Johnny Ludlow Third Series Part 54

Still I did not believe it could be my Nash, but I could see that Mr.

Munn did believe it was. At least he thought there was something strange about it all, especially our not hearing from Nash: and at length I determined to come home and see about it."

"You must have been a long time coming," remarked the Squire. "The child is fifteen months old."

"But you must remember that often we did not get news until six months after its date. And I chose a most unfortunate route--overland from California to New York."

"What on earth---- Why, people are sometimes a twelvemonth or so doing that!" cried the Squire. "There are rocky mountains to scale, as I've heard and read, and Red Indians to encounter, and all sorts of horrors.

Those who undertake it travel in bands, do they not? and are called pilgrims, and some of them don't get to the end of the journey alive."

"True," she sighed. "I would never have attempted it had I known what it would be: but I did so dread the sea. Several of us were laid up midway, and had to be left behind at a small settlement: one or two died. It was a long, long time, and only after surmounting great discomforts and difficulties, we reached New York."

"Well?" said the Squire. It must be remembered that they were speaking of days now gone by, when the journey was just what she described it.

"I could hear nothing of my husband in New York," she resumed, "except that Abraham Whitter believed him to be at home here. I took the steamer for Liverpool, landed at dawn this morning, and came on by rail. And I find it is my husband who is married. And what am I to do?"

She melted away into tears again. The Squire told her that she must present herself at the farm; she was its legal mistress, and Nash Caromel's true wife. But she shook her head at this: she wouldn't bring any such trouble upon Nash for the world, as to show him suddenly that she was living. What he had done he must have done unwittingly, she said, believing her to be dead, and he ought not to suffer for it more than could be helped. Which was a lenient way of reasoning that put the Squire's temper up.

"He deserves no quarter, ma'am, and _I_ will not give it him if you do.

Within a week of the time he heard of your death he went and took that Charlotte Nave. Though I expect it was she who took him--brazen hussy!

And I am glad you have come to put her out!"

But, nothing would induce Charlotte the First to a.s.sume this view, or to admit that blame could attach to Nash. Once he had lost her by death, he had a right to marry again, she contended. As to the haste--well, she had been dead (as he supposed) a great many months when he heard of it, and that should be considered. The Squire exploded, and walked about the room, and rubbed his hair the wrong way, and thought her no better than an imbecile.

Mrs. Todhetley came in, and there was a little scene. Charlotte declined our offer of a bed and refreshment, saying she would like to go to her mother's for the night: she felt that she should be received gladly, though they had parted in anger and had held no communication with one another since.

Gladly? ay, joyfully. Little doubt of that. So the Squire put on his hat, and she her bonnet, and away they started, and I with them.

We took the lonely path across the fields: her appearance might have raised a stir in the highway. Charlotte was but little altered, and would have been recognized at once. And I have no s.p.a.ce to tell of the scene at Mrs. Tinkle's, which was as good as a play, or of the way they rushed into one another's arms.

"Johnny, there's something on my mind," said the Squire in a low tone as we were going back towards home: and he was looking grave and silent as a judge. "Do you remember those two foreign letters we chanced to see of Nash Caromel's, with the odd handwriting, all quavers and tails?"

"Yes, I do, sir. They were s.h.i.+p letters."

"Well, lad, a very ugly suspicion has come into my head, and I can't drive it away. I believe those two letters were from Charlotte--the two she speaks of--I believe the handwriting which puzzled me was hers. Now, if so, Nash went to the altar with that other Charlotte, knowing this one was alive: for the first letter came the day before the marriage."

I did not answer. But I remembered what I had overheard Nave the lawyer say to Nash Caromel: "You must marry her: where there's a will there's a way"--or words to that effect. Had Nave concocted the letters which pretended to tell of Mrs. Nash Caromel's death, and got them posted to Nash from New York?

With the morning, the Squire was at Caromel's Farm. The old-fas.h.i.+oned low house, the sun s.h.i.+ning on its quaint windows, looked still and quiet as he walked up to the front-door across the gra.s.s-plat, in the middle of which grew a fine mulberry-tree. The news of Charlotte's return, as he was soon to find, had travelled to it already; had spread to the village. For she had been recognized the night before on her arrival; and her boxes, left in charge of a porter, bore her full name, Mrs. Nash Caromel.

Nash stood in that little library of his in a state of agitation not to be described; he as good as confessed, when the Squire tackled him, that he _had_ known his wife might have been alive, and that it was all Nave's doings. At least he suspected that the letter, telling of her death, might be a forgery.

"Anyway, you had a letter from her the day before you married, so you must have known it by that," cried the Squire; who had so much to do always with the Caromel family that he deemed it his duty to interfere.

"What on earth could have possessed you?"

"I--was driven into a corner," gasped Nash.

"I'd be driven into fifty corners before I'd marry two wives," retorted the Squire. "And now, sir, what do you mean to do?"

"I can't tell," answered Nash.

"A pretty kettle of fish this is! What do you suppose your father would have said to it?"

"I'm sure I can't tell," repeated Nash helplessly, biting his lips to get some life into them.

"And what's the matter with your hands that they are so hot and white?"

Nash glanced at his hands, and hid them away in his pockets. He looked like a man consumed by inward fever.

"I have not been over well for some time past," said he.

"No wonder--with the consciousness of this discovery hanging over your head! It might have sent some men into their graves."

Nash drummed upon the window pane. What in the world to do, what to say, evidently he knew not.

"You must put away this Jez--this lady," went on the Squire. "It was she who bewitched you; ay, and set herself out to do it, as all the parish saw. Let her go back to her father: you might make some provision for her: and instal your wife here in her proper place. Poor thing! she is so meek and patient! She won't hear a word said against you; thinks you are a saint. _I_ think you a scoundrel, Nash: and I tell you so to your face."

The door had slowly opened; somebody, who had been outside, listening, put in her head. A very pretty head, and that's the truth, surmounting a fas.h.i.+onable morning costume of rose-coloured muslin, all flounces and furbelows. It was Charlotte the Second. The Squire had called her a brazen hussy behind her back; he had much ado this morning not to call her so to her face.

"What's that I hear you saying to my husband, Mr. Todhetley--that he should discard me and admit that creature here! How dare you bring your pernicious counsels into this house?"

"Why, bless my heart, he is her husband, madam; he is not yours. You'd not stay here yourself, surely!"

"This is my home, and he is _my_ husband, and my child is his heir; and that woman may go back over the seas whence she came. Is it not so, Nash? Tell him."

She put her hand on Nash's shoulder, and he tried to get out something or other in obedience to her. He was as much under her finger and thumb as Punch in the street is under the showman's. The Squire went into a purple heat.

"You married him by craft, madam--as I believe from my very soul: you married him, knowing, you and your father also, that his wife was alive.

He knew it, too. The motive must have been one of urgency, I should say, but I've nothing to do with that----"

"Nor with any other business of ours," she answered with a brazen face.

"This business is mine, and all Church d.y.k.ely's," flashed the Squire.

"It is public property. And now, I ask you both, what you mean to do in this dilemma you have brought upon yourselves? His wife is waiting to come in, and you cannot keep her out."

"She shall never come in; I tell you that," flashed Charlotte the Second. "She sent word to him that she was dead, and she must abide by it; from that time she was dead to him, dead for ever. Mr. Caromel married me equally in the eyes of the world: and here I shall stay with him, his true and lawful wife."

The Squire rubbed his face; the torrent of words and the heat made it glisten.

"Stay here, would you, madam! What luck do you suppose would come of that?"

"Luck! I have quite as much luck as I require. Nash, why do you not request this--this gentleman to leave us?"

"Why, he _dare_ not keep you here," cried the Squire, pa.s.sing over the last compliment. "He would be prosecuted for--you know what."

"Let him be prosecuted! Let the wicked woman do her worst. Let her bring an action, and we'll defend it. I have more right to him than she has.

Mr. Caromel, _do_ you wish to keep up this interview until night?"

"Perhaps you had better go now, Squire," put in the man pleadingly.

"I--I will consult Nave, and see what's to be done. She may like to go back to California, to the Munns; the climate suited her: and--and an income might be arranged."