第 109 页

last time, and I have never heard it since; though I still recognize the

old drone in the newspapers, without any substantial variation (except,

perhaps, that there is more of it), all the livelong session.

I now write of the time when I had been married, I suppose, about a year

and a half. After several varieties of experiment, we had given up the

housekeeping as a bad job. The house kept itself, and we kept a page.

The principal function of this retainer was to quarrel with the cook;

in which respect he was a perfect Whittington, without his cat, or the

remotest chance of being made Lord Mayor.

He appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan-lids. His whole

existence was a scuffle. He would shriek for help on the most improper

occasions,--as when we had a little dinner-party, or a few friends in

the evening,--and would come tumbling out of the kitchen, with iron

missiles flying after him. We wanted to get rid of him, but he was very

much attached to us, and wouldn’t go. He was a tearful boy, and broke

into such deplorable lamentations, when a cessation of our connexion

was hinted at, that we were obliged to keep him. He had no mother--no

anything in the way of a relative, that I could discover, except a

sister, who fled to America the moment we had taken him off her hands;

and he became quartered on us like a horrible young changeling. He had

a lively perception of his own unfortunate state, and was always rubbing

his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, or stooping to blow his nose on

the extreme corner of a little pocket-handkerchief, which he never would

take completely out of his pocket, but always economized and secreted.

This unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour at six pounds ten per annum,

was a source of continual trouble to me. I watched him as he grew--and

he grew like scarlet beans--with painful apprehensions of the time when

he would begin to shave; even of the days when he would be bald or grey.

I saw no prospect of ever getting rid of him; and, projecting myself

into the future, used to think what an inconvenience he would be when he

was an old man.

I never expected anything less, than this unfortunate’s manner of

getting me out of my difficulty. He stole Dora’s watch, which, like

everything else belonging to us, had no particular place of its own;

and, converting it into money, spent the produce (he was always a

weak-minded boy) in incessantly riding up and down between London and

Uxbridge outside the coach. He was taken to Bow Street, as well as

I remember, on the completion of his fifteenth journey; when

four-and-sixpence, and a second-hand fife which he couldn’t play, were

found upon his person.

The surprise and its consequences would have been much less disagreeable

to me if he had not been penitent. But he was very penitent indeed, and

in a peculiar way--not in the lump, but by instalments. For example:

the day after that on which I was obliged to appear against him, he made

certain revelations touching a hamper in the cellar, which we believed

to be full of wine, but which had nothing in it except bottles and

corks. We supposed he had now eased his mind, and told the worst he knew

of the cook; but, a day or two afterwards, his conscience sustained a

new twinge, and he disclosed how she had a little girl, who, early every

morning, took away our bread; and also how he himself had been suborned

to maintain the milkman in coals. In two or three days more, I was

informed by the authorities of his having led to the discovery of

sirloins of beef among the kitchen-stuff, and sheets in the rag-bag. A

little while afterwards, he broke out in an entirely new direction, and

confessed to a knowledge of burglarious intentions as to our premises,

on the part of the pot-boy, who was immediately taken up. I got to be so

ashamed of being such a victim, that I would have given him any money

to hold his tongue, or would have offered a round bribe for his being

permitted to run away. It was an aggravating circumstance in the case

that he had no idea of this, but conceived that he was making me amends

in every new discovery: not to say, heaping obligations on my head.

At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police

approaching with some new intelligence; and lived a stealthy life until

he was tried and ordered to be transported. Even then he couldn’t be

quiet, but was always writing us letters; and wanted so much to see Dora

before he went away, that Dora went to visit him, and fainted when she

found herself inside the iron bars. In short, I had no peace of my life

until he was expatriated, and made (as I afterwards heard) a shepherd

of, ‘up the country’ somewhere; I have no geographical idea where.

All this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our

mistakes in a new aspect; as I could not help communicating to Dora one

evening, in spite of my tenderness for her.

‘My love,’ said I, ‘it is very painful to me to think that our want of

system and management, involves not only ourselves (which we have got

used to), but other people.’

‘You have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be

cross!’ said Dora.

‘No, my dear, indeed! Let me explain to you what I mean.’

‘I think I don’t want to know,’ said Dora.

‘But I want you to know, my love. Put Jip down.’

Dora put his nose to mine, and said ‘Boh!’ to drive my seriousness away;

but, not succeeding, ordered him into his Pagoda, and sat looking at

me, with her hands folded, and a most resigned little expression of

countenance.

‘The fact is, my dear,’ I began, ‘there is contagion in us. We infect

everyone about us.’

I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora’s face had not

admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether I was

going to propose any new kind of vaccination, or other medical remedy,

for this unwholesome state of ours. Therefore I checked myself, and made

my meaning plainer.

‘It is not merely, my pet,’ said I, ‘that we lose money and comfort, and

even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more careful; but that we

incur the serious responsibility of spoiling everyone who comes into

our service, or has any dealings with us. I begin to be afraid that the

fault is not entirely on one side, but that these people all turn out

ill because we don’t turn out very well ourselves.’

‘Oh, what an accusation,’ exclaimed Dora, opening her eyes wide; ‘to say

that you ever saw me take gold watches! Oh!’

‘My dearest,’ I remonstrated, ‘don’t talk preposterous nonsense! Who has

made the least allusion to gold watches?’

‘You did,’ returned Dora. ‘You know you did. You said I hadn’t turned

out well, and compared me to him.’

‘To whom?’ I asked.

‘To the page,’ sobbed Dora. ‘Oh, you cruel fellow, to compare your

affectionate wife to a transported page! Why didn’t you tell me

your opinion of me before we were married? Why didn’t you say,

you hard-hearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a

transported page? Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me! Oh, my

goodness!’

‘Now, Dora, my love,’ I returned, gently trying to remove the

handkerchief she pressed to her eyes, ‘this is not only very ridiculous

of you, but very wrong. In the first place, it’s not true.’

‘You always said he was a story-teller,’ sobbed Dora. ‘And now you say

the same of me! Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!’

‘My darling girl,’ I retorted, ‘I really must entreat you to be

reasonable, and listen to what I did say, and do say. My dear Dora,

unless we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never

learn to do their duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to

people to do wrong, that never ought to be presented. Even if we were

as lax as we are, in all our arrangements, by choice--which we are

not--even if we liked it, and found it agreeable to be so--which we

don’t--I am persuaded we should have no right to go on in this way. We

are positively corrupting people. We are bound to think of that. I can’t

help thinking of it, Dora. It is a reflection I am unable to dismiss,

and it sometimes makes me very uneasy. There, dear, that’s all. Come

now. Don’t be foolish!’

Dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the handkerchief.

She sat sobbing and murmuring behind it, that, if I was uneasy, why had

I ever been married? Why hadn’t I said, even the day before we went to

church, that I knew I should be uneasy, and I would rather not? If I

couldn’t bear her, why didn’t I send her away to her aunts at Putney, or

to Julia Mills in India? Julia would be glad to see her, and would not

call her a transported page; Julia never had called her anything of the

sort. In short, Dora was so afflicted, and so afflicted me by being

in that condition, that I felt it was of no use repeating this kind of

effort, though never so mildly, and I must take some other course.

What other course was left to take? To ‘form her mind’? This was a

common phrase of words which had a fair and promising sound, and I

resolved to form Dora’s mind.

I began immediately. When Dora was very childish, and I would

have infinitely preferred to humour her, I tried to be grave--and

disconcerted her, and myself too. I talked to her on the subjects which

occupied my thoughts; and I read Shakespeare to her--and fatigued her

to the last degree. I accustomed myself to giving her, as it were quite

casually, little scraps of useful information, or sound opinion--and she

started from them when I let them off, as if they had been crackers.

No matter how incidentally or naturally I endeavoured to form my little

wife’s mind, I could not help seeing that she always had an instinctive

perception of what I was about, and became a prey to the keenest

apprehensions. In particular, it was clear to me, that she thought

Shakespeare a terrible fellow. The formation went on very slowly.

I pressed Traddles into the service without his knowledge; and whenever

he came to see us, exploded my mines upon him for the edification of

Dora at second hand. The amount of practical wisdom I bestowed upon

Traddles in this manner was immense, and of the best quality; but it

had no other effect upon Dora than to depress her spirits, and make her

always nervous with the dread that it would be her turn next. I found

myself in the condition of a schoolmaster, a trap, a pitfall; of always

playing spider to Dora’s fly, and always pouncing out of my hole to her

infinite disturbance.

Still, looking forward through this intermediate stage, to the time

when there should be a perfect sympathy between Dora and me, and when I

should have ‘formed her mind’ to my entire satisfaction, I persevered,

even for months. Finding at last, however, that, although I had been

all this time a very porcupine or hedgehog, bristling all over with

determination, I had effected nothing, it began to occur to me that

perhaps Dora’s mind was already formed.

On further consideration this appeared so likely, that I abandoned

my scheme, which had had a more promising appearance in words than in

action; resolving henceforth to be satisfied with my child-wife, and to

try to change her into nothing else by any process. I was heartily tired

of being sagacious and prudent by myself, and of seeing my darling under

restraint; so I bought a pretty pair of ear-rings for her, and a collar

for Jip, and went home one day to make myself agreeable.

Dora was delighted with the little presents, and kissed me joyfully; but

there was a shadow between us, however slight, and I had made up my mind

that it should not be there. If there must be such a shadow anywhere, I

would keep it for the future in my own breast.

I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings in her ears;

and then I told her that I feared we had not been quite as good company

lately, as we used to be, and that the fault was mine. Which I sincerely

felt, and which indeed it was.

‘The truth is, Dora, my life,’ I said; ‘I have been trying to be wise.’

‘And to make me wise too,’ said Dora, timidly. ‘Haven’t you, Doady?’

I nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eyebrows, and kissed

the parted lips.

‘It’s of not a bit of use,’ said Dora, shaking her head, until the

ear-rings rang again. ‘You know what a little thing I am, and what I

wanted you to call me from the first. If you can’t do so, I am afraid

you’ll never like me. Are you sure you don’t think, sometimes, it would

have been better to have--’

‘Done what, my dear?’ For she made no effort to proceed.

‘Nothing!’ said Dora.

‘Nothing?’ I repeated.

She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by her

favourite name of a goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in such a

profusion of curls that it was quite a task to clear them away and see

it.

‘Don’t I think it would have been better to have done nothing, than to

have tried to form my little wife’s mind?’ said I, laughing at myself.

‘Is that the question? Yes, indeed, I do.’

‘Is that what you have been trying?’ cried Dora. ‘Oh what a shocking

boy!’

‘But I shall never try any more,’ said I. ‘For I love her dearly as she

is.’

‘Without a story--really?’ inquired Dora, creeping closer to me.

‘Why should I seek to change,’ said I, ‘what has been so precious to me

for so long! You never can show better than as your own natural self, my

sweet Dora; and we’ll try no conceited experiments, but go back to our

old way, and be happy.’

‘And be happy!’ returned Dora. ‘Yes! All day! And you won’t mind things

going a tiny morsel wrong, sometimes?’

‘No, no,’ said I. ‘We must do the best we can.’

‘And you won’t tell me, any more, that we make other people bad,’ coaxed

Dora; ‘will you? Because you know it’s so dreadfully cross!’

‘No, no,’ said I.

‘It’s better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable, isn’t it?’ said

Dora.

‘Better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the world.’

‘In the world! Ah, Doady, it’s a large place!’

She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up to mine, kissed

me, broke into a merry laugh, and sprang away to put on Jip’s new

collar.

So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora. I had been unhappy