One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
had been occasions when her wish for the whole world to
have proof and exhibition of his greatness, goodness, and
simplicity amid his gifts, prompted her incitement of him to
stand forth eminently: ‘lead a kingdom,’ was the phrase behind
the curtain within her shy bosom); and it revealed her
to herself, upon reflection, as being still the Nataly who drank
the cup with him, to join her fate with his.
And why not? Was that regretted? Far from it. In her maturity,
the woman was unable to send forth any dwelling
thought or more than a flight of twilight fancy, that cancelled
the deed of her youth, and therewith seemed to expunge
near upon the half—of her term of years. If it came to
consideration of her family and the family’s opinion of her
conduct, her judgement did not side with them or with herself,
it whirled, swam to a giddiness and subsided.
Of course, if she and Victor were to inhabit a large country-house,
they might as well have remained at Craye Farm
or at Creckholt; both places dear to them in turn. Such was
the plain sense of the surface question. And how strange it
was to her, that he, of the most quivering sensitiveness on
her behalf; could not see, that he threw her into situations
where hard words of men and women threatened about her
head; where one or two might on a day, some day, be heard;
and where, in the recollection of two years back, the word
‘Impostor’ had smacked her on both cheeks from her own
mouth.
Now once more they were to run the same round of alarms,
undergo the love of the place, with perpetual apprehensions
of having to leave it: alarms, throbbing suspicions, like those
of old travellers through the haunted forest, where whispers
have intensity of meaning, and unseeing we are seen, and
unaware awaited.
Nataly shook the rolls of her thick brown hair from her
forehead; she took strength from a handsome look of resolution
in the glass. She could always honestly say, that her courage
would not fail him.
Victor tapped at the door; he stepped into the room, wearing
his evening white flower over a more open white waistcoat;
and she was composed and uninquiring. Their Nesta
was heard on the descent of the stairs, with a rattle of
Donizetti’s Il segreto to the skylights.
He performed his never-omitted lover’s homage.
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