Mrs. Coverdale, resuming the matrimonial discussion broken off at the
end of the last chapter, thus pursued the argument by which she hoped to
induce her husband to let off her poaching _protégé._
“In the present case the innocent must suffer with the guilty. I see no
justice in ruining a poor family by imprisoning or transporting the only
member who is able to work and support it.”
“The said member should have thought of that himself,” returned Harry;
“if he had been working and supporting his family, he would have been
safe from transportation, like any other honest man; but as he preferred
to steal my game and shoot my keeper, he thereby deprived his family of
the pleasure of his inestimable society; it is he, therefore, who has
brought this evil upon them, not I; and when I consent to your relieving
their necessities out of my pocket, I think I am doing, to say the least
of it, as much as any reasonable woman ought to expect of me.”
Despite her prejudices in favour of the seraphic baby and its
interesting mother, Alice felt the truth of her husband’s reasoning;
but she had boasted of her power too confidently, and pledged herself
to exert it too deeply, to retreat; so, perceiving that argument would
avail her nothing, she was obliged to fall back upon woman’s last
resource--personal influence, and strive to win from Harry’s affection
that which his reason had denied her. A dangerous experiment, pretty
Alice! and one in which, if your philosophy did but go deep enough to
enable you to discern it, you would perceive success to be a greater
evil than failure, for it would argue culpable weakness in him on whom
you have to lean for support through life. But Alice was by no means in
an ethical frame of mind at that moment, and cared only for obtaining
her point by any means which occurred to her; so, drawing a stool close
to Harry, she meekly seated herself at his feet, and looking up into his
face with her large imploring eyes, began coaxingly, “Harry, dear, are
you quite, quite determined to say No?”
An affirmative bend of the head was the only reply.
“But if I make it a personal request,” she continued, laying her soft
cheek caressingly against his hand; “if I ask you to forgive these men
for my sake, and so afford me the exquisite pleasure of making this poor
woman happy? Oh! you will not refuse me. If you do, I shall think you do
not love me. Come, you will say Yes.”
Poor Harry! he was sorely perplexed. Had it been any personal
sacrifice--even a pledge to give up hunting or shooting--which she
required of him, he would gladly have yielded, in the true and deep
tenderness towards his wife which his late self-examination had aroused.
But the serious thoughts which a review of his past errors had called
forth, while they pointed out to him how he had failed in his duty to
her whom he had vowed to love and protect, also proved to him that where
Alice was inclined to act wrongly, or foolishly, he was bound to save
her even from herself; and his clear, good sense instantly told him that
this was a request which she ought not to have urged, since to grant it
would necessitate a sacrifice of principle on his part. Accordingly, he
replied--
“Alice love, listen to me; this is not a mere matter of personal
feeling, or I would yield to you without a moment’s hesitation, but it
involves a question of right and wrong. I could not refuse to prosecute
these men without diffusing an amount of moral evil amongst the whole
of my poorer tenantry, which years of the most careful supervision would
fail to eradicate. The utmost I can promise you is, that the culprits
shall have every opportunity afforded them of clearing themselves;
and if, as I am convinced, that proves impossible, every palliating
circumstance shall be brought forward and allowed its fullest weight. I
have already given you my free permission to assist the poor woman and
her children, and more than this you cannot expect me to say.”
“But I do, or rather I _did_, expect you to say more,” returned Alice,
with flashing eyes and glowing cheeks; “I expected you to say what I
would have said to you, if you had appealed to me thus--that there was
NOTHING, even if it were life itself, that I would not give up for your
sake. But I see how it is, you do not really care for me, or, if you
do, man’s love is not like woman’s, it is merely the excitement of the
pursuit that interests you--the prize once attained becomes valueless
in your eyes: in fact, love, which makes the entire joy or sorrow of a
woman’s life, is to men but a superior kind of sporting--more engrossing
than a foxchase, or than hunting a poor stag to death, simply because
the game is of a higher order.” She paused to give vent to a sob which
she was unable entirely to repress, then continued in a sarcastic tone
of voice: “However, mighty hunter as you are, I do not intend to give
you the satisfaction of being in at my death; I have too much of the old
Hazlehurst spirit about me to break my heart for a man who does not love
me. There is a _quiet way_, as you call it, of arranging these affairs:
you have your own pursuits and amusements, henceforward I shall have
mine. You need not dread my again attempting to interfere either with
your pleasures, or your graver occupations. I have had too severe a
lesson on each point to forget it readily. But I expect you to exercise
the same forbearance towards me. From this day forth we each follow our
own line!” and, drawing her shawl over her shoulders, with an imperious
gesture, as of an offended queen, Alice swept out of the room, leaving
Harry in a frame of mind which may be more easily imagined than
described.
A complete change, which might have been dated from the above
conversation, appeared to have taken place in Alice Coverdale. Instead
of shrinking, as she had hitherto done, from society, she rather courted
it than otherwise--ordering the carriage, and visiting the different
families in the neighbourhood, without consulting Harry on the subject,
or seeming to care in the slightest degree whether he accompanied her or
not. At first this conduct on his wife’s part occasioned Coverdale the
greatest uneasiness; but, after a time, seeing that she was amused and
interested by the new acquaintances she thus formed, he began to hope
that good might perhaps come out of evil, and that the intimacies then
commenced might afford sources of lasting pleasure when the feeling of
pique which had led her to seek them should have long since died away.
And so the time glided on, working its usual changes in men and things
as it passed away.
Mr. Gouger having ventured one day to commit himself to the rash
assertion that Markum was sinking rapidly, and could not possibly
survive the week, from that hour the gamekeeper began to amend, and had
sufficiently advanced in his progress towards recovery to be able
to appear and give evidence in person, when Jack Hargrave and his
accomplice took their trial at the next assizes. So unmistakeably was
their guilt brought home to them, that they were each sentenced to seven
years’ transportation, and would probably Have had fourteen allotted
to them, but for the thorough good faith with which Harry redeemed his
promise to Alice that every extenuating circumstance should be clearly
placed before the jury. Indeed he laboured so strenuously to impress
this point upon the counsel for the prisoners, that the learned brother,
entertaining a proper degree of professional scepticism in regard to the
purity of human motives, immediately settled, to his own satisfaction,
that Jack Hargrave must be a natural son of the late Admiral Coverdale,
commended, with his dying breath, to his nephew’s especial care and
protection. Alice received the news of the verdict with great _sang
froid_, merely remarking that she had felt certain all along that it
would be so; but when she had gained the privacy of her own chamber, she
indulged in a hearty flood of tears, occasioned as much by what she was
pleased to consider her husband’s inhumanity, as by her compassion for
the poor woman and her transcendental baby.
As these latter individuals exercise no further influence over the
destinies of our principal _dramatis personæ_, we may as well, ere
we finally take leave of them, add the information that Alice (having
supported them much better than Jack Hargrave had done in his best
days), at the expiration of two years sent them out at her own expense
to join that worthy, who, reformed by seasickness and the amenities of
convict discipline, had obtained a ticket of leave, by reason of which
privilege he was enacting the part of a penitent bullock-driver, to the
admiration of all right-minded settlers in Australia.
The month of May had begun to temper with a dash of sunshine the fine
old English east winds of April, which annually sow their share of
the seeds of consumption in the glorious British constitution--Harry
Coverdale had ceased to oppress the brute creation, leaving foxes and
pheasants to increase and multiply by antagonistic progression--and all
London was flocking to the Royal Academy Exhibition, to see a great many
very original portraits of gentlemen, who scarcely looked the character
after all--when one fine morning Alice received a letter from the modern
Babylon, in Mrs. Crane’s handwriting. Having eagerly perused it, she
exclaimed,--
“Kate has written a most kind and pressing invitation to us to come and
stay with them; Mr. Crane wishes it as much as she does.”
“Or as much as she orders him to do rather,” muttered Coverdale,
_sotto voce_.
“Of course you can have no objection to my accepting it,” continued
Alice; “for myself, at all events?”
“Am not I invited?” inquired Harry, gravely.
“Yes, certainly; only I did not know whether you could tear yourself
away from your dearly beloved dogs and guns.”
“And you were willing to have gone without me?”
“I did not wish to be any tie upon you,” was Alice’s reply, though she
coloured slightly, and turned away her head as she spoke. “You remember
our compact; I am a great advocate for free will.”
“Between husband and wife such a question ought never to arise,”
rejoined Harry, seriously but kindly; “there should be complete
unanimity. I hoped you had forgotten all that folly.”
“I never forget unkindness,” was the cold reply; “but I see you are
going to favour me with a specimen of your ‘quiet manner,’ and as I am
not in the humour for a scene or a lecture, you really must excuse my
leaving you;” and as she spoke she rose to quit the apartment.
For a moment Harry’s eyes flashed, then a look of pain passed across his
features, and, taking his wife’s hand, he led her back to the sofa on
which she had been seated, saying gently, but reproachfully,--
“Why will you misunderstand me thus? You wish to accept your cousin’s
invitation?”
Alice bowed her head in token of assent.
“Then write and tell her we shall be happy to do so; I shall be ready
and willing to accompany you at whatever time you and she like to
arrange together.”
“Oh, that is very nice and kind of you!” returned Alice, delighted at
getting her way so easily; “I thought you were going to be cross and
disagreeable, as--as you sometimes are.”
“As usual, you were going to say,” rejoined Harry; “speak your thoughts
honestly, whatever injustice they may do me. But if, in future, instead
of condemning me unheard, you were to admit the possibility--nothing
more--of my being willing occasionally to sacrifice my wishes to yours,
it might save us both considerable pain and misconception; recollect
this, and reflect upon it quietly and calmly.” So saying, he placed his
wife’s writing-table before her, found her a footstool, and left the
room.
As the sound of his retreating footsteps died away in the distance,
Alice felt decidedly penitent, and wished she could unsay all the sharp
things she had uttered at the beginning of the conversation; but this
was a frame of mind too uncomfortable to last long, and so she consoled
herself by the reflection that if, on this particular occasion, she had
done her husband an injustice, it was his conduct at other times which
had led her to do so. It was unfair to blame herself for the natural
effect his selfishness and unkindness had produced upon her mind; she
was sure there had been a period, before she was so rudely awakened from
her “love’s young dream,” when she had given him credit for possessing
every noble, heroic, and tender quality under the sun: it was not
her fault that she could think so no longer--people must take the
consequences of their own misdeeds. And so, consoling herself with these
and many like arguments, and magnifying the mote in her husband’s eye,
and ignoring the beam in her own, Alice talked herself into her
former frame of mind, and sat down to write her acceptance of Kate’s
invitation, convinced that if her husband had said “Yes” on this
occasion, he would say “No” on every other.