Adeline Mowbray Part 31

Nor could she help reproaching Berrendale for the selfish ease and indifference with which he saw her deprived of those social enjoyments which he daily enjoyed himself, convinced as she was that he might, if he chose, have introduced her at least to his intimate friends.

But she pleaded and reasoned in vain. Contented with the access which he had to the tables of his friends, it was of little importance to him that his wife ate her humble meal alone. His habits of enjoyment had ever been solitary: the school-boy, who had at school eaten his tart and cake by stealth in a corner, that he might not be asked to share them with another, had grown up with the same dispositions to manhood: and as his parents, thought opulent, were vulgar in their manners and low in their origin, he had never been taught those graceful self-denials inculcated into the children of polished life, which, though taught from fact.i.tious and not real benevolence, have certainly a tendency, by long habit, to make that benevolence real which at first was only artificial.

Adeline had both sorts of kindness and affection, those untaught of the heart, and those of education;--she was polite from the situation into which the accident of birth had thrown her, and also from the generous impulse of her nature. To her, therefore, the uncultivated and unblushing _personnalite_, as the French call it, of Berrendale, was a source of constant wonder and distress: and often, very often did she feel the utmost surprise at Berrendale's having appeared to Glenmurray a man likely to make her happy. Often did she wonder how the defects of Berrendale's character could have escaped his penetrating eyes.

Adeline forgot that the faults of her husband were such as could be known only by an intimate connexion, and which cohabitation could alone call forth;--faults, the existence of which such a man as Glenmurray, who never considered himself in any transaction whatever, could not suppose possible; and which, though they inflicted the most bitter pangs on Adeline, and gradually untwisted the slender thread which had began to unite her heart with Berrendale's, were of so slight a fabric as almost to elude the touch, and of a nature to appear almost too trivial to be mentioned in the narration of a biographer.

But though it has been long said that trifles make the sum of human things, inattention to trifles continues to be the vice of every one; and many a conjugal union which has never been a.s.sailed by the battery of crime, has fallen a victim to the slowly undermining power of petty quarrels, trivial unkindnesses and thoughtless neglect;--like the gallant officer, who, after escaping unhurt all the rage of battle by land and water, tempest on sea and earthquake on sh.o.r.e, returns perhaps to his native country, and perishes by the power of a slow fever.

But Adeline, who, amidst all the chimaeras of her fancy and singularities of her opinions, had happily held fast her religion, began at this moment to entertain a belief that soothed in some measure the sorrows which it could not cure. She fancied that all the sufferings she underwent were trials which she was doomed to undergo, as punishments for the crime she had committed in leaving her mother and living with Glenmurray. She therefore welcomed her afflictions, and lifted up her meek eyes to her G.o.d and Saviour, in every hour of her trials, with the look of tearful but grateful resignation.

Meanwhile her child, whom, after her mother, she called Editha, was nursed at her own bosom, and thrived even beyond her expectations. Even Berrendale beheld its growing beauty with delight, and the mulatto was wild in praise of it; while Adeline, wholly taken up all day in nursing and in working for it, and every evening in writing stories and hymns to publish, which would, she hoped, one day be useful to her own child as well as to the children of others, soon ceased to regret her seclusion from society; and by the time Editha was a year old she had learnt to bear with patience the disappointment she had experienced in Berrendale.

Soon after she became a mother she again wrote to Mrs Pemberton, as she longed to impart to her sympathizing bosom those feelings of parental delight which Berrendale could not understand, and the expression of which he witnessed with contemptuous and chilling gravity. To this letter she antic.i.p.ated a most gratifying return; but month after month pa.s.sed away, and no letter from Lisbon arrived. 'No doubt my letter miscarried,' said Adeline to Savanna, 'and I will write again:' but she never had resolution to do so; for she felt that her prospects of conjugal happiness were obscured, and she shrunk equally from the task of expressing the comfort which she did not feel, or unveiling to another the errors of her husband. The little regard, meanwhile, which she had endeavoured to return for Berrendale soon vanished, being unable to withstand a new violence offered to it.

Editha was seized with the hooping-cough; and as Adeline had sold her last little volume to advantage, Berrendale allowed her to take a lodging at a short distance from town, as change of air was good for the complaint. She did so, and remained there two months. At her return she had the mortification to find that her husband, during her absence, had intrigued with the servant of the house:--a circ.u.mstance of which she would probably have remained ignorant, but for the indiscreet affection of Savanna, who, in the first transports of her indignation on discovering the connexion, had been unable to conceal from her mistress what drove her almost frantic with indignation.

But Adeline, though she felt disgust and aversion swallowing up the few remaining sparks of regard for Berrendale which she felt, had one great consolation under this new calamity.--Berrendale had not been the choice of her heart: 'But, thank Heaven! I never loved this man,' escaped her lips as she ran into her own room; and pressing her child to her bosom, she shed on its unconscious cheeks the tears which resentment and a deep sense of injury wrung from her.--'Oh! had I loved him,' she exclaimed, 'this blow would have been mortal!'

She, however, found herself in one respect the better for Berrendale's guilt. Conscious that the mulatto was aware of what had pa.s.sed, and afraid lest she should have mentioned her discovery to Adeline, Berrendale endeavoured to make amends for his infidelity by attention such as he had never shown her since the first weeks of his marriage; and had she not been aware of the motive, the change in his behaviour would have re-awakened her tenderness. However, it claimed at least complaisance and gentleness from her while it lasted: which was not long; for Berrendale, fancying from the apparent tranquillity of Adeline (the result of indifference, not ignorance,) that she was not informed of his fault, and that the mulatto was too prudent to betray him, began to relapse into his old habits; and one day, forgetting his a.s.sumed liberality, he ventured, when alone with Savanna, who was airing one of Editha's caps, to expatiate on the needless extravagance of his wife in tr.i.m.m.i.n.g her child's caps with lace.

This was enough to rouse the quick feelings of the mulatto, and she poured forth all her long concealed wrath in a torrent of broken English, but plain enough to be well understood.--'You man!' she cried at last, 'you will kill her; she pine at your no kindness;--and if she die, mind me, man! never you marry aden.--You marry, forsoot! you marry a lady! true bred lady like mine! No, man!--You best get a cheap miss from de street and be content--'

As she said this, and in an accent so provoking that Berrendale was pale and speechless with rage, Adeline entered the room; and Savanna, self-condemned already from what she had uttered, was terrified when Adeline, in a tone of voice unusually severe, said, 'Leave the room; you have offended me past forgiveness.'

These words, in a great measure, softened the angry feelings of Berrendale, as they proved that Adeline resented the insult offered to him as deeply as he could wish; and with some calmness he exclaimed, 'Then I conclude, Mrs Berrendale, that you will have no objection to discharge your mulatto directly?'

This conclusion, though a very natural one, was both a shock and a surprise to Adeline; nor could she at first reply.

'You are _silent_, madam,' said Berrendale; 'what is your answer? Yes, or No?'

'Yes,--yes,--certainly,' faltered out Adeline; 'she--she ought to go--I mean that she has used very improper language to you.'

'And, therefore, a wife who resents as she ought to do, injuries offered to her husband cannot hesitate for a moment to discharge her.'

'True, very true in some measure,' replied Adeline; 'but--'

'But what?' demanded Berrendale. 'O Berrendale!' cried Adeline, bursting into an agony of frantic sorrow, 'if she leaves me, what will become of me! I shall lose the only person now in the world, perhaps, who loves me with sincere and faithful affection!'

Berrendale was wholly unprepared for an appeal like this; and, speechless from surprise not unmixed with confusion, staggered into the next chair. He was conscious, indeed, that his fidelity to his wife had not been proof against a few weeks' absence; but then, being, like most men, not over delicate in his idea on such subjects, as soon as Adeline returned he had given up the connexion which he had formed, and therefore he thought she had not much reason to complain. In all other respects he was sure that he was an exemplary husband, and she had no just grounds for doubting his affection. He was sure that she had no reason to accuse him of unkindness; and, unless she wished him to be always tied to her ap.r.o.n-string, he was certain he had never omitted to pay her all proper attention.

Alas! he felt not the many wounds he had inflicted by

'The word whose meaning kills; yet, told, The speaker wonders that you thought it cold.'

and he had yet to learn, that in order to excite or testify affection, it is necessary to seem to derive exclusive enjoyment from the society of the object avowed to be beloved, and to seek its gratification in preference to one's own, even in the most trivial things. He knew not that opportunities of conferring large benefits, like bank-bills for 1,000, rarely come into use; but little attentions, friendly partic.i.p.ations and kindnesses, are wanted daily, and like small change, are necessary to carry on the business of life and happiness.

A minute more perhaps, elapsed, before Berrendale recovered himself sufficiently to speak: and the silence was made still more awful to Adeline, by her hearing from the adjoining room the sobs of the mulatto.

At length, 'I cannot find words to express my surprise at what you have just uttered,' exclaimed Berrendale. 'My conscience does not reproach me with deserving the reproof it contained.'

'Indeed!' replied Adeline, fixing her penetrating eyes on his, which shrunk downcast and abashed from her gaze. Adeline saw her advantage, and pursued it.

'Mr Berrendale,' continued she, 'it is indeed true, that the mulatto has offended both of us; for in offending _you_ she has offended _me_; but, have you committed no fault, nothing for _me_ to forgive? I know that you are too great a lover of truth, too honourable a man, to declare that you have not deserved the just anger of your wife: but you know that I have never reproached you, nor should you ever have been aware that I was privy to the distressing circ.u.mstance to which I allude, but for what has just pa.s.sed: and, now, do but forgive the poor mulatto, who sinned only from regard for me, and from supposed slight offered to her mistress, and I will not only a.s.sure you of my forgiveness, but, from this moment, will strenuously endeavour to blot from my remembrance every trace of what has pa.s.sed.'

Berrendale, conscious and self-condemned, scarcely knew what to answer; but, thinking that it was better to accept Adeline's offer even on her own conditions, he said, that if Savanna would make a proper apology, and Adeline would convince her that she was seriously displeased with her, he would allow her to stay; and Adeline having promised every thing which he asked, peace was again restored.

'But what can you mean, Adeline,' said Berrendale, 'by doubting my affection? I think I gave a sufficient proof of that, when, disregarding the opinion of the world, I married you, though you had been the mistress of another: and I really think that, by accusing me of unkindness, you make me a very ungrateful return.' To this indelicate and unfeeling remark Adeline vainly endeavoured to reply; but, starting from her chair, she paced the room in violent agitation. 'Answer me,'

continued Berrendale, 'name one instance in which I have been unkind to you.' Adeline suddenly stopped, and, looking steadfastly at him, smiled with a sort of contemptuous pity, and was on the point of saying, 'Is not what you have now said an instance of unkindness?' But she saw that the same want of delicacy, and of that fine moral _tact_ which led him to commit this and similar a.s.saults on her feelings, made him unconscious of the violence which he offered.

Finding, therefore, that he could not understand her causes of complaint, even if it were possible for her to define them, she replied, 'Well, perhaps I was too hasty, and in a degree unjust: so let us drop the subject; and, indeed, my dear Berrendale, you must bear with my weakness: remember, I have always been a spoiled child.'

Here the image of Glenmurray and that of _home_, the home which she once knew, the home of her childhood, and of her _earliest_ youth, pressed on her recollection. She thought of her mother, of the indulgencies which she had once known, of the advantages, of opulence, the value of which she had never felt till deprived of them; and, struck with the comparative forlornness of her situation--united for life to a being whose sluggish sensibilities could not understand, and consequently not soothe, the quick feelings and jealous susceptibility of her nature--she could hardly forbear falling at the feet of her husband, and conjuring him to behave, at least, with forbearance to her, and to speak and look at her with kindness.

She did stretch out her hand to him with a look of mournful entreaty, which, though not understood by Berrendale, was not lost upon him entirely. He thought it was a confession of her weakness and his superiority; and, flattered by the thought into unusual softness, he caught her fondly to his bosom, and gave up an engagement to sup at an oyster club, in order to spend the evening tete-a-tete with his wife.

Nay, he allowed the little Editha to remain in the room for a whole hour, though she cried when he attempted to take her in his arms, and, observing that it was a cold evening, allowed Adeline her due share of the fire-side.

These circ.u.mstances, trivial as they were, had more than their due effect on Adeline, whose heart was more alive to kindness than unkindness; and those paltry attentions of which happy wives would not have been conscious, were to her a source of unfeigned pleasure.--As sailors are grateful, after a voyage unexpectedly long, for the muddy water which at their first embarking they would have turned from with disgust.

That very night Adeline remonstrated with the mulatto on the impropriety of her conduct; and, having convinced her that in insulting her husband she failed in respect to her, Savanna was prevailed upon the next morning to ask pardon of Berrendale; and, out of love for her mistress, she took care in future to do nothing that required forgiveness.

As Adeline's way of life admitted of but little variety, Berrendale having persisted in not introducing her to his friends, on the plea of not being rich enough to receive company in return, I shall pa.s.s over in silence what occurred to her till Editha was two years old; premising that a series of little injuries on the part of Berrendale, and a quick resentment of them on the part of Adeline, which not even her habitual good humour could prevent, had, during that time, nearly eradicated every trace of love for each other from their hearts.

One evening Adeline as usual, in the absence of her husband, undressed Editha by the parlour fire, and, playing with the laughing child, was enjoying the rapturous praises which Savanna put forth of its growing beauty; while the tawny boy, who had spent the day with them, built houses with cards on the table, which Editha threw down as soon as they were built, and he with good-humoured perseverance raised up again.

Adeline, alive only to the maternal feeling, at this moment had forgotten all her cares; she saw nothing but the happy group around her, and her countenance wore the expression of recovered serenity.

At this moment a loud knock was heard at the door, and Adeline, starting up, exclaimed, 'It is my husband's knock!'

'O! no:--he never come so soon,' replied the mulatto running to the door; but she was mistaken--it was Berrendale: and Adeline, hearing his voice, began instantly to s.n.a.t.c.h up Editha's clothes, and to knock down the tawny boy's newly-raised edifice: but order was not restored when Berrendale entered; and, with a look and tone of impatience, he said, 'So! fine confusion indeed! Here's a fire-side to come to! Pretty amus.e.m.e.nt too, for a literary lady--building houses of cards! Shame on your extravagance, Mrs Berrendale, to let that brat spoil cards in that way!'

The sunshine of Adeline's countenance on hearing this vanished: to be sure, she was accustomed to such speeches; but the moment before she had felt happy, for the first time, for years. She, however, replied not; but hurrying Editha to bed, ordering the reluctant tawny boy into the kitchen, and setting Berrendale's chair, as usual, in the warmest place, she ventured in a faint voice to ask, what had brought him home so early.

'More early than welcome,' replied Berrendale, 'if I may judge from the bustle I have occasioned.'

'It is very true,' replied Adeline, 'that, had I expected you, I should have been better prepared for your reception; and then you, perhaps, would have spoken more kindly to me.'

'There--there you go again.--If I say but a word to you, then I am called unkind, though I never speak without just provocation: and, I declare, I came home in the best humour possible, to tell you what may turn out of great profit to us both:--but when a man has an uncomfortable home to come to, it is enough to put him out of humour.'

The mulatto, who was staying to gather up the cards which had fallen, turned herself round on hearing this, and exclaimed, 'Home was very comfortable till you come;' and then with a look of the most angry contempt she left the room, and threw the door to with great violence.

'But what is this good news, my dear?' said Adeline, eager to turn Berrendale's attention from Savanna's insolent reply.

'I have received a letter,' he replied, 'which, by the by, I ought to have had some weeks ago, from my father-in-law in Jamaica, authorizing me to draw on his banker for 900, and inviting me to come over to him; as he feels himself declining, and wishes to give me the care of his estate, and of my son, to whom all his fortune will descend: and of whose interest, he properly thinks, no one can be so likely to take good care as his own father.'

'And do you mean that I and Editha should go with you?' said Adeline turning pale.

'No, to be sure not,' eagerly replied Berrendale; 'I must first see how the land lies. But if I go--as the old man no doubt will make a handsome settlement on me--I shall be able to remit to you a very respectable annuity.'

Adeline's heart, spite of herself, bounded with joy at this discovery; but she had resolution to add,--and if duplicity can ever be pardonable, this was,--'So then the good news which you had to impart to me was, that we were going to be separated!' But as she said this, the consciousness that she was artfully trying to impress Berrendale with an idea of her feeling a sorrow which was foreign to her heart, overcame her; and affected also at being under the necessity of rejoicing at the departure of that being who ought to be the source of her comfort, she vainly struggled to regain composure, and burst into an agony of tears.