CHAPTER II.
MR. PIPER IS ACCEPTED.
Mrs. Dulcimer’stea party was a success. Bella appeared in her prettiest muslin gown—an embroidered Indian muslin that Beatrix had given her, with a great deal besides, when she went into mourning. She wore blue ribbons, and was bright with all the colour and freshness of her young beauty. Mr. Piper felt himself very far gone as he sat opposite her at tea. He hardly knew what he was eating, though he was a man who usually considered his meals a serious part of life, and though Rebecca had surpassed herself in the preparation of a chicken salad.
The evening was lovely, the sunset a study for Turner, and after tea Mrs. Dulcimer took Mr. Piper into the garden to show him her famous roses. Once there the worthy manufacturer was trapped. Bella was in faithful attendance upon theVicar’s wife, and presently Rebecca came, flushed and breathless, to say that her mistress was wanted; whereupon, with many apologies, Mrs. Dulcimer left Mr. Piper and Miss Scratchell together.
‘Bella can show you the rest of the garden,’ she said as she hurried off.
‘Take me down by the gooseberry bushes, Bella,’ said Mr. Piper. ‘It’s shadier and more retired there.’
And in that shady and retired spot, with the rugged old plum trees and pear trees on the crumbly red wall looking at them, and the happy snails taking their evening promenades under the thorny gooseberry bushes, and the luxuriant scarlet runners making a curtain between these two lovers and the outside world, Mr. Piper—in fewest and plainest words—repeated his offer, and this time was not refused.
‘Bella,’ he exclaimed, with a little gush of emotion, putting his betrothed’s small hand under his elephantine arm, ‘I’ll make you the happiest woman in the three Ridings. You shall have everything that heart can wish. Poor Maggie never could cotton to her position. My good fortunecame too late for her. She had got into a groove when I was a struggling man, and in that groove she stuck. She tried hard to play the lady; but she couldn’t manage it, poor soul. She was always the anxious hard-working housewife at bottom. There’s no rubbing the spots out of the leopard’s hide, or whitening the Ethiopian, you see, Bella. Now you were born a lady.’
Bella simpered and blushed.
‘I shall try not to disgrace your fortune,’ she said, meekly.
‘Disgrace it! Why, you’ll set it off by your prettiness and your nice little ways. I mean to get you into county society, Bella. I never tried it on with Mrs. P., for I felt she wasn’t up to it; but I shall take you slap in among the county folks.’
Bella shuddered. The little she had seen and heard of county people led her to believe that they were very slow to open their doors to such men as Mr. Piper.
‘Mrs. P. never had but one hoss and a broom,’ said the widower, walking his chosen one briskly up and down behind the curtain of scarlet runners.‘You shall have a pair. I think you was made for a carriage and pair. Shall it be a landau or a b’rouche?’
Bella opined, with all modesty, that she would prefer a barouche.
‘You’re right,’ exclaimed Mr. Piper, ‘a woman looks more queenly in a barouche. And you can have poor Mrs. P.’s brougham done up for night work. And you shall have a chaise and the prettiest pair of ponies that can be bought for money, and then you can drive me about on fine afternoons. I’m getting of an age when a man likes to take his ease, and there’s nothing nicer to my fancy than sitting behind a handsome pair of ponies driven by a pretty woman. Can you drive?’
‘I dare say I could if I tried,’ answered Bella.
‘Ah, I’ll have you taught. You’ll have a good deal to learn when you are Mrs. Piper, but you’re young enough to take kindly to a change in your circumstances. Poor Moggie wasn’t. Her mind was always in the bread-pan or the butcher’s book.’
In this practical manner were matters settled between Mr. Piper and his betrothed. The widower called upon Mr. Scratchell next day, and obtained that gentleman’s consent to his nuptials. The consent was granted with a certain air of reluctance which enhanced the favour.
‘As far as my personal respect for you goes, there is no man living I’d sooner have for a son-in-law,’ said Mr. Scratchell, ‘but you’ll allow that there is a great disparity of age between you and my daughter.’
Mr. Piper was quite willing to allow this.
‘If I couldn’t marry a pretty girl I wouldn’t marry at all,’ he said. ‘I don’t want a housekeeper. I want some one bright and pleasant to look at when I come home to dinner. As for the disparity, well, I shan’t forget that in the settlement I mean to make upon Bella.’
This was exactly what Mr. Scratchell wanted. After this everything was speedily arranged. Mr. Piper was an impetuous man, and would brook no delay. He would like to have been married immediately, but he was persuaded, fordecency’s sake, to wait till October. Even this would be very soon after the late Mrs. Piper’s death; but the indulgent Mrs. Dulcimer argued that a man in Mr. Piper’s forlorn position, with a young family running to seed in the custody of servants, might be excused if he hastened matters.
So Bella set to work to prepare her trousseau which was by far the most interesting part of the business, especially after Mr. Piper had slipped a little bundle of bank-notes into her hand one evening at parting, which bundle was found to amount to five hundred pounds. Bella spent long afternoons shopping at Great Yafford, attended by her mother and sisters, who all treated her with a new deference, and were delighted to hang upon her steps and look on while she made her purchases. She had already begun to taste the sweets of wealth. Her betrothed showered gifts upon her, and positively overwhelmed Mrs. Scratchell with garden stuff and farm produce. It was a time of plenty which the little Scratchells had never imagined in their wildest dreams. Mr. Piper tipped them all round every Sunday afternoon.His pockets were like the silver mines of Mexico. He was a man overflowing with new half-crowns and fat five shilling pieces—noble-looking coins that seemed to be worth a great deal more than five meagre shillings.
Beatrix was horrified when she heard of her friend’s engagement.
‘Oh, Bella, how could you?’ she exclaimed. ‘You are sacrificing yourself for the sake of your family.’
Bella blushed, for in her heart of hearts she knew that the interests of her family had been very far from her thoughts when she consented to become the second Mrs. Piper.
‘My father and mother had set their hearts upon it,’ she said.
‘But they had no right to set their hearts upon your marrying such a man as that.’
‘He is a very good man,’ pleaded Bella.
‘Have you really made up your mind to marry him? Do you really believe that you can live happily with him?’ asked Beatrix, earnestly.
‘Yes,’ sighed Bella, thinking of the barouche andpair, the pony carriage, the huge barrack of a house at the end of an avenue of elms, the dignity and importance that all these things would give her. ‘Yes, I have quite made up my mind, Beatrix. It will be such a good thing for my family—and I believe I can be happy.’
‘Then I will not say another word against Mr. Piper. Indeed, I will try my best to like him.’
‘He has a very good heart,’ said Bella, ‘really a noble heart.’
‘And that is of more consequence than the kind of English a man talks.’
‘And he is very intelligent,’ said Bella, anxious to make the best of her bargain. ‘You should hear him talk of Jeremy Bentham. Papa says it is quite wonderful.’
‘And what about his children, Bella? Are they nice? Do you feel that you can love them?’
Bella involuntarily made a wry face.
‘They are not very nice,’ she answered, ‘but it will be my duty to love them, and of course I shall do so.’
This conversation took place at the Water House one afternoon at the beginning of October. Beatrixand her companion, Madame Leonard, had been away for nearly two months, living quietly at Whitby and other seaside places, and Beatrix had come back improved in health and spirits.
Sir Kenrick had been absent six months, and was likely to return at the end of the year, unless the war continued. He would not care to leave the army while there was any hard fighting going on, and his regiment was in the thick of it. Mrs. Dulcimer loudly lamented this Burmese outbreak, which made it impossible for Kenrick to sell out with a good grace yet awhile. She was always talking to Beatrix about him, and entreating to hear little bits of his letters. Lately there had been an irregularity in the letters. Kenrick’s regiment had been moving about. He had been off the track of civilization and postal facilities.
One morning in October, just a week before Bella’s wedding day, there came a startling letter—a letter which Beatrix brought to Mrs. Dulcimer.
‘Oh, my dear, my dear!’ cried the Vicar’s wife, ‘something dreadful has happened to Kenrick. I see it in your face. Is he dead?’
This last question was almost a shriek, and it was evident that Mrs. Dulcimer was prepared to go into hysterics at a moment’s notice.
‘No,’ answered Beatrix, ‘but he has been severely wounded, and he is on his way home.’
‘Coming home,’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘how delightful! But severely wounded! How dreadful!’
‘He writes in very good spirits, but I think though he hardly admits as much, that he has been badly hurt, and very ill from the effects of his wounds,’ said Beatrix. ‘He wishes you and Mr. Dulcimer to go to Southampton with me to meet him.’
‘Dear boy, how touching! Read me a little of the letter. Do, my love.’
Beatrix complied, and read all her lover’s letter, save those little gushes of sentiment which she would have considered it a kind of treason to confide even to Mrs. Dulcimer.
‘It is selfish of me to ask you to take so much trouble, perhaps,’ he wrote, ‘but it would make me very happy if you would come to Southampton to meet me. I know our good friends the Dulcimerswould bring you, if you expressed a wish to that effect. I want to see you directly I land, Beatrix. I want your dear face to be the first to smile upon me when the steamer touches the English shore. The journey would be interminable if I had to wait till the end of it to see you. I am not very strong yet, and should be obliged to travel slowly. But if you will meet me and greet me, I think all my ills will be cured at once. A week or so at Culverhouse, with you for my daily companion, will make me as strong as a lion. I am bringing you home a poor little leaflet of laurel, dear, to lay at your feet. That last skirmish of ours brought me to the fore. Happy accidents favoured me, and our chief has said all manner of kind things about my conduct at the retaking of Pegu. I come back to you a major. I have not said a word yet about selling out. That shall be as you wish; but I confess that my own inclination points the other way. This last business has made me fonder than I used to be of my profession. I have tasted the sweets of success. What do you think, love? Could you be happy as a soldier’s wife? I write this at Alexandria. Thesteamer leaves to-morrow, and ought to arrive at Southampton on the 7th or 8th of November. Shall I be so blest as to see you among the eager crowd on the quay when the boat steams into the famous old docks, whence so many a soldier has gone to his fate—where there have been such sad partings and joyous meetings. Come, love, come, and let me think I do not return unlooked for and unloved.’
‘What do you think I ought to do, Mrs. Dulcimer?’ asked Beatrix, humbly.
‘Do, my love? Why, go, of course. There isn’t a doubt about it. Clement and I will take you.’
‘You are very good,’ faltered Beatrix. ‘Yes, I will go to meet him.’