SILENT SORROW.
A good deal to her surprise, as well as not a little to her relief,
Honor was informed by the parlour-maid--who struck her, even at a
cursory glance, to be rather pert and forward--that neither Colonel
Norcott nor his wife were at home. Mrs. Norcott was “gone for a walk,”
Miss Lydia said (she was only Polly to the gentleman lodger). Mrs.
Beacham had not been expected by such an early train, and she (Lydia)
_knowed_--at least, so she had heard the Colonel say--that _he_ was
obliged to go out on business.
Greatly reassured by this information on the score of her father’s
health, Honor, who did not feel much inclined to encourage the young
person’s familiarity by questioning her on the subject, entered the
drawing-room, and seating herself on the comfortless-looking little
sofa, covered with cheap highly glazed chintz, and stuffed with some
material very antagonistic to repose, betook herself to
not-over-cheerful reflections. For the first few minutes,
grief--positive and unmistakeable, at being separated from her
husband--filled not only Honor’s heart, but the blue eyes that looked
vacantly through the confusing mist at the cheap toys and worthless
ornaments with which Mrs. Norcott’s work-table was crowded. Only a few
short hours before, how Honor would have ridiculed the supposition that
her first act under her father’s roof would be--to cry! In the distance,
the coming change had seemed to her a roseate opening between two parted
clouds. To escape, though only for a season, from Mrs. Beacham’s
despotic rule--to leave behind her the monotony and the dulness, the
daily routine of uninteresting duties, and the hourly remindings that
her married life had been a blunder--had all in their turn been subjects
of rejoicing to Honor. But above all, far and away above all, there was
the near prospect that the dream of her life would be at last realised,
and that she would take her rightful place amongst the ladies of the
land!
It is just possible that her introduction to that delusion-expelling
front drawing-room in Stanwick-street, was not without its effect in
causing a reaction in this aspiring young woman’s mind. Widely
different, certainly, from anything that she had previously imagined,
was that small, cheaply-furnished chamber! The faded carpet, in the
centre of which was spread a brown-holland abomination, called--I have
reason to believe--a crumb-cloth; frail painted chairs, whose appearance
alone was a wholesome warning to the unwary, that a seat _à la_ Turk
upon the floor would be safer than trusting to their frail support; and
above all, the cottage piano, with its once rose-coloured silk front
discoloured by time and exposure to the blacks and flies of a London
lodging-house, formed a _tout ensemble_ widely different from any which
Honor’s discursive imagination had hitherto called up.
For the moment the unpleasant reality produced on her mind a sobering
effect, and with the natural lessening of her former desire to pay a
lengthened visit in Stanwick-street, there came an increase of regret
that she had allowed her husband to part from her in coldness and
estrangement. It was partly--_partly_, indeed! why it was more than
half--John’s fault that there was disunion between them; his fault and
his mother’s; for who _could_--Honor asked herself, as she had done a
hundred times before--who _could_, unless she were an angel born and
bred, put up with the daily aggravations of Mrs. Beacham’s temper?
The young wife’s heart, as she sat alone upon the hard sofa, pondering,
amongst other things, on the unreliableness of the father who had, to
all appearance, inveigled her to his house on false pretences, softened
greatly towards her straightforward and true-hearted husband; and could
she have known him better, could she have looked into the manly honest
breast, and read in it all that there was of pain, remorse, and wounded
pride, she must--the woman within her being, though vain and foolish,
not ignobly constituted--have humbled herself before his better, higher
nature, and, owning her many faults, she would have meekly prayed for
leave to share his sorrows, as she had once gladly shared his joys. Such
a diminishing, however, of John Beacham’s vexations it would not have
been easy in this case to have allowed himself. The injury that he had
inflicted on Colonel Norcott had, as we are already aware, ever since
its perpetration, hung very heavily on his mind; and vile as he justly
judged the victim of his ungovernable passion to be, he was none the
less the father of his wife; and the conviction that he was bound to
make all the reparation in his power for the offence that he had
committed did not tend to make John Beacham’s life a happier one.
Of all things calculated to injure the temper and depress the cheerful
spirit on which the comfort of daily life depends, there is nothing
more certain to produce this deplorable result than the retention within
the breast of a deep-seated and a painful secret. John Beacham was not
the kind of man to talk even to his wife of the inner feelings which he
was not sufficiently of a physiologist to understand. His life was one
of action--a simple, above-board existence; and till that fatal blow (a
blow fatal, that is, to his own peace) was struck, there had been no
hidden spot, no closet within closed doors, the chance opening of which
caused the man’s heart within him to beat with quickened pulse, or kept
him sleepless through the watches of the night. But now, alas! there did
exist for his misfortune, in his hidden life, a secret--a secret the
preservation of which was not precisely necessary to his reputation, and
certainly not expedient for his safety; and yet John Beacham (_why_, for
he was no casuist, he could not have explained) would not, for six at
least of the best yearlings gaining bone and muscle in his paddocks,
have had it known in Sandyshire that it was by a blow from _his_
right-arm that Colonel Norcott had been so nearly sent to his last dread
account; and this act of concealment--concealment, too, carried on for
months--was revolting to his inborn sense of honour, and jarred against
every habit of his previous life.
How far these, perhaps morbid, feelings reacted on those which he was
beginning to entertain for his young wife, it would be hard to say; that
they rendered him outwardly cold, and even irritable towards the woman
whom he loved with such a devoted and unselfish love, was unfortunately
but too true. Men of John Beacham’s stamp are poor dissemblers. He was
ill at ease, provoked both with himself and her, and in some way or
other needs must that the discontent caused by this weight of care
cropped out, and that Honor, ignorant of the cause of his _maussaderie_,
attributed it to any other than the right one. Very frigid indeed and
stern he often seemed, when a word or a smile from her might have
dispelled the gathering clouds--might, perhaps, have caused him to
forget the mortifying truth that it was _her_ father who shared his
mortifying secret--her father, who, though base and unprincipled, was,
compared to him, a high-born gentleman, and whose well-bred air,
together with the potent charm of manner (a charm which, without
comprehending, John was still capable of appreciating) had descended
with added grace to his neglected child.
I have dwelt perhaps too long, and returned with perhaps too much
pertinacity to the causes of an estrangement which may appear to some
(who are not in the habit of considering the vast power of apparently
trifling causes) as, under the circumstances, to be unnatural, if not
indeed impossible. But I have wished in some decree to extenuate the
faults and mistakes of my poor heroine. I have done so from a conviction
that in judging others we not only see but often suspect little of the
latent causes of the sins which seem to us, and which in truth are, so
flagrant and so disastrous. Blessed be He who seeth into the darkest
places of the hearts of his failing creatures, and who, being himself
perfect, can yet find pardon and mercy for those whom erring man
forgiveth not!