CHAPTER II.
A
AS she said the words, Captain Norris sprang towards her.
‘Not a friend left in the world, Liz! Oh! how can you say such a cruel thing whilst I am here?’
She could not answer him immediately for weeping, but she stretched forth her hand and laid it on his arm.
‘Forgive me, Captain Norris. I know that you are my friend, but grief makes us all selfish. Yet that they should think such a thing of me,—that even MrCourtney, who has known me from a little child, should suspect me of so unworthy an action, it is bitterly,bitterlyhard.’
‘You are speaking in riddles to me, Lizzie! Ofwhatdo they suspect you? Surely of nothing of which you need be ashamed? If so, they must answer tomefor it. Your dead father honoured me with his friendship, and no one shall insult his daughter whilst I am able to prevent it.’
‘I should have known that I might count upon your championship, Captain Norris; but it is useless. I have entangled myself in a net from which I see no prospect of freedom. You must leave me to bear the consequences by myself.’
‘I shall do no such thing!’ replied the Captain warmly. ‘What is the worth offriendship if it cannot stand by you in the time of need? Confide in me, Lizzie. Tell me your trouble, and let us devise a way out of it together.’
‘We cannot do that,’ replied Lizzie mournfully; ‘but you shall hear it, all the same. If I did not tell you, San Diego would soon do so. All the hands are talking of it by this time. Even that yellow girl in the verandah is ready to believe me to have fallen to a level with herself.’
‘You alarm me!’ exclaimed Hugh Norris. ‘What is it they dare to say of you?’
‘That that child is mine!’
‘Whatchild? I did not know there was a child here.’
‘You are the last to hear of it then,’ replied Lizzie bitterly. ‘The smallest lad on the plantation has discussed itbefore now. I mean the infant which Rosa has in her arms. It isnotmine! I hope you will believe me when I say so. But I have no means of proving the truth of what I say.’
‘You surprise me beyond measure,’ said Captain Norris. ‘In what does the difficulty lie, and why cannot you appeal to the real parents to help you out of it?’
‘Captain Norris, you must not question me too closely, lest I should betray a secret I have sworn to keep. Be satisfied with what I tell you. It was only yesterday my father gave me that child to nurse for him. He asked me to keep it through the night, and in the morning he would get a proper person to take charge of it. You have heard the sequel. By the morning, God had called him away, and I am left with this burden on my hands for ever!’
‘But, Lizzie, forgive me if I do not follow you. What reason is there for your keeping the child? What interest had your father in it? Why should you not send it to the people he intended to entrust it to?’
‘Perhaps I might have done so if this suspicion had not fallen upon me; butnow, what would be the use of it? Absent or present, the child will be regarded as mine. I shall have to bear the stigma; I may as well have the satisfaction of knowing I have fulfilled my dead father’s wishes.’
‘Do you know who are the parents of the child?’
Lizzie was silent.
‘I see that you do. Surely they will never permit you innocently to bear this awful shame?’
‘Captain Norris, when my father firstshowed me that child, he extracted a solemn oath from me never to reveal anything I knew or might guess concerning it. It is useless your questioning me. My tongue is tied, and whatever my silence may cost me, I am bound to endure.’
‘But surely your lover, De Courcelles, does not believe this slanderous lie about you, Lizzie?Hewill stand up in your defence, whatever the world may say, and fight it with you?’
‘Oh, don’t talk of him! Don’t mention his name!’ cried Lizzie, with a sudden burst of grief. ‘Hedoesbelieve it, Captain Norris, and he has cast me off. We are parted for ever. Our engagement is at an end.’
‘The cur!’ exclaimed Norris contemptuously.
‘You shall not call him so! What elsecould he do?’ rejoined Lizzie hastily. ‘What wouldyoudo, if the woman you had engaged yourself to marry, proved to be a wanton? You would say she was not fit to be your wife, and you would be right. Until this stigma is lifted off me, I am not fit to become the wife of any honest man.’
‘But it does not rest upon you, inmyestimation,’ replied her companion. ‘I do not believe it; no one should ever make me do so except yourself. I would take your word against that of a thousand witnesses, Lizzie.’
‘Thank you, thank you!’ she exclaimed, reddening with pleasure at the sound of his honest voice. ‘You are indeed a friend in the time of need. But Monsieur de Courcelles thinks otherwise. He has told me to my face that unless I will divulge the names of the parents of thischild, everything between us must be at an end. And so it is at an end. I cannot break my word to the dead. Besides—there are other reasons why I should be true to my trust.’
‘You will at least tell me one thing, Lizzie. You know to whom this child belongs, do you not? I ask it in your own interests.’
‘I do.’
‘Then go to them, my dear, and tell them the dilemma in which the promise you have given on their account has placed you. Ask them to release you from it. Surely no one could be so inhuman as to desire their shame (for I presume shame is at the bottom of this mystery) to spoil the life of an innocent woman? Oh! if I only knew their names myself, I would proclaim them far and wide, until I forcedthem to release you from this cruel bondage.’
‘It isimpossible, Captain Norris!’
‘Impossible for you to go to them?’
‘Impossible that my going could do any good in the matter. I cannot rid myself of the blame, without shifting it on the shoulders of another, and that my oath forbids me to do. Pray leave me, Captain Norris. Leave me to bear it as best I may—alone! You heard what Mr Courtney has kindly proposed,—that I shall live on here, and continue my dear father’s work. I mean to do so, and if God spares the child, it shall live with me. The coloured people will not despise us. They have too many of such cases amongst themselves, and for the rest, I am strong enough to suffer without sinking under it.’
‘But notalone, dear Lizzie!’ exclaimedHugh Norris, taking her hand. ‘If your engagement to Monsieur de Courcelles is indeed broken off, let me speak again. You would not listen to me last week onhisaccount; listen to me now on your own. Come to me, and let me fight the battle of life for all three of us—you and me and the child. If it werereallyyour child, Lizzie, I should say the same. When I told you I loved you, I did not mean that I loved some ideal creature raised from my own imagination, butyou—yourself, with all your faults (if you have faults) and follies (which cannot be greater than my own), and am willing to condone everything, for the privilege of loving you. Let me try to make you forget this sorrow. In England, amidst new scenes and new friends, you may learn to feel differently, even towards me, and look back on San Diego as abad dream, that has passed away for ever.’
Lizzie pressed his hand gratefully.
‘How good you are to me,’ she answered, ‘and how true! I am sure you will make the best and most loving of husbands, and some woman will be very happy with you. But that woman will not beme! I would not wrong you, my dear friend, by accepting your generous proposal. Why should I cast this shadow over your honourable life, or profess to offer you a heart not worthy of your acceptance? I love Henri de Courcelles! Ah! don’t shrink from me. I know he is unworthy and unjust, nor can I believe he has ever really cared for me; but he managed to win my love, and I cannot take it back from him so suddenly. By-and-by, perhaps, when this wound is somewhat healed,and time has enabled me to see more clearly, I shall be strong enough to shake off the fascination that enthralls me; but just now, I can only weep over its decay, as I weep over the grave of my lost father. And so you see how utterly unworthy I am of the noble offer you have made me.’
‘Not inmyeyes,’ persisted Hugh Norris. ‘I can never think of you but as the dearest and most self-sacrificing of women, and I shall keep the place in my heart open for you to my life’s end. But I will worry you no further now. Only say if I can do anything for you, Lizzie, before I go.’
‘Nothing,’ she sighed. ‘Unless it be to come to see me again, and comfort me as you have done to-day.’
His face brightened with pleasure at her proposal, and he acceded to it joyfully.
‘I will come up to-morrow if it will not be too soon,’ he answered. ‘I have not landed my coolies yet, and theTrevelyanmay be in port for some weeks yet.’
‘How is that?’ demanded Lizzie.
‘On account of this fever, and also of the town riots. My consignee is afraid of both moral and physical infection. There was an attack planned on Government House last night, and only just discovered in time. The rebels had laid a train of gunpowder right under the state rooms. There would have been a fearful sacrifice of life had they succeeded.’
‘How terrible! Were they caught?’
‘Unfortunately they were not, for they got off to the Alligator Swamp as soon as the alarm was given. And no one dares follow them there: the danger istoo great. They are watching outside it, however, and as soon as they come out, they will be killed or arrested.’
‘Poor creatures,’ said Liz, with a shudder, ‘they will not be able to hold out long. Twelve hours in the Alligator Swamp is said to be certain death. Its poisonous atmosphere kills all those who escape the alligators. It is too fearful to think of.’
‘Yes, I fancy the poor devils will be forced to surrender, and they will get no quarter from the Governor, Sir Russell Johnstone. He is in a great state of alarm about himself, and resolved to stamp the insurrection out at any cost.’
‘One cannot blame him. It is a case in which the few must suffer for the many. Is the Governor a nice man, Captain Norris?’
‘So-so. A very ordinary-looking Englishman,—more fit to till his own acres, I should imagine, than to govern a colony. He has certainly done little as yet to quell the ill-feeling in San Diego, which seems to be increasing every day. But I shall not be able to keep my coolies on board much longer. There are six hundred of them, and I shall not be sorry when their backs are turned. I have had enough of their company on the way from Calcutta.’
‘But they will make a bad exchange, I expect, from the hold of theTrevelyanto the cotton and sugar plantations. I have heard poor father say you spoil your coolies, Captain Norris, and make them quite dissatisfied with their reception in the West Indies.’
‘Oh, that’s a libel!’ cried the young man, smiling. ‘I may have tried to maketheir life aboard ship as little irksome as possible, but it has gone no further. But I am afraid they are mostly shipped under false pretences, and led to expect less work and more pay than they are ever likely to get in these islands. Their existence, at the best, is hardly worth living.’
‘You are right there, and no one who has dwelt amongst them, as I have, could fail to sympathise with their troubles. They have much to bear, and little to compensate them for it. And with all their faults, they are a patient people, although very impulsive. That poor girl in the verandah did me a bad turn this morning, but she is ready to break her heart about it now.’
‘Ah, Missy Liz, I’sesosorry!’ cried Rosa, who had overheard the words that concerned herself.
‘But you can’t undo the mischief, you see, Rosa, so try and make up for it by being a faithful servant to your mistress now,’ said Hugh Norris, as he passed over the threshold on his way home.
The yellow girl did not take correction from a stranger very well. She shrugged her shoulders, and pulled a face after the retreating form of Captain Norris, as she entered the bungalow with her infant charge.
‘What business of that Massa Norris to speak me?’ she inquired, pouting. ‘If he want to scold some one, he’d better go and find dat coolie girl Judy, what took the baby first. She’s a berry bad girl—rude and impident—with a tongue as long as an alligator’s.’
‘Do you mean Mammy Lila’s granddaughter?’ inquired Lizzie. ‘When did you see her, Rosa?’
‘Oh! she’s big enough to be seen, Missy Liz, and she’s just as cunning as they’re made. Judy has left Shanty Hill now, and come to live alongside of her own people, and dis morning Massa Courcelles has given her work on the plantation. And dat gal’s tongue—how itdorun!’
‘Aboutme, I suppose?’ said Liz bitterly.
‘Yes, Missy Liz—that’s just it—about you. Judy tells every one how you went up to Shanty Hill in the middle of the night wid dis poor little baby in your arms, and how you was so ill and weak you nearly tumbled down on de floor; and Mammy Lila took de baby, and you tell her, “Silence and secrecy,” which means, “Don’t tell nuffin to nobody on your life.”’
‘And every one believes it was myown baby I took to Mammy Lila, Rosa, the same as you did?’
‘Whatcanthey believe, Missy Liz? I didn’t know what to believe myself. Dere’s not too many quite white babies knocking about de island, you know, and dis little one has no coloured blood in it. Dat’s plain to be seen. And dat Judy is so impident. She’d say anything. She says she skeered you so when she brought the baby back agin when Mammy Lila died, dat you nearly fainted, and it was de shock and de trouble that has killed de poor Doctor right away.’
‘Well, well, Rosa, don’t speak of it any more at present. It turns my heart sick to hear it. Take the infant into my room, and put it to bed. Judy’s talk, however untrue, can do me no further harm; and you mustn’t forget,whilst judging her, that you thought and said pretty much the same yourself.’
‘Ah, yes, Missy Liz; but den I’se berry sorry, and I’ll be a good gal to you now,’ replied Rosa, with the nigger’s ready excuse for anything they may have done wrong.
‘And I believe you, so let the matter rest,’ said Lizzie, as the yellow girl disappeared with the baby, and she sat down at the table, resting her head upon her hand.
What a difference twenty-four hours had made in her life! Twenty-four hours ago she had possessed a father who loved her, a lover who respected her, friends who believed in her, a good name and a spotless reputation. Now, she seemed to have lost everything at one fell blow. Her father was gone, her lover lost, her friends stood afar off. She was publiclyspoken of as an unmarried mother, and Maraquita’s sin was laid at her door. And she had no means of repudiating the scandal. Nothing but her bare word stood between her reputation and the world. Who would believe her? What woman wouldnotdeny such a crushing shame?
Her solemn oath to her father, the fathomless obligation under which they stood to Mr Courtney, the awful consequences to their benefactor which must follow a revelation of the truth, stared Lizzie in the face, like giant obstacles that forbid her even attempting to surmount them. What would she and her dead father have been but for the generosity extended to them through life by the planter’s hand?
He, a felon and a convict, andshe, the daughter of a disgraced and dishonouredman, pointed at by the finger of scorn, shunned by the community of the virtuous and honest, a pariah and an outcast amongst men. No wonder her father had exacted her silence and obedience at the price of her salvation.
But would Maraquita be so untrue to all the instincts of honour and justice as to permit her adopted sister to continue to bear the shame which rightly belonged to herself? Liz remembered Hugh Norris’s advice to her to seek out the parents of the child, and beg them to clear her good name in the eyes of the world. The counsel was good. She only knew of Quita as the mother of the infant; but she could, at all events, secure an interview with her, and implore her to confess the truth to Mr and Mrs Courtney, and relieve her from so intolerable a burthen. Surely, thought Lizzie, if Quita knew whatshe was suffering—and likely to suffer—she could not have the heart to refuse her! Little Quita, whom she had held in her arms as a baby herself—who had learned to walk clinging to her hand—who had shared her girlish pleasures and sorrows with her, and told her all her secrets (except this last terrible one)—surelyQuitawould never blast her whole future in order to shield herself from the consequences of her sin!
Perhaps she did not know about Henri de Courcelles! Liz had loved this man too deeply to talk upon the subject; and as the engagement had never been publicly ratified, Quita might not be aware of the cruel separation her guilt had caused between them. If she knewthat—if she were told that some one whom Liz loved as fondly as evershecould have loved the father of her childmust be given up for ever, unless she spoke out—surely she would muster up courage to remove the heavy load she had laid upon her childhood’s friend.
As Lizzie arrived at this conclusion, she lifted up her head and breathed more freely. A light was breaking through her darkness. Perhaps, after all, she had condemned her adopted sister too hastily, and should have waited to see her before she passed judgment. The time had been too short, and events had been too hurried, to enable Maraquita to do her justice. Perhaps she was even ignorant of the blame cast upon her; and with this last charitable thought of her adopted sister, and a resolution to see her on the first opportunity, Lizzie sought her bed, and tried to compose herself to sleep.