A House to Let | Page 8

wife. So when her cousin, Frank Wilson, came home
from a long absence at sea, and first was kind and protective to her;
secondly, attentive and thirdly, desperately in love with her, she hardly
knew how to be grateful enough to him. It is true she would have
preferred his remaining in the first or second stages of behaviour; for
his violent love puzzled and frightened her. Her uncle neither helped
nor hindered the love affair though it was going on under his own eyes.
Frank's step-mother had such a variable temper, that there was no
knowing whether what she liked one day she would like the next, or not.
At length she went to such extremes of crossness, that Alice was only
too glad to shut her eyes and rush blindly at the chance of escape from
domestic tyranny offered her by a marriage with her cousin; and, liking
him better than any one in the world except her uncle (who was at this
time at sea) she went off one morning and was married to him; her only

bridesmaid being the housemaid at her aunt's. The consequence was,
that Frank and his wife went into lodgings, and Mrs. Wilson refused to
see them, and turned away Norah, the warm-hearted housemaid; whom
they accordingly took into their service. When Captain Wilson returned
from his voyage, he was very cordial with the young couple, and spent
many an evening at their lodgings; smoking his pipe, and sipping his
grog; but he told them that, for quietness' sake, he could not ask them to
his own house; for his wife was bitter against them. They were not very
unhappy about this.
The seed of future unhappiness lay rather in Frank's vehement,
passionate disposition; which led him to resent his wife's shyness and
want of demonstration as failures in conjugal duty. He was already
tormenting himself, and her too, in a slighter degree, by apprehensions
and imaginations of what might befall her during his approaching
absence at sea. At last he went to his father and urged him to insist
upon Alice's being once more received under his roof; the more
especially as there was now a prospect of her confinement while her
husband was away on his voyage. Captain Wilson was, as he himself
expressed it, "breaking up," and unwilling to undergo the excitement of
a scene; yet he felt that what his son said was true. So he went to his
wife. And before Frank went to sea, he had the comfort of seeing his
wife installed in her old little garret in his father's house. To have
placed her in the one best spare room was a step beyond Mrs. Wilson's
powers of submission or generosity. The worst part about it, however,
was that the faithful Norah had to be dismissed. Her place as
housemaid had been filled up; and, even had it not, she had forfeited
Mrs. Wilson's good opinion for ever. She comforted her young master
and mistress by pleasant prophecies of the time when they would have
a household of their own; of which, in whatever service she might be in
the meantime, she should be sure to form part. Almost the last action
Frank Wilson did, before setting sail, was going with Alice to see
Norah once more at her mother's house. And then he went away.
Alice's father-in-law grew more and more feeble as winter advanced.
She was of great use to her step-mother in nursing and amusing him;
and, although there was anxiety enough in the household, there was
perhaps more of peace than there had been for years; for Mrs. Wilson
had not a bad heart, and was softened by the visible approach of death

to one whom she loved, and touched by the lonely condition of the
young creature, expecting her first confinement in her husband's
absence. To this relenting mood Norah owed the permission to come
and nurse Alice when her baby was born, and to remain to attend on
Captain Wilson.
Before one letter had been received from Frank (who had sailed for the
East Indies and China), his father died. Alice was always glad to
remember that he had held her baby in his arms, and kissed and blessed
it before his death. After that, and the consequent examination into the
state of his affairs, it was found that he had left far less property than
people had been led by his style of living to imagine; and, what money
there was, was all settled upon his wife, and at her disposal after her
death. This did not signify much to Alice, as Frank was now first mate
of his ship, and, in another voyage or two, would be captain.
Meanwhile he had left her some hundreds (all his savings)