Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Volume 2 of 3

CHAPTER XII

Previous to the matters chronicled in the preceding chapter, Mr. Garnet had received a note, of which the following is a copy: —

“Sir, – My friend, Major Blazeater, late of the Hon. East India Companyʼs 59th Regiment of Native Infantry, has kindly consented to see you, on my behalf, to request a reference to any gentleman whom you may be pleased to name, for the purpose of concerting measures for affording me that satisfaction which, as a man and a gentleman, I am entitled to expect for your cowardly and most ruffianly violence on the 28th ultimo.

“I beg you to accept my sincere apologies for the delay which has occurred, and my assurance that it has been the result of circumstances entirely beyond my own control.

“I have the honour to be, Sir,

“Your most obedient Servant,

“Rufus Hutton.

“Geopharmacy Lodge, Nov. 1st, 1859.”

The circumstances beyond the fiery little doctorʼs control were that he could not find any one who would undertake to carry his message.

When Bull Garnet read this letter – handed to him, with three great bows of the Chinese pattern, by the pompous Major Blazeater – his face flushed to a deep amethyst tinge, which subsided to the colour of cork. Then he rolled his great eyes, and placed one strong finger across the deep channels of his forehead, and said, “Let me think, sir!”

“Hurrah,” said the Major to himself, “now we shall have something to redeem the honour of the age. It is a disgrace for a fellow to live in a country where he can never get satisfaction, although he gets plenty of insult.”

“Major Blazeater, you will make allowances for me,” resumed Mr. Garnet; “but I have never had much opportunity of becoming acquainted with the laws – the code, perhaps, I should say – which govern the honourable practice of duelling at the present day.”

“No matter, my dear sir; no matter at all, I assure you. Your second, when I have the honour of meeting him, will settle all those little points, which are beside the general issue; we shall settle them together, sir, with the strictest regard to punctilio, and to your entire satisfaction.”

“Capital fellow!” pursued the Major, in his own reflection–room; “knew he couldnʼt be a coward: just look at his forehead. No doubt he was perfectly justified in kicking out Rue Hutton; Rue is such an impudent beggar. Ah! referring to his pocket–book to find his military friendʼs address; now we shall do it in style. Glorious fellow this Garnet – shall have the very best powder. Wish I was on his side.” And the Major rubbed his long brown hands upon his lanky knees.

“Will it be according to rule,” asked Mr. Garnet, looking steadily (“What an eye for a pistol!” said the Major to himself), “quite according to rule and order, if I write down for you, Major Blazeater, the name of the friend to whom I refer; also the time and place at which he will be ready to discuss this little matter with you?”

“To be sure, to be sure, my dear sir; nothing could be better. Your conduct, Mr. Garnet, does you the very highest honour.”

“Nothing, you think, can be objected to my course in this? – nothing against the high chivalric code of modern duelling?”

“No, my dear sir, nothing at all. Please to hand me the assignation; ha, ha, it is so pleasant – I mean the rendezvous.”

Mr. Garnet handed to him a card, whereon was written: “Town Hall, Lymington, Wednesday, November 2nd. Before Admiral Reale, Col. Fale, and C. Durant, Esq. Application will be made at 12 oʼclock for a warrant against Rufus Hutton and Major Blazeater – Christian name unknown – for conspiring together to procure one Bull Garnet to fight a duel, against the peace of Her Majesty, and the spirit of the age.”

Major Blazeater fell back in his chair; and all his blood ran to his head. As he told his daughter afterwards, he had never had such a turn in his life. The fairest prospect blasted, the sunrise of murder quenched; what good was it to live in a world where people wonʼt shoot one another? Bull Garnet bent his large eyes upon him, and the Major could not answer them.

“Now, Major Blazeater,” said Mr. Garnet, “I shall bind you over to keep the peace, and your principal as well, and expose you to the ridicule of every sensible man in England, unless I receive by to morrow morningʼs post at 10.15 A.M. an apology for this piece of infantile bravado. What a man does in hot passion, God knows, and God will forgive him for, if he truly strive to amend it – at least – at least, I hope so.”

Here Mr. Garnet turned away, and looked out of the window, and perhaps it was the view of Bob that made his eyes so glistening.

“But, sir,” he resumed – while the Major was wondering where on earth he should find any sureties for keeping Her Majestyʼs peace, which he could not keep with his wife – “sir, I look at things of this sort from a point of view diametrically opposed to yours. Perhaps you have the breadth to admit that my view may be right, and yours may be wrong.”

“Nothing, nothing at all, sir, will I admit to a man who actually appoints the magistrates the custodians of his honour.”

“Honour, sir, as we now regard it, is nothing more than foolʼs varnish. Justice, sir, and truth are things we can feel and decide about. Honour is the feminine of them, and, therefore, apt to confuse a man. Major Blazeater, the only honour I have is to wish you good morning.”

“Hang it all,” said the Major to himself, as he was shown out honourably, “I have put my foot in it this time; and wonʼt Mrs. Blazeater give it to me! That woman finds out everything. This is now the third time Iʼve tried to get up a snug little meeting, and the fates are all against me. Dash it, now, if Iʼve got to pay costs, O Boadicea Blazeater, you wonʼt mend my gloves for a fortnight.”

Major Blazeater wore very tight doeskin gloves, and was always wearing them out. Hence, his appeal to the female Penates took this constricted form. The household god of the Phœnicians, and the one whose image they affixed to the bows of their galleys, hoping to steer homewards, was (as we know from many sources) nothing but a lamb; a very rude figure, certainly, – square, thick–set, inelegant; but I doubt not that some grand home–truth clung to their Agna Dea. Major Blazeater was a lamb, whose wits only went to the shearing the moment you got him upon his own hearth, and Boadicea bleated at him. He would crumple his neck up, and draw back his head, and look pleadingly at any one, as a house–lamb does on Good Friday, and feel that his father had done it before him, and he, too, must suffer for sheepishness.

Meditating sadly thus, he heard a great voice coming after him down the gravel–walk, and, turning round, was once more under Mr. Garnetʼs eyes. “One more word with you, if you please, sir. It will be necessary that you two warlike gentlemen should appoint a legal second. Mine will be Mr. Brockwood, who will be prepared to show that your principal was grossly inquisitive and impertinent, before I removed him from my premises.”

“Oh!” cried the Major, delighted to find any loophole for escape, “that puts a new aspect upon the matter, if he gave you provocation, sir.”

“He gave me as strong provocation as one man can well give another, by prying into my – domestic affairs, in the presence of my son and daughter, and even tampering with my servants. He left me no other course, except to remove him from my house.”

“Which you did rather summarily. My dear sir, I should have done the same. Had I been aware of these facts, I would have declined to bear his cartel. You shall receive my apology by to–morrow morningʼs post. I trust this unwise proceeding – may – may not proceed any further. Your behaviour, sir, does you credit, and requires no vindication at law.”

Thus spoke Major Blazeater, bowing and smiling elaborately under a combination of terrors – the law, public ridicule, expenses; worst of all, Mrs. Blazeater. The next morning, Mr. Garnet received from him a letter, not only apologetic, but highly eulogistic, at which Bull Garnet smiled grimly, as he tossed it into the fire. By the same post came a letter from Rufus, to the following effect: —

“Sir, – I regret to find that your courage consists in mere brute force and power. I regard you as no longer worthy of the notice of a gentleman. The cowardly advantage you took of your superior animal strength, and your still more cowardly refusal to redress the brutal outrage, as is the manner of gentlemen, stamp you as no more than a navvy, of low mechanical brutishness. Do not think that, because I cannot meet you physically, and you will not meet me fairly, you are beyond my reach. I will have you yet, Bull Garnet; and I know how to do it. Your last ferocious outrage has set me thinking, and I see things which I must have been blind not to see before. I shall see you, some day, in the felonʼs dock, an object of scorn to the lowest of the low, so sure as my name is

“Rufus Hutton.

“P.S. – I shall be at Lymington to–morrow, ready to meet you, if you dare initiate the inquiry.”

Mr. Garnet did not burn this letter, but twice read it through very carefully, and then stowed it away securely. Who could tell but it might be useful as a proof of animus? During these several operations his eyes had not much of triumph in them.

Rufus Hutton rode to Lymington, carrying a life–preserver: he appeared in the Town Hall, at the petty sessions; but there was no charge made against him. Being a pugnacious little fellow, and no lover of a peaceful issue, he had a great mind then to apply for a warrant against Garnet for assaulting him. But he felt that he had given some provocation, and could not at present justify it; and he had in the background larger measures, which might be foiled by precipitancy. So that lively broil, being unfought out and unforgiven – at least on one side – passed into as rank a feud as ever the sun went down upon. Not that Mr. Garnet felt much bitterness about it; only he knew that he must guard against a powerful enemy.

Amy had told her father, long ago, what Cradock had said to her in the churchyard, and how she had replied to him. In fact, she could not keep it to herself until she went to bed that night; but mingled her bright, flowing hair with his grey locks, while her heart was still pit–a–patting, and leaned on his shoulder for comfort, and didnʼt cry much before she got it. “My own dearest, life of my life,” cried John, forgetting both Greek and Latin, but remembering how he loved her mother, “my own and only child – now you do look so like your mother, darling – may the God who has made you my blessing bless your dear heart in this!”

The very next day John Rosedew fell into a pit of meditation. He forgot all about Pelethronian Lapiths, the trimming of Gruterʼs lamp (which had long engaged him; for he knew the flame of learning there unsnuffed by any Smelfungus): even the Sabellian elements were but as sabellicus sus to him. It was one of his peculiarities, that he never became so deeply abstracted as when he had to take in hand any practical question. He could take in hand any glorious thesis, such as the traces still existing of a middle voice in Latin, or the indications of very early civilization in Eubœa, and the question whether the Ionians came not mainly westward – any of these things he could think of, dwell upon, and eat his dinner without knowing salt from mustard. But he could not make a treatise of Amy, nor could he get at her etymology. He began to think that his education had been neglected in some points. And then he thought about Socrates, and his symposiastic drolleries, and most philosophic reply when impeached of Xanthippic weakness.

Nevertheless, he could not make up his mind upon one point – whether or not it was his duty to go and inform Sir Cradock Nowell of his sonʼs attachment. If the ancient friend had been as of old, or had only changed towards John Rosedew, continuing true all the while to the son, the parson would have felt no doubt as to how his duty lay. And the more straightforward and honest course was ever the first to open upon him. But, when he remembered how sadly bitter the father already was to the son, how he had even dared in his wrath to charge him with wilful fratricide, how he had wandered far and wide from the sanity of affection, and was, indeed, no longer worthy to be called a father, John Rosedew felt himself absolved from all parental communion.

Then how was it as to expediency? Why, just at present, this knowledge would be the very thing to set Sir Cradock yet more against the outcast. For, in the days of old confidence and friendly interfusion, he had often expressed to John his hope that Clayton might love Amy; and now he would at once conclude that Cradock had been throughout the rival of his darling, and perhaps an unsuccessful one, till the other was got rid of. Therefore John Rosedew resolved, at last, to hold his peace in the matter; to which conclusion Aunt Doxyʼs advice and Amyʼs entreaties contributed. But these two ladies, although unanimous in their rapid conclusion, based it upon premises as different as could be.

“Inform him, indeed!” cried Miss Eudoxia, swelling grandly, and twitching her shawl upon the slope of her shoulders, of which, by–the–by, she was very proud – she had heard it showed high breeding – “inform him, brother John; as if his son had disgraced him by meditating an alliance with the great–granddaughter of the Earl of Driddledrum and Dromore! Upon such occasions, as I have always understood, though perhaps I know nothing about it, and you understand it better, John, it is the gentlemanʼs place to secure the acquiescence of his family. Acquiescence, indeed! What has our family ever thought of a baronetcy? There is better blood in Amy Rosedew, Brian OʼLynn, and Cadwallader, than any Cradock Nowell ever had, or ever will have, unless it is her son. Inform him, indeed! as if our Amy was nobody!”

“Pa, donʼt speak of it,” said Amy, “until dear Cradock wishes it. We have no right to add to his dreadfully bad luck; and he is the proper judge. He is sure to do what is right. And, after all that he has been through, oh, donʼt treat him like a baby, father.”

CHAPTER XIII

Mrs. Nowell Corklemore by this time was well established at the Hall, and did not mean in her kind rich heart to quit the place prematurely. Almost every day, however, she made some feint of departure, which rendered every one more alive to the value of her presence.

“How could her dear Nowell exist without her? She felt quite sure he would come that day – yes, that very day – to fetch her, in their little simple carriage, that did shake her poor back so dreadfully” – back thrown into prominence here, being an uncommonly pretty one – “but oh, how thankful she ought to be for having a carriage at all, and so many poor things – quite as good, quite as refined, and delicate – could scarcely afford a perambulator! But she hoped for dear Sir Cradockʼs sake, and that sweet simple–minded Eoa – who really did require some little cultivation – that, now she understood them both, and could do her little of ministering, Mr. Corklemore would let her stay, if it were only two days longer. And then her Flore, her sweet little Flore! An angel of light among them.”

Georgie had been married twice; and she was just the sort of woman who would have been married a dozen times, if a dozen, save one, of husbands were so unfortunate as to leave her. Her first lord, or rather vassal, had been the Count de Vance – “a beggarly upstart Frenchman,” in the language of his successor, who, by–the–by, had never seen, but heard of him too often; but, according to better authority, “a man one could truly look up to; so warm–hearted, so agreeable; and never for a moment tired, dear, of his poor little simple wife.”

Perhaps it is needless to state that Mr. Corklemore long had been so scientifically henpecked that he loved the operation. Only he was half afraid to say “Haw,” when his wife was there to cry “Pshaw.”

Sir Cradock Nowell, of course, had seen a good deal of what is called the world; but his knowledge of women was only enough to teach him the extent of that subject. He never was surprised much at anything they did; but he could not pretend to tell the reason of their doing it, even when they had any, of which he did not often suspect them. He believed that they would have their way, whenever they could, wherever, and by whatever means; that very few of them meant what they said, and none of them knew what they meant; that the primal elements, in the entire body feminine, were jealousy, impulsiveness, vanity, and contrariety.

Georgie Corklemore soon found out that he had adopted this, the popular male opinion; and she did not once attempt to remove it, knowing, as she did, that nothing could be more favourable to her purposes. So she took up the part – which suited her as well as any, and enabled her to say many things which else would have given offence – the part of the soft, impulsive, warm–hearted, foolish woman, who is apt among men to become a great pet, if she happens to be good–looking.

Eoa would gladly have yielded her prerogatives to Georgie, but Mrs. Corklemore was too wide awake to accept any one of them. “No, darling,” she replied, “for your own sake I will not. It is true that Uncle Cradock wishes it, and so, no doubt, do you; but you are bound to acquire all this social knowledge of which you have now so little; and how can you do so except by instruction and practice?”

“Oh,” cried Eoa, firing up, “if Uncle Cradock wishes it, I am sure Iʼll leave it to you, and not be laughed at any longer. Iʼll go to him at once, and tell him so. And, as for being bound, I wonʼt be bound to learn any nonsense I donʼt like. My papa was as wise as any of you, and a great deal better; and he never made such a fuss about rubbish as you do here.”

“Stop, sweet child, stop a moment – ”

“I am not a sweet child, and I wonʼt stop. And another thing Iʼll tell you. I had made up my mind to it before this, mind – before you tried to turn me out of my place – and itʼs this. You may call me what you like, but I donʼt mean to call you ‘Cousin Georgie’ any longer. In the first place, I donʼt like you, and never shall as long as I live; for I never half believe you: and, in the next place, you are no cousin of mine; and social usage (or whatever it is you are always bothering me about) may require me to tell some stories, but not that one, I should fancy. Or, at any rate, I wonʼt do it.”

“Very well,” replied Mrs. Corklemore, looking up from the softest of fancy–work, with the very sweetest of smiles; “then I shall be obliged, in self–defence, to address you as ‘Miss Nowell.’”

“To be sure. Why shouldnʼt you?”

“Well, it can be shown, perhaps, that you are entitled to the name. Only at first it will seem absurd when applied to a baby like you.”

“A baby like me, indeed!” This was Eoaʼs sore point; and Georgie, who delighted in making her outrageous, was always harping upon it. “Mrs. Corklemore, how dare you call me, at my age, a baby?”

Eoa looked down at Georgie, with great eyes flashing fire, and her clear, bright forehead wrinkling, and her light form poised like an antelopeʼs on the edge of a cliff. Mrs. Corklemore, not thinking it worth while to look up at her, carelessly threw back a curl, and went on with her rug–work.

“Because you are a baby, and nothing more, Eoa.”

In a moment she was tossed through the air, and sitting on Eoaʼs head, low satin chair and all. She had not time to shriek, so rapid was her elation. Little Flore, running in at the moment, clapped her hands and shouted, “Oh, ma, have a yide, a nice yide, same as me have yesterday. Me next, me next. Oh, ah!”

Eoa, with the greatest ease, her figure as straight as a poplar–tree, bore the curule chair and its occupant to the end of the room, and there deposited them carefully on a semi–grand piano.

“Thatʼs how we nurse the babies in India,” she cried, with a smile of sweet temper, “but it takes a big baby to do it, and some practice, I can tell you. Now, Iʼll not let you down, Mrs. Corklemore, – and if visitors come in, what will they think of our social usages? Down you donʼt come, till you have promised solemnly never to call me a baby again.”

“My dear,” began Georgie, trying hard not to look ridiculous – though the position was so unfavourable – “my dear child – ”

“No, not my dear child, even! Miss Nowell, if you please, and nothing else.”

“Miss Nowell, if you will only lift me down – oh, it is polished so nastily, I am slipping off already – I will promise solemnly to call you only what you like, all the rest of my life.”

Eoa lifted her off in an instant. “But mind, I will be even with you,” cried Georgie, through her terror, when safe on the floor once more.

“I donʼt care that for you,” answered Eoa, snapping her fingers like a copper–cap; “only I will have proper respect shown to me by people I particularly dislike. People I love may call me what, or do with me what, they please. My father was just the same; and I donʼt want to be any better than he was; and I donʼt believe God wants it.”

“He must be easily contented, then.”

Georgie, with all her deliciousness, could never pass a chance of sarcasm.

“Now Iʼll go and have it out with Uncle Cradock, about having you for my ayah.”

Mrs. Corklemore trembled far more at those words than at finding herself on the piano. This strange girl – whom she had so despised – was baffling all her tactics, and with no other sword and shield but those of truth and candour.

“Iʼve been a fool,” said Georgie to herself, for about the first time in her life; “I have strangely underrated this girl, and shall have hard work now to get round her. But it must be done. Come, though I have been so rash, I have two to one in my favour, now I see the way to handle it. But she must not tell the old noodle; that will never do.”

“I thought, Miss Nowell,” she continued aloud, “that it would not be considered honourable, even among East Indians, to repeat to a third person what was said familiarly and in confidence.”

“Of course not. What makes you speak of it? Do you mean to say I would do such a thing?”

“No, I am sure you would not, knowingly. But if you think for a moment, you will see that what I said just now, especially as to Sir Cradockʼs opinions, was told to you in pure confidence, and meant to go no further.”

“Oh,” answered Eoa, “then please not to tell me anything in pure confidence again, because I canʼt keep secrets, and you have no right to load me with them, without ever asking my leave even. But Iʼll try not to let it out, unless you provoke me before him.”

With this half promise Georgie was obliged to be content. She knew well enough that, if Eoa brought the question before her uncle, the truth would come out that Sir Cradock had never dreamed for a moment of substituting Georgie, the daughter of his cousin, for Eoa, the only daughter of his only brother Clayton. He knew, of course, that the Eastern maiden had no artificial polish; but he saw that she had an inborn truth, a delicacy of feeling, and a native sympathy, which wanted only experience to be better than any polish.

From that day forth, Mrs. Corklemore (aided perhaps by physical terror) formed a higher estimate of Eoaʼs powers. So she changed her tactics altogether, and employed her daughter, that sharp little Flore, to cover the next advance. Flore was a little beauty; so far as anything artificial can be really beautiful. Dressed, as she was, in the height of French fashion, and herself nine–tenths of a Frenchwoman – for there is no such thing as a French girl, as we Englishmen understand girlhood – she always looked like a butterfly, just born in and just about to pop out of a bower; for little Flore was “divinely beautiful.”

This angel was now nearly four years old, and would look at you with the loveliest eyes that ever appealed from the cradle to heaven, and throw her exaggerated little figure back, and tell you the biggest lie that an angel ever wiped her mouth over. Oh, you lovely child! I would rather have Loo Jupp, who knows a number of bad words, which you would faint to hear of. But Loo wonʼt tell a lie. Her father beat her out of it the very first time she tried.