I.

People are apt to say, when telling of a surprise, that a feather would

have knocked them down. I nearly fell without the feather and without

the touch. To see a dead woman standing straight up before me, and to

hear her say "How are you, and is the Squire at home?" might have upset

the balance of a giant.

But I could not be mistaken. There, waiting at the front-door to come

in, her face within an inch of mine, was Nash Caromel's first wife,

Charlotte Tinkle; who for some two years now had been looked upon as

dead and buried over in California.

"Is Mr. Todhetley at home!" she repeated. "And can I see him?"

"Yes," I answered, coming partially out of my bewilderment. "Do you mind

staying here just a minute, while I tell him?"

For, to hand in a dead woman, might take him aback, as it had taken me.

The pater stood bolt upright, waiting for Mrs. Scott (as he had supposed

it to be) to enter.

"It is not Mrs. Scott," I whispered, shutting the door and going close

up to him. "It--it is some one else. I hardly like to tell you, sir; she

may give you a fright."

"Why, what does the lad mean?--what are you making a mystery of now,

Johnny?" cried he, staring at me. "Give me a fright! I should like to

see any woman give me that. Is it Mrs. Scott, or is it not?"

"It is some one we thought dead, sir."

"Now, Johnny, don't be a muff. Somebody you thought dead! What on

earth's come to you, lad? Speak out!"

"It is Nash Caromel's first wife, sir: Charlotte Tinkle."

The pater gazed at me as a man bereft of reason. I don't believe he

knew whether he stood on his head or his heels. "Charlotte Tinkle!" he

exclaimed, backing against the curtain. "What, come to life, Johnny?"

"Yes, sir, and she wants to see you. Perhaps she has never been dead."

"Bless my heart and mind! Bring her in."

The first thing Charlotte the First did when she came in and the Squire

clasped her by her two hands, was to burst into a fit of sobbing. Some

wine stood on the sideboard; the Squire poured her out a glass, and she

untied the strings of her bonnet as she sat down.

"If I might take it off for a minute?" she said. "I have had it on all

the way from Liverpool."

"Do so, my dear. Goodness me! I think I must be in a dream. And so you

are not dead!"

"Yes, I knew it was what you must have all been thinking," she answered,

stifling her sobs. "Poor Nash!--what a dreadful thing it is! I cannot

imagine how the misconception can have arisen."

"What misconception?" asked the pater, whose wits, once gone a

wool-gathering, rarely came back in a hurry.

"That I had died."

"Why, that friend of yours with whom you were staying--Bunn--Munn--which

was it, Johnny?--wrote to tell your husband so."

Mrs. Nash Caromel, sitting there in the twilight, her brown hair as

smooth as ever and her eyes as meek, looked at the Squire in surprise.

"Oh no, that could not have been; Mr. Munn would not be likely to write

anything of the sort. Impossible."

"But, my dear lady, I read the letter. Your husband brought it to me as

soon as it reached him. You remained at San Francisco, very ill after

Nash's departure, and you got no better, and died at last of low fever."

She shook her head. "I was very poorly indeed when Nash left, but I grew

better shortly. I had no low fever, and I certainly did not die."

"Then why did Munn write it?"

"He did not write it. He could not have written it. I am quite certain

of that. He and his wife are my very good and dear friends, and most

estimable people."

"The letter certainly came to your husband," persisted the Squire. "I

read it with my own eyes. It was dated San Francisco, and signed Francis

Munn."

"Then it was a forgery. But why any one should have written it, or

troubled themselves about me and my husband at all, I cannot imagine."

"And then, Nash--Nash---- Good gracious, what a complication!" cried the

Squire, breaking off what he meant to say, as the thought of Charlotte

Nave crossed his mind.

"I know," she quietly put in: "Nash has married again."

It was a complication, and no mistake, all things considered. The Squire

rubbed up his hair and deliberated, and then bethought himself that it

might be as well to keep the servants out of the room. So I went to tell

old Thomas that the master was particularly engaged with a friend, and

no one was to come in unless rung for. Then I ran upstairs to whisper

the news to the mother--and it pretty nearly sent her into a fit of

hysterics.

Charlotte Caromel was entering on her history to the Squire when I got

back. "Yes," she said, "I and my husband went to California, having

found little luck in America. Nash made one or two ventures there also,

but nothing seemed to succeed; not as well even as it did in America,

and he resolved to go back there, and try at something or other again.

He sailed for New York, leaving me in San Francisco with Francis Munn

and his wife; for I had been ill, and was not strong enough for the

tedious voyage. The Munns kept a dry-goods store at San Francisco,

and----"

"A dry-goods store!" interrupted the Squire.

"Yes. You cannot afford to be fastidious over there; and to be in trade

is looked upon as an honour, rather than the contrary. Francis Munn

was the youngest son of a country gentleman in England; he went to

California to make his fortune at anything that might turn up; and it

ended in his marrying and keeping a store. They made plenty of money,

and were very kind to me and Nash. Well, Nash started for New York,

leaving me with them, and he wrote to me soon after his arrival there.

Things were looking gloomy in the States, he said, and he felt inclined

to take a run over to England, and ask his brother Miles to help him

with some money. I wrote back a letter in duplicate, addressing one to

the agents' in New York, the other to Caromel's Farm--not knowing, you

perceive, in which place he might be. No answer reached me--but people

think little of the safety of letters out there, so many seem to

miscarry. We fancied Nash might be coming back to San Francisco and did

not trouble himself to write: like me, he is not much of a scribe. But

the months went on, and he did not come; he neither came nor wrote."

"What did you think hindered him?"

"We did not know what to think--except, as I say, that the letters had

miscarried. One day Mr. Munn brought in a file of English newspapers for

me and his wife to read: and in one of them I saw an announcement that

puzzled me greatly--the marriage of one Nash Caromel, of Caromel's Farm,

to Charlotte Nave. Just at first it startled me; I own that; but I

felt so sure it could not be my Nash, my husband, that I remained only

puzzled to know what Nash Caromel it could be."

"There is only one Nash Caromel," growled the Squire, half inclined to

tell her she was a simpleton--taking things in this equable way.

"I only knew of him; but I thought he must have some relative, a cousin

perhaps, of the same name, of whom I had not heard. However," continued

Charlotte, "I wrote then to Caromel's Farm, telling Nash what we had

read, and asking him what it meant, and where he was. But that letter

shared the fate of the former one, and obtained no reply. In the course

of time we saw another announcement--The wife of Nash Caromel of a son.

Still I did not believe it could be my Nash, but I could see that Mr.

Munn did believe it was. At least he thought there was something strange

about it all, especially our not hearing from Nash: and at length I

determined to come home and see about it."

"You must have been a long time coming," remarked the Squire. "The child

is fifteen months old."

"But you must remember that often we did not get news until six months

after its date. And I chose a most unfortunate route--overland from

California to New York."

"What on earth---- Why, people are sometimes a twelvemonth or so doing

that!" cried the Squire. "There are rocky mountains to scale, as I've

heard and read, and Red Indians to encounter, and all sorts of horrors.

Those who undertake it travel in bands, do they not? and are called

pilgrims, and some of them don't get to the end of the journey alive."

"True," she sighed. "I would never have attempted it had I known what it

would be: but I did so dread the sea. Several of us were laid up midway,

and had to be left behind at a small settlement: one or two died. It was

a long, long time, and only after surmounting great discomforts and

difficulties, we reached New York."

"Well?" said the Squire. It must be remembered that they were speaking

of days now gone by, when the journey was just what she described it.

"I could hear nothing of my husband in New York," she resumed, "except

that Abraham Whitter believed him to be at home here. I took the steamer

for Liverpool, landed at dawn this morning, and came on by rail. And I

find it is my husband who is married. And what am I to do?"

She melted away into tears again. The Squire told her that she must

present herself at the farm; she was its legal mistress, and Nash

Caromel's true wife. But she shook her head at this: she wouldn't bring

any such trouble upon Nash for the world, as to show him suddenly that

she was living. What he had done he must have done unwittingly, she

said, believing her to be dead, and he ought not to suffer for it more

than could be helped. Which was a lenient way of reasoning that put the

Squire's temper up.

"He deserves no quarter, ma'am, and _I_ will not give it him if you do.

Within a week of the time he heard of your death he went and took that

Charlotte Nave. Though I expect it was she who took him--brazen hussy!

And I am glad you have come to put her out!"

But, nothing would induce Charlotte the First to assume this view, or to

admit that blame could attach to Nash. Once he had lost her by death, he

had a right to marry again, she contended. As to the haste--well, she

had been dead (as he supposed) a great many months when he heard of it,

and that should be considered. The Squire exploded, and walked about

the room, and rubbed his hair the wrong way, and thought her no better

than an imbecile.

Mrs. Todhetley came in, and there was a little scene. Charlotte declined

our offer of a bed and refreshment, saying she would like to go to her

mother's for the night: she felt that she should be received gladly,

though they had parted in anger and had held no communication with one

another since.

Gladly? ay, joyfully. Little doubt of that. So the Squire put on his

hat, and she her bonnet, and away they started, and I with them.

We took the lonely path across the fields: her appearance might have

raised a stir in the highway. Charlotte was but little altered, and

would have been recognized at once. And I have no space to tell of the

scene at Mrs. Tinkle's, which was as good as a play, or of the way they

rushed into one another's arms.

"Johnny, there's something on my mind," said the Squire in a low tone as

we were going back towards home: and he was looking grave and silent as

a judge. "Do you remember those two foreign letters we chanced to see of

Nash Caromel's, with the odd handwriting, all quavers and tails?"

"Yes, I do, sir. They were ship letters."

"Well, lad, a very ugly suspicion has come into my head, and I can't

drive it away. I believe those two letters were from Charlotte--the two

she speaks of--I believe the handwriting which puzzled me was hers. Now,

if so, Nash went to the altar with that other Charlotte, knowing this

one was alive: for the first letter came the day before the marriage."

I did not answer. But I remembered what I had overheard Nave the lawyer

say to Nash Caromel: "You must marry her: where there's a will there's

a way"--or words to that effect. Had Nave concocted the letters which

pretended to tell of Mrs. Nash Caromel's death, and got them posted to

Nash from New York?

With the morning, the Squire was at Caromel's Farm. The old-fashioned

low house, the sun shining on its quaint windows, looked still and quiet

as he walked up to the front-door across the grass-plat, in the middle

of which grew a fine mulberry-tree. The news of Charlotte's return, as

he was soon to find, had travelled to it already; had spread to the

village. For she had been recognized the night before on her arrival;

and her boxes, left in charge of a porter, bore her full name, Mrs. Nash

Caromel.

Nash stood in that little library of his in a state of agitation not to

be described; he as good as confessed, when the Squire tackled him, that

he _had_ known his wife might have been alive, and that it was all

Nave's doings. At least he suspected that the letter, telling of her

death, might be a forgery.

"Anyway, you had a letter from her the day before you married, so you

must have known it by that," cried the Squire; who had so much to do

always with the Caromel family that he deemed it his duty to interfere.

"What on earth could have possessed you?"

"I--was driven into a corner," gasped Nash.

"I'd be driven into fifty corners before I'd marry two wives," retorted

the Squire. "And now, sir, what do you mean to do?"

"I can't tell," answered Nash.

"A pretty kettle of fish this is! What do you suppose your father would

have said to it?"

"I'm sure I can't tell," repeated Nash helplessly, biting his lips to

get some life into them.

"And what's the matter with your hands that they are so hot and white?"

Nash glanced at his hands, and hid them away in his pockets. He looked

like a man consumed by inward fever.

"I have not been over well for some time past," said he.

"No wonder--with the consciousness of this discovery hanging over your

head! It might have sent some men into their graves."

Nash drummed upon the window pane. What in the world to do, what to say,

evidently he knew not.

"You must put away this Jez--this lady," went on the Squire. "It was she

who bewitched you; ay, and set herself out to do it, as all the parish

saw. Let her go back to her father: you might make some provision for

her: and instal your wife here in her proper place. Poor thing! she is

so meek and patient! She won't hear a word said against you; thinks you

are a saint. _I_ think you a scoundrel, Nash: and I tell you so to your

face."

The door had slowly opened; somebody, who had been outside, listening,

put in her head. A very pretty head, and that's the truth, surmounting

a fashionable morning costume of rose-coloured muslin, all flounces and

furbelows. It was Charlotte the Second. The Squire had called her a

brazen hussy behind her back; he had much ado this morning not to call

her so to her face.

"What's that I hear you saying to my husband, Mr. Todhetley--that he

should discard me and admit that creature here! How dare you bring your

pernicious counsels into this house?"

"Why, bless my heart, he is her husband, madam; he is not yours. You'd

not stay here yourself, surely!"

"This is my home, and he is _my_ husband, and my child is his heir; and

that woman may go back over the seas whence she came. Is it not so,

Nash? Tell him."

She put her hand on Nash's shoulder, and he tried to get out something

or other in obedience to her. He was as much under her finger and thumb

as Punch in the street is under the showman's. The Squire went into a

purple heat.

"You married him by craft, madam--as I believe from my very soul: you

married him, knowing, you and your father also, that his wife was alive.

He knew it, too. The motive must have been one of urgency, I should say,

but I've nothing to do with that----"

"Nor with any other business of ours," she answered with a brazen face.

"This business is mine, and all Church Dykely's," flashed the Squire.

"It is public property. And now, I ask you both, what you mean to do in

this dilemma you have brought upon yourselves? His wife is waiting to

come in, and you cannot keep her out."

"She shall never come in; I tell you that," flashed Charlotte the

Second. "She sent word to him that she was dead, and she must abide

by it; from that time she was dead to him, dead for ever. Mr. Caromel

married me equally in the eyes of the world: and here I shall stay with

him, his true and lawful wife."

The Squire rubbed his face; the torrent of words and the heat made it

glisten.

"Stay here, would you, madam! What luck do you suppose would come of

that?"

"Luck! I have quite as much luck as I require. Nash, why do you not

request this--this gentleman to leave us?"

"Why, he _dare_ not keep you here," cried the Squire, passing over the

last compliment. "He would be prosecuted for--you know what."

"Let him be prosecuted! Let the wicked woman do her worst. Let her bring

an action, and we'll defend it. I have more right to him than she has.

Mr. Caromel, _do_ you wish to keep up this interview until night?"

"Perhaps you had better go now, Squire," put in the man pleadingly.

"I--I will consult Nave, and see what's to be done. She may like to go

back to California, to the Munns; the climate suited her: and--and an

income might be arranged."

This put the finishing stroke to the Squire's temper. He flung out of

the room with a few unorthodox words, and came home in a tantrum.

We had had times of commotion at Church Dykely before, but this affair

capped all. The one Mrs. Nash Caromel waiting to go into her house, and

the other Mrs. Nash Caromel refusing to go out of it to make room for

her. The Squire was right when saying it was public property: the public

made it theirs. Tongues pitched into Nash Caromel in the fields and in

the road: but some few of us pitied him, thinking what on earth we could

do ourselves in a like position. While old Jones the constable stalked

briskly about, expecting to get a warrant for taking up the master of

Caromel's Farm.

But the great drawback to instituting legal proceedings lay with Mrs.

Nash Caromel the First. She declined to prosecute. Her husband might

refuse to receive her; might hold himself aloof from her; might keep his

second wife by his side; but she would never hurt a hair of his head.

Heaven might bring things round in its own good time, she said;

meanwhile she would submit--and bear.

And she held to this, driving indignant men distracted. They argued,

they persuaded, they remonstrated; it was said that one or two

strong-minded ones _swore_. All the same. She stayed on at her mother's,

and would neither injure her husband herself, nor let her family injure

him. Henry Tinkle, her brother, chanced to be from home (as he was when

she had run away to be married), or he might have acted in spite of her.

And, when this state of things had continued for two or three weeks, the

world began to call it a "crying scandal." As to Nash Caromel, he did

not show his face abroad.

"Not a day longer shall the fellow retain my money," said the pater,

speaking of the twelve hundred pounds he had lent to Nash: and in fact

the term it had been lent for was already up. But it is easier to make

such a threat than to enforce it; and it is not everybody who can

extract twelve hundred pounds at will from uncertain coffers. Any way

the Squire found he could not. He wrote to Nash, demanding its return;

and he wrote to Nave.

Nash did not answer him at all. Nave's clerk sent a semi-insolent

letter, saying Mr. Caromel should be communicated with when occasion

offered. The Squire wrote in a rage to his lawyer at Worcester, bidding

him enforce the repayment.

"You two lads can take the letter to the post," said he.

But we had not got many yards from home when we heard the Squire coming

after us. We all walked into Church Dykely together; and close to the

post-office, which was at Dame Chad's shop, we met Duffham. Of course

the Squire, who could not keep anything in had he been bribed to do it,

told Duffham what steps he was about to take.

"Going to enforce payment," nodded Duffham. "The man deserves no

quarter. But he is ill."

"Serve him right. What's the matter with him?"

"Nervous fever. Has fretted or frightened himself into it. Report says

that he is very ill indeed."

"Don't you attend him?"

"Not I. I did not please madam at the time the boy was born--would not

give in to some of her whims and fancies. They have called in that new

doctor who has settled in the next parish, young Bluck."

"Why, he is no better than an apothecary's boy, that young Bluck!

Caromel can't be very ill, if they have him."

"So ill, that, as I have just heard, he is in great danger--likely to

die," replied Duffham, tapping his cane against the ledge of Dame Chad's

window. "Bluck's young, but he is clever."

"Bless my heart! Likely to die! What, Nash Caromel! Here, you lads, if

that's it, I won't annoy him just now about the money, so don't post the

letter."

"It is posted," said Tod. "I have just put it in."

"Go in and explain to Dame Chad, and get it out again. Or, stay; the

letter can go, and I'll write and say it's not to be acted on until

he is well again. Nervous fever! I'm afraid his conscience has been

pricking him."

"I hope it has," said Duffham.