The doctor"s visits were watched with the most intense interest; three times a-day at first, then twice a-day, then once; and then they ceased altogether.
"Black lady on her legs again?" says Ben Rymer, meeting Cole about this time. "Quite so," answers Cole. "Mind that you get paid, sir," says Ben, with a laugh. "No need to mind that," returns Cole, "five sovereigns were put into my hand when the child was born." "By the black lady?"
asks Ben, opening his eyes: for two guineas was the crack fee in our parts. "Yes, it _was_ the black lady who gave it me," says Cole with emphasis: "and that, she took care to say, was not to include subsequent attendance. Wish you the same luck in your next case, Rymer."
Rymer thanked him and went off laughing. He was getting on in his practice like a house on fire, his fame rising daily.
"How do you like it--his setting up here?" confidentially questioned the Squire of Darbyshire, the doctor at Timberdale.
"Plenty of room for both of us," replied Darbyshire, "and I am not as young as I was. It rather strikes me, though, Squire, it is not exactly at Timberdale that Rymer will pitch his tent."
The next exciting event had nothing to do with North Villa. It was the arrival of Archdeacon Sale with his wife and children. They did not go to Coralie"s. Herbert Tanerton opened his heart, and carried them off to the Rectory from the railway-station. That was so like Herbert! Had Sale remained a poor curate he might have gone to the workhouse and taken Margaret with him; being an archdeacon Herbert chose to make much of him. Margaret was not altered, she was loving and gentle as ever; with the same nice face, and poor Thomas Rymer"s sad, sweet eyes shining from it.
Of course the first thing confided to the Bahama travellers was the mystery at North Villa. The Archdeacon took a sensible view of it. "As long as the black lady does not molest you," he said, "why trouble yourselves about her?"
After that we had a bit of a lull. Nothing exciting occurred. Saving a report that two of the Indians were seen taking the air in the garden of North Villa, each with a formidable stick in his hand. But it turned out that they were two tramps who had gone in to beg.
III.
I thought it would have come to a quarrel. The Squire maintained his view and Coralie maintained hers. They talked at each other daily, neither giving way.
Christmas-Day was approaching, and it had pleased Miss Fontaine to project a sumptuous dinner for it, to be given at Oxlip Grange to all her special friends. The Squire protested he never heard of anything so unreasonable. He did not dine out of his own house on Christmas-Day, and she must come to Crabb Cot.
The third week in December had set in, when one evening, as we rose from table, the Squire impulsively declared he would go and finally have it out with her.
Meaning Coralie. Settling himself into his great-coat, he called to me to go after him. In the Islip Road we overtook Cole, walking fast also.
He had been sent for to the baby at North Villa, he said; and we left him at the gate.
Coralie was in her favourite little parlour, reading by lamplight. The Squire sat down by the fire in a flutter, and began remonstrating about the Christmas dinner. Coralie only laughed.
"It is unreasonable, dear Mr. Todhetley, even to propose our going to you. Think of the number! I wish to have everybody. The Archdeacon and his wife, and Dr. Rymer, and Mrs. Cramp, and the Letsoms, and Tom Chandler and Emma, and of course, her father, old Mr. Paul, as he is some relation of mine, and---- Why, that"s a carriage driving up! I wonder who has come to-night?"
Another minute, and old Ozias rushed in with a beaming face, hardly able to get his words out for excitement.
"Oh, Missee, Missee, it Ma.s.sa George; come all over wide seas from home,"--and there entered a fine man with a frank and handsome face--George Bazalgette.
"Where"s Verena?" he exclaimed, after kissing Coralie and shaking hands genially with the Squire, though they had never met before.
Coralie looked surprised. "Verena?" she repeated. "Is she not with you?"
"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. d.i.c.kson.
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. d.i.c.kson was his aunt and lived in a particularly healthy part of one of the adjoining islands. Time pa.s.sed 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. d.i.c.kson"s. Mrs. d.i.c.kson 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 pa.s.sed; no news of Verena, no letters, and he proceeded again to Mrs.
d.i.c.kson"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. d.i.c.kson 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 a.s.sured 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. d.i.c.kson 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 pa.s.sage. "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. d.i.c.kson 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. d.i.c.kson 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 divertis.e.m.e.nt 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 G.o.dmother.