Patience by Barbara Hofland (that summer book TXT) 📕

last till our decay, and console us in some measure for those which,

though sweeter and stronger, are too often rent asunder by vice, or worn

out by indifference.

Mrs. Aylmer had always been so much beloved by Frank, that she was

immediately admitted to his room with less than the usual interdict; and

as he was by degrees permitted to speak, she enquired very naturally

“what had been the cause of an attack so unexpected, and so contrary to

the hopes of his friends.” Frank shook his head, but never replied; and

when he perceived she thought he had been blameable in using improper

exertion, he looked satisfied and relieved—the feelings of the wife at

these moments were agitating to the last degree; the more of

Stancliffe’s faults were inevitably exposed, the more she sought to veil

the rest, yet how difficult was it to forbear thanking Frank, and in the

very expression of her grateful overflowing heart, endangering the

existence which hung on so fine a fibre.

More than a month had passed, and not a single line had been received

from Stancliffe, proof decisive of his guilt, and also of his shame,

since policy alone would have dictated enquiries after one with whom he

was so nearly connected. The silence was broken by a letter received by

Mr. Hazlewood, his principal clerk, which was as follows.

Sir,

I am requested to inform you, that in consequence of a

meeting which took place between Mr. Stancliffe and

lieutenant Grainger, the former lies extremely ill, he having

received a wound in the shoulder, by which he has lost much

blood, and is exceedingly reduced. He wishes his lady to be

informed of this circumstance in the manner you judge best,

and that she be earnestly requested to come to his

assistance, bringing with her a sum of money adequate to the

case.

I am, &c. &c.

J. EUSTACE,

Surgeon, &c. &c.

The contents of this letter were first made known to Harriett, who,

although shocked at the circumstance, had no idea that her sister could

feel sympathy in the degree a wife, however treated, was sure to

experience in such a case; she therefore ventured, after a short

preamble, to place the letter in her hands.

But scarcely had Dora cast her eyes over it when the light forsook them,

her head swam, and she would have fallen but for immediate assistance.

She was conveyed to a sofa, and a flood of tears came to her

relief—after which, she sat silent in deep rumination, uninterrupted by

those around, who beheld with true commiseration, a heart so tender and

so patient pierced with so many sorrows.

“Pray keep this sad news from Frank,” was the first word Dora uttered,

and she was going to give further orders when Mr. Blackwell was

announced, and in another moment, to her increased dismay, he stood

before her.

Unable to speak, she again sunk back, pale and trembling, and Harriett

observed, “that her sister was extremely unwell, and unequal to

receiving a stranger.”

“But not to receiving a friend,” said the old man, sitting down by

her, with a look of pity that relaxed his hard features into gentleness.

“You are indeed a friend,” said Dora, as she again respired freely, and

wiped away the tears which would flow perforce—“you are come to enquire

after our dear Francis.”

“No, I am now come to enquire after his sister; for I am well aware he

is under the best hands, and although unfit to see me, yet not unfit

to bear the change I propose, which is that of removing him into the

house opposite, which I have taken for that purpose.”

“I am glad of that,” said Harriett, eagerly;—“I was born in this house,

but I hate it now—Stancliffe has made me loathe it.”

Dora looked up reproachingly to her sister, and Mr. Blackwell resuming

his usual manner, said, “You, ma’am, surely can have no wish to remain

here? what has it afforded you, save unkindness, ingratitude, want, and

misery?”

“Alas!” said Dora, with a deep sigh, “sorrow is to be found every

where;—I shall certainly be glad to have my brother removed, (provided

Mrs. Aylmer goes with him, and she will not refuse us,)—as for myself,

I have another destination.”—

As Dora spoke the last words, she placed the letter from Dublin in Mr.

Blackwell’s hands, who scarcely cast his eye over it when he exclaimed,

“All this I know—the wretched girl who is the companion of his flight,

(believing him to be Frank, a single man, and the one to whom she had

been taught to look up) on discovering who he was, wrote to her mother

in extreme distress, a few days ago. Yesterday another letter arrived,

to tell of the duel, which was entirely of Stancliffe’s provoking, and

for which he is properly punished by a severe though not dangerous

wound.”

“His conduct in this elopement,” continued Mr. Blackwell, “gives you a

happy opportunity legally to emancipate yourself from worse than

Egyptian bondage, and I come as your guardian to take you under my

protection, and to prosecute your claims, which I can in fact do better

than your own father, of whose concurrence we can have no possible

doubt, but whose situation as Stancliffe’s partner might have

embarrassed him.”

“Part from him for ever—divorce him—make myself his prosecutor—expose

him—ruin him?—oh! never, never, never.”

The wild agony with which Dora uttered these words alarmed her friends,

and Mrs. Aylmer, who had heard all in silence, approaching her, said,

“Do not terrify yourself in this manner, Dora, you shall do none of

these things, but you will leave for ever a wicked man who is unworthy

of you, and with whom you have suffered more than is necessary to advert

to:–-he has in fact divorced you, he has abandoned you, deserted

you.”

Dora wept in agony.

“But God has not deserted you, he gives you a mother who has never

forsaken you; and with a bleeding anxious heart, has long watched over

you, though at a distance—and a friend, who will be more than your

father has ever been.”

“I know all your goodness—I know, too, that I love you, my more than

mother, better than any human being:—but my husband is in great

distress, he desires to see me, he is doubtless afflicted and

repentant—I cannot refuse to comfort and aid him.”

“He suffers justly—let him drink of the cup he has dealt so freely;”

said Mr. Blackwell.

“Ah!” exclaimed Dora, “but if we were all so dealt by, what would become

of us? Our blessed Lord came down to call sinners to repentance; to die,

the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God;—ought not I,

then, as his disciple, to bear a little longer with the man to whom I

have promised obedience, and who now invites me to perform my

duty?—ought I not to forgive even seventy times seven offences, if

there is hope that I may save him, as there is now?”

“Dora,” said Mr. Blackwell, in a firm but mild voice, “your motives are

as pure as your conduct is without fault, but your judgment is

wrong—you have adopted ideas neither scripture nor reason justify; for

though they call for the rational submission and proper obedience of a

wife to her husband, it is under the idea that his power is exercised in

wisdom and love—if a man acts as if devoid of either, he compels the

woman to become her own guardian, and exercise her own judgment, upon

those points which concern her happiness. Such has long been your case,

and I am fully persuaded, that had Stancliffe been married to a high

spirited woman, who would have conceded his rights, yet have asserted

her own, he never would have played the fool as he has done—your

self-denying economy made him extravagant and avaricious,—your

abilities and exertions plunged him in indolence, and from that very

circumstance he became a gambler, because, though idle, his mind was

active—his violent temper increased from your submission, and he played

the tiger because a lamb was always near him;—naturally selfish, and

having no principle of religious self-controul from within, he

certainly required some coercive operation from without, which (since

the death of his father, and in the absence of yours) you should have

endeavoured to supply, as many women do.”

“Ah!” cried Mrs. Aylmer, “what could a girl so young, so timid, and so

affectionate, exact?”

“Not that, madam, which your sex are too apt to seek, power, but

justice—the right to be treated with the kindness due to a faithful

wife, the consideration and respect claimed by a gentlewoman. When these

are not accorded, what is a wife but a servant without wages? a slave,

whose bondage death or infamy alone can loosen?”

“The violent should be met by violence—the ungenerous overbearing

spirit, repelled by its own weapons; but gentle and meek as Dora’s

temper has ever been, she is too high-minded to descend to the language

of a scolding vixen, or the wheedling of a cunning coaxer—she used

perseveringly the only arms her nature, and her principles as a

Christian, permitted, long-suffering, patience, forgetfulness of injury,

and cheerful compliance—what could she do more?” said Mrs. Aylmer.

“Nothing, madam, to win a generous mind, even if subject to many

errors; but Stancliffe was not of that description, except by fits

and starts:—with considerable abilities, and occasionally good

propensities, and the promise of virtue, he has been ever unsteady,

volatile, and inconstant, in pursuit either of good or evil, shewing

a singular deficiency in that property in which his wife

excelled.—‘Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel,’ says the

patriarch; and when she saw this disposition, ought she not to have

opposed it by every possible means; and engrafted her own mild

firmness on his irresolution, her endurance on his?”—

“Impossible, sir—man will not be taught by woman; ask your own heart,

Mr. Blackwell!”

“I am a bachelor, madam, and not one of the initiated, I confess; and

the reply my heart makes, would be to own myself a stubborn subject—nor

can I say that I should wish my daughter to stoop to conduct unworthy of

herself, in order to manage her husband; yet when I look round the

world, and see women every way far inferior to Dora, preserve spouses

originally inferior to Stancliffe also, without suffering the open

injuries, or the secret miseries which have afflicted her, how can I

help concluding that she has ‘loved not wisely, but too well?’ and that

suffering martyrdom with the patience of a saint, is not the way to

reform a sinner.”

“You are right, sir,” said Dora, slowly, as under the influence of full

conviction, “perfectly right—poor Stancliffe’s mind, ruined by

excessive indulgence in childhood, and the unhappy liberty given to his

youth by a residence abroad, required a very different helpmate to what

I have been. Alas! I have injured whilst I sought to bless him—God

forbid that I should forsake him now he is sunk in the abyss where my

weakness and blindness have helped to plunge him—oh! no.”

As Dora spoke, she rose from the sofa, assuming a strength she was far

from feeling, and indicating by the action as well as by her words, her

intention of going to Stancliffe. As nothing could be farther from Mr.

Blackwell’s intention than to increase the bias of her mind this way, he

now began strongly to descant on the faults of Stancliffe towards her

and others, and insist on the folly, madness, indelicacy, and even

wickedness, of again, by