CHAPTER XV.
MR. PIPER ASSERTS HIMSELF.
‘Youride, of course,’ Captain Standish said to Bella, upon one of her Thursday afternoons, in the middle of September.
Bella blushed. She had never mounted a horse in her life.
‘I am very fond of riding,’ she said.
‘Have you ever ridden to hounds?’
‘Do you mean hunted?’ she asked, naively. ‘Oh no, never.’
‘Then you must begin this winter. I’ll show you the way, and take care of you.’
‘I don’t think Mr. Piper would let me hunt,’ said Bella, dubiously. ‘I’ve heard him abuse hunting ladies; and as he never rides himself——’
‘What has that to do with it?’ asked the captain, contemptuously.
Captain Standish had long cast off all semblanceof respect in his manner of speaking about Mr. Piper. Bella had taken that first desperate step in a woman’s downward course which a wife takes when she submits to hear her husband depreciated.
‘What has Mr. Piper’s taste to do with your pleasure? It would be very difficult to find a horse that would carry him, and I suppose he would ride in about as good form as a sack of coals. I should so like you to hunt with me, Isabel. You must make him buy you a good hunter.’
Captain Standish was the only person who had ever called her Isabel. He had chosen to call her thus, in their confidential moments, because every one else called her Bella. The moment in which he had spoken that name marked an epoch in her life. She could look back and remember. They were standing side by side under the big beech, she leaning on her bow, as she stopped to rest after a dozen shots, when he bent over her to take the arrow out of her hand, and praised her for her skill in archery.
‘I am so proud of your progress, Isabel.’
The name spoken tenderly, in a subdued voice, was as startling as a name whispered in a sleeper’s ear.
‘You must not call me by my Christian name, Captain Standish,’ she said, making her poor little protest, which he knew meant nothing.
‘Yes, I must. It is the only name pretty enough for you. I have a choking sensation every time I have to call you Mrs. Piper.’
So from that time forward he had called her Isabel, whenever they found themselves alone.
‘I don’t think Mr. Piper would let me ride, much less hunt,’ said Bella, thoughtfully.
‘Yes, he would. You know very well that you can twist him round your little finger.’
‘I should dearly love hunting,’ she said, with a vague idea of skimming over ploughed fields, like a swallow, and flying over fences upon a horse whose only desire was to jump.
‘Get Piper to give his consent to your having a horse of your own, and let me choose one for you. I think you could trust my choice.’
‘Indeed I could,’ sighed Bella.
That idea of hunting had taken possession of her narrow little mind already. It seemed the one thing needful to her happiness, the one distinction necessaryto raise her to the social pinnacle she was always trying to scale. It would bring her into familiar intercourse with the county people, and then her prettiness and pleasing manners would do the rest. In the hunting field she would stand alone, not borne down by Mr. Piper’s vulgarity.
‘I’ll tell you how to manage Piper,’ said the captain. ‘Say that you are out of health, and that your doctor has ordered you to ride. You can make your doctor order anything you like, you know. He’ll take the hint, if he sees you’ve set your heart upon riding, and he’ll tell Piper that it’s a matter of vital necessity.’
Bella acted upon this idea. She was not so healthy a subject as Mrs. Piper as she had been when she was Miss Scratchell. She had languors, and nervous headaches, and shooting pains, and divers spasmodic or hysterical affections which were unknown to her in the days of her poverty. Hard work and hard living are the best regimen for these disorders. Bella had plenty of leisure now for imaginary ailments, and really believed herself a peculiarly delicate piece of human mechanism.
She sent for Mr. Namby the day after this conversation with Captain Standish, and told him she was feeling low and nervous, and that she feared there must be something radically wrong, something organic.
Now if the village surgeon had been attending Miss Scratchell he would have laughed such a notion to scorn, but this idea of organic disease in the mistress of the Park was not to be dismissed too lightly. The Park had been an important source of Mr. Namby’s income, in the late Mrs. Piper’s time, and he did not want the doors to be shut upon him now, so he smiled his most sympathetic smile, and gave a gentle sigh; the smile to re-assure, the sigh to express fore-knowledge of every evil the Fates had in store for his patient; and then he put his two fingers gently upon Bella’s wrist, looking at his watch the while, as if a beat more or less in the minute were a matter of supreme importance.
‘Thready,’ he said, shaking his head gravely.
‘I have a weak pulse, have I not?’ asked Bella. ‘I fancy I want exercise—open air—a more invigoratinglife. I drive a good deal; but there is not much exercise in that, you know.’
‘Very little,’ assented Mr. Namby.
‘Don’t you think riding might be good for me?’
‘The very thing I was about to recommend.’
‘But I’m afraid Mr. Piper might not like me to ride,’ suggested Bella.
‘From my knowledge of Mr. Piper’s devotion to you, my dear madam, I feel assured that he would not oppose anything likely to be of benefit to you,’ said Mr. Namby, with conviction.
‘Then perhaps you will be kind enough to mention it to him. Stop and take your luncheon with us. He is generally at home for luncheon. I feel that I ought to do something, I am getting into such a low way. I began to fancy my heart was affected.’
‘If there really were anything wrong about the heart, riding would be dangerous.’
‘Well, I dare say it is only indigestion, caused by want of exercise.’
Mr. Namby stayed to luncheon. His practicewas not so extensive as to forbid his indulging himself with a little leisure once in a way. He had not enjoyed himself so much for a long time; indeed, not since Bella’s wedding breakfast, at which he had been a humble guest, squeezed into a corner at the foot of the table, where very few people saw him, and where some of the best dishes never penetrated.
Mr. Piper happened to be in a particularly good humour. He had been speculating a little, by way of amusement, in woollen goods, and his venture had turned up trumps. He opened a bottle of his best champagne for Mr. Namby, a rose-tinted wine, that creamed and sparkled gently in the shallow glass, and did not run over in foolish froth, like ginger beer.
Mr. Namby took some curried lobster, and a mutton cutlet, and the breast of a partridge, and a bit of Harrogate cheese, and a bunch of Mr. Piper’s famous Alexandria Muscats, which had cost a small fortune to grow, and he had a very fair share of the rose-tinted champagne; and after being thus regaled, he declared, with conviction,that horsemanship was the one thing needed to restore Mrs. Piper to perfect health.
‘Why, there’s nothing the matter with her that I can see,’ exclaimed Mr. Piper, taking his wife’s little hand, and making a sandwich of it between two puffy paws. ‘She’s as pretty as ever, and she’s as plump as the partridges we’ve just eaten.’
‘These nervous disorders are very insidious,’ said Mr. Namby.
‘What should make her nervous?’
‘We’ve had so many parties,’ said Bella. ‘And your Great Yafford friends are so coarse and noisy. I always feel tired to death after an hour or two of their society. And we have been to so many of their wearisome dinners. Nothing wears me out like one of those stupid dinners, where we sit three hours at table, wondering when the hired footmen will leave off bringing round dishes that nobody wants, except the people whose only pleasure in life is gluttony.’
‘Mrs. Piper has a very feeble pulse,’ said Mr. Namby, after a lingering sip of Madeira. ‘She wants fresh air and vigorous exercise.’
‘She can go out walking. I dare say she has given way to laziness a bit since she’s had three carriages at her command. It’s a new sensation for her, poor little lass. She had to stir her stumps, trudging backwards and forwards from here to the village every day, when she was governess to my girls.’
Bella was dumb with disgust and indignation. To have a husband who spoke of her thus! Who made his pompous boast of having picked a pearl out of the gutter.
‘I don’t know about walking exercise,’ said Mr. Namby, who knew that his patient wanted a horse, and nothing but a horse. ‘That might possibly be too fatiguing for Mrs. Piper. Now riding is exercise without fatigue.’
‘Well, then, I suppose she must ride,’ exclaimed Mr. Piper, with an air of resignation. ‘If she has set her heart upon it she’ll do it, cost what it may. Yes, at the risk of breaking her neck, and an old fool’s heart into the bargain. There never was such a girl for having her own way. Look at her, Namby! Wouldn’t you think she was the softestbit of pink and white womanhood that ever mother Nature moulded, a gentle little puss that would sit on your lap, and purr with good temper and contentment, a lump of softness and affection that never knew what it was to have a will of her own? That’s what I thought before I married her. But I know better now. She’s as hard as nails, and when she wants anything she’ll have it, if it was to cost you your fortune.’
‘I don’t think I am asking for anything very dreadful,’ said Bella. ‘A horse which may cost you a hundred pounds——’
‘Oh, hang it!’ cried Piper. ‘We’ve horses enough. If you must ride you can ride one of the carriage horses.’
‘A creature nearly seventeen hands high,’ exclaimed Bella, contemptuously. ‘I don’t want to ride a camel. Pray say no more about it. It is Mr. Namby’s idea that I ought to ride, not mine.’
‘Does she really want it?’ asked the bewildered Piper, appealing to the surgeon.
‘I think it might give her tone. There is a decided want of tone at present.’
‘There was no want of tone when she used to come every morning to teach my children. She used to look as fresh as a newly opened rose.’
‘She had not the cares of a large household upon her shoulders in those days,’ suggested Mr. Namby.
‘The household doesn’t trouble her. She isn’t like poor Moggie, who fretted herself to fiddle-strings about sixpences. She’s a born lady, is the duchess yonder. She sits in an easy chair and reads novels, and lets the household take care of itself. If poor Moggie could rise from the grave and take a peep at our servants’ hall——well, it’s a comfort she can’t, for I’m sure she’d never go back again.’
‘Pray say no more,’ said Bella, getting up and going towards the door. ‘You have said more than enough already. I would not let you buy me a horse now if you were to go down on your knees to beg me.’
‘Hoity, toity!’ cried Mr. Piper, but Bella had bounced out of the room, leaving him face to face with Mr. Namby, who, alarmed at the storminess of the domestic sky, made haste to depart.
Mr. Piper ordered the pony carriage—his wife’spony carriage—and drove himself to Great Yafford. This appropriation of Bella’s carriage and ponies was an act of self-assertion on his part, and was meant as a kind of manifesto. He felt that the time had come when he must be master. But it was the most joyless drive he had ever taken. The very road looked dreary, barren, and uncomfortable in the autumnal light. How fast the leaves were falling, how dull and cold everything looked. Yes, assuredly Summer had gone. He had hardly noticed it till now. He loitered at his club while the ponies were being rested and fed, and contrived to be home rather late for dinner. He expected black looks from Bella when he went into the drawing-room, where she was waiting, daintily dressed, with the unfailing novel open in her lap; but to his surprise she received him as pleasantly as if nothing had happened.
This mollified him, and he made no further attempt at self-assertion that evening.
‘I hope you didn’t want your ponies, little woman,’ he said. ‘I took ’em.’
‘My ponies,’ laughed Bella. ‘As if anything I have were really mine! I am like the butterflies inthe garden. I enjoy all the sweets, but I don’t pay for them, and they don’t belong to me.’
‘That’s not true, Bella, and you know it,’ exclaimed Mr. Piper. ‘You haven’t forgotten the marriage service. “With all my worldly goods I thee endow.†I endowed you with my worldly goods, Bella, and, without wishing to hurt your feelings, I must say that so far you’ve made pretty free with ’em. But I see how it is, you’re offended because I refused you a saddle-horse this morning. Well, perhaps it was rather mean of me, especially after I’d made a little bit of money by a side wind. But you see, we’ve been spending a lot this year, and I began to feel it was time to pull in a bit. However, I’ve been talking to White, and he says the carriage horses are too tall for a lady, and they might throw themselves forward from the habit of hanging on the collar; so never mind, my pet, you shall have a saddle-horse, and as far as a hundred pounds will go you shall have a good one.’
‘No,’ said Bella, drawing herself up, ‘after what you said to-day—before Mr. Namby, too, no doubt it’s all over the village by this time—I wouldn’t letyou spend another sixpence upon me. You made me feel my dependence too keenly. You expected me to be quite a different kind of wife, yielding, subservient, without an idea of my own, like a Circassian slave, bought in the market-place. No, Mr. Piper, I am not such a degraded creature.’
Mr. Piper had to supplicate before Bella would accept his offer of a hundred guinea horse. He did not actually go down on his knees, but he humiliated himself to the uttermost, and the dinner, which had been perilled by his late return, was spoiled by this extra delay.
This was the end of Mr. Piper’s first attempt at self-assertion.