Victorian Short Stories: Stories of Successful Marriages


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Page 2

It became time for Alice to hear from her husband. One letter from the
Cape she had already received. The next was to announce his arrival in
India. As week after week passed over, and no intelligence of the ship
having got there reached the office of the owners, and the captain's
wife was in the same state of ignorant suspense as Alice herself, her
fears grew most oppressive. At length the day came when, in reply to
her inquiry at the shipping office, they told her that the owners had
given up hope of ever hearing more of the _Betsy-Jane_ and had sent in
their claim upon the underwriters. Now that he was gone for ever,
she first felt a yearning, longing love for the kind cousin, the
dear friend, the sympathizing protector, whom she should never see
again;--first felt a passionate desire to show him his child, whom
she had hitherto rather craved to have all to herself--her own sole
possession. Her grief was, however, noiseless and quiet--rather to the
scandal of Mrs Wilson who bewailed her stepson as if he and she had
always lived together in perfect harmony, and who evidently thought
it her duty to burst into fresh tears at every strange face she
saw; dwelling on his poor young widow's desolate state, and the
helplessness of the fatherless child, with an unction as if she liked
the excitement of the sorrowful story.

So passed away the first days of Alice's widowhood. By and by things
subsided into their natural and tranquil course. But, as if the young
creature was always to be in some heavy trouble, her ewe-lamb began to
be ailing, pining, and sickly. The child's mysterious illness turned
out to be some affection of the spine, likely to affect health but not
to shorten life--at least, so the doctors said. But the long, dreary
suffering of one whom a mother loves as Alice loved her only child,
is hard to look forward to. Only Norah guessed what Alice suffered; no
one but God knew.

And so it fell out, that when Mrs Wilson, the elder, came to her one
day, in violent distress, occasioned by a very material diminution in
the value of the property that her husband had left her--a diminution
which made her income barely enough to support herself, much less
Alice--the latter could hardly understand how anything which did not
touch health or life could cause such grief; and she received the
intelligence with irritating composure. But when, that afternoon, the
little sick child was brought in, and the grandmother--who, after all,
loved it well--began a fresh moan over her losses to its unconscious
ears--saying how she had planned to consult this or that doctor, and
to give it this or that comfort or luxury in after years, but that now
all chance of this had passed away--Alice's heart was touched, and she
drew near to Mrs Wilson with unwonted caresses, and, in a spirit not
unlike to that of Ruth, entreated that, come what would, they might
remain together. After much discussion in succeeding days, it was
arranged that Mrs Wilson should take a house in Manchester, furnishing
it partly with what furniture she had, and providing the rest with
Alice's remaining two hundred pounds. Mrs Wilson was herself a
Manchester woman, and naturally longed to return to her native town;
some connexions of her own, too, at that time required lodgings, for
which they were willing to pay pretty handsomely. Alice undertook
the active superintendence and superior work of the household;
Norah--willing, faithful Norah--offered to cook, scour, do anything in
short, so that she might but remain with them.

The plan succeeded. For some years their first lodgers remained with
them, and all went smoothly--with that one sad exception of the little
girl's increasing deformity. How that mother loved that child, it is
not for words to tell!

Then came a break of misfortune. Their lodgers left, and no one
succeeded to them. After some months, it became necessary to remove
to a smaller house; and Alice's tender conscience was torn by the idea
that she ought not to be a burden to her mother-in-law, but to go out
and seek her own maintenance. And leave her child! The thought came
like the sweeping boom of a funeral-bell over her heart.

By and by, Mr Openshaw came to lodge with them. He had started in life
as the errand-boy and sweeper-out of a warehouse; had struggled up
through all the grades of employment in it, fighting his way through
the hard, striving Manchester life with strong, pushing energy of
character. Every spare moment of time had been sternly given up to
self-teaching. He was a capital accountant, a good French and German
scholar, a keen, far-seeing tradesman--understanding markets and the
bearing of events, both near and distant, on trade; and yet, with such
vivid attention to present details, that I do not think he ever saw a
group of flowers in the fields without thinking whether their colour
would, or would not, form harmonious contrasts in the coming spring
muslins and prints. He went to debating societies, and threw himself
with all his heart and soul into politics; esteeming, it must
be owned, every man a fool or a knave who differed from him, and
overthrowing his opponents rather by the loud strength of his language
than the calm strength of his logic. There was something of the Yankee
in all this. Indeed, his theory ran parallel to the famous Yankee
motto--'England flogs creation, and Manchester flogs England.' Such
a man, as may be fancied, had had no time for falling in love, or
any such nonsense. At the age when most young men go through their
courting and matrimony, he had not the means of keeping a wife, and
was far too practical to think of having one. And now that he was
in easy circumstances, a rising man, he considered women almost as
encumbrances to the world, with whom a man had better have as little
to do as possible. His first impression of Alice was indistinct,
and he did not care enough about her to make it distinct. 'A pretty,
yea-nay kind of woman', would have been his description of her, if he
had been pushed into a corner. He was rather afraid, in the beginning,
that her quiet ways arose from a listlessness and laziness of
character, which would have been exceedingly discordant to his active,
energetic nature. But, when he found out the punctuality with which
his wishes were attended to, and her work was done; when he was called
in the morning at the very stroke of the clock, his shaving-water
scalding hot, his fire bright, his coffee made exactly as his peculiar
fancy dictated (for he was a man who had his theory about
everything based upon what he knew of science, and often perfectly
original)--then he began to think: not that Alice had any particular
merit, but that he had got into remarkably good lodgings; his
restlessness wore away, and he began to consider himself as almost
settled for life in them.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Thu 28th Mar 2024, 8:55