Conclusion
The web of our story has now been woven, the piece is finished, and it
is only necessary that the loose threads should be collected, so that
there may be no unravelling. In such chronicles as this, something no
doubt might be left to the imagination without serious injury to the
story; but the reader, I think, feels a deficiency when, through tedium
or coldness, the writer omits to give all the information which he
possesses.
Among the male personages of my story, Bagwax should perhaps be allowed
to stand first. It was his energy and devotion to his peculiar duties
which, after the verdict, served to keep alive the idea that that
verdict had been unjust. It was through his ingenuity that Judge Bramber
was induced to refer the inquiry back to Scotland Yard, and in this way
to prevent the escape of Crinkett and Euphemia Smith. Therefore we will
first say a word as to Bagwax and his history.
It was rumoured at the time that Sir John Joram and Mr. Brown, having
met each other at the club after the order for Caldigate's release had
been given, and discussing the matter with great interest, united in
giving praise to Bagwax. Then Sir John told the story of those broken
hopes, of the man's desire to travel, and of the faith and honesty with
which he sacrificed his own aspirations for the good of the poor lady
whose husband had been so cruelly taken away from her. Then,--as it was
said at the time,--an important letter was sent from the Home Office to
the Postmaster-General, giving Mr. Bagwax much praise, and suggesting
that a very good thing would be done to the colony of New South Wales if
that ingenious and skilful master of postmarks could be sent out to
Sydney with the view of setting matters straight in the Sydney
office [1]. There was then much correspondence with the Colonial Office,
which did not at first care very much about Bagwax; but at last the
order was given by the Treasury, and Bagwax went. There were many tears
shed on the occasion at Apricot Villa. Jemima Curlydown thought that she
also should be allowed to see Sydney, and was in favour of an immediate
marriage with this object. But Bagwax felt that the boisterous ocean
might be unpropitious to the delights of a honeymoon; and Mr. Curlydown
reminded his daughter of all the furniture which would thus be lost.
Bagwax went as a gay bachelor, and spent six happy months in the bright
colony. He did not effect much, as the delinquent who had served
Crinkett in his base purposes had already been detected and punished
before his arrival; but he was treated with extreme courtesy by the
Sydney officials, and was able to bring home with him a treasure in the
shape of a newly-discovered manner of tying mail-bags. So that when the
'Sydney Intelligencer' boasted that the great English professor who had
come to instruct them all had gone home instructed, there was some truth
in it. He was married immediately after his return, and Jemima his wife
has the advantage, in her very pretty drawing-room, of every shilling
that he made by the voyage. My readers will be glad to hear that soon
afterwards he was appointed Inspector-General of Post-marks, to the
great satisfaction of all the post-office.
[Footnote 1: I hope my friends in the Sydney post-office will take
no offence should this story ever reach their ears. I know how well
the duties are done in that office, and, between ourselves, I think
that Mr. Bagwax's journey was quite unnecessary.]
One of the few things which Caldigate did before he took his wife
abroad was to 'look after Dick Shand.' It was manifest to all concerned
that Dick could do no good in England. His yellow trousers and the
manners which accompanied them were not generally acceptable in
merchants' offices and suchlike places. He knew nothing about English
farming, which, for those who have not learned the work early, is an
expensive amusement rather than a trade by which bread can be earned.
There seemed to be hardly a hope for Dick in England. But he had done
some good among the South Sea Islanders. He knew their ways and could
manage them. He was sent out, therefore, with a small capital to be
junior partner on a sugar estate in Queensland. It need hardly be said
that the small capital was lent to him by John Caldigate. There he took
steadily to work, and it is hoped by his friends that he will soon begin
to repay the loan.
The uncle, aunt, and cousins at Babington soon renewed their intimacy
with John Caldigate, and became intimate with Hester. The old squire
still turned up his nose at them, as he had done all his life, calling
them Boeotians, and reminding his son that Suffolk had always been a
silly county. But the Babingtons, one and all, knew this, and had no
objection to be accounted thick-headed as long as they were acknowledged
to be prosperous, happy, and comfortable. It had always been considered
at Babington that young Caldigate was brighter and more clever than
themselves; and yet he had been popular with them as a cousin of whom
they ought to be proud. He was soon restored to his former favour, and
after his return from the Continent spent a fortnight at the Hall, with
his wife, very comfortably. Julia, indeed, was not there, nor Mr.
Smirkie. Among all their neighbours and acquaintances Mr. Smirkie was
the last to drop the idea that there must have been something in that
story of an Australian marriage. His theory of the law on the subject
was still incorrect. The Queen's pardon, he said, could not do away with
the verdict, and therefore he doubted whether the couple could be
regarded as man and wife. He was very anxious that they should be
married again, and with great good-nature offered to perform the
ceremony himself either at Plum-cum-Pippins or even in the drawing-room
at Folking.
'Suffolk to the very backbone!' was the remark of the Cambridgeshire
squire when he heard of this very kind offer. But even he at last came
round, under his wife's persuasion, when he found that the paternal
mansion was likely to be shut against him unless he yielded.
Hester's second tour with her husband was postponed for some weeks,
because it was necessary that her husband should appear as a witness
against Crinkett and Euphemia Smith. They were tried also at Cambridge,
but not before Judge Bramber. The woman never yielded an inch. When she
found how it was going with her, she made fast her money, and with
infinite pluck resolved that she would endure with patience whatever
might be in store for her, and wait for better times. When put into the
dock she pleaded not guilty with a voice that was audible only to the
jailer standing beside her, and after that did not open her mouth during
the trial. Crinkett made a great effort to be admitted as an additional
witness against his comrade, but, having failed in that, pleaded guilty
at last. He felt that there was no hope for him with such a weight of
evidence against him, and calculated that his punishment might thus be
lighter, and that he would save himself the cost of an expensive
defence. In the former hope he was deceived as the two were condemned to
the same term of imprisonment. When the woman heard that she was to be
confined for three years with hard labour her spirit was almost broken.
But she made no outward sign; and as she was led away out of the dock
she looked round for Caldigate, to wither him with the last glance of
her reproach. But Caldigate, who had not beheld her misery without some
pang at his heart, had already left the court.
Judge Bramber never opened his mouth upon the matter to a single human
being. He was a man who, in the bosom of his family, did not say much
about the daily work of his life, and who had but few friends
sufficiently intimate to be trusted with his judicial feelings. The
Secretary of State was enabled to triumph in the correctness of his
decision, but it may be a question whether Judge Bramber enjoyed the
triumph. The matter had gone luckily for the Secretary; but how would it
have been had Crinkett and the woman been acquitted?--how would it have
been had Caldigate broken down in his evidence, and been forced to admit
that there had been a marriage of some kind? No doubt the accusation had
been false. No doubt the verdict had been erroneous. But the man had
brought it upon himself by his own egregious folly, and would have had
no just cause for complaint had he been kept in prison till the second
case had been tried. It was thus that Judge Bramber regarded the
matter;--but he said not a word about it to any one.
When the second trial was over, Caldigate and his wife started for
Paris, but stayed a few days on their way with William Bolton in London.
He and his wife were quite ready to receive Hester and her husband with
open arms. 'I tell you fairly,' said he to Caldigate, 'that when there
was a doubt, I thought it better that you and Hester should be apart.
You would have thought the same had she been your sister. Now I am only
too happy to congratulate both of you that the truth has been brought to
light.'
On their return Mrs. Robert Bolton was very friendly,--and Robert Bolton
himself was at last brought round to acknowledge that his convictions
had been wrong. But there was still much that stuck in his throat. 'Why
did John Caldigate pay twenty thousand pounds to those persons when he
knew that they had hatched a conspiracy against himself?' This question
he asked his brother William over and over again, and never could be
satisfied with any answer which his brother could give him.
Once he asked the question of Caldigate himself. 'Because I felt that,
in honour, I owed it to them,' said Caldigate; 'and, perhaps, a little
too because I felt that, if they took themselves off at once, your
sister might be spared something of the pain which she has suffered.'
But still it was unintelligible to Robert Bolton that any man in his
senses should give away so large a sum of money with so slight a
prospect of any substantial return.
Hester often goes to see her mother, but Mrs. Bolton has never been at
Folking, and probably never will again visit that house. She is a woman
whose heart is not capable of many changes, and who cannot readily give
herself to new affections. But having once owned that John Caldigate is
her daughter's husband, she now alleges no further doubt on the matter.
She writes the words 'Mrs. John Caldigate' without a struggle, and does
take delight in her daughter's visits.
When last I heard from Folking, Mrs. John Caldigate's second boy had
just been born.