BELLA OVERHEARS A CONVERSATION.
NEVER in her life had Isabella Scratchell been so happy as she was in those winter days which Beatrix spent in her solitary home, or in long lonely rides or drives across the moor. Isabella, whose time had seldom been given to idleness, now worked day and night. She could not altogether withdraw her help from the overtaxed house-mother, so she sat up for an hour or two nightly, when the rest of the family had gone to bed, mending and making for the insatiable brood.
‘Never mind, ma,’ she would say when Mrs. Scratchell was on the verge of distraction about a skirt, or a ‘waist,’ a pair of impracticable socks, or trousers that were gone at the knee; ‘leave your basket, and I’ll make it right when you’re gone to bed.’
‘But, Bella, my dear,’ sighed the mother, ‘it’s so bad for your health to sit up ever so long after twelve. Working so hard as you do all the day, too. I wish you had never taken that district visiting into your head.’
‘District fiddlesticks!’ growled Mr. Scratchell from behind his newspaper. He was inconveniently quick of hearing, like the generality of fathers. ‘District stuff and nonsense! Visiting the poor means running after curates.’
‘It’s a great shame to say such a thing, pa,’ cried Bella, crimsoning. ‘I’m sure I try hard enough to be useful at home, and I give mother the best part of my salary towards the housekeeping. I ought to be free to do a little good abroad, if it makes me happy.’
‘A little fiddle-faddle,’ retorted the father, not taking the trouble to lower his newspaper. ‘A deal of good you can do, going simpering and smirking into cottages, as much as to say, “Ain’t I pretty? How do you like my bonnet?” And then I suppose you inquire after the state of their souls, and ask why they don’t teach their children to blow their noses, and quote Scripture, and talk as if you’d got a freehold estate in heaven. I hate such humbug. Stay at home and help your mother. That’s what I call Christianity.’
Like most men who never go to church or read their Bibles, Mr. Scratchell had his own idea of Christianity, and was quite as ready to assert and defend it as the most learned Churchman. He laid down the law as arrogantly upon this Christian code of his as if he had received a revelation all to himself, and was in a position to put the Established Church right, if it had been worth his while to do so.
Bella Scratchell went on devoting three afternoons a week to parish visiting, in spite of paternal opposition. In fact, that paternal opposition gave a new zest to her work, and she felt herself in her small way a martyr.
She told Cyril about her father’s unkindness one afternoon as he was walking home with her, after an accidental meeting in one of the cottages.
‘Papa is so cruel,’ she said; ‘he declares that I can do no good—that I am too insignificant and silly to be of the least use.’
‘You are neither insignificant nor silly,’ answered Cyril, warmly; ‘and the people like you. That is the grand point. They will generally take advice from a person they like. And they like bright young faces, and pleasant friendly manners. You have done good already. I have seen it in more than one case.’
‘I am so glad!’ cried Bella, in a voice that actually trembled with delight. ‘Are you really pleased with me?’
‘I am very much pleased.’
‘Then I will go on. Papa may be as unkind as he likes. I am amply rewarded.’
‘My praise is a very small reward,’ replied Cyril, smiling. ‘The satisfaction of your own conscience is the real good. You know that your life now is all usefulness.’
Bella lived in a fool’s paradise, from this time forward. Mrs. Dulcimer was always telling her how Cyril had praised her. She met him continually in the cottages, or at the Vicarage. Her life was full of delight. She only went to the Water House once or twice a week, though she had hitherto gone almost every day. She told Beatrix about her district visiting.
‘Of course I like being here with you much better than going among those poor things,’ she said, affectionately; ‘but I felt it a duty to do something, my life seemed so useless.’
‘What is mine, then?’ sighed Beatrix.
‘Oh dear, with you it is different. With your means you can always be doing good indirectly. See how much you have done for me. I owe you and Mr. Harefield my education, my good clothes, my power to help poor mamma. But I have only my time to give, and I am very happy to devote some of that to the poor, under Mr. Culverhouse’s guidance.’
‘He is kind to you?’ interrogated Beatrix; ‘you like him?’
‘He is more than kind to me. He is my master, my teacher, my guide! I cannot use such a poor word as liking to describe my feelings for him. I reverence—I almost worship him.’
‘He is worthy of your esteem,’ said Beatrix, wondering a little at this gush of feeling from Bella.
Mrs. Dulcimer felt that things were working round delightfully towards the realization of her matrimonial scheme.
‘I look upon it as quite a settled matter, Rebecca,’ she said one morning, when the all-important factotum was polishing the old sideboard, familiarly known as Uncle John.
‘Having the chimneys swept again before Christmas? yes, mum,’ replied Rebecca, driving her leather vigorously backwards and forwards across the shining wood. ‘They’ll want it. We begun fires extra early this year, and master do pile up the wood and coals, as if he wanted to keep himself in mind of Bloody Mary’s martyrs at Smiffell, and show his thankfulness that God made him a Protestant.’
‘I wasn’t talking of the chimneys, Rebecca. I was thinking of Mr. Culverhouse and Miss Scratchell. He’s getting fonder of her every day.’
‘He ought to be,’ retorted the maid, snappishly. ‘She runs after him hard enough. But if I was you, ‘um, I’d leave him to find out his own feelings. Forced affections are like forced rhubarb, sour and watery. Uncle John’s in the sulks this morning. I can’t get him to shine nohow. It’s the damp weather, I suppose. It always makes him dull.’
‘Well, Rebecca,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer, complacently, ‘if this marriage takes place soon, as I believe it will, I shall feel that I’ve been the salvation of Bella Scratchell. If you could see her wretched home——’
‘I’ve seen the maid-of-all-work,’ replied Rebecca, curtly, ‘that’s enough for me. I’ve no call to see inside the house.’
Hopefully as things were progressing in Mrs. Dulcimer’s estimation, the active beneficence of that amiable woman urged her to take some step which should place matters on a more decided footing. It was more than a month since she had taken Cyril and Bella under her protection, and she felt that it was time the gentleman should declare himself. He had received every encouragement to speak; he had evidently been touched by Bella’s efforts for the good of her species. He admired Bella’s taste and industry, her neatness of attire and amiable manners. What more could he want?
‘It’s positively ridiculous of him to hang back in this way,’ thought Mrs. Dulcimer, impatient for action. ‘But I have no doubt his silence is the result of shyness. Those reserved men are always shy. One gives them credit for pride, and they are suffering agonies of self-distrust all the time.’
It is generally some combination of trifles which determines the great events of life. Mrs. Dulcimer was hurried into a line of conduct more impetuous than sagacious by such a combination.
First it was a wet afternoon, which fact prevented the Vicar’s wife going on a round of ceremonious calls, in her best bonnet. She might have trusted her own body out in the wet, leaving the accident of a cold in the head to be dealt with by Rebecca, who was a wonderful hand at domestic medicine, and made gruel that was almost a luxury; but she could not risk the destruction of her new velvet bonnet and bird of Paradise. Secondly, Mr. Dulcimer had gone to Great Yafford for a day’s leisurely prowl among the second-hand book-shops, a recreation his soul loved. His absence made the Vicarage seem empty, and the day longer than usual. Mrs. Dulcimer ate her early dinner alone, and felt miserable.
After dinner she sent the boy to ask Bella Scratchell to come and spend the afternoon, and to bring her work. The fire was lighted in the library, so that the room might be warm and cheerful on the Vicar’s return; but Mrs. Dulcimer preferred her snug corner by the dining-room hearth, where she had a comfortable Rockingham chair, and a delightful little Chippendale table. She opened her charity basket, took out her pile of baby clothes, and felt that, with Bella to talk to, she could spend an agreeable afternoon, despite the incessant rain, which came down with a dismal drip, drip, on the sodden lawn, where the blackbirds were luxuriating in the unusual accessibility of the worm family.
Bella’s rapid fingers were wont to be helpful too, with the charity basket. She would lay aside her dainty strip of embroidery, and devote herself to herring-boning flannel, or stitching in gussets, with the most amiable alacrity.
‘You dear girl, to come through this abominable rain and enliven me!’ exclaimed Mrs. Dulcimer, when Bella came in, looking very bright and pretty after her rainy walk.
‘I think I would come through fire as well as water to see you, dear Mrs. Dulcimer,’ replied Bella, affectionately. ‘I was going to sit with poor Mary Smithers this afternoon,—she is in a decline, you know, and so patient. Mr. Culverhouse is deeply interested in her. But of course I would rather come here——’
‘You dear unselfish girl! And does Mr. Culverhouse seem pleased with what you are doing for his people?’
‘Very much. His face quite lights up when he comes into a cottage and finds me there.’
‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Dulcimer, significantly. ‘We all know what that means.’
Bella sighed and looked at the fire. Her fool’s paradise was a sweet place to dwell in, but there were times when the suspicion that it was only a fool’s paradise, after all, crept like an ugly snake into the Eden of her mind.
‘Dear Mrs. Dulcimer,’ she began thoughtfully, after an interval of silence, in which the Vicar’s wife had been trying to accomplish some manœuvre, almost as difficult as squaring the circle, with a brown paper pattern and an awkward bit of flannel. ‘You are too good to be so much interested in my welfare; but, do you know, sometimes I fancy you are altogether mistaken—as to—as to—Mr. Culverhouse’s feelings. He is all that is kind to me—he approves of my poor efforts to be useful—he praises me—he seems always glad to see me—yet he has never said a word that would imply——’
‘That will come all at once, all in a moment,’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer, decisively. ‘It did with Clement. I hadn’t the least idea that he was in love with me. My father was a bookworm, you know, like Mr. Dulcimer; and Clement used to come to our house a great deal, and they were always talking of first editions and second editions, and black-letter books, and incunabula, and a lot more stuff, of which I hardly knew the meaning. And one day Clement suddenly asked me to marry him. I never felt so surprised in my life. I felt sure that my father must have suggested it to him, but the idea did not offend me. These things ought to be suggested. There are men who would go down to their graves miserable old bachelors for want of some one to give them a judicious hint.’
‘And you really think Mr. Culverhouse likes me?’ faltered Bella.
It was growing every day—nay, every hour—more and more a question of life or death with her. The old home seemed daily more hateful, the ideal existence to be shared with Cyril more paradisaic. Suspense gnawed her heart like a serpent’s tooth. She knew, and felt, that it was unwomanly to discuss such a question, even with friendly Mrs. Dulcimer, but she could not help seeking the comfort to be obtained from such a discussion.
‘My love, I am sure of it,’ said the Vicar’s wife, with conviction. ‘I have seen it in a thousand ways.’
Bella did not ask her to name one of the thousand, though she would have been very glad to get more detailed information.
Again Bella’s eyes sought the fire, and again she gave a little depressed sigh. Her father had been especially disagreeable lately; there had been difficulties about bills and taxes—life at home was at such times a perpetual warfare. Mrs. Piper had been ailing for the last fortnight; her temper had been ailing too. The Piper children were stupid and insolent. Existence was altogether a trial. Bella thought of Beatrix Harefield’s smooth life in the beautiful old Water House, with its lights and shadows, its old world comfort, its retinue of well-trained servants. A dull life, no doubt, but a paradise of rest. As a child, Bella had been envious of her playfellow; but, since both girls had grown to womanhood, envy had assumed a deeper hue, black as the juice of the cuttle-fish, which darkens all it touches.
‘Let me herring-bone those flannels for you, dear Mrs. Dulcimer,’ Bella said at last, rousing herself from her reverie, and presently the needle was flying swiftly backwards and forwards, as Miss Scratchell’s fair head bent over her work.
She tried to be lively, feeling it incumbent on her to amuse her kind patroness; and the two women prattled on about servants, and gowns, and bonnets, and the usual feminine subjects, till four o’clock, when it was too dark for any more work, and they could only talk on by the red glow of the fire, till it pleased the omnipotent Rebecca to bring lamps and candles.
The Vicarage dining-room was charming by this light. The blocks of books, the shelves of old china, Uncle John’s portly sideboard, standing out with a look of human corpulence in the ruddy glow, shining with a polish that did credit to Rebecca, Aunt Tabitha’s mahogany bureau glittering with brassy ornamentation, the sombre crimson of the well-worn curtains giving depth of tone to the picture. Yes it was a good old room in this changeful and uncertain light, and to Bella, after the discords and disorders of home, it seemed an exquisite haven of repose. There had been old-fashioned folding-doors between the dining-room and library, but these Mr. Dulcimer had removed, replacing them with thick cloth curtains, which made it easier for him to pass from room to room.
The clock had struck four, and Mrs. Dulcimer was beginning to feel sleepy, when a ring at the house door put her on the alert.
‘I wonder who it is?’ she said in an undertone, as if the visitor might hear her outside the hall door. ‘It isn’t Clement, for he has his key. And it couldn’t be any ordinary caller on such an afternoon. I dare say it is Mr. Culverhouse come on parish business.’
Bella had made the same speculation, and her heart was beating painfully fast.
‘If it is I’ll draw him out,’ whispered the Vicar’s wife.
‘Oh, pray, pray, dear Mrs. Dulcimer, don’t dream of such a thing——’
‘Sh, my dear,’ whispered Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘don’t you be frightened. I am not going to compromise you. I hope I have more tact than to do such a thing as that. But I shall draw him out. I won’t have him trifle with you any longer. He shall be made to speak his mind.’
‘Dear Mrs. Dulcimer, I beg——’
‘Mr. Culverhouse, ‘um,’ announced Rebecca. ‘He wanted to see master, but he says you’ll do. I’ve shown him into the libery.’
Mrs. Dulcimer rose without a word, squeezed Bella’s hand, put her finger on her lip mysteriously, and passed through into the next room, dropping the curtains behind her. Bella grew pale, and trembled a little as she crept towards the curtains.
‘I think she must mean me to listen,’ she said to herself, and she took her stand just by the central line where the two curtains met.
Mr. Culverhouse had come to beg help for some of his poor people. Widow Watson’s little boy had fallen into the fire, while his mother was out getting her little bit of washing passed through a neighbour’s mangle, and there was old linen wanted to dress his wounds, and a little wine, as he was very weak from the shock. Good-natured Mrs. Dulcimer ran off to hunt for the linen, and to get the wine from Rebecca, and Cyril was left alone in the library.
Bella stole back to her chair by the fire. He might come in, perhaps, and find her there. He was quite at home in the house. She felt that she would look innocent enough, sitting there by the little work-table. She might even simulate a gentle slumber. She was wise enough to know that girlhood is never prettier than in sleep.
Cyril did not come into the dining-room. She heard him walking slowly up and down the library, deep in thought, no doubt.
‘If Mrs. Dulcimer is right, he must be thinking of me,’ said Bella. ‘I think of him all day long. He shuts everything else out of my thoughts.’
Presently Mrs. Dulcimer came back.
‘I have sent off a parcel of linen and some sherry,’ she said.
‘A thousand thanks for your prompt kindness. It is really a sad case—the poor mother is almost heartbroken——’
‘Poor thing,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘I cannot think how they do manage to set themselves on fire so often. It’s quite an epidemic.’
‘Their rooms are so small,’ suggested Cyril.
‘True. That may have something to do with it. How tired you must be this wet day! You’ll stop to tea, of course. Clement has been book-hunting at Great Yafford, and will be home soon. I have got a brace of pheasants for him. He’ll want something nice after such a wretched day. How is Mary Smithers?’
Mary Smithers was the girl Bella had talked of visiting.
‘No better, poor soul,’ said Cyril. ‘There is only one change for her now.’
‘Ah!’ sighed Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘and that is a blessed one for a girl in her position.’
Her tone implied that heaven was a desirable refuge for the destitute, a supernal almshouse, with easier terms of election than those common to earthly asylums.
‘Have you seen much of poor Mary since she has been ill?’ asked Mrs. Dulcimer, artfully leading up to her subject.
‘I see her as often as I can, but not so often as I wish. But she has been well looked after.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Your little favourite, Miss Scratchell, has been quite devoted to her, and fortunately poor Mary has taken a strong fancy to Miss Scratchell.’
How fast Bella’s heart was beating now! and how close her ear was to the narrow line between the curtains!
‘Your little favourite.’ The careless kindness of his tone had a chilling sound in Bella’s ear.
‘I am delighted to hear you say so,’ replied Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘Bella is indeed a dear girl—clever, accomplished, useful; a treasure at home—beloved wherever she goes. What a wife she will make!’
‘A capital one,’ said the curate. ‘I should be very pleased to marry her——’
Bella’s heart gave a leap.
‘To some thoroughly good fellow who could give her a happy home.’
Bella’s heart sank as heavily as a lump of lead.
‘And no doubt she will marry well,’ pursued the curate, in the same cheerful tone. ‘She is a very attractive girl as well as a good girl.’
Mrs. Dulcimer began to feel uncomfortable. Could she have been mistaken after all? Could she have misled poor Bella? It was not the first time in her life that her judgment had gone astray—but this time she had felt particularly sure of her facts, and she had been more than usually anxious for the success of her scheme. Bella’s home was so uncomfortable. It was absolutely incumbent on Mrs. Dulcimer, as an active Christian, to get the poor girl married. Match-making here was not an amusement, but a stringent duty.
There was a pause, and for some moments Mrs. Dulcimer thought of abandoning her idea of drawing Cyril out. The attempt might be premature. And there was poor Bella listening intently, no doubt, and having her young hopes blighted by the indifference of the curate’s tone. Curiosity got the better of discretion, however, and Mrs. Dulcimer pursued her theme.
‘She is a sweet pretty girl,’ she said, ‘I really think she grows prettier every day. I wonder you can talk so cheerfully of marrying her to somebody else. What a charming wife she would make for you!’
‘I dare say she would, if I wanted just that kind of wife, and if she wanted such a person as me for a husband. But I dare say I am as far from her ideal of a husband as she is from my ideal of a wife.’
Bella’s knees gave way under her at this point, and she sank into a languid heap upon the floor by the curtains. She did not faint, but she felt as if there were no more power or life in her limbs, as if she had sunk upon that spot never to rise any more, as if the best thing that could happen to her would be to lie there and feel life ebbing gently away, light slowly fading to eternal darkness.
‘You astonish me,’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer, more indignant at the downfall of this last cherished scheme than she had ever felt at any previous failure. ‘What more could you want in a wife? Beauty—cleverness—industry—good management.’
‘Dante found only one Beatrice,’ said Cyril, gravely, ‘yet I have no doubt there were plenty of women in Florence who could sew on shirt buttons and make soup. I have found my Beatrice. I may never marry her, perhaps. But I am fixed for life. I shall never marry any one else.’
A new life returned to Bella’s limbs now. It was as if the blood that had just now flowed so sluggishly through her veins was suddenly changed to quicksilver. She rose to her feet again, and stood, white as a corpse, with her hands tightly clenched, her lips drawn together till they made only a thin line of pallid violet. The pretty Dresden china face was hardly recognisable.
A sudden conviction had darted into her mind with Cyril’s utterance of that name—Beatrice. It was as if a flash of lightning had revealed things close at hand but wrapped in darkness till this moment.
‘I never was more surprised in my life—or disappointed,’ faltered Mrs. Dulcimer, quite overcome by this failure. ‘I am so fond of you, Cyril—and so fond of Bella, and I thought you would make such a nice couple—that it would be a delightful arrangement in every way.’
‘My dear friend, there is a higher Power who rules these things. I am a believer in the old saying that marriages are made in heaven, and I have not much faith in the wisdom of earthly match-making.’
‘But this was in every way so suitable,’ harped Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘Bella is such a good girl—a model wife for a man who has to make his way in the world.’
‘Heaven defend me from a model wife chosen for me by my friends,’ ejaculated Cyril.
‘And you have paid her so much attention—you have been so warmly interested in her parish work.’
‘Not more than I should be in any good work done by any good woman. I trust,’ pursued Cyril with a sudden look of alarm, ‘that I have done nothing to mislead Miss Scratchell on this subject. I should hate myself if I thought it were possible. I can confidently say that I have never uttered a word that could be misunderstood by the most romantic young lady. Our conversation has always been perfectly matter of fact—about other people—never about ourselves. I would as soon take to writing sonnets as indulge in the sentimental twaddle some curates cultivate.’
‘Pray don’t alarm yourself,’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer, remembering her promise to Bella. ‘Miss Scratchell hasn’t an idea upon the subject. I know that she admires—reveres—esteems you—’ she added, thinking it just possible to turn the tide of his feelings by the warm south wind of flattery; ‘but beyond that—no—Bella has too much modesty, I am sure she has not a thought about being married. It is only I who am anxious to see her comfortably settled. Of course I cannot blame you for my having been deceived about your feelings. But I really do think, Cyril, that when a young man is engaged he ought to let his intimate friends know all about it. It would prevent misunderstandings.’
‘There are reasons why I should not talk about my engagement. It has not been ratified by the consent of the lady’s family. It may be long before I can marry.’
‘Ah!’ thought Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘some artful girl he met at Oxford, I daresay. A university town is a regular man-trap.’
She was seriously concerned about Bella. The poor girl would fret perhaps, would lay her sorrow at Mrs. Dulcimer’s door; and for once in her life the Vicar’s wife felt herself to blame. In the active exercise of her charity she had done more harm than if she had loved her neighbour a little less intensely, and left other people’s business alone.
‘Poor Bella!’ she thought, and she felt almost afraid to face her victim; yet she was bound to go and console her, so, after a little desultory talk with Cyril about nothing particular, she excused herself, on the pretext of looking after the tea, and left the curate to amuse himself with the books and periodicals heaped on Mr. Dulcimer’s table, the sober drab Quarterly, the Edinburgh in yellow and blue, the philosophical Westminster, lurking among his more orthodox brethren, like a snake in the grass.
The dining-room was empty when Mrs. Dulcimer returned to it. Bella had carried her crushed heart out of the house, into the gray rainy night, which seemed in harmony with her desolation. She had crept quietly from the room, directly the conversation between Cyril and Mrs. Dulcimer had changed to general topics, and had gone upstairs to put on her bonnet and shawl.
On Mrs. Dulcimer’s dressing-table she left a brief pencilled note.
‘I could not stay after what has happened, dear friend. We have both been foolish. Pray think no more about it.’
Mrs. Dulcimer found this little note, presently, when she went upstairs to arrange her cap, and re-adjust the frilling and puffings about her neck and shoulders.
The little note gave her unspeakable relief.
‘Noble girl!’ she exclaimed, ‘how heroically she takes it. Yet I am sure she is fond of him. And how good of her not to feel angry with me for having misled her.’
Mrs. Dulcimer would not have been quite so satisfied with the result of her good-natured manœuvring, could she have seen the figure lying prone upon the floor of Bella Scratchell’s barely-furnished bedroom—the dishevelled hair—the clenched hands—the convulsed movements of the thin bloodless lips: and, perhaps, she might have been for ever cured of her passion for match-making, could she have heard the curses which those pallid lips called down upon her matronly head.