Edmund Yates

“ Guy on so prided himself in having brought about was no love-match; that Streightley was by no means the kind of man to have awakened any passion in the breast of such a woman as Katharine; and that when any strong opposing influence might be brought into play, his tenure on her fealty would be slight indeed. The only thing that puzzled Yeldham was, how the marriage had been managed, and how Kate's consent to it had been obtained. Unless Gordon Frere's vanity was most self-deceptive, this girl had undoubtedly been hotly in love with him within an ace of her engagement to Streightley. ”

“ The future process by which they were to be planted, and watered, and given increase, would be full of pain no doubt, as every such process of cultivation of the human soul must be; in those early days at Middlemeads it had not begun. The joyous, gracious manner which shed sunshine into her husband's heart was but the ebullition of Katharine's girlish pleasure, and the natural demonstration of a perfectly well-bred woman, to whom it was pleasant to be gracefully grateful, and to whom polished prettiness of speech was "free as bird on branch." ”

“ She might live it down, it would probably pass away; under different circumstances, and surrounded by all the luxuries that money could purchase, the haunting memory of the past might soon be laid at rest; but there are few men, let us hope, who on their wedding-days have, as Robert Streightley had on his, to face the conviction that not merely the love but the tolerance of his wife had yet to be won by him, and that between them lay a mine, partly of his own preparation, any accidental spark blown on to which would shatter their happiness for ever. ”

“ She would acknowledge that Hester had many attractions other than her wealth; she would acknowledge her fair share of beauty, her talents, her good manners, the numerous charms which might easily secure a genuine attachment. She was ready to believe that Gordon Frere might really love Hester; and the more ready, as she had reason to know the shallowness and fickleness of his nature. "I daresay he cares for her as much as he cared for me," Katharine thought; "and in this case he can afford to indulge his fancy,--in mine he could not. ”

“ In the timidity of his sore conscience, he felt that it was a great thing to be strengthened by the presence of a person unconscious and unsuspicious of the means by which his success had been effected, and who had welcomed it on its own merits. So little did he understand his wife's proud isolation of heart, that he mistook her courtesy to her guest for respect for her opinion, and looked to Lady Henmarsh's aid in gaining Katharine's heart as ardently as he had hailed her support in his suit for her hand. ”

“ No human being could ever have guessed at the exultation with which Hester Gould had entered upon the possession of her fortune; no human being could ever have divined the intense secret pleasure which every day's enjoyment of it gave her. But what was it all to this? What was it all to the strange new delight, the sweet subtle hope that stole upon her now? Not until she had thought long, deeply, delightfully, over every little incident of the evening, did Hester's mind revert to Katharine Streightley ”

“ But long before luncheon, in fact within a minute of the phaeton's stopping, Mr. Guyon had descended into the ring and learned the latest odds about Devilskin. There, in the bawling, fighting, seething, jostling crowd, he made his way, listening to scraps of information given to him now and then by men who muttered mysteriously behind their betting-books, or took off their hats to whisper behind them into Mr. Guyon's ear. It was all right,--nothing to touch him; fit to run for a man's life, Sir Harvey had said that very morning. ”

“ At least he would deserve her love, if unlimited indulgence, if ceaseless observance, if the gratification of every wish, every fantasy could merit it. At least he would atone---- And when Robert's meditations reached that point they were apt to become very uncomfortable, and he would fall back upon the recollection of his wealth, and of all that he intended to do with it solely for Katharine's benefit and pleasure, and he would say in his heart, "At all events, Frere could have given her nothing that she values; for she likes luxury and pleasure--she is quite a woman of the world." ”

“ Guyon in Queen Anne Street, had been of late leading such an easy life--had had so much time for the enjoyment of social carouses at his club, for the cultivation of female society, for the promotion of the growth of his whiskers, and other large-souled pursuits--had, above all, been enabled to indulge in his favourite luxury of lying in bed late o' mornings to such an extent since his young mistress's marriage, that he received his master's announcement that breakfast for two must be ready at nine o'clock the next morning with disgust which he felt it difficult to restrain. ”

“ Curiosity, interest, and the spontaneous admiration which he was certain to excite in every woman whom he addressed, had been the first feelings with which Hester Gould had regarded Gordon Frere on that evening. Before she entered the carriage to which he escorted her and Lady Henmarsh, her admiration had increased, her interest had deepened. The calm, well-governed heart, which held itself aloof from passion, and had never loved any living being entirely without calculation and caution, had been surprised, like the weakest, like the least-guarded. ”

“ She had found herself admitted at once into the best of the society in which Katharine Guyon had moved before her marriage, and the circle was constantly expanding. Lady Henmarsh was more popular as the chaperone of a well-looking and richly-dowered heiress than as the chaperone of a well-connected beauty with no money, and a detrimental though pleasant papa. Miss Guyon's remarkably sensible and commendable marriage had also shed reflected glory upon Lady Henmarsh ”

“ He really seems afraid of every mortal thing he says and does, lest he may offend her; and I don't think she's bad-tempered either. I'm sure I hope not, for Robert has never had to put up with a bad temper, and he'd be sure to be miserable. O Hester!" said Ellen, with a sudden gush of feeling, "what should we do if she did not make Robert happy!"
Miss Gould replied in rather a hard voice: "But there's no danger of that, is there, Ellen? Miss Guyon is very handsome, and very fashionable, and very clever; and your brother is--what is the proper phrase?--desperately in love with her, is he not?" ”

“ To be so passionately admired by one's own husband was not unpleasant. Katharine was quite aware that it was not a very common case. Their carriage fell into the line; the light of many lamps was flitting about. She threw her cloak off the arm that bore the bracelet, and admired the splendid jewel, rippling with many-coloured light:
"It is extremely beautiful, Robert," she said. ”

“ Plainly put, she knew the truth to be, that she was revenging on the man who had given her a brilliant and enviable position before the world; who had effectually screened her from scorn and malice, and made her an object of envy instead; the man who loved her with a fervour of admiration and devotion which served only to provoke and embitter her,--the deadly injury inflicted upon her by another, the baseness of whose conduct every womanly instinct should have taught her to requite with contempt. She had done Robert Streightley the tremendous wrong of marrying him without loving him ”

“ For the present no such discovery was within the reach of calculation or apprehension, and Robert revelled in the new-born graciousness of Katharine's manner and in the revival of her girlish brightness. A little sense of duty now; a little of that training in principle, that discipline in well-doing, which only a mother's care, or that of a woman fitted to replace a mother, can bestow; and a life of happiness and usefulness might have begun for Katharine. ”

“ Mrs. Stanbourne could not have thoroughly understood Mr. Guyon, had she had ever so favourable an opportunity of detecting him; but she despised him intuitively, and had often taken herself to task for the unreasoning dislike with which he inspired her.
"My dear Kate, what quantities of money you spend on furniture!" said Mrs. Stanbourne to Katharine, a day or two before she left Middlemeads. She had entered the morning-room, and found Mrs. Streightley looking over an upholsterer's pattern-book; while a "young man" stood by, awaiting her decision and her orders. ”

“ Streightley met Gordon Frere frequently during the remainder of the month of June. She met him at balls and dinner-parties, at fêtes and promenades, and riding in the Park. She was distantly civil on these occasions; and he carefully, but reluctantly, modelled his demeanour on hers. "She is so awfully stiff and standoffish," he would say to himself, when Katharine had bowed to him coldly or spoken in a tone of icy indifference; "it seems almost as if she couldn't forgive herself. I'm sure I forgive her; more than that,--by Jove! I'm very much obliged to her. ”

“ She had so shrunk from announcing her marriage to her, that Mr. Guyon had found himself obliged to undertake that very unpleasant task; a substitution which had surprised Mrs. Stanbourne much and hurt her a little; but she was a woman in whose disposition the small susceptibilities born of self-love had not much place, and she put the light mortification aside, and wrote to Katharine just such a kind motherly letter as, under other circumstances, would have added to the happiness of a bride. ”

“ The Irish gentleman of good birth and vanished fortunes, who comes to London with just sufficient money to pay his entrance-fees to a fashionable club, to keep a garret in St. Alban's Place, and to hire a hack for the season from a livery-stable, and goes in to win the heart, or at all events the hand, of an heiress, gets to work at once, finds his coup manqué ever so many times during one season, and soon begins to look upon his rejection as a mere matter of chance, and falls back on the grand principle of "better luck next time." ”

“ Katharine believed that she had discovered life to be a swindle, and that she should never more be deceived. This was already a sufficiently lamentable effect of the disappointment she had sustained. With such a character, what might not result from a discovery of the whole truth--from a discovery that the man she loved had never been false to her, and that the marriage into which she had entered in self-defence was the basest of transactions! ”

“ Hester is not beautiful like you, so that every one must acknowledge and no one can deny her beauty; but I love her face. And she is very clever, wonderfully clever. Robert, have you never told Katharine about Hester? She used to be quite one of ourselves, you know. She knows all about you, Katharine, and takes the greatest interest in you. ”

“ Before Katharine's eyes closed that night, after her long vigil of remembrances and reflections, she knew that she should, in all the future, meet Gordon Frere without any painful emotion, beyond a little irrepressible contempt.
She was soon put to the test; for the acquaintance between Frere and Lady Henmarsh progressed rapidly; and Katharine was not spared the sight or the mention of him. Lady Henmarsh would not have put herself out of her way to annoy Katharine, but she was not unwilling to do so when it happened to come in her way ”

“ It was her conduct towards Robert which she really feared to find exposed to the keen, unembarrassed scrutiny of Mrs. Stanbourne, whom she knew to be a woman incapable of trifling with the ideal of duty either in theory or in practice. That she would discern her to be a wife without love for her husband, without gratitude for all his affection and observance, without sympathy for his tastes, observance of his wishes, or consideration for his feelings; a woman hardened, wilful, and selfish ”

“ I do not think Hester ever cared for any one; she gave all her mind, she used to say, to her work. But O, Katharine, how nice it is to think that she can marry a man as poor as Decimus now, if she likes!--that is the only thing that makes it worth while to be an heiress, is it not? ”

“ Thacker was unfeignedly pleased when he learned from the voice of rumour that the shipowner's heiress was becoming quite the fashion, and when he perceived by her brightened expression, her fresher colour, and the added vivacity of her manner and bearing, that Miss Gould entered with sincere enjoyment into the pleasures within her reach. A youth of well-concealed ambition, of self-repression, of toil, had not hardened and deadened and narrowed her, as it might have done a weaker nature ”

“ She was very much pleased, and perhaps a little proud, with that beautiful vicarious pride of mothers, to think of her son in the dignified position of a country gentleman, owning a fine estate, and holding his head high among men. She should be glad to see his beautiful and luxurious home; but the comfortable Brixton villa satisfied all her individual wishes. She would not be present at her son's wedding, she would be out of her place among the other guests there; but he should go forth that day with his mother's fervent blessing, and his marriage should be hallowed by her prayers. ”

“ To Katharine, therefore--who had not, since she left the elegant establishment in which she had acquired all the graces with which nature had not previously supplied her, had any more congenial companion for the hours not absolutely demanded by society than Lady Henmarsh--the novelty of such a friendship as that offered her by Ellen Streightley possessed an ineffable charm. ”

“ Lady Henmarsh perceived the state of the case clearly; but as she had no feelings to be hurt in the matter, she took very kindly to a hearty dislike of Katharine.
"It is a comfort to know that Ned has got what he wanted, at all events," she thought, as she looked at the moody frown which had come over Katharine's countenance as she spoke the last sentences; "and if she's fool enough to filer le parfait amour with this City lout and all his kin, or hypocrite enough to pretend to do so, so much the better,--things will be easier for Ned, and that's the main point." ”

“ When Hester looked from the bride to the bridegroom, she acknowledged, too, that no external incongruity was evident. Robert Streightley looked like a self-possessed gentleman; not very handsome, not strikingly elegant, but not too much inferior to the beautiful girl whom he led away, in a few minutes, his wedded wife. It was quickly done and over, and the crowd was pressing round the carriages, and peering into the aisle of the church. Mr. Guyon, the very picture of gaiety and juvenility, led out Lady Henmarsh, quite affected, and remarkably well-dressed ”

“ Better the old desk and the long "treadmill"--better the flirtations with attorneys, and billets-doux from Bedford Row, all of which have some satisfactory result, at least, than the pinning of your faith on a woman's word, and the breaking of your heart by a woman's tricks! After all, it was perhaps better that such a girl should have married such a man as Robert Streightley. ”

“ His steadiness would guide and control her; his wealth would enable her to indulge her taste for extravagance; and her dash and beauty would give pleasant status amongst his acquaintance. Nothing of that kind could have happened had she married poor Gordon Frere. Both young, extravagant, and reckless; both accustomed to have their own way; both fond of flirtation; neither understanding the theory of "give and take"--dear me! dear me! thought Charley Yeldham to himself, when the honeymoon was over, that would have been a disastrous business and a wretched ménage. ”