Patience by Barbara Hofland (ebook offline reader .TXT) 📖
- Author: Barbara Hofland
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as it was six weeks since she left the parlour, that the evening had
passed very slowly, she had been nearly wrapping herself up and coming
over the way to them.”
“I should have been exceedingly angry if you had.”
“Angry!” said Dora, faintly.
“Yes, very angry, it would have been highly improper, and what I
certainly should not forgive.”
The tone in which the last words were uttered was silencing, from its
loudness and asperity, and Dora was left to consider whether the
impropriety spoken of was relating to the state of her own health, (in
which case it was a kindness,) or to the liberty of intruding uninvited,
on a woman who was a constant visitant at all hours in her house; but
under any circumstance she could not fail to see that a decided
preference was given to the company of Mrs. Masterman, and that to
contribute to her amusement was considered paramount to the duty of
cheering one who had so lately been a sufferer, and still more lately, a
supplicant for his convenience and that of his friend.
The following day, Dora laid the money upon the table, and in a playful,
yet somewhat impressive voice, repeated the admonition of Mr. Blackwell.
“‘Tis all very fine, but I shall grow rich as soon as I can, in spite of
master Blackwell’s old saws. I have no doubt of his cheating me as much
as he can, and I shall therefore do my best to keep things even by my
own gains.”
“Oh! he is a just, good man, I am sure he is.”
“You are a judge, undoubtedly, Mrs. Stancliffe—an upright judge, but
rather a young one—certainly one that may be deceived, even out of
the evidence of your senses.”
“Perhaps I may,” said Dora, with a sigh.
“I know you may.”
“But that money, my dear—is it to be put in the bank?”
“It is not. I am going into partnership with Masterman, and this is a
part of my capital.”
“Pardon me, dear Everton, but allow me to tell you that I listened with
great attention to Mr. Masterman, and I thought his scheme one that must
be a long time before it answers.”
“So it will, undoubtedly—it is certain no ghost need come to tell us
that.”
“Then why should you engage in it who have already an excellent business
in your hands, requiring all your time and more than your capital? why
should we, whose property must increase in a few years so materially, be
harrassed with new schemes, when the old and certain ones are more than
equal to our wants and which must tend to destroy all ease and pleasure,
in the best days of our existence? you know, my love, you do not like
exertion, and how excessively our last hurry annoyed you.”
“That is true; but I have promised Masterman, and I am under great
obligations in that quarter that you know nothing of—and in short”—
“If you are under obligations, repay them, my love, if you can, but not
by so terrible a medium as becoming a partner in a concern you do not
understand, and cannot manage, and which for some years will demand
money you cannot furnish, and prevent you of course from pushing the
excellent mercantile business now so flourishing—here are the bills, my
love; lend them, nay, give them to Mr. Masterman, if you like, I give
them up freely for that purpose; but pray, pray do not become his
partner,—it will harrass you to death.”
The intense anxiety, the glowing affection, the subdued, yet earnest
tones, in which Dora addressed her husband, quelled the anger and
contempt with which he at first regarded her, and was about to oppose
her interference. He felt that she was right; and it struck him that the
best thing he could do would really be to pay off the money he had been
bound for, and make an end of the business by advancing that sum. He set
out for that purpose; and this offer would have been gratefully accepted
by the husband, but on the wife finding that the proposal had originated
with Dora, with that determined ambition to triumph over her, which
had already been exercised at the risk of her own ruin, she set eagerly
about thwarting her wishes and contrived to stimulate the avarice of
Stancliffe so adroitly on the one hand, and alarm him with the fears of
discovery on the other, that he finally signed the deeds of partnership,
and thus became doubly her slave.
“Alas! he has no resolution,” thought poor Dora, as she shook her head
at the sad prospect this folly had opened to them; and the conclusion
was but too just. There was a natural inconstancy in all Stancliffe’s
feelings and pursuits, which checked alike the progress of virtue in his
conduct, and prosperity in his affairs:—he had left his business in
Smyrna half established, and his late commission from thence would
have been only half got up, if the cares of his old clerk and his
young wife had not completed them. He liked the bustle and importance,
but he hated the fatigue and perseverance called for; and even his love
for money, which was really great, failed in imposing on him any task
that wearied him, or curtailed his pursuit of pleasure and love of ease.
From this time Mr. Stancliffe lived more in the house of Mr. Masterman
than his own; yet that, was either directly or indirectly, managed
entirely by Mrs. M. whose pleasure it was to tie the young mother
entirely to her nursery, to controul her expences in every particular,
and not only subject her to restrictions, but lectures upon her domestic
economy, alike unnecessary and insulting. The husband was, however, made
the medium of all his suffering partner’s mortifications, and Dora felt
them only the harder on that account, since she understood that every
act of grace towards her was always accorded, “because Mrs. Masterman
thought it right, or had the goodness to recommend it:”—the proud, the
irritable Stancliffe, was supple as a glove on the hands of his
mistress, though unyielding as iron to the wishes of his wife.
This woman had now become established in the best society of the town;
and by the plausibility of her manners, and the perfect union which
subsisted between her and her husband, at least suspended censure, and
generally defeated scandal. There was an air of affection in her manners
to Dora in company, which deceived casual observers, who sometimes
expressed surprise at the cold, estranged air, of one who even in her
meekness could not bend to the dishonesty of feigning regard. But Dora
was now little seen—her child pined beneath the distresses which
silently consumed the mother’s heart, and her affection really tied her
to the nursery where her enemies wished her.
But this retreat was by no means so dull and uninteresting as might have
been imagined, for Frank was an intelligent, as well as affectionate
companion; and as reading was at once his sole employment and amusement,
his mind had become stored with a variety of information, which he was
proud to display for the amusement of a sister who supplied to him all
the relations of life, and fulfilled all his ideas of excellence.
Sensible that she was not properly treated, he had yet the delicacy and
good sense never to wound her by adverting to it; and happily he was a
stranger to the nature of that influence which was in full operation
against her peace. Many a time did Dora struggle for his sake to appear
cheerful, and even gain in the effort much of the composure she sought;
and although there were times when the silent tear would not be
repressed, and poor Frank would as silently wipe her eyes and his own,
till the overflowing grief of each had subsided into pensive calmness,
yet most probably on the whole, they suffered much less than the guilty
pair, who were the cause of their sorrow. In the perpetual labours of
Mrs. Masterman to act two parts in life, joined to the irritability of
her own temper, and the violence of Stancliffe’s, there was a
solicitude, toil, and anxiety, that wore her constitution, and injured
that beauty, which was to her an object of idolatry;—even the
gullibility of Dora had its inconvenience. She was perpetually
suspecting that she was suspected; and the calm dignity of endurance,
the Christian patience of Dora, which was indicative of forbearance, not
ignorance, kept her in perpetual alarm, even while she presumed upon it.
Free from all religious scruples herself, she had no criterion in her
own mind by which she could judge how far another could be influenced by
them; and she continually feared that Dora would be throwing off the
mask of submission she supposed assumed for a season, and expose her
openly. She could not conceive that a woman could exercise so much
patience, and meekness, in the hope of hiding the faults of her husband
from the world, and eventually restoring him to the paths of virtue;
still less suppose that she could receive those consolations from on
high, which enabled her to submit to the injustice of man, as a
chastisement permitted by God.
Orders again poured in from her father, and again Dora, (notwithstanding
her cares as a mother,) was placed in requisition; and as she was now
fully aware that nothing less than the most active care could answer in
their situation, she exerted herself to the utmost. It was an object
with her to remain as much behind the scenes as possible; but the
absence of her husband, the necessity of personating him at some times,
and his own anger when she had failed to do it, all compelled her to
come forward; and of course she became an object of remark and pity.
To obviate this consequence, Mrs. Masterman adroitly and industriously
spread a report, “that Mrs. Stancliffe, young as she was, had
unfortunately contracted such a love for money, and had such an
overweaning affection for her own family, that poor Stancliffe could not
prevent her from interfering with every thing which promoted her darling
objects.—She was so saving, that she had never allowed him any company
at home since she became a mother; her whole house was under rules of
economy the most ridiculously rigid, and it was evident to every one who
saw her at church, that she had bought herself no clothes since her
bridal ones:—she was a sweet young woman in her person and manners, but
Stancliffe was much to be pitied, for he was of a very different
disposition:—poor man! he would be quite lost, if it were not for the
comfort he enjoyed at her house in the society of her husband.”
Under this view of the case, it occurred to Stancliffe, one morning
after losing a game at billiards, on which he had betted considerably,
to be consoled by an allusion to his wife’s love of money. The subject
was a delicate one, because Stancliffe well knew that whatever might be
the services he required from Dora, her personal wants were never
attended to; and that under pretext of curtailing her little charities,
she had even been kept without any money;—conceiving, therefore, that
to be reproach which was meant for condolence, he replied with asperity,
on which the speaker observed—
“I meant no offence, Mr. Stancliffe; Mrs. Masterman, who knows much
better than I do, whispers every where about your wife’s
covetousness—she says you never get a good dinner but in her house,
and a great deal of
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