Читать книгу Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself - Robert Montgomery Bird - Страница 28
ОглавлениеSHEPPARD LEE'S INTRODUCTION TO HIS WIFE, AND HIS SUSPICION THAT ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLISTENS.
But there is, as philosophers say, an unguent for every wound, a solace for every care; and it was my fate to experience the consolation that one provides beforehand against the gout, as well as all other ills man may anticipate, in the person of a faithful spouse. On the fourth day of my malady, and just at a moment when I was fairly yelling with pain, a lady, neither young nor beautiful, but dressed like a princess, save that her shoes were down at heel, and her bonnet somewhat awry, stepped up to my bedside, seized me by the hand, and crying out, "Oh my poor dear husband!" burst into tears.
Her appearance acted like a charm; even my foot, that seemed to be roasting over one of Nott's patent anthracite blazers, grew cool and comfortable in the chill that was diffused over my whole body. Complaint was silent at the sight of her; pain vanished at her touch; I forgot that I had the gout, and remembered only that I had a wife.
I was struck dumb, and presume I should not have groaned again for twenty-four hours, had not my consort, in the exuberance of her affection and grief, thrown her arms around my neck, and thereby brought the whole weight of her body upon my foot, which, after having tried all parts of the bed, I had at last lodged upon the very extremity of the feathers; by which act of endearment my poor unfortunate limb was crushed against the horrible log of mahogany that made one side of the bed-stead, and ground to pieces. Had my wife been my wife twenty times over, I must have uttered just as loud a cry as I did, and repeated it just as often.
She started up, and regarded me with severity.
"Is that the way you use me?" said she.—I believe I had rather pushed her away; but how could I help it?—"Is that the way you welcome me home, whither I have come—leaving kinsfolk and friends—to nurse you? Barbarous man, you hate me! yes, and besides having no longer any love for me, you have not even the slightest regard for my feelings. But don't think, Mr. Higginson, that I will be treated so any longer; you may break my heart—your poor Margaret's heart—if you will, but—but—" And here the affectionate creature was so overcome that she could not utter another word, but sat down wringing her hands and weeping as if I had broken her heart, and she had not crushed my foot! But, as far as my experience enables me to form any opinion on such a subject, I must say, that wives have an extraordinary knack at turning the tables on their husbands.
"For Heaven's sake, madam," said I, "don't set me distracted;"—the pain and her absurd reproaches together made me both frantic and ferocious—"don't make me believe that Adam's wife was made out of the bone of a gouty leg, instead of a good sound rib."
"What do you mean by that, sir?" said Mrs. Higginson.
"Only," said I, gritting my teeth, "that I have some thoughts she must have been a piece of the sorest bone in his body."
My wife marched up to the bed, and looked me in the face. My wrath went out like a gas-light before a black frost; my agonies again disappeared. There was no standing that look, unless one could stand the look of a Jersey black-snake, famous beyond all other snakes for its powers of fascination. And, talking of snakes, I must add, that, while my wife gave me that look, I felt as if one, just turned out of winter-quarters, horribly cold and creepy, were slipping down my back. She looked at me with mingled anger and disdain.
"How often have I told you, Mr. Higginson," she said, "never to attempt to be witty, since you only expose your folly—I won't use any harder word. And whatever you do, sir," she added, beginning to cry again, "don't make a jest of your wife, sir. You're always doing it, sir; you're always making me appear ridiculous to your friends and to myself; you treat me as if I were a fool—you—"
"Madam," said I, endeavouring to appease her a little, for I was quite overcome by her violence, "remember that I have the gout, and am suffering the—"
"Yes!" she cried; "and you are determined that everybody else shall suffer as well as yourself, and me in particular. Oh, Mr. Higginson! how can you use me so? I'll never speak to you another word!"
And down she sat again, weeping and wringing her hands harder than ever, and moping and whining the Lord knows how long.
"Sheppard Lee! Sheppard Lee!" I muttered (but I took good care not to mutter aloud), "you were not the most miserable dog in the world by a great deal. A gouty constitution and a perverse wife are—oh! pangs and purgatory!"
I hoped my consort, being so greatly incensed, would take herself out of the room, when I determined, though it should cost me a howl for every step, to get up and lock the door on her, come of it what might; but she was not of that mind. She maintained her seat, sobbing and sighing, and, by taking off her hat and flinging it pettishly into a corner, made it manifest that she had determined to nurse me in earnest, though in a way entirely of her own. Happily, the paroxysm of suffering, which was at its height when she entered, soon subsided; and being left greatly exhausted, and her sobs having somewhat of a soporific quality, I managed, notwithstanding my mental disquiet, to fall fast asleep; whereby I got rid for a time of an evil in many respects equal to the gout itself.
Two days after I was able to leave my bed, though not to walk: had I been, I am strongly of opinion I should have walked out of my house—out of the city of Philadelphia—and perhaps out of the United States of America—nay, and upon a pinch, out of the world itself, to get rid of my beloved wife. Who would have believed in our village, that John H. Higginson, who seemed to have nothing in the world to do but to slaughter woodcocks, beat his dog Ponto, and ride about in a fine new barouche with a pair of horses that cost a thousand dollars; who had a dwelling-house in Chestnut-street, a brewery in the Northern Liberties, with an ale-butt as big as the basin of the Mediterranean, a goodly store of real estate in town and country, bank-stock and coal-mines, and a thousand other of the good things of the world—who, I say, would have believed that this same John H. Higginson was decidedly the most miserable dog in the whole universe? It was truth, every word of it; and before I was six days old in my new body, I wished—no, not that the devil had me—but I was more than willing he should have the better half of me. I had the gout, my wife was a shrew, and I was—a henpecked husband.
Yes! the reader may stare, and bless his stars—the manly John H. Higginson, who seemed to have no earthly care or trouble, and who was so little deficient in spirit that he could quarrel with a Jersey farmer while trespassing on his grounds, shoot his bull-dog, and take aim at his negro, had long since succumbed to the superior spirit, and acknowledged the irresponsible supremacy of his wife; in the field, and at a distance from his house, he was a man of spirit and figure, but at home the most submissive of the henpecked. Resistance against a petticoat government is, as all know, the most hopeless of resistance: a single man has often subverted a monarchy, and overturned a republic; but history has not yet recorded an instance of successful rebellion on the part of a married man against the tyranny of a wife. The tongue of woman is the only true sceptre; for, unlike other emblems of authority, it is both the instrument of power and the axe of execution. John H. Higginson attempted no resistance against the rule of his wife; the few explosions of impatience of which he was now and then guilty, were punished with a rigour that awed him into discretion. On this subject I feel myself eloquent, and I could expatiate on it by the hour. But I am writing not so much the history of my reflections as of my adventures; and I must hasten on with my story.
