Chapter XIII: Safe at Home

We left Jennie Montgomery sleeping in her mother’s arms, with her babe safe beside them.

Jennie would have talked all night till broad daylight; but her mother, knowing how tired the young traveler must be, discouraged all conversation by pretending to be sleepy, by replying only in monosyllables, or even answering at random, until at length the talker herself gave up in despair, grew tired, then stupid, and then fell fast asleep.

The consequence of her exhausted strength and her long vigil was that she slept long and deeply and late into the next morning.

When at last she awoke she found herself alone in the room, with the morning sunlight stealing through the slats of the window shutters, and gilding bright lines on the white window curtains and on the light gray ground of the carpet and the light gray color of the walls. She saw all this through the festooned white curtains at the foot of her bed. She raised herself up, and then she saw something through the same opening—a bright little coal fire burning in the grate.

Her mother was gone and her baby was gone. Evidently Jennie had slept so soundly that she had not heard their uprising and departure, and she had continued to sleep on until she knew not what hour of the day.

She thought she would get up and dress herself quietly before any one should discover that she was awake.

She slipped out of bed, and the first thing that she saw was her large sea trunk, that had been packed with undiscovered treasure of clothing by the benevolent women who had taken such a warm interest in her welfare, and who had given her an outfit as well as a first-class passage home.

The key of her trunk was in her _portemonnaie_, in the pocket of her traveling dress. She got it out, unstrapped and unlocked the treasure chest, and lifted the lid.

But just then she heard the voice of her baby crowing loudly in response to another cooing voice that she recognized as her mother’s.

They were having a grand circus together in the parlor, that young grandmother and the baby.

Jennie snatched up the first garment fitting to wear from the top of the trunk, and then dropped the lid and hastily washed and dressed herself, putting on a pretty blue cashmere princess wrapper, trimmed with blue satin ribbons. Then, while still buttoning up, she hastily opened the dividing door and entered the parlor.

Her mother was there, sitting in a low rocker, holding the baby across her lap. Beside her, on the hob of the grate, stood the bowl of “infant food” from which she had been feeding the child.

There was no one else in the room, nor did there need to be to make it very lively there, for the baby was crowing with all the strength of her lungs, while laughing up in the pretty, smiling face, with the cooing voice, bending over her.

“Oh, mamma, darling! why didn’t you wake me?” exclaimed Jennie, coming up before Mrs. Campbell perceived her presence in the room.

“Why, Jennie! Up and dressed, my pet? Why didn’t you ring for some one to help you?” inquired the mother in her turn.

“You haven’t answered my question yet, and told me why you did not wake me when you got up and dressed baby,” said Jennie as she stooped and kissed her mother and the child.

“I was so well satisfied to see you sleeping off your fatigue that I would not have disturbed you for a great deal,” said Mrs. Campbell, returning her daughter’s caress.

“Well, now, the reason I didn’t ring for any one was because I didn’t want any one. And when I heard you and baby in such earnest conversation, I hurried with my dressing and came in. I thought baby would be hungry.”

“She was hungry; but I sent to the chemist and got this ‘infant food’ for her.”

“Oh! she never was fed with that before!” exclaimed Jennie, in some doubt of its good effects.

“Don’t be afraid, my dear. It is used in all the royal nurseries. See, the royal arms are on the label,” said the lady.

“Of course, mamma, darling, if you give it, it is all right. I think your judgment quite as good as that of all the royal family put together.”

“Tut! tut! my pet! Your visit to America must have turned you into a republican. But what a lovely wrapper you have got on, Jennie!” she said, perhaps to turn the conversation.

“Is it not? And I have got another one just like it in mauve, which has never been on my back, and which you must have, dear mamma. Those angel women in New York have given me that huge trunk full of beautiful clothing, and I shall never wear one-half of it out, but my greatest pleasure in it will be to divide it with you, my dear, darling, beautiful mamma.”

“Oh, Jennie!” was all the curate’s wife found to say to that, for she did not mean to take any of her daughter’s pretty clothes, if she could help it, nor did she want to vex the girl by refusing them just then.

“Where is papa?” inquired Jennie.

“Gone out to make some sick calls; he will be home by noon. But here I am chatting away and forgetting that you have had no breakfast. We breakfasted two hours ago!” laughed Mrs. Campbell as she put her hand out to the bell rope and rang.

Elspeth Longman came in, smiled and nodded.

“Good-morning, ma’am,” to Jennie, and then went to work to lay the cloth for her breakfast. It was soon spread upon the table—good coffee, rich cream, muffins, fresh butter, grilled ham and poached eggs.

Mrs. Campbell gave the baby to Elspeth and sat down to pour out the coffee for her prodigal daughter.

“Ah, mamma! You remember our old feeling, yours and mine, that a draught poured out by beloved hands has the power of life-giving to the spirit as well as to the body,” said Jennie as she received the cup from her mother.

“And the same may be said of work gifts, my dear. Your little Shetland veil that you knit for me years ago, always seemed full as it could hold of your dear love, and its touch on my face like your caress,” replied Mrs. Campbell.

While they sat at table Elspeth Longman stood at one of the windows with the baby in her arms, tapping on the panes to make the child look out on the blue sky and the evergreen trees.

“I shall stop calling baby ‘Baby’ now, mamma. She is going to be named after you—Esther. It is too grown up a name to call a little baby in common. And we can’t call her Hetty, because that is your pet name. Now what shall we call her for short?”

“Essy,” replied the young grandmother.

“Essy, then, it shall be. Mind, Mrs. Longman. Our baby is to the christened Esther, after mamma, and we are to call her Essy for short.”

“Very well, ma’am; it is a pretty name,” said the woman at the window.

“And we will have her christened on Sunday, mamma. We must wait for Sunday, because I remember papa’s preference for christening babies on Sunday, unless there should be some pressing necessity to perform the ceremony on a week day.”

“There’s grandpa!” exclaimed Elspeth to the baby, tapping on the window. And the next instant, the Rev. James Campbell—otherwise familiarly and affectionately in his own family called “Jimmy”—entered the house and walked into the room.

He kissed his daughter good-morning, and then took his stand on the rug, with his back to the fire, looking so grave that his wife grew anxious, but forbore to question him in the presence of their newly returned daughter.

“And perhaps, after all,” she reflected, “it is nothing very personal. He may have just returned from the deathbed of a parishioner. Such scenes always affect him, more for the sake of those left behind than for the departed, for he has too much faith to fret after the freed soul.”

While Mrs. Campbell was turning these thoughts over in her mind, and Mr. Campbell was standing in silence on the rug, Jennie finished her breakfast and arose and took her crowing baby from the arms of Elspeth, that the latter might clear off the table.

When this was done, and the woman had left the room, and Jennie had put her baby to sleep in the pretty berceaunette that had been provided by her mother that very morning, and the father, mother and daughter were seated around the fire, both these women with needlework in their hands, the curate said:

“Now, my dear, if you will, you may give us the explanation you promised. Hetty!” he said, suddenly turning to his wife, “did she tell you anything last night?”

“Not a word. I would not let her talk. I made her go to sleep.”

“That was right. Well, we know from her letter that she, daughter of a minister of the church of England, though a very humble one, and the wife of an ex-officer in her majesty’s service, though a most unworthy one—that she, a lady by birth and by marriage, was brought to such extremity as to be confined in the pauper ward of a public hospital, and to depend on private charity for her outfit and passage home to us.”

“Thanks be to the Lord that we have her and her child safe and sound in mind and body, however they came to us!” fervently exclaimed Hetty Campbell.

“I say we know all this from our child’s letter. But we do not know why all this should have happened in this way; nor why she never mentioned her husband’s name in her letter; nor why she comes to us with her child alone; nor why, when I asked her for an explanation, she replied to me that the kindest act he ever did for her was—to leave her.”

“Oh, my Jennie! Oh, my dear Jennie!” exclaimed Hetty in a tone of pain.

“Yes, mamma; it is true. The kindest thing he ever did for me was to leave me. I am not heartbroken over it. I have nothing, not the least thing, to reproach myself with in all my conduct toward him. Mamma, when I made Capt. Kightly Montgomery’s acquaintance I

“‘Foregathered wi’ the de’il.’”

“Oh, Jennie—my daughter!”

“This is hard fact, mamma, as you will know when you have heard the story I am going to tell you. Is there any danger of any one coming in?”

“No, dear. There is no one in the house besides ourselves except Elspeth, and as this is baking day she is very busy in the kitchen, and will not come in here unless she should be called,” said Hetty. Nevertheless, she got up and turned the keys in both doors.

“Now, then, my dear,” she said as she resumed her seat.

“It is a long story, and a painful one; yet, for every reason, I feel that I must tell you the whole of it without reservation, because I shall have to seek your counsel and be guided by it as to my future course,” said Jennie, turning to her father.

“Yes; tell every word you know,” replied Jimmy.

Then Jennie told the whole horrible story—of her secret marriage—of which her parents had heard before—of the many devices by which her husband had kept her away from her parents, even after they had received her penitent letter, and forgiven her, and invited her and her bridegroom to visit them; of their wanderings through Europe, stopping at the great gambling centers; of his abandonment of her; or her pursuit of him over land and sea; of their meeting at night in the streets of New York, just when he was on the eve of marriage with another woman; of his fright at her appearance, his instant repudiation of her, and their bitter altercation, which ended in his stabbing her and leaving her for dead on the sidewalk of the deserted street,

“In the dead waste and middle of the night.”

At this point of the story Mrs. Campbell screamed and flung her hands up to her eyes as if to shut out the horrible vision her imagination had conjured up from the words of Jennie.

Then there followed a pause in the narrative until Hetty had recovered herself. Meanwhile the curate sat in grim silence, like a man who resolves but does not mean to speak.

It was Jennie who broke the spell.

“That is the very worst, mamma. I have nothing to tell worse than this—no, nor half as bad—and you see that it did not kill me. And now what I have to tell you is mostly a pleasant experience; for when I recovered consciousness, which was after many hours, I found myself on a nice, white bed in a pleasant room, with the sweetest, kindest woman’s face, like an angel’s face, bending over me, and my new-born baby lying beside me. Yes; my wound had been in the flesh of my left breast, shocking me into a swoon, but not fatal—as he had supposed it to be—and not even dangerous. Under some anæsthetic—I suppose, though I do not know—my wound had been dressed, and my baby born, and I awoke in such a heaven of peace and good will, with my precious baby by my side, and with angels of mercy all about me, that, mamma, every vestige of anger against my husband for all his wrongs to me vanished from my bosom; although there remained a shrinking from the thought of ever meeting him again, and a horror of him that I feel can never be overcome in this life. As soon as I was well enough to bear the ordeal I was questioned as to my assailant; but I would not tell who he was. The police searched my room on Vevay Street, and found his miniature; but it happened to be the one which had been taken when he was in the army, in his regimental uniform, and with his military mustache, and it bore his monogram, K. M. They brought it to me, but I would have nothing to say to it; nor was it available to trace Montgomery, for he now wore a citizen’s dress, had grown a full, long beard, and he bore another name—a name supported by documentary and direct evidence—a name which it will surprise you to hear—but let that pass for the present.”

“Why not tell us now?”

“Wait, mamma, dear. I am following the narrative as the facts came to my knowledge. The miniature was photographed and distributed to aid in the identification and arrest of the suspected party. It did not lead to Montgomery’s arrest, but to that of an unlucky gentleman who bore some resemblance to the photograph, especially in the matter of the martial mustache. This hapless person was brought before me for identification. The likeness struck even me at first, and startled me into a compromising exclamation; but a second glance assured me that I had never seen the man before in my life; and I told them so. They did not believe me. And afterward it took the evidence of several substantial citizens to convince the magistrate before whom he was brought that the accused man was quite a distinct individual from Capt. Kightly Montgomery, my supposed assailant. I say my supposed assailant, dear mamma; for they could not know him for such, since I would not give him up to justice; for I wish him no harm, though I never want to see him in this world.”

“Never!” breathed Hetty with all a mother’s intense sympathy.

“I told you in my letter of the great goodness of those angel women in New York to me, and how, as soon as I was able to leave the hospital, one of them, dear Mrs. Duncan, took me home to her own house, where she cared for me and my baby as—as you do, sweet mamma.”

“God bless them!” exclaimed Hetty.

“I stayed with her while the ladies were preparing my outfit, and until I took passage on the _Scorpio_.”

“And you saw no more of that——”

The conscientious minister hesitated at a word that any other man, under the circumstances, would have pronounced with vim.

Jennie understood him, and answered promptly.

“No, dear papa. I saw no more of him until I was eight days out at sea. Then we came face to face on deck.”

“‘Face to face on deck!’” exclaimed Hetty in dismay.

“‘Face to face on deck!’ Then he was actually coming over on the same ship with yourself?” said the curate, losing much of his self-control.

“Yes, papa. Yes, mamma. He was coming over on the same ship with myself. Coming over under his new name, with his new, deceived bride. They had been married with the greatest _éclat_ in one of the most wealthy and fashionable houses in New York. And they were on their wedding tour.”

Then Jennie gave a detailed account of the meeting between the recreant husband and the wronged wife on board the _Scorpio_. She described his fright, awe, horror on meeting one whom he believed to be in a pauper’s grave in potter’s field, with the stigma of suicide on her name, and then his slow acceptance of the fact that it was herself in the body, and not an optical illusion created by _delirium tremens_, that was there before him.

“I had not dreamed of meeting him there, or anywhere else on earth,” said Jennie; “but when I saw him before me, so unexpectedly, I was calmer than he was. I bade him leave me and avoid me, and told him that I should not trouble him while we were, unfortunately, on the ship together, but that I should tell you my whole story and take your advice as to my future course.”

“You did wisely so far,” said the curate.

“Then I told him you were to meet me at Liverpool.”

“Well?”

“He had taken tickets for Liverpool, but he got off, with his party, at Queenstown.”

“Ah!” breathed the curate, “that was prudently done. But now, my child, tell me the alias under which this man is now traveling, and which you said would surprise us very much?”

“Dear papa, first of all, will you please to tell me how much you learned of Kightly Montgomery’s true history when you undertook to investigate the antecedents of the young officer who had run off with your daughter?”

“Yes, my dear. There was no mystery about him. I went to the colonel of his regiment, and learned that he was the son of the late General the Honorable Arthur Montgomery, who was so distinguished in the Indian war, the grandson of the late and the nephew of the present Earl of Engelmeed, and a disgrace to his ancestry and relatives; and that he had held a commission in the—Regiment of Foot, but had been court-martialed and dismissed the service for ‘conduct unworthy of an officer and a gentleman.’”

“And you are sure that he is really Kightly Montgomery—that that is his real name?”

“As sure as that James Campbell is my own,” said the curate. “And now, will you tell me what name he passed under in America, and why he dropped his own?”

“Yes, papa; the name under which he passed in New York; the name under which he claims the richest estate in Yorkshire; the name under which he married Miss Lamia Leegh, of New York; the name under which he sailed in the _Scorpio_ for Liverpool, is——”

“Yes? Well?”

“Mr. Randolph Hay, of Haymore!”

“Great Heaven, Jennie!”

“Good Lord, Jennie!”

These exclamations burst simultaneously from the lips of Jimmy and Hetty.

“Yes, mamma! Yes, papa! It is true as truth. Your landlord and patron, the new Squire of Haymore, for whose home-coming with his bride all these gorgeous preparations have been made, is no other than my husband, your son-in-law, ex-captain of Foot, Kightly Montgomery, who metaphorically fled from before your face by landing at Queenstown, to avoid meeting you at Liverpool.”

“Oh, Hetty! Hetty!” said the curate, appealing to his wife, “what is this world coming to?”

“To judgment one of these days, Jimmy, according to your own preaching! ‘Reck your own read,’ Jimmy. And take comfort, as I do, that whatever has been, or is, or is to be, we have our darling daughter and her babe safe at home!” paid Hetty, closing her arm around Jennie’s waist and squeezing her fondly.

“And what a complication! The scoundrel—Heaven forgive me, the word slipped out!—the man slunk off the steamer at Queenstown for fear of meeting me at Liverpool, and now he is walking unaware into my very arms!”

“And I don’t believe that your arms will fold him in a very fond embrace!” exclaimed Hetty.

“If they had but the strength I fear it would be in the grizzly bear’s hug, or the boa constrictor’s crush!” exclaimed the curate, gasping.

“But the mad audacity of his coming here, where you are! I don’t understand it,” said Hetty.

“My dear, he does not dream that I am here! How should he? He thinks that we are all at Medge, on the south coast, with the length of England between us and Haymore!”

“So! I forgot that! What shall you do, Jimmy?”

“Nothing at present; but wait for his coming; then I will confront him and expose him to the lady he has deceived and feloniously married. Meanwhile, Hetty and Jennie, my dears, breathe not a word of this secret to any one, whoever he or she may be. The effrontery of the man in calling himself Randolph Hay, and claiming the Haymore estates, is nothing less than insanity! And the credulity of lawyers in allowing his claim is past belief!”

“Oh, but, my dear father, he had piles and piles of documents, and no end of direct testimony besides! I heard all about Mr. Randolph Hay’s appearance and claim to the Haymore estates, and his engagement to Miss Leegh from Mrs. Duncan, before I ever discovered that the claimant and bridegroom-elect were identical with my own recreant husband.”

“Forged or stolen documents, Jennie. And suborned and perjured witnesses! That is the story of his claim, Jennie. But breathe not a word to any one of this affair! Let the tenants and the villagers go on with their preparations for a grand fête. Let Capt. Kightly Montgomery and his bride come on in triumph to enjoy it! The higher the flight the heavier the fall for him.”

“But the poor lady! She was one of those who helped me, papa.”

“I am sorry for her! But, even for her sake, the man should be exposed and punished. She must not live with him in sin!” said the curate. Then, after a pause, “I cannot comprehend how he dares to come to England! One would think that he would be afraid of being recognized. It is true that he believes this family to be on the south coast. True, also, that he knows the regiment to which he lately belonged to be in India, so that there is no danger of his meeting with any of his late fellow officers, but still it is always possible that he may be recognized and exposed.”

“Oh, papa, you do not know what a change the full beard, and a difference in the parting of his hair, has made in him,” said Jennie.

“And, besides, did we not hear that the new squire does not intend to reside in England for some years to come? Did not some one say that he was only coming here to make a sort of triumphal entry upon his paternal land, and then, after liberally treating all his tenants and the villagers, he was to leave on extended travels?”

“Oh, yes! yes! I believe we did hear something of the sort. I suppose the fellow thinks he can safely come here with his bride to gratify his pride and vanity, by exhibiting her and himself in a triumphal entry, after the manner of royal personages! I dare say he thinks himself secure in doing that. But he does not know the Nemesis that is waiting for him! He does not dream that he will exchange triumph for shame, luxury for torture, and Haymore Hall and fox-hunting for Portsmouth Isle and penal servitude!” exclaimed the curate.

Then rising, he said:

“I must go and write my sermon. And this has given me some new ideas for it.”

And when he left the room Hetty and Jennie both knew that the sermon in question would be likely to deal more with the terrors of the law than with the mercies of the Lord.