Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856/In the Next Box
In the Next Box.
Written for the Evening Gazette.
By John Inly.
Mr. Tweedles ought to have been ashamed of himself: that is, I mean he ought to have done differently. And he knew it as well as anybody. For there is no sort of reason why a man should think himself privileged to treat his wife with indifference, just because he has been married long enough to grow a little familiar. He has no right to presume on her good nature, or anything else, merely on account of his acquaintance.
But it looked as if Mr. Tweedles did. Just exactly as if, having once got married and got his wife well provided for in comfortable quarters, he was bent on turning round again and enjoying himself without her assistance. As if a man might not find happiness enough at home, with all his family arrangements around him! As if there was any sense in his deserting his domestic post for filagree follies that never satisfy the fancy, and never fail, either, to bring an untold amount of trouble with them!
Mrs. Tweedles—poor woman!—pretty soon began to see how things were going. She took the subject seriously home to her heart, and tried to assure herself what her duty was under such unhappy circumstances. Other wives—some of them, at least, would have made a fuss at once, and only made the matter worse, of course. But she happened to be considerate. And it is to be supposed that she possessed those more delicate sensibilities, that forbade the thought of dragging her domestic troubles out into the arena of public discussion. If there was a cure to be wrought, she preferred that it be done as privately as possible. Or if she could hope to work no change for the better, then she could hug her grief, like a devoted martyr, to her heart, and die of her troubles before she would publish a syllable of them to the world. This was the spirit of heroism itself.
Seeing that her husband grew gayer and gayer every day, and unwilling to let him suppose that he was committing any sin for which she was not ready at any moment to forgive him, she set about concerting several plans of her own, by whose help she might awaken him to a proper sense of his strange conduct.
Among others, she learned by an accident that Mrs. Golding was one of his most intimate friends; a lady of “respectability,” as a matter of course, but who ought to have known better than to lead away Mr. Tweedles as she did. It was nothing more than flirtation, the whole of it; but even flirtation gives rise, in its way, to a thousand wretched consequences.
One evening it was go to the opera, and another evening to a lecture. Not it was whist party, and now it was a moonlight ride. This time he sat and made love in their own parlors, and the next he met them in a pleasant way at the saloons and places of refreshment. Till Mrs. Tweedles finally formed her resolution, and proceeded without any words to carry it into effect.
Mr. Tweedles went out one evening after tea, very much according to his usual custom of late.
“Where are you going, husband?” asked his wife. “Can’t you stay with me just one evening? I’m sure, I think you are beginning to forget me! I am not jealous, for I don’t know how to be that; but I feel so lonely here every evening without you!”
He hurried on his overcoat, and came over in front of her and took both of her hands.
“Mary, my dear,” he said, “I am only going out on business; I have engaged to meet a couple of gentlemen from the interior, at the Hotel. They will make me two good customers, too, if I can but secure them. Certainly you have no objection to that?”
“No, indeed,” she replied, rather cast down by his answer. “But do you have to go out on business every evening?”
“Why, no,” said Mr. Tweedles; and his his embarrassment as well as he could behind his coat collar.—“I sha’ n’t be gone very long,” he added, as he opened the door.
“Well,” thought his wife, “it’s very likely that you wont! It’s not for you to say, however!”
There was a slight expression of roguery crossing that of grief just then upon her speaking countenance, which one who knew her well would be likely to interpret accurately; to all others it would be but a provoking puzzle and mystery.
So Mr. Tweedles went out, as he said he should do. But not to the Hotel. He had no thoughts of going there from the beginning. He was going in to see Mrs. Golding, of course. And he did go there; and found her at home, just as she had arranged, and as he had expected.
She received him with a remarkably warm pressure of his hand, and, but for it’s being so very dark in the hall, might have been detected in permitting his gallant salute on her cheek. Her husband was gone. That was understood. And so they had the cosy parlor for a while all to themselves, fearless of visits from intruders.
The time was consumed in conversation, and went off delightfully. Mr. Tweedles forgot about the young wife he had left at home alone, and all about her feelings, or even if she had any. He was having a right good time himself, and that seemed as much as he cared for. With Mrs. Golding he was happy enough, in all conscience.
Presently he proposed walking out for refreshments. She acceded to this proposal without delay. It was so common a thing with them, that it would have been rather odd if he had not suggested it.
It took a little time for her to throw on her bonnet and shawl, when she tripped back into the room, and, with the smile of a syren, announced herself ready. He started up, and they passed out of doors together.
The saloon which they were in the habit of frequenting, was a blaze of light. Chandeliers depended from the high ceiling with hundreds of glittering crystals, all blazing and twinkling in the brilliancy of the burning jets of gas. Large marble tables were placed the length of the apartment, around which persons gathered in smiling groups, discussing in turn the viands and the topics of their little domestic day. On the sides of the room were constructed stalls, or boxes, curtained deeply before with crimson stuff, in which a party might be as retired as they chose. A file of waiting-men in white linen jackets were continually passing and repassing, with cups, and dishes, and glasses in their hands, and, at the extremity of the apartment, returning their orders to the persons stationed behind the high counter, or bar.
It was an inspiriting scene. To one just come in from the darkened street, where, for all the gas lights, people and things were seen but dimly, it presented a gay picture enough. How soon those who straggled in, caught the spirit of the place, and at once became new beings, charmed with the various illusions that met their eyes! They seemed in a single moment to walk with more elasticity and grace, as if they had become imbued with a new atmosphere. They stepped across the bright carpet, with its dazzling figures, with the confidence and with the port of kings and queens. The gas and all seemed somehow to make new creatures of them.
So it did with Mr. Tweedle and Mrs. Golding.
Even they were not free from these fascinating influences. The moment they entered, he conducted her to a box not far from the middle of the row, and forthwith dropped the thick curtain to shut out the eyes of those who might feel disposed to be curious.
He proceeded, as soon as they were comfortably seated in their seats, to ring up the waiter, to whom he gave directions as to what they would prefer. And in less than ten minutes it was placed on the little marble table before them. They immediately fell to like persons with freshly whetted appetites, and began to make havoc around them very speedily.
Presently Mr. Tweedles thought his attention was drawn rather more closely than it ordinarily should have been, to bits of conversation in the next box to him. It was a man’s voice, in the main; but a female could be heard quite frequently breaking in and taking a part of her own.
“Hark!” said he, finally, lifting his finger to Mrs. Golding.
So she paused to listen, too.
He thought that that male voice was a rather familiar one to him; and he began to grow still more excited, as he listened to what it had to express for itself.
Said the owner of it, talking up in a highly unsafe tone for such a public place as that was,—“Well I know one thing about it: if Tweedles don’t stop waiting on other ladies as much as he does, he’ll certainly get into trouble!”
Tweedles looked up towards the edge of the partition. His companion simply turned pale; but it was very pale she turned.
“He don’t seem to remember he has got a wife at home,” the voice went on, “and a lovely woman she is too.”
“No,” acquiesced the female, “I believe he has forgotten her altogether. What a pity, though! He is capable of making one of the best of husbands, if he will but give his good feelings and affections the right direction.”
“Heavens!” said Tweedles, getting, up suddenly to his feet.
“Where are you going?” asked the terrified Mrs. Golding. “What are you going to do?” She shook like an aspen leaf, and reached across the table and seized him by the arm.
But he was heedless of any such restraint then, and bounded out of his own box straight through into the adjoining one.
“Mary!” he exclaimed, in a voice by no means too low for such a place as that, “is that you? How came you here?”
“Why, Mr. Tweedles! why, husband!” she exclaimed in her turn.
“Ah,” answered the enraged husband, finding out by a quick glance who her companion was, “now, sir, I’ve caught you in the very act! What are you doing here, sir, in company with my wife? What do you mean? You scoundrel! you villain! you—you—you!” and he finished by stepping forward and shaking his fist in his opponent’s face, and in trying to collar him on the spot.
It happened, too, to be his old friend Mr. Notting!
Mrs. Tweedles sprang to her feet and thrust out her hands between them. “I’ll have no quarreling here in my presence,” said she, “especially with one of your best friends, Mr. Tweedles.”
“He—he’s a villain!” cried out Tweedle.
By this time the attention of these in the room began to be directed towards the scene of the controversy. Here and there, all over the hall, people drew aside their crimson curtains, and took a peep out to see what was the matter. But a man as mad as Tweedles was, did not care a fig about that.
“Why so?” calmly asked his wife.
“Because he’s running about in this way with you! Another man’s wife!”
“But haven’t you got Mrs. Golding in the next box with yourself? And isn’t she another man’s wife? Come, husband, no more of this passion, now. You are out enjoying yourself this evening, and almost every evening; and do you find fault because I wish to do the same? Ah, Mr. Tweedles? don’t be too selfish, now!”
Mrs. Golding at this juncture came out of her box, and was making the best of her way across the room.
“There,” said Mrs. Tweedles to her husband, “I beg you wont be so rude as to suffer Mrs. Golding to go home alone now. You brought her here and I hope you are gallant enough to wait on her home again! Mr. Notting here will be sure to take good care of me!”
The guilty man could have sunk through the floor. Mechanically he hurried away after Mrs. Golding, leaving his wife to follow after when she saw fit.
But from that day forward, Mr. Tweedles has not been known to bestow his own supernumerary affections anywhere outside of his own family. That clever trick of his wife did him an immense deal of good, and not him only but Mrs. Golding likewise; and more than both of them, her own once unhappy and discontented self.
