CHAPTER LIX.

THE SERGEANT-MAJOR'S WIFE.

Captain Davenal had made light of the matter to his sister. Knowing how unfounded was the charge, the whole thing struck him as being so absurd, so improbable, that his mind could but receive it as a jest. Nevertheless, upon reflection, he saw that it might prove a subject of serious annoyance: such charges, especially if maliciously made and well planned, sometimes cost a world of trouble in their refutation.

He had said it was his intention to sift it. Sara suggested that he should do what she had shrunk from doing--question Neal. Captain Davenal hesitated. If there were any foundation for his suspicion that Mr. Neal might have had something to do with making the charge, it would not perhaps be policy to speak to that gentleman in the present stage of the affair. Better try by some other means to find out who the young woman was, and all about her. It is true that without the help of Neal Captain Davenal did not see his way clear to accomplish this: to seek for an unknown young woman in London, one to whom he had no clue, was something equivalent to that traditional search, the hunting for a needle in a bottle of hay.

"I wonder if Dorcas could tell us anything about her?" he exclaimed, ringing the bell upon impulse, as he did most things. And when Dorcas appeared in answer to it, he plunged into a sea of questions that had only the effect of bewildering her.

"You must know her, Dorcas," interposed Sara. "It is a young woman, rather nice-looking, who has come here occasionally to see Neal. She generally wears large shawls that trail on the ground. Captain Davenal has a reason for wishing to know who she is."

"You must mean Mrs. Wentworth, Miss Sara."

"Mrs. Wentworth! Is that her name?" repeated Sara, feeling a sort of relief that the servant had not said Mrs. Davenal.

"That's her name, Miss. She is an officer's wife, and is in some trouble about him. I believe Neal is her uncle."

Sara looked up. "Neal told my aunt that the young person was not his niece."

"Well, I don't know," said Dorcas; "I think she is his niece: at any rate, I have heard her call him uncle. I heard her call him wide no longer ago than last night, Miss Sara."

"Where was that?" interposed Captain Davenal.

"It was here, sir. She called to see Neal. I was passing downstairs at the time from Mrs. Cray's room, and it seemed to me that there was some dispute occurring between them. She asked Neal to tell her where Captain Davenal was staying, and Neal refused. He said she should not go troubling Captain Davenal."

A pause from all. Sara's face grew troubled again.

"What did she want with me?" asked the captain.

"I don't know, sir," replied Dorcas. "I only heard that much in passing. I was carrying Mrs. Cray's tea-tray down."

"Do you know where she lives, this Mrs. Wentworth?"

"Not at all, sir. I have never known that."

"Edward, she is evidently looking out for you!" exclaimed Sara, as Dorcas retired.

"I hope and trust she is, and that she'll speedily find me," was the retort of Captain Davenal. "Nothing should I like better than to find her. I have a great mind to ask Neal openly what it all is, and insist upon an answer."

There was no opportunity for further conversation then. Mark Cray came in. Captain Davenal did not think him improved in anyway. There was less of openness in his manner than formerly, and he rather appeared to evade Captain Davenal, quitting his presence as soon as he conveniently could. The next to enter was Miss Bettina. It was the first time she had met her nephew, and she was disposed to be cordial. Miss Bettina had gone forth that morning to visit his young wife, entertaining a secret prejudice against her, and she returned home liking her. The little baby had been named Richard, too, and that gratified her.

A short while later, and Captain Davenal and his sister stood in the presence of this very young woman, Catherine Wentworth. In a room in Lady Reid's house, when they reached it--for Sara walked home with him--she was waiting. She had gone there inquiring for Captain Davenal, and upon being told Captain Davenal was out, she asked to be allowed to wait for him.

The sequel of this episode is so very matter-of-fact, so devoid of romance, that some of you, my readers, may think it might have been as well never to have introduced it. But in that case what would become of the closing history of Neal? It was quite necessary, if that gentleman was to have a faithful biographer.

Sara Davenal sat, the white strings of her bonnet untied, wiping the drops of moisture from her relieved brow. So intense was the relief that when the first few moments of thankfulness were past, she looked back with a feeling of anger that her mind's peace, for long long months, should have been disturbed so unnecessarily.

They were talking fast, this young woman and Captain Davenal. She _had_ gone to Miss Davenal's house over and over again to inquire after him; she had handed Neal more than one letter to forward to him to India; she had been at the house the previous night, demanding to know where the captain was staying, and saying that she _would_ see him; and she had this morning found out his address at Lady Reid's, and had waited until he came in.

But all for an innocent and legitimate purpose. Mrs. Wentworth--and she was Mrs. Wentworth--had never seen Captain Davenal in her life before; had never pretended that she had; she was only seeking him now to get from him some information of her real husband, Sergeant-Major Wentworth, of Captain Davenal's regiment.

One train of thought leads to another. Captain Davenal remembered now to have heard that the sergeant-major, a very respectable man, had voluntarily separated himself from his wife, and left her behind him in England when their regiment sailed for India, in consequence of some misconduct on her part. He stood there face to face with the young woman, trying to reconcile this plain statement of facts with the account of past assertions related to him by Sara.

"You are Sergeant-Major Wentworth's wife, you say," observed Captain Davenal, regarding her narrowly, watching every word that fell from her lips. If there had been any conspiracy between her and Neal to undermine his sister's peace, he felt that he should like to punish both of them. Sara had had enough of real troubles to bear, without having false ones brought upon her.

"Yes, I am," she replied. She had a wonderfully pretty face, now that it could be seen without her veil, and her manners were pleasing--nay, ladylike. But still there was the look of general untidiness about her that Sara had noticed before, though she did not wear a shawl today, but a black cloth mantle, cut in the mode.

"May I ask if you ever allowed it to be understood that you were anybody else's wife?" rejoined Captain Davenal, putting the question in the most convenient form he could, and in a half-jesting tone.

"Anybody else's wife?" she repeated, as if not understanding.

"Ay; mine, for instance?"

"Why, of course I never did. I don't know what you mean, sir."

"Does Neal know you are Sergeant-Major Wentworth's wife?"

"O dear, yes. I have done nothing a long while but beseech of him to write to you, sir, and ask if you would speak in my behalf to Wentworth, and make him allow me more, or else let me go out to him in India."

Sara interposed. It might not be wise in her, but she could not help herself: "I once accidentally heard a conversation of yours with Neal. You were speaking of this gentleman, Captain Davenal; it was the very day that we had heard news of his marriage with Miss Reid. I remember you said something to the effect that you would have satisfaction, cost what punishment it would to him. Did you allude to your husband?"

"Yes, I did," the girl replied. "And I hope he will be punished yet. I remember the time too. I had had a letter that morning from one of the women who went with the regiment, a soldier's wife. She spoke of my husband in it in a way that vexed me; and she said, amidst other news, that their Captain--Captain Davenal--had just got married. The letter put me up to think that perhaps Captain Davenal could do some good for me with my husband, and I came off at once to Neal and asked him. Neal said he should not trouble Captain Davenal with anything of the sort; and the answer made me angry, and I reminded Mr. Neal that I could say one or two things about him that might not be pleasant if I chose to be ill-natured; and at last he promised to send a letter for me to Captain Davenal, enclosed in one from himself, if I liked to write and state the case. I remember quite well saying that I would have satisfaction somehow, no matter what the punishment to Wentworth. Did my letters ever reach you, sir? I wrote two or three."

"Never."

"Like enough Neal never sent them," she exclaimed with an angry toss. "He said he did; and I have been always asking him whether he received no answer for me."

"Is Neal your uncle, Mrs. Wentworth?"

"I call him so sometimes, sir, when I want to be pleasant with him, but in point of fact he is no real relation. My step-mother is his sister; and that makes him a sort of uncle-in-law."

"And you have not--excuse my pressing the question, Mrs. Wentworth, but I have a reason for it--given Neal reason to suppose that you were ever married to any one except Sergeant-Major Wentworth?" resumed Captain Davenal.

"Never in my life, sir," she replied, and her accent of truth was unmistakable. "Say to Neal that I was married to anybody else! What for? It would be childish to say it; he knows quite well that I was married to Serjeant Wentworth. He was not serjeant-major then."

The falsehood then had been Neal's! Captain Davenal glanced at Sara. But the sergeant's wife spoke again.

"Could you interest yourself for me with Wentworth, sir?"

"Ah, I don't know. It is a ticklish thing, you see, to interfere between man and wife," added the captain, a jesting smile upon his lips. "What is your grievance against Wentworth?"

Mrs. Wentworth entered on her grievances; a whole catalogue. She required that her husband should send for her to be with him in India, or else that he should make her a better allowance, so that she could live "as a lady." She knew he got plenty of prize-money she said, for she had been told so; and she finished up with stating that she had been to the War Office, and to half-a-dozen other offices to complain of him, and could get no redress.

"Well," said Captain Davenal, "I'll tell you what I'll do: will write to your husband--a man for whom I have great respect,--and inquire his version of the quarrel between you. We should always hear both sides of a question, you know, Mrs. Wentworth. When I get his answer, you shall hear from me. To be candid with you, I must say that I don't think Wentworth is one to allow of much interference. He has good judgment, and he likes to exercise it. But I will write to him."

"And you'll promise to see me again, sir, in spite of Neal? What his objection was, I don't know, but he did all he could to prevent my seeing you."

"I don't think you need fear Neal's prevention for the future in regard to seeing me," said Captain Davenal, in a significant tone, as he civilly bowed out Mrs. Wentworth.

"Well, Sara, and what do you think of Neal now?"

"I can't understand it; I can't understand why he should have said it, or what his motive was," slowly replied Sara. "Oh, if he only knew the cruel days and nights it caused me to pass. Shall you tell Aunt Bettina of Neal's falsity?"

"Tell her!" repeated Captain Davenal. "Do you think I can allow her and you to be any longer under the same roof with a villain such as Neal?"