WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Subordination is the apparent lot of woman. From the domination of nurses, parents, guardians, and teachers, during infancy and youth, to the magisterial rule of her lord and master, during married life, and the softer control of her children, through that valley of the shadow of death, old age, it rarely ceases, until the neatly-crimped borders of the death-cap rest upon the icy brow, and the unfortunate subject is screwed down in one of those exceedingly awkward mahogany tenements, henceforth "all which it may inhabit."
There are two ways of meeting this destiny of the sex. One is merely to kiss the rod, and bend before the will of the oppressor, meekly turning both cheeks to be smitten at once, and offering to lend both coat and cloak, even before either is required. The other mode is to boldly face down the enemy, and by a never-tiring guerilla warfare, to hamper his movements, cut off his provisions, and finally hem him in, after a manner that shall cause him ignominiously to surrender, to lay down his arms, pass under the yoke, and at length—converting his sword into a pruning-hook—leave his conqueror undisputed possession of the land. The usual injustice of the world is seen in the success which ordinarily attends the latter method; while the meek and gentle, who, it is promised, shall inherit the earth, must look for a new heaven and a new earth before they can come into their property. Husbands, it is premised, have no small share in this domestic despotism. How often do we see—to the shame of the male sex generally, be it spoken—some rough, coarse-minded tyrant, linked to a quiet, amiable woman, who after a long period of hectoring and dragooning, ordering and counter-ordering, sinks into the grave of a broken heart—or what is worse, a broken spirit. And sometimes—for fate is sometimes just—the said patient wife is replaced by some undaunted avenger of her wrongs, who in her turn dragoons, and hectors Othello, until indeed his "occupation's gone."
My old acquaintance, Charles Boldenough, was pronounced to be, by the tutors, as well as by the students of D—— College, "the most unlicked cub" who ever misconstrued Virgil. Their experience was undoubtedly great in this species of natural history, but of all the hard characters who fell under their inspection and jurisdiction, I question if there were one who could with any share of success, dispute with him the enviable claim of being the hardest. Tall, athletic, with a huge frame capable of any fatigue, and health that never failed him; with a passionate temper, and a stentorian voice whose thunders were the terror of the younger boys, Charles Boldenough contrived to overawe with brute force all the small fry, and to convince the older collegians that it was best to yield passively to pretensions which could only be contended with any chance of success, by wrestling powers equal to his own. He was in fact the gladiator of D——College,—champion I should have called him, were it not that he was constantly at war with the professors and faculty, who might be said to represent it. The incorrigible laziness and ignorance which marked his scholastic career, were fruitful sources of complaint and reprimand; the frequent boating expeditions, the sporting excursions, and fishing parties, on which he was absent, sometimes for entire days, would unquestionably have terminated the course of his studies, and released the freshmen from their dreaded tyrant, by his early expulsion, had it not been for the influence of powerful family connections, and the personal interference of his friends. But in the course of time, he finished his collegiate labors, with all the honors, and a scarcity of black eyes, and bloody noses, immediately prevailed at D——, such as had not occurred for years.
I separated from him at that time, and heard nothing of him for a long interval. When I next saw him, he was married. The person whom my pugnacious acquaintance had made the object of his choice, was a fair blue-eyed timid little woman, with a frail figure, delicate health, and temper mild as the summer morning. What could have induced her, to ally herself with this belligerent power, I never could imagine. Whether she had fallen in love with that great burly countenance, and loud voice; or whether, as the youngest of ten children, she had snatched at the crown matrimonial as affording an escape from a disagreeable home, or whether some one of her friends compelled her to do it, I have always found it impossible to determine. I only know that at the first interview, I saw enough to pity the poor being in my heart. She hung upon the arm of her Alcides, like a snow-drop on a rock. My friend had never had many pretensions to beauty; and his rough red visage and portly figure, bore witness of a right boisterous and jolly style of living. His first act after his marriage, was to engage in a violent quarrel with his wife's father and eight stalwart brothers, the result of which was a total cessation of intercourse between the two families. His young partner was compelled to receive the boon companions of her better half, to the entire exclusion of her own friends. The home of Charles Boldenough was a constant scene of dinner parties, and oyster suppers innumerable, which, as they frequently ended by an altercation between the host and his guests, were a continual source of agitation to his wife.
A perfect angel of peace and gentleness she was. She bore, with unexampled resignation, the thraldom which was destroying her health and comfort. She tried, with patience, every means of pleasing a man who never allowed her to know what he liked, as it would have taken away all room for grumbling. With scrupulous care she attended to his little vexatious wants, his epicurean tastes, his trifling whimsical peculiarities. If she wished to remain at home, he forced her to go abroad; if she were desirous of going out, he made her stay within doors. If she liked a person more than commonly, he, in the words of the vulgar, "made the house too hot to hold them." If, on the contrary, she was annoyed by the presence of one of his acquaintances, she had time and opportunity to get rid of her abhorrence, since she was continually visited with their company. He scolded, grumbled, and found fault with every thing she did; with her acts and her intentions alike. If she ordered a servant to perform any particular duty, he immediately countermanded the orders; if she made any change, however slight, in the family arrangements, no penance could expiate the offence. So she lived on, with almost a struggle for her existence, having learned the important mythological lesson, that Hymen, like Janus, wears two faces, and that the temple of the former god, unlike that of the latter, is never closed. She had several children (who fortunately all died before their mother), but Boldenough, on the ground that women were not fit to bring up boys, constantly interfered in the education of the girls, and made his wife as wretched by this means as by any other. He punished when she rewarded, and indulged when she reproved; he sent them to school when she would have educated them at home, and reaped his reward, by having them secretly fear and hate him. Poor Mrs. Boldenough complained not, but she grew thinner and paler every year, and her voice, as if lost amid the loud tones, forever reverberating in her ears, became so low as to be scarcely audible.
At last she died. When it became necessary to inform him of the danger she was in, he was at first stupefied by the unexpected intelligence, and the feeling that he was to lose a household object, which time had rendered not dear, but familiar. Then he flew into a violent rage, quarreled with the attendants, servants, even the friends and relatives. Having recovered from the shock in some degree, he set about persecuting his poor wife during her last moments, in the same manner he had done while she enjoyed her health, with this difference: that it was now killing with kindness. He sent away in a rage the family physician, although his dying wife begged him, almost with tears, to retain him. He brought strange attendants to wait upon her, and insisted upon her eating when she had no appetite, and when the very sight of food created disgust. The sight of his big, cross, burly countenance, perpetually haunting her, and his loud questions, to which he would have answers, and the eternal remedies, which he disturbed her feverish sleep that she might swallow—were causes, as the nurse averred, which positively sent the poor lady out of the world—"for he wouldn't," said that worthy person, "he wouldn't have let her get well, even if she'd been a mind to."
Poor thing! a man who, as it was universally agreed, had broken his wife's heart, was not likely to regret her very deeply, or very long. But he was rougher and ruder than ever; the confusion into which his family matters immediately fell, the dishonesty of servants, the diabolical gastronomy of his cuisine, and the insufferable dullness of a home in which there was no family circle to be made uncomfortable and to be railed at every hour in the day, induced Charles Boldenough to mingle more freely in society, in order, as it was immediately said, that he might marry again. Many were the denunciations of wrath and sorrow to come, which were showered upon the head of that wretched woman who should accept Charles Boldenough's huge bony hand. He had the name of the worst of husbands, and it was confidently said that he would never succeed in contracting a second alliance: an assertion to which he gave the lie by espousing, one year after the death of the first Mrs. Boldenough, an intrepid successor, in the person of a damsel whom he had long been known to admire.
The second Mrs. Boldenough was a complete and entire contrast to the first. She was so nearly equal to her husband in stature and in size that she might almost have succeeded in giving him, what no person had ever been known to do, and what he certainly had long required: namely, a good flogging. She had a pair of cheeks like nothing in this world except two prize Spitzenberg apples, black eyes, fierce and bright and far-seeing almost to a miracle, and a voice that went through your head like a milkman's whistle, whilst the continued sound of her conversation resembled a gong at the great hotels. Boldenough she was by name, and Boldenough by nature; her carriage, erect and firm, and rapid as a locomotive, seemed to require the ringing of a little bell before her, to keep the unwary off the tracks, after the manner of most railway trains. She was afraid of nothing in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. She could break the most unruly horse, fire at a mark with a perfect aim, and collar any man who should show her any impertinence, with a coolness and strength of limb perfectly wonderful to behold. Born to command, she was not angry but merely surprised that any one should dream of controlling her. It was only after a long resistance to her wishes that the full torrent of her rage burst forth, but with an overwhelming fury.
The French say "C'est le coeur qui fait le grenadier." If this be true, what a very respectable regiment might be formed from the ranks of the fair sex in all parts of the world, were they but armed and equipped as the law directs! What an irresistible army would that be which should be formed of troops like these! My friend, Mrs. Boldenough, would have made an excellent commander to these imaginary forces, and would, no doubt, have been as entirely successful in overrunning the enemy's country and driving him from his last entrenchments, as she was in the domestic circle triumphant over husband and servants, and sweeping before her the convivial revellers of the former by means of the rapid extinction of feudal customs, in the shape of suppers and dinner parties.
Mr. Boldenough attempted to make a gallant defence; he stormed, raved, threatened, commanded, and exhorted; scenes of conflict, dreadful to witness, took place between the warlike hosts. The lord of the mansion's burly visage turned pale at finding himself stormed down with a noise and clatter which almost burst the tympanum of his ears. If he had scolded she had raved more loudly, if he had thundered she rang out her high shrill treble with as much force and strength as a dinner-bell. Fairly beaten and vanquished, he shrunk from the ground; she, undismayed, "keeping the natural ruby of her cheeks, while his were pale from fear."
Vœ victis! Wo to the conquered! The reign of Mr. Boldenough was over; a new dynasty took possession of the throne. The old servants were packed, bag and baggage, out of the mansion; the old acquaintances of the host were impressively given to understand that they were "never to come there no more."
The longer any arbitrary power is established the more secure its authority becomes. So it proved with regard to Mrs. Boldenough. There was no escaping from her military despotism; she was an excellent housewife, and the best of good managers, and as might have been expected, she immediately restrained and cut off the lavish expenditure of the household. Mr. Boldenough made a few faint expiring efforts in behalf of his favorite luxuries. Not the better part of valor, is, as he discovered, discretion; for his helpmate held in her hands the buying and the ordering of his dinners and his daily food, and if he complained he was sure to find his condition worse than it was before. In the course of time six sturdy Boldenoughs sprung up, robust, hardy, noisy, and passionate as their mother, whose authority they served to confirm and strengthen. Then, indeed, it was that my friend Charles's shadow perceptibly grew less. He shrank from the notice of his wife and the bold Titans, his sons. The first Mrs. Boldenough's memory was certainly avenged.
The last time I met my friend he was evidently sinking slowly but surely into the vale of years. His great rubicund countenance was sunken and emaciated, his figure bent and meagre, his voice weak and faint as a whisper, and his hearing entirely gone. From what cause my readers may perhaps imagine. He was, indeed, stone deaf. I question, however, if this were not almost a mercy, considering the tower of Babel in which he dwelt. Nobody cared what became of him, for he had never cared for any body.
Charles Boldenough departed this life shortly after having survived his second marriage fifteen years. The physician had the effrontery to ascribe to paralysis what evidently was no natural death. His end might have excited some pity from his acquaintances and friends, if it had not been for two things, namely, that he had no friends, and that he merely received himself the same treatment which he had given others. I was not sorry for him, I confess. Justice is so rare in this world of ours, that I am not disposed to undervalue it when it is summarily executed. The Amazonian relict of my friend Charles never re-married. Whether she never found that daring man, who was Van Amburgh-like enough to put his head in the lioness's mouth without fear of having it snapped off at one blow, or whether the charge of her young giants was sufficient for her occupation, or whether she was conscious of having fulfilled her mission, I do not know. She retained her formidable name to the end of her days.
Reader! I have done. If you are a woman you may smile, and if a man you will sneer; but I assure you there is a moral in the petite histoire of the second wife. Adieu!