“I will study whatever you wish,” said Nancy. “We could give ourselves up to it if we were only in a little house of our own. Whatever you please, Arthur; French if you like, for I am ashamed not to understand it when you talk it so well, and I don’t think it can have been much good what I learned at school; and about pictures and buildings, and everything. I don’t know anything, Arthur. I could not understand the things you were talking about, Denham and you; and I know you were vexed about the pictures, and the theatre.”
“No, my sweetest, I was not vexed—perhaps a little disappointed; but I knew it was because you had not seen any before.”
“That was all. I know a little better already; and, Arthur, if you were to give this winter to it, and help me, in our own little house! So near London as Underhayes is, we could go up and see things; and you could read books to me. I think I can see it all,” said Nancy, smiling upon him with her wet eyes; “a little drawing-room with lace curtains and windows that opened to the garden, and another nice little room with your pipes in it, where I could come and sit by your side while you smoked your cigar!”
“But, Nancy, might not all this beautiful picture come to pass, just as well in Italy? You don’t know what Italy is. None of your dull wet days, but always soft, bright, sunshiny weather, and the bluest sky, and such moonlight nights. We need not go to Rome at all. I know a little village up amongst the woods with a view of the sea. Nancy! you can’t think how beautiful it is!”
“I don’t care,” she said, with a little pout. “I don’t want to go to Italy. It is so far, so far away; and I cannot speak the language; and it is so dreary to live among people, and hear them chattering, and not understand.”
“But you would very soon learn Italian. It is the easiest language—everybody says so,” said Arthur. “You could pick it up in a few weeks. You would so soon feel at home there. The good people are fond of everything that is beautiful. Oh, they are not all good people, I suppose. Sometimes they will ask too much from you; they will, perhaps, cheat you a little, in quite a friendly way—”
“I could not endure that!” cried Nancy. “That is the one thing I could not put up with; and foreigners are all like that, Arthur; they pretend kindness so long as they have something to gain; but they don’t really care. Oh! there is nothing like England,” she cried, clasping her hands, “and a little house of our own! And in the summer, when, perhaps, your people may have changed their mind, Arthur, then I should not be afraid to meet with them. I should know a great many things that I don’t know now. And we should be so happy, both together, and no one to interfere with us.”
Arthur was moved to the bottom of his heart. It did not occur to him to think of her own description of “foreigners,” who pretend kindness as long as they have something to gain. Nay, more than that, she did not think of it either. Nancy was quite sincere. By talking about it, she had made a certainty in her own mind that this was really all she wanted, that in such circumstances happiness would come of itself, without frets or interruption; and in what other way could that be secured? She was so earnest in carrying her point, that she really felt all she expressed. Whereas, if he took her away, if he insisted on his plan, Nancy felt that she could not answer for herself. It was for his sake as well as hers; it was for their good as well as for their happiness. And what could Arthur answer to all this? The fact that she wanted anything, was not that the most powerful argument for having it? His own inclinations were strongly in favour of absence, and he believed that this teaching of which she spoke, and which he had fully intended, could get itself accomplished far better on the Riviera, or in the villa among the chestnut woods at Castellamare than anywhere near the house of the Bates’. But what could he do or say against her? He tried to beguile her into talk of what might happen after, when they would go into society, and when, perhaps, he should be able to take her to Oakley to see all its beauties. But this was a subject of which Nancy was very shy. She would not speak of Arthur’s “people,” whom she no longer called “folks.” When she did make their acquaintance, she wanted to do so in a way which would dazzle them. She could not tolerate the idea of any condescension on their part to Arthur’s wife. No, she must have surmounted all difficulties, and feel able to consider herself as much a lady as any of them, before she met those ladies who were her natural enemies and rivals. For Arthur’s sake she would avoid them until she could burst upon them in full glory of new instruction and knowledge.
“Don’t speak to me about Oakley,” she said. “It was all I could do to make sure Oakley was its name when Denham talked of it. It makes me angry to hear of it. I, your wife, not to know it, not to know anything about it or them! when every poor creature of an ambassador’s flunkey goes there.”
“Don’t be too hard upon old Denham,” said Arthur, laughing. “How he would be pleased to hear you! But not Denham, Nancy, if you love me. Your mouth was not made to drop words in that careless way.”