Necessity is the mother of invention. Something she must do, and her brain hastily concocted the plan she should adopt. Putting the cloth and the bread and cheese on the table, she took the jug and went out at the front door to fetch the usual pint of ale. A moment or two she stood at the front door, peering up and down the road to make sure that no one was passing. Then she slipped out, locking the door softly; and, carrying the key concealed in the hollow of her hand, she threw it amidst the shrubs at No 1. Now she could not get into the house herself; she would not have entered it alone for the world: people must break it open. All along the way to the post-office, to which she really did go, and then to the Swan, she was mentally rehearsing her tale. And it succeeded in deceiving us all, as the reader knows. With regard to the visit of her brother on the Wednesday, she had told Thomas Owen the strict truth; though, when he first alluded to it in the churchyard, her feelings were wrought up to such a pitch that she could only cry out and escape. But how poor Matilda contrived to live on and carry out her invented story, how she bore the inward distress and repentance that lay upon her, we shall never know. A distress, remorse, repentance that never quitted her, night or day; and which no doubt contributed to gradually unhinge her mind, and throw it finally off its balance.
Such was the true history of the affair at No. 7, which had been so great a mystery to Saltwater. The truth was never made public, save to the very few who were specially interested in it. Matilda Valentine is in an asylum, and likely to remain there for life; whilst Thomas Owen and his wife flourish in sunshine, happy as a summer day is long.
CARAMEL COTTAGE
I.—EDGAR RESTE
I
It was early in August, and we were at Dyke Manor, for the Squire had let us go home from school for the Worcester races. We had joined him at Worcester the previous day, Tuesday, driving home with him in the evening. To-morrow, Thursday, he would drive us over to the course again; to-day, Wednesday, the horses would have rest; and on Friday we must return to school.
Breakfast was over, the Squire gone out, and the few minutes’ Bible-reading to us—which Mrs. Todhetley never forgot, though Tod did not always stay in for it, but he did this morning—came to an end. Hannah appeared at the door as she closed the Book.
“Miss Barbary’s come, ma’am,” she said.
“Run, my dear,” cried Mrs. Todhetley to Lena.
“I don’t want to,” said Lena, running to the open window instead, and nearly pitching head-foremost through it: upon which Hannah captured her and carried her off.
“Who on earth is Miss Barbary?” questioned Tod. “Any relation to the man at Caramel Cottage?”
“His daughter,” said Mrs. Todhetley. “She comes to teach Lena French.”
“Hope she’s less of a shady character than her father!” was Tod’s free comment.
A year or two before this, a stranger had made his appearance at Church Dykely, and put up at the Silver Bear. He was a gentlemanly-looking man of perhaps forty years, tall, slender, agile, with thin, distinguished features, an olive skin, black hair, and eyes of a peculiar shade of deep steel-blue. People went into raptures over his face, and called it beautiful. And so it was; but to my thinking it had a look in it that was the opposite of beautiful; any way, the opposite of good. They said it was my fancy at home: but Duffham owned to the same fancy. His name, as he wrote it down one day at the Silver Bear, was Pointz Barbary. After a week’s stay at the inn, he, finding, I suppose, that the neighbourhood suited him, looked out for a little place to settle down upon, and met with it in Caramel Cottage, a small dwelling near to us, on the property called Caramel’s Farm. The cottage was then to be let, and Mr. Barbary went into it.
Some items of his past history came out by degrees; it is hard to say how, for he told none himself. Now and then some former friend or other came to pay him a short visit; and it may be that these strangers talked about him.
Pointz Barbary, a gentleman by descent, and once of fairly good substance, had been a great traveller, had roved pretty nearly all over the world. The very few relatives he possessed lived in Canada—people of condition, it was said—and his own property (what was left of it) was also there. He had been married twice. First to a young lady in France; her friends (English) having settled there for economy’s sake. She died at the end of the year, leaving him a little girl, that the mother’s people at once took to. Next he married a Miss Reste, daughter of Colonel Reste, in her Majesty’s service. A few years later she also died—died of consumption—leaving him a widower and childless. It’s true he had his first wife’s daughter, but she lived in France with her mother’s sister, so he did not get much benefit from her.
Mr. Barbary was poor. No mistake about that. The interest of his first wife’s money brought him in fifty-two pounds yearly, and this he would enjoy till his death, when it went to his daughter. Miss Reste had brought him several thousand pounds; but he and she had lived away, and not a stiver remained of it. His own means had also been spent lavishly; and, so far as was known, he had but the two and fifty pounds a year to live upon at Caramel Cottage, with a chance remittance from Canada now and again.
He made no acquaintance at Church Dykely, and none was made with him. Civilly courteous in a rather grand and haughty way when he met people, so far as a few remarks went, touching the weather or the crops, and similar safe topics, he yet kept the world at a distance. As the time went on it was thought there might be a reason for this. Whispers began to circulate that Mr. Barbary’s doings were not orthodox. He was suspected of poaching, both in game and fish, and a strong feeling of shyness grew up against him.
Some few months prior to the present time—August—his daughter came to Caramel Cottage. Her aunt in France was dead, and she had no home henceforth but her father’s. That I and Tod had not seen or heard of her until now, was owing to the midsummer holidays having been spent at Crabb Cot. The vacation over, and Mrs. Todhetley back at Dyke Manor, she found herself called upon by Miss Barbary. Hearing that Mrs. Todhetley wished her little girl to begin French, she had come to offer herself as teacher. The upshot was that she was engaged, and came for a couple of hours every morning to drill French into Lena.
“What’s she like?” asked Tod of the mother, upon her explaining this. “Long and thin and dark, like Barbary, and disagreeable with a self-contained reticence?”
“She is not the least like him in any way,” was Mrs. Todhetley’s answer. “She is charmingly simple—good, I am sure, and one of the most open-natured girls I ever met. ‘I wish to do it for the sake of earning a little money,’ she said to me, when asking to come. ‘My dear father is not rich, and if I can help him in ever so small a way I shall be thankful.’ The tears almost came into her eyes as she spoke,” added Mrs. Todhetley; “she quite won my heart.”
“She seems to think great things of that respectable parent of hers!” commented Tod.
“Oh, yes. Whatever may be the truth as to his failings, she sees none in him. And, my dears, better that it should be so. She earns a little money of me, apart from teaching Lena,” added Mrs. Todhetley.
“What at?” asked Tod. “Teaching you?”
The mother shook her head with a smile. “I found out, Joseph, that she is particularly skilful at mending old lace. I have some that needs repairing. She takes it home and does it at her leisure—and you cannot imagine how grateful she is.”
“How old is she?”
“Nineteen—close upon twenty, I think she said,” replied the mother. And there the conversation ended, for Mrs. Todhetley had to go to the kitchen to give the daily orders.
The morning wore on. We went to Church Dykely and were back again by twelve o’clock. Tod had got Don on the lawn, making him jump for biscuit, when the dog rushed off, barking, and we heard a scream. A young lady in a straw hat and a half-mourning cotton dress was running away from him, she and Lena having come out of the house together.
“Come here, Don,” said Tod in his voice of authority, which the good Newfoundland dog never disobeyed. “How dare you, sir? Johnny, lad, I suppose that’s Miss Barbary.”
I had forgotten all about her. A charming girl, as the mother had said, slight and graceful, with a face like a peach blossom, dimpled cheeks, soft light-brown hair and dark-blue eyes. Not the hard, steel-blue eyes that her father had: sweet eyes, these, with a gentle, loving look in them.
“You need not be afraid of the dog,” cried Tod, advancing to where she stood, behind the mulberry tree. “Miss Barbary, I believe?”—lifting his cap.
“Yes,” she said in a frank tone, turning her frank face to him; “I am Katrine Barbary. It is a very large dog—and he barks at me.”
Large he was, bigger than many a small donkey. A brave, faithful, good-tempered dog, he, and very handsome, his curly white coat marked out with black. Gentle to friends and respectable strangers, Don was at mortal enmity with tramps and beggars: we could not cure him of this, so he was chained up by day. At night he was unchained to roam the yard at will, but the gate was kept locked. Had he got out, he might have pinned the coat of any loose man he met, but I don’t believe he would have bitten him. A good fright Don would give, but not mortal injury. At least, we had never yet known him to do that.
Lena ran up in her short pink frock, her light curls flying. “Miss Barbary is always afraid when she hears Don bark,” she said to us. “She will not go near the yard; she thinks he’ll bite her.”
“I will teach you how to make friends with him,” said Tod: “though he would never hurt you, Miss Barbary. Come here and pat his head whilst I hold him; call him by his name gently. Once he knows you, he would protect you from harm with his life.”
She complied with ready obedience, though the roses left her cheeks. “There,” said Tod, loosing the dog, and letting her pat him at leisure, “see how gentle he is; how affectionately he looks up at you!”
“Please not to think me very silly!” she pleaded earnestly, as though beseeching pardon for a sin. “I have never been used to dogs. We do not keep dogs in France. At least very few people do. Oh dear!”
Something that she carried in her left hand wrapped in paper had dropped on to the lawn. Don pounced upon it. “Oh, please take it from him! please, please!” she cried in terror. Tod laughed, and extricated the little parcel.
“It has some valuable old lace in it of Mrs. Todhetley’s,” she explained as she thanked him. “I am taking it home to mend.”
“You mend old lace famously, I hear,” said Tod, as we walked with her to the entrance gate.
“Yes, I think I do it nearly as well as the nuns who taught me.”
“Have you been in a convent?”
“Only for my education. I was an externe—a daily pupil. My aunt lived next door to it. I went every morning at eight o’clock and returned home at six in the evening to supper.”
“Did you get no dinner?” asked Tod.
She took the question literally. “I had dinner and collation at school; breakfast and supper at home. That was the way in our town with the externes at the convent. We were Protestants, you see, so my aunt liked me to be at home on Sundays. Thank you for teaching Don to know me: and now I will say good morning to you.”
I was holding the gate open for her to pass out, when Ben Gibbon went by, a gun carelessly held over his shoulder. He touched his hat to us, and we gave him a slight nod in reply. Miss Barbary said “Good day, Mr. Gibbon.”
Tod drew down his displeased lips. He had already taken a liking to the girl—so had I, for that matter—she was a true lady, and Mr. Ben Gibbon, a brother to the gamekeeper at Chavasse Grange, could not boast of a particularly shining character.
“Do you know him, Miss Barbary?” asked Tod. “Be quiet, Don!” he cried to the dog, which had begun to growl when he saw Gibbon.
“He comes to our house sometimes to see papa. Please pardon me for keeping you waiting,” she added to me, as I still held back the gate. “That gun is pointed this way and it may go off.”
Tod was amused. “You seem to dread guns as much as you dread dogs, Miss Barbary. I will walk home with you,” he said, as she at last came through, the gun having got to a safe distance.
“Oh, but–” she was beginning, and then stopped in confusion, blushing hotly, and looking at both of us. “I should like it; but–would it be proper?”
“Proper!” echoed Tod, staring, and then bursting into a fit of laughter long and loud. “Oh dear! why, Miss Barbary, you must be French all over! Johnny, you can come, too. Lena, run back again; you have not any hat on.”
Crossing the road to take the near field way, we went along the path that led beside the hedge, and soon came in view of Caramel Cottage; it was only a stone’s throw, so to say, from our house. An uncommonly lonely look it had, buried there amidst many trees, with the denser trees of the Grove close beyond it. We asked her whether she did not find it dull here.
“At first I did, very; I do still a little: it is so different from the lively town I have lived in, where we knew all the people, and they knew us. But we shall soon be more lively,” she resumed, after a pause. “A cousin is coming to stay with us.”
“Indeed,” said Tod. “Is it a lady or a gentleman?”
“Oh, it is a gentleman—Edgar Reste. He is not my cousin by kin; not really related to me; but papa says he will be as my cousin, as my brother even, and that he is very nice. Papa’s last wife was Miss Reste, and he is her nephew. He is a barrister in London, and he has been much overworked, and he is coming here to-morrow for rest and country air.”
Within the low green gate of the little front garden of Caramel Cottage stood Mr. Barbary, in his brown velveteen shooting coat and breeches of the same, that became him and his straight lithe limbs so well. Every time I saw him the beauty of his face struck me afresh; but so did the shifty expression of his eyes.
“There’s papa!” exclaimed the girl, her dimples lighting up. “And—why, there’s a gentleman with him—a stranger! I wonder who it is?”
I saw him as he came from the porch down the narrow garden-path. A slight, slender young man of middle height and distinguished air, with a pale, worn, nice-looking face, and laughing, luminous dark brown eyes. Yes, I saw Edgar Reste for the first time at this his entrance at Caramel Cottage, and it was a thing to be thankful for that I could not then foresee the nameless horror his departure from it (I may as well say his disappearance) was to shadow forth.
“How do you do?” said Mr. Barbary to us, courteously civil. “Katrine, here’s a surprise for you: your cousin is come. Edgar, this is my little girl.—Mr. Reste,” he added, by way of introduction generally.
Mr. Reste lifted his hat, bowed slightly, and then turned to Katrine with outstretched hand. She met it with a hot blush, as if strange young men did not shake hands with her every day.
“We did not expect you quite so soon,” she gently said, to atone for her first surprise.
“True,” he answered. “But I felt unusually out of sorts yesterday, and thought it would make no difference to Mr. Barbary whether I came to-day or to-morrow.”
His voice had a musical ring; his manner was open and honest. He might be Pointz Barbary’s nephew by marriage, but I am sure he was not by nature.
“They’ll fall in love with one another, those two; you’ll see,” said Tod to me as we went home. “Did you mark his pleased face when he spoke to her, Johnny—and how she blushed?”
“Oh, come, Tod! they tell me I am fanciful. What are you?”
“Not fanciful with your fancies, lad. As to you, Mr. Don”—turning to the dog, which had done nothing but growl while we stood before Barbary’s gate, “unless you mend your manners, you shall not come out again. What ails you, sir, to-day?”
II
If love springs out of companionship, why then, little wonder that it found its way into Caramel Cottage. They were with each other pretty nearly all day and every day, that young man and that young woman; and so—what else was to be expected?
“We must try and get you strong again,” said Mr. Barbary to his guest, who at first, amidst other adverse symptoms, could eat nothing. No matter what dainty little dish old Joan prepared, Mr. Reste turned from it.
Mr. Barbary had taken to old Joan with the house. A little, dark, active woman, she, with bright eyes and a mob-cap of muslin. She was sixty years old; quick, capable, simple and kindly. We don’t get many such servants now-a-days. One defect Joan had—deafness. When a voice was close to her, it was all right; at a distance she could not hear it at all.
“How long is it that you have been ailing, Cousin Edgar?” asked Miss Barbary, one day when they were sitting together.
“Oh, some few weeks, Cousin Katrine,” he answered in a tone to imitate hers—and then laughed. “Look here, child, don’t call me ‘Cousin Edgar!’ For pity’s sake, don’t!”
“I know you are not my true cousin,” she said, blushing furiously.
“It’s not that. If we were the nearest cousins that can be, it would still be silly.” Objectionable, was the word he had all but used. “It is bad taste; has not a nice sound to cultivated ears—as I take it. I am Edgar, if you please; and you are Katrine.”
“In France we say ‘mon cousin,’ or ‘ma cousine,’ when speaking to one,” returned Katrine.
“But we are not French; we are English.”
“Well,” she resumed, as her face cooled down—“why did you not take rest before? and what is it that has made you ill?”
He shook his head thoughtfully. The parlour window, looking to the front, was thrown up before them. A light breeze tempered the summer heat, wafting in sweetness from the homely flowers and scented shrubs. The little garden was crowded with them, as all homely gardens were then. Roses, lilies, columbines, stocks, gillyflowers, sweet peas, sweet Williams, pinks white and red, tulips, pansies (or as they were then generally called, garden-gates), mignonette, bachelor’s buttons, and lots of others, sweet or not sweet, that I can’t stay to recall: and clusters of marjoram and lavender and “old-man” and sweet-briar, and jessamines white and yellow, and woodbine, and sweet syringa; and the tall hollyhock, and ever true but gaudy sunflower—each and all flourished there in their respective seasons. Amidst the grand “horticulture,” as it is phrased, of these modern days, it is a pleasure to lose one’s self in the memories of these dear old simple gardens. Sometimes I get wondering if we shall ever meet them again—say in Heaven.
They sat there at the open window enjoying the fragrance. Katrine had made a paper fan, and was gently fluttering it to and fro before her flushed young face.
“I have burnt the candle at both ends,” continued Mr. Reste. “That is what’s the matter with me.”
“Y—es,” hesitated she, not quite understanding.
“At law business all day, and at literary work the best part of the night, year in and year out—it has told upon me, Katrine.”
“But why should you do both?” asked Katrine.
“Why? Oh, because—because my pocket is a shallow pocket, and has, moreover, a hole in it.”
She laughed.
“Not getting briefs showered in upon me as one might hope my merits deserve—I know not any young barrister who does—I had to supplement my earnings in that line by something else, and I took to writing. That is up-hill work, too; but it brings in a few shillings now and again. One must pay one’s way, you know, Katrine, if possible; and with some of us it is apt to be a rather extravagant way.”
“Is it with you?” she asked, earnestly.
“It was. I squandered money too freely at first. My old uncle gave me a fair sum to set up with when my dinners were eaten and I was called; and I suppose I thought the sum would never come to an end. Ah! we buy our experience dearly.”
“Will not the old uncle give you more?”
“Not a stiver—this long while past. He lives in India, and writing to ask him does no good. And he is the only relative left to me in the world.”
“Except papa.”
Edgar Reste lifted his eyebrows. “Your father is not my relative, young lady. His late wife was my aunt; my father’s sister.”
“Did your father leave you no money, when he died?”
“Not any. He was a clergyman with a good benefice, but he lived up to his income and did not save anything. No, I have only myself to lean on. Don’t know whether it will turn out to be a broken reed.”
“If I could only help you!” breathed Katrine.
“You are helping me more than I can say,” he answered, impulsively. “When with you I have a feeling of rest—of peace. And that’s what I want.”
Which avowal brought a hot blush again to Miss Katrine’s cheek and a curious thrill somewhere round about her heart.
Time went on. Before much of it had elapsed, they were in love with one another for ever and for ever, with that first love that comes but once in a lifetime. That is, in secret; it was not betrayed or spoken of by either of them, or intended to be. Mr. Reste, Barrister-at-law (and briefless), could as soon have entertained thoughts of setting up a coach-and-four, as of setting up a wife. He had not a ghost of the means necessary at present, he saw not the smallest chance yet of attaining them. Years and years and years might go by before that desirable pinnacle in the social race was reached; and it might never be reached at all. It would be the height of dishonour, as he considered, to persuade Katrine Barbary into an engagement, which might never be fulfilled. How could he condemn her to wear out her heart and her life and her days in loneliness, sighing for him, never seeing him—he at one end of the world, she at the other? for that’s how, lover-like, he estimated the distance between this and the metropolis. So he never let a word of his love escape him, and he guarded his looks, and treated Katrine as his little cousin.
And she? Be you sure, she was as reticent as he. An inexperienced young maiden, scrupulously and modestly brought up, she kept her secret zealously. It is true she could not help her blushes, or the tell-tale thrilling of her soft voice; but Edgar Reste was not obliged to read them correctly.
Likely enough he could penetrate, as the weeks wore on, some of the ins and outs in the private worth of Mr. Barbary. In fact, he did do so. He found that gentleman rather addicted to going abroad at night when reasonable people were in bed and asleep. Mr. Barbary gave him his views upon the subject. Poaching, he maintained, was a perfectly legitimate and laudable occupation. “It’s one to be proud of, instead of the contrary,” he asserted, one September day, when they were in the gun-room together. “Proud of, Edgar.”
“For a gentleman?” laughed Mr. Reste, who invariably made light of the subject. And he glanced at his host curiously from between his long dark eyelashes and straight, fine eyebrows; at the dark, passive, handsome face, at the long slender fingers, busy over the lock of his favourite gun.
“For a gentleman certainly. Why should common men usurp all its benefit? The game laws are obnoxious laws, and it behoves us to set them at naught.”
Another amused laugh from Mr. Reste.
“Who hesitates to do a bit of smuggling?” argued the speaker. “Answer me that, Reste. Nobody. Nobody, from a prince to a peasant, from poor Jack Tar to his superfine commander, but deems it meritorious to cheat the Customs. When a man lands here or yonder with a few contraband things about him, and gets them through safely, do his friends and acquaintances turn the cold shoulder upon him? Not a bit of it; they regard it as a fine feather in his cap.”
“Oh, no doubt.”
“Poaching is the same thing. It is also an amusement. Oh, it is grand fun, Edgar Reste, to be out on a fine night and dodge the keepers!” continued Mr. Barbary, with enthusiasm. “The spice of daring in it, of danger, if you choose to put it that way, stimulates the nerves like wine.”
“Not quite orthodox, though, mon ami.”
“Orthodox be hanged. Stolen pleasures are sweetest, as we all know. You shall go out with me some night, Edgar, and judge for yourself.”
“Don’t say but I will—just to look on—if you’ll ensure my getting back in safety,” said the barrister, in a tone that might be taken for jest or earnest, assent or refusal.
“Back in safety!” came the mocking echo, as if to get back in safety from midnight poaching were a thing as sure as the sun. “We’ll let a week or two go on; when shooting first comes in the keepers are safe to be on the alert; and then I’ll choose a night for you.”
“All right. I suppose Katrine knows nothing of this?”
Mr. Barbary lodged his gun in the corner against the wainscot, and turned to look at the barrister. “Katrine!” he repeated, in surprised reproach. “Why, no. And take care that you don’t tell her.”
Mr. Reste nodded.
“She is the most unsuspicious, innocent child in regard to the ways of the naughty world that I’ve ever met with,” resumed Barbary. “I don’t think she as much as knows what poaching means.”
“I wonder you should have her here,” remarked the younger man, reflectively.
“How can I help it? There’s nowhere else for her to be. She is too old to be put to school; and if she were not, I have not the means to pay for her. It does not signify; she will never suspect anything,” concluded Mr. Barbary.
Please do not think Caramel Cottage grand enough to possess a regular “gun-room.” Mr. Barbary called it so, because he kept his two guns in it, also his fishing-tackle and things of that sort. Entering at the outer porch and over the level door-sill, to the narrow house-passage, the parlour lay on the left, and was of pretty good size. The gun-room lay on the right; a little square room with bare boards, unfurnished save for a deal table, a chair or two, and a strong cupboard let into the wall, which the master of the house kept locked. Behind this room was the kitchen, which opened into the back yard. This yard, on the kitchen side, was bounded by dwarf wooden palings, having a low gate in their midst. Standing at the gate and looking sideways, you could see the chimneys of Dyke Manor. On the opposite side, the yard was enclosed by various small outbuildings and adjuncts belonging to a cottage homestead. A rain-water barrel stood in the corner by the house; an open shed next, in which knives were cleaned and garden tools kept; then came the pump; and lastly, a little room called the brewhouse, used for washing and brewing, and for cooking also during the worst heat of summer. A furnace was built beside the grate, and its floor was paved with square red bricks. Beyond this yard, quite open to it, lay a long garden, well filled with vegetables and fruit trees, and enclosed by a high hedge. Upstairs were three bed chambers. Mr. Barbary occupied the largest and best, which was over the parlour; the smaller one over the gun-room had been assigned to Edgar Reste, both of them looking front; whilst Katrine’s room was above the kitchen, looking to the yard and the garden. Old Joan slept in a lean-to loft in the roof. There is a reason for explaining all this.