He sat down and took up a book, but his eyes were fixed moodily on the carpet, and his hands trembled as he unconsciously turned the leaves. Miss Hart suffered occasional agony from her tooth, the more as she had taken off the disfiguring bandage, but she would not retire, anticipating with a kind of savage delight, the unpleasant scene that would ensue on Mrs. Wentworth's return. The clock struck twelve before the carriage stopped at the door. Mrs. Wentworth came lightly into the room, unaccompanied by her brother, her cloak falling from her shoulders, her head uncovered, most fashionably and elegantly dressed. She did not see her husband when she first entered, and throwing her cloak on a chair, exclaimed, "Oh! Miss Hart, I'm so sorry you were not there, we had such a delightful party—the pleasantest of the whole season." Her eye at this moment fell upon her husband, who had risen upon her entrance, but stood back in the shade, without making one step to meet her. With a scream of surprise, joy, and perhaps terror too, she rushed towards him, and threw her arms around him. He suffered her clinging arms to remain round his neck for a moment while he remained as passive as the rock on the seabeat shore when the white foam wreathes and curls over its surface, then drawing back, he looked her steadfastly in the face, with a glance that made her own to quail, and her lip and cheek blanch. She looked down upon her jewelled neck and airy robes, and wished herself clothed in sackcloth and ashes. She began to stammer forth some excuse for her absence, something about his unexpected return, but the sentence died on her lips. The very blood seemed to congeal in her heart, under the influence of his freezing glance.
"Don't say anything, Jane," said he, sternly. "It is better as it is—I had deluded myself with the idea, that in all my dangers and hardships, to which I have exposed myself chiefly for your sake, I had a fond and faithful wife, who pined at my absence and yearned for my return. I was not aware of the new character you had assumed. No," continued he impetuously, entirely forgetful of the presence of Miss Hart "I was not prepared for a welcome like this. I expected to have met a wife—not a flirt, a belle, a vain, false-hearted, deceitful woman." Thus saying, he suddenly left the room, closing the door with a force that made every article of the furniture tremble. Mrs. Wentworth, bursting into hysterical sobs, was about to rush after him, but Miss Hart held her back—"Don't be a fool," said she; "he'll get over it directly-you've done nothing at which he ought to be angry; I had no idea he was such a tyrant."
"He was always kind to me before," sobbed Mrs. Wentworth. "He thinks my heart is weaned from him. Now, I wish I had disregarded the sneer of the world! It can never repay me for the loss of his love."
"My dear Mrs. Wentworth," said Miss Hart, putting her arms soothingly round her, "I feel for you deeply, but I hope you will not reproach yourself unnecessarily, or suffer your husband to suppose you condemn your own conduct. If you do, he will tyrannize over you, through life—what possible harm could there be in your going to a private party with your own brother, when you did not look for his return? You have taken no more liberty than every married lady in the city would have done, and a husband who really loved his wife, would be pleased and gratified that she should be an object of attention and admiration to others. Come, dry up your tears, and exert the pride and spirit every woman of delicacy and sense should exercise on such occasions."
Mrs. Wentworth listened, and the natural pride and waywardness of the human heart strengthening the counsels of her treacherous companion, her sorrow and contrition became merged in resentment. She resolved to return coldness for coldness and scorn for scorn, to seek no reconciliation, nor even to grant it, until he humbly sued for her forgiveness. The husband and wife met at the breakfast-table without speaking. Henry was unusually taciturn, and the whole burthen of keeping up the conversation rested on Miss Hart, who endeavoured to entertain and enliven the whole. Captain Wentworth, who had all the frankness and politeness of a sailor, unbent his stern brow when he addressed her, and it was in so kind a voice, that the tears started into his wife's eyes at the sound. He had no words, no glance for her, from whom he had been parted so long, and whom he had once loved so tenderly. Henry, who had been absorbed in his own reflections, and who had not been present at their first meeting, now noticed the silence of his sister, and the gloom of her husband, and looking from one to the other, first in astonishment, and then in mirth, he exclaimed, "Well, I believe I shall remain a bachelor, if this is a specimen of a matrimonial meeting. Jane looks as if she were doing penance for the sins of her whole life, and Captain Wentworth as if he were about to give a broadside's thunder. What has happened? Miss Hart resembles a beam of sunshine between two clouds."
Had Henry been aware of the real state of things, he would never have indulged his mirth at the expense of his sister's feelings. He had no suspicion that the clouds to which he alluded, arose from estrangement from each other, and when Mrs. Wentworth burst into tears and left the table, and Captain Wentworth set back his chair so suddenly as to upset the teaboard and produce a terrible crash among the china, the smile forsook his lips, and, turning to the captain in rather an authoritative manner, he demanded an explanation.
"Ask your sister," answered the captain, "and she may give it—as for me, sir, my feelings are not to be made a subject of unfeeling merriment. They have been already too keenly tortured, and should at least be sacred from your jest. But one thing let me tell you, sir, if you had had more regard to your sister's reputation, than to have escorted her to scenes of folly and corruption during her husband's absence, you might perhaps have spared me the misery I now endure."
"Do you threaten me, Captain Wentworth?" said Henry, advancing nearer to him with a flushed brow and raised tone. Miss Hart here interposed, and begged and entreated, and laid her hand on Henry's arm, and looked softly and imploringly at Captain Wentworth, who snatched up his hat and left the room, leaving Henry angry, distressed, and bewildered. Miss Hart explained the whole as the most causeless and ridiculous jealousy, which would soon pass away and was not worth noticing, and urged him to treat the matter as unworthy of indignation. She feared she had carried matters a little too far; she had no wish that they should fight, and Henry, perhaps, fall a victim to excited passions. She was anxious to allay the storm she had raised, and she succeeded in preventing the outbreakings of wrath, but she could not restore the happiness she had destroyed, the domestic peace she had disturbed, the love and confidence she had so wantonly invaded. Nor did she desire it. Incapable herself of feeling happiness from the evil passions that reigned in her bosom, she looked upon the bliss of others as a personal injury to herself; and where the flowers were fairest and the hopes the brightest, she loved to trample and shed her blasting influence. As the serpent goes trailing its dark length through the long grasses and sweet blossoms that veil its path, silent and deadly, she glided amid the sacred shades of domestic life, darting in ambush her venomed sting, and winding her coil in the very bosoms that warmed and caressed her. She now flitted about, describing what she called the best and most ridiculous scene imaginable; and the names of Captain Wentworth and his wife were bandied from lip to lip, one speaking of him as a tyrant, a bear, a domestic tiger—another of her as a heartless devotee of fashion, or a contemner of the laws of God and man. Most truly has it been said in holy writ, that the tongue of the slanderer is set on fire of hell, nor can the waters of the multitudinous sea quench its baleful flames. One evening Henry was returning at a late hour from the country, and passing a mansion in the outskirts of the city, whose shaded walls and modest situation called up ideas of domestic comfort and retirement; he thought it might be the residence of Miss Carroll, for, notwithstanding Miss Hart's damper, he had not forgotten her. He passed the house very slowly, gazing at one illuminated window, over which a white muslin curtain softly floated, and wishing he could catch another glimpse of a countenance that haunted him, as he said, like a dream. All was still, and he passed on, through a narrow alley that shortened his way. At the end of the alley was a small, low dwelling, where a light still glimmered, and the door being partially open, he heard groans and wailing sounds, indicating distress within. He approached the door, thinking he might render relief or assistance, and stood at the threshold, gazing on the unexpected scene presented to his view. On a low seat, not far from the door, sat a young lady, in a loose white robe, thrown around her in evident haste and disorder, her hair partly knotted up behind and partly falling in golden waves on her shoulders, holding in her lap a child of about three years old, from whose bandaged head the blood slowly oozed and dripped down on her snowy dress—one hand was placed tenderly under the wounded head, the other gently wiped away the stains from its bloody brow. A woman, whose emaciated features and sunken eyes spoke the ravages of consumption, sat leaning against the wall, gazing with a ghastly expression on the little sufferer, whose pains she had no power to relieve, and a little boy about ten years of age stood near her, weeping bitterly. Here was a scene of poverty, and sickness, and distress that baffled description, and in the midst appeared the outlines of that fair figure, like a descended angel of mercy, sent down to console the sorrows of humanity.
"This was a dreadful accident," said the young lady, "dreadful," raising her head as she spoke, and shading back her hair, revealing at the same time the heavenly countenance which had once before beamed on Henry's gaze. It was Lois Carroll, true to the character Miss Hart had sarcastically given her, a ministering spirit of compassion and benevolence.
"She will die," said the poor mother, "she'll never get over such a blow as that. She fell with such force, and struck her head on such a dangerous part too. Well, why should I wish her to live, when I must leave her behind so soon?"