LITMIR.BIZ

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as I used to be! Oh! if he had but married me for anything but my prettiness! But I was not worth vexing every one for! I am only a plague and trouble! Well, I dare say I shall die, now there is no one to take care of me, and then, perhaps, he will be sorry for me. Just at last, I’ll tell him how I did mean to be a good wife, and tried all I could.’

      But then poor Violet fell into a maze of terror. She roused herself and dried her tears on hearing some one approaching. It was James, bringing in a parcel. It contained a beautiful and costly silk dress. After the first glance she pushed it from her, and her grief burst forth again. ‘Does he think that can make up to me for my mother? How silly he must think me! Yet he is kind and tries to please me still, though I am so troublesome! Dear, dear Arthur!’

      She took it back upon her lap, and tried to admire, but her heart failed her; and she could not look at it till the sound of his entrance revived her; she felt as if she had been injuring him, and recalling her smiles, met him with what he thought delighted gratitude.

      He was relieved to find the late subject blown over, and only wishing to keep it out of her mind, he invited her to take a walk.

      Violet had begun to dread his walks, for he was a loiterer, apt to go further and stay out longer than he intended, and she could not bear to tease him by hints of fatigue; but to-day she could not demur at anything he asked, and she only observed that they had better not go far, as they had an engagement for the evening.

      At first the air and his attention did her good; but when she saw Captain Fitzhugh approaching, she knew that Arthur’s arm was the only further use she should have of him, and there would be an endless sauntering and talk about horses or fishing, while he would all the time fancy himself going home.

      The consequence was, that she was obliged to go at once to bed on coming in, and was declared by Arthur to have been very silly never to have mentioned her fatigue; while Sarah, bestowing grim and sour looks upon them both, attended on her with the most assiduous and minute care. Arthur was greatly concerned, and very unwilling to go to the party alone, but Violet persuaded him, and he promised to return early; then found the evening pleasant, and never knew how time went, while she was lying awake, imagining that something dreadful had happened to him, and mourning over her grievances.

      The effects of that over-fatigue did not pass away, and she was forced to give up all evening engagements. He meant to be kind, but was too ignorant and inconsiderate not to do her as much harm as good. One day he almost overwhelmed her with attentions, the next left her to herself. He offered to refuse all invitations for her sake, but it ended in her spending more than half her evenings alone; and when the horse was wanted for him in the evening, she lost her drive. Very soon she fell out of the habit of going out, for now that she was no companion for his long rambles, he found other ways of disposing of his afternoons; and she was still so countrified as to dislike and dread walking alone, even in the quiet Belgravian regions, so that she was always relieved to decide that the gray mist was such as could do no one any good, or that she really was not well enough for a walk.

      She did not know the use of change of scene, and the bracing effect of resolution,—she had no experience of self-management, and had not learnt that it was a duty not to let herself pine. Though most conscientious, she had not yet grown up to understand religion as a present comfort. To her it was a guide and an obligation, and as such she obeyed its dictates, to the best of her power, but only as an obedient child, without understanding the immediate reward in this life, namely, confidence, support, and peace. It is a feeling generally belonging to an age beyond hers, though only to be won by faithful discipline. She was walking in darkness, and, by and by, light might come. But there was one omission, for which she long after grieved; and which, though she knew it not, added to her present troubles.

      All heart and hope had been taken from her since she had been forbidden to see her mother and sister. The present was dreary, the future nothing but gloom and apprehension, and she had little to distract her attention. She strove hard to fulfil what she knew were duties, her household concerns and the readings she had fixed as tasks; but these over, she did not try to rouse her mind from her cares; nor had she perhaps the power, for her difficulties with the cook were too much for her, and it was very trying to spend so many hours of the dingy London day and long evening in solitude.

      Her amusing books were exhausted, and she used to lie forlorn on the sofa, with her needlework, hearing the roar of carriage-wheels, and, her mind roaming from the perplexities of her accounts to her sad forebodings and her belief in Arthur’s coldness, till her heart seemed ready to break,—and her tears gathered, first in solitary drops, then in floods. She had no one to cheer her spirits, to share her hopes and fears. Her plans and employments were tedious to her husband, and he must not be troubled with them,—and so, locked up within herself, they oppressed her with care and apprehension. In letter-writing there was only pain; she could not bear to be supposed unwell or unhappy, and, above all, dreaded saying what might lead to an offer from her mother to come to her. Her letters became mere comments on home news; she wrote less frequently, feared they would think her grown too fine to care for them, and then wept and sobbed with home sickness. There was a little more comfort in writing to Rickworth, for she expected the Brandons early in May, and her only hope was in Lady Elizabeth for care and counsel: for as to Arthur’s dependence, his mother and sister, she felt as if the fear and restraint of their presence would be unbearable.

      Her husband never guessed how she languished. In his presence she was a different creature, forgetting her griefs in the one wish of pleasing him. No matter what she had been undergoing in his absence, his knock raised her spirits, in a moment life darted into her limbs and colour into her cheeks. She had no notion of complaining. Her mother had always been silent, though often with greater cause for remonstrance; and poor Violet, imagining herself a burden, would not for the world have made herself more troublesome than she could help. Her whole desire was to win a smile, a fond word, a caress, and she sat watching as if those were life to her; her cheeks burning with eagerness so much that Arthur little guessed how wan they were in his absence.

      The colour was heightened by warm rooms, for Arthur was of a chilly race, and could not understand how oppressive the close atmosphere of London was to one used to mountain breezes. He would come in shivering, and be provoked to find her sitting by the smallest of fires; till she learnt that their estimate of heat was so different, that the only safety was in keeping the room like an oven. The folding doors into the back drawing-room had a trick of opening of their own accord; and the trouble given her by this draught-trap, as Arthur called it, can hardly be estimated, especially one windy week in March, when he had a cold.

      She had never been wont to think seriously of colds but when it came to coughing and feverishness all night, and Arthur, with his hand on his chest, persisted that it was all in his throat and told her to send for a blister, she grew alarmed, but this only displeased him. He disdained her entreaty that he would remain in bed; and said women always made a fuss about nothing, when she timidly suggested sending for ‘some one.’

      For three deplorable days he sat over the fire, with a distaste for everything, while she did her utmost to make him comfortable, and when she failed, thought it her own fault, reproached herself for her inefficiency, and imagined that he was going to be as ill as his brother, and that she should be of no use to him. How hard on him to have such a bad wife! She could not even entertain him while he was kept indoors—for she could not find anything to talk about, so long was it since she had been out, or read anything amusing.

      However, on the third afternoon, he brightened up, found the soup good, talked and laughed, and declared that if to-morrow was fine, he should be out again. And the next day she was so delighted to find his cough was gone—more quickly than he had ever known so severe a cold depart—that it was not till he was out of the house that she remembered that she was condemned to solitude for many hours.

      Here was quarter-day, bringing fresh confusion, in those inexplicable household expenses, and a miserable sense of wastefulness, and unfaithfulness to her charge. She thought of John’s advice, to make her husband attend, if she found her means insufficient; and set herself to draw up a statement of the case, to lay before him; but she grew more and more puzzled; the cook’s dishonesty weighed on her, and her fears of taking any measures increased. Her calculations always ended in despairing tears.

      She

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