CHAPTER XXIX

HOMEWARD BOUND

It took not more than three months to put my house into a liveable condition once more, for, most happily, the injury which had been done to it in the Indian raid concerned more the woodwork and the fittings than aught else. Indeed, while this was a-doing, I also took occasion to have many improvements made in various portions of the manor that were sorely needed. Thus, in some of our upstairs rooms, our windows had in them nothing but oiled paper, while others were furnished with naught but Muscovy glass or sheets of mica, dating back from the time of the first Bampfyld who came to the colony. These I now replaced by crystal glass brought from England for the purpose.

Yet, in spite of changes and, I suppose, improvements, I could not restrain my tears when first I set eyes on my saloon again. Oh! how sad it was to see the spinet and the harpsichord broken to pieces--everything stood exactly as we had left it that night--to see also my choice Segodia carpets stained with the dried blood that had been shed, and to observe my window-sashes, with their pretty gildings, in splinters.

"Yet cheer up, sweetheart," my lord said to me, as, leaning on his arm, I looked round this ruin and let fall my tears. "It is not irreparable, and might have been worse. And, when we come back from England, we will bring such pretty toys and knick-knacks with us that you shall forget all you have lost. I promise you, sweet, you shall." After which he strove to kiss away my tears, though still they fell.

This took place directly after we had all ridden into the courtyard on our return from captivity. And when the gentlemen whose houses had also been attacked as mine had been (including poor Gregory, who seemed heart-broken at my having fallen in love, yet not with him), and the other colonists had dispersed to their own homes, or what remained of them, we had instantly begun to inspect the damage done. Of the negroes we could discover no signs, though Buck and young Lamb searched the whole house from the cellars to the garrets for them, the former roaring many terrible threats and strange ejaculations at their heads in the hopes they might be in hiding and, on hearing him, come forth; but all was of no avail. Nor, when they searched in the late slaves' and bond-servants' quarters were they any more successful. Christian Lamb, my own maid, soon, however, re-appeared, she having remained in the house the whole time, and though her brother swore at her for a chicken-hearted wench and called her many other hard names, such as traitress and deserter, I was most thankful to see her again, she being a good, faithful creature, though timorous.

From her we learned that after the departure of O'Rourke and my dear lord--the former of whom was now engaged in finding provisions for us, if any remained--the negroes had all sallied forth in a body towards the coast, some with the intention of escaping from their servitude and the others to find a home until I returned, if ever, of which they seemed most doubtful. After this, she told us, the house had been quite deserted, there being none in it but herself--the other white indented servant women having also betaken themselves to the village for safety. Yet she determined to remain until she heard some news of us and of the party that had set forth to rescue us. Moreover, her alarm was lessened by the fact that a squadron of the Virginian Light Horse, from Jamestown, had come into the village with a view of following us and effecting a rescue if possible, but, on learning that a considerable band had set out for the purpose, they had decided to remain where they were, for the present, at least, and to await results.

And now, when at the end of those months my house was once more fit for habitation, and when all signs of the horrible attack that had been made on it had been removed, Gerald, coming to me one evening when I was sitting by my wood fire--for the evenings were turning chilly--said:

"My dearest, are you ready? The time draws near."

"Must it be so soon?" I asked coyly, and with a blush upon my cheeks that was not caused by the blaze of the logs. "Must it be now?"

"In very truth it must," he answered. "I must away to England as swiftly as may be. See here, sweet, what I have found at Jamestown to-day." Then with one arm round my waist, he drew forth with his disengaged hand a packet of letters from his pocket and began to read them to me.

"The Marquis," he said first, "grows old, nay, has grown old; he is seventy-five if an hour. List what he says," and continued his reading of a letter from that noble kinsman:

"I would have you here ere I die so that I may publicly announce you as my heir, and this I will do in my own house when you return, though even then I can of no certainty promise that the Lords will enrol you as such immediately after my death, since they are not so easily persuaded as their brothers in Dublin. Yet come, I say, come as soon as may be. Your mother, too, grows more feeble, worn almost to her grave by the slanders which your uncle and the man Considine--who scruples not to say openly that you are none other than _his_ son--puts about you; and in truth I do think these calumnies will kill her ere long. She rages terribly against them both, and calls on me and many of the peers in power to punish them; yet what are we to do?" "The vile wretches!" I exclaimed, as I nestled close to him. "Oh! the vile wretches! Oh! my darling, that thus your birthright should be so assailed."

"Yet will I have vengeance," he exclaimed, while his eyes glowed with resentment. "Yet shall the fellow Considine regret that he has ever dared to call me his son. His--his. God! My uncle's drunken pander!" and for a while his rage was terrible to witness.

Then, taking up another letter, he said, "This also I found at Jamestown to-day. It is from her, from my mother."

She, too, wrote saying how earnestly she desired that he might soon be able to return home, and more especially so as she heard that the fleet under Sir Chaloner Ogle was about to do so. Then, after mentioning somewhat the same news as the Marquis had done, she went on:

"Oh! my dearest child, can'st thou picture to thyself all the horrors that I have endured since first you were impressed and torn away from me again, after our short but happy meeting? I think it cannot be that you do so. For five years have I, with my wasted frame and ill health ever to contend against, pleaded your cause, worked hard to produce evidence of your birth, and was even so successful with the Marquis's aid as to defeat your vile uncle in the Irish courts and induce the Lords there to enrol you as Lord St. Amande. Yet, as I have thus striven, think of what else I have had to fight against. That most abhorred and execrable villain, Wolfe Considine, has thrown away the mask--if he ever wore it--and has now for two or three years boldly said--God! how can I write the words?--that when your erring father was petitioning the House of Lords for a divorce I was his, Considine's, friend, and that you are his son."

The paper shook in my loved one's hands as he read these words, and he muttered, "Considine, Considine, if ever you come within the point of my sword it shall go hard with you," and then went on with the perusal of the letter:

"That no one believes him--for none do so--matters not. The odium is still the same, and there are some in existence who remember how, at Bath and Tunbridge Wells, ere I had met your father, the wretch persecuted me with his attentions, which I loathed. Also, I remember that, on my becoming affianced to your father, he swore that I should rue it and regret it on my knees, even though he had to wait twenty years for his revenge. Alas! alas! I have rued it and regretted it again and again, though not as he intended. Yet, my child, and only one, if I could but see you properly acknowledged as the Marquis's heir and as such accepted, then would I forget my rue, then could I die happy--the end is not far off now. But ere that end comes, oh! my child, my child of many tears, come back to me, I beseech you. Let me once more clasp you to my arms and let me hear your kinsman proclaim you as his successor. It is for that I wait, for that I long unceasingly."

There was more in her letter saying, amongst other things, how Mr. Quin, whom afterwards I came to know and to respect most deeply, never slackened in his watchfulness over her; of how he was always in attendance on her and what services he performed for her. But what he had read was sufficient.

"You must go to England, Gerald," I said; "at all costs, you must go. Will the Admiral give you leave?"

He laughed aloud at this, saying: "Will the Admiral give me leave? Why, Joice, Sir Chaloner Ogle sailed a month ago, leaving me ere he went his consent to my being absent as long as necessary on urgent private affairs. He knows well how I stand, and wishes me well, too. And, dear heart, as you say, I must go--only I will not go alone."

I well understood his meaning yet could find no answer to his words. So again he went on whispering them in my ear. "No, not alone. My wife must go with me. And, Joice, to-night I will tell Kinchella to make all ready, to proclaim our banns, and to prepare to make us one. It shall be so, my sweet saint, my tender Virginian rose, my heart's best and only love; it shall be so, shall it not?"

What could I say but yes--what other answer make? No woman who had loved him as I had loved him (even ere I knew him, I think)--no woman who had dreamt of his sad story and then come to know him and see his beauty and grace and his fierce bravery exacted on her behalf, but must have answered yes, as I did. For he was all a woman's heart most longs for; all that she most aspires to possess; handsome and brave, yet gentle; fierce as the lion when roused, yet how tender and how true. So I whispered "Yes," and murmured my love to him and the compact was made; our fond troth plighted again with many a kiss.

It was in the old church, from the wooden tower of which the cannon had been fired so often on that dreadful night of death and horror, that we were married. As was the custom of the colony--though one, I think, that might well be changed--the minister took the first kiss from me, while my husband kissed my bridesmaid, Mary, and afterwards I had to submit to being kissed by every gentleman present, while all the while I wanted no other embrace than that of my dear lord. Yet it had to be borne, and one of the first to avail himself of this privilege was Gregory, who kissed me sadly, saying as he did so:

"Ah, Joice, 'twas otherwise I had hoped some day to kiss thy sweet brow. Yet 'twas not to be and so I must bear it as best I may," and he passed sadly down the aisle and away home, tarrying not for the drinkings nor merry-makings that afterwards set in. But, poor lad, he struggled with his love for me so well that at last he conquered it, and certainly his disappointment made no difference in his friendship for me or my husband. During our absence in England he managed my property as carefully as though it had been his own, and regularly sent us an exact account of all he had done, so that 'twas easy to see, and to admire in seeing, that his unaccepted love had not made an enemy of him.

Mr. Kinchella and Mary Mills we saw married a week after our own nuptials, so we left them also happy and content--which was a great joy to us to do. O'Rourke, too, we parted from as friends part from one another, he setting out for Savannah where he purposed to instal himself as agent of Mr. Oglethorpe and bidding us an affectionate farewell ere doing so. He also made an affidavit before an attorney at Jamestown of all he knew of the villainies of Robert St. Amande and the wretch Considine, and swore as well that, from the intimate knowledge he had of my lord's family, and also from having had him once in his charge, the Viscount St. Amande was most undoubtedly the lawfully born child of the late lord. Moreover, he also swore (and produced letters from Considine proving his oath, which letters he gave to Gerald) that, during the separation of Lady St. Amande from her husband, he, Considine, was living an outlaw at Hamburg with a price upon his head, so that he could never have even seen her during that time.

The overseers of the bond-servants being, like all the others, free men now, were provided with means whereby either to establish themselves in the colony or to go elsewhere, though they, in common with the others, elected to remain as hired hands on my estate during my absence. Buck, however, who seemed never to have lost his rollicking disposition, being also provided with some money wherewith to adventure on his own account, bought the lease of the tavern in the village, and changed its name from that of the King's Head to the St. Amande Arms. Lamb, who had once been a sailor, became again one, while his sister, Christian, took passage with us to England as my maid.