A Wife's Duty Part 1

A Wife's Duty.

by Amelia Alderson Opie.

BEING A CONTINUATION OF A "WOMAN'S LOVE."

I am only too painfully aware, my dear friend, that in my history of a "Woman's Love," I have related none but very common occurrences and situations, and entered into minute, nay, perhaps, uninteresting details. Still, however common an event may be, it is susceptible of variety in description, because endlessly various is the manner in which the same event affects different persons. Perhaps no occurrence ever affected two human beings exactly in the same manner; but as the rays of light call forth different hues and gradations of colour, according to the peculiar surfaces of the objects on which they fall, so common circ.u.mstances vary in their results and their effects, according to the different natures and minds of those to whom they occur.

My trials have been, and will no doubt continue to be, the trials of thousands of my s.e.x; but the manner in which I acted under them, and their effect on my feelings and my character, must be peculiar to myself. And on these alone I can presume to found my expectation of affording to you, while you read, the variety which keeps attention alive, and the interest which repays it.

In the same week which made me a bride Ferdinand De Walden left England, unable to remain near the spot which had witnessed the birth of his dearest hopes, and would now witness the destruction of them.

I could have soothed in a degree the "pangs of despised love," by a.s.suring him that I was convinced nothing but a prior attachment could have prevented my heart from returning his love. I could have told him that I seemed to myself to have two hearts; the one glowing with pa.s.sionate tenderness for the object of its first feelings, the other conscious of a deep-rooted and well-founded esteem for him. But it was my duty to conceal this truth from him, as such an avowal would have strengthened my hold on his remembrance, and it was now become his duty to forget.

My mother not very long after my marriage wounded my feelings in a manner which I could not soon recover. I was speaking of De Walden with that warmth of regard which I really felt for him, and lamenting that I should probably now see him no more, when, with a look of agony for which I was not prepared, she begged me never to mention the name of De Walden to her again; for that her only chance of being able to reconcile herself to the marriage which I had made, was her learning to forget the one which she had so ardently desired.

Eagerly indeed did I pledge my word to her, that I would in future never name De Walden.

The first twelve months of my wedded life were halcyon days; and the first months of marriage are not often such,--perhaps they never are, except where the wedded couple are so young that they are not trammelled in habits which are likely to interfere with a spirit of accommodation; nor even then, probably, unless the temper is good and yielding on both sides. It usually takes some time for the husband and wife to know each other's humours and habits, and to find out what surrender of their own they can make with the least reluctance for their mutual good. But we had youth, and (I speak it not as a boast) we had good temper also.

Seymour, you know, was proverbially good-natured; and I, though an only child, had not had my naturally happy temper ruined by injudicious indulgence.

You know that Seymour and I went to Paris, and thence to Ma.r.s.eilles, not very long after we were married, and returned in six months, to complete the alterations which we had ordered to be made to our house, under the superintendence of my mother.

We found our alterations really deserving the name of improvements, and Seymour enthusiastically exclaimed, "O Helen! never, never will we leave this enchanting place. Here let us live, my beloved, and be the world to each other!"

My heart readily a.s.sented to this delightful proposition, but even then my judgement revolted at it.

I felt, I knew that Pendarves loved and was formed for society. I was sure that by beginning our wedded life with total seclusion, we should only prepare the way for utter distaste to it; and concealing my own inclinations, I told him I must stipulate for three months of London every spring. My husband started with surprise and mortification at this un-romantic reply to his sentimental proposal, nor could he at all accede to it; but he complained of my pa.s.sion for London to my mother, while the country with me for his companion was quite sufficient for his happiness.

"These are early times yet," replied my mother coldly; and Seymour was not satisfied with the mother or the daughter.

"Seymour," said I one day, "since you have declared against keeping any more terms, and will therefore not read much law till you become a justice of the peace, pray, tell me how you mean to employ yourself?"

"Why, in the first place," said he, "I shall read or write. But my first employment shall be to teach you Spanish. I cannot endure to think that De Walden taught you Italian, Helen."

"But you taught me to love, you know, therefore you ought to forgive it."

"No, I cannot rest till I also have helped to complete your education."

"Well, but I cannot be learning Spanish all day."

"No; so perhaps I shall set about writing a great work."

"The very thing that I was going to propose, though not exactly a great work. What think you of a life of poor Chatterton, with critical remarks on his poems?"

"Excellent! I will do it."

And now having given him a pursuit, I ventured to indulge some reasonable hopes that home and the country might prove to him as delightful as he fancied that they would be; and what with studying Spanish, with building a green-house, with occasional writing, with study, with getting together materials for this life, and writing the preface, time fled on very rapid pinions; and after we had been married two years, and May arrived a second time, Seymour triumphantly exclaimed, "There, Helen! I believe that you distrusted my love for the country; but have I once expressed or felt a wish to go to London?"

"The ides of March are come, but not gone," I replied; "and surely if I wish to go, you will not deny me."

"No, Helen, certainly not," said he in a tone of mortification; "if I am no longer all-sufficient for your happiness."

Alas! in the ingenuousness of my nature, I gave way when he said this to the tenderness of my heart, and a.s.sured him that my happiness depended wholly on the enjoyment of his society; and I fear it is too true that men soon learn to slight what they are sure of possessing. Had I been an artful woman, and could I have condescended to make him doubtful of the extent of my love, by a few woman's subterfuges; could I have feigned a desire to return to the world, instead of owning, as I did, that all my enjoyment was comprised in home and him; I do think that I might have been for a much longer period the happiest of wives; but then I should have been, in my own eyes, despicable as a woman, and I was always tenacious of my own esteem.

May was come, but not gone--when I found my husband was continually reading to me, after having previously read to himself, the accounts in the papers of the gaieties of London.

"What a tempting account this is, Helen, of the Exhibition at Somerset House!--I should like to see it. Seeing pictures is an elegant rational amus.e.m.e.nt. And here are soon to be a ball and supper at Ranelagh. A fine place Ranelagh for such an entertainment."

Here he read a list of routs and cotillion b.a.l.l.s at different places; but one day he read, with infinite mortification, that our uncle, Mr.

Pendarves, had given a ball on the return of his son-in-law to Parliament.

"How abominable," cried Seymour, "for my uncle to give a ball, and not invite us to go up to it!"

"You forget," replied I, "that, knowing our pa.s.sion for the country, and that we had abjured the world, he did not like to ask us, because he knew he should be refused."

"I am not so sure he would have been refused, Helen; or, as to having abjured the world--No, no; we are not such fools as to do that--are we, my dearest girl?"

"We are bound by no vows, certainly; and, as soon as retirement is become irksome to you, we can go to London."

"Did I say that retirement was grown irksome? Oh, fie! such an idea never entered my thoughts: besides, as this fine ball is over, what should we go to London for?"

"There may be other fine b.a.l.l.s, and fine parties, you know."

"True; but really, Helen, I begin to believe you wish to go to London."

"If you do, I do certainly."

"I!--Not I indeed. Ah, Helen! I suspect you are not ingenuous with me; and you do wish to go."

I only smiled: but I soon found that the book did not get forward, that the newspapers were anxiously expected, and that my Spanish master sometimes forgot his task in the indulgence of reverie; and I debated within myself, whether it would not be for our interest and our domestic comfort, to propose to go to London, in order to conceal from him as long as I could that I was not sufficient for his happiness; and that he would live and die a man of the world. I was the more ready to do this, because I wished that my mother should not see my empire was on the decline. Why did I so wish? I hoped it was because I was desirous to spare her any anxiety for my peace; but I fear it also was because I did not like that she should have cause to suspect her choice for me was likely to have proved a better one than my own. (I believe I have observed before, how strong my conviction is, that there is scarcely such a thing in nature as a single motive of action.)

I therefore, in the presence of my mother, hinted a wish to go to London for six weeks. She started, and looked suspiciously at Pendarves; while he, with an odd mixture of surprise, joy, and mortification in his countenance, exclaimed--

"Do I hear right, Helen? Are you, after all you have declared, desirous of going to London?"

"I am: 'Variety is charming,' says the proverb; and here you know it is _toujours perdrix_!"

"Well, there, madam," said Pendarves, turning to my mother, "you will now, I hope, believe what I a.s.sured you of some time ago, that Helen had a pa.s.sion for London?"

"_C'est selon_," replied my mother, "to use a French phrase, in answer to Helen's," and darting, as she spoke, a penetrating glance at me.

"I a.s.sure you," replied I, "that my wish to go to London originates with myself, as I believe that this journey to the metropolis is the wisest, as well as the most agreeable thing I could desire."

My mother sighed; and a "Well, my child, I have no reason to doubt your word," broke languidly from her lips, while she suddenly rose and left the room.

"And are you really in earnest, Helen?" said Pendarves.