CHAPTER XIX.
MR. PIPER FALLS IN LOVE.
Allthrough the sultry summer weather Beatrix and her companion. Madame Leonard, lived their quiet lives at the Water House, with no change of scene save to the wide airy moor, or to the hospitable Vicarage, where they usually spent two or three evenings of every week. People in Little Yafford, except some bitter and envious spirits of the Coyle type, had left off talking about Mr. Harefield’s death, and had begun even to feel somewhat ashamed of their former suspicions about Beatrix. The girl’s calm front and resolute manner, her daily presence among them, with that proud bearing which was natural to her, gave the lie even to facts, where facts were against her. If she had left the village, and sought refuge from malevolent tongues in some foreign country, Little Yafford would have been confirmed in its suspicions. She stayed, and the popularvoice for some time denounced her as bold and brazen, hardened in wickedness, because she stayed; but by slow degrees this idea wore itself out. Her steadiness outwore suspicion, as water wears rock.
Every month, and sometimes every mail, brought Beatrix an Indian letter. Her lover sent her a full account of his life, which had now become full of action and excitement. The second Burmese war had broken out, and was being carried on with more valour than discretion. A town was taken triumphantly and with little loss, and then abandoned to the care of a force too weak to keep or defend it. Retaken by the enemy, it had to be conquered again, and this time with a severe struggle. Prome was taken twice; the city of Pegu three times. Detachments were cut off; officers were murdered.
Sir Kenrick’s regiment was in the thick of the strife. He had won his captaincy, and hoped, in a struggle that favoured rapid promotion, to get another step before he came home.
‘I wonder if you will think better of me, Beatrix,’ he wrote, ‘if I come back a major? There is a middle-aged sound about the title that you mighthardly appreciate; but I assure you it is rather a grand thing now-a-days for a man to be a major before he is thirty. We are having a very jolly time of it—plenty of fighting—a state of things that I have always longed for. I felt myself born too late in being out of the Sikh war, when I heard our fellows disputing over their claret about Mooltan and Goojerat. But now I have had my chance, like the rest, and I hope that we may have peace before Christmas, so that I may see your dear face by the time the crocuses are golden in the Vicarage garden.’
Then came a spirited description of the last skirmish. Beatrix followed the news of the war with attention and anxiety. She sometimes felt that her heart was wickedly calm in this period of danger and uncertainty. Any mail might bring the news of her lover’s death, cut down from a scaling-ladder, or treacherously murdered by the foe. Every letter she received might be the last that strong young hand would pen. Though Kenrick wrote so lightly and gaily of the war, the facts were not less awful. It was an insignificant business in the history of theworld, perhaps, but death was as busy there as at Marathon or Waterloo.
‘If I loved him as I ought to love my betrothed husband, I should not have a moment’s peace,’ Beatrix thought, full of self-reproach.
Towards the close of the summer, just at the time when Emmanuel Joyce was stricken with cholera, Beatrix’s health began to languish a little, and at Mr. Namby’s advice she went to Whitby with Madame Leonard, intending to remain away some weeks.
It was about this time that Bella Scratchell’s life became full of perplexity and excitement. A curious, most unlooked-for event had happened, and had changed the whole colour of the Scratchell existence. Mr. Scratchell declared that Providence, pleased with the Scratchells’ industry, economy, and patience, had at length taken the family under its wing, as directly and obviously as the Jews were taken in hand by the Divine power in the time of Moses. Mr. Scratchell did not absolutely expect that miracles were to be worked for him, that waters were to be turned into blood, or flies to swarm in kings’ chambers;but, short of this, he considered himself a very proper subject for Divine favour.
Mr. Piper had fallen in love with Bella, and wished to make her the second Mrs. Piper.
Like most men who mourn a first wife with a somewhat exaggerated dolefulness, Mr. Piper had speedily discovered a yearning to take to himself a second. He had not far to look for this second choice. Bella had always appeared to his taste as the prettiest thing he knew. Her round plump beauty, the sunny tints of her hair, her peachy cheeks, and red full lips, her dimples and small round chin, her little white hands and neatly shaped feet, all were after the fashion which in Mr. Piper’s eye seemed the perfection of womanly beauty. A strong-minded woman, beautiful as Venus and grand as Juno, would have had no attraction for him. Mr. Piper had an awful dread of being hen-pecked. He wanted a wife whom he could treat kindly, and govern with a rod of iron. That rod of iron would be nicely swathed in cotton-wool and velvet, of course, but it would be unbending. Mr. Piper had enjoyed life in his own way for the last twentyyears, and he meant to go on having his own way so long as his faculties remained to him. Short of being like Dean Swift, and dying ‘first a’top,’ Mr. Piper meant to have his own way, until he drew his last breath.
Bella appeared to him by far the most pliable and soft-hearted young woman of his acquaintance, as well as the prettiest. His children did not like her, but that was natural. The young Pipers had so strong a bent towards ignorance that they would have hated any one who tried to teach them. Mr. Piper was not going to be governed by his children’s prejudices. The very best thing he could do for them would be to give them such a step-mother as Bella. The girls were wild, rough, and tomboyish. Constant intercourse with a well-mannered young woman would tone them down.
‘She’s every inch the lady,’ Mr. Piper said to himself, ‘and she’ll make ladies of my gals, if they’ll let her.’
Bella had long been conscious of a lurking gallantry in Mr. Piper’s manners, which made that worthy little man odious to her. She had avoidedhim as much as possible, hurrying out of the dull handsome house directly the formal hours of study were over. She had absolutely refused all his invitations to luncheon, despite his reproachful assertion that she was wanting in compassion for his widowed and lonely state.
‘You have your daughters for companions, Mr. Piper,’ she replied to those charges. ‘You can’t want me.’
‘But I do,’ retorted Mr. Piper. ‘My gals are no company for me. They haven’t mind enough, and they’re not pretty enough. I like to see a pretty face on the other side of the table, when I sit down to my victuals.’
Bella shuddered. Could any girl—even one who had known poverty’s sharp stings from her cradle upwards—consent to marry a man who talked about victuals? There was no harm in the word; it was neither obscene nor blasphemous, but it was revolting.
Although reproachful, Mr. Piper was not vindictive. The spring and summer that followed poor Mrs. Piper’s death were seasons of fatnessand plenty for the Scratchell family. Mr. Piper was always sending Mrs. Scratchell some offering from his model farm. Cream, butter, poultry, vegetables, the first fruits of the season, forced into premature being at much cost of money and labour, came to the Scratchell door in delicious succession. The young Scratchells grew epicurean, and turned up their noses at rhubarb pudding with a crust two inches thick. They wanted early gooseberries, tasting of the wood. Mr. Piper’s servants—who stopped longer in his service now that the careful housewife was gone—had a good deal to say about these small gifts. It was evident which way the wind was setting. Miss Scratchell would soon be mistress of the Park.
‘There will be a second Mrs. Piper before Christmas, or else my name ain’t Martha Blair,’ said the cook. ‘And Miss Scratchell will be the party.’
‘Well,’ sighed the housemaid, without looking up from her stocking-darning, ‘if he’s bent on marrying he may as well marry her as any one else. She’s haffable and heven-tempered, I should think.’
‘Should you?’ inquired the cook, ironically. ‘That shows ’ow muchyouknows about ’ooman natur. That young woman is deeper than the deepest well that was ever dug, and if ever she’s missus here she’ll want to rule everythink with a ’igh ’and. Them mealy-mouthed ones always do. I’d rather ’ave a spit-fire for a missus than one of them soft-spoken young women that go smilin’ through the world as if they was apologizin’ to everybody for bein’ alive. She’ll spend ’is money and she’ll break ’is ’art, and she’ll use all of us like dogs. That’s my opinion about Miss Scratchell, if you wish to know it.’
‘Lor’, cook! you’re such a one to jump at conclusions,’ said the housemaid, with a somewhat contemptuous shrug.
‘Perhaps I am, Mary; but I generally jumps at ’em right.’