"She is not with me; I wish she was. Where is she, Coralie?"
"But how should I know where she is?" retorted Coralie, looking up at
Mr. Bazalgette.
"Is she not staying with you? Did she not come over to you?"
"Certainly not," said Coralie. "I have not seen Verena since she went
out, sixteen months ago. Neither have I heard from her lately. What is
it that you mean, George?"
George Bazalgette stood back against the book-case, and told us what he
meant. Some weeks ago--nay, months--upon returning to Magnolia Range
after a week's absence at his other estate across the country, he found
Verena flown. She left a note for him, saying she did not get on well
with Magnolia, and was going to stay a little while with Mrs. Dickson.
He felt hurt that Verena had not spoken openly to him about Magnolia,
but glad that she should have the change, as she had not been well of
late. Mrs. Dickson was his aunt and lived in a particularly healthy part
of one of the adjoining islands. Time passed on; he wrote to Verena, but
received no answer to his letters, and he concluded she was so put out
with Magnolia that she would not write. By-and-by he thought it was time
to see after her, and journeyed to Mrs. Dickson's. Mrs. Dickson was
absent, gone to stay with some friends at St. Thomas, and the servants
did not know when she would return. He supposed, as a matter of course,
that she had taken Verena with her, and went back home. Still the time
passed; no news of Verena, no letters, and he proceeded again to Mrs.
Dickson's. Then, to his unbounded astonishment, he found that Verena
had only stayed with her one week, and had taken the mail-packet for
Southampton on her way to stay with her sister at Oxlip Grange. Giving
a blessing to Mrs. Dickson for not having written to inform him of all
this, and for having kept his letters to Verena by that young lady's
arbitrary command, he came off at once to England.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Coralie. "She did not come here."
The fine colour on George Bazalgette's face, which retained its
freshness though he did live in a hot climate, lost its brightness.
"She would be the least likely to come here, of all places," pursued
Coralie. "In the last answer I ever sent her, after a letter of
complaints to me, hinting that she thought of coming here for a time,
I scolded her sharply and assured her I should despatch her back to you
the next day."
"What am I to do?" he exclaimed. "Where look for her?"
Not caring to intrude longer, we took our departure, the Squire shaking
his head dubiously over Mrs. George Bazalgette's vagaries. "It was the
same thing," he said, "when she was Verena Fontaine, as you remember,
Johnny, and what a good fellow her husband seems to be.--Halloa! Why,
that's Cole again!"
He was coming out of North Villa. "You are back soon!" he cried. And we
told him of the arrival of George Bazalgette.
Cole seemed to stare with all his eyes as he listened. I could see them
in the starlight. "What will he do if he can't find her here?" he asked
of me. "Do you know, Johnny Ludlow?"
"Go back by the first and fleetest ship to turn Mrs. Dickson inside-out.
He thinks she and Verena have played him a trick in letting him come
over. How did you find the black baby?"
"Found nothing the matter with it," growled Cole. "These young mothers
are so fanciful!"
We left him standing against the gate, supposing that he had to go
higher up. And what happened then, I can only tell you by hearsay.
Cole, propping his back against the spikes, turned his face up to the
stars, as if he were taking counsel of them. Counsel he needed from
somebody or something, for he was in a dilemma.
"Well, I'll chance it," he thought, when he had got pretty cold. "It
seems the right thing to do."
Walking briskly to Oxlip Grange, he asked to see Mr. Bazalgette; and
after whispering a few words into that gentleman's ear, brought him
out to North Villa. "You stand behind me, so as not to be seen," he
directed, ringing the bell.
"I'm coming in again," said he to Sarah Stone, when she pulled the door
back about an inch. So she undid the chain; the doctor was privileged,
and he slipped in, Mr. Bazalgette behind him. Sarah, the faithful, was
for showing fight.
"It is all right," said Cole. "Not yet, sir"--putting out his arm to
bar Mr. Bazalgette's passage. "You go in first, to your mistress, Sarah,
and say that a gentleman is waiting to see her: just landed from the
West Indies."
But the commotion had attracted attention, and a young lady, not black,
but charmingly white, appeared at the parlour-door, a black head behind
her.
"George!" she shrieked. And the next moment flew into his arms, sobbing
and crying, and kissing him. Cole decamped.
That past evening in November, when Cole received a message that his
services were needed at North Villa, he went expecting to be introduced
to a black lady. A black lady in truth showed him in; or, to be correct,
a lady's black attendant, and he saw--Verena Fontaine.
That is, Verena Bazalgette. She put Cole upon his honour, not to
disclose her secret, and told him a long string of her sister-in-law's
iniquities, as touching lecturing and domineering, and that she had left
home intending to come over for a time to Coralie. Whilst staying with
Mrs. Dickson before sailing, a letter was forwarded to her from Magnolia
Grange. It was from Coralie; and it convinced Verena that Coralie's
would be no safe refuge, that she would be sent out of it at once back
to her husband. She sailed, as projected, allowing Mrs. Dickson to think
she was still coming to her sister. Upon landing at Southampton she went
on to a small respectable inn at Worcester, avoiding the larger hotels
lest she should meet people who knew her. Seeing the advertisement of
North Villa to let, she wrote to the agent, and secured it. To be near
Coralie seemed like a protection, though she might not go to her. Next
she answered an advertisement from a cook (inserted by Sarah Stone),
and engaged her, binding her to secrecy. The woman, though of crusty
temper, was honest and trustworthy, and espoused the cause of her young
mistress, and was zealously true to her. She carried in to her the
various reports that were abroad, of the Indians and the black lady,
and all the rest of it; causing Verena bursts of laughter, the only
divertisement she had in her imprisoned life: she did not dare to go out
lest she should be recognized and the news carried to Coralie. Dalla,
a faithful native servant who had been left in the West Indies and
returned to Verena when she married George Bazalgette, attended her on
her solitary voyage. She it was who was black, not Verena. And the night
they stole into the premises of Oxlip Grange it was done with the hope
of getting a sly peep at Coralie's face; both of them were longing for
it. Hearing the stir in the shrubs, Dalla had hissed; her thoughts were
back in her own land, and it was her mode of startling away four-footed
night animals there.
George Bazalgette was very angry with his wife, more especially so at
her having absented herself at that uncertain time, and he declared to
her that he would put her away from him for good if ever she attempted
such a thing again. With tears enough to float a ship, Verena gave him
her solemn promise that she never would leave him again. Never again:
she had been too miserable this time, and the baby had nearly frightened
her to death, for she had not expected him so soon and had meant to go
back for it.
* * * * *
The Squire could not hold out now, and the Christmas dinner was at
Coralie's. We went over to Timberdale Church in the morning, a lot of
us, to hear the Archdeacon preach. Herbert gave up the pulpit to him,
taking the prayers himself. He was a plain little man, as you knew
before, and he gave us a plain sermon, but it was one of those that are
worth their weight in gold. Lady Tenby whispered that to me as we came
out. "And oh, Johnny," she said, "we are so glad he has got on! We
always liked Isaac Sale."
It was a grand dinner-party, though not as many were present as Coralie
wanted. The Letsoms did not care to leave their own fireside, or old
Paul, or the Chandlers. Verena was the life of it, laughing and joking
and parading about with her baby, who had been christened "George" the
day before, Mrs. Cramp having been asked to be its godmother.
"Which I think was very pretty of them, Mr. Johnny," she said to me
after dinner; "and I'm proud of standing to it."
"It was in recompense for the worry I've given you, you dear old thing!"
whispered Verena, as she pulled Mrs. Cramp's chair backwards and kissed
her motherly forehead. "You'll never have such a tenant again--for
worry."
"Never, I hope, please Heaven!" assented Mrs. Cramp. "And I'm sure I
shall never see a black woman without shivering. Now, my dear, you just
put my chair down; you'll have me backwards. Hold it, will you, Mr.
Johnny!"
"What dishes of talk you'll get up about me with Susan Dennet!" went on
Verena, the chair still tilted. "We are going back home the beginning of
the year, do you know. George got his letters to-day."
"And what about that young lady over there--that Miss Magnolia?" asked
Mrs. Cramp.
Verena let the chair fall in ecstasy, and her tone was brimful of
delight. "Oh, that's the best news of all! Magnolia is going to be
married: she only waits for George to get back to give her away. I must
say this is a delightful Christmas-Day!"
On the thirty-first of December, the last day in the year, Coralie was
married to Dr. Rymer. Archdeacon Sale, being Benjamin's brother-in-law,
came over to Islip Church to tie the knot. _Her_ brother-in-law, George
Bazalgette, gave her away. The breakfast was held at Coralie's, Verena
presiding in sky-blue satin.
And amidst the company was a lady some of us had not expected to
see--Mrs. Rymer. She had scarlet ringlets (white feathers setting them
off to-day) and might be vulgar to her fingers'-ends, but she was
Benjamin's mother, and Coralie had privately sent for her.
"You have my best wishes, Mr. Benjamin," said the Squire, drawing Ben
aside while Coralie was putting on her travelling attire; "and I'd be
glad with all my heart had your father lived to see it."
"So should I be, Squire."
"Look here," whispered the Squire, holding him by the button-hole, "did
you ever tell her of that--that--you know--that past trouble?"
"Of the bank-note, you mean," said Ben. "I told her of that long ago,
and everything else that could tell against me. Believe me, Mr.
Todhetley, though my faults were many in the days gone by, I could not
act dishonourably by my dear wife; no, nor by any one else now."
The Squire nodded with a beaming face, and pressed Ben's hand.
"And let me thank you now, sir, for your long-continued kindness, your
expressions of esteem for my poor father and of goodwill to me," said
Ben, with emotion. "I have not talked of it, but I have felt it."
They started away in their new close carriage, amidst a shower of rice
and old shoes; and we finished up the revels in the evening with a
dance and a fiddle, the Squire leading out Mrs. Cramp. Then came a cold
supper.
The noise had reached its height, and the champagne was going about,
when the Squire interrupted with a "Hush, hush!" and the babel ceased.
The clock on the mantelpiece was striking twelve. As the last stroke
vibrated on the air, its echo alone breaking the silence, the Squire
rose and lifted his hands--
"A Happy New Year to us all, my friends! May God send His best blessings
with it!"
* * * * *
It may as well be added, in the interests of peace and quietness, that
those Indians had not committed any crime at all; it had been invented
by rumour, as Worcester discovered later. They were only inoffensive
strangers, travelling about to see the land.