PASTIME.
Lady F——’s “experience” might have been of a very different kind from
that which now lay in her way, if her regard to “stability” had been
less. When very young,—at the period of her father’s misfortunes and
death,—she had been strongly tempted to marry Mr. Waldie, a merchant,
who was thought by the few friends of the destitute girl to have done
her great honour by offering her his hand at such a crisis, and to have
proved the disinterestedness of his attachment in a way which should
have ensured it a better return. Letitia refused him, however; giving to
her protectors the very sufficient reason that she did not love Mr.
Waldie; and keeping to herself the further justification that she had no
confidence in the steadiness of his principles and conduct. His impulses
were generous, but fitful; and there was an excitement about him which
had never yet been absorbed by any pursuit, or allayed by any
possession. This might take any turn as he grew older,—either benevolent
or selfish. It might be philanthropy,—but it might also be wine,
billiards, roving, or many other things which would involve the slavery
of his wife;—and Letitia, unblinded by passion, was able to perceive
that there is little enough of rational freedom at the best in the
condition of a wife, and that a woman’s only hope of that which the
marriage law at present denies her rests in the steady principle as well
as the enlightened views of her husband. Her friends soon after
exclaimed against Mr. Waldie’s fickleness in a case which did not, in
her opinion, testify fickleness of affection so much as rashness of
conduct. He offered (as soon as he found his cause hopeless with
Letitia) to her elder sister; and Maria, being really, and having been
long, attached to him, married him, not unwarned by her sister of the
tendency of his failings. The tenderest affection henceforth subsisted
between the sisters. Maria was full of gratitude to Letitia for having
refused Mr. Waldie; and Letitia was full of respectful compassion for
Maria when she witnessed her devotion to her husband, and could not
stifle the conviction that that husband’s first affection had not died
out the more rapidly for being too suddenly repressed. Maria was
satisfied that she had as much of Mr. Waldie’s affection as he would
ever have to bestow on one permanent object; and that she was much
happier than she could ever have been without him; so that she called
herself, and all who spoke on the matter called her, a very fortunate
wife.
Mr. Waldie had begun life as a rich man. His business was almost as
considerable as any in the city; his abode on the Surrey side of London
was elegant, and beautifully situated, and he kept two carriages. The
wonder had been, during all the four years of Letitia’s professional
career, why so rich a brother-in-law should have allowed her to live by
any such means. Mr. Waldie incessantly and truly pleaded that he could
not help it; and much was said of her unconquerable love of the fine
arts, and of the eccentricities into which her passion for independence
led her. The sisters knew of very good reasons besides these why Letitia
should not submit to live on the bounty of a brother-in-law, even if he
were as generous as Mr. Waldie; and when the matter ended in Letitia
becoming lady F——, her eccentricities met with all due respect.
Lady Frances never could conceive why Letitia called her present life an
idle one, and seemed to think entertaining her sister’s children the
most serious business she had. Lady Frances thought no life so busy as
that of persons of rank during the season. For her part, she saw
tradespeople loiter about much more than she had time to do. Did not the
baker’s man stop for a few minutes’ talk with the kitchen-girl in the
area? Were not fishmongers seen leaning with folded arms against their
stalls? Did not shopmen read newspapers behind the counter, and
merchants’ clerks stop in the Strand to look at caricatures? All this
while, ladies of her rank never could get through all the shopping they
planned for a morning, unless they gave up one or two of the
exhibitions; and nobody ever went down Regent-street in such a hurry as
lord B. or the duke of C.; unless it was the newsman or letter-carrier.
She, for one, had been intending for weeks to call on poor old lady Y.,
and had never found time; while Letitia, who had such superior tastes
too, complained (if you asked her) that she had not enough to do. With
her books, and her harp, and her singing,—she was very careful to keep
up her singing,—with all these in addition to her “social duties,” so
engrossing during the season, one would have thought she had had enough
on her hands; but she had asked her husband to read German with her; and
they actually sat down, like school children, with a dictionary between
them, every morning before his lordship went out. Moreover, she was
polishing up her little French girl,—perhaps for a governess for her
sister’s children. Very sweet children those were; and it was natural
that Letitia should love them, as being her sister’s; but it seemed
really to be giving up too much to them to refuse a sweet spring ride to
Hampton Court, because she had promised to take the little things into
the park with her, that particular day. The worst of it was, Letitia was
infecting her husband with this notion of not having enough to do.
He....
“You will hear no more of that,” quietly observed the earl. “Henry will
have quite enough on his hands henceforward. He has accepted office.”
“Poor Letitia!” exclaimed lady Frances, laughing. “She will have more
time hanging heavy than ever, unless, indeed, Henry makes her his
private secretary.”
“He might do worse,” observed the earl. “And, proud as you think Henry,
he will not disdain to let his wife cast many lights into the affairs he
is taking in hand. If he knows most of the theory and practice of trade,
she has had the most to do with individual and social character.”
“Of course, sir, as she had to make human nature a professional study.
When Henry has to do with bonds and liabilities, she can enact Portia;
when he studies insurance, she will find something à propos in the
Tempest; and she must have many a fine smuggling scene at her tongue’s
end.”
“True. It is a happy thing for a man of business, as Henry will find, to
have an accomplished wife to lighten and recompense his toil.”
This was one of the many thoughts in lord F——’s mind when he sought
Letitia to tell her that the negociation was concluded, and that he was
to take office immediately. He found her and Thérèse in the music-room,
busy with the three little Waldies. The youngest was sitting on the
table, clutching aunt Letitia’s curls, while she was explaining to the
eldest what Bewick’s old man was doing in the churchyard. The second
kneeled on Thérèse’s lap, babbling French, of which she knew about as
much as of English. A charming discord of sweet sounds greeted lord
F——’s ears as he entered the room. The “Da, da, da,” of the baby; the
coqueting in French about a kiss between Thérèse and her charge; and the
anxious questions and explanations of the two engaged upon Bewick, made
the uncle prefer looking on in silence, till Letitia turned to him with,
“It will not do. We must give it up at present. There is no making
little children understand about old age, and death, and churchyards.”
The child turned her frowning face upon her uncle, as if appealing to
him for light. He could not but try. He found she had seen Brixton
church, seen something there this very morning; whether a wedding or a
funeral, it required some time to find out; and this involved a
description of each. Then came the question,
“Why are people white when they are married, and black when they are
buried?”
In the middle of the explanation, she turned to the picture,
“Is that little boy with his hoop going to be buried? Is that old man
going to be buried?”
No: they were neither of them dead yet; but the old man would be before
very long, for he was very, very old....
“Then, was he rather new once?”
Uncle could no longer keep so grave as the subject required, and
besides, did not know how to convey that old and new would not do in all
cases so well as old and young. He too gave up.
“Shall we ride?” asked Letitia, as lord F—— looked at his watch. “I can
send Thérèse home with the children.”
“Suppose we take them ourselves. This may be the last morning for some
time that I shall be able to devote to you and yours.”
“It may be the last time we shall see Maria for some weeks,” replied
Letitia. “I am glad you can go.”
As soon as they were seated in the carriage, lady F—— explained that
Waldie was so much out of spirits, and looked so wretchedly ill, that
his wife was bent on getting him from home. She was sure he must have
overworked himself at business, and he did not attempt to account for
his depression in any other way.
“You had better take them down to Weston with you,” said lord F——. “It
will be a comfort to you to have your sister with you till I can join
you.”
“None whatever,” said Letitia, smiling. “While you are a man of
business, I will not be a woman of pleasure. I will stay in town till
you can introduce Weston and me to each other.”
And Letitia would hear nothing about the heat, the emptiness of the
town, the solitude to which she would be doomed while her husband was
being initiated into his office. In town she would stay while her
husband remained; and so it was settled, as this happened not to be one
of the points which his lordship had fixed unalterably within himself.
“There is papa!” exclaimed the eldest child, quitting her stand at the
carriage window, and clinging to her aunt’s neck, as soon as they
entered the sweep which led up to Mr. Waldie’s door.
“Yes; it is your papa. I wonder what brings him home so long before
dinner to-day.”
Waldie had been standing with his hands in his pockets, gazing on
vacancy, till the sound of the carriage wheels roused him. When he saw
who was come, he appeared suddenly busy among his shrubs, and turned his
back towards the house door.—Maria appeared, with a smile; but there was
discomposure under it.
“Go and tell papa, my dear. He did not see the carriage. Go and ask him
to come in.”
But the child for once was slow to obey. She clung closer to her mamma
the more she was bid to go.
“We will go together,” said Letitia, leading the way to where Waldie was
half buried among the shrubs. When he could no longer pretend not to see
them, he came forward and shook hands; but his countenance was black as
night. His anxious wife busied herself in pointing out how grievously
the Portugal laurels were blighted.
“Blighted! aye, look! Not a leaf that does not crumble like ashes in my
hand,” said Waldie, twitching off a spray and crumbling the leaves. “I
had set my heart upon these laurels, and now to see them ruined in this
way.... Damn the blight!” muttered he between his teeth.
“I hear there is much mischief done in Kent,” observed lord F——.
“In Kent! You would think there had been a shower of Gomorrah rain by
the look of the place. Young ash plantations, miles long, with their
shoots crisped and black, worse than my laurels. Curse the blight!”
“And the hops....” lord F—— was going on to inquire; but Mrs. Waldie
held up her finger to stop him. He broke off suddenly, and Waldie turned
round upon his wife with a look which made her change colour. In order
to relieve everybody, lord F—— summoned up all his experiences of the
mischiefs done by blight at Weston, diverging gradually upon topics
nearly related,—modes of improving, embellishing, &c., and ending with
an invitation to the Waldies to go down and occupy the place for the few
weeks of its greatest beauty. Waldie glanced quickly from one to
another, as if suspicious of some plot to humour and amuse him, and then
bluntly intimated that his going from home at present was out of the
question. Scarcely another word could be got out of him, even when the
ladies had walked away into the greenhouse, and the children had tried
who could run fastest from papa, leaving him alone with lord F——.
“Do not you think him looking very ill,—very much altered?” inquired
Maria of her sister, with a quivering lip.
“Very unlike himself to-day, certainly. Something has discomposed him.
But you must not fancy him more ill than he is. No man varies more from
hour to hour, you know. He may be quite a different man to-morrow.”
Maria shook her head, and then asked Letitia to observe what they came
to see, without delay. She should not like her husband to think they
were consulting about his looks. Letitia snatched up the plant in
question, and carried it to lord F—— to ask whether there were any of
the kind in the Weston greenhouses.
“You had better take it with you,” said Waldie. “It requires a
greenhouse, and we shall have no greenhouses when we remove.”
“Remove!” said his wife faintly.
“Remove! yes, my dear. You would not stay here, would you? The blights
ruin everything I set my heart upon; and you know I cannot bear to see a
house so exposed as ours, with not a tree to cast a particle of shade on
any part of it. There is Erpingham’s house, down below, with those fine
spreading sycamores beside it ... that is something like a house. We
could live there for a lifetime, and never grow tired of it. But you see
it will take a lifetime for our clumps to grow roof-high. I shall move
into the city.”
“Nevertheless we shall find you still here, five years hence,” said lord
F——, smiling. “When the blights are over, you will love this pretty
place too well to leave it.”
“Curse the blights!” was the reply.
“You have not been in town to-day, Waldie?” said lord F——. “Then you
have probably not heard that I have taken office....”
“At the Board of Trade?—Well! I suppose one ought to be glad of it,—I
suppose you expect to be congratulated; but, upon my soul, I do not know
how to feel upon it. There is such a curse clinging to trade. People
talk of the honour and glory of being a British merchant, and of
legislating for British merchants. I wish both you and I, my lord, may
not find more plague than profit in it.”
“I know I am about to encounter much perplexity, Waldie—perhaps some
abuse, and certainly, much painful knowledge about the distresses of the
country. Nevertheless, I have accepted office—or I should rather say, we
have taken office; for Letitia remains in town as long as business
detains me here.”
“I am glad you allow wives to be official too,” said Letitia, smiling.
“Come plague, come profit, brother, it is hardly fair that they should
have double the one and only half the other; which is the case when they
are shut out from that department of their husbands’ concerns.”
“‘Double, double toil and trouble’....” said lord F——.
“And watchfulness, and struggle, and woe,” continued Letitia, “when they
feel they could solace and help, and are not allowed. When I find I can
do neither, I will go down to Weston without another word.”
“My dear,” said Waldie, “would you like to take the children down to
Weston? I must stay in town, but....”
“O, indeed, we want no change. Unless you ... you....”
“Then we will remain at home this summer, lord F——, thank you. Our wives
both prefer it, I see.”
And Mr. Waldie put some cheerfulness into his manner as he handed lady
F—— into the carriage. At the first opening in the trees, Letitia saw
him draw his wife’s arm within his own, and walk with her towards the
house.
“It cannot be the blight that has soured him so,” observed lady F—— to
her husband. “That must be a mere pretence.”
“Blights destroy other things besides Portugal laurels,” replied her
husband. “Did not you see how I was forbidden to enlarge upon hops?”
“What can he have to do with hops? O! I begin to see. Speculation is to
be his ruin,—not wine, or gaming.”
“Must he be ruined?” enquired lord F——.
“Yes. There is wide ruin in success, where it comes from speculation.
Ruin of peace.—Who would possess paradise, if it were on an island which
might be sunk in the sea at any moment? O! poor Maria!”
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