Mr. Piper happened to be in a particularly good humour. He had been speculating a little, by way of amusement, in woollen goods, and his venture had turned up trumps. He opened a bottle of his best champagne for Mr. Namby, a rose-tinted wine, that creamed and sparkled gently in the shallow glass, and did not run over in foolish froth, like ginger beer.
Mr. Namby took some curried lobster, and a mutton cutlet, and the breast of a partridge, and a bit of Harrogate cheese, and a bunch of Mr. Piper’s famous Alexandria Muscats, which had cost a small fortune to grow, and he had a very fair share of the rose-tinted champagne; and after being thus regaled, he declared, with conviction, that horsemanship was the one thing needed to restore Mrs. Piper to perfect health.
‘Why, there’s nothing the matter with her that I can see,’ exclaimed Mr. Piper, taking his wife’s little hand, and making a sandwich of it between two puffy paws. ‘She’s as pretty as ever, and she’s as plump as the partridges we’ve just eaten.’
‘These nervous disorders are very insidious,’ said Mr. Namby.
‘What should make her nervous?’
‘We’ve had so many parties,’ said Bella. ‘And your Great Yafford friends are so coarse and noisy. I always feel tired to death after an hour or two of their society. And we have been to so many of their wearisome dinners. Nothing wears me out like one of those stupid dinners, where we sit three hours at table, wondering when the hired footmen will leave off bringing round dishes that nobody wants, except the people whose only pleasure in life is gluttony.’
‘Mrs. Piper has a very feeble pulse,’ said Mr. Namby, after a lingering sip of Madeira. ‘She wants fresh air and vigorous exercise.’
‘She can go out walking. I dare say she has given way to laziness a bit since she’s had three carriages at her command. It’s a new sensation for her, poor little lass. She had to stir her stumps, trudging backwards and forwards from here to the village every day, when she was governess to my girls.’
Bella was dumb with disgust and indignation. To have a husband who spoke of her thus! Who made his pompous boast of having picked a pearl out of the gutter.
‘I don’t know about walking exercise,’ said Mr. Namby, who knew that his patient wanted a horse, and nothing but a horse. ‘That might possibly be too fatiguing for Mrs. Piper. Now riding is exercise without fatigue.’