One evening, Tod being out and Mrs. Todhetley in the nursery, I was alone with the Squire in the twilight. The great harvest moon was rising behind the trees; and the Squire, talking of some parish grievance that he had heard of from old Jones the constable, let it rise: while I was wishing he would call for lights that I might get on with "The Old English Baron," which I was reading for about the seventeenth time.
"And you see, Johnny, if Jones had been firm, as I told him this afternoon, and taken the fellow up, instead of letting him slope off and be lost, the poachers---- Who's this coming in, lad?"
The Squire had caught sight of some one turning to the door from the covered path. I saw the fag-end of a petticoat.
"I think it must be Mrs. Scott, sir. The mother said she had promised to come over one of these first evenings."
"Ay," said the Squire. "Open the door for her, Johnny."
I had the front-door open in a twinkling, and saw a lady with a travelling-cloak on her arm. But she bore no resemblance to Mrs. Scott.
The soft voice gave me a thrill and a shock, though years had elapsed since I heard it. A confused doubt came rushing over me; a perplexing question well-nigh passed my lips: "Is it a living woman or a dead one?" For there, before me, stood Nash Caromel's dead wife, Charlotte the First.
People are apt to say, when telling of a surprise, that a feather would have knocked them down. I nearly fell without the feather and without the touch. To see a dead woman standing straight up before me, and to hear her say "How are you, and is the Squire at home?" might have upset the balance of a giant.
But I could not be mistaken. There, waiting at the front-door to come in, her face within an inch of mine, was Nash Caromel's first wife, Charlotte Tinkle; who for some two years now had been looked upon as dead and buried over in California.
"Is Mr. Todhetley at home!" she repeated. "And can I see him?"
"Yes," I answered, coming partially out of my bewilderment. "Do you mind staying here just a minute, while I tell him?"
For, to hand in a dead woman, might take him aback, as it had taken me. The pater stood bolt upright, waiting for Mrs. Scott (as he had supposed it to be) to enter.