The Soldier's Wife — page 203: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

182 THE SOLDIER'S WIPE. « ’ they entertained not the remotest suspicion of | stranger the child who had asked not to be what had occurred during the night. born,—there was a secret monitor within her But we must observe that after the de-| bosom that constantly reminded her of the past. parture of Mr. Arden and Colycinth on that] Her disposition changed: her mind beeame same memorable night,—and so soon as Miss| jaundiced; and she learnt to look with an evil Redburn could be safely left alone, — Mrs.Jeye upon the world. She saw in Mr. Arden Grant repaire (| with the babe to her own cot. | the veriest hypocrite and most conetignailaal im- tage and for several weeks she managed to| postor that ever dared desecrate the pulpit ; prevent her neighbors from knowing that there| and this alone was sufficient to make her mis was any such little stranger beneath her roof—| trust every human being. To mistrust in such so that the date of its arrival could not. by any|a sense, was almost to “hate : and as she was possible suspicion, nor by anv whispering of | thus led to regard her fellow -creatures with a scandal, be regarded as identical with a three| feeling so closely bordering upon aversion, it or four days’ indisposition which it was alleged| could not be wondered if her aeeents and the Miss Redburn had experienced, Indeed, nearly | manner of her speech gradually became in- two whole months elapsed before Mrs. Grant’s| fused with that bitterness and acrimony which neighbors knew that there was a child in her|in course of time became habitual. The physi- care; and when at last she chose to suffer the} cal aspect of the woman changed concurrently circumstance to become known, she pretended| with her mental condition, and the care which that she had only received the infant on that} corroded in ber soul, preyed also upon the same day. Mr. Colyecinth had his suspicions} heart’s vitals, But did she continue to love that she was the woman whom he had seen at| Mr. Arden? No—impossible! As her expe- the place to which he was taken, and that this} rence of the world became enlarged,—and it was the child whom he had helped to bring| did so speedily, as the necessary result of her into the world. He therefore—dexterously | own fall and acquaintance with sin—she wag and cunningly, as he thought—threw out a few led to regard him as the black hearted autho. hints in private to Mrs. Grant, with the hope; of her shame, her guilt, and all her sufferinys, of leading her into revelations: but she played| From prudential motives—which are obvious her part so well in affecting not to understand) enough—she did not choose to come to affopen him, that he imagined he must be mistaken—| rupture with him: they therefore continned to or if not, it was plain enough that the woman} meet throughout the lapse of long, long years, intended to keep the secret. Indeed Mrs.) in the light of acquaintances: Lut never from Grant was thoroughly trustworthy ; and more-| the birth of their child was the word “love” over, as she was promised a certain weekly) mentioned ; and with that event Miss Red- stipend for the maintenance of the child, with, burn’s frailty terminated. She supsequently the understanding that it would be taken from/| sinned no more. her should the secret become known, she found) And now, the next question which doubtless it to her interest to put a seal upon her lips.) occurs to the reader is, whether they loved their Having previously been merely a charwoman,|sen—the offspring of their illicit amour! Ma, she now opened a little shop, to serve as an| Arden did not. A man seldom or never cares ostensible source of her livelihood: but as it} for his legitimate child; and the rector of was well known in the village that it could Ba Oakleigh was by no means an individual likely. possibly support her, thence arose the rom prove an exception to that rule. So far that she received some assistance from another from entertaining the slightest feeling of kind- quarter. But what this source was, no one ever) ness towards Frederick Lonsdale, Mr. Arden knew—no one indeed ever surmised. Jt was;regarded him with a hatred that increased as perfectly natural that the clergyman of the, the boy grew up: though during Widow Grant's parish should drop in to pay her a visit from| lifetime, he never in any way manifested an time to time, as he did to his other parishioners ;| aversion which would have shocked and pained and he took good care, when putting the sti-| the woman, who possessed a good heart and pend into her hand, that no witness was ever] had learnt to love her charge as dearly as if he resent. were her own son. But what of Aunt Jane} The name of Frederick Lonsdale was be-| It 1s generally very different with a woman stowed upon the child. This nomenclature] than with a man in respect to an illegitimate eprang not from any suggestion on the part of |child: the mother usually loves the being that either the father or the mother : it was entirely} was born in shame, and through whom her ho- the result of the good woman’s own choice, and nor is either risked or ruined. But from this might be explained by the fact that she loved} rule Miss Redburn was an exception. The off- the Christian name of Frederick, and that when| spring of her illicit love was included to a thinking of a surname for the boy, she had) certain degree in the aversion which she enter- lighted upon that of Lonsdale in an old news-| tained for all mankind: and thus she never ex- ‘paper. So he was called Frederick Lonsdale ;| perienced a yearning to speed to the village— and he grew up with the mystery hanging to clasp him to her bosom—and acknowledge about his birth—Jane Redburn’s secret. remain-|him as her own. Yet Miss Redburn had be- ing not merely unknown, but utterly unsuspect-|come religious: in proportion as her hatred of ed. As for any attachment. ever having sub-| the world had increased, so had her piety—or sisted between herself and Mr. Arden, such an|rather that sort of piety which such persons idea never entered the head of a soul, But}devise and fashion for themselves, Moreover, though the world knew not her frailty, and in-| though regarding the rector of Oakleigh as a deed her guilt,—~-guilt in thus abandoning to a]consummate hypocrite, she nevertheless at comicbooks.com a