"YOU look sober, Laura. What has thrown a veil over your happy
face?" said Mrs. Cleaveland to her niece, one morning, on finding
her alone and with a very thoughtful countenance.
"Do I really look sober?" and Laura smiled as she spoke.
"You did just now. But the sunshine has already dispelled the
transient cloud. I am glad that a storm was not portended."
"I felt sober, aunt," Laura said, after a few moments--her face
again becoming serious.
"So I supposed, from your looks."
"And I feel sober still."
"Why?"
"I am really discouraged, aunt."
"About what?"
The maiden's cheek deepened its hue, but she did not reply.
"You and Harry have not fallen out, like a pair of foolish lovers, I
hope."
"Oh, no!" was the quick and emphatic answer.
"Then what has troubled the quiet waters of your spirit? About what
are you discouraged?"
"I will tell you," the maiden replied. "It was only about a week
after my engagement with Harry that I called upon Alice Stacy, and
found her quite unhappy. She had not been married over a few months.
I asked what troubled her, and she said, 'I feel as miserable as I
can be.' 'But what makes you miserable, Alice?' I inquired. 'Because
William and I have quarrelled--that's the reason,' she said, with
some levity, tossing her head and compressing her lips, with a kind
of defiance. I was shocked--so much so, that I could not speak. 'The
fact is,' she resumed, before I could reply, 'all men are arbitrary
and unreasonable. They think women inferior to them, and their wives
as a higher order of slaves. But I am not one to be put under any
man's feet. William has tried that trick with me, and failed. Of
course, to be foiled by a woman is no very pleasant thing for one of
your lords of creation. A tempest in a teapot was the consequence.
But I did not yield the point in dispute; and, what is more, have no
idea of doing so. He will have to find out, sooner or later, that I
am his equal in every way; and the quicker he can be made conscious
of this, the better for us both. Don't you think so?' I made no
answer. I was too much surprised and shocked. 'All men,' she
continued, 'have to be taught this. There never was a husband who
did not, at first, attempt to lord it over his wife. And there never
was a woman, whose condition as a wife was at all above that of a
passive slave, who did not find it necessary to oppose herself at
first, with unflinching perseverance.'
"To all this, and a great deal more, I could say nothing. It choked
me up. Since then, I have met her frequently, at home and elsewhere,
but she has never looked happy. Several times she has said to me, in
company, when I have taken a seat beside her, and remarked that she
seemed dull, 'Yes, I am dull; but Mr. Stacy, there, you see, enjoys
himself. Men always enjoy themselves in company--apart from their
wives, of course.' I would sometimes oppose to this a sentiment
palliative of her husband; as, that, in company, a man very
naturally wished to add his mite to the general joyousness, or
something of a like nature. But it only excited her, and drew forth
remarks that shocked my feelings. Up to this day, they do not appear
to be on any better terms. Then, there is Frances Glenn--married
only three months, and as fond of carping at her husband for his
arbitrary, domineering spirit, as is Mrs. Stacy. I could name two or
three others, who have been married, some a shorter and some a
longer period, that do not seem to be united by any closer bonds.
"It is the condition of these young friends, aunt, that causes me to
feel serious. I am to be married in a few weeks. Can it be possible
that my union with Henry Armour will be no happier, no more perfect
than theirs? This I cannot believe. And yet, the relation that Alice
and Frances hold to their husbands, troubles me whenever I think of
it. Henry, as far as I have been able to understand him, has strong
points in his character. From a right course of action,--or, from a
course of action that he thinks right,--no consideration, I am sure,
would turn him. I, too, have mental characteristics somewhat
similar. There is, likewise, about me, a leaven of stubbornness. I
tremble when the thought of opposition between us, upon any subject,
crosses my mind. I would rather die--so I feel about it--than ever
have a misunderstanding with my husband."
Laura ceased, and her aunt, who was, she now perceived, much
agitated, arose and left the room without speaking. The reason of
this to Laura was altogether unaccountable. Her aunt Cleaveland,
always so mild, so calm, to be thus strongly disturbed! What could
it mean? What could there be in her maidenly fears to excite the
feelings of one so good, and wise, and gentle? An hour afterwards,
and while she yet sat, sober and perplexed in mind, in the same
place where Mrs. Cleaveland had left her, a domestic came in and
said that her aunt wished to see her in her own room. Laura attended
her immediately. She found her calm and self-possessed, but paler
than usual. "Sit down beside me, dear," Mrs. Cleaveland said,
smiling faintly, as her niece came in.
"What you said this morning, Laura," she began, after a few moments,
"recalled my own early years so vividly, that I could not keep down
emotions I had deemed long since powerless. The cause of those
emotions it is now, I clearly see, my duty to reveal--that is, to
you. For years I have carefully avoided permitting my mind to go
back to the past, in vain musings over scenes that bring no pleasant
thoughts, no glad feelings. I have, rather, looked into the future
with a steady hope, a calm reliance. But, for your sake, I will draw
aside the veil. May the relation I am now about to give you have the
effect I desire! Then shall I not suffer in vain. How vividly, at
this moment, do I remember the joyful feelings that pervaded my
bosom, when, like you, a maiden, I looked forward to my wedding-day.
Mr. Cleaveland was a man, in many respects, like Henry Armour.
Proud, firm, yet gentle and amiable when not opposed;--a man with
whom I might have been supremely happy;--a man whose faults I might
have corrected--not by open opposition to them--not by seeming to
notice them--but by leading him to see them himself. But this course
I did not pursue. I was proud; I was self-willed; I was unyielding.
Elements like these can never come into opposition without a victory
on either side being as disastrous as the defeats. We were married.
Oh, how sweet was the promise of my wedding-day! Of my husband I was
very fond. Handsome, educated, and with talents of a high order,
there was every thing about him to make the heart of a young wife
proud. Tenderly we loved each other. Like days in Elysium passed the
first few months of our wedded life. Our thoughts and wishes were
one. After that, gradually a change appeared to come over my
husband. He deferred less readily to my wishes. His own will was
more frequently opposed to mine, and his contentions for victory
longer and longer continued. This surprised and pained me. But it
did not occur to me, that my tenaciousness of opinion might seem as
strange to him as did his to me. It did not occur to me, that there
would be a propriety in my deferring to him--at least so far as to
give up opposition. I never for a moment reflected that a proud,
firm-spirited man, might be driven off from an opposing wife, rather
than drawn closer and united in tenderer bonds. I only perceived my
rights as an equal assailed. And, from that point of view, saw his
conduct as dogmatical and overbearing, whenever he resolutely set
himself against me, as was far too frequently the case.
"One day,--we had then been married about six months,--he said to
me, a little seriously, yet smiling as he spoke, 'Jane, did not I
see you on the street, this morning?' 'You did,' I replied. 'And
with Mrs. Corbin?' 'Yes.' My answer to this last question was not
given in a very pleasant tone. The reason was this. Mrs. Corbin, a
recent acquaintance, was no favourite with my husband; and he had
more than once mildly suggested that she was not, in his view, a fit
associate for me. This rather touched my pride. It occurred to me,
that I ought to be the best judge of my female associates, and that
for my husband to make any objections was an assumption on his part,
that, as a wife, I was called upon to resist. I did not, on previous
occasions, say any thing very decided, contenting myself with
parrying his objections laughingly. This time, however, I was in a
less forbearing mood. 'I wish you would not make that woman your
friend' he said, after I had admitted that he was right in his
observation. 'And why not, pray?' I asked, looking at him quite
steadily. 'For reasons before given, Jane,' he replied, mildly, but
firmly. 'There are reports in circulation touching her character,
that I fear are'--'They are false!' I interrupted him. 'I know they
are false!' I spoke with a sudden excitement. My voice trembled, my
cheek burned, and I was conscious that my eye shot forth no mild
light. 'They are true--I know they are true!' Mr. Cleaveland said,
sternly, but apparently unruffled. 'I don't believe it,' I retorted.
'I know her far better. She is an injured woman.'
"'Jane,' my husband now said, his voice slightly trembling, 'you are
my wife. As such, your reputation is as dear to me as the apple of
my eye. Suspicion has been cast upon Mrs. Corbin, and that suspicion
I have good reason for believing well founded. If you associate with
her--if you are seen upon the street with her, your fair fame will
receive a taint. This I cannot permit.'
"There was, to my mind, a threat contained in the last sentence--a
threat of authoritative intervention. At this my pride took fire.
"'Cannot permit!' I said, drawing myself up. 'What do you mean, Mr.
Cleveland?'
"The brow of my husband instantly flushed. He was silent for a
moment or two. Then he said, with forced calmness, yet in a
resolute, meaning tone--
"'Jane, I do not wish you to keep company with Mrs. Corbin.'
"'I WILL!' was my indignant reply.
"His face grew deadly pale. For a moment his whole frame trembled as
if some fearful struggle were going on within. Then he quietly
arose, and, without looking at me, left the room. Oh! how deeply did
I regret uttering those unhappy words the instant they were spoken!
But repentance came too late. For about the space of ten minutes,
pride struggled with affection and duty. At the end of that time the
latter triumphed, and I hastened after my husband to ask his
forgiveness for what I said. But he was not in the parlours. He was
not in the house! I asked a servant if she had seen him, and
received for reply that he had gone out.
"Anxiously passed the hours until nightfall. The sad twilight, as it
gathered dimly around, threw a deeper gloom over my heart. My
husband usually came home before dark. Now he was away beyond his
accustomed hour. Instead of returning gladly to meet his young wife,
he was staying away, because that young wife had thrown off the
attractions of love and presented to him features harsh and
repulsive. How anxiously I longed to hear the sound of his
footsteps--to see his face--to hear his voice! The moment of his
entrance I resolved should be the moment of my humble confession of
wrong--of my faithful promise never again to set up my will
determinedly in opposition to his judgment. But minute after minute
passed after nightfall--hours succeeded minutes--and these rolled on
until the whole night wore away, and he came not back to me. As the
gray light of morning stole into my chamber, a terrible fear took
hold of me, that made my heart grow still in my bosom--the fear that
he would never return--that I had driven him off from me. Alas! this
fear was too nigh the truth. The whole of that day passed, and the
next and the next, without any tidings. No one had seen him since he
left me. An anxious excitement spread among all his friends. The
only account I could give of him, was, that he had parted from me in
good health, and in a sane mind.
"A week rolled by, and still no word came. I was nearly distracted.
What I suffered, no tongue can tell, no heart conceive. I have often
wondered that I did not become insane but from this sad condition I
was saved. Through all, my reason, though often trembling, did not
once forsake me. It was on the tenth day from that upon which we had
jarred so heavily as to be driven widely asunder, that a letter came
to me, post-marked New York, and endorsed 'In haste.' My hands
trembled so that I could with difficulty break the seal. The
contents were to the effect that my husband had been lying for
several days at one of the hotels there, very ill, but now past the
crisis of his disease, and thought by the physician to be out of
danger. The writer urged me, from my husband, to come on
immediately. In eight hours from the time I received that letter, I
was in New York. Alas! it was too late; the disease had returned
with double violence, and snapped the feeble thread of life. I never
saw my husband's living face again."
The self-possession of Mrs. Cleaveland, at this part of her
narrative, gave way. Covering her face with her hands, she sobbed
violently, while the tears came trickling through her fingers.
"My dear Laura," she resumed, after the lapse of many minutes,
looking up as she spoke, with a clear eye, and a sober, but placid
countenance, "it is for your sake that I have turned my gaze
resolutely back. May the painful history I have given you make a
deep impression upon your heart; let it warn you of the sunken rock
upon which my bark foundered. Avoid carefully, religiously avoid
setting yourself in opposition to your husband; should he prove
unreasonable or arbitrary, nothing is to be gained, and every thing
lost by contention. By gentleness, by forbearance, by even suffering
wrong at times, you will be able to win him over to a better spirit:
an opposite course will as assuredly put thorns in your pillow as
you adopt it. Look at the unhappy condition of the friends you have
named; their husbands are, in their eyes, exacting, domineering
tyrants. But this need not be. Let them act truly the woman's part.
Let them not oppose, but yield, and they will find that their
present tyrants' will become their lovers. Above all, never, under
any circumstances, either jestingly or in earnest, say '_I will_,'
when you are opposed. That declaration is never made without its
robbing the wife of a portion of her husband's confidence and love;
its utterance has dimmed the fire upon many a smiling hearth-stone."
Laura could not reply; the relation of her aunt had deeply shocked
her feelings. But the words she had uttered sank into her heart; and
when her trial came--when she was tempted to set her will in
opposition to her husband's, and resolutely to contend for what she
deemed right, a thought of Mrs. Cleaveland's story would put a seal
upon her lips. It was well. The character of Henry Armour too nearly
resembled that of Mr. Cleaveland: he could illy have brooked a
wife's opposition; but her tenderness, her forbearance, her devoted
love, bound her to him with cords that drew closer and closer each
revolving year. She never opposed him further than to express a
difference of opinion when such a difference existed, and its
utterance was deemed useful; and she carefully avoided, on all
occasions, the doing of any thing of which he in the smallest degree
disapproved. The consequence was, that her opinion was always
weighed by him carefully, and often deferred to. A mutual confidence
and a mutual dependence upon each other gradually took the place of
early reserves, and now they sweetly draw together--now they
smoothly glide along the stream of life blessed indeed in all their
marriage relations. Who will say that Laura did not act a wise part?
Who will say that in sacrificing pride and self-will, she did not
gain beyond all calculation? No one, surely. She is not her
husband's slave, but his companion and equal. She has helped to
reform and remodel his character, and make him less arbitrary, less
self-willed, less disposed to be tyrannical. In her mild
forbearance, he has seen a beauty more attractive far than lip or
cheek, or beaming eye.
Instead of looking upon his wife as below him, Henry Armour feels
that she is his superior, and as such he tenderly regards and
lovingly cherishes her. He never thinks of obedience from her, but
rather studies to conform himself to her most lightly-spoken wish.
To be thus united, what wife will not for a time sacrifice her
feelings when her young self-willed husband so far forgets himself
as to become exacting! The temporary loss will turn out in the
future to be a great gain.