NATALY, NESTA, AND DARTREY FENELLAN
Pleasant things, that come to us too late for our savour of the sweetness
in them, toll ominously of life on the last walk to its end. Yesterday,
before Dudley Sowerby's visit, Nataly would have been stirred where the
tears we shed for happiness or repress at a flattery dwell when seeing
her friend Mrs. John Cormyn enter her boudoir and hearing her speak
repentantly, most tenderly. Mrs. John said: 'You will believe I have
suffered, dear; I am half my weight, I do think': and she did not set the
smile of responsive humour moving; although these two ladies had a key of
laughter between them. Nataly took her kiss; held her hand, and at the
parting kissed her. She would rather have seen her friend than not: so
far she differed from a corpse; but she was near the likeness to the dead
in the insensibility to any change of light shining on one who best loved
darkness and silence. She cried to herself wilfully, that her pride was
broken: as women do when they spurn at the wounding of a dignity they
cannot protect and die to see bleeding; for in it they live.
The cry came of her pride unbroken, sore bruised, and after a certain
space for recovery combative. She said:
Any expiation I could offer where I did injury, I would not refuse; I
would humble myself and bless heaven for being able to pay my debt--what
I can of it. All I contend against is, injustice. And she sank into
sensational protests of her anxious care of her daughter, too proud to
phrase them.
Her one great affliction, the scourging affliction of her utter
loneliness;--an outcast from her family; daily, and she knew not how,
more shut away from the man she loved; now shut away from her girl;--
seemed under the hand of the angel of God. The abandonment of her by
friends, was merely the light to show it.
Midday's post brought her a letter from Priscilla Graves, entreating to
be allowed to call on her next day.--We are not so easily cast off!
Nataly said, bitterly, in relation to the lady whose offending had not
been so great. She wrote: 'Come, if sure that you sincerely wish to.'
Having fasted, she ate at lunch in her dressing-room, with some taste of
the food, haunted by an accusation of gluttony because of her eating at
all, and a vile confession, that she was enabled to eat, owing to the
receipt of Priscilla's empty letter: for her soul's desire was to be
doing a deed of expiation, and the macerated flesh seemed her assurance
to herself of the courage to make amends.--I must have some strength, she
said wearifully, in apology for the morsel consumed.
Nesta's being in the house with her, became an excessive irritation.
Doubts of the girl's possible honesty to speak a reptile truth under
question; amazement at her boldness to speak it; hatred of, the mouth
that could: and loathing of the words, the theme; and abomination of
herself for conjuring fictitious images to rouse real emotions; all ran
counterthreads, that produced a mad pattern in the mind, affrighting to
reason: and then, for its preservation, reason took a superrational leap,
and ascribed the terrible injustice of this last cruel stroke to the
divine scourge, recognized divine by the selection of the mortal spot for
chastisement. She clasped her breast, and said: It is mortal. And that
calmed her.
She said, smiling: I never felt my sin until this blow came! Therefore
the blow was proved divine. Ought it not to be welcomed?--and she
appearing no better than one of those, the leprous of the sex! And
brought to acknowledgement of the likeness by her daughter!
Nataly drank the poison distilled from her exclamations and was ice. She
had denied herself to Nesta's redoubled petition. Nesta knocking at the
door a third time and calling, tore the mother two ways: to have her girl
on her breast or snap their union in a word with an edge. She heard the
voice of Dartrey Fenellan.
He was admitted. 'No, dear,' she said to Nesta; and Nesta's, 'My own
mother,' consentingly said, in tender resignation, as she retired, sprang
a stinging tear to the mother's eyelids.
Dartrey looked at the door closing on the girl.
'Is it a very low woman?' Nataly asked him in a Church whisper, with a
face abashed.
'It is not,' said he, quick to meet any abruptness.
'She must be cunning.'
'In the ordinary way. We say it of Puss before the hounds.'
'To deceive a girl like Nesta!'
'She has done no harm.'
'Dartrey, you speak to a mother. You have seen the woman? She is?
--ah!'
'She is womanly, womanly.'
'Quite one of those . . . ?'
'My dear soul! You can't shake them off in that way. She is one of us.
If we have the class, we can't escape from it. They are not to bear all
the burden because they exist. We are the bigger debtors. I tell you
she is womanly.'
'It sounds like horrid cynicism.'
'Friends of mine would abuse it for the reverse.'
'Do not make me hate your chivalry. This woman is a rod on my back.
Provided only she has not dropped venom into Nesta's mind!'
'Don't fear!'
'Can you tell me you think she has done no harm to my girl?'
'To Nesta herself?--not any: not to a girl like your girl.'
'To my girl's name? Speak at once. But I know she has. She induced
Nesta to go to her house. My girl was insulted in this woman's house.'
Dartrey's forehead ridged with his old fury and a gust of present
contempt. 'I can tell you this, that the fellow who would think harm of
it, knowing the facts 's not worthy of touching the tips of the fingers
of your girl.'
'She is talked of!'
'A good-looking girl out riding with a handsome woman on a parade of
idlers!'
'The woman is notorious.' Nataly said it shivering.
He shook his head. 'Not true.'
'She has an air of a lady?'
'She sits a horse well.'
'Would she to any extent deceive me--impose on me here?'
'No.'
'Ah!' Nataly moaned. . . .
'But what?' said Dartrey. 'There was no pretence. Her style is not
worse than that of some we have seen. There was no effort to deceive.
The woman's plain for you and me to read, she has few of the arts; one or
two tricks, if you like: and these were not needed for use. There are
women who have them, and have not been driven or let slip into the
wilderness.'
'Yes; I know!--those ideas of yours!' Nataly had once admired him for his
knightliness toward the weakest women and the women underfoot. 'You have
spoken to this woman? She boasted of acquaintance with Nesta?'
'She thanked God for having met her.'
'Is it one of the hysterical creatures?'
Mrs. Marsett appeared fronting Dartrey.
He laughed to himself. 'A clever question. There is a leaning to
excitement of manner at times. It 's not hysteria. Allow for her
position.'
Nataly took the unintended blow, and bowed to it; and still more harshly
said: 'What rank of life does the woman come from?'
'The class educated for a skittish career by your popular Stage and your
Book-stalls. I am not precise?'
'Leave Mr. Durance. Is she in any degree commonly well bred? . . .
behaviour, talk-her English.'
'I trench on Mr. Durance in replying. Her English is passable. You may
hear . . .'
'Everywhere, of course! And this woman of slipshod English and excited
manners imposed upon Nesta!'
'It would not be my opinion.'
'Did not impose on her!'
'Not many would impose on Nesta Radnor for long.'
'Think what that says, Dartrey!'
'You have had a detestable version of the story.'
'Because an excited creature thanks God to you for having met her!'
'She may. She's a better woman for having met her. Don't suppose we're
for supernatural conversions. The woman makes no show of that. But she
has found a good soul among her sex--her better self in youth, as one
guesses; and she is grateful--feels farther from exile in consequence.
She has found a lady to take her by the hand!--not a common case. She
can never go to the utterly bad after knowing Nesta. I forget if she
says it; I say it. You have heard the story from one of your
conventional gentlemen.'
'A true gentleman. I have reason to thank him. He has not your ideas on
these matters, Dartrey. He is very sensitive . . . on Nesta's
behalf.'
'With reference to marriage. I'll own I prefer another kind of
gentleman. I 've had my experience of that kind of gentleman. Many
of the kind have added their spot to the outcasts abominated for
uncleanness--in holy unction. Many?--I won't say all; but men who
consent to hear black words pitched at them, and help to set good women
facing away from them, are pious dolts or rascal dogs of hypocrites.
They, if you'll let me quote Colney Durance to you to-day--and how is it
he is not in favour?--they are tempting the Lord to turn the pillars of
Society into pillars of salt. Down comes the house. And priests can
rest in sight of it!--They ought to be dead against the sanctimony that
believes it excommunicates when it curses. The relationship is not
dissolved so cheaply, though our Society affects to think it is.
Barmby's off to the East End of this London, Victor informs me:--good
fellow! And there he'll be groaning over our vicious nature. Nature is
not more responsible for vice than she is for inhumanity. Both bad, but
the latter's the worse of the two.'
Nataly interposed: 'I see the contrast, and see whom it's to strike.'
Dartrey sent a thought after his meaning. 'Hardly that. Let it stand.
He 's only one with the world: but he shares the criminal infamy for
crushing hope out of its frailest victims. They're that--no sentiment.
What a world, too, look behind it!--brutal because brutish. The world
may go hang: we expect more of your gentleman. To hear of Nesta down
there, and doubt that she was about good work; and come complaining! He
had the privilege of speaking to her, remonstrating, if he wished. There
are men who think--men!--the plucking of sinners out of the mire a dirty
business. They depute it to certain officials. And your women--it's the
taste of the world to have them educated so, that they can as little take
the humane as the enlightened view. Except, by the way, sometimes, in
secret;--they have a sisterly breast. In secret, they do occasionally
think as they feel. In public, the brass mask of the Idol they call
Propriety commands or supplies their feelings and thoughts. I won't
repeat my reasons for educating them differently. At present we have but
half the woman to go through life with--and thank you.'
Dartrey stopped. 'Don't be disturbed,' he added. 'There's no ground for
alarm. Not of any sort.'
Nataly said: 'What name?'
'Her name is Mrs. Marsett.'
'The name is . . . ?'
'Captain Marsett: will be Sir Edward. He came back from the Continent
yesterday.'
A fit of shuddering seized Nataly. It grew in violence, and speaking out
of it, with a pause of sickly empty chatter of the jaws, she said:
'Always that name?'
'Before the maiden name? May have been or not.'
'Not, you say?'
'I don't accurately know.'
Dartrey sprang to his legs. 'My dear soul! dear friend--one of the
best! if we go on fencing in the dark, there'll be wounds. Your way of
taking this affair disappointed me. Now I understand. It's the disease
of a trouble, to fly at comparisons. No real one exists. I wished to
protect the woman from a happier sister's judgement, to save you from
alarm concerning Nesta:--quite groundless, if you'll believe me. Come,
there's plenty of benevolent writing abroad on these topics now: facts
are more looked at, and a good woman may join us in taking them without
the horrors and loathings of angels rather too much given to claim
distinction from the luckless. A girl who's unprotected may go through
adventures before she fixes, and be a creature of honest intentions.
Better if protected, we all agree. Better also if the world did not
favour the girl's multitude of enemies. Your system of not dealing with
facts openly is everyway favourable to them. I am glad to say, Victor
recognizes what corruption that spread of wealth is accountable for.
And now I must go and have a talk with the--what a change from the blue
butterfly! Eaglet, I ought to have said. I dine with you, for Victor
may bring news.'
'Would anything down there be news to you, Dartrey?'
'He makes it wherever he steps.'
'He would reproach me for not detaining you. Tell Nesta I have to lie
down after talking. She has a child's confidence in you.'
A man of middle age! he said to himself. It is the particular
ejaculation which tames the senior whose heart is for a dash of holiday.
He resolved, that the mother might trust to the discretion of a man of
his age; and he went down to Nesta, grave with the weight his count of
years should give him. Seeing her, the light of what he now knew of her
was an ennobling equal to celestial. For this fair girl was one of the
active souls of the world--his dream to discover in woman's form. She,
the little Nesta, the tall pure-eyed girl before him, was, young though
she was, already in the fight with evil: a volunteer of the army of the
simply Christian. The worse for it? Sowerby would think so. She was
not of the order of young women who, in sheer ignorance or in voluntary,
consent to the peace with evil, and are kept externally safe from the
smirch of evil, and are the ornaments of their country, glory of a
country prizing ornaments higher than qualities.
Dartrey could have been momentarily incredulous of things revealed by
Mrs. Marsett--not incredulous of the girl's heroism: that capacity he
caught and gauged in her shape of head, cut of mouth, and the
measurements he was accustomed to make at a glance:--but her beauty, or
the form of beauty which was hers, argued against her having set foot of
thought in our fens. Here and far there we meet a young saint vowed to
service along by those dismal swamps: and saintly she looks; not of this
earth. Nesta was of the blooming earth. Where do we meet girl or woman
comparable to garden-flowers, who can dare to touch to lift the spotted
of her sex? He was puzzled by Nesta's unlikeness in deeds and in aspect.
He remembered her eyes, on the day when he and Colonel Sudley beheld her;
presently he was at quiet grapple with her mind. His doubts cleared off.
Then the question came, How could a girl of heroical character be
attached to the man Sowerby? That entirely passed belief.
And was it possible his wishes beguiled his hearing? Her tones were
singularly vibrating.
They talked for a while before, drawing a deep breath, she said: 'I fancy
I am in disgrace with my mother.'
'You have a suspicion why?' said he.
'I have.'
She would have told him why: the words were at her lips. Previous to her
emotion on the journey home, the words would have come out. They were
arrested by the thunder of the knowledge, that the nobleness in him
drawing her to be able to speak of scarlet matter, was personally
worshipped.
He attributed the full rose upon her cheeks to the forbidding subject.
To spare pain, he said: 'No misunderstanding with the dear mother will
last the day through. Can I help?'
'Oh, Captain Dartrey!'
'Drop the captain. Dartrey will do.'
'How could I!'
'You're not wanting in courage, Nesta.'
'Hardly for that!'
'By-and-by, then.'
'Though I could not say Mr. Fenellan.'
'You see; Dartrey, it must be.'
'If I could!'
'But the fellow is not a captain: and he is a friend, an old friend, very
old friend: he'll be tipped with grey in a year or two.'
'I might be bolder then.'
'Imagine it now. There is no disloyalty in your calling your friends by
their names.'
Her nature rang to the implication. 'I am not bound.' Dartrey hung
fast, speculating on her visibly: 'I heard you were?'
'No. I must be free.'
'It is not an engagement?'
'Will you laugh?--I have never quite known. My father desired it:
and my desire is to please him. I think I am vain enough to think I read
through blinds and shutters. The engagement--what there was--has been,
to my reading, broken more than once. I have not considered it, to
settle my thoughts on it, until lately: and now I may suspect it to be
broken. I have given cause--if it is known. There is no blame
elsewhere. I am not unhappy, Captain Dartrey.'
'Captain by courtesy. Very well. Tell me how Nesta judges the
engagement to be broken?'
She was mentally phrasing before she said: 'Absence.'
'He was here yesterday.'
All that the visit embraced was in her expressive look, as of sight
drawing inward, like our breath in a spell of wonderment. 'Then I
understand; it enlightens me.
My own mother!--my poor mother! he should have come to me. I was the
guilty person, not she; and she is the sufferer. That, if in life were
direct retribution! but the very meaning of having a heart, is to suffer
through others or for them.'
'You have soon seen that, dear girl,' said Dartrey.
'So, my own mother, and loving me as she does, blames me!' Nesta sighed;
she took a sharp breath. 'You? do you blame me too?'
He pressed her hand, enamoured of her instantaneous divination and
heavenly candour.
But he was admonished, that to speak high approval would not be
honourable advantage taken of the rival condemning; and he said: 'Blame?
Some think it is not always the right thing to do the right thing. I've
made mistakes, with no bad design. A good mother's view is not often
wrong.'
'You pressed my hand,' she murmured.
That certainly had said more.
'Glad to again,' he responded. It was uttered airily and was meant to be
as lightly done.
Nesta did not draw back her hand. 'I feel strong when you press it.'
Her voice wavered, and as when we hear a flask sing thin at the filling,
ceased upon evidence of a heart surcharged. How was he to relax the
pressure!--he had to give her the strength she craved: and he vowed it
should be but for half a minute, half a minute longer.
Her tears fell; she eyed him steadily; she had the look of sunlight in
shower.
'Oldish men are the best friends for you, I suppose,' he said; and her
gaze turned elusive phrases to vapour.
He was compelled to see the fiery core of the raincloud lighting it for a
revealment, that allowed as little as it retained of a shadow of
obscurity.
The sight was keener than touch and the run of blood with blood to
quicken slumbering seeds of passion.
But here is the place of broken ground and tangle, which calls to
honourable men, not bent on sport, to be wary to guard the gunlock. He
stopped the word at his mouth. It was not in him to stop or moderate the
force of his eyes. She met them with the slender unbendingness that was
her own; a feminine of inspirited manhood. There was no soft expression,
only the direct shot of light, on both sides; conveying as much as is
borne from sun to earth, from earth to sun. And when such an exchange
has come between the two, they are past plighting, they are the wedded
one.
Nesta felt it, without asking whether she was loved. She was his. She
had not a thought of the word of love or the being beloved. Showers of
painful blissfulness went through her, as the tremours of a shocked
frame, while she sat quietly, showing scarce a sign; and after he had let
her hand go, she had the pressure on it. The quivering intense of the
moment of his eyes and grasp was lord of her, lord of the day and of all
days coming. That is how Love slays Death. Never did girl so give her
soul.
She would have been the last to yield it unreservedly to a man untrusted
for the character she worshipped. But she could have given it to
Dartrey, despite his love of another, because it was her soul, without
any of the cravings, except to bestow.
He perceived, that he had been carried on for the number of steps which
are countless miles and do not permit the retreat across the desert
behind; and he was in some amazement at himself, remindful of the
different nature of our restraining power when we have a couple playing
on it. Yet here was this girl, who called him up to the heights of young
life again: and a brave girl; and she bled for the weak, had no shrinking
from the women underfoot: for the reason, that she was a girl sovereignly
pure, angelically tender. Was there a point of honour to hold him back?
Nataly entered the room. She kissed Nesta, and sat silent.
'Mother, will you speak of me to him, if I go out?' Nesta said.
'We have spoken,' her mother replied, vexed by the unmaidenly allusion to
that theme.
She would have asked, How did you guess I knew of it?--but that the, Why
should I speak of you to him? struck the louder note in her bosom: and
then, What is there that this girl cannot guess!--filled the mother's
heart with apprehensive dread: and an inward cry, What things will she
not set going, to have them discussed. And the appalling theme, sitting
offensive though draped in their midst, was taken for a proof of the
girl's unblushingness. After standing as one woman against the world so
long, Nataly was relieved to be on the side of a world now convictedly
unjust to her in the confounding of her with the shameless. Her mind had
taken the brand of that thought:--And Nesta had brought her to it:--
And Dudley Sowerby, a generous representative of the world, had kindly,
having the deputed power to do so, sustained her, only partially blaming
Nesta, not casting them off; as the world, with which Nataly felt, under
a sense of the protection calling up all her gratitude to young Dudley,
would have approved his doing.
She was passing through a fit of the cowardice peculiar to the tediously
strained, who are being more than commonly tried--persecuted, as they say
when they are not supplicating their tyrannical Authority for aid. The
world will continue to be indifferent to their view of it and behaviour
toward it until it ceases to encourage the growth of hypocrites.
These are moments when the faces we are observing drop their charm,
showing us our perversion internal, if we could but reflect, to see it.
Very many thousand times above Dudley Sowerby, Nataly ranked Dartrey
Fenellan; and still she looked at him, where he sat beside Nesta,
ungenially, critical of the very features, jealously in the interests of
Dudley; and recollecting, too, that she had once prayed for one exactly
resembling Dartrey Fenellan to be her Nesta's husband. But, as she would
have said, that was before the indiscretion of her girl had shown her to
require for her husband a man whose character and station guaranteed
protection instead of inciting to rebellion. And Dartrey, the loved and
prized, was often in the rebel ranks; he was dissatisfied with matters as
they are; was restless for action, angry with a country denying it to
him; he made enemies, he would surely bring down inquiries about Nesta's
head, and cause the forgotten or quiescent to be stirred; he would
scarcely be the needed hand for such a quiver of the lightnings as Nesta
was.
Dartrey read Nataly's brows. This unwonted uncomeliness of hers was an
indication to one or other of our dusky pits, not a revealing.