MRS. BERRY ON MATRIMONY
Behold the hero embarked in the redemption of an erring beautiful
woman.
"Alas!" writes the Pilgrim at this very time to Lady Blandish,
"I cannot get that legend of the Serpent from me, the more I
think. Has he not caught you, and ranked you foremost in his
legions? For see: till you were fashioned, the fruits hung
immobile on the boughs. They swayed before us, glistening and
cold. The hand must be eager that plucked them. They did not
come down to us, and smile, and speak our language, and read
our thoughts, and know when to fly, when to follow! how surely
to have us!
"Do but mark one of you standing openly in the track of the
Serpent. What shall be done with her? I fear the world is wiser
than its judges! Turn from her, says the world. By day the sons
of the world do. It darkens, and they dance together downward.
Then comes there one of the world's elect who deems old counsel
devilish; indifference to the end of evil worse than its
pursuit. He comes to reclaim her. From deepest bane will he
bring her back to highest blessing. Is not that a bait already?
Poor fish! 'tis wondrous flattering. The Serpent has slimed her
so to secure him! With slow weary steps he draws her into
light: she clings to him; she is human; part of his work, and
he loves it. As they mount upward, he looks on her more, while
she, it may be, looks above. What has touched him? What has
passed out of her, and into him? The Serpent laughs below. At
the gateways of the Sun they fall together!"
This alliterative production was written without any sense of the
peril that makes prophecy.
It suited Sir Austin to write thus. It was a channel to his acrimony
moderated through his philosophy. The letter was a reply to a
vehement entreaty from Lady Blandish for him to come up to Richard
and forgive him thoroughly: Richard's name was not mentioned in it.
"He tries to be more than he is," thought the lady: and she began
insensibly to conceive him less than he was.
The baronet was conscious of a certain false gratification in his
son's apparent obedience to his wishes and complete submission; a
gratification he chose to accept as his due, without dissecting or
accounting for it. The intelligence reiterating that Richard waited,
and still waited; Richard's letters, and more his dumb abiding and
practical penitence; vindicated humanity sufficiently to stop the
course of virulent aphorisms. He could speak, we have seen, in
sorrow for this frail nature of ours, that he had once stood forth
to champion. "But how long will this last?" he demanded, with the
air of Hippias. He did not reflect how long it had lasted. Indeed,
his indigestion of wrath had made of him a moral Dyspepsy.
It was not mere obedience that held Richard from the arms of his
young wife: nor was it this new knightly enterprise he had presumed
to undertake. Hero as he was, a youth, open to the insane promptings
of hot blood, he was not a fool. There had been talk between him and
Mrs. Doria of his mother. Now that he had broken from his father,
his heart spoke for her. She lived, he knew: he knew no more. Words
painfully hovering along the borders of plain speech had been
communicated to him, filling him with moody imaginings. If he
thought of her, the red was on his face, though he could not have
said why. But now, after canvassing the conduct of his father, and
throwing him aside as a terrible riddle, he asked Mrs. Doria to tell
him of his other parent. As softly as she could she told the story.
To her the shame was past: she could weep for the poor lady. Richard
dropped no tears. Disgrace of this kind is always present to a son,
and, educated as he had been, these tidings were a vivid fire in his
brain. He resolved to hunt her out, and take her from the man. Here
was work set to his hand. All her dear husband did was right to
Lucy. She encouraged him to stay for that purpose, thinking it also
served another. There was Tom Bakewell to watch over Lucy: there
was work for him to do. Whether it would please his father he did
not stop to consider. As to the justice of the act, let us say
nothing.
On Ripton devolved the humbler task of grubbing for Sandoe's place
of residence; and as he was unacquainted with the name by which the
poet now went in private, his endeavours were not immediately
successful. The friends met in the evening at Lady Blandish's
town-house, or at the Foreys', where Mrs. Doria procured the reverer
of the Royal Martyr, and staunch conservative, a favourable
reception. Pity, deep pity for Richard's conduct Ripton saw
breathing out of Mrs. Doria. Algernon Feverel treated his nephew
with a sort of rough commiseration, as a young fellow who had run
off the road.
Pity was in Lady Blandish's eyes, though for a different cause. She
doubted if she did well in seconding his father's unwise
scheme--supposing him to have a scheme. She saw the young husband
encompassed by dangers at a critical time. Not a word of Mrs. Mount
had been breathed to her, but the lady had some knowledge of life.
She touched on delicate verges to the baronet in her letters, and he
understood her well enough. "If he loves this person to whom he has
bound himself, what fear for him? Or are you coming to think it
something that bears the name of love because we have to veil the
rightful appellation?" So he responded, remote among the mountains.
She tried very hard to speak plainly. Finally he came to say, that
he denied himself the pleasure of seeing his son specially, that he
for a time might be put to the test the lady seemed to dread. This
was almost too much for Lady Blandish. Love's charity boy so loftily
serene now that she saw him half denuded--a thing of shanks and
wrists--was a trial for her true heart.
Going home at night Richard would laugh at the faces made about his
marriage. "We'll carry the day, Rip, my Lucy and I! or I'll do it
alone--what there is to do." He slightly adverted to a natural want
of courage in women, which Ripton took to indicate that his Beauty
was deficient in that quality. Up leapt the Old Dog; "I'm sure there
never was a braver creature upon earth, Richard! She's as brave as
she's lovely, I'll swear she is! Look how she behaved that day! How
her voice sounded! She was trembling.... Brave? She'd follow you
into battle Richard!"
And Richard rejoined: "Talk on, dear old Rip! She's my darling love,
whatever she is! And she is gloriously lovely. No eyes are like
hers. I'll go down to-morrow morning the first thing."
Ripton only wondered the husband of such a treasure could remain
apart from it. So thought Richard for a space.
"But if I go, Rip," he said despondently, "if I go for a day even I
shall have undone all my work with my father. She says it
herself--you saw it in her last letter."
"Yes," Ripton assented, and the words "Please remember me to dear
Mr. Thompson," fluttered about the Old Dog's heart.
* * * * *
It came to pass that Mrs. Berry, having certain business that led
her through Kensington Gardens, spied a figure that she had once
dandled in long clothes, and helped make a man of, if ever woman
did. He was walking under the trees beside a lady, talking to her,
not indifferently. The gentleman was her bridegroom and her babe. "I
know his back," said Mrs. Berry, as if she had branded a mark on it
in infancy. But the lady was not her bride. Mrs. Berry diverged from
the path, and got before them on the left flank; she stared,
retreated, and came round upon the right. There was that in the
lady's face which Mrs. Berry did not like. Her innermost question
was, why he was not walking with his own wife? She stopped in front
of them. They broke, and passed about her. The lady made a laughing
remark to him, whereat he turned to look, and Mrs. Berry bobbed. She
had to bob a second time, and then he remembered the worthy
creature, and hailed her Penelope, shaking her hand so that he put
her in countenance again. Mrs. Berry was extremely agitated. He
dismissed her, promising to call upon her in the evening. She heard
the lady slip out something from a side of her lip, and they both
laughed as she toddled off to a sheltering tree to wipe a corner of
each eye. "I don't like the looks of that woman," she said, and
repeated it resolutely.
"Why doesn't he walk arm-in-arm with her?" was her next inquiry.
"Where's his wife?" succeeded it. After many interrogations of the
sort, she arrived at naming the lady a bold-faced thing; adding
subsequently, brazen. The lady had apparently shown Mrs. Berry that
she wished to get rid of her, and had checked the outpouring of her
emotions on the breast of her babe. "I know a lady when I see one,"
said Mrs. Berry. "I haven't lived with 'em for nothing; and if she's
a lady bred and born, I wasn't married in the church alive."
Then, if not a lady, what was she? Mrs. Berry desired to know.
"She's imitation lady, I'm sure she is!" Berry vowed. "I say she
don't look proper."
Establishing the lady to be a spurious article, however, what was
one to think of a married man in company with such? "Oh no! it ain't
that!" Mrs. Berry returned immediately on the charitable tack.
"Belike it's some one of his acquaintance 've married her for her
looks, and he've just met her.... Why it'd be as bad as my Berry!"
the relinquished spouse of Berry ejaculated, in horror at the idea
of a second man being so monstrous in wickedness. "Just coupled,
too!" Mrs. Berry groaned on the suspicious side of the debate. "And
such a sweet young thing for his wife! But no, I'll never believe
it. Not if he tell me so himself! And men don't do that," she
whimpered.
Women are swift at coming to conclusions in these matters; soft
women exceedingly swift: and soft women who have been betrayed are
rapid beyond measure. Mrs. Berry had not cogitated long ere she
pronounced distinctly and without a shadow of dubiosity: "My opinion
is--married or not married, and wheresomever he pick her up--she's
nothin' more nor less than a Bella Donna!" as which poisonous plant
she forthwith registered the lady in the botanical note-book of her
brain. It would have astonished Mrs. Mount to have heard her person
so accurately hit off at a glance.
In the evening Richard made good his promise, accompanied by Ripton.
Mrs. Berry opened the door to them. She could not wait to get him
into the parlour. "You're my own blessed babe; and I'm as good as
your mother,--though I didn't suck ye, bein' a maid!" she cried,
falling into his arms, while Richard did his best to support the
unexpected burden. Then reproaching him tenderly for his guile--at
mention of which Ripton chuckled, deeming it his own most honourable
portion of the plot--Mrs. Berry led them into the parlour, and
revealed to Richard who she was, and how she had tossed him, and
hugged him, and kissed him all over, when he was only that
big--showing him her stumpy fat arm. "I kissed ye from head to tail,
I did," said Mrs. Berry, "and you needn't be ashamed of it. It's be
hoped you'll never have nothin' worse come t'ye, my dear!"
Richard assured her he was not a bit ashamed, but warned her that
she must not do it now, Mrs. Berry admitting it was out of the
question now, and now that he had a wife, moreover. The young men
laughed, and Ripton laughing over-loudly drew on himself Mrs.
Berry's attention: "But that Mr. Thompson there--however he can look
me in the face after his inn'cence! helping blindfold an old
woman!--though I ain't sorry for what I did--that I'm free for to
say, and it's over, and blessed be all! Amen! So now where is she
and how is she, Mr. Richard, my dear--it's only cuttin' off the 's'
and you are as you was.--Why didn't ye bring her with ye to see her
old Berry?"
Richard hurriedly explained that Lucy was still in the Isle of
Wight.
"Oh! and you've left her for a day or two?" said Mrs. Berry.
"Good God! I wish it had been a day or two," cried Richard.
"Ah! and how long have it been?" asked Mrs. Berry, her heart
beginning to beat at his manner of speaking.
"Don't talk about it," said Richard.
"Oh! you never been dudgeonin' already? Oh! you haven't been peckin'
at one another yet?" Mrs. Berry exclaimed.
Ripton interposed to tell her such fears were unfounded.
"Then how long ha' you been divided?"
In a guilty voice Ripton stammered "since September."
"September!" breathed Mrs. Berry, counting on her fingers,
"September, October, Nov--two months and more! nigh three! A young
married husband away from the wife of his bosom nigh three months!
Oh my! Oh my! what do that mean?"
"My father sent for me--I'm waiting to see him," said Richard. A few
more words helped Mrs. Berry to comprehend the condition of affairs.
Then Mrs. Berry spread her lap, flattened out her hands, fixed her
eyes, and spoke.
"My dear young gentleman!--I'd like to call ye my darlin' babe! I'm
going to speak as a mother to ye, whether ye likes it or no; and
what old Berry says, you won't mind, for she's had ye when there was
no conventionals about ye, and she has the feelin's of a mother to
you, though humble her state. If there's one that know matrimony
it's me, my dear, though Berry did give me no more but nine months
of it: and I've known the worst of matrimony, which, if you wants to
be woful wise, there it is for ye. For what have been my gain? That
man gave me nothin' but his name; and Bessy Andrews was as good as
Bessy Berry, though both is 'Bs,' and says he, you was 'A,' and now
you's 'B,' so you're my A B, he says, write yourself down that, he
says, the bad man, with his jokes!--Berry went to service." Mrs.
Berry's softness came upon her. "So I tell ye, Berry went to
service. He left the wife of his bosom forlorn and he went to
service; because he were al'ays an ambitious man, and wasn't, so to
speak, happy out of his uniform--which was his livery--not even in
my arms: and he let me know it. He got among them kitchen sluts,
which was my mournin' ready made, and worse than a widow's cap to
me, which is no shame to wear, and some say becoming. There's no man
as ever lived known better than my Berry how to show his legs to
advantage, and gals look at 'em. I don't wonder now that Berry was
prostrated. His temptations was strong, and his flesh was weak. Then
what I say is, that for a young married man--be he whomsoever he may
be--to be separated from the wife of his bosom--a young sweet thing,
and he an innocent young gentleman!--so to sunder, in their state,
and be kep' from each other, I say it's as bad as bad can be! For
what is matrimony, my dears? We're told it's a holy Ordnance. And
why are ye so comfortable in matrimony? For that ye are not a
sinnin'! And they that severs ye they tempts ye to stray: and you
learn too late the meanin' o' them blessin's of the priest--as it was
ordained. Separate--what comes? Fust it's like the circulation of your
blood a-stoppin'--all goes wrong. Then there's misunderstandings--ye've
both lost the key. Then, behold ye, there's birds o' prey hoverin' over
each on ye, and it's which'll be snapped up fust. Then--Oh, dear! Oh,
dear! it be like the devil come into the world again." Mrs. Berry
struck her hands and moaned. "A day I'll give ye: I'll go so far as a
week: but there's the outside. Three months dwellin' apart! That's not
matrimony, it's divorcin'! what can it be to her but widowhood?
widowhood with no cap to show for it! And what can it be to you, my
dear? Think! you been a bachelor three months! and a bachelor man,"
Mrs. Berry shook her head most dolefully, "he ain't a widow woman.
I don't go to compare you to Berry, my dear young gentleman. Some
men's hearts is vagabonds born--they must go astray--it's their natur'
to. But all men are men, and I know the foundation of 'em, by reason
of my woe."
Mrs. Berry paused. Richard was humorously respectful to the sermon.
The truth in the good creature's address was not to be disputed, or
despised, notwithstanding the inclination to laugh provoked by her
quaint way of putting it. Ripton nodded encouragingly at every
sentence, for he saw her drift, and wished to second it.
Seeking for an illustration of her meaning, Mrs. Berry solemnly
continued: "We all know what checked prespiration is." But neither
of the young gentlemen could resist this. Out they burst in a roar
of laughter.
"Laugh away," said Mrs. Berry. "I don't mind ye. I say agin, we all
do know what checked prespiration is. It fly to the lungs, it gives
ye mortal inflammation, and it carries ye off. Then I say checked
matrimony is as bad. It fly to the heart, and it carries off the
virtue that's in ye, and you might as well be dead! Them that is
joined it's their salvation not to separate! It don't so much matter
before it. That Mr. Thompson there--if he go astray, it ain't from
the blessed fold. He hurt himself alone--not double, and belike
treble, for who can say now what may be? There's time for it. I'm
for holding back young people so that they knows their minds,
howsomever they rattles about their hearts. I ain't a speeder of
matrimony, and good's my reason! but where it's been done--where
they're lawfully joined, and their bodies made one, I do say this,
that to put division between 'em then, it's to make wanderin' comets
of 'em--creatures without a objeck, and no soul can say what they's
good for but to rush about!"
Mrs. Berry here took a heavy breath, as one who has said her utmost
for the time being.
"My dear old girl," Richard went up to her and, applauding her on
the shoulder, "you're a very wise old woman. But you mustn't speak
to me as if I wanted to stop here. I'm compelled to. I do it for her
good chiefly."
"It's your father that's doin' it, my dear?"
"Well, I'm waiting his pleasure."
"A pretty pleasure! puttin' a snake in the nest of young
turtle-doves! And why don't she come up to you?"
"Well, that you must ask her. The fact is, she's a little timid
girl--she wants me to see him first, and when I've made all right,
then she'll come."
"A little timid girl!" cried Mrs. Berry. "Oh, lor', how she must ha'
deceived ye to make ye think that! Look at that ring," she held out
her finger, "he's a stranger: he's not my lawful! You know what ye
did to me, my dear. Could I get my own wedding-ring back from her?
'No!' says she, firm as a rock, 'he said, _with this ring_ I thee
wed'--I think I see her now, with her pretty eyes and lovesome
locks--a darlin'!--And that ring she'd keep to, come life, come
death. And she must ha' been a rock for me to give in to her in
that. For what's the consequence? Here am I," Mrs. Berry smoothed
down the back of her hand mournfully, "here am I in a strange ring,
that's like a strange man holdin' of me, and me a-wearin' of it just
to seem decent, and feelin' all over no better than a b---- a
big--that nasty name I can't abide!--I tell you, my dear, she ain't
soft, no!--except to the man of her heart; and the best of women's
too soft there--more's our sorrow!"
"Well, well!" said Richard, who thought he knew.
"I agree with you, Mrs. Berry," Ripton struck in, "Mrs. Richard
would do anything in the world her husband asked her, I'm quite
sure."
"Bless you for your good opinion, Mr. Thompson! Why, see her! she
ain't frail on her feet; she looks ye straight in the eyes; she
ain't one of your hang-down misses. Look how she behaved at the
ceremony!"
"Ah!" sighed Ripton.
"And if you'd ha' seen her when she spoke to me about my ring!
Depend upon it, my dear Mr. Richard, if she blinded you about the
nerve she've got, it was somethin' she thought she ought to do for
your sake, and I wish I'd been by to counsel her, poor blessed
babe!--And how much longer, now, can ye stay divided from that
darlin'?"
Richard paced up and down.
"A father's will," urged Mrs. Berry, "that's a son's law; but he
mustn't go again' the laws of his nature to do it."
"Just be quiet at present--talk of other things, there's a good
woman," said Richard.
Mrs. Berry meekly folded her arms.
"How strange, now, our meetin' like this! meetin' at all, too!" she
remarked contemplatively. "It's them advertisements! They brings
people together from the ends of the earth, for good or for bad. I
often say, there's more lucky accidents, or unlucky ones, since
advertisements was the rule, than ever there was before. They make a
number of romances, depend upon it! Do you walk much in the Gardens,
my dear?"
"Now and then," said Richard.
"Very pleasant it is there with the fine folks and flowers and
titled people," continued Mrs. Berry. "That was a handsome woman you
was a-walkin' beside, this mornin'."
"Very," said Richard.
"She was a handsome woman! or I should say, is, for her day ain't
past, and she know it. I thought at first--by her back--it might ha'
been your aunt, Mrs. Forey; for she do step out well and hold up her
shoulders: straight as a dart she be! But when I come to see her
face--Oh, dear me! says I, this ain't one of the family. They none
of 'em got such bold faces--nor no _lady_ as I know have. But she's
a fine woman--that nobody can gainsay."
Mrs. Berry talked further of the fine woman. It was a liberty she
took to speak in this disrespectful tone of her, and Mrs. Berry was
quite aware that she was laying herself open to rebuke. She had her
end in view. No rebuke was uttered, and during her talk she observed
intercourse passing between the eyes of the young men.
"Look here, Penelope," Richard stopped her at last. "Will it make
you comfortable if I tell you I'll obey the laws of my nature and go
down at the end of the week?"
"I'll thank the Lord of heaven if you do!" she exclaimed.
"Very well, then--be happy--I will. Now listen. I want you to keep
your rooms for me--those she had. I expect, in a day or two, to
bring a lady here"----
"A lady?" faltered Mrs. Berry.
"Yes. A lady."
"May I make so bold as to ask what lady?"
"You may not. Not now. Of course you will know."
Mrs. Berry's short neck made the best imitation it could of an
offended swan's action. She was very angry. She said she did not
like so many ladies, which natural objection Richard met by saying
that there was only one lady.
"And Mrs. Berry," he added, dropping his voice. "You will treat her
as you did my dear girl, for she will require not only shelter but
kindness. I would rather leave her with you than with any one. She
has been very unfortunate."
His serious air and habitual tone of command fascinated the softness
of Berry, and it was not until he had gone that she spoke out.
"Unfort'nate! He's going to bring me an unfort'nate female! Oh! not
from my babe can I bear that! Never will I have her here! I see it.
It's that bold-faced woman he's got mixed up in, and she've been and
made the young man think he'll go for to reform her. It's one o'
their arts--that is; and he's too innocent a young man to mean
anythin' else. But I ain't a house of Magdalens--no! and sooner than
have her here I'd have the roof fall over me, I would."
She sat down to eat her supper on the sublime resolve.
In love, Mrs. Berry's charity was all on the side of the law, and
this is the case with many of her sisters. The PILGRIM sneers at
them for it, and would have us credit that it is their admirable
instinct which, at the expense of every virtue save one, preserves
the artificial barrier simply to impose upon us. Men, I presume, are
hardly fair judges, and should stand aside and mark.
Early next day Mrs. Berry bundled off to Richard's hotel to let him
know her determination. She did not find him there. Returning
homeward through the park, she beheld him on horseback riding by the
side of the identical lady. The sight of this public exposure
shocked her more than the secret walk under the trees. "You don't
look near your reform yet," Mrs. Berry apostrophized her. "You don't
look to me one that'd come the Fair Penitent till you've left off
bein' fair--if then you do, which some of ye don't. Laugh away and
show yer airs! Spite o' your hat and feather, and your ridin' habit,
you're a Bella Donna." Setting her down again absolutely for such,
whatever it might signify, Mrs. Berry had a virtuous glow.
In the evening she heard the noise of wheels stopping at the door.
"Never!" she rose from her chair to exclaim. "He ain't rided her out
in the mornin', and been and made a Magdalen of her afore dark?"
A lady veiled was brought into the house by Richard. Mrs. Berry
feebly tried to bar his progress in the passage. He pushed past her,
and conducted the lady into the parlour without speaking. Mrs. Berry
did not follow. She heard him murmur a few sentences within. Then he
came out. All her crest stood up, as she whispered vigorously, "Mr.
Richard! if that woman stay here, I go forth. My house ain't a
penitentiary for unfort'nate females, sir"----
He frowned at her curiously; but as she was on the point of renewing
her indignant protest, he clapped his hand across her mouth, and
spoke words in her ear that had awful import to her. She trembled,
breathing low: "My God, forgive me! Lady Feverel is it? Your mother,
Mr. Richard?" And her virtue was humbled.