Married or single?, Vol. 1 (of 3)

In a very short time Madeline West was Madeline Wynne. She was married at a little old church in the City, with no other witnesses than the verger and the clerk; and Mr. and Mrs. Wynne spent a week in Paris ere they set up housekeeping, in modest lodgings not far from the Temple, and from which, by leaning well out of the drawing-room window, and nearly dislocating your neck, you could obtain a glimpse of the Thames Embankment.

The good old days, when Traddles and Sophy lived in chambers, and entertained half a dozen of “the dear girls,” were no more. Mr. Wynne was obliged to set up his little tent outside the venerable precincts, in the second floor front of Solferino Place. To Madeline it was a palace, because it was her very own. Here she might poke the fire, alter the arrangement of the furniture, pile on coals, order tea at any time, and go out and come in as she pleased. She could scarcely realize such liberty! Neither could she realize her wedding-ring, and she frequently stared for a moment in doubt when she heard herself called “Mrs. Wynne.”

Laurence was not so poor as she imagined, for he hired a piano, bought her songs, flowers, and—oh! joy—three such pretty new dresses; he took her to the theatres, for walks in the parks (when he had time), he showed her most of the sights of London—St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, the National Gallery, and the Tower.

He was even extravagant in one line. He laid out for her a reckless amount of shillings and half-crowns on literary papers, magazines, and books. Laurence was fond of reading; she was not, and she little knew how she startled him when she exclaimed, “Besides all the other hateful things you have delivered me from, Laurence, you have delivered me from books! I never wish to open one again!”

Now Laurence had been looking forward to introducing his pretty Madeline to all the great masters in English literature, to hearing her fresh comments, to sharing her raptures, to comparing first impressions, favourite pieces, favourite characters; in short, to opening for this girl of eighteen the portals of a new world. Alas! it soon became evident that Madeline had an absolute lack of literary taste. She had a taste for music, for flowers; a marvellous taste in colours, and in dress; but for reading, as he understood it, not an atom. (At first he had had visions of reading her some sketches and articles of his own, but soon changed his mind, and kept his MS. in his writing-desk.) He read aloud well, and selected, as he believed, gems; but, unfortunately, Mrs. Wynne preferred paste!

Lamb’s essays were “quite too awfully dry.” Wordsworth was ten times worse—she could hardly stifle her yawns. And even when he was reading “Silas Marner,” and, as he considered, George Eliot’s masterpiece, he noticed that Madeline was shyly perusing the advertisements in a ladies’ newspaper. She looked so nonplussed and unhappy if he paused and suddenly asked her, “If that was not fine? and how such and such a passage struck her?”

At length he relinquished his efforts. It was time, when Madeline, with a pretty pout, said, “My dear Laurence, I might as well be at school; you are just talking like Mr. Falk, our professor of English literature. Such an ugly little mummy.”

“And to whom you never listened?”

“Not I; and I never could remember names, periods, or dates. You must make the best of me. In some ways you will find that I am hopelessly stupid.”

In spite of these tiresome readings, Madeline was thoroughly happy; there was not one single drawback, not one little cloud on her sky, if we except an occasionally heavy magazine article to which she was obliged to lend her ears. And Laurence was happy too. It was delightful to come home those dark, wet nights, and find a kiss, a blazing fire, and his pretty Madeline awaiting him. She was always smiling, always so ready to see the comic side of everything, a veritable sunbeam in that drawing-room.

“Who would be a bachelor?” he asked himself contemptuously, as he watched her flitting to and fro after dinner, pulling up his armchair and filling his pipe. If he had one little arrière pensée, it was this, that she would not always give him mutton chops, and a wish that her ideas of a menu were a little more expansive.

Nevertheless he was perfectly content. He had an incentive to work hard now, and he did work. He was getting known in a small way. He had the gift of oratory, of what is known as legal tact, a handsome presence, and the power—given to so few—of swaying men’s minds with his eloquence, as the flame of a candle in the wind. But, then, he was only twenty-eight—a mere boy in the eyes of the ancient profession, where a man begins to make a start about fifty. Still Laurence Wynne had his foot on the lower rung of the ladder. More than one shrewd solicitor had noted him. His luck had turned; his marriage had brought him good fortune, though it had scared away all his relations, and he had completely dropped out of society.

But this fool’s Paradise was not to last—it never does. The angel that opened the gate, and drove the foolish pair out into the everyday, hard, stony world was typhoid fever.

The hot summer succeeding their marriage was a trying one, and in the sultry September days typhoid fever laid hold on many victims, among others on the hard-working young barrister—seized him with a death-like grip, flung him on a sick bed, and kept him there for months.

The fever was so difficult to shake off, and it had brought so many other ills in its train. Finances were low—as they are sure to be when the bread-winner is idle. Doctors’ bills and chemists’ bills were mounting up, as well as the butcher’s and baker’s, not to speak of the landlady’s little account.

All the burden now lay upon one pair of young shoulders—Madeline’s; and, to quote a homely but expressive phrase, she absolutely did not know where to turn. She had neither money nor friends. Her husband had no capital; his slender fortune had been invested in his education and profession. And as to his friends and his distant connections, they had disowned him. When they had heard of what they were good enough to call “his low marriage with a teacher in a school,” they had washed their hands of him with wonderful unanimity. Society had lost sight of him for months; Mr. and Mrs. Wynne had no acquaintances. Poor Madeline was in terrible straits, but her courage rose with the occasion; she was brave and energetic, and did not sit down with her hands before her and cry.

A schoolfellow of her husband’s (another young barrister) came to see her and him, and gave help in the shape of advice, which for once was valuable. They moved to the top story—the attics. (That was a step of which their landlady highly approved.) And he procured some law copying for Madeline—who wrote a clear, neat hand—which brought in a few shillings, and kept the actual wolf from the door. He sent fish, grapes, and other little delicacies to the invalid, and was in truth that rara avis—a friend in need.

He considered that Wynne had behaved like a madman in marrying on nothing; but certainly the girl was an immense temptation—so young, so pretty—such eyes he had never seen—so unsophisticated and fresh, and yet possessing excellent sense and an elastic and dauntless spirit. Here for once was an instance in which poverty had not thrust love out of the window. Strange, but true, their reverses had only served to draw the Wynnes more closely together. They afforded a refreshing study to Mr. Jessop, who was a cynic and a philosopher in a small way, and who sneered and snarled and marvelled. Things had not even come to the worst with these unfortunate people, not until a third was added to the establishment in the shape of a Master Wynne, who puckered up his wrinkled red face, thrust his creasy fists into his eyes, and made hideous grimaces at the world in which he found himself—and in which, to tell the truth, he was not particularly wanted, except by his mother, to whom he was not only welcome, but, in her partial eyes, a little household god!

His father, who was slowly recovering—an emaciated spectre of what he had been—was dubious with regard to the striking resemblance to himself, and frequently wondered in his inmost soul, as to what was to be the future of his son and heir? How was he to be fed, clothed, and educated? Dismal echoes answered, “How?” for the Wynnes were now desperately poor.

I mean by this, that Mr. Wynne’s watch had long been ticketed in a pawnbroker’s window, that Madeline’s one little brooch had gone the same way; also—oh, breathe it not!—her best gown and hat; also Mr. Wynne’s top coat and evening dress clothes; that the invalid alone tasted meat—and in scanty portions—Madeline telling many clever fibs with regard to her own dinner. Her inexhaustible spirits and vivacity seemed to sustain her—that, and a little bread and tea.

The one person who was well-to-do was the baby. He was clothed in a beautiful cloak and hood—Mr. Jessop’s gifts—purchased, with many blushes, by that keen-eyed, close-shaven gentleman, and presented with pride to his godson and namesake. More than once Madeline’s mental eye had seen these sumptuous garments smuggled away to the pawnbroker’s round the corner, but she fought hard with the idea, and had sternly kept it at bay—as yet. Their circumstances were, indeed, all but desperate, when one evening Mr. Jessop came thundering up the stairs, newspaper in hand, and panted out, as he threw himself into the nearest chair and took off his hat—

“I say, Mrs. Wynne, what was your name before you were married?”

“My name,” she echoed, looking blankly at him, for she was trying to keep the baby quiet and to do some copying simultaneously—vain and exasperating task—“was West—Madeline West.”

“Ah! I thought so!” he cried triumphantly, clearing his throat and unfolding his paper with a flourish.

“Then just listen to this:—‘Madeline West.—If this should meet the eye of Madeline Sidney West, she is earnestly implored to communicate with Mrs. H. of H. House, at once, when she will hear of something greatly to her advantage.’ Now what do you think of that?” he demanded of his friend, who, drawn up near a handful of cinders, had been poring over a law book. “Looks like a legacy, doesn’t it?”

“Too good to be true, I’m afraid. Eh, Madeline?”

Madeline turned her face alternately on the two men. A faint colour had invaded her thin, white cheeks, and her eyes brightened as she said—

“There is no harm in answering the notice; it may mean something.”

“Why, of course it does,” cried Mr. Jessop, emphatically. “Get a pen, give me the infant, and write a line now, and I’ll post it.”

And Madeline accordingly sat down and wrote to Mrs. Harper on the spot, whilst her companions watched her in silence.

She was so accustomed to sign merely her initials, and was so flurried between anticipation, anxiety, excitement, and the screams of the baby, that she never had the presence of mind to write her full name, and on this slight omission, this one little cog, turned a most important factor in her future career.