Frank Sinclair's Wife, and other stories

Front matter

FRANK SINCLAIR'S WIFE. AND OTHER STORIES. FRANK SINCLAIR'S WIFE, AND OTHER STORIES. BY MRS. RIDDELL, AUTHOB Q¥ ' geoege geith," " too much alone," " home, sweet home," "the eabl's promise," etc. etc. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND 1874. [All rightt of Traiwtatwn and Reproduction are Beierctd.l PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO., LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S TNN FIELDS. CONTENTS OF THE THIED VOLUME. MY LAST LOVE. CHAP. r-ACE I. AFTER HER MARRIAGE ...... 1 II. I PROPOSE 17 III. THE " HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE " . . .45 IV. MARRIAGE 7^ V. MY VISITOR. . . . . . . .01 VI. LADY SORRY llti VII. ALL WRONG 13<i 104 VIII. RECONCILED IX. CONCLUSION ....... 1«4 FOREWARNED, FOREARMED . .205 HERTFORD O'DONNELLS WARNING . . A SEQUEL TO MY FIRST LOVE

Chapter I. After Her Marriage

Throughout the whole of my professional career it has been a comfort to me to remember that when the great case of ' Ayles bury v. Montfort ' was lost, as lost it was, I had no share in the disaster. To this hour I cannot understand why Aylesbury was beaten, more particularly as when he ultimately carried his cause to the House of Lords, he gained the day. Trifles, as people regard them, influence verdicts. The state of the foreman's liver — VOL. the fact of some pig-headed juror having dined too late and too well the evening preceding — the temper in which another entered his matutinal omnibus, said temper being influenced by the lateness of breakfast, or a request for cash from his wife — these things, and things such as these, are sufficient occasionally to rule the fortunes of Cæsar, whilst the outer world considers the fault lies either with Cæsar or Cæsar's friends, and censures and chides both ac cordingly.

Wherefore, the fates having ruled I was to achieve no success in love, I felt glad — when I was capable of feeling glad about anything — that the jade Fortune had not served me the sorry trick of taking not only Rose, but the chances of fame and wealth also. After all, if a man must wear the willow, it is as well he should wear it in a decent hat. I think there is a good deal of truth in that well-worn adage concerning love and cards. For my own part I cannot now recall an instance of a man who proved a winner in both. The world of course talks largely about handsome wives, and lovely children, and a princely income, as it talks largely about most things appertaining to its favourite sons and daughters ; but I, who have listened to as many confidences as most, know quite well that to the majority of human beings there comes an hour when the devil or luck says, " How will you take it -r-gold or affection ?

It is impossible to grasp both — which shall it. be ? " Whilst some poor wretches handing the whole of their future into the hands of fate, get nothing back in exchange — for every rule has its exceptions — and there will always be some men and some women Avith whom nothing shall prosper till the end of this world's volume. As I was remarking, it has ever been a comfort to me that I had nothing to do Avith b the great case of ' Aylesbury v. Montfort.' When it came on, and an intelligent jury decided Montfort should retain possession of a property to which he had no more right than myself, I was lying in Staple's Inn ill unto death, with my mother and Joan tend ing me. Everyone of course said it was the shock of seeing Rose another man's wife which brought on the fever, for there is a great deal of that sort of folly believed, but when I grew better I knew differently.

It is never so much the shock we receive, as what we do after the shock, that stretches us on a sick bed. Dick takes to brandy probably, and Harry either to starving or dissipation ; I, Tom, walked for hours and hours through the snow, which was be ginning to thaw, got thoroughly soaked, and then sat in my wet clothes while the night express bore me back to town. Arrived in town, I thought to avert all chance of illness by a glass of something hot and strong — but the remedy either came too late or was not of the right kind, for after that night there ensues a blank in my memory which has never been thoroughly filled up, even by those obliging friends who subsequently informed me I was delirious for several days, and talked a great deal of nonsense ; a feat often performed, I have since had occasion to remark, by people in the enjoyment of thoroughly sound health.

The first evidence of having recovered my senses which I gave was trying to rise and dress, in order to assist in the discomfiture of Montfort ; but as I fainted in this en deavour, and as, moreover, the jury were deliberating on their verdict at that very time, I made no subsequent attempt to ap pear in the case. By slow degrees I realized that weeks had gone by whilst I lay unconscious of their passage, that Rose's honeymoon must bo over, that as things rush on now-a-days, my trouble was an old one, that my former life with its hopes, its fantasies, its fears, its struggles, was at an end, and that if I were to do any good for myself or others in the future life, which I could not help living, I must try to forget everything connected with that past existence — even the sound of the busy mill wheel and the still beauty of the woods through which, when the white flowers of the wild anemone carpeted them, Rose and I had wandered hand-in-hand to gether.

My mistress was gone — and I knew that if I searched the wide world through I should never find another love, that could be my love, just as she had been — but after all I whispered to myself, when at length I felt strong enough to take courage and look out over the days that were still to be gone through, " Love is not all — it is not every thing." And so far I was right — but ah ! friends, I know now love is a great deal. Never theless, whether the day be cheered by sun shine or darkened by clouds, it has to be got through, and it is as well to accept what ever sort of weather God send with decent propriety. My day had opened with the loss of Rose — and what a loss that was I may never hope to tell ; but once I was strong enough, to consider the position, I determined not to let my sorrow master me.

There were various ways in which I could have shown my regret and evinced the grief I experienced. For example, I might have enlisted ; for some inscrutable reason men have been known ere now to adopt this mode of comfort ; I could have cut my throat, and so contributed many paragraphs to the newspaper literature ofthe country — further, it was competent for me to try whether strong waters might not produce the same effect as those of Lethe ; or to shut myself up like persons I had then read of, and whose dupli cates I have since known ; or to plunge into what people vaguely term a vortex of dissi pation ; or to indulge in unlimited tobacco, accompanied by unlimited beer — the means required for obtaining such consolations not being excessive. But as neither enlisting, nor suicide, nor intemperance, nor eccentri city, was likely to give me back Rose, and further I had parents to assist, and brothers and sisters to push on in the world, I thought it best to continue in the course I had begun, and to proceed along the road I was previously travelling — only without Rose.

Only ! well — well — in every life there is its "but," and its "if," and its "only." It Avas in the cottage near Southgate I fully regained my strength, for when once I could bear the jolting, my mother and Joan moved me there. Never shall I forget the delicious languor— the luxurious idle ness of the days and weeks which followed. Although at first I could scarcely endure to look upon the face of Nature, by reason of the memories she recalled, yet when she came to me as she did, after a time, beautiful as ever, dressed in her robes of richest green, with flowers in her hands, and buds in her hair, with the lovely tints of spring on her face, and smiles playing in her eyes, I yielded myself to the seductions of old, and lay on the green sward, blessing the bright May time, while the wandering breezes scented with hawthorn, and the delicate fragrance of the wild dog roses kissed my forehead and caressed my cheek.

I got well there — slowly but surely I stole back to health, and then in the glad summer weather what walks Joan and the children and I had together ! There is not an inch of all that neighbour hood I could not traverse blindfold at this moment, unless indeed it might be the country near Colney Hatch and Wood Green, where I am told a town has sprung up ; where, in place of blackberries, there are plantations of bricks and mortar, and instead of wide common lands little suburban houses with a patch of garden in front, protected from the tread of profane feet, by iron railings, all of one pattern, and all painted one colour. But those winding lanes, those unexpected fields paths, shall I ever forget their peace ful beauty ? I am old now, and the past may return to me no more ; but yet as I write there comes back a not unpleasant memory, nothing more, alas ! of the strength I possessed when we used to pace under the arching trees of a certain lane leading off to Berry Street, or when in a borrowed phaeton I was wont to drive Joan around by Chingford church, the old church I mean, and along to the Forest, by roads, the very thought of which touches something in my heart, the exact nature of which I shall never be able to define, unless in another world we are as capable of describing our feelings as we are of realizing them in this.

It was during that long holiday, also, that I first fully comprehended the treasure God had given us all in Joan. If the little cottage were a very bower of prettiness, it was to Joan it owed its beauty. Under her the younger fry worked with a will. It was very funny to hear Joan talk to them as though they had all emigrated to Australia, and were really in a strange land, settlers to whom nothing they had to do ought to come amiss. Two of the boys were already in situations, and after their morals and comforts the old lady in Queen Anne Street was supposed to look with anxious attention for six days out of the seven ; but once the seventh day came, or rather the evening of the seventh, it might have made an old man young again to hear the voices of those lads as they went about the cottage and the farm, shouting to the smaller fry and whist ling to the dogs, and halloaing with all the mighty power of their strong lungs.

I thought with Rose the whole happiness of my life had evaporated, leaving behind it nothing save what was stale, flat, and un profitable ; but I know now that though my love was gone, my capability for enjoyment was left, and that, although I had my moods and tenses of deep depression and profound melancholy, still I enjoyed that summer very fairly. For one thing I had not yet quite realized, what all the days of my life without Rose meant ; for another, though I beheld her Walter Surry's wife, I had not entirely grasped the fact that I could never again have either part or lot in her. There is nothing so difficult to believe in as a certainty, till we have lived long enough to feel it is a certainty, and not a delusion. For example, who that has lost any loved object by means of death, ever, even in the first agony of grief, grasps just what it all means then, all it must mean in the future ?

Say, a child has passed to the eternal shores, do you suppose father or mother quite under stands the void that will be left ? The tiny hands are still, the pattering feet quiet, the prattling tongue mute, the place it occupied empty ; but the knowledge of all this comes happily by degrees, just as when a man's wife dies he scarcely at first com prehends how keenly he may subsequently feel her loss — say, for instance, in the matter of buttons. And in those days when I walked round Enfield Chase, and mooned about Winch more Hill, when I became acquainted with grassy lanes, where the convolvulus climbed and the brambles trailed, when I crossed every ford, and knew every field path, thorough knowledge had not come to me of how desolate a thing life — even a successful life — might prove without Rose.

Vaguely, I imagine, there had sprung up a hope in my heart, that if I worked hard and made a name, Rose might still be mine. As it is a simple impossibility ever to per suade a disinherited man that a dozen lives will not fall in, aud the coveted property ultimately revert to him, so I was wont to picture plague, pestilence, and famine let loose, in order that Walter Surry might be removed from the earth, and I get mine own again. He hunts, I thought, and men have often been killed by taking an awkward leap with an awkward horse ; he shoots, it may be he will meet his end in one of his own pre serves : he has a yacht, it may go to the bottom : he drives fast and furiously, some day perchance his fiery steeds may carry him to his death. Ideas such as these floated through my mind, whilst it never occurred to me that death might develope a fancy for me, or fall in love to more purpose than I had done with Rose — my Rose no longer.

It was not right, I knew, to picture Walter Surry dead, his wife a widow ; and yet I imagine thoughts of the possibilities I have hinted at, broke the force of my fall. I was not cast out of the seventh heaven of my fool's paradise with never a straw to grasp at, and when I did reach the earth paradise was so far away, and the realities of existence so urgently claiming attention, that I was fain to regard the story of ' My First Love,' which has been already told, as a sort of fairy tale that could never have had any tangible connection Avith my prosaic life. She was gone. As one wakes in the morning, to find the fairest dream vanish with the first touch of light, so I awoke by degrees to a comprehension that Rose and I were parted for ever — that she could no more be my love than the dream could be dreamt over again, or the vision beheld a second time.

It seems to me only yesterday that I first saw her driving in the Park with her husband, — looking lovely, of course, and happy also. I drew back behind a tree, so that her eyes might not rest on me, and when their carriage had passed, I walked off in an opposite direction, feeling as though I had received a stab, and were bleeding in ternally. But time went by, and I grew accustomed to that spectacle; aye, even when I saw her fondling her boy — his son, I can honestly say my heart held a blessing for mother and child, though at the moment the waters of my life seemed bitter to me as those of Marah. But I anticipate, and this is a fault in story telling, critics say — which is probably true, since it would be expecting too much to suppose they should ever read a tale with sufficient attention to discriminate between the actual present and the indicated future.

Chapter II

I PROPOSE. So I went back to my chambers, my law books, and, after a time, to my writing. For a while it pleased me to put my thoughts on paper, to the end that Rose might read them ; but soon — recollecting what a little goose she had always been, and how she required some one beside her to explain the meaning of the simplest ideas, to translate as it might be the hard words of a foreign tongue into commonplace En glish, to convert the guineas of great minds into the more familiar shillings and pence of ordinary exchange, — I gave up walking VOL. in. c on stilts, well knowing that Rose would only wonder what I could be doing up there, and finally began to write for that for which, sooner or later, all men and all women do write, — namely, money. I needed money both personally and for the sake of my family.

What my father had saved out of the wreck of his fortunes was almost exhausted, and though it is a hard thing for a man to contemplate sup porting father and mother, brothers and sisters, still it was just then the work lying to my hand, and I took it accordingly. The taste which first leaves a parent chargeable to the parish, and then refuses to pay the parish for keeping him, has never seemed to me exactly good ; and, although I am aware there are diversities of opinion on this point, and that I have been often called a fool for my pains even by the wife of my bosom, still I venture diffidently to state, that I do not think I am in any way the poorer now because, to the best of my / Propose. 19 limited ability, I helped to keep a roof over the heads of my father and mother, and to enable the younger children to provide for themselves.

Some of the latter haAre done well and some ill, as must always be the case in large families. We have ne'er-do wells amongst our girls' husbands, and wasters amongst our boys, but there is no grave — for we have our dead — which I need avoid passing by reason of remembered neg lect or coldness. The worst trial we had amongst them all was Stephen, but he died with his head on Joan's shoulder, and his hand clasping mine. I did my best for them all, and though sometimes I think that best might have been better, had I either not married at all or married differently — still I cannot be quite sure — and as I did marry my Avife there can be no earthly use in speculating upon the question. The way I came to marry her was, that it seemed to be expected of me. People c2 may say this is no valid reason for taking a wife — but thousands of men marry for no other.

There is a great deal of talk about love at the present time — more than there used to be in the days when youths and maidens had better opportunities of seeing one another, and grew fonder accordingly ; but looking round on my acquaintances and observing men's wives, I can come to no other conclusion than that partners for life are selected much after the fashion in which a house is taken. For some reason or other a wife is desired, and if a man cannot just find what he wants or what suits him, or that somebody else steps in and takes it over his head, he puts up with what he can get. And perhaps in time the wife, being his own, he comes to like her — or, perhaps, being his own, he grows to dislike her — anyhow, the choice has been made and the woman taken, and then there being no help for it, when we see a poor wretch trying vainly to make / Propose. 21 the best of a bad bargain, we insist with a bitter irony that he married for love.

I did not at any rate — and yet society has always been good enough to suppose so — to think me such a fool, in fact, as to imagine had I married for love I should not have married something very different. There are people who even now admire Mrs. Luttrell — vastly — she is younger than I, and has worn considerably better. Some ten years ago her portrait appeared on the Aca demy walls, and she really looked hand somer then than I had ever thought her be fore, which might certainly be owing to the artist's kindness. That portrait now hangs in a recess on one side of our diuing-room mantelpiece, and always seems looking round into the other in search of another portrait, which shall never be painted, that of your humble servant ; and I will say it is a tolerably faithful likeness of a lady most men might be proud of calling Avife.

She is what is generally known as a " fine woman " (I wonder men will use the phrase or women tolerate it), large, with a certain stateliness of carriage and cmprcsscmcnt of manner. Girls, looking at her with a certain awe, think her, nevertheless, delightful ; but boys, amongst whom the bump of reverence is not so largely developed as is the case with their sisters, neArer seem to feel quite at ease in her presence. During the whole of our married life her prudence and discretion have been beyond all praise. Admired, she has yet not flirted, and I have never lost five minutes of my natural rest owing to any jealous misgivings concerning her. Further, she has borne me sons and daughters — two of the former and three of the latter — and has ruled my household, if not — well, shall we say econo mically — at least with a due regard to what the world expected from people in our position.

Perhaps, indeed, with an over regard; but it would be ungenerous to carp at trifles, or to blame a lady for keeping up I Propose. 23 with the pace of the times in which her lot has been cast. With one exception also, we have never quarrelled. We have been admirably polite and discreetly fond; all things, therefore, considered, as marriages go, I did not marry amiss, but it would be folly to say it was a love match. No. I considered Miss Sherlock a good, handsome, young lady, who made herself immensely agreeable to me, and whose father, mother, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, friends, acquaintances, and self, thought I ought to propose for her. Which after much delay and consideration, and many doubts as to my own prudence, I did. We will pause here for a moment if you please, dear reader, and argue this matter a little out.

We can do so with perfect im punity, since my wife is not aware I am the aut hor of this true tale, and if she were she would not read it. Years ago; indeed, she used to devour every line I wrote, but that was in the days when she had an object to gain by such unwonted mental exercise, and having gained her object, she is little likely to retraverse the means used to compass it. I had doubts as to my prudence, if you remember ; those doubts are now certainties. Better have waited — better have rnurmured no word of love till something like the old feeling stirred within me again. It may be — God knows I have never seen her — that somewhere on the world's wide surface I might have met another Rose, whom I could have gathered and won. I have a fancy that a man's first chance is not necessarily his last, and this idea, though unwarranted by my own experience, has yet received considerable confirmation from the experience of others.

Women tell me that they were first wooed because they recalled some long ago memory. Men say they chose because there was a tone, a look, a gesture, a smile which / Propose. 25 reminded them of the dream-loA-e departed. K I went wooing again — which Heaven forbid — I do not think I should mention to Grace the charm I find in her golden tresses is their resemblance to those which a quarter of a century ago constituted the chief beauty of Maud ; yet such confidences are vouch safed to the beloved objects, and as a rule during courtship they do not resent it ; the wOrds uttered and the remarks made in the Hades of Matrimony, it is impossible to con jecture, for from that bourne no traveller returns ; the secrets of that Aftenvards are never revealed save in the Divorce Court — and there but imperfectly.

My impression, however, is, that if the man be wise, he consigns Maud's memory to oblivion when he weds Grace — but of course I cannot tell. All I do know is, that even had Miss Sherlock resembled Rose, I should have maintained a discreet silence on the subject. But she did not resemble her in the least. And this it seems to me now was just my mistake. Given that I married at all, I should have married some one like Rose, whom I could have loved, first for the old love's sake, and afterwards drawn closer and closer to my heart for her own. A man's first love is his ideal love, and the real should always come as near the ideal as may be. Sometimes — mine has been a lonely life, mentally I mean most part of it — sometimes when I am walking along the streets, or sitting here in my chambers, or indulging — slippers on my feet and the ' Times ' ready to my hand — in that mild cigar against which Mrs. Luttrell inveighs as is the fashion of ladies after marriage, I wonder whether there be not in some remote district, or wast ing her sweetness in the populous solitude of a London street, a second Rose whose life might have been all the happier had we met and married, whose fragrance would have been precious to me, whom I could have / Propose. 27 tended Avith loving care, who would have proved the blessing of my life, who could have supplied just that something my existence has always lacked, who would haA'e seemed the dear house angel, for whose fluttering dress and soft clinging arms and gentle caresses my soul has longed in the house of her earthly bondage.

And this feeling does not arise from any sort of conceit, or over-weening idea of my own capacity for making a woman happy. It is just that I think there must be some place — a heart now broken, possibly, that would have understood the workings of mine — a woman who might under different cir cumstances have glided to my vacant hearth, and kindled there a fire which should not have been extinguished till my pulses were stilled for ever ; whilst I in my turn could have filled a void in her life, shielded her, sheltered her, kept her safe within my arms from sorrow and sin, from trouble and regret. She may have, or may not have had an existence, this second Rose, but it has never fallen to my lot to behold her ; thank God. Being married, I say this out of the depth of my gratitude, for had we met, there would then have begun one of those struggles from which let a man flee never so soon, never so far, he is sure to come forth worsted.

As it is, I can truthfully declare I know no woman I like in the least degree better than my wife. SaA'e once she never had any reason to com plain of any one stepping between us and stealing away my affections, and on that occa sion she mistook the position as ladies un blessed by a real grieArance are often apt to do. "I have been the best of husbands," so Mrs. Sherlock always kindly informs me, when her nature is softened and her heart opened by that Christmas cheer — which for tunately for her digestion comes but once a year, — " I cannot tell you how grateful I feel to God for having been so good to — " Whereat I step back guiltily, feeling that from my point of view, I have not been a / Propose. 29 good husband, and that God, Whose blessing the old lady iinrokes as usual when we part after tho festive meeting, which always takes place at Mr. Sherlock's house on the 2-5th of December — knows it.