A Crown of Shame, Volume III by Florence Marryat

Hugh Norris had not been slow to avail himself of Lizzie's permission to visit her. He had knocked about a good deal in the world, and he had seen all sorts and conditions of women, but he had never met any one to interest him, and hold his sympathies, like the Doctor's daughter. It was not only that she was firm and sweet in temper, and strong in mind, and clever and energetic -- there was a more binding tie between them than that. _They thought together_; and if men and women would realise that kindred tastes and ideas form the only lasting bond between friends, there would be fewer unhappy marriages than there are. There is a great deal of talk heard on occasions about the happiness of surrendering one's opinions in deference to those of the person one loves, but that notion is only believed in by the men who wish to be master, and ride roughshod over their household gods. To surrender is to give up one's mental and moral liberty, and there may be duty in bondage, but there can be no pleasure. Marriage should be the cementing of a friendship between the sexes, and it is the only safe light by which to regard it. There should be plenty of _giving_ in it, but no _giving up_! And Captain Norris felt that if Lizzie Fellows could learn to regard him as he did her, there would be very few jars in their domestic _ménage_. He had been detained in San Diego much longer than he had anticipated. Just as he got his cargo on board, and was ready to start, a serious damage had been discovered in the _Trevelyan_, and he had been compelled to send her into dock for repairs. Although the delay meant a considerable loss of money to him, Captain Norris did not regret it.

He did not feel easy, in common with many of the residents, with regard to the safety of the island; and to leave Lizzie in possible danger, surrounded by a horde of mutinous coolies, and without the possibility of obtaining news of her for months together, would have been a sore trial to him. He would have taken her with him gladly as his wife, or as an ordinary passenger, but he knew her character too well to propose it. Had she been affianced to him, and danger threatened her benefactor and his family, she would have died with them, sooner than desert them in the time of uncertainty. And uncertainty seemed to prevail in San Diego. Grave mutterings were heard on every side of averted rebellions and suppressed mutinies, and the planters knew that it needed but the necessary boldness on the part of one set of hands to rise, to set the whole negro population aflame with the lust for rapine and murder. Sir Russell Johnstone was not a favourite amongst them, for he disliked the coloured people, and had passed some very harsh sentences on the prisoners brought up to him for judgment, and his name was seldom mentioned without an execration attached to it. The hands on Beauregard had not shown discontent beyond the ordinary grumblings and small impertinences common amongst the coolies; but Hugh Norris knew the character of the people well, and he distrusted them.

He remembered how in former mutinies, both in the East and West Indies, the actual fight for the supremacy had been preceded for a long time by half-suppressed murmurs and complaints, like the muttering of the elements before a tempest, and that, when the storm broke, it came like a clap of thunder, suddenly and unexpectedly, and overwhelmed its victims before they were hardly aware of the danger they incurred. So he was glad than otherwise to be detained in San Diego, though what he heard and saw there did not tend to reassure him. He was present at Maraquita's wedding, being a friend both of Sir Russell Johnstone and the Courtneys; but he declined the invitation to the breakfast, both because he disliked such festivities, and that Lizzie Fellows, he knew, would not be there. But on the evening of the same day he strolled into her bungalow, and seated himself without ceremony like an old friend.

‘So, Lizzie,' he commenced, ‘you were not present at the grand wedding this morning?'

‘No. I asked them to excuse me, Captain Norris. My dear father's recent death renders it very unfit that I should mix in any gaiety.'

‘But your adopted sister's marriage, Lizzie! Surely that was an occasion on which you might have relaxed your strict seclusion?'

He had marked the coolness which had separated Lizzie of late from Mrs Courtney and her daughter, and he had his own suspicions on the subject; but he had not presumed to put them into words.

‘They didn't think so. They were quite satisfied to let me follow my own wishes,' replied the girl quietly.

‘And how is your nurse-child? Thriving?'

Lizzie's eyes sparkled.

‘Beautifully, thank you. She is growing such a dear little creature, and knows me as well as possible.'

‘Have you had her baptised?'

‘How strange you should ask me that question,' remarked Lizzie thoughtfully, looking up from her work. ‘It is the very thing I was about to consult you on! How often we seem to have the same ideas at the same moment! I think you must be a wizard, and read my thoughts!'

‘It is because we are so much in sympathy with each other, Lizzie. But what about the mysterious baby? Have you decided on the name you will call her?'

‘No; I have never troubled my head about it. Any name will do.'

‘Oh, poor little lady! let us give her a pretty one whilst we are about it. Why not call her after yourself?'

Lizzie shrank from the idea.

‘Oh, no! She has nothing to do with me. Please suggest something else.'

‘Poor mite! she seems to have nothing to do with any one. She is a little blot upon the universe. But she is God's own child. Suppose we call her after His mother.'

‘Mary! Yes, I like that idea. What is _your_ mother's name, Captain Norris?'