CHAPTER XXVII
LUCE’S DISCOVERY
As Wynnette and Rosemary approached the drawing room they heard a sweet confusion of laughing and talking within; which was explained as soon as Wynnette had opened the door.
Le had just arrived, and was in the midst of his friends shaking hands, hugging and kissing, asking and answering questions, all at once.
He rushed to Wynnette and Rosemary “at sight,” and gave them each a hearty, brotherly embrace.
“Yes,” he continued, with something that he had been saying when the girls came in—“yes, I have brought all the evidence we can possibly want or use—an overwhelming mass of evidence as to the marriage of Angus Anglesea and Ann Maria Wright at St. Sebastian, on August 1, 18—. That is proved and established beyond all doubt or question.”
“As if anybody ever did doubt it. The Lord knows if ever I had thought as any of you misdoubted as I was Anglesea’s lawful wedded wife, I wouldn’t a-stayed in this house one hour. Not I!” indignantly protested Mrs. Anglesea.
“No one ever did or ever could doubt that fact, my good lady,” said Mr. Force, soothingly; “but there are captious people who will contest things that they cannot doubt. And it is to meet such as these that we must be armed with overwhelming evidence.”
Mrs. Anglesea was mollified, and presently inquired if Le had seen her boys.
“I did not go to Wild Cats’ Gulch, dear Mrs. Anglesea,” replied Le.
“‘Didn’t go!’ But you wrote as you was a-going!” exclaimed the lady from that section.
“Yes, and so I was. But on the very day when I proposed to start thither, on inquiring the best way to get there, I was referred to a man who was said to have once lived at the place. So I went, and found the referee to be a Mr. Joe Mullins, in the jewelry line of business.”
“Joe Mullins! My Joe! He in St. Sebastian! Do tell me now!” exclaimed Mrs. Anglesea.
“Yes, there he was, healthy, happy and prosperous, keeping a jeweler’s store, and living over it with his wife and two children!”
“Lord a mercy! Married, too!”
“Yes, and prosperous.”
“Well, well! And the other boys?”
Le looked solemn.
“‘Some gone east;
Some gone west;
And some rest
At Crow’s Nest,’”
ruefully answered the young man.
“And the camp’s broke up, as I thought it would be.”
“Yes, two years ago.”
“Well, it is some satisfaction to hear about Joe. And so now I won’t interrupt of you no longer, as I dessay you have a heap to talk about among your ownselves,” said Mrs. Anglesea, as she left the drawing room.
As soon as she was gone the family fell into more confidential conversation.
“We shall sail for England in ten days,” said Mr. Force, “and with this complete evidence of the Californian marriage in our possession we will, on our arrival in the old country, seek out authentic evidence of the exact date of Lady Mary Anglesea’s demise, which I fully believe to have occurred in the August of some year previous to that of Col. Anglesea’s marriage with the Widow Wright. When we shall find such evidence, as I feel sure we shall, then there will be nothing wanting to prove that Ann Maria Anglesea is the lawful wife of Angus Anglesea, and that Odalite Force is, and has always been, free, and there need be nothing to prevent your immediate union, my dear children.”
“May Heaven speed the day!” earnestly aspirated Le.
Much more was said on the subject that need not be repeated here.
Preparations for their voyage had been so long and systematically in progress that the Forces had perfect leisure in the last week of their stay at home.
The last day was devoted to the friends they were about to leave behind.
They started early on the morning of the twenty-third of May, and made a round of farewell visits to all their old neighbors.
The last call they made was at Forest Rest, to take leave of Miss Sibby Bayard.
“So you are ralely a-going to cross the high seas? I hardly believed it on you, Abel Force!” she said, as she shook hands in turn with Mr. and Mrs. Force, Le and the three girls, and gave them seats. “I thought as you had more sense, Abel Force! I did that! Them as has the least to do with the sea, sez I, comes the best off, sez I!”
“But, my good lady, necessity has no law, you know. We are obliged to go,” laughed Mr. Force.
“What have you been up and doing of, old Abel, that you are obliged to run away from your own native country? Nobody but outlaws, sez I, is obliged to go off to furrin parts, sez I!”
Mr. Force found nothing to say to this.
Wynnette came to her father’s assistance.
“We shall visit, among other interesting places, Arundel Castle, the seat of your ancestors for centuries past, Miss Sibby.”
“Hush, honey! You don’t say as you’ll go there?”
“As sure as the Lord permits us, we will, Miss Sibby.”
“And see it?”
“Yes, and see it.”
“With your own eyes?”
“Well, no,” gravely replied Wynnette, “not with our own eyes, because we might have to stretch them too wide to take in a view of the great stronghold of the great ducal house. We propose to hire some stout, able-bodied eyes for the occasion!”
“And now you are laughing at me, Miss Wynnette! You are always laughing heartiest inside when you’re a looking solemnest outside! But you ralely are gwine to visit ’Rundel Cassil?”
“Yes. All tourists go there.”
“Well, well, well! Them as lives the longest, sez I, sees the most, sez I. But little did I think as I should live to see any of my neighbors going to visit ’Rundel Cassil!”
“We will bring you a guidebook with illustrations, descriptive of the castle, and some relics and curiosities of the place. They are to be had, I think.”
“Do, my child! I should prize ’em above everything. And now, Miss Wynnette, you take a ole ’oman’s advice. Them as follows my advice, sez I, never comes to no harm, sez I. Mind that, honey.”
“All right, Miss Sibby; fire away!—I mean proceed with your good counsel.”
“Well, then, honey, I ain’t been that blind but I could see what was a-goin’ on between a certain young gentleman and a certain young lady.”
Wynnette tacitly pleaded guilty by a deep blush.
“Now, honey, don’t you take it anyways amiss what I am a-gwine to say. You’re gwine off to furrin parts. Now, honey, don’t you let any of them there furrin colonels and counts and things fashionate you away from you own dear sweetheart. He’s a good, true man, is Sam Grandiere, and a ole neighbor’s son. Now you take my advice and be true to him, as he is sure to be true to you. Them as breaks faith, sez I, is sure to pay for it, sez I. There, now, I won’t say no more. When you’ve said all you’ve got to say, sez I, it is time to stop, sez I.”
Mrs. Force now arose to take leave.
All her party kissed Miss Sibby good-by.
The old lady cried a little, and prayed: “God bless them.”
And so they parted.
Early the next morning the Forces left Mondreer, taking the dog, Joshua, with them.
Wynnette had insisted on his coming.
“I promised him, papa,” she said—“I promised him; and it would be playing it too low to go back on a dumb brute—oh! I mean, dear papa, that it would seem base to break faith with a poor, confiding dog.”
So Joshua went.
“Look yere, ole woman,” said the lady from Wild Cats’, “I’m gwine to take the best of care of your house while you’re gone, and I want you to keep an eye on my rascal over yonder, while I keep a sharp lookout for him over here. He can’t be in both places at once; but wherever he is he will be at some deviltry—you may bet your pile on that.”
This was the lady’s last good-by to the departing family.
She watched the procession of three carriages that took them and all their luggage to the railway station, where Rosemary Hedge was to be brought by her mother and aunt to join them.
She watched them cross the lawn, and go out through the north gate, and disappear up the wooded road.
And then she turned into the house to face the howling Luce.
“What on earth ails the woman?” demanded the housekeeper.
“Oh! dey’s gone ag’in!—dey’s gone ag’in! An’ dis time dey’s gone across de ocean! I shall nebber see ’em ag’in!—nebber no mo’!—nebber no mo’!” sobbed Lucy, sitting flat on the hall floor, and rocking her body back and forth.
“Oh, yes you will. Don’t be a fool! Get up and go to work. Work’s the best cure for trouble. Indeed, work’s the best cure for most things—poverty, for instance.”
“It didn’t use to be so! It didn’t use to be so!” said Luce, continuing to rock herself. “Dey nebber use to go ’way from year’s end to year’s end! But now it’s got to be a habit dey gibs deirselbes—a berry habit dey gibs deirselbes!”