“What are you reading, Charlotte?” inquired her mother.
“Oh!” she said, tossing the book from her, “the stupidest thing you ever read. Mr. Gilmer insisted on my reading it. He wants me to ‘cultivate my mind,’ to read and think, but I won’t think for him,” she said, pettishly pushing the book from her, “he can’t make me do that, do what he will. Now is it not hard,” she said, appealing to her mother, “that just as I have left school, I should be surrounded by masters and forced to study? He insisted on engaging Signor F. to give me Italian lessons, as he says that time will hang heavy on my hands if I have nothing to do when he is absent. Not nearly as heavy, I can tell him, as when I have something to do I don’t like. And, then, these stupid dinners he will give, where he has only grave, sensible old men. If I had thought I was to lead such a life as this, I would have married a young man at once;” and thus she poured out her complaints, which were “as fresh from a warm young heart,” as Mr. Gilmer himself could have desired in his most enthusiastic mood. In fact, he was beginning to find that this “cultivating a wife’s mind” was not the easy delightful task he had once promised himself; and the naïveté that had so charmed him before his marriage, annoyed him now not a little, as he saw it amuse his friends, particularly Mr. Lowndes, whose quick eye would involuntarily glance at him as his wife let forth most unconsciously some of the little disagrémens of their ménage. That same naïveté is the most unmanageable quality in an establishment where all does not run smoothly, and for that very reason, perhaps, often more amusing to strangers. But we pity the proud reserved man who is to be tortured with the “simplicity” by which he was once captivated.
And if she was weary of the “grave sensible men” that surrounded his table, he was not less so of her young companions, who chattered and gossiped till his ears fairly ached with their nonsense.
The career of self indulgence, generally denominated a “gay life,” that Mr. Gilmer had led, was not the best of preparations for an indulgent husband, and resuming, as time wore on, the selfishness that had been laid asleep or aside in the first excitement of winning his little beauty, he became more decided and less tender in his manner toward his young wife. Finding he could not make her a companion, and having no respect for her understanding, nor sympathy in her tastes, he soon began to treat her as a child, that is, as a being having no rights. She on her side, quicker in feeling than defining, felt as every child feels, when defrauded of their due, that she had claims to assert as well as himself; and thus commenced a struggle that each urged as far as they dared. We say dared, for there was a cold, stern decision about him, that awed her in spite of herself; and he saw a look in her eye sometimes that told him it were best not to push matters to extremities, or he might raise a spirit, once raised not so easily laid. Mrs. Vivian seeing her beautiful child consigned to the cold selfishness rather of a step-father, than the indulgent affection of a devoted husband as she had expected, injudiciously took part in their little differences, and could not help giving her son-in-law an occasional cut that neither sweetened his temper nor mended his manners. He respected her understanding, and feared her penetration; and fear and respect too often engender dislike; and it was not long before a state of feeling arose between mother and son-in-law less seldom than sorrowful.
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CHAPTER III.
“Nae treasures nor pleasures
Could mak us happy long;
The heart’s aye the part aye
That makes us right or wrong.”