“Not particularly so, my love,” said the Earl. “We had not contemplated his entering the army—that was his freak. He indulged in the luxury of speculation rather extensively, and I think I was a little emphatic in condemning his large and useless expenditure. I feared he was making ties of friendship which were not beneficial to him. Perhaps I said so. In an excitable moment he said it would be better for him to join the army, and go abroad for a few years. I dislike discussing these personal questions; it rather bored me at the time, I remember; and I said I thought it would be best. And so he made his own arrangements.”
“Then he knew that he was about to leave the country some time before he went away,” said the Countess.
“Yes, he was Gazetted soon after our serious conversation, as he called it, and sailed a month or two afterwards I think. I knew he would soon be tired of it, but I had no idea that his return would be so sudden. He will hardly know the place. I never saw so great and complete an improvement as there appears in the grounds, and the general re-arrangement of the house. The whole place is changed, and with a mistress at the head of affairs, I seem to be quite in a new world, quite. And what a delightful world it is, Amy!”
His lordship was charmed with his wife, and with everything around him. The servants did not see a greater change in Montem Castle than they saw in the noble master thereof. From a quiet, retiring, luxurious student, who buried himself in his books, and lost himself in continual admiration of his pottery or pictures, he had become a lively, chatty, merry gentleman. Formerly, with a continual fear that he was going to be bored, he had guarded himself as carefully as though he were a confirmed invalid. No noises, no open windows, as few visitors as possible; he had appeared to mope away existence, and Brazencrook looked forward to a speedy successor in Lionel Hammerton; but old Morris and the butler both said cracked jugs often lasted the longest, and that ailing men mostly made old bones. Even they, however, were surprised beyond expression at his lordship. It was marvel enough that he should marry, but that he should have a really grand wedding, and make public speeches, and come home “livelier than a cricket, sir,” as Morris said, was something which they could never cease to wonder at.
He loved his wife with all that fervency which often marks the love of an old bachelor, who is fascinated out of his former course of life by a beautiful woman bent on winning him. There was nothing that he would not have done to add to her comfort and happiness. All his bachelor ways, his fogeyism, his books, his pictures, his china, none of them could weigh in attractiveness against the delight of giving her the smallest pleasure. Her ladyship knew this, and resolved to interfere as little as possible with his habits and general course of life; she would join him in his studies and in his pleasures she vowed, and be his companion indeed.
She would also govern his household, and perform her wifely duties to the letter. Were she twenty times a countess she would take her place as the responsible head of the domestic government. She would give her commands for the day, and do all things in order, as a wife should.
“You shall do whatever you please, my dear,” said his lordship, upon the mention of this item in her wifely programme. “You are mistress here, but do not rob me too much of your society; and one thing I must insist upon.”
The Countess, who had risen and was standing with her hand in his, smiled archly at the idea of his insisting upon anything.
“Yes, I must insist; you are to remember that my name is George here, just as it was when we were in Kent, and that I am to have a kiss always when we part, you as you say on your morning duties, I to wait your pleasure in the library.”
The Countess promised faithful compliance with this command, and went on her way to the housekeeper’s room to signify her pleasure with regard to the arrangements of the day. Amy (for we are privileged to call her Amy still, and shall insist upon an occasional exercise of that privilege) entered upon her domestic reign so mildly, and with such unaffected modesty, that the old housekeeper gladly obeyed her behests, though this extraordinary interference, on the part of a lady and a countess, with household affairs was the subject of some slight mutinous discussion that day in the housekeeper’s room and in the butler’s pantry too.