Volume II. The Wife CHAPTER 7.
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"I tell you, Mr. Riston, it's no use to talk to me. As I have told you a hundred times before — I am not going to let you nor anybody else make a slave of me!"
"But, Ellen, this is all folly. As a wife, you should be willing to discharge a wife's duties. You cannot expect your husband to be contented without having some place in the world that to him is really home."
"No doubt it would content his heart vastly to see me drudging away from morning till night in the kitchen."
"Don't talk so like a silly woman, Ellen! You know better."
"I am silly enough in your eyes, no doubt. A woman is usually estimated by everybody else higher than she is by her husband."
"If so, it is easily explained," Mr. Riston said, in a slightly sarcastic tone.
"How is it explained?" asked the wife, with a look of defiance.
"Because he knows her best," was coolly replied.
"Mr. Riston, I won't allow anybody to insult me!"
"Nor will I, Ellen. If anyone should insult you, let me know, and I will resent it on the instant."
"Your language and manner are insufferable, sir!"
"As is your unwife-like conduct, madam! I have borne with you until all patience is exhausted. I am sick to death of this way of living, and want to get into a house of my own. But you, from a selfish love of your own ease, refuse to perform the solemn pledges into which you entered at marriage. Your regard is all for yourself — and in no degree for your husband."
"And please, sir," retorted Mrs. Riston with spirit, "in what direction turns your regard? Is it towards me — or towards yourself? Just to gratify your peculiar notions, you would make your wife a domestic slave! Is that so very unselfish? Humph! You had better take the beam out of your own eye — before you endeavor to get the mote out of mine!"
"Ellen!" and Mr. Riston's voice was sterner, and his countenance darker than usual — "All this is the worst and vainest of trifling. For four years I have yielded to your pleasure in this matter. It has been a source of constant disturbance between us. I am resolved that it shall not remain so any longer. You may do as you like. But my course is determined. I shall go to housekeeping. If it does not suit you to become the mistress of my house, I shall hire a competent person, and confide to her the care of it."
"Oh dear!" Mrs. Riston laughed scornfully.
"Do not think, for a moment, that, in this matter, I am merely blustering," the husband said, with unusual seriousness. "It has taken me a long time to resolve upon this step. I have looked at the subject in every light. I have regarded your feelings and wishes up to the point where such a regard ceases to be a virtue. Now I feel that a woman who acts as you do, deserves not to be considered a moment by the man whom, in her marriage vows, she has cruelly deceived. I have already chosen a house."
"What!" Mrs. Riston started to her feet with a countenance deeply flushed.
"It is true, as I have told you," calmly replied her husband. "I have selected a house. If it does not meet your approval, I will defer to your wishes in the choice of one that does, if you think proper to join me in doing what I have told you it is my intention to do."
"I join you!" half shrieked the wife, bitter contempt and defiance in her tones. "I join you, indeed! No! I will die before any man shall force me into his arbitrary measure. You have mistaken your woman, let me tell you."
"And you, your man," was coldly returned.
A dead silence succeeded. The opposition and bickering of years had broken out at last into an open rupture. Mr. Riston's patience could hold out no longer against theselfishness of his wife, which did not permit her to regard his wishes or comforts in the least degree. Often before had he assumed an air of determination, in the hope that she would yield to his wishes, but with no good effect. Now, the determination was not assumed, but real. Mr. Riston had looked around him for a house, and had selected one with the fixed intention of renting and furnishing it, unless his wife should consent to go to housekeeping, and desire a different situation or style of house for a residence. The wife did not believe that he was in earnest — but in this she was mistaken. No good had resulted from yielding, on his part. He was at last resolved to use a different kind of influence.
Mrs. Riston, after the last remark of her husband, turned her back to him, and moved her chair so that she would not fall within the range of his eye. It was in the evening, and both sat moody and silent until bed-time. Mrs. Riston was indignant; and Mr. Riston firmly resolved to do what he had threatened.
On the next morning, before descending to breakfast, he said in a very calm voice — they were the first words spoken to his wife since the previous evening —
"Ellen, I wish you to consider all that I have said, as in earnest. I have the key of a house in Ninth Street, through which I went yesterday. That house I shall rent, unless you choose another, and consent to go with me into it. I will not compel you to go into any house that you do not like; but, if you do not yourself select a house, I will take the one of which I have the key, and furnish it."
Mrs. Riston made no reply. She did not even look towards her husband.
"I will give you three days to make up your mind. After that, if you still decide to persevere in your present course, I shall certainly take mine; and the evil resulting from it, must rest upon your own head."
The breakfast bell rang at the moment, and Mr. Riston left the chamber and descended to the dining room. His wife remained behind, and did not make her appearance at table during the meal.
"My dear Mrs. Riston, how do you do? I am delighted to see you so early this morning. But how grave you look! What has happened, my dear?"
This was said by Mrs. Leslie, one of the lady's particular friends, upon whom Mrs. Riston called to communicate her troubles, as soon after breakfast as she thought it right to make a call.
"O dear, Mrs. Leslie! I am in a world of trouble this morning."
"What is the matter, dear?"
"Oh, that husband of mine, the perverse creature has got into one of his tantrums again!"
"Has he?"
"Indeed he has, and he seems worse than ever!"
"What new quirk is in his head?"
"New? I wish to goodness it was something new! But it's that old notion about housekeeping; and he is stark, staring mad about it."
"Oh dear!"
"I declare, he worries the very life out of me, notwithstanding I have told him over and over again that if he talked until doomsday about it — I would not consent to become hisslave. Go to housekeeping, indeed! I have seen too many women in that horrible situation to wish to get into it myself."
"If your mind is made up about it, why give yourself so much trouble? It is only necessary to stand by your resolution, and he cannot help himself."
"So I have believed. But, would you have thought it — he is actually going to rent a house and furnish it all himself!"
"But he can't put you into it by bodily force."
"No, but he says he will hire a housekeeper to take charge of it if I don't go with him."
"Humph! That would be a pretty piece of business."
"Wouldn't it!"
"But you don't believe he is in earnest?"
"I am afraid he is. I never saw him in such a temper. I declare, his manner frightened me."
Mrs. Leslie did not know what to reply. While she sat with her eyes still upon the floor in a musing attitude, her friend resumed.
"If he does really mean to push things to extremities, I shall have to give in, because I wouldn't have people think, for the world, that we did not live upon the most affectionate terms. I am too proud to have myself the town talk. But, if he once gets the upper hand of me, there is no telling how far he may play the tyrant. That is the difficulty in the way, even after I have conquered my own will, which is no light task."
"Yes, that is to be well considered. If you give way an inch to some men, they will certainly exact the mile."
"And my husband is just one of those kind of men."
"You must yourself manage, if you do give an inch, to take three feet from somewhere else."
"That's it exactly, Mrs. Leslie! That is just what I have thought of doing. And it is to consult you about this that I have called in. But, the first question to settle is: shall I yield?"
"I think you have taken, already, a very sensible view of that subject. You do not wish to be the town talk."
"No, I do not. I dread that only a little more than giving up to my husband, a thing that a woman of spirit never should do if it is possible to avoid it. If the matter could be kept between him and I alone, I would die before I would yield an inch — but this has completely bewildered me!"
"So it would seem, if he means really to do what he says. Suppose you let him go on a little further. If he does take a house and furnish it, you can become its mistress at the last pinch, and so avoid the exposure you dread."
"Yes, but look here, Mrs. Leslie. If I consent to go to housekeeping — if I give that one inch, I must have my three feet, you know. Now where are they to come from?"
"That is for you to determine."
"With the assistance of your advice!"
"It shall be freely given; but I need some clue to your wishes."
"Let me see," mused Mrs. Riston. "How shall I thwart him? How shall I get the complete upper-hand? Where are the three feet to come from? Yes, I think I have it. He loves money, and hates to spend it; and I love it too, but only to spend it freely. If I go to housekeeping, I must have a splendid establishment."
"That's it, dear! put your hand deep into his pocket. If he will push matters so far — if the thing must be done, take care to have it done as you like."
"Trust me for that. He said if I didn't like the house he had taken, I was at liberty to choose one for myself."
"Did he? Then you have him."
"Yes! If I am to be a slave — then I will choose a splendid captivity. He shall pay for it. Before a year rolls around, if he isn't sick to death of housekeeping, I am no prophet."
Instead of wisely seeking to turn the current of Mrs. Riston's thoughts into a better channel, Mrs. Leslie encouraged her folly, and confirmed her in the mad resolution she had taken.
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