Mrs. Arthur; vol. 2 of 3

by Mrs. Oliphant

“What is the matter?” he asked, wistfully, drawing her arm through his, not without a little resistance on her part.

“The matter? What should be the matter? I am only tired, and I shall be glad to get home,” said Nancy.

“I have made you do too much. I have dragged you about and worn you out, my poor darling!” cried Arthur, and he was full of compunctions, half carrying her downstairs. But when they got into the little coupé which waited for them, she burst forth.

“I can’t see what there was so very amusing. I don’t think it could be good French,” cried Nancy. “I don’t pretend that I can talk like you, but I learned French at school, and I am sure I could understand if it was good. You call that acting! I did not think he was clever at all.”

“My love,” said poor Arthur, “it was the great Got, the best comic actor in the world, I think. I never saw anyone like him.”

“I have seen a dozen better,” cried Nancy. “What did he do? nothing but make a fool of himself, putting on those ridiculous clothes, and dancing and singing, and learning lessons, an old man! The great Go! I wished he would go, I am sure, long before he did go,” she said, recovering her spirits a little by means of her pun. But the process was not so successful in respect to Arthur. He did not say anything, but shrugged his shoulders, which fortunately she did not perceive.

“I see,” he said, at last. “That is not the kind of acting you care for; the higher walks perhaps would please you better. We will try something quite different to-morrow.”

“Oh, to-morrow!” she said, with a little shiver. This delight of the play had already exploded for Nancy; and she recollected with dismay that they had agreed to go to a play every night! Was this how her life was to be spent? She thought regretfully of her mother and sisters sitting round the table, chatting about everything that had happened, and everything that was going to happen. The parlour was dingy, and she had thought of it with a wondering recoil of half disgust in comparison with her appartement, and all its coquetries, its white carpets and curtains; but she had never been so tired, so worn with trying to be happy at home. The little wood fire, however, was burning brightly, and the wax-candles lighted, and the pretty sitting-room looked very comfortable when they got back to the hotel, which they began to call “home,” with easy desecration of that word upon which the English pride themselves. Arthur put her into a comfortable chair, and made her take some wine, and petted and consoled her. Poor Arthur, he was disappointed too, but he concealed it manfully. His character was developing in this unexpected probation, he was growing patient, forbearing, ready to make all sorts of compromises and sacrifices, to ensure that his young wife should be happy. He had not been so good or so forbearing in his former relationships, when everything had been done to please him; but in marriage, if one will not be accommodating, why the other must, there is no changing that necessity of nature. This union which had cost so much must not turn out a failure. If she would not exert herself, he must. Therefore he swallowed his disappointment in respect to the immediate evening, and in respect to the narrowing of future resources, which, if Nancy could not be made to like the theatre, would be very serious, and also the deeper disappointment, which he scarcely allowed himself to look at, of finding in Nancy less understanding than he thought. He sat over the fire a little when she had gone to bed and pondered it all. After all, perhaps, it was not unnatural that a young girl who had no experience, and did not understand French, should not all at once appreciate Molière, even when interpreted by Got. Was it to be expected, was it likely? Arthur began to say to himself that his disappointment was the fault of his exaggerated expectations, and that he had been very foolish; poor Nancy, what an ordeal he had subjected her to! But he would not be discouraged, he would try again. Something romantic and sensational at the Porte St. Martin, or a sentimental comedy, such as was running at the Gymnase would do better. He would try that, something that would interest her. Arthur knew a good deal about the theatres, and he felt sure that one or the other would supply what was wanted. But there was a vague depression in his mind, notwithstanding the bright fire and the white carpets which were so warm and soft. This first effort had not been a success. Nancy had not responded to his call; it was, he supposed, his fault, but it was depressing. There was nothing injurious to Nancy in the comparison that suggested itself. He thought involuntarily of Lucy, how she would have laughed at Got’s acting, how lightly she would have come in and sat with him over the fire, and talked it all over, and enjoyed it a second time. All that this proved was the advantages of education—it proved nothing more—and he did not want to change Nancy for Lucy, or to abandon the ventures of this strange and alarming double existence, which, having once begun for him, could never end except by death. The little failures, the continual perils of opposition and resistance, excited at least, if they did not delight him. Life was no longer tame and monotonous whatever else might be said.

CHAPTER III.

NEXT day Arthur made a further experiment with his bride. It was one of the things he had promised her when they talked of Paris, and it had not occurred to him that the very name of the Louvre conveyed no idea to Nancy’s mind. She had been quite willing to accept it as something vaguely splendid which she was to see, but that was all. He took her across the broad sunshiny courts with a little thrill of expectation, chiefly pleasurable, yet with a touch of doubt in it which perhaps made it more exciting. Arthur was not himself very learned in art, nor an enthusiast about it. He knew what a young man of his breeding could scarcely escape knowing—he knew which were the pictures that everybody admires; he had all his life been accustomed to believe that he admired them, and what with association, what with faith, what with some natural sense of beauty, such as few minds are quite destitute of, he had liked to go and look at them from time to time when he was in the way of it, and had a certain acquaintance with the great galleries in all the places he had visited. He knew the Louvre well enough to know his way about, to be able to lead a neophyte from one great picture to another, and even to have his favourites in the Salon Carré. This does not necessitate a very high appreciation of art, or much real acquaintance with its productions; but yet it was as the highest knowledge and the wildest furore in comparison with the absolute ignorance and indifference which exists in the class from which Nancy was taken. A less intelligent girl than Nancy, proceeding from the slightly elevated social position at which it has become known that pictures are things to be admired, and that admiration of them is a proof of superiority both in rank and intellect, would have known how to acquit herself in such an emergency. She would have gone through these galleries with a gush of indiscriminate delight, finding everything beautiful, or at the worst would have taken her cue from her husband, and admired what he admired. But Nancy had not been educated even up to this point. She knew nothing about them, had never heard of Raffaelle or Murillo, and when Arthur said, “This is the famous Assumption,” stared blankly, never having heard of it before; then turned her eyes up and down, gazing about her with that idea that one thing is as good as another, which is the very essence of ignorance. She had not even knowledge enough to be aware that it was becoming to feign an interest.