From that day forth the life of these three persons in the ruin ran very
smoothly. Mr. Archer now sat by the fire with a book, and now passed
whole days abroad, returning late, dead weary. His manner was a mask;
but it was half transparent; through the even tenor of his gravity and
courtesy profound revolutions of feeling were betrayed, seasons of numb
despair, of restlessness, of aching temper. For days he would say
nothing beyond his usual courtesies and solemn compliments; and then, all
of a sudden, some fine evening beside the kitchen fire, he would fall
into a vein of elegant gossip, tell of strange and interesting events,
the secrets of families, brave deeds of war, the miraculous discovery of
crime, the visitations of the dead. Nance and her uncle would sit till
the small hours with eyes wide open: Jonathan applauding the unexpected
incidents with many a slap of his big hand; Nance, perhaps, more pleased
with the narrator’s eloquence and wise reflections; and then, again, days
would follow of abstraction, of listless humming, of frequent apologies
and long hours of silence. Once only, and then after a week of
unrelieved melancholy, he went over to the ‘Green Dragon,’ spent the
afternoon with the landlord and a bowl of punch, and returned as on the
first night, devious in step but courteous and unperturbed of speech.
If he seemed more natural and more at his ease it was when he found Nance
alone; and, laying by some of his reserve, talked before her rather than
to her of his destiny, character and hopes. To Nance these interviews
were but a doubtful privilege. At times he would seem to take a pleasure
in her presence, to consult her gravely, to hear and to discuss her
counsels; at times even, but these were rare and brief, he would talk of
herself, praise the qualities that she possessed, touch indulgently on
her defects, and lend her books to read and even examine her upon her
reading; but far more often he would fall into a half unconsciousness,
put her a question and then answer it himself, drop into the veiled tone
of voice of one soliloquising, and leave her at last as though he had
forgotten her existence. It was odd, too, that in all this random
converse, not a fact of his past life, and scarce a name, should ever
cross his lips. A profound reserve kept watch upon his most unguarded
moments. He spoke continually of himself, indeed, but still in enigmas;
a veiled prophet of egoism.
The base of Nance’s feelings for Mr. Archer was admiration as for a
superior being; and with this, his treatment, consciously or not,
accorded happily. When he forgot her, she took the blame upon herself.
His formal politeness was so exquisite that this essential brutality
stood excused. His compliments, besides, were always grave and rational;
he would offer reason for his praise, convict her of merit, and thus
disarm suspicion. Nay, and the very hours when he forgot and remembered
her alternately could by the ardent fallacies of youth be read in the
light of an attention. She might be far from his confidence; but still
she was nearer it than any one. He might ignore her presence, but yet he
sought it.
Moreover, she, upon her side, was conscious of one point of superiority.
Beside this rather dismal, rather effeminate man, who recoiled from a
worm, who grew giddy on the castle wall, who bore so helplessly the
weight of his misfortunes, she felt herself a head and shoulders taller
in cheerful and sterling courage. She could walk head in air along the
most precarious rafter; her hand feared neither the grossness nor the
harshness of life’s web, but was thrust cheerfully, if need were, into
the briar bush, and could take hold of any crawling horror. Ruin was
mining the walls of her cottage, as already it had mined and subverted
Mr. Archer’s palace. Well, she faced it with a bright countenance and a
busy hand. She had got some washing, some rough seamstress work from the
‘Green Dragon,’ and from another neighbour ten miles away across the
moor. At this she cheerfully laboured, and from that height she could
afford to pity the useless talents and poor attitude of Mr. Archer. It
did not change her admiration, but it made it bearable. He was above her
in all ways; but she was above him in one. She kept it to herself, and
hugged it. When, like all young creatures, she made long stories to
justify, to nourish, and to forecast the course of her affection, it was
this private superiority that made all rosy, that cut the knot, and that,
at last, in some great situation, fetched to her knees the dazzling but
imperfect hero. With this pretty exercise she beguiled the hours of
labour, and consoled herself for Mr. Archer’s bearing.
Pity was her weapon and her weakness. To accept the loved one’s faults,
although it has an air of freedom, is to kiss the chain, and this pity it
was which, lying nearer to her heart, lent the one element of true
emotion to a fanciful and merely brain-sick love.
Thus it fell out one day that she had gone to the ‘Green Dragon’ and
brought back thence a letter to Mr. Archer. He, upon seeing it, winced
like a man under the knife: pain, shame, sorrow, and the most trenchant
edge of mortification cut into his heart and wrung the steady composure
of his face.
‘Dear heart! have you bad news?’ she cried.
But he only replied by a gesture and fled to his room, and when, later
on, she ventured to refer to it, he stopped her on the threshold, as if
with words prepared beforehand. ‘There are some pains,’ said he, ‘too
acute for consolation, or I would bring them to my kind consoler. Let
the memory of that letter, if you please, be buried.’ And then as she
continued to gaze at him, being, in spite of herself, pained by his
elaborate phrase, doubtfully sincere in word and manner: ‘Let it be
enough,’ he added haughtily, ‘that if this matter wring my heart, it doth
not touch my conscience. I am a man, I would have you to know, who
suffers undeservedly.’
He had never spoken so directly: never with so convincing an emotion; and
her heart thrilled for him. She could have taken his pains and died of
them with joy.
Meanwhile she was left without support. Jonathan now swore by his
lodger, and lived for him. He was a fine talker. He knew the finest
sight of stories; he was a man and a gentleman, take him for all in all,
and a perfect credit to Old England. Such were the old man’s declared
sentiments, and sure enough he clung to Mr. Archer’s side, hung upon his
utterance when he spoke, and watched him with unwearing interest when he
was silent. And yet his feeling was not clear; in the partial wreck of
his mind, which was leaning to decay, some after-thought was strongly
present. As he gazed in Mr. Archer’s face a sudden brightness would
kindle in his rheumy eyes, his eye-brows would lift as with a sudden
thought, his mouth would open as though to speak, and close again on
silence. Once or twice he even called Mr. Archer mysteriously forth into
the dark courtyard, took him by the button, and laid a demonstrative
finger on his chest; but there his ideas or his courage failed him; he
would shufflingly excuse himself and return to his position by the fire
without a word of explanation. ‘The good man was growing old,’ said Mr.
Archer with a suspicion of a shrug. But the good man had his idea, and
even when he was alone the name of Mr. Archer fell from his lips
continually in the course of mumbled and gesticulative conversation.