“When you was courting me, you could bring yourself to say my name without a sneer, I do recollect.”
“Oh, yes—who would not take pleasure in coupling the super-fine, elegant name of Honoria with, with—Blodgett! Honoria Blodgett! Honoria Blodgett! There is a music in the sound! Well, my dear, now that we are fettered together for all eternity, I trust you are not unhappy to exchange your initials for mine? I think you were delighted to seal your end of the bargain and sign ‘Blodgett’ for the last time on our wedding articles.”
“As you were delighted to receive my father’s settlement on me!”
“Alas, my charming simpleton, you can leave the name behind, but you can never leave your origins behind. You betray yourself with every movement, every word, in every choice that your taste, if it can be so called, dictates in the way of dress, hair and ornament. How do you contrive to spend so much money to so little good effect?”
Wounded silence was his wife’s only rejoinder and to Fanny’s infinite relief, Mrs. Butters interposed, “pray, Mr. Smallridge, when do you think the new stables will be completed?” To Fanny’s astonishment, her host took up the new theme as though his insults to his wife were not still hanging heavy in the air in front of them all, and horses and stables, paddocks and breeding, formed the balance of the conversation until the ladies withdrew. Fanny soon excused herself to take a solitary cup of tea in the schoolroom, leaving Mrs. Smallridge to recover her dignity in the company of her aunt and the other female guests. While Mrs. Smallridge gave no indication that she resented Fanny for being singled out for praise, Fanny could not believe that her company could be wanted.
Sheltered as she had been, Fanny could not even conceive of a married couple who saved their bitterest upbraidings for just such times as there were witnesses to hear them. Fanny was accustomed to the measured, steady tones of her uncle regulating the discourse at every family dinner. She had never seen him affected by strong drink. Her cousin Tom only grew more jovial after his customary half bottle, while Edmund was nearly indifferent to ardent spirits and never overindulged. She had vague memories of her own father, and his horrid breath after he returned from drinking punch with his old sailing comrades, but in her childish recollections his voice, though invariably loud and alarming to one of her tender sensibilities, was not raised in anger, and while he had often spoken his irritation at one or another of his children, and predicted their sorrowful but deserved ends, his tone had never betrayed true vexation or malice.
Mr. Smallridge’s cruelty, his suddenly unleashed vituperation, was something new, something she had heard of but never witnessed—the abrupt change of temperament, the sudden gathering of the storm clouds, unpredictable and unwanted, which can sometimes be averted but more frequently must be endured. She was to be the unwilling witness to a number of family quarrels in the ensuing weeks; there were raised voices echoing in the hallways, frosty silences in the evening when they gathered in the parlour, all of which gave rise to the conviction on Fanny’s part that no woman would knowingly marry a man of such temperament. No material comforts or elevation in the world could compensate for the uncertain footing the wife of such a man must endure, not knowing from one night to another if she was to be praised and caressed, or insulted and belittled, studying in vain for the secret which would enable her to obtain the former and prevent the latter. Such a woman must harden herself to ignore his insults as proceeding from nothing more than the overthrow of his reason by liquor, and, if she was at last successful in becoming indifferent to her husband’s censure, would inevitably become disgusted with his praise. Once a wife lost respect for her husband, or a husband for his wife, no true sympathy or confidence could exist between them, to say nothing of more tender feelings. The sight of such domestic unhappiness, so readily avoidable by common sense, decorum, and good principles, even where true affection did not exist or had subsided, gave Fanny much material for meditation.
Fanny’s reflections enabled her to regard Mrs. Smallridge with even more sympathy than heretofore. Fanny now understood her bitter remarks, her suspicious air, her discontent when Mr. Smallridge was away from home and her cold demeanour when he returned.
She would not have wanted to trade places with her mistress, no, and if a sympathetic genie suddenly appeared and offered to whisk away the school-room, the tedious sameness of the long mornings bent over multiplication tables and map puzzles, the long evenings without intelligent companionship and only the prattle of the nursery maid for company, in exchange for being thus harnessed, she believed she would decline and send him back to his lamp.
The faults of her host only served to summon to her mind more frequently the perfections of Edmund, and it was with more poignancy, more tender gratitude, that she contemplated every moment she had spent in his company. His even temper, his rational and well-judging mind, his candour, his quiet wit, his gentleman-like courtesy, coupled with his unaffected delight in all that elevated the mind, such as music, poetry, and nature—all taken together, was to Fanny a portrait of masculine perfection. When her mind wandered, as it frequently did, to scenes of the past, she could sometimes fancy him suddenly appearing before her, entering the schoolroom, or, when she walked on the terrace with Caroline and Edward, she imagined his form, far in the distance yet instantly recognizable to her, astride a horse, drawing ever nearer, until at last he was close enough to bend down to greet her. Their eyes would meet and his expression would tell her that he understood everything and
