‘You must have heard,’ said the mother.
’I don’t in the least know what you are
talking about. I have heard nothing at all.’
In very truth he had heard nothing of his old friend,—not
even that he had returned to England. Then by
degrees the whole story was told to him. ‘I
know that he was putting a lot of money together,’
said Dick enviously. ’Married Hester Bolton?
I thought he would! Bigamy! Euphemia Smith!
Married before! Certainly not at the diggings.’
‘He wasn’t married up at Ahalala?’
asked the doctor.
’To Euphemia Smith? I was there when they
quarrelled, and when she went into partnership with
Crinkett. I am sure there was no such marriage.
John Caldigate in prison for bigamy? And he paid
them twenty thousand pounds? The more fool he!’
‘They all say that.’
’But it’s an infernal plant. As sure
as my name is Richard Shand, John Caldigate never
married that woman.’
Again at Sir John’s Chambers
And this was the man as to whom it had been acknowledged
that his evidence, if it could be obtained, would
be final. The return of Dick himself was to the
Shands an affair so much more momentous than the release
of John Caldigate from prison, that for some hours
or so the latter subject was allowed to pass out of
sight. The mother got him up-stairs and asked
after his linen,—vain inquiry,—and
arranged for his bed, turning all the little Rewbles
into one small room. In the long run, grandmothers
are more tender to their grand-children than their
own offspring. But at this moment Dick was predominant.
How grand a thing to have her son returned to her,
and such a son,—a teetotaller of two years’
growth, who had seen all the world of the Pacific Ocean!
As he could not take whisky-and-water, would he like
ginger-beer before he went to bed,—or arrowroot?
Dick decided in favour of ginger-beer, and consented
to be embraced again.
It was, I think, to Maria’s credit that she
was the first to bring back the conversation to John
Caldigate’s marriage. ’Was she a very
horrible woman?’ Maria asked, referring to Euphemia
Smith.
’There were a good many of ’em out there,
greedy after gold,’ said Dick; ’but she
beat ’em all; and she was awfully clever.’
‘In what way, Dick?’ asked Mrs. Rewble.
Because she does not seem to me to have done very
well with herself.’
’She knew more about shares than any man of
them all. But I think she just drank a little.
It was that which disgusted Caldigate.’
‘He had been very fond of her?’ suggested
Maria.
‘I never knew a man so taken with a woman.’
Maria blushed, and Mrs. Rewble looked round at her
younger sisters as though desirous that they should
be sent to bed. ’All that began on board
the ship. Then he was fool enough to run after
her down to Sydney; and of course she followed him
up to the mines.’
