THE HONEYMOON.
At that very time—in autumn, when everyone is supposed to be out of town
and blinds are drawn down in all Belgravia; when the moors of Scotland
and the health resorts of our own highly-favoured land or of the
Continent are crammed, and white-winged yachts, like sea-fowl or flakes
of snow, bedeck the peaceful waters of the Solent, and sparkle as they
shine along our summer seas—a small party might be seen drawing up at the
registrar’s office somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Strand. No one
knew what was going on, and the single brougham at the door attracted
little attention. The first to get out was our old friend Buxton, the
medical man; then came Wentworth, a little gayer than usual. In another,
which followed immediately, were Rose, looking lovelier than ever and
perhaps a trifle more serious, and her mother, a quiet old lady, much
given to garrulity when she had a chance, and to self-effacement when she
found no one wanted to hear her. The poor old soul had no idea of being
married at the registrar’s. The business was a very simple one—merely to
make a declaration before the officer appointed for that purpose that
they were to be married, and to sign a declaration to that effect, which
was duly witnessed ere it was sent away to be preserved among our
national archives. This done and the registrar’s fee paid, they drove
away as quietly as they came to the Midland Railway Station in the Euston
Road, where they had a pleasant lunch; and thence the newly-married
couple took the train to the busy city of Liverpool, ever overflowing
with a very migratory population. Here to-day, gone to-morrow. Of
course they did not stop there long. The next day they left the dark
cloud of Liverpool smoke behind for the romantic Isle of Man.
One of the first things they did was to take a trip round the island, and
we will accompany them. For this purpose we step on board the _King
Orrey_, as she lies at the Douglas Pier. King Orrey was one of the
far-famed Monarchs of the Isle, and is now commemorated in a way of which
he could have no idea.
We are off in good time, and as the day is tempting we have rather a
numerous company on board, and no wonder, for it is not every day that
you can see England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales in the course of a few
hours. The legendary history of the Isle of Man at any rate matches that
of any of the countries above-named. It is true the scepticism of modern
times has dealt hardly with them. No Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, was
imprisoned in the old Castle of Peel; no St. Patrick ever resided there,
or even ever stepped from Peel to Ireland to Christianize the people
there. It is also affirmed, and the candid student who sees the Ireland
of to-day must admit there is a good deal in the affirmation, that if St
Patrick ever did take that wonderful step, at any rate he was not very
successful as regards the main object of his trip. Few people now
believe that when the Manx men were fighting the ancient Britons on the
other side of the water, St. German raised such a hallelujah as to make
the ancient Britons run away. In the same way modern unbelief suspects
the story of the Giant who had three legs, and was the terror of the
land, or of that floating island which rises in Soderick Bay every seven
years, and then remains on the surface thirty minutes, no one yet having
had the courage to place a Bible on any part of it, lest in any case of
failure the enchanter might cast his club over Mona also. Likewise we
may scorn the legend which tells us how St. Trisman’s is left incomplete
on account of the malice of an evil spirit, who, for want of better
employment, amused himself by throwing down the roof every time it was
put on, accompanying his achievement with a loud fiendish laugh of
satisfaction. As well we might credit the Fenella of ‘Peveril of the
Peak’ as a living reality, and not a wild conception of Sir Walter
Scott’s busy brain. Indeed, if the tourist to that lovely health
resort—lovely I call it, in spite of the holiday-makers and tourists,
mostly denominated Lancashire Cotton Balls—believes all he hears, the
chances are that he becomes, to quote Sir Walter—
‘Speechless, ghastly, wan,
Like him of whom the story ran,
That spake the spectre hound in Man.’
But the captain cries, ‘Go ahead,’ the last bell rings, and we are off.
Apparently it is anticipated that our wants will be numerous. We are
expected not to venture to sea without a good supply of ‘all round the
island sweets;’ ragged urchins offer us lucifer matches, aged females
freshly-gathered fruits, and apparently it is presumed we cannot enjoy
the day without purchasing a guide to the island, or photographs of the
principal attractions. Of course the musicians are on board long before
we are, as well as a poor fellow who is expected to keep the company on
the broad grin all the trip by means of his songs and chaff.
‘Poor fellow, I pity thee somewhat, in spite of thy sons and grandsons.
Thy sow, with a litter of eight “poops,”’ as he calls them; ‘thy
readiness to liquor up and spout nonsense. You’re not such a fool as you
look, however, and that is a consolation.’
Mountebanks, whether in Church and State, in business, or on the deck of
an excursion steamer, generally manage to make their nonsense pay, often
better than other men their sense.
‘Rose,’ says Wentworth, ‘let us watch the beauty of Douglas as we steam
out of the Bay. In a little while we shall see Snaefell, monarch of Manx
mountains. We shall pass the little glen which leads to Laxey, with that
wonderful wheel of which we hear so much, and then we are in Ramsey.
Leaving Ramsey for the Point of Ayr, a lighthouse familiar to the traders
between Barrow and Belfast, we shall note how the aspect of the land is
changed, and that a sandy shore has taken the place of the rocks, which,
looking across the water, seem to set England and Scotland at defiance.
In a little while we shall be off Peel, with its ancient Castle and its
hardy fishermen. The further we go, the bolder becomes the scenery.
There we shall see a cavern which no one yet has had the courage to
explore, but which our captain will tell us leads to Port St. Mary. Then
the steam-pipe whistles, and the rocks re-echo the whistle as we float
along. Then we come to cliffs white with sea-gulls, who, startled by our
approach, flap their heavy wings and fly like snowflakes. As we come to
the Calf of Man the picturesqueness of the scene is increased tenfold as
the rocks in their wildness guard their native shores. Fain would we
linger, but our steamer urges on her wild career, and we must needs go
with her. All we can do is to admire from a distance the rough and
rugged coast, with its tiny bay, where the swimmer might enjoy his
pastime, only disturbed, it may be, by a merman bold, or a mermaid a
little bolder, as is the habit of the female, or by a glimpse of the
great sea-serpent, which assuredly is to be found, if anywhere, haunting
these azure waters, and then we are back in Douglas in time for dinner.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said the lady, laughing. ‘The dinner you will be thinking
of all the while.’
‘How unkind of you to say so. We shall have a quarrel if you talk like
that.’
‘Is it not time?’ said Rose, as she turned to him a look more bewitching
than she had ever cast upon the buckram hero of the stage.
‘Perhaps so. We have been married a week.’
‘Good gracious!’ said the lady archly; ‘only a week! I thought it had
been much longer.’
‘I am sure you did nothing of the kind. There, I’ve caught you telling
stories already.’
‘But you know we did not get married according to ordinary notions of
propriety. We did not go to a fashionable church. We had no fashionable
people to see us made one, and there were none to wish us God-speed as we
took the cab to the Midland Railway _en route_ for Liverpool. So what
can you expect?’
‘And worst of all,’ said Wentworth, laughing, ‘we got married—’
‘At the registrar’s office,’ said Rose, shrugging up her shoulders and
making a face with a sad expression of horror, adding, after an interval:
‘And I don’t believe anyone knows it yet.’
‘So much the better. What has the world got to do with our private
affairs? What to us is the world or the world’s laws?’
‘Upon my word, Wentworth, you are talking as improperly as ever.’
‘Yes. I fear I’ve got that bad habit, and I don’t expect I shall ever
get rid of it as long as I live. You and I can talk plainly. We need
not try to humbug each other. It is little we have to trouble ourselves
about Mrs. Grundy. The law has bound us together, but we are bound
together by something stronger than the law, I hope.’
‘Hope, Wentworth, is not the word. You know it,’ said Rose, as she
lovingly looked into his somewhat grave and worn face.
On board the steamer thus the newly-married couple talked. Marriages are
of many kinds. For some we have to thank God, for others, alas! the
devil.
Referring to his marriage, William Hutton, the far-famed Birmingham
historian, writes: ‘I never courted her, nor she me, yet we, by the close
union with which we were cemented, were travelling towards the temple of
Hymen without conversing upon the subject. Such is the happy effect of
reciprocal love.’ This reciprocal love generally leads to matrimony, and
thus it was Rose and Wentworth had married. A good deal is to be said
against the institution. Matrimony is not always a bed of roses. If the
roses are there, they are often furnished with an intolerable supply of
thorns. There can be no doubt of the fact that in many cases matrimony
has led to an immense amount of misery. It has kept in chains men and
women who had been better apart. It has made for them life dull, blank,
sunless, joyless, a thing only to terminate with death. It is hard that
men and women thus ill-mated are not permitted to burst their fetters and
be free. Take, for instance, the case of Mehetabel Wesley, the younger
sister of the celebrated founder of Wesleyanism. Her heart was sensitive
and full of love. We know what the mother of the Wesleys was—a stern,
hard woman, whose first duty as a mother, according to her own statement,
was to break the wills of her children. The father left his wife’s bed
because, when he prayed for King William, she would not say amen. None
of the girls seemed to have married happily, but this, the youngest and
fairest of them all, had a Benjamin’s mess of misery. Her father
compelled her to suffer the brutality of a marriage with a low wretch
utterly unfit to be her lord and master. Was not her marriage an
immorality? Was it not a shame that society should have compelled her to
live with such a man?—so much so ‘that her only hope,’ as she told a
friend, was death, ‘because we Methodists always die in transports of
joy.’ But what do men and women know of each other, as a rule, before
marriage? Very little, indeed. Hence so much of the wretchedness of the
wife, of the immorality of the man. I fear that it is the married men
who chiefly sustain and create the vices of our great cities. Hence the
bitter cry of him—our chief poet—the stern Puritan, who wrote in strains
that can never die—
‘Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,’
on man’s behalf. Hence the earnestness with which he pleaded for relief
to him who finds himself bound fast ‘to an image of earth, with whom he
looked to be the co-partner of a sweet and pleasant society.’ However,
Milton is practically not so much an advocate for divorce as is generally
supposed. It is well known that he took his wife back, and they lived
happily together till her death, There is generally a _modus vivendi_,
unless the husband and wife be altogether foolish. Neither man nor woman
in the long run can withstand true love, and it is hard to break a tie
which once seemed desirable, and which is easily made bearable,
especially when the young ones come and play around the hearth. Fathers
and mothers find it hard to leave their offspring, even if in the
commerce of life they have found each other out. The children bring with
them the old atmosphere of tenderness and love.
Returning to Douglas, Wentworth found a telegram to the effect that Sir
Watkin Strahan had suddenly died of apoplexy.
‘Not very surprising,’ said Wentworth.
Sir Watkin belonged to the past in that respect rather than the
present—to the age of port wine drinkers, when men got real port wine,
and did not seem to be much the worse for it. The light wines of France
had little charm for him, and soda-water and seltzer were equally
obnoxious. His medical man had warned him, but Sir Watkin laughed at his
warnings. He came of a long-lived family. His father and his
grandfather had alike far exceeded their threescore years and ten when
they were gathered to their fathers, and Sir Watkin argued that so it
would be with him, a blunder which nearly cost him his life.
A later telegram, however, gave the particulars of the sad accident.
‘This is a sad ending to a pleasant day,’ said Wentworth, as they climbed
the rock on which they had pitched their tent. Below was the town, with
its noisy merry-makers. Up there, amongst the roses and the myrtles,
they were alone. Over there was England, while between them lay a
gorgeous ocean, on which scarce a ship was to be seen, blue as the
heavens above, save where tinged by the crimson and gold of the setting
sun. ‘How pleasant it is here!’ continued Wentworth; ‘no work to do, no
friends to bother, no letters to worry.’
Rose burst out laughing.
‘Why do you laugh when I try to be poetical?’
‘Because, dear boy,’ was the reply, ‘it is not in your line, and because
I see the postman coming up the hill with the letter-bag.’
Away rushed Wentworth to meet him with an ardour by no means consistent
with his recent speech. The fact is, however tired of life we may be,
however happy in some rural retreat, however absorbed and enraptured with
one another a man and wife may be—especially during the idle season known
as the honeymoon—there is a mysterious fascination in the appearance of
the postman, and we bless the memory of Sir Rowland Hill.
‘There are no end of letters and newspapers. I vote we don’t look at
them till after breakfast to-morrow, I will have a cigar, and you can
work.’
‘Yes, that is how you men talk. I am to work like a slave, while you are
to lie on the grass smoking. But I suppose I must do as you tell me, for
“Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.”
I tell you what—if you’re lazy, I will be lazy, too.’
‘Yes, that is what I meant.’
‘Then why did you not say so, sir?’
‘I did. When I tell a woman to work, of course I mean that you are to
sit and do nothing.’
‘Yes, but I am not going to do nothing. I am going to read what looks to
me a very extraordinary letter. It bears the Sloville post-office mark.
It was addressed to London, and here it has followed us all the way from
town. I must look at it—it is such a scrawl.’
‘Remember our compact.’
‘No, I don’t. I must open this letter—I am dying to read it.’
‘Oh, the curiosity of woman,’ said Wentworth, as he smoked his cigar.
Presently Rose gave a shriek.
‘What is it all about?’ asked Wentworth.
‘There, read it for yourself,’ Rose exclaimed.
It was as follows:
‘DEAR MADAME,
‘That pore boy as you took from Sloville, is the true son and heir of
Sir Watkin Strahan, go to horspitle in the Boro’ where a woman named
Sally is hill. She can prove it—but she can’t live long. Hopin’
this will find you in ’elth as it leaves me at this present time, I
am yours most respectfully a sincere friend to the pore boy.’
‘Wentworth,’ said Rose energetically, ‘we must leave here by the first
boat to-morrow morning.’
‘What a bore. I suppose we must. And so fades away love in a cottage,’
exclaimed Wentworth, as he went indoors to help his wife to pack up.