I had not always such notions of wedlock as now, but thought that where there was a mutual affection and desire of pleasing, something near an equality of mind and person, either earthly or heavenly wisdom, and anything to keep love warm between a young couple, there was a possibility of happiness in a married state; but when all, or most of these, were wanting, I ever thought people could not marry without sinning against God and themselves.
You are so good to my spouse and me as to say you shall always think yourself obliged to him for his civilities to me. I hope he will always continue to use me better than I deserve in one respect.
I think exactly the same of my marriage as I did before it happened; but though I would have given at least one of my eyes for the liberty of throwing myself at your feet before I was married at all, yet, since it is past and matrimonial grievances are usually irreparable, I hope you will condescend to be so far of my opinion as to own that, since upon some accounts I am happier than I deserve, it is best to say little of things quite past remedy, and endeavour, as I really do, to make myself more and more contented, though things may not be to my wish.
Though I cannot justify my late indiscreet letter, yet I am not
more than human, and if the calamities of life sometimes wring a
complaint from me, I need tell no one that though I bear I must
feel them. And if you cannot forgive what I have said, I
sincerely promise never more to offend by saying too much; which
(with begging your blessing) is all from your most obedient
daughter,
Mehetabel Wright.
CHAPTER V.
You who can read between the lines of these letters will have remarked a new accent in Hetty—a hard and bitter accent. She will suffer her punishment now; but, even though it be sent of God, she will appeal against it as too heavy for her sin.
Learn now the cause of it and condemn her if you can.
At first when her husband, at the close of his day's work, sidled off to the "Turk's Head," she pretended not to remark it. Indeed her fears were long in awaking. In all her life she had never tasted brandy, and knew nothing of its effects. That Dick Ellison fuddled himself upon it was notorious, and on her last visit to Wroote she had heard scandalous tales of John Romley, who had come to haunt the taverns in and about Epworth, singing songs and soaking with the riff-raff of the neighbourhood until turned out at midnight to roll homeward to his lonely lodgings. She connected drunkenness with uproarious mirth, boon companionship, set orgies. Of secret unsocial tippling she had as yet no apprehension.
Even before the birth of his second child the tavern had become necessary to Mr. Wright, not only at the close of work, but in the morning, between jobs. His workmen began to talk. He suspected them and slid into foolish, cunning tricks to outwit them, leaving the shop on false excuses, setting out ostentatiously in the wrong direction and doubling back on the "Turk's Head" by a side street. They knew where to find him, however, when a customer dropped in.
"Who sent you here?" he demanded furiously, one day, of the youngest apprentice, who had come for the second time that week to fetch him out of the "King's Oak." (He had enlarged his circle of taverns by this time, and it included one half of Soho.)