A Widow's Tale, and Other Stories. Oliphant Margaret

secret, intense companionship so sweet! There was very little said between them – nothing, Nelly protested to herself afterwards, that all the world might not have heard – but they came home across the fields in the misty lingering autumn twilight, with a bewildering sense of happiness and perfect communion. "I do not know," Fitzroy said, "when I have spent so happy an evening." "The river was so lovely," said Nelly, faltering a little. "Everything was lovely," he said. He was so delicate and considerate that he would not come in, but said good night to her at the gate, in the presence, so to speak, of all the world.

      And this occurred a good many times, as long as the fine weather lasted. It would be such a pity, Fitzroy said, not to take advantage of it, and, indeed, Mrs Brunton thought so too. And once or twice he did come in, and there was a little supper, and he went off in good time for the half-past nine train. Nobody could say that was late: and then, to be sure, if any one did say so, Nelly was not responsible to anybody for her actions. She was herself the best judge of what was befitting. Perhaps she was not quite so sure now that nothing was ever said that all the world might not hear. Things were said – about philosophical subjects, about the union of souls, about affinities, about the character of love metaphysically considered, whether a man or a woman could love twice, whether sometimes in early youth it was not more imagination than love that moved the heart, whether it did not require a little experience of life to make you really acquainted with the force of that sentiment. "There is no passion in the love of girls and boys," Fitzroy said, and he almost convinced Nelly that passion was the salt of life, the only thing really worth living for. These discussions perhaps were a little dangerous. But they were not personal – oh no! abstractions merely, the kind of subjects which promote conversation and which draw out the imaginative faculties. The thing that proved this was that there was not a suggestion of marriage ever made, nothing which approached that subject. Love-making from the point of view of an Englishwoman means marriage as a matter of course. And Fitzroy had never in the most distant way said to Nelly, "Will you marry me?" "Is it possible that you should one day become my wife?" He had talked, oh! a great deal about love in the abstract. He had said hurried things, phrases that seemed to escape him, about a man's "passion." And Nelly had felt many times, with a trembling of all her faculties, that he and she were on the eve of a crisis, that the moment must soon come in which these decisive words must be said.

      But that crisis never did come, though certainly the excitement of the intercourse grew daily, and the suspense bewildered and overwhelmed her so that she was entirely absorbed in it, and no longer her own mistress. She had let the stream carry her away. From the time when she went out first alone, with something of the secret delight of a girl making an escapade, upon the river with her kind visitor in the early September, till now, scarcely a month later, what a change had occurred! Then she obeyed a pleasurable impulse, partly that he might not think she thought of anything beyond the pleasant intercourse of an hour or two; now she felt her whole existence, her life, her happiness, her credit with the world, hanging as it were on the breath of his lips. Would he say, or would he not say, the words which would make all clear? For a time after every meeting she felt as if she had barely escaped from that supreme scene, holding it off, according to a woman's instinct; and then a chill began to creep over Nelly when he went away without a word: and life and everything concerning her seemed to hang in that suspense. Poor Nelly! poor, foolish, unsuspicious creature! If she had ever been a cruel little flirt in her heedlessness, never meaning any harm, she was punished now.

      One night – it was early in October – Fitzroy stayed late and shared Nelly's supper, and lingered after it, going back to the drawing-room with her, not taking leave of her in the little hall as he was in the habit of doing; and thus he missed the half-past nine train. But what did that matter? for there were two later, and an hour's delay could not, after all, make much difference. They were both full of emotion and suppressed excitement, and Nelly felt that the crisis could not be much longer delayed. She made, however, that invariable effort to keep it at arm's length, to talk of other things, which is one evidence that things have come to an alarming pass. She chattered, she laughed, flushed with feeling, with suspense and excitement, thinking every moment that the passion (certainly there was what he called "passion") in his eyes must burst forth. But still the suspense went on. Nelly's nerves and spirit were almost on the point of breaking down when she was suddenly roused by the chiming of the clock. "Oh," she cried, "eleven! you must run, you must fly! You have not a moment to lose for your train – the last train!"

      He looked at her for a moment with unutterable things in his eyes. "Is it so very indispensable that I should catch the last train? Nelly! how can I leave you? How can you send me away, when you know how I love, how I adore – "

      There came at this moment a sharp knock at the door.

      "If you please, ma'am," said Nelly's excellent nurse, "there's just time for Mr Fitzroy to catch the last train."

      And he had to go, seizing his hat, hurrying out with an apology for staying till the last moment, while Nelly, trembling, terrified, shrank back into the room where a little fire was still burning, though the night was warm. She went back to it with the chill of exhausted nerves, and held out her hands to the smouldering glow, while nurse locked and bolted the hall door with unnecessary noise and commotion. Then that excellent woman once more put her head into the room with a look which Nelly could not meet. "Is there anything I can get for you, ma'am, before I go to bed?" she said.

      Nelly thanked her, hurriedly recalling her faculties. "How glad I am you came to warn Mr Fitzroy, nurse! I had told him, but he paid no attention. Gentlemen always think they can catch a train by a rush at the last moment." She felt that she was apologising to nurse, and was ashamed of doing so, though it was shame and uneasiness which had forced the words to her lips. Nurse did not commit herself to any approval or condonation of her mistress's behaviour. She said only "Yes, ma'am," and marched up-stairs with measured steps to bed.

      Nelly sat down on a low chair in front of the smouldering fire. She was trembling all over, scarcely able to command herself, her cheeks burning with the heat of excitement, yet her teeth chattering with a nervous chill, her strength almost completely broken down. Now that she was alone the tension of her nerves gave way: the light went out of her eyes, her heart seemed to suffocate her, struggling in her breast. The agitation of her whole being prostrated her physically as well as mentally. She lay back upon her chair, as if its support were necessary to hold her together, and then she bent forward, holding her trembling hands to the fire. Had the crisis come, not as she had expected, but in a form that she did not understand? or was this strange interrupted climax a mere break in the stream, no end at all, a broken thread to be taken up again to-morrow and to-morrow indefinitely? Nelly was not capable of forming these questions in her mind, but they swept through the whirlwind within her, with a horror and alarm which she did not understand and knew not how to explain. What had he said? Why had he said that and not something else? What had she done that he had looked at her so? No, she did not ask herself all this; these questions only went whirling about in the wild commotion of her soul. She did not know how long she sat thus, incapable of movement. The fire sank lower, and she felt, without knowing whence it came, a chill draught from her right hand where the window was, but took no notice, perceiving it only, not in a condition of mind to account for it. But Mrs Brunton suddenly sat up erect, and all that tempest stopped in a moment, at the sound of a footstep outside and a tap on the window. What was it? Oh, heaven! what was it? She suddenly remembered in a moment that the window had been unfastened because the room was too warm. The shutters had been almost closed upon it, leaving only the smallest opening to give a little air, and Nelly had forgotten all about it, in her agitation and trouble. She sat for a moment motionless in her panic, thinking of burglars and robbery, not daring to stir. Then there came another tapping, and a low voice. "Mrs Brunton, I have lost my train; I remembered that the window was open; may I come in?"

      The next moment, without waiting for any reply – which, indeed, Nelly in her consternation was unable to give – he pushed open the window quickly and came into the room. She stood petrified, staring at him, feeling as if she must have gone suddenly mad, and that all this was a hallucination, as he entered with a glow of triumph in his face.

      "Nelly," he said, coming forward to her, dropping down on his knee by the side of her chair. "Darling, you left it open for me! You knew I would come back."

      It all happened in a