The Clergyman's Wife and Other Sketches/The Married Flirt

by Anna Cora Mowatt

The Married Flirt.

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ho calls Melinda Belmont a flirt? She is only as attractive to mankind collectively as to the one especial man whose name she bears, whose domicile she graces with a regnant presence powerfully suggestive of feminine superiority and masculine nonentity. A flirt, forsooth? She will resent the title with virtuous indignation. With a majestic uplifting of her queenly head, she will ask you whether a woman, when she honors a man by uniting her destiny with his, necessarily enters into a compact to render herself odious to the rest of his sex?

Melinda had not won the name of a coquette before her marriage. A handsome, high-spirited girl, striking in figure, captivating in manner, brilliant in conversation, and not lacking intellect, she married young. Possibly, she fancied herself in love, or her suitor's delicious flatteries made her in love, with herself, which she mistook for being in love with him; a very common occurrence! At all events she evinced no shrewd, cold calculation in choosing among her many admirers; she neither selected the Crœsus, nor the Adonis, but yielded, in womanly fashion, to the most ardent wooer. An eligible partner, of course, none but eligible men venture into the arena, to struggle for such a prize. Probably, she looked upon marriage as an inevitable necessity, the unavoidable, and very endurable, destiny of womanhood; and, with only sufficient reluctance to intensify her charms, she permitted the most devout worshipper to claim her as his idol, and enshrine her in his luxurious establishment; though certainly not with the potential understanding that his exclusive adoration could satisfy the needs of her soul.

Melinda's marriage with Mr. Belmont, if it wrought any change in her deportment towards other gentlemen, only rendered her more thoroughly at her ease in their society, more alluring, more delightful! Her sallies of wit gained piquancy, her manner acquired more perfect abandon, her beauty more brilliant expression. Always wilful and exigeante, she now grew half-imperious in appropriating devotion, as though she looked upon men in general as more entirely her slaves than before she assumed the unfelt chain which bound her to one man in particular. Consequently the willing vassals became more liberal of those "sweet observances," those nameless indescribable attentions so gratifying to a woman's self-love, because they tacitly exalt her to a pedestal, and lay such harmless tributes upon the altar of her vanity.

Melinda has an understanding with her conscience which keeps it in well-bred, silent subjection. The "still, small voice within" is dumb, though she permits whispered words that might startle ears for which they were not intended; though she returns telegraphic glances, whose meaning would hardly be translatable; though she allows the soft pressure of her hand; or wears upon her proudly heaving bosom, or in the coronal braid that encircles her regal head, the flowers some favored gallant gives her. She will even close her white fingers upon a tiny note, thrust unseen into her palm; it may only be "an innocent bit of poetry," it may be a few words which she must have blushed if she had heard uttered, though the color that deepens into a triumphant glow on her cheek can hardly be called a blush.

An unconquerable impulse makes her desire to turn the head of every man who approaches her, literally to unsettle his mind, and her surpassing charms enable her to carry her will into execution. She is emulous to subdue to her service not one, but all. None are too high, none too low, none too great, none too insignificant for the wide-spreading vine of vanity to twine its tendrils around, with undiscriminating grasp, and claim as fostering supports.

Yet among that group of adorers there is always one who is the preferred of the hour. One whom she distinguishes by claiming little services at his hands, whom she permits to seek for what she wants, to wait upon her, to be useful to her in a thousand pleasant ways. Above all, one who understands that he must renounce the whole sex for her sweet sake, and bask in no woman's smiles, and hang upon no woman's words, but hers. But, by and by, the fickle Melinda grows tired of his assiduities, discards the favorite, and indulges in all the agreeable excitement of electing his successor, who becomes equally infatuated, equally subservient to her will, and, in time, equally wearisome.

Mr. Belmont, if he sometimes feels Othello pangs, conceals them too carefully ever to be classed with jealous husbands. He is virtually shut out of the charmed circle which his wife's magic draws around her. He sits at a distance, trying to look as though he were occupied with other interests, but secretly drinking in the musical rise and fall of her voice, softened to the low tone of high breeding; hearkening to the rippling gushes of her exultant laughter listening to her sparkling thoughts, sham jewels dropped into gilt setting of glittering words; admiring the half voluptuous contour of her form, which is strikingly displayed by some picturesque attitude; smiling inwardly at the captivating changefulness, the bewitching caprices that keep her devotees on the qui vive to watch her varying moods, and weakly glorying in the sensation she creates, the admiration she excites.

Perhaps Mr. Belmont, who is a man of some sentiment and more feeling, suppresses a sigh when he remembers that the very fact of calling this peerless being his own, deprives him of the happiness of enjoying her society, even of offering her any of the little courtesies which she receives from others with such winning affability, and rewards with such enchanting looks and words. But he would not have his best friend divine that puerile regret for the universe! Fashion, the bête noire of his imagination, would point her finger and laugh at him! Unendurable calamity!

It is generally admitted that Melinda, as Mrs. Belmont, is far more attractive to gentlemen than she had been as a young girl, more fascinating than any young girl can hope to be! Yet, be it understood, that she is never guilty of an imprudence that will risk her reputation, or furnish tempting food for scandal. The disease that gnaws, vulture-like, at her heart, is an insatiable craving for adulation, an unappeasable hunger that would make her barter her birthright of womanhood for Flattery's mess of pottage.

She would turn with righteous horror from a hapless sister who had lapsed from purity, who bore upon her bowed forehead the brand of shame, upon her pale cheeks the furrows worn by penitential tears. Melinda would draw aside her silken garments from the touch of such pollution. She would never suspect that the heart which beat beneath her velvet bodice was full of sin as foul, of fouler sin, perchance, since unacknowledged and unrepented of; sin not brought forth into act, because her coldness, not her chastity, warded off temptation; because the iron shackles of society held her in compulsive restraint. But the bondage is merely external. Place but a window in Melinda's bosom, and that "rake at heart" cynical Pope finds in woman, will have too vivid an illustration!

How Melinda conducts her household is an enigma we shall not endeavor to solve. She does not attempt to assume its rule with that matronly dignity which proclaims itself the guiding spirit of the home department. Yet her domestic affairs glide on with tolerable smoothness, the wheels of the machine being oiled with lavish extravagance, with waste sufficient to save half a dozen families from starvation.

It has been said that the wifely face across the breakfast table is the one most likely to disenchant a husband. Perhaps Melinda has too much tact to run the risk of such a catastrophe. At all events, her husband's morning meal is usually a solitary one. Mrs. Belmont feels dull at the hour when the flowers are brightest, the birds sing sweetest, and Nature's dewy eyes open with their most refreshing smile. Languidly indolent, Melinda retreats into the chrysalis shell of her wrapper, and quietly mopes, like any veritable caterpillar, in its transition state. But when the day is nearly spent, (alas! spent to what purpose?) the papilia comes forth in May-day glory, flies through a round of fashionable visits, or alights among the flowers in her drawing-room, to hold her court at home.

Mr. Belmont returns from his business to a late dinner, and finds that some of Melinda's friends have dropped in and been invited to remain. A tête-à-tête repast with her husband is an event of rarest occurrence. Anything so prosy should naturally be avoided; and would it not be absurd to waste such an elaborate toilet on him? However negligent her morning costume, she is now attired with faultless taste. Everything she wears becomes her a merveille. Her dress evinces the most exquisite perception of les nuances—for she never accidentally shocks a fastidious eye by the inharmonious mingling of color. At table she has more the air of a guest than hostess, but her husband does the honors with evident pleasure; no wonder, it is almost the only occasion upon which he ceases to be a cipher, if he does not positively "make a figure."

In the evening she has generally some engagement; she has arranged to attend a concert, the opera, the theatre, a lecture perhaps, or a ball, or a reception. Her husband, if not too much wearied by the duties of the day, accompanies her; but it is not upon his arm she leans; that would be outré, and so ridiculously Darby-and-Joan like!

If perchance she remains at home, there are always plenty of visitors, principally young men, who will help her to chase the evening hours. And Melinda plays and sings to them, with her eyes glancing up and down, and now and then resting upon some enraptured listener, who leans over the piano and drinks in the amorous words as though they were addressed to him. Are they not, for the moment?

The society of her own sex Melinda cannot abide. She scoffs at female friendships; talking to a woman bores her more than listening to a sermon. Caresses of women, to her, are positively sickening. Their tenderness—bah! it is all affectation, assumed to make them look interesting! She well knows the pretty dears hate each other heartily, and would rather bite than kiss, if they dared to be natural.

Melinda is a childless wife. A child's innocent touch would have opened a chamber in her breast and let a saving angel in to tear the false god, Self, from its altar. A child's holy breath would have blown away some of this earth-dust gathered upon her soul, and clogging all its heavenly motions. A child's guileless fingers would have drawn the wife's hand into that of her husband, and turned her face to his by the magnetism of mutual interest in one beloved object, at whose feet their sympathies could meet and embrace. Yet she rejoices to be spared the cares of maternity! As well rejoice that she has foregone salvation!

Thus passes Melinda's budding spring and summer bloom. But the canker-worm in the fruit has wrought decay where should be autumnal mellowness. Her charms, almost before they reach maturity, begin to fleet, in spite of all the detaining arts of her toilet. Her once worshipped mirror becomes a taunting torment. Years write their record in ungracious lines across her brow, for no noble emotions, no high actions have beautified the chronicle. Inexorable Time quenches the fire of her eyes, and his attendant crows leave the pressure of unsightly feet at the corners. Her features, once so finely cut, grow sharp and harsh. Her "pretty petulance" degenerates into irritability. Her voice has caught a piercing shrillness which strikes the ear like a bayonet's point; possibly it is that tone which makes her repartee sound so much more cutting, so much less mirth-provoking than of yore.

There is no longer a flutter of excitement when she enters a crowd. The men who once gathered around her stand aloof, unconscious of her presence, or hover about some younger married flirt, who has jostled her from her pedestal in Vanity Fair. Poor Melinda makes desperate efforts to lure back the recreants, but the very exertion renders her manner forced, distressingly restless, peevish, exacting. Her failing assumption of juvenile airs and graces is painfully ludicrous, it is but an awkward caricaturing of her former self.

What has the weary, dreary, faded, jaded wreck of brilliant womanhood to fall back upon? What consosolation—what refuge is hers? Is there none to be found in her husband's sheltering arms? No; he is tired at last, of his youthful idolatry. In his own house he has never had a snug, quiet corner, an especial arm-chair, where he might sit, in dressing-gown and slippers, with that solace of manhood, a newspaper, in his hand, and he has gradually sought. the society of men, the club-room, or the card-table as a substitute for the fireside of home. It is too late for Melinda to turn to him and seek, in his long slighted devotion, repayment for the neglect of the world; too late to find herself rejuvenescent through her husband's love, as Michelet maintains that a woman may be. Her bitterest retribution comes through an instinctive but tardy knowledge that there must be a joy, she never tasted, in reposing upon one true heart, without fear of change; a happiness beyond her conception, in hoping for and hoping with, in soothing and being soothed by another self; in clinging to one who needs her, whose life is incomplete without her; who makes her proudly glad in the consciousness that whatever she may not be to others, she is all in all to him.

But this comfort shall never be hers; and the desolate, dethroned sovereign looks with envious eyes upon the unambitious wife, her youthful contemporary, who never dreamed of being a belle, whom Melinda scorned for her even, unpretentious. ways, but who still retains a lingering freshness, a kindly warmth, a serene vivacity, a soul-renewed loveliness that have preserved a husband's devotion intact, and won from time-tried friends reverence and tenderness in abundance, and now make the nonpareil beauty of other days reflect despairingly upon her wasted opportunities, her hollow and valueless existence, and inwardly murmur, "Oh, that I could change places with her, here and hereafter!"