by Ellen Wood
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.
THE END
JOHNNY LUDLOW. FIFTH SERIES
CONTENTS
FEATHERSTON’S STORY.
WATCHING ON ST. MARK’S EVE.
SANKER’S VISIT.
ROGER MONK.
THE EBONY BOX.
OUR FIRST TERM AT OXFORD.
FEATHERSTON’S STORY.
I.
I have called this Featherston’s story, because it was through him that I heard about it — and, indeed, saw a little of it towards the end.
Buttermead, the wide straggling district to which Featherston enjoyed the honour of being doctor-in-ordinary, was as rural as any that can be found in Worcestershire. Featherston’s house stood at the end of the village. Whitney Hall lay close by; as did our school, Dr. Frost’s. In the neighbourhood were scattered a few other substantial residences, some farmers’ homesteads and labourers’ cottages. Featherston was a slim man, with long thin legs and a
face grey and careworn. His patients (like the soldier’s steam arm) gave him no rest day or night.
There is no need to go into details here about Featherston’s people. His sister, Mary Ann, lived in his house at one time, and for everyday ailments was almost as good a doctor as he. She was not at all like him: a merry, talkative, sociable little woman, with black hair and quick, kindly dark eyes.
Our resident French master in those days at Dr. Frost’s was one Monsieur Jules Carimon: a small man with honest blue eyes in his clean-shaven face, and light brown hair cropped close to his head. He was an awful martinet at study, but a genial little gentleman out of it. To the surprise of Buttermead, he and Mary Featherston set up a courtship. It was carried on in sober fashion, as befitted a sober couple who had both left thirty years, and the rest, behind them; and after a summer or two of it they laid plans for their marriage and for living in France.
“I’m sure I don’t know what on earth I shall do amongst the French, Johnny Ludlow,” Mary said to me in her laughing way, when I and Bill Whitney were having tea at Featherston’s one half-holiday, the week before the wedding. “Jules protests they are easier to get on with than the English; not so stiff and formal; but I don’t pay attention to all he says, you know.”
Monsieur Jules Carimon was going to settle down at his native place, Sainteville — a town on the opposite coast, which had a service of English steamers running to it two or three times a-week. He had obtained the post of first classical master at the college there, and meant to eke out his salary (never large in French colleges) by teaching French and mathematics to as many English pupils as he could obtain out of hours. Like other northern French seaport towns, Sainteville had its small colony of British residents.
“We shall get on; I am not afraid,” answered Mary Featherston to a doubting remark made to her by old Mrs. Selby of the Court. “Neither I nor Jules have been accustomed to luxury, and we don’t care for it. We would as soon make our dinner of bread-and-butter and radishes, as of chicken and apple-tart.”
So the wedding took place, and they departed the same day for Sainteville. And of the first two or three years after that there’s nothing good or bad to record.
Selby Court lay just outside Buttermead. Its mistress, an ancient lady now, was related to the Preen family, of whom I spoke in that story which told of the tragical death of Oliver. Lavinia Preen, sister to Oliver’s father, Gervase Preen, but younger, lived with Mrs. Selby as a sort of adopted daughter; and when the death of the father, old Mr. Preen, left nearly all his large family with scarcely any cheese to their bread, Mrs. Selby told Ann Preen, the youngest of them all, that she might come to her also. So Lavinia and Ann Preen lived at the Court, and had no other home.
These two ladies were intimate with Mary Featherston, all three being much attached to one another. When Mary married and left her country for France, the Miss Preens openly resented it, saying she ought to have had more consideration. Did some premonitory instinct prompt that unreasonable resentment? I cannot say. No one can say. But it is certain that had Mary Featherston not gone to live abroad, the ominous chain of events fated to engulf the sisters could not have touched them, and this account, which is a perfectly true one, would never have been written.
For a short time after the marriage they and Mary Carimon exchanged a letter now and then; not often, for foreign postage was expensive; and then it dropped altogether.
Mrs. Selby became an invalid, and died. She left each of the two sisters seventy pounds a-year for life; if the one died, the other was to enjoy the whole; when both were dead, it would lapse back to the Selby estate.
“Seventy pounds a-year!” remarked Ann Preen to her sister. “It does not seem very much, does it, Lavinia? Shall we be able to live upon it?”
They were seated in the wainscoted parlour at Selby Court, talking of the future. The funeral was over, and they must soon leave; for the house was waiting to be done up for the reception of its new master, Mr. Paul Selby, an old bachelor full of nervous fancies.
“We must live upon it, Nancy,” said Lavinia in answer to her.
She was the stronger-minded of the two, and she looked it. A keen, practical woman, of rather more than middle height, with smooth brown hair, pleasant, dark hazel eyes, and a bright glow in her cheeks. Ann (or Nancy, as she was more often called) was smaller and lighter, with a pretty face, a shower of fair ringlets, and mild, light-blue eyes; altogether not unlike a pink-and-white wax doll.
“We should have been worse off, Nancy, had she not left us anything; and sometimes I have feared she might not,” remarked Lavinia cheerfully. “It will be a hundred and forty pounds between us, dear; we can live upon that.”
“Of course we can, if you think so, Lavinia,” said the other, who deemed her elder sister wiser than any one in the world, and revered her accordingly.
“But we should live cheaper abroad than here, I expect,” continued Lavinia. “It’s said money goes twice as far in France as in England. Suppose we were to go over, Nancy, and try? We could come back if we did not like it.”
Nancy’s eyes sparkled. “I think it would be delightful,” she said. “Money go further in France — why, to be sure it does! Aunt Emily is able to live like a princess at Tours, by all accounts. Yes, yes, Lavinia, let us try France!”
One fine spring morning the Miss Preens packed up their bag and baggage and started for the Continent. They went direct to Tours, intending to make that place their pied-à-terre, as the French phrase it; at any rate, for a time. It was not, perhaps, the wisest thing they could have done.
For Mrs. Magnus, formerly Emily Preen, and their late father’s sister, did not welcome them warmly. She lived in style herself, one of the leading stars in the society of Tours; and she did not at all like that two middle-aged nieces, of straitened means, should take up their abode in the next street. So Mrs. Magnus met her nieces with the assurance that Tours would not do for them; it was too expensive a place; they would be swamped in it. Mrs. Magnus was drawing near to the close of her life then; had she known it, she might have been kinder, and let them remain; but she was not able to foresee the hour of that great event which must happen to us all any more than other people are. Oliver Preen was with her then, revelling in the sunny days which were flitting away on gossamer wings.
“Lavinia, do you think we can stay at Tours?”
The Miss Preens had descended at a fourth-rate hotel, picked out of the guide-book. When Ann asked this question, they were sitting after dinner in the table d’hôte room, their feet on the sanded floor. Sanded floors were quite usual at that time in many parts of France.
“Stay here to put up with Aunt Emily’s pride and insolence!” quickly answered Miss Preen. “No. I will tell you what I have done, Ann. I wrote yesterday to Mary Carimon, asking her about Sainteville; whether she thinks it will suit us, and so on. As soon as her answer comes — she’s certain to say yes — we will go, dear, and leave Mrs. Magnus to her grandeur. And, once we are safe away, I shall write her a letter,” added Lavinia, in decisive tones; “a letter which she won’t like.”
Madame Carimon’s answer came by return of post. It was as cordial as herself. Sainteville would be the very place for them, she said, and she should count the hours until they were there.
The Miss Preens turned their backs upon Tours, shaking its dust off their shoes. Lavinia had a little nest of accumulated money, so was at ease in that respect. And when the evening of the following day the railway terminus at Sainteville was reached, the pleasant, smiling face of Mary Carimon was the first they saw outside the barrière. She must have been nearly forty now, but she did not look a day older than when she had left Buttermead. Miss Lavinia was a year or two older than Mary; Miss Ann a year or two younger.
“You must put up at the Hôtel des Princes,” remarked Madame Carimon. “It is the only really good one in the town. They won’t charge you too much; my husband has spoken to the landlady. And you must spend to-morrow with me.”
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The hotel omnibus was waiting for them and other passengers, the luggage was piled on the roof, and Madame Carimon accompanied them to the hotel. A handsome hotel, the sisters thought; quite another thing from the one at Tours. Mary Carimon introduced them to the landlady, Madame Podevin, saw them seated down to tea and a cold fowl, and then left for the night.
With Sainteville the Miss Preens were simply charmed. It was a fresh, clean town, with wide streets, and good houses and old families, and some bright shops. The harbour was large, and the pier extended out to the open sea.
“I should like to live here!” exclaimed Miss Lavinia, sitting down at Madame Carimon’s, in a state of rapture. “I never saw such a nice town, or such a lovely market.”
They had been about all the morning with Madame Carimon. It was market-day, Wednesday. The market was held on the Grande Place; and the delicious butter, the eggs, the fresh vegetables, the flowers and the poultry, took Miss Lavinia’s heart by storm. Nancy was more taken with the picturesque market-women, in their white caps and long gold ear-rings. Other ladies were doing their marketing as well as Madame Carimon. She spoke to most of them, in French or in English, as the case might be. Under the able tuition of her husband, she talked French fluently now.
Madame Carimon’s habitation — very nice, small and compact — was in the Rue Pomme Cuite. The streets have queer names in some of these old French towns. It was near the college, which was convenient for Monsieur Carimon. Here they lived, with their elderly servant, Pauline. The same routine went on daily in the steady little domicile from year’s end to year’s end.
“Jules goes to the college at eight o’clock every week-day, after a cup of coffee and a petit pain,” said madame to her guests, “and he returns at five to dinner. He takes his déjeûner in the college at twelve, and I take mine alone at home. On Sundays he has no duty: we attend the French Protestant Church in a morning, dine at one o’clock, and go for a walk in the afternoon.”