Sebastian and Emma Shepley began their married life in a little house in
Jermyn Street—‘small,’ as Emma would have described it, ‘but genteel.’
It would be impossible to exaggerate the pride and pleasure which Emma
had in the arrangements of her house, and in the fact that she was
married to the (to her) finest and dearest of men; but to Sebastian
marriage appeared in a very different light. For him it showed as the
end of Youth, the voluntary rejection of romance, the light of common
day. He had reasoned himself into it; acknowledging (and the man who
does this need never call himself young again) that he had better take
what he could get and be thankful for it. He had laid Passion in the
grave; and, turning away, he met Life with her resolute face waiting for
him inexorable as of old. Marriage was probably the first and most
prudent step he could take, and Emma was fond of him, and Emma, after
all, was pretty. A home, a wife, children—these solid anchors of the
soul, presented themselves almost invitingly to his fancy after a
time—and farewell to Love and Youth!
In these curiously differing moods of mind Emma and Sebastian entered
into the estate of matrimony—Sebastian with his eyes open, Emma with
hers firmly shut.
‘Can two walk together except they be agreed?’ asks that eternally
unanswerable book the Bible. Not comfortably, certainly, but they can
halt along somehow, far out of step it may be, yet on the same road. I
am afraid that when all was said and done the walk of Emma and Sebastian
was somewhat after this halting kind. For Emma had not been married for
many weeks before she began to see how curiously she disagreed from
Sebastian on almost every point. Strange is the glamour of love that she
had not found this out sooner! It said something for both of them that
after having made the discovery Emma continued to love her husband as
much as ever—only, the glamour was gone now. He had been to her a
faultless romantic hero, she found him to be a man with several
pronounced faults, who frequently offended her taste, who constantly
opposed her, who plainly told her that he had once loved another woman,
and loved her memory still.
Sebastian on his part owned that Emma was occasionally quite
exasperating to him; but he also acknowledged her entire goodness of
heart and the excellence of her housekeeping. Their marriage in fact was
just one of the ordinary ruck of marriages; not unhappy, not
ideal—merely a little disappointing to Emma, a little hardening and
coarsening to Sebastian. The great bone of contention was of a social
nature. For gentility was dear as life itself to Emma, while to
Sebastian all the little affectations and conventions which his wife
valued so highly were the merest moonshine. He submitted graciously
enough to correction in matters of etiquette, and laughed with
imperturbable good humour when Emma called him to task for eating with
his knife and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. But when it
came to the question of friends and acquaintances matters were more
complicated.
Emma had, so to speak, passed her acquaintances through a fine sieve,
and the sifted few who came through, they, and they alone, were her
intimates. Sebastian, on the other hand, had only one reason for making
friends with any one—whether he liked them or not. As a matter of fact
he liked the greater part of the world, and was liked by them in return,
but anything like an ulterior end in making acquaintances was unknown to
him. Emma’s rules for the making of so-called friends, therefore, filled
him with amazement; while Emma, on her part, looked with little short of
dismay upon the men whom Sebastian welcomed to his table. Certainly
there was scarcely one among all his acquaintance that could have been
called a gentleman. ‘As why should they, Emma? I am no gentleman
myself,’ Sebastian had retorted when taxed with his preference for low
company. Emma objected most of all to the soldiers whom her husband had
known abroad, and who were continually coming to the house; she might be
entertaining her most select lady-friends to a dish of tea, and talking
the latest Court gossip with them, when, into this refined circle, and
quite undismayed by its frigidly genteel atmosphere, would enter
Sebastian, bringing with him, as likely as not, his friend Sergeant
Cartwright, or young Tillet the bugler, who played at Ramillies. The
Sergeant had lost an arm at Blenheim, and Emma shrank away instinctively
from the empty sleeve he wore pinned across his breast; no historic
association could reconcile her to the presence of these men in her
parlour, and when they were bidden to supper Mrs. Shepley sat at the
head of the table with an air of studied aloofness that was fine to see.
Now and then she would raise her pretty eyebrows expressively, as when
Cartwright spat on the floor, or Tillet made use of expressions not
usually heard in parlours; but she came at last to see that remonstrance
with Sebastian on this score was useless, and resigned herself as best
she might to see the hero of her first love make merry with such
friends.
But perhaps Emma’s sorest moments were when those whom she naively
termed ‘persons of importance’ came to visit Sebastian. To Emma, every
one with a title was a person of importance, be they never so
unimportant in reality, and it seemed to her that Sebastian
intentionally said and did the wrong things to such personages. There
was one terrible night when ‘a Marquis’ (enough that the mystic dignity
was his) honoured the little house in Jermyn Street with a visit, and
Sebastian, all unheeding of coughs and frowns from his wife, must press
this exalted visitor to sup with them. Now on this ill-fated night Emma
had chosen to feed her lord and master on pig’s feet and fried
liver—viands whose price, or rather want of price, is almost
proverbial. It was, indeed, from no sordid motives of economy that Emma
had so furnished forth her board, but from the desire to please
Sebastian, whose taste in food was incurably vulgar. How could she have
anticipated that burning moment when her faltering tongue must frame the
words—
‘My Lord, may I offer you some of these pig’s feet, or mayhap your
Lordship would relish some of this fried liver more?’
And as if this was not bitter enough, did not Sebastian break into a
laugh that shook the glasses on the table, crying out—
‘Faith, Emma, had you known we were to entertain the quality to-night, I
had not had my liver and pig’s feet!’
Emma smiled faintly, for tears were not far off; and the Marquis, seeing
her perturbation, told the story of the liver they got at Blenheim, that
the officers swore was shoe-leather,—‘A different dish from your fine
cookery, madam,’ he said, begging for another helping of the dish. But
it was a life-long lesson to poor Emma: she never ordered liver for
supper again without a pang of foreboding.
Then the matter of Church observances had arisen between these young
people. Emma was a devout Church-woman; Sebastian did not hold much to
one persuasion or another, and certainly was not fond of Church
services. Emma all her life had gone every Sunday to the curious little
old church of St. Mary Minories, and after her marriage expected
Sebastian to go there with her. The first Sunday morning after her
marriage Emma came down-stairs in her church-going attire, and in rather
a shocked voice expressed her astonishment to find Sebastian smoking by
the fire, instead of making any preparation for coming with her.
‘Charlotte will be here in the coach immediately,’ she said. ‘Hasten,
Sebastian, we shall be late at St. Mary’s.’
‘St. Mary’s?’ queried Sebastian.
‘St. Mary Minories, where it hath always been our custom to attend
divine service—come, Sebastian, pray lay aside your pipe!’
Sebastian leant forward, pressing down the tobacco into the bowl of his
pipe. He made no reply.
‘Are you not coming to church? Perhaps some patients require your
care——’ began Emma. She came and laid her hand on his shoulder in
gentle remonstrance.
‘No, I cannot come.’
‘Mayhap you might come to meet us—you think little of such a walk,’
suggested Emma.
‘No!’ said Sebastian curtly. Emma had never seen him so cross before.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she withdrew her hand from his shoulder,
and turned away.
‘I fear I have displeased you, sir!’ she said, feeling a sudden
inclination to desert this young man, who could behave so strangely to
her one short week after their marriage. But the next moment she forgave
him; for Sebastian, at the tearful sound of her voice, jumped up and
came over to where she stood, holding out his hands to her.
‘Pardon me, Emma; ’tis no fault of yours, but a fancy of my own. I never
pass that way an I can help it, Emma—that’s all.’
‘Why——!’ began stupid Emma; but she dried her tears.
‘Because Anne Champion lived there, and there I saw her die, and I’m
like to weep tears of blood when I pass by that way,’ said Sebastian,
who, whatever he was, would have no secrets from his wife, in spite of
Dr. Barrington’s wisdom.
If Emma had been a crafty woman she would have discontinued her
attendance at St. Mary Minories after this; but she was not, and
instead, she went there weekly, and very frequently she would say,
‘Sebastian, if so be that you cannot worship along with me, why do you
not go to some other church?’ And Sebastian scarcely knew whether to
laugh more at her singular lack of tact or to be provoked by it.
After this sort of fashion time went on; and then, whatever little
differences there may have been between the Shepleys, were forgotten for
a time in the wonderfully uniting interest which came to them with the
birth of their daughter. All Emma’s first admiration for Sebastian
returned to her, when she saw how delightfully he played the part of a
father. And indeed, to see him with this enchanting milky-skinned baby
in his arms was a sight to please any heart; they looked so wholly
incongruous.
‘Lord! to think of your fathering such a dainty piece of goods, doctor!’
exclaimed Emma’s pet aversion, the Sergeant, at sight of Sebastian and
his tiny daughter. Emma was too proud and pleased at the moment to find
fault with the speech, so, lifting little Miss Shepley from her
husband’s arms, she brought her to be kissed by the Sergeant.
‘She is very beautiful,’ said the proud mother in a conclusive manner,
after the salute had been very unwillingly given. ‘And we intend to name
her Caroline, after my mother.’
So let this be my reader’s first introduction to Caroline Shepley.