Nancy by Rhoda Broughton - CHAPTER XXXII
Next morning I am sitting before my looking-glass�never to me a pleasant article of furniture�having my hair dressed. I am hardly awake yet, and have not quite finished disentangling the real live disagreeables which I have to face, from the imaginary ones from which my waking has freed me. At least, in real life, I am not perpetually pursued, through dull abysses, by a man in a crape mask, from whom I am madly struggling to escape, and who is perpetually on the point of overtaking and seizing me.
It was a mistake going to sleep at all last night. It would have been far wiser and better to have kept awake. The real evils are bad enough, but the dream ones in their vivid life make me shiver even now, though the morning sun is lying in companionable patches on the floor, and the birds are loudly talking all together. Do no birds ever listen?
Distracted for a moment from my own miseries, by the noise of their soft yet sharp hubbub, I am thinking this, when a knock comes at the door, and the next moment Barbara enters. Her blond hair is tumbled about her shoulders; no white rose's cheeks are paler than hers; in her hand she has a note. In a moment I have dismissed the maid, and we are alone.
"I want you to read this!" she says, in an even and monotonous voice, from which, by an effort whose greatness I can dimly guess, she keeps all sound of trembling.
I have risen and turned from the glass; but now my knees shake under me so much that I have to sit down again. She comes behind me, so that I may no longer see her: and putting her arms round my neck, and hiding her face in my unfinished hair, says, whisperingly:
"Do not fret about it, Nancy!�I do not mind much."
Then she breaks into quiet tears.
"Do you mean to say that he has had the insolence to write to you," I cry, in a passion of indignation, forgetting for the moment Barbara's ignorance of what has occurred, and only reminded of it by the look of wonder that, as I turn on my chair to face her, I see come into her eyes.
"Have not you been expecting him every day to write to me?" she asks, with a little wonder in her tone; "but read!" (pointing to the note, and laughing with a touch of bitterness), "you will soon see that there is no insolence here."
I had quite as lief, in my present state of mind, touch a yard-long wriggling ground-worm, or a fat wood-louse, as paper that his fingers have pressed; but I overcome my repulsion, and unfold the note. "Dear Miss Grey:
"Can I do any thing for you in town? I am going up there to-morrow, and shall thence, I think, run over to the Exhibition. I have no doubt that it is just like all the others; but not to have seen it will set one at a disadvantage with one's fellows. I am afraid that there is no chance of your being still at Tempest when I return. I shall be most happy to undertake any commissions.
"Yours sincerely,
"F. Musgrave"
The note drops from my fingers, rolls on to my lap, and thence to the ground. I sit in stiff and stupid silence. To tell the truth, I am trying strongly to imagine how I should look and what I should say, were I as ignorant of causes as Barbara thinks me, and to look and speak accordingly.
She kneels down beside me, and softly drawing down my face, till it is on a level with hers, and our cheeks touch, says in a tone of gentle entreaty and compassion, as if I were the one to be considered�the prime sufferer:
"Do not fret about it, Nancy! it is of no�no consequence!�there is no harm done!"
I struggle to say something, but for the life of me I can frame no words.
"It was my own fancy!" she says, faltering, "I suppose my vanity misled me!"
"It is all my fault!" cry I, suddenly finding passionate words, starting up, and beginning to walk feverishly to and fro�"all!�there never was any one in all this world so blind, so ill-judging, so miserably mistaken! If it had not been for me, you never would have thought twice of him�never; and I"�(beginning to speak with weeping indistinctness)�"I thought it would be so nice to have you near me�I thought that there was nothing the matter with him, but his temper; many men are ill-tempered�nearly all. If" (tightly clinching my hands, and setting my teeth) "I had had any idea of his being the scoundrel that he is�"
"But he is not," she interrupts quickly, wincing a little at my words; "indeed he is not! What ill have we heard from him? If you do not mind" (laying her hand with gentle entreaty on my arm), "I had rather, far rather, that you did not say any thing hard of him! I was always so glad that you and he were such friends�always�and I do not know why�there is no sense in it; but I am glad of it still."
"We were not friends," say I, writhing a little; "why do you say so?"
She looks at me with a great and unfeigned astonishment.
"Not friends!" she echoes, slowly repeating my words; then, seeing the expression of my face, stops suddenly.
"Are you sure," cry I, feverishly snatching her hands and looking with searching anxiety into her face, "that you spoke truth just now?�that you do not mind much�that you will get over it!�that it will not kill you?"
"Kill me!" she says, with a little sorrowful smile of derision; "no, no! I am not so easily killed."
"Are you sure?" persist I, with a passionate eagerness, still reading her tear-stained face, "that it will not take the taste out of every thing?�that it will not make you hate all your life?�it would me."
"Quite sure!�certain!" she says, looking back at me with a steady meekness, though her blue eyes brim over; "because God has taken from me one thing�one that I never had any right to expect�should I do well, do you think, to quarrel with all that He has left me?"
I cannot answer; her godly patience is too high a thing for me.
"Even if my life were spoilt," she goes on, after a moment or two, her voice gaining firmness, and her face a pale serenity, "even if it were�but it is not�indeed it is not. In a very little while it will seem to me as good and pleasant and full as ever; but even if it were" (looking at me with a lovely confidence in her eyes), "it would be no such very great matter�this life is not every thing!"
"Is not it?" say I, with a doubting shiver. "Who can tell you that? who knows?"
"No one has been to blame," she continues, with a gentle persistence. "I should like you to see that! There has been only a�a�mistake"�(her voice failing a little again), "a mistake that has been corrected in time, and for which no one�no one, Nancy, is the worse!" |
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