Mrs. Arthur; vol. 1 of 3

by Mrs. Oliphant

She could not continue the controversy: for Arthur’s face had regained the lover-look which Nancy had felt the absence of all that strange morning. She had to walk by his side, with her arm in his, and his soft words and glowing looks, and the way in which he held her hand upon his arm, gradually stole at once the misery and the defiance out of her heart. She began to forget the untoward details, and to feel only the thrill of this mysterious thing which had happened. That she was no longer Nancy Bates but Mrs. Arthur Curtis, to be my Lady Curtis sometime—no longer a poor girl, the tax-collector’s daughter, but a lady! All in a moment, this mystic change had been made. And she was changed; she felt it, with a sudden revulsion of sentiment. The laugh of Sarah Jane behind her filled her with a half impatient shame. She was annoyed to hear her mother telling over the just concluded incident. She herself had a right to be angry, but what had they to do with Miss Curtis’ visit? Lucy’s visit! that was what her brother’s wife had a right to call her; but “the Bateses” had no right to interfere at all. Had Arthur said this, she would have blazed into high resentment and declared her family to be as good, if not better, than his; but in the seclusion of her private soul, a seclusion not yet in any way impaired by the fact that she was married, this was how she was thinking. It gave her a sense of importance that Lucy had come. She had taken no notice of Arthur’s family, but they had been compelled to take notice of her. And in time to come when she might have many battles to fight with them, it would be well to have this fact in hand. Accordingly, when the party arrived at home, it was Nancy who silenced her mother, whose indignation against Arthur for allowing her to address old Nurse Davies as my lady was great.

“Mamma, you will just stop that,” said Nancy. “You went out of the room in a hurry before Arthur knew. Was it his fault?”

Mrs. Bates was thunderstruck. She had thought of a great many things that might happen, sooner than that Nancy should take up the cudgels for her new family.

“Bless us all!” she said, “is it a reason that no one should dare to speak, because you are Mrs. Arthur Curtis?”

But it was not a moment to quarrel. And when after the meal which Mrs. Bates had thought Lady Curtis would call a luncheon, the mother and sisters left the table with the bride, in a body, to change her dress, according to the well-understood formula of marriages, there was nothing but affection and tears, as is becoming at such a moment. There were no strangers present at the meal. It had been the strong desire of Sarah Jane that Mr. Raisins should be invited, he who it was understood was likely to cause another “wedding in the family” before long. But this had not been permitted, partly on account of Arthur, partly because there was no room.

“We must have your Uncle Sam, and how are we to squeeze in another?” Mrs. Bates had asked; and all Sarah Jane’s indignant protestations about the impossibility of a wedding “without one young man,” were silenced by the physical impossibility. The limited number of the party thus took away much of the supposed festive character from the repast. But for the wedding cake on the table, it might have been a very ordinary domestic dinner; and even Sarah Jane’s pink muslin was of little use to her, and had no effect to speak of upon her spirits. To be sure there were a few people coming to tea, whatever consolation might be got from that. The little parlour was hot and stuffy with eight people seated round the table; and no effort that Arthur could make could keep from his mind a sense of the grotesque incongruity of the scene. People who were passing peered in at the window to see the wedding party, and get a glimpse of the bride. Arthur had found the parlour an earthly paradise at almost every other hour; but he had not been in the habit of coming at this hour. He had never even seen the family at their early dinner; and to have his health drank by Uncle Sam from Wapping was a new experience to him.

“I hope as you’ll both be happy, Mr. Curtis, and that you’ll have every satisfaction in Nancy,” said Mr. Sam Bates, solemnly drinking a glass of the brown and filmy port which they all pledged the bride and bridegroom in. He looked at her as if she had been an article just sold, with a calculation of all the uses she might be put to, as he hoped she would give satisfaction. “I have heard a deal of my niece Nancy, and I know she’s had a many advantages,” he said. “I hope she’ll act up to them, Mr. Curtis, and give you every satisfaction in the married state.”

This was the toast of the day, and they all hoped that Arthur would have got up and made a speech; and when he only said, “I am much obliged to you, Mr. Bates,” they were all a trifle disappointed, especially on account of Uncle Sam, who they felt required some practical proof that Nancy’s husband was, in reality, the very fine gentleman and member of the upper classes which they had represented him to be—not perceiving that Sam’s speech of itself proved his perception of the fact. And it was very strange that all these details, which would have amused Arthur greatly, with a kindly amusement without any gall in it, when he first began to come to the house, and which, even up to a very recent period, he would have regarded with amiable toleration, should have become unendurable to him now, at the very moment when he had become legally a member of the household party, and had more reason than ever before to judge them charitably, and look upon their doings and sayings with indulgent eyes; but so it was. How this should be, it is hard to explain, but it was quite natural to feel; and it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the impatience that was in his mind to get away, and to carry Nancy away. She was his now—“there was no longer any occasion for him,” he said, unconsciously to himself, “to put up with this.” He was enfranchised. Soon there would be land and sea, miles and leagues of it, of English soil, and foreign ground between them; and it would be his own fault if he exposed himself to another dinner in that parlour. When Nancy went away to change her dress, attended by her mother and sisters, Mr. Bates got out the rum, and called to “the girl” for hot water.

“You’ll take a drop before you start for luck,” he said; and though Arthur would not take any, Sam Bates was very willing to do so. The smell of it sickened the young man, for the first time fastidious and critical. He got up and went to the window to look for the carriage which was coming to take his bride and himself away. They were going to Dover direct, to cross in a day or two. How he counted the moments till he could get out into the fresh air, however damp and gloomy, never, with his will, to come back here any more.

But another shock awaited poor Arthur when Nancy came downstairs attired in the “silk” which was the crown of her little trousseau. It was light and thin, and rustled much, and was of a kind of salmon colour, between pink and brown, largely trimmed with flounces and fringes and bits of lace—every kind of florid ornamentation. The women were so proud of the effect, that Nancy was brought downstairs with the little brown jacket on her arm, which she was to wear over this resplendent garb, which, it seemed to Arthur’s eyes, might have been worn at a flower-show on a brilliant day of summer; for he was not sufficiently trained in details to be aware how the cheap elaboration of Nancy’s gown would have showed among the costlier productions of fashion.