CHAPTER XXXVI
December 20th, 1824. - This is the third anniversary of our
felicitous union. It is now two months since our guests left us to
the enjoyment of each other's society; and I have had nine weeks'
experience of this new phase of conjugal life - two persons living
together, as master and mistress of the house, and father and
mother of a winsome, merry little child, with the mutual
understanding that there is no love, friendship, or sympathy
between them. As far as in me lies, I endeavour to live peaceably
with him: I treat him with unimpeachable civility, give up my
convenience to his, wherever it may reasonably be done, and consult
him in a business-like way on household affairs, deferring to his
pleasure and judgment, even when I know the latter to be inferior
to my own.
As for him, for the first week or two, he was peevish and low,
fretting, I suppose, over his dear Annabella's departure, and
particularly ill-tempered to me: everything I did was wrong; I was
cold-hearted, hard, insensate; my sour, pale face was perfectly
repulsive; my voice made him shudder; he knew not how he could live
through the winter with me; I should kill him by inches. Again I
proposed a separation, but it would not do: he was not going to be
the talk of all the old gossips in the neighbourhood: he would not
have it said that he was such a brute his wife could not live with
him. No; he must contrive to bear with me.
'I must contrive to bear with you, you mean,' said I; 'for so long
as I discharge my functions of steward and house-keeper, so
conscientiously and well, without pay and without thanks, you
cannot afford to part with me. I shall therefore remit these
duties when my bondage becomes intolerable.' This threat, I
thought, would serve to keep him in check, if anything would.
I believe he was much disappointed that I did not feel his
offensive sayings more acutely, for when he had said anything
particularly well calculated to hurt my feelings, he would stare me
searchingly in the face, and then grumble against my 'marble heart'
or my 'brutal insensibility.' If I had bitterly wept and deplored
his lost affection, he would, perhaps, have condescended to pity
me, and taken me into favour for a while, just to comfort his
solitude and console him for the absence of his beloved Annabella,
until he could meet her again, or some more fitting substitute.
Thank heaven, I am not so weak as that! I was infatuated once with
a foolish, besotted affection, that clung to him in spite of his
unworthiness, but it is fairly gone now - wholly crushed and
withered away; and he has none but himself and his vices to thank
for it.
At first (in compliance with his sweet lady's injunctions, I
suppose), he abstained wonderfully well from seeking to solace his
cares in wine; but at length he began to relax his virtuous
efforts, and now and then exceeded a little, and still continues to
do so; nay, sometimes, not a little. When he is under the exciting
influence of these excesses, he sometimes fires up and attempts to
play the brute; and then I take little pains to suppress my scorn
and disgust. When he is under the depressing influence of the
after-consequences, he bemoans his sufferings and his errors, and
charges them both upon me; he knows such indulgence injures his
health, and does him more harm than good; but he says I drive him
to it by my unnatural, unwomanly conduct; it will be the ruin of
him in the end, but it is all my fault; and then I am roused to
defend myself, sometimes with bitter recrimination. This is a kind
of injustice I cannot patiently endure. Have I not laboured long
and hard to save him from this very vice? Would I not labour still
to deliver him from it if I could? but could I do so by fawning
upon him and caressing him when I know that he scorns me? Is it my
fault that I have lost my influence with him, or that he has
forfeited every claim to my regard? And should I seek a
reconciliation with him, when I feel that I abhor him, and that he
despises me? and while he continues still to correspond with Lady
Lowborough, as I know he does? No, never, never, never! he may
drink himself dead, but it is NOT my fault!
Yet I do my part to save him still: I give him to understand that
drinking makes his eyes dull, and his face red and bloated; and
that it tends to render him imbecile in body and mind; and if
Annabella were to see him as often as I do, she would speedily be
disenchanted; and that she certainly will withdraw her favour from
him, if he continues such courses. Such a mode of admonition wins
only coarse abuse for me - and, indeed, I almost feel as if I
deserved it, for I hate to use such arguments; but they sink into
his stupefied heart, and make him pause, and ponder, and abstain,
more than anything else I could say.
At present I am enjoying a temporary relief from his presence: he
is gone with Hargrave to join a distant hunt, and will probably not
be back before to-morrow evening. How differently I used to feel
his absence!
Mr. Hargrave is still at the Grove. He and Arthur frequently meet
to pursue their rural sports together: he often calls upon us
here, and Arthur not unfrequently rides over to him. I do not
think either of these soi-disant friends is overflowing with love
for the other; but such intercourse serves to get the time on, and
I am very willing it should continue, as it saves me some hours of
discomfort in Arthur's society, and gives him some better
employment than the sottish indulgence of his sensual appetites.
The only objection I have to Mr. Hargrave's being in the
neighbourhood, is that the fear of meeting him at the Grove
prevents me from seeing his sister so often as I otherwise should;
for, of late, he has conducted himself towards me with such
unerring propriety, that I have almost forgotten his former
conduct. I suppose he is striving to 'win my esteem.' If he
continue to act in this way, he may win it; but what then? The
moment he attempts to demand anything more, he will lose it again.
February 10th. - It is a hard, embittering thing to have one's kind
feelings and good intentions cast back in one's teeth. I was
beginning to relent towards my wretched partner; to pity his
forlorn, comfortless condition, unalleviated as it is by the
consolations of intellectual resources and the answer of a good
conscience towards God; and to think I ought to sacrifice my pride,
and renew my efforts once again to make his home agreeable and lead
him back to the path of virtue; not by false professions of love,
and not by pretended remorse, but by mitigating my habitual
coldness of manner, and commuting my frigid civility into kindness
wherever an opportunity occurred; and not only was I beginning to
think so, but I had already begun to act upon the thought - and
what was the result? No answering spark of kindness, no awakening
penitence, but an unappeasable ill-humour, and a spirit of
tyrannous exaction that increased with indulgence, and a lurking
gleam of self-complacent triumph at every detection of relenting
softness in my manner, that congealed me to marble again as often
as it recurred; and this morning he finished the business:- I think
the petrifaction is so completely effected at last that nothing can
melt me again. Among his letters was one which he perused with
symptoms of unusual gratification, and then threw it across the
table to me, with the admonition, -
'There! read that, and take a lesson by it!'
It was in the free, dashing hand of Lady Lowborough. I glanced at
the first page; it seemed full of extravagant protestations of
affection; impetuous longings for a speedy reunion - and impious
defiance of God's mandates, and railings against His providence for
having cast their lot asunder, and doomed them both to the hateful
bondage of alliance with those they could not love. He gave a
slight titter on seeing me change colour. I folded up the letter,
rose, and returned it to him, with no remark, but -
'Thank you, I will take a lesson by it!'
My little Arthur was standing between his knees, delightedly
playing with the bright, ruby ring on his finger. Urged by a
sudden, imperative impulse to deliver my son from that
contaminating influence, I caught him up in my arms and carried him
with me out of the room. Not liking this abrupt removal, the child
began to pout and cry. This was a new stab to my already tortured
heart. I would not let him go; but, taking him with me into the
library, I shut the door, and, kneeling on the floor beside him, I
embraced him, kissed him, wept over with him with passionate
fondness. Rather frightened than consoled by this, he turned
struggling from me, and cried out aloud for his papa. I released
him from my arms, and never were more bitter tears than those that
now concealed him from my blinded, burning eyes. Hearing his
cries, the father came to the room. I instantly turned away, lest
he should see and misconstrue my emotion. He swore at me, and took
the now pacified child away.
It is hard that my little darling should love him more than me; and
that, when the well-being and culture of my son is all I have to
live for, I should see my influence destroyed by one whose selfish
affection is more injurious than the coldest indifference or the
harshest tyranny could be. If I, for his good, deny him some
trifling indulgence, he goes to his father, and the latter, in
spite of his selfish indolence, will even give himself some trouble
to meet the child's desires: if I attempt to curb his will, or
look gravely on him for some act of childish disobedience, he knows
his other parent will smile and take his part against me. Thus,
not only have I the father's spirit in the son to contend against,
the germs of his evil tendencies to search out and eradicate, and
his corrupting intercourse and example in after-life to counteract,
but already he counteracts my arduous labour for the child's
advantage, destroys my influence over his tender mind, and robs me
of his very love; I had no earthly hope but this, and he seems to
take a diabolical delight in tearing it away.
But it is wrong to despair; I will remember the counsel of the
inspired writer to him 'that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice
of his servant, that sitteth in darkness and hath no light; let him
trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God!'
