AN OPEN VERDICT.
AN OPEN VERDICT.
PATERNAL DIPLOMACY.
‘What!’ roared Mr. Scratchell, scarlet of visage, ‘you are asked to marry a man with fifteen thousand a year, and you refuse? Did anybody ever hear of such lunacy?’
Bella sat shivering at the paternal wrath. Mrs. Scratchell was weeping dumbly. All the younger Scratchells were ready to lift up their voices in a chorus of condemnation. Bella’s folly in refusing Mr. Piper was, in their eyes, a personal injury.
‘You would not ask me to marry a man I cannot love, would you, father?’ faltered Bella; ‘a man I can hardly respect.’
‘You cannot respect fifteen thousand a year?’ cried Mr. Scratchell. ‘Then, in the name of all that’s reasonable, what can you respect?’
‘He is so rough-mannered and dictatorial,’ urged Bella, ‘so stout and puffy. And it is really dreadful to hear him murder the Queen’s English.’
Mr. Scratchell looked round at his assembled family with a wrathful glare, as if he were calling upon them all to behold this ridiculous daughter of his.
‘That ever I should have bred and reared such foolishness!’ he exclaimed. ‘What’s that fairy tale you were reading the little ones, mother, about the Princess and the seven feather beds? She had seven feather beds to sleep upon, one atop of the other, and couldn’t rest because there was a parched pea under the bottom one. There’s your proud Princess for you!’ pointing at his tearful daughter. ‘She turns up her nose at fifteen thousand a year because the owner of it doesn’t arrange his words according to Lindley Murray. Why, I never had much opinion of Lindley Murray myself, and, what’s more, I never could understand him.’
‘Father, it isn’t a question of bad grammar. If I loved Mr. Piper, or felt that I could teach myself to love him, I shouldn’t care how badly he talked. But I cannot love him.’
‘Who asks you to love him?’ cried Mr. Scratchell, folding and unfolding his newspaper violently, in a whirlwind of indignation. ‘Nobody has made mention of love—not Piper himself, I warrant. He’s too sensible a man. You are only asked to marry him, and to do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call you. And very grateful you ought to be for having been called to fifteen thousand a year. Think what you can do for your brothers and sisters, and your poor harassed mother! There’s a privilege for you. And if Piper should take to buying property hereabouts, and give me the collection of his rents, there’d be a lift for me.’
Then Mrs. Scratchell feebly, and with numerous gasps and choking sobs, uplifted her maternal voice, and made her moan.
‘I should be the last to press any child of mine to marry against her inclination,’ she said, ‘but I should like to see one of my daughters a lady. Bellahas been a lady in all her little ways from the time she could run alone, and I am sure she would become the highest position—yes, even such a station as Mr. Piper, with his fortune, could give her. If there was anything better or brighter before her—any chance of her getting a young good-looking husband able to support her comfortably—I wouldn’t say marry Mr. Piper. But I’m sure I can’t see how any girl is to get well married in Little Yafford, where the young men——’
‘Haven’t one sixpence to rub against another,’ interrupted Mr. Scratchell, impatiently.
‘And I know what life is for those that have to study the outlay of every penny, and to keep their brains always on the rack in order just barely to pay their way,’ continued Mrs. Scratchell.
Bella gave a deep, despondent sigh. It was all true that these worldly-minded parents were saying. She was no romantic girl to believe in an impossible future. She knew that for women of the Scratchell breed life was hard and dry, like the crusts of the stale loaves which she so often encountered at the family breakfast-table.What was there before her if she persisted in refusing this high fortune that was ready to be poured into her lap? Another rebellious family to teach—an unending procession of verbs, and pianoforte exercises, dreary fantasias, with all the old familiar airs turned upside down, and twisted this way and that, and drawn out to uttermost attenuation, like a string of Indian-rubber. If nothing else killed her, Bella thought, she must assuredly die of those hateful fantasias, the ever-lasting triplets, the scampering arpeggios, stumbling and halting, like the canter of a lame horse.
Mr. Scratchell heard that long sigh and guessed its meaning. He checked his loud indignation, all of a sudden, and had recourse to diplomacy. The girl’s own sense was beginning to argue against her foolishness.
‘Well, my dear,’ he said, quite amiably, ‘if you’ve made up your mind there’s no use in our saying any more about it. Your mother and I would have been proud to see you settled in such a splendid way—the envy of all the neighbourhood—holding your head as high as the best of’em. But let that pass. You’d better look out for another situation. With so many mouths as I’ve got to feed, I can’t afford to encourage idleness. There must be no twiddling of thumbs in this family. TheYorkshire Timescomes out on Saturday. There’ll be just time for us to get an advertisement in.’
Bella gave another sigh, an angry one this time.
‘You’re very sharp with me, father,’ she said. ‘I should have thought you’d have been glad to have me at home for a little while, with my time disengaged.’
‘What?’ ejaculated Mr. Scratchell. ‘Haven’t you had your afternoons for idleness? Your time disengaged, indeed! Do you think I want a daughter of mine to be as useless as a chimney ornament, good for nothing but to look at?’
And then Mr. Scratchell took out a sheet of paper, dipped his pen in the ink, and wrinkled his brow in the effort of composition.
‘Governess, residential or otherwise,’ he began, pronouncing the words aloud as he wrote, ‘competentto impart a sound English education, French, Italian, German, music, drawing and painting, and fancy needlework. Able to prepare boys for a public school. Has had the entire charge of a gentleman’s family. First-rate references.’
‘There,’ exclaimed Mr. Scratchell. ‘That will cost a lot of money, but I think it is comprehensive.’
‘I don’t know about drawing and painting,’ objected Bella, with a weary air. ‘I never had much taste that way. I learnt a little with Beatrix, but——’
‘Then you can teach,’ said Mr. Scratchell, decisively. ‘If you’ve learnt you know all the technical words and rules, and you’re quite competent to teach. When your pupil goes wrong you can tell her how to go right. That’s quite enough. Nobody expects you to be a Michael Angelo.’
‘I’m afraid I shall look like an impostor if I attempt to teach drawing,’ remonstrated Bella.
‘Would not object to a school,’ wrote Mr. Scratchell, adding to the advertisement.
‘But I would very, very, very much object,papa,’ cried Bella. ‘I will not go into a school to please anybody.’
‘My dear, you have got to earn your bread, and if you can’t earn it in a private family you must earn it in a school,’ explained her father. ‘I want the advertisement to be comprehensive, and to bring as many answers as possible. You are not obliged to take a situation in a school simply because you get one offered you—but if your only offer is of that kind you must accept it. Hobson’s choice, you know.’
Bella began to cry.
‘The little Pipers are very hateful,’ she sobbed, ‘but I dare say strange children would be worse.’
‘If the little Pipers were your step-children you could do what you liked with them,’ said Mr. Scratchell.
‘Oh, father,’ remonstrated his wife, ‘she would be bound to be kind to them.’
‘Of course,’ replied Mr. Scratchell. ‘Within certain limits. It would be kindness to get them under strict discipline. She could pack them off to school, and needn’t have them home for theholidays unless she liked. Come, I think the advertisement will do. It will cost three or four shillings, so it ought to answer. Herbert can take it with him to-morrow when he goes to his office.’
‘Father,’ cried Bella, desperately, ‘you needn’t waste your money upon that advertisement. I won’t take another situation.’
‘Won’t you?’ cried Mr. Scratchell. ‘Then I’m afraid you’ll have to go to the workhouse, which would be rather disgraceful at your age. I won’t keep you in idleness.’
‘I’d sooner marry Mr. Piper than go on teaching odious children.’
‘You’ll have to wait till Mr. Piper asks you again,’ replied her father, delighted at having gained his point, but too diplomatic to show his satisfaction. ‘You’ve refused him once. He may not care to humiliate himself by risking a second refusal. However, the advertisement can stand over for a day or two, since you’ve come to your senses.’
Mr. Scratchell went off to his official den presently,and Mrs. Scratchell came over to Bella and hugged her.
‘Oh, my darling, it would be the making of us all,’ she exclaimed.
‘I don’t see what good that would be to me, mother, if I was miserable,’ Bella responded, sulkily.
‘But you couldn’t be miserable in such a home as Yafford Park, and with such a good man as Mr. Piper. It isn’t as if you had ever cared for anybody else, dear.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Bella, full of bitterness. ‘That makes a difference.’
‘And think what a lady you would be, and how high you could hold your head.’
‘Yes, I would hold my head high enough, mother. You may be sure of that. I would have something out of life. Beatrix Harefield should see what use I could make of money.’
‘Of course, dear. You have such aristocratic ideas. You could take the lead in Little Yafford society.’
Bella gave a scornful shrug. The society inLittle Yafford was hardly worth leading; but Bella was of the temper that deems it better to reign in a village than to serve in Rome. She put on her bonnet and went to call upon Mrs. Dulcimer. That lady was in the garden, her complexion protected by a muslin sun-bonnet, washing the green flies off her roses. To her sympathetic ear Bella imparted the story of Mr. Piper’s wooing and the paternal wrath.
‘My dear, I don’t wonder that your father was angry,’ cried the Vicar’s wife. ‘Why, Mr. Piper is the very man for you. The idea occurred to me soon after Mrs. Piper’s death. But I didn’t mention it, for fear of alarming your delicacy. Such a good homely creature—an excellent husband to his first wife—and so wealthy. Why, you would be quite a little queen. How lucky I was mistaken about Cyril! What a chance you would have lost if you had married him!’
Bella shuddered.
‘Yes, it would have been a pity,’ she said.
And then she thought how if Cyril had loved and married her, she—who was just wise enough to know herself full of faults—might have grown into a goodwoman—how, looking up at that image of perfect manhood, she might have learned to shape herself into ideal womanhood. Yes, it would have all been possible if he had only loved her. His love would have been a liberal education.
Love had been denied her; but wealth, and all the advantages wealth could give, might be hers.
‘I really begin to think that I was very foolish to refuse Mr. Piper,’ she said.
‘My love, excuse me, but you were simply idiotic. However, he is sure to renew his offer. I shall call and see those dear children of his to-morrow. And when he asks you again, you will give him a kinder answer?’
‘Yes,’ said Bella, with a long-drawn sigh, ‘since everybody thinks it would be best.’
Everybody did not include Beatrix Harefield. Bella had not consulted—nor did she mean to consult—her old friend and playfellow. She knew quite well that Beatrix would have advised her against a mercenary marriage, and in spite of all her sighs and hesitations, Bella’s sordid little soul languished for the possession of Mr. Piper’s wealth.
Mrs. Dulcimer was delighted at the notion of conducting a new courtship to a triumphant issue. She put on her best bonnet early in the afternoon, and went to pay her visit to the Park, feeling that it behoved her to bring matters to a crisis.
Mr. Piper was at home, seated on a garden chair on his well-kept lawn, basking in the sunshine, after a heavy dinner which went by the name of luncheon. He had a sleek, well-fed look at this stage of his existence, which did not encourage sentimental ideas: but Mrs. Dulcimer looked at the big white house with its Doric portico, the stone vases full of bright scarlet geraniums, the velvet lawn and gaudy flower-beds, the belt of fine old timber, the deer-park across the ha-ha, and thought what a happy woman Bella would be as the mistress of such a domain. She hardly gave one thought to poor Mr. Piper. He was only a something that went with the Park; like a bit of outlying land, which nobody cares about, tacked on to a large estate.
‘I hope your dear children are all well and strong,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer, after she had shaken hands with Mr. Piper, and they had confided toeach other their opinions about the weather. ‘I came on purpose to see them.’
‘You shall see them all presently, mum,’ replied Mr. Piper. ‘The schoolroom maid is cleaning ’em up a bit. They’ve been regular Turks all this blessed morning. They’ve lost their gov’ness.’
‘Why, how is that?’ cried the hypocritical Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘Bella is so fond of them. She is always talking of her clever little pupils.’
‘She’s left ’em to shift for themselves, for all her fondness,’ said Mr. Piper; and then, being of a candid nature, he freely confided his trouble to the Vicar’s wife.
He told her that he had asked Bella to marry him, and she had said no, and upon that they had parted.
‘It was better for her to go,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t abear the sight of her about the place under the circumstances. I should feel like the fox with the grapes. I should be always hardening my heart against her.’
‘Dear, dear,’ sighed Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘I’m afraid you were too sudden. A woman is so sensitive aboutsuch matters. I dare say you took that poor child by surprise.’
‘Well, mum, perhaps I may. I’d been thinking of making her an offer for a long time, but it may have come on her like a thunderclap.’
‘Of course it did. And, being shy and sensitive, she naturally said no.’
‘Don’t you think she meant no?’ asked Mr. Piper, swinging himself suddenly round in his garden chair, and looking very warm and eager.
‘Indeed, I do not. She was with me yesterday afternoon, and I thought her looking ill and unhappy. I felt sure there was something wrong.
‘Now you look here, Mrs. Dulcimer,’ said the widower. ‘I’m not going to offer myself to that young woman a second time, for the sake of getting a second refusal; but if you are sure she won’t say no I don’t mind giving her another chance. I’m not a proud man, but I’ve got a proper respect for myself, and I don’t want to be humiliated. I shan’t ask her again unless I’m very sure of my ground.’
‘Come and take tea with us to-morrow evening,’said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘I’ll get Bella to come too, and you’ll be able to judge for yourself. Bring some of your dear children.’
‘Thank you, mum, you’re very kind; but I think until some of the Turk has been flogged out of them I’d rather not take them into company. But I’ll come myself with pleasure, and if you like to ask Bella Scratchell I’ve no objection to meet her.’
Mr. Piper’s olive branches now appeared, newly washed and combed, and in their Sunday clothes. Thus attired they looked a little more vulgar than in their every-day garments. They were all angles and sharp lines, and looked embarrassed by their finery, which, from the corkscrew curls at the top of their heads to the tight new shoes upon their afflicted feet, was more or less calculated to give them pain.
Naturally Mrs. Dulcimer pretended to be enraptured with them. She discovered in one an extraordinary likeness to his papa, in another a striking—yes, a painfully striking resemblance to her poor dear mamma. She asked them questionsabout their studies and recreations, and having completely exhausted herself in less than ten minutes’ performance of these civilities, she rose to wish Mr. Piper and his young family good-bye.
‘At seven to-morrow, remember,’ she said.
‘I shall be there, mum,’ answered Mr. Piper.