Disagreeable creatures to have about one—these simpletons!
Mrs. Staines took Christopher to shops to buy the remaining requisites: and in three days more the house was furnished, two female servants engaged, and the couple took their luggage over to the Bijou.
Rosa was excited and happy at the novelty of possession and authority, and that close sense of house proprietorship which belongs to woman. By dinner-time she could have told you how many shelves there were in every cupboard, and knew the Bijou by heart in a way that Christopher never knew it. All this ended, as running about and excitement generally does, with my lady being exhausted, and lax with fatigue. So then he made her lie down on a little couch, while he went through his accounts.
When he had examined all the bills carefully he looked very grave, and said, “Who would believe this? We began with three thousand pounds. It was to last us several years—till I got a good practice. Rosa, there is only fourteen hundred and forty pounds left.”
“Oh, impossible!” said Rosa. “Oh, dear! why did I ever enter a saleroom?”
“No, no, my darling; you were bitten once or twice, but you made some good bargains too. Remember there was four hundred pounds set apart for my life policy.”
“What a waste of money!”
“Your father did not think so. Then the lease; the premium; repairs of the drains that would have poisoned my Rosa; turning the coach-house into a dispensary; painting, papering, and furnishing; china, and linen, and everything to buy. We must look at this seriously. Only fourteen hundred and forty pounds left. A slow profession. No friends. I have quarrelled with Uncle Philip: you with Mrs. Cole; and her husband would have launched me.”
“And it was to please her we settled here. Oh, I could kill her: nasty cat!”
“Never mind; it is not a case for despondency, but it is for prudence. All we have to do is to look the thing in the face, and be very economical in everything. I had better give you an allowance for housekeeping; and I earnestly beg you to buy things yourself whilst you are a poor man's wife, and pay ready money for everything. My mother was a great manager, and she always said, 'There is but one way: be your own market-woman, and pay on the spot; never let the tradesmen get you on their books, or, what with false weight, double charges, and the things your servants order that never enter the house, you lose more than a hundred a year by cheating.'”