Tales and Novels Volume VI Part 67

----"'pa.s.s by me as the idle wind, Which I respect not.'

"'And let her down the wind to prey at fortune.'

"'Blow, thou winter's wind, Thou art not so unkind.'

"'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow.'"

Her voice was raised to the highest pitch: it was in vain that her husband repeated that he acknowledged the word should be called as she p.r.o.nounced it in poetry; she reiterated her quotations and her a.s.sertions till at last she knew not what she said; her sense failed the more her anger increased. At length Mr. Bolingbroke yielded. Noise conquers sometimes where art fails.

"Thus," said he, "the hawk that could not be hoodwinked, was at last tamed, by being exposed to the din of a blacksmith's hammer."

Griselda was incensed by this remark, and still more by the allusion, which she called the second edition of the vampire-bat. Both husband and wife went to sleep mutually displeased, and more disgusted with each other than they had ever been since their marriage: and all this for the p.r.o.nunciation of a word!

Early in the morning they were wakened by a messenger, who brought an express, informing Mr. Bolingbroke that his uncle was not expected to live, and that he wished to see him immediately. Mr. Bolingbroke rose instantly; all the time that he was dressing, and preparing in the greatest hurry for his journey, Griselda tormented him by disputing about the propriety of his going, and ended with, "Promise me to write every post, my dear; positively you must."

CHAPTER XIII.

"He sighs for freedom, she for power."

Mr. Bolingbroke did not comply with his wife's request, or rather with her injunction, to write _every post_: and when he did write, Griselda always found some fault with his letters. They were too short, too stiff, or too cold, and "very different indeed," she said, "from what he used to write before he was married." This was certainly true; and absence was not at the present crisis the most advantageous thing possible to our heroine. Absence is said to extinguish a weak flame, and to increase a strong one. Mr. Bolingbroke's pa.s.sion for his Griselda had, by some means, been of late diminished. He parted from her with the disagreeable impression of a dispute upon his mind. As he went farther from her he perceived that instead of dragging a lengthened chain, his chain grew lighter. His uncle recovered: he found agreeable society in the neighbourhood; he was persuaded to prolong his stay: his mind, which had been continually hara.s.sed, now enjoyed some tranquillity. On an unlucky evening, he recollected Martial's famous epigram and his wife, in one and the same instant:

"My mind still hovering round about you, I thought I could not live without you; But now we have lived three weeks asunder, How I lived with you is the wonder."

In the mean time, our heroine's chief amus.e.m.e.nt, in her husband's absence, was writing to complain of him to Mrs. Nettleby. This lady's answers were now filled with a reciprocity of conjugal abuse; she had found, to her cost, that it is the most desperate imprudence to marry a fool, in the hopes of governing him. All her powers of tormenting were lost upon her blessed helpmate. He was not to be moved by wit or sarcasm, eloquence or noise, tears or caresses, reason, jealousy, or the opinion of the world.

What did he care what the world thought, he would do as he pleased himself; he would be master in his own house: it did not signify talking or crying, or being in the right; right or wrong, he would be obeyed; a wife should never govern him; he had no notion of letting a woman rule, for his part; women were born to obey, and promised it in church. As to jealousy, let his wife look to that; if she did not choose to behave properly, he knew his remedy, and would as soon be divorced as not: "Rule a wife and have a wife," was the burden of his song.

It was in vain to goad his insensible nature, in hopes of obtaining any good: vain as the art said to be possessed by Linnaeus, of producing pearls by p.r.i.c.king oysters. Mrs. Nettleby, the witty, the spirited Widow Nettleby, was now in the most hopeless and abject condition; tyrannized over by a dunce,--and who could pity her? not even her dear Griselda.

One day Mrs. Bolingbroke received an epistle of seven pages from _poor_ Mrs. Nettleby, giving a full and true account of Mr. Nettleby's extraordinary obstinacy about "the awning of a pleasure-boat, which he would not suffer to be made according to her directions, and which consequently caused the oversetting of the boat, and _very nearly_ the deaths of all the party." Tired with the long history, and with the notes upon the history of this adventure, in Mrs. Nettleby's declamatory style, our heroine walked out to refresh herself. She followed a pleasant path in a field near the house, and came to a shady lane, where she heard Mr. and Mrs. Granby's voices. She went towards the place. There was a turn in the lane, and a thick hedge of hawthorn prevented them from being immediately seen. As she approached, she heard Mr. Granby saying to Emma, in the fondest tone of affection, "My dear Emma, pray let it be done the way that you like best."

They were looking at a cottage which they were building. The masons had, by mistake, followed the plan which Mr. Granby proposed, instead of that which Emma had suggested. The wall was half built; but Mr.

Granby desired that it might be pulled down and altered to suit Emma's taste.

"Bless me!" cried Griselda, with great surprise, "are you really going to have it pulled down, Mr. Granby?"

"Certainly," replied he; "and what is more, I am going to help to pull it down."

He ran to a.s.sist the masons, and worked with a degree of zeal, which increased Mrs. Bolingbroke's astonishment.

"Good Heavens!--He could not do more for you if you were his mistress."

"He never did so much for me, till I was his wife," said Emma.

"That's strange!--Very unlike other men. But, my dear," said Mrs.

Bolingbroke, taking Mrs. Granby's arm, and drawing her aside, "how did you acquire such surprising power over your husband?"

"By not desiring it, I believe," replied Emma, smiling; "I have never used any other art."

CHAPTER XIV.

"Et cependant avec toute sa diablerie, Il faut que je l'appelle et mon coeur et ma mie."

Our heroine was still meditating upon the extraordinary method by which Emma had acquired power over her husband, when a carriage drove down the lane, and Mr. Bolingbroke's head appeared looking out of the chaise window. His face did not express so much joy as she thought it ought to display at the sight of her, after three weeks' absence. She was vexed, and received him coldly. He turned to Mr. and Mrs. Granby, and was not miserable. Griselda did not speak one word during their walk home; still her husband continued in good spirits: she was more and more out of humour, and took no pains to conceal her displeasure.

He bore it well, but then he seemed to feel it so little, that she was exasperated beyond measure; she seized the first convenient opportunity, when she found him alone, of beginning a direct attack.

"This is not the way in which you _used_ to meet me, after an absence ever so short." He replied, that he was really very glad to see her, but that she, on the contrary, seemed sorry to see him.

"Because you are quite altered now," continued she, in a querulous tone. "I always prophesied, that you would cease to love me."

"Take care, my dear," said he, smiling; "some prophecies are the cause of their own accomplishment,--the sole cause. Come, my Griselda,"

continued he, in a serious tone, "do not let us begin to quarrel the moment we meet." He offered to embrace her, but she drew back haughtily. "What! do you confess that you no longer love me?" cried she.

"Far from it: but it is in your own power," said he, hesitating, "to diminish or increase my love."

"Then it is no love, if it can be either increased or diminished,"

cried she; "it is no love worth having. I remember the day when you swore to me, that your affection could not be increased or diminished."

"I was _in_ love in those days, my dear, and did not know what I swore," said Mr. Bolingbroke, endeavouring to turn the conversation: "never reproach a man, when he is sober, with what he said when he was drunk."

"Then you are sober now, are you?" cried she angrily.

"It is to be hoped I am," said he, laughing.

"Cruel, barbarous man!" cried she.

"For being sober?" said he: "have not you been doing all you could to sober me these eighteen months, my dear? and now do not be angry if you have in some degree succeeded."

"Succeeded!--Oh, wretched woman! this is thy lot!" exclaimed Griselda, clasping her hands in an agony of pa.s.sion. "Oh, that my whole unfortunate s.e.x could _see_ me,--could _hear_ you at this instant!

Never, never did the love of man endure one twelvemonth after marriage. False, treacherous, callous, perjured tyrant! leave me!

leave me!"

He obeyed; she called him back, with a voice half suffocated with rage, but he returned not.

Never was departing love recalled by the voice of reproach. It is not, as the poet fables, at the sight of human ties, that Cupid is frightened, for he is blind; but he has the most delicate ears imaginable: scared at the sound of female objurgation, Love claps his wings and urges his irrevocable flight.

Griselda remained for some time in her apartment to indulge her ill-humour; she had leisure for this indulgence; she was not now, as formerly, disturbed by the fond interruptions of a husband. Longer had her angry fit lasted, but for a circ.u.mstance, which may to many of our readers appear unnatural: our heroine became hungry. The pa.s.sions are more under the control of the hours of meals[1] than any one, who has not observed human life out of novels, can easily believe. Dinner-time came, and Mrs. Bolingbroke appeared at dinner as usual. In the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Granby pride compelled Griselda to command herself, and no one could guess what had pa.s.sed between her and her husband: but no sooner was she again tete-a-tete with him, than her reproaches recommenced with fresh violence.--"Will you only do me the justice to tell me, Mr. Bolingbroke," cried she, "what reason you have to love me less?"

[Footnote 1: De Retz' Memoirs.]