Married and Single CHAPTER 15.
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Mr. Trueman, on leaving the house, after the restoration of his daughter, walked slowly and thoughtfully in the direction of Mr. Corbin (the elder's) store. There he found the old gentleman, and related to him what his wife had heard, and described the condition of Edith. Corbin's face grew almost black with anger.
"Wretch!" he exclaimed, rising, and walking the floor with agitated step, "I disown him! No son of mine could act so base a part!"
When more composed in mind, he sat down, and, taking Trueman's hand, said, in an altered voice,
"My dear sir! what can I do? I love your sweet child; I have always loved her, and been proud of her. I would do anything in my power to save her even a moment's pain. But here I am helpless. My unhappy boy has almost killed me by his conduct. He is throwing himself away with a strange kind of madness. As far as I know his habits and associates— they are of the worst kind. His business has become thoroughly involved. I shall have to take it out of his hands and settle it up, at a loss of, perhaps, twenty thousand dollars. Yesterday he came to me for money to lift two or three notes, but I refused him. I thought the crisis had better come at once. He obtained the money somewhere, but he won't sustain himself for a month. He must go down. Edith is under your roof — keep her there. It will be in opposition to my wishes and my judgment — if she ever lives with him again. It is a hard case for the dear child, but it is the least of two evils."
"So I think," Trueman replied. "She shall never leave my house to go to him, unless she does it under my strong disapprobation."
But such resolutions were never put to the trial. Edith asked no explanations, expressed no wish, seemed a great part of the time but half conscious of where and what she was. For nearly two weeks she remained in bed, mournfully calm. Her mother sat constantly by her side, for the moment she rose to leave the room, Edith's eyes would turn to her with a slightly-troubled look. After that she sat up, and took charge of her babe, in which her mind had not lost its interest for a moment. But no one could look into her young face without a sad feeling. It told too plainly of a crushed and bleeding heart.
As for Corbin, he never sought his wife. He learned from the servants in the house, that she had been taken away by her mother, and that sufficed for him. For a few months after his marriage he had felt much attached to Edith, but his love for her was not strong enough to make him abandon wicked habits of life that she could not for a moment bear in her husband. For a short period, his irregularities were hidden from her — but a wife cannot be long deceived. Her first mild remonstrance was met by a stern annunciation of this law: she must not attempt to interfere with his pleasures, or expect him to be governed by any will but his own.
Coldness on his part followed this — a coldness which never entirely passed away. Giving himself up now more freely to his own evil inclinations, he sought the company that was most agreeable to him, and neglected Edith shamefully. Night after night he was away until one, two, and three o'clock; and when at home, he was silent and reserved in his manner, for he was conscious of having wronged his wife, and could neither feel nor act without constraint in her presence.
Home, as the natural result, grew less and less agreeable to him, and he stayed at home as little as possible. Smiles of welcome greeted him from wicked associates, and these were more attractive to him than the sad or tearful face of a loving, virtuous wife. Feeling and inclination, instead of principle, being his guide — he sought only to gratify himself. No thought of others ever crossed his mind. Self was, with him, the great center — and self-gratification was the great end of his life.
Such a man and such a woman could not be long happy together. There was nothing to conjoin them. What she loved — he despised, and from what he loved — she shrank with instinctive horror. No wonder that the young wife gradually changed; no wonder that they were so soon driven asunder.
Enough in detail has now been given to awaken in the mind of the reader, an interest for the young wife, so soon cast aside by a man utterly unworthy to possess a gem of such priceless value; enough to enlist his sympathies in the parents, and to enable him to appreciate the nature of the trial through which they had to pass.
Of William, their wandering child, they could hear nothing. Not a word came from him, and no effort of Mr. Trueman's, in trying to search him out, was successful. Years passed, and he was still dead to them, and so actually to all the world, as far as they knew. Indeed, both father and mother usually thought of him as no longer an inhabitant of the visible world. Yet there were times when his image would come up with more than usual distinctness — times, when they could not keep the thought of him out of their minds. Then awoke, the yearning hope that he was still alive, and would some day, as a returning prodigal, come back to the home he had forsaken.
A few months after the separation had taken place between Edith and her husband, the latter failed in business, throwing his father into heavy losses. Immediately following this, certain disclosures in regard to his evil conduct came suddenly to light, and were rumored about in the newspapers. These passed under the eye of Edith. What she suffered, no human eye ever saw. She mentioned not his name, even to her mother, nor made even the smallest allusion to the facts that had been published against him. It could easily be seen, however, that she more than half believed the disgraceful exposition. In a little while, public opinion drove him from the city, and no word of him came to disturb the heart of his wife for five years. Then his death was announced. Its real effect upon her, no one saw; externally, all was calm.
The love that was in the heart of the forsaken wife for her child, sustained her in the great trial she had to bear. From the first paralyzing effects of the shock she had received, she gradually revived under the influence of this maternal feeling, which quickened daily into more vigorous life. The duty she owed to the innocent being she had borne, and the duty she owed to parents deeply and justly beloved — caused Edith to struggle with her feelings, and keep them as much as possible out of sight, and from influencing her actions. The earnest struggles of a mind like hers, based, as it was, upon true principles — is always more or less successful. She was far more successful than her parents supposed she would be. They knew, from the first, that she would have a hard struggle, but they hoped much for the principles of truth which had been implanted in her mind from earliest years, and they did not hope in vain. These sustained her. These enabled her to lift her head above the waters which threatened to overwhelm her.
By the end of the first year of her worse than widowhood, although she had not been outside the walls of her father's house, and had been seen only by a few, and they very intimate friends — she was so quiet and cheerful, when in the presence of her father and mother, that they felt no longer afflicted on her account. Her little boy was becoming every day more and more the light of the house. In him, the grandfather and mother were living over some of the sweetest seasons of their early life.
Thus time passed on, until the expiration of the period mentioned at the opening of a chapter a few pages back. Trueman has now reached his fiftieth year, and Lane is an old bachelor, about the same age. The question naturally comes up, Who is happiest? the married man — with all his care, affliction, and anxiety; or the bachelor — who has not taken a single draught from his bitter cup? Two brief scenes, one in the life of each, will, probably, set this question in its clearest light. We will give them in the next two chapters.
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