“Oh, you must have heard something from William about it all. Thank you for being my champion, but I only want to be reconciled to my aunt and uncle, and trust I shall be.”
“Very well. I shall say no more about it to you, in deference to your feelings. If I have learned anything in the past few months, it is that family ties are not to be despised. Your brother’s friendship was a great blessing to me, by the bye, and I think I even owe my life to him for his attentions to me when I was struck down by fever.”
“William told me he feared that you would expire in the little attic at my father’s house, with only Betsey to care for you!”
“Betsey was an excellent nurse and companion, Miss Price. I recognize a fellow scribbler in her. She has a capital imagination and a taste for the Gothic. She entertained me with stories about a horrible apparition that haunted your father’s household, a creature that was banished shortly before my arrival, who gave your family no rest by day or by night. She had the eyes and claws of a cat, and she was called the ‘An’norris’—”
Fanny began laughing so heartily that tears sprang to her eyes, and Mr. Gibson paused, gratified but perplexed, doubting whether the flow of his wit, alone, could account for his fair companion’s mirth.
* * * * * *
Edmund often had the sensation of being a spectator at a play, but the play was in fact his own life. The Act I curtain arose on a happy married couple at their little breakfast table. His wife Mary ably directed the servants; they were gratified to learn from her all the little ways of arranging a home and setting out a meal, so as to distinguish their household in elegance and refinement from all their neighbours; they were pleased to think of themselves as serving the master and mistress who set the mode for the parish and who would one day be a baronet and his lady! The husband read his paper and answered his wife’s thoughtful questions about the news of the day and of the parish, she enquired after his comfort and asked, what could she do to help her husband serve his parishioners today? Was there a family stricken with illness? Whom could she visit to bring succour?
In Act II, after breakfast, husband and wife went about their daily duties; he to his study to write and prepare for Sunday, or else he visited his parishioners; she turned to her many tasks as mistress of the parsonage, in which her performance was beyond reproach, or if there was a reproach to be made, it was that she was too extravagant as regards ordering improvements for her husband’s comfort—now that the alterations were nearly finished for the front of the house, she set about re-doing the offices, to make them modern, larger and better equipped.
On these fine September days, she would urge her husband to go riding with her; and, when he could not think of an excuse to refuse, he would yield, for she had no one else to ride with, and they would set out together while she exclaimed on the beauty and freshness of the countryside. In the evening, after tea, she sometimes played the harp for him, which softened his heart toward her as nothing else could, recalling as it did those days, twelve months ago, when he had fallen in love with her.
Act III saw the happy couple alone together, retiring for the night, and as the lights were extinguished, the minister’s wife became an altogether different woman, a woman who had acquired, somehow, skills and knowledge which kept Edmund in thrall to her, and the final curtain often found him, the sole observer of the play, staring into the darkness, while his wife slept sweetly beside him, clinging to his arm.
His was a special kind of torment. He could not persuade himself that all was well between them, nor could he maintain a coldness and reserve toward one whom he had vowed to love and to cherish, who was such an excellent helpmeet by day and such a temptress by night, but his esteem for her was severely shaken. Further, he did feel, and perhaps would always feel, guilt over his hasty challenge of her brother Henry and the string of blunders that led to his death.
As one who preached the gospel, he knew that he was to ask for and practise forgiveness, but he also felt his wife should atone to Fanny, and he dreaded a resumption of those reproaches and recriminations that had revealed his wife’s malignant view of the events of the past few months. He did not raise the subject, excusing himself on the grounds that he and his wife were still wearing mourning ribbons for her brother, and tender subjects should be set aside for a time.
The worst of all was, he could confide his regrets to no other person.
He was a clergyman; and even if divorce had been within his reach, as far as the law went, he would not resort to it. It was a trial on him, a very severe trial of his principles, and one which, as much as possible, for her sake and his, he would not expose to the world. It was as a hair shirt
