A Blighted Life/Appendix

my Lord infamy, and my fame as a patient Grizzle was pretty well established--and even acknowledge by the wretch who benefitted by it--for one day at a dinner at our house, when some vituperative humbug was going on about poor Lord, and someone said, "No woman could have lived with such a man," my Lord  pointed to me, and said, "There is one that could, for she has lived with me." And in that letter he wrote about his goind abroad and changing his name (why the--Lady didn't he)--all of which is from beginning to end as usual--after biting my cheek, though of course he began it with a well-studied colossal lie about the "visible restraint he had tried to put upon himself, and his doubting whether it was humane to goad a man with his terrible infirmity (to wit, a dialobical and unbridled temper), but being himself to blame, God forbid he should judge others." Sweet, patient, virtuous creature! Now the goading and provocation I had given him was this. Having asked him before dinner for a little money to pay some of the housebills left owing before we went to Italy--where he had so beggared himself on himself buying statues, &c., &c., that he had to retrench in every way upon me and the children, and began by taking away my carriage horses--and I had been ordered to stand sponsor to that vulgar Mrs. child, I had to ask Lady  to take me! He said at dinner, "How are you going to tonight?" I told him, whereupon he began with a sardonic grin, and repeating a dozen times, humming, "My mother calls Lady that ugly old woman." I made no reply, when he thundered out, "Do you hear me, madame?" "Yes, of course I hear you." "Then why the d___l in h_ll" (which being his strong language, of course that concrete ass, the British public, would consider as fine writing!) "Then why the d___l in h_ll don't you answer me?" "I did not consider it required an answer." Whereupon he rose, seizing a carving knife, and crying as he darted at me, "D__n you're soul, madam, I'll have you to know that whenever I do you the honour of addressing you it requires an answer." Seeing the glitter of the knife, I cried out "For sake,, take care of what you are about," at which he dropped the knife, and springing on me like a tiger, made his hideous teeth meet in my left cheek. My screams brought the servants back into the room, one of whom tried to collar him, but he broke from him, and putting on one of the footmen's hats! rushed down Piccadilly, and from thence betook himself to Richmond, from whence four days after he wrote me that letter, which from being read and re-read is in too worn a state to be trusted to the casualities of the Post. Well, in that letter, occurs the following paragraph underlined, "You have for the last six years" (the whole time of our marriage), "been to me an incomparable wife, and if for the last year, you have judge my character too harshly," &c., &c., &c., &c., &c. Now this too harsh judgment here alluded to rose from a mere trifle, which of course a "ladylike," feminine, lachrymose, clever woman carrying on her own game, would have thought nothing of. He had been intriguing with a Mrs., and exhibiting himself and her in every drawing-room. But it was not I, patient Grizzle, who made the scandal about it--but her husband's relations--Lady at the head, whereupon that charming man gave me his solemn oath (his! or his son's oath!!) that everything was at an end between them, and went on his kneews to me, to go to Italy with hi. When I did so, the vessel had not sailed an hour, when who should I see but Mrs. sitting wrapped up--my Lord at her feet, and her contemptible little wretch of a husband (who my Lord  afterwards told me used to sell her to men$$) looking on. Nor was this enough--I was forced by brutal threats, and personal violence--to offer this woman a seat in my carriage to Paris--and the brutality I endured there--it would take reams of paper to describe. Oh! oh! oh! cries manly, and "ladylike" conventionality. "You should have returned to England, instantly from Calais." "Very true, my dear madam, there was only one little, but still insurmountable impediment, viz., the same which at this moment prevents my leaving Tauton, and freeing myself from one of the cruel and degrading tortures I am enduring, and which are so truly, though, alas! so slowly killing me--that all-powerful one of not having a shilling! Many years ago--two or three after it was written, I showed that cheek-biting letter to Dr., who was, of course, to obusy to give a pauper anything but the English parish order of verbal sympathy; but never so long as I live shall I forget the proving, searching, expression of those keen analytic eyes of his, as looking up from the very first page of that letter, he said, "This man has been in the habit of ill-using you?"  "What makes you think so?" said I.  "Two circumstances. First, the great and palpably artful pains he takes to convey the idea--knowing, of course, such a letter would be read--that he put every possible restraint upon himself, as--if you had been exasperating him--he proves rather too much there. The second is: the equally artful pains he takes to talk of this outrage, as a first and solitary one! Now, no man ever got to such a pitch of brutality at a first essay." And yet, what was all this, compared to his perversion of the only child his brutality had left me--oh! the black, fiendish cruelty of it!  As this great genius (?) has nothing original about him but his sin, and therefore must always plagiarise from someone, I can fancy him giving his instructions to his son, and when I was entrapped abroad in 1858, saying to him, with a sardonic grin, which it is to be hoped his worthy pupil reflected--as he borrowed  receipt for impaling a wretched frog--only substituting her for him, "Use her as though you loved her!"  And so the hook was baited with my own heart. -     * This is something like  transfer to ; and  anticipated assignment to : and  like, or , will no doubt sit on the Bench!!!  Thus  helps to get Dr.  disbarred and destroyed, because, unlike , he is not fit to belong to an "honourable profession," and all the Ministry look on, and uphold, and applaud!!! -

An astute, unscrupulous Villain, who from the hour I was turned out of my house, has been working systematically to starve me out by never having given me enough to live on! He premeditated this before we married, when then not having an acre of land in the world--(for it was my little pittance of £350 a year that gave him qualification for Parliament), he settled the munificent sum of £1,030 on me to bar dower. Soon his necessity made him want what little land I had, and though strictly tied upon me, I gave it up,--the sole surviving trustee to my marriage settlement being then his brother. Soon after this he again wanted money. I said, "You know I have no more,"--"Yes, you have that £1,000 I settled upon you to bar dower." "Oh!" I said that is neither worth giving or refusing." Now this reminds me to answer your other questions.  The sum my Lord  paid for my 25 years' debts, to patch up the Madhouse conspiracy, was £3,500, and Mr.  told me, and I think he also wrote it in one of his letters while I was abroad: "Sir  boats that he has generously given you back all your own money, to pay your debts; and I'm sure you would rather feel this than be beholden to him."