At sight of her beautiful face he felt half-inclined to awake her and have the quarrel cleared up. But, to begin with, he was not wholly certain of his sobriety. And she, too, distrusted it. He had wounded her family pride, to be sure: but what really kept her silent was the dread of discovering him to be drunk and letting him see that she had discovered it.
Yet she had great need of tears: for on more than one account she respected her husband, even liked him, and did most desperately long to be loved by him. After all, she had borne him children: and since they had died he was her only stay in the world, her only hope of redemption. Years after there was found among her papers a tear-blotted sheet of verses dating from this sorrowful time: and though the sorrow opens and shows ahead, as in a flash, the contempt towards which the current is sweeping her, you see her travel down to it with hands bravely battling, clutching at the weak roots of love and hope along the shore:
"O thou whom sacred rites design'd
My guide and husband ever kind,
My sovereign master, best of friends,
On whom my earthly bliss depends:
If e'er thou didst in Hetty see
Aught fair or good or dear to thee,
If gentle speech can ever move
The cold remains of former love,
Turn thou at last-my bosom ease,
Or tell me why I fail to please.
"Is it because revolving years,
Heart-breaking sighs, and fruitless tears
Have quite deprived this form of mine
Of all that once thou fancied'st fine?
Ah no! what once allured thy sight
Is still in its meridian height.
Old age and wrinkles in this face
As yet could never find a place;
A youthful grace informs these lines
Where still the purple current shines,
Unless by thy ungentle art
It flies to aid my wretched heart:
Nor does this slighted bosom show
The many hours it spends in woe.
"Or is it that, oppress'd with care,
I stun with loud complaints thine ear,
And make thy home, for quiet meant,
The seat of noise and discontent?
Ah no! Thine absence I lament
When half the weary night is spent,
Yet when the watch, or early morn,
Has brought me hopes of thy return,
I oft have wiped these watchful eyes,
Conceal'd my cares and curb'd my sighs
In spite of grief, to let thee see
I wore an endless smile for thee.
"Had I not practised every art,
To oblige, divert and cheer thy heart,
To make me pleasing in thine eyes,
And turn thy house to paradise,
I had not ask'd 'Why dost thou shun
These faithful arms, and eager run
To some obscure, unclean retreat,
With vile companions glad to meet,
Who, when inspired by beer,
can grin At witless oaths and jests obscene,
Till the most learned of the throng
Begins a tale of ten hours long
To stretch with yawning other jaws,
But thine in rapture of applause?'
"Deprived of freedom, health and ease,
And rivall'd by such things as these,
Soft as I am, I'll make thee see
I will not brook contempt from thee!
I'll give all thoughts of patience o'er
(A gift I never lost before);
Indulge at once my rage and grief
Mourn obstinate, disdain relief,
Till life, on terms severe as these,
Shall ebbing leave my heart at ease;
To thee thy liberty restore
To laugh, when Hetty is no more."
One morning William Wright awoke out of stertorous sleep with a heavy sense of something amiss, and opened his eyes to find Hetty standing beside the bed in nightgown and light wrapper, with a tray and pot of tea which she had stolen downstairs to prepare for him. After a second or two he remembered, and turned his face to the wall.
"No," said she, "you had better sit up and drink this, and we can talk honestly. See, I have brought a cup for myself, too."
She drew a small table close to the bed, and a chair, poured out the tea and seated herself—all with the least possible fuss.