216
OLD
MANSION.
“I am satisfied you love me, Margaret. Forgive me!’’ Iwas relenting fast. But his next words destroyed all. ‘‘Yet more than love is necessary. Where there is an irreconcilable difference of opinion, as there seems to be on this point, either the man or the woman must yield; and it is the wife’s duty, in such cases, to surrender to the husband, else there would be no unity of action. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Society holds the husband responsible for the wife’s behavior; he ought, therefore, to control it; and I shall expect you, in matters of this kind, to give up to me.”
I believe no man yet ever understood a woman. These words exasperated me to such a degree, that, for the time, all love for the speaker went out from me. They seemed so logically correct, however, in Mr. Talbot’s eyes, that he was ap- parently surprised at their effect. Ah! why did he not know, that, after marriage, a wife in- sensibly yields all? me, so obtrusively, the chain I was to wear?
“Sir,” I said, removing my hand and drawing myself up with dignity, ‘‘I see, now, it is you who does not love. You are not my conscience- keeper. Thank God! that I find out, before toe late, what degradation is expected of me.’
This time he took the ring, which I again ex- tended to him. One long, sad look he cast on me, a look, oh! how reproachful, and then, with- out a word, bowed and retired. A moment after, I heard the front door close and knew that all was over between us.
Yes! all was over. But alas! I had not that assured consciousness, which I ought to have had, that I was wholly in the right, and he wholly in the wrong. The instant he passed from my sight doubt made me its prey. Had I not been too hasty? Had I not again lost my temper? Was he not right, after all? I rushed to the window to summon him back. But pride checked me just as my hand was on the casement. No! the deed was done: I would abide by it.-
Then I went over the old arguments to prove that I was right. I said to myself that he was ‘imperious; that I never could have been happy with him; that, if I had yielded in this matter, he would have expected me to yield always, even when he was indisputably in the wrong.
I thought also of my sex. If all would do as I had done, the tyranny of man would soon be over. I congratulated myself on being a martyr. I felt a heroic exaltation which buoyed me up, for a while, indescribably.
But it would not do. In spite of all, I was miserably unhappy. I stood, reasoning thus with myself, but feeling more utterly desolate every moment, till at last my fortitude gave way, I burst into a passion of tears, and throwing my- self on the sofa, wept as if my heart would break.
CHAPTER XII.
My passion of tears had not yet spent itself, when there was a tap at the parlor dobr. I com- manded myself sufficiently to ask, in a composed voice, who was there?
‘It is me,” answered my uncle’s waiter. ‘‘The cabman, at the door, has rung twice to $know if you are going, or whether he shall drive off.”
I had utterly forgotten my visit to Georgiana, I now rose feebly.
‘Tell the man I will be there presently,” said. I waited till I heard the waiter pass down the hall, for I did not wish to be seen, and then slipped up stairs, in order to wash my inflamed eyes, and bathe my aching temples.
During the drive to Georgiana’s, my thoughts were of my late interview, not of her. In vain I tried to dismiss it; the parting looks and words of Mr. Talbot would come back; and I was on the point, several times, of giving way to tears again. For the more I reflected, the less I was satisfied with myself. I felt I had been too hasty, too passionate, too proud. Oh! I would have given anything to have had the last few hours to act over again. Yet though I knew! had but to order the carriage back to town, and despatch a note to Mr. Talbot, that very pride kept me from doing it.
We left the city, by one of its northern outlets, and found ourselves driving amid abandoned fields. On the dusty herbage of some of these, sheep were grazing; others were dug up for brick-yards; on still others straggling rows of houses were being put up. Suddenly we turned into a shady lane, one side of which was bounded by a spacious park, over whose velvety turf great trees were scattered singly or in clumps, letting the yellow sunshine drop down silently between them, like gold filtered from the sky. A noble mansion, half concealed by foliage, stood at the further extremity of the park.
“It is here, I suppose, that Georgiana lives,” I said to myself. ‘‘What a poetical home! It is quite the place to take a bride to.” And I thought better of her husband already.
But the driver, instead of turning in at the massive gates, kept on, and when I pulled the check-string, and asked him if he had not made a mistake, he answered in the negative. with a shrug of the shoulders, that destroyed all my romantic illusions.
