BELLA’S REVENGE.
THE blinds were drawn up at the Water House, and the wintry sun shone
upon the empty rooms. Miss Scales had come back to her charge, leaving
that provoking old lady in Devonshire still undecided whether to live
or die, ‘making it so very perplexing as to one’s choice of a winter
dress when one might be called upon at any moment to go into mourning,’
Miss Scales complained to her Devonshire acquaintance, when discussing
her aunt’s weak-minded oscillation.
But now there was no further difficulty about the mourning question.
For Mr. Harefield, her employer of fifteen years, Miss Scales could not
assume too deep a sable, especially when the sable would naturally be
provided and paid for by her dearest Beatrix.
Banbury and Banbury’s forewoman came to the Water House with boxes
of crape and rolls of bombazine, and the governess and her pupil were
measured for garments of unutterable woe.
And now, at nineteen, Beatrix found herself on the threshold of a new
life, a life of supreme independence. Wealth, and liberty to do what
she pleased with it, were hers. Mr. Dulcimer was likely to prove the
most indulgent of guardians; Mr. Scratchell was subservient to the
last degree, his sole anxiety being to retain his position, and to
ingratiate himself and his family in Miss Harefield’s favour.
‘If Mrs. Scratchell can be useful in any way, pray command her,’ said
the village lawyer. ‘She will be only too proud to serve you, Miss
Harefield, but she would be the last to obtrude her services.’
‘I do not think you need entertain any apprehensions as to Miss
Harefield’s being properly taken care of, Mr. Scratchell,’ Miss Scales
remarked, stiffly. ‘She has Mr. Dulcimer--and she has me.’
Mr. Scratchell rumpled the scanty bristles at the top of his bald head,
and felt himself snubbed.
‘Neither Mrs. Scratchell nor myself would wish to obtrude ourselves,’
he said, ‘but Miss Harefield being fond of Bella might like to make use
of Mrs. Scratchell. She is a very clever manager, and might put Miss
Harefield in the right way with her servants.’
‘Miss Harefield’s servants know their duties, and do not require
managing, Mr. Scratchell. I should be very sorry to live in a household
where the servants had to be managed. The bare idea implies a wrong
state of things.’
‘Well,’ exclaimed Mr. Scratchell, testily, ‘I don’t want to press
myself or my family upon Miss Harefield--although I am joint executor
with Mr. Dulcimer, and had the honour to enjoy her father’s confidence
for five-and-thirty years. I should be very sorry to be intrusive. And
there’s Bella, she has made a very long stay here, and she’s wanted
badly elsewhere. If Miss Harefield is agreeable she had better come
home.’
‘She must do as she likes,’ Beatrix answered, listlessly. ‘I am a very
dull companion for her.’
‘Dear Beatrix, you know I love to be with you,’ murmured Bella, in her
affectionate way, ‘but I think I ought to go home, as papa says. Poor
Mrs. Piper is so ill, and the young Pipers get more troublesome every
day. Their holidays are too trying for her. I believe I ought to resume
my duties.’
‘I am sure you ought,’ said her father, who was bursting to assert
his independence. He did not mind how subservient he made himself to
Beatrix, but he was not going to knuckle under to Miss Scales. ‘I met
Mr. Piper in the village yesterday, and he told me the house was all at
sixes and sevens for want of you.’
Beatrix seemed indifferent as to whether Bella went or stayed, so Miss
Scratchell got her goods and chattels together, and departed with her
father, after many loving embraces and pretty expressions of gratitude.
Perhaps in the book of the recording angel that parting kiss of Bella’s
went down in a particular column devoted to such Judas kisses--that
traitor kiss of Darnley’s, for instance, on the night of Rizzio’s
assassination.
Bella went home with her father, looking slim and pretty in her new
black dress and bonnet, and doing her best to soothe her parent’s
wrath with sweet deprecating speeches. In the box which she had just
packed--to be brought home later--there were many things that she had
not taken to the Water House, including a handsome black silk gown, and
innumerable trifles in the shape of gloves, collars, and neck-ribbons;
but there was one thing which Miss Scratchell carried away in her
pocket, and which she held to be of more importance than all her finery.
This was the sealed envelope which she had found upon Mr. Harefield’s
writing-table. ‘For my daughter Beatrix.’
She took it from her pocket when she was safely locked in her own room,
secure from the intrusion of the family herd. She sat with the packet
on her lap, thoughtfully contemplating it.
She had kept it more than a fortnight, and had not broken the seal.
She had been sorely tempted to see what was inside the envelope, but
had resisted the temptation. To open it would be a crime, she had told
herself, and she made a kind of virtue of this self-denial. All she
wanted was to keep the document. She had made up her mind that this
sealed packet contained the key to the mystery of Christian Harefield’s
death. So long as the seal remained unbroken that death would remain a
mystery. No one would know whether it was suicide or murder; and this
uncertainty would hang like a cloud over Beatrix.
This was Isabella Scratchell’s revenge. That pink and white prettiness
of hers was not incompatible with the capacity to seize an opportunity
and to persevere in an inexorable hatred.
‘She has beauty and wealth, and a good old name,’ thought Bella; ‘but
so long as her father’s death remains unexplained she will hardly have
the love of Cyril Culverhouse.’
Bella had heard enough from Mr. Piper and Miss Coyle on Christmas Day
to know very well which way opinion was drifting in Little Yafford.
It was a settled thing already in the minds of a good many deep
thinkers, and profound students of human nature as exhibited in the
weekly papers, that Beatrix Harefield knew more about her father’s
death than anybody else. The very horror of the idea that her hand had
put the poison in his way gave it a morbid attraction for tea-table
conversation. There was a growing opinion that the coroner’s jury had
done less than their duty in returning an open verdict.
‘The verdict would have been very different if Miss Harefield had been
a labouring man’s daughter,’ said Miss Coyle, who had more to say on
this subject than any one else, and who was always uncompromising in
her opinions.
Bella was not sorry to leave the Water House, though home looked a
little more squalid and untidy than usual, after the subdued splendour
of Miss Harefield’s mansion. She had not been able to feel at her
ease with Beatrix during this last visit. Even to her essentially
false nature there was some effort required to preserve a demeanour of
unvarying sweetness towards a person she detested. The old Adam was
in danger of breaking out now and then. Between Beatrix and herself
there stood the shadowy image of Cyril Culverhouse; and there were
moments when Bella could not quite command her looks, however sweetly
she might attune her voice. And now that Miss Scales was on the scene,
with eyes which saw everything, Bella felt that the veneer of affection
might be too thin to hide the hardness of the wood underneath it.
So Bella resumed the monotonous order of her home life, breakfasted
at eight, and presented herself at the Park upon the stroke of nine,
where the Piper children, clustering round the newly-lighted fire in
the schoolroom, hated her for her punctuality. But she knew that if the
children disapproved, Mr. Piper approved, for he generally looked out
of the dining-room, newspaper in hand, to give her a friendly nod of
welcome.
‘Good little girl, always up to time,’ he said; ‘those are the ’abits
that make success in life. That was Brougham’s way. He might be hard
at it, drinking and dissipating far into the small hours, but he was
always up to time in the morning. Cobbett was never too late for an
appointment in his life. Those are the men for my money.’
‘How is dear Mrs. Piper?’
‘Well, I think the missus is a trifle better this morning; but she
mends very slow, poor soul. I don’t believe the doctors can do much for
her.’
Bella sighed, and shook her head sadly, and then went tripping upstairs
to the schoolroom, leaving Mr. Piper standing at the dining-room door
looking after her.
‘A pretty little girl,’ he said to himself, ‘neatly finished off,
like a well-made carriage, or an English watch. No scamping about the
workmanship. Poor Moggie never had as pretty a figure as that, though
she was a trim-built lass when she and me was courting.’
One day, when Bella had finished the weary round of lessons, and had
nearly addled her brains in the endeavour to awaken Brougham’s sluggish
mind to the difference between the active and the passive voices of the
verb ‘amo,’ she paid her usual visit to Mrs. Piper, and found that lady
in tears over a book of sermons.
‘Dear Mrs. Piper,’ cried Bella, with a sympathizing look, ‘have you
been feeling worse this morning?’
‘No, Bella, bodily I’m much the same, but I’ve been giving way. It’s
very wrong of me, I know, but there are times when I do give way.
To-day I haven’t been able to feel quite happy in my mind. I don’t feel
my calling and election sure. I don’t feel myself sealed with the seal
of righteousness. I don’t feel myself a chosen vessel.’
‘You to say this, dear Mrs. Piper! you who have been so good!’
‘If goodness lies in reading sermons, Bella--and in constant attendance
at chapel or church, I may say I have done my duty. We were chapel
people in Great Yafford, you know, my dear; but when we came to the
Park, Piper and me both felt that chapel wasn’t consistent. Such a
house as this, and seven indoor servants don’t accord with chapel--so
we became Church of England people, as you know, Bella; but I don’t
think I ever felt so sure of salvation since. Mr. Dulcimer is a fine
preacher, but he has never given me assurance of salvation. No more has
Mr. Culverhouse, though his sermons go through my heart like an arrow.
Church is very nice, Bella, and I don’t deny that the bonnets and
general appearance of the congregation bear a higher stamp, but chapel
is the place to make a sinner comfortable in his mind. Since I have
been confined to these rooms, Bella, and my mind has been taken off the
housekeeping, I feel there is something wanting. I should so like to
have a little talk with Mr. Mowler, of Zion Chapel, our old minister. I
know that he would understand me, and----’
‘Not better than Mr. Culverhouse,’ cried Bella, eagerly. ‘You don’t
know how good he is, how tender of one’s feelings, how sympathetic. I
have visited among his poor, and have heard him talk to sick people. He
is an angel of consolation. Do let him come and sit with you, and read
or talk to you.’
‘I shouldn’t mind,’ said Mrs. Piper, ‘but I’m afraid his views are not
evangelical enough for me.’
‘I don’t know much about his views, but I know it is beautiful to hear
him talk. Shall I ask him to come this afternoon?’
‘You may if you like, Bella, if you can take such a liberty. I want
some one to strengthen my hope of redemption. There was a time when
I believed myself one of the elect, but sitting alone up here my
thoughts have dwelt upon many things that never troubled me when I had
the free use of my limbs. I begin to think that church-going and pious
reading may not be all in all. I have been like Martha, troubled about
many things. I have worried myself too much about the things of this
world. I have not considered the lilies of the field, or the birds of
the air. I have not been grateful enough for my many blessings, or kind
enough to my neighbours. Providence has showered wealth upon me and
Piper, and I’m afraid we might have made a better use of it.’
‘I am sure you have been kind to me,’ said Bella.
‘I might have been kinder. I’m afraid I’ve only been kind because
you’ve been useful to me. I suppose there’s some spots and stains in
the lives of the best of us; but my life seems to me all blackened over
with weeds and foul spots when I look back upon it. Oh, Bella, to think
of the many things I might have done! There’s my own blood relations!
I’ve kept them at arm’s length, only because I thought their clothes
and manners would be a blot upon this house. I’ve been a slave to this
house, and the slavery has killed me. I was a happier woman when we
lived in the Great Yafford Road, and when I helped to make the beds and
dust the rooms every morning, and made my own pastry and cakes. That
was what I was born for, Bella, not to be cheated and made light of by
a parcel of stuck-up servants.’
‘I shall pass Mr. Culverhouse’s lodgings as I go home,’ said Bella.
‘I’ll ask him to come and chat with you.’
‘You may, my dear; though I don’t feel that I shall get the same
comfort from him that I should from Mr. Mowler.’
Bella walked briskly through the Park, reflecting on the foolishness
of human nature. Here was Mrs. Piper, to whom had been given such
great prosperity, and who had made so little use of her advantages,
frittering away life upon trivial anxieties, and missing the chance
of happiness. She looked along the fine old avenue, and thought how
much grandeur and importance a sensible young woman like herself might
have derived from such surroundings. But on poor Mrs. Piper all these
good things had been thrown away. That poor dull bit of agate looked
ridiculous in the splendid setting which would have been quite in
harmony with a shining little gem like Bella Scratchell. It was a clear
bright winter day, the sky blue, the moor a warm purple, the leafless
woods lightly powdered with snow, white patches lying here and there
among the dark trunks of oak and elm. Bella walked quickly through the
Park and along the high road leading to the village.