Addie's Husband; or, Through clouds to sunshine

and understanding, Goggles, it is pleasanter to nibble plum-cake than dry bread, isn't it?" "It is--it is," murmurs the little maid pathetically. "Who's--" "'A denigin' of it?' Not I, indeed! Very well, then; as we both agree on that point, let us combine to agree on the other, which is more important--namely, to do everything to keep our position among the flesh-pots, which is anything but a stronghold, I greatly fear, just at present. Do you agree?" "I do--I do!" "Then let me impress on you, my child, a piece of advice which you will find invaluable, not only at this crisis, but at many another of your life. Never interfere between man and wife; let them keep their secrets, hide their troubles, fight their battles unmolested, unobserved. Do not seem to see, feel, or understand what is going on. Be deaf, dumb, blind to all that does not concern your immediate person, or else you may just find yourself in Queer Street, before you know where you are." "Queer Street? Where is that, Pauline? I never heard of it." "Queer Street is not a nice street to live in, my dear. Almost every town has a street of that name. Queer Street in your case would probably mean Miss Swishtale's Collegiate Academy for Young Ladies, Minerva House, Kelvick, where the little Douglases were sent to school by their step-mother, you know. You wouldn't like to be there?" "No--oh, no!" "Then keep my advice in your heart." CHAPTER XIII. Certainly Miss Pauline Lefroy is right. Life at Nutsgrove under the new _régime_, so far as creature-comforts go, is a vast improvement on the old. Its contrast was at first too great to be entirely satisfactory to the nerves of Colonel Lefroy's unsophisticated daughters; but this feeling soon wore away, and they dropped naturally and contentedly into the reign of order and methodical respectability inaugurated by Mr. Armstrong's well-trained servants. They learned to answer to the chime of bell and gong, to enter a room quietly, and, above all, to dress, as ladies are supposed to dress, neatly and becomingly. The dogs followed the example of their mistresses, and no longer dragged their muddy paws across fresh carpets and waxed boards, or rested their dusty bodies on the drawing-room couches. "How changed it all is!" thinks Addie. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm myself at all, if I haven't been changed with the carpets and curtains." With a sort of rueful satisfaction, of struggling content, she looks at herself, at the elegant young person in rustling _broché_ which the swivel pier-glasses so importunately reflect whenever she crosses her luxurious bedroom. Can she be the same light-hearted girl who stood in a ragged cotton dress and patched boots but a short year ago before a cracked fly-stained old mirror? "In those days," she thinks, with a laugh, "why, the prospect of a new dress would keep me awake for a week! And now!--now that I have as many as I like, now that I could have a ruche of bank-notes at the bottom of each skirt if I wished--I don't seem to care about it or anything else in particular. I suppose it is always the way. They say a confectioner feels as little inclination to eat one of the buns crowding his counter as an apothecary to swallow a box of his pills. It's a pity that possession should bring satiety so soon. I have all I once longed for in plenteous measure, and yet I want something else--something else I once had and did not value in the least. How foolish of me to want it now, just because it's out of my reach! I suppose that's the reason--because it's out of my reach. Oh, why can't I take the good things in my way like Pauline and the others? Pauline! What a wonderful girl she is, and how little I knew her before! I thought she would be a regular whirlwind in this model establishment, would be always kicking over the traces; on the contrary, she has toned down quicker than any of us, though indeed, for the matter of that, we've behaved as a family very creditably on the whole--we, a flock of hungry sheep turned suddenly from a region of bare sun-dried rocks into a rich clover-valley. Yes, we have behaved well; we have not betrayed our jubilation in uncouth gambols or childish caperings, and credit is due to us, I think. I suppose it's the race-horse strain, as Bob calls it, that has supported us under the ordeal--the race horse strain, the Bourbon blood, the Lefroy breeding," she goes on, a little impatiently. "I wish Bob did not talk quite so much about them. I know we come of a good old stock--we're descended from Charlemagne's sister, and all that; but I do think he makes too much of it. Not that Tom minds it a bit, but I fancy sometimes that he laughs at Bob--yes, I feel sure of it--and despises him a little too for his incapacity and what he, I suppose, calls 'bragging.' And yet how handsome Bob is, how noble-looking even! What an air of _grand monarque_ there is about his lightest movement! For all that, I suppose some people would call him 'a conceited young prig.' I wonder would there be any truth in it if they did? Oh, dear, I feel awfully at sea lately about things, everything getting topsy-turvy, and no one to set me straight--no one!" The master of Nutsgrove intrudes but very little on the lives of his womenfolk. Every morning at nine o'clock, after a hasty preoccupied breakfast, he either drives or rides to Kelvick, scarcely ever returning before the dinner-hour, when he always appears, clothed in broadcloth and courtesy, to lead his sister-in-law in to dinner; after which he generally bears them company for an hour or so in the drawing-room, occasionally taking a hand at _bésique_ or go-bang, sometimes standing by the piano like a gentleman at an evening party, turning over music and expressing polite satisfaction at the extremely mild entertainment, both vocal and instrumental, provided by Addie and Pauline; though the former has a sweet little voice enough, but perfectly untrained and husky from want of use. After ten o'clock, when he retires to his study for a couple of hours' reading, they see him no more until the morning. The hours of his absence between breakfast and dinner are pleasantly filled, the mornings being devoted to study, under the superintendence of an experienced finishing-governess, who keeps Pauline and Lottie hard at work until twelve; after which, three times a week, masters for music and drawing, from whom Mrs. Armstrong also condescends to take lessons, attend from Kelvick. The afternoons are spent in driving or riding, in returning or receiving calls; for the county people, who had by degrees dropped the neglected children of Colonel Lefroy, are suddenly and unanimously inspired with feelings of civility toward the wife of the wealthy manufacturer, and day after day the trim well-weeded avenue is marked with the track of some county equipage _en route_ for Nutsgrove, a state of things which affords much satisfaction to Pauline and her elder brother. "By Jove, Addie," exclaims that young gentleman one Saturday afternoon, while turning over the contents of her card-tray, "you are in the swim, and no mistake--Lady Crawford, Mr. and the Misses Pelham-Browne, General Hawksley, Sir Alfred and Lady Portrann, the Dean of St. Margaret's, and Mrs. Vavasour, the Dowager Countess of Deenmore and--do my eyes deceive me?--no--Admiral and Mrs. Beecher of the Abbey, Greystones. I'll trouble you for a half-glass of sherry, Goggles. Thanks. I feel reasonably convalescent now. Admiral and Mrs. Beecher of the Abbey, Greystones! After that, I feel equal to anything!" "We weren't at home on the day they called," laughs Pauline. "I was so sorry, for I meant to have faced them gallantly." "Well, Addie, well," exclaims Robert triumphantly, "wasn't I a good prophet? Didn't I tell you how it would be? Didn't I tell you you'd open the gates for him and give him the run of the county--eh? I expect he's precious glad now he didn't let you slip through his fingers, Addie!" "He doesn't care a straw," she answers contemptuously--"I know he doesn't. He wouldn't care if he had the run of twenty counties unless he liked the people personally--unless they were clever, or amusing, or took an interest in his affairs." "Stuff, Addie, stuff; you don't know what you are talking about. Armstrong is just as pleased as Punch that the neighbors are looking you up. I saw it in his face at once. Why else did he give up three afternoons in the last fortnight to return those calls with Pauline and you, I should like to know?" "He did that because it would not have been the thing for me, a bride, to return the first time without my--my husband; it would have been bad form, but it bored him awfully--I saw it did," she persists; "and he did not care for the people either. He was awfully disgusted with Lady Crawford--at the way she talked and the questions she asked me. He said afterward that he would not allow his wife to be patronized by such a meddlesome ill-bred woman as that." Robert flushes angrily. "That's because he does not understand. People of his class are always hunting up affronts, imagining they're being snubbed and patronized, when nothing of the kind is intended. I am perfectly certain that Lady Crawford meant only to act kindly in offering advice to you, a young girl unaccustomed to the etiquette of matronhood, without a mother to put you in the way of doing things." "No," declares Addie, "she meant nothing of the kind. The way she looked at me through her gold-rimmed glasses, turned me round, commented on my dress, my appearance, my appointments altogether, and then informed me calmly that she thought I should do, was, to say the least of it, extremely impertinent and underbred; and I quite agree with my husband in the matter." Robert and Pauline exchange a rapid glance: there is a storm-signal in the latter's eyes. So Robert wisely lets the matter drop, and busies himself with the card-basket. "By the bye, Addie," he resumes, half an hour later, when the "breeze" has passed, "about this contemplated return of your husband to Parliament at the next election--I hope you will use your influence to make him fall in with the views of the electors; they are most anxious he should stand--" "My husband returned for Parliament!" she interrupts quickly. "I--I did not know, have not heard anything about it. They want him to stand for Kelvick?" "Yes, when old Hubbard retires at the end of the next session; he's been past his work for years. Fancy Armstrong not telling you anything about it! Why, every one is--" "He does not talk much of his business affairs at home. I suppose he does not think they would interest me," she says hastily. "Well, but this is not business exactly; and let me tell you, Addie, it's a subject in which you ought to take an interest. The position of the wife of a member of Parliament is always one to command respect, though it is a great pity Armstrong should go to the wrong shop for his politics. However, I suppose, having risen from the ranks, he could scarcely at the eleventh hour go over to Toryism--" "Because he married a Lefroy? Well, scarcely! And I'd rather not ask him to do so, if that is what you mean, Robert," says Addie, with a slight sneer, which she finds it difficult at times to repress when discussing her husband with Robert. Then, after a pause--"Fancy his going into Parliament! I never thought he had any inclination for a political career." "Oh, but, my dear," says Robert, with lofty indulgence, "you must not judge Armstrong by what you see of him here! He's not the sort of man to shine in society, not a carpet-ornament by any means; but he's just the man to prose away in the House by the hour anent artisans'