CHAPTER XII.
TO know something which those about you do not know—to keep something secret which would interest them above measure, and affect their conduct; but which you, in your superior wisdom, believe it better they should not know—this is to play a very difficult part, one of the most difficult in life. And if you undertake it without possessing the necessary qualities of reticence and self-control, with, on the contrary, all the habits of an innocent life, the traditions of family frankness and inter-communication of everything, great or small; and if to add to all these difficulties you have been in the habit of living with one other close companion as if you and she had possessed between you but one soul—it may be imagined how hard the task will be. This was what Lucy Curtis had undertaken to do. She had no idea when she undertook it how hard it was. In a glow of determined generosity and good meaning towards the woman of whom, in her inmost soul, she felt jealous as receiving regard and attention to which she had no right, she had taken this Herculean task upon her shoulder—and now she would not shrink from it; but it was hard beyond all belief to carry it out. A hundred times a day the name of Nancy was trembling on her lips. Between her mother and herself, the conversation was not talking so much as thinking aloud. Everything was common between them, their thoughts, the occurrences of their life, their reading, their speculations—they did everything à deux, as even husband and wife cannot do, as perhaps only mother and daughter ever succeed in doing. The differences of character between them, the difference between Lady Curtis’s experience, and those touches of the world which inevitably in nearly fifty years of living modify the character, and Lucy’s youthfulness of certainty—her stronger convictions and more absolute perceptions of good and evil—these gave the necessary tinge of individuality to their utterances. But there had never been any reserves between these two.
Thus when Lucy made up her mind to keep Durant’s intimation of Nancy’s near presence, to herself, she undertook a burden for which her strength was scarcely fit. To help herself to bear it, she said to herself, that she had as yet no certainty on the subject—that she was not sure that the woman Durant had seen was Mrs. Arthur; and that she herself having once seen her brother’s wife did not recognise her now, though compelled by a hundred circumstances to believe that this was she. No, she said to herself, she had no legal warrant, no certainty sufficiently strong to justify her in disturbing the minds of her parents by a guess which, perhaps, might turn out mistaken. It would disturb their minds greatly. Their kindly prepossession in favour of the stranger was not strong enough to bear such an interruption, and they would be entirely at a loss what to do; what Arthur would wish them to do; what would be most expedient in the painful circumstances. If Nancy was known to be Arthur’s wife, she could not remain there without acknowledgment from Arthur’s family; and how could they adopt her into their bosom when it was she who had separated from her husband, sent him away from her, ruined his life? She could not be at variance with her husband, and in friendship with his father and mother—parted from him, but received by them. No, that was impossible; and when nobody even knew whether it was Nancy! It might be quite another person whom Lewis had seen—it might be some one from Oakenden, the nearest town, come over for the day. It might be the clergyman’s wife of the next parish, young Mrs. Brown, who was lately married and not much known in the neighbourhood. It might be—half a dozen people—why should it be Mrs. Arthur of Wren Cottage? If this were, indeed, Nancy, the wife of Arthur Curtis, was it at all probable that she would have taken so transparent a disguise? All these arguments Lucy went over to herself, feeling that they were futile. In her own mind, she had no doubt that Mrs. Arthur at the Cottage was her sister-in-law, and that Lewis had seen her, and that she had fled from him. But these were simply ideas of her own, no more; and even if they were facts, and proved true, what end could be served by telling her mother—was it not better to wait, to see what might happen, to let events shape themselves? But oh! how hard—how much harder than anyone could have supposed it was!
Lady Curtis on her side was secretly grieved with her child. She did not make any complaint; she reasoned with herself indeed against the pain she felt, saying to herself that it was natural Lucy should be preoccupied, should talk less freely when they sat together, should have less to say to her mother. Had she not another now for whom she would store up all those outflowings of the heart which had been her mother’s alone? She was, she knew and humbly avowed to herself, ridiculously ready to be wounded, and felt the smallest little unconscious prick from those she loved; but she must be just to Lucy. There was nothing wanting in Lucy that any reasonable mother could wish for; but only they two had been all in all to each other, and Lady Curtis felt that to Lucy she was no longer all in all. Long silences would come between them while she worked at her crewels, and Lucy carried on the varied occupations of a young lady’s afternoon, a young lady who is a parish sovereign, and has a great many small yet important public affairs on hand. Those silences Lady Curtis set down to Durant’s account, and felt a something growing in her mind very different from her former affection for Lewis, which she endeavoured with all her might to crush, without finding it easy to do so. It was natural, and she must be just; while all the time it was not Lewis that was in fault. Fortunately, Lucy herself did not even know that her mother had discovered her embarrassed self-consciousness, and had not the slightest notion that it was set down to the account of Lewis. And thus a little something, which was not so much as a cloud, a mist upon the clear sky, a fantastic vapour, but presaging storm and darkness, began to breathe between them. They were disappointed in each other; sympathy somehow seemed to fail between them. Was it that her mother was exigeante, Lucy asked herself—even—painful word—jealous? It was that Lucy had some one else to love, that she was no longer of first importance to her child, the mother thought; and the fact was that both were wrong, that it was neither jealousy on the one side nor desertion on the other, but Nancy—nothing but a secret, the most innocent of secrets, and the most well-intentioned, that did the wrong.
And the more her thoughts dwelt on this subject, and the more apparent it became to Lucy’s mind that she must not betray her discovery, the more curious she grew about the object of it all. Never a parish day came now that she did not pay a visit to Mrs. Arthur. This was not always successful, for Mrs. Arthur was often out, as Lucy thought, to avoid her; but on these occasions she would talk to the sister, whose name nobody knew. Lucy called her Miss Arthur, with a keen glance of scrutiny, and saw by Matilda’s little start and her sudden look, as if about to contradict her, that this was not her name; but she thought better of it after a moment’s consideration, and allowed herself to be called Miss Arthur for the rest of the interview. And Lucy had little difficulty in eliciting from Matilda all the particulars of her family history which did not touch Nancy. How their parents were dead, how their only brother had gone to New Zealand; and Matilda did not conceal that she hoped to follow Charley, and, indeed, to that intention was busy with all the chemises at which Lucy beheld her working.
“It will be a long voyage,” Matilda said, “and one requires a large supply.”
“But will your sister go too?”
“My sister? I have two sisters, Miss Curtis. One is very well married in the place where we used to live. I have heard them say that if Charley did very well, and there seemed a good opening, they wouldn’t mind; for what is New Zealand nowadays?—not much farther than France used to be, father always liked to say.”
“But I meant your sister here, Mrs. Arthur. Will it not be very dreary for her if you go away?”
“Oh, my sister, Mrs. Arthur! She is very different from the rest of us; things are not with her as with the rest of us. I cannot take it upon me to say what she will do.”