“What have I done!” thought poor Emmeline, as the door closed upon him. “I have forgotten my promise, broken my word—I have displeased him!” and she sank on the chair he had quitted. She hoped he would return; but he did not come. She then thought she would write to him, but, fortunately, nothing which she could express, satisfied her feelings; and, at length, she resolved that she would rather try and make him forget one unguarded word, by never referring to it, and never again so offending.
Sadly she retired to her own sitting-room, and saw no more of Fitzhenry, till, at their usual hour for riding, a servant came and told her the horses were ready, and that my lord was at the door waiting for her. Emmeline hurried down stairs. She dared not even look at her husband, for the wish to please had begun already to make her timid; but, by the tone of his voice, she soon judged that all anger at least, if ever entertained against her, was gone. He even exerted himself more than usual to talk on indifferent subjects.
Lord Arlingford arrived to dinner—Emmeline met him with the cordiality of a daughter. He seemed in high spirits, delighted with her, with the improvements in the house, with every thing. Many a time, did the blood rush into Emmeline’s cheek at the allusions he made to their late marriage, his railleries on the honey moon, and such common hackneyed subjects, which, trifling as they are, generally possess a power of pleasing where happiness really exists, but which to her and Lord Fitzhenry were torture. She turned all this off as well as she could; sometimes almost hating herself for having already become so artful. They thus got to the end of the first day of Lord Arlingford’s visit better than she had expected. The father and son had much to look at, much to talk over about the place, plantations, &c. and after the first two days, their party was enlarged by some young men, friends of Fitzhenry.
Emmeline now found her task comparatively easy; she was of course the object of much attention with all her new guests; all were anxious to please her, and to court her acquaintance as Lord Fitzhenry’s wife; all, too, seemed surprised at finding Emmeline Benson, the banker’s daughter, the agreeable, intelligent, and perfectly well-bred person which, in truth, she was.
At first, timidity made her feel embarrassed in her new situation; but that soon wore off, and, naturally gay, her spirits rose with the gaiety and lively conversation of those around her. She could not be indifferent to the flattering attentions paid her; and, to her own surprise, Emmeline soon found herself at her ease, and happy. For Emmeline’s heart was as yet comparatively free; an all-engrossing passion had not yet destroyed its happy tranquillity, and a gay, joyous laugh often showed the innocent lightness of that heart. Once, from the other end of the dinner-table, she found Lord Fitzhenry’s eyes fixed upon her, but whether it was surprise at the part she was able to take in conversation, or displeasure, perhaps even disgust, at the gaiety which had thus attracted his attention towards her, she knew not. But that look—although his eyes were immediately withdrawn on meeting hers—had power instantly to check her mirth; and her neighbour scarcely recognised in the absent, silent person that now sat beside him, the gay companion, who, a few minutes before, entered so readily into all his ideas.
Emmeline now, nearly for the first time, heard herself called by her new name. Her husband, too, forced sometimes to designate and address her, called her “Lady Fitzhenry.” To hear oneself spoken to by a name so dear, that formerly one hardly dared pronounce it—to be thus reminded, each time, that we are indissolubly bound to that being we adore, is delightful. But in her husband’s mouth it was to poor Emmeline an insult. It only seemed to cast her further from him, and remind her of the distant footing of mere form on which they lived, on which they were ever to live; for “Emmeline,” the name which when a child she had so often heard him pronounce, when she cared not for the endearing intimacy of the appellation, now never passed his lips.
She now saw him but little, and never alone; for he never came into her own sitting-room, and seldom into the drawing-room, except at those hours, when he was certain of finding some of the rest of the party there also. She felt that since they had had society in the house, she had rather lost than gained ground with him, and she now regretted the week they had spent tête-à-tête, much as she had wished it over at the time, as then they were compelled to have some sort of intercourse together.
Gradually, Emmeline’s abstraction increased, and her spirits changed; for, almost unconscious to herself, when in Fitzhenry’s society, her thoughts and attention were entirely occupied by him. The most flattering compliments that gallantry could suggest, had sometimes to be twice repeated to her, and were at last received with a vacant smile; for if she caught the distant tone of Fitzhenry’s voice, she heard nothing else; and if, during the day, he had more than usually spoken to her, or paid her some attention of mere civility, her spirits rose even beyond their natural level, and thus gave to her manner at times an appearance of caprice far from her nature.