Mrs. Arthur; vol. 2 of 3

by Mrs. Oliphant

CHAPTER XI.

AFTER the crisis of that conversation with Mrs. Curtis, which was at the bottom of so much harm and mischief, Arthur and Nancy stopped quarrelling with each other. They had each done and said things which they were disposed to repent of—and felt the existence generally of a state of things which was alarming, which at their worst they could not see without feeling that it might be possible to go too far. The fact that Arthur had gone away without seeing her after her rudeness to his aunt, his absence for hours, his absolute silence on the subject when they met at dinner had produced a great effect upon Nancy. It had been on her lips all the evening through to introduce the subject, to excuse herself or defend herself according as might be most suitable at the moment. But Arthur gave her no occasion. He had the advantage of education over her, the habit of self-restraint, at least the sense that it was necessary on occasion to restrain himself, an elementary lesson which Nancy had not as yet arrived at. And the effect upon her was great. She, too, kept silent, though against her will. She shut up in her breast this subject which, if she had talked about it, would, no doubt, have inflamed her to double wrath. And she grew a little frightened of the husband whom hitherto she had played with as she would, but who now in his newborn reserve and stillness was more than she could manage. She was afraid of him for the moment. He was no longer in her power. A tremendous menace seemed to lurk in his silence; and the consequence was that they lived in much greater harmony for the next week, both a little alarmed and penitent, and afraid of taking another step in the wrong direction. At the end of that time Arthur made the discovery which Nancy had already suggested to him, that howsoever great might be his desire to go to Italy, his means would not permit it. They had been living in their charming little apartment for three weeks, they had used a carriage constantly, and all that a Paris hotel can furnish that was most agreeable to eye and palate, and there was nothing, or next to nothing left. Arthur had not realised this fact when he had written his letter to his father. He had written indeed more out of the painful determination within him to uphold his wife, even in the face of what she had done to his relatives, by yielding to her will about their future, than from any more reasonable motive. He knew very well how that story would fly, how it would get to the ears of his mother and Lucy, and how everybody who knew him would pity poor Arthur. This it was which made him suddenly abandon his opposition, and determine to do as she wished. At all hazards he would maintain her credit, whatever might be her treatment of him. They might make her out to be what they pleased, they might tell what stories they would—he could not he knew contest them, but at all events everybody should see that he at least upheld her in her way of acting, gave her his support through all. This generous, if perhaps foolish, resolution, which was full of that grieved and suffering love which can no longer deny the justice of the accusations against its beloved, had been come to before he knew the necessity of returning home; but that necessity made it less forced and unnatural. For the last week of their stay there was little attempt at amusement. Denham, who had found great satisfaction in watching the proceedings of the bride, and who had already made many circles merry by his descriptions of her husband’s anxious endeavours to interest her in what she saw and heard, and her own absolute ignorance and unconcealed ennui, was ever at hand to suggest something, and had indeed two or three plans of his own for sharing this charming spectacle with some of his friends, with a trust in Arthur’s simplicity, which might not have been justified by the event. There were two in particular to whom he had promised an introduction to his “delicious Englishwoman,” had the young pair accepted the box at the Odéon which he had offered them, and the mischievous attaché was much disappointed by the failure of his plans. They declined it, however, with one accord. Nancy had quite convinced herself that it was “no fun” going to plays when you did not understand a word, and Arthur, on his side, had become disgusted with everything public. How did he know that they might not meet some one else whom he should be obliged to introduce to his wife, and whom his wife would receive with the same amiability which she had shown to Mrs. Curtis? The Curtises were still in Paris, and he had himself held an agitating conference with his aunt and Mary; but they came no more to the Rue Rivoli. This opportunity of making friends had been turned into the easiest way of making enemies. He would make no more such essays. Accordingly they sat “at home,” in the pretty little room with the white walls and white curtains. Arthur could always write his letters—it was not many he had to write now, as his family correspondence was cut off, and he had dropped most of his friends, but still he kept up the phrase; he wrote his letters, while she sat by the fire, sometimes taking out and putting in frills or trimmings to her dresses, sometimes yawning over a newspaper; they talked to each other a little now and then, and yawned in the intervals; they had no books except a few Tauchnitz volumes, which saved them from a complete breakdown, and they went early to bed which seemed always a virtuous thing to do. Thus the days went by. They did not talk any longer about going “home,” but it was tacitly understood between them that they were going back. This was what they had got to call it. And the day was fixed, and the boxes packed, and all settled, with scarcely any further consultation. Life, however, had become very sober prose after the triumphant exultation of the beginning, when three weeks after their marriage they crossed the Channel again on an early morning, Nancy very ill, and Arthur dignified but pale, and arrived at London on a rainy December night, wet and miserable as anything could well be.

Next day they went back. Arthur had taken rooms at the little inn which stood opposite Mr. Eagles’ house, looking on the green, where Durant had been lodged. But before they reached that place there was a greeting to be got through at the station, the whole Bates family, no less, having assembled to welcome their daughter. Nancy’s spirits had risen from the moment she had touched English soil. She had talked to everybody, guards, porters, the servants at the hotel, with exuberant satisfaction, notwithstanding the bad passage and its natural consequences.

“Oh, what a blessing to be at home!” she said. “Oh, Arthur, isn’t it nice to be back? I feel as if I should like to hug everybody. How much nicer everything looks in England! One can have some tea or some beer, instead of always that sour wine; and sausage-rolls and Bath buns!” cried Nancy, looking at these appalling luxuries in the Dover refreshment-room with unfeigned delight. It had been on Arthur’s lips to cry out, “For heaven’s sake speak a little lower!” but he said to himself, what was the use? One or two people turned round and smiled. And she bought a Bath-bun notwithstanding her recent sufferings. It seemed to Nancy better than all the delicate plats in the world. It was English, it was adapted to her native tastes and her usually fine digestion. Arthur hurried her away with the objectionable dainty in a little paper-bag in her hand.

“We must give in to prejudices a little,” he said. “You know most people think there is nothing like French cookery.”

“I would not give a nice plain English dinner—mother will have one for us to-morrow, I know—for all the little oddments they have in France,” said Nancy.

When she was Nancy Bates she did not talk like this, nor eat Bath-buns out of paper bags. The fact of being Mrs. Arthur Curtis, with a fine gentleman, an unmistakeable “swell” for a husband, became again an exhilarating consciousness, and turned Nancy’s head a little as soon as she had got to England again; and how could she show her satisfaction so well as by that demonstrative indulgence of personal tastes, and ostentation of personal satisfaction which is the essence of vulgarity, yet may be the mere froth of ignorance and light-hearted confidence? All this was sufficiently trying to Arthur, especially when strangers heard these patriotic outbursts, and showed by their smiles, as they passed, their appreciation of her simplicity. But when they got to Underhayes station, where Mrs. Bates, Matilda, and Sarah Jane stood on the platform waiting, Arthur’s heart sank in his bosom. Why? If Nancy’s mother had been a duchess, she could not have done anything different. But Mrs. Bates, with her brown front, and the flowers in her bonnet, and Sarah Jane in the latest fashion, were too much for poor Arthur. He busied himself about the luggage, and wondered how it was, for all so many times as he had seen them before, that he had never seen them until now? And this was how he was to be surrounded for the rest of his life! Visions of his mother and Lucy came gliding before him as he saw Nancy’s boxes, so much larger and heavier now than when they went away, lifted out—his own people! with their light steps, their soft voices, the tender delight in their eyes. Mrs. Bates was probably as fond of her child as Lady Curtis was of Arthur; that she should show that fondness so differently was not her fault, but that of Providence which had settled her lot in life. He tried to say to himself that this was so, but it was hard. On the whole, the best thing was to look after the boxes until those welcomes and embraces were over, which all the town seemed to have come out to see. Some of Mr. Eagles’ “men” were among the passengers by the train. Arthur shrank among the luggage altogether to escape from their eyes.

“Where is Arthur?” said Mrs. Bates. “I hope Arthur knows that you’re not going to be allowed to go off to an inn the first day you come back. To be sure, it’s tea, not dinner, as I suppose you’ve been accustomed to; but tea, with a nice roast chicken and sausages, which is as good as a dinner every day; and it’s all ready and waiting. Arthur! How long he is about the boxes to be sure. Shall we leave him to send them down to the ‘Dragon,’ and you come along, my Nancy, with me?”

“Arthur! Arthur!” cried Sarah Jane at the top of her voice, rushing towards him, “mother’s gone on with Nancy, and I’m to wait for you. You needn’t be so particular about the boxes, the porter will take them safe enough. And come along, do come along! Nancy’s gone on before with mother, and I’m quite hungry for my tea.”

One of the “men” at Mr. Eagles’ turned round, hearing every word of this speech, and grinned, Arthur thought, in derision.