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

Well, in the afternoon Mrs Brunton found it dull. She went across to the rectory, and often found that the girls were all out about their parish work, or else playing tennis at the house of some neighbour whom she scarcely knew, or who did not venture to ask the young widow to appear at a garden party – so soon. And then Nellie would take a rather mournful, lonely walk. Is it wonderful that when she saw Mr Percy Fitzroy coming her heart gave a jump of pleasure, and her face grew bright with smiles? Not at first because he was Percy Fitzroy – but because he was life and movement and pleasure and fellowship, and because this was the kind of occupation and entertainment which she had been most used to in her former career.

There is nothing in the world, as all the world knows, that can go on for any time at a given point without developments, and those probably of an unforeseen sort, especially not a kind of intercourse like this – the "friendship," as Nelly to herself stoutly and steadily called it. It was much remarked upon, as may be supposed, but not in any unkindly way. Though her neighbours scarcely knew her as yet, they knew, or thought they knew, that the young widow about whom they were all prepared to be so much interested would not, as was said, be a widow much longer. And her husband not yet a twelvemonth dead, some said, who were of the class who always hear the wrong version of a story. Others, who had called upon her and liked her, explained to each other apologetically that young Mrs Brunton was a sweet young woman, and of course could not be expected to make a recluse of herself at her age. Thus it was with charity, though clear-sightedness, that the village saw Mrs Brunton and her "friend" from town, followed by the children and the nurse, walking across the fields towards the river one September afternoon, the gentleman in boating costume. Mr Fitzroy himself was not perhaps so much touched by that procession as were Nelly's neighbours. He had come early, and proposed that, as the river was not far off, Mrs Brunton should go for a row, to which Nelly had replied with delight – half naturally, half to cover her own pleasure; for are not all things mingled in this world? – that little Jack had been crying to go on the river, and that it would be such a treat for the children. Young mothers have a way of doing this, on much less moving occasions, when the delight of the children is the last thing in the world of which their entertainers are thinking. Fitzroy had to make a great gulp and swallow the children, though he did not like it. The nurse sat behind him in the boat, and Nelly kept the two little ones beside her in the stern, and they were very well behaved. But Fitzroy felt that, had any of his friends seen him on the river in this patriarchal guise, the joke would have rung through all the clubs where his name was known. Happily, however, in September there are few people about of the club kind. When he came down another time in his flannels Mrs Brunton said nothing about the children. She hesitated a little, and the colour fluttered in her face. Oh, if she only knew what was the right thing! There was no harm in it, certainly. It was like walking along a public street with him, which was a thing no one could object to. And if she refused to go, what would he think? or, rather, what would he think that she was thinking? He would probably imagine that she was afraid of him, that she was giving a character to his friendly attentions which did not belong to them, thinking that he was in love with her. How silly and vain that would seem; how he would laugh in his sleeve to see that this was what she thought, like any silly girl – she, a woman whom he only considered as a friend!

This was the argument which made Nelly finally decide to go. And she enjoyed that row beyond anything she could remember. It was as if she had made an escapade as a girl, with some one who perhaps one day – But she never would have been allowed to make that escapade as a girl. Now, at her present age and in her position of dignity as a married person, what could there be wrong in it? And yet it was rather wrong. She was a little ashamed, a little self-conscious, hoping that nobody would see her. And the sunset was so glorious, and the river so golden, and the sense of a 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.