Poor Arthur! he thought of his sister’s little simple toilettes, so fresh, so crisp, so plain! and he did not know—what foolish young man ever does know? that whereas the finery is an easy matter, these dainty sobrieties of garb are the highest quintessence of art. In novels, which are the chief exponents of young women to young men, and of young men to young women, has not the captivating humble bride always a spotless collar and cuffs ready for every emergency, which make her exquisite on all occasions? Why had not Nancy the secret of that little collar and snowy cuff?
All this, however, is a digression from the letter which he found in his pocket, having thrust it away there on his wedding morning. He tore it open impatiently after this talk. Did not he know very well what must be in it? But it was better to glance at it and be done with it at once. He found it, however, something so very unlike what he supposed, that the little letter completely unmanned him and took his strength away. He read it first with so much surprise that he could scarcely comprehend its meaning, and when he had fully mastered it, burst out into an abrupt break of sound of the most unintelligible description.
“What is the matter?” cried Nancy; she was half frightened. She came to the door of the inner room in which she was, and looked out upon him, half dressed, wrapped in the shawl Matilda had lent her. “Are you laughing or crying?” Perhaps it had been a little of both; but at all events it had left the tears in his eyes.
“Look here,” he said, with an unsteady voice, “this is the letter old Davies gave me on Tuesday;” and then he added in a lower tone, “God forgive me, I don’t deserve it,” with a half sob.
Very coldly Nancy took the letter. She knew by instinct what it must be. It was written in a rather illegible but pretty handwriting, not at all like, but somehow superior she felt to the pointed precision of her own.
“I am going to your wedding to-morrow, Arthur dear; not to see you, but to be there, that there may be some one that loves you all the same. That always goes without saying. We think that you may not have money enough to do all you want, so we have just been to the bank to get this. Dear, dear Arthur, God bless you! Mamma shakes her head, but she says it all the same.
“Lucy.”
And then there was added in another hand:
“Surely I say it, surely I must say it always. And God forgive you, oh, my cruel boy.”
Nancy puzzled over this for some time. She began to read it aloud and read it wrong, so that it took a ridiculous sound; then laughed; while Arthur made a furious step towards her to seize it out of her hand. She grew serious then, which quickened her wits and made her finish her reading in silence. When she had done so she flung it to him, letting the two notes enclosed flutter to the ground, and without a word turned round and shut the door violently in his face. He caught the letter; but the two fifty pound notes lay between him and the door, crumpled by Nancy’s angry fingers. He stood petrified for the moment, too much surprised to be either hurt or angry. Was this the way in which his wife received his first appeal to her sympathy? the first mention of those who, Arthur suddenly remembered, were next to herself the dearest to him in the world? Somehow he had forgotten this until now; but it suddenly gleamed upon him; a kind of revelation. Certainly it was so; his mother and sister, were they not his dearest friends, the most generous and kind? Was it possible that his wife could read this letter and not be touched? and yet she had tossed it at him, had crumpled up the notes like waste paper. Was this the attitude she meant to adopt towards his family? and he had been so tolerant of hers!