Lady Torquilstone, an only child and heiress, among her many suitors, had, to the disappointment of her parent, accepted handsome Derek Mayne, a mere officer,—and not even an eldest son! and accompanied him when he joined his regiment in India. As soon as the glamour of a new life, and a new world, had worn off, the lady drooped. In India, she found a dreadful spirit of equality—no nicely partitioned sets, only the sternest rule of "precedence," in short, from her point of view no "society" whatever!
Money failed to give her the prominent position she considered to be her right, she was merely Mrs. Derek Mayne, a Captain's wife, and one of the herd! Unfortunately the marriage was not a success; the heiress was discontented, and irritable, she snubbed and tyrannized over her good-natured husband,—and spent most of her time in England.
Captain Mayne died in Jubbulpore of cholera,—when his happy wife was dancing at a London ball,—and within the least conventional period, his widow married Lord Torquilstone, an elderly, but well preserved peer, and hardened man of the world; they shared the same tastes—particularly racing, and Bridge—and lived for eight months of the year in a gloomy, but imposing house in Mayfair,—where it required a combination of three men-servants, to open the hall door.
Derek Mayne Junior had never been permitted to become "an encumbrance"; school, Sandhurst, and his Uncle Richard, lifted the weight of child, boy, and man, from his mother's shrinking shoulders,—and he made only an occasional and brief appearance at his so-called "Home."
"I'm afraid you will have lots of spare time on your hands," said Travers to his guest. "This is our busy season, and I can only get off for a shoot now and then,—but Nancy will take you on, when I have an extra full day."
"What do you call a full day?"
"Well, when I start at seven, with roll call of the coolies, am out till twelve; after a rest and tiffin, I go round and see how the weeding and picking is done? then to the factory to weigh coffee, afterwards attend to office work, which sometimes carries me on till eleven o'clock at night."
"But I don't allow that now," said Nancy with a proprietary gesture.
"No," agreed Travers, "because this young lady wants a playfellow, and has no conception of the labour and anxieties, that belong to a coffee estate. Sometimes a planter will awake, to find what has been compared to a fall of snow,—the blossom in flower! It is a pretty sight; but for three days, he lives in a quaking agony for fear of rain—rain would spell the ruin of the whole crop. To insure a good setting of the bean or berry, we must have several days of sunshine."
"I suppose the picking is all done by hand?" said Mayne, who from his place could observe various black heads bobbing about among the coffee bushes.