Again Nancy’s head went round and round. Should not she throw herself at this lady’s feet, who smiled on her so graciously, and tell all that Arthur was to her? The impulse was almost too strong to be resisted. While she stood on the eve of this rush, Lucy passing by to resume her seat after examining the drawing, gave her an inquiring, wondering, suspicious look. This brought Nancy down again to solid ground. She gave an alarmed, confused glance round, not daring to trust herself to speak.
“I am sure my sister would be glad if you would have the picture, my lady,” said Matilda, “since you like it—though I’m sure I can’t think why. It’s all leaves that we got out of your park. Me and—Anna often walk there. It’s a little wet at this time of the year; but it must be lovely in the summer—if we stay till then.”
“I hope you will stay,” said Lady Curtis, rising, “you ought to see Oakley in full beauty; and I hope you will come and see Lucy and me,” she added, holding out her hand. Nancy did not know what was happening to her when that soft hand pressed hers. “And if we can be of any use to you—as you are here alone—I hope you will tell me,” Lady Curtis said.
“Well!” said Matilda when the door closed upon them, and she had watched their figures from the window. “Well, Nancy! what do you think of her now? A nicer lady, more civil, more pleasant, more friendly, I never wish to see; and that was what you made such a fuss about as if she was a monster and would eat you! I’d go down on my bended knees to Providence to give me a mother-in-law like that. Not a bit of pride—as if we had been the best ladies in the land. Oh, Nancy, Nancy! what a fool you have been! if poor dear mother only knew.”
But Nancy was past standing up for herself, or making any reply. She had covered her face with her hands; her whole frame was tingling, her head swimming, her heart full of trouble and pleasure, and confusion and despair. What a fool, what a fool she had been! that, indeed, if nothing else, was beyond measure true.
As for Lady Curtis, she was enchanted with her new acquaintance. “There is some mystery there,” she said as they walked briskly away. “It is easy to see that the sister is of a very different class and breeding from that touching young creature with her blue eyes. Is she a sister at all, I wonder, or some old servant for a protection to her? I don’t know when I have been so much interested,” she said.
As for Lucy she said nothing; her mind was full of doubt and confusion. She did not know what to think, and there was nothing that she could trust herself to say.
CHAPTER VIII.
DURANT had not been at Oakley for more than a year. No invitation had come to him, though he still corresponded with Lady Curtis on the same confidential and affectionate terms as before; and his heart had grown sick with this pause of stagnation in his life. There are moments when that which we have borne with tolerable calm for years, becomes all at once intolerable to us; and this is especially the case with men who, having laboured hard and dutifully without much personal recompense, are suddenly moved by some accidental prick to see that their best years are floating away from them, without any of the delights that belong to that crown of existence. Why this feeling should have come upon Durant after his late visit to Underhayes, and not on previous visits, when he had seen his friend Arthur, so much younger than himself, enjoying the happiness which it was not given to him to enjoy, it would be difficult to tell. Perhaps Arthur’s happiness, while it lasted, was too full of drawbacks to attract his friend, to whom it never could have been possible to woo his love in Mrs. Bates’ parlour, behind the backs of the family. But curiously enough, when the family was swept away, and all its shabbiness had become pathetic; and when Arthur’s happiness had fallen into dust, and become apparently a thing beyond restoration or even hope, then, and only then, did it stimulate the dormant passion in Durant’s veins. He said to himself that to lose the chance of happiness altogether by thus passively waiting till it should drop upon him from the clouds, was, perhaps, in the end a greater foolishness than even the mad folly which had ruined Arthur. Arthur, at all events, at the worst, had had his chance; whereas Lewis, so far as appearances went, was never to have his chance, but only toil and toil on for the benefit of others till the capacity for joy was exhausted in him. In the grey autumnal weather, when the rains are falling, and the skies lowering, and all things settling down to “the dead of the year,” does not sometimes a longing, insupportable, for sunshine and brightness, cross us—a longing which has to be satisfied by some lighting up of lamps and artificial processes of illumination, if not by the natural and blessed sun? Durant went on for a little, with his heart full of smouldering fire, reflecting upon his own loneliness amidst all the enjoyments and fellowships of the world, reflecting upon the manner in which his own hard earnings melted away, running into the bottomless pit of improvidence and unlovely waste in his father’s house, with no real benefit even to the dwellers therein, much less to him whose labours had no lightening, whatever happened. At last the point of explosion was reached by the touch of a piece of good fortune. For the first time he was retained as first counsel in an important case likely to attract some notice in the world, and at the same time was appointed one of a commission of investigation into certain legal evils then under the consideration of Parliament. The sudden pleasure of distinction among his peers, altogether apart from the profit of it, conveyed a swift and penetrating pleasure to his mind, and altogether overset the impatient patience which so many thoughts had already put in jeopardy. A little success often in such circumstances fires the mine which weariness and reflection and comparison have been filling with combustibles. Why should he drag on any longer dully, without even an attempt to brighten his own life? The man who blacked his shoes, secure of weekly remuneration, had just “thrown up his place,” and risked his existence, in order to “better himself;” and why should not the master try to better himself too? This sudden impulse set him all on fire. What was the use of his self-denial, his renunciation of all pleasant things? They who would have them, must seize them, without all this reckoning of possibilities and counting of cost. Durant was not superior to that almost fierce independence which, like all good that comes out of evil, has its false side. The dependence and incessant demands of his family had made him stern in his resolution to owe no man anything, to struggle out his own career unaided; and had also made him too proud to ask any favour in his own person, even a night’s lodging from the friends whom he had served with all the humbleness of true generosity when occasion offered. He would have spent time, which was more valuable to him than money is to most people, or money, of which he did not possess too large a stock, in the service of the Curtises, whenever they called upon him; but he would not ask them to invite him, or even suggest that he would like to be invited. This was one of the défauts de ses qualités. So it took him a little trouble to get himself to Oakley in a roundabout way. He did this by means of a college friend, who had a living within a dozen miles, and to whom he had no objection to offer himself for a short visit; and being there, what so natural as that he should drive over to Oakley for a few hours? He did this a few days after the visit of Lady Curtis to Nancy, and appeared suddenly in the morning, conscious and anxious, while the family were still at breakfast.
“I thought I’d run down and see Cavendish at Stainforth,” he said, feeling the weakness of the excuse.