“EASTWARD HO!”
The _Alligator_ put in at Malta for twenty-four hours, and all the
passengers landed and “did” the sights. Reginald, in company with some
fellow-sightseers, visited the cathedral, the fried monks, and other
noteworthy objects, and, sentimental as it sounds, he strolled past the
house where he had first met Alice.
“Who would have thought,” he said to himself, “that that simple,
unsophisticated girl would have turned out so hard and unyielding? She
had given him a bitter lesson; he had done with her and all womankind,
that was certain;” but before he reached Port Saïd his heart was
considerably softened.
The handsome young second lieutenant and he were constantly thrown
together, and had become capital friends. They were partners at whist,
and frequently played in the same game at deck-quoits. One evening they
were standing in the stern, watching a large steamer passing in the
distance, homeward bound, when the lieutenant abruptly broached the
delicate subject of matrimony.
“No one would think,” he said, critically surveying his companion,
“that _you_ were a married man.”
“Then you are not as clever as a friend of mine, who declares that he
recognises a Benedict at once by the cut of his boots, and could swear
to his umbrella,” said Sir Reginald.
“You haven’t a married look about you,” resumed the sailor, “no, nor
your wife either. I never was more amazed than when she told me she was
married.”
“Indeed!” replied Sir Reginald stiffly.
“Yes, I put my foot in it rather; I _always_ do if there is the
slightest aperture for that extremity. Thinking her a girl come on
board with her friends merely to see off some casual acquaintance,
I told her that the chances were that many of those embarking would
never see England again. A most happy remark, was it not?” observed the
sailor emphatically.
“And what then?” asked his companion with averted eyes, busily
arranging the focus of his opera-glasses.
“Oh!” she said, “don’t, my husband is going;” and then she burst into
floods of tears. Such oceans I never saw; how they poured down into
Portsmouth Dock I shan’t soon forget.
“Did she say that I was her husband?” inquired Sir Reginald, looking at
him searchingly.
“Yes, of course she did. You are, are you not?” returning his gaze with
wide-open curious eyes.
“I am,” very shortly. “After all, that is not a P. and O. boat. Now she
is close, you can easily see that she is one of the Messageries; yes,
you were right after all, and I was wrong,” said Sir Reginald, changing
the conversation and handing the glasses back to the lieutenant.
A few minutes later he moved away, and leaning over the bulwarks in
a secluded spot he finished his cheroot alone. Somehow his heart
felt lighter than it had done for a long time; and when, some hours
later, he went below to his “horse-box,” and found his own particular
fellow-passenger asleep and snoring, he took out a cabinet photo of
Alice, taken shortly after their wedding, and gazed at it long and
earnestly. How happy she looked--how lovely! Infamously as she had
treated him, there was no one like his Alice after all. He had the
weakness to kiss the pasteboard and put it under his pillow, and in a
few minutes was sound asleep.
The _Alligator_ of course stopped at Port Saïd, that perennial abode
of sand, flies, and dogs; full of melancholy-looking empty cafés
chantants, where the performers, ranged on the platforms, and all ready
to strike up, appear to be only waiting for an audience, and audience
there is none. The sandy streets were full of people--Jews, Turks,
infidels, and heretics. The home-coming Anglo-Indian, with stupendous
mushroom topee swathed in a quarter of a mile of white puggaree, and
armed with a large double-covered umbrella, passes the out-going
“Griff,” got up in pot-hat, dogskin gloves, cane, etc., with a stony
stare.
But a very little of Port Saïd goes a long way with most people; and
the _Alligator_ passengers, having laid in a supply of eau-de-cologne,
oranges, and umbrellas, with which to face the Red Sea, were not sorry
to troop back on board to the welcome signal of the “dinner” flag.
They edged their way cautiously through the Canal, and bore down the
Red Sea with wind and weather in their favour. The sky and sea were
like Oxford and Cambridge blue; there was not a ripple in the water.
The far-receding Arabian coast engaged the attention of at least a
dozen deluded opera-glasses looking out for Mount Sinai.
Oddly-shaped islands were passed, including the notorious “Brothers,”
so little above water and so much in the line of traffic, that more
than one ill-fated steamer has borne down on them at full speed and
sunk like a stone. Aden was left behind in due time, and after a
pleasant breezy run across the Indian Ocean, one early morning Colaba
lighthouse was descried in sight, and not long afterwards they were
steaming majestically up Bombay harbour, and anchored off the Apollo
Bund. To a new arrival, how bright and gorgeous and eastern it all
looked!
The long low stretch of land, covered with white and yellow buildings
of all shapes and sizes, set off with a background of green trees;
rising here and there against the turquoise sky were palms lofty and
graceful, which alone made everyone realise that they were actually in
the East at last.
The harbour was crowded with shipping. Steamers and sailing ships at
anchor abounded on all sides; and flitting in every direction were
native bunderboats plying between them and the shore. Fishing-boats,
with enormous lateen-shaped sails, were spread up the harbour towards
Elephanta. Even the grotesque junk was represented; and altogether
the scene was novel and lively. And now for the moment of parting
and disembarking on board the _Alligator_. None of the former were
particularly tender, for there had been no very _prononcé_ flirtations.
In this respect the troopers pale before the P. and O., and those who
were bound for the same station had generally herded together on the
voyage out. There was wild work at the railway station, but after
awhile the _Alligator’s_ late freight were steaming along to their
several destinations in Bengal, Madras, or Bombay.
Sir Reginald Fairfax and Captain Vaughan, Seventeenth Hussars, along
with the draft in their charge, were forwarded to Camelabad; and after
a wearisome three-days’ journey, half-blinded with glare and smothered
with dust, they found themselves (figuratively speaking) in the arms
of their brother “Braves.” The Seventeenth had only recently arrived
in the station, and had barely shaken down into the quarters vacated
by the out-going “Guides,” whose furniture, horses, and traps they had
also succeeded to, after the exchange of sundry bags of rupees, as
horses, traps and furniture, once settled at an Indian station, rarely
leave it. An old _habitué_ will say to a new arrival--a bride most
likely, and vain of her first equipage:
“Oh, I see you have got the Carsons carriage.”
“Oh dear no; it is ours.”
“Yes, I know that, of course; but it was the Carsons’, and before that
it belonged to the Boltons, who got it from the Kennedys, who brought
it from Madras.”
Camelabad was a lively populous station, large and scattered. There
was always something going on. The hospitality of the Anglo-Indian is
proverbial; society, as a rule, pulls well together. The backbiting,
scandal, and cause for scandal, so much attributed to Indian circles,
is no worse out there than it is at home. The fact of being fellow
exiles draws people together, and they are more genial to each other
than in their native land.
But to return to Camelabad. It was certainly a very gay place;
dances, dinners, theatricals, “At homes,” not to speak of polo
matches, sky races, and paper-chases, succeeded each other rapidly.
The Seventeenth Hussars were soon drawn into the giddy vortex; they
set up a weekly “function,” and gave a capital ball, and speedily
ingratiated themselves with their neighbours. They went everywhere
and did everything, “as people always do who have not long come out,”
quoth the Anglo-Indian of thirty years’ standing with lofty contempt.
They all went out with one exception, and he never mixed in society;
for which reason, strange to say, society was most anxious to make his
acquaintance. The Seventeenth were repeatedly asked: “Why does not your
junior major show? Excepting on boards or courts-martial, he is never
to be seen.”
“Why does he not come and call?” a lady of high social position
asked the colonel. “I want to have him to dinner. What makes him so
unsociable? Such a handsome young man too! I saw him at the review on
the Queen’s birthday. You must stir him up!”
“I can’t, my dear madam. I have tried to stir him up, as you call it,
but it was no good. Nevertheless, he is a capital fellow; first-rate
officer; keen sportsman; and awfully popular with men. But I take it he
does not care for ladies; got rather a facer from one of them, I fancy.”
This having transpired, Sir Reginald became more interesting than ever
to the public mind; but as all invitations invariably met the same
fate--a polite refusal--he was in time permitted to “gang his ain
gait,” and relegated to the ranks of the outer barbarians. He played
polo with the regimental team, rode the regimental cracks in the sky
races, and was looked on as an enormous acquisition by the Seventeenth,
who considered him a kind of Admirable Crichton in a small way, his
riding, shooting, and cricketing being much above par. His personal
appearance they regarded with undisguised complacency as a valuable
adjunct to the average good looks of the corps; and he was installed in
their opinion as an out-and-out good fellow and thorough gentleman.
“I used to be sick of hearing some of the Fifth fellows quoting Fairfax
for this, that, and the other,” remarked one; “but, strange to say,
their swan _is_ a swan after all, and has not turned out to be that
very toothsome but homely bird--a goose!”
With all his popularity, he was the last man with whom any of them
would have taken a liberty. He would have been bold indeed who would
have asked him why he left the Fifth Hussars, not to speak of a fine
country place, magnificent shooting, and ten thousand a-year, to lead
a dull monotonous life on the scorching plains of India? He would
have been bolder still who would have inquired about the fair and
exceedingly pretty girl, that Captain Vaughan had seen sitting next
him at dinner the day of embarkation. Who was she? Was she his sister
or his sweetheart? Someone said he had a vague idea that Fairfax was a
married man; but he was silenced and crushed by general consent.
Fairfax was a bachelor--crossed in love, if you will--but a bachelor
_pur et simple_. Look at his bungalow--rigid simplicity. Look at
his room--not a bit of woman’s work, not a photo, not an ornament.
A perilously narrow camp-bed, a few chairs, a portable kit, a
writing-table, and a squadron of boots, and that was all. There were a
few books, chiefly on cavalry tactics and military history, leavened
with half-a-dozen sporting novels; not a French one among them.
Anything but like the accepted idea of a smart young cavalry officer’s
lair. If, as they say, a man’s room is a type of himself, Fairfax was a
soldier, a rigid moralist, and above all a bachelor, and one who would
no doubt develop into an old bachelor into the bargain.
Captain Campbell and Lieutenant Harvey were sitting in their mutual
verandah, in long chairs, clad in costumes more conspicuous for ease
than elegance, smoking, taking away the characters of their neighbours’
horses, and minutely discussing the approaching big races. From horses
they came to riders, and finally to Fairfax.
“He is one of the best fellows going, but I cannot make him out; he
looks like a man with a story.”
“He does; and he has one you may be sure,” replied Captain Campbell
with conviction, languidly puffing at his cheroot.
“If he was the life and soul of the Fifth, as we have heard, their
ideas of mirth and jollity are more moderate than I could have
imagined. Sometimes, I grant you, he is in fairish spirits, and he can
say very amusing things; but, as a rule, he is silent and _distrait_.
It is certainly in field sports and on parade that he shines most;
brilliant sociability is not his _forte_.”
“No, decidedly not; and yet how all the fellows like him, from the
latest youngster from home upwards; although he is down upon the boys
at times, and has the art of being more politely and unpleasantly
sarcastic than anyone I know. One would think he was forty to hear him
talk, he is so circumspect and staid; and he can’t be more than six or
seven and twenty at the very outside. The youngsters respect him as if
he was the Commander-in-Chief himself; and the remarks at his end of
the table are never so free as elsewhere. There must be some reason
for his premature gravity. There’s a woman in the case, depend upon
it,” said Captain Campbell, tossing away the end of his cigar with an
emphatic gesture. “_Cherchez la femme_, say I.”
“I should not wonder. Probably he has been crossed in love--jilted
perhaps,” suggested Mr. Harvey.
“She must be uncommonly hard to please, whoever she is, for he is one
of the best-looking fellows you could see--well-born and rich.” Captain
Campbell paused for a moment to reflect on these advantages, and then
continued: “It is a curious thing that he never mentions a woman’s
name, and is altogether very close about himself and his family. Do
you remark that he takes tremendously long solitary rides, and gives
his horses the most work of any man in the station, for he gallops
often, he gallops far, and he gallops fast.”
“He never seems to care to ride with anyone, don’t you know.” (Mr.
Harvey put in “don’t you know,” on an average, every three words.) “I
offered my agreeable society at various times, but he always put me
off in that quiet way of his, don’t you know; so I thought: ‘My dear
fellow, _saint_ as we think you, you have some little game up, and I’ll
see what it is, don’t you know.’”
“That will do, my dear fellow; that’s the eleventh ‘don’t you know.’
Stick to Fairfax,” exclaimed his companion impatiently.
“Well, last Saturday evening, about five o’clock, I saw him going out
of his compound on that new black Australian of his; and as I was just
going for a ride myself, I nipped up on ‘Agag,’ and struck out after
him, on the sly naturally; and a nice chase he led me--for nothing too.
He went easy enough till he got well out of sight of the cantonment,
and then, by Jove, didn’t he put the pace on! _Oculus meus!_ how he
took it out of the Waler. He rode slap across country as if he was mad,
clean over every nullah, big or little, that came in his way. I had a
hideous conviction that, if I followed him, especially on ‘Agag,’ I
should come to a violent end, so I stayed in a mango tope, and kept
my ‘cold gray’ on him in the distance. When he had galloped his fill,
and exorcised whatever demon possessed him, he came back after a ring
of seven or eight miles, with the black all in a lather, but looking
as cool as a cucumber himself. I joined him--quite promiscuously of
course--but I fancy that he twigged he had been followed; there was a
look in those keen eyes of his that made me feel deuced uncomfortable.
I’m certain that he has something on his mind. A woman for choice.
Maybe _he_ threw her over, and she went mad, or drowned herself, or
something, don’t you know, and the pangs of remorse are preying on his
soul, eh?” cried Mr. Harvey, having talked himself breathless.
“A lively and cheerful idea truly,” said Captain Campbell, sitting
erect in his chair. “In my opinion it’s far more likely that the girl
of his affections has been faithless. He never talks of a woman, never
gets a letter from one; his correspondents are all of the sterner
sex--_vide_ the letter-rack--and he keeps his own concerns religiously
sealed from every eye, and never talks of himself in connection with
any belongings. He is a mystery, and a most interesting one. Why did
he come out here? Why did he leave his old regiment, where he was so
popular? What makes him so reserved and self-contained? I have watched
him at mess, when all of you were listening open-mouthed to one of
the doctor’s stories. I have seen Fairfax, when he thought no one was
observing him, lean back in his chair, with a sombre weary look, as if
he were sick and tired of life. And that time when Vaughan had fever so
badly, and he nursed him, I sat up with him part of a night. Vaughan
was sleeping, and he remained in the verandah. I fell asleep too,
and when I woke up a couple of hours later there was Fairfax in the
very same attitude as I had left him, still gazing at the stars, and
still apparently thinking profoundly. I watched him for a good while
before I spoke, and there was something indescribable in his face and
attitude that made me feel very sorry for him, and I seemed nearer to
knowing him that night than I had ever done before. Presently I said,
‘A penny for your thoughts, Fairfax,’ and he gave such a start as he
turned round and said, ‘They are not worth it; they are merely about
myself, and not very pleasant ones either,’ and then he got up and went
back to Vaughan and stayed beside him the remainder of the night. He
is one of the best fellows and most gentlemanly men I ever knew. But
as to following him as you have done”--flourishing a fresh cheroot in
the direction of his friend--“or ever trying to force myself into his
confidence, I would as soon think of cutting my throat.”
“Did you remark him on Christmas Day?” asked Mr. Harvey eagerly,
as if struck by a sudden thought. “After dinner, when we all drank
‘Sweethearts and wives,’ how taken aback he looked. I was sitting
opposite him, and he turned as pale as a sheet. He set down his glass
untasted at first, but I remarked that he drank it off afterwards.
There is a woman in the case, that’s certain.--Chokra! bring me a
brandy-and-soda.”
* * * * *
This conversation took place nearly a year after Sir Reginald had
joined the Seventeenth, and during that year two events of importance
had occurred. I will relate them as they came. He had been several
months at Camelabad, and had quite settled down to Indian military
life, and was beginning to look upon the short time he had spent at
home as a sort of fevered vision. He never heard from Alice. His only
correspondents were Mark Mayhew and Geoffrey, with an occasional note
from Helen. He heard from her that his wife had shut herself up at
Monkswood and declined all society, that her answers to their letters
were rare and brief, and that her aunt, Miss Saville, had been laid
up in Ireland with rheumatic fever, and would not be able to join her
niece for some time.
This was all that he had gleaned about Alice since he had left home;
consequently, when carelessly glancing through the _Home News_ one
mail-day his eye was caught by the following, “Fairfax--On the
10th inst., at Monkswood, Lady Fairfax, of a son,” he was simply
thunderstruck. He took the paper over to his own bungalow adjoining the
mess and read the paragraph over and over again--it had an absolute
fascination for him--but read as he would, it came to the same thing.
It could not be her, it was some other Lady Fairfax; but scarcely
of Monkswood also, his common sense urged. He felt a conviction that
it was true, and yet he could not realise it. He a father--Alice a
mother! Well, at any rate, he was glad it was a boy. There was an heir
to Looton now, whatever happened to him. His father would hardly have
rested in his grave if the Fairfax money and acres had gone to the
Serles and the good old name become extinct. Yes, he was glad that
there was no chance of that now; but as for Alice, he thought worse of
her than ever. That he should know of their child’s birth through the
medium of a newspaper showed the contempt in which she held him. His
dark cheek reddened as he angrily flung the paper from him and began
to pace the room rapidly from one end to the other. He would take no
notice whatever of the event, as far as Alice was concerned. No, he
certainly would _not_ write to her. This was the resolution he came to,
as he proceeded hastily to dress for mess, where he was, if anything,
more silent and preoccupied than usual.
As he was going to bed that night he called his servant Cox into his
room--a most exceptional proceeding. Cox was an old retainer, who had
followed him from the Fifth, and believed implicitly that the sun rose
and set entirely and exclusively in the person of his master the major.
He alone was in Sir Reginald’s confidence, and naturally a silent and
taciturn man; touching his master’s private affairs, he was mute as the
grave.
“Here, Cox, I thought I would show you this,” said Sir Reginald,
holding out the paper and pointing to the announcement.
Cox saluted, slowly read the paragraph, and stared blankly at his
master; then recovering his manners and his presence of mind, said
concisely:
“I give you joy, sir.”
“Thank you,” said Sir Reginald, pouring out a tumbler of champagne;
“you are to drink his health and keep the news to yourself.”
“Health and happiness and a long life,” said Cox, quaffing off the
toast as if it was spring water and wiping his mouth with the back of
his hand. After staring expectantly at his master for some seconds, and
finding him evidently buried in his own thoughts, he added gruffly: “I
suppose I may go now, sir.” An eager nod of assent was his only answer,
and he lost no time in backing himself out into the verandah, and
hurrying off to his barrack-room in time to report himself before the
bugles sounded the last post.
The following mail brought a letter from Mrs. Mayhew. She generally
enclosed a little note in her husband’s epistles, but this was a long
effusion for a wonder.
“Monkswood.
“MY DEAR REGINALD,
“You will have already seen the birth of your son and heir in the
paper, and no doubt were as much astonished as everyone else. For the
last six months Alice has lived in the greatest retirement, seeing
no one. Two or three times we have asked her to come up to us, and
she always excused herself with one ridiculous plea after another.
A telegram from the housekeeper last Tuesday brought me down here
the same evening, and I found Alice very, very ill--so ill that for
several days the doctors were afraid to hold out any hopes of her
recovery. I dared not write and tell you this last mail, but waited
till this one, in hopes of sending you better news. Her youth and a
wonderful constitution have pulled her through, and I may say that
she is out of danger, though still extremely weak, and subject to
prolonged fainting fits.
“The life that she has led for the last few months has been the chief
cause of her illness. Morris tells me that she used to walk for hours
through the woods in all weathers, and took so little food that it
is a wonder she did not die of simple inanition. She never dined,
but simply went through the farce of sitting at table breaking up
breadcrumbs, sending away the most tempting delicacies untasted. Poor
motherless girl, angry as I am with her, I cannot help being sorry for
her; she is so innocent, so utterly inexperienced, and so alone in the
world--thanks to herself of course. If she had been a trusting wife,
how happy and proud you would both be now! She is so good and patient
I cannot help loving her, in spite of myself. Her pride in her baby is
simply ridiculous, and very touching to see. To hear her, you would
think it was the first of its species, or at any rate that nothing so
beautiful and so remarkable in every way had ever been born. A mother
at eighteen, and looking even younger, I tell her that no one will
ever believe the child is hers. She has about as much experience of
babies as my Hilda--a baby with a baby. He is a splendid boy, a real
Fairfax. If I were to declare that he is like you, you would say,
‘Rubbish, all babies are exactly alike!’ But he _is_ very like you all
the same. He is to be called Maurice, after her father, and Mark and
I are to be sponsors. I have just asked Alice if she has any message
for you, and she has replied in a very low and subdued voice--_none_.
I have no patience with her. I should like to take her baby out of her
arms and give her _such_ a shaking, only she looks so dreadfully frail
and delicate--I really _would_. I need not tell you that now, more
than ever, it behoves you to trace the false certificate. It is too
provoking that you have not been able to get leave to go to Cheetapore
and search personally. It is really a dreadful misfortune the register
being lost, and the clergyman and clerk both dead; but money can do
a _great deal_, and you are the last man in the world to spare it. I
will write again very shortly, and hope to have good news from you
before long.
“Your affectionate Cousin,
“HELEN MAYHEW.”
Helen kept her promise, and during her stay at Monkswood Reginald heard
from her regularly; but neither line nor message was ever enclosed from
his wife, so neither line nor message was ever sent by him. He did not
even mention her name in his letters--letters which Helen could not
refuse to Alice’s wistful eyes--letters which Alice read with pale face
and trembling lips, and returned without a single observation.
Two months later a bad attack of jungle fever procured Sir Reginald
leave of absence. For months he had been like a bird beating against
the bars of his cage to get away to Cheetapore, as letters, telegrams,
and inquiries of all kinds had been utterly useless in throwing any
light on the mysterious certificate. But the colonel of the Seventeenth
Hussars was rather short of officers, and could not spare his smart
young major, who had no claim whatever to leave, having so recently
arrived from England; besides, his particular motto was, “No leave,”
and as an Irish sub once angrily expressed it, “No leave, and as little
of that as possible.”
At last Sir Reginald reached Cheetapore, very much knocked up by
the long journey, and a mere shadow of the man who had left it two
years previously. The Twenty-ninth Dragoons, who had replaced his
old regiment, hospitably took him in and “put him up.” For two or
three days he was prostrated by a recurrence of the fever, and fit
for nothing. The first evening he was able to go out he went and
called on the chaplain. He was not at home. Leaving a note to make an
appointment, he went on to the band with one of his entertainers. As
they drove round the circle, Miss Mason--still Miss Mason--lolling
back in her carriage, could scarcely believe her eyes, and Mrs.
Chambers, her once firm ally and now implacable enemy, could hardly
trust hers either. She said to one of the Twenty-ninth, who lounged
up to her barouche: “Who is that in the dog-cart with Captain Fox? He
looks frightfully ill.”
“Oh, that’s Fairfax of the Seventeenth Hussars. He has come down here
on some mysterious errand or other. He would be much better on his way
to Europe instead. Looks as if he was going off the hooks, doesn’t he?”
“He looks very ill indeed. What on earth brings him here?”
“Well, if you won’t repeat it, I’ll tell you,” coming closer and
speaking confidentially. “Strictly private, you understand. Mum’s the
word.”
“Oh, of course!”
“Well, I believe it’s about a marriage certificate which someone posted
home from here, and has caused the most frightful unpleasantness in his
family. He has a wife in England, so you may fancy there was rather a
scrimmage. He was only just married, and to a most awfully pretty girl
too, when this particular missive dropped in. She left him at once, and
he came out here with the Seventeenth. He has left no stone unturned to
get the affair cleared up, but he has only managed to come down and see
after it himself now--leave stopped. I fancy he will make it pretty hot
for the forger if he finds him! It’s ten years’ penal servitude, is it
not?”
“I am sure I don’t know,” replied the fair culprit faintly, looking
very white. “But oh! if she could only be the means of getting
Charlotte Mason transferred to Australia at Government expense! How
too delightful it would be!” ignoring her own little share in the
transaction. “Did you say that his wife had left him?” she asked,
looking intently at Sir Reginald, whose dog-cart was drawn up close by.
“So he told me.”
“How ill and worn he looks,” she thought, gazing at him. “Supposing
he should die!--he looked as if he had death in his face. If he did,
she would never know a moment’s peace--never! She would make full
confession and trust to his mercy. He would not be hard upon her, it
was not _her_ fault; it was Charlotte Mason’s scheme, and Charlotte
ought to be shown up, unmasked, and transported.” Being a person who
almost always acted on impulse, she beckoned to Captain Fox as soon
as her former cavalier had sauntered away, and asked him to tell Sir
Reginald Fairfax that she wished to speak to him particularly. Much
bewildered and with great reluctance he slowly followed the messenger
to the carriage, where Mrs. Chambers, with a rather frightened white
face, accosted him:
“I see you do not remember me, Captain Fairfax? It quite shocks me to
see you looking so ill.”
He bowed and muttered inaudibly.
“Won’t you get into my carriage for a little, and we can talk over old
times?” Seeing him hesitate, she bent over the side of the carriage and
whispered in his ear: “It’s about the certificate.”
With an alacrity she was quite unprepared for from his languid and
delicate appearance, he accepted her invitation and took a seat
opposite her, and turning his clear dark eyes upon her, looked as if he
would read her very soul.
Meanwhile Captain Fox sauntered off to join a promenading dandy,
muttering to himself: “That Mrs. Chambers sticks at nothing; she is
becoming faster and more foolish than ever! The idea of her tackling a
strange fellow like that! I had no idea he was such an ass! A regular
case of ‘“Walk into my parlour,” said the spider to the fly.’”
“Sir Reginald,” said the spider to the supposed fly, “I have something
to tell you,” and forthwith she unfolded her tale from beginning to
end. When she came to the part where she mentioned it as a joke his
eyes literally blazed, and he seemed with difficulty to refrain from
some exclamation; but till she concluded he was perfectly silent. When
she stopped to take breath after her hurried confession, he asked, with
pardonable vehemence:
“What have I ever done to Miss Mason or you that you should do me such
a deadly injury? Do you know that the happiness of my life has been
utterly destroyed by your ‘joke,’ as you are pleased to call it? I must
say that your and Miss Mason’s reading of the word is very different
to mine. The least you can do, and _shall_ do,” he said, looking at
her sternly, “will be to make out a written confession of everything,
and send it up to my quarters (Captain Fox’s) to-morrow. I can hardly
believe that you can have been the credulous tool you would appear.
Good evening,” he said, springing out of the carriage and walking over
towards that of her confederate, who had been watching the conference
with the liveliest dismay.
“Miss Mason,” he exclaimed abruptly, perfectly heedless of two of Miss
Mason’s satellites, who, with elbows on the carriage, and got-up with
enormous care, had been regaling the fair Charlotte with scraps of
the latest gossip--“Miss Mason,” he reiterated, “I know _all_!” There
was an indignant tone in his voice and an angry light in his eyes that
absolutely cowed _her_ and astounded her companions. “You have forged
an infamous lie, you have tampered with a church register, you have
caused the greatest misery to a man who never wronged you, and to a
girl whom you have never even seen! You are a forger,” he continued,
almost choked between the two emotions which were struggling in his
breast--joy and rage. “Unless by to-morrow morning you have made a full
and explicit written statement of the whole affair, duly signed and
witnessed, I shall submit the case to the cantonment magistrate, and
you will be prepared to take the consequences. Penal servitude is what
you deserve,” he added with bitter emphasis, as with a parting look of
unspeakable indignation he turned and made his way through the crowd.
His face was livid, his eyes burned like two coals. Captain Fox gazed
at him in undisguised astonishment. “Jove!” he thought, “what a temper
the fellow must have! He looks ready to jump down the throat of all
Cheetapore this instant. He is not a man I should care to trifle with.
The fair Chambers has evidently put him out, to say the least of it.”
Sir Reginald hurriedly took him aside, and in as few words as possible
told him the story; and then Captain Fox’s face was a study. His
indignation knew no bounds. His expressions in connection with Miss
Mason’s name were startlingly strong and vehement, and he laid the whip
about his unlucky harness hack as if he had the fair culprit herself
between the shafts.
Mrs. Chambers’ “letter” arrived the following morning, and although
somewhat more pressure had to be brought to bear on Miss Mason, her
confession was received in due time. Both were enclosed to Mr. Mayhew,
who was to read them and forward them to Monkswood.
“Now she will, she must give in,” thought her husband. “In two months
her letter will be out here, and in three, please goodness, I shall be
in England.”
It is hardly necessary to state that the whole story of the practical
joke was all over Cheetapore in less than two days. Captain Fox was
by no means reticent on the subject, which was soon known to all
the Dragoons, and from them filtered to the cantonment in general.
Sir Reginald was the object of universal sympathy, and interest was
considerably augmented by the rumoured youth and beauty of his wife.
The whole incident had a romantic flavour about it that gratified
the jaded palates of the Cheetapore _monde_, and it afforded them an
universally interesting nine-days’ wonder. As to Miss Mason, the place
was literally too hot to hold her. She and her colleague were put into
“Coventry” forthwith. Finding such a position unbearable, she took
the earliest opportunity of leaving the station and going on a long
visit “up country.” But wherever she went the story was whispered with
various additions, _cela va sans dire_; and to the end of her life she
will have good reason to regret her _practical joke_.
END OF VOL. I.
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=A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE.= By MABEL COLLINS, Author of “Too Red a Dawn,”
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=FLAT REBELLION.= A Jersey Story. By BYRON WEBBER, Author of “In
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=MR. WALKER’S LUGGAGE.= By EDMUND DOWNEY.
=HOW HE DISCOVERED IT.= By Mrs. ALFRED PHILLIPS, Author of
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