University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
HOME À LA POMPADOUR.

WELL, Lillie came back at last; and John conducted
her over the transformed Seymour mansion,
where literally old things had passed away, and
all things become new.

There was not a relic of the past. The house was
furbished and resplendent — it was gilded — it was
frescoed — it was à la Pompadour, and à la Louis
Quinze and Louis Quatorze, and à la every thing
Frenchy and pretty, and gay and glistening. For,
though the parlors at first were the only apartments
contemplated in this renaissance, yet it came to pass
that the parlors, when all tricked out, cast such invidious
reflections on the chambers that the chambers felt
themselves old and rubbishy, and prayed and stretched
out hands of imploration to have something done for
them!

So the spare chamber was first included in the glorification
programme; but, when the spare chamber was
once made into a Pompadour pavilion, it so flouted
and despised the other old-fashioned Yankee chambers,

that they were ready to die with envy; and, in short,
there was no way to produce a sense of artistic unity,
peace, and quietness, but to do the whole thing over,
which was done triumphantly.

The French Emperor, Louis Napoleon, who was a
shrewd sort of a man in his day and way, used to talk
a great deal about the “logic of events;” which language,
being interpreted, my dear gentlemen, means a
good deal in domestic life. It means, for instance, that
when you drive the first nail, or tear down the first
board, in the way of alteration of an old house, you
will have to make over every room and corner in it,
and pay as much again for it as if you built a new one.

John was able to sympathize with Lillie in her childish
delight in the new house, because he loved her, and
was able to put himself and his own wishes out of the
question for her sake; but, when all the bills connected
with this change came in, he had emotions with which
Lillie could not sympathize: first, because she knew
nothing about figures, and was resolved never to know
any thing; and, like all people who know nothing about
them, she cared nothing; — and, second, because she
did not love John.

Now, the truth is, Lillie would have been quite astonished
to have been told this. She, and many other
women, suppose that they love their husbands, when,
unfortunately, they have not the beginning of an idea
what love is. Let me explain it to you, my dear lady.
Loving to be admired by a man, loving to be petted by
him, loving to be caressed by him, and loving to be

praised by him, is not loving a man. All these may be
when a woman has no power of loving at all, — they
may all be simply because she loves herself, and loves
to be flattered, praised, caressed, coaxed; as a cat likes
to be coaxed and stroked, and fed with cream, and have
a warm corner.

But all this is not love. It may exist, to be sure,
where there is love; it generally does. But it may
also exist where there is no love. Love, my dear
ladies, is self-sacrifice; it is a life out of self and in
another. Its very essence is the preferring of the comfort,
the ease, the wishes of another to one's own, for
the love we bear them. Love is giving, and not receiving.
Love is not a sheet of blotting-paper or a sponge,
sucking in every thing to itself; it is an out-springing
fountain, giving from itself. Love's motto has been
dropped in this world as a chance gem of great price
by the loveliest, the fairest, the purest, the strongest of
Lovers that ever trod this mortal earth, of whom it is
recorded that He said, “It is more blessed to give than
to receive.” Now, in love, there are ten receivers to one
giver. There are ten persons in this world who like to
be loved and love love, where there is one who knows
how to love. That, O my dear ladies, is a nobler attainment
than all your French and music and dancing.
You may lose the very power of it by smothering it
under a load of early self-indulgence. By living just as
you are all wanting to live, — living to be petted, to be
flattered, to be admired, to be praised, to have your
own way, and to do only that which is easy and agreeable,

— you may lose the power of self-denial and self-sacrifice;
you may lose the power of loving nobly and
worthily, and become a mere sheet of blotting-paper
all your life.

You will please to observe that, in all the married
life of these two, as thus far told, all the accommodations,
compliances, changes, have been made by John
for Lillie.

He has been, step by step, giving up to her his
ideal of life, and trying, as far as so different a nature
can, to accommodate his to hers; and she accepts
all this as her right and due.

She sees no particular cause of gratitude in it, — it is
what she expected when she married. Her own specialty,
the thing which she has always cultivated, is
to get that sort of power over man, by which she
can carry her own points and purposes, and make
him flexible to her will; nor does a suspicion of the
utter worthlessness and selfishness of such a life ever
darken the horizon of her thoughts.

John's bills were graver than he expected. It is
true he was rich; but riches is a relative term. As
related to the style of living hitherto practised in
his establishment, John's income was princely, and left
a large balance to be devoted to works of general
benevolence; but he perceived that, in this year, that
balance would be all absorbed; and this troubled him.

Then, again, his establishment being now given up
by his sister must be reorganized, with Lillie at its
head; and Lillie declared in the outset that she could

not, and would not, take any trouble about any
thing.

“John would have to get servants; and the servants
would have to see to things:” she “was resolved, for one
thing, that she wasn't going to be a slave to housekeeping.”

By great pains and importunity, and an offer of high
wages, Grace and John retained Bridget in the establishment,
and secured from New York a seamstress and
a waitress, and other members to make out a domestic
staff.

This sisterhood were from the isle of Erin, and not
an unfavorable specimen of that important portion
of our domestic life. They were quick-witted, well-versed
in a certain degree of household and domestic
skill, guided in well-doing more by impulsive good
feeling than by any very enlightened principle. The
dominant idea with them all appeared to be, that they
were living in the house of a millionnaire, where money
flowed through the establishment in a golden stream,
out of which all might drink freely and rejoicingly,
with no questions asked. Mrs. Lillie concerned herself
only with results, and paid no attention to ways and
means. She wanted a dainty and generous table to
be spread for her, at all proper hours, with every
pleasing and agreeable variety; to which she should
come as she would to the table of a boarding-house,
without troubling her head where any thing came from
or went to. Bridget, having been for some years under
the training and surveillance of Grace Seymour, was

more than usually competent as cook and provider;
but Bridget had abundance of the Irish astuteness,
which led her to feel the genius of circumstances, and
to shape her course accordingly.

With Grace, she had been accurate, saving, and
economical; for Miss Grace was so. Bridget had felt,
under her sway, the beauty of that economy which
saves because saving is in itself so fitting and so
respectable; and because, in this way, a power for a
wise generosity is accumulated. She was sympathetic
with the ruling spirit of the establishment.

But, under the new mistress, Bridget declined in
virtue. The announcement that the mistress of a
family isn't going to give herself any trouble, nor
bother her head with care about any thing, is one
the influence of which is felt downward in every
department. Why should Bridget give herself any
trouble to save and economize for a mistress who took
none for herself? She had worked hard all her life,
why not take it easy? And it was so much easier
to send daily a basket of cold victuals to her cousin on
Vine Street than to contrive ways of making the most
of things, that Bridget felt perfectly justified in doing
it. If, once in a while, a little tea and a paper of
sugar found their way into the same basket, who would
ever miss it?

The seamstress was an elegant lady. She kept all
Lillie's dresses and laces and wardrobe, and had something
ready for her to put on when she changed her
toilet every day. If this very fine lady wore her

mistress's skirts and sashes, and laces and jewelry, on
the sly, to evening parties among the upper servant
circles of Springdale, who was to know it? Mrs. John
Seymour knew nothing about where her things were,
nor what was their condition, and never wanted to
trouble herself to inquire.

It may therefore be inferred that when John began
to settle up accounts, and look into financial matters,
they seemed to him not to be going exactly in the
most promising way.

He thought he would give Lillie a little practical
insight into his business, — show her exactly what his
income was, and make some estimates of his expenses,
just that she might have some little idea how things
were going.

So John, with great care, prepared a nice little
account-book, prefaced by a table of figures, showing
the income of the Spindlewood property, and the income
of his law business, and his income from other sources.
Against this, he placed the necessary out-goes of his
business, and showed what balance might be left. Then
he showed what had hitherto been spent for various
benevolent purposes connected with the schools and
his establishments at Spindlewood. He showed what
had been the bills for the refitting of the house, and
what were now the running current expenses of the
family.

He hoped that he had made all these so plain and
simple, that Lillie might easily be made to understand
them, and that thus some clear financial boundaries

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 706EAF. Page 133. In-line Illustration. Image of a man sitting in front of a woman trying to show her an open book he is holding. The woman has her hand to her forehead and is waving him away with her other hand. The caption reads, "I never had the least head for figures."] might appear in her mind. Then he seized a favorable
hour, and produced his book.

“Lillie,” he said, “I want to make you understand a
little about our expenditures and income.”

“Oh, dreadful, John! don't, pray! I never had any
head for things of that kind.”

“But, Lillie, please let me show you,” persisted John.
“I've made it just as simple as can be.”

“O John! now — I just — can't — there now! Don't
bring that book now; it'll just make me low-spirited
and cross. I never had the least head for figures;

mamma always said so; and if there is any thing
that seems to me perfectly dreadful, it is accounts. I
don't think it 's any of a woman's business — it 's all
man's work, and men have got to see to it. Now,
please don't,” she added, coming to him coaxingly,
and putting her arm round his neck.

“But, you see, Lillie,” John persevered, in a pleading
tone, — “you see, all these alterations that have been
made in the house have involved very serious expenses;
and then, too, we are living at a very different rate
of expense from what we ever lived before” —

“There it is, John! Now, you oughtn't to reproach
me with it; for you know it was your own idea. I didn't
want the alterations made; but you would insist on it.
I didn't think it was best; but you would have them.”

“But, Lillie, it was all because you wanted them.”

“Well, I dare say; but I shouldn't have wanted
them if I thought it was going to bring in all this
bother and trouble, and make me have to look over old
accounts, and all such things. I 'd rather never have
had any thing!” And here Lillie began to cry.

“Come, now, my darling, do be a sensible woman,
and not act like a baby.”

“There, John! it 's just as I knew it would be; I
always said you wanted a different sort of a woman for
a wife. Now, you knew when you took me that I
wasn't in the least strong-minded or sensible, but a
poor little helpless thing; and you are beginning to
get tired of me already. You wish you had married a
woman like Grace, I know you do.”

“Lillie, how silly! Please do listen, now. You
have no idea how simple and easy what I want to
explain to you is.”

“Well, John, I can't to-night, anyhow, because I
have a headache. Just this talk has got my head to
thumping so, — it 's really dreadful! and I 'm so low-spirited!
I do wish you had a wife that would suit
you better.” And forthwith Mrs. Lillie dissolved in
tears; and John stroked her head, and petted her, and
called her a nice little pussy, and begged her pardon
for being so rough with her, and, in short, acted like a
fool generally.

“If that woman was my wife now,” I fancy I hear
some youth with a promising moustache remark, “I 'd
make her behave!”

Well, sir, supposing she was your wife, what are you
going to do about it?

What are you going to do when accounts give your
wife a sick headache, so that she cannot possibly attend
to them? Are you going to enact the Blue Beard, and
rage and storm, and threaten to cut her head off?
What good would that do? Cutting off a wrong little
head would not turn it into a right one. An ancient
proverb significantly remarks, “You can't have more
of a cat than her skin,” — and no amount of fuming and
storming can make any thing more of a woman than
she is. Such as your wife is, sir, you must take her,
and make the best of it. Perhaps you want your own
way. Don't you wish you could get it?

But didn't she promise to obey? Didn't she? Of

course. Then why is it that I must be all the while
yielding points, and she never? Well, sir, that is for
you to settle. The marriage service gives you authority;
so does the law of the land. John could lock up
Mrs. Lillie till she learned her lessons; he could do any
of twenty other things that no gentleman would ever
think of doing, and the law would support him in it.
But, because John is a gentleman, and not Paddy from
Cork, he strokes his wife's head, and submits.

We understand that our brethren, the Methodists,
have recently decided to leave the word “obey” out of
the marriage-service. Our friends are, as all the world
knows, a most wise and prudent denomination, and
guided by a very practical sense in their arrangements.
If they have left the word “obey” out, it is because
they have concluded that it does no good to put it in,
— a decision that John's experience would go a long
way to justify.