The Ups and Downs of Life

'But here I am all alive, my sweet.'

'But you won't have me tonight, mind.'

'Won't I though!'

'Now, Edward! pray don't, you are too weak!'

'Then this will give me strength,' said I, and I drank at a draught a tumbler of Carbonell's old port. I made her drink another glass, and then we lay down on the couch together. I fucked her twice, and then in each other's arms we fell asleep.

It was six o'clock the next morning when I woke up. I aroused Emma, and told her I thought she had better go to her own room, before the servants were about; my hands were very painful, so arranging with her when and where she should next meet me, I went upstairs to bed. My wife was fast asleep. I held the candle close to the bed and looked at her; she was lying on her back, her hands thrown over her head. She looked so beautiful, and her large firm breasts rose and fell so voluptuously, that I began to be penetrated with some sentiments of remorse for my infidelities. I crept into bed, and lay down beside her. I soon fell asleep. I might have slumbered some two hours. I was aroused by being kissed very lovingly. I was sensible that a pair of milky arms clasped me, and that a heaving breast was pressed to mine. I soon became aware of something more than this, which was going on under the bedclothes. I opened my eyes and fixed them upon the ravisher! It was Augusta. She blushed at being caught, but did not release me. I remained passive in her arms. My hands I had lost the use of. Inflammation had set in in the night, I felt very feverish, in an hour more I was delirious; I became alarmingly ill.

I pass over that illness; suffice it to say I kept my bed a month, having the best of all nurses, a mother. As for my wife, she was very zealous at first, but after a week she wearied, and went out of town on a visit to her mother. My mother was very angry at this, but I did not blame Augusta for going, she was young and a sickroom is a dull place.

There was one thing they both agreed in, however, and that was that I should see Emma no more; the opportunity was therefore taken, during my delirium, to send her off to an aunt somewhere in Shropshire, I believe, but wherever it was, I never saw the dear girl again.

I slowly recovered, and then it was arranged that we should go to Hastings for a month.

Lodgings there having been taken, my wife rejoined us in town, and to Hastings we went. I soon recovered my usual strength and spirits, and nothing could be more amiable and charming than Augusta, who seemed determined to spare no pains to make me entirely her own. Pursuant to this resolution, she even became amiable to my mother, never contradicting her and yielding in everything.

Peace having been thus happily restored, there seemed every probability of things going well, when an affair occurred which effectually destroyed these alluring prospects.

We were walking one day on the sands when we were passed and repassed several times by a very handsome couple, who were promenading likewise. The lady I recognised at once, but pretended not to know her. She was in fact the little discarded chere amie of the suburban villa before alluded to.

Each time she passed me she bowed with a bold, confidential air, but finding I was resolved not to know her, she grew angry. 'Jack, old fellar!' she cried to her young friend, 'do me the favour to knock that man's hat into the water — he has insulted me.' This was said sufficiently loud for us to hear. My wife's eyes flashed fire; she surveyed her ci-devant rival from head to foot with a gesture of such indescribable hauteur and ineffable disdain that poor little Jessy was cowed in an instant, and cast her eyes on the sand.

I never admired Augusta so much in my life as at that moment; pity she was my wife; but for that chain I could have loved, could have admired her.

The young man, the companion, a gentlemanly-looking fellow enough, advanced and raised his cane with an evident intention of tipping my hat into the waves. I did not stir, but said quietly, 'My friend, you had better not do it, because if you do, I shall be under the very disagreeable necessity of flinging you in after it!'

At this moment Jessy struck down his stick with her pink parasol, merely saying, 'I thought the gentleman was something more than an old acquaintance of mine, but he seems to have forgotten the intimacy,' and she added, 'and has found a fairer partner!'

'Madam!' said I, lifting my hat for the first time, 'this is my wife!'

Jessy looked positively shocked — disbelieve it, ye virtuous Pharisees, if ye will — Jessy the courtesan, my cast-off mistress, with two big tears in her lovely eyes, bowed her head with a meekness I had never seen her exhibit before, and faintly exclaiming, 'Madam, I humbly ask your pardon,' placed her hand on the arm of her companion, and led him quickly away.

'Well, sir!' said Augusta, turning sharply upon me, 'this is truly a charming rencontre for your wife to have. And it was quite as likely to have occurred in Pall Mall, or the Park, as here.'

'Quite as likely,' said I.

'Sir, is there any end to your infidelities, how many more are to be intruded upon my notice?'

'Here's the old leaven working up again to the surface,' thought I, so I answered accordingly,

'That is a question which I extremely regret to say I am unable to answer.'

'Not answer! why you know the difference between right and wrong, I suppose, and as a rational being, can abstain from evil if you choose.'

'My dear angel! don't preach, we are not in church but here on the sands, with nobody but these merry little crabs and periwinkles for a congregation. Now, in the first place, I am not at all sure I do know the difference between good and evil, i.e., what the conventional parsons, and the conventional world, are pleased to call good and evil, and inasmuch as I am, at least I hope so, a rational being, I may for example abstain from you, and think it a good action, while I may idolise another girl, and not deem it a bad thing.'

She looked so wretched that I felt touched. 'Will you allow me to offer an explanation of the late unhappy rencontre?'

'Oh, explain as much as you like, a man with such principles can lie at his pleasure.'

'Excuse me, madam, a gentleman cannot lie, at least what I call a gentleman, a man of honour.'

'Man of honour, indeed! You gentlemen and men of honour do not hesitate to seduce women and deceive your own wives, to fight duels and kill your adversaries; men of honour, indeed!'

'Ah,' said I, 'that's not the same thing at all, all's fair in love and war, you know. But I maintain that no real gentleman, a man of birth and education, and properly brought up, can tell a mean, sneaking lie for a mean purpose.'

'As you please, sir, tell your story if you wish to do so.'

'Who, I? not the least in the world; hear the explanation or leave it alone, just as you please.'

'I prefer to hear it.'

'It will take a few words; I kept Jessy before, not after, my marriage and discarded her when I did marry.'

'Why did you not tell me so before?'

'You did not give me the chance.'

I thought this denouement would have mollified her; on the contrary she became taciturn and sulky. Oh, woman, woman! if you did but know your little game better. If you did but know how a kind word, a genial smile, will bring the culprit to your feet; if you did but know how temper and the sulks will drive your sposo from you. If you did but know this, how many marriages might be happy, though not 'made in heaven'. But, alas, there is a perversity about wives; like the scorpion, they wound themselves with their own sting, and then exclaim, 'See how shamefully I am treated!' and the kind conventional world adds, 'Amen!'