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MRS. REDMAIN.
In the autumn the Redmains went to Durnmelling: why they did so,
I should find it hard to say. If, when a child, Hesper loved
either of her parents, the experiences of later years had so
heaped that filial affection with the fallen leaves of dead hopes
and vanished dreams, that there was now nothing in her heart
recognizable to herself as love to father or mother. She always
behaved to them, of course, with perfect propriety; never refused
any small request; never showed resentment when blamed--never
felt any, for she did not care enough to be angry or sorry that
father or mother should disapprove.
On the other hand, Lady Margaret saw great improvement in her
daughter. To the maternal eye, jealous for perfection, Hesper's
carriage was at length satisfactory. It was cold, and the same to
her mother as to every one else, but the mother did not find it
too cold. It was haughty, even repellent, but by no means in the
mother's eyes repulsive. Her voice came from her in well-balanced
sentences, sounding as if they had been secretly constructed for
extempore use, like the points of a parliamentary orator.
"Marriage has done everything for her!" said Lady Malice to
herself with a dignified chuckle, and dismissed the last shadowy
remnant of maternal regret for her part in the transaction of her
marriage.
She never saw herself in the wrong, and never gave herself the
least trouble to be in the right. She was in good health, ate,
and liked to eat; drank her glass of champagne, and would have
drunk a second, but for her complexion, and that it sometimes
made her feel ill, which was the only thing, after marrying Mr.
Redmain, she ever felt degrading. Of her own worth she had never
had a doubt, and she had none yet: how was she to generate one,
courted wherever she went, both for her own beauty and her
husband's wealth?
To her father she was as stiff and proud as if she had been a
maiden aunt, bent on destroying what expectations from her he
might be cherishing. Who will blame her? He had done her all the
ill he could, and by his own deed she was beyond his reach. Nor
can I see that the debt she owed him for being her father was of
the heaviest.
Her husband was again out of health--certain attacks to which he
was subject were now coming more frequently. I do not imagine his
wife offered many prayers for his restoration. Indeed, she never
prayed for the thing she desired; and, while he and she occupied
separate rooms, the one solitary thing she now regarded as a
privilege, how could she pray for his recovery?
Greatly contrary to Mr. Redmain's unexpressed desire, Miss
Yolland had been installed as Hesper's cousin-companion. After
the marriage, she ventured to unfold a little, as she had
promised, but what there was yet of womanhood in Hesper had
shrunk from further acquaintance with the dimly shadowed
mysteries of Sepia's story; and Sepia, than whom none more
sensitive to change of atmosphere, had instantly closed again;
and now not unfrequently looked and spoke like one feeling her
way. The only life-principle she had, so far as I know, was to
get from the moment the greatest possible enjoyment that would
leave the way clear for more to follow. She had not been in his
house a week before Mr. Redmain hated her. He was something given
to hating people who came near him, and she came much too near.
She was by no means so different in character as to be repulsive
to him; neither was she so much alike as to be tiresome; their
designs could not well clash, for she was a woman and he was a
man; if she had not been his wife's friend, they might, perhaps,
have got on together better than well; but the two were such as
must either be hand in glove or hate each other. There had not,
however, been the least approach to rupture between them. Mr.
Redmain, indeed, took no trouble to avoid such a catastrophe, but
Sepia was far too wise to allow even the dawn of such a risk.
When he was ill, he was, if possible, more rude to her than to
every one else, but she did not seem to mind it a straw. Perhaps
she knew something of the ways of such gentlemen as lose
their manners the moment they are ailing, and seem to consider a
headache or an attack of indigestion excuse sufficient for
behaving like the cad they scorn. It was not long, however,
before he began to take in her a very real interest, though not
of a sort it would have made her comfortable with him to know.
Every time Mr. Redmain had an attack, the baldness on the top of
his head widened, and the skin of his face tightened on his
small, neat features; his long arms looked longer; his formerly
flat back rounded yet a little; and his temper grew yet more
curiously spiteful. Long after he had begun to recover, he was by
no means an agreeable companion. Nevertheless, as if at last,
though late in the day, she must begin to teach her daughter the
duty of a married woman, from the moment he arrived, taken ill on
the way, Lady Malice, regardless of the brusqueness with which he
treated her from the first, devoted herself to him with an
attention she had never shown her husband. She was the only one
who manifested any appearance of affection for him, and the only
one of the family for whom, in return, he came to show the least
consideration. Rough he was, even to her, but never, except when
in absolute pain, rude as to everybody in the house besides. At
times, one might have almost thought he stood in some little awe
of her. Every night, after his man was gone, she would visit him
to see that he was left comfortable, would tuck him up as his
mother might have done, and satisfy herself that the night-light
was shaded from his eyes. With her own hands she always arranged
his breakfast on the tray, nor never omitted taking him a basin
of soup before he got up; and, whatever he may have concluded
concerning her motives, he gave no sign of imagining them other
than generous. Perhaps the part in him which had never had the
opportunity of behaving ill to his mother, and so had not choked
up its channels with wrong, remained, in middle age and illness,
capable of receiving kindness.
Hesper saw the relation between them, but without the least
pleasure or the least curiosity. She seemed to care for nothing--
except the keeping of her back straight. What could it be, inside
that lovely form, that gave itself pleasure to be, were a
difficult question indeed. The bear as he lies in his winter
nest, sucking his paw, has no doubt his rudimentary theories of
life, and those will coincide with a desire for its continuance;
but whether what either the lady or the bear counts the good of
life, be really that which makes either desire its continuance,
is another question. Mere life without suffering seems enough for
most people, but I do not think it could go on so for ever. I can
not help fancying that, but for death, utter dreariness would at
length master the healthiest in whom the true life has not begun
to shine. But so satisfying is the mere earthly existence to some
at present, that this remark must sound to them bare insanity.
Partly out of compliment to Mr. Redmain, the Mortimers had
scarcely a visitor; for he would not come out of his room when he
knew there was a stranger in the house. Fond of company of a
certain kind when he was well, he could not endure an unknown
face when ho was ill. He told Lady Malice that at such times a
stranger always looked a devil to him. Hence the time was dull
for everybody--dullest, perhaps, for Sepia, who, as well as
Redmain, had a few things that required forgetting. It was no
wonder, then, that Hesper, after a fort-night of it, should think
once more of the young woman in the draper's shop of Testbridge.
One morning, in consequence, she ordered her brougham, and drove
to the town.
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