decanters, and bring hot and cold water, Hester, tumblers, spoons, and two wine-glasses.”
Aunt Empson’s struggles to arise were considerable, but her niece’s resolute repression of them was really a touch of muscular Christianity.
“One true thing has been said to you, dear aunt, one thing that you must and shall believe, and that is that I respect and esteem you more than anybody in the world. Believe that, dearest aunt. And so does Mr. Berry,” she continued, skilfully, “only he has been a little upset to-night by I don’t know what bad news, and he has taken rather more wine than is quite good for him, and I am sure you will overlook that.”
Now the charge of having taken too much wine is, I need hardly remind my male friends, one of those allegations which place the accused person at the mercy of his lady prosecutor—if mercy were a thing to come into the game at all. The words really have the power of those of Circe, when she ordered her victims to become brutes. More,—for her slaves had deserved their fate by actual drinking, whereas the accusation in question, from the mouth of Lovely Woman in our time, tells better against a sober than an intoxicate being. From the moment of the fatal utterance, words, looks, deeds, all take a new colouring, are bathed in the purple tide. Speak slowly, and, evil man, be told that you cannot get ideas to come or words to flow, and fit them. Speak fast, and the demon of drink is riding brain and tongue. Do not speak at all, and you are stupid with the wine you have taken. Argue, and you are fractious and feverish. Assent, and you are silly, and do not fully comprehend the meaning of the words addressed to you. Move about the room, and you are restless with the wine, which does not agree with you, and you had better sit down before you break any of the statuettes. Remain tranquilly on the couch, and of course you are crushing and rending the anti-macassar, but you are not in a state to know what you are about. Propose to go to bed, and no doubt it is the best place for you, but if you were in a condition to care for the opinions of others, you might think what the servants would say at your going off to bed at eleven o’clock. Intimate a notion of remaining, and it is only a man who has been rendered reckless by wine that would think of keeping up those poor servants after half-past ten. Smile, and it is a foolish smile, and you had really better take a book. Frown, and perhaps you had better look in the glass, if you can see straight, and then you will know what ridiculous grimaces you are making. Take up a book, and at once be called upon to answer whether people come home to read at that time of night, and also whether you can see the lines distinctly. Lay the book down, and be commended for doing well in not running the risk of soiling and spoiling what can be of no use to you in your present state. Be cool and undemonstrative as usual, and prepare to state what wine men take that makes them savage and sulky. Press the loved one’s hand, or lightly touch her silken tress, and meet the pitying, pitiless wonder how many glasses are wanted to make a person so mightily affectionate. Therefore thou art inconsiderate, O man, if ever thou exposest thyself to that charge from thy virtuous and domestic Circe. Some married men have recommended that the first time it is brought (save in extraordinary lovingness and playfulness), answer be instantly made with the Bright Poker. Of this counsel I presume to judge not. It might be gentler to bribe the enemy, by never going anywhere without her. For she is not altogether adamant, whatever may have been said for the defendant.
But for this kind of attack to be very successful it is necessary that the combatants should be alone, as a witness on the male side is very much in the way. Upon the present occasion Mr. Berry, who had his weaknesses, one of which was anger when unjustly accused, actually coloured up at this sacrifice of manly dignity at the altar of feminine affection, and was going to say something which might not have acted as oil on the waters. But his witness came suddenly out, and emphatically.
“Quite a mistake, Mrs. Berry, I beg to assure you. Your husband has taken next to nothing, less in fact than I myself have done, and I am anxious to vindicate myself from the charge of having caused any irregularity in a friend’s family. Mr. Berry, I am happy to inform you, has not taken more wine than is good for him.”
We do not believe in evil eyes in England, and therefore, though there are plenty of them about, they do us no harm. Else, the glance which the kneeling Marion bestowed upon the interposing Lygon might have been more than was good for him.
The old lady in the chair made one more effort to rise, but was again put down by a hasty and fervent embrace, and Mrs. Berry arose for battle.
“Mr. Lygon,” she said with a spiteful deliberation, “whatever unhappiness there may be in your own family, I will thank you not to bring any into mine.”
“My dear Mrs. Berry,” said Arthur, whose nature it was to become composed and wary in the presence of manifest hostility, “how happy I should be to deserve your thanks for anything.”
“When a wife,” continued the lady, “is endeavouring to find the best excuse she can for a husband’s conduct, it does not become a stranger to interfere, and endeavour to keep up irritation.”
“Christians are never irritated, Mrs. Berry,” said Arthur, calmly.
“There,” cried the high voice, varied with croak, of the old lady in the chair. “You see he calls me a wretched heathen to my very face.”
“Aunt,” said Mrs. Berry, with dignity,” what either of the so-called gentlemen in this room may say at this time must be a matter for pity, not for answer. You, I am sure, will so regard it,”
“What, have I had too much wine, also?” asked Lygon, with a short laugh. “I did not know it. But if so, is it not a little inhospitable in you, my dear Mrs. Berry, to tell your guest so?”
“It is the right thing to tell the truth,” said Mrs. Berry, as if announcing a newly recognised dogma.
“And not right to do the reverse,” said Mr. Berry, roused into real wrath, and manifesting it