Studies in Wives

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Of course it was odd, when one came to think of it, that Bella, who had been just as pretty two years ago as she was now, should, for some mysterious reason, have been suddenly discovered, by those whose word is law in such matters, to be astonishingly, marvellously beautiful!

An involuntary smile again quivered across Oliver Germaine's good-looking face. He had but little sense of humour, and yet even he saw something almost comic about it—the way that Bella, his darling, pretty little Bella, had suddenly been exalted—hoisted up, as it were, on to a pinnacle. She was now what the Londoners of a hundred years ago would have called "the reigning toast"—so an amusing old fellow, who was a great authority on history, had told him a few days ago.

Still, he ought to make allowances for his sister Fanny. It was not in human nature—or so Oliver believed—for any woman, even for such a good sort as Fanny undoubtedly was, to be really pleased at another woman's triumph.

Small wonder that, to use his sister's favourite expression, Fanny could not make it out! It was unfortunate that Bella's fame—that fame of which the young husband was half ashamed and half proud—had actually penetrated to the dull village where his only sister held high state as wife of the lord of the manor.

Since Fanny had been in town she had said little things to him about Bella's position as reigning beauty—not altogether kindly or nice little things. Even yesterday she had observed, with a touch of sharp criticism in her voice, "I wonder, dear old boy, why you allow Bella's photograph to appear in all those low papers!" and Oliver had shrugged his shoulders, not knowing what to answer, but comfortably sure, in a brotherly way, that Fanny would have been quite willing to see her own fair features reproduced in similar fashion, had it occurred to any of the editors of these same enterprising papers to ask for the loan of her photograph.

As a matter of fact, he had remembered, even while she was speaking, a monstrously ugly photograph of Fanny,—Fanny surrounded by her dogs and children,—which had appeared in a well-known lady's paper. Why, she had actually sent the paper to him, marked! But Oliver magnanimously refrained from reminding her of this,—the more so, that Fanny had hurried on from the trifling question of Bella's portrait to the more serious and unpleasant one of her brother's moderate income.

But, as Germaine now told himself complacently, he had been very short with her. In fact he had administered a good brotherly snub to inquisitive Fanny. She had no business to ask him a lot of questions concerning the way he and Bella chose to spend their income; it was no business of hers how the money was spent. Unfortunately Fanny did consider it her business, simply owing to the fact that she was Oliver's only sister, and very fond of him,—that went without saying,—and that unluckily her husband was Oliver's trustee. So it was that she had shown extraordinary curiosity as to how her brother and his wife managed to live in the way they did, on the income she knew they had.

"Do you know," she had said gravely, "exactly what your income is?" Oliver had nodded impatiently. Of course he knew, roughly speaking, that he and Bella had a little over two thousand a year——

"Two thousand and sixty-one pounds, eighteen shillings," she had gone on impressively. "At least that was what it was last year, for I asked Dick." Now Dick was Fanny's husband, and a most excellent fellow, but hopelessly under Fanny's thumb.

Oliver Germaine had not always been so well off. In fact, when he first met Bella—something like six years ago—he had been a subaltern, with a very small private income, in a Line regiment. And it was on that small income that the loveliest girl in Southsea—now the most beautiful woman in London—had married him. Then had come an immense, unlooked-for piece of good fortune!