Vexed; or, The Wife's Sister/Chapter 3

GRAHAM and Kitty Heathcote had returned from their wedding tour. For the encouragement of the disbelieving and timorous, be it known that they were not disappointed in each other, neither had they found the time tedious or unsatisfactory in any way. On the contrary, it had been an ideal honeymoon.

And now it was over; and though they lamented that they could not be always alone any longer, they looked forward to the new pleasures of beginning life together, and laughed over all the domestic arrangements which they knew so little about, but intended to fall into with an outward show of knowledge and dignity.

"You're sure to go and order a leg of beef or a sirloin of mutton, or something equally ridiculous," Graham had just said, and had ​promptly received a box on the ears for his ignorant impertinence.

"Go along and look after your horses and cows, and just leave the household affairs to me," said the pretty little wife. "I expect your mistakes on the farm are far more ludicrous than mine."

Of course he was obliged to obey, but he came back twice on one pretext and another, just to have another look at the merry face, and to provoke that pretty threatening frown with which she bade him "begone about his business."

It was very aggravating to have her eyes kissed when she was trying to look savage. After the last attack, she said, "If you come back again, you shan't have any dinner. How can I get conscientiously through my duties of wife and mistress with such disturbances?" She held herself up and looked quite lofty; but as soon as he had gone she peeped after him, and did so hope he would be silly and come back again; but Graham resisted the temptation and went steadily off to superintend his farming operations.

He didn't saunter, for the reason that his nature was not a lazy one; and when he was going to do anything, he did it as quickly and well as he could, and so farming was not to him ​a rich man's excuse for idleness, but a real practical business. He was a man who liked encountering difficulties for the sake of surmounting them, and therefore English farming was quite to his taste. If the land were unproductive, he would doctor it till it yielded. If crop after crop failed, he must try new ones. If the weather proved contrary, science must come to his aid to outwit the weather. His nature was intensely sanguine, and rightly so—every man's nature should be; it is when we give up that we are given up in the struggle of life. Kitty told him that he was like her little roan cob that wouldn't walk when he came to stony roads, but always pulled himself together and went at the impediment with increased energy and speed.

Graham's heart was very light this morning. He had left sunshine and beauty in his home, and everything outside was in harmony with it A whispered anxiety which had never been loud enough to make itself distinctly heard, but which had come to him for one brief hour on that happy wedding tour, was now quite silenced. The mountain air had heightened the colour in Kitty's cheeks, and her eyes seemed to have caught the clear brilliancy of warmer skies. He could have no anxiety about her health now, and she was in such gay spirits—not the bois​terous, romping spirits of some other healthy English girls he knew, but with a quiet gaiety none the less real. His thoughts were full of her while he made his way across a field growing for hay.

And all this time this important little housekeeper was standing irresolute, unable to make up her mind to face the cook, fearful of exposing a woful ignorance of the commonest details of her profession. "I wish Breda were here," she thought, swinging the key of the store-closet round her finger. "I shall beg her to come as soon as possible. It's Monday, and I know the tea ought to be given out to-day for the week; but I haven't the faintest idea how much goes to each person. Is it a pound, I wonder?"

It was no use hesitating longer, so she pushed the red baize door which shut off the kitchen department, and saying, "Good morning, cook!" in her most dignified manner, proceeded with her to the larder.

Cook had already ordered in a few things to start them upon; so, by falling in with all that domestic's suggestions, Kitty thought she was getting on grandly, and began to find housekeeping really very easy. And when pancakes were proposed she not only assented to the proposal, but said, with some authority, "Be sure you don't forget the lemons!"

​She now devoutly hoped it was time to leave the larder; but she was not to be let off so easily.

"What shall I order of the butcher to-day, ma'am?"

Mrs. Peckham, who was a stout party, stood directly in front of her, awaiting her answer.

"Well, what has he got?" said Kitty, hoping to draw a suggestion from that bulwark of knowledge which confronted her.

"Oh, as for that, anything as you likes to have, ma'am," was the unsatisfactory reply.

Kitty's senses seemed paralyzed; she could remember nothing for the minute. "Let's see," she said to herself, "what did we have at the last hotel? Happy thought!"

"Order a hare, and—and sweet sauce, you know; and mind you don't forget the sweet sauce." The tone of authority had paid before, so she thought she would try it again.

But Mrs. Peckham didn't look quite respectful. She was almost smiling. "It's the butcher, ma'am," she said.

"Oh, I forgot. Well, we'll have mutton—never mind what part." Kitty was blushing violently now. If she were worsted she felt she should never regain her authority; so she managed to look up through her blushes (a difficult thing to do), and, determined that cook should still feel that she was mistress, said, ​almost savagely, "Mind you see that it is well hung."

Under cover of the majesty of these words, she effected her escape from the larder, and once feeling herself out of the awful presence there, she recovered her equanimity, and clearing her throat in a high key, proceeded to push the baize door that was between her and liberty.

"Please, ma'am, will you give me out the store-closet things?"

She felt inclined to throw the key at cook; but saying, "Wait a minute," to pretend that she had not forgotten it, but had pressing business elsewhere, she was on the other side of the door, which nothing, she felt, should induce her to pass again that day. She rang the bell, and languidly reclining on the sofa held out the key to the parlour-maid, and telling her that cook could "help herself," ended by saying, "Let me have the key again directly the stores are taken."

Graham came home from his morning's walk, satisfied with everything, and feeling himself quite the happiest man that ever drew breath.

"Well, and how have you got on in the kitchen?" he said, with a teasing expression in his eyes. "What about the sirloin of mutton, have you ordered it?"

Kitty felt that the whole thing had been ​almost too serious to laugh at; but when she began to tell him all the trials she had passed through, his uncontrolled laughter was so infectious that at last she cried out, "Oh, dear, dear, do stop, Graham; you make me laugh too much! What a silly boy you are!"

At that moment Susan gravely entered with the store-closet key.

Graham snatching up a paper, held it wide open before his face; but Kitty saw it trembling, and bit her lips when Susan said that "Mistress had forgotten to say what time she would have dinner."

The moment the door was closed after her his pent-up merriment came out in a great roar of laughter, and Kitty was obliged to hold his mouth because she was "positive the servants would hear."

The unmanageable husband at last sobered down, and again betaking himself to the newspaper, left Kitty in peace to arrange the flowers.

"Hallo, the Bill's past!" he cried out suddenly; and then remembering Kitty hated politics, and professed to be quite unable to understand "the simplest thing that was done in Parliament," he relapsed into silence again, and became deeply absorbed in his reading.

Kitty, with a natural intense love for flowers, was equally absorbed in the arrangement of ​some sweet double white narcissus, putting them next to dark purple velvet pansies, and then stepping backwards and putting her little head on one side to get the effect.

"Isn't that sweet?" she said, eyeing her arrangement complacently.

"Very sweet," said Graham, without looking up from his paper.

"Why, you're not looking," she said, seizing the paper and compelling him to attend to her.

"I beg your pardon, darling, but I was so absorbed in what I was reading."

"I can't think how men can care so much about stupid politics," she said, petulantly.

"I can't think how girls can like to be so ignorant," was the rejoinder. "But, Kitty, seriously" (he did not look the least serious himself), "would you like to dispense with the Government altogether? because these anarchical views begin to alarm me."

"I don't see that it can do us much good, as long as all the management of affairs is confined to men. You know a house couldn't be properly ordered without a woman, as well as a man, at the head of it. A man is worth comparatively nothing without his complement, and a country is just the same as a big house; it wants the mutual guidance of master and mistress."

Graham looked up astonished. Here was ​Kitty coming out in quite a new light. She with difficulty preserved her gravity, and did not let out that she was quoting from Albreda, and had no opinion whatever of her own on the subject.

"Yes, it is important, especially in a house," said Graham, also with the utmost gravity. "You see, a man alone might go ordering a hare from the butcher, or even forget to mention the dinner-hour; and what a mess he would be in then."

Presently, when he was gone off to his work again, Kitty was seized with a sudden curiosity. What was it that had so unusually interested him, so that even when she spoke he had not looked up? The leading article always gave the most important news. She began to think that she ought to try to understand a little about what he cared for so much. At any rate, she would just skim through it and astonish him with a little political conversation when he came back. She half meant it seriously, but found herself, as usual, only thinking how amused he would be at her attempts. It was impossible to be grave with him; he always listened with such an odd expression when she tried to seem learned. But the next minute she was really absorbed in politics. She had thrown herself into her husband's chair, smiling at her thoughts; ​but suddenly her eye caught something that changed her whole expression. "That's what he was so interested about," she thought, as she scanned a leading article upon the passing of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill. "How queer that he didn't mention it to me."

A sharp momentary pain, as if a flash of lightning had struck her, passed through the little frame which was trembling as she read. Only momentary, and it was gone. What was it ? She had never felt anything so terrible before. It came with that wonder, why Graham had not mentioned it; but went the minute she recalled his last loving look at her. She was sure that he would talk about it when he came in—of course he would think it very wrong and unnatural.

So she reasoned with herself; but as she sat brooding in the twilight, her mind wandered off to Albreda, and she found herself comparing her sister's attractions with her own. Albreda was clever and good and fascinating. Graham so often spoke of her with admiration. She remembered now with pain the kiss in the vestry, which she had prompted. "How silly I am," she said at last out loud, getting up from the chair with a resolute air; "as if I didn't know that Graham loves me fifty thousand times more than any one in the world."

​"Yes, now," said a taunting inward voice.

Kitty had never known the meaning of jealousy—had never had occasion for it; and she only wondered at the sudden dart-like pain that came again.

She longed for her husband to come home, and felt that with his presence she would be all right again. At last she heard him scraping his boots outside the door. She ran out to him, and half surprised him by the clinging kiss she gave. It was her way generally to wait for his advances, and then to be extremely troublesome and exacting before she rewarded him.

"Do you love me, Graham?" she whispered.

"You never asked me such a question before," he-said, reproachfully, holding her head between his hands and looking into her eyes.

She tried to turn away, but he held her; so she half closed the lids.

"Why, what's the matter, Kitty?"

"Nothing." But the lips were quivering unmistakably.

"What is it, darling? You're ill?"

It was cruel to look at the poor little face longer, so he covered it up in his bosom and held it against him.

That dart-like pain in her heart had come again; she had thought she could not have it in his presence.

​"Oh, Graham," she sobbed, "what shall I do?"

"Tell me what it is, Kitty; tell me, darling, quickly."

She felt his hand trembling. It was a good thing she couldn't see his face; Graham had turned ashy white. She was ill, then, and had said nothing to him about it. That vague fear which had once come to him, when the doctor warned him that she required great care, flashed back upon him now, but in a new, definite shape. He had only taken the warning generally. All women required care, he knew; but now came the question, "Was there any particular cause for fear?" He waited till her sobs were less violent, and then took her into the drawing-room and laid her on the sofa.

"We must ask Breda to come and look after you," he said, trying to speak cheerfully.

"No, Graham; Breda couldn't come now." The voice sounded hard and strange.

He was convinced she was really ill. "Oh yes, we'll make her. I'm sure she would come if she knew you wanted her."

She looked up at him with a frightened, questioning expression. "Do you want her, Graham?"

"Of course I do. How could you doubt it? Why, I always promised not to be selfish over you; and she would never be in our way."

​He thought he was saying the very thing she wanted. He didn't know that instead the iron was entering her soul, and that his hand thrust it deeper.

She released herself from his clasp, and lay a long while perfectly silent and motionless. Thinking she wanted quiet, he left the room, and going to his study, began a letter to Albreda. He wrote—

"My dear Sister,

"I am in some anxiety about Kitty, as she does not seem at all herself. Could you come at once and pay us a long visit? I feel that it is lonely for her when I am out on the farm. I had thought her so well, and only this morning left her in the highest spirits; but she has had a sudden sharp attack which alarms me. I shall not say that I have written till I get your answer, in case you might disappoint us.

"Your affectionate brother,

"Graham Heathcote."

He closed the letter and went out to post it himself.

When he returned to the drawing-room he found that Kitty had left the sofa, and was standing by the window. The tears had left a bright flush on one cheek. She turned slightly as he came up to her, and, taking up the hand, ​which he laid on her shoulder, she held it to the burning spot.

"Are you any better, dear one?" he asked, touching his lips to her soft forehead.

"Yes, I'm much better," she said; and her voice was quite calm again. "Don't be frightened about me, Graham; I was not really ill."

Kitty was longing to unburden her heart to him, but whenever she tried to mention the subject her lips seemed sealed; and so she waited on, hoping that he would be the first to speak of it. But Graham's thoughts were far enough from politics to have pleased her at any other time.

"Shall we take a turn in the garden?" he asked.

"Yes, I should like it, Graham."

Arm-in-arm they wandered about enjoying the evening scent of the flowers, stopping here and there to see how some favourite plant was thriving, or to listen under a tree to the evening song of a bird.

They talked about nothing of much importance; but Graham, watching anxiously, noticed with joy the returning liveliness in her voice; and when at last it was time to go in to prepare for dinner, he said, "I wonder what part of the mutton we shall have to-night?"

She wasn't quite merry, but still she gave his ​ear a little tender, corrective pat, and it went far to comfort him.

There was hardly a trace of sadness left by the time the meal was over, and they had such a cozy, uninterrupted evening, that Graham half wished he hadn't asked Breda so soon. Still he felt it was better that Kitty should not be alone so much in the daytime.

"Are you really better?" he asked, when she rose to retire.

"I am all right again," she said, looking into his eyes, and hoping that he would read her secret; "and I don't think the pain can ever come back."

"That's right, my brave little wife." Her tone had filled him with hope and encouragement again.

Two days of almost perfect human happiness came and went for the bride and bridegroom. The slight painful interruption had only served to intensify the serene joy that followed.

Kitty cared no longer about the Bill; she felt she could defy it, though she was still too shy to mention the subject, and so she went happily about her household duties, and her husband's heart was light once more.