_Cleanthes._—She’ll be a castaway—my life upon ’t.
_Hermione._—Man argues from his fiercer will, nor knows
True virtue’s quality in woman’s breast.
My daughter, sir, is virtuous, and virtue
Will to herself subdue e’en rebel Nature.
Had she been linked in love with one her choice,
She had been all soul, following her wedded lord
Through life’s worst perils, frankly, fearlessly;
But matched, ere yet her young heart spoke, with one
She cannot love, she’ll give her love to duty,
And cheerful, although passionless, perform it
Calmly, contentedly, nor ever dream
Of joys she must not know, and so pass on
Into the quiet grave.
_Old Manuscript Play._
Mr. Cresford soon found some excuse for calling upon Captain Wareham,
and in the course of his visit contrived to give himself a commission
to execute, which justified another visit, another and another.
Captain Wareham thought the symptoms were auspicious, and entertained
some hope of honourably disposing of one daughter in marriage, but
Caroline, profiting by her own experience, warned Ellen not to place
any reliance on these signs of preference.
“You do not know the world yet, Ellen,” she said; “you do not know how
often the same sort of thing has happened to me. Remember Major Barton
last winter, and poor Mr. Astell—however, I do think he would have
proposed if he had lived. Talk to Mr. Cresford as much as you please,
for, as my aunt says, ‘nothing can come of nothing,’ but do not let
yourself like him, till he has actually proposed. Remember what I have
already told you, a woman cannot guess whether a man is in earnest or
not, till he does propose.”
Ellen thought her sister was very prudent and sensible, and she
resolved to follow her advice. Nor did she find the task a difficult
one.
Mr. Cresford, although handsome, was not pleasing, and the very
vehemence of his love rather alarmed and confused the young Ellen. This
was the season of gaity at ——, and there were frequent dinners and
parties among the canons and prebends. Caroline regularly asked Ellen
every night, whether Mr. Cresford had proposed, and for ten days Ellen
answered, “No, not quite.” Caroline continued her warnings, and Ellen
her watch over her heart.
At length Mr. Cresford waited one morning upon Captain Wareham, and
in good set terms asked him for his daughter’s hand. Captain Wareham
accepted his proposal, and informed Ellen of the event.
There did not seem to exist a doubt in any of their minds as to what
her answer would be. The whole question had been from the beginning,
whether or not he would come to the point, and the lady’s privilege of
saying no, seemed in that family to be utterly forgotten. Ellen was too
young and too timid to discover it for herself, and she found herself
the affianced wife of a man, whom a fortnight before she had never
seen, and whom, during that fortnight, she had been taking care not to
prefer.
The affair was decided. The lover was all rapture—Captain Wareham
all satisfaction—Caroline all surprise that Mr. Cresford should have
behaved in so gentlemanlike a manner, not keeping her sister in
any uncertainty, but setting her mind at ease at once. She was too
good-natured and too affectionate, to feel any thing like envy, but she
wished Captain Barton had behaved in the same noble manner to her.
Ellen was surprised not to find herself happier on so quickly arriving
at that result, which had been the object of her sister’s wishes for
six years and a half. But she was afraid of Mr. Cresford. He was
easily hurt, easily offended; he was expecting, and jealous; he would
not allow her to go to any more of the balls; he scarcely liked to
see her acknowledge, much less shake hands with, any of her former
acquaintance. Ellen was subdued, rather than elated, by her approaching
nuptials. Caroline one day remarked upon her unusual seriousness, and
asked her if she and Mr. Cresford had not had a lovers’ quarrel.
“Oh, no,” replied Ellen; “but it is difficult, you know, sister, to
love a person all at once, particularly when one has been trying not
to like him at all. However, I dare say I shall soon, when I am more
accustomed to him. It is not easy to do just right; for a girl is not
to like a man till he proposes, and then she ought to love him very
much as soon as ever she is going to be married to him.”
Mr. Cresford was the only son of wealthy parents, and was accustomed
to find his wishes laws to those around him. His father had died when
he was barely twenty-one, and had left him at the head of a thriving
mercantile house.
He fell in love with Ellen at first sight,—he proposed at once, had
been accepted, and, following the course of his own impetuous passions,
was now eager that the wedding-day should be fixed. Captain Wareham had
no wish to postpone it, and in three weeks more Ellen left the paternal
roof as the wife of Mr. Cresford.
She was astounded and confused at the whole thing; she had not been
allowed time to become attached to him, even if he had been all a
maiden’s imagination could picture in its happiest day-dream. But there
was a want of refinement in the headlong course of his love, a want of
consideration; in fact, there was a selfishness, which did not win its
way to the heart of a very modest, very young, and very sensitive girl.
In London she found herself surrounded by all the luxuries of life.
She had an excellent house, a handsome equipage. He showered presents
upon her—jewels and trinkets without number,—each new ornament daily
invented to satisfy the caprice of the idle and the wealthy. His
delight was to see his lovely bride’s beauty set off to the utmost
advantage. But she must be decked out for him alone; he was annoyed if
any other eyes seemed to dwell with gratification upon the loveliness
which he had taken such pleasure in adorning.
Cresford had a large circle of acquaintance, not, perhaps, in the
first style of fashion, but among gentlemanlike and agreeable people;
persons with intellects as well cultivated, minds as refined, manners
as essentially well-bred, as can be found in the highest coteries,
though perhaps one of the initiated might perceive the want of that
nameless grace which more than compensates for a certain coldness
frequently pervading the most select _réunions_. The very fashionable
are exceedingly afraid of each other. They may sometimes have been
accused of insolence towards those whom they consider in a grade below
themselves, but their worst enemies cannot say they do not stand
in awe of each other. There was in Ellen a gentle dignity, which,
combined with her extraordinary beauty, would have caused her to be
distinguished in any society: of course, therefore, in this she could
not but excite notice and admiration. Yet proud as Cresford was of her,
anxious as he was to show to the world how lovely was the bride he
had chosen for himself, he never returned from a party or an assembly
without a cloud on his brow, and something restless and suspicious in
his manner.
She began to fear he was constitutionally jealous. Others came to the
same conclusion. Young men in all ranks of life find peculiar pleasure
in tormenting a jealous husband; and not all the shrinking modesty of
Ellen’s manners could prevent their openly showing the admiration they
felt. She hoped, by the extreme quietness of her behaviour, to give him
no cause for disquiet; but though she might avoid affording him any
opportunity of blaming her, she could not prevent his being irritable
and violent whenever they had mixed in any society.
She would gladly have led a very retired life, she would fain have
dressed herself in a homely and unpretending style,—her whole object
was to escape notice; but such was the nature of his love for her,
that he was not satisfied unless her charms were set off by every
ornament; and his fear of being laughed at was such, that he would
not give occasion for saying he shut up his beautiful wife. Ellen was
consequently obliged to mix in the world, and she learned to set a
strict watch over her very looks, and to be tremblingly alive to the
_on dits_ of society. She, as well as her sister Caroline, was timid
in her nature; she was, moreover, shy and reserved upon all subjects
connected with the feelings, and she dreaded lest his jealous fancies
should ever openly burst forth, and bring blame or ridicule on either
of them. She had at times stood in awe of her father, but the fear she
felt of her husband was more constant and unceasing.
Still she had been accustomed to humour and to yield to a captious
temper, and she considered that it was the lot of women to bear with
the caprices of men. She frequently reminded herself of the gratitude
she was bound to feel towards him, for having taken her portionless
from her father, and for the unbounded command of money which he
allowed her. She excused his jealousy on account of the passionate love
he evinced for her, and she concluded the two feelings were necessarily
inseparable.
His generosity on the subject of money afforded her one great pleasure,
that of making various presents to her sisters, and of assisting
her family in divers manners. He took her eldest brother into his
mercantile establishment, and she rejoiced in having thus been the
means of relieving her father from one care which pressed most heavily
upon his mind.
They had been married about four years, and Ellen was the mother of two
lovely children, when the peace concluded between France and England,
at the period when Buonaparte was First Consul, enabled the English to
flock abroad. To Mr. Cresford it was a matter of great importance to
conclude some arrangement with foreign merchants. For this purpose he
made up his mind to leave his wife for a month or two.
It was, however, most unwillingly that he tore himself away: it
seemed as if some presentiment warned him not to depart. He postponed
his journey from day to day, from week to week. At length his
correspondents became impatient, and the day was fixed. He took Ellen
and his children to reside with Captain Wareham during his absence,
and she willingly promised to live in the strictest seclusion till his
return; but it was with a melancholy foreboding that he bade her adieu,
and he returned again and again to take one more last lingering look at
her beautiful face, as though he felt he might never again thus gaze on
it.