Of a gentle and confiding disposition, she had not doubted but that one so pleasing and gentlemanly in his manners and demeanour in society, so assiduous and devoted in his attentions during courtship, would prove an amiable, affectionate husband; and that in resigning her future destiny into his hands, she was securing to herself that calm happiness to which, (the first bright dreams of youth mellowed and subdued), she alone aspired.
Her trust was deceived—her hopes disappointed; too soon was it revealed to her sick heart that Henry Trevor, the courteous and agreeable member of society, was not the same Henry Trevor of domestic life; that Henry Trevor the lover, was a very different person to Henry Trevor the husband; that she had been wedded—for her beauty?—no; woman's natural vanity might have forgiven that:—for her fortune? no; that was comparatively insignificant to count much, even in the close calculations of him, into whose well-stored coffers it was carelessly flung:—for her gentle virtues, her superior qualities of mind?—no,—no abstract love of these had had their part in her lover's choice; but because in the submissive spirit—in the mild and gentle character of her he saw as one
"By suffering made sweet and meek,"
he had thought to find a fitting subject for his purpose and his will—one easy to be bent, moulded, crushed, if it were necessary, into the slave and minister of his favourite lust—his ruling passion—his besetting sin—the grasping, covetous, all-devouring love of money!
Scared and dismayed at the prospect opened, like some dark gulf so suddenly before her eyes, Mrs. Trevor yielded nevertheless, not without an effort, to the fate into which she had been betrayed. She had that within her, a degree of sense and spirit, which moved her in her early marriage days to use the gentle influence she hoped in some degree to have obtained over her husband's affections; to effect some change in the general system of affairs she saw daily growing up around her, as well as to assert and maintain her own gentle dignity and comparative independence as a woman and a wife.
Alas! she knew not the nature of the being with whom she had to cope; it was but as the falcon-hunted dove, fluttering within the fowler's snare, or beneath the vulture's claw, the cords are but the tighter drawn—the grasp more crushingly extended, till the victim feeling his impotence to resist, resigns itself powerless to its fate. Mrs. Trevor struggled no more. All thought of influence was at an end, except indeed that which her gentle virtues, her submissive tears, like the droppings of water upon a stone, might in time be permitted to effect.
Her wounded affections withdrew into the still sanctuary of her own mind, whilst in patient meekness she performed her duties as a wife. This was all Mr. Trevor required. He had gained his point; he had bent her to his will. She superintended and accommodated herself to the close and grinding economy he exacted in his house. She sacrificed all extravagant tastes, all expensive inclinations, bestowed charity and kindness alone from the resources of her own scanty, grudgingly-accorded allowance. Even in her less responsible requirements she gave him full satisfaction.
Mrs. Trevor bore to her husband just three sons—healthy, promising boys—none of those superfluous, money-frittering excrescences—daughters! These sons all were disposable, convertible to some aim or end. There was the heir—that necessary machine to keep the greedily-preserved fortune and property in future train; there was a second son to secure the good fat family living from escaping into extraneous hands, and there was yet another to place in the lucrative and distinguished banking-house, in which Mr. Trevor was a sleeping partner. Yes, in this she had done well and wisely, and the husband was in the end content. But in the first instance, even here, he was not entirely satisfied with his wife's conduct. Nature had rebelled against the young mother's affording nourishment to her eldest born. Other aid was required, and this unwarrantable and unnecessary infraction upon the rules and exactions of maternity, sank the parent considerably in her lord and master's valuation and esteem. The second time she proved more successful—oh, how fully successful, if to that success were to be attributed not only the pure health, the more refined vigour of body which distinguished the mother's own nursling above his eldest brother, the suckling of a farmer's burly daughter; but that nobler nature, those high-toned qualities of mind and disposition, which grew with his growth and strengthened with his years—and oh, how too successful if from that mother's breast he imbibed his own sad heritage of suffering and of wrong!
On the third, and last occasion, which presented itself, the face of affairs assumed a different aspect. Mr. Trevor, either because he grudged his wife as would not have been at all inconsistent with his character, the extreme pleasure she experienced in the former case, and the excessive fondness with which this child had naturally wound itself around its nursing mother's heart. Whether from these, or still more unworthy notices, this time Mr. Trevor, on some capricious arbitrary plea, objected to his wife indulging in the same natural enjoyment, himself selecting the individual, who was to supplant her in this office. The wife of a tenant on his estate, about to emigrate to Australia, but who preferred remaining behind for some years in service.
Mabel Marryott fulfilled her hired duties well by her patron's infant; so well, that according to her master's orders, she was afterwards retained, as general superintendant of the nursery establishment, though her influence did not long continue limited to that office; and it was Mabel Marryott, whose daily business it soon became, to attend upon the little Eugene in his morning visits to his father's study; where sometimes, for an hour together, upon table or floor, as accorded best with his age, or fancy, he sat and played the mimic miser, with his favourite toys—the shining heaps of glittering gold or silver, always produced on these occasions, to amuse and keep him quiet; whilst in that distant room above, where we have seen the unconscious Mary spend so happy an hour, sat the wife and mother, struggling with the inward anguish of an injured, wounded spirit, or straining the little Eustace to her heart, calling him, in deep, earnest accents of endearment, her darling—her own boy—her precious nursling; beseeching him never to forsake her, to stand by his own mother—to love, and to protect her, till the boy's dark, fervent eyes, would suffuse with tears, and he would promise, with the little full and throbbing heart beating against her breast, always to be "mamma's own boy," and never to leave her even when he was a man; and the heir—he, in the meantime, had probably made his escape to the stable-yard, to the grooms and stable-boys, for whose society he, from his earliest days, shewed much inclination, to the danger both of his neck and his morals, by the lessons in horse-riding or loose talking he there received—tastes and propensities with which his mother found herself powerless to interfere. Mrs. Marryott did not object. Master Trevor was neither a manageable or engaging child; these tastes and habits took him off her hands; Mr. Trevor saw only that they made the boy bold and healthy. They were propensities and amusements which cost him nothing; so he desired that he might not be pestered any more by the representations of his anxious mother; she might make one milksop if she wished, but leave the other alone; Marryott would see he came to no real harm.