CHAPTER XI
A few months after our marriage Mason was withdrawn from the mill and placed elsewhere; an event which increased my importance, my opinion of myself, and my salary. We were now nearly rich, we thought, and bought a piano with a payment on account and a “slow note,”[1] the first note I ever signed but by no means the last. Nearly nightly I lifted up my voice in song to Muriel’s accompaniment.
One night I was in the midst of a mighty effort to hold the longest and highest note in “When the Flowing Tide Comes In,” when Doctor Joseph unexpectedly walked in.
“God bless! what a noise,” he exclaimed; and thereupon we turned to hand-shaking, kissing and embracing.
Muriel busied herself at once in preparing supper, and the table was soon set, at which the old doctor laughed heartily; for he had never seen Muriel put her hand to a useful thing. No word of past unpleasantness or present forgiveness was spoken. The presence of the doctor was sufficient. In a little while supper was over, a tour of inspection of our domicile had been made, and the old gentleman was sitting in a home-made arm-chair, smoking a large cigar, while he cross-examined us. We talked late into the night.
“So far,” said the Doctor, “it appears that all is well. You are married hardly six months. I must say, a boy of your age who can command love in a girl like Muriel that will stand the test of living in a place like this must have something in him. But there are breakers ahead. You have a hard way to make, and you have characters to form.”
In this edifying strain did my father-in-law lecture us. It was right, of course; but his words fell on deaf ears. We smiled at him, as self-satisfied youth always smiles at the wisdom of age. We could not realise that we were blind, and the idea of our characters being unformed seemed ridiculous.
The Doctor stayed with us for two nights and a day, and left us in high spirits. I had a good store of comical yarns and stories, and the Doctor dearly loved a joke. I kept him laughing during the whole time of our drive to the village to catch his train, when I should have been in serious consultation with him, relative to the management of my affairs and my heavy domestic responsibilities. He must have judged me to be a thoughtless, shallow youth.
“Remember,” he said as he left me, “she will lead you by the nose for the rest of your life.” He was undoubtedly a judge of such things, or should have been, for if ever man was led by the nose by a woman, he was that man. Mrs. Joseph managed her house, including the Doctor, with a high hand and no favours. Everything was sacrificed to her wishes. To use the word “managed” is perhaps hardly exact. In this regard it would be nearer the truth to say that she rode roughshod over everybody and everything, without regard to expense or consequence. How she accomplished her ends I do not know; for she was not loudly insistent or apparently overbearing.
One of the difficulties which Dr. Joseph had possibly reckoned with arose from the very simple fact that Muriel was a true daughter of the city. When we had been at the mill some eighteen months, the novelty of things began to wear off, and our simple life became monotonous to her.