It was so difficult to complain, too; impossible, in fact.
Everything that a wife could do from duty she did; but the love
seemed to have fled, and, in such cases, no reproaches or complaints
can avail to bring it back. So reason outsiders, and are convinced
of the result before the experiment is made. But Philip could not
reason, or could not yield to reason; and so he complained and
reproached. She did not much answer him; but he thought that her
eyes expressed the old words,-'It's not in me to forgive; I sometimes think it's not in me to
forget.' However, it is an old story, an ascertained fact, that, even in the
most tender and stable masculine natures, at the supremest season of
their lives, there is room for other thoughts and passions than such
as are connected with love. Even with the most domestic and
affectionate men, their emotions seem to be kept in a cell distinct
and away from their actual lives. Philip had other thoughts and
other occupations than those connected with his wife during all this
time.
An uncle of his mother's, a Cumberland 'statesman', of whose
existence he was barely conscious, died about this time, leaving to
his unknown great-nephew four or five hundred pounds, which put him
at once in a different position with regard to his business.
Henceforward his ambition was roused,--such humble ambition as
befitted a shop-keeper in a country town sixty or seventy years ago.
To be respected by the men around him had always been an object with
him, and was, perhaps, becoming more so than ever now, as a sort of
refuge from his deep, sorrowful mortification in other directions.
He was greatly pleased at being made a sidesman; and, in preparation
for the further honour of being churchwarden, he went regularly
twice a day to church on Sundays. There was enough religious feeling
in him to make him disguise the worldly reason for such conduct from
himself. He believed that he went because he thought it right to
attend public worship in the parish church whenever it was offered
up; but it may be questioned of him, as of many others, how far he
would have been as regular in attendance in a place where he was not
known. With this, however, we have nothing to do. The fact was that
he went regularly to church, and he wished his wife to accompany him
to the pew, newly painted, with his name on the door, where he sate
in full sight of the clergyman and congregation.
Sylvia had never been in the habit of such regular church-going, and
she felt it as a hardship, and slipped out of the duty as often as
ever she could. In her unmarried days, she and her parents had gone
annually to the mother-church of the parish in which Haytersbank was
situated: on the Monday succeeding the Sunday next after the Romish
Saint's Day, to whom the church was dedicated, there was a great
feast or wake held; and, on the Sunday, all the parishioners came to
church from far and near. Frequently, too, in the course of the
year, Sylvia would accompany one or other of her parents to Scarby
Moorside afternoon service,--when the hay was got in, and the corn
not ready for cutting, or the cows were dry and there was no
afternoon milking. Many clergymen were languid in those days, and
did not too curiously inquire into the reasons which gave them such
small congregations in country parishes.