“I say, gov’n’r,” (the slang term for father,) “how many birds d’ye say we bagged to-day?”
“Well, fifteen brace.”
“No, twenty, I tell ye, all fine uns.”
“That dog of yours, Travers, is a capital setter, and no mistake. What’s his pedigree?”
“Oh, he was got by Tommy out of Fairstar.”
“I should like a pup of his, by Jove!”
After dinner, on the adjournment of the ladies to the drawing-room, the sporting talk commences in right earnest, the wine circulating even more briskly than before. The married ladies meanwhile stand around a roaring fire warming their satin-clad feet; they complain to each other of the delinquencies of their servants, or boast of the beauty and precocity of their children. The entrance, presently, of coffee, puts an end to general conversation, as the ladies collect into smaller groups to wait for tea and the gentlemen. The matrons and elderly maidens perhaps indulge in a little scandal as they sip the fragrant beverage. The more juvenile damsels talk of balls, past and future, and of the delightful partners who may have fallen to their lot. Some would be Grisi, “inglorious,” though not, alas! “mute,” possibly attacks the open piano with a violence that makes you almost imagine she is venting her spite upon the innocent instrument, and then in a cracked but stentorian voice, she commences to shout, “Sing me the songs that to me were so dear, long, LONG ago, long, LONG ago,” accentuating the dashed expletives by a shriller scream even than before. At about half-past ten enter the lords of the creation, with highly flushed faces, and vociferating loudly, the words, “my good fellow,” “horse,” “dog,” “my mare,” “that pointer,” still forming the burden of their song. Very slight attention falls to the share of the ladies. A young curate, perhaps, stands beside the piano, turning the leaves of the music-book for the squalling songstress. A whist table is frequently formed, but at eleven a move is made, and by half-past, the carriage of the last guest has usually rolled from the door.
The cause of Captain Travers’ shaking hand was now but too apparent. The captain, I regret to say, seldom, if ever, returned home from these dinners perfectly sober, and the old squire, though rejoicing in a stronger head than his son, was but too often more than “a little elevated.” Latterly the propensity of young Edward Travers became so uncontrollable that no invitations ever came from the best houses in the neighborhood to Woodlands, a very great slight to one of the oldest families in the county.
Our readers may readily imagine that though blessed with every outward advantage of person and position, our heroine felt more alone even than when cloistered within the walls of Warrenne Vicarage. Then at least she might hope for a brighter future; now to hope were a crime, for would it not involve the death of another, and that other a husband. The marriage tie, in its spiritual and inner sense, is, indeed, as we are taught to believe, an inheritance from Paradise; it supposes the perfect union of the sexes, so that two separate existences become virtually one individual. Neither would be complete without the other. Force blends with weakness; firmness with gentleness; and mutual love and confidence is the crowning bliss of all.—But observe the reverse of the picture, alas! far more common than the other side. The hourly clash of angry tempers and selfish desires, brutality and neglect on the part of the husband, met by reproaches from the wife, and yet with all this, and perhaps the vice of intoxication in addition, the wretched pair must drag out a miserable existence till “death do them part.” Happy those countries where divorce is permitted for other, though not slighter causes than infidelity!
I mentioned that Evelyn, as a girl, was scarcely aware either of her beauty or of her extreme power of fascination. Now that she had become a married child, older women spoiled her, telling her she had thrown herself away, and that with advantages of person and fortune such as hers, she might have aspired to become a duchess, or, as Evelyn added with a sigh, “I might, had I waited, have met with one worthy of my love, and have become a happy, instead of an unloving and therefore wretched wife.” Often have I contrasted Rookwood—beloved home of the intelligent, the refined, the sympathetic—with the scarcely less beautiful Woodlands, the abode of uncongenial spirits.