BARBARA'S FIRST LESSON IN THE MANÈGE.
For some few months after the events just described, the lives of
those who form the characters of this little drama passed evenly on
without the occurrence of any circumstance worthy of special record on
the part of their historian. Mr. Beresford, implicitly following Mr.
Simnel's advice, proceeded to lay siege to Mrs. Schröder in the manner
agreed upon, and found his advances received very much after the
fashion predicted by his astute friend. In all child-like simplicity
Mrs. Schröder firmly believed in the baneful influence which she had
unconsciously exercised over her admirer, and strove to make him
amends by a charitable and sentimental pity. She could perfectly
appreciate all his feelings; for was not she herself misunderstood?
had her girlhood's dream been realised? what was wealth, what was
position, to her? was she not mated with one who, &c.? So she not
merely permitted but encouraged Mr. Beresford's fraternal sentiments;
though she by no means eschewed the world and its frivolity, and gave
herself up to solitary romance. On the contrary, she went out a great
deal into society, and had frequent receptions at home; Beresford
being her constant but always unobtrusive companion. It is difficult
to say what motive about this time prompted a considerable change in
Mr. Schröder's manner towards his wife; but some such change
undoubtedly took place. It may possibly have been that the
insufficiency of money as a source of happiness may have dawned upon
him, steeped as he was to his very lips in constantly-increasing
wealth. It may have been that he suddenly awoke to the fact that he
was expected to lavish something more than generosity on the young
girl whom he had made the head of his house, and who, as he thought,
conducted herself with so much propriety. This new feeling may have
had its germ one night when they were sitting in their grand-tier box
at the Italian Opera, during the performance of _Der Freischütz_; and
as the old familiar strains rang through the house, Gustav Schröder's
memory travelled back for five-and-thirty years, and he saw himself a
lad of seventeen, seated in the pit of a little German theatre by the
side of a plump little girl, who wore a silver arrow through the great
knot of her flaxen hair, and down whose cheeks tears were rolling as
she listened to the recital of Agatha's woes. He had loved that plump
little Kätchen, loved her with a boy's pure and ardent passion; and
when sent to his uncle's counting-house at Frankfort, they had parted
with bitter tears, and with the exchange of very cheap and worthless
love-tokens. He wondered what had become of that five-groschen piece
with the hole drilled through it, and the bit of red ribbon. He
wondered why he had never loved since those days. And then he looked
up and saw his pretty, elegant little wife, whom every one admired and
praised; and it flashed upon him that he had never tried to break
through the outer crust of staid formality with which business and the
world had covered him; and he determined to try to love and be loved
once more. And so Mrs. Schröder, beginning to be dreadfully frightened
at the incantation scene, was astonished to find her hand gently taken
in her husband's, and on looking up to find his eyes fixed on hers.
From that time out Gustav Schröder was a changed man; he took frequent
holidays from business; he strove in every way to let his wife see how
anxious he was for her happiness; and she saw it, and was to a certain
extent touched by his conduct. It needed all Mr. Beresford's
sophistry, all his attention and quotation, the employment of all the
art in which he had been indoctrinated by his friend Simnel, to make
head against the influence which Gustav Schröder's quiet watchfulness
and fatherly affection were attaining; for the affection was, after
all, more fatherly than conjugal in its display. Mr. Schröder was far
too much a man of the world to affect to ignore his age or the result
of his life-habits; and no one was better pleased than he to see his
wife happy among younger and livelier companions.
A happy influence properly exercised at this time would have been
immediately beneficial to Alice Schröder, and have brought matters
back into the right course. For instance, ten minutes' walk with
Barbara Churchill would have settled the question; for Barbara was to
Alice that one grand idol whom we all of us (although we change them
at different periods of our lives) set up and worship. And Barbara had
not derogated one whit from her high position in Alice's estimation by
her marriage. It was exactly the thing that she imagined a girl of her
friend's high spirit would do, if pressed to it; there was something
romantic in it, savouring of the legends of the high dames of old, who
gave themselves to poets after scorning kings; and the whole process
entirely agreed with certain of the _dicta_ of Mr. Owen Meredith, who,
as has been explained, was poet-laureate at the Schröder court. And
Alice called on Barbara, and petted her and praised her, and in her
silly little way did every thing possible to prevent the smallest
_rapprochement_ between them. And then Alice went away, and cried in
the carriage on her way home, and declared that Barbara was cruel and
unkind and unjust, and had utterly changed in every thing.
Were these assertions correct? I fear that at all events they had a
certain proportion of truth. The spirit which had induced Barbara
Lexden to marry a man without money, and of, as her friends thought,
inferior position; which had made her scorn the threats of being cast
off by those among whom her life had hitherto been placed, and to hold
to one whom she knew but little, yet trusted much,--this same spirit
made her brave the fate to which she had resigned herself, and
determined that if she repined, it should be in secret and unheard. It
_was_ a mistake; _that_ she had already confessed to herself with
bitter tears many and many a time; done in haste, repented at
leisure--the old, old story, the old seductive myth, which will find
believers for ever and aye. How often, brooding in the solitude of her
chamber, had she gone over the whole business in her mind, linking bit
to bit, and endeavouring to find out where the reality had fallen short
of the anticipation!
They were poor. Well! had she not expected poverty; had not Frank told
her plainly and honourably of his position before he made any
declaration? Yes; but she did not understand poverty exactly as she
had found it. She knew that they would not be able to give parties,
nor to go to the Opera, nor that kind of thing; but she certainly
thought that they would go out sometimes, and that she should not be
stuck at home for ever. Of course the people who gave parties had a
great deal of expense; but those who went to them had none; and it was
not expected that any newly-married people living in a small way
should entertain in return. But then Frank, after positively refusing
to go out a third night running, had given way; but had shaken his
head, and looked so serious over a glove-bill which he happened to see
on her dressing-table, that she threw on her dressing-gown, and bade
him go by himself. She did not care about going out; but if she went,
she would be decent; she had always been considered to have a
reputation for good taste, and nothing on earth should make her a
dowdy now. She would sooner stay at home always; indeed there was
little enough to go out for, having to be jolted in those horrible
cabs, that crawled along the streets, with no room for one's dress,
and with the certainty of being covered with dust or straw, or some
dreadful stuff, when you got out; and then the insolence of the
driver!
And her home? It was small, and dull, and dreary; but had she been led
to anticipate any thing else? No; she supposed not. And yet she wore
herself out in those gaunt dark rooms, and chafed in her prison like a
bird in its cage. She had always been a bad correspondent, and since
her marriage had scarcely written any letters at all; but she would
sit mooning over the pages of a novel, or over the stitches of her
embroidery, until book or work would fall from her hand; and there she
would remain, looking intently at nothing, staring vacantly before
her. Frank caused her to be supplied regularly with a copy of the
_Statesman_, and in it she tried to read his articles--an honest
attempt in which she dismally failed. Her aunt had been somewhat of a
keen politician, and Barbara was sufficiently well informed on the
position of English parties to bear her share in a dinner-table
dialogue; but foreign affairs principally occupied Frank's pen
in the _Statesman_; and after an attempted course of reading about
Moldo-Wallachia, Schleswig-Holstein, and the Principalities, including
an immense amount of virtuous indignation, the reason for which she
did not comprehend, and the object of which she could not make out,
poor Barbara gave it up in despair. She was in the habit of glancing
occasionally at that portion of the paper in which Mr. Henchman
chronicled the doings of the fashionable world, and recorded the names
of those present at great entertainments; and sometimes when Barbara
would raise her eyes from the paper and look down the hot vista of
frowning houses in Great Adullam Street, where dust and straw were
blowing in a penetrating cloud, and whence the dismal howling of
itinerant hucksters fell upon the ear, she, remembering what part she
had recently played among those of whom she had been reading, and
contrasting it with her then life, would bite her lip until the blood
started, and sob bitterly.
Where was her spirit, do you ask? Has she not been represented as a
girl of special spirit and pluck? Did not the early-narrated incidents
of her career, her very marriage, prove this? and is it natural that
she should break down before petty annoyances such as these? These
questions have been asked; and all I can reply is, that I paint
according to my lights and to my experience of life; and I believe
that there are hundreds of women of spirit who would bear the
amputation of a finger with more fortitude than the non-arrival of a
bonnet, and who suffer less in separation from those they dearly love
than in the necessity for a daily inspection of the bread-pan.
And Frank, what of him? Had Barbara been deceived in him? had she
misjudged his heart, his truth, his love? Not one whit; and yet how
different he seemed! Throughout his life, Frank Churchill had acted on
impulse, and had generally pulled through with extraordinary success.
We have seen how, in the railway-journey back to Bissett, he had
argued with himself, had persuaded himself into the determination of
leaving the place and flying from temptation, and how on the impulse
of a moment he settled the career of his life. To say he had repented
of that step, would have been untrue; equally false would it have been
to say that he had not been seriously disappointed in its result. The
great charm of Barbara Lexden in his eyes had been her dissimilarity
from other women. In the quiet circles in which he moved, there was no
one kin to her; she stood out in bold relief among the fussy wives and
meek colourless daughters of his friends, seeming a being of another
sphere. And now, strange to say, this very contrast which had so
captivated him, was his bane. What though the wives were fussy; they
attended to their households with the utmost regularity, investigating
the smallest matters of domestic detail, keeping down expenses here,
making shift there, and having a comfortable home ready for their
husbands wearied out with their work. What though the daughters were
meek and colourless, without a fragment of taste in dress, without a
spark of spirit, without one atom of dash; they were ready to strum
the piano, or to play endless games of whist or picquet, when called
upon, to enjoy thoroughly such little society as they had among
themselves, and, in fact, to make themselves generally amiable. "Their
girls did not lollop on the sofa and read trashy novels all day tong,
my dear!" as Mrs. Harding more than once remarked; "they were not
aristocrats, and couldn't jabber Italian; but they didn't lie in bed
to breakfast, or be always fiddling with their hair, or dressing or
undressing themselves twenty times a day. If those were aristocratic
manners, the less she had of them the better."
All this talk, and there was much of it perpetually current, reached
Frank Churchill's ears through his mother, and if it did not render
him actually unhappy, at least dashed his spirits and checked his
joys. He would sit for hours pondering over these things, thinking of
his past, when he had only himself and his old mother to care for,
wondering what would have been his future, supposing he had married
one of the daughters of Mesopotamia, and settled down into the snug
humdrum life pursued by those colonists. And then sometimes Barbara
would break in upon his reverie, and, looking so brilliantly handsome,
would come up and kiss his forehead, and say a few loving words
untinged by regret or complaint; and he would rejoice in the choice he
had made, and thank that fortune which had thrown such a treasure in
his way.
There is no doubt that, without in the least degree intending it
(indeed, what sacrifice had she not made, would she not make, for her
son?), old Mrs. Churchill was a fruitful cause of the petty
dissensions which took place between Barbara and her husband. Devoted
to Frank, to her natural anxiety for his happiness was superadded an
invincible jealousy of the woman who had supplanted his mother in his
regard, or at least had pushed her from the highest position therein.
Against the actuations of this feeling the old lady strove with all
her strength, and made great way; but, like many other intending
victors, she imagined the day gained before the enemy had been
thoroughly repulsed, and then, neglecting her outposts, laid herself
open to an irresistible attack. At first Frank laughed away all these
remarks, telling his mother that the difference of age between her and
Barbara, the difference of their lives and bringing up, the difference
in the style of the present time and the days when Mrs. Churchill
lived in the world, caused her to think the young wife's proceedings
singular, and her demeanour odd. But _saepe cadendo_, by constant
trituration the old lady's notions got grafted into his brain, and
most of the weary self-communings and self-torturings which Frank had,
sprung from his mother's unintentional planting.
One day about noon old Mrs. Churchill knocked at the door of Frank's
little study, and entering found her son hard at work on an article he
was preparing for a review. The old lady seemed in great spirits,
kissed her son most affectionately, and said: "Busy as ever, Frank my
darling? As I often used to say, you'll grow to your desk one day, you
stick at it so--at least you used to when I lived with you; I don't
know much of what you do now;" and she gave a little sigh, made doubly
apparent by an attempt to stifle it, as she sat down.
"Why, mum, what nonsense!" said Frank; "you see as much of me as any
body now--as much as Barbara, at all events."
"Oh, by the way, how is Barbara?"
"Well, not very brilliant this morning; she's got one of her
headaches, and I persuaded her to breakfast in bed."
"Ah, she didn't take much persuading, I fancy. The young girls
nowadays are very different from what I remember them; but she'd be
tired, poor child, waiting up for you last night."
"She did no such thing, I'm delighted to say," said Frank, smiling,
"as I had to write upon the result of the debate, and didn't get home
until nearly three o'clock. Poor Barbara was sound asleep at that
time, and had been so for some hours."
"Ah, ever since her visitor went away, I suppose?"
"Her visitor? What visitor?"
"Didn't she tell you? How odd! I called in last evening for a volume
of _Blunt on the Pentateuch_, and found Captain Lyster here chatting.
How odd that Barbara didn't mention it!"
"She was too sleepy both last night and this morning, I imagine," said
Frank: "she has frequently told me of his visits."
"Oh, yes, he calls here very often."
"He's a very pleasant fellow," said Frank.
"Is he?" said the old lady, in rather acrid tones. "I didn't think you
knew him."
"Not know him!" exclaimed Frank; "why, mother dear, how on earth
should he call here if I didn't know him?"
"He might be a friend of your wife's, my dear."
"But my wife's friends are mine, are they not?"
"It does not always follow, Frank," said the old lady calmly;
"besides, I thought if he had been a friend of yours, he would have
called _sometimes_ when you were at home."
Frank looked up quickly with a flushed face; then said, "What
nonsense, mum! the man is an old friend of Barbara's, and comes at
such times as are most convenient to himself. You don't understand the
set of people he lives with, mum."
"Very likely not, my dear; and I'm sure I'm not sorry for it; for they
seem strange enough; at least to a quiet old-fashioned body like
myself, who was taught never to receive male friends when my
husband--however, that's neither here nor there." And Mrs. Churchill
bustled out.
When Barbara came down to luncheon, Frank said to her, "I hear you had
Captain Lyster here, last night, Barbara."
"Oh, yes," she replied, "I forgot to tell you; he sat here some time."
"He comes pretty frequently, doesn't he?"
"I don't know," said Barbara, looking up; "I never counted the number
of times; you always hear when he has been."
"I wish you'd do something for me, Barbara," said Frank.
"Well, what is it?"
"Just tell Lyster it would be better if he could contrive to call when
I'm at home."
"Why?" asked Barbara pointedly.
"Why--well--upon my word--I scarcely know why--except that people
talk, you know; and it's better--eh? don't you think?" stammered
Frank. He had acted on impulse again, and felt confoundedly ashamed of
himself.
"I distinctly decline to do any thing of the sort. I wonder Frank,
you're not ashamed to propose such a thing to me; but I can see what
influence has been at work."
"There has been no influence at all; only I choose--"
"And _I_ choose that you should find a fitter person than your wife to
deliver insulting messages to your friends!"
"Barbara suppose I were to insist upon your not receiving this man
again?"
"You had better not, Frank," said she, moving towards the door; "you
don't know whom you have to deal with." And she swept out of the room.
And this was Barbara's first lesson in the _manège_.