+THREE MONTHS OF MARRIED LIFE+
IT was in her second wifehood that Evelyn, Lady Montgomery, first set
foot on the shores of the New World. Our voyage across the broad
Atlantic had been devoid of incident, and untroubled by storm. An
occasional squall, it is true, would banish us for a day to our heaving
couches, where, prostrate and utterly helpless, we felt as if our head,
detached from our shoulders, were rolling about the cabin, and the
malignant sprites of ocean were recklessly and remorselessly sporting
with it as with a foot-ball.
We entered the magnificent bay of New York, lighted by the glorious
August moon with her myriads of attendant stars, which, seen through the
pure ether of the western firmament, seemed multiplied to infinity. The
constellations of the belted Orion, the greater and lesser Bear, and
others, appeared strangely familiar; viewing them, we were fain to
forget the thousands of miles which now separated us from the land of
our birth. But our first step on terra firma quickly dispelled the
illusion. The disagreeables of the Custom House at an end, leaving our
heavy baggage till the morrow, with difficulty we climbed into the
heavy, hearse-like vehicle in waiting, which it seemed next to
impossible to enter, and once in, equally vain and futile to attempt the
getting out. Tossed and tumbled about on the roughest of pavements, our
heads still giddy from our recent sea-voyage, we arrived at that
gorgeous palace, yclept the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Happily, Mr. D’Arcy,
(unable through press of public business to meet us,) had kindly written
to secure rooms, which insured to our party the attention we should not
otherwise have received.
Here let me observe that I entirely endorse all that my talented
countryman, Anthony Trollope, has stated regarding the inhospitality of
the enormous American hotels, where weary and travel-worn ladies are
forced to await in the wretched reception parlors, the often long
delayed advent of the official charged to show them their rooms, while
gentlemen, still more unfortunate, must attend in the office the favor
for which they have humbly made supplication to His Majesty the
Book-keeper. How different from the hearty welcome of “Mine Host” and
his worthy spouse, in the cheerful, old-fashioned inns of England; how
cheerily the landlord enters, and stirring the fire, makes his guests
feel instantly at home; while the good wife, were you an old
acquaintance, could not proffer for you with greater kindness the best
fare her house can afford. The pretty chambermaid, too, candle in hand,
shows you to a clean, comfortable bedroom, leaving at the same time, all
the requisites for your toilet; and as you discuss your cutlet or roast
chicken, the waiter tells you of all to be seen in the town and
neighborhood. He closes the shutters and draws the curtains, and your
glass of sherry or old port, as may be, has quite a home flavor, as you
draw your easy-chair cosily before the bright, glad fire, which itself
sparkles and crackles its welcome.
I am not now describing the London or new railway hotels, Heaven forbid!
they are less comfortable, and far more expensive than those in America;
but I allude to the charming “hostelries” of the olden times, some of
which still exist, though “few and far between.” Thanks, however, to the
kind consideration of Mr. D’Arcy, we were ushered at once to our suite
of elegantly furnished rooms, only too thankful to seek and find repose
in the luxurious beds of this splendid Hotel. On awakening, next
morning, my first impression of New York was as if I saw pictured before
me, in giant proportions, one of the toy towns with their many colored
houses, interspersed with green trees, that used to come to me in large
oval deal boxes in the days of my youth. Red brick, grey, brown, white,
dark chocolate stone—all of multiform size and shape, such is the
description of the dwellings, in this metropolis of the west, now decked
in its mantle of summer foliage.
Our heroine had been wedded about three months—was she blessed in her
second union more than in her first marriage?
My kind and gentle readers, she was not happy—yet she was content. But
had she ever before indulged in any illusions, as regards Sir Percy,
they must have quickly faded. Even on returning from the Church, his
bride at his side, not one word of affection did the newly-made husband
utter; of himself alone he spoke—_his_ position, _his_ future; but then,
to be sure, he was turned of fifty, and as Byron observes, rather than
one husband at that mature age,
“’Twere better to have _two_, at five-and-twenty.”
This was the beginning of sorrows.
Immediately after the breakfast, the impatient bridegroom, anxious,
doubtless, to embrace the fair lady he dared now call his own, knocked
at the door of her chamber, where, divested of her bridal costume, she
was arraying herself in a becoming travelling toilette. When admitted,
the grateful lover begged—now guess, dear ladies. I pray what——Why for
the loan of a few hundred francs to pay his bill at the hotel. Rather
early, methinks, to usurp marital rights over his wife’s purse. Poor
Evelyn’s next fit of disgust was on the morrow of her bridal, when, in
an elegant morning robe of the freshest muslin, her hair braided under
the prettiest of caps, she with horror beheld Sir Percy enter the room,
unwashed, uncombed, unbraced, and perfectly innocent of a clean shirt.
Seating himself at the breakfast table, he commenced feeding, utterly
unconscious of having committed an unpardonable crime against good
manners. Unfortunate Evelyn! so refined, so fastidious, so exquisitely
neat and clean in her personal habits, to be brought to this. “Oh! what
a falling off was there!”
Sir Percy united in his own person those opposite defects which in
others are usually compensated by corresponding virtues. He was at the
same time a spendthrift, and the meanest of men. Hasty and imprudent,
yet sly and cunning, with an appearance of frankness, he combined an
utter disregard of truth. He seemed to lie for the pleasure of lying.
His temper was alike quick, vindictive, and revengeful, and his
character comprised the opposite qualities of weakness and obstinacy. A
general lover of the female sex, he was utterly incapable of individual
attachment. It was clear that the baronet had married for money, but
finding that his wife contented herself simply with paying their mutual
expenses, and refused to place her fortune in his power, he actually
began to dislike her and made no secret of the feeling. One illustration
I will give, and this is but a solitary instance of the extraordinary
line of conduct pursued by Sir Percy towards her he had so recently
sworn to love, protect and cherish during the term of their natural
life.
Angered one night because Evelyn had left him a small portion of his own
travelling expenses to pay, he rang up the servants of the hotel at
midnight, and though we were to start on the following morning at break
of day, he ordered his luggage to be transported and his bed made in a
room at the most distant end of the corridor, thus making himself and
his wife of a month, the laughing-stock of the hotel. We do not pretend
the man was altogether devoid of good impulses; but the evil of his
nature was strong—the good feeble. He was ungrateful, heartless,
unprincipled. Evelyn had before known only the reverse of the picture;
she had been adored, petted, spoiled. How could she conceive so
exceptional a character as that of Sir Percy? How bear with him? Dear
friends, she did bear with him, and she was not wretched, for she now
knew that all trials are the just retribution for past sins committed,
past duties unperformed. Alas! we cannot escape the past, still does it
pursue us like an avenging spectre; and so she resolved to endure all,
looking no longer to earth for bliss, living ever in the sweet calm and
beauty of the inner life, which proceeds from the Christ who shines on
the souls of all who will receive him as the pure and perfect law.
No longer spell-bound by her passionate love for D’Arcy, he was yet
dear—dearer to her than ever, for to him alone she owed all her strength
to bear, all her courage to do; through him she had been enabled to
behold the radiant, the immeasurable life of the beyond, as the one
great reality of our being, compared to which this earth life, did it
last a century, is but as a span, a point in eternity, “a dream when one
awaketh.” Oh, had she realized these blessed truths in earliest youth,
how different might have been her fate! But, repulsed by narrow-minded
sectarianism, miscalled religion, she had strayed without a guide in
devious paths.
The idea of a future existence had then loomed darkly before her young
imaginations as a vague terror, a portentous and lurid superstition
forcing her to an unwilling lip-service of prayer. Now it was a glorious
inspiration—hourly influencing her, and turning the common incidents of
life into occasions for thanksgiving.
For she knew that the Infinite Father was calling his erring child home
through her loves and through her griefs.
With this sweet conviction can tribulation harm her? I trow not. Rather
do her crosses and her trials cause her lonely and unsatisfied heart to
rise each day more purely, tenderly, devotedly, upward towards God.
Then, too, she tremblingly believes she may, in a brighter sphere, be
united in the sweet connubial tie to one who shall fully realize the
ideal of her soul. So, loving and beloved, she will no longer dwell
“As one companionless
In essence, heart distressed and pining ever
With anguished yearning for a tenderness
Forever widely sought, experienced never.”[3]
Footnote 3:
“Lyric of the Golden Age,” by Rev. T. L. Harris.
Is she mistaken? I cannot think so. Is it possible to form too exalted
an idea of the joys “God hath prepared for them that love him,” which,
we are told, “it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive?”
Yet, we may faintly shadow those ecstatic raptures, if we remember that
every faculty of the mind, each affection of the spirit, will then be
fully and forever occupied in fulfilling its highest destinies—LOVE,
KNOWLEDGE, USE.[4] Sublime trinity! Such the occupations of the angels
throughout eternity; and for those who here exercise themselves in these
Christian graces, heaven has already begun on earth!
Footnote 4:
See Swedenborg’s works; also, “Arcana of Christianity,” by Rev. T. L.
Harris.
Nor do these truly catholic doctrines militate against a life of
activity here—they are rather anti-monastic—teaching that the life of
the body is necessary for the soul, and that the happiness of the spirit
hereafter will be proportionate to the use we make of all our faculties
and talents in the terrestrial state; while the contrary must be
expected in the world of spirits, from a life of idleness; truly blessed
they
“in this loud stunning tide
Of human care and crime,
With whom the melodies abide
Of th’ everlasting chime;
Who carry music in their heart
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,
_Plying their daily task with busier feet_,
Because their secret souls a holier strain repeat.”[5]
Footnote 5:
“Keble’s Christian Year.”
[Illustration]
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