Mrs. Lewis

“ But, before this last crime had been perpetrated, Lewis was recalled to a better mind by the execrations of all the neighbouring nations, by the silence and confusion of his flatterers, and by the expostulations of his wife. He had been more than two years secretly married to Frances de Maintenon, the governess of his natural children. It would be hard to name any woman who, with so little romance in her temper, has had so much in her life. ”

“ Again Lewis paused in deep thought, his brow resting on his hand. At length he said, suddenly—
“Yes, it no doubt can be done, and shall. Now, Rose, listen to me. While I live and can work, neither my mother nor you shall do anything for your own support, or leave the rank you have held in society. You shall retain this cottage, and live as you have been accustomed to do, and as befits the widow and daughter of him that is gone.” ”

“ And Lewis—what a task had he undertaken! He who would have made any sacrifice to gratify Annie’s lightest wish must now bring the first cloud over the sunshine of her young life; he must be the means of reconciling her father and Lord Bellefield; he must, by his own act, give the woman he loved to the man he hated. The woman he loved!—had then the fear that had lain cold and heavy at his heart, that had come between him and—resignation, assumed a definite shape? did he at length own that he, the poor tutor, the paid dependent, loved the rich man’s daughter? ”

“ Lulu twined oak-leaves into wreaths, sitting at her husband's feet. I don't know whether she heard or not, but, as we discussed afterwards the various beauties of the expression, and the exquisite thoughts, Mr. Lewis leaned over and laid his hand lightly on his wife's hair. He had done it a hundred times before. But to-day she shook her head away from him, blushed angrily, and said, "Don't, William! I am not a baby!" ”

“ In 1733 Lewis was a witness to Arbuthnot's will. Pope, writing from Bath, said: ‘Mr. Lewis is a serious man, but Mrs. Lewis is the youngest and gayest lady here.’ Mrs. Lewis was for years an invalid, and her husband attended her most assiduously until her death. She was buried in Westminster Abbey on 25 Nov. 1736.
In 1737 Lewis's sight was failing, but Lord Oxford, the son of his old friend, was as kind to him as Harley had been. He lived quietly in Cork Street with an ‘old maiden niece,’ as Charles Ford calls her, for housekeeper. Pope died in 1744, and left Lewis 5l. to buy a ring. ”

“ One would almost certainly never be bored with her; and yet one could depend upon her through thick and thin. He thought of the way the crew on a ferry boat throw their ropes over the great piles as they make fast in the slip. Nancy was such a pile—but what an odious figure! He thought of her face as he had first seen it on the night of the Vernal, when, slightly flushed and smilingly expectant, she had peered into the costume closet. A couplet floated out of Freshman English into his mind—something about a countenance which had in it sweet records and promises as sweet. ”

“ To Nancy, the smile spoke a great deal more. "How fatuous you are," it said, "with your devotion to my son and to me. Let a lollypop in the way of a trip to California come along, and away you go as if you didn't have a responsibility in the world. There's a firm nature for you."
She had fled to Mrs. Norris, as always in an emergency, and, receiving reassuring words, she had gone, but not without tears and misgiving and not without an unforgettable memory of Henry's behaviour.
She had frankly discussed her Henry Problem with Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee. ”

“ And I can stand the cold and the bumpy roads and the lonely rides at night. All I need is to have you here at home to welcome me. I don't expect you to be passionate--not any more I don't--but I do expect you to appreciate my work. I bring babies into the world, and save lives, and make cranky husbands quit being mean to their wives. And then you go and moon over a Swede tailor because he can talk about how to put ruchings on a skirt! Hell of a thing for a man to fuss over!"
She flew out at him: "You make your side clear. Let me give mine. I admit all you say--except about Erik. ”

“ There was a moment’s silence, which was broken by Lewis saying abruptly, “Rose, what did my mother mean about giving singing lessons?”
“Dear, unselfish mamma!” replied Rose, “always ready to sacrifice her own comfort for those she loves! She wants, when we leave the cottage, to settle near some large town, that she may be able to teach music and singing (you know what a charming voice she has) , in order to save me from the necessity of going out as governess.”
“Leave the cottage! go out as governess!” repeated Lewis in a low voice, as if he scarcely understood the purport of her words. ”

“ Lewis was an extraordinary woman, not by reason of unusual mental endowments, but rather by reason of distinguished moral and spiritual qualities, which achieved such co-ordination and control and consecration of modest gifts, as resulted in the building up of exalted character and the accomplishment of splendid work. ”

“ Lewis, again, I have drawn as I found him, possessed of all virtues but those of action; in knowledge, in moral courage, in spiritual attainment, infinitely inferior to his wife, and depending on her to be taught to pray; giving her higher faculties nothing to rest on in himself, and leaving the noblest offices of a husband to be supplied by a spiritual director. He thus becomes a type of the husbands of the Middle Age, and of the woman-worship of chivalry. Woman-worship, ‘the honour due to the weaker vessel,’ is indeed of God, and woe to the nation and to the man in whom it dies. ”

“ Count D'Orsay offered him the sage advice: "You will not make love! You will not intrigue! You have your seat: do not risk anything! If a widow, then marry!" In August Mrs. Lewis paid a first visit to the Disraelis at Bradenham and was delighted with everything. Another visit was paid at the end of the year. Wyndham Lewis died suddenly of heart disease on 14th March 1838.
There is no doubt that Mrs. Lewis's affection for Disraeli had been steadily growing. It is said that she told a friend she was sure Disraeli cared for her, because he had made love to her in her husband's lifetime. ”

“ The boy told me himself at the gate that his name was Lewis,” reiterated Laura. “You gave him that toy!”
“I know I did. I have no children of my own; but I love children, and I often give a plaything to my little patients. Is there any harm in it?”
“Lewis is an uncommon name,” she persistently resumed, fearing she was getting the worst of the argument. “And the likeness is there!”
“Upon my word, Laura, this is very absurd! If people call their children Lewis, I cannot help it. As to the likeness—pray did Lady Jane see this astounding likeness?” ”

“ Lewis and Mr. Weeks at Banana, and received a tumultuous welcome at Underhill, whither Mr. Lewis had been constrained to bring all the girls of the household, having no one to take charge of them in his absence. He also brought Daniel Jones, the one-time squalid, sickly, outcast baby, who in a few months had developed into a sleek, tiny tyrant who imagined that the world was made for him and “wanted to be king of everybody.”
A still more touching welcome awaited Mrs. Lewis at San Salvador. The women were overjoyed by her return. ”

“ She sprang up, beseeching, "Jeff dear, you're going to stay for tea? I must run up and powder my nose."
⁠"Not until you say you're glad to see me. Child dear, we've been ambling along and---- No. You aren't a child any more. You're a woman. And if I've never been quite a man, but just a dusty office-machine, that's gone now. I've got the wind of the wilderness in my lungs. Man and woman! My woman! That's all I'm going to say now, but---- Oh my God, Claire, I do need you so!" ”

“ Lewis opened the door and went out.
“Foolish child! She will have to buy her experience of men, as her sisters buy theirs,” cried Mrs. Abington, throwing away the book.
She rose from her seat and yawned, stretching out her arms. As she recovered herself, her eyes rested on a charcoal sketch of herself in the character Sir Harry Wildair, in “The Constant Couple,” done by Sir Joshua Reynolds' pupil, Northcote. She gave a little start, then ran to the door, and called out to Mrs. Lewis, who had not had time to get to the foot of the stairs. ”

“ She escaped from Main Street, fled home.
She wouldn't have cared, she insisted, if the people had been comely. She had noted a young man loafing before a shop, one unwashed hand holding the cord of an awning; a middle-aged man who had a way of staring at women as though he had been married too long and too prosaically; an old farmer, solid, wholesome, but not clean—his face like a potato fresh from the earth. ”

“ I wish it were for ever; but we are such ungrateful mortals that we never rest satisfied with present blessings. You have been happy to-day, darling," continued Lewis, as Cora entered. "I can tell that by looking at you."
"Ay, Lewis, as merry as a cricket ever since Maggie came before me, like a good angel, this morning. Do get the girls to go out and spend the day again, my own pet sister, and gleam on Lewis and me before we begin to pine again for one of your soft kisses.".
"I wish you could put me in a cage, like a stray bird," said Margaret, with a smile of love. ”

“ Lewis's second wife, by whom he had no issue, was well known before her marriage for her pious works in France, where she founded the British and American homes for young women and children in Paris and built Christ Church at Neuilly-sur-Marne. ”

“ The way to please Lewis was never to be out of spirits or health, but the force she put upon herself for this purpose rendered her life a burthen. He was the politest of men, and always preserved for her the greatest respect; yet, as she herself complained, to "amuse a man who never can be amused," was the most perfect slavery. ”

“ Lewis is, or was (for his opinions on the subject seem to have been modified lately) , a confirmed misogynist, and I’m very glad of it. Nothing makes me more savage than to hear the confounded puppies of the present day talk about this ‘doosed fine woman’ or that ‘uncommon nice gal.’ If I happened to have a sister or any other womankind belonging to me, and they were to make free with her name in that fashion, I should pretty soon astonish some of their exquisite delicacies. ”

“ Lewis feeling thankful that he had restrained his anger ere it had led him to say words to his mother which he would have regretted deeply afterwards, and amply repaid for any effort it might have cost him by the bright smile and grateful pressure of the hand with which his sister rewarded him. Happy the man whose guardian angel assumes the form of such a sister and friend as Rose Arundel! ”

“ And what think ye she said to me? She said I needna look far ayont Bramblehaugh for a bonnier and a brawer lover."
"Then," replied Lewis, "I am not much better off than you are; for she told me that your simplicity, she feared, was art, and that your poverty made any beauty you had; and she doubted if that bonny face was not a great snare for the ruin of a penniless lover."
"Sae, sae," said she, sighing deeply; "and has the fair face o' life's friendship put on the looks o' the hypocrite at [70] the very time when greater confidence was required? ”

“ It is quite useless, Lewis, for you to contradict me because I know that it is so."
"My dear Margaret," he protested, "I don't contradict you."
"Oh yes, you do," said the lady firmly; "you wouldn't be a man if you didn't. And please, please don't pull the tarpaulin away. You can sit closer, surely!" He apologised and edged nearer to her. "I should think, Lewis," she continued, "that when you come to the end of your life the one thing with which you will have to reproach yourself most will be the unmanly way in which you broke off our engagement." ”

“ Tessie and her husband mostly have hired out together in this country for housework, and she likes that better than packing chocolates standing up, she says. Mrs. Lewis is—well, she's Indian summer, too, along with Lillian and Sadie and Fannie, only she makes no bones about it (nor does black Fannie, for that matter) . Mrs. Lewis is thin and wrinkled, with a skimpy little dust cap on her head. Her nose is very long and pointed, her teeth very false. Her eyes are always smiling. She loves to laugh. One day we were talking about unemployment. ”

“ And when you say the wives of the doctors share these jealousies----Mrs. McGanum and I haven't any particular crush on each other; she's so stolid. But her mother, Mrs. Westlake--nobody could be sweeter."
"Yes, I'm sure she's very bland. But I wouldn't tell her my heart's secrets if I were you, my dear. I insist that there's only one professional-man's wife in this town who doesn't plot, and that is you, you blessed, credulous outsider!" ”

“ Lewis had taken the matter had complicated it. He had seemed unable to imagine that an accurate knowledge of Harry’s prospects could make any difference to her feelings, and if her lover should wring a consent from his father, there would be nothing she could do short of breaking with him on her own initiative. She would be able to give no reason but the real one, and that she hardly liked to do. ”

“ Imagination, however, which at eighteen is alarmingly active, supplied all deficiencies, and Lewis continued to dream his lady-love was an angel, till one fine morning the fact of her elopement with a young German baron, who looked upon matrimony as a superfluous ordinance, induced him to alter his opinion. ”