During the month preceding his marriage, Lewis Hammond had spent much
time and many thoughts in providing and furnishing a house for his
wife. His coadjutor in this labor of love was not, as one might have
expected, Mrs. Hunt, but his early friend, Mrs. Marlow. His omission
of his future mother-in-law, in his committee of consultation, he
explained to her by representing the number of duties already pressing
upon her, and his unwillingness to add aught to their weight. But when
both girls were married and gone, and the work of "getting to rights"
was all over, this indefatigable woman paid Mrs. Marlow a visit, and
offered her assistance in completing the arrangements for the young
housekeepers.
"There is nothing for us to do," said Mrs. Marlow. "Lewis attended
to the purchase of everything before leaving; and the orders are all
in the hands of a competent upholsterer whom he has employed, as
is also the key of the house. I offered to have the house-cleaning
done, but Lewis refused to let me help him even in this. He is very
methodical, and rather strict in some of his ideas. When the premises
are pronounced ready for the occupancy of the future residents, you and
I will play inspectors, and find as much fault as we can."
Mrs. Hunt went around by the house on her way home. It was new and
handsome, a brown stone front, with stone balconies and balustrades;
but three stories high, it was true, yet of ample width and pitch of
ceiling, and--as she discovered by skirting the square--at least three
rooms deep all the way up. The location was unobjectionable; not more
than four blocks from the paternal residence, and in a wider street. On
the whole, she had no fault to find, provided Mr. Hammond had furnished
it in such style as she would have recommended. She had her fears lest
his sober taste in other respects should extend to these matters, and
hinted something of the kind to her husband.
"I have confidence in Mr. Hammond to believe that he will allow his
wife every indulgence compatible with his means," was the reply.
Mr. Hunt did not deem it obligatory upon him to state that his
son-in-law had conferred with him upon numerous questions pertaining to
Sarah's likes and probable wishes; that he had examined and approved
of the entire collection of furniture, etc., selected for her use. Why
should he, how could he, without engendering in his wife's bosom the
suspicion that he had accounted to him for Lewis' choice of the father
as an adviser? namely, that the newly-made husband had gained a pretty
correct estimate of this managing lady's character, her penny-wise and
pound-foolish policy, and intended to inaugurate altogether a different
one in his house.
Regardless of Mrs. Marlow's polite insinuation that their room was
preferable to their company until all things should be in readiness for
inspection, the ambitious mother made sundry visits to the premises
while they were being fitted up, and delivered herself of divers
suggestions and recommendations, which fell like sand on a rock upon
the presiding man of business.
On the day appointed for the tourists' return, Mrs. Marlow's carriage
drew up at Mr. Hunt's door, by appointment, to take the mistress of
the house upon the proposed visit of criticism of her daughter's
establishment. Mrs. Marlow was in a sunny mood, and indisposed to
censure, as was evinced by ejaculations of pleasure at the general
effect of each apartment as they entered, and praise of its component
parts. Mrs. Hunt was not so undiscriminating. The millionaire's wife
must not imagine that she was dazzled by any show of elegance, or that
she was overjoyed at the prospect of her child's having so beautiful
and commodious a home.
"The everlasting oak and green!" she uttered, as they reached the
dining-room. "It is a pity Mr. Hammond did not select walnut and
crimson instead! Green is very unbecoming to Sarah."
"Then we must impress upon her the importance of cultivating
healthy roses in her cheeks, and wearing bright warm colors. This
combination--green and oak--is pretty and serviceable, I think. The
table is very neatly set, Mary," continued Mrs. Marlow, kindly, to the
tidy serving-maid. "Keep an eye on the silver, my good girl, until
your mistress comes. Mrs. Hunt, shall we peep into the china closets
before we go to the kitchen? I have taken the liberty, at Lewis'
request, of offering to your daughter the service of a couple of my
protegees, excellent servants, who lived for years with one of my own
children--Mrs. Morland, now in Paris. They are honest, willing, and, I
think, competent. The man-servant, if Lewis sees fit to keep one, he
must procure himself."
The china, glass, and pantries were in capital order; the kitchen well
stocked, light, and clean, and dinner over the fire.
"You will be punctual to the minute, Katy, please!" was the warning
here. "Mr. Hammond is particular in the matter of time."
"And you will see that my daughter has a cup of clear, strong coffee!"
ordered Mrs. Hunt, magisterially. "She is delicate, and accustomed to
the very best of cookery." And, having demonstrated her importance and
superior housewifery to the round-eyed cook, she swept out.
To an unprejudiced eye, the whole establishment was without a flaw;
and, undisturbed by the captious objections of her companion in the
survey, Mrs. Marlow saw and judged for herself, and carried home with
her a most pleasing imagination of Lewis' gratification, and Sarah's
delighted surprise with the scene that was to close their way of cold
and weariness.
By Mr. Hammond's expressed desire to his father-in-law, there was
no one except the domestics in the house when they arrived. As the
carriage stopped, the listening maid opened the door, and a stream of
radiance shot into the misty night across the wet pavement upon the two
figures that stepped from the conveyance.
"In happy homes he sees the light." The mental quotation brought back
to Sarah the vision of that lonely evening, ten months before, when
she had moaned it in her dreary twilight musings at the window of her
little room. "Dreary then, hopeless now!" and with this voiceless sigh,
she crossed the threshold of her destined abode. With a kindly greeting
to the servants in the hall; Lewis hurried his wife onward, past the
parlor doors, into a library sitting-room, back of the show apartments,
warm and bright, smiling a very home welcome.
Here he placed her in a deep cushioned chair, and, pressing her hands
in his, kissed her, with a heartfelt--"May you be very happy in our
home, dear wife!"
"Thank you!" she replied. "It is pleasant here, and you are too kind."
"That is impossible where you are concerned. Sit here, while I see to
the trunks. When they are carried upstairs, you can go to your room.
Throw off your hat and cloak."
He was very thoughtful of her comfort--too thoughtful, because his love
made him watchful of her every look, word, and gesture. She was glad
of the brief respite from this vigilance, that allowed her to bury her
face in her hands and groan aloud. She had no heart to look around her
cage. No doubt it was luxurious; the bars softly and richly lined; the
various arrangements the best of their kind; still, it was nothing but
a cage--a prison, from which death only could release her.
The trim maid came for her wrappings, and directly afterwards Lewis, to
take her upstairs.
"Not a very elaborate toilet, dear," he said, as he left her for his
dressing-room. "You will see no one this evening but our father and
mother, and they will remember that you have been travelling all day."
When she was ready, it lacked still a quarter of an hour of
dinner-time, and she acceded to Lewis' proposal that they should go
over their dwelling. By his order, there were lights in every room.
The graceful furniture, the well-contrasted hues of the soft carpets,
the curtains and pictures showed to fine advantage. Every thing was in
place, from cellar to attic; not a symptom of parsimony or cheapness
in the whole; and all betokened, besides excellent judgment, such
conformity to, or unison with her taste, that Sarah, with all her
heaviness of heart, was pleased. She was touched too with gratitude or
remorse; for, when they were back in the cozy sitting-room, she laid
her hand timidly on that of her husband, and said, falteringly:
"I do not deserve that you should take so much pains to gratify me, Mr.
Hammond."
Over Lewis' face there flushed one of the rare smiles that made him
positively handsome while they lasted. He grasped the shrinking fingers
firmly, and drew his wife close to his side.
"Shall I tell you how to repay me for all that I have done, or ever can
do, to promote your ease and enjoyment?"
"If you please." But her heart sank, as she foresaw some demands upon
a love that had never existed--a treasure that, to him, was sealed and
empty; yet whose poverty she dared not avow.
"Call me 'Lewis,' now that we are at home, dear. I cannot realize that
you are indeed all mine--that our lives are one and the same, while you
continue that very proper 'Mr. Hammond.'"
"It comes more naturally to my tongue, and don't you think it more
respectful than--than--the other?"
"I ask no such form of respect from you. I do not fear lest you should
fail to 'honor and obey' me, you little paragon of duty! Believe me,
dearest, I fully understand and reverence the modest reserve that has
not yet ceased to be shyness, in the expression of your sentiments
towards me. You are not demonstrative by nature. Neither am I. But
since you are my other self, and there is no living being nearer to
you than myself, ought we not to overcome this propensity to, or custom
of, locking up our feelings in our own breasts? Let me begin by a
confession of one uncomfortable complaint, under which I have labored
ever since our engagement. Do you know, darling, that I absolutely
hunger--I cannot give any other name to the longing--I hunger and
thirst to hear you say that you love me! Do you remember that you
have never told me in so many words what you have given me other good
reasons for believing? I need but one thing this evening to fill my cup
with purest content. It is to have you say--openly, fearlessly, as my
wife has a right to do--'Lewis, I love you!'"
"It need be a source of no unhappiness to be married to a man whom one
does not love, provided he is kind and generous!" say match-makers and
worldly-wise mothers. Perhaps not, after one's conscience is seared in
callosity by perjuries, and her forehead grown bold as brass; but the
neophyte in the laudable work of adaptation to such circumstances will
trip in her words and color awkwardly while acquiring this enviable
hardihood.
Sarah's head fell, and her face was stained with blushes. One wild
impulse was to throw herself at the feet of him whom she had wronged
so foully, and, confessing her mad, wicked deception upon his holiest
feelings, pray him to send her away--to cast her adrift, and rid
himself of a curse, while he freed her from the gentle, yet intolerable
bondage of his love.
"Dinner is ready!" announced the servant. Sarah's senses returned,
and with them self-control. With a strange smile, she glanced up at
him--a look he did not understand, yet could not guess was born of
anguish--and said, with a hesitation that seemed pretty and coquettish
to him--"Lewis! do you hear? May it please your worship, I am very
hungry!"
"Tease! I will have my revenge yet! See if I do not!"
Laughing lightly, she eluded his outstretched arm, and sprang past
him into the hall leading to the dining-room. She assumed the seat at
the table with a burlesque of dignity, and throughout the meal was
more talkative and frolicsome than he had ever seen her before. So
captivated was he by her lively discourse and bright looks, that he
was sorry to hear the ring, proclaiming the coming of the expected
visitors. The dessert had not been removed, and the girl was instructed
to show them immediately into the dining-room.
A toast was drunk to the prosperity of the lately established
household, and the gentlemen went off to the library.
"Always see to putting away your silver, Sarah!" counselled the mother.
"And you had ought to get a common set of dinner and breakfast things.
This china is too nice for every-day use. Of course, Mr. Hammond can
afford to get more when this is broken; but it's a first-rate rule,
child, as you'll find, to put your money where it will show most.
That's the secret of my management. Mr. Hammond must give you an
allowance for housekeeping and pin-money. Speak to him about it right
away. Men are more liberal while the honeymoon lasts than they ever
are afterwards. Strike while the iron is hot. You can't complain of
your husband, so far. He has set you up very handsome. If I had been
consulted about furnishing, I would have saved enough off of those
third-story chambers and the kitchen to buy another pair of mirrors
for your parlors. The mantel has a bare look. I noticed it directly I
went in. To be sure, the Parisian ornaments are pretty and tasty, and
expensive enough--dear knows! but they don't make much of a display."
"I do not like the fashion of lining walls with mirrors," said Sarah,
in her old, short way; "and am satisfied with the house as it is. Shall
we join the gentlemen?"
Nothing had ever showed her more plainly the degradation of her false
position than the confident air her mother wore in making her coarse
observations, and instructing her as to the method of managing her
generous, confiding husband. It was the free-masonry of a mercenary
wife, whose spouse would have been better represented to her mind by
his money-bag than his own proper person, towards another of the same
craft, who rated her lawful banker by corresponding rules.
"Will I then really grow to be like her and her associates?" Sarah
questioned inly. "Will a fine house and its fixtures, will dress and
equipage and pin-money so increase in importance as to fill this
aching vacuum in my heart? Will a position in life, and the envy of my
neighbors, make up to me for the loss of the love of which I used to
dream, the happiness which the world owes me yet? Is this the coin in
which it would redeem its promises?"
Mr. Hunt's mild features wore their happiest expression this evening.
He arose at the ladies' entrance, and beckoned his daughter to a seat
on the sofa beside him.
"You are a little travel-worn!" he said. "Your cheeks are not very
ruddy."
"Did you ever see them when they were?" asked Sarah, playfully.
"She was always just that pale when she was a baby," said Mrs. Hunt,
setting herself in the arm-chair proffered by her son-in-law. "Lucy
stole all the roses from her." Sarah may have thought that other and
more grievous thefts had succeeded this doubtful one, but she neither
looked nor said this. "And that reminds me, Mr. H.! Did you bring
Lucy's letter for Sarah to read?"
"I did." Mr. Hunt produced it. "Keep it, and read it at your leisure,
Sarah."
"They are supremely happy, I suppose?" remarked Lewis, with the
benevolent interest incident to his fellowship of feeling with them.
"For all the world like two turtle-doves!" Mrs. Hunt rejoined. "Their
letters are a curiosity. It is 'Phil.' and 'Lucy' from one end to the
other. I mean to save them to show them five years from now. Hot love
is soon cool, and by-and-by they will settle down as sensible as any of
the rest of us. You don't begin so, I see, Sarah, and I am pleased at
it. Between me and you, it's two-thirds of it humbug! There is Victoria
West that was! She looks ready, in company, to eat up that lean monkey
of a George Bond. I don't believe but she shows him the other side of
the picture in private."
Sarah heard her father's suppressed sigh, and felt, without looking
up, that her husband's eyes sought hers wistfully. The unobservant
dame pursued her free and easy discourse. Mr. Hammond was "one of the
family" now, and there was no more occasion for choice grammar or fine
sentiments before him.
"Not that I blame Victoria for taking him. He was a good offer, and she
wasn't much admired by the gentlemen--rich as Mr. West is. Mr. Bond
is twenty-five years older than she is, and wears false teeth and a
toupee; but I suppose she is willing to overlook trifles. She watches
out for the main chance, and will help him take care of his money, as
well as spend it. Vic. is a prudent girl."
"Lucy--Mrs. Benson--was at home when she wrote, was she not?"
interrogated Mr. Hammond.
"Yes, at his father's. His mother keeps house, and Lucy has nothing
to do but ride, visit, and entertain company. She says the house is
crowded the whole time, and she has so many beaux that Philip stands no
chance of speaking a word to her. She is perfectly happy."
Notwithstanding the various feelings of the listeners, none of them
could resist this picture of a felicitous honeymoon, so naively spoken.
Lewis' laugh cleared the vapors from his brow, and the pain at Sarah's
heart did not hinder her from joining in.
"And the ousted bridegroom, perforce, seeks consolation in the society
of his fair friends?" said Lewis. "If this is the way young married
people show the love-sickness you complained of just now, Mrs. Hunt, I
am content with our more staid ways--eh, Sarah?"
"Quiet ways suit me best," was the answer.
"'Still water runs deep,'" quoted Mrs. Hunt. "I used to worry over your
stay-at-home habits and eternal study of books, Sarah; but I'm ready to
say now that you was sensible to behave as you did, as it has turned
out. I don't mean to flatter Mr. Hammond, but I'd ten times rather you
had taken him than a dried-up widower like George Bond."
"Thank you!" bowed Lewis, desirous of diverting attention from Sarah's
growing uneasiness beneath her mother's congratulations.
Mrs. Hunt held on her way. "I never had a fear lest Lucy shouldn't
marry well. She was pretty and attractive, and knew too much about the
world to throw herself away for the sake of love in a cottage. But
now the danger is over, I will allow that I used to mistrust Sarah
here sometimes. You was just queer enough to fall in love with some
adventurer with a foreign name, and never a cent in his pocket--yes,
and marry him, too, in spite of all that could be said and done to
prevent it. I was forever in a 'feaze' about you; fancying that you was
born to make an out-and-out love-match--the silliest thing a girl can
do, in my opinion."
"You never dreamed of her 'taking up,' as the phrase is, with a humdrum
individual like myself," said Lewis. "Nor, to be candid, did I, for
a long time, Mrs. Hunt. Yet I cannot say that I regret her action,
disadvantageous to herself though it was. I wrote to you of our visit
to New Orleans, did I not, sir?" he continued to Mr. Hunt, inwardly a
little disgusted by the frank revelations his mamma-in-law was making
of her principles and plans.
The subject so interesting to most wedded people, so embarrassing to
one of the present party, was not again introduced during the elder
couple's stay. When Lewis returned to the library, after seeing them
out, Sarah sat where he had left her, her hand shading her eyes--deep
in thought, or overcome by weariness.
"You had better go up to your room, dear," said Lewis. "I wonder you
are not worn out completely."
She arose to obey; walked as far as the door, then came back to him.
"It may appear strange to you that I should speak openly to such a
suspicion; but I must beg you not to suppose for an instant that in
my acceptance of your offer of marriage, I was actuated by mercenary
motives. You look surprised"--she hurried on yet faster while her
resolution lasted--"but I could not rest without doing myself this act
of justice. Much that mother said to-night might--must have led you to
this conclusion. I would not have you think worse of me than I deserve,
and of this one act of baseness I am innocent."
"My precious little wife, how excited you are! and over what a
nonsensical imagination! Suspect you--the noblest as well as the
dearest of women--of selling yourself, body and soul, for money? Listen
to my speech now, dear Sarah!"
He sat down and pulled her to his knee. "I esteem you, as I love
you, above all the rest of your sex--above any other created mortal.
I know you to be a pure, high-minded woman. When I part with this
persuasion, may I part also with the life that doubt on this point
would render wretched! Judge, then, whether it be possible for me to
link this holy realization of womanhood with the thought of another
character, which I will describe. I hold that she who enters the
hallowed state of wedlock through motives of pecuniary interest, or
ambition, or convenience--indeed, through any consideration save that
of love, single and entire, for him to whom she pledges her vows,
stands, in the sight of her Maker and the angels, on a level with the
most abandoned outcast that pollutes the earth she treads. I shock
you, I see; but on this subject I feel strongly. I have seen much, too
much, of fashionable marriages formed for worldly aggrandizement--for
riches; sometimes in pique at having lost a coveted lover. With my
peculiar sentiments, I feel that I could endure no heavier curse than
to contract an alliance like any of these. I repeat it, I believe in
Woman as God made her and intended she should live, if for no other
reason than because I recollect my mother, boy as I was when she died;
and because I know and have you, my true, blessed wife!"