A Story

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  "Do for me? Hang me," said Mr. Hayes, flourishing a stick, and

  perfectly pot-valiant, "do you think I care for a bastard and a--?"

  He did not finish the sentence, for the woman ran at him like a

  savage, knife in hand. He bounded back, flinging his arms about

  wildly, and struck her with his staff sharply across the forehead.

  The woman went down instantly. A lucky blow was it for Hayes and

  her: it saved him from death, perhaps, and her from murder.

  All this scene--a very important one of our drama--might have been

  described at much greater length; but, in truth, the author has a

  natural horror of dwelling too long upon such hideous spectacles:

  nor would the reader be much edified by a full and accurate

  knowledge of what took place. The quarrel, however, though not more

  violent than many that had previously taken place between Hayes and

  his wife, was about to cause vast changes in the condition of this

  unhappy pair.

  Hayes was at the first moment of his victory very much alarmed; he

  feared that he had killed the woman; and Wood started up rather

  anxiously too, with the same fancy. But she soon began to recover.

  Water was brought; her head was raised and bound up; and in a short

  time Mrs. Catherine gave vent to a copious fit of tears, which

  relieved her somewhat. These did not affect Hayes much--they rather

  pleased him, for he saw he had got the better; and although Cat

  fiercely turned upon him when he made some small attempt towards

  reconciliation, he did not heed her anger, but smiled and winked in

  a self-satisfied way at Wood. The coward was quite proud of his

  victory; and finding Catherine asleep, or apparently so, when he

  followed her to bed, speedily gave himself up to slumber too, and

  had some pleasant dreams to his portion.

  Mr. Wood also went sniggering and happy upstairs to his chamber.

  The quarrel had been a real treat to him; it excited the old man-

  -tickled him into good-humour; and he promised himself a rare

  continuation of the fun when Tom should be made acquainted with the

  circumstances of the dispute. As for his Excellency the Count, the

  ride from Marylebone Gardens, and a tender squeeze of the hand,

  which Catherine permitted to him on parting, had so inflamed the

  passions of the nobleman, that, after sleeping for nine hours, and

  taking his chocolate as usual the next morning, he actually delayed

  to read the newspaper, and kept waiting a toy-shop lady from

  Cornhill (with the sweetest bargain of Mechlin lace), in order to

  discourse to his chaplain on the charms of Mrs. Hayes.

  She, poor thing, never closed her lids, except when she would have

  had Mr. Hayes imagine that she slumbered; but lay beside him,

  tossing and tumbling, with hot eyes wide open and heart thumping,

  and pulse of a hundred and ten, and heard the heavy hours tolling;

  and at last the day came peering, haggard, through the

  window-curtains, and found her still wakeful and wretched.

  Mrs. Hayes had never been, as we have seen, especially fond of her

  lord; but now, as the day made visible to her the sleeping figure

  and countenance of that gentleman, she looked at him with a contempt

  and loathing such as she had never felt even in all the years of her

  wedded life. Mr. Hayes was snoring profoundly: by his bedside, on

  his ledger, stood a large greasy tin candlestick, containing a lank

  tallow-candle, turned down in the shaft; and in the lower part, his

  keys, purse, and tobacco-pipe; his feet were huddled up in his

  greasy threadbare clothes; his head and half his sallow face muffled

  up in a red woollen nightcap; his beard was of several days' growth;

  his mouth was wide open, and he was snoring profoundly: on a more

  despicable little creature the sun never shone. And to this sordid

  wretch was Catherine united for ever. What a pretty rascal history

  might be read in yonder greasy day-book, which never left the

  miser!--he never read in any other. Of what a treasure were yonder

  keys and purse the keepers! not a shilling they guarded but was

  picked from the pocket of necessity, plundered from needy

  wantonness, or pitilessly squeezed from starvation. "A fool, a

  miser, and a coward! Why was I bound to this wretch?" thought

  Catherine: "I, who am high-spirited and beautiful (did not HE tell

  me so?); I who, born a beggar, have raised myself to competence, and

  might have mounted--who knows whither?--if cursed Fortune had not

  baulked me!"

  As Mrs. Cat did not utter these sentiments, but only thought them,

  we have a right to clothe her thoughts in the genteelest possible

  language; and, to the best of our power, have done so. If the

  reader examines Mrs. Hayes's train of reasoning, he will not, we

  should think, fail to perceive how ingeniously she managed to fix

  all the wrong upon her husband, and yet to twist out some

  consolatory arguments for her own vanity. This perverse

  argumentation we have all of us, no doubt, employed in our time.

  How often have we,--we poets, politicians, philosophers,

  family-men,--found charming excuses for our own rascalities in the

  monstrous wickedness of the world about us; how loudly have we

  abused the times and our neighbours! All this devil's logic did

  Mrs. Catherine, lying wakeful in her bed on the night of the

  Marylebone fete, exert in gloomy triumph.

  It must, however, be confessed, that nothing could be more just than

  Mrs. Hayes's sense of her husband's scoundrelism and meanness; for

  if we have not proved these in the course of this history, we have

  proved nothing. Mrs. Cat had a shrewd observing mind; and if she

  wanted for proofs against Hayes, she had but to look before and

  about her to find them. This amiable pair were lying in a large

  walnut-bed, with faded silk furniture, which had been taken from

  under a respectable old invalid widow, who had become security for a

  prodigal son; the room was hung round with an antique tapestry

  (representing Rebecca at the Well, Bathsheba Bathing, Judith and

  Holofernes, and other subjects from Holy Writ), which had been many

  score times sold for fifty pounds, and bought back by Mr. Hayes for

  two, in those accommodating bargains which he made with young

  gentlemen, who received fifty pounds of money and fifty of tapestry

  in consideration of their hundred-pound bills. Against this

  tapestry, and just cutting off Holofernes's head, stood an enormous

  ominous black clock, the spoil of some other usurious transaction.

  Some chairs, and a dismal old black cabinet, completed the furniture

  of this apartment: it wanted but a ghost to render its gloom

  complete.

  Mrs. Hayes sat up in the bed sternly regarding her husband. There

  is, be sure, a strong magnetic influence in wakeful eyes so

  examining a sleeping person (do not you, as a boy, remember waking

  of bright summer mornings and finding your mother looking over you?

  had not the gaze of her tender eyes stolen into your senses long

  before you woke, and cast over your slumbering spirit a sweet spell

 
of peace, and love, and fresh springing joy?) Some such influence

  had Catherine's looks upon her husband: for, as he slept under

  them, the man began to writhe about uneasily, and to burrow his head

  in the pillow, and to utter quick, strange moans and cries, such as

  have often jarred one's ear while watching at the bed of the

  feverish sleeper. It was just upon six, and presently the clock

  began to utter those dismal grinding sounds, which issue from clocks

  at such periods, and which sound like the death-rattle of the

  departing hour. Then the bell struck the knell of it; and with this

  Mr. Hayes awoke, and looked up, and saw Catherine gazing at him.

  Their eyes met for an instant, and Catherine turned away, burning

  red, and looking as if she had been caught in the commission of a

  crime.

  A kind of blank terror seized upon old Hayes's soul: a horrible icy

  fear, and presentiment of coming evil; and yet the woman had but

  looked at him. He thought rapidly over the occurrences of the last

  night, the quarrel, and the end of it. He had often struck her

  before when angry, and heaped all kinds of bitter words upon her;

  but, in the morning, she bore no malice, and the previous quarrel

  was forgotten, or, at least, passed over. Why should the last

  night's dispute not have the same end? Hayes calculated all this,

  and tried to smile.

  "I hope we're friends, Cat?" said he. "You know I was in liquor

  last night, and sadly put out by the loss of that fifty pound.

  They'll ruin me, dear--I know they will."

  Mrs. Hayes did not answer.

  "I should like to see the country again, dear," said he, in his most

  wheedling way. "I've a mind, do you know, to call in all our money?

  It's you who've made every farthing of it, that's sure; and it's a

  matter of two thousand pound by this time. Suppose we go into

  Warwickshire, Cat, and buy a farm, and live genteel. Shouldn't you

  like to live a lady in your own county again? How they'd stare at

  Birmingham! hey, Cat?"

  And with this Mr. Hayes made a motion as if he would seize his

  wife's hand, but she flung his back again.

  "Coward!" said she, "you want liquor to give you courage, and then

  you've only heart enough to strike women."

  "It was only in self-defence, my dear," said Hayes, whose courage

  had all gone. "You tried, you know, to--to--"

  "To STAB you, and I wish I had!" said Mrs. Hayes, setting her teeth,

  and glaring at him like a demon; and so saying she sprung out of

  bed. There was a great stain of blood on her pillow. "Look at it,"

  said she. "That blood's of your shedding!" and at this Hayes fairly

  began to weep, so utterly downcast and frightened was the miserable

  man. The wretch's tears only inspired his wife with a still greater

  rage and loathing; she cared not so much for the blow, but she hated

  the man: the man to whom she was tied for ever--for ever! The bar

  between her and wealth, happiness, love, rank perhaps. "If I were

  free," thought Mrs. Hayes (the thought had been sitting at her

  pillow all night, and whispering ceaselessly into her ear)--,"If I

  were free, Max would marry me; I know he would:--he said so

  yesterday!"

  * * *

  As if by a kind of intuition, old Wood seemed to read all this

  woman's thoughts; for he said that day with a sneer, that he would

  wager she was thinking how much better it would be to be a Count's

  lady than a poor miser's wife. "And faith," said he, "a Count and a

  chariot-and-six is better than an old skinflint with a cudgel." And

  then he asked her if her head was better, and supposed that she was

  used to beating; and cut sundry other jokes, which made the poor

  wretch's wounds of mind and body feel a thousand times sorer.

  Tom, too, was made acquainted with the dispute, and swore his

  accustomed vengeance against his stepfather. Such feelings, Wood,

  with a dexterous malice, would never let rest; it was his joy, at

  first quite a disinterested one, to goad Catherine and to frighten

  Hayes: though, in truth, that unfortunate creature had no occasion

  for incitements from without to keep up the dreadful state of terror

  and depression into which he had fallen.

  For, from the morning after the quarrel, the horrible words and

  looks of Catherine never left Hayes's memory; but a cold fear

  followed him--a dreadful prescience. He strove to overcome this

  fate as a coward would--to kneel to it for compassion--to coax and

  wheedle it into forgiveness. He was slavishly gentle to Catherine,

  and bore her fierce taunts with mean resignation. He trembled

  before young Billings, who was now established in the house (his

  mother said, to protect her against the violence of her husband),

  and suffered his brutal language and conduct without venturing to

  resist.

  The young man and his mother lorded over the house: Hayes hardly

  dared to speak in their presence; seldom sat with the family except

  at meals; but slipped away to his chamber (he slept apart now from

  his wife) or passed the evening at the public-house, where he was

  constrained to drink--to spend some of his beloved sixpences for

  drink!

  And, of course, the neighbours began to say, "John Hayes neglects

  his wife." "He tyrannises over her, and beats her." "Always at the

  public-house, leaving an honest woman alone at home!"

  The unfortunate wretch did NOT hate his wife. He was used to

  her--fond of her as much as he could be fond--sighed to be friends

  with her again--repeatedly would creep, whimpering, to Wood's room,

  when the latter was alone, and begged him to bring about a

  reconciliation. They WERE reconciled, as much as ever they could

  be. The woman looked at him, thought what she might be but for him,

  and scorned and loathed him with a feeling that almost amounted to

  insanity. What nights she lay awake, weeping, and cursing herself

  and him! His humility and beseeching looks only made him more

  despicable and hateful to her.

  If Hayes did not hate the mother, however, he hated the boy--hated

  and feared him dreadfully. He would have poisoned him if he had had

  the courage; but he dared not: he dared not even look at him as he

  sat there, the master of the house, in insolent triumph. O God! how

  the lad's brutal laughter rung in Hayes's ears; and how the stare of

  his fierce bold black eyes pursued him! Of a truth, if Mr. Wood

  loved mischief, as he did, honestly and purely for mischief's sake,

  he had enough here. There was mean malice, and fierce scorn, and

  black revenge, and sinful desire, boiling up in the hearts of these

  wretched people, enough to content Mr. Wood's great master himself.

  Hayes's business, as we have said, was nominally that of a

  carpenter; but since, for the last few years, he had added to it

  that of a lender of money, the carpenter's trade had been neglected

  altogether for one so much more profitable. Mrs. Hayes had exerted

  herself, with much benefit to her husband, in his usurious business.

&nbs
p; She was a resolute, clear-sighted, keen woman, that did not love

  money, but loved to be rich and push her way in the world. She

  would have nothing to do with the trade now, however, and told her

  husband to manage it himself. She felt that she was separated from

  him for ever, and could no more be brought to consider her interests

  as connected with his own.

  The man was well fitted for the creeping and niggling of his

  dastardly trade; and gathered his moneys, and busied himself with

  his lawyer, and acted as his own bookkeeper and clerk, not without

  satisfaction. His wife's speculations, when they worked in concert,

  used often to frighten him. He never sent out his capital without a

  pang, and only because he dared not question her superior judgment

  and will. He began now to lend no more: he could not let the money

  out of his sight. His sole pleasure was to creep up into his room,

  and count and recount it. When Billings came into the house, Hayes

  had taken a room next to that of Wood. It was a protection to him;

  for Wood would often rebuke the lad for using Hayes ill: and both

  Catherine and Tom treated the old man with deference.

  At last--it was after he had collected a good deal of his money--

  Hayes began to reason with himself, "Why should I stay?--stay to be

  insulted by that boy, or murdered by him? He is ready for any

  crime." He determined to fly. He would send Catherine money every

  year. No--she had the furniture; let her let lodgings--that would

  support her. He would go, and live away, abroad in some cheap

  place--away from that boy and his horrible threats. The idea of

  freedom was agreeable to the poor wretch; and he began to wind up

  his affairs as quickly as he could.

  Hayes would now allow no one to make his bed or enter his room; and

  Wood could hear him through the panels fidgeting perpetually to and

  fro, opening and shutting of chests, and clinking of coin. At the

  least sound he would start up, and would go to Billings's door and

  listen. Wood used to hear him creeping through the passages, and

  returning stealthily to his own chamber.

  One day the woman and her son had been angrily taunting him in the

  presence of a neighbour. The neighbour retired soon; and Hayes, who

  had gone with him to the door, heard, on returning, the voice of

  Wood in the parlour. The old man laughed in his usual saturnine

  way, and said, "Have a care, Mrs. Cat; for if Hayes were to die

  suddenly, by the laws, the neighbours would accuse thee of his

  death."

  Hayes started as if he had been shot. "He too is in the plot,"

  thought he. "They are all leagued against me: they WILL kill me:

  they are only biding their time." Fear seized him, and he thought

  of flying that instant and leaving all; and he stole into his room

  and gathered his money together. But only a half of it was there:

  in a few weeks all would have come in. He had not the heart to go.

  But that night Wood heard Hayes pause at HIS door, before he went to

  listen at Mrs. Catherine's. "What is the man thinking of?" said

  Wood. "He is gathering his money together. Has he a hoard yonder

  unknown to us all?"

  Wood thought he would watch him. There was a closet between the two

  rooms: Wood bored a hole in the panel, and peeped through. Hayes

  had a brace of pistols, and four or five little bags before him on

  the table. One of these he opened, and placed, one by one,

  five-and-twenty guineas into it. Such a sum had been due that

  day--Catherine spoke of it only in the morning; for the debtor's

  name had by chance been mentioned in the conversation. Hayes

  commonly kept but a few guineas in the house. For what was he

  amassing all these? The next day, Wood asked for change for a

  twenty-pound bill. Hayes said he had but three guineas. And, when

  asked by Catherine where the money was that was paid the day before,

  said that it was at the banker's. "The man is going to fly," said

  Wood; "that is sure: if he does, I know him--he will leave his wife