The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851Various
History
The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
Sir Joseph Raikes said, that she had the most confounded jealous temper
that ever a woman was cursed with; that he had been on his knees to her
ever since his marriage, and had spent half his income in administering
to her caprices and extravagancies; that as for these charges, they were
so monstrous, he should not condescend to answer them; and as she chose
to leave her husband and her child, she might go whenever she liked.
Lady Raikes upon this rang the bell, and requested Hickson the butler to
tell Dickson her maid to bring down her bonnet and shawl; and when
Hickson quitted the dining-room, Dolly Trotter began:
"Zuleika," said he, "you are enough to twy the patience of an angel;
and, by Jove, you do! You've got the best fellow for a husband (a sneer
from Zuleika) that ever was bullied by a woman, and you tweat him like a
dawg. When you were ill, you used to make him get up of a night to go to
the doctor's. When you're well, you plague his life out of him. He pays
your milliner's bills, as if you were a duchess, and you have but to ask
for a thing and you get it."
"Oh, yes, I have necklaces!" said Zuleika.
"Confound you, Zuly! had'nt he paid three hundwed and eighty for a new
cawwiage for you the week before? Hadn't he fitted your dwawing-woom
with yellow satin at the beginning of the season? Hadn't he bought you
the pair of ponies you wanted, and gone without a hack himself, and he
gettin' as fat as a porpoise for want of exercise, the poor old boy? And
for that necklace, do you know how it was that you didn't have it, and
that you were very nearly having it, you ungwateful little devil you? It
was _I_ prevented you! He _did_ win six hundwed at the Derby; and he
would have bought your necklace, but he gave me the money. The governor
said he never would pay another play-debt again for me; and bet I would,
like a confounded, gweat, stooped fool: and it was this old Joe--this
dear old twump--who booked up for me, and took me out of the hole, like
the best fellow in the whole world, by Jove! And--and I'll never bet
again, so help me----! And that's why he couldn't tell--and that's why
he wouldn't split on me--and that's why you didn't have your confounded
necklace, which old Cwipplegate bought for Mrs. Montmowency, who's going
to marry her, like a confounded fool for his pains!"
And here the dragoon being blown, took a large glass of claret; and when
Hickson and Dickson came down stairs, they found her ladyship in rather
a theatrical attitude, on her knees, embracing her husband's big hand,
and calling down blessings upon him, and owning that she was a wretch, a
monster, and a fiend.
She was only a jealous, little spoiled fool of a woman; and I am sure
those who read her history have never met with her like, or have ever
plagued their husbands. Certainly they have not, if they are not
married: as, let us hope, they will be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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