“I hope so, with all my heart,” ejaculated Mr. Martin, “and if money, amusements, and fine clothes can make her what she was two years ago, I shall be glad enough, for I hate a sad, gloomy face.”
While they were thus talking, their niece, the subject of their conversation, was lying in her bed-room, burying her throbbing, aching head in the pillows of the couch, wishing that an endless sleep would come to her, and deaden the painful sense of grief.
Poor Edda Murray! Two short years before, a happier, more free-from-care girl could not have been found. Then, she had never known a trouble. Her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Martin, who were childless, and possessed ample means, had taken her at the time of her parents’ death, which had occurred during her infancy, and from that moment up to the present, she had been their spoiled pet and darling. They were good-natured, indolent people, caring for but little else than the amusements of the out-of-doors world. As Edda grew old enough to enter society, they took great pleasure in dressing her extravagantly, and accompanying her to every gay place of resort of the fashionable world. According to Mrs. Martin’s ideas, every girl should be married early; and when Edda was addressed by Mr. Murray, near the close of her first winter, and seemed pleased with his attentions, her aunt’s rapture knew no bounds. Mr. Martin was pleased also, for Murray, though a young man, was a rising merchant, and was steady and industrious.
How Ralph Murray ever happened to fancy Edda Martin, was a mystery to all those of his and her friends, who had observed but little of this marriage business of life. As a general rule, both men and women, especially when young, select the very companions that are the most unlike their ideals, and what is still stranger, the most unsuitable for them.
Ralph Murray was a reserved, dignified young man, rather stern for his years, with the most rigid ideas of justice and propriety, even in trifles; exact in every thing, and making but little allowance for others less exact than himself. He did not require more than he was willing to give in return, but he had no consideration, no patience, and when disappointed, was apt to become cold, moody, and uncompromising. In woman he had always required, “that monster perfection.” His mother had been a model of feminine propriety. He had no sisters, but a whole troop of cousins, who happened to be laughing, hoydenish, good-natured creatures; but they were his utter abomination, he never countenanced them, pronouncing them silly, frivolous, and senseless; but how they laughed and teased him, when his engagement with Edda Martin was announced—verily they had their revenge.
Edda was, indeed, a spoiled pet, full of caprice and whim, beautiful and graceful as a fairy, and as untamed and uncontrollable as an unwedded Undine. But, poor child, marriage brought no happy spirit to dwell in her household. How could it? For they had married under the influence of the maddest, wildest infatuation. Their love was beautiful while it lasted; but soon the husband grew exacting, the angel became a mere woman, and the darling, who had never obeyed any will but her own, discovered she had a lord and master, whose will was stronger and more unbending than even her own had ever been. Then Edda was extravagant and thriftless, and thoughtless, a real child-wife, like poor Dora, that English Undine creation of Dickens’s fancy, but with more spirit and temper than “Little Blossom.” Edda’s character had in it qualities which would have made her a fine woman, properly and gradually developed; but her husband placed her on the scale of his own model of perfection, and endeavored to drag her up to this idea of wifehood, without waiting for Nature to assist him. It was the old, sad story told over again—incompatibility of tempers, unreasonableness on his part, petulance, waywardness and temper on hers.
God sent them a little babe, but the child brought no tenderness to the heart of either parent for each other. Then trouble came upon Ralph Murray in his business—unfortunate speculations, bad failures in others he had trusted; but instead of going to his wife, and talking affectionately, but candidly, remembering all the while what a spoiled darling she had been, he considered himself aggrieved by her lavish expenditure, and told her haughtily that she was now the wife of a young merchant, and not the niece of a rich man, and ought to have sense enough to observe economy. Poor Edda was offended, bitter words passed between them, and they parted in anger. Her aunt found her in tears—happening to come in just as the irritated husband had left her. Edda turned to her thoughtless, childish aunt, for comfort, telling her the whole story of her wrongs; and Mrs. Martin pronounced Mr. Murray a brute, to treat her poor child so unkindly. Mr. Martin thought always as his wife did, and in the first flush of temper, they carried the weeping, angry wife, with her young babe, away from her husband’s roof; the exasperated uncle leaving for Mr. Murray an angrily worded note, in which he said that Edda had never ceased to be his niece, even if she had been so unfortunate as to become the wife of a parsimonious merchant, and an unkind husband. The following day Ralph Murray was a bankrupt.
The news of other heavy failures of houses indebted to him, brought his affairs to a crisis, and all his troubles seemed piled mountain high upon him at once. Poor Edda would have gone instantly to her husband when she heard of his trouble—for she had immediately repented of her hasty step—but she did not dare; she remembered his sternness, and dreaded a repulse which she felt she deserved. Then a new cause of anxiety displayed itself, her boy sickened, and, after a few hours’ illness, he died in her arms. Her husband was sent for, but he did not notice her; he stood beside the coffin of his child, pale, tearless, and with a countenance as unchanging as a statue of marble; he never looked at his sobbing wife, who, softened by her grief, would have willingly thrown herself into his arms, and asked pardon for the past, and forbearance for the future; but he coldly turned from her after the funeral, without speaking a word.
Two months passed by, and still Ralph Murray treated his wife with the same silent indifference. He never sought an interview nor an explanation; it seemed as if the death of their child, instead of softening him, had, to his mind, broken off all connection between them. Edda grieved incessantly, until at last her health became seriously affected. When the traveling season came, the physicians who had been called in to heal the poor breaking heart, recommended an instant departure for the sea-side. Fine apartments were procured, every elegance, every luxury surrounded her; but she looked more wretched, more unhappy every day.
She knew that their beautiful house belonged to another—every thing had been sold; that she no longer had a home with her husband; and the consciousness that she was a childless, lonely wife, became daily more insupportable. Poor girl! life seemed very dark and hopeless to her. Her trouble had lifted her spirit on almost a life time; all the childish, capricious waywardness of girlhood had disappeared; sorrow had done the work of years; and she was now a woman—but a suffering, loving woman, ready to make any sacrifice, perform any duty, to atone for the past. Her uncle and aunt caressed her, and sympathized with her, while they incessantly spoke of her husband with words of reproach and blame; and when she would check them, saying the greater part of the blame rested on herself, they would think her still more lovely and amiable, and lift their hands in surprise. How reproaching to her conscience was their sympathy! and she grew more and more despairing and hopeless.