Arthur Curtis had not been leading a self-denying or ascetic life;
indeed he had been nearer the depths of moral decadence in the recent
months than ever before. He had got reckless about himself and his life;
not coarsely reckless, as men are who plunge into the ruder
dissipations, but so discouraged and weary that by mere dint of ceasing
to care what he did, he had ceased to do well, and almost dropped into
the gulf on the opposite side. He had been foolish enough in the past,
but his aim had been towards, if not the most exalted objects of
ambition, yet those of honesty, truth, faithfulness, and pure living. It
might have been unwise to love as he did, so far out of the region he
himself belonged to; but, at least, his love brought no harm to any one,
and had no evil thought in it. He had been faithful to it,
notwithstanding everything that had come in his way; opposition and
entreaty on the side of his family, and partial disgust and discontent
on his own, had not moved him; but of what good had all his faithfulness
been? What good had his honesty and pure intentions done him? He was
stranded upon the shore--laid aside helpless and with little hope from
the graver developments of existence. He was bound for life to the wife
who had become a stranger to him--who had thrust him away from her; and
hopelessly cut off from all other honourable connections, from the
happiness of home, from everything which makes up to a young man for the
loss of his first freedom. Arthur had all the evils of that freedom
without the good of it; he was bound yet let loose, tempted to every
kind of license, yet in such a position that ordinary and innocent
liberty was denied to him. Nothing could be more cruel to a
high-spirited young man not trained in the ways of self-denial. And by
the time these two years were over he had become sick of it all: The
restraints that confined him, the conscience which reminded him of these
restraints, and the injured love that gnawed at his heart and felt like
rage. What good had come to him of all his efforts to do well--of all
the honest meaning of his soul? The gayest and least self-denying of his
comrades was better off than he; and he had been on the borders of
vice--not compelled by any force of passion, but rather by disgust and
unwilling cynicism, the what does it matter? of the despairing soul. On
the borders of vice--and half-unbelieving in anything better--half
giving up all that was better in this world--trying to persuade himself
that nothing mattered. Youth comes to this alternative of happiness very
easily. The wisdom which has found out that in happiness, or
unhappiness, life jogs on much the same, and that all is not unmitigated
evil in the worst circumstances, nor unmitigated good in the best; is
an elderly kind of wisdom. But Arthur was impatient of his own
hopelessness--he felt his own weariness intolerable; which is as much as
to say that neither the hopelessness nor the impatience was entirely
genuine, or had half the sway he thought of in his heart.
Their immediate effect however, was a great bitterness and restlessness,
and distaste for everything around him. He had got to hate his new life,
his occupations, and the pleasures which perhaps palled more quickly
than his occupations; and all that flutter of diplomatic talk, which is
so like the flutter of the smallest parish business, but that the topics
are more important. Those personal discussions and reports, the “he
said” and “she said” which pretend to be of vital importance when the
hes and the shes are kings and queens, but are so like common gossip in
every other respect became tiresome beyond description. All this which
had carried him away from his own presumably small affairs at first, and
had sounded great and magnificent, sickened him now with its
paltriness. “Depend upon it the Emperor meant so and so.” “But I assure
you Count A---- said--” What was a man the better for this? he asked
himself with disdain Nothing at all the better, much the worse, as
having it urged upon his attention that mere gossip and nonsensical
bustle, and officious fussiness thrust themselves in at the gravest
moments, and have a part in the greatest events. Mrs. Bates discussing
the affairs of her chapel and the private dissensions between the
minister and the deacons, or a Secretary of Legation busily calculating
how the Emperor and Count A. and Prince B. contradicted each other, what
was the difference? Was it not all petty, miserable, unworthy? What was
a man the better of it? And though the _salons_ were more lovely and the
style of conversation more graceful, was not the subject everywhere much
the same as in the parlour at Underhayes, in which Arthur had made such
close acquaintance with the vulgarities of life? He was disgusted with
them all. The only good under the sun was surely to enjoy as much as
you could where you could, leaving all other considerations aside. Be
happy--if that come within your powers--but if not happy, then be
amused, if you are able to be so, distracted from your own thoughts,
entertained, if not by the love and kindness, at least by the folly, and
affectations, and self-regard of others. This creed was not naturally to
the taste of a frank and open-hearted young man, sympathetic with his
fellow-creatures, manly, and friendly, and gentle of heart; but his
unhappiness had given him a twist, and all the training he was at
present subject, to all the influences round him, led him that way. What
did it matter? Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die. Arthur was on
the eve of ceding to this creed. He was on the edge of that pit which is
bottomless, and in which there is so little hope; and he might have
ended by being a gay infidel, a chill but laughing cynic, even an
unbeliever in everything good, who should not only accept that negative
of every virtue, but be amused by it, the last degradation. He had all
but given in, when Durant’s letter telling him of the disappearance of
Nancy came suddenly into his life like a thunderbolt. He had thought as
little about Nancy as possible, poor fellow! She was living the life she
had chosen to live under the protection of her parents in the home she
preferred. Arthur knew the half-savage reserve and purity of the girl
too well to have any doubt of her honour to him. It was not that she
could transfer her heart to another; but that she had no heart at all so
far as he was concerned; not that she was unfaithful in love, but that
she could live without love. He had written to her without eliciting any
answer at first; then he had ceased to write; he had heard nothing of
her for about eighteen months, except that her money was paid; not a
sign of her had come to him in all that time. His heart had gone through
all the stages of longing, of waiting, of dire anxiety, of lingering
hope against hope. And then he had turned resolutely away from the
ungrateful one. He never mentioned so much as her name to anyone, he
gave up his correspondence with Durant, he dropped this past of his in
that grave of obscurity into which so many men cast, one after another,
in broken pieces, the lives they have thrown away. It was not his fault,
or at least it was very far from being all his fault that these chances
of life had been thrown away; but now let them go and let no one attempt
to make any wail over them. She was well off, among the people she liked
best, well cared for, cherished as she chose to be cherished, though not
as he would have cherished her. Let her be. She was his, but she was not
for him, nor could anyone else be for him. She had desolated the life
which he had consecrated to her. Henceforward there was a blank in it
which she would not, and which no one else could fill. The legitimate
ties, the purer hopes were over. But there were other solaces more
cheaply to be had--if he could have persuaded himself to accept those
husks which the swine eat; and to these last degrading feasts he was
making up his mind.
When suddenly Durant’s news came into his life like a thunderbolt,
breaking the stagnation of the unwholesome air. This woman who belonged
to him was, like himself, alone in the world. The humble coterie which
she had preferred to him was broken up. All that she had loved and clung
to had gone from her. Perhaps she too might have felt, even before this,
the dreariness of that existence deprived of its closest tie, to which
she had condemned him; but at least she must feel it now. Everything had
gone from her, the shelter of her father’s house, the natural protection
and moral support which perhaps had kept her in her error; but which
must have failed her now along with everything else. The first feeling
in Arthur’s mind was a keen pity for Nancy. She had done him grievous
wrong, she had wasted all their mutual chances of happiness; but she was
young, inexperienced, foolish, a child playing with the most dangerous
elements, not knowing any better, and now the time had come when she
must bear the penalty too. But when he realized the results of the
misfortune that had befallen his wife, and heard that she had left
Underhayes and thrown up the allowance which he had been so much
surprised, and disappointed, and satisfied to find her accept at first,
Arthur’s heart swelled with a more generous, more happy sentiment than
had touched it for months before. Had not this been one of the things
which had disgusted him most with human nature, though he had never put
it into words? The thought that his wife when she left him, though she
would not accept love from him, would accept money, humiliating,
degrading thought! With a start and sudden thrill of recognition he
heard that she had thrown it aside now, and this one fact threw light to
him upon all that went before, and seemed to bring her back to him
cleared of a thousand misapprehensions. At last he recognised again his
Nancy, proud, rash, daring, imprudent, capable of any outburst of
passionate folly, but not of mercenary calculation or the prudence of a
deliberate bargain.
He saw it all now, he thought; and in his thoughts, did, could anyone
wonder? as much injustice to the poor vulgar couple in their graves,
who were not any more mercenary than poverty compelled them to be, as he
had formerly done to his hot-headed and foolish wife. It had been their
fault; they had forced her into this vulgar settlement which had so
revolted him, this compounding for the injuries of the heart by an
allowance. Had he not known all along that it could not be Nancy? What
could be more unlike Nancy, so independent, so defiant, so rash and
regardless of all dictates of prudence as she had been? It had been a
mystery to him, and burning pain all through; but now he recognised her
again. It was as if suddenly, after long obliteration from his memory,
her face with all the characteristic defects and imperfections of its
beauty, defects far more sweet than the faulty faultlessness of others,
had all at once gleamed upon him out of the gloom. Perhaps, how could he
tell, if he had been less distant, if she had been less proud, she might
have turned to him in her grief and loneliness, sought his natural
support, his natural consolation; but at least she had vindicated
herself by that hasty, foolish immediate action. If not love, then not
money, no bargain, no mercenary advantage. Through the gloom, through
the distance, flashing with anger, veiled with tears, Nancy’s eyes
seemed suddenly to gleam upon him, Nancy’s voice, faltering yet firm, to
fling at him a defiance, a challenge--was it an appeal? There came from
Arthur’s breast a sudden burst of cries and laughter mingled, and his
eyes in his solitude filled with tears, salt and scalding but sweet. And
as he sat there alone he blushed fiery red over brow and throat. To what
ignoble rivalship, what miserable partaking, had he almost degraded his
wife! but heaven be praised this voice out of the darkness had come in
time.
And at first it did not occur to him that this sudden and prompt
vindication of herself, which set Nancy right, brought external
consequences with it which might alarm any man. What could she do to
make up for the loss of her living which must ensue? She would be not
only an orphan and friendless--but also penniless, with nothing, and no
one to keep her from want. This is a thought which might well appal a
man used to all the resources of wealth, and who had no notion how poor
people contrive to stumble on, and keep body and soul together upon no
income at all. A shiver of pain got into Arthur’s being at thought of
the sacrifices and straits she might be driven to; though that was not
half so powerful at first as the relief and satisfaction of the other
discovery, that she was herself still, foolish, rash, passionate, but
not mercenary. It grew upon him, however, as the days went on, and no
answer came to the letter he wrote instantly imploring Durant (whose
time and labours seemed to his friends to belong to them) to lose no
time in finding Nancy. As it happened, and as it happens so often in the
emergencies of individual history, Arthur could not at that moment rush
home himself, as he would have done almost at any other time, to rescue
his wife from her self-imposed privations, whatever they might be. His
chiefs were absent, there was a lull in diplomatic business, and it was
his duty to remain at his post, to note the small gossip of the court,
and chronicle all the small beer, and make into national importance the
scraps of remark that fell from Count A. and Prince B.
For a month or more he was kept doing this, chafing at every day as it
passed, and growing more and more excited, more and more anxious. By and
by Durant wrote that he was making every possible research, but had as
yet discovered nothing. And then there arose a very fever of anxious
thought in Arthur’s mind. Where could she be? what might she be doing?
what privations might she be enduring, what toils, what hardships? All
the stories of distress he had ever heard, of proud poverty, of
struggles for employment, of Spartan independence starving calmly sooner
than ask for a morsel, all the taunts and spurns which patient merit
from the unworthy takes, came rushing upon his recollection. While he
lived daintily and slept softly, his Nancy, his wife, might be turning
away discouraged, penniless, without shelter, from some door which was
closed upon her. Heaven above! what could he do? He sent wild
advertisements to the “Times,” he wrote ceaseless letters to Durant.
Find her! was his cry; though indeed Nancy was spending her time, on the
whole, very comfortably, as the reader knows. But Arthur did not think
of the little fortune--the two hundred and fifty pounds which was to
have been handed over to her sisters. Nothing had been done about it,
and it had not found a place in his memory; he did not think of anything
reasonable, he only lost himself in a vague cloud of excitement, terror,
and anxiety, intensified by the fact that it was impossible for him to
get away, and to go in search of her himself. And his troubles were made
tenfold greater still by a chance meeting with his Paris friend, Denham,
who “thought he had seen” Mrs. Arthur Curtis somewhere, but could not
recollect where. Denham knew, as everybody did, that the husband and
wife were separated; and he was curious, and ventured upon some leading
question to which Arthur in his state of suspense fell a ready victim.
He did not conceal that he was anxious, “not having heard from his wife
for some time,” he allowed; and then Denham on his side recollected that
he had seen her somewhere; where was it he had seen her? Was it in
Paris, was it London? he had quite lately come from England; and he
could not recollect where it was--at a railway-station somewhere--but
where? The impression left upon Arthur’s mind was that she might be
coming to him, and this beguiled his anxiety for a few days, making him
tremble at every strange sound, and expect day and night her
arrival--which never came. This final trial made an end of him, poor
fellow! It ruined his chance of sleep, so that his nights and days alike
became torment to him. And the probation lasted for more than a month
after he had heard that Nancy had left Underhayes--a month--which felt
like a century. It was far on in November when at last he was released
from his post, and could start for home. For home! where was that, he
asked himself, sadly? could it now exist anywhere for him except where
she was, who was a part of him, who had no one now but himself, and who,
by rejecting that last material tie between them, had caught back the
sick heart which had begun to flutter downward. But never, never again
could he fall back into that disgusted and weary infidelity of thought.
All this time his pride and his reviving affection had kept him from
communicating his anxiety to his family. They did not know Nancy as he
did, they would not think of her as he did, that was certain. Their
pride would be hurt by the idea of poverty or distress falling upon her,
but not their hearts touched. If they should happen to hear of her as
labouring perhaps for daily bread, a poor needlewoman, a poorer teacher,
they would think of her not nobly, but ignobly, as driven to it by
folly, not forced by proud independence. He would not say anything to
them. He did not even let them know that he was coming back. Whether he
went to Oakley or not would depend upon many other things, and he was
full of the unconscious cruelty which springs from pre-occupation and
partial indifference. He did not think what would be the feelings of his
father and mother when they heard he was in England, but as much apart
from them as if he were still in Vienna. What were they in comparison
with Nancy? Nancy who was young, poor, lonely, without guardian or
helper. All the fathers and mothers in the world were nothing compared
with her. This is not a pleasant consideration for the fathers and
mothers; but yet it was true.
A few days were necessarily lost in travelling; and what so good as the
long compulsory seclusion of a railway carriage, shutting you absolutely
up with yourself, while the long lines of country, plain, and hill sweep
pass, and all the outside hurry and bustle do nothing but make the
whirling silence of the box in which you are enclosed more complete--for
the feeding of anxiety and cherishing of all troublous thoughts? The
mere certainty that he must not surrender himself to his fears had given
him a certain power of self-control so long as he remained at Vienna,
which now abandoned him altogether. His mind was in a fever by the time
he reached London. It was late at night, and the only thing he could do
was to throw himself into a cab and drive to Durant’s chambers in the
Temple, where, in all the commotion of his feverish thoughts, he was
brought to a sudden standstill by the information that Durant was out of
London, engaged on the business of the Commission on which he had been
appointed. He had not even heard of this commission; for Lewis had been
reluctant to write of the many events which had lately occurred, not
knowing what his friend might think of his own half-permitted betrothal,
or whether it was not best that Nancy should have an undisturbed moment
to make her way with the family at Oakley. This had kept Durant silent
for longer than was, perhaps, quite friendly; but, as fate would have
it, he had taken heart of grace at last, and had written to Arthur on
the very day on which Arthur had left Vienna; and the letter which would
have given so much information arrived in the one capital just as the
person to whom it was addressed reached the other. He was cruelly
disappointed by Durant’s absence. It seemed something like a crime in
the confusion of his thoughts. What was any public commission in the
world to the commission which affected his friend’s happiness, the
succour of a woman who was to that friend more than all the world
beside? Arthur could scarcely keep his patience even with the innocent
laundress who answered his questions. He went into his friend’s room,
and found there his own letter announcing his coming, which had arrived
only a few hours before him, and which he tore vehemently into a hundred
pieces. But all his rage and vehemence could do nothing for him. He was
obliged to go away, to go to an hotel, and in utter impossibility of
doing anything, to eat and to sleep, which, perhaps, saved him from a
fever. It was all that could be done that night.