much injustice to the poor vulgar couple in their graves, who were not any more mercenary than poverty compelled them to be, as he had formerly done to his hot-headed and foolish wife. It had been their fault; they had forced her into this vulgar settlement which had so revolted him, this compounding for the injuries of the heart by an allowance. Had he not known all along that it could not be Nancy? What could be more unlike Nancy, so independent, so defiant, so rash and regardless of all dictates of prudence as she had been? It had been a mystery to him, and burning pain all through; but now he recognised her again. It was as if suddenly, after long obliteration from his memory, her face with all the characteristic defects and imperfections of its beauty, defects far more sweet than the faulty faultlessness of others, had all at once gleamed upon him out of the gloom. Perhaps, how could he tell, if he had been less distant, if she had been less proud, she might have turned to him in her grief and loneliness, sought his natural support, his natural consolation; but at least she had vindicated herself by that hasty, foolish immediate action. 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. And as he sat there alone he blushed fiery red over brow and throat. To what ignoble rivalship, what miserable partaking, had he almost degraded his wife! but heaven be praised this voice out of the darkness had come in time.
And at first it did not occur to him that this sudden and prompt vindication of herself, which set Nancy right, brought external consequences with it which might alarm any man. What could she do to make up for the loss of her living which must ensue? She would be not only an orphan and friendless—but also penniless, with nothing, and no one to keep her from want. This is a thought which might well appal a man used to all the resources of wealth, and who had no notion how poor people contrive to stumble on, and keep body and soul together upon no income at all. A shiver of pain got into Arthur’s being at thought of the sacrifices and straits she might be driven to; though that was not half so powerful at first as the relief and satisfaction of the other discovery, that she was herself still, foolish, rash, passionate, but not mercenary. It grew upon him, however, as the days went on, and no answer came to the letter he wrote instantly imploring Durant (whose time and labours seemed to his friends to belong to them) to lose no time in finding Nancy. As it happened, and as it happens so often in the emergencies of individual history, Arthur could not at that moment rush home himself, as he would have done almost at any other time, to rescue his wife from her self-imposed privations, whatever they might be. His chiefs were absent, there was a lull in diplomatic business, and it was his duty to remain at his post, to note the small gossip of the court, and chronicle all the small beer, and make into national importance the scraps of remark that fell from Count A. and Prince B.
For a month or more he was kept doing this, chafing at every day as it passed, and growing more and more excited, more and more anxious. By and by Durant wrote that he was making every possible research, but had as yet discovered nothing. And then there arose a very fever of anxious thought in Arthur’s mind. Where could she be? what might she be doing? what privations might she be enduring, what toils, what hardships? All the stories of distress he had ever heard, of proud poverty, of struggles for employment, of Spartan independence starving calmly sooner than ask for a morsel, all the taunts and spurns which patient merit from the unworthy takes, came rushing upon his recollection. While he lived daintily and slept softly, his Nancy, his wife, might be turning away discouraged, penniless, without shelter, from some door which was closed upon her. Heaven above! what could he do? He sent wild advertisements to the “Times,” he wrote ceaseless letters to Durant. Find her! was his cry; though indeed Nancy was spending her time, on the whole, very comfortably, as the reader knows. But Arthur did not think of the little fortune—the two hundred and fifty pounds which was to have been handed over to her sisters. Nothing had been done about it, and it had not found a place in his memory; he did not think of anything reasonable, he only lost himself in a vague cloud of excitement, terror, and anxiety, intensified by the fact that it was impossible for him to get away, and to go in search of her himself. And his troubles were made tenfold greater still by a chance meeting with his Paris friend, Denham, who “thought he had seen” Mrs. Arthur Curtis somewhere, but could not recollect where. Denham knew, as everybody did, that the husband and wife were separated; and he was curious, and ventured upon some leading question to which Arthur in his state of suspense fell a ready victim. He did not conceal that he was anxious, “not having heard from his wife for some time,” he allowed; and then Denham on his side recollected that he had seen her somewhere; where was it he had seen her? Was it in Paris, was it London? he had quite lately come from England; and he could not recollect where it was—at a railway-station somewhere—but where? The impression left upon Arthur’s mind was that she might be coming to him, and this beguiled his anxiety for a few days, making him tremble at every strange sound, and expect day and night her arrival—which never came. This final trial made an end of him, poor fellow! It ruined his chance of sleep, so that his nights and days alike became torment to him. And the probation lasted for more than a month after he had heard that Nancy had left Underhayes—a month—which felt like a century. It was far on in November when at last he was released from his post, and could start for home. For home! where was that, he asked himself, sadly? could it now exist anywhere for him except where she was, who was a part of him, who had no one now but himself, and who, by rejecting that last material tie between them, had caught back the sick heart which had begun to flutter downward. But never, never again could he fall back into that disgusted and weary infidelity of thought. All this time his pride and his reviving affection had kept him from communicating his anxiety to his family. They did not know Nancy as he did, they would not think of her as he did, that was certain. Their pride would be hurt by the idea of poverty or distress falling upon her, but not their hearts touched. If they should happen to hear of her as labouring perhaps for daily bread, a poor needlewoman, a poorer teacher, they would think of her not nobly, but ignobly, as driven to it by folly, not forced by proud independence. He would not say anything to them. He did not even let them know that he was coming back. Whether he went to Oakley or not would depend upon many other things, and he was full of the unconscious cruelty which springs from pre-occupation and partial indifference. He did not think what would be the feelings of his father and mother when they heard he was in England, but as much apart from them as if he were still in Vienna. What were they in comparison with Nancy? Nancy who was young, poor, lonely, without guardian or helper. All the fathers and mothers in the world were nothing compared with her. This is not a pleasant consideration for the fathers and mothers; but yet it was true.
A few days were necessarily lost in travelling; and what so good as the long compulsory seclusion of a railway carriage, shutting you absolutely up with yourself, while the long lines of country, plain, and hill sweep pass, and all the outside hurry and bustle do nothing but make the whirling silence of the box in which you are enclosed more complete—for the feeding of anxiety and cherishing of all troublous thoughts? The mere certainty that he must not surrender himself to his fears had given him a certain power of self-control so long as he remained at Vienna, which now abandoned him altogether. His mind was in a fever by the time he reached London. It was late at night, and the only thing he could do was to throw himself into a cab and drive to Durant’s chambers in the Temple, where, in all the commotion of his feverish thoughts, he was brought to a sudden standstill by the information that Durant was out of London, engaged on the business of the Commission on which he had been appointed. He had not even heard of this commission; for Lewis had been reluctant to write of the many events which had lately occurred, not knowing what his friend might think of his own half-permitted betrothal, or whether it was not best that Nancy should have an undisturbed moment to make her way with the family at Oakley. This had kept Durant silent for longer than was, perhaps, quite friendly; but, as fate would have it, he had taken heart of grace at last, and had written to Arthur on the very day on which Arthur had left Vienna; and the letter which would have given so much information arrived in the one capital just as the person to whom it was addressed reached the other. He was cruelly disappointed by Durant’s absence. It seemed something like a crime in the confusion of his thoughts. What was any public commission in the world to the commission which affected his friend’s happiness, the succour of a woman who was to that friend more than all the world beside? Arthur could scarcely keep his patience even with the innocent laundress who answered his questions. He went into his friend’s room, and found there his own letter announcing his coming, which had arrived only a few hours before him, and which he tore vehemently into a hundred pieces. But all his rage and vehemence could do nothing for him. He was obliged to go away, to go to an hotel, and in utter impossibility of doing anything, to eat and to sleep, which, perhaps, saved him from a fever. It was all that could be done that night.