'Rot your accounts!' cried he, tearing the papers she had given him into a thousand pieces; 'have you the folly to imagine I will be troubled with such stuff? It is sufficient I know upon the whole what ought to be done; and must plainly tell you, once for all, that you should rather think of retrenching your expences, than flatter yourself with expecting an increase of my allowance to you.'
'My expences! my expences,' reiterated she with vehemence, 'what does the man mean?'—'My meaning,' answered he, sullenly, 'would need no explanation, if you had either any love for me, or prudence enough to direct you to do what would entitle you to mine: but since you are so ignorant, I must tell you, that I think my family too much encumbered; you have two maids—I do not desire you to lessen the number, but they are certainly enough to wait upon you in the morning; I have a man, for whom I never have any employment after that time, and he may wait at table, and attend you the whole afternoon; I see therefore no occasion you have to keep a fellow merely to loiter about the house, eat, drink, and run before your chair when you make your visits. I insist, therefore, that you either discharge him, or consent to give him his livery and wages, and also to allow for his board out of your own annual revenue of pin-money.'
What usage was this for a young lady, scarce yet three months married; endued with every qualification to create love and esteem, accustomed to receive nothing but testimonies of admiration from as many as beheld her, and addressed with the extremest homage and tenderness by the very man who now seemed to take pride in the power he had obtained of thwarting her humour, and dejecting that spirit and vivacity he had so lately pretended to adore.
How utterly impossible was it for her now to observe the rules laid down to her by Lady Trusty! Could she, after this, submit to put in practice any softening arts she had been advised, to win her lordly tyrant into temper? Could she, I say, have done this, without being guilty of a meanness, which all wives must have condemned her for?
But though the answers she gave to the proposal made her by this ungenerous husband, were such as convinced him she would never be prevailed upon to recede from any part of what was her due by contract, and though she testified her resentment, on his attempting such a thing, in terms haughty enough, yet did she confine herself within the limits of decency, not uttering a single word unbecoming of her character, either as the woman of good understanding, or the wife.
Mr. Munden's notions of marriage had always been extremely unfavourable to the ladies—he considered a wife no more than an upper-servant, bound to study and obey, in all things, the will of him to whom she had given her hand: and how obsequious and submissive soever he appeared when a lover, had fixed his resolution to render himself absolute master when he became a husband.
On finding himself thus disappointed in his aim, he was almost ready to burst with an inward malice; which not daring to wreak, as perhaps at that time he could have wished, he vented it in an action mean and spiteful indeed, but not to be wondered at in a man possessed of so small a share of affection, justice, or good-nature.
The reader may remember, that Mr. Trueworth, in the beginning of his courtship to Miss Betsy, had made her a present of a squirrel; she had still retained this first token of love, and always cherished it with an uncommon care: the little creature was sitting on the ridge of it's cell, cracking nuts, which his indulgent mistress had bestowed upon him: the fondness she had always shewn of him put a sudden thought into Mr. Munden's head; he started from his chair, saying to his wife, with a revengeful sneer, 'Here is one domestick, at least, that may be spared!' With these words he flew to the poor harmless animal, seized it by the neck, and throwing it with his whole force against the carved work of the marble chimney, it's tender frame was dashed to pieces.
All this was done in such an instant, that Mrs. Munden had not time to make any attempt for preventing it; but the sight of so disastrous a fate befalling her little favourite, and the brutality of him who inflicted it, raised emotions in her, which she neither endeavoured, nor, at that instant, could have the power to quell.
'Monster!' cried she, 'unworthy the name man; you needed not have been guilty of this low piece of cruelty, to make me see to what a wretch I am sacrificed.'—'Nor was there any occasion for exclamations such as these,' replied he, scornfully, 'to make me know that I am married to a termagant!'