According to Lady Curtis’s hasty resolution, the invitations, to some at
least, of the ordinary Christmas party were for an earlier date than
usual. The climax of the distress produced by Arthur had come, and
though the struggle was hard to pick up the ordinary occupations of life
again, and go on as if nothing had happened, at a time when Arthur’s
absence was so doubly felt and apparent, the impatient soul of his
mother was better able to bear this variety of pain than the monotonous
heaviness of the other, the dull presence of one thought that had been
upon the house like bonds of iron. One of the first visitors who arrived
was Durant, who had always been the first in Arthur’s time, next to the
son of the house in familiarity and knowledge of everything and
everybody about. Even during the miserable interval now passed, Durant’s
letters had given a certain solace to Lady Curtis, as furnishing her
always with something to talk of, something to discuss with Lucy, to
whom she would point out freely the weakness of his arguments which were
always in Arthur’s favour, and for which Arthur’s mother loved him, even
while she took a delight in demonstrating their futility. Lucy had a
long round to make among her poor people on the afternoon on which
Durant was expected. She could not have told why it was that she chose
that special day; perhaps because it was fine, a simple reason, quite
satisfactory to the ordinary intelligence; perhaps because the
association of ideas with him, whom she had not seen since he took her
to Arthur’s wedding, was so painful that she was willing to postpone the
meeting as long as possible; or perhaps she was desirous in Arthur’s
interest that Lady Curtis should have her first conversation with his
faithful friend undisturbed by any third person; or, perhaps, again Lucy
had reasons of her own, into which none of us have any right to pry. She
was for a long time at the almshouses, having started early to take
advantage of the brightest part of the short winter day, and took her
luncheon with Mrs. Rolt, the wife of the good agent, to whom the
children at Oakley had been as her own since ever they were born. Mrs.
Rolt had no children of her own, and she had as great a desire to talk
about Arthur as his mother herself had. She plunged into the subject as
soon as Lucy appeared, and there was nothing but sympathy and tenderness
in the bosom of this simple-hearted retainer of the family, who was at
the same time a far away cousin, and therefore on more familiar terms
than are usually permitted to an agent’s wife. This visit detained Lucy
also, so that it was four o’clock, and the red winter sunset just over
when she started to walk up the long avenue. Durant had been expected by
an earlier train at the station which was a mile or two off, so that
Lucy felt herself safe. She set out upon her walk very full of a new
incident which she had not previously heard of, the meeting between her
aunt and her brother at Paris of which Mrs. Rolt had been informed by
the Rector. “Why did not he tell us, or why did not Aunt Anthony write?”
Lucy had said.
“Oh, my pet, what could she write? I don’t suppose it was pleasant,”
Mrs. Rolt said, “however angry you, may be with your own, you don’t like
to hear them blamed by others; and Mrs. Anthony has sense enough to know
that.”
“Then why did she mention it at all?” said Lucy.
“Oh, my love, that would have been more than flesh and blood is equal
to. To have had an adventure like that, and not to have mentioned it at
all! She said Mrs. Arthur behaved _dreadfully_ to her, abused her,
turned her out of her rooms. But we must take all that with a great many
grains of salt, for you know your Aunt Anthony, my dear.”
“Yes, I know Aunt Anthony; but how dreadful it is that Arthur’s
wife--fancy, _Arthur’s wife_!--should give anyone occasion to say that
she behaved badly. You will not tell mamma?”
“No, indeed, I promise you; and I daresay, if we could know it all, the
half isn’t true. You mustn’t worry about it, my darling,” said Mrs.
Rolt, kissing Lucy as she went away.
The girl shook her head. Why should they tell her such things if they
meant her not to worry? and yet she was feverishly glad that she had
been told, as people are in respect to every such family misery. She
went in at the great gates, with her cheek still flushed by the
agitation of the news. To hear that a friend, a member of the family,
had actually met and spoken with Nancy, seemed to bring her nearer, to
make her more real. And perhaps there was a personal advantage in this
thrill of renewed agitation about Arthur, which replaced for the moment
some of her own thoughts. For lo! it so occurred that all Lucy’s
precautions had been futile. She had not walked half-a-dozen yards when
she heard behind her the rattle of the dogcart swinging round the corner
to the gate, that had been sent for Durant to the station; and before
she had time to collect her thoughts, it drew up suddenly just behind
her, and Durant himself sprung out of it, and in a moment was at her
side. The dogcart went on with his portmanteau, and she felt herself
exactly in the circumstances she had so elaborately avoided, bound,
without chance of escape, to a long solitary walk through the still
avenue, and a long confidential talk before he had seen anyone else,
with her brother’s friend.
“Yes, the train was late; there was some slight accident on the line, at
which I have been fuming and fretting. But, as it happens, it has been a
lucky detention,” said Durant.
Lucy took no notice, not even so much as by a smile.
“You said you were very busy.”
“Yes, I am getting plenty of work to do; not very distinguished work as
yet, but I hope better may come.”
“Your leading counsel will fall ill some day, and it will be a very
interesting, romantic case, and you will be inspired to make the most
eloquent speech, and your fortune will be made.”
“I see you know how such things happen,” he said with a laugh.
“Oh, yes, I have read a great many novels,” said Lucy. “That is always
how young barristers get on; and between that and the woolsack is but a
step.”
“A very long stride, I fear; but I do not insist on the woolsack,” said
Durant; and then there was a pause, and he said lower, “I saw Arthur a
few days ago.”
“Did you see him? Oh, Mr. Durant, you must not mind what mamma says. She
has begun to jeer at him, and that is the worst of all. How was he
looking? Poor Arthur, poor boy! And his wife--did you see her? Oh, I
have been hearing such a story of her!”
“What story?” he asked anxiously.
_He_ had heard many; but on the whole he was no enemy to Nancy. He saw
the glimmer of tears in Lucy’s eyes, and this did much to steel his
heart against Arthur’s wife; but still he had no feeling against Nancy.
He was ready even, more or less, to stand up in her defence.
“My aunt, it appears, saw her in Paris, Mr. Durant.”
“Oh, it is Mrs. Curtis’s story then?” he said.
“You speak as if there were a great many stories about her,” said Lucy,
with sudden heat.
“No; but one hears everything, you know, in town--especially, I think,
at this time of the year, when there are few men about, and they talk of
everything.”
“Yes,” said Lucy, “I have heard often of the gossip in your clubs, that
it is worse and more unkind than any other gossip.”
“Do not be too hard upon us! It is as petty and miserable as gossip is
everywhere. But I have seen Mrs. Curtis, and heard it from herself. It
is nothing, a misunderstanding between women--”
“Which, of course, you consider the merest trifle,” cried Lucy, much
more piqued by this countershot than he had been by the assault on the
clubs. Women are certainly on this point more ready to take offence than
men, who have the calm confidence of their own superiority to fall back
upon.
“I do not, indeed; but the women in question are not of the highest
order. Mrs. Curtis most likely was fussy and interfering; and Nancy--”
“Do you call her Nancy?” cried Lucy, opening wide eyes.
“I beg your pardon. I got used to the name before she was Mrs. Arthur;
and there is such a wonderful incongruity in the idea that she is Mrs.
Arthur,” he said, doing his best to conciliate by this remark; but this
slip of the name had evidently had a bad effect, he could not tell why.
He thought that Lucy (in whom he had never before seen any indication of
such foolish family pride) was offended by such a familiarity; and yet
what could he say to excuse it? “Mrs. Curtis was intrusive, probably,”
he went on, “and Mrs. Arthur resented it.”
“Oh, do not change the name you are accustomed to for me, Mr. Durant!”
“I am not accustomed to it,” he answered meekly, feeling that something
was wrong, but not knowing what it was. “She resented it, I suppose. I
do not wish to be disagreeable, but you know that a lady like Mrs.
Curtis can be very officious and interfering; and _she_ resented it, I
suppose.”
Poor Durant! if he thought he was mending matters by calling Arthur’s
wife _she_, with that little emphasis, how mistaken he was! Lucy’s heart
was conscious of a thrill and jar, such as one’s foot or hand might
experience if suddenly striking against some sharp angle in the dark.
She had no right to feel so unreasonably offended with Durant, so
unreasonably disdainful of Arthur’s wife. Lucy was angry with herself
for the force of her sentiments, which seemed so utterly out of
proportion with the matter on hand. She thought it more dignified and
befitting to retire from any further question of it. But her aspect
changed unawares, her very form grew stiffer and more erect, and she
said, icily, “You said you saw Arthur. Is he looking better than when
we saw him last?”
“No,” said Durant, hesitating; “I am not able to say that he is. I hope
Lady Curtis will not ask me that question.”
“Oh!” said Lucy, the tears springing to her eyes, “do you think I am not
as anxious about my only brother--as concerned as mamma?”
“Indeed I do not mean anything of the kind; but I can speak to you more
freely. _You_ understand; you always did understand, Miss Curtis,” he
said, looking at her with a tender admiration which stole the hardness
from Lucy’s heart in spite of herself. “I do not know how it was. It is
so natural that Lady Curtis--that all his family should see the folly
and the unkindness of it most. But you always saw the whole--and
understood.”
“I never excused Arthur, Mr. Durant. No one could know the evil of what
he has done--the pain it has produced so well as I.”
“I know,” he said softly, “all the more honour to your delicate heart
that understood. I beg your pardon--I was only speaking by way of
explanation. I can speak to you as I cannot speak--to any one else.
Arthur is not looking well, poor fellow--he is harassed and worried to
death. All the glamour has gone out of his eyes, and he sees his wife’s
family now as other people see them, as very common-place, sordid,
uneducated people, with whom, or with their like, he has no affinity. I
would not say even that he did not see this more deeply than--I do, for
instance, who am quite indifferent. To me they seem good sort of people
enough--in their way. But Arthur has the horror of feeling that they
belong to him more or less--and that he is called upon to associate with
them.”
“Poor boy! oh, poor boy! and he was always so fastidious! But that is
nothing, Mr. Durant--they do _not_ belong to him. He can shake them off
whenever he likes; but her--what of her? She is the chief person to be
thought of,” said Lucy, with a sigh that it should be so.
“This is precisely the thing which I can say to you, and to no other,”
said Durant. “She is not the same as they are. If you could fancy one of
the stories of a stolen child--that was always different, always
superior to the children of the people who brought it up--”
“Superior--Aunt Anthony’s story does not sound much like superiority! I
think you are influenced, as they say gentlemen always are, by her good
looks, and that is why you make an exception in favour of--my
sister-in-law,” said Lucy, with a sound in those words such as Durant
had never heard before from her lips. He looked at her in the growing
twilight with wonder and pain. Was his certainty of _her_ superiority to
every other person concerned, about to turn out vain? It was almost
dark, and he could not make out the expression of Lucy’s face; and of
all things in the world the last that could have occurred to the young
man was any thing to account for this, which should have been flattering
to himself.
When he spoke again, there was some distress in his voice, and a half
tone of complaint, “I thought I might venture on saying this to
_you_--I thought you would understand; the facts are all against her. I
believe she has managed very badly; and allowed everybody to see her
want of cultivation--her strange--ignorance. Nevertheless,” he said
earnestly, “I do not despair of Nancy. As for her good looks, they count
for very little with me. What effect they may have on idle and
unoccupied minds, I cannot pretend to say; but for a man like myself
with a busy life and a pre-occupied imagination--”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Durant,” cried Lucy, “I did not wish to pry
into your secrets.”
She would not have said it had she taken time to think. What folly to
let him know that she understood that enigmatical phrase about the
pre-occupied imagination! Lucy went on, quickening her pace, feeling the
glow of a sudden blush run all over her in the gathering dark. And the
silence seemed to thrill about them with all manner of possibilities of
what might be said next. They were as much alone as if they had been in
a desert island--bare trees standing closely about, the twilight all
grey among the branches, the whole world still and listening. The thrill
came to Lucy too, a kind of visionary tremor.
“Mamma will be looking out for you,” she said, hurriedly. “She will
scold me for keeping you so long walking, when you might have been there
in the dogcart half an hour ago;” and she sensibly quickened her own
pace.
But Durant did not share in that thrill. It affected him only with a
contrary touch of despondency. Lucy’s fright lest he should go on to
tell her who it was who had pre-occupied his imagination (could she
entertain any doubt who it was?) reflected itself in his melancholy
sense that he dared not tell her any more. He dared not because he was
poor, he who, even if he had been rich, would not have been thought her
equal by anyone belonging to her; and because he was her father’s guest,
and incapable of betraying his hospitality by a word to his daughter
which Sir John would not have permitted. Thus that suggestion of
self-disclosure ended in a blank silence which neither would break. He,
too, quickened his steps to keep up with her, and in a few minutes they
reached the house, which rayed out light into the darkness from the open
door and windows. It seemed all bright, all open, full of hospitable
warmth and radiance. When Durant had come here before, he had come with
Arthur, and there had been a rush of mother and sister to the door to
meet the heir of everything, the first thought and hope of all within
these walls. Durant had been half-saddened many a time by that warm and
exuberant welcome which Arthur always received. He himself had been
received kindly too, but with what a difference! and as there was no
particular enthusiasm about him in his own home, notwithstanding the
fact that his family were indebted to him for everything, he had never
been able to divest himself of a certain envy for Arthur. But he was a
thousand times more saddened now to go up the great steps into the hall,
and see no mother hurrying out to receive her son, no Arthur coming
with cheerful outcry, nothing but himself stealing in softly, half
ashamed of being there without Arthur, half afraid to look at Lucy, who
must feel it too, he felt. He did not know how to go on and meet Lady
Curtis’s eyes. He felt sure they must meet him with a reproach. “Where
is Arthur?” he felt the very house say to him; and almost wished that he
had been guilty, that he could have taken their reproaches to himself,
and answered for his friend’s sake, “It is my fault.” He paused in the
hall, and looked round wistfully at Lucy. Her eyes were wet, her lips
faltering. She held out that hand to him.
“I know,” she said; “but when we have got over the first, it will be
almost as if he had come too.”
“Almost!” he said shaking his head. He felt his eyes grow wet, and held
her hand almost without knowing that he held it. Lady Curtis had heard
the movement in the hall, though she had been trying not to hear it, and
the shock had been broken to her by the arrival of the dogcart which
she thought was bringing him. She came out now hiding her agitation with
a smile, and held out her hands. Neither of them could speak. But when
they got into that room which had seen so many happy meetings, it was
too much for Arthur’s mother. She took hold of his arm convulsively with
both her hands, and leaned her weight upon his shoulder and cried, “Oh,
my boy!” through the sobs which she could not suppress. Durant was
overcome at once by the emotion and the confidence. He stooped down with
tender reverence and kissed her cheek.
“He is all the brother I have ever known,” he said.
“Yes, Lewis, yes, I know; God bless you! you have always been on
Arthur’s side.”
Lucy stood by with strange currents of thought going through her mind,
dimly understanding the man who was not her lover, but whose imagination
was pre-occupied past being touched by any one else--yet tempted
grievously to misunderstand him, and wondering with a latent pain just
ready to come into being, whether this was one of the common mockeries
of fate which made her mother receive him thus almost as a son, at the
very time when he had ceased to entertain that sentiment which might
have made a true son of him? Strange are the vagaries of young minds at
this doubtful period, when everything is undisclosed and uncertain. She
had entertained no doubt as to who it was who occupied his imagination
when he had said those words. Did she really entertain a doubt now? or
was she fostering such a thing into being--trying to make herself
believe it? it would be hard to say. She stood by wondering, feeling in
herself all the germs of doubt, and that inclination to nurse and
develope them, and make herself unhappy which most of us have felt; all
this, however, tempered by a curious thrill of pleasure to hear what
Lady Curtis said. Lewis! they had called him Lewis Durant among themself
for years, as (she felt no doubt) he had called her Lucy; but the name
had never been employed before by anyone but Arthur. This was a leap
unspeakable in intimacy. Lady Curtis had adopted him, so to speak, by
thus involuntary casting herself upon him, and the sudden use of his
name. But what did _he_ think? was it Arthur only that was in his mind?
Lucy drew her mother’s chair to the fire, and pulled off her own thick
outdoor jacket. There was tea on the table ready to be poured out, and
the soft lamplight and warm glow of the fire brought out all the
prettiness of the room, with its gay tints and gleams of gold. What had
trouble to do in that cheerful place, amid those artificial graces which
had become natural and kindly by use and wont? The stir of her
daughter’s movements brought Lady Curtis to herself. They sat down round
the fire as if the new comer had been another son, and talked of Arthur.
It was almost as endless, almost as engrossing a talk as when the mother
and sister sat alone together, and felt as if they could never cease.
But by and by Sir John came in for his cup of tea, and asked how it was
the train was so late, and all the particulars of the journey. Sir John
himself had delayed half an hour beyond his usual time in coming for his
tea. He had felt Durant’s arrival too.