Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine Read online

  “You are certain of what you say?” asked Mr. Lane, turning to the hackman he had employed.

  “Certain,” was answered positively.

  “Is there a police officer near at hand?” was the next inquiry. This was intended as no threat; and Murphy understood its meaning.

  The eyes of Mr. Lane were fixed on his face, and he saw in it a guilty change. No reply being made to the question about a police officer, Mr. Lane said, addressing the accused hackman—

  “If you wish to escape trouble, take me instantly to the house where I can find the lady you took from the boat last night. She is my wife, and I will go through fire and water to find her; and let him who stands in my way take the consequences.”

  Murphy now drew Mr. Lane aside, and said a few words to him hurriedly.

  “Can I depend upon what you say?” eagerly asked the latter.

  “Yes, upon honour!” replied the hackman.

  “You must go with me,” said Lane.

  “I cannot leave the stand.”

  “I will call a policeman and compel you to go with me, if you don’t accompany me peaceably. As I live, I will not part from you until I find her! Take your choice—go quietly, or under compulsion.”

  There was a fierce energy in the excited man that completely subdued the Irish hackman, who, after a further, though feeble remonstrance, got into the carriage with Mr. Lane, and was driven off. The course taken was out—street. Some distance beyond Washington Square, the carriage stopped before a house, in which Mr. Lane was informed that he would find the woman whom Murphy had taken from the boat the night before. He stepped out quickly, and, as he sprang across the pavement, Murphy, who was out of the carriage almost as soon as he was, glided around the corner of a street, and was beyond recall. A quick jerk of the bell was answered by a female servant, who held the door only partly open, while Lane addressed her.

  “Wasn’t there a woman and child brought here last night?” said he, in an agitated manner.

  “No, sir,” replied the girl; and, as she spoke, she made an attempt to close the door, seeing which, Mr. Lane thrust a part of his body in and prevented the movement.

  “Are you certain?” he asked.

  “I am,” was positively answered, while the girl strove to shut the door by forcing it against Mr. Lane. At this moment something like a smothered cry from within reached his ears, when, throwing open the door with a sudden application of strength that prostrated the girl, he stepped over her body and entered the vestibule. Just then there arose a wild cry for help! He knew the voice; it came from one of the parlours, into which he rushed. There he saw his wife struggling in the arms of a woman and a man, while his frightened child stood near, white and speechless with terror. As he entered, Amanda saw him.

  “Oh, my husband!” she exclaimed. In a moment she was released, and the man and woman fled from the room, but not before the face of the former was fully recognised by Mr. Lane.

  Little Mary had already sprung to her father, and was quivering and panting on his breast.

  “Oh! take me away quickly—quickly!” cried Mrs. Lane, staggering towards her husband and falling into his arms.

  Without waiting for explanations, Mr. Lane went from the house with his wife and child, and, placing them in the carriage at the door, was driven to an hotel.

  The reader doubtless understands the scene we have just described. The man named Bond was in the act of carrying out his threat to remove Mrs. Lane to a chamber by force when her husband appeared.

  Of all that passed between the severely-tried husband and wife after their meeting, it behooves us not to write. The circumstances we have detailed were exceedingly painful to the parties most interested; but their effect, like the surgeon’s knife, was salutary. Mr. Lane afterwards regarded his wife from an entirely different point of view, and found her a very different woman from what he had at first believed her to be. He saw in her a strength of character and a clearness of intellect for which he had never given her credit; and, from looking down upon her as a child or an inferior, came to feel towards her as an equal.

  His indignation at the treatment she had received in Philadelphia was extreme. The man named Bond he knew very well, and he at first determined to call him to account personally; but as this would lead to a mortifying notoriety and exposure of the whole affair, he was reluctantly induced to keep silence. Bond has never crossed his way since: it might not be well for him to do so.

  Some years have passed. No one who meets Mr. and Mrs. Lane, at home or abroad, would dream that, at one time, they were driven asunder by a strong repulsion. Few are more deeply attached, or happier in their domestic relations; but neither trespasses on the other’s rights, nor interferes with the other’s prerogative. Mutual deference, confidence, respect, and love, unite them with a bond that cannot again be broken.

  THE INVALID WIFE.

  “MY poor head! It seems as if it would burst!” murmured Mrs. Bain, as she arose from a stooping position, and clasped her temples with both hands. She was engaged in dressing a restless, fretful child, some two or three years old. Two children had been washed and dressed, and this was the last to be made ready for breakfast.

  As Mrs. Bain stood, with pale face, closed eyes, and tightly compressed lips, still clasping her throbbing temples, the bell announcing the morning meal was rung. The sound caused her to start, and she said, in a low and fretful voice—

  “There’s the breakfast bell; and Charley isn’t ready yet; nor have I combed my hair. How my head does ache! I am almost blind with the pain.”

  Then she resumed her work of dressing Charley, who struggled, cried, and resisted, until she was done.

  Mr. Bain was already up and dressed. He was seated in the parlour, enjoying his morning paper, when the breakfast bell rang. The moment he heard the sound, he threw down his newspaper, and, leaving the parlour, ascended to the dining-room. His two oldest children were there, ready to take their places at the table.

  “Where’s your mother?” he inquired of one of them.

  “She’s dressing Charley,” was answered.

  “Never ready in time,” said Mr. Bain, to himself, impatiently. He spoke in an under tone.

  For a few moments he stood with his hands on the back of his chair. Then he walked twice the length of the dining-room; and then he went to the door and called—

  “Jane! Jane! Breakfast is on the table.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” was replied by Mrs. Bain.

  “Oh, yes! I know something about your minutes.” Mr. Bain said this to himself. “This never being in time annoys me terribly. I’m always ready. I’m always up to time. But there’s no regard to time in this house.”

  Mrs. Bain was still struggling with her cross and troublesome child, when the voice of her impatient husband reached her. The sound caused a throb of intenser pain to pass through her aching head.

  “Jane, make haste! Breakfast is all getting cold, and I’m in a hurry to go away to business,” was called once more.

  “Do have a little patience. I’ll be there in a moment,” replied Mrs. Bain.

  “A moment! This is always the way.”

  And Mr. Bain once more paced backwards and forwards.

  Meantime the wife hurriedly completed her own toilet, and then repaired to the dining-room. She was just five minutes too late.

  One glance at her pale, suffering face should have changed to sympathy and pity the ill-humour of her thoughtless, impatient husband. But it was not so. The moment she appeared, he said—

  “This is too bad, Jane! I’ve told you, over and over, that I don’t like to wait after the bell rings. My mother was always promptly at her place, and I’d like my wife to imitate so good an example.”

  Perhaps nothing could have hurt Mrs. Bain more than such a cruel reference of her husband to his mother, coupled with so unfeeling a declaration of his will concerning her—as if she were to be the mere creature of his will.

  A sharp reply was
on the tongue of Mrs. Bain; but she kept it back. The pain in her head subsided all at once; but a weight and oppression in her breast followed that was almost suffocating.

  Mr. Bain drank his coffee, and eat his steak and toast, with a pretty fair relish; for he had a good appetite and a good digestion—and was in a state of robust health. But Mrs. Bain ate nothing. How could she eat? And yet, it is but the truth to say, that her husband, who noticed the fact, attributed her abstinence from food more to temper than want of appetite. He was aware that he had spoken too freely, and attributed the consequent change in his wife’s manner to anger rather than a wounded spirit.

  “Do you want any thing?” asked Mr. Bain, on rising from the table and turning to leave the room. He spoke with more kindness than previously.

  “No,” was the wife’s brief answer, made without lifting her eyes to her husband’s face.

  “In the sulks!”

  Mr. Bain did not say this aloud, but such was his thought, as he turned away and left the house. He did not feel altogether comfortable, of course. No man feels comfortable while there is a cloud upon the brow of his wife, whether it be occasioned by peevishness, ill-temper, bodily or mental suffering. No, Mr. Bain did not feel altogether comfortable, nor satisfied with himself, as he walked along to his store; for there came across his mind a dim recollection of having heard the baby fretting and crying during the night; and also of having seen the form of his wife moving to and fro in the chamber, while he lay snugly reposing in bed.

  But these were unpleasant images, and Mr. Bain thrust them from his mind.

  While Mr. Bain took his morning walk to his store, his lungs freely and pleasurably expanding in the pure, invigorating air, his wife, to whose throbbing temples the anguish had returned, and whose relaxed muscles had scarcely enough tension to support the weight of her slender frame, slowly and painfully began the work of getting her two oldest children ready for school. This done, the baby had to be washed and dressed. It screamed during the whole operation, and when, at last, it fell asleep upon her bosom, she was so completely exhausted, that she had to lie down. Tears wet her pillow as she lay with her babe upon her arm. He, to whom alone she had a right to look for sympathy, for support, and for strength in her many trials, did not appear to sympathize with her in the least. If she looked sober from the pressure of pain, fatigue, or domestic trials, he became impatient, and sometimes said, with cruel thoughtlessness, that he was tired of clouds and rain, and would give the world for a wife who could smile now and then. If, amid her many household cares and duties, she happened to neglect some little matter that affected his comfort, he failed not to express his annoyance, and not always in carefully chosen words. No wonder that her woman’s heart melted—no wonder that hot tears were on her cheeks.

  Mr. Bain had, as we have said, an excellent appetite; and he took especial pleasure in its gratification. He liked his dinner particularly, and his dinners were always good dinners. He went to market himself. On his way to his store he passed through the market, and his butcher sent home what he purchased.

  “The marketing has come home,” said the cook to Mrs. Bain, about ten o’clock, arousing her from a brief slumber into which she had fallen—a slumber that exhausted nature demanded, and which would have done far more than medicine for the restoration of something like a healthy tone to her system.

  “Very well. I will come down in a little while,” returned Mrs. Bain, raising herself on her elbow, and see about dinner. “What has Mr. Bain sent home?”

  “A calf’s head.”

  “What!”

  “A calf’s head.”

  “Very well. I will be down to see about it.” Mrs. Bain repressed any further remark.

  Sick and exhausted as she felt, she must spend at least two hours in the kitchen in making soup and dressing the calf’s head for her husband’s dinner. Nothing of this could be trusted to the cook, for to trust any part of its preparation to her was to have it spoiled.

  With a sigh, Mrs. Bain arose from the bed. At first she staggered across the room like one intoxicated, and the pain, which had subsided during her brief slumber, returned again with added violence. But, really sick as she felt, she went down to the kitchen and passed full two hours there in the preparation of delicacies for her husband’s dinner. And what was her reward?

  “This is the worst calf’s head soup you ever made. What have you done to it?” said Mr. Bain, pushing the plate of soup from before him, with an expression of disgust on his face.

  There were tears in the eyes of the suffering wife, and she lifted them to her husband’s countenance. Steadily she looked at him for a few moments; then her lips quivered, and the tears fell over her cheeks. Hastily rising, she left the dining room.

  “It is rather hard that I can’t speak without having a scene,” muttered Mr. Bain, as he tried his soup once more. It did not suit his taste at all; so he pushed it from him, and made his dinner of something else.

  As his wife had been pleased to go off up-stairs in a huff, just at a word, Mr. Bain did not feel inclined to humour her. So, after finishing his dinner, he took his hat and left the house, without so much as seeking to offer a soothing word.

  Does the reader wonder that, when Mr. Bain returned in the evening, he found his wife so seriously ill as to make it necessary to send for their family physician? No, the reader will not wonder at this.

  But Mr. Bain felt a little surprised. He had not anticipated any thing of the kind.

  Mrs. Bain was not only ill, but delirious. Her feeble frame, exhausted by maternal duties, and ever-beginning, never-ending household cares, had yielded under the accumulation of burdens too heavy to bear.

  For a while after Mr. Bain’s return, his wife talked much, but incoherently; then she became quiet. But her fever remained high, and inflammation tended strongly towards the brain. He was sitting by the bedside about ten o’clock, alone with her, when she began to talk in her wandering way again; but her words were distinct and coherent.

  “I tried to do it right,” said she, sadly; “but my head ached so that I did not know what I was doing. Ah me! I never please him now in any thing. I wish I could always look pleasant—cheerful. But I can’t. Well! well! it won’t last for ever. I never feel well—never—never—never! And I’m so faint and weak in the morning! But he has no patience with me. He doesn’t know what it is to feel sick. Ah me!”

  And her voice sighed itself away into silence.

  With what a rebuking force did these words fall upon the ears of Mr. Bain! He saw himself in a new light. He was the domestic tyrant, and not the kind and thoughtful husband.

  A few days, and Mrs. Bain was moving about her house and among her children once more, pale as a shadow, and with lines of pain upon her forehead. How differently was she now treated by her husband! With what considerate tenderness he regarded her! But, alas! he saw his error too late! The gentle, loving creature, who had come to his side ten years before, was not much longer to remain with him. A few brief summers came and went, and then her frail body was laid amid the clods of the valley.

  Alas! how many, like Mrs. Bain, have thus passed away, who, if truly loved and cared for, would have been the light of now darkened hearths, and the blessing and joy of now motherless children and bereaved husbands!

  THE FIRST AND LAST QUARREL.

  “IF I am his wife, I am not his slave!” said young Mrs. Huntley, indignantly. “It was more than he dared do a month ago.”

  “If you love me, Esther, don’t talk in this way,” said Mrs. Carlisle.

  “Am I his slave aunt?” and the young bride drew herself up, while her eyes flashed.

  “No, Esther, you are his wife.”

  “To be loved, and not commanded! That is the difference, and he has got to learn it.”

  “Were Edward to see and hear you now, do you think your words, manner, and expression would inspire him with any new affection for you?”

  “I have nothing to do with that. I only express a
just indignation, and that is a right I did not alienate when I consented to become his wife.”

  “You are a silly girl, Esther,” said Mrs. Carlisle, “and I am afraid will pay dear for your folly. Edward has faults, and so have you. If you understood the duties and responsibilities of your position, and felt the true force of your marriage vows, you would seek to bend into better forms the crooked branches of your husband’s hereditary temper, rather than commit an irreparable injury by roughly breaking them. I was not pleased with Edward’s manner of speaking; but I must admit that he had provocation: that you were first, and, therefore, most to blame.”

  “I objected to going with him to the opera, because I particularly wanted to call and see Anna Lewis to-night. I had made up my mind to this, and when I make up my mind to any thing I do not like to be turned from my purpose.”

  “Edward resembles you rather too much in that respect. Therefore, there must be a disposition to yielding and self-denial on one side or the other, or unhappiness will follow. Hitherto, as far as I have been able to see, the yielding has all been on the part of Edward, who has given up to you in everything. And now, when he shows that he has a will of his own, you become very indignant, and talk bout not being his slave.”

  “It is too bad for you to speak so, aunt! You never think I do any thing right.” And Esther burst into tears.

  Meantime, Edward Huntley, the husband, was at the opera, listening to, but not enjoying, the beauties Norma. It was only a month since he had led to the altar his beautiful bride, and felt himself the happiest man in the world. Before marriage, he thought only of how he should please Esther. The preference of his own wishes to hers was felt as no sacrifice. But, after the hymeneal contract had been gratified, his feelings began gradually to change. What he had yielded in kindness was virtually demanded as a right, and against this, the moment it was perceived, his spirit rose in rebellion. In several instances, he gave way to what savoured, much more than he liked, of imperiousness.