Mrs. Arthur; vol. 2 of 3

by Mrs. Oliphant

“After dinner?” said Nancy. “Oh! I said we would go and see mother, and tell her what we had settled. Why, what is the matter, Arthur—may not I go and see mother? We have only been one day back, and you begin to make faces already! You cannot say I am bringing my people on you.”

“I think you might be content with me sometimes,” said Arthur, with an attempt at a smile.

“I have been content with you for three weeks,” said Nancy. “I have never seen a soul but you. I should think you would like to see another face now and again as well as I do—and my own folks!” Arthur did not say any more. He diverted the conversation into other channels, and led her back to the subject of the villa, which on the whole was safer ground; and when the evening came and their dinner was over, and Nancy went off with a certain gay temerity, yet not without alarm, to get her wrap, Arthur took his hat to accompany her without saying a word. She was in a state of the greatest exultation, scarcely able to restrain little songs of triumph as they walked along the half-lighted street, and clasping his arm close, with a show of affection which went to Arthur’s heart.

“At what time shall I come for you?” he said, as they drew near the door.

“Come for me! are you not coming with me, Arthur?”

“I have not finished my letters,” he said; “as you say, we have had three weeks of holiday; and then I was out with you all this afternoon. I must finish my letters for the post to-night.”

She unclasped her hands from his arm without a word, and went in; and the glimpse Arthur had of the parlour did not tempt him to follow. Young Raisins was one of the company. He was seated on the sofa where Arthur had been in the habit of sitting, presumably behind backs, and out of the observation of the others, with Nancy. Young Raisins was now the lover on hand, and the sight of him in that place sent the blood to Arthur’s head as he walked away. Could it be possible that he himself had been unspeakably happy there a few weeks ago, finding nothing but pleasantness in the four straight walls, and beauty in the family affection that made all these people hang so closely together. Raisins now occupied the foreground of the picture as he had done before, with infinitely greater suitability. And this was the home which his wife loved. There was the sting of it! had she been indifferent, undutiful—even careless, as he thought he remembered that she once was; but Nancy’s matrimonial experience, which was not entirely successful, perhaps, had thrown her back upon her earlier affections in a way which is not unusual, though Arthur was not aware of that. Her husband and she had only their love to hold them together; their habits were not like, their manner of thought was different. Even when she was at her boldest and most confident point, Nancy was never quite at home with the “gentleman” she had married; but with her own people, she was entirely at her ease. Arthur did not take this into consideration; but he was candid enough to feel a compunction as he walked away, and to acknowledge that from Nancy’s point of view, it might seem hard that he could not spend an hour or two without complaining in the society of the family who had been everything to her all her life. It was hard, that so soon, before a month of her married life was over, she should have to choose between the old home and the new, between her parents and her husband. Arthur had a generous mind, and this perception kept him from feeling himself the aggrieved person, as he had been half disposed to do. It forced him, also, instead of wandering about as he had done on the previous night, and brooding over the difficulties of his new position, to go back to his hotel and really write the half imaginary letters which were his only business, and the reason which he had again given for his abandonment of that family circle. His letters were not all imaginary: there was one from Mr. Rolt, the agent, in answer to Arthur’s letter to his father. Sir John had been too indignant, as well as perhaps (but this he was not conscious of) too little disposed for exertion to answer it himself. He had handed over the note, not to the lawyer brother, against whom Arthur had vowed vengeance, but to the agent, who had always been a favourite, the friend of their youth, with the young Curtises, both boy and girl. Mr. Rolt’s letter was very kind and reasonable, and to answer it without proving himself to be in the wrong was difficult. Sir John did not object to raising his allowance—he did not refuse anything Arthur asked him. There was nothing hard in the stipulations, nothing forbidding in what his father’s deputy wrote.

“Your family do not wish you to suffer, how could you think it?—they do not wish to reduce you from your natural position. Had you treated them as they might have expected to be treated, my dear Arthur,” wrote the good man who had known him all his life, “you might, I think, have reckoned on Sir John’s indulgence to any extent; but you have not put that trust in your father and mother, though they certainly deserved it at your hands; and can you wonder if Sir John is angry? He will not write to you himself, feeling that your letter is not the kind of letter he ought to have had from you in the circumstances; but he has instructed me to tell you that your wishes shall be complied with to any reasonable amount. He does not wish you to suffer in personal comfort in consequence of the step you have taken.”

This was the letter which Arthur had to answer. He paused, reflecting on it, repeating to himself, “does not wish you to suffer in personal comfort.” Were there other ways which they suspected and calculated upon in which he might suffer for his disobedience? He paused to go over all that had happened within the last three months. Could he have acted otherwise than he had done? If he had given his confidence to his parents from the beginning, as they reproached him for not doing, what would have been the issue? With what eyes would Lady Curtis and Lucy have looked upon his Nancy, who, for her part, would have defied them? He shook his head as he sat pondering over the sheet of paper before him. No! no! had he confided in them things would have been worse, not better—for anyhow he would have married Nancy, if without their consent, if against their deliberate judgment, what did it matter? except that the last would have been the worst. He could fancy how she would have met their inspection—how she would have repulsed and scorned them. No—no, he repeated to himself. Better to leave them in ignorance than to hazard the open quarrels, the inevitable rending asunder that must have followed. They could not have withdrawn his heart from Nancy. No, again no! And the breach would have been more bitter, not less. With a sigh he decided that, on the whole, he had not chosen the worst way. He did not say to himself that both were bad enough, but he sighed. Nancy had left him to go to her family, to be happy in the stuffy little parlour, where her father drank his rum and water; and he—he sighed, going no further—for his belongings, for his home, for the natural occupations of his life. They did not regret their choice either of them; but yet within the first month of their marriage, this curious return upon themselves had happened to both. Perhaps this is not so wonderful even among the happiest as we pretend; for is not the beginning the hardest, in marriage as in so many other things? Arthur wrote and posted his letter, feeling himself bound to do so after what he had said; then went on to fetch his wife from her father’s house. They were very merry there, he could hear as he passed the lighted window; and it was more and more curious to him when he went in to find young Raisins the master of the situation, amusing them all with his jokes. Arthur, in his time, had never had so much succès. He was rather glad to see that Nancy was not enjoying the fun like the rest, but sat a little apart and with a somewhat moody countenance until he entered, when she flung off her gravity, plunged into the riot that was going on round the table, where Mr. Raisins was doing tricks with cards, and laughed and talked with the best. Arthur could not make out whether this was to show him her superior gaiety and light-heartedness at home, or whether it was his own presence which brought back her light-heartedness. And he himself, touched by compunction, did his best to make himself agreeable, to show that he wished for a good intelligence between them. He was more successful in this than he had hoped. Young Raisins’ fine qualities had so charmed and delighted the house that Arthur too shared the good feeling he had called forth. Mrs. Bates melted altogether, and spreading out her hands declared that “this was a happy meeting,” and that “parents” had reason to be satisfied, indeed, when their girls were thus happily settled. “When you all rally round the ‘old house,’” were the words the gratified mother used; but unfortunately in the general impulse of emotion that followed, Arthur could scarcely restrain a slight laugh, which Nancy, who seemed to be all ear, remarked, though no one else noticed it. Why should he laugh? He would not have laughed had it been the old house of Oakley, amid its trees and parks, that was to be rallied round; and why not the small tenement in East Street, Underhayes? Was it possible that materialism could go so far as to measure sentiment by the size of the house? He said this to himself, yet still laughed in his mind, and could not tell why.

“I hope you have written your letters,” Nancy said, coldly, as they walked home.