CHAPTER II.
Matrimony is certainly a great change in life. One is astonished not to
find a notable alteration in one's friend, even if he or she have been
only wedded a week. In the instance of Dr. and Mrs. Riccabocca the
change was peculiarly visible. To speak first of the lady, as in
chivalry bound, Mrs. Riccabocca had entirely renounced that melancholy
which had characterized Miss Jemima; she became even sprightly and gay,
and looked all the better and prettier for the alteration. She did not
scruple to confess honestly to Mrs. Dale that she was now of opinion that
the world was very far from approaching its end. But, in the meanwhile,
she did not neglect the duty which the belief she had abandoned serves to
inculcate,--"She set her house in order." The cold and penurious
elegance that had characterized the Casino disappeared like enchantment,
--that is, the elegance remained, but the cold and penury fled before the
smile of woman. Like Puss-in-Boots, after the nuptials of his master,
Jackeymo only now caught minnows and sticklebacks for his own amusement.
Jackeymo looked much plumper, and so did Riccabocca. In a word, the fair
Jemima became an excellent wife. Riccabocca secretly thought her
extravagant, but, like a wise man, declined to look at the house bills,
and ate his joint in unreproachful silence.
Indeed there was so much unaffected kindness in the nature of Mrs.
Riccabocca--beneath the quiet of her manner there beat so genially the
heart of the Hazeldeans--that she fairly justified the favourable
anticipations of Mrs. Dale. And though the doctor did not noisily boast
of his felicity, nor, as some new married folks do, thrust it insultingly
under the /nimis unctis naribus/,--the turned-up noses of your surly old
married folks,--nor force it gaudily and glaringly on the envious eyes of
the single, you might still see that he was a more cheerful and light-
hearted man than before. His smile was less ironical, his politeness
less distant. He did not study Machiavelli so intensely,--and he did not
return to the spectacles; which last was an excellent sign. Moreover,
the humanizing influence of the tidy English wife might be seen in the
improvement of his outward or artificial man. His clothes seemed to fit
him better; indeed, the clothes were new. Mrs. Dale no longer remarked
that the buttons were off the wristbands, which was a great satisfaction
to her. But the sage still remained faithful to the pipe, the cloak, and
the red silk umbrella. Mrs. Riccabocca had (to her credit be it spoken)
used all becoming and wife-like arts against these three remnants of the
old bachelor, Adam, but in vain. "/Anima mia/," [Soul of mine]--said the
doctor, tenderly, "I hold the cloak, the umbrella, and the pipe as the
sole relics that remain to me of my native country. Respect and spare
them."
Mrs. Riccabocca was touched, and had the good sense to perceive that man,
let him be ever so much married, retains certain signs of his ancient
independence,--certain tokens of his old identity, which a wife, the most
despotic, will do well to concede. She conceded the cloak, she submitted
to the umbrella, she overcame her abhorrence of the pipe. After all,
considering the natural villany of our sex, she confessed to herself that
she might have been worse off. But through all the calm and cheerfulness
of Riccabocca, a nervous perturbation was sufficiently perceptible; it
commenced after the second week of marriage; it went on increasing, till
one bright sunny afternoon, as he was standing on his terrace, gazing
down upon the road, at which Jackeymo was placed, lo, a stage-coach
stopped! The doctor made a bound, and put both hands to his heart as if
he had been shot; he then leaped over the balustrade, and his wife from
her window beheld him flying down the hill, with his long hair streaming
in the wind, till the trees hid him from her sight.
"Ah," thought she, with a natural pang of conjugal jealousy, "henceforth
I am only second in his home. He has gone to welcome his child!" And at
that reflection Mrs. Riccabocca shed tears.
But so naturally amiable was she, that she hastened to curb her emotion,
and efface as well as she could the trace of a stepmother's grief. When
this was done, and a silent, self-rebuking prayer murmured over, the good
woman descended the stairs with alacrity, and summoning up her best
smiles, emerged on the terrace.
She was repaid; for scarcely had she come into the open air, when two
little arms were thrown around her, and the sweetest voice that ever came
from a child's lips sighed out in broken English, "Good mamma, love me a
little."
"Love you? with my whole heart!" cried the stepmother, with all a
mother's honest passion. And she clasped the child to her breast.
"God bless you, my wife!" said Riccabocca, in a husky tone.
"Please take this too," added Jackeymo, in Italian, as well as his sobs
would let him, and he broke off a great bough full of blossoms from his
favourite orange-tree, and thrust it into his mistress's hand. She had
not the slightest notion what he meant by it!
