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

CHAPTER XIII

Bob Garnet, with his trowel, and box, and net, and many other impediments, was going along very merrily, in a quiet path of the Forest, thinking sometimes of Amy and her fundamental errors, and sometimes of Eoa, and the way she could catch a butterfly, but for the most part busy with the display of life around him, and the prospects of a great boring family, which he had found in a willow–tree. Suddenly, near the stag–headed oak, he chanced upon Miss Nowell, tripping along the footpath lightly, smiling and blushing rosily, and oh! so surprised to see him! She darted aside, like a trout at a shadow, then, finding it too late for that game, she tried to pass him rapidly, with her long eyelashes drooping.

“Oh, please to stop a minute, if you can spare the time,” said Bob; “what have I done to offend you?”

She stopped in a moment at his voice, and lifted her radiant eyes to him, and shyly tried to cloud away the sparkling night of hair, through which her white and slender throat gleamed like the Milky Way. The sprays of the wood and the winds of May had romped with her glorious tresses; and now she had been lectured so, that she doubted her right to exhibit her hair.

“Miss Nowell,” said Bob, as she had not answered, but only been thinking about him, “only please to stop and tell me what I have done to offend you; and you do love beetles so – and you never saw such beauties – what have I done to offend you?”

An English maiden would have said, “Oh, nothing at all, Mr. Garnet;” and then swept on, with her crinoline embracing a thousand brambles.

But Eoa stood just where she was, with her bright lips pouting slightly, and her gaze absorbed by a tuft of moss.

“Only because you are not at all good–natured to me, Bob. But it doesnʼt make much difference.”

Then she turned away from him, and began to sing a little song, and then called, “Amy, Amy!”

“Donʼt call Amy. I donʼt want her.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon, Iʼm sure I rather thought you did.”

“Eoa,” said Bob; and she looked at him, and the tears were in her eyes. And then she whispered, “Yes, Bob.”

“You have got on the very prettiest dress I ever saw in all my life.”

Here Bob was alarmed at his own audacity, and durst not watch the effect of his speech.

“Oh, is that all?” she answered. “But I am very glad indeed that you like – my frock, Bob.” Here she looked down at it, with much interest.

“And, to tell you the truth,” continued he, “I think, if you will please not to be offended, that you look very well in it.”

“Oh yes, I am very well. I wish I was ill, sometimes.”

“Now, I donʼt mean that. What I mean is, very nice.”

“Well, I always try to be nice. But how can I, out butterfly–hunting?”

“Now, you wonʼt understand me. You are as bad as a weevil that wonʼt take chloroform. What I mean is, very pretty.”

“I donʼt know anything about that,” said Eoa, drawing back; “and I donʼt see that you have any right even to talk about it. Oh, there goes a lovely butterfly!”

“Where, where? What eyes you have got! I do wish I was married to you. What a collection we would have! And you would never let my traps off. I am sure that you are a great deal better and prettier than Amy. And I like you more than anybody I have ever seen.”

“Do you, Bob? Are you sure of that?”

She fixed her large eyes upon his; and in one moment her beauty went to the bottom of his heart. It changed him from a boy to a man, from play to passion, from dreams to thought. And happy for him that it was so, with the trouble impending over him.

She saw the change; herself too young, too pure (in spite of all the evil that ever had drifted by her) to know or ask what it meant. She only felt that Bob liked her now better than he liked Amy. She had no idea of the deep anticipation of her eyes.

“Eoa, wonʼt you answer me?” He had been talking some nonsense. “Why are you crying so dreadfully? Do you hate me so much as all that?”

“Oh no, no, Bob. I am sure I donʼt hate you at all. I only wish I did. No, I donʼt, Bob. I am so glad that I donʼt. I donʼt care a quarter so much, Bob, for all the rest of the world put together.”

“Then only look up at me, Eoa. I canʼt tell what I am saying. Only look up. You are so nice. And you have got such eyes.”

“Have I?” said Eoa, throwing all their splendour on him; “oh, I am so glad you like them.”

“Do you think that you could give me just a sort of a kiss, Eoa? People always do, you know. And, indeed, I feel that you ought.”

“I scarcely know what is right, Bob, after all the things they have told me. But now, you know, you must guide me.”

“Then, Iʼll tell you what. Just let me give you one. The leaves are coming out so.”

“Well, thatʼs a different thing,” said Eoa. “Amy canʼt see us, can she?”

Sir Cradock Nowell was very angry when his niece came home, and told him, with an air of triumph, all that Bob had said to her.

“That butterfly–hunting boy, Eoa! To think of his presuming so! A mere boy! A boy like that!”

“Thatʼs the very thing, uncle. Perhaps if he had been a girl, you know, I should not have liked him half so much. And as for his hunting butterflies, I like him all the better for that. And weʼll hunt them all day long.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Uncle Cradock, smiling at the young girlʼs earnestness in spite of all his wrath; “that is your idea of married life then, is it? But I never will allow it, Eoa: he is not your equal.”

“Of course not, uncle. He is my superior in every possible way.”

“Scarcely so, in the matter of birth; nor yet, my child, I fear, in a pecuniary sense.”

“For both of those I donʼt care two pice. You know it is all very nice, Uncle Cradock, to live in large rooms, where you can put three chairs together, and jump over them all without knocking your head, and to have beautiful books, and prawns for breakfast, and flowers all the year round; and to be able to scold people without their daring to answer. But I could do without all that very well, but I never could do without Bob.”

“I fear you must, indeed, my dear. As other people have had to do.”

“Well, I donʼt see why, unless God takes him; and then He should take me too. And, indeed, I had better tell you once for all, Uncle Cradock, that I do not mean to try. It would be so shabby of me, after what I told him just now, and after his saving my life; and you yourself said yesterday that no Nowell had ever been shabby. You have been very kind to me and good, and I love you very much, I am sure. But in spite of all that, I wish you clearly to understand, Uncle Cradock, that if you try any nonsense with me, I shall get my darling fatherʼs money, and go and live away from you.”

“My dear,” said the old man, smiling at the manner and tone of her menace, which she delivered as if her departure must at least annihilate him, “you are laying your plans too rapidly. You are not seventeen until next July; and you cannot touch your poor fatherʼs money until you are twenty–one.”

“I donʼt care,” she replied; “he is sure to have been right about it. But I will tell you another thing. Everybody says that I could earn ten thousand a year as an opera–dancer in London. And I should like it very much, – that is to say, if Bob did. And I would not think of changing my name, as I have heard that most of them do. I should be ‘Miss Eoa Nowell, the celebrated dancer.’”

“God forbid!” said Sir Cradock. “My only brotherʼs only child! I will not trouble you about him, dear. Only I beg you to consider.”

“To be sure I will, Uncle Cradock, I have been considering ever since how long it must be till I marry him. Now give me a kiss, dear, and I wonʼt dance, except for your amusement. And I donʼt think I can dance for a long time, after what I have been told about poor Cousin Cradock. I am sure he was very nice, uncle, from what everybody says of him, and I am almost certain that you behaved very badly to him.”

“My dear, you are allowed to say what you like, because nobody can stop you. But your own good feeling should make you spare me the pain of that sad subject.”

“Not if you deserve the pain for having been hard–hearted. And much you cared for my pain, when you spoke of Bob so. Besides, you are quite sure to hear of it; and it had better come from me, dear uncle, who am so considerate.”

“Something new? What is it, my child? I can bear almost anything now.”

“It is that some vile wretches are trying to get what they call a warrant against him, and so to put him in jail.”

“Put him in jail? My unfortunate son! What more has he been doing?”

“Nothing at all. And I donʼt believe that he ever did any harm. But what the brutes say is that he did that terrible thing on purpose. Oh, uncle, donʼt look at me like that. How I wish I had never told you!”

Poor Sir Cradockʼs mind was not so clear and strong as it had been, although the rumours scattered by Georgie were shameful exaggerations. The habit of brooding over his grief, whenever he was alone – a habit more and more indulged, as it became a morbid pleasure – the loss moreover of his accustomed exercise, for he never would go out riding now, having no son to ride with him; these, and the ever–present dread of some inevitable inquiry, began to disturb, though not destroy, the delicate fibres of reason, which had not too much room in his brain.

He fell into the depths of an easy–chair, and wondered what it was he had heard. The lids of his mindʼs eye had taken a blink, as will happen sometimes to old people, and to young ones too for that matter; neither was it the first time this thing had befallen him.

Then Eoa told him again what it was, because he made her tell it; and again it shocked him dreadfully; but that time he remembered it.

“And I have no doubt,” continued his niece, with bright tears on her cheeks, “that Mrs. Corklemore herself is at the bottom of it.”

“Georgie! What, my niece Georgie!”

“She is not your niece, Uncle Cradock. I am your niece, and nobody else; and you had better not think of wronging me. If you call her your niece any more, I know I will never call you my uncle. Nasty limy slimy thing! If you would only give me leave to choke her!”

“My darling child,” cried her uncle, who loved her the more (though he knew it not) for siding with his son so, “you are so very hot and hasty. I am sure Mrs. Corklemore speaks of you with the warmest pity and affection.”

“Shall I tell you why she does, Uncle Crad? Shall I tell you in plain English? Most likely you will be shocked, you know.”

“My dear, I am so used to you, that I am never shocked now at anything.”

“Then it is because she is such a jolly liar.”

“Eoa, I really must send you to a ‘nice institution for young ladies.’ You get worse and worse.”

“If you do, Iʼll jump over the wall the first night, and Bob shall come to catch me. But now without any nonsense, uncle, for you do talk a good deal of nonsense, will you promise me one thing?”

“A dozen, if you like, my darling. Anything in reason. You did look so like your poor father then.”

“Oh, I am so glad of that. But it is not a thing of reason, uncle; it is simply a thing of justice. Now will you promise solemnly to send away Mrs. Corklemore, and never speak to her again, if she vows that she knows nothing of this, and if I prove from her own handwriting that it is her plot altogether, and also another plot against us, every bit as bad, if not worse?”

“Of course, Eoa, I will promise you that, as solemnly as you please. What a deluded child you are!”

“Am I? Now let her come in, and deny it. Thatʼs the first part of the business.”

Without waiting for an answer, she ran to fetch Mrs. Corklemore, whom she well knew where to find, that time of the afternoon. Dear Georgie had just had her cup of tea with the darling Flore, in her private audience–chamber – ”oratory” she called it, though all her few prayers were public; and now she was meditating what dress she should wear at dinner. Those dinners were so dreadfully dull, unless she could put Eoa into a vehement passion – which was not very hard to do – and so exhibit her in a pleasant light before the serving–men. Yet, strange to say, although the young lady observed little moderation, when she was baited thus, and sunk irony in invective, the sympathies of the audience were far more often on her side than on that of the soft tormentor.

“Come, now, Sugar–plums,” said Eoa, who often addressed her so, “we want you down–stairs, if you please, for a minute.”

“Tum, pease, Oh Ah,” cried little Flore, running up; “pease tum, and tell Fore a tory.”

“Canʼt now, you good little child. And your mamma tells stories so cleverly, oh, so very cleverly, it quite takes away oneʼs breath.”

“Iʼll have my change out of you at dinner–time,” said Georgie to herself most viciously, as she followed down the passage.

Eoa led her along at a pace which made her breath quite short, for she was not wont to hurry so, and she dropped right gladly into the chair which Sir Cradock politely set for her. Then, as he himself sat down, facing her with a heavy sigh, Georgie felt rather uncomfortable. She was not quite ready for the crisis, but feared that it was coming. And she saw at a glimpse that her hated foe, “Never–spot–the–dust,” was quite ready, burning indeed to begin, only wanting to make the most of it. Thereupon Mrs. Corklemore, knowing the value of the weather–gage, and being unable to bear a slow silence, was the first to speak.

“Something has occurred, I see, to one of you two dear ones. Oh, Uncle Cradock, what can I do to prove the depth of my regard for you? Or – ”

“To be sure, the depth of your regard,” Eoa interrupted.

“Or is it for you, you poor wild thing? We all make such allowance for you, because of your great disadvantages. If you have done anything very wrong indeed, poor darling, anything which hard people would call not only thoughtless but unprincipled, I can feel for you so truly, because of your hot temperament and most unhappy circumstances.”

“You had better not go too far!” cried Eoa, grinding her little teeth.

“Thank Heaven! I see, dear, it is nothing so very disgraceful after all, because it has nothing to do with you, or you would not smile so prettily. You take it so lightly, it must be something about dear Uncle Cradock. Oh, Uncle Cradock, tell me all about it; my whole heart will be with you.”

“Black–spangled hen has broken her eggs. Nothing more,” said Eoa. “De–ar, oh we do love you so!” She made two syllables of that word, as Mrs. Corklemore used to do, in her many gushing moments. Georgie looked at Eoa with wonder. She had stupidly thought her a stupid.

Then Sir Cradock Nowell rose, in a stately manner, to put an end to all this little nonsense.

“My niece, Eoa, declares, Mrs. Corklemore, that you, in some underhand manner, have promoted a horrible charge against my poor son Cradock, a charge which no person in any way connected with our family should ever dare to utter, even if he or she believed its justice, far less dare to promulgate, and even force into the courts of law. Is this so, or is it not?”

“Oh, Uncle Cradock, how can you speak so? What charge should I ever dream of?”

“See how her hands are trembling, and how white her lips are; not with telling black lies, Uncle Cradock, but with being found out.”

“Eoa, have the kindness not to interrupt again.”

“Very well, Uncle Cradock; I wonʼt, unless you make me.”

“Then, as I understand, madam, you deny entirely the truth of this accusation?”

“Of course I do, most emphatically. What can you all be dreaming about?”

“Now, Eoa, it is your turn to establish what you have said.”

“I canʼt establish anything, though I know it, Uncle Cradock.”

“Know it indeed, you poor wild nautch–girl! Dreamed it you mean, I suppose.”

“I mean,” continued Eoa, not even looking at her, but bending her fingers in a manner which Georgie quite understood, “that I cannot prove anything, Uncle Cradock, without your permission. But here I have a letter, with the seal unbroken, and which I promised some one not to open without her leave, and now she has given me leave to open it with your consent and in the presence of the writer. Why, how pale you are, Mrs. Corklemore!”

“My Heavens! And this is England! Stealing letters, and forging them – ”

“Which of the two do you mean, madam?” asked Sir Cradock, looking at her in his old magisterial manner, after examining the envelope; “either involves a heavy charge against a member of my family. Is this letter yours, or not?”

“Yes, it is,” replied Georgie, after a momentʼs debate, for if she called it a forgery, it must of course be opened; “have the kindness to give me my property. I thought there was among well–bred people a delicacy as to scrutinizing even the directions of one anotherʼs letters.”

“So there is, madam; you are quite right – except, indeed, under circumstances altogether exceptional, and of which this is one. Now for your own exculpation, and to prove that my niece deserves heavy punishment (which I will take care to inflict), allow me to open this letter. I see it is merely a business letter, or I would not ask even that; although you have so often assured me that you have no secret in the world from me. You can have nothing confidential to say to ‘Simon Chope, Esq.;’ and if you had, it should remain sacred and secure with me, unless it involved the life and honour of my son. Shall I open this letter?”

“Certainly not, Sir Cradock Nowell. How dare you to think of such a thing, so mean, so low, so prying?”

“After those words, madam, you cannot continue to be a guest of mine; or be ever received in this house again, unless you prove that I have wronged you, by allowing me to send for your husband, and to place this letter in his hands, before you have in any way communicated with him.”

“Give me my letter, Sir Cradock Nowell, unless your niece inherits the thieving art from you. As for you, wretched little Dacoit,” here she bent upon Eoa flashing eyes quite pale from wrath, for sweet Georgie had her temper, “bitterly you shall rue the day when you presumed to match yourself with me. You would like to do a little murder, I see. No doubt it runs in the family; and the Thugs and Dacoits are first cousins, of course.”

Never had Eoa fought so desperate a battle with herself, as now to keep her hands off Georgie. Without looking at her again, she very wisely ran away, for it was the only chance of abstaining. Mrs. Corklemore laughed aloud; then she took the letter, which the old man had placed upon the table, and said to him, with a kind look of pity:

“What a fuss you have made about nothing! It is only a question upon the meaning of a clause in my marriage–settlement; but I do not choose to have my business affairs exposed, even to my husband. Now do you believe me, Uncle Cradock?”

“No, I cannot say that I do, madam. And it does not matter whether I do or not. You have used language about my family which I can never forget. A carriage will be at your service at any moment you please.”

“Thanks for your hospitable hint. You will soon find your mistake, I think, in having made me your enemy; though your rudeness is partly excused, no doubt, by your growing hallucinations. Farewell for the present, poor dear Uncle Cradock.”

With these words, Mrs. Corklemore made him an elegant curtsey, and swept away from the room, without even the glisten of a tear to mar her gallant bearing, although she had been so outraged. But when she got little Floreʼs head on her lap, she cried over it very vehemently, and felt the depth of her injury.

When she had closed the door behind her (not with any vulgar bang, but firmly and significantly), the master of the house walked over to a panelled mirror, and inspected himself uncomfortably. It was a piece of ancient glass, purchased from an Italian chapel by some former Cradock Nowell, and bearing a mystic name and fame among the maids who dusted it. By them it was supposed to have a weird prophetic power, partly, no doubt, from its deep dark lustre, and partly because it was circular, and ever so slightly, and quite imperceptibly, concave. As upon so broad a surface no concavity could be, in the early ages of mechanism, made absolutely true – and for that matter it cannot be done ad unguem, even now – there were, of course, many founts of error in this Italian mirror. Nevertheless, all young ladies who ever beheld it were charmed with it, so sweetly deeply beautiful, like Galatea watching herself and finding Polypheme over her shoulder, in the glass of the blue Sicilian sea.

To this glass Sir Cradock Nowell went to examine his faded eyes, time–worn, trouble–worn, stranded by the ebbing of the brain. He knew too well what Mrs. Corklemore meant by her last thrust; and the word “hallucination” happened, through a great lawsuit then in progress, to be invested with an especial prominence and significance. While he was sadly gazing into the convergence of grey light, and feebly reassuring himself, yet like his image wavering, a heavy step was heard behind him, and beside his flowing silvery locks appeared the close–cropped massive brow and the gloomy eyes of Bull Garnet.