A BAD BEGINNING.
Mr. Gilbert took his young wife to an hotel at Murlington for a week's
honeymoon--to a family hotel; a splendid mansion, Isabel thought, where
there was a solemn church-like stillness all day long, only broken by
the occasional tinkling of silver spoons in the distance, or the musical
chime of fragile glasses carried hither and thither on salvers of
electro-plate. Isabel had never stayed at an hotel before; and she felt
a thrill of pleasure when she saw the glittering table, the wax-candles
in silver branches, the sweeping crimson curtains drawn before the lofty
windows, and the delightful waiter, whose manner was such a judicious
combination of protecting benevolence and obsequious humility.
Mrs. George Gilbert drew a long breath as she trifled with the shining
damask napkin, so wondrously folded into a bishop's mitre, and saw
herself reflected in the tall glass on the opposite side of the room.
She wore her wedding-dress still; a sombre brown-silk dress, which had
been chosen by George himself because of its homely merit of usefulness,
rather than for any special beauty or elegance. Poor Isabel had
struggled a little about the choice of that dress, for she had wanted to
look like Florence Dombey on her wedding-day; but she had given way. Her
life had never been her own yet, and never was to be her own, she
thought; for now that her step-mother had ceased to rule over her by
force of those spasmodic outbreaks of violence by which sorely-tried
matrons govern their households, here was George, with his strong will
and sound common sense,--oh, how Isabel hated common sense!--and she
must needs acknowledge him as her master.
But she looked at her reflection in the glass, and saw that she was
pretty. Was it only prettiness, or was it something more, even in spite
of the brown dress? She saw her pale face and black hair lighted up by
the wax-candles; and thought, if this could go on for ever,--the
tinkling silver and glittering glass, the deferential waiter, the
flavour of luxury and elegance, not to say Edith Dombeyism, that
pervaded the atmosphere,--she would be pleased with her new lot.
Unhappily, there was only to be a brief interval of this aristocratic
existence, for George had told his young wife confidentially that he
didn't mean to go beyond a ten-pound note; and by-and-by, when the
dinner-table had been cleared, he amused himself by making abstruse
calculations as to how long that sum would hold out against the charges
of the family hotel.
* * * * *
The young couple stayed for a week at Murlington. They drove about the
neighbourhood in an open fly, conscientiously admiring what the
guide-books called the beauties of the vicinity; and the bleak winds of
January tweaked their young noses as they faced the northern sky. George
was happy--ah, how serenely happy!--in that the woman he so dearly loved
was his wife. The thought of any sorrow darkling in the distance now,
now that the solemn vows had been spoken, never entered into his mind.
He had thought of William Jeffson's warning sometimes, it is true, but
only to smile in superb contempt of the simple creature's foolish talk.
Isabel loved him; she smiled at him when he spoke to her, and was gentle
and obedient to his advice: he was, perhaps, a shade too fond of
advising her. She had given up novel-reading, and employed her leisure
in the interesting pursuit of plain needlework. Her husband watched her
complacently by the light of the wax-candles while she hemmed a cambric
handkerchief, threading and unthreading her needle very often, and
boggling a little when she turned the corners, and stopping now and then
to yawn behind her pretty little pink fingers; but then she had been out
in the open air nearly all day, and it was only natural that she should
be sleepy.
Perhaps it might have been better for George Gilbert if he had not
solicited Mr. Pawlkatt's occasional attendance upon the parish patients,
and thus secured a week's holiday in honour of his young wife. Perhaps
it would have been better if he had kept his ten-pound note in his
pocket, and taken Isabel straight to the house which was henceforth to
be her home. That week in the hotel at Murlington revealed one dreadful
fact of these young people; a fact which the Sunday afternoon walks at
Conventford had only dimly foreshadowed. They had very little to say to
each other. That dread discovery, which should bring despair whenever it
comes, dawned upon Isabel, at least, all at once; and a chill sense of
weariness and disappointment crept into her breast, and grew there,
while she was yet ignorant of its cause.
She was very young. She had not yet parted with one of her delusions,
and she ignorantly believed that she could keep those foolish dreams,
and yet be a good wife to George Gilbert. He talked to her of his
school-days, and then branched away to his youth, his father's decline
and death, his own election to the parish duties, his lonely
bachelorhood, his hope of a better position and larger income some day.
Oh, how dull and prosaic it all sounded to that creature, whose vague
fancies were for ever wandering towards wonderful regions of poetry and
romance! It was a relief to her when George left off talking, and left
her free to think her own thoughts, as she laboured on at the cambric
handkerchief, and pricked the points of her fingers, and entangled her
thread.
There were no books in the sitting-room at the family hotel; and even if
there had been, this honeymoon week seemed to Isabel a ceremonial
period. She felt as if she were on a visit, and was not free to read.
She sighed as she passed the library on the fashionable parade, and saw
the name of the new novels exhibited on a board before the door; but she
had not the courage to say how happy three cloth-covered volumes of
light literature would have made her. George was not a reading man. He
read the local papers and skimmed the "Times" after breakfast; and then,
there he was, all day long. There were two wet days during that week at
Murlington; and the young married people had ample opportunity of
testing each other's conversational powers, as they stood in the broad
window, watching occasional passers-by in the sloppy streets, and
counting the rain-drops on the glass.
The week came to an end at last; and on a wet Saturday afternoon George
Gilbert paid his bill at the family hotel. The ten-pound note had held
out very well; for the young bridegroom's ideas had never soared beyond
a daily pint of sherry to wash down the simple repast which the discreet
waiter provided for those humble guests in pitiful regard to their youth
and simplicity. Mr. Gilbert paid his bill, while Isabel packed her own
and her husband's things; oh, what uninteresting things!--double-soled
boots, and serviceable garments of grey woollen stuff. Then, when all
was ready, she stood in the window watching for the omnibus which was to
carry her to her new home. Murlington was only ten miles from
Graybridge, and the journey between the two places was performed in an
old-fashioned stunted omnibus,--a darksome vehicle, with a low roof, a
narrow door, and only one small square of glass on each side.
Isabel breathed a long sigh as she watched for the appearance of this
vehicle in the empty street. The dull wet day, the lonely pavement, the
blank empty houses to let furnished--for it was not the Murlington
season now--were not so dull or empty as her own life seemed to her this
afternoon. Was it to be for ever and for ever like this? Yes; she was
married, and the story was all over; her destiny was irrevocably sealed,
and she was tired of it already. But then she thought of her new home,
and all the little plans she had made for herself before her
marriage,--the alterations and improvements she had sketched out for the
beautification of her husband's house. Somehow or other, even these
ideas, which had beguiled her so in her maiden reveries, seemed to melt
and vanish now. She had spoken to George, and he had received her
suggestions doubtfully, hinting at the money which would be required for
the carrying out of her plans,--though they were very simple plans, and
did not involve much expense.
Was there to be nothing in her life, then? She was only a week married;
and already, as she stood at the window listening to the slop-slop of
the everlasting rain, she began to think that she had made a mistake.
The omnibus came to the door presently, and she was handed into it, and
her husband seated himself, in the dim obscurity, by her side. There was
only one passenger--a wet farmer, wrapped in so many greatcoats that
being wet outside didn't matter to him, as he only gave other people
cold. He wiped his muddy boots on Isabel's dress, the brown-silk
wedding-dress which she had worn all the week; and Mrs. Gilbert made no
effort to save the garment from his depredations. She leaned her head
back in the corner of the omnibus, while the luggage was being bumped
upon the roof above her, and let down her veil. The slow tears gathered
in her eyes, and rolled down her pale cheeks.
It was a mistake,--a horrible and irreparable mistake,--whose dismal
consequences she must bear for ever and ever. She felt no dislike of
George Gilbert. She neither liked nor disliked him--only he could not
give her the kind of life she wanted; and by her marriage with him she
was shut out for ever from the hope of such a life. No prince would ever
come now; no accidental duke would fall in love with her black eyes, and
lift her all at once to the bright regions she pined to inhabit. No; it
was all over. She had sold her birthright for a vulgar mess of potage.
She had bartered all the chances of the future for a little relief to
the monotony of the present,--for a few wedding-clothes, a card-case
with a new name on the cards contained in it, the brief distinction of
being a bride.
George spoke to her two or three times during the journey to Graybridge;
but she only answered him in monosyllables. She had a "headache," she
said,--that convenient feminine complaint which is an excuse for
anything. She never once looked out of the window, though the road was
new to her. She sat back in the dusky vehicle, while George and the
farmer talked local politics; and their talk mingled vaguely with her
own misery. The darkness grew thicker in the low-roofed carriage; the
voices of George and the farmer died drowsily away; and by-and-by there
was snoring, whether from George or the farmer Isabel did not care to
think. She was thinking of Byron and of Napoleon the First. Ah, to have
lived in his time, and followed him, and slaved for him, and died for
him in that lonely island far out in the waste of waters! The tears fell
faster as all her childish dreams came back upon her, and arrayed
themselves in cruel contrast with her new life. Mr. Buckstone's bright
Irish heroine, when she has been singing her song in the cold city
street,--the song which she has dreamt will be the means of finding her
lost nursling,--sinks down at last upon a snow-covered doorstep, and
sobs aloud because "it all seems so _real_!"
Life seemed "so real" now to Isabel. She awakened suddenly to the
knowledge that all her dreams were only dreams after all, and never had
been likely to come true. As it was, they could never come true; she had
set a barrier against the fulfilment of those bright visions, and she
must abide by her own act.
It was quite dark upon that wintry afternoon when the omnibus stopped at
the Cock at Graybridge; and then there was more bumping about of the
luggage before Isabel was handed out upon the pavement to walk home with
her husband. Yes; they were to walk home. What was the use of a
ten-pound note spent upon splendour in Murlington, when the honeymoon
was to close in degradation such as this? They walked home. The streets
were sloppy, and there was mud in the lane where George's house stood;
but it was only five or ten minutes' walk, as he said, and nobody in
Graybridge would have dreamed of hiring a fly.
So they walked home, with the luggage following on a truck; and when
they came to the house, there was only a dim glimmer in the red lamp
over the surgery-door. All the rest was dark, for George's letter to Mr.
Jeffson had been posted too late, and the bride and bridegroom were not
expected. Everybody knows the cruel bleakness which that simple fact
involves. There were no fires in the rooms; no cheery show of
preparation; and there was a faint odour of soft-soap, suggestive of
recent cleaning. Mrs. Jeffson was up to her elbows in a flour-tub when
the young master pulled his own door-bell; and she came out, with her
arms white and her face dirty, to receive the newly-married pair. She
set a flaring tallow-candle on the parlour-table, and knelt down to
light the fire, exclaiming and wondering all the while at the unexpected
arrival of Mr. Gilbert and his wife.
"My master's gone over to Conventford for some groceries, and we're all
of a moodle like, ma'am," she said; "but we moost e'en do th' best we
can, and make all coomfortable. Master Jarge said Moonday as plain as
words could speak when he went away, and th' letter's not coom yet; so
you may joost excuse things not bein' straight."
Mrs. Jeffson might have gone on apologizing for some time longer: but
she jumped up suddenly to attend upon Isabel, who had burst into a
passion of hysterical sobbing. She was romantic, sensitive,
impressionable--selfish, if you will; and her poor untutored heart
revolted against the utter ruin of her dreams.
"It is _so_ miserable!" she sobbed; "it all seems so miserable!"
George came in from the stables, where he had been to see Brown Molly,
and brought his wife some sal-volatile, in a wineglass of water; and
Mrs. Jeffson comforted the poor young creature, and took her up to the
half-prepared bedroom, where the carpets were still up, and where the
whitewashed walls--it was an old-fashioned house, and the upper rooms
had never been papered--and the bare boards looked cheerless and
desolate in the light of a tallow-candle. Mrs. Jeffson brought her young
mistress a cup of tea, and sat down by the bedside while she drank it,
and talked to her and comforted her, though she did not entertain a very
high opinion of a young lady who went into hysterics because there was
no fire in her sitting-room.
"I dare say it _did_ seem cold and lonesome and comfortless like," Mrs.
Jeffson said, indulgently; "but we'll get things nice in no time."
Isabel shook her head.
"You are very kind," she said; "but it wasn't that made me cry."
She closed her eyes, not because she was sleepy, but because she wanted
Mrs. Jeffson to go away and leave her alone. Then, when the good woman
had retired with cautious footsteps, and closed the door, Mrs. George
Gilbert slowly opened her eyes, and looked at the things on which they
were to open every morning for all her life to come.
There was nothing beautiful in the room, certainly. There was a narrow
mantel-piece, with a few blocks of Derbyshire spar and other mineral
productions; and above them there hung an old-fashioned engraving of
some scriptural subject, in a wooden frame painted black. There was a
lumbering old wardrobe--or press, as it was called--of painted wood,
with a good deal of the paint chipped off; there was a painted
dressing-table, a square looking-glass, with brass ornamentation about
the stand and frame,--a glass in which George Gilbert's grandfather had
looked at himself seventy years before. Isabel stared at the blank white
walls, the gaunt shadows of the awkward furniture, with a horrible
fascination. It was all so ugly, she thought, and her mind revolted
against her husband, as she remembered that he could have changed all
this, and yet had left it in its bald hideousness.
And all this time George was busy in his surgery, grinding his pestle in
so cheerful a spirit that it seemed to fall into a kind of tune, and
thinking how happy he was now that Isabel Sleaford was his wife.