Chapter VII: Poor Vyner

Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
BYRON.

When Meredith Vyner came into the drawing-room and found his wife senseless on the floor, he imagined she had been seized with a fit, for he was unaware of Marmaduke having been in the house. Mrs. Vyner availed herself of the supposition, and so escaped irritating inquiries; she just mentioned that she had been very much distressed and excited that morning, and that doubtless her fit had been greatly owing to it.

"And what distressed you, my love?"

"Oh, I cannot tell you."

"Yes; do dear, do tell me."

"Will you promise not to mention a word of it to Violet?"

"I will."

"Well, then, it was on her account. You know how I wished for a match between her and young Ashley? You know his audacious love for me? I tried to make him relinquish his foolish hopes--I tried to lead him to think of her. He scorned the idea--vowed he loved me and only me--and was so violent that I was obliged to order him to quit the house, and never to re-enter it. He left me in a great passion. It is a rupture for ever."

Instead of feeling in the least distressed at this rupture, Meredith Vyner could not conceal his joy. What cared he for Violet's sorrow--was not his rival got rid of?

He redoubled his attentions to his wife--now wholly his, he thought!--and felt that the great misery he had dreaded was now forever banished. When Violet came to him, therefore, to ask his permission to go down to her uncle, he gave it willingly, and without inquiry.

Marmaduke dismissed, how happy now would the house be! Mary would again become the sprightly, cajoling, attentive wife; she would again come into his study to hear him read aloud; would again interest herself in Horace. By the way, he had sadly neglected Horace of late; not a single emendation had been made; not a note written. That could not continue. He had no time to lose. He was no longer young. If age should creep on before he had finished that great work, what a loss to literature!

Alas! neither home nor Horace profited by this dismissal of a rival. The attentive wife grew pettish, irritable, and more avowedly indifferent than ever. Her health was seriously affected. She was subject to hysterics, which came on apparently without cause. Her gaiety had entirely disappeared, and she was often found in tears. She would rally from time to time, and endeavour, in incessant dissipation, to escape from the torment of her thoughts; but this never lasted long; she soon relapsed again into a capricious, fretful, malicious, melancholy state of mind.

She had, indeed, received a deep wound. That conscience which, in its anticipation of the opinion of others, so troubled the studious Marmaduke, was an awful retribution on Mrs. Vyner. The thought that he had duped her and had excited her love--for she had loved him--merely as a means of revenge, was of itself sufficient to rouse her to exasperation; but when to that was added the thought of Violet knowing it--of the detested Violet who had always seen through and scorned her, and who now held the secret of her guilty passion--it became a rankling poison in her soul. Nor was the fury of jealousy absent. This villain who had played with her, did he not love the haughty girl who despised her?

The poor old pedant was at a loss to comprehend the cause of his wife's conduct. She could not love Marmaduke, or why should she dismiss him; yet, if she did not love him, why was she so miserable?

In vain he tried by kindness to revive within her that semblance of affection with which she had hitherto cheated him. She ceased all hypocrisy, though hypocrisy would have been kindness. She received his demonstrations of affection with exasperating indifference, and when he, on one or two occasions, endeavoured to exert his authority--for he was master in his own house, he supposed--she only laughed at him.

The poor old man retired to his books, but not to read; in mute distress he ruminated on the change which had taken place, and sat there helpless and hopeless. He tried to forget these painful thoughts in occupying himself with his great work; but he sat there, the book open before him, the pen idle in his hand, and the snuff-box his only consolation.

His domestic peace was gone, and he began to perceive it.