Lover or Friend

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

'I have heard of Dean Carrick; he wrote some book or other, and came into some notoriety before his death. Is it possible that you are his niece?'

'Yes. I was very proud of him, and of my other uncle; but they would have nothing to do with me after my marriage. We were living in Ireland then, and when Mat brought me to London I seemed to have cut myself adrift from all my people. My father died not long afterwards, and my mother followed him, and my two brothers were at sea. I saw the name of Carrick in the papers one day—James Carrick—he was in the navy; so it must have been Jem. Well, he is dead, and, as far as I know, Charlie may be dead too.'

She spoke with a degree of hardness that astonished him, but he would not interrupt her by a question. He saw that, for some reason of her own, she was willing to tell her story.

'I soon found out my mistake when Mat brought me to London. From the first we were unfortunate; we had neither of us any experience. Our first landlady cheated us, and our lodgings were far too expensive for our means—my money had not then come to me. At my mother's death I was more independent.

'I might have grown fonder of Mat but for one thing. Very shortly after our marriage—indeed, before the honeymoon was over—I discovered that he had already stooped to deceit. He had always led me to imagine that his people were well-to-do, and that his parentage was as respectable as mine; indeed, I understood that his only brother was a merchant, with considerable means at his disposal. I do not say Mat told me all this in words, but he had a way with him of implying things.

'I was very proud—ridiculously proud, if you will—and I had a horror of trade. You may judge, then, the shock it was to me when I found out by the merest accident—from reading a fragment of a letter—that this brother was a corn-chandler in a small retail way.

'We had our first quarrel then. Mat was very cowed and miserable when he saw how I took it; he wanted to coax me into forgiving his deceit.

'"I knew what a proud little creature you were, Olive," he said, trying to extenuate his shabby conduct, "and that there was no chance of your listening to me if you found out Tom was a tradesman. What does it matter about the shop? Tom is as good a chap as ever breathed, and Susan is the best-hearted woman in the world." But I would not be conciliated.

'I would not go near his people, and when he mentioned their names I always turned a deaf ear. It is a bad thing when a woman learns to despise her husband; but from that day I took Mat's true measure, and my heart seemed to harden against him. Perhaps I did not go the right way to improve him or keep him straight, but I soon found out that I dared not rely on him.

'I think I should have left him before the year was out, only my baby was born and took all my thoughts; and Mat was so good to me, that for very shame I dare not hint at such a thing. But we were not happy. His very fondness made things worse, for he was always reproaching me for my coldness.