Patience, Barbara Hofland [readict books TXT] 📗

every thing down stairs,

as it was six weeks since she left the parlour, that the evening had

passed very slowly, she had been nearly wrapping herself up and coming

over the way to them.”

 

“I should have been exceedingly angry if you had.”

 

“Angry!” said Dora, faintly.

 

“Yes, very angry, it would have been highly improper, and what I

certainly should not forgive.”

 

The tone in which the last words were uttered was silencing, from its

loudness and asperity, and Dora was left to consider whether the

impropriety spoken of was relating to the state of her own health, (in

which case it was a kindness,) or to the liberty of intruding uninvited,

on a woman who was a constant visitant at all hours in her house; but

under any circumstance she could not fail to see that a decided

preference was given to the company of Mrs. Masterman, and that to

contribute to her amusement was considered paramount to the duty of

cheering one who had so lately been a sufferer, and still more lately, a

supplicant for his convenience and that of his friend.

 

The following day, Dora laid the money upon the table, and in a playful,

yet somewhat impressive voice, repeated the admonition of Mr. Blackwell.

 

“‘Tis all very fine, but I shall grow rich as soon as I can, in spite of

master Blackwell’s old saws. I have no doubt of his cheating me as much

as he can, and I shall therefore do my best to keep things even by my

own gains.”

 

“Oh! he is a just, good man, I am sure he is.”

 

“You are a judge, undoubtedly, Mrs. Stancliffe—an upright judge, but

rather a young one—certainly one that may be deceived, even out of

the evidence of your senses.”

 

“Perhaps I may,” said Dora, with a sigh.

 

“I know you may.”

 

“But that money, my dear—is it to be put in the bank?”

 

“It is not. I am going into partnership with Masterman, and this is a

part of my capital.”

 

“Pardon me, dear Everton, but allow me to tell you that I listened with

great attention to Mr. Masterman, and I thought his scheme one that must

be a long time before it answers.”

 

“So it will, undoubtedly—it is certain no ghost need come to tell us

that.”

 

“Then why should you engage in it who have already an excellent business

in your hands, requiring all your time and more than your capital? why

should we, whose property must increase in a few years so materially, be

harrassed with new schemes, when the old and certain ones are more than

equal to our wants and which must tend to destroy all ease and pleasure,

in the best days of our existence? you know, my love, you do not like

exertion, and how excessively our last hurry annoyed you.”

 

“That is true; but I have promised Masterman, and I am under great

obligations in that quarter that you know nothing of—and in short”—

 

“If you are under obligations, repay them, my love, if you can, but not

by so terrible a medium as becoming a partner in a concern you do not

understand, and cannot manage, and which for some years will demand

money you cannot furnish, and prevent you of course from pushing the

excellent mercantile business now so flourishing—here are the bills, my

love; lend them, nay, give them to Mr. Masterman, if you like, I give

them up freely for that purpose; but pray, pray do not become his

partner,—it will harrass you to death.”

 

The intense anxiety, the glowing affection, the subdued, yet earnest

tones, in which Dora addressed her husband, quelled the anger and

contempt with which he at first regarded her, and was about to oppose

her interference. He felt that she was right; and it struck him that the

best thing he could do would really be to pay off the money he had been

bound for, and make an end of the business by advancing that sum. He set

out for that purpose; and this offer would have been gratefully accepted

by the husband, but on the wife finding that the proposal had originated

with Dora, with that determined ambition to triumph over her, which

had already been exercised at the risk of her own ruin, she set eagerly

about thwarting her wishes and contrived to stimulate the avarice of

Stancliffe so adroitly on the one hand, and alarm him with the fears of

discovery on the other, that he finally signed the deeds of partnership,

and thus became doubly her slave.

 

“Alas! he has no resolution,” thought poor Dora, as she shook her head

at the sad prospect this folly had opened to them; and the conclusion

was but too just. There was a natural inconstancy in all Stancliffe’s

feelings and pursuits, which checked alike the progress of virtue in his

conduct, and prosperity in his affairs:—he had left his business in

Smyrna half established, and his late commission from thence would

have been only half got up, if the cares of his old clerk and his

young wife had not completed them. He liked the bustle and importance,

but he hated the fatigue and perseverance called for; and even his love

for money, which was really great, failed in imposing on him any task

that wearied him, or curtailed his pursuit of pleasure and love of ease.

 

From this time Mr. Stancliffe lived more in the house of Mr. Masterman

than his own; yet that, was either directly or indirectly, managed

entirely by Mrs. M. whose pleasure it was to tie the young mother

entirely to her nursery, to controul her expences in every particular,

and not only subject her to restrictions, but lectures upon her domestic

economy, alike unnecessary and insulting. The husband was, however, made

the medium of all his suffering partner’s mortifications, and Dora felt

them only the harder on that account, since she understood that every

act of grace towards her was always accorded, “because Mrs. Masterman

thought it right, or had the goodness to recommend it:”—the proud, the

irritable Stancliffe, was supple as a glove on the hands of his

mistress, though unyielding as iron to the wishes of his wife.

 

This woman had now become established in the best society of the town;

and by the plausibility of her manners, and the perfect union which

subsisted between her and her husband, at least suspended censure, and

generally defeated scandal. There was an air of affection in her manners

to Dora in company, which deceived casual observers, who sometimes

expressed surprise at the cold, estranged air, of one who even in her

meekness could not bend to the dishonesty of feigning regard. But Dora

was now little seen—her child pined beneath the distresses which

silently consumed the mother’s heart, and her affection really tied her

to the nursery where her enemies wished her.

 

But this retreat was by no means so dull and uninteresting as might have

been imagined, for Frank was an intelligent, as well as affectionate

companion; and as reading was at once his sole employment and amusement,

his mind had become stored with a variety of information, which he was

proud to display for the amusement of a sister who supplied to him all

the relations of life, and fulfilled all his ideas of excellence.

Sensible that she was not properly treated, he had yet the delicacy and

good sense never to wound her by adverting to it; and happily he was a

stranger to the nature of that influence which was in full operation

against her peace. Many a time did Dora struggle for his sake to appear

cheerful, and even gain in the effort much of the composure she sought;

and although there were times when the silent tear would not be

repressed, and poor Frank would as silently wipe her eyes and his own,

till the overflowing grief of each had subsided into pensive calmness,

yet most probably on the whole, they suffered much less than the guilty

pair, who were the cause of their sorrow. In the perpetual labours of

Mrs. Masterman to act two parts in life, joined to the irritability of

her own temper, and the violence of Stancliffe’s, there was a

solicitude, toil, and anxiety, that wore her constitution, and injured

that beauty, which was to her an object of idolatry;—even the

gullibility of Dora had its inconvenience. She was perpetually

suspecting that she was suspected; and the calm dignity of endurance,

the Christian patience of Dora, which was indicative of forbearance, not

ignorance, kept her in perpetual alarm, even while she presumed upon it.

Free from all religious scruples herself, she had no criterion in her

own mind by which she could judge how far another could be influenced by

them; and she continually feared that Dora would be throwing off the

mask of submission she supposed assumed for a season, and expose her

openly. She could not conceive that a woman could exercise so much

patience, and meekness, in the hope of hiding the faults of her husband

from the world, and eventually restoring him to the paths of virtue;

still less suppose that she could receive those consolations from on

high, which enabled her to submit to the injustice of man, as a

chastisement permitted by God.

 

Orders again poured in from her father, and again Dora, (notwithstanding

her cares as a mother,) was placed in requisition; and as she was now

fully aware that nothing less than the most active care could answer in

their situation, she exerted herself to the utmost. It was an object

with her to remain as much behind the scenes as possible; but the

absence of her husband, the necessity of personating him at some times,

and his own anger when she had failed to do it, all compelled her to

come forward; and of course she became an object of remark and pity.

 

To obviate this consequence, Mrs. Masterman adroitly and industriously

spread a report, “that Mrs. Stancliffe, young as she was, had

unfortunately contracted such a love for money, and had such an

overweaning affection for her own family, that poor Stancliffe could not

prevent her from interfering with every thing which promoted her darling

objects.—She was so saving, that she had never allowed him any company

at home since she became a mother; her whole house was under rules of

economy the most ridiculously rigid, and it was evident to every one who

saw her at church, that she had bought herself no clothes since her

bridal ones:—she was a sweet young woman in her person and manners, but

Stancliffe was much to be pitied, for he was of a very different

disposition:—poor man! he would be quite lost, if it were not for the

comfort he enjoyed at her house in the society of her husband.”

 

Under this view of the case, it occurred to Stancliffe, one morning

after losing a game at billiards, on which he had betted considerably,

to be consoled by an allusion to his wife’s love of money. The subject

was a delicate one, because Stancliffe well knew that whatever might be

the services he required from Dora, her personal wants were never

attended to; and that under pretext of curtailing her little charities,

she had even been kept without any money;—conceiving, therefore, that

to be reproach which was meant for condolence, he replied with asperity,

on which the speaker observed—

 

“I meant no offence, Mr. Stancliffe; Mrs. Masterman, who knows much

better than I do, whispers every where about your wife’s

covetousness—she says you never get a good dinner but in her house,

and a great deal of