A Widow's Tale, and Other Stories. Oliphant Margaret
not at all what she used to be, dear. Matrimony is not good for some people, and ladies in India get dreadfully spoiled sometimes. They are accustomed to so much attention. There are not so many of them there as here, and they are never contented if they have not every man they see at their feet."
"I did not remark that in Nelly," said May, who was very pensive, and so wounded and sore in her poor little heart that it did her good to be disagreeable to Julia. "There was Bertie Harcourt, for instance, whom she took no notice of – and who, I am sure, was not at her feet."
"Ah, Bertie Harcourt!" cried Miss Bampton, "He" – she paused on the pronoun for greater emphasis, speaking with fervour – "He – is a heart of gold."
"Is he?" said May, indifferently; "you seem to imply that others are different – and indeed I think that it would be much more comfortable to have a heart like other people."
"Oh, May!"
"I wish you would stop all that," cried May, angrily; "when you get into one of your moods, Julia, you are intolerable. I wish you would let Nelly Brunton alone: I don't see anything remarkable about her," the girl said with a toss of her head, walking back into the drawing-room, where she flung the piano open, and began to sing in the most defiant manner. It was a wet day, the lawn swept by a white blast of rain, and all the trees cowering piteously as if running in for shelter. Poor Miss Bampton sat down in a deep chair to hide herself, feeling as if she had been the occasion of all that had happened, and that it was natural she should suffer accordingly. And when presently May ran singing up-stairs, and the door of her room was heard to shut upon her, poor Julia did not follow. She dared not follow; for the first time in her life poor little May, now finding out what it was to be grown up and a woman, had to bear her moment of bitterness by herself. I need not say that Julia cried silently all the time, sunk in the depths of the big chair, so that Mr Bampton when he came in, in quest of tea or something to break the dulness of the afternoon, saw nobody in the room, and went out again calling indignantly for Ju and Maysey, and demanding of the butler in angry tones whether this afternoon of all others, when no one could go out or do anything to amuse oneself, there was to be no tea.
CHAPTER V
Mrs Brunton was not, I think, at all comfortable in her mind as she left her cousin's house. It had been in some sort a trial visit. She had not gone anywhere, or seen anybody, except aunts and other uninteresting relations, since she had returned home. She had paid a long visit to her husband's family, with her children, where everything of course was mourning and seclusion, and where she was made more conscious of her widowhood than of any other condition in her life; then she had been in the country with her own people, where everything was subdued in order to be suitable for poor Nelly; and then she had been involved in the trouble of settling, finding a little house, which was nice and not too dear, which would be good for the children, and quiet, and yet sufficiently in the way to be accessible to those who were most interested in her. This had cost a great deal of trouble and kept her in full occupation, so that it was only when she had settled down, furnished the house, and arranged everything, and got her new address neatly printed upon her writing paper and her visiting cards (if she ever had any need for the latter, which she doubted), that she had consented to go for a fortnight to Bampton-Leigh, leaving the children under charge of their excellent nurse, who had assisted at their birth and was devoted to them – for her uncle Bampton could not bear children in the house. She had explained to her only friend at Haven Green, the clergyman's wife, and still more gravely she had explained to herself, that this was in every way a trial visit to see whether she could bear society again. Society, she said to herself, without Jack! without the consideration which is accorded to a woman who has her husband behind her. She did not know how it looked to a widow, who would naturally be shut out from some things, who might perhaps be pushed aside among the dowagers, who certainly would see everything from a different point of view. Should she be able to bear it?
Alas, Nelly had felt that she was but too able to bear society! She had gone into it with the elasticity and ease with which one glides into one's native element. The absence of Jack behind her, the position of a widow among the dowagers, had never once come into her mind. She had not even required time to bring her to the surface, but had risen at once to be, as she had always been, rather the ringleader than a follower – always in the front of everything, singing, talking. Nelly felt herself flush and burn all over, as she sat in the Bampton carriage on the way to the station with the windows shut between her and the pelting rain; and then she burst into a guilty yet irrestrainable laugh. Yes, she had proved to herself that she was quite able to bear society, and that the temptation to fall into her old ways was not in any way lessened by widowhood. She had done the same sort of thing before now, out of sheer high spirits and love of enjoying herself, when Jack was alive and looking on, and amused by his wife's pranks. She had always known that she was too fond of admiration, too fond of fun. It was not the first time, alas! – and this she had always known was wicked – that she had given some brother officer's fiancée a moment of alarm, a thrill of misery, by taking the man away, and boldly tying him to her own apron-strings for a week or so, for some occasion of festivity, "for fun," and to show what she could do, Nelly laughed, and then she cried, at some of the recollections thus evoked. Jack had even been brought to the point of scolding her – not on his own account, but on account of the lady on the other side. And then Nelly, as gaily as she had taken him up, had thrown over her prey.
All these naughty and wicked ways – of which she had been only able to say in self-defence that she meant no harm – were still in her, it appeared, though she was a widow and had believed that she never would be equal to society again. Oh, what a frivolous, unfeeling little wretch she must be! To think that she had plunged into it as if nothing had happened! The faces of her two cousins – one at the door, seeing her off with such warnings about her imprudence in settling so near town, and the other in such gloomy gravity at the window behind, watching her going – could not be remembered without compunction. And Nelly could not say to herself, as she had done before, that no harm was done, that the sinner would return and be forgiven. This man Fitzroy was different. He was not May's fiancé! Perhaps, Nelly said to herself, he never would have been. He was not a marrying man; he was a man who amused himself, and whom to expose and show in his true light was a good thing for the girl. But this was mere casuistry, as Nelly knew; for May had given the man her heart, or, if not her real heart, at least her imagination, and she, Nelly, had wickedly taken him away.
It is difficult, however, to see the full enormity of one's own guilt in such a conjuncture. There is always a certain amusement in it to the culprit. It is fun – though it is so little fun to the other persons concerned. Nelly did not, however, feel herself at all responsible so far as Mr Fitzroy was concerned. She had not inspired him with a hopeless passion; she had probably only afforded him the means of extricating himself from a situation in which things were going too far. When Nelly was safely established in the railway compartment, restored completely to her own independence and individuality, with all her packages around her, a modest tip administered to Johnson, and the Bampton carriage out of sight, May indeed floated out of her thoughts; but Percy Fitzroy did not so disappear. Should she ever meet him again? she wondered. Would he seek her out, as he had said, at Haven Green? She felt that it was quite likely he might do so, being a man who was fond of his amusement; and if so, Nelly promised herself that the situation should certainly not be permitted to become strained, or the fun go too far. She had been more or less irresponsible, a free lance, under Julia Bampton's eyes; but in her own little house she would always remember that she was Jack's widow, a householder, the head of a family, a personage in her own right, very different from a girl protected by home – very different from a young wife thinking of nothing but a little fun, and with Jack, who understood all her ways, behind – oh, very different! She had her dignity to keep up, her position, her place in life. If this man insisted on coming, he should be made at once to see that a flirtation was entirely out of place in these circumstances. He might make a call – there was nothing to prevent any man making a call – he might even sing a song, or she might join him in a single duet: but no more – upon no pretence any more.
No later than the first Sunday after Mrs Brunton's return these fine sentiments were put to the test: for Mr Fitzroy appeared in the afternoon, early, with the full intention, as was evident, of staying as long as he should be permitted to stay. Nelly