Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “I did not know that, my dearest love, or I would not have asked you to do it; but I am the more obliged to you for your ready compliance.”

  “Obliged! — Oh, my dear, I am sure you could not be the least obliged to me, for I know I played it horridly: I hate flattery.”

  “I am convinced of that, my dear, and therefore I never flatter: you know I did not say that you played as well the last time as the first, did I?”

  “No, I did not say you did,” cried Griselda, and her colour rose as she spoke: she tuned her harp with some precipitation—”This harp is terribly out of tune.”

  “Is it? I did not perceive it.”

  “Did not you, indeed? I am sorry for that.”

  “Why so, my dear?”

  “Because, my dear, I own that I would rather have had the blame thrown on my harp than upon myself.”

  “Blame? my love! — But I threw no blame either on you or your harp. I cannot recollect saying even a syllable that implied blame.”

  “No, my dear, you did not say a syllable; but in some cases the silence of those we love is the worst, the most mortifying species of blame.”

  The tears came into Griselda’s beautiful eyes.

  “My sweet love,” said he, “how can you let such a trifle affect you so much?”

  “Nothing is a trifle to me which concerns those I love,” said Griselda. — Her husband kissed away the pearly drops which rolled over her vermeil-tinctured cheeks. “My love,” said he, “this is having too much sensibility.”

  “Yes, I own I have too much sensibility,” said she, “too much — a great deal too much, for my own happiness. — Nothing ever can be a trifle to me which marks the decline of the affection of those who are most dear to me.”

  The tenderest protestations of undiminished and unalterable affection could not for some time reassure this timid sensibility: but at length the lady suffered herself to be comforted, and with a languid smile said, that she hoped she was mistaken — that her fears were perhaps unreasonable — that she prayed to Heaven they might in future prove groundless.

  A few weeks afterwards her husband unexpectedly met with Mr. Granby, a friend, of whose company he was particularly fond: he invited him home to dinner, and was talking over past times in all the gaiety and innocence of his heart, when suddenly his wife rose and left the room. — As her absence appeared to him long, and as he had begged his friend to postpone an excellent story till her return, he went to her apartment and called “Griselda! — Griselda, my love!” — No Griselda answered. — He searched for her in vain in every room in the house: at last, in an alcove in the garden, he found the fair dissolved in tears.

  “Good Heavens! my dear Griselda, what can be the matter?”

  A melancholy, not to say sullen, silence was maintained by his dear Griselda, till this question had been reiterated in all the possible tones of fond solicitude and alarm: at last, in broken sentences, she replied that she saw he did not love her — never had loved her; that she had now but too much reason to be convinced that all her fears were real, not imaginary; that her presentiments, alas! never deceived her; that she was the most miserable woman on earth.

  Her husband’s unfeigned astonishment she seemed to consider as an aggravation of her woes, and it was an additional insult to plead ignorance of his offence.

  If he did not understand her feelings, it was impossible, it was needless, to explain them. He must have lost all sympathy with her, all tenderness for her, if he did not know what had passed in her mind.

  The man stood in stupid innocence. Provoked to speak more plainly, the lady exclaimed, “Unfeeling, cruel, barbarous man! — Have not you this whole day been trying your utmost skill to torment me to death? and, proud of your success, now you come to enjoy your triumph.”

  “Success! — triumph!”

  “Yes, triumph! — I see it in your eyes — it is in vain to deny it. All this I owe to your friend Mr. Granby. Why he should be my enemy! — I who never injured him, or any body living, in thought, word, or deed — why he should be my enemy!” —

  “Enemy! — My love, this is the strangest fancy! Why should you imagine that he is your enemy?”

  “He is my enemy — nobody shall ever convince me of the contrary; he has wounded me in the tenderest point, and in the basest manner: has not he done his utmost, in the most artful, insidious way, — even before my face, — to persuade you that you were a thousand times happier when you were a bachelor than you are now — than you ever have been since you married me?”

  “Oh, my dear Griselda, you totally misunderstand him: such a thought never entered his mind.”

  “Pardon me, I know him better than you do.”

  “But I have known him ever since I was a child.”

  “That is the very reason you cannot judge of him as well as I can: how could you judge of character when you were a child?”

  “But now that I am a man—”

  “Now that you are a man you are prejudiced in his favour by all the associations of your childhood — all those associations,” continued the fair one, renewing her tears, “all those early associations, which are stronger than every other species of affection — all those associations which I never can have in your mind, which ever must act against me, and which no merit — if I had any merit — no tenderness, no fidelity, no fondness of mine, can ever hope to balance in the heart of the man I love.”

  “My dearest Griselda! be reasonable, and do not torment yourself and me for no earthly purpose about these associations: really it is ridiculous. Come, dry these useless tears, let me beseech you, my love. You do not know how much pain they give me, unreasonable as they are.”

  At these words they flowed more bitterly.

  “Nay, my love, I conjure you to compose yourself, and return to the company: you do not know how long you have been away, and I too. We shall be missed; we shall make ourselves ridiculous.”

  “If it be ridiculous to love, I shall be ridiculous all my life. I am sorry you think me so; I knew it would come to this; I must bear it if I can,” said Griselda; “only be so kind to excuse me from returning to the company to-night — indeed I am not fit, I am not able: say that I am not well; indeed, my love, you may say so with truth. — Tell your friend that I have a terrible head-ache, and that I am gone to bed — but not to rest,” added she, in a lower and more plaintive tone, as she drew her hand from her husband’s, and in spite of all his entreaties retired to her room with an air of heart-broken resignation.

  Whoever has had the felicity to be beloved by such a wife as our Griselda, must have felt how much the charms of beauty are heightened by the anguish of sensibility. Even in the moment when a husband is most tormented by her caprices, he feels that there is something so amiable, so flattering to his vanity in their source, that he cannot complain of the killing pleasure. On the contrary, he grows fonder of his dear tormentor; he folds closer to him this pleasing bosom ill.

  Griselda perceived the effects, and felt the whole extent of the power of sensibility; she had too much prudence, however, at once to wear out the excitability of a husband’s heart; she knew that the influence of tears, potent as it is, might in time cease to be irresistible, unless aided by the magic of smiles; she knew the power of contrast even in charms; she believed the poets, who certainly understand these things, and who assure us that the very existence of love depends on this blest vicissitude. Convinced, or seemingly convinced, of the folly of that fond melancholy in which she persisted for a week, she next appeared all radiant with joy; and she had reason to be delighted by the effect which this produced. Her husband, who had not yet been long enough her husband to cease to be her lover, had suffered much from the obstinacy of her sorrow; his spirits had sunk, he had become silent, he had been even seen to stand motionless with his arms folded; he was in this attitude when she approached and smiled upon him in all her glory. He breathed, he lived, he moved, he spoke. — Not the influence of the sun on the statue of Memnon wa
s ever more exhilarating.

  Let any candid female say, or, if she will not say, imagine, what she should have felt at that moment in Griselda’s place. — How intoxicating to human vanity, to be possessed of such powers of enchantment! — How difficult to refrain from their exercise! — How impossible to believe in their finite duration!

  CHAPTER II.

  ”Some hope a lover by their faults to win,

  As spots on ermine beautify the skin.”

  When Griselda thought that her husband had long enough enjoyed his new existence, and that there was danger of his forgetting the taste of sorrow, she changed her tone. — One day, when he had not returned home exactly at the appointed minute, she received him with a frown, — such as would have made even Mars himself recoil, if Mars could have beheld such a frown upon the brow of his Venus.

  “Dinner has been kept waiting for you this hour, my dear.”

  “I am very sorry for it; but why did you wait, my dear? I am really very sorry I am so late, but (looking at his watch) it is only half past six by me.”

  “It is seven by me.”

  They presented their watches to each other; he, in an apologetical, she, in a reproachful attitude.

  “I rather think you are too fast, my dear,” said the gentleman.

  “I am very sure you are too slow, my dear,” said the lady.

  “My watch never loses a minute in the four-and-twenty hours,” said he.

  “Nor mine a second,” said she.

  “I have reason to believe I am right, my love,” said the husband, mildly.

  “Reason!” exclaimed the wife, astonished; “what reason can you possibly have to believe you are right, when I tell you I am morally certain you are wrong, my love?”

  “My only reason is, that I set my watch by the sun to-day.”

  “The sun must be wrong, then,” cried the lady, hastily.—”You need not laugh; for I know what I am saying — the variation, the declination, must be allowed for in computing it with the clock. Now you know perfectly well what I mean, though you will not explain it for me, because you are conscious I am in the right.”

  “Well, my dear, if you are conscious of it, that is sufficient. We will not dispute any more about such a trifle. — Are they bringing up dinner?”

  “If they know that you are come in; but I am sure I cannot tell whether they do or not. — Pray, my dear Mrs. Nettleby,” cried the lady, turning to a female friend, and still holding her watch in her hand, “what o’clock is it by you? There is nobody in the world hates disputing about trifles as much as I do; but I own I do love to convince people that I am in the right.”

  Mrs. Nettleby’s watch had stopped. How provoking! — Vexed at having no immediate means of convincing people that she was in the right, our heroine consoled herself by proceeding to criminate her husband, not in this particular instance, where he pleaded guilty, but upon the general charge of being always late for dinner, which he strenuously denied.

  There is something in the species of reproach, which advances thus triumphantly from particulars to generals, peculiarly offensive to every reasonable and susceptible mind: and there is something in the general charge of being always late for dinner, which the punctuality of man’s nature cannot easily endure, especially if he be hungry. We should humbly advise our female friends to forbear exposing a husband’s patience to this trial, or at least to temper it with much fondness, else mischief will infallibly ensue. For the first time Griselda saw her husband angry; but she recovered him by saying, in a softened tone, “My love, you must be sensible that I can have but one reason for being so impatient for your return home. — If I liked your company less, I should not complain so much of your want of punctuality.”

  Finding that this speech had the desired effect, it was afterwards repeated with variations whenever her husband stayed from home to enjoy any species of amusement, or to gratify any of his friends. When he betrayed symptoms of impatience under this constraint, the expostulations became more urgent, if not more forcible.

  “Indeed, my dear, I take it rather unkindly of you that you pay so little attention to my feelings—”

  “I see I am of no consequence to you now; I find every body’s society is preferred to mine: it was not always so. — Well! it is what I might have expected—”

  “Heigho! — Heigho!—”

  Griselda’s sighs were still persuasive, and her husband, notwithstanding that he felt the restraints which daily multiplied upon his time and upon his personal liberty becoming irksome, had not the barbarity to give pain to the woman by whom he was so tenderly beloved. He did not consider that in this case, as well as in many others, apparent mercy is real cruelty. The more this monopolizing humour of his wife’s was indulged, the more insatiable it became. Every person, every thing but herself, was to be excluded from his heart; and when this sole patent for pleasure was granted to her, she became rather careless in its exercise, as those are apt to be who fear no competitors. In proportion as her endeavours to please abated, her expectations of being adored increased: the slightest word of blame, the most remote hint that any thing in her conduct, manners, or even dress, could be altered for the better, was the signal for battle or for tears.

  One night she wept for an hour, and debated for two, about an alteration in her head-dress, which her husband unluckily happened to say made it more becoming. More becoming! implied that it was before unbecoming. She recollected the time when every thing she wore was becoming in his eyes — but that time, alas! was completely past; and she only wished that she could forget that it had ever been.

  “To have been happy is additional misery.”

  This misery may appear comic to some people, but it certainly was not so to our heroine’s unfortunate husband. It was in vain that, in mitigation of his offence, he pleaded total want of knowledge in the arcana of the toilette, absolute inferiority of taste, and a willing submission to the decrees of fashion.

  This submission was called indifference — this calmness construed into contempt. He stood convicted of having said that the lady’s dress was unbecoming — she was certain that he thought more than he said, and that every thing about her was grown disagreeable to him.

  It was in vain he represented that his affection had not been created, and could not be annihilated, by such trifles; that it rested on the solid basis of esteem.

  “Esteem!” cried his wife—”that is the unkindest stroke of all! When a man begins to talk of esteem, there is an end of love.”

  To illustrate this position, the fair one, as well as the disorder of her mind would permit, entered into a refined disquisition, full of all the metaphysics of gallantry, which proved that love — genuine love — is an æthereal essence, a union of souls, regulated by none of those formal principles, and founded upon none of those vulgar moral qualities on which friendship, and the other connexions of society, depend. Far, far above the jurisdiction of reason, true love creates perfect sympathy in taste, and an absolute identity of opinion upon all subjects, physical, metaphysical, moral, political, and economic. After having thus established her theory, her practice was wonderfully consistent, and she reasonably expected from her husband the most exact conformity to her principles — of course, his five senses and his understanding were to be identified with hers. If he saw, heard, felt, or understood differently from her, he did not, could not, love her. Once she was offended by his liking white better than black; at another time she was angry with him for loving the taste of mushrooms. One winter she quarrelled with him for not admiring the touch of satin, and one summer she was jealous of him for listening to the song of a blackbird. Then because he could not prefer to all other odours the smell of jessamine, she was ready “to die of a rose in aromatic pain.” The domain of taste, in the more enlarged sense of the word, became a glorious field of battle, and afforded subjects of inextinguishable war. Our heroine was accomplished, and knew how to make all her accomplishments and her knowledge of use. As she was mistress no
t only of the pencil, but of all “the cant of criticism,” had infinite advantages in the wordy war. From the beau ideal to the choice of a snuffer-dish, all came within her province, and was to be submitted, without appeal, to her instinctive sense of moral order. — Happy fruits of knowledge! — Happy those who can thus enlarge their intellectual dominion, and can vary eternally the dear delight of giving pain. The range of opinion was still more ample than the province of taste, affording scope for all the joys of assertion and declamation — for the opposing of learned and unlearned authorities — for the quoting the opinions of friends — counting voices instead of arguments — wondering at the absurdity of those who can be of a different way of thinking — appealing to the judgment of the whole world — or resting perfectly satisfied with her own. Sometimes the most important, sometimes the most trivial, and seemingly uninteresting subjects, gave exercise to Griselda’s powers; and in all cases being entirely of her opinion was the only satisfactory proof of love.

  Our heroine knew how, with able generalship, to take advantage of time and situation. — Just before the birth of their child, which, by-the-bye, was born dead, a dispute arose between the husband and wife concerning public and private education, which, from its vehemence, alarmed the gentleman into a perfect conviction that he was in the wrong. Scarcely had Griselda gained this point, when a question arose at the tea-table respecting the Chinese method of making tea. It was doubted by some of the company whether it was made in a tea-pot or a tea-cup. Griselda gave her opinion loudly for the tea-pot — her lord and master inclined to the tea-cup; and as neither of them had been in China, they could debate without fear of coming to a conclusion. The subject seemed at first insignificant; but the lady’s method of managing it supplied all deficiencies, and roused all the passions of human nature on the one side or the other. Victory hung doubtful; but our heroine won the day by taking time into the account. — Her adversary was in a hurry to go to meet some person on business, and quitted the field of battle.