“You must have been a long time coming,” remarked the Squire. “The child is fifteen months old.”
“But you must remember that often we did not get news until six months after its date. And I chose a most unfortunate route—overland from California to New York.”
“What on earth—— Why, people are sometimes a twelvemonth or so doing that!” cried the Squire. “There are rocky mountains to scale, as I’ve heard and read, and Red Indians to encounter, and all sorts of horrors. Those who undertake it travel in bands, do they not? and are called pilgrims, and some of them don’t get to the end of the journey alive.”
“True,” she sighed. “I would never have attempted it had I known what it would be: but I did so dread the sea. Several of us were laid up midway, and had to be left behind at a small settlement: one or two died. It was a long, long time, and only after surmounting great discomforts and difficulties, we reached New York.”
“Well?” said the Squire. It must be remembered that they were speaking of days now gone by, when the journey was just what she described it.
“I could hear nothing of my husband in New York,” she resumed, “except that Abraham Whitter believed him to be at home here. I took the steamer for Liverpool, landed at dawn this morning, and came on by rail. And I find it is my husband who is married. And what am I to do?”
She melted away into tears again. The Squire told her that she must present herself at the farm; she was its legal mistress, and Nash Caromel’s true wife. But she shook her head at this: she wouldn’t bring any such trouble upon Nash for the world, as to show him suddenly that she was living. What he had done he must have done unwittingly, she said, believing her to be dead, and he ought not to suffer for it more than could be helped. Which was a lenient way of reasoning that put the Squire’s temper up.
“He deserves no quarter, ma’am, and I will not give it him if you do. Within a week of the time he heard of your death he went and took that Charlotte Nave. Though I expect it was she who took him—brazen hussy! And I am glad you have come to put her out!”
But, nothing would induce Charlotte the First to assume this view, or to admit that blame could attach to Nash. Once he had lost her by death, he had a right to marry again, she contended. As to the haste—well, she had been dead (as he supposed) a great many months when he heard of it, and that should be considered. The Squire exploded, and walked about the room, and rubbed his hair the wrong way, and thought her no better than an imbecile.
Mrs. Todhetley came in, and there was a little scene. Charlotte declined our offer of a bed and refreshment, saying she would like to go to her mother’s for the night: she felt that she should be received gladly, though they had parted in anger and had held no communication with one another since.