‘Yes, yes! You shall have any wages you like, Jessica. I shall tell Sir Russell what a good servant you have been to me, and he will be proud to reward you. But perhaps you would rather have a pension,’ said Quita wistfully, ‘or a lump sum of money, that will enable you to go back to your own country, and live there.’
‘No, missy; I rather live and die with you. You seem like my own child to me, and San Diego like my country. I no want go way; and if missy good to me, I keep her secrets always, and no one shall hear ole Jess tell de truth about her.’
Maraquita felt this was only a compromise, but she had no alternative but to accept it. There was a hard, stony look in old Jessica’s eyes that alarmed her, and made her doubt her promises of fidelity. She was not slow to perceive, either, the mercenary motive of her demand for higher wages, but she could not afford to comment on it. She had put herself in the power of another woman—the most terrible bondage the sex is ever subjected to—and she saw no way to loosen her chains, except by perfect acquiescence. But she loathed the old negress, even while she forced herself to caress her. The affection of her whole life seemed to have faded beneath the ordeal to which it had been subjected. Jessica was no longer the kind and faithful nurse who had tended her from her infancy, and to whom she had run in every dilemma, but a hard and grasping creditor, who had possession of that which might ruin her life, and demanded her very blood in ransom. However, there seemed no way but one out of the scrape, and so Maraquita promised to do all and everything that the negress might require, and tried to soothe her ruffled feelings with soft words and caresses.
But she did not feel sure that she had succeeded, even though Jessica paid her some honied compliments in return, and lay down in her bed that night longing more than ever that the wedding-day had come and gone.
All went smoothly, however. No one saw or heard anything further of Henri de Courcelles, nor was Quita even annoyed by the mention of his name. He seemed to have totally disappeared from Beauregard, and Mr Courtney fully believed that he had left the island. The old nurse made no further disagreeable allusions to the past, and appeared to be as devoted to her young mistress as she had ever been, so that Maraquita regained her lightness of heart, and turned her attention entirely to the brilliant prospects before her. The fourteenth was close at hand, and the preparations for the Governor’s wedding, which was to take place in the Fort church, were on a scale of magnificence never before attempted in San Diego. The church was to be embowered in flowers; the military were to line the road leading to it; half the gentry in the island were to be engaged in singing a choral service; and a splendid barouche, drawn by four horses, and preceded by a guard of honour, was to convey the newly-married couple back to Beauregard.
Here, naturally, all were in a flutter. Mrs Courtney, never a good housekeeper, was nearly out of her mind over the wedding-breakfast and the completion of Maraquita’s dress, and was thankful to delegate the issuing of the invitations to her husband and her daughter. Mr Courtney made out the list of names, whilst Maraquita wrote the invitations in a very irregular hand on gold-edged paper. Half-way down the list she came upon the name of Miss Fellows.
‘Lizzie?’ she exclaimed, with rather rashly expressed astonishment.
‘Of course! why not?’ returned her father quickly.
‘Well, because, although we don’t believe the reports about her, papa, other people do, and some of the ladies of San Diego might object to meet her.’
Mr Courtney consigned the ladies of San Diego to a warmer region, but held to his determination.