Mary Wollstonecraft Part 11

Imlay's love was to Mary what the kiss of the Prince was to the Sleeping Beauty in the fairy tale. It awakened her heart to happiness, leading her into that new world which is the old. Hitherto the love which had been her portion was that which she had sought

"... in the pity of other's woe, In the gentle relief of another's care."

And yet she had always believed that the pure pa.s.sion which a man gives to a woman is the greatest good in life. That she was without it had been to her a heavier trial than an unhappy home and overwhelming debts. Now, when she least expected it, it had come to her. While women in Paris were either trembling with fear for what the morrow might bring forth, or else caught in the feverish whirl of rebellion, one at least had found rest.

But human happiness can never be quite perfect. Sensitiveness was a family fault with the Wollstonecrafts. It had been developed rather than suppressed in Mary by her circ.u.mstances. She was therefore keenly susceptible not only to Imlay's love, but to his failings. Of these he had not a few. He does not seem to have been a refined man. From some remarks in Mary's letters it may be concluded that he had at one time been very dissipated, and that the society of coa.r.s.e men and women had blunted his finer instincts. His faults were peculiarly calculated to offend her. His pa.s.sion had to be stimulated. His business called him away often, and his absences were unmistakably necessary to the maintenance of his devotion. The suns.h.i.+ne of her new life was therefore not entirely unclouded. She was by degrees obliged to lower the high pedestal on which she had placed her lover, and to admit to herself that he was not much above the level of ordinary men. This discovery did not lessen her affection, though it made her occasionally melancholy. But she was, on the whole, happy.

In September he was compelled to leave her to go to Havre, where he was detained for several months. Love had cast out all fear from her heart.

She was certain that he considered himself in every sense of the word her husband; and therefore during his absence she frankly told him how much she missed him, and in her letters shared her troubles and pleasures with him. She wrote the last thing at night to tell him of her love and her loneliness. She could not take his slippers from their old place by the door. She would not look at a package of books sent to her, but said she would keep them until he could read them to her while she would mend her stockings. She drew pictures of the happy days to come when in the farm, either in America or France, to which they both looked forward as their _Ultima Thule_, they would spend long evenings by their fireside, perhaps with children about their knees. If Eliza sent her a worrying letter, half the worry was gone when she had confided it to him. If ne'er-do-weel Charles, temporarily prosperous or promising to be so, wrote her one that pleased her, straightway she described the delight with which he would make a friend of Imlay. When the latter had been away but a short time, she found there was to be a new tie between them. As the father of her unborn child he became doubly dear to her, while the consciousness that another life depended upon her made her more careful of her health. "This thought," she told him, "has not only produced an overflowing of tenderness to you, but made me very attentive to calm my mind and take exercise lest I should destroy an object in whom we are to have a mutual interest, you know." As Kegan Paul says, "No one can read her letters without seeing that she was a pure, high-minded, and refined woman, and that she considered herself, in the eyes of G.o.d and man, his wife."

During the first part of his absence, Imlay appears to have been as devoted as she could have wished him to be. When her letters to him did not come regularly,--as indeed, how could they in those troubled days?--he grew impatient. His impatience Mary greeted as a good sign. In December she wrote:--

I am glad to find that other people can be unreasonable as well as myself, for be it known to thee, that I answered thy _first_ letter the very night it reached me (Sunday), though thou couldst not receive it before Wednesday, because it was not sent off till the next day. There is a full, true, and particular account.

Yet I am not angry with thee, my love, for I think that it is a proof of stupidity, and, likewise, of a milk-and-water affection, which comes to the same thing, when the temper is governed by a square and compa.s.s. There is nothing picturesque in this straight-lined equality, and the pa.s.sions always give grace to the actions.

Recollection now makes my heart bound to thee; but it is not to thy money-getting face, though I cannot be seriously displeased with the exertion which increases my esteem, or rather is what I should have expected from thy character. No; I have thy honest countenance before me,--Pop,--relaxed by tenderness; a little, little wounded by my whims; and thy eyes glistening with sympathy. Thy lips then feel softer than soft, and I rest my cheek on thine, forgetting all the world. I have not left the hue of love out of the picture--the rosy glow; and fancy has spread it over my own cheeks, I believe, for I feel them burning, whilst a delicious tear trembles in my eye, that would be all your own, if a grateful emotion, directed to the Father of nature, who has made me thus alive to happiness, did not give more warmth to the sentiment it divides. I must pause a moment.

Need I tell you that I am tranquil after writing thus? I do not know why, but I have more confidence in your affection when absent than present; nay, I think that you must love me, for, in the sincerity of my heart let me say it, I believe I deserve your tenderness, because I am true, and have a degree of sensibility that you can see and relish.

Yours sincerely, MARY.

But there were days during his absence when her melancholy returned with full force. She could not but fear that the time would come when the coa.r.s.e fibre of his love would work her evil. Just after he left, she wrote,--

"... So much for business! May I venture to talk a little longer about less weighty affairs? How are you? I have been following you all along the road this comfortless weather; for when I am absent from those I love, my imagination is as lively as if my senses had never been gratified by their presence--I was going to say caresses, and why should I not? I have found out that I have more mind than you in one respect; because I can, without any violent effort of reason, find food for love in the same object much longer than you can. The way to my senses is through my heart; but, forgive me! I think there is sometimes a shorter cut to yours.

"With ninety-nine men out of a hundred, a very sufficient dash of folly is necessary to render a woman _piquante_, a soft word for desirable; and, beyond these casual ebullitions of sympathy, few look for enjoyment by fostering a pa.s.sion in their hearts. One reason, in short, why I wish my whole s.e.x to become wiser, is, that the foolish ones may not, by their pretty folly, rob those whose sensibility keeps down their vanity, of the few roses that afford them some solace in the th.o.r.n.y road of life.

"I do not know how I fell into these reflections, excepting one thought produced it--that these continual separations were necessary to warm your affection. Of late we are always separating.

Crack! crack! and away you go! This joke wears the sallow cast of thought; for, though I began to write cheerfully, some melancholy tears have found their way into my eyes, that linger there, whilst a glow of tenderness at my heart whispers that you are one of the best creatures in the world. Pardon then the vagaries of a mind that has been almost 'crazed by care,' as well as 'crossed in hapless love,' and bear with me a _little_ longer. When we are settled in the country together, more duties will open before me; and my heart, which now, trembling into peace, is agitated by every emotion that awakens the remembrance of old griefs, will learn to rest on yours with that dignity your character, not to talk of my own, demands."

The business at Havre apparently could not be easily settled. The date of Imlay's return became more and more uncertain, and Mary grew restless at his prolonged stay. This she let him know soon enough. She was not a silent heroine willing to let concealment prey on her spirits. It was as impossible for her to smile at grief as it was to remain unconscious of her lover's shortcomings. Her first complaints, however, are half playful, half serious. They were inspired by her desire to see him more than by any misgiving as to the cause of his detention. On the 29th of December she wrote:

"You seem to have taken up your abode at Havre. Pray, sir! when do you think of coming home? or, to write very considerately, when will business permit you? I shall expect (as the country people say in England) that you will make a _power_ of money to indemnify me for your absence....

"Well! but, my love, to the old story,--am I to see you this week, or this month? I do not know what you are about, for as you did not tell me, I would not ask Mr. ----, who is generally pretty communicative."

But the playfulness quickly disappeared. Mary was ill, and her illness aggravated her normal sensitiveness, while the terrible death-drama of the Revolution was calculated to deepen rather than to relieve her gloom.

A day or two later she broke out vehemently:--

"... I hate commerce. How differently must ----'s head and heart be organized from mine! You will tell me that exertions are necessary.

I am weary of them! The face of things public and private vexes me.

The 'peace' and clemency which seemed to be dawning a few days ago, disappear again. 'I am fallen,' as Milton said, 'on evil days,' for I really believe that Europe will be in a state of convulsion during half a century at least. Life is but a labor of patience; it is always rolling a great stone up a hill; for before a person can find a resting-place, imagining it is lodged, down it comes again, and all the work is to be done over anew!

"Should I attempt to write any more, I could not change the strain.

My head aches and my heart is heavy. The world appears an 'unweeded garden' where things 'rank and vile' flourish best.

"If you do not return soon,--or, which is no such weighty matter, talk of it,--I will throw my slippers out at window, and be off, n.o.body knows where."

The next morning she added in a postscript:--

"I was very low-spirited last night, ready to quarrel with your cheerful temper, which makes absence easy to you. And why should I mince the matter? I was offended at your not even mentioning it. I do not want to be loved like a G.o.ddess, but I wish to be necessary to you. G.o.d bless you!"

Imlay's answers to these letters were kind and rea.s.suring, and contained ample explanation of his apparent coldness. He probably, to give him the benefit of the doubt, was at this time truthful in pleading business as an excuse for his long absence. His reasons, at all events, not only satisfied Mary but made her ashamed of what seemed to her a want of faith in him. She was as humble in her penitence as if she had been grievously at fault. One Monday night she wrote:--

"I have just received your kind and rational letter, and would fain hide my face, glowing with shame for my folly. I would hide it in your bosom, if you would again open it to me, and nestle closely till you bade my fluttering heart be still, by saying that you forgave me. With eyes overflowing with tears, and in the humblest att.i.tude, I entreat you. Do not turn from me, for indeed I love you fondly, and have been very wretched since the night I was so cruelly hurt by thinking that you had no confidence in me."

As it continued impossible for Imlay to leave Havre, it was arranged that Mary should join him there. She could not go at once on account of her health. While she had been so unhappy, she had neglected to take that care of herself which her condition necessitated, and she was suffering the consequences. Once her mind was at rest, she made what amends she could by exercise in the bracing winter air, in defiance of dirt and intense cold, and by social relaxation, at least such as could be had while the guillotine was executing daily tasks to the tune of _ca ira_, and women were madly turning in the mazes of the _Carmagnole_. Though she could not boast of being quite recovered, she was soon able to report to Imlay, "I am so _lightsome_, that I think it will not go badly with me."

Her health sufficiently restored, and an escort--the excited condition of the country making one more than usually indispensable--having been found, she began her welcome journey. It was doubly welcome. One could breathe more freely away from Paris, the seat of the Reign of Terror, where the Revolution, as Vergniaud said, was, Saturn-like, devouring its own children; and for Mary the journey had likewise the positive pleasure of giving her her heart's desire. Before Imlay's warm a.s.surances of his love, her uneasiness melted away as quickly as the snow at the first breath of spring. How completely, is shown in this extract from a letter in which she prepared him for her coming:--

"You have by your tenderness and worth twisted yourself more artfully round my heart than I supposed possible. Let me indulge the thought that I have thrown out some tendrils to cling to the elm by which I wish to be supported. This is talking a new language for me! But, knowing that I am not a parasite-plant, I am willing to receive the proofs of affection that every pulse replies to when I think of being once more in the same house with you. G.o.d bless you!"

She arrived in Havre in the February of 1794. About a fortnight later Imlay left for Paris, but many proofs of his affection had greeted her, and during these few days he had completely calmed her fears. Judging from the letters she sent him during this absence, he must have been as lover-like as in the first happy days of their union. One was written the very day after his departure:--

HAVRE, _Thursday morning_, March 12.

We are such creatures of habit, my love, that, though I cannot say I was sorry, childishly so, for your going, when I knew that you were to stay such a short time, and I had a plan of employment, yet I could not sleep. I turned to your side of the bed, and tried to make the most of the comfort of the pillow, which you used to tell me I was churlish about; but all would not do. I took, nevertheless, my walk before breakfast, though the weather was not inviting; and here I am, wis.h.i.+ng you a finer day, and seeing you peep over my shoulder, as I write, with one of your kindest looks, when your eyes glisten and a suffusion creeps over your relaxing features.

But I do not mean to dally with you this morning. So G.o.d bless you!

Take care of yourself, and sometimes fold to your heart your affectionate

MARY.

The second note was written shortly before his return, and was a mere postscript to a letter on business. Had she covered reams of paper with her protestations, she could not have expressed her tender devotion more strongly than in these few lines:--

Do not call me stupid for leaving on the table the little bit of paper I was to enclose. This comes of being in love at the f.a.g-end of a letter of business. You know you say they will not chime together. I had got you by the fire-side with the _gigot_ smoking on the board, to lard your bare ribs, and behold, I closed my letter without taking the paper up, that was directly under my eyes! What had I got in them to render me so blind? I give you leave to answer the question, if you will not scold; for I am

Yours most affectionately, MARY.

Imlay's absence was brief, nor did he again leave Mary until the following August. In April their child, a daughter, was born, whom Mary called f.a.n.n.y in memory of her first and dearest friend. Despite her past imprudences, she was so well that she remained in bed but a day. Eight days later she was out again. Though she felt no ill effects at the time, her rashness had probably something to do with her illness when her second child was born. These months at Havre were a pleasant oasis in the dreary desert of her existence. To no parched, sun-weary traveller have the cooling waters of the well and the shade of the palm-tree been more refres.h.i.+ng and invigorating than domestic pleasures were to Mary.

Years before she had told Mr. Johnson they were among her most highly cherished joys, nor did they prove less desirable when realized than they had in antic.i.p.ation. She seems to have had a house of her own in Havre, and to have seen a little of the Havrais, whom she found "ugly without doubt," and their houses smelling too much of commerce. They were, in a word, _bourgeois_. But her husband and child were all the society she wanted. With them any wilderness would have been a paradise. Her affection increased with time, and Imlay, though discovered not to be a demiG.o.d, grew ever dearer to her. Her love for her child, which she confessed was at first the effect of a sense of duty, developed soon into a deep and tender feeling. With Imlay's wants to attend to, the little f.a.n.n.y, at one time ill with small-pox, to nurse, and her book on the Revolution to write, the weeks and months pa.s.sed quickly and happily. In August Imlay was summoned to Paris, and at once the sky of her paradise was overcast. She wrote to him,--

"You too have somehow clung round my heart. I found I could not eat my dinner in the great room, and when I took up the large knife to carve for myself, tears rushed into my eyes. Do not, however, suppose that I am melancholy, for, when you are from me, I not only wonder how I can find fault with you, but how I can doubt your affection."

CHAPTER IX.

IMLAY'S DESERTION.

1794-1795.

Unfortunately, as a rule, the traveller on life's journey has but as short a time to stay in the pleasant green resting-places, as the wanderer through the desert. In September Mary followed Imlay to Paris.

But the gates of her Eden were forever barred. Before the end of the month he had bidden her farewell and had gone to London. Against the fascination of money-making, her charms had little chance. His estrangement dates from this separation. When Mary met him again, he had forgotten love and honor, and had virtually deserted her. While her affection became stronger, his weakened until finally it perished altogether.

Her confidence in him, however, was confirmed by the months spent at Havre, and she little dreamed his departure was the prelude to their final parting. For a time she was lighter-hearted than she had ever before been while he was away. The memory of her late happiness rea.s.sured her. Her little girl was an unceasing source of joy, and she never tired of writing to Imlay about her. Her maternal tenderness overflows in her letters:--

"... You will want to be told over and over again," she said in one of them, not doubting his interest to be as great as her, "that our little Hercules is quite recovered.