Chapter Thirty.
Making a Victim.
Breakfast-time at Dr Rumsey’s, and Mrs Rumsey, in a very henny state, clucking over her brood, for whom she was cutting bread and butter.
Her name too was Charlotte, but no Werther fell in love with her when she was ingeniously trying how many square inches of bread two ounces of butter that had been warmed into oil by the fire would cover. For Mrs Rumsey was not handsome, being a soft, fair, nebulous-looking lady, who had been in the habit of presenting her husband with one or two nebulous theories of her own regularly once a year; and the “worrit” of children had not improved her personal appearance.
Her face was, as a rule, white, and soft, and heavy, dotted with dull branny freckles, while the possession of a soft retroussé nose that seemed loosely attached to her skin, and travelled a good deal out of place whenever she twitched her countenance, as she often did spasmodically, did not add to her attractions.
Unfortunately for Dr Rumsey, his wife’s notable care of her children did not extend to herself, for as she grew older she also grew more and more unkempt. While he, as he saw it, would sigh and thrust his hands into his pockets all but his thumbs, which stood out and worked as she unfolded to him her family cares, giving them the aspect of two handles in the mechanism by which he was moved.
“Any thing will do for me,” was her favourite expression; and, in the belief that she was lessening the burthen on her husband’s shoulders, she made herself less attractive in his eyes year by year, and grew more dowdy. How the fact that his wife’s hair was not parted exactly in the middle, and left unbrushed, could affect his income, Dr Rumsey never knew; neither could he see that it was any saving for a hook on a dress front to be inserted in the wrong eye, or for his wife’s boots to be down at the heel and unlaced. Such, however, was the state in which Mrs Rumsey was often seen, though, to do her justice, the children were her constant care, in both senses of the word.
He saw all this and sighed, giving his ears a pull now and then, telling himself that they tightened his skin and drew the wrinkles out of his face; while, when his lady was extra sensitive and nervous—in other words, disposed to blame—he would shrug his shoulders, button up his coat, turn up his collar; and upon one occasion he even sent the good lady into a passionate fit of hysterics, by putting up an old umbrella to shelter him till the storm had done.