The Murder of Delicia

by Marie Corelli

THE
MURDER OF DELICIA

BY

MARIE CORELLI

Author of "The Sorrows of Satan," "The Mighty Atom,"
"Barabbas," "A Romance of Two Worlds," etc.

LONDON
HUTCHINSON AND CO.
34 Paternoster Row
MDCCCXCVI

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The following slight and unelaborated sketch of a very commonplace and everyday tragedy will, I am aware, meet with the unqualified disapproval of the 'superior' sex. They will assert, with much indignant emphasis, that the character of 'Lord Carlyon' is an impossible one, and that such a 'cad' as he is shown to be never existed. Anticipating these remarks, I have to say in reply that the two chief personages in my story, namely, 'Lord Carlyon' and his wife, are drawn strictly from the life; and, that though both the originals have some years since departed from this scene of earthly contest and misunderstanding, so that my delineation of their characters can no longer grieve or offend either, the 'murder of Delicia' was consummated at the hands of her husband precisely in the way I have depicted it.

There are thousands of such 'murders' daily happening among us—murders which are not considered 'cruelty' in the eyes of the law. There are any number of women who work night and day with brain and hand to support useless and brainless husbands; women whose love never falters, whose patience never tires, and whose tenderness is often rewarded only by the most callous neglect and ingratitude. I do not speak of the countless cases among the hard-working millions whom we elect to call the 'lower classes,' where the wife, working from six in the morning till ten at night, has to see her hard earnings snatched from her by her 'better' half and spent at the public-house in strong drink, despite the fact that there is no food at home, and that innocent little children are starving. These instances are so frequent that they have almost ceased to awaken our interest, much less our sympathy. In my story I allude principally to the 'upper' ranks, where the lazy noodle of an aristocrat spends his time, first, in accumulating debts, and then in looking about for a woman with money to pay them—a woman upon whose income he can afterwards live comfortably for the rest of his worthless life. To put it bluntly and plainly, a great majority of the men of the present day want women to keep them. It is not a manly or noble desire; but as the kind of men I mean have neither the courage nor the intelligence to fight the world for themselves, it is, I suppose, natural to such inefficient weaklings that they should,—seeing the fierce heat and contest of competition in every branch of modern labour,—gladly sneak behind a woman's petticoats to escape the general fray. But the point to which I particularly wish to call the attention of the more thoughtful of my readers is that these very sort of men (when they have secured the ignoble end of their ambition, namely, the rich woman to live upon, under matrimonial sufferance) are the first to run down women's work, women's privileges, women's attainments and women's honour. The man who owes his dinner to his wife's unremitting toil is often to be heard speaking of the 'uselessness' of women, their frivolity and general incapacity. And in cases where the woman's intellectual ability is brought into play, and where the financial results of her brain work are such that they enable the husband to live as he likes, surrounded with every ease and comfort, then it is that at the clubs, or in any other place where he can give himself sublime airs of independence, he will frequently express regret, in grandiloquent terms, that there should be any women who 'want to be clever'; they are always 'unsexed.' This word 'unsexed' is always cast at brilliant women by every little halfpenny ragamuffin of the press that can get a newspaper corner in which to hide himself for the convenience of throwing stones. The woman who paints a great picture is 'unsexed'; the woman who writes a great book is 'unsexed'; in fact, whatever woman does that is higher and more ambitious than the mere act of flinging herself down at the feet of man and allowing him to walk over her, makes her in man's opinion unworthy of his consideration as woman; and he fits the appellation 'unsexed' to her with an easy callousness, which is as unmanly as it is despicable.

Now, to turn to the other side of the medal; let us see what are the occupations man graciously permits to woman without affronting her by this opprobrious epithet. In the first place, he is chiefly willing to see her on the stage. And he generally prefers the music-hall stage as the best one fitted to her 'poor' abilities. It is no particular 'fun' to him to see her rise to the histrionic height of a Rachel or a Sarah Bernhardt—the sublimity of tragedy in her eyes does not specially move him—the simulation of heartbreak in her face may possibly awake in him a curious emotion, divided between pity and astonishment,—but it does not amuse him. Nor does the exquisite grace of the finished 'comedienne' delight him entirely,—her pretty airs and graces, and her ringing laugh, are fascinating in a way, but in the huge amount of amour-propre, which swells the head of the smallest masculine noodle about town, he has an uncomfortable, lurking suspicion that she may all the while, under her charming stage-feigning, be really laughing at him and the whole of his sex generally. No! Neither the height of tragedy nor comedy in the woman on the stage really satisfy men so much as the happy medium,—the particular 'no-man's-land' of art, where nothing is demanded of her but—Body and Grin. A beautiful Body, trained to walk and look well—an affable Grin, expanding at the sight of champagne and other mundane delicacies,—these are all that is necessary. Now, if this beautiful Body be well-nigh stripped to man's gaze night after night on the boards, he will never call the woman who so exposes herself 'unsexed,' nor will he apply the word to her if she drinks too much wine and brandy. But if another woman, with quite as beautiful a body, instead of exhibiting herself half nude on the music-hall stage, prefers to keep her woman's modesty, and execute some great work of art which shall be as good and even better than anything man can accomplish, she will be dubbed 'unsexed' instantly. And I ask—Why is it that man elects to compass woman's degradation rather than her up-lifting and sanctification? It is a wrong course to adopt,—an evil course; and one that carries with it a terrible retribution in the lives of the coming generation.

I think, as I write, of a certain individual, living at the present moment in one of the most fashionable quarters of London,—a man who is generally looked upon with a considerable amount of respect by the monied and titled classes. Some years ago he married a bright little American woman for her money, and since that time he has made her life an hourly misery. She loved him,—more's the pity!—and though he does not scruple to insult her before others with an insolent brutality which is as shameful as it is disgusting,—though he will upbraid her before his servants and his guests at dinner with the harshness one might expect of a slave-driver, she endures his cruelty with patience—and why? For her children's sake. Her womanly idea is, that they should respect their father, and to that end she puts her own injuries aside and does her best and bravest to keep the household straight. Her money it is that pays for all the costly dinners and entertainments with which her husband glorifies himself before his acquaintances each London 'season,' pushing her into the background at every turn, and hanging on to the skirts of the newest fashionable demi-mondaine instead; and through her and her constant bounty alone he has attained the social position he holds. This is only one instance out of many where men, indebted to women for every honour and advancement they possess, turn and rend their 'good angels,' or torture them by every conceivable means of private malice and wickedness, which cannot come under the jurisdiction of the law. And love is so much the best part of a good woman's nature, that when she once truly gives her whole heart and soul away to a man, she finds it difficult, nay, almost impossible, to uproot that deep affection and understand that it has been, or is wasted upon him. This was the trouble and incurable wound of 'Delicia'; it is the trouble and incurable wound of thousands of women to-day.