Broken to Harness: A Story of English Domestic Life

by Edmund Yates

As has been said, Barbara had had her flirtations innumerable, but she had never known before what love was; and having a very sensitive organisation, and going in heart and soul for the new passion, she had not in any great degree, at all events felt the alteration in her position. Although every thing was different and inferior, every thing was in some degree connected with him, who was paramount in her idea to any thing she had ever known. She might feel the dulness of the neighbourhood, the smallness of the house, the difference in the society and in her own occupations and amusements; but all these were part and parcel of that sun of her existence--her husband; that great luminary, in whose brilliant rays all little gloom-spots were swallowed up and merged. Even when the glamour died away, and the blacknesses stood out in bold relief, she had been so dazed by the brightness, and, owing to the thorough change, the events of her past life seemed so far away, as to awaken but very little remorse or regret. She was beginning to bear with something like patience the prosiness of her mother-in-law, the spiteful criticisms of Mrs. Harding, the hideous vulgarity of some of her other neighbours. But the visit to Uplands came upon her as a terrific shock. Once more mixing in her old society, hearing the fashionable jargon to which she had been accustomed from her youth up; meeting those who had always looked up to her as their superior in beauty, and consequently in marketable value; listening to soft compliments; seeing her wishes, ever so slightly hinted, obeyed with alacrity; breathing once more that atmosphere in which she was reared, but from which she seemed to have been long estranged,--Barbara felt more and more like Barbara Lexden, while Barbara Churchill faded hazily away. The dull, dull street,--the dead, dead life,--the poverty which prescribed constant care in the household management,--the dowdy dresses and second-hand manners of the inhabitants of the quarter,--the daily vexations and cares and wrong-way rubbings, seemed all to belong to some hideous dream, while the real existence passed into the former life with a pleasant addition in the person of Frank. The pleasure was brief enough, and she woke to all the horrors rendered doubly bitter by the short renewal of bygone joys. The clock had struck twelve, the ballroom had vanished, and she was again Cinderella with haunting memory for her glass-slipper. The prince remained, certainly; but he was no longer a prince; he had bad tempers, and was peevish and jealous, and thoroughly mortal. She had returned to the dust and dreariness of Great Adullam Street, and the rattling cabs, and Mrs. Churchill in her old black-silk dress, and the Hebrews opposite smoking their cigars at the open windows in the hot summer evenings. She could scarcely fancy that there was a world where people dressed in full muslin, and pink-crape bonnets, or bewitching hats; where business was unknown, and work never heard of; where there were perpetual croquet-parties and picnics and horticultural fêtes; where there were night-drives homeward in open carriages after Richmond dinners; and where the men talked of something else than when Brown was going to bring out his poems, or what a slating Smith's novel had had in the Scourge. In that brief respite from her weary life, she had heard those around her talking of their plans to be carried out on the then occurring break-up of the season; she had heard girls talk with rapture of their approaching visits to German Spas and Italian lakes; she had heard arrangements made for meeting in English country-houses, where she had formerly been an eagerly sought-for guest; or at fashionable seaboards, where she had been the reigning belle. And she came back with the full knowledge that a fortnight's run to some cockney watering-place, handy of access to London, where she could live in cheap lodgings and play, a very undistinguished part, would be all the relaxation she could possibly hope for. And all this sunk into her soul, and made her wretched and discontented, and formed the wandering isles of night which dashed the very source and fount of her day.

It was wrong, undoubtedly. She had chosen her course, and must run it; as the Mesopotamians would have expressed themselves, she had made her bed, and must lie upon it. She had her husband to think of, and should have struggled womanfully to bear up against all these small crosses and disquietudes for his sake; she should have met her fate with a brave heart, and striven to prevent his having any suspicion of the longings and disappointments by which she was racked. Barbara should have done all this, as we in our different way should have done so much, which we have resolutely omitted,--paid that bill, for instance; avoided that woman; not bought that horse; helped that old friend; denied ourselves that fling in print at Jones. She should have done; but, like us, she didn't. Her character was any thing but perfect; and the very pride on which she so much prided herself, and which should have left her straight, now turned against herself, and, "like a hedgehog rolled the wrong way," pricked her mercilessly. She did indeed struggle to contend with the feelings which were conquering her, and which were the "little low" sensations renewed with tenfold force; but without success. A dead dull despair, a loathing and detestation of all the circumstances of her life, a horror of the people round her, and a wild regret for what had gone before never to return,--these were the demons which beset Barbara's daily path. And with them at one time came the first threatenings of another feeling which would have been more destructive to all chance of present or future happiness than any other, had not Providence in its mercy counteracted its effect by a passion, bad indeed, torturing, and hurtful, but nothing like so deadly as the other. Weighed down by her real or fancied misery, constantly repining in secret, and comparing her present with her past life, Barbara might have been tempted to think of Frank as the agent of her wretchedness, as the primary mover in the chain of events which had made her exchange Tyburnia for Great Adullam Street, luxury for comparative poverty, and happiness for despair; she might have done this, but she became jealous. She noticed that lately Frank's manner had been strange and preoccupied; that he was away from home very much more frequently than when they were first married; that from what she gathered when she heard him talking with his friends, he evidently sought work which took him out, and on two or three occasions had gone on country trips in the interest of the journal--duty which did not fall to his lot, and which he had never undertaken before. His manner to her, she thought, was certainly very much changed, and she did not like the alteration. He was courteous always, and gentle; but he had gradually lost all that petting fondness which, from its very rarity in a man of his stamp, was so winning at first; and with his courtesy was mingled a grave sad air, which Barbara understood to mean reproach, and which galled her mightily. I do not know that Barbara at first really felt jealous of her husband: had she examined the foundation of her jealousy and sifted its causes, there is very little doubt that the natural sense which she undoubtedly possessed would have shown her that her suspicions were absurd. But the truth is, she all unwittingly rather encouraged the passion, as a relief from the monotonous misery of her life, without a thought of how rapidly it grew, or what proportions it might eventually assume. It was a change to think differently of Frank, to take a feverish interest in his proceedings and in the proceedings of those with whom he was brought into contact; and Frank himself was surprised to find how the "little low" fits had been succeeded by a more sprightly demeanour--a demeanour which showed itself in sharp glances and bitter words.

And Frank, was he happy? In truth, not one whit happier than his wife, though his wretchedness sprang from a different cause and was shown in a different way. He felt that he had clutched the great prize, and found it to be a Dead-Sea apple; that he had reached the turning-point of his career, passed it, and found the rest of his course all down-hill; he had played the great stake of his life and lost it; and henceforward his heart's purse was empty, and he was bankrupt in affections. It had come upon him, gradually indeed, but with overwhelming force: at first he had ascribed Barbara's pettishness to the mere vagaries of a girl, and had looked upon her caprices as relics of that empire which had been hers so long, and from which she, naturally enough, was unwilling to part. He had seen, not without annoyance, indeed, but still without any deep or lasting pang, that there was an uncomfortable feeling, based either upon rivalry or some other passion equally unintelligible to him, between his wife and his mother; but he had hoped this would pass away. He had noticed that his old friends, though they spoke with warm admiration of Barbara's beauty, deemed to shirk any question of liking or being pleased with her; and that, let them meet her however often, she scarcely seemed to make any progress in their regard; but he thought this was as much their fault as hers, and that the estrangement would wear off. It was not until his mother had dropped her hint as to the frequency of Captain Lyster's visits, that Frank's mind began to be seriously disturbed; it was not until the scene at Uplands, of which he had been an unwilling spectator, and the subsequent scene with Barbara in the brougham, that he began to feel that his marriage had been a horrible mistake. Then all Barbara's "low" fits, all her silence, all the tears which he could see constantly welling up into her eyes, and kept back only by a struggle as palpable as the tears themselves; then the complaints of dulness and monotony--all poor Barbara's shortcomings, indeed, and they were not a few--were ascribed to one source. She had known this man in former days; he was of her society and set, and had probably made love to her, as had hundreds before; and Frank ground his teeth as he thought how Barbara's reputation as a flirt, and her attractive qualities as a coquette, had been kindly mentioned to him by more than one of her old friends. Some quarrel had probably occurred between them; during which he Frank had crossed her path, had fallen at her feet,--dazed idiot that he was!--and she had raised him up, and out of pique had married him. That was the story, Frank could swear to it! he turned it over and over in his mind until he believed it implicitly, and conjured up the different scenes and passages, which made his blood boil and sent him, with set teeth and scowling brow, stamping through the long-echoing Mesopotamian squares, to the intense wonder of the policeman and the few passers-by in those dreary thoroughfares. Only when he was quite alone, however, did he in the least give way to his emotions. When he was at home--where he and Barbara would now sit for hours without exchanging a word, and where the occasional presence of a third person rendered matters more horrible, compelling them to put on a ghastly semblance of affectionate familiarity--when he was at home, or down at the Statesman Office, where he could be thoroughly natural, he was moody, stern, and silent. His manner had lost that round jollity which had always characterised it, and his appearance was beginning to change: he was thinner; there were silver lines in the brown hair, and two or three deep lines round the eyes.

Of course his friends noticed all this, as friends notice every thing. Madly and blindly people go through life, imagining that their thoughts and actions are--some of them, at least--known but to themselves alone; whereas all of them--all such, at least, as they would prefer keeping secret--are public property, and as thoroughly patent as if they had been proclaimed from the market-place cross. You may go on in London living for years next door to a neighbour whose name you are unacquainted with, and whom you have never seen; but make him an acquaintance, give him some interest in you, and without your in the least suspecting it, he will find out the whole story of your life, will know all about the young lady with the fair hair in Wiltshire, the hundred pounds borrowed from Robinson, the disappointment at Uncle Prendergast's will--all the little things, in fact, which you thought were buried in your own bosom; and will sit down opposite you at table with an innocent ingenuous face, as though your affairs were the very last things with which he would trouble himself. We all do this, day by day, with the noblest hypocrisy, and receive from our dear intimate statements of facts which we know to be false, and warpings of statements which we know to be perverted, with "Indeeds!" and "Reallys?" and head-noddings of outward acquiescence and mocking incredulity in our hearts. Barbara Churchill had been the one grand subject of conversation for the Mesopotamian gossips ever since her marriage: they had lived upon her, and found that she improved in flavour. Her appearance, her dress, her manners; what they were pleased to term her "stand-offishness;" her shortcomings as a housekeeper; her ignorance in the matter of mending under-linen; her novel-reading and piano-playing--all these had been toothsome morsels, far more enjoyable than the heavy pies, the thick chops, and the sardines which figured in that horrible Mesopotamian meal known as "a thick tea;" and had been picked to the very bone. And then, when it began to be whispered about--as it very soon did--that there were dissensions in the Churchill camp, that all did not go as smoothly as it should, and that, in fact, quarrels were rife--then came the crowning delight of the banquet, and the female portion of the Great-Adullam-Street community was nearly delirious with excitement. Although old Mrs. Churchill, from her kind-heartedness and simplicity, had always been a great favourite with her neighbours, she had no idea of the extent of her popularity until this period. Her little rooms were literally beset with female friends; and she had invitations to tea-parties three-deep. To these invitations--to as many of them, at least, as was possible--she invariably responded. By nature the old lady hated the character of a gossip, and would have been highly indignant had she been charged with any propensity for chattering; but easily impressible by those with whom she was brought into contact, she had acquired a little of the prevalent failing of the region, and moreover, she thought it her duty to tell all she knew about the then favourite subject, in order, as she phrased it, "that poor Frank's position might be set right." But if poor Frank's position was properly looked after, it must be acknowledged that poor Barbara received her meed of popular disapprobation. Not that her mother-in-law ever said one direct word of condemnation; old Mrs. Churchill was far too good a Christian willingly to start or give currency to harsh criticism, more especially on one so closely allied to her. But, it was very difficult to absolve her son from blame without shifting the onus of the avowed quarrel on to the shoulders of her daughter-in-law; and when the ladies surrounding the tea-table, groaning over "poor Mr. Churchill's" domestic woes, shook their cap-strings in virtuous indignation at her who had caused them, the old lady made but a feeble protest, which speedily closed in a string of doleful ejaculations. In the minds of the members of this Mesopotamian Vehmgericht, of which Mrs. Harding might be considered president, Barbara stood fully convicted of the charge which they had themselves brought against her. Her indolence, her carelessness, her "fal-lal ways," her pride and squeamishness had brought--only rather sooner than was expected--their natural result; and "isn't it better, my dear, to have a little less good looks and a little less fondness for jingling the piano and reading trashy novels, and keep a tidy house over your head and live happily with your husband?"

The stories of all that passed in Churchill's house, collected with care from old Mrs. Churchill and her servant Lucy,--whose habitual puritanical taciturnity was melted by the course of events, and who gave way to that hatred against Barbara which she had felt from the first moment of seeing her,--and duly dressed, illustrated, and annotated by Mrs. Harding, who had a special talent in that way, of course before long reached Mr. Harding's ears.

It is difficult to explain how that good fellow was affected by the news. He had the warmest personal regard for Frank, loving him with something of paternal fondness; he had always impressed him with the propriety of marriage, and had looked forward with real anxiety to the time when he should see his friend settled for life. Not until then, he thought, would those talents which he knew Frank possessed enable him to take his proper position in the world: what he did now was well enough; but it was merely the evanescent sparkle of his genius. Soberly settled down with a woman worthy of him, the real products of his intellect and his reading would come forth, and he would step into the first rank of the men of his time. And now it had all come to this! Frank was married; but he had made a wrong selection, and was a moody, discontented, blighted man. The aspect of affairs was horrible; and when told of their real condition by his wife, George Harding determined that he would exercise his prerogative of friend, and speak to Churchill on the subject.

Accordingly the next day when he saw Frank at the usual consultation at the office, Harding waited until the other man had left the room, and then, placing his hand affectionately on his friend's shoulder, said: "I want two minutes with you, Frank."

"Two hours, if you like, Harding; it's all the same to me," replied Churchill wearily.

"I want you to tell me what ails you,--what has worked such a complete change in you, physically and morally; or rather, I don't want you to tell me, for I know."

Churchill looked up defiantly with flushed cheeks, as he exclaimed, "What do you know? are my private affairs topics for the tittle-tattle of--there, God help me! I'm weak as water. Now I want to quarrel with my best friend!"