BY MEAD AND STREAM.
CHAPTER XXX.—CURIOUS.
‘I am going to the village, Ada, to see Mr Beecham, but I shall not be long,’ said Wrentham to his wife.
She in her pale, delicate prettiness was as unlike the mate of such a man as Wrentham as a gazelle linked to a Bengal tiger would appear. But she was fond of him, believed in him, and was as happy in her married state as most of her neighbours seemed to be. Indeed, she believed herself to be a great deal happier than most of them. So far as the household arrangements were concerned, he was a model husband: he interfered with none of them. He seldom scolded: he accepted his chop or steak with equanimity whether it was over or under done (of course he did not think it necessary to mention the repasts he indulged in at the Gog and Magog); and he had even put on a pair of unbrushed boots without saying anything aloud. What woman is there who would not appreciate such a husband?
Mrs Wrentham did appreciate him, and was devoted to him. She had brought him a few hundreds, with which her father, a country tradesman, had dowered her, and of that Wrentham declared he was able to make a fortune. With that intent most of his time was occupied in the City; and she often lamented that poor Martin was so eager to make ‘hay whilst the sun shone’—as he called it—that he was working himself to death.
‘Never mind, dear,’ he would say: ‘there is no time like the present for laying by a store; and we shall have leisure to enjoy ourselves when we have made a comfortable little fortune.’
‘But if you should kill yourself in the meanwhile, Martin!’
‘Nonsense, Ada; I am too tough a chap to be killed so easily.’
Then he would go off gaily to the City (or the betting-ring). She would sigh, and sit down to wait for the happy time when that little fortune should be made.
The man whilst he spoke to her was sincere enough; but in the feverish excitement of his speculations he forgot all about wife and home.