The poor lady, with tears of
shame more than of grief in her eyes, told her version of her story.
Going back a child to India after two years at a European school, she
had met Amory, and foolishly married him. "O, you don't know how
miserable that man made me," she said, "or what a life I passed
between him and my father. Before I saw him I had never seen a man
except my father's clerks and native servants. You know we didn't go
into society in India on account of--" ("I know," said Major Pendennis,
with a bow). "I was a wild romantic child, my head was full of novels
which I'd read at school--I listened to his wild stories and adventures,
for he was a daring fellow, and I thought he talked beautifully of those
calm nights on the passage out, when he used to... Well, I married him,
and was wretched from that day--wretched with my father, whose character
you know, Major Pendennis, and I won't speak of: but he wasn't a good
man, sir--neither to my poor mother, nor to me, except that he left me
his money--nor to no one else that I ever heard of: and he didn't do
many kind actions in his lifetime, I'm afraid.
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