There were genuine tears in her mother’s eyes as she pronounced the words, and Quita felt for the first time, perhaps, what a terrible risk she had run.
‘Never mind, mamma!’ she whispered, ‘it is over now, and he—he has promised me that I shall never hear anything more about it. Let us try and forget it ever occurred.’
‘Yes, my dearest girl, that is just what you must do. Blot out the past, like a hideous dream. It has been a terrible experience for you, and so long as you remained unmarried, I should always have trembled for your safety. But now—as the wife of the Governor, my dear child’s future is assured, and we will never mention the hateful subject again—not even to each other.’
‘No! and, mamma, you told me the other day that (excepting for certain reasons) you would have had some changes made on the plantation. Couldn’t you manage to have those changes made now. Not too suddenly, you know, so as to excite suspicion, but as if they were brought about in the natural course of events. Can’t you persuade papa,’ said Maraquita, hiding her face in her mother’s bosom, ‘to engage a—a—new overseer? It would be better for all of us.’
‘You are quite right, my darling,’ whispered Mrs Courtney back again, ‘and I am glad you have so much sense. Trust me, dear, that you shall not be annoyed in this matter. As soon as your marriage is settled, I will take you up on the hill range for change of air, and before you return we will have done what you suggest. I have a dozen good reasons to give your father for engaging some one else in that person’s place.’
‘Don’t be harsh with him,’ faltered Maraquita; ‘remember that—that—’
But this was a dangerous topic, on which Mrs Courtney did not choose to dilate.
‘I can remember nothing now, my dear, except that Sir Russell is waiting for your answer, and that I must go and fetch him to you. Now, be a woman, Maraquita! Think of all you owe to yourself, and the brilliant future that lies before you! I really believe I should go out of my mind with grief if anything happened to prevent it.’
Mrs Courtney walked back to the house as quickly as she was able, and Maraquita lay in the bamboo chair, with her eyes closed, and the unshed tears trembling like dewdrops on her long dark lashes. She had not to wait long! In another minute her mother had returned, in company with the Governor, and Quita had to disperse the vision of her handsome Spanish lover, with his graceful form and romantic bearing, and open her eyes upon a stout and pursy little Englishman, with a bald head and uninteresting features, and legs too short for his body.
But there was no mistaking the expression of his beaming face, and the girl saw at a glance that the matter had been concluded for her, and she was already in his eyes the future Lady Johnstone.