Bab Bab 36 · Chapter XXXVI Dual Solitude

. Chapter XXXVI Dual Solitude

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!”