CHAPTER II.

_Cleanthes._—She’ll be a castaway—my life upon ’t. _Hermione._—Man argues from his fiercer will, nor knows True virtue’s quality in woman’s breast. My daughter, sir, is virtuous, and virtue Will to herself subdue e’en rebel Nature. Had she been linked in love with one her choice, She had been all soul, following her wedded lord Through life’s worst perils, frankly, fearlessly; But matched, ere yet her young heart spoke, with one She cannot love, she’ll give her love to duty, And cheerful, although passionless, perform it Calmly, contentedly, nor ever dream Of joys she must not know, and so pass on Into the quiet grave.

_Old Manuscript Play._

Mr. Cresford soon found some excuse for calling upon Captain Wareham, and in the course of his visit contrived to give himself a commission to execute, which justified another visit, another and another.

Captain Wareham thought the symptoms were auspicious, and entertained some hope of honourably disposing of one daughter in marriage, but Caroline, profiting by her own experience, warned Ellen not to place any reliance on these signs of preference.

“You do not know the world yet, Ellen,” she said; “you do not know how often the same sort of thing has happened to me. Remember Major Barton last winter, and poor Mr. Astell—however, I do think he would have proposed if he had lived. Talk to Mr. Cresford as much as you please, for, as my aunt says, ‘nothing can come of nothing,’ but do not let yourself like him, till he has actually proposed. Remember what I have already told you, a woman cannot guess whether a man is in earnest or not, till he does propose.”

Ellen thought her sister was very prudent and sensible, and she resolved to follow her advice. Nor did she find the task a difficult one.

Mr. Cresford, although handsome, was not pleasing, and the very vehemence of his love rather alarmed and confused the young Ellen. This was the season of gaity at ——, and there were frequent dinners and parties among the canons and prebends. Caroline regularly asked Ellen every night, whether Mr. Cresford had proposed, and for ten days Ellen answered, “No, not quite.” Caroline continued her warnings, and Ellen her watch over her heart.

At length Mr. Cresford waited one morning upon Captain Wareham, and in good set terms asked him for his daughter’s hand. Captain Wareham accepted his proposal, and informed Ellen of the event.

There did not seem to exist a doubt in any of their minds as to what her answer would be. The whole question had been from the beginning, whether or not he would come to the point, and the lady’s privilege of saying no, seemed in that family to be utterly forgotten. Ellen was too young and too timid to discover it for herself, and she found herself the affianced wife of a man, whom a fortnight before she had never seen, and whom, during that fortnight, she had been taking care not to prefer.

The affair was decided. The lover was all rapture—Captain Wareham all satisfaction—Caroline all surprise that Mr. Cresford should have behaved in so gentlemanlike a manner, not keeping her sister in any uncertainty, but setting her mind at ease at once. She was too good-natured and too affectionate, to feel any thing like envy, but she wished Captain Barton had behaved in the same noble manner to her.

Ellen was surprised not to find herself happier on so quickly arriving at that result, which had been the object of her sister’s wishes for six years and a half. But she was afraid of Mr. Cresford. He was easily hurt, easily offended; he was expecting, and jealous; he would not allow her to go to any more of the balls; he scarcely liked to see her acknowledge, much less shake hands with, any of her former acquaintance. Ellen was subdued, rather than elated, by her approaching nuptials. Caroline one day remarked upon her unusual seriousness, and asked her if she and Mr. Cresford had not had a lovers’ quarrel.

“Oh, no,” replied Ellen; “but it is difficult, you know, sister, to love a person all at once, particularly when one has been trying not to like him at all. However, I dare say I shall soon, when I am more accustomed to him. It is not easy to do just right; for a girl is not to like a man till he proposes, and then she ought to love him very much as soon as ever she is going to be married to him.”

Mr. Cresford was the only son of wealthy parents, and was accustomed to find his wishes laws to those around him. His father had died when he was barely twenty-one, and had left him at the head of a thriving mercantile house.

He fell in love with Ellen at first sight,—he proposed at once, had been accepted, and, following the course of his own impetuous passions, was now eager that the wedding-day should be fixed. Captain Wareham had no wish to postpone it, and in three weeks more Ellen left the paternal roof as the wife of Mr. Cresford.

She was astounded and confused at the whole thing; she had not been allowed time to become attached to him, even if he had been all a maiden’s imagination could picture in its happiest day-dream. But there was a want of refinement in the headlong course of his love, a want of consideration; in fact, there was a selfishness, which did not win its way to the heart of a very modest, very young, and very sensitive girl.

In London she found herself surrounded by all the luxuries of life. She had an excellent house, a handsome equipage. He showered presents upon her—jewels and trinkets without number,—each new ornament daily invented to satisfy the caprice of the idle and the wealthy. His delight was to see his lovely bride’s beauty set off to the utmost advantage. But she must be decked out for him alone; he was annoyed if any other eyes seemed to dwell with gratification upon the loveliness which he had taken such pleasure in adorning.

Cresford had a large circle of acquaintance, not, perhaps, in the first style of fashion, but among gentlemanlike and agreeable people; persons with intellects as well cultivated, minds as refined, manners as essentially well-bred, as can be found in the highest coteries, though perhaps one of the initiated might perceive the want of that nameless grace which more than compensates for a certain coldness frequently pervading the most select _réunions_. The very fashionable are exceedingly afraid of each other. They may sometimes have been accused of insolence towards those whom they consider in a grade below themselves, but their worst enemies cannot say they do not stand in awe of each other. There was in Ellen a gentle dignity, which, combined with her extraordinary beauty, would have caused her to be distinguished in any society: of course, therefore, in this she could not but excite notice and admiration. Yet proud as Cresford was of her, anxious as he was to show to the world how lovely was the bride he had chosen for himself, he never returned from a party or an assembly without a cloud on his brow, and something restless and suspicious in his manner.

She began to fear he was constitutionally jealous. Others came to the same conclusion. Young men in all ranks of life find peculiar pleasure in tormenting a jealous husband; and not all the shrinking modesty of Ellen’s manners could prevent their openly showing the admiration they felt. She hoped, by the extreme quietness of her behaviour, to give him no cause for disquiet; but though she might avoid affording him any opportunity of blaming her, she could not prevent his being irritable and violent whenever they had mixed in any society.

She would gladly have led a very retired life, she would fain have dressed herself in a homely and unpretending style,—her whole object was to escape notice; but such was the nature of his love for her, that he was not satisfied unless her charms were set off by every ornament; and his fear of being laughed at was such, that he would not give occasion for saying he shut up his beautiful wife. Ellen was consequently obliged to mix in the world, and she learned to set a strict watch over her very looks, and to be tremblingly alive to the _on dits_ of society. She, as well as her sister Caroline, was timid in her nature; she was, moreover, shy and reserved upon all subjects connected with the feelings, and she dreaded lest his jealous fancies should ever openly burst forth, and bring blame or ridicule on either of them. She had at times stood in awe of her father, but the fear she felt of her husband was more constant and unceasing.

Still she had been accustomed to humour and to yield to a captious temper, and she considered that it was the lot of women to bear with the caprices of men. She frequently reminded herself of the gratitude she was bound to feel towards him, for having taken her portionless from her father, and for the unbounded command of money which he allowed her. She excused his jealousy on account of the passionate love he evinced for her, and she concluded the two feelings were necessarily inseparable.

His generosity on the subject of money afforded her one great pleasure, that of making various presents to her sisters, and of assisting her family in divers manners. He took her eldest brother into his mercantile establishment, and she rejoiced in having thus been the means of relieving her father from one care which pressed most heavily upon his mind.

They had been married about four years, and Ellen was the mother of two lovely children, when the peace concluded between France and England, at the period when Buonaparte was First Consul, enabled the English to flock abroad. To Mr. Cresford it was a matter of great importance to conclude some arrangement with foreign merchants. For this purpose he made up his mind to leave his wife for a month or two.

It was, however, most unwillingly that he tore himself away: it seemed as if some presentiment warned him not to depart. He postponed his journey from day to day, from week to week. At length his correspondents became impatient, and the day was fixed. He took Ellen and his children to reside with Captain Wareham during his absence, and she willingly promised to live in the strictest seclusion till his return; but it was with a melancholy foreboding that he bade her adieu, and he returned again and again to take one more last lingering look at her beautiful face, as though he felt he might never again thus gaze on it.