CHAPTER VI.HOME SCENES
Evelyn’shome was comfortable without being luxurious, and well suited to a family of moderate fortune. Charmingly situate, in the loveliest of England’s midland counties, the house, originally an old monastery, stood in the midst of a richly wooded though not very extensive park. The amusements at Woodlands, as is the case more or less all over England, were more suitable to gentlemen than to the fairer sex. They consisted, principally, of hunting, shooting, and fishing in some of the trout streams hard by. The Squire, as he was usually termed, with his son, Captain Travers, constantly availed themselves of these facilities for sport; consequently we ladies were left almost entirely on our own resources. An occasional dinner party, to which we were expected to drive out some ten or twelve miles, in full evening costume, perhaps on a snowy night, formed the only varietyto our rather monotonous life. These dinner parties were altogether “flat, stale and unprofitable.” The usual codfish, with oyster sauce, saddle of mutton, and boiled chicken or turkey, were served up, and flavored by such conversation as the following:
“A fine day for scent, eh, Squire?”
“Glorious; were you in at the death?”
“I should say so. By Jove! my mare’s a clipper, I can tell you.”
“Smith, your grey rather swerved at that fence.”
“Why, yes; my fool of a groom physicked him only a week since, and the fence was, a stiff-un, but he’s a very devil to go.”
Or thus:
“I say, gov’n’r,” (the slang term for father,) “how many birds d’ye say we bagged to-day?”
“Well, fifteen brace.”
“No, twenty, I tell ye, all fine uns.”
“That dog of yours, Travers, is a capital setter, and no mistake. What’s his pedigree?”
“Oh, he was got by Tommy out of Fairstar.”
“I should like a pup of his, by Jove!”
After dinner, on the adjournment of the ladies to the drawing-room, the sporting talk commences in right earnest, the wine circulating even more briskly than before. The married ladies meanwhile stand around a roaring fire warming their satin-clad feet;they complain to each other of the delinquencies of their servants, or boast of the beauty and precocity of their children. The entrance, presently, of coffee, puts an end to general conversation, as the ladies collect into smaller groups to wait for tea and the gentlemen. The matrons and elderly maidens perhaps indulge in a little scandal as they sip the fragrant beverage. The more juvenile damsels talk of balls, past and future, and of the delightful partners who may have fallen to their lot. Some would be Grisi, “inglorious,” though not, alas! “mute,” possibly attacks the open piano with a violence that makes you almost imagine she is venting her spite upon the innocent instrument, and then in a cracked but stentorian voice, she commences to shout, “Sing me the songs that to me were so dear, long,LONGago, long,LONGago,” accentuating the dashed expletives by a shriller scream even than before. At about half-past ten enter the lords of the creation, with highly flushed faces, and vociferating loudly, the words, “my good fellow,” “horse,” “dog,” “my mare,” “that pointer,” still forming the burden of their song. Very slight attention falls to the share of the ladies. A young curate, perhaps, stands beside the piano, turning the leaves of the music-book for the squalling songstress. A whist table is frequently formed, but at eleven a move is made, and byhalf-past, the carriage of the last guest has usually rolled from the door.
The cause of Captain Travers’ shaking hand was now but too apparent. The captain, I regret to say, seldom, if ever, returned home from these dinners perfectly sober, and the old squire, though rejoicing in a stronger head than his son, was but too often more than “a little elevated.” Latterly the propensity of young Edward Travers became so uncontrollable that no invitations ever came from the best houses in the neighborhood to Woodlands, a very great slight to one of the oldest families in the county.
Our readers may readily imagine that though blessed with every outward advantage of person and position, our heroine felt more alone even than when cloistered within the walls of Warrenne Vicarage. Then at least she might hope for a brighter future; now to hope were a crime, for would it not involve the death of another, and that other a husband. The marriage tie, in its spiritual and inner sense, is, indeed, as we are taught to believe, an inheritance from Paradise; it supposes the perfect union of the sexes, so that two separate existences become virtually one individual. Neither would be complete without the other. Force blends with weakness; firmness with gentleness; and mutuallove and confidence is the crowning bliss of all.—But observe the reverse of the picture, alas! far more common than the other side. The hourly clash of angry tempers and selfish desires, brutality and neglect on the part of the husband, met by reproaches from the wife, and yet with all this, and perhaps the vice of intoxication in addition, the wretched pair must drag out a miserable existence till “death do them part.” Happy those countries where divorce is permitted for other, though not slighter causes than infidelity!
I mentioned that Evelyn, as a girl, was scarcely aware either of her beauty or of her extreme power of fascination. Now that she had become a married child, older women spoiled her, telling her she had thrown herself away, and that with advantages of person and fortune such as hers, she might have aspired to become a duchess, or, as Evelyn added with a sigh, “I might, had I waited, have met with one worthy of my love, and have become a happy, instead of an unloving and therefore wretched wife.” Often have I contrasted Rookwood—beloved home of the intelligent, the refined, the sympathetic—with the scarcely less beautiful Woodlands, the abode of uncongenial spirits.
“Trifles,” says a modern female writer,[1]“makethe sum of human-things;” andshe was right. Happiness depends more on the hourly nothings of existence than we are fain to believe, and a continual dripping of water will wear away the hardest rock. The great sorrows of life are rare; its intense joys rarer still; we have it in our power to embitter our own lot and that of others, or to be to them as a ministering angel and thus bring a blessing on ourselves. Did the young wife prepare to buy a new dress, her husband would term it useless extravagance, and refuse to furnish her with the means for procuring it, even though these were actually of her own money. When she wished for a drive, the horses were required to go to cover, or they had a cough, or were in physic. Did Evelyn in the evening place herself at her harp, and sing in her sweetest and most thrilling tones, some of Moore’s plaintive melodies, or of Mrs. Hemans’ beautiful songs, the “thank you, my dear,” of the kind but unappreciative Squire, would be echoed by a loud snore from his sleeping son, just in the most effective part of the performance. Later, when her health became delicate, as the prospect of maternity dawned upon her, even the visits of a physician in an “illness common to all women,” as the Captain amiably remarked, were an unnecessary expense. Let not my readers imagine this was“malice prepense”—it was onlyselfishness—that bane of married life.
1.Mrs. Hannah More.
1.Mrs. Hannah More.
1.Mrs. Hannah More.
Edward Travers was the only son of foolish parents. His mother, selfish herself, and inconsiderate as to consequences, fostered his youthful vices; and even on the rare occasions when the father thought it necessary to correct his boy, the silly and ill-tempered wife ever took the son’s part against the husband she so much disliked, and endeavored to compensate, by a larger slice of cake or an extra glass of wine, that which she did not scruple to impress on the lad’s mind as unjustifiable harshness on the part of the governor. Thus trained up “in the way he should” not “go,” can it be wondered at, if he was innately though unintentionally selfish, and utterly regardless of the feelings of the wife, whose sympathies he never had? Mrs. Travers, Sen’r. also did all she could to foment the dissensions which constantly arose between the two who should have been asone. Even the birth of a daughter failed to cement a breach, which widened every day. A son would have been welcomed with joy by the family, as heir to estates entailed in the male line, but a girl was considered as a useless and expensive encumbrance, by all but the young mother herself.
After the birth of my little god-daughter, coldnessand indifference became actual dislike. Evelyn and her husband scarcely ever spoke, and a virtual separation took place between them. I remained some time at the Abbey, being loth to leave my friend under such trying circumstances. Evelyn endeavored to beguile the time by cultivating her taste for music; we also studied together various volumes, both of ancient and modern history, and even sounded the depths of natural philosophy and astronomy. Poetry and light literature, she said, made her melancholy, as they portrayed untrue pictures of life—especially with regard to love and marriage. She never would be persuaded to peruse any tale which finished happily; but stories of misfortune, ending in separation or death, she read with avidity.
This was a most unhealthy state of mind. Evelyn’s feelings were exceedingly embittered towards her mother and stepfather, whom she considered to have occasioned the terrible mistake of her life. Her husband she pitied with a feeling akin to contempt, knowing that, with a common-place wife, he might have become a better and a happier man, but confessing herself totally unsuited to him. She would not, however, attempt in any way to brighten his path; neither would she endeavor to wean him from his intemperate habits, which, unhappily, becamedaily more confirmed. I could not but blame, though my heart bled for poor Evelyn; for I felt that, sooner or later, she would learn how that for each and all of our wrong doings, and even for our sins of omission, a just retribution awaits us, either here or hereafter.