"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 G.o.d for having met her."
"Is it one of the hysterical creatures?"
Mrs. Ma.r.s.ett 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sable. 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 G.o.d 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 s.e.x--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 bra.s.s 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. Ma.r.s.ett."
"The name is...?"
"Captain Ma.r.s.ett: 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 mult.i.tude 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 b.u.t.terfly! 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n 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 enn.o.bling 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. Ma.r.s.ett--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 s.e.x? 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.bleness in him drawing her to be able to speak of scarlet matter, was personally worshipped.