CHAPTER XLI.
THE PRIDE OF LIFE
Harvey Tremlett kept his promise not to leave the neighbourhood, until the result of the grievous injury done to Frank Gilham should be known. Another warrant against him might be issued for that fierce assault, and he had made up his mind to stand a trial, whatever result might come of it. What he feared most, and would have fled from, was a charge of running contraband goods, which might have destroyed a thriving trade, and sent him and his colleagues across the seas. Rough and savage as he became, (when his violent temper was provoked) and scornful of home-life and quiet labour – these and other far from exemplary traits, were mainly the result of his roving habits, and the coarse and lawless company into which he had ever fallen. And it tended little to his edification, that he exercised lordship over them, in virtue of superior strength.
But his nature was rather wild than brutal; in its depths were sparks and flashes of manly generosity, and even warmth of true affection for the few who had been kind to him, if they took him the right way of his stubborn grain. He loved his only daughter Zip, although ashamed of showing it; and he was very proud of his lineage, and the ancient name of Tremlett. Thus Mr. Penniloe had taken unawares the straightest road to his good will, by adopting the waif as an inmate of his house, and treating her, not as a servant, but a child. That Zip should be a lady, as the daughters of that Norman race had been for generations, was the main ambition of her father's life. He had seen no possibility of it; and here was almost a surety of it, unless she herself threw away the chance.
Rather a pretty scene was toward for those who are fond of humanity, at the ruined Tremlett mill, on the morning of Saint David's day. Harvey had taken to this retreat – and a very lonely home it was – for sundry good reasons of his own; the most important of which was not entrusted even to his daughter, or the revered and beloved Parson. This was to prepare a refuge, and a store house for Free-trade, more convenient, better placed, larger, and much safer than the now notorious fastness of Blackmarsh. Here were old buildings, and mazy webs of wandering; soft cliff was handy, dark wood and rushing waters, tangled lanes, furzy corners, nooks of overhanging, depths of in-and-out hood-winks of nature, when she does not wish man to know everything about her. The solid firm, directed by Timber-leg'd Dick, were prepared to pay a fine price, as for a paper mill, for this last feudal tenure of the Tremlett race.
But the last male member of that much discounted stock (or at any rate the last now producible in Court, without criminal procedure) had refused to consider the most liberal offers, even of a fine run of Free-trade, all to himself – as still it is – for the alienation in fee-simple of this last sod of hereditament. For good consideration, he would grant a lease, which Blickson might prepare for them; but he would be – something the nadir of benediction – if he didn't knock down any man, who would try to make him rob his daughter. The league of Free-traders came into his fine feelings, and took the mills and premises, on a good elastic lease. But the landlord must put them into suitable condition.
This he was doing now, with technical experience, endeavouring at the same time to discharge some little of his new parental duties. Jem Kettel found it very hard, that though allowed to work, he was not encouraged (as he used to be) to participate in the higher moments. "You clear out, when my darter cometh. You be no fit company for she." Jem could not see it, for he knew how good he was.
But the big man had taken a much larger turn. He was not going to alter his own course of life. That was quite good enough for him; and really in those days people heard so much of "Reform! Reform!" dinged for ever in their ears, that any one at all inclined to think for himself had a tendency towards backsliding. None the less, must he urge others to reform; as the manner has been of all ages.
Tremlett's present anxiety was to provide his daughter with good advice, and principles so exalted, that there might be no further peril of her becoming like himself. From him she was to learn the value of proper pride and dignity, of behaving in her new position, as if she had been born to it, of remembering distant forefathers, but forgetting her present father, at any rate as an example. To this end he made her study the great ancestral Bible – not the Canonical books however, so much as the covers and fly-leaves – the wholly uninspired records of the Tremlett family. These she perused with eager eyes, thinking more highly of herself, and laying in large store of pride – a bitter stock to start with – even when the course of youth is fair.
But whether for evil or for good, it was pleasant to see the rough man sitting, this first day of the Spring-time, teaching his little daughter how sadly he and she had come down in the world. Zip had been spared from her regular lessons, by way of a treat, to dine with her father, before going – as was now arranged – to the care of a lady at Exeter. Jem Kettel had been obliged to dine upon inferior victuals, and at the less fashionable hour of eleven a.m.; for it was not to be known that he was there, lest attention should be drawn to the job they were about. Tremlett had washed himself very finely, in honour of this great occasion, and donned a new red woollen jacket, following every curve and chunk of his bulky chest and rugged arms. He had finished his dinner, and was in good spirits, with money enough from his wrestling prize to last him until the next good run, and a pipe of choice tobacco (such as could scarcely be got at Exeter), issuing soft rings of turquoise tint to the black oak beams above. The mill-wheel was gone; but the murmur of the brook, and the tinkle of the trickle from the shattered trough, and the singing of birds in their love-time came, like the waving of a branch that sends the sunshine in.
The dark-haired child was in the window-seat, with her Sunday frock on, and her tresses ribboned back, and her knees wide apart to make a lap for the Bible, upon which her great brown eyes were fixed. Puffs of the March wind now and then came in, where the lozenges of glass were gone, and lifted loose tussocks of her untrussed hair, and set the sunshine dancing on the worn planks of the floor. But the girl was used to breezes, and her heart was in her lesson.
"Hunderds of 'em, more than all the Kings and Queens of England!" she said, with her very clear voice trembling, and her pointed fingers making hop-scotch in and out the lines of genealogy. "What can Fay Penniloe show like that? But was any of 'em Colonels, father?"
"Maight a'been, if 'em would a' comed down to it. But there wasn't no Colonels, in the old times, I've a' heered. Us was afore that sort of thing were found out."
"To be sure. I might have knowed. But was any of 'em, Sirs, the same as Sir Thomas Waldron was?"
"Scores of 'em, when they chose to come down to it. But they kept that, most ways, for the younger boys among 'em. The father of the family was bound to be a Lord."
"Oh father! Real lords? And me to have never seed one! What hath become of the laws of the land? But why bain't you a real lord, the same as they was?"
"Us never cared to keep it up;" said the last of the visible Tremletts, after pondering over this difficult point. "You see, Zip, it's only the women cares for that. 'Tis no more to a man, than the puff of this here pipe."
"But right is right, father. And it soundeth fine. Was any of them Earls, and Marquises, and Dukes, and whatever it is that comes over that?"
"They was everything they cared to be. Barons, and Counts, and Dukes, spelled the same as Ducks, and Holy Empires, and Holy Sepulkers. But do'e, my dear, get my baccy box."
What summit of sovereignty they would have reached, if the lecture had proceeded, no one knows; for as Zip, like a Princess, was stepping in and out among the holes of the floor, with her father's tin box, the old door shook with a sharp and heavy knock; and the child with her face lit up by the glory of her birth, marched away to open it. This she accomplished with some trouble, for the timber was ponderous and rickety.
A tall young man strode in, as if the place belonged to him, and said, "I want to see Harvey Tremlett."
"Here be I. Who be you?"
The wrestler sat where he was, and did not even nod his head; for his rule was always to take people, just as they chose to take him. But the visitor cared little for his politeness, or his rudeness.
"I am Sir Thomas Waldron's son. If I came in upon you rudely, I am sorry for it. It is not what I often do. But just now I am not a bit like myself."
"Sir, I could take my oath of that; for your father was a gen'leman. Zippy, dust a cheer, my dear."
"No, young lady, you shall not touch it," said the young man, with a long stride, and a gentle bow to the comely child. "I am fitter to lift chairs than you are."
This pleased the father mightily; and he became quite gracious, when the young Sir Thomas said to him, while glancing with manifest surprise at his quick and intelligent daughter —
"Mr. Tremlett, I wish to speak to you, of a matter too sad to be talked about, in the presence of young ladies."
This was not said by way of flattery or conciliation; for Zip, with her proud step and steadfast gaze, was of a very different type from that of the common cottage lass. She was already at the door, when her father said —
"Go you down to the brook, my dear, and see how many nestesses you can find. Then come back and say good-bye to Daddy, afore go home to Passonage. Must be back afore dark, you know."
"What a beautiful child!" Young Waldron had been looking with amazement at her. "I know what the Tremletts used to be; but I had no idea they could be like that. I never saw such eyes in all my life."
"Her be well enough," replied the father shortly. "And now, sir, what is it as I can do for you? I knows zummat of the troubles on your mind; and if I can do'e any good, I wull."
"Two things I want of you. First, your word of honour – and I know what you Tremletts have been in better days – that you had nothing to do with that cursed and devilish crime in our churchyard."
"Sir," answered Tremlett, standing up for the first time in this interview, "I give you my oath by that book yon'ner that I knows nort about it. We be coom low; but us bain't zunk to that yet."
He met Sir Thomas Waldron, eye to eye, and the young man took his plastered hand, and knew that it was not a liar's.
"Next I want your good advice," said the visitor, sitting down by him; "and your help, if you will give it. I will not speak of money because I can see what you are. But first to follow it up, there must be money. Shall I tell you what I shall be glad to do, without risk of offending you? Very well; I don't care a fig for money, in a matter such as this. Money won't give you back your father, or your mother, or anybody, when they are gone away from you. But it may help you to do your duty to them. At present, I have no money to speak of; because I have been with my regiment, and there it goes away, like smoke. But I can get any quantity almost, by going to our lawyers. If you like, and will see to it, I will put a thousand pounds in your hands, for you to be able to work things up; and another thousand, if you make anything of it. Don't be angry with me. I don't want to bribe you. It is only for the sake of doing right. I have seen a great deal of the world. Can you ever get what is right, without paying for it?"
"No, sir, you can't. And not always, if you do. But you be the right sort, and no mistake. Tell you what, Sir Thomas – I won't take a farden of your money, 'cos it would be a'robbin' of you. I han't got the brains for gooin' under other folk, like. Generally they does that to me. But I know an oncommon sharp young fellow, Jemmy Kettel is his name. A chap as can goo and come fifty taimes, a'most, while I be a toornin' round wance; a'knoweth a'most every rogue for fifty maile around. And if you like to goo so far as a ten-pun' note upon him, I'll zee that a'doth his best wi'un. But never a farden over what I said."
"I am very much obliged to you. Here it is; and another next week, if he requires it. I hate the sight of money, while this thing lasts; because I know that money is at the bottom of it. Tremlett, you are a noble fellow. Your opinion is worth something. Now don't you agree with me in thinking, that after all it comes to this – everything else has been proved rubbish – the doctors are at the bottom of it?"
"Well, sir, I am afeared they be. I never knowed nort of 'em, thank the Lord. But I did hear they was oncommon greedy to cut up a poor brother of mine, as coom to trouble. I was out o' country then; or by Gosh, I wud a' found them a job or two to do at home."
The young man closed his lips, and thought. Tremlett's opinion, although of little value, was all that was needed to clench his own. "I'll go and put a stop to it at once;" he muttered; and after a few more words with the wrestler, he set his long legs going rapidly, and his forehead frowning, in the direction of that Æsculapian fortress, known as the Old Barn.
By this time Dr. Fox was in good health again, recovering his sprightly tone of mind, and magnanimous self-confidence. His gratitude to Frank Gilham now was as keen and strong as could be wished; for the patient's calmness, and fortitude, and very fine constitution had secured his warm affection, by affording him such a field for skill, and such a signal triumph, as seldom yet have rejoiced a heart at once medical and surgical. Whenever Dr. Gronow came, and dwelling on the ingenious structure designed and wrought by Jemmy's skill, poured forth kind approval and the precious applause of an expert, the youthful doctor's delight was like a young mother's pride in her baby. And it surged within him all the more, because he could not – as the mother does – inundate all the world with it. Wiser too than that sweet parent, he had refused most stubbornly to risk the duration of his joy, or imperil the precious subject, by any ardour of excitement or flutter of the system.
The patient lay, like a well-set specimen in the box of a naturalist, carded, and trussed, and pinned, and fibred, bound to maintain one immutable plane. His mother hovered round him with perpetual presence; as a house-martin flits round her fallen nestling, circling about that one pivot of the world, back for a twittering moment, again sweeping the air for a sip of him.
But the one he would have given all the world to have a sip of, even in a dream he must not see. Such was the stern decree of the power, even more ruthless than that to which it punctually despatches us – Æsculapius, less mansuete to human tears than Æacus. To put it more plainly, and therefore better, – Master Frank did not even know that Miss Christie was on the premises.
Christie was sitting by the window, thrown out where the barn-door used to be, – where the cart was backed up with the tithe-sheaves golden, but now the gilded pills were rolled, and the only wholesome bit of metal was the sunshine on her hair – when she saw a large figure come in at the gate (which was still of the fine agricultural sort) and a shudder ran down her shapely back. With feminine speed of apprehension, she felt that it could be one man only, the man she had heard so much of, a monster of size and ferocity, the man who had "concussed" her brother's head, and shattered an arm of great interest to her. That she ran to the door, which was wide to let the Spring in, and clapped it to the post, speaks volumes for her courage.
"You can't come in here, Harvey Tremlett," she cried, with a little foot set, as a forlorn hope, against the bottom of the door, which (after the manner of its kind) refused to go home, when called upon; "you have done harm enough, and I am astonished that you should dare to imagine we would let you in."
"But I am not Harvey Tremlett, at all. I am only Tom Waldron. And I don't see why I should be shut out when I have done no harm."
The young lady was not to be caught with chaff. She took a little peep through the chink, having learned that art in a very sweet manner of late; and then she threw open the door, and showed herself, a fine figure of blushes.
"Miss Fox, I am sure," said the visitor, smiling and lifting his hat as he had learned to do abroad. "But I won't come in, against orders, whatever the temptation may be."
"We don't know any harm of you, and you may come in;" answered Chris, who was never long taken aback. "Your sister is a dear friend of mine. I am sorry for being so rude to you."
Waldron sat down, and was cheerful for awhile, greatly pleased with his young entertainer, and her simple account of the state of things there. But when she enquired for his mother and sister, the cloud returned, and he meant business.
"You are likely to know more than I do," he said, "for I have not been home, and cannot go there yet. I will not trouble you with dark things – but may I have a little talk with your brother?"
Miss Fox left the room at once, and sent her brother down; and now a very strange surprise befell the sprightly doctor. Sir Thomas Waldron met him with much cordiality and warmth, for they had always been good friends, though their natures were so different; and then he delivered this fatal shot.
"I am very sorry, my dear Jemmy, but I have had to make up my mind to do a thing you won't much like. I know you have always thought a great deal of my sister, Inez; and now I am told, though I have not seen her, that you are as good as engaged to her. But you must perceive that it would never do. I could not wish for a better sort of fellow, and I have the highest opinion of you. Really I think that you would have made her as happy as the day is long, because you are so clever, and cheerful, and good-tempered, and – and in fact I may say, good all round. But you must both of you get over it. I am now the head of the family; and I don't like saying it, but I must. I cannot allow you to have Nicie; and I shall forbid Nicie to think any more of you."
"What, the deuce, do you mean, Tom?" asked Jemmy, scarcely believing his ears. "What's up now, in the name of goodness? What on earth have you got into your precious noddle?"
"Jemmy, my noddle – as you call it – may not be a quarter so clever as yours; and in fact I know it is not over-bright, without having the benefit of your opinion. But for all that, it has some common sense; and it knows its own mind pretty well; and what it says, it sticks to. You are bound to take it in a friendly manner, because that is how I intend it; and you must see the good sense of it. I shall be happy and proud myself to continue our friendship. Only you must pledge your word, that you will have nothing more to say to my sister, Inez."
"But why, Tom, why?" Fox asked again, with increasing wonder. He was half inclined to laugh at the other's solemn and official style, but he saw that it would be a dangerous thing, for Waldron's colour was rising. "What objection have you discovered, or somebody else found out for you? Surely you are dreaming, Tom!"
"No, I am not. And I shall not let you. I should almost have thought that you might have known, without my having to tell you. If you think twice, you will see at once, that reason, and common sense, and justice, and knowledge of the world, and the feeling of a gentleman – all compel you to – to knock off, if I may so express it. I can only say that if you can't see it, everybody else can, at a glance."
"No doubt I am the thickest of the thick – though it may not be the general opinion. But do give me ever such a little hint, Tom; something of a twinkle in this frightful fog."
"Well, you are a doctor, aren't you now?"
"Certainly I am, and proud of it. Only wish I was a better one."
"Very well. The doctors have dug up my father. And no doctor ever shall marry his daughter."
The absurdity of this was of a very common kind, as the fallacy is of the commonest; and there was nothing very rare to laugh at. But Fox did the worst thing he could have done – he laughed till his sides were aching. Too late he perceived that he had been as scant of discretion, as the other was of logic.
"That's how you take it, is it, Sir?" young Waldron cried, ready to knock him down, if he could have done so without cowardice. "A lucky thing for you, that you are on the sick-list; or I'd soon make you laugh the other side of your mouth, you guffawing jackanapes. If you can laugh at what was done to my father, it proves that you are capable of doing it. When you have done with your idiot grin, I'll just ask you one thing – never let me set eyes on your sniggering, grinning, pill-box of a face again."
"That you may be quite sure you never shall do," answered Fox, who was ashy pale with anger; "until you have begged my pardon humbly, and owned yourself a thick-headed, hot-headed fool. I am sorry that your father should have such a ninny of a cad to come after him. Everybody acknowledges that the late Sir Thomas was a gentleman."
The present Sir Thomas would not trust himself near such a fellow for another moment, but flung out of the house without his hat; while Fox proved that he was no coward, by following, and throwing it after him. And the other young man proved the like of himself, by not turning round and smashing him.