Chapter V

The letter from Edward that had so greatly perturbed old Mr Hawthorn had been written, of course, some twenty days before he received it, for the mail takes about that time, as a rule, in going from Southampton across the Atlantic to the port of Trinidad. Edward had already told his father of his long-standing engagement to Marian; but the announcement and acceptance of the district judgeship had been so hurried, and the date fixed for his departure was so extremely early, that he had only just had time by the first mail to let his father know of his approaching marriage, and his determination to proceed at once to the West Indies by the succeeding steamer. Three weeks was all the interval allowed him by the inexorable red-tape department of the Colonial Office for completing his hasty preparations for his marriage, and setting sail to undertake his newly acquired judicial functions.

‘Three weeks, my dear,’ Nora cried in despair to Marian; ‘why, you know, it can’t possibly be done! It’s simply impracticable. Do those horrid government-office people really imagine a girl can get together a trousseau, and have all the bridesmaids’ dresses made, and see about the house and the breakfast and all that sort of thing, and get herself comfortably married, all within a single fortnight? They’re just like all men; they think you can do things in less than no time. It’s absolutely preposterous.’

‘Perhaps,’ Marian answered, ‘the government-office people would say they engaged Edward to take a district judgeship, and didn’t stipulate anything about his getting married before he went out to Trinidad to take it.’

‘Oh, well, you know, if you choose to look at it in that way, of course one can’t reasonably grumble at them for their absurd hurrying. But still the horrid creatures ought to have a little consideration for a girl’s convenience. Why, we shall have to make up our minds at once, without the least proper deliberation, what the bridesmaids’ dresses are to be, and begin having them cut out and the trimmings settled this very morning. A wedding at a fortnight’s notice! I never in my life heard of such a thing. I wonder, for my part, your mamma consents to it.—Well, well, I shall have you to take charge of me going out, that’s one comfort; and I shall have my bridesmaid’s dress made so that I can wear it a little altered, and cut square in the bodice, when I get to Trinidad, for a best dinner dress. But it’s really awfully horrid having to make all one’s preparations for the wedding and for going out in such a terrible unexpected hurry.’ However, in spite of Nora, the preparations for the wedding were duly made within the appointed fortnight, even that important item of the bridesmaids’ dresses being quickly settled to everybody’s satisfaction.

Strange that when two human beings propose entering into a solemn contract together for the future governance of their entire joint existence, the thoughts of one of them, and that the one to whom the change is most infinitely important, should be largely taken up for some weeks beforehand with the particular clothes she is to wear on the morning when the contract is publicly ratified! Fancy the ambassador who signs the treaty being mainly occupied for the ten days of the preliminary negotiations with deciding what sort of uniform and how many orders he shall put on upon the eventful day of the final signature!

At the end of that short hurry-scurrying fortnight, the wedding actually took place; and an advertisement in the _Times_ next morning duly announced among the list of marriages, ‘At Holy Trinity, Brompton, by the Venerable Archdeacon Ord, uncle of the bride, assisted by the Rev. Augustus Savile, B.D., EDWARD BERESFORD HAWTHORN, M.A., Barrister-at-law, of the Inner Temple, late Fellow of St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, and District Judge of the Westmoreland District, Trinidad, to MARIAN ARBUTHNOT, only daughter of General C. S. Ord, C.I.E., formerly of the Bengal Infantry.’ ‘The bride’s toilet,’ said the newspapers, ‘consisted of white broché satin de Lyon, draped with deep lace flounces, caught up with orange blossoms. The veil was of tulle, secured to the hair with a pearl crescent and stars. The bouquet was composed of rare exotics.’ In fact, to the coarse and undiscriminating male intelligence, the whole attire, on which so much pains and thought had been hurriedly bestowed, does not appear to have differed in any respect whatsoever from that of all the other brides one has ever looked at during the entire course of a reasonably long and varied lifetime.

After the wedding, however, Marian and Edward could only afford a single week by way of a honeymoon, in that most overrun by brides and bridegrooms of all English districts, the Isle of Wight, as being nearest within call of Southampton, whence they had to start on their long ocean voyage. The aunt in charge was to send down Nora to meet them at the hotel the day before the steamer sailed; and the general and Mrs Ord were to see them off, and say a long good-bye to them on the morning of sailing.

Harry Noel, too, who had been best-man at the wedding, for some reason most fully known to himself, professed a vast desire to ‘see the last of poor Hawthorn,’ before he left for parts unknown in the Caribbean; and with that intent, duly presented himself at a Southampton hotel on the day before their final departure. It was not purely by accident, however, either on his own part or on Marian Hawthorn’s, that when they took a quiet walk that evening in some fields behind the battery, he found himself a little in front with Nora Dupuy, while the newly married pair, as was only proper, brought up the rear in a conjugal tête-à-tête.

‘Miss Dupuy,’ Harry said suddenly, as they reached an open space in the fields, with a clear view uninterrupted before them, ‘there’s something I wish to say to you before you leave to-morrow for Trinidad—something a little premature, perhaps, but under the circumstances—as you’re leaving so soon—I can’t delay it. I’ve seen very little of you, as yet, Miss Dupuy, and you’ve seen very little of me, so I daresay I owe you some apology for this strange precipitancy; but—— Well, you’re going away at once from England; and I may not see you again for—for some months; and if I allow you to go without having spoken to you, why’——

Nora’s heart throbbed violently. She didn’t care very much for Harry Noel at first sight, to be sure; but still, she had never till now had a regular offer of marriage made to her; and every woman’s heart beats naturally—I believe—when she finds herself within measurable distance of her first offer. Besides, Harry was the heir to a baronetcy, and a great catch, as most girls counted; and even if you don’t want to marry a baronet, it’s something at least to be able to say to yourself in future, ‘I refused an offer to be Lady Noel.’ Mind you, as women go, the heir to an old baronetcy and twelve thousand a year is not to be despised, though you may not care a single pin about his mere personal attractions. A great many girls who would refuse, the man upon his own merits, would willingly say ‘Yes’ at once to the title and the income. So Nora Dupuy, who was, after all, quite as human as most other girls—if not rather more so—merely held her breath hard and tried her best to still the beating of her wayward heart, as she answered back with childish innocence: ‘Well, Mr Noel; in that case, what would happen?’

‘In that case, Miss Dupuy,’ Harry replied, looking at her pretty little pursed-up guileless mouth with a hungry desire to kiss it incontinently then and there—‘why, in that case, I’m afraid some other man—some handsome young Trinidad planter or other—might carry off the prize on his own account before I had ventured to put in my humble claim for it.—Miss Dupuy, what’s the use of beating about the bush, when I see by your eyes you know what I mean! From the moment I first saw you, I said to myself: “She’s the one woman I have ever seen whom I feel instinctively I could worship for a lifetime.” Answer me yes. I’m no speaker. But I love you. Will you take me?’

Nora twisted the tassel of her parasol nervously between her finger and thumb for a few seconds; then she looked back at him full in the face with her pretty girlish open eyes, and answered with charming naïveté—just as if he had merely asked her whether she would take another cup of tea:—‘Thank you, no, Mr Noel; I don’t think so.’

Harry Noel smiled with amusement—in spite of this curt and simple rejection—at the oddity of such a reply to such a question. ‘Of course,’ he said, glancing down at her pretty little feet to hide his confusion, ‘I didn’t expect you to answer me _Yes_ at once on so very short an acquaintance as ours has been. I acknowledge it’s dreadfully presumptuous in me to have dared to put you a question like that, when I know you can have seen so very little in me to make me worth the honour you’d be bestowing upon me.’

‘Quite so,’ Nora murmured mischievously, in a parenthetical undertone. It wasn’t kind; I daresay it wasn’t even lady-like; but then you see she was really, after all, only a school-girl.

Harry paused, half abashed for a second at this very literal acceptance of his conventional expression of self-depreciation. He hardly knew whether it was worth while continuing his suit in the face of such exceedingly outspoken discouragement. Still, he had something to say, and he determined to say it. He was really very much in love with Nora, and he wasn’t going to lose his chance outright just for the sake of what might be nothing more than a pretty girl’s provoking coyness.

‘Yes,’ he went on quietly, without seeming to notice her little interruption, ‘though you haven’t yet seen anything in me to care for, I’m going to ask you, not whether you’ll give me any definite promise—it was foolish of me to expect one on so brief an acquaintance—but whether you’ll kindly bear in mind that I’ve told you I love you—yes, I said love you’—for Nora had clashed her little hand aside impatiently at the word. ‘And remember, I shall still hope, until I see you again, you may yet in future reconsider the question.—Don’t make me any promise, Miss Dupuy; and don’t repeat the answer you’ve already given me; but when you go to Trinidad, and are admired and courted as you needs must be, don’t wholly forget that some one in England once told you he loved you—loved you passionately.’

‘I’m not likely to forget it, Mr Noel,’ Nora answered with malicious calmness; ‘because nobody ever proposed to me before, you know; and one’s sure not to forget one’s first offer.’

‘Miss Dupuy, you are making game of me! It isn’t right of you—it isn’t generous.’

Nora paused and looked at him again. He was dark, but very handsome. He looked handsomer still when he bridled up a little. It was a very nice thing to look forward to being Lady Noel. How all the other girls at school would have just jumped at it! But no; he was too dark by half to meet her fancy. She couldn’t give him the slightest encouragement. ‘Mr Noel,’ she said, far more seriously this time, with a little sigh of impatience, ‘believe me, I didn’t really mean to offend you. I—I like you very much; and I’m sure I’m very much flattered indeed by what you’ve just been kind enough to say to me. I know it’s a great honour for you to ask me to—to ask me what you have asked me. But—you know, I don’t think of you in that light, exactly. You will understand what I mean when I say I can’t even leave the question open. I—I have nothing to reconsider.’

Harry waited a moment in internal reflection. He liked her all the better because she said _no_ to him. He was man of the world enough to know that ninety-nine girls out of a hundred would have jumped at once at such an eligible offer. ‘In a few months,’ he said quietly, in an abstracted fashion, ‘I shall be paying a visit out in Trinidad.’

‘Oh, don’t, pray, don’t,’ Nora cried hastily. ‘It’ll be no use, Mr Noel, no use in any way. I’ve quite made up my mind; and I never change it. Don’t come out to Trinidad, I beg of you.’

‘I see,’ Harry said, smiling a little bitterly. ‘Some one else has been beforehand with me already. No wonder. I’m not at all surprised at him. How could he possibly see you and help it?’ And he looked with unmistakable admiration at Nora’s face, all the prettier now for its deep blushes.

‘No, Mr Noel,’ Nora answered simply. ‘There you are mistaken. There’s nobody—absolutely nobody. I’ve only just left school, you know, and I’ve seen no one so far that I care for in any way.’

‘In that case,’ Harry Noel said, in his decided manner, ‘the quest will still be worth pursuing. No matter what you say, Miss Dupuy, we shall meet again—before long—in Trinidad. A young lady who has just left school has plenty of time still to reconsider her determinations.’

‘Mr Noel! Please, don’t! It’ll be quite useless.’

‘I must, Miss Dupuy; I can’t help myself. You will draw me after you, even if I tried to prevent it. I believe I have had one real passion in my life, and that passion will act upon me like a magnet on a needle for ever after. I shall go to Trinidad.’

‘At anyrate, then, you’ll remember that I gave you no encouragement, and that for me, at least, my answer is final.’

‘I _will_ remember, Miss Dupuy—and I won’t believe it.’

* * * * *

That evening, as Marian kissed Nora good-night in her own bedroom at the Southampton hotel, she asked archly: ‘Well, Nora, what did you answer him?’

‘Answer who? what?’ Nora repeated hastily, trying to look as if she didn’t understand the suppressed antecedent of the personal pronoun.

‘My dear girl, it isn’t the least use your pretending you don’t know what I mean by it. I saw in your face, Nora, when Edward and I caught you up, what it was Mr Noel had been saying to you. And how did you answer him? Tell me, Nora!’

‘I told him _no_, Marian, quite positively.’

‘O Nora!’

‘Yes, I did. And he said he’d follow me out to Trinidad; and I told him he really needn’t take the trouble, because in any case I could never care for him.’

‘O dear, I _am_ so sorry. You wicked girl! And, Nora, he’s such a nice fellow too! and so dreadfully in love with you! You ought to have taken him.’

‘My dear Marian! He’s so awfully black, you know. I really believe he must positively be—be _coloured_.’

OUR DOMESTICATED OTTER.

One fine day in early autumn, while straying along the banks of one of the sparkling little trout streams which appear to be at once the cause and the purpose of those lovely winding valleys so numerous in Northern Devon, our attention was drawn, by a faint distressed chirping sound, to a small dark object stirring in the grass at some distance from the stream. We hurried to the spot, and there saw, to our great surprise, wet, muddy, and uneasily squirming at our feet, a baby otter! Poor infant! how came it there? By what concatenation of untoward circumstances did the helpless innocent find itself in a position so foreign to the habits of its kind? Its appearance under conditions so utterly at variance with our experience of the customs and manners of otter society, was so amazing, that we could scarcely believe our eyes. However, there the little creature undoubtedly was; and congratulating ourselves on this unlooked-for and valuable addition to our home menagerie—for these animals are rare in Devon, and to light upon a young scion of the race in evident need of a home and education was quite a piece of good luck—the forlorn bantling was promptly deposited in a coat-pocket and proudly borne homewards.

Introduced to the family circle, ‘Tim’—as he was afterwards duly christened—became at once the centre of domestic interest and unceasing care. To feed him was necessarily our first consideration. A feline or canine mother deprived of her young was suggested as a suitable foster-mother; but, unfortunately, no such animal was at hand, and meantime the creature must be fed. We therefore procured an ordinary infant’s feeding-bottle, and filling it with lukewarm cow’s milk, essayed thus to make good the absence of mamma-otter. At first the little stranger absolutely declined even to consider this arrangement, and in consequence pined somewhat; but in the end the pangs of hunger wrought a change in his feelings, and after several energetic though unscientific attempts, he overcame the difficulties of his new feeding apparatus, and was soon vigorously sucking. For a time, all went well. Tim, with commendable regularity, alternately filled himself with milk and slept peacefully in his basket of sweet hay. But at the close of the second day, a change came over our interesting charge; he was restless and uneasy during the night, and in the morning, refused to feed, and appeared to be suffering pain. Finally, his respiration became laboured and difficult, and for a whole day and night our hopes of rearing him were at the lowest ebb. But at the end of that time, to our great satisfaction, the distressing symptoms began to abate, and in a few hours had disappeared, and the convalescent returned _con amore_ to his bottle. Believing his attack was attributable to over-feeding, we henceforth diluted the cow’s milk with warm water, and removed his bottle at the first sign of approaching satiety, nor did we again administer it until his demands for sustenance became vociferous and imperative. On this system we were successful in rearing him in the face of many prophecies of failure.

At this early stage of his existence, being exhibited to admiring friends, he crawled laboriously and flatly about on the carpet, with a decided preference for backward motion; but if he encountered a perpendicular surface, such as the sides of his hamper or a trouser-leg, he would, with the aid of his claws, climb up it with considerable agility. He distinctly showed a love of warmth, and gave us to understand that he appreciated caresses, by nestling down in feminine laps, and ceasing his plaintive cry while our hands were about him. On awakening from sleep, he would begin, as do ducklings and chickens, with a gentle reminder of his existence and requirements. If no notice were taken of this, the note—which was something between the magnified chirp of a chicken and the very earliest bark of a puppy—would steadily increase in power and insistence, until it became an absolute clamour. When his bottle was given to him, he would seize on the leather teat and tug at it, and plunge about with a violence and impatience which defeated its own end, and woe to the unwary or awkward fingers which came in the way of the tiny fine white teeth at this moment!

Obstacles overcome and success attained, Tim settled down to steady sober enjoyment; the webbed paws were alternately spread and closed like a cat’s when thoroughly content, and the tail curled and uncurled and wagged to and fro, as does a lamb’s when happily feeding. After the lapse of a few days, our new pet showed decided signs of intelligence and a sense of fun: he would run round after one’s finger in a clumsy-lively way, and a jocular poke in the ribs would rouse him to an awkwardly playful attempt to seize the offending digit. In less than three weeks he knew his name, and scuttled across the room when called, followed us about the garden, and endeavoured to establish friendly relations with a pet wild rabbit, which was furiously jealous of the new favourite, and administered sly scratches, and ‘hustled’ him on every possible occasion.

About this time, he also acquired a charming habit of beginning, the moment the sun rose, a clamour which deprived half the household of further sleep, and which was only to be quieted by his being taken into some one’s bed, where he would at once ‘snuggle’ down and lie motionless for hours. At first we resisted this importunity on the part of Tim, partly because an otter is not exactly the animal one would select as a bedfellow, and partly because we could not think it a desirable or wholesome habit for the creature itself. But Master Tim was too much for us. ‘If you won’t let me sleep with you, you shan’t sleep at all!’ he declared in unmistakable language, and by dint of sticking to his point he carried it.

At the end of the first month of his civilised life, some one gave him a scrap of raw meat; and after that, though he ate bread and milk very contentedly between times, he made us understand that his constitution required the support of animal food, and was never satisfied without his daily ration of uncooked flesh. Fish, strange to say, he seemed to prefer cooked. When we were seated at meals, a hand held down would bring Tim quickly to one’s side with an eager look in the small yellow eyes; his cold nose sniffed at one’s fingers with rapid closing and unclosing of the curiously formed nostrils; the softly furred head would be thrust into the palm in search of the expected dainty morsel. If none were to be found, his temper would be sadly ruffled, sometimes to the extent of inflicting with his teeth a sharp reminder that not even an otter’s feelings should be trifled with!

As he grew older, he developed an amount of intelligence scarcely to be expected from the small brain contained in the flat and somewhat snake-like head; he showed decided preferences for some members of the family over others; if permitted, he would follow everywhere at our heels like a dog, and played with the children after the manner of one, but with awkward springs and jumps that put us in mind of a particularly ungraceful lamb. He occasionally made quite energetic assaults on the ankles of some of the ladies of the family; and if he perceived that the owner of unprotected ankles went in fear of him, showed a malicious pleasure in renewing the attack at every favourable opportunity.

When the children went for a country ramble, Tim frequently accompanied them, taking the greatest delight in these excursions. He would be carried until beyond danger from wandering dogs, and then being set at liberty, the fun would begin. Master Tim, all eagerness, trotting on before in search of interesting facts, the children take advantage of a moment when all his faculties are engaged with some novelty attractive to the otter mind, to vanish through a neighbouring gate or behind a haystack. The unusual quiet soon arouses Tim’s suspicions; he looks round, and finds himself alone. The situation, from its strangeness, is appalling to him; he utters a shriek of despair, and scurries back as fast as his legs can take him, squeaking loudly all the time. If he should chance, in his fright, to pass by the hiding-place of his young protectors without discovering them, great is their delight. One little face after another peers out and watches, with mischievous glee, poor Tim’s plump and anxious form trundling along as fast as is possible to it in the wrong direction! But very soon the humour of the situation is too much for some young spirit, and a smothered laugh or a half-suppressed giggle reaches the tiny sharp ears, and Tim quickly turns, and with another shriek of mingled satisfaction and indignation, gives chase to his playful tormentors. Once arrived in the open meadows, where this novel game of hide-and-seek is not possible, it is Tim’s turn. Still, he follows obediently enough, frisking and gamboling in the fresh soft grass, until one of the innumerable small streams is approached. As soon as he catches sight of the water, he is off. At a rapid trot he hurries to the brink, and with swift and noiseless dart, in a flash he has disappeared in the current, and in another reappeared some yards away. Rolling over, turning, twisting, diving, he revels in his cold bath, and it is sometimes a matter of no small difficulty to get him out of the water. A cordon of children is formed—the two biggest with bare feet and legs, to cut off his retreat up and down stream—which, gradually closing in on him, seizes him at last; and reluctantly he is compelled to dry himself in the grass preparatory to returning to the forms and ceremonies of civilised life.

A GOLDEN ARGOSY.

_A NOVELETTE._