Difference between revisions of "Volume II. The Wife CHAPTER 3."

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After the conversation between Mrs. Hartley and Florence had taken a new direction, the subject of going to housekeeping was introduced. Like Mrs. Riston, Florence was in favor of the large house in Walnut Street, and urged Anna very strongly to change her mind, and let her husband take it.

"He is able enough," she said.

"Are you right sure?"

"He ought to be. Isn't he in the firm of R. S. & Co."

"As a junior partner, I believe."

"He wished to take the house, you say?"

"At first he did."

"He ought to know better than anyone else whether he could afford to do so or not."

"True. But he now thinks, with me, that it will be wiser for us to commence housekeeping in a style less imposing."

"I must say," returned Florence, "that Mr. Hartley would have found very few women to object as you have done to a large and elegant house. I am sure the temptation would have been too much for me."

"Even if you had clearly seen that it was neither wise nor prudent to do so?"

"That might have altered the case. But I think few but yourself would have stopped to consider about wisdom and prudence."

"To their sorrow in the end, perhaps. I, for one, would much rather take an humble position in society and rise, if good fortune attend me, gradually; than, after taking a high position, be, in a few years, thrust down."

"If there is danger of that, your course was doubtless best. But why should you apprehend any such disaster?"

"I do not apprehend evil, I only act as I think wisely. My husband is a young man who has been in business only for a few years. There are now but two of us, and we do not needa very large house. For both of these reasons, it is plain to my mind that we ought to take our place in society without ostentation or lavish expenditure. It is possible that my husband may not find all his business expectations realized. I do not know what his prospects are, for I am in no way conversant with them. I only know that he had no capital of his own when he was taken into business. That he has told me. Now if he should be very successful, it will be easy for us to go up higher in a few years. If not, and we had come out in costly style — it would be a hard trial and a mortifying one to come down."

"Your good sense is always guiding you aright," Florence could not help saying. "It is best, no doubt, that you should do as you have proposed; but, there is not one in a hundred who would have exercised your prudent forethought; I am sure I could not have done it."

A few days after this, Hartley and Anna decided to take the house in Eighth Street. Then came the work of furnishing it. And here the prudent forethought of Anna was again seen. Her husband proposed to give up the whole business to a good cabinet-maker and an upholsterer, who would use their judgment and experience in such matters.

"As neither you nor I know much about these things, it will save us a world of trouble," he said.

Anna shook her head, and smiled at this remark.

A shadow instantly flitted over the brow of Hartley. It disappeared as quickly as it came, but Anna saw it. The smile vanished from her lips, and her eyes filled with tears. She felt, that, because she did not see in all things just as he did, he was annoyed.

"Am I self-willed! Do I differ with my husband from caprice?" were the self-examining questions of the young wife.

Hartley read her thoughts, and said quickly, in a voice of affection.

"You ought to know more about all these matters than I do, Anna; so you shall decide what is best to do."

"I wish to decide nothing, James. I only wish to see and decide with you in everything. You don't know how much it pains me to differ — but ought I to yield, passively, to what you suggest, if my own judgment does not approve? Ought we not to see eye to eye, in all things?"

"We ought, certainly. But I have been so long in the habit of consulting my own judgment about everything, that I am, thus early in our married life, forgetting that, now, there are two of us to decide questions of mutual interest. I thank you for so gently bringing this to my mind, and for doing so in the very outset. Without thinking whether it would meet your views or not to become the mistress of a very elegant house, I decided to rent and fit up an establishment that I already see would have afforded more trouble than comfort. Your wise objections prevented the occurrence of that evil. Again I have decided to fit up the house we have taken in a certain way, and so decided without consulting you about it. Here is my second error, and you have, like a true wife, in the gentlest possible way, given me to see that I was wrong. I thank you for these two lessons, that had much better be given now than at some future time."

Hartley bent down, and kissed the flushed cheek of his beautiful wife as he said this.

"And now, dear," he continued, "speak out freely, all you have to say. As before, your judgment will, I doubt not, show that mine was altogether at fault."

"Do not talk so, James," returned Anna, her face covered with blushes. "I desire only to see with you and act with you."

"I know that, dear; but I am not perfect. I am like all others, liable to err. And it is your duty when you clearly see me in error, to balance that error by declining to act passively with me. This I hope you will do."

Anna was humble-minded, and it pained her to hear such remarks from her husband, for whose moral and intellectual character she had the highest regard, while of herself she thought with meekness.

"Tell me, dear," Hartley said, after some time, "what is your objection to my plan of furnishing our house?"

"Mainly, to the expense."

"Do you think it would cost more than if we attended to it ourselves?"

"It would, probably, cost double, and not be arranged more perfectly, so far as comfort and convenience are concerned, than if we were to do it ourselves."

"I don't understand how that could be."

"Your cabinet-maker and upholsterer would wish to know if you wanted everything of the best; and you would assent. The best would be, no doubt, in their estimation the costliest. I saw a house once furnished in this way — a house no larger than the one we have taken. How much do you think it cost?"

"How much?"

"Three thousand, eight hundred dollars!"

"Indeed!"

"Yes. And I would agree to furnish a house with just as many comforts and conveniences on half the money."

Hartley's eyes were cast, thoughtfully, on the floor. It was some moments before anything more was said. The wife was first to speak. She did so in a timid, hesitating voice.

"Had we not better understand each other fully at once?" she said.

"By all means. The quicker we do so, the better. Is there anything in which we do not fully understand each other?"

"Before we take another step, ought not I, as your wife, to know exactly how you stand with the world in a business and financial relation? I feel that this is a very delicate subject for a wife to introduce. But can I know how to be governed in my desires — if I do not know to what extent they can be safely gratified?"

"I trust there is no desire that you can entertain, dear Anna, that I am not able and willing to gratify."

"That is altogether too vague," replied Anna, forcing a smile. "As your wife, I shall regulate the expense of your household — and I wish to do so wisely; and in order to this, it is necessary for me to have some idea of your probable income."

"It ought to be four or five thousand dollars a year; and will be, unless some unforeseen events transpire to affect our business."

Hartley seemed to say this with reluctance. And he did so, really. The inquiry grated on his feelings. It seemed to him that Anna should have felt confidence enough in him to believe that he would not propose any expenditure of money beyond what was prudent. He would hardly have thought in this way, if he had not actually proposed the very thing he tacitly condemned her for suspecting that he had done. He was not, really, so well established in the world as to be able to rent a house at seven hundred dollars, and furnish it in a costly style; nor even to give a carte blanche to a cabinet-maker and upholsterer to fit up, according to their ideas, the house he had decided to occupy.

The moment he allowed himself to think thus of his honest-minded wife, he felt an inward coldness toward her, which was perceived as quickly in her heart, as it was felt in his.

Conscious that Anna thus perceived his feelings, and unable, at the same time, to rise above them, and think with generous approval of her motives — he did not, for some time, make any effort to lift her up from the unhappy state into which she had fallen. One unkind thought was the creator of others.

"What can she mean?" he allowed himself to ask. "Is it possible that she has imagined I was rich; and now, a doubt having crossed her mind, can she be trying to find out the exact state of my affairs? I never could have dreamed this!"

Both their eyes were cast upon the floor. They sat silent, with hearts heavily oppressed. He allowing accusation after accusation to flow into his mind, and lodge there — and shedeeply distressed, from a consciousness of having been misunderstood in a matter that she felt to be of great importance, and which she had endeavored to approach with the utmost delicacy.

Some minutes passed, when better feelings produced better thoughts in the mind of James Hartley. He saw that he had been ungenerous, even cruel in his suspicions. He imagined himself in her situation, and felt how deeply her heart must be wounded.

"She is right," he said, inwardly, lifting his head, with the intention of saying that which should at once relieve Anna's mind. The first thing that met his eye, was a tear falling upon her hand. His feelings reacted strongly. Drawing an arm quickly about her neck, he pressed her head against his bosom, and, bending over, murmured in her ear,

"I am not worthy of so good a wife as you, dear Anna! What evil has possessed me, that I, who love you so truly — should be the one to make you unhappy? Surely I have been beside myself!"

Anna released herself quickly from the arm that had been thrown around her neck, and turned up to the eyes of her husband a tearful, serious, but not unhappy face.

"Oh, James! dear James!" she said, in a low, earnest, eloquent voice. "Why do you speak so? I am only weak and foolish. It is enough that we love truly. If we find it a little difficult, at first, to understand each other fully, it is no great wonder. Love, true love, will in the end harmonize all differences, and make plain to each, the other's heart. Let us be patient and forbearing."

"That you are; but I have much to learn, and you shall be my tutor."

Hartley again kissed his bride. But she looked serious.

"Not so," she returned. "It is to your intelligence that I am to look for guidance. I am to learn of you, not you of me."

"Never mind," was smilingly replied, by Hartley. "We will reverse the order for a time, until my intelligence of domestic affairs is laid upon a truer basis than it seems now to be. But I think there will be no harm in our deferring all the matters now under consideration until tomorrow. Both of us will then be able to see more clearly, feel less acutely, and determine more wisely. Do you not think so?"

Anna gave a cheerful assent to this, and the subject of conversation was changed.