Scenes of Clerical Life

entered into the contemplation of anxious clients: they were the little

  superadded symbols that were perpetually raising the sum of home misery.

  Poor Janet! how heavily the months rolled on for her, laden with fresh sorrows

  as the summer passed into autumn, the autumn into winter, and the winter into

  spring again. Every feverish morning, with its blank listlessness and despair,

  seemed more hateful than the last; every coming night more impossible to brave

  without arming herself in leaden stupor. The morning light brought no gladness

  to her: it seemed only to throw its glare on what had happened in the dim

  candle-light?on the cruel man seated immovable in drunken obstinacy by the dead

  fire and dying lights in the dining-room, rating her in harsh tones, reiterating

  old reproaches?or on a hideous blank of something unremembered, something that

  must have made that dark bruise on her shoulder, which aches as she dresses

  herself.

  Do you wonder how it was that things had come to this pass?what offence Janet

  had committed in the early years of marriage to rouse the brutal hatred of this

  man? The seeds of things are very small: the hours that lie between sunrise and

  the gloom of midnight are travelled through by tiniest markings of the clock:

  and Janet, looking back along the fifteen years of her married life, hardly knew

  how or where this total misery began; hardly knew when the sweet wedded love and

  hope that had set for ever had ceased to make a twilight of memory and

  relenting, before the oncoming of the utter dark.

  Old Mrs Dempster thought she saw the true beginning of it all in Janet's want of

  housekeeping skill and exactness. "Janet," she said to herself, "was always

  running about doing things for other people, and neglecting her own house. That

  provokes a man: what use is it for a woman to be loving, and making a fuss with

  her husband, if she doesn't take care and keep his home just as he likes it; if

  she isn't at hand when he wants anything done; if she doesn't attend to all his

  wishes, let them be as small as they may? That was what I did when I was a wife,

  though I didn't make half so much fuss about loving my husband. Then, Janet had

  no children." ... Ah! there Mammy Dempster had touched a true spring, not

  perhaps of her son's cruelty, but of half Janet's misery. If she had had babes

  to rock to sleep? little ones to kneel in their night-dress and say their

  prayers at her knees?sweet boys and girls to put their young arms round her neck

  and kiss away her tears, her poor hungry heart would have been fed with strong

  love, and might never have needed that fiery poison to still its cravings.

  Mighty is the force of motherhood! says the great tragic poet to us across the

  ages, finding, as usual, the simplest words for the sublimest fact?deinon to

  tichtein essin. It transforms all things by its vital heat: it turns timidity

  into fierce courage, and dreadless defiance into tremulous submission; it turns

  thoughtlessness into foresight, and yet stills all anxiety into calm content; it

  makes selfishness become self-denial, and gives even to hard vanity the glance

  of admiring love. Yes; if Janet had been a mother, she might have been saved

  from much sin, and therefore from much of her sorrow.

  But do not believe that it was anything either present or wanting in poor Janet

  that formed the motive of her husband's cruelty. Cruelty, like every other vice,

  requires no motive outside itself ?it only requires opportunity. You do not

  suppose Dempster had any motive for drinking beyond the craving for drink; the

  presence of brandy was the only necessary condition. And an unloving, tyrannous,

  brutal man needs no motive to prompt his cruelty; he needs only the perpetual

  presence of a woman he can call his own. A whole park full of tame or timid-eyed

  animals to torment at his will would not serve him so well to glut his lust of

  torture; they could not feel as one woman does; they could not throw out the

  keen retort which whets the edge of hatred.

  Janet's bitterness would overflow in ready words; she was not to be made meek by

  cruelty; she would repent of nothing in the face of injustice, though she was

  subdued in a moment by a word or a look that recalled the old days of fondness;

  and in times of comparative calm would often recover her sweet woman's habit of

  caressing playful affection. But such days were become rare, and poor Janet's

  soul was kept like a vexed sea, tossed by a new storm before the old waves have

  fallen. Proud, angry resistance and sullen endurance were now almost the only

  alternations she knew. She would bear it all proudly to the world, but proudly

  towards him too; her woman's weakness might shriek a cry for pity under a heavy

  blow, but voluntarily she would do nothing to mollify him, unless he first

  relented. What had she ever done to him but love him too well?but believe in him

  too foolishly? He had no pity on her tender flesh; he could strike the soft neck

  he had once asked to kiss. Yet she would not admit her wretchedness; she had

  married him blindly, and she would bear it out to the terrible end, whatever

  that might be. Better this misery than the blank that lay for her outside her

  married home.

  But there was one person who heard all the plaints and all the outbursts of

  bitterness and despair which Janet was never tempted to pour into any other ear;

  and alas! in her worst moments, Janet would throw out wild reproaches against

  that patient listener. For the wrong that rouses our angry passions finds only a

  medium in us; it passes through us like a vibration, and we inflict what we have

  suffered.

  Mrs Raynor saw too clearly all through the winter that things were getting worse

  in Orchard Street. She had evidence enough of it in Janet's visits to her; and,

  though her own visits to her daughter were so timed that she saw little of

  Dempster personally, she noticed many indications not only that he was drinking

  to greater excess, but that he was beginning to lose that physical power of

  supporting excess which had long been the admiration of such fine spirits as Mr

  Tomlinson. It seemed as if Dempster had some consciousness of this?some new

  distrust of himself; for, before winter was over, it was observed that he had

  renounced his habit of driving out alone, and was never seen in his gig without

  a servant by his side.

  Nemesis is lame, but she is of colossal stature, like the gods; and sometimes,

  while her sword is not yet unsheathed, she stretches out her huge left arm and

  grasps her victim. The mighty hand is invisible, but the victim totters under

  the dire clutch.

  The various symptoms that things were getting worse with the Dempsters afforded

  Milby gossip something new to say on an old subject. Mrs Dempster, every one

  remarked, looked more miserable than ever, though she kept up the old pretence

  of being happy and satisfied. She was scarcely ever seen, as she used to be,

  going about on her good-natured errands; and even old Mrs Crewe, who had always

  been wilfully blind to anything wrong in her favourite Janet, was obliged to

  admit that she had not seemed like herself lately. "The
poor thing's out of

  health," said the kind little old lady, in answer to all gossip about Janet;

  "her headaches always were bad, and I know what headaches are; why, they make

  one quite delirious sometimes." Mrs Phipps, for her part, declared she would

  never accept an invitation to Dempster's again; it was getting so very

  disagreeable to go there, Mrs Dempster was often "so strange." To be sure, there

  were dreadful stories about the way Dempster used his wife; but in Mrs Phipps's

  opinion, it was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. Mrs Dempster had never

  been like other women: she had always a flighty way with her, carrying parcels

  of snuff to old Mrs Tooke, and going to drink tea with Mrs Brinley, the

  carpenter's wife; and then never taking care of her clothes, always wearing the

  same things week-day or Sunday. A man has a poor look-out with a wife of that

  sort. Mr Phipps, amiable and laconic, wondered how it was women were so fond of

  running each other down.

  Mr Pratt, having been called in provisionally to a patient of Mr Pilgrim's in a

  case of compound fracture, observed in a friendly colloquy with his brother

  surgeon the next day,

  "So Dempster has left off driving himself, I see; he won't end with a broken

  neck after all. You'll have a case of meningitis and delirium tremens instead."

  "Ah," said Mr Pilgrim, "he can hardly stand it much longer at the rate he's

  going on, one would think. He's been confoundedly cut up about that business of

  Armstrong's, I fancy. It may do him some harm, perhaps, but Dempster must have

  feathered his nest pretty well; he can afford to lose a little business."

  "His business will outlast him, that's pretty clear," said Pratt; "he'll run

  down like a watch with a broken spring one of these days."

  Another prognostic of evil to Dempster came at the beginning of March. For then

  "little Mamsey" died?died suddenly. The housemaid found her seated motionless in

  her arm-chair, her knitting fallen down, and the tortoise-shell cat reposing on

  it unreproved. The little white old woman had ended her wintry age of patient

  sorrow, believing to the last that "Robert might have been a good husband as he

  had been a good son."

  When the earth was thrown on Mamsey's coffin, and the son, in crape scarf and

  hatband, turned away homeward, his good angel, lingering with outstretched wing

  on the edge of the grave, cast one despairing look after him, and took flight

  for ever.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  The last week in March?three weeks after old Mrs Dempster died?occurred the

  unpleasant winding-up of affairs between Dempster and Mr Pryme, and under this

  additional source of irritation the attorney's diurnal drunkenness had taken on

  its most ill-tempered and brutal phase. On the Friday morning, before setting

  out for Rotherby, he told his wife that he had invited "four men" to dinner at

  half-past six that evening. The previous night had been a terrible one for

  Janet, and when her husband broke his grim morning silence to say these few

  words, she was looking so blank and listless that he added in a loud sharp key,

  "Do you hear what I say? or must I tell the cook?" She started, and said "Yes, I

  hear."

  "Then mind and have a dinner provided, and don't go mooning about like crazy

  Jane."

  Half an hour afterwards Mrs Raynor, quietly busy in her kitchen with her

  household labours? for she had only a little twelve-year-old girl as a

  servant?heard with trembling the rattling of the garden gate and the opening of

  the outer door. She knew the step, and in one short moment she lived beforehand

  through the coming scene. She hurried out of the kitchen, and there in the

  passage, as she had felt, stood Janet, her eyes worn as if by night-long

  watching, her dress careless, her step languid. No cheerful morning greeting to

  her mother?no kiss. She turned into the parlour, and, seating herself on the

  sofa opposite her mother's chair, looked vacantly at the walls and furniture

  until the corners of her mouth began to tremble, and her dark eyes filled with

  tears that fell unwiped down her cheeks. The mother sat silently opposite to

  her, afraid to speak. She felt sure there was nothing new the matter?sure that

  the torrent of words would come sooner or later.

  "Mother! why don't you speak to me?" Janet burst out at last; "you don't care

  about my suffering; you are blaming me because I feel?because I am miserable."

  "My child, I am not blaming you?my heart is bleeding for you. Your head is bad

  this morning ?you have had a bad night. Let me make you a cup of tea now.

  Perhaps you didn't like your breakfast."

  "Yes, that is what you always think, mother. It is the old story, you think. You

  don't ask me what it is I have had to bear. You are tired of hearing me. You are

  cruel, like the rest; every one is cruel in this world. Nothing but blame?blame

  ?blame; never any pity. God is cruel to have sent me into the world to bear all

  this misery."

  "Janet, Janet, don't say so. It is not for us to judge; we must submit; we must

  be thankful for the gift of life."

  "Thankful for life? Why should I be thankful? God has made me with a heart to

  feel, and He has sent me nothing but misery. How could I help it? How could I

  know what would come? Why didn't you tell me, mother??why did you let me marry?

  You knew what brutes men could be; and there's no help for me?no hope. I can't

  kill myself; I've tried; but I can't leave this world and go to another. There

  may be no pity for me there, as there is none here."

  "Janet, my child, there is pity. Have I ever done anything but love you? And

  there is pity in God. Hasn't He put pity into your heart for many a poor

  sufferer? Where did it come from, if not from Him?"

  Janet's nervous irritation now broke out into sobs instead of complainings; and

  her mother was thankful, for after that crisis there would very likely come

  relenting, and tenderness, and comparative calm. She went out to make some tea,

  and when she returned with the tray in her hands, Janet had dried her eyes and

  now turned them towards her mother with a faint attempt to smile; but the poor

  face, in its sad blurred beauty, looked all the more piteous.

  "Mother will insist upon her tea," she said, "and I really think I can drink a

  cup. But I must go home directly, for there are people coming to dinner. Could

  you go with me and help me, mother?"

  Mrs Raynor was always ready to do that. She went to Orchard Street with Janet,

  and remained with her through the day?comforted, as evening approached, to see

  her become more cheerful and willing to attend to her toilette. At half-past

  five everything was in order; Janet was dressed; and when the mother had kissed

  her and said good-by, she could not help pausing a moment in sorrowful

  admiration at the tall rich figure, looking all the grander for the plainness of

  the deep mourning dress, and the noble face with its massy folds of black hair,

  made matronly by a simple white cap. Janet had that enduring beauty which

  belongs to pure majestic outline and depth of tint. Sorrow and neglect leave

  their traces
on such beauty, but it thrills us to the last, like a glorious

  Greek temple, which, for all the loss it has suffered from time and barbarous

  hands, has gained a solemn history, and fills our imagination the more because

  it is incomplete to the sense.

  It was six o'clock before Dempster returned from Rotherby. He had evidently

  drunk a great deal, and was in an angry humour; but Janet, who had gathered some

  little courage and forbearance from the consciousness that she had done her best

  to-day, was determined to speak pleasantly to him.

  "Robert," she said gently, as she saw him seat himself in the dining-room in his

  dusty snuffy clothes, and take some documents out of his pocket, "will you not

  wash and change your dress? It will refresh you."

  "Leave me alone, will you?" said Dempster, in his most brutal tone.

  "Do change your coat and waistcoat, they are so dusty. I've laid all your things

  out ready."

  "O, you have, have you?" After a few minutes he rose very deliberately and

  walked up-stairs into his bedroom. Janet had often been scolded before for not

  laying out his clothes, and she thought now, not without some wonder, that this

  attention of hers had brought him to compliance.

  Presently he called out, "Janet!" and she went up-stairs.

  "Here! Take that!" he said, as soon as she reached the door, flinging at her the

  coat she had laid out. "Another time, leave me to do as I please, will you?"

  The coat, flung with great force, only brushed her shoulder, and fell some

  distance within the drawing-room, the door of which stood open just opposite.

  She hastily retreated as she saw the waistcoat coming, and one by one the

  clothes she had laid out were all flung into the drawing-room.

  Janet's face flushed with anger, and for the first time in her life her

  resentment overcame the longcherished pride that made her hide her griefs from

  the world. There are moments when by some strange impulse we contradict our past

  selves? fatal moments, when a fit of passion, like a lava stream, lays low the

  work of half our lives. Janet thought, "I will not pick up the clothes; they

  shall lie there until the visitors come, and he shall be ashamed of himself."

  There was a knock at the door, and she made haste to seat herself in the

  drawing-room, lest the servant should enter and remove the clothes, which were

  lying half on the table and half on the ground. Mr Lowme entered with a less

  familiar visitor, a client of Dempster's, and the next moment Dempster himself

  came in.

  His eye fell at once on the clothes, and then turned for an instant with a

  devilish glance of concentrated hatred on Janet, who, still flushed and excited,

  affected unconsciousness. After shaking hands with his visitors he immediately

  rang the bell.

  "Take those clothes away," he said to the servant, not looking at Janet again.

  During dinner, she kept up her assumed air of indifference, and tried to seem in

  high spirits, laughing and talking more than usual. In reality, she felt as if

  she had defied a wild beast within the four walls of his den, and he was

  crouching backward in preparation for his deadly spring. Dempster affected to

  take no notice of her, talked obstreperously, and drank steadily.

  About eleven the party dispersed, with the exception of Mr Budd, who had joined

  them after dinner, and appeared disposed to stay drinking a little longer. Janet

  began to hope that he would stay long enough for Dempster to become heavy and

  stupid, and so to fall asleep down stairs, which was a rare, but occasional

  ending of his nights. She told the servants to sit up no longer, and she herself

  undressed and went to bed, trying to cheat her imagination into the belief that

  the day was ended for her. But when she lay down, she became more intensely

  awake than ever. Everything she had taken this evening seemed only to stimulate

  her senses and her apprehensions to new vividness. Her heart beat violently, and