Age seemed to squeeze out the last drop of honey from his father's nature, and to leave all the bitter behind. His conduct to Lady Tyrrell would not, perhaps, in any court established for the purpose of dispensing justice or injustice, as the case may be, have been pronounced cruelty, for such courts weigh nothing but that which affects immediately the body; and the wounds, ay, or even the death inflicted through the mind, are left to the judgment of another world. Sir Francis Tyrrell showed no personal violence towards his wife. He treated her apparently with ceremonious respect, except when the fit of passion was upon him, and even then the weapon that he used against her was but the tongue.
With him, however, that weapon was worse than a poisoned dagger, inflicting wounds that could never be healed. Everything that was stinging, everything that was venomous, everything that was scornful, everything that was irritating, then poured from his lips without the slightest remorse, and without the slightest regard to truth or justice. There can be little doubt that he believed what he said at the time; for his passion acted as a sort of magician in his own breast, and conjured up chimeras, and phantoms, and demons which had no existence but in the phantasmagoria of his own imagination.
These fits of passion, too, were of frequent, nay, of daily occurrence; and his life with Lady Tyrrell, passed thus, either absent from her when, in order to avoid him or on account of illness, she confined herself to her own room; in cold and sneering ceremony when there was no absolute cause of offence; or in violent and angry dispute when she roused herself to resist or to deny.
The effect on her was such as might be expected. Ere she had reached the age of forty, the buoyant health which she had once possessed, the radiant yet gentle beauty, the cheerful and contented disposition, were all gone; and she remained old before her time, with a heart wrung and torn, and without one trace of that loveliness with which Heaven had at first endued her.
The conduct of Sir Francis Tyrrell to his son was also such as might be expected from his disposition. The first two or three days after his return during the vacations, the natural feeling of a parent, of course, had its way. He seemed glad to see him; fond of him; proud of him; but the third day scarcely ever passed over without some sharp rebuke, and the fourth never came to an end without one of those violent scenes of altercation, which increased in frequency and intensity as the boy grew up towards the man.