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Mary Marston: A Novel, a novel by George MacDonald |
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Chapter 22. Mrs. Redmain |
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_ CHAPTER XXII. MRS. REDMAIN In the autumn the Redmains went to Durnmelling: why they did so, I should find it hard to say. If, when a child, Hesper loved either of her parents, the experiences of later years had so heaped that filial affection with the fallen leaves of dead hopes and vanished dreams, that there was now nothing in her heart recognizable to herself as love to father or mother. She always behaved to them, of course, with perfect propriety; never refused any small request; never showed resentment when blamed--never felt any, for she did not care enough to be angry or sorry that father or mother should disapprove. On the other hand, Lady Margaret saw great improvement in her daughter. To the maternal eye, jealous for perfection, Hesper's carriage was at length satisfactory. It was cold, and the same to her mother as to every one else, but the mother did not find it too cold. It was haughty, even repellent, but by no means in the mother's eyes repulsive. Her voice came from her in well-balanced sentences, sounding as if they had been secretly constructed for extempore use, like the points of a parliamentary orator. "Marriage has done everything for her!" said Lady Malice to herself with a dignified chuckle, and dismissed the last shadowy remnant of maternal regret for her part in the transaction of her marriage. She never saw herself in the wrong, and never gave herself the least trouble to be in the right. She was in good health, ate, and liked to eat; drank her glass of champagne, and would have drunk a second, but for her complexion, and that it sometimes made her feel ill, which was the only thing, after marrying Mr. Redmain, she ever felt degrading. Of her own worth she had never had a doubt, and she had none yet: how was she to generate one, courted wherever she went, both for her own beauty and her husband's wealth? To her father she was as stiff and proud as if she had been a maiden aunt, bent on destroying what expectations from her he might be cherishing. Who will blame her? He had done her all the ill he could, and by his own deed she was beyond his reach. Nor can I see that the debt she owed him for being her father was of the heaviest. Her husband was again out of health--certain attacks to which he was subject were now coming more frequently. I do not imagine his wife offered many prayers for his restoration. Indeed, she never prayed for the thing she desired; and, while he and she occupied separate rooms, the one solitary thing she now regarded as a privilege, how _could_ she pray for his recovery? Greatly contrary to Mr. Redmain's unexpressed desire, Miss Yolland had been installed as Hesper's cousin-companion. After the marriage, she ventured to unfold a little, as she had promised, but what there was yet of womanhood in Hesper had shrunk from further acquaintance with the dimly shadowed mysteries of Sepia's story; and Sepia, than whom none more sensitive to change of atmosphere, had instantly closed again; and now not unfrequently looked and spoke like one feeling her way. The only life-principle she had, so far as I know, was to get from the moment the greatest possible enjoyment that would leave the way clear for more to follow. She had not been in his house a week before Mr. Redmain hated her. He was something given to hating people who came near him, and she came much too near. She was by no means so different in character as to be repulsive to him; neither was she so much alike as to be tiresome; their designs could not well clash, for she was a woman and he was a man; if she had not been his wife's friend, they might, perhaps, have got on together better than well; but the two were such as must either be hand in glove or hate each other. There had not, however, been the least approach to rupture between them. Mr. Redmain, indeed, took no trouble to avoid such a catastrophe, but Sepia was far too wise to allow even the dawn of such a risk. When he was ill, he was, if possible, more rude to her than to every one else, but she did not seem to mind it a straw. Perhaps she knew something of the ways of such _gentlemen_ as lose their manners the moment they are ailing, and seem to consider a headache or an attack of indigestion excuse sufficient for behaving like the cad they scorn. It was not long, however, before he began to take in her a very real interest, though not of a sort it would have made her comfortable with him to know. Every time Mr. Redmain had an attack, the baldness on the top of his head widened, and the skin of his face tightened on his small, neat features; his long arms looked longer; his formerly flat back rounded yet a little; and his temper grew yet more curiously spiteful. Long after he had begun to recover, he was by no means an agreeable companion. Nevertheless, as if at last, though late in the day, she must begin to teach her daughter the duty of a married woman, from the moment he arrived, taken ill on the way, Lady Malice, regardless of the brusqueness with which he treated her from the first, devoted herself to him with an attention she had never shown her husband. She was the only one who manifested any appearance of affection for him, and the only one of the family for whom, in return, he came to show the least consideration. Rough he was, even to her, but never, except when in absolute pain, rude as to everybody in the house besides. At times, one might have almost thought he stood in some little awe of her. Every night, after his man was gone, she would visit him to see that he was left comfortable, would tuck him up as his mother might have done, and satisfy herself that the night-light was shaded from his eyes. With her own hands she always arranged his breakfast on the tray, nor never omitted taking him a basin of soup before he got up; and, whatever he may have concluded concerning her motives, he gave no sign of imagining them other than generous. Perhaps the part in him which had never had the opportunity of behaving ill to his mother, and so had not choked up its channels with wrong, remained, in middle age and illness, capable of receiving kindness. Hesper saw the relation between them, but without the least pleasure or the least curiosity. She seemed to care for nothing-- except the keeping of her back straight. What could it be, inside that lovely form, that gave itself pleasure to be, were a difficult question indeed. The bear as he lies in his winter nest, sucking his paw, has no doubt his rudimentary theories of life, and those will coincide with a desire for its continuance; but whether what either the lady or the bear counts the good of life, be really that which makes either desire its continuance, is another question. Mere life without suffering seems enough for most people, but I do not think it could go on so for ever. I can not help fancying that, but for death, utter dreariness would at length master the healthiest in whom the true life has not begun to shine. But so satisfying is the mere earthly existence to some at present, that this remark must sound to them bare insanity. Partly out of compliment to Mr. Redmain, the Mortimers had scarcely a visitor; for he would not come out of his room when he knew there was a stranger in the house. Fond of company of a certain kind when he was well, he could not endure an unknown face when ho was ill. He told Lady Malice that at such times a stranger always looked a devil to him. Hence the time was dull for everybody--dullest, perhaps, for Sepia, who, as well as Redmain, had a few things that required forgetting. It was no wonder, then, that Hesper, after a fort-night of it, should think once more of the young woman in the draper's shop of Testbridge. One morning, in consequence, she ordered her brougham, and drove to the town. _ |
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