It was a cheerful breezy trip; sometimes the road lay in hollows, winding round a valley, and between blackberry bushes, wattles, ash trees, and wild roses, recalling an English lane; or again, over grassy uplands, with a delightful breeze, driving white clouds overhead.
By and by, Nancy recovered her self-control, and her tongue,—a member that was never long mislaid.
The Meach family lived eight miles from Fairplains, on a poor worn out, and out of the way estate; Major Meach, having spent all he possessed, invested his wife's little fortune in this, so to speak "refuge," and here she and her offspring slaved and struggled, in order to provide their old man of the sea, with everything he demanded in the way of attention, and comfort.
Part of the estate was let to a native, part was worked by Andy, whilst Mrs. Meach and her three pretty daughters kept cows and poultry, and sold eggs and butter among their neighbours. Blanche, the beauty,—thanks to Mrs. Ffinch,—was satisfactorily married; Tom, the youngest son, slaved in an office, and sent all he could spare to his harassed mother who struggled to keep house, and maintain a presentable family, on one hundred rupees a month.
The Misses Meach emerged into the verandah when they heard the glad sound of voices, accompanied by the clatter of hoofs, and Gladys and Nellie joyfully hailed Nancy, who instantly in a strangled voice, claimed their sympathy for her irreparable loss.
"The dear faithful fellow!—how dreadful!" said Nellie. "I remember one time, you went home by the old road, he missed you, and came back here, and lay all night by the chair you had been sitting on."
"Bah! what's a dog!" snarled Major Meach, a preposterously fat man, who now appeared, and with a curt salute to Mayne, sank with heavy violence into a creaking wicker chair. "Lots to be had! We can give you half a dozen—greedy, good-for-nothing brutes!"
Mrs. Meach, a worn, thin woman, with remarkably red hands, and a still pretty face, who had been ordering tea, now came forward to welcome her guests. Poor lady! her life had been, and was, a tragedy. Once a beauty, she was thought to have made a fine match when she married Captain Meach of the Light Lancers,—a man with a nice fortune. The nice fortune, he squandered on himself; and poor Amy Meach, after knocking about the world from garrison town to cantonment, saving, pinching, rearing a family, and keeping up appearances, was now the drudge, and servant, of her selfish and unwieldy tyrant.
Her hope, comfort, and joy, was in her children; possibly some day, she may be in a position to sit down and be served by other people, to read a novel, or even to take a morning in bed!
Everything at Panora seemed cheap and faded,—except the fat helpless old Major, and his three pretty girls. He insisted on keeping up "his position," as he called it; the shabby, timid-looking servants, wore in their turbans, the badge of a regiment that had been only too thankful to get rid of their master!