No one, however high in rank or authority, can enter, or leave, the Tower after midnight. But the sergeant in command of the Spur Guard is authorised to admit residents as far as his guardhouse, where there is a waiting-room for the accommodation of such belated persons. For this purpose he is provided with keys—quite distinct from those of the escort—wherewith to open, not the gates, but wickets alongside them. And thus the people admitted do not enter the Tower proper; for it will be remembered that the ditch intervenes between the Barbican and the Byward Gate, where there is no wicket. The architects, ancient or modern, who designed the waiting-room took pains that it should not be a very attractive abode; and though it may compare favourably with another apartment said to exist in the Tower, and called ‘Little Ease,’ there is yet but small encouragement held forth to the inhabitants of the fortress to remain abroad subsequent to the hour appointed for ‘locking-up.’
At five o’clock in the morning, the sergeant again summons his men; on this occasion, to open the gates of the Tower. The ceremony, though essentially similar to the midnight one, is perhaps a little more hurriedly performed in the unlocking than it is in the locking of the gates; and the officer on guard does not appear in the morning, though we may safely assume that he had to ‘turn out’ when the opening of the Tower was a more significant matter than it happily now is. But besides being present with his guard at midnight, he has other duties to carry out: by day, he marches off the ‘relief’ at intervals of two hours; and in the afternoon goes round the sentries, hearing them repeat their orders—an almost obsolete custom, but still kept up in the Tower. Previous to the hour appointed for this ordeal, the men may be seen studiously reading their instructions, or committing them to memory as they pace up and down. By night, the officer goes his ‘rounds’ accompanied by a small escort, including the drummer-boy and his rather opaque lantern. In the course of this tour, every sentinel connected with the garrison is visited; and by the time the rounds return to the Main Guard, the members of that important body have usually been called into activity by the loud cry of ‘Keys!’
IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER XIV.
Edward and Marian spent their first week in Trinidad with the Hawthorns senior. Mrs Hawthorn was kindness itself to Marian—a dear, gentle, motherly old lady, very proud of her boy, especially of his ability to read Arabic, which seemed to her a profundity of learning never yet dreamt of in the annals of humanity—and immensely pleased with her new daughter-in-law; but nothing on earth that Marian could say to her would induce her to unlock the mystery of that alarming telegram. ‘No, no, my dear,’ she would say, shaking her head gloomily and wiping her spectacles, whenever Marian recurred to the subject, ‘you’ll find it all out only too soon. God forbid, my darling, that ever I should break it to you. I love you far too well for that. Marian, Marian, my dear daughter, you should never, never, never have come here!’ And then she would burst immediately into tears. And that was all that poor frightened Marian could ever get out of her new mother-in-law.
All that first week, old Mr Hawthorn was never tired of urging upon Edward to go back again at once to England. ‘I can depart in peace now, my boy,’ he said; ‘I have seen you at last, and known you, and had my heart gladdened by your presence here. Indeed, if you wish it, I’d rather go back to England with you again, than that you should stay in this unsuitable Trinidad. Why bury your talents and your learning here, when you might be rising to fame and honour over in London? What’s the use of your classical knowledge out in the West Indies? What’s the use of your Arabic? What’s the use of your law, even? We have nothing to try here but petty cases between planter and servant: of what good to you in that will be all your work at English tenures and English land laws? You’re hiding your light under a bushel. You’re putting a trotting horse into a hansom cab. You’re wasting your Arabic on people who don’t even know the difference between Greek and Latin.’
To all which, Edward steadily replied, that he wouldn’t go back as long as this mystery still hung unsolved over him; and that, as he had practically made an agreement with the colonial government, it would be dishonourable in him to break it for unknown and unspecified reasons. As soon as possible, he declared firmly, he would take up his abode in his own district.
House-hunting is reduced to its very simplest elements in the West Indian colonies. There is one house in each parish or county which has been inhabited from time immemorial by one functionary for the time being. The late Attorney-general dies of yellow fever, or drinks himself to death, or gets promotion, or retires to England, and another Attorney-general is duly appointed by constituted authority in his vacant place. The new man succeeds naturally to the house and furniture of his predecessor—as naturally, indeed, as he succeeds to any of his other functions, offices, and prerogatives. Not that there is the least compulsion in the matter, only you must. As there is no other house vacant in the community, and as nobody ever thinks of building a new one—except when the old one tumbles down by efflux of time or shock of earthquake—the only thing left for one to do is to live in the place immemorially occupied by all one’s predecessors in the same office. Hence it happened that at the beginning of their second week in the island of Trinidad, Marian and Edward Hawthorn found themselves ensconced with hardly any trouble in the roomy bungalow known as Mulberry Lodge, and he hereditarily attached to the post of District Court Judge for the district of Westmoreland.
Marian laid herself out at once for callers, and very soon the callers began to drop in. About the fourth day after they had settled into their new house, she was sitting in the big, bare, tropical-looking drawing-room—a great, gaunt, spare barn, scantily furnished with a few tables and rocking-chairs upon the carpetless polished floor—so gaunt, that even Marian’s deft fingers failed to make it at first look home-like or habitable—when a light carriage drew up hastily with a dash at the front-door of the low bungalow. The young bride pulled her bows straight quickly at the heavy, old-fashioned, gilt mirror, and waited anxiously to receive the expected visitors. It was her first appearance as mistress of her establishment. In a minute, Thomas, the negro butler—every man-servant is a butler in Trinidad, even if he is only a boy of twenty—ushered the new-comers pompously into the bare drawing-room. Marian took their cards and glanced at them hastily. Two gentlemen—the Honourable Colonial Secretary, and the Honourable Director of Irrigation.
The Colonial Secretary sidled into a chair, and took up his parable at once with a very profuse and ponderous apology. ‘My wife, Mrs Hawthorn, my wife, I’m sorry to say, was most unfortunately unable to accompany me here this morning.—Charmingly you’ve laid out this room, really; so very different from what it used to be in poor old Macmurdo’s time.—Isn’t it, Colonel Daubeny?—Poor old Macmurdo died in the late yellow fever, you know, my dear madam, and Mr Hawthorn fills his vacancy. Excellent fellow, poor old Macmurdo—ninth judge I’ve known killed off by yellow fever in this district since I’ve been here.—My wife, I was saying, when your charming room compelled me to digress, is far from well at present—a malady of the country: this shocking climate; or else, I’m sure she’d have been delighted to have called upon you with me this morning. The loss is hers, the loss is hers, Mrs Hawthorn. I shall certainly tell her so. Immensely sorry.’