Elsie's Married Life. A tale

Front matter

NEW NOVELS NOJY READY IN EVERY LIBRARY, I. In Three Vols. ALICE FERAR. A Novel. By E. J. KELLY. II. A SECOND EDITION. In Two Vols. KATE KENNEDY. By the Author of " Wondrous Strange." III. In Three Vols. (Second Edition.) A RIGHT MINDED WOMAN. By FRANK TROLLOPE. IV. In Three Vols. FLORENCE MANVERS. By SELINA BUNBTJRY. Author of " Life in Sweden" " Madame Constauco." THE GENERAL FURNISHING AND UPHOLSTERY COMPANY (limited), F. J. ACRES, MANAGER, 24 and 25, Baker Street, W. The Company are now Exhibiting all the most approved Novelties of the Season in CARPETS, CHINTZES MUSLIN CURTAINS, And every variety of textile fabric for Upholstery purposes constituting the most recherche selection in the trade. ELSIE'S MAERIED LIFE, A TALE. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY MRS. MACKENZIE DANIEL, Author of "My Sister Minnie," " After Long Years," " Our Brother Paul," " The Old Maid of the Family," " Reaping the Whirlwind," <fcc.

VOL. III. £mxium: T. CAUTLEY NEWBY, PUBLISHER, 30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 1865. [the right OF translation is reserved.] ELSIES MAKEIED LTEE.

Chapter I. The Anonymous Letter

There was no chance of Mr. Oliver allowing Joanna to forget the promise he had exacted from her as the condition of his remaining an other week in Paris ; neither did there appear much chance of Joanna being inclined to do so. Happiness — such happiness as she now enjoyed in the sincere and tender love of the only man to whom she had ever given a single thought — Avas far too novel a thing to this sensitive, hut hitherto VOL. III. B lonely hearted girl, for her to do otherwise than bask gladly in its warmth and light, to caress and make much of it, as a fond mother would of a child long despaired of, but given to her arms at last. And to James Oliver it was a pleasure rare, refined, and as he believed, inexhaustible, to watch, in the woman he now dearly loved, thatflood of sunshine breakingthrough her whole nature, Avhich Joanna never even tried to hide from him, and Avhich he knew she gloried in owing, under the God she humbly served, to him.

Apart too from their mutual attachment they s uited each other admirably. They had always possessed many tastes, many ideas, in common, even in those days when Mr. Oliver, through the influence of an ardent imagination, had been led captive by Elsie's childish loveliness and grace ; and now that their views and aims in life were the same, and that they looked forward, with unspeakable gratitude, to the prospect of spend ing that life together, it was no wonder that these two sh ould not weary of being constantly in each other's society, nor that they should be quite indifferent as to what the world said of their independent proceedings. It was only in the evenings that the rest of the family saw anything of them, and then they usually sat together while Mrs. Vining played for the delight and admiration of her now all but acknowledged suitor, or Elsie sang— often her old English songs — for the amusement of the party generally.

" I wish,7' said Joanna, on one occasion, when she had remarked with what pleasure Mr. Oliver had been listening to her younger sister's singing, " I wish for your sake, James, that I had some talent for music. I would begin to cultivate it, even now, if I had, but I fear it would be all u seless, and a waste of time. You ought to have had a wife who could at least sing." " Ought I ?" he replied, looking at her with a smile that must have reassured the most self distrustful heart in the world. " Well, I cannot B explain to you how it is, dear, for 1 do loye music almost passionately, and yet it is quite true that I have not the least regret that you neither play nor sing. I suppose, Jo, a real, true love can see no deficiency, can desire no shadow of a change, in the beloved object." Now it happened that Elsie, who had given up her place at the piano to Mrs. Vining, and was hovering restlessly (she had grown strangely restless of late) about the part of the room where the lovers sat — it happened that she overheard just the latter clause of Mr. Oliver's very tender speech to her sister — heard and made her own private comments thereon.

Yes, a real, true love would indeed be incapable of either fault-finding or complaint, a real, true love would see perfection where others saw deficiency. If Edgar had loved her as James Oliver loved Joanna, Avould he ever have required her to take music lessons ? Would he ever have treated her as a child with an imperfect education, who, because she was young and docile, might be trained and disciplined into something which, by audbye, would perchance not disgrace him as his wife, and the mother of his children ? Poor Elsie, you see, had not forgotten her father-in-law's observations on that last morning which she had spent alone with him, and in the present warped aud uneasy state, of her mind this remembrance played no unimportant part in con vincing her that her husband had never really loved her • that he had married her for her youth and good looks, and because he wanted an English wife to head his establishment and to become the mother of his children.

James Oliver, who was now the type of a real lover in this little woman's foolish eyes, cared nothing for conventionalities, despised the opinion of that world Mr. Carlyon held in such respect, suffered nothing and no one to stand between him and the woman he had chosen ; and finally regarded her as without speck or flaw from head to foot — morally, physically, and intellectually. Happy Joanna ! She had come suddenly into possession of life's one dazzling, golden crown, she had had poured into her lap, while she looked not for them, the very brightest flowers of para dise that could still bloom in this cold and desert world. True indeed she deserved all this and more, and Elsie could rejoice, even in the midst of her own bitterness of spirit, at the happiness of that dear sister who had ever been as a mother to her — but still, still, there was the old craving, the old asking for warmth and sunshine for herself too, the childlike questioning as to why, when her eager, hungry soul yearned for bread she should receive only a stone.

It happened that just' at this time Edgar (believing possibly that with both her sisters and their respective cavaliers his wife could not miss him) was a good deal from home, and that not unfrequently, when he returned, there was a cloud upon his countenance, an aspect of general unrest and worry which didnot escape Elsie's observation, nor tend to dissipate the uneasiness of her own mind. If ever she asked him where he had been, or what doing, she fancied his replies were vague and indefinite, and that the way he evidently shrank from being questioned proved, not only that Mr. Carlyon senior was right in warning her not to try her husband's patience in this manner, but also that Edgar had some secret which he was determined his poor little unloved wife should never share. And here it may suggest itself to some one to enquire whether Elsie's distress (which was growing into a very positive thing) took any more definite form than a general belief that her husband had never loved her as she loved him, and as she had always hoped to be loved.

Did she really believe that there was another woman in the way, nearer to his heart, and with whom all that was mysterious and unexplainable in his conduct must be connected ? No. Hitherto her mind had never reached the point of actual jealousy, her tender feet had never yet trodden that cruel ground where every step is on fierce, burning coals, and where every breath is drawn from a scorching and poisoned atmos phere. It remained for one unscrupulous, reckless hand to lead her there ; and while all around her, engrossed for the time in their own pleasures or interests, were deeming Elsie's happiness secure, were wholly unconscious on what a tottering foundation it already stood, the enemy was preparing his weapons, was sharpening the two edged sword that was destined to cut deep into the heart and life of this hapless child, who shivered and moaned if only a passing cloud came between her and the sunshine.

James Oliver returned to England at the end of his extra week, but not before he had arranged that Joanna should come and share his home the very moment he could get one ready for her. This would be, he said, while there was still some green in the land, some flowers blooming upon the earth which had become so rich to him since he had won the heart he prized above all that earth's most precious things. And Joanna, trembling at the full tide of joy that rushed in upon her at every renewed proof that she was loved even as she herself loved, stood before her future husband with a brightly glowing cheek, and suffered him to read in her truthful eyes, though her lips were silent, that she should esteem no lot so blessed as that of dwelling with him in any home he might prepare for her. A few days after Mr. Oliver's departure Mrs. Vining announced to her sisters that her admirer had spoken out plainly, and asked her to be his wife, adding, not much to their astonishment, though certainly to the regret of one of them, that she had accepted his proposals, and was to become Madame Guinchard early in the ensuing month.

It need scarcely be said that from this time the widow's hands and mind were full — so full indeed of work and thought and prepara tions of various kinds, that Joanna need have indulged in no fears respecting the b aching of her heart. That might come by and bye, when, in her luxurious home at Lyons, with her new lord, she would have leisure to look back and reflect ; but at present nothing of the sort was even possible, and all the hearts in Paris, including her own, might have been not only aching but breaking, without Georgina Vining rousing herself from her multitudinous occupa tions to a consciousness of the fact. So Elsie and her griefs were perfectly safe from any espionage in that quarter; and Joanna, whose eyesight, now that her lover had gone, would certainly have been keener, was unex pectedly invited at this time to spend a few days with poor Lillie, Mr. Richard Wilmot having announced to his wife that he had business in the provinces which would take him from hom e for a rather uncertain period.

Joanna wrote from Versailles to tell Elsie and Mrs. Vining that Lillie was not looking nearly so well as when they had seen her last, that her mind appeared unusually harassed and depressed, but that she acknowledged to no new trouble, and declared herself still quite ignorant of ail her husband's pursuits and means of liveli hood. There seemed, Joanna added, no want of ready money, nor of any ordinary comforts in the establishment, but she remarked that Lillie spent as little as she possibly could, and denied herself some things which appeared really necessary for her, and which judging from her present command of money there was no absolute occa sion for her going without. The inference that Joanna could not help drawing from her observations was that poor Mrs. Wilmot, though kept in the dark to a certain extent as to her husband's occupations and associates, was still persuaded that these were of a disreputable kind, and consequently shrank from using money that might have been even dishonestly obtained. , Mr. Cheviot continued still her firm and un tiring friend, bringing her from time to time books and flowers and sweetmeats — such things as he deemed it justifiable to offer to a lady who was in fact young enough to have been his daughter, but whom he would not have humiliated (by any appearance of conferring favours upon her) for the whole world.

" So you see," wrote Joanna — out of the fullness no doubt of her own grateful, satisfied heart, " in every lot, however bitter, there is a little taste of sweetness left, to prove to us that Our Father loves and pities His children even while He is sending them those trials which are needful to lead them to Himself." It would have been well for poor Elsie had she pondered rather more earnestly upon this comforting truth before the next cloud burst upon her, and filled her trembling-, frightened soul with the belief that heaven and earth were alike failing her. One evening as she sat at home alone waiting for Edgar, who had gone out immediately after dinner, promising (as she complained of headache) to come and take her for a walk, as she sat doing nothing, but just nursing her vague un happiness and thinking that even Lillie was less to be pitied than herself, her maid came suddenly into the room and handed her mistress a letter.

A man had left it with the porter for madame, she said, and with a special request, accompanied by a bribe most likely, that it should be delivered immediately into madame's own hands if she were alone, or kept for her if she were not. Having explained thus much the discreet wait ing woman retired, wondering that her young mistress, being such a child in years and experience, should not have looked more guilty and confused when she received the letter. In point of fact, Elsie's only feeling was one of bewilderment, as she listened to her servant's account of how the dubious note she held in her hand had been left, and as she discovered that it was addressed in French, in a writing wholly unfamiliar to her. These were the contents, translated into English. "A sincere well-wisher of Madame Carlyon has decided, after mature consideration, upon informing her that the husband she trusts and honours is basely and cruelly deceiving her.

There is a young and beautiful lady residing at present, in great seclusion, at Versailles. This lady receives but one visitor, upon whose name and position in society Monsieur Edgar Carlyon might, if he chose, be able to throw some light. The writer of the present letter has no motive but to warn Madame Carlyon against a too im plicit trust in a man who, whatever hisoutward seeming and professions, has in reality as black and deceitful a heart as all Paris could produce. Madame Carlyon is earnestly recommended not to show this letter, but to watch diligently, to question cautiously, and by degrees to find out the disgraceful truth for herself." Three separate times, with burning cheeks and quivering lips, Elsie read over the above words before her startled mind entirely took in their extraordinary purport.

When it had quite suc ceeded in doing so, in gaining a really clear notion of all that her anonymous correspondent implied, her first wild impulse was to ring the bell violently, to send for her bonnet and shawl, and to rush out alone into the already partially darkened streets in search of her husband. This, I repeat, was her first impulse, while the mind was half stunned and wholly turned out of its natural course by the blow it had received. But before the bell could be answered, another feeling had succeeded, a terrible agonizing shrinking from even seeing her husband — much less accusing him, as she first thought to do — lest any word or look should, in spite of his indignant denials, confirm, or seem to confirm, the state ments of that cruel letter. It was rather a singular fact, though quite in ac cordance with the tendencies of Elsie's nature, that she should never for a moment entertain a donbt that her husband mould deny the whole charge.

She could bring herself to the point of doubting his truth and honour, even upon such feeble testimony as that of an ill-written, clumsily-worded letter from an unknown hand ; but she could not get the length of believing her doom so sure and unalterable as it must be, could Edgar do less than swear the whole thing to be a delusion and a cheat. And though amongst weak women it might be difficult to find a weaker than Elsie Carlyon, she is not the only one whose domestic peace has been shaken to its very centre, if not entirely destroyed through the medium of that most cruel and cowardly of all human weapons, an anonymous letter. When her astonished waiting-maid appeared in answer to her imperative summons, instead of asking for a bonnet and cloak, Elsie said she felt faint and ill, and would go at once to bed.

Monsieur was to be informed that her headache had increased, and requested not to disturb her. The same message, with the addition of apologies for not waiting up for Mrs. Vining, was to be given to that lady when she came in. " Very sure that could not have been a love letter, after all," was the thought of the acute Frenchwoman, as she received these orders and went out to prepare her young mistress's bedroom. " Madame is as white as a corpse, and even Englishwomen, droll as they are, don't look scared like that when gentlemen make them declarations. Poor young lady! Perhaps she has heard of the death of some old lover, and is afraid monsieur will observe her pale face. Allons ! I will tell him her head is distracting her, and give him a hint that shall keep him easy, and make him very kind and tender over her."

Chapter II. The Vision In The Air

Mademoiselle Clarice's well intended hint, which she failed not to give her master as soon as she could see him alone, did exactly what she intended it to do. It made Mr. Carlyon set down to a most natural cause all that, dating from that evening, appeared strange and otherwise in explicable either in the manner or conduct of his wife. When Elsie, after a sleepless night of such mental torture as few things except doubt of one we love can produce, declared her inability to rise on account of the continued pain in her head, her husband caressed and soothed her tenderly, told her to lie quite still, and not even attempt to speak , and that he would bring her breakfast up to her himself. Poor Elsie was far too hungry for love and kindness to reject disdainfully (as a woman of any spirit would have done) what she believed to be only a hypocritical semblance of affection, or at most the sort of affection which pity for a weak and helpless object might inspire.

So she mur mured a feAv low words of thanks to her husband, and then closed her burning eyes, and resolutely kept back her tears from flowing till he came to her again. There was no pretence at all about the actual physical pain she was enduring. She had thought and thought, till, as on one former occasion, her mind seemed to become quite incapable of thinking any longer ; but there was this great differ ence between that time and the present. Then, her apprehensions and doubts being all vague and undefined, pointing to no known or living object in connection with her husband, she could, when they had grown unendurable, throw them off altogether by the vigorous exercise of that mental faculty which had helped her always in struggling out of the shade into the sunshine. Now, there was a real, tangible, living presence to grapple with, a woman " young and beautiful," (oh, how those two adjectives were burnt in upon Elsie's brain !) whose very place of abode was revealed to her, corresponding but too correctly with a previous haunting suspicion in reference to that very locality.

As to who might be the writer of the letter, the hapless recipient of it did not as yet trouble herself much to conjecture. It is true she had at first thought it possible that Dick Wilmot might have had a hand in it, but the remembrance of his ignorance of the French language, and the unlikelihood, as it appeared to her, of even this bad man employing an agent in such a matter, caused her soon to reject the idea of her brother-in-law being concerned in it, and to decide that it mattered not one bit who the revealer was, since he had accomplished his object of compelling her to accept, as at least a probable truth, the horrible thing revealed. The young and beautiful woman living alone at Versailles, occupying the place in her husband's heart which she, his wife, had every right to fill, claiming his time, his thoughts, his love, perhaps making him wish every hour of every day that he were free to give her his name with all the rest he gave.

This was the horrible thing that was henceforth to be poor little Elsie's constant companion, the ghastly vision that was to be with her in her lying down and in her rising up, in her sleeping no less than in her waking thoughts ; the enemy armed at all points who was to resist her utmost e fforts either at escape or defeat, and who would only 1 augh mockingly at her if ever in obedience to the instincts of her nature, she cried wildly for help or rescue to the silent earth or the unanswer ing heavens. It often happens that when a woe is past we wonder greatly at the manner in which we were enabled to bear it, ancl feel that could it return, our powers of endurance would be infinitely smaller, and more rapidly exhausted. So it is in looking forward to a p ossible calamity, because strength is given only for the present moment, ancl rarely either in retrospect or in advance.

To say that Elsie bore the first brunt of her new and strange trial well, would be saying far too much, for, in truth, she writhed and smarted in every fibre of her*being under it, but she bore it to her self; she concealed it very tolerably from those around her, and, I think, this was a great deal for so weak and frail and dependent a creature to accomplish. There is no doubt that but for the opportune insinuations of her maid Clarice, and the im pression fixed thereby on the mind of her husband, it would have been almost impossible for Elsie, in her constantly low spirits and with her fre quent, hysterical attacks, to have escaped a questioning that might in the end have led to a revelation of the whole truth— but Edgar, perfectly satisfied that his wife's symptoms were natural and inevitable, very happy, too, in the prospect of becoming a father, believed she was better let alone for the present, and so contented himself with additional kindness and attention to the drooping invalid, who was fain to accept greedily all he gave, and who shrank from con tradicting the belief to which she soon understood she owed even this semblance of love and tender ness, and which saved her too from being either wondered at or questioned.

"You must really rouse up, Elsie, for my wedding," Mrs. Vining said to her one day, as the period fixed for that ceremony was approaching. " Monsieur Guinchard would be quite distressed to see such a pale, melancholy face accompanying me to the altar. I'm sure I can't remember being hipped in this way when I was going to have my darling Arthur : but I suppose your long illness has left some weakness in your system which shows itself in this frightful nervous depression now. I think we had much better have Joanna back from Versailles at once, as I have so little time to devote to you." "Not for the world," replied Elsie, with a quickness and an energy she had rarely displayed of late. "Jo is very happy where she is, and Lillie must find her an unspeakable comfort Since they are both to be here for your wedding, they had better only come the day before.

I am all right, Georgina," she added, with a dreary attempt at sudden cheerfulness ; " and don't want any other society than my husband's. Why should I ? " "Why indeed, my dear?" said the widow, carelessly, and with her thoughts wandering off to the last important order she had given her milliner that morning. " I am sure a more devoted husband never lived. It must be your own fault if you are not perfectly happy." Her own fault !* It was a simple thing to have said to her, and Elsie knew in what a light, in different spirit Mrs. Vining had spoken, and yet the words irritated her at the moment almost past endurance. She saw floating in the au above her (alas 1 when did she not see it ?) the vision of a young and beautiful woman, and she felt the strongest impulse to cry aloud and revile that unknown shadow, and declare that it was ker fault, only hers.

Luckily for the preservation of the wife's secret, Mrs. Vining left the room without even observing that her thoughtless remark had distressed her sister, and then poor Elsie could clench the hands that were growing so thin and white, and strain her eyes to discern more clearly that floating vision in the air (her imagination painted it daily in fairer and brighter colours) and whisper to her tortured heart alone, the sick loathing which that beauty and that grace inspired. It seemed strange, though, perhaps, it is but a common experience, that all the bitterness and animosity of Elsie Carlyon's nature, which had been called into life by the discovery of her hus band's treachery and infidelity, should be poured out wholly upon her unknown rival, while not a VOL. III. c single angry or resentful feeling had as yet been excited against him.

I cannot, of course, say how it would have been had Edgar's outward manner changed in any degree towards his wife ; but, as it was, she felt certain that she loved him more than ever, and accepted with a hundred fold the gratitude of ha ppier days, every token of affection ancl kindness that he lavished, and cer tainly with no niggard hand, upon her. It was because he fancied it would give his poor little nervous, low-spirited Elsie especial gratification, that he had suggested her asking Mrs. Wilmot, in her husband's absence, to come with Joanna to Mrs. Vining's wedding, and although neither this nor anything else could, in itself, be productive of the smallest comfort to Elsie, while the haunting shadow of her life still walked beside her, she thanked Edgar cordially for the kindness of the thought ; and, for the sake of those others whom it would gratify, failed not to act upon it.

The anonymous letter had advised her to watch narrowly and question cautiously, till by degrees she should find out for herself the truth of the accusation made by the writer. Many women, had they been weak enough to attach any credit at all to such a letter, would no doubt have acted strictly in accordance with its wise counsel ; but Elsie coidd not do this ; she had no heart for it, no courage. She did not want to have the truth — if truth it was — confirmed to her. She would gladly and thankfully have drunk of the waters of Lethe and forgotten the whole thing, even though such forgetfulness had entailed the certainty of her rival maintaining her present ground undis puted. I wonder if any of my readers will see clearly the character I am attempting to paint, will understand the nature — I believe it to be an exceptional one — which would have chosen the most profound mental blindness, which would have sacrificed any amount of dignity, which would have foregone the very sweetest and most complete revenge, if by such a course it could c just escape the purely personal misery from which all its instincts so strongly ancl imperiously revolted.

Most women, as I believe, under a similar suspicion to that which was in reality eating into the very core of Elsie's life, would have taken some steps to discover who and what the lady was, in the flesh, whose shadowy presence upon their hearths robbed them of all joy and comfort. But it never even occurred to Elsie to do anything of the sort. She thoroughly believed in the actual existence of such a person, and while her vivid imagination could not help investing the unknown with every graceful and lovely attribute, with the form ancl features we give to angels in our dreams, she would not voluntarily have looked upon that woman's living face, though death had been the penalty of her refusal to do so. It was bad and terrible enough as it was — why should she seek to make the woe more bitter ?

As yet Edgar was kind to her; with all her feverish anxiety and proneness to take alarm, she could detect no vestige of an outward change in him, ancl while she said to herself continually that she owed all his present tenderness to his hopes of her becoming a mother — was not her father-in-law even officiously affectionate and as duousin his attentions just now?— Still Elsie could breathe somehow in the artificial atmosphere which so closely resembled the natural one she had hitherto grown ancl flourished in. So, like a delicate flower that lifts its drooping head after a storm, to catch the faintest ray of sunshine, and expands a little gladly in its beams, unconscious of the fiercer tempest that may be coming to destroy it utterly, Elsie tried to raise her weary head to where the warmth and the brightness might once more fall at least soothingly upon it.