CHAPTER XIV.
Edward and Marian spent their first week in Trinidad with the Hawthorns senior. Mrs Hawthorn was kindness itself to Marian—a dear, gentle, motherly old lady, very proud of her boy, especially of his ability to read Arabic, which seemed to her a profundity of learning never yet dreamt of in the annals of humanity—and immensely pleased with her new daughter-in-law; but nothing on earth that Marian could say to her would induce her to unlock the mystery of that alarming telegram. ‘No, no, my dear,’ she would say, shaking her head gloomily and wiping her spectacles, whenever Marian recurred to the subject, ‘you’ll find it all out only too soon. God forbid, my darling, that ever I should break it to you. I love you far too well for that. Marian, Marian, my dear daughter, you should never, never, never have come here!’ And then she would burst immediately into tears. And that was all that poor frightened Marian could ever get out of her new mother-in-law.
All that first week, old Mr Hawthorn was never tired of urging upon Edward to go back again at once to England. ‘I can depart in peace now, my boy,’ he said; ‘I have seen you at last, and known you, and had my heart gladdened by your presence here. Indeed, if you wish it, I’d rather go back to England with you again, than that you should stay in this unsuitable Trinidad. Why bury your talents and your learning here, when you might be rising to fame and honour over in London? What’s the use of your classical knowledge out in the West Indies? What’s the use of your Arabic? What’s the use of your law, even? We have nothing to try here but petty cases between planter and servant: of what good to you in that will be all your work at English tenures and English land laws? You’re hiding your light under a bushel. You’re putting a trotting horse into a hansom cab. You’re wasting your Arabic on people who don’t even know the difference between Greek and Latin.’
To all which, Edward steadily replied, that he wouldn’t go back as long as this mystery still hung unsolved over him; and that, as he had practically made an agreement with the colonial government, it would be dishonourable in him to break it for unknown and unspecified reasons. As soon as possible, he declared firmly, he would take up his abode in his own district.
House-hunting is reduced to its very simplest elements in the West Indian colonies. There is one house in each parish or county which has been inhabited from time immemorial by one functionary for the time being. The late Attorney-general dies of yellow fever, or drinks himself to death, or gets promotion, or retires to England, and another Attorney-general is duly appointed by constituted authority in his vacant place. The new man succeeds naturally to the house and furniture of his predecessor—as naturally, indeed, as he succeeds to any of his other functions, offices, and prerogatives. Not that there is the least compulsion in the matter, only you must. As there is no other house vacant in the community, and as nobody ever thinks of building a new one—except when the old one tumbles down by efflux of time or shock of earthquake—the only thing left for one to do is to live in the place immemorially occupied by all one’s predecessors in the same office. Hence it happened that at the beginning of their second week in the island of Trinidad, Marian and Edward Hawthorn found themselves ensconced with hardly any trouble in the roomy bungalow known as Mulberry Lodge, and he hereditarily attached to the post of District Court Judge for the district of Westmoreland.
Marian laid herself out at once for callers, and very soon the callers began to drop in. About the fourth day after they had settled into their new house, she was sitting in the big, bare, tropical-looking drawing-room—a great, gaunt, spare barn, scantily furnished with a few tables and rocking-chairs upon the carpetless polished floor—so gaunt, that even Marian’s deft fingers failed to make it at first look home-like or habitable—when a light carriage drew up hastily with a dash at the front-door of the low bungalow. The young bride pulled her bows straight quickly at the heavy, old-fashioned, gilt mirror, and waited anxiously to receive the expected visitors. It was her first appearance as mistress of her establishment. In a minute, Thomas, the negro butler—every man-servant is a butler in Trinidad, even if he is only a boy of twenty—ushered the new-comers pompously into the bare drawing-room. Marian took their cards and glanced at them hastily. Two gentlemen—the Honourable Colonial Secretary, and the Honourable Director of Irrigation.
The Colonial Secretary sidled into a chair, and took up his parable at once with a very profuse and ponderous apology. ‘My wife, Mrs Hawthorn, my wife, I’m sorry to say, was most unfortunately unable to accompany me here this morning.—Charmingly you’ve laid out this room, really; so very different from what it used to be in poor old Macmurdo’s time.—Isn’t it, Colonel Daubeny?—Poor old Macmurdo died in the late yellow fever, you know, my dear madam, and Mr Hawthorn fills his vacancy. Excellent fellow, poor old Macmurdo—ninth judge I’ve known killed off by yellow fever in this district since I’ve been here.—My wife, I was saying, when your charming room compelled me to digress, is far from well at present—a malady of the country: this shocking climate; or else, I’m sure she’d have been delighted to have called upon you with me this morning. The loss is hers, the loss is hers, Mrs Hawthorn. I shall certainly tell her so. Immensely sorry.’
Colonel Daubeny, the Honourable Director of Irrigation, was a far jauntier and more easy-spoken man. ‘And Mrs Daubeny, my dear madam,’ he said with a fluent manner that Marian found exceedingly distasteful, ‘is most unfortunately just this moment down—with toothache. Uncommon nasty thing to be down with, toothache. A perfect martyr to it. She begged me to make her excuses.—Mr Hawthorn’—to Edward, who had just come in—‘Mrs Daubeny begged me to make her excuses. She regrets that she can’t call to-day on Mrs Hawthorn.—Beautiful view you have, upon my word, from your front piazza.’
‘It’s the same view, I’ve no doubt,’ Edward answered severely, ‘as it used to be in the days of my predecessor.’
‘Eh! What! Ah, bless my soul! Quite so,’ Colonel Daubeny answered, dropping his eyeglass from his eye in some amazement.—‘Ha! very good that—confoundedly good, really, Mr Hawthorn.’
Marian was a little surprised that Edward, usually so impassive, should so unmistakably snub the colonel at first sight; and yet she felt there was something very offensive in the man’s familiar manner, that made the retort perfectly justifiable, and even necessary.
They lingered a little while, talking very ordinary tropical small-talk; and then the colonel, with an ugly smile, took up his hat, and declared, with many unnecessary asseverations, that he must really be off this very minute. Mrs Daubeny would so much regret having lost the precious opportunity. The Honourable Colonial Secretary rose at the same moment and added that he must be going too. Mrs Fitzmaurice would never forgive herself for that distressing local malady which had so unfortunately deprived her of the privilege and pleasure.—Good-morning, good-morning.
But as both gentlemen jumped into the dogcart outside, Edward could hear the Colonial Secretary, through the open door, saying to the colonel in a highly amused voice: ‘By George, he gave you as much as he got every bit, I swear, Daubeny.’
To which the colonel responded with a short laugh: ‘Yes, my dear fellow; and didn’t you see, by Jove, he twigged it?’
At this they both laughed together immoderately, and drove off at once laughing, very much pleased with one another.
Before Marian and her husband had time to exchange their surprise and wonder at such odd behaviour on the part of two apparently well-bred men, another buggy drove up to the door, from which a third gentleman promptly descended. His card showed him to be the wealthy proprietor of a large and flourishing neighbouring sugar-estate.
‘Called round,’ he said to Edward, with a slight bow towards Marian, ‘just to pay my respects to our new judge, whom I’m glad to welcome to the district of Westmoreland. A son of Mr Hawthorn of Agualta is sure to be popular with most of his neighbours.—Ah—hem—my wife, I’m sorry to say, Mrs Hawthorn, is at present suffering from—extreme exhaustion, due to the heat. She hopes you’ll excuse her not calling upon you. Otherwise, I’m sure, she’d have been most delighted, most delighted.—Dear me, what an exquisite prospect you have from your veranda!’ The neighbouring planter stopped for perhaps ten minutes in the midst of languishing conversation, and then vanished exactly as his two predecessors had done before him.
Marian turned to her husband in blank dismay. ‘O Edward, Edward,’ she cried, unable to conceal her chagrin and humiliation, ‘what on earth can be the meaning of it?’
‘My darling,’ he answered, taking her hand in his tenderly, ‘I haven’t the very faintest conception.’
In the course of the afternoon, three more gentlemen called, each alone, and each of them in turn apologised profusely, in almost the very self-same words, for his wife’s absence. The last was a fat old gentleman in the Customs’ service, who declared with effusion many times over that Mrs Bolitho was really prostrated by the extraordinary season. ‘Most unusual weather, this, Mrs Hawthorn. I’ve never known so depressing a summer in the island of Trinidad since I was a boy, ma’am.’
‘So it would seem,’ Edward answered drily. ‘The whole female population of the island seems to be suffering from an extraordinary complication of local disorders.’
‘Bless my soul!’ the fat old gentleman ejaculated with a stare. ‘Then you’ve found out that, have you?—Excuse me, excuse me. I—didn’t know—— Hm, I hardly expected that you expected—or rather, that Mrs Hawthorn expected—— Ah, quite so.—Good-morning, good-morning.’
Marian flung herself in a passion of tears upon the drawing-room sofa. ‘If any one else calls this afternoon, Thomas,’ she said, ‘I’m not at home. I won’t see—I can’t see them; I’ll endure it no longer.—O Edward, darling, for God’s sake, tell me, why on earth are they treating us as if—as if I were some sort of moral leper? They won’t call upon me. What can be the reason of it?’
Edward Hawthorn held his head between his hands and walked rapidly up and down the bare drawing-room. ‘I can’t make it out,’ he cried; ‘I can’t understand it. Marian—dearest—it is too terrible!’