LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2513, 27 April 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

WIFE IN ENGLAND NOT IN

FBANCS.

A STORY OF AN INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGE

The place—a lon-Jo i* suburb ; lime—evening in a fine August some years since. An elderly person of peculiar but decidedly respectable appearance, and wearing qmt o a taking cap (purchased as a remarkable bargain) might have been seen peering L°/j» don way from the window of her best poricr, which offered better observation up and down street than were tr, he obtained ,n the chamber which should have been an honest front kitchen, hut which was almost a diihonest looking morning room. Her name O-ibaon, conoornlng the English aspect of which name nothing need be said. Here ohe is at last 1 ’ thought the anxious and lean, but highly respectable woman. There was only one figure advancing along the * park ’at that particular moment. Tho figure -rn question wsa that of au active and cheerful looking girl, as fresh as the fair blossoms In the pot of balsams she was oarrr'ng, and dressed in that close-fitting lustreless black which betokens the more respectable of tho working women of the metropolis. It was then quite half past seven o clock. Tko newcomer smiled as she saw the figure at the window, and with barely perceptible movement just raised tho pot of balsams, for tho respectability of Plsntaganet Park had to be unceasingly considered. They were very grand people who lived there about. There was a lodger in nearly every house, and in some two or three, but they were called friends, and you never saw a notice of lodgings to l*t upon Plantaganot Park. Lodgers were obtained through the in dium of the public press, ‘ Well mother dear,’ says Ellen, as she , enters the house by the little flight of steps which leads to the area and thence to tho morning room which should be an honest front bitohen—'hew are yon? Give me a kiss. Fee, I have brought you home a beautiful lot of flowers. Why, what ails yon ? ’ * My dear, the moat wondeifal thing in the whole world, I have scarcely recovered my breath yet, and it waa after breakfast this morning that it was quite taken away.’ ‘ What took away your breath, dear mother? Here comes Mary with the tea ? How glad I fool, for I am quite thirsty. It has been so hot to-day in the office, and the lady suparintendent has been hotter. Good evening, Mary what is the matter with you ? Save yon had your breath taken a way ?’ ‘ y es, miss, I has I ’ said Mary, emphatically. ‘Pray forgive me, Nellie, but it was impossible to keep the news to myself, or I should never have got back my breath, and I have made Miry vow not to siy a word about it to any living soul.’ «Never mum, npon my wud ! ’ says the serving maiden, «Ab ut what ? ’ asks fhe cheery daughter, ‘ About you 1 ’ says tho mother. Then, as she watches hei .daughter’s jmjrcment, she says to the servant maid, quite reprehensivoly, * Mary, why are you stopping—leave the room directly.’ ‘Yes, mum.’ soya the maiden, quite meekly, and thereupon she vanishes. ‘ Now mother, dear, let me sit down, so os not to be completely overthrown. Hero I am on the sofa. Now sneak.’ ‘ My dear, I hove had a proposal of mar-

riage.’ ‘ls it possible. And you have accepted, you wicked wemvn? What! am lat my ago 'o have a step-father ?’ * No, no. A proposal of marriage for yon,’ The girl was serious in a moment, and the character of her face altered very much for the better. ‘You know, mother, that I am engaged.’ • You mean to Jess?’ ‘Yea j to Jesse Tibet.’ ‘ Yon are truly absurd ; engaged to a man whom you do not even know to be alive. Ho may have been desd these three or four years. Has he written to you once in all that time ?’ ‘You know that he said he would not write. Yon know that he hates writing. I am sure that he ia alive, and am equally certain that he will come baok,’ ‘Oompie’e nonsense; and even if he is a’ive, and even if he came back, he would not deserve to find yon waiting for him. The Idea of a sensible man going away to Australia, and making an agreement not to write until he was in a fair way to possess a fortune. No girl of any spirit would endure such a compact.’ ‘My dear mother, wisely or not, I remember that I made it ’

‘ When you we: e a foolish girl of seventeen, and when you did not know your own mind. Now that you are a woman yon ought to understand that such a promise was more than ridiculous. He was a boy and you wore a girl. Now yon are a woman, and ha, if he is alive, is a man—if indeed yon can call an individual a man who engages the affections of a woman, and after never writing once through four years expects her to keep true to him.’ ‘ Mother dear, you do Jess a great wrong. You must not judge of him as you would of most, other mortalo. You should not forget that at seventeen he was braver than most men. ‘1 hink of his telling the rector down at tho dear old p’ace in Kent, that the special hop tithes were a robbery—as they are !’

‘ He was a quarrelsome and upstart young man.’

‘ He was a brave and frank youth, and I for one still approve of his courage in declaring that farming in England would soon be impossible—he (hereupon going away to Australia to try his fortune in a new land. I would rather wait for Jesse all a life-time than marry any oneaf his betters —If betters ho has ’

‘ I am afraid that you have too much of hfs spirit. You in your turn would go away and earn ycur own living, although I pointed out that you wero the first woman of your family who had fallen to such an extent as to gain her own living.’ * Then I very much pity the family,’ said the young lady. “ My dear mother,’ she continued, * think over it, When we left our Kent farm aftsr my father’s death, we had ninety pounds a year, the interest tf about three thousand pounds in consols. Was that enough for two women to live upon ? Yes ! Perhaps ; bat I preferred that you should at least spend the greater part of your fortune upon yourself, and, in a word, I became a telegraphic woman-clerk. And here at the end of three years I am making sixty pounds a year. It is true that I work pretty hard—but I like it. and I am independent ’ • There is Jesse speaking again/ said Mrs Gibson.

‘I could not speak with a better voice than his.’ ‘ But if he were dead, do you mean to say yon would remain single all your life ?’ After a pause she said slowly—- • No. I do not *ay so. But I am willing to declare that if I did not find a husband, I should not quite break my heart. But I am sure that ho is cot dead.’ ‘ And you will have nothing to say to our dear Mr Evan Lloyd V ‘ Oh —the offer is Mr Lloyd’s. I like him. Perhaps if I had never seen Jesse, Mr Lloyd might have pleased me more ; but I cannot think of him as a husband,’ ‘ Is ho not respectable ? Did he not have the best of references, and has ho not been a moral man since he has lived in my horse ?' • Yes; but I do not like the man enough to marry him.’ • Be Is prosperous, he is educated, and if ho has droll ways with him, yon should not forget thao ho has lived a good deal abroad, »nd that foreigners are very different from on.-selves.’ • By which you mean to say, dear mother, that if ho proposed to yon for me, instead of to myself in the first place (ss is the prac’ice hero in England) the act is the result of his being almost a foreigner That does not help him In my judgment at all.’ < You refuse him ?’ 'Yes, absolutely Give roe another of your capital cups of tos, dear mother.’ Bat no girl Is, in her heart, angry with a man proposing to her She knows that the act is a compliment if noth’ng eke, while in the case in question Mies Gibson felt that the proposal made by Mr F.van Lloyd was in no way one that eho should resent. She was grateful to the man, and sho almost pitied him. It was time for her silent lover either to write or arrive, for the moment a woman

begins pitying a man It g 0O( j augury to mm. How could the ao indußtrlons, telegraphic woman oler £ fc now that the ms o (self styled a stock .gjroket). had learnt that she was the sole v tng relation of her father’s only brother, a £, ac h e i orj and a man of very considerable £lon could she know that alao_h' t o j,t a ined the particulars of the »dm by Mrs Uibsoa to the dead fs , { her’« estate, and that he know as her v aaabaird ho could claim of the throe tho - jfc pounds placed in Consols, l p the widow to her melancholy thirds —in this case just abcut one thousand pounds. Unfortunately persons of small means, especially women of limited fortunes, are all too fatally ignorant of the laws affecting property, and rarely for a moment think over tho tremendous changes made by marriage in relation to women’s property—when the lawyers havs not been net to work to prevent the husband becoming the actual possessor of everything. Mrs Gibson raid no more concerning tho proposal made by Mr Evan Lloyd for her daughter. Bat that perseverance which characterised her daughter in a very marked degree had in part been Inherited from the mother, who had always been a keen-witted woman. She gave Mr Lloyd an ambiguous reply, basing her statement upon tho alleged belief that Ellen was piqued at the offer not bavIng been made directly to herself. Thereupon, as she expected, Lloyd offered at once to speak to the young lady. Now this was precisely what the mother wished to avoid. Tho had been quite prepared for this suggestion on the self styled lover’s part, and she was equally provided with an answer. • Do not speak to her fer three months, Mr Lloyd, and I unde’ take to say that at the end of that time she will accept you when you propose.’ ‘lt is a long time to wait,’ he said, but true love knows how to endure ; I will not speak to Ellen upon this subject for three months, and then I will learn my fate j indeed, I shall have to he in France the greater part of this jtime, for my mother is ailing, and she wishes to have me near her. I shall go backwards and forwards during this period, and comfort my mother all that I possibly can.’ • A good son,’ said Mrs Gibson, In recounting to her daughter the details referring to these intended journeys ; ‘ a good son, and a good eon, my dear Nellie, generally makes a good husband—believe me ao far at least.’ Ihen the mother set to work to obtain from the embassy at Paris (through a very distant cousin of her own, who held a post In the Foreign Office) some information touching the family of Evan Lloyd. The replies were of the moat ratlsfaotory character. The father and mother, of whom the latter was an invalid, were settled at Paiay, near Paris, where they had lived many years. They were persons of consideration, and very well to do, Evan Lloyd being their only child. There appears to have been no insplclon on the part of anyone concerned in this cruel plot to obtain a large sum of money by way of marriage, that the man Kvan Lloyd c mid be any other than an Englishman His name was English, or sufficiently English to prevent any supposition of his having been born out of the British Isles, or of any other than Welsh or English parents; and he spoke English rather better than did the Gibsons themselves. When the information gained was repeated to Nellie, she was certainly jurprised. ‘But, mother, why make inquiries about Mr Lloyd ? Yon know that I have no interest in him.’ • You respect him P’ •Certainly.’ «i a m interested in him, said toe mother, • an( J I should be, for he has wished to aaanra a happy home t > my daughter f >r life, and to make her an admirable husband—if T am not very much deceived. I do not think I am.’

Now all this moral pressure brought to bear upon the poor young lady was beginning to tell. And still no letter came from the silent and eccentric Jesse Tilset Then Mrs Gibson drove her implacable and most rash energies la another direction—a mother is so frequently purblind when acting in the supposed interests of ber children. She put herself In communication with Tilset’a family, with whom she had quarrelled, and with whom she had In no way communicated since the death of her husband, followed almost immediately by her removal from Kent to London The Information she finally obtained was very startling, and, moreover, it served her fatal purpose ter ribly. She learnt that J ■ sse’a two brothers were both insane, and Incarcerated In the County Asylum. She made no inquiry as to the causes which had led to these catastrophes, or she would have learned that the two unfortunate yonog msn, after losing their farm by following in their brother’s defying footsteps, had taken to evil courses, and had driven themselves into delirium tremens, upon partial recovery from which their minds were so broken that it was found convenient to keep them in a county mad-house.

Mrs Gibson fatally construed the news after her own fashion, and shaped it to her own rash ends. • Would you marry a man,’ she said, who has two brothers in a lunatic asylum T You would not dare do such wickedness. Do you comprehend the immense cruelty of bringing into the world children who are condemned even in their birth ?'

This mode of reasoning on the part of the mother formed a terrible weapon, which sha used at all possible times, and in all ways, throughout two whole months. So that when in November, Even Lloyd proposed to Nellie, after waiting through the three months with edifying meekness, ohe hesitated —and was lost. ‘We must have a very quiet marriage, dear Nelli**/ he said, * 1 hate fuss, and I know you do.’ She was even then only halt hearted in the business. Her acceptance of the offer was as much the result of growing indignation and pique at Jesse’s silence as of pi*.v for the man who had so pa'iently waited for her. She quite agreed as to the advisability of a private and an unostentatious marriage. But she demurred to his suggestion that his father should not be asked over to the wedding. •He is old/ he urged, ‘and he hates England. He has not been in this country through fifty years. Again, my mother is ailing and be would hesitate to leave her ■ for they are deeply attached, and they have not separated for a day since they were wedded,’ 1 But you are his only son/ she said : 'he would like to see you married !’ Then, after a pause, she said quickly, ‘ So be it—but let us at once go to Paris after the marriage, so that i may know your people. ’ ‘ No, ’ he replied ; ‘ I should prefer that wo deferred our visit to France until the spring—say April, when France is quite charming.’ She yielded again. Upon the day of the marriage (which was almost meanly private), and after they had left Hlantageaet Park on their way to Bath (where this strange bridegroom had elected to pass a short honeymoon, he said—‘By the way, Nellie, dear, when does your mother propose to pay over to me your little fortune r ‘ What fortune ?’ ‘ Your two thousand pounds !’ < Sorely, Evan, you do not want my mother’s money ?’ ... ‘lt is not hers beyond a third—it is mine ; for what is yours is mine I’ ‘ But she would not have enough to live upon !’ ‘Nonsense—with the two thousand I shall make more in a day than she receives in a year. Then, again, It will come back to your mother, since we remain in the house with her.’

Nellie said no more. But it struck upon her heart as someth! g wrong that her husband was about to touch her mother’s meagre fortune, and possess hlmse’f of twothirds of Its amount Upon the Thursday as Ellen was married on the Tuesday (a 7th of December), Mra Gibson received a letter of which the following is a oopy : ‘To Mrs Ann Gibson, late of the Wold Farm, Chipping Cray, near Ashford, Kent.

* Bth December, 187 —. ‘ Dear Madam —Wo have to inform vou of the death, on the 6th inst., of Mr John Ksoorby Gibson, of Bloomreigh House, near Northallerton (Yorks), and brother cf your late husband, Thomas Hsoorby Gibson. Th's gentleman, our client for many years, leaves a will by which ho devises all his property to his only relation and niece, your daughter Ellen Gibson, and her heirs and successors if Ellen Gibson should be dead. We aha! be happy to hear from you at your earliest

convenience, and to wait apoa you at any guoh time as you may appoint. ‘ Wo have the honor to be, * Dear Madam, 4 Your obedient servants, 4 SUMMEBBY AND SALISBURY, 4 Solicitors, ' lOSb, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London.’

Vaguely the hapless woman, who had pressed on the mairiago of her daughter to a comparative stranger, and who had never thought of consulting a lawyer in relation to ih s union—vaguely the poor, almost ruined woman recalled that her husband (who was Yorkshlteman) had mentioned his eld-r and half brother, with whom he had quarrelled when both were little more than boys— quarrelled to part, and never to meet again. As she thought over those long since uttered confidence! she remembered tha, her husband had spoken cf his brother as being a supplanter, who had robbed him of all iis inheritance. With trembling hands she put on a bonnet and jacket and hurried down to Lincoln s Inn Fields. When she announced here elf in the outer office she was received with marked consideration. Let us pass over the preliminary conversation between the lawyer and the meagre householder In Plantagauet Pbrk, and arrive at that point whence it becomes of Interest, Inasmuch as it foreshadows the iniquitous chain of events, the cruel links of which form this strange narrative. (To he continued )