A Wife and not a Wife. A novel

Front matter

How. BY CYRUS REDDING. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : SAUNDERS, OTLEY, & CO., 66 BROOK STREET, W. 1867. [AU Bights Reserved.] TO BERNAL OSBORNE, ESQ., I.P., ft rjcse Volumes ARE INSCRIBED BY HIS VEB.Y OBEDIENT SERVANT, CYRUS REDDING. TO THE READER, If the present Tale have some foundation in fact, it wdl not, the author hopes, be less welcome upon that account. Hearts crushed by misplaced affec tion, and the betrayal of the too confiding from sordid or gross motives, have ever been objects of sympathy. A recent case of this character cannot fail to recur to the reader's mind. Another instance under legislative sanction was lately before the Irish courts under a statute, it might be supposed, passed by demons rather than men. It openly sanctioned the sacrifice of woman ; and the judges declared that another session of Parliament could not pass without its repeal.

The dialect used by certain exceptionable classes has been modified, still retaining a similitude. The period in which the events are represented as occurring wdl also be duly considered. London, Feb. 2, 1867.

Chapter I

Where fashion displays its equipages, pretension claims exterior elegance, and imaginary stateliness indicates its worth by impressions ; where tinsel continuady deceives the observer, and things are constituted to flatter by appearances ; where ex ternal beauty too often conceals mental deformity, and diurnally the assumption of morning nonen tities is played off in detad for the supply of the deficiency of wit in the evening drawing-room ; — VOL. I. A where such sights or companionships are desired for study or amusement, seek the Regent Street of multitudinous London. When in that locality, reflect that in the year '98, and for a good part of twenty years afterwards, on that same spot stood Swallow Street, — old, dingy, narrow, and incon venient. Recodect that its site made way for the existing promenade, and for luxurious shops, be lieved to contain wares of a manufacture analogous to its gay exhibitions in superiority.

It must needs be so, or fashion would not make it a haunt, or rather the motley multitude which claims relation ship to the harlequin of that appedation, however commonplace and mechanical it may be. Thus, while hallowed more and more by lapse of years, through the aid of fashion and its ever-chansring hues, the old is replaced by the new, and the saddened relics of the past are superseded by younger varieties to run the same round, and, in their turn, pass away for ever. But whither are we wandering ? The destruction of an ancient street cannot be otherwise than affect ing to those who rejoice only in the past, to whom the present is unsatisfactory and the future obscure. What bygone associations of a few yet living with perished things, and with the dusty dead, are such localities. What scenes of weal and woe, what acts of good and evil, passed there, borne along the stream of time without leaving a record.

In the obliterated chambers how many first opened their eyes upon the day, and how many closed them for ever. Many a pale student wore out his nights by the solitary lamp, and left no name behind. There were born those destined to enjoy life only to the taste of a first or second course in the feast and no more, and those who feasted to satiety. There the industrious toiled down to the obscurity of the tomb, living only that they might learn to die. In another place, amid chilling penury, expired a being full of the noblest aspirations for humanity ; and there, beneath the street level, the miser suicide died, to reserve the mite he could not bring himself to expend for his own nourishment. In a cellar, beneath a certain noble edifice since erected, a dark browed vidain laid his scheme of murder, and hard by committed the sanguinary crime which made a numerous family parentless.

Enough : to proceed with a subject so suggestive would be tedious. Every apartment demolished had its own peculiar history of human life or death. Could the former tenants be invoked from their dusty beds and ques tioned ! Now they are but as the stuff of which dreams are made. But a truce to hollow speculation. The image of Swallow Street may be stdl reflected in the sensorium of a few aged persons. The young will only know that it was, and passed away before they saw the sun. In that annihilated street aforetime there dwelt a surgeon-apothecary, and what besides in the art need not be enumerated. He had a good practice, and was much esteemed by those who knew him as an honest, clever man of his profession. Half the metropolis was aware of his trim abode, which Woolwich arsenal might outvie in the magnitude of its destructive instruments, but could not exceed for variety, arranged with great neatness in the magazine of the worthy Esculapian.

The waveless fluids in the huge many-coloured demijohns in his windows represented the serenity of his temperament and his conscientious purity. Order ruled around him. A red ogre of a lamp, resplendent at night over the miserable public oil-twinklers that in those times were scarcely visible through the misty streets, marked the apothecary's house, guiding the passers near, as the Egyptian pharos once guided the vessels off that far-famed shore. Gas was not then ; it was opposed by the " oil interest." The existence of the British navy depended, so it was " held in the city," upon the whale-fishery, which bred " all " our seamen, and, therefore, the dark ness visible of the " oil interest " was to be main tained, unless we would give up England to the French. How many individuals that interest in the modern mode of jobbing manufactured into legis lators is forgotten.

Two of the city members, Alderman Marrowfat and Sir Francis Flenge, the contractor, with some more town, and a vast num ber of country gentlemen, all believed the existence of England depended upon the navy, the navy upon the fishery, and the fishery upon the " oil interest." Who, then, would hear of a change? Even the lamp of Mr Aliquot owed its superior splendour to a larger consumption of that material which alone preserved the liberty of Englishmen, as he himself was also inclined in those days to believe. Mr Aliquot was an active, spare man, as became a pharmaceutical professor. A fat, oily physician may pass, but a bulky surgeon and apothecary is out of ad keeping — we might as well imagine a dropsical greyhound. He was diligent in his pro fession, renowned as a dispenser, an excellent and charitable adviser of the poor, often giving valuable advice gratis.

He thus attained a well-merited repute. He was conscientious, choice in his drugs, and in the use of the "perilous stuff" in his dispensary; nor was he at ad greedy in his professional fees. By the fair sex about to become mothers he was much prized, and with them his practice extended far and wide. In making up prescriptions brought to him, he was remarkably cautious regarding their uses, mingling in some cases a little moral advice where he thought it would be useful. Sometimes, indeed, he would do this to such an extent as to expose the church to danger, by superseding the necessity of pulpit advice, and thus daring Doctors' Commons, by do ing spiritual good without paying for a licence. Behind the dispensary of this worthy man was a neat parlour, decorated with professional engrav ings.

There was the old College of Physicians in Warwick Lane, built by Wren, and subsequently handed over to their brethren in " death's doings " in Newgate Market. There was an excedent por trait of Harvey, who found out the circulation of the blood, and busts of Averroes and Galen. The principal living ornament, however, was the wife of this good apothecary, surgeon, and man-midwife. Finding his home comfortless, and his parlour dreary without a double tenancy, he married solely to obviate that inconvenience, without thinking if aught besides was necessary, or any other fitness of things. In the selection of the lady, he paid no regard to anything but inclination, because he subjected even taste to the desire of relieving the solitude which annoyed him. Some years had now passed in conjugal orthodoxy.

Time always con vinces those who are too hasty in conjugality that precipitation brings its own punishment. Thus that state of indifference had arrived which is as inevitable in matches of convenience as in those of pecuniary interest. Mrs Aliquot was not comely in person, nor as amiable in disposition as her spouse had hoped. It would be novel indeed if a system of matrimonial harmony, any more than of music, could be formed out of discord. Perhaps the worthy man thought it was only the best state previous to the trial, when it was too late, without wounding self-wisdom, to avow that he had committed an error in selection. Mr Aliquot, being of the presence already de scribed, contrasted singularly with his lady, who, in place of being slim, was marked by obesity; her dark eyes were almost entombed in the carniferous redundency that environed them ; her complexion was highly florid; her age nearly fifty; and, with her person and gait, it seemed as if nature intended, and had well succeeded, in making up in the match a conjugal whole out of two unequal quantities, matrimonially as well as mathematically unim peachable.

The steaming-urn evaporating its contents with the customary hiss, so redolent of toast and Sou chong — for it was the breakfast hour — Mrs Aliquot having the casket in her hand containing the Chinese leaf, and Mr Aliquot attentively perusing a damp morning newspaper, Mr Aliquot's assistant — generally addressed in the house as Mr Jonas — entered with a letter the postman had just brought, and, handing it to Aliquot, took his place at the break fast table. The letter at once caught the lady's eye, and sup posing her husband had not noticed the tender of Mr Jonas, said for him — " A letter, Aliquot," which he took mechanically, — perhaps carelessly is the better word, — and, with out regarding it further, laid it upon the table close to the cup at that moment handed to him by his wde. Not taking his eyes off the paper, he .said aloud to himself, rather than to those present, on observing something in connexion with his profes sion — " Dear me, arsenic and bark similar in effect upon certain intermittents !

Jonas, this is curious, if true," — thus addressing his assistant. "A letter, Mr Aliquot— a letter, my dear !" said the lady, who was anxious to know its contents, for Mrs Aliquot was every inch a lady in curiosity. " Arsenic and bark! indeed, is it possible ?" "My dear!" said Mrs Aliquot, somewhat im patiently, "the letter." "Arsenic, ay, possible !" said Aliquot, stid solilo quising. " Did you speak, my dear?" " Yes, Mr Aliquot, ten times. There is a letter. I wonder who it is from. You hear and see nothing but that paper and your dispensary stuff. It must be very diverting to you, I think." "I beg pardon, Mrs Aliquot; I see the letter." Turning to Jonas — " It is a singular fact in this paper, Mr Jonas. In our practice, it is one well worth remembering ; we must note it at all events." " Ready, Mr Aliquot, when we are alone in this way, you should lay by your professional business sometimes, and think of personal matters.

You cannot leave business, and the care of other people, to afford me a little of your attention. It 's cruel of you," said the lady, reddening at the same time, " when you sit down to a meal at home, not to give me a little of your attention. I don't like to be slighted. If I speak, you have not the manners to give me a reply. Is that treating me with due respect? You will break my heart — you will. I have a sad, dull time of it, Mr Aliquot. It seems as if you made it a point to hurt my susceptible feelings. I must bear it all with patience, I suppose ; yes, all — everything." " I must attend to my duties, my dear ! My business must be my first care, upon your account as well as my own," replied the lamblike husband. " It 's all very well to talk, Mr Aliquot, but I have put up with that excuse long enough."

" I shall one day be able to retire, my dear ! and then you will have all my attention," said Aliquot, in the most soothing tone. " That one day may never come," responded the lady, still glancing at the letter. She well knew that when a life, professional or trading, has been long devoted to getting money, it is not to be turned out of its track, but goes its mill-round to the last. The letter still lay carelessly on the table. Mrs Aliquot's curiosity could no longer keep under re straint. " I wonder who that letter is from," said the lady, once more calling her husband's attention to the source of her preceding observation. Still he remained provokingly impassive, being really ab sorbed in the article which had professionally inte rested him. Mrs Aliquot looked daggers at him, and as if she should not else be able to restrain an outburst of anger, she arose, in the height of her vexation, and quitted the room at the precise mo ment he had stretched his hand out to take up the document.

This he at once opened, disregarding the superscription, nor noticing his wife's absence, as, in his abstraction, he had not seen her with draw. He found the contents were of a confiden tial nature — the secret he therefore kept to himself, not being sorry that Mrs Aliquot had left the table, as there were some in her circle of acquaintance whom she most prized, and he most disliked, who would soon have been possessed of what it was desirable should be kept secret. Nothing is more annoying than those kind of In ■J A WIFE AND NOT A WIFE. gossiping friendships between the mistresses of houses and acquaintances, that, upon being made, are at once transmuted into the "dearest ties in the world." To them the secret affairs of families are confided, and by them to whom they are con fided as secrets, they are sedulously promulgated throughout the whole circle where the subjects of them are known.

Mrs Aliquot had one of these "dear friends" in a Mrs Blackadder, whose powers of loquacity were only rivaded by the excedent tea she made, and the richness of the cordials she prof fered to her friends in their hours of gossip. The letter received as above was from Tunbridge Weds, and requested the professional man to take a lodging for a lady about to lie in, who would shortly be with him to be under his care. A note for fifty pounds was also enclosed, the best authority, as the world goes, for the validity of such a request, or any other short of committing a felony. The apothecary held up the note between his eyes and the sun, then, having no doubt of its genuine character, he placed both note and letter in an iron chest in the study at the back of his surgery, and went out to secure the lodgings.

The communication was short, and purported to be signed by Charles Fitzwalter, the brother of the lady who required the attendance of Aliquot. The latter said to himself, " There is more here than meets the eye ; but as I have only a pro fessional interest in the affair, it shall rest a secret, except so far as my household is concerned." The worthy surgeon and apothecary at once called to see some lodgings belonging to a Mrs Griffen hoofe, near the Haymarket. " You would wish to see my rooms, sir ? They are very genteel, sir — sorry they are cleaning out just now, and are seen to a disadvantage. Pray walk up, sir. The carpets are not down. Nice rooms, sir; furniture quite new, sir" — (it was all second-hand.) "Nice bedroom, sir. My last lady lodger had it a long time, sir. Very hairy, sir ; " and so on, every other word a falsehood, after the most approved mode of lodging-house-keepers of the latest date and fashion.

It was one of those dwellings so common in the metropolis where the front room looks into a gloomy bye street, and the back first-floor windows against a dead wall eight or ten feet distant. In summer noon darkness there vindicated its privileges, for the black carbonic mineral had so blackened the wall opposite the window, that it required the aid of a sweeper for the removal of the soot. Mrs Griffen hoofe, however, dilated upon the excellence of her apartments. They were so light, so clean, so silent, " hairy," and healthy, as hardly ever to have been unoccupied. They would not have been so at that moment, but she was desirous of obliging Mr Ali quot, of whom she had heard, and by whose pro fessional abihties her sex had so much benefited. This, of course, was all fiction unadulterated. In a few days a lady, with a female attendant, escorted by a very taciturn gentleman, drove up to the house of Mrs Griffenhoofe.

She received her lodgers with servile respect, and eyes askance at the luggage, in the mode of lodging-house-keepers, when they imagine they have a good inmate come to pay or pluck. The stranger was young, genteel, and handsome, and bore a cast of melancholy, appearing to be above twenty years of age. The gentleman who had escorted her there, nearly as young in years, was her brother. He saw her under the care of Aliquot, remained for a few days after the birth of the child, and, finding all well, took his leave to return to college, as he informed Aliquot, to whose friendship he pressingly recommended his sister. Unembarrassed in her manner, but taciturn, and with an air forbidding familiarity, the lady, on re tiring to her chamber at night, had early given the lodging-house-keeper an opportunity of questioning the maid, named Cicely.

Who are more prying into the affairs of others than the keepers of lodging-houses ? Mrs Griffenhoofe was no excep tion to the race, who are as curious as they are grasping in relation to those who become inhabit ants of their domiciles. In the present case, the curiosity of Mrs Griffenhoofe being doubly excited, she began to pump the nurse for information ; but as she had been sent in by Mr Aliquot, no in formation was to be obtained through that chan nel. She had examined, with the usual curiosity of her class, all the luggage and articles, one by one, large and small, that had come in with her guests. She had no resource left but to make the most of the information she could draw from Cicely. She began by overwhelming the girl with her civilities. The more difficulty there appeared in gaining her object, the more was Mrs Griffenhoofe incited to persevere.

" What a nice lady your mistress seems ! Her brother, too, is a sweet young man." " Do you really think so, ma'am?" replied Cicely, with the most provoking indifference. " I do, indeed ; she is such a sweet-tempered lady, if one may judge by her manners." " Yes, she is good-tempered enough." " Is Tunbridge an agreeable place?" " Well enough, as far as I can recollect," responded Cicely. " Bless me ! I thought you came from there. What ! did you not come up here to town from Tunbridge ?" said Mrs Griffenhoofe, putting a direct question. " Not very lately. " I thought your mistress was one of that place. Her brother is a nice man." " He may be for all I know," replied Cicely. VOL. i. B " She never told me where either of them was born." ' Perhaps you have not lived long with her?" :' Not a month."

" Oh, no longer ! Do you know if she has any children ? Is this her first lying-in ?" " Don't know," replied Cicely, shyly. " How incuriosome you must be ! Did you never hear her speak of her children ?" " I might, or I might not ; I don't recodect," said Cicely, with perfect nonchalance. Mrs Griffenhoofe had penetration enough to per ceive that she was sailing upon the wrong tack. The girl was either, as she seemed to be, not well informed about her mistress, or she was an adept in the art of keeping a secret. Her smad dark eyes exhibited no twinkle, as those of one embarrassed were certain to do under the circumstances. Her usual smile played around her mouth, — in fact, no judge upon the bench could have displayed more of the usual passive expression of such an official, when a counsel had been spouting nonsense against time for a dozen successive hours before, than Cicely under the latent motive and direct questioning she underwent.

The next effort made by Mrs- Griffenhoofe was directed to put Cicely off her guard. It is difficult to say in what part of a lodging-house the owner dwells : to-day it may be the attic, to-morrow the kitchen. It was that day on the ground-floor, — a bottle of cherry-bounce was produced, and some excellent sweetmeats at one time ; at another, a bottle of Champagne, which had been purloined from a departed lodger. To loosen the tongue of Cicely, this had been a powerful agent for its de velopment had she anything in reserve to conceal. Low playhouse tickets were offered, and invitations to partake in the hospitality of one or two of Mrs Griffenhoofe's particular friends. Cicely accepted all in good part, but maintained the most provok ing taciturnity upon that point alone on the specu lation of the disclosure of which she had been thus treated ; provokingly had she accepted every dona tion tendered to tempt her to break her taciturnity.

Thus Mrs Griffenhoofe was baffled ; nor was it at all wonderful. Cicely had only lived a few weeks with Mrs Fitzwalter, but found pleasant reasons, as may be supposed, for not stating the fact, being as well pleased to prolong Mrs Griffenhoofe's agreeable mode of temptation as the lodging-house-keeper was to hope for a full gratification. Who Mrs Griffen hoofe was, whether some discarded butler's wife, or a disconsolate widow of that class of officers whom the French call " Demi-tasses," Cicely neither knew, nor did she care. Upon the other hand, Aliquot having made his wife acquainted with the new patient he had ob tained so unexpectedly, and his ignorance of her connexions, the desire on her part to know both became a kind of passion. Female curiosity has long been a proverb, having a hereditary origin, perhaps, in the desire of the universal mother to know good and evil as transmitted to her posterity, and more particularly to have cognisance of what least concerned herself.

On the present occasion, Mrs Aliquot put on her bonnet and shawl to call upon her dear friend Mrs Blackadder, a north country widow who kept excellent Farintosh, and some prime cordials besides, both admirably adapted for the lubrication of that organ called most into exercise upon the discussion of the foregoing mat ter, as wed as contributing to vivffy the imagina tion and make those additions to a story which tend to decorate it with all the rhetorical ornaments and imaginative flights of approved romances. In her domestic arrangements — to return to Swal low Street — Mrs Aliquot was neatness itself, in order to support which every comfort in the house was sacrificed. She had the feet of her dog wiped when he entered the house ; and Mr Aliquot was expected to wear slippers on mounting the stairs.

Mrs Blackadder's arrangements were just the reverse, which some said was the effect of her northern parentage, that caused her as well to wean Mrs Aliquot from green tea, and addict herself to cordials. Mrs Blackadder was tall, but not stately. Upon the visits of her friend, she placed a bottle or two of choice cordial upon the table — excellent Absinthe Swisse, Marischino di Zara, and good Farintosh. No better awakeners of the conversational member of the sex could be found. She poured out a couple of glasses while listening attentively to the fluent statement of Mr Aliquot's disclosure to his wife from the letter before-mentioned. Surmises — some of them not very generous — were put forth by both ladies regarding Mrs Fitzwalter, who was certainly "no better than she should be, coming from Tunbridge too."

"You said Tunbridge, Mrs Aliquot?" said Mrs Blackadder. " Yes, my dear," she replied, " Tunbridge, I assure you," sipping her marischino with great gusto at the same time ; " the letter came from there." " I have a Kentish paper here, let us see what departures there are." On turning to it, the names of Lady Littleman, Mrs Peacock, the Hon. Mrs Poplin, Lady Cockletop, and other people known so well by their euphouous names in the circles of fashion, were announced as having just left. " It can be none of them," said Mrs Aliquot ; " they are all first-rates by their names — all in the peerage too, I have no doubt." " Stay, here are more of the cream of the aristocracy— the Duchess of Dunmore, Lady Pluckrose, Miss Honeybone, Lady Gotobed." " It is the last, if it is either," said Mrs Aliquot, with a smile which increased to a laugh at her own wit.

Mrs Blackadder read a few more names, and decided that there was no Mrs Fitzwalter. In another part of the paper, a Lady Fitzallen was mentioned as a departure. Both agreed that must be the lady of whom they were in search. It was Fitzallen for Fitzwalter — the waiter for alien, or alien for waiter — it was all one ; it was a printer's error. " There cannot be the smadest doubt of it," said Mrs Aliquot ; " the secret is out." Another glass of cordial, and then Mrs Aliquot, having got clear out of her ill humour with her lord, went home to relate the notable discovery of her friend as a positive fact. " My dear Mrs Aliquot," said the worthy Escula pian, " you are much mistaken. Mrs Fitzallen was a lady of retired habits, it is true. She lived, when in town, in Saville Row, and has been a patient of my friend Dr Spignad for many years.

She is a maiden lady, too, the cousin of my patient, Mrs Prudence Hay, at Islington. She has never under gone the ordeal of matrimony. Mrs Blackadder is in error." " It may be so, Mr Aliquot, and suppose it is. Pray, why do you call matrimony an ordeal ? You of all men in the world have least reason to call it so, I think, if others have good ground for it. You have no right to use such a hard word. If any one has had cause it is I, Mr Aliquot, it is I myself. If our matrimony has been an ordeal, it is I that have suffered. You so much out of the house, who thinks so little of personal matters, I have a dull time of it. Ordeal indeed, Mr Aliquot ; I wonder what reflections next ! You will break my heart, that you will. Oh, my poor heart !" " Really, Mrs Aliquot, I do not comprehend your allusions.

In speaking of an ordeal, I made no kind of reference to ourselves." " So you may tell me, Mr Aliquot. Fine words won't keep a cat from starving." Here she grew still more flushed. " You intended other people, of course you would say that. To my mind, everybody should sweep before his own door before he talks of the dirt that lies at the doors of other people. Have I not been an affectionate wife to you, Mr Aliquot ? Answer me that — ' ordeal,' indeed ! Oh, my heart will break !" Aliquot seeing that he should only exacerbate the lady by recriminating, adopted the gentle system, and replied, that he was astonished — he could not conceive how he had given her cause of offence. " I intended nothing, my dearest Soph ronia," he replied, and attempted to kiss her. She repulsed him, until he soothed her by what his profession would call the " second intention," and persuaded her to retire to her chamber.

Her friends' cordials had had more than their usual effect upon her conduct at that moment. They had been long undermining her health. As she retired she warned her spouse not to wound her susceptible feelings again. The life she led was miserable enough as it was. She was the most injured of women. Aliquot kissed her again, and she said, " Yes, that is the way you would put a plaister upon my wrongs, and heal the wounds made by your cruel reflections, — ordeal, indeed !" She had scarcely retired when Mrs Blackadder entered the surgery whither Aliquot had gone, and began to inquire whom he thought the strange lady could be. Would he only describe her accurately when he saw her, that she, Mrs Blackadder, might know if she was one at present half suspected by herself. She wondered he was not more curious.