“Whatever may be your opinion of Philip, you can at least credit him with being a gentleman,” was the icy reply to this rally.
But ice thrown into a boiling copper produces a mighty hissing, a prodigious letting off of steam. And such was the effect entailed upon the lady by this rejoinder. Of indifferent birth herself she imagined the reply to contain a gird at that circumstance, and rushed into the battle—horse, foot, and artillery.
“Pah! An idle, good-for-nothing scamp is what I credit him with being,” she retorted furiously. “A fellow who allows his parents to pinch and starve themselves in order that he may revel in the luxury of idleness. And, I tell you what it is, Francis, I won’t be neglected in any such fashion! I won’t be left alone here! No, that is a thing I will not stand! Isn’t it enough that I am ground down and forced to live on a mere pittance because you choose to spoil your son? Is that not enough, I say? And now you propose to go away and leave me alone for an indefinite time. But you will find I am not to be so easily shelved. I have my rights, and I know thoroughly well how to look after them. And look after them I shall—rest assured of that! Go—go by all means! But the consequences be upon your own head.”
Of attempting to reason with her in this mood, or indeed in any mood, Sir Francis had long since learned the futility. Indeed, at that moment he felt little inclination to attempt anything of the kind. Apart from the coarseness of her temper, which revolted his more refined instincts, her venomous abuse of his son aroused in him the bitterest resentment. He was no match for an adversary of this fibre, for his refined and sensitive nature shrank with loathing and horror from violent scenes. So now he adopted the wise, if somewhat ignominious, course of beating a retreat. He simply walked out of the room.
This was not precisely what his wife desired. Like all women of her kind, and a good many not of her kind, she dearly loved a battle, and the sort of battle she loved most was that wherein victory was assured. By fleeing at the sound of the first gun the enemy had effected a retreat which was three parts of a victory. She returned to the perusal of Truth—an extra pungent number—with an angry frown, yet she could not quite reconcentrate her mind upon the spicy contents of the journal. The slave had shown signs of rebellion. He must be made to feel that rebellion was not going to answer.
Poor woman! Her grievances were very great—very real—were they not? She had brought her husband neither wealth, looks, nor connections when she had condescended to take possession of him and his position and title, yet her convenience was ever to be uppermost, her word law. She claimed the right to control his every movement. She had, we say, brought him not a shilling, yet to rule his means and expenditure was of course her indubitable right. As, for instance, that he should persist in making an allowance to his own son, instead of turning that fortunate youth penniless out of doors and pouring out the cash thus saved at her feet, was an act of flagrant and shameful ill-treatment of her that cried aloud to Heaven for vengeance. But whether Heaven listened, and looked upon it in the same light or not, certain it was that it constituted the sum and crown of all her grievances, and they were not few.
That a man of Sir Francis Orlebar’s temperament should ever have taken such a woman to wife—rather, we ought to say, should ever have suffered himself to be taken possession of by her—was marvellous, would have been incredible but that we know the same sort of thing happens every day. And having once succumbed he was bound hand and foot. No power on earth could save him. A man more coarse fibred would have held his own, even at the cost of a diurnal battle royal. One less sensitive would have cut the knot of the difficulty by the simple expedient of undertaking a tour round the world, or any other method of separation which should commend itself to him. Or one of slippery principle would have laid himself out to effect an emancipation in the method most approved of by the lawyers and by newspaper editors in want of acceptable “copy.” But to Sir Francis each and all of these courses were equally repugnant—the latter, indeed, not to be thought of. His bondage was complete. He was a slave to that most tyrannical of despots—a thoroughly selfish, domineering, coarse-natured woman.
With an instinctive idea of placing it beyond his wife’s power to renew the last encounter he had taken himself out of the house. As he strolled through the park the limp in his left leg became more pronounced, as curiously enough it invariably did whenever he was vexed or agitated, and now he was both.
But by that evening the resolution he had formed to proceed to his son’s bedside was considerably shaken. He had telegraphed, and the replies had been in every way satisfactory. Perhaps his presence there would be unnecessary after all. This might or might not have been the sensible way of looking at it. But continual dropping wears away stones, which for present purposes may be taken to mean that the tongue of a violent woman is a pretty effective weapon against the strongest resolution formed by an irresolute nature. There had been another battle royal, and the baronet had retreated under cover of the satisfactory replies to his telegrams. It was better to avoid any more violent scenes, and accordingly he had succumbed—had yielded for the sake of peace—that is to say, “with the very best intentions.”