“Ashamed of you! But—What an idea, my dear William! Surely you don’t think—you can’t imagine—I should ever consider you as any sort of encumbrance?—I protest——”
“Save yourself the trouble of protesting, my dear Charles,” cried William, smiling with much good-nature: “I know why you are so much embarrassed at this instant; and I do not attribute this to any want of affection for me. We are going to lead quite different lives. I wish you all manner of satisfaction. Perhaps the time may come when I shall be able to contribute to your happiness more than I can at present.”
Charles uttered some unmeaning phrases, and hurried to his carriage. At the sight of its varnished panels he recovered his self-complacency and courage, and began to talk fluently about chariots and horses, whilst the children of the family followed to take leave of him, saying, “Are you going quite away, Charles? Will you never come back to play with us, as you used to do?” Charles stepped into his carriage with as much dignity as he could assume; which, indeed, was very little. William, who judged of his friends always with the most benevolent indulgence, excused the want of feeling which Charles betrayed during this visit. “My dear,” said he to his wife, who expressed some indignation at the slight shown to their children, “we must forgive him; for, you know, a man cannot well think of more than one thing at a time; and the one thing that he is thinking of is his fine chariot. The day will come when he will think more of fine children; at least I hope so, for his own sake.”
And now, behold our hero in all his glory; shining upon the Northamptonshire world in the splendour of his new situation! The dress, the equipage, the entertainments, and, above all, the airs of the bride and bridegroom, were the general subject of conversation in the county for ten days. Our hero, not precisely knowing what degree of importance Mr. Germaine, of Germaine-park, was entitled to assume, out-Germained Germaine.
The country gentlemen first stared, then laughed, and at last unanimously agreed, over their bottle, that this new neighbour of theirs was an upstart, who ought to be kept down: and that a vulgar manufacturer should not be allowed to give himself airs merely because he had married a proud lady of good family. It was obvious, they said, he was not born for the situation in which he now appeared. They remarked and ridiculed the ostentation with which he displayed every luxury in his house; his habit of naming the price of every thing, to enforce its claim to admiration; his affected contempt for economy; his anxiety to connect himself with persons of rank, joined to his ignorance of the genealogy of nobility, and the strange mistakes he made between old and new titles.
Certain little defects in his manners, and some habitual vulgarisms in his conversation, exposed him also to the derision of his well-bred neighbours. Mr. Germaine saw that the gentlemen of the county were leagued against him; but he had neither temper nor knowledge of the world sufficient to wage this unequal war. The meanness with which he alternately attempted to court and to bully his adversaries, shewed them, at once, the full extent of their power and of his weakness. Things were in this position when our hero unluckily affronted Mr. Cole, one of the proudest gentlemen in the county, by mistaking him for a merchant of the same name; and, under this mistake, neglecting to return his visit. A few days afterwards at a public dinner, Mr. Cole and Mr. Germaine had some high words, which were repeated by the persons present in various manners; and this dispute became the subject of conversation in the county, particularly amongst the ladies. Each related, according to her fancy, what her husband had told her; and as these husbands had drunk a good deal, they had not a perfectly clear recollection of what had passed, so that the whole and every part of the conversation was exaggerated. The fair judges, averse as they avowed their feelings were to duelling, were clearly of opinion, among themselves, that a real gentleman would certainly have called Mr. Cole to account for the words he uttered, though none of them could agree what those words were.
Mrs. Germaine’s female friends, in their coteries, were the first to deplore, with becoming sensibility, that she should be married to a man who had so little the spirit as well as the manners of a man of birth. Their pity became progressively vehement the more they thought of, or at least the more they talked of, the business; till at last one old lady, the declared and intimate friend of Mrs. Germaine, unintentionally, and in the heat of tattle, made use of one phrase that led to another, and another, till she betrayed, in conversation with that lady, the gossiping scandal of these female circles.
Mrs. Germaine, piqued as her pride was, and though she had little affection for her husband, would have shuddered with horror to have imagined him in the act of fighting a duel, and especially at her instigation; yet of this very act she became the cause. In their domestic quarrels, her tongue was ungovernable: and at such moments, the malice of husbands and wives often appears to exceed the hatred of the worst of foes; and, in the ebullition of her vengeance, when his reproaches had stung her beyond the power of her temper to support, unable to stop her tongue, she vehemently told him he was a coward, who durst not so talk to a man! He had proved himself a coward; and was become the by-word and contempt of the whole county! Even women despised his cowardice!
However astonishing it may appear to those who are unacquainted with the nature of quarrels between man and wife, it is but too certain that such quarrels have frequently led to the most fatal consequences. The agitation of mind which Mrs. Germaine suffered the moment she could recollect what she had so rashly said, her vain endeavours to prove to herself that, so provoked, she could not say less, and the sudden effect which she plainly saw her words had produced upon her husband, were but a part of the punishment that always follows conduct and contentions so odious.
Mr. Germaine gazed at her a few moments with wildness in his eyes; his countenance expressed the stupefaction of rage: he spoke not a word; but started at length, and snatched up his hat. She was struck with panic terror, gave a scream, sprang after him, caught him by the coat, and, with the most violent protestations, denied the truth of all she had said. The look he gave her cannot be described; he rudely plucked the skirt from her grasp, and rushed out of the house.