This, too, was terrible to her, and at the same time altogether unintelligible.She had been invited to buy little treasures to make their home more comfortable, and had already learned to take that delight in her belongings which is one of the greatest pleasures of a young married woman's life.A girl in her old home, before she is given up to a husband, has many sources of interest, and probably from day to day sees many people.And the man just married goes to his work, and occupies his time, and has his thickly-peopled world around him.But the bride, when the bridal honours of the honeymoon are over, when the sweet care of the first cradle has not yet come to her, is apt to be lonely and to be driven to the contemplation of the pretty things with which her husband and her friends have surrounded her.It had certainly been so with this young bride, whose husband left her in the morning and only returned for their late dinner.And now she was told that her household gods had had a price put on them, and that they were to be sold.She had intended to suggest that she would pay her father a visit, and her husband immediately proposed that they should quarter themselves permanently on the old man! She was ready to give up her brougham, though she liked the comfort of it well enough, but to that he would not consent because the possession of it gave him an air of wealth; but without a moment's hesitation he could catch up the idea of throwing upon her father the burden of maintaining both her and himself! She understood the meaning of this.She could read his mind so far.She endeavoured not to read the book too closely,--but there it was, opened to her wider day by day, and she knew that the lessons which it taught were vulgar and damnable.
And yet she had to hide from him her own perception of himself!
She had to sympathise with his desires and yet abstain from doing that which his desires demanded from her.Alas, poor girl! She soon knew that the marriage had been a mistake.There was probably no one moment in which she made the confession to herself.But the conviction was there, in her mind, as though the confession had been made.Then there would come upon her unbidden, unwelcome reminiscences of Arthur Fletcher,--thoughts that she would struggle to banish, accusing herself of some heinous crime because the thoughts would come back to her.She remembered his light wavy hair, which she had loved as one who loves the beauty of a dog, which had seemed to her young imagination, to her in the ignorance of her early years to lack something of a dreamed-of manliness.She remembered his eager, boyish, honest entreaties to herself, which to her had been without that dignity of a superior being which a husband should possess.She became aware that she had thought the less of him because he had thought more of her.She had worshipped this other man because he had assumed superiority and had told her that he was big enough to be her master.But now,--now that it was all too late,--the veil had fallen from her eyes.She could not see the difference between manliness and 'deportment'.Ah,--that she should ever have been so blind, she who had given herself credit for seeing so much clearer than they who were their elders! And now, though at last she did see clearly, she could not have the consolation of telling anyone what she had seen.She must bear it all in silence, and live with it, and still love this god of clay that she had chosen.And, above all, she must never allow herself even to think of that other man with the wavy light hair,--that man who was rising in the world, of whom all people said good things, and who was showing himself to be a man by the work he did, and whose true tenderness she could never doubt.
Her father was left to her.She could still love her father.It might be that it would be best for him that she should go back to her old home, and take care of his old age.If he should wish it, she would make no difficulty in parting with the things around her.Of what concern were the prettinesses of life to one whose inner soul was hampered with such ugliness! It might be better that they should live in Manchester Square,--if her father wished it.It was clear to her now that her husband was in urgent need of money, though of his affairs, even of his way of making money, she knew nothing.As that was the case, of course she would consent to any practicable retrenchment which he would propose.And then she thought of other coming joys and coming troubles,--of how in future years she might have to teach a girl falsely to believe that her father was a good man, and to train a boy to honest purposes whatever parental lessons might come from the other side.
But the mistake she had made was acknowledged.The man who could enjoin her to 'get round' her father could never have been worthy of the love she had given him.
