NANCY went very quickly along the village street; the red brown leaves were dropping from her hands; she had forgotten them; her mind was full of excitement, and her eyes of light and life. If Arthur could have seen her at that moment, he who was just now arriving in England, full of anxious thoughts about her, thinking of her as perhaps in want, certainly in poverty, struggling against adverse fate, he would scarcely have known his wife. Never during all the time he had known her had Nancy looked so brilliantly vigorous, and indeed happy. She was happy in a way, happy in the stir of living that was in her mind, the sense of an emergency that would call forth all her powers, and that potential consciousness of active existence which is sometimes better even than happiness. All her faculties were in vigorous exercise, her mind was busy with plans and thoughts. She had that to encounter which might have made the bravest woman in her circumstances quail; but it only strung her nerves, and made her feel the strength within her tingling to her very finger-points. Rash, impulsive, hot-headed she was, as she had always been, but the jar and twist of unhappy pride, of false position, of conscious ignorance and inferiority, and struggling self-assertion were gone. She went rapidly up the village between the rows of cottages, with their little lamps lighted, and past the glow which Mrs. Rolt’s window threw out into the evening. The Rector and the Doctor were going to dine with Cousin Julia that night, and the table was already laid, and showed its modest grandeur frankly to the gazers outside, who thought it very fine indeed. Mrs. Rolt had asked Nancy to that dinner, and though she had declined to go she cast a glance through the wire blinds at the lighted interior and the laid out table, with a pleasant consciousness that she might have been there had she pleased. And then she went across to the Wren Cottage, where Matilda, more careful than Mrs. Rolt, had drawn down the blinds when she lit the lamp. She was seated as usual at her chemises; but she was not so comfortable as usual, for she had been beguiled into telling Miss Curtis a good deal about the family, and had mentioned the name of Underhayes, and that of Nancy—all things which in the code of private instructions drawn out for her when she came here, were accounted capital crimes. But Matilda did not feel that she was called upon to disclose these errors. She was, however, “talkative and unconciliatory,” very willing to hear of the encounters Nancy might have had, and to give an account, with reserves, of her own. Nancy came in, opening the door which opened innocently from the outside, as is the way in most country places. She threw herself down in the first chair she came to, and put down her leaves (“nasty wet rubbish, enough to give her her death of cold”) upon the table on which Matilda already, though it was too early to have it, yet for the sake of cheerfulness, had set out the tea. And then Nancy looked straight into the lamp, with eyes that seemed to give out as much light, so brilliant, so shining, that Matilda, though so familiar with them, was struck with surprise.
“How can you stare into the light so, Nancy?” she said, “you will ruin your eyes.”
“Shall I? it does not hurt them.”
“It is all very well to say that now; but wait till you are older. Mother used to say there was nothing so bad. Ah, Nancy, you have taken things into your own hands—dear old mother’s rules don’t count for much now.”
“Indeed they do,” cried Nancy, with sudden tears; “indeed they do, and will whatever happens! I am not unfaithful. Those that I love, if I love them once, I love them for ever—dead or alive.”
“Ah!” said Matilda, with a tone of interrogation in her voice. It was not clear what she was thinking of; but Nancy’s quick temper and restless spirit divined at once.
“You mean Arthur? Well then, and I mean it too. All the same I do. I mayn’t have just shown it—always: but I do mean it—and will, if I should live a hundred years.”
“I wonder at you, Nancy! Why don’t you write then and tell him? I never knew whether you did or didn’t till this moment—and it looked a great deal more like didn’t. He thought so, I’m sure.”
“Could I give you the sense to see, either to him or you?” cried Nancy, with quick scorn. She did not know that Dr. Johnson had declared it impossible to furnish understanding. And then she threw up her arms with a sudden fine gesture, tossing down the red brown winterly leaves, and shaking the tea-table with its load. “Oh, what am I to do?” she cried, “what am I to do? I am going to the Hall on Saturday; they want me to go, they have all asked me to go; and Lady Curtis called me, my dear. But she didn’t know who I was. And I am deceiving them, Matty. It is the same as telling a lie. I have done a great many wicked things,” said Nancy, “but I never told a lie. How am I to go and sit at their table, and look in their faces, and all the time it will be a lie?”
“What will be a lie?” said sober-minded Matilda. “You don’t need to say anything that isn’t true. It is not as if you had changed your name. You are Mrs. Arthur, and you would be Mrs. Arthur whatever happened. I do believe Miss Lucy suspects something; she has a way of taking things so quietly as if nothing was new to her. And anyhow, if the very worst should come to the worst, why, you’re not compelled to go.”
“But I will go,” said Nancy, with flashing eyes. “Oh, just to be there, to see it all, to know just where he would have taken me, where I might have lived if I hadn’t been a——. I will go! I have made up my mind to that. She called me, my dear—did I tell you she called me my dear? and said old Sir John had raved about me; and begged me to go.” The vivid blush of pleasure came back to Nancy’s face as she spoke, and her eyes again blazed, opposite the lamp, like rival yet reflecting lights. A vague smile came upon her face; there was a little vanity in it, pleased satisfaction with the conquests she had made. Then a cloud came suddenly over it. “But all the same it will be cheating, oh, it will be cheating, Matty! I won’t give it up; but you may begin to pack the boxes,” said Nancy, suddenly. “After I have been there, I shall have to tell them everything, and we must go away.”
“Go away! I think you are out of your senses, Nancy. We have just paid the second month in advance, and they will never give it back; and consider how expensive it is travelling with so much luggage—everything we have in the world. I thought,” said Matilda, aggrieved, “that we should at least have stayed here, now that we are here, till something was settled, till you had made up your mind one way or other.”
“I have made up my mind. When we came here I never thought they would take any notice of us. Why should they have taken any notice of us—a couple of poor girls in a small cottage, not knowing anyone? I wanted just to see what kind of people they were, that was all,” said Nancy, earnestly. “I never thought of anything more. Why should they have thought of us at all? We were quite out of their way.”
“Well,” said Matilda, to whom it appeared that here was a good opportunity of showing her own superior judgment, “that was because you thought they were not very nice people. You made up your mind about them before you knew them. But they are nice people. I never wish to see a more kind lady than her ladyship is.”
“Matty, dear, I don’t mean to be nasty; but if you would say Lady Curtis, not her ladyship—remember that she is my mother-in-law.”
Once more that vivid blush, too bright for anything but pleasure, came over Nancy’s face. How much scorn, how much defiance, what attempts at insult she had lavished upon Lady Curtis’s name; but Arthur’s mother had called her my dear, had looked at her kindly with soft eyes; and it had come to pass, by some subtle process, that Nancy felt herself to belong to this soft-eyed lady more than she did to good honest Matilda, who had stood by her so stoutly, but who naturally retained the manners of her class, which was not Nancy’s class any more.
“Stuff and nonsense!” said Matilda. “She’s not my mother-in-law. She’s very kind, but she’s a deal superior to me; and I’ll speak respectful, whatever you think. They are nice people, as I was saying. Miss Lucy is what I call a perfect lady;” (this, too, jarred upon Nancy’s new-born fastidiousness; but she did not venture to hint that Miss Curtis would be more correct) “and when they saw two young women by themselves, like you and me, of course they took notice. In their own village, these sort of folks are like kings and queens,” said Matilda; “everything belongs to them. It’s not like just being better off. I understand the feeling myself; it’s like what mother used to have for the poor things in the court, to see they went on all straight and sent their children to school, and so forth. Mother was not a great lady, but she was known in the place, and took a charge like; and she was a good woman. There’s a kind of a likeness in good folks,” said Matilda, turning away her head. The mother’s loss was still recent, and made their eyes wet unawares when they spoke of her; but this time Nancy was too much preoccupied to enter into the allusion. Her own thoughts surged up and deadened her appreciation of what her sister said; though Matilda’s ideas, if not brilliant, were often the most sensible of the two.
“Yes,” said Nancy, after a pause; “that’s how it must be. I don’t want to leave this little place. I like it; I think I like the country. It may be dull, but it’s nice.”
“Very nice,” said Matilda, looking at her seventh chemise affectionately as she finished the trimming and folded it up, giving little pats of satisfaction to each fold, “when you have anything you want to get done with. I should have taken twice the time to do my things if we had stayed at Underhayes.”
“But we must go,” said Nancy, continuing. “We might have stayed on if they had taken no notice, if we had kept ourselves shut up, and not seen them; but it can’t be helped now. I will go to the Hall, just to see everything. Fancy sitting down at table with them, being like one of them! It will feel like a dream. Oh, I must, I must go just once! If ever Arthur should come back again—”
“Of course Arthur will come back again. If you tell them who you are, as you say you will, Arthur will come first train; and do you think nowadays that folks can hide themselves like they used to do in the story-books, Nancy? You may run away as much as you like, they’ll have you back again. They will set the detectives after you. Them that have far greater reason to hide than you have get found out, and do you think you can keep safe? Nonsense! Once tell them, and you’ll soon be fetched back.”
“Never!” cried Nancy. “Against my will, with detectives sent after me? I will go to New Zealand first with you, or anywhere. Never! It is not forcing that will ever hold me.”
“I believe there is nothing silly you wouldn’t do, if it came to that,” said Matilda, shaking her head. It was an unwise suggestion she had made; but after a while Nancy calmed down, and gathered up her leaves again, and proceeded to arrange them as was her custom. She had altogether given up the beautiful chalk cartoon which Matilda admired, for this rubbish. How silly it was, her sister thought; though, indeed, her ladyship was to blame, who had encouraged Nancy in this nonsensical occupation. “What is going to be the good of all that?” she asked at last, with a touch of sarcasm in her voice. “You can’t frame it and put it up on the wall, to make a room look nice. It’s only lumber, and gathers dust.”
“I am drawing something for Lady Curtis to work,” said Nancy, with some solemnity. “When I go into the house the first time, I shall take something with me to give her. I suppose you will say that is silly too, but I like to do it. She thinks they are good for something. She was quite interested, you know. Did I tell you, Matilda, she called me, my dear?”
“Oh, yes, you told me, sure enough,” said Matilda, with a little impatience, “three times over;” and she got up to put away the seventh chemise along with the others. It was trimmed with her own work, nice little scallops worked in buttonhole stitch, with three holes in each curve, very neat and strong; and she was pleased, at once with the feeling of successful production and personal property. She gave the little heap another affectionate pat as she laid this one on the top. Seven new chemises, every stitch of which would bear inspection! Matilda felt that she had justification for a little pride. She did not sit down again to begin another, but put on the kettle, that it might come to the point of perfect boiling before she made the tea; and it was pleasant to see her moving about in the pleasant firelight, her substantial and round, but neat person, clothed in a black and white gown, her brown hair smooth and shining. Matilda was very particular about the due amount of crape on her Sunday dress, and you may be sure would not put off her mourning a day sooner than the most rigid rule allowed. But in the house, with all her little domestic occupations, she thought the black and white best. “For crape goes if you look at it, and black so soon gets rusty,” she said. It looked more natural, as well as more cheerful and pleasant that the fire should have something to brighten upon and throw ruddy tints over; and it was comfortable to see her make the tea. What a lucky New Zealander that man would be who got Matilda, with all her nicely trimmed chemises, for his wife!
But with Nancy, poor Nancy! it was altogether another affair. It is a rash thing to come out of the world in which you were born. She had done it unintentionally, vowing with vehement asserverations that nothing would change her. And how she had struggled against all poor Arthur’s attempts! how she had clung, as it were, with clutching of desperate hands to the fabric of her original home! Those very corrections which she made in Matilda’s honest diction, had she not hotly resented them, fiercely refused them when Arthur had tried to suggest them to herself? But all that was changed. Nancy had drifted away from her own world—drifted into his; if she clutched at anything now, it was not at her old ark, but at the slippery rocks and sands of the other hemisphere on which she had been cast ashore. Falling upon it in her first footing, she had secretly kissed the soil as conquering invaders have done to avert the evil omen. She belonged no longer to that old universe which had been buried with the father and mother, the last lingering traces of which were to be carried away in Matilda’s trunks along with her careful outfit; but the other world had not yet received the trembling unavowed neophyte. Even now, rather than be brought into it by any formal force, by sense of duty, by the necessity laid upon her husband and his family, or by their pity, or by anything that could be construed into either, Nancy would have kept her wild word, and rushed away into the distant wilds with her sister. Had there been a word, or thought, of “arrangement,” of negotiation, even of right on the other side to claim her, or of right on her side to a certain place as Arthur’s wife, no request, no persuasion would have induced Nancy to accept what was thus settled for her. She did not even know what she would accept as a solution of the difficulty—even Arthur, did he stand before holding out his arms to her, might by some chance glance, some inadvertent word, turn her from him instead of bringing her to him. Her mind was still high-fantastical, though changed in so many other ways. But all that had happened since she came to Oakley had chimed in with her humour. The advances she had made in knowledge of her husband’s surroundings, and in the favour of his family had been of a kind that pleased and flattered her. The Curtises had been aware of no reason for modifying their criticism of her, or pretending to a liking they did not feel; but they had all “taken to” 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.
And the three intervening days passed quickly in the excitement that possessed her; everybody seemed to know that she was going to the Hall on Saturday. The Doctor’s wife, who had kept aloof “till she saw what other people were going to do,” called at the door in her husband’s phaeton, and left a stately card, which seemed to Matilda, when it was brought to her, much more impressive than Lady Curtis’s. And kind Mrs. Rolt ran over twice a day at least, and asked what she was going to wear. “If it is wet, Sam shall drive you there, before he goes to Oakenden,” she said. She was as fussy about it as if Lady Curtis had been the Queen; and, indeed, she was the Queen of the district, and made the laws for the neighbourhood.
“You will have everybody coming to see you now,” said Cousin Julia. “When Lady Curtis calls on anyone, everybody goes. Yes, it is silly perhaps; but then we think a great deal of Lady Curtis, my dear. She is very amiable, and so clever. Did you ever hear that she sometimes writes for the Reviews? She does indeed; and one must have real genius, you know, to do that; not like little bits of newspapers. And people must have some sort of rule—some will not call unless they have an introduction, and some will call on everybody. But we make Lady Curtis our rule. If she goes, we all go.”
“You did not wait till Lady Curtis came,” said Nancy gratefully.
“Oh, no! I don’t think I could have done it. I fell in love with you the first time I saw you my dear. I told Lucy of it directly. So pretty, I said, (as you are, though people don’t generally say it to your face like me), and quite a lady. ‘Then, of course you should call. I wonder you did not call instantly,’ said Lucy; and I did not lose much time, did I, Mrs. Arthur? Then, of course, I was dying to know who you were.”
“You are very—very kind; but how could you know who I am? I am nobody,” said Nancy with a smile; and then she added impulsively, “but I am so glad you thought me—a lady.” When these unadvised words were out of her mouth, Nancy changed colour, and grew defiant. But her horror at her own mistake was entirely turned away by Cousin Julia’s soft disposition, which was well fitted to be a buckler against wrath.
“As if there could be any doubt of that!” she said, “Lady Curtis says you have such pretty manners, and Sir John! Sir John is really not himself. He thought you must be young Seymour’s wife, whom I was telling you of, who made such an admirable marriage. He married one of the Glencoe family, quite a near relative of the Earl, the most unexceptionable delightful match. How we all thought of poor Arthur when young Seymour was married! But I told Sir John (now you must not be vain, my dear, but of course one must say what one thinks) I told Sir John you were a great deal prettier than Mrs. Henry Seymour; not quite so tall perhaps, but much prettier. What is the matter, my dear, you turn white and you turn red?”
Here Nancy confounded her sister, who was present, and bewildered herself, and won Mrs. Rolt’s tenderest sympathies by telling the merest simple truth. “When you speak of Arthur,” she said, “you make me think of my husband; and—I can’t help it!” she said, putting her head down on Cousin Julia’s kind shoulder and bursting into a passion of tears. How touched and interested and gratified that good woman was! She insisted on taking Nancy upstairs and making her lie down for a little. “You poor dear child!” she said, longing to ask a thousand questions, but heroically refraining; “but you must rest a little, and get back your pretty looks. You must not look pale to-morrow. I want you to look your best to-morrow.” But when she came down stairs again, it was not in human nature not to make an effort to get something out of Matilda. “She never said anything to me about her husband before,” said Mrs. Rolt. “It would do her good to talk a little, not to shut up everything in her own heart, poor dear. Is it long since?” she asked delicately. She did not know what it was, whether death or separation. The question had to be put vaguely, and Cousin Julia had a consciousness that she had put it in a very successful way.
“She will tell you herself,” said Matilda. “She does not like other people to talk about it,” and she opened the door with great alacrity that the visitor might go away.