+HOME SCENES+
EVELYN’S home was comfortable without being luxurious, and well suited
to a family of moderate fortune. Charmingly situate, in the loveliest of
England’s midland counties, the house, originally an old monastery,
stood in the midst of a richly wooded though not very extensive park.
The amusements at Woodlands, as is the case more or less all over
England, were more suitable to gentlemen than to the fairer sex. They
consisted, principally, of hunting, shooting, and fishing in some of the
trout streams hard by. The Squire, as he was usually termed, with his
son, Captain Travers, constantly availed themselves of these facilities
for sport; consequently we ladies were left almost entirely on our own
resources. An occasional dinner party, to which we were expected to
drive out some ten or twelve miles, in full evening costume, perhaps on
a snowy night, formed the only variety to our rather monotonous life.
These dinner parties were altogether “flat, stale and unprofitable.” The
usual codfish, with oyster sauce, saddle of mutton, and boiled chicken
or turkey, were served up, and flavored by such conversation as the
following:
“A fine day for scent, eh, Squire?”
“Glorious; were you in at the death?”
“I should say so. By Jove! my mare’s a clipper, I can tell you.”
“Smith, your grey rather swerved at that fence.”
“Why, yes; my fool of a groom physicked him only a week since, and the
fence was, a stiff-un, but he’s a very devil to go.”
Or thus:
“I say, gov’n’r,” (the slang term for father,) “how many birds d’ye say
we bagged to-day?”
“Well, fifteen brace.”
“No, twenty, I tell ye, all fine uns.”
“That dog of yours, Travers, is a capital setter, and no mistake. What’s
his pedigree?”
“Oh, he was got by Tommy out of Fairstar.”
“I should like a pup of his, by Jove!”
After dinner, on the adjournment of the ladies to the drawing-room, the
sporting talk commences in right earnest, the wine circulating even more
briskly than before. The married ladies meanwhile stand around a roaring
fire warming their satin-clad feet; they complain to each other of the
delinquencies of their servants, or boast of the beauty and precocity of
their children. The entrance, presently, of coffee, puts an end to
general conversation, as the ladies collect into smaller groups to wait
for tea and the gentlemen. The matrons and elderly maidens perhaps
indulge in a little scandal as they sip the fragrant beverage. The more
juvenile damsels talk of balls, past and future, and of the delightful
partners who may have fallen to their lot. Some would be Grisi,
“inglorious,” though not, alas! “mute,” possibly attacks the open piano
with a violence that makes you almost imagine she is venting her spite
upon the innocent instrument, and then in a cracked but stentorian
voice, she commences to shout, “Sing me the songs that to me were so
dear, long, LONG ago, long, LONG ago,” accentuating the dashed
expletives by a shriller scream even than before. At about half-past ten
enter the lords of the creation, with highly flushed faces, and
vociferating loudly, the words, “my good fellow,” “horse,” “dog,” “my
mare,” “that pointer,” still forming the burden of their song. Very
slight attention falls to the share of the ladies. A young curate,
perhaps, stands beside the piano, turning the leaves of the music-book
for the squalling songstress. A whist table is frequently formed, but at
eleven a move is made, and by half-past, the carriage of the last guest
has usually rolled from the door.
The cause of Captain Travers’ shaking hand was now but too apparent. The
captain, I regret to say, seldom, if ever, returned home from these
dinners perfectly sober, and the old squire, though rejoicing in a
stronger head than his son, was but too often more than “a little
elevated.” Latterly the propensity of young Edward Travers became so
uncontrollable that no invitations ever came from the best houses in the
neighborhood to Woodlands, a very great slight to one of the oldest
families in the county.
Our readers may readily imagine that though blessed with every outward
advantage of person and position, our heroine felt more alone even than
when cloistered within the walls of Warrenne Vicarage. Then at least she
might hope for a brighter future; now to hope were a crime, for would it
not involve the death of another, and that other a husband. The marriage
tie, in its spiritual and inner sense, is, indeed, as we are taught to
believe, an inheritance from Paradise; it supposes the perfect union of
the sexes, so that two separate existences become virtually one
individual. Neither would be complete without the other. Force blends
with weakness; firmness with gentleness; and mutual love and confidence
is the crowning bliss of all.—But observe the reverse of the picture,
alas! far more common than the other side. The hourly clash of angry
tempers and selfish desires, brutality and neglect on the part of the
husband, met by reproaches from the wife, and yet with all this, and
perhaps the vice of intoxication in addition, the wretched pair must
drag out a miserable existence till “death do them part.” Happy those
countries where divorce is permitted for other, though not slighter
causes than infidelity!
I mentioned that Evelyn, as a girl, was scarcely aware either of her
beauty or of her extreme power of fascination. Now that she had become a
married child, older women spoiled her, telling her she had thrown
herself away, and that with advantages of person and fortune such as
hers, she might have aspired to become a duchess, or, as Evelyn added
with a sigh, “I might, had I waited, have met with one worthy of my
love, and have become a happy, instead of an unloving and therefore
wretched wife.” Often have I contrasted Rookwood—beloved home of the
intelligent, the refined, the sympathetic—with the scarcely less
beautiful Woodlands, the abode of uncongenial spirits.
“Trifles,” says a modern female writer,[1] “make the sum of
human-things;” and _she was right_. Happiness depends more on the hourly
nothings of existence than we are fain to believe, and a continual
dripping of water will wear away the hardest rock. The great sorrows of
life are rare; its intense joys rarer still; we have it in our power to
embitter our own lot and that of others, or to be to them as a
ministering angel and thus bring a blessing on ourselves. Did the young
wife prepare to buy a new dress, her husband would term it useless
extravagance, and refuse to furnish her with the means for procuring it,
even though these were actually of her own money. When she wished for a
drive, the horses were required to go to cover, or they had a cough, or
were in physic. Did Evelyn in the evening place herself at her harp, and
sing in her sweetest and most thrilling tones, some of Moore’s plaintive
melodies, or of Mrs. Hemans’ beautiful songs, the “thank you, my dear,”
of the kind but unappreciative Squire, would be echoed by a loud snore
from his sleeping son, just in the most effective part of the
performance. Later, when her health became delicate, as the prospect of
maternity dawned upon her, even the visits of a physician in an “illness
common to all women,” as the Captain amiably remarked, were an
unnecessary expense. Let not my readers imagine this was “malice
prepense”—it was only _selfishness_—that bane of married life.
Footnote 1:
Mrs. Hannah More.
Edward Travers was the only son of foolish parents. His mother, selfish
herself, and inconsiderate as to consequences, fostered his youthful
vices; and even on the rare occasions when the father thought it
necessary to correct his boy, the silly and ill-tempered wife ever took
the son’s part against the husband she so much disliked, and endeavored
to compensate, by a larger slice of cake or an extra glass of wine, that
which she did not scruple to impress on the lad’s mind as unjustifiable
harshness on the part of the governor. Thus trained up “in the way he
should” not “go,” can it be wondered at, if he was innately though
unintentionally selfish, and utterly regardless of the feelings of the
wife, whose sympathies he never had? Mrs. Travers, Sen’r. also did all
she could to foment the dissensions which constantly arose between the
two who should have been as _one_. Even the birth of a daughter failed
to cement a breach, which widened every day. A son would have been
welcomed with joy by the family, as heir to estates entailed in the male
line, but a girl was considered as a useless and expensive encumbrance,
by all but the young mother herself.
After the birth of my little god-daughter, coldness and indifference
became actual dislike. Evelyn and her husband scarcely ever spoke, and a
virtual separation took place between them. I remained some time at the
Abbey, being loth to leave my friend under such trying circumstances.
Evelyn endeavored to beguile the time by cultivating her taste for
music; we also studied together various volumes, both of ancient and
modern history, and even sounded the depths of natural philosophy and
astronomy. Poetry and light literature, she said, made her melancholy,
as they portrayed untrue pictures of life—especially with regard to love
and marriage. She never would be persuaded to peruse any tale which
finished happily; but stories of misfortune, ending in separation or
death, she read with avidity.
This was a most unhealthy state of mind. Evelyn’s feelings were
exceedingly embittered towards her mother and stepfather, whom she
considered to have occasioned the terrible mistake of her life. Her
husband she pitied with a feeling akin to contempt, knowing that, with a
common-place wife, he might have become a better and a happier man, but
confessing herself totally unsuited to him. She would not, however,
attempt in any way to brighten his path; neither would she endeavor to
wean him from his intemperate habits, which, unhappily, became daily
more confirmed. I could not but blame, though my heart bled for poor
Evelyn; for I felt that, sooner or later, she would learn how that for
each and all of our wrong doings, and even for our sins of omission, a
just retribution awaits us, either here or hereafter.
[Illustration]
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