Man and Wife

by Wilkie Collins

in return, telling me to wait a little, and see whether my

  husband did it again.

  "I had not long to wait. He was in liquor again the next day, and

  the next. Hearing this, Mr. Bapchild instructed me to send him

  the letter from my husband's brother. He reminded me of some of

  the stories about my husband which I had refused to believe in

  the time before I was married; and he said it might be well to

  make inquiries.

  "The end of the inquiries was this. The brother, at that very

  time, was placed privately (by his own request) under a doctor's

  care to get broken of habits of drinking. The craving for strong

  liquor (the doctor wrote) was in the family. They would be sober

  sometimes for months together, drinking nothing stronger than

  tea. Then the fit would seize them; and they would drink, drink,

  drink, for days together, like the mad and miserable wretches

  that they were.

  "This was the husband I was married to. And I had offended all my

  relations, and estranged them from me, for his sake. Here was

  surely a sad prospect for a woman after only a few months of

  wedded life!

  "In a year's time the money in the bank was gone; and my husband

  was out of employment. He always got work--being a first-rate

  hand when he was sober--and always lost it again when the

  drinking-fit seized him. I was loth to leave our nice little

  house, and part with my pretty furniture; and I proposed to him

  to let me try for employment, by the day, as cook, and so keep

  things going while he was looking out again for work. He was

  sober and penitent at the time; and he agreed to what I proposed.

  And, more than that, he took the Total Abstinence Pledge, and

  promised to turn over a new leaf. Matters, as I thought, began to

  look fairly again. We had nobody but our two selves to think of.

  I had borne no child, and had no prospect of bearing one. Unlike

  most women, I thought this a mercy instead of a misfortune. In my

  situation (as I soon grew to know) my becoming a mother would

  only have proved to be an aggravation of my hard lot.

  "The sort of employment I wanted was not to be got in a day. Good

  Mr. Bapchild gave me a character; and our landlord, a worthy man

  (belonging, I am sorry to say, to the Popish Church), spoke for

  me to the steward of a club. Still, it took time to persuade

  people that I was the thorough good cook I claimed to be. Nigh on

  a fortnight had passed before I got the chance I had been looking

  out for. I went home in good spirits (for me) to report what had

  happened, and found the brokers in the house carrying off the

  furniture which I had bought with my own money for sale by

  auction. I asked them how they dared touch it without my leave.

  They answered, civilly enough I must own, that they were acting

  under my husband's orders; and they went on removing it before my

  own eyes, to the cart outside. I ran up stairs, and found my

  husband on the landing. He was in liquor again. It is useless to

  say what passed between us. I shall only mention that this was

  the first occasion on which he lifted his fist, and struck me.

  5.

  "Having a spirit of my own, I was resolved not to endure it. I

  ran out to the Police Court, hard by.

  "My money had not only bought the furniture--it had kept the

  house going as well; paying the taxes which the Queen and the

  Parliament asked for among other things. I now went to the

  magistrate to see what the Queen and the Parliament, in return

  for the taxes, would do for _me._

  " 'Is your furniture settled on yourself?' he says, when I told

  him what had happened.

  "I didn't understand what he meant. He turned to some person who

  was sitting on the bench with him. 'This is a hard case,' he

  says. 'Poor people in this condition of life don't even know what

  a marriage settlement means. And, if they did, how many of them

  could afford to pay the lawyer's charges?' Upon that he turned to

  me. 'Yours is a common case,' he said. 'In the present state of

  the law I can do nothing for you.'

  "It was impossible to believe that. Common or not, I put my case

  to him over again.

  " 'I have bought the furniture with my own money, Sir,' I says.

  'It's mine, honestly come by, with bill and receipt to prove it.

  They are taking it away from me by force, to sell it against my

  will. Don't tell me that's the law. This is a Christian country.

  It can't be.'

  " 'My good creature,' says he, 'you are a married woman. The law

  doesn't allow a married woman to call any thing her own--unless

  she has previously (with a lawyer's help) made a bargain to that

  effect with her husband before marrying him. You have made no

  bargain. Your husband has a right to sell your furniture if he

  likes. I am sorry for you; I can't hinder him.'

  "I was obstinate about it. 'Please to answer me this, Sir,' I

  says. 'I've been told by wiser heads than mine that we all pay

  our taxes to keep the Queen and the Parliament going; and that

  the Queen and the Parliament make laws to protect us in return. I

  have paid my taxes. Why, if you please, is there no law to

  protect me in return?'

  " 'I can't enter into that,' says he. 'I must take the law as I

  find it; and so must you. I see a mark there on the side of your

  face. Has your husband been beating you? If he has, summon him

  here I can punish him for _that._'

  " 'How can you punish him, Sir?' says I.

  " 'I can fine him,' says he. 'Or I can send him to prison.'

  " 'As to the fine,' says I, 'he can pay that out of the money he

  gets by selling my furniture. As to the prison, while he's in it,

  what's to become of me, with my money spent by him, and my

  possessions gone; and when he's _out_ of it, what's to become of

  me again, with a husband whom I have been the means of punishing,

  and who comes home to his wife knowing it? It's bad enough as it

  is, Sir,' says I. 'There's more that's bruised in me than what

  shows in my face. I wish you good-morning.'

  6.

  "When I got back the furniture was gone, and my husband was gone.

  There was nobody but the landlord in the empty house. He said all

  that could be said--kindly enough toward me, so far as I was

  concerned. When he was gone I locked my trunk, and got away in a

  cab after dark, and found a lodging to lay my head in. If ever

  there was a lonely, broken-hearted creature in the world, I was

  that creature that night.

  "There was but one chance of earning my bread--to go to the

  employment offered me (under a man cook, at a club). And there

  was but one hope--the hope that I had lost sight of my husband

  forever.

  "I went to my work--and prospered in it--and earned my first

  quarter's wages. But it's not good for a woman to be situated as

  I was; friendless and alone, with her things that she took a

  pride in sold away from her, and with nothing to look forward to

  in her life to come. I was regular in my attendance at chapel;

  but I think my heart be
gan to get hardened, and my mind to be

  overcast in secret with its own thoughts about this time. There

  was a change coming. Two or three days after I had earned the

  wages just mentioned my husband found me out. The furniture-money

  was all spent. He made a disturbance at the club, I was only able

  to quiet him by giving him all the money I could spare from my

  own necessities. The scandal was brought before the committee.

  They said, if the circumstance occurred again, they should be

  obliged to part with me. In a fortnight the circumstance occurred

  again. It's useless to dwell on it. They all said they were sorry

  for me. I lost the place. My husband went back with me to my

  lodgings. The next morning I caught him taking my purse, with the

  few shillings I had in it, out of my trunk, which he had broken

  open. We quarreled. And he struck me again--this time knocking me

  down.

  "I

  went once more to the police court, and told my story--to

  another magistrate this time. My only petition was to have my

  husband kept away from me. 'I don't want to be a burden on

  others' (I says) 'I don't want to do any thing but what's right.

  I don't even complain of having been very cruelly used. All I ask

  is to be let to earn an honest living. Will the law protect me in

  the effort to do that?'

  "The answer, in substance, was that the law might protect me,

  provided I had money to spend in asking some higher court to

  grant me a separation. After allowing my husband to rob me openly

  of the only property I possessed--namely, my furniture--the law

  turned round on me when I called upon it in my distress, and held

  out its hand to be paid. I had just three and sixpence left in

  the world--and the prospect, if I earned more, of my husband

  coming (with permission of the law) and taking it away from me.

  There was only one chance--namely, to get time to turn round in,

  and to escape him again. I got a month's freedom from him, by

  charging him with knocking me down. The magistrate (happening to

  be young, and new to his business) sent him to prison, instead of

  fining him. This gave me time to get a character from the club,

  as well as a special testimonial from good Mr. Bapchild. With the

  help of these, I obtained a place in a private family--a place in

  the country, this time.

  "I found myself now in a haven of peace. I was among worthy

  kind-hearted people, who felt for my distresses, and treated me

  most indulgently. Indeed, through all my troubles, I must say I

  have found one thing hold good. In my experience, I have observed

  that people are oftener quick than not to feel a human compassion

  for others in distress. Also, that they mostly see plain enough

  what's hard and cruel and unfair on them in the governing of the

  country which they help to keep going. But once ask them to get

  on from sitting down and grumbling about it, to rising up and

  setting it right, and what do you find them? As helpless as a

  flock of sheep--that's what you find them.

  "More than six months passed, and I saved a little money again.

  "One night, just as we were going to bed, there was a loud ring

  at the bell. The footman answered the door--and I heard my

  husband's voice in the hall. He had traced me, with the help of a

  man he knew in the police; and he had come to claim his rights. I

  offered him all the little money I had, to let me be. My good

  master spoke to him. It was all useless. He was obstinate and

  savage. If--instead of my running off from him--it had been all

  the other way and he had run off from me, something might have

  been done (as I understood) to protect me. But he stuck to his

  wife. As long as I could make a farthing, he stuck to his wife.

  Being married to him, I had no right to have left him; I was

  bound to go with my husband; there was no escape for me. I bade

  them good-by. And I have never forgotten their kindness to me

  from that day to this.

  "My husband took me back to London.

  "As long as the money lasted, the drinking went on. When it was

  gone, I was beaten again. Where was the remedy? There was no

  remedy, but to try and escape him once more. Why didn't I have

  him locked up? What was the good of having him locked up? In a

  few weeks he would be out of prison; sober and penitent, and

  promising amendment--and then when the fit took him, there he

  would be, the same furious savage that be had been often and

  often before. My heart got hard under the hopelessness of it; and

  dark thoughts beset me, mostly at night. About this time I began

  to say to myself, 'There's no deliverance from this, but in

  death--his death or mine.'

  "Once or twice I went down to the bridges after dark and looked

  over at the river. No. I wasn't the sort of woman who ends her

  own wretchedness in that way. Your blood must be in a fever, and

  your head in a flame--at least I fancy so--you must be hurried

  into it, like, to go and make away with yourself. My troubles

  never took that effect on me. I always turned cold under them

  instead of hot. Bad for me, I dare say; but what you are--you

  are. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?

  "I got away from him once more, and found good employment once

  more. It don't matter how, and it don't matter where. My story is

  always the same thing, over and over again. Best get to the end.

  "There was one change, however, this time. My employment was not

  in a private family. I was also allowed to teach cookery to young

  women, in my leisure hours. What with this, and what with a

  longer time passing on the present occasion before my husband

  found me out, I was as comfortably off as in my position I could

  hope to be. When my work was done, I went away at night to sleep

  in a lodging of my own. It was only a bedroom; and I furnished it

  myself--partly for the sake of economy (the rent being not half

  as much as for a furnished room); and partly for the sake of

  cleanliness. Through all my troubles I always liked things neat

  about me--neat and shapely and good.

  "Well, it's needless to say how it ended. He found me out

  again--this time by a chance meeting with me in the street.

  "He was in rags, and half starved. But that didn't matter now.

  All he had to do was to put his hand into my pocket and take what

  he wanted. There is no limit, in England, to what a bad husband

  may do--as long as he sticks to his wife. On the present

  occasion, he was cunning enough to see that he would be the loser

  if he disturbed me in my employment. For a while things went on

  as smoothly as they could. I made a pretense that the work was

  harder than usual; and I got leave (loathing the sight of him, I

  honestly own) to sleep at the place where I was employed. This

  was not for long. The fit took him again, in due course; and he

  came and made a disturbance. As before, this was not to be borne

  by decent people. As before, they were sorry to part with me. As

  before, I lost my place.

  "Anot
her woman would have gone mad under it. I fancy it just

  missed, by a hair's breadth, maddening Me.

  "When I looked at him that night, deep in his drunken sleep, I

  thought of Jael and Sisera (see the book of Judges; chapter 4th;

  verses 17 to 21). It says, she 'took a nail of the tent, and took

  a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the

  nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he

  was fast asleep and weary. So he died.' She did this deed to

  deliver her nation from Sisera. If there had been a hammer and a

  nail in the room that night, I think I should have been

  Jael--with this difference, that I should have done it to deliver

  myself.

  "With the morning this passed off, for the time. I went and spoke

  to a lawyer.

  "Most people, in my place, would have had enough of the law

  already. But I was one of the sort who drain the cup to the

  dregs. What I said to him was, in substance, this. 'I come to ask

  your advice about a madman. Mad people, as I understand it, are

  people who have lost control over their own minds. Sometimes this

  leads them to entertaining delusions; and sometimes it leads them

  to committing actions hurtful to others or to themselves. My

  husband has lost all control over his own craving for strong

  drink. He requires to be kept from liquor, as other madmen

  require to be kept from attempting their own lives, or the lives

  of those about them. It's a frenzy beyond his own control, with

  _him_--just as it's a frenzy beyond their own control, with

  _them._ There are Asylums for mad people, all over the country,

  at the public disposal, on certain conditions. If I fulfill those

  conditions, will the law deliver me from the misery of being

  married to a madman, whose madness is drink?'--'No,' says the

  lawyer. 'The law of England declines to consider an incurable

  drunkard as a fit object for restraint, the law of England leaves

  the husbands and wives of such people in a perfectly helpless

  situation, to deal with their own misery as they best can.'

  "I made my acknowledgments to the gentleman and left him. The

  last chance was this chance--and this had failed me.

  7.

  "The thought that had once found its way into my mind already,

  now found its way back again, and never altogether left me from

  that time forth. No deliverance for me but in death--his death,

  or mine.

  "I had it before me night and day; in chapel and out of chapel

  just the same. I read the story of Jael and Sisera so often that

  the Bible got to open of itself at that place.

  "The laws of my country, which ought to have protected me as an

  honest woman, left me helpless. In place of the laws I had no

  friend near to open my heart to. I was shut up in myself. And I

  was married to that man. Consider me as a human creature, and

  say, Was this not trying my humanity very hardly?

  "I wrote to good Mr. Bapchild. Not going into particulars; only

  telling him I was beset by temptation, and begging him to come

  and help me. He was confined to his bed by illness; he could only

  write me a letter of good advice. To profit by good advice people

  must have a glimpse of happiness to look forward to as a reward

  for exerting themselves. Religion itself is obliged to hold out a

  reward, and to say to us poor mortals, Be good, and you shall go

  to Heaven. I had no glimpse of happiness. I was thankful (in a

  dull sort of way) to good Mr. Bapchild--and there it ended.

  "The time had been when a word from my old pastor would have put

  me in the right way again. I began to feel scared by myself. If

  the next ill usage I received from Joel Dethridge found me an

  unchanged woman, it was borne in strongly on my mind that I

  should be as likely as not to get my deliverance from him by my

  own hand.

  "Goaded to it, by the fear of this, I humbled myself before my

  relations for the first time. I wrote to beg their pardon; to own

  that they had proved to be right in their opinion of my husband;

  and to entreat them to be friends with me again, so far as to let