Mrs. Arthur; vol. 2 of 3

by Mrs. Oliphant

“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.