Mrs. Arthur; vol. 2 of 3

by Mrs. Oliphant

“Oh, Arthur, stand between us and her!” cried Mrs. Curtis. “But I will not stay here another moment. Your wife has ordered us out. You poor boy, you can come to me if you like. Good-bye. I am very sorry for you; but I cannot stay another moment here.”

“What is the matter?” he repeated, with a voice which was sharp and keen as a sword, as the two ladies disappeared hurriedly, and he stood alone opposite to his wife, gazing at her with eyes that blazed through the gloom. Her hand had dropped by her side at his entrance, but at the sound of his voice Nancy, who was beside herself with passion, raised it again and shook it at him in speechless excitement, then turned and fled into her own room, clashing the door behind her. He heard her lock it in her rage, panting for breath as she dashed away. Poor Arthur! he had no mind to follow her. She might have spared herself that precaution. He stood upon the hearth, looking mournfully into the big mirror, in which he could see himself a shadow in the surrounding gloom. Had not all life turned into a vision of shadows, everything that was lovely and fair disappearing from about him? There seemed no power in him to do anything. To go after his aunt and endeavour to make up for his wife’s incivility, was as impossible as to go after that wife and demand the meaning of her strange conduct. He had no heart for anything. He stood, as it were, amid the ruins of his bridal happiness, everything crumbling about him. Only to-day, only a few hours ago, she had stood by him, beguiling him with sweet smiles and caresses, she who this minute had confronted him like a fury, with her hand clenched, threatening violence. He had borne a good many shocks in this eventful fortnight; the bloom had been taken off his fond fancy of perfection in his bride. But this was the climax of all. It seemed to take at once his strength and his hope away.

Meanwhile Nancy, her blood boiling, her countenance flushed, her eyes fiery with passion, had rushed out of the darkness into the soft light of her room, where the candles had been lighted, and where she saw herself entering like a fury in the great glass which was opposite to her as she rushed in. This sight made her pause in spite of herself; it sobered her all at once. Was that the aspect she had borne to these strangers? to her husband? The sudden shock of her own appearance had more effect upon her than any amount of moral reprobation. She calmed down in a moment. They had insulted her, she tried to say to herself; but what would they think of her, was what conscience said in her. What would they think of her?—and Arthur? The colour went out of the foolish creature’s face; a chill came over her. Oh, what was she to do, what was she to do? She had meant to impose upon them, to be more lady-like, more calm, more chilly in her politeness than anyone could be; and this was what it had come to. She threw herself down by her bedside in a passion of tears and penitence. Had Arthur come to her then, she would have thrown herself at his feet and asked his pardon; but Arthur was kept from her by the bolt she had herself drawn in her fury, and by—though this she was unaware of—the despair and dismay in his heart. She threw herself on the carpet, and found relief in a torrent of tears. Such tears! hot as her passion, overwhelming as the impulses that surged after one another through her heart. He must hear her sob, she felt, in the abandon of her misery; and though Nancy did not sob to be heard, it gave her a flutter of hope to think that he must hear her, and must come to know what it was, to comfort her, even to scold her, it did not matter, so long as he came. But not a sound except those sobs of hers broke the silence. The candles burned softly, and glimmered in the mirror, which reflected her lying there upon the flowery whiteness of the carpet, a dark miserable figure; but there was no tap at the door, no voice asking for admission. After a little time, her passion being spent, she raised herself up, and without drying the tears from her woebegone countenance, or arranging her disordered hair, opened the door softly, and looked into the sitting-room where she had left him. All was changed there; the candles were lighted, the fire re-made, the room full of warmth and light; but no Arthur. It was vacant, put in good order by the servants, who knew nothing about what had been happening there. And Arthur was gone. Where had he gone? Had he followed those women, who were his relations, though they were her enemies? Was he hearing their story, who doubtless would paint her as a very devil of ill-temper and pride? Had he gone over to the other side, he who was the cause of it all? Her eyes began to flash again, and her veins to refill with that fire which had all but died out of them. She went back to her room, and dipped her burning forehead into water, and smoothed her hair, which she had pulled out of place with her passionate hands. When she had done this she stood for a moment between the two rooms in the silence, alone, asking herself what she should do. Had Arthur gone from her? Would he not come back again? A speechless dismay took possession of her soul, followed by flashes of passion, and still deeper and deeper despondency. There was but one thing that it seemed possible to do, except flight, which she was not equal to at this dreadful moment, when she was not sure whether he had flown from her. If he had been in the next room she might have had strength to flee; but not with this uncertainty and dread in her mind whether he had abandoned her. There was but one thing in this tremendous emergency which she could do. Had she not promised to him to write to his mother? She would do this now.

CHAPTER VII.

THIS period of early winter was a dull one at Oakley at all times. From October to Christmas it was not the custom of the family to invite the usual country-house array of defence against dullness. For some weeks after the partridge-shooting began there would be visitors about—luncheons at the coverside, dinners more or less sleepy, evenings more or less gay. And again at Christmas there was always a large party assembled; but between whiles the family were left to their own resources. How Sir John himself filled up his time was a profound and solemn mystery, which no one could entirely unravel. He spent it mostly in his library—in the perusal of Blue books, in the writing of letters, and in something which was called business, and supposed to be the management of his estate; but everybody who knew Sir John knew that there was not very much beyond the most ceremonial portion of a sovereign’s duty in his easy lot. The estate had been carefully managed all his life, by the most careful and sensible of functionaries, Mr. Rolt, who was the son of the last agent, and the brother of the solicitor at Oakenden who had the money matters of the family in his hands. And the family had been unexceptionable in its conduct for the last five-and-thirty years; there had been no extravagant heir, no heavy jointure diminishing its resources. General Anthony, who had done very well for himself, was Sir John’s only brother, the only other member of the family; and there had been nothing but unbroken respectability and discretion in the management of the finances of the house. The estate ran upon wheels, or upon velvet, and all but managed itself. Then as for Parliamentary business and the Blue books, Sir John was a sound reliable Conservative, who never dreamed of opening his mouth in the House. He voted as his leaders voted, who were the best able to judge, and the study of public affairs, to which he thus devoted himself, had all the merit of disinterestedness. It cannot even be said that it told greatly when he sat upon a Parliamentary committee, for he was apt to get confused on the points he knew best, and his knowledge did not stand him in stead at the moment it was wanted, as knowledge ought to do; but still what with the Blue books and the estate, he thought himself very fully occupied, and what could be desired more than this? Two or three times in the day, especially when it rained, he would come into his wife’s morning room, and stand up with his back to the fire and talk, sometimes relevantly, sometimes irrelevantly, like most other people. But he was always serious, whether relevant or not. He had a long face, with grey whiskers and grey hair, and a long upper lip shutting close upon the under, which was feeble, though the chin too was rather long. His face in these wintry days, when there was no news of Arthur, was as serious as a countenance well could be. Whether he was talking of his son or not, Arthur was always more or less in Sir John’s mind, and never smile, or glimmering of a smile, approached within a hundred miles of the serious lines of that long upper lip.

Lady Curtis was of a different disposition altogether. The last extremity of grief even could not produce in her the monotony of melancholy which was possible to her husband. She would weep as he never wept; but then she would laugh also in sheer impatience of the weight of tedium and sameness. Her suffering was far more acute than his steady dullness; but it was broken by gleams of activity, by sudden impulses, by perpetual changes. She flung herself into her housekeeping, stirring up all the quiet corners, and making a commotion in the servants’ hall, such as for some time threatened the family peace—and into the parish, where Lucy did not always want her mother’s assistance. She wrote letters to her friends, half cynical, half sorrowful, and more than half amusing, in which Arthur indeed was never referred to; but where many a cutting sentence, sharp jest, or mocking reflection betrayed that sting of personal suffering which those who knew her best could read between the lines. Lady Curtis was clever. She wrote articles now and then in literary papers, even sometimes in magazines; but this was an indulgence of which she was not proud, and she prudently kept silence about it, being wise enough to know that any such crown of wild olive sits badly upon the matronly brow of a country lady, alarming some people, and giving to others occasion for ill-natured jibes and pleasantry. Not her husband certainly, and even not Lucy knew always when she took upon herself the office of critic; and the able editor who printed her reviews was not aware what had made his contributor more industrious than usual and more bitter. It was Arthur that pointed the clear steel of those polished little arrows which she discharged at the world. She did it as a relief to herself; but not that anyone might know. And it must be added that there was a certain satisfaction in this safety valve. Then there was crewel work, and the patterns of the Art Needlework Society, of which, however, she soon got tired. Altogether Lady Curtis’s activity was stimulated to its utmost. She had the happiness of discovering a source of waste in the house, and an abuse in the parish; and she fell upon a nest of foolish books to criticize, and began a series of papers upon “The Minor Morals of Society;” and she set vigorously to work upon a set of curtains in a bold and effective pattern of her own invention. And thus she beguiled away the weary days.

Lucy was less difficult perhaps than either her father or her mother. She was young, and it still seemed to her that in the course of nature everything that was amiss must come right, and every breach be mended. Sir John’s opinion was that nothing would ever mend, and his wife’s that the only thing to be done was to keep yourself busy, and persuade yourself that there was no hope nor expectation of any change within you. But Lucy waited with as much patience as she could, crying sometimes over the estrangement of her brother, but with no despair in her; things would come right, nay, must come right some time or other. To suppose that you could be separated for ever from anyone who belonged to you, anyone you loved! could there be folly in earth so great as that? It was a question of time, and the time was long and dreary and hard to support; but yet by and by of course, who could doubt it? everything would be well. November and December are dreary months, let us make the best of them, and very dreary in the country when the day is over by four o’clock or little after, and there are hours upon hours to be got through in-doors, in a big empty house, pervaded everywhere by that sense of the absent which is so much more urgent and all-prevailing than any presence. When Arthur had been at home his being there was a matter of course, and no one thought much about it; but when Arthur was away! and away in this dismal manner, absorbed into another life, disjointed from theirs. Such an argument as this might make the dullest feel the superiority of an idea to all that is solid and practical. In her own room, which Arthur rarely entered, Lucy missed her brother, and she missed him going about the parish, where he never went with her. And Sir John missed him in the midst of those Blue Books at which the boy had made grimaces from a distance, but which he never approached; and Lady Curtis felt his absence when she wrote for her Review, though Arthur was the last person in the world to know anything of Reviews. This is at once the desolation and the power of death which fills our very atmosphere and daily breath with those whom it removes out of our sight for ever; and this it was that gave force to the words which both father and mother said of Arthur when he forsook them. It was as if he had died.

The ladies of the family spent most of their time, as has been said, in the morning room, with its two tall windows looking out from between the pillars of the façade. The drawing-room, which was large and splendid, too fine and too big to be cosy in, suffered in consequence, and except when the house was very full, had much the air of an uninhabited place. The morning room was fine enough, too fine most people thought now-a-days. Lady Curtis was one of the people who most feel the influence of those successive waves of taste which sweep across the mind of the most cultivated portion of society from time to time. Had it been necessary to re-furnish this favourite room, she would have done it in the style of Queen Anne, with neutral tints and “flatted” colour, tiled fireplaces and high manteltops. And she was by times a little uncomfortable about the florid effect of her Louis Quinze decoration; but there was no excuse for remodelling the pretty room which the children loved. It was florid, there could be no doubt. The cornice was rich with stucco wreaths, and there were Cupids about, and lyres and knots of ribbon, and glowing garlands of flowers. The carpet was white Aubusson with a great bouquet in the centre, as flowery and brilliant as that which had made Nancy happy in Paris. Lady Curtis’s writing table was a bonheur de jour of the finest workmanship, and various articles of precious marqueterie stood about, flowery and dainty. Two robust gilt Cupids supported the white marble of the mantel-piece, and the satin curtains were looped and fringed, and festooned with the most elaborate art. Lucy sat and knitted stockings for the village children upon a satin sofa, with her warm wool in the drawer of an inlaid table with curved legs, which was worth half as much as the village. Everything in the room was framed on the principle of being beautiful, not for convenience or comfort, which is supposed to be the inspiration of various other styles of household decoration, but for beauty alone. And perhaps it was more suitable for the home of a bride, such as Lady Curtis had been when she collected all those pretty things about her, than for the centre of household life which it had become; though indeed it was very doubtful whether Lady Curtis, a clever, impatient-minded woman, had ever attained any ecstacy of happiness as the bride of good Sir John. She loved her dainty surroundings better now than she did when they were in all their freshness. She was aware of her husband’s steadfast goodness and truth, though he was not lively and amusing, and had more respect for him, and, at the same time, a tenderer sentiment for the father of her children than, perhaps, she had entertained for the good, dull bridegroom to whom she had been bound, not entirely, report said, with her own freewill. Therefore, perhaps, the beautiful room had never enshrined that impersonation of happiness, luxury, and splendour to whom all these decorations belonged by nature. Now-a-days, certainly, it was not any luxurious leisure and blessedness that dwelt there; but care and doubt, such as would have been consistent with very sombre surroundings. Lucy sat and knitted, her mind wandering after Arthur, trying to imagine the brightest winter weather in Paris, and her brother enjoying himself, instead of the rainy skies here, the muddy roads and grey miserable day. Lady Curtis was in her chair by the window for the sake of the light, busy with her crewels.

“They may say what they like about the higher art of these subdued tints,” she said, “but nature is not subdued in her tints. How am I to do the autumn leaves in those tones of colour? They are high and bright in nature.” She said this, but she was thinking of Arthur all the time; and by and by Sir John came in from the library, and strolled up to the fire.

“Have not you had tea yet?” he said, putting himself in front, between the Cupids. “I thought you must be having tea. What a dreary afternoon it is! and the hounds are out. They must be having a disagreeable run.” Thus he discoursed with his lips; but in his heart his thoughts were of Arthur too.