Sylvia's Lovers - Page 246/290

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.