CRADOCK NOWELL
A Tale of the New Forest.
BY
_RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE_,
AUTHOR OF “CLARA VAUGHAN.”
“You have said: whether wisely or no, let the forest judge.”
AS YOU LIKE IT, Act III. Sc. 2.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1866.
[_The right of Translation is reserved._]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. 1
II. 35
III. 52
IV. 72
V. 91
VI. 111
VII. 128
VIII. 147
IX. 172
X. 190
XI. 217
XII. 236
XIII. 245
XIV. 253
XV. 274
XVI. 287
XVII. 300
CRADOCK NOWELL
CHAPTER I.
It was a Tuesday evening when Cradock Nowell and Amy Rosedew signed
and sealed, with the moonʼs approval, their bond to one another. On
the following day, Dr. Hutton and wife were to dine at Kettledrum
Hall; and the distance being considerable, and the roads so shockingly
bad—“even dangerous, I am told, to gentlemen who have dined _with
me_, sir,” said Kettledrum, in his proudest manner—they had accepted
his offer, and that of Mrs. Kettledrum, which she herself came over to
make, that they should not think of returning until after breakfast on
Thursday. In consequence of her husbandʼs hints, Rosa felt the keenest
interest in “that Mrs. Kettledrum. Leave her to me, dear Rufus. You
need not be afraid, indeed. Trust me to get to the bottom of it.” And
so she exerted her probing skill upon her to the uttermost, more even
than ladies usually do, when they first meet one another. Of course,
there was no appearance of it, nothing so ill–bred as that; it was
all the sweetest refinement, and the kindest neighbourly interest.
They even became affectionate in the course of half an hour, and
mutual confidence proved how strangely their tastes were in unison.
Nevertheless, each said good–bye with a firm conviction that she had
outwitted the other. “Poor thing, she was so stupid. What a bungler, to
be sure! And to think I could not see through her!”
But the return–match between these ladies, which was to have come off
at Kettledrum Hall—where, by–the–by, there appeared a far greater
performer than either of them—this interesting display of skill was
deferred for the present; inasmuch as Rosa was taken ill during the
mysteries of her toilet. It was nothing more serious, however, than the
“flying spasms,” as she always called them, to which she had long been
subject, and which (as she often told her husband) induced her to marry
a doctor.
Rufus administered essence of peppermint, and then a dose of magnesia;
but he would not hear of her coming with him, and he wanted to stop
at home with her, and see that she sat by the fire. She in turn would
have her way, and insisted that Rue should go, “for he had made himself
such a very smart boy, that she was really quite proud of him, and they
would all be so disappointed, and he was taller than Mr. Kettledrum,
she felt quite sure he was.” The bearing of that last argument I do not
quite perceive, but dare not say that she erred therein, and to Rue it
was quite conclusive. So Ralph Mohorn was sent for, the pony–carriage
countermanded, and Rufus set forth upon Polly, whose oats were now
restricted.
Kettledrum Hall stood forth on a rise, and made the very most of
itself. Expansive, and free, and obtrusively honest, it seemed to
strike itself on the breast (as its master did) with both gables. A
parochial assessment committee, or a surveyor for the property–tax,
would have stuck on something considerable, if they had only seen
the outside of it. Look at the balustrade that went (for it was too
heavy to run) all along the front of it, over the basement windows. No
stucco, either; but stone, genuine stone, that bellied out like a row
of Roman amphoræ, or the calves of a first–rate footman. After that,
to see the portico, “decempedis metata,” which “excipiebat Eurum”—not
Arcton in this climate. No wonder—although it was rotten inside, and
the whole of it mortgaged ten fathom deep—that Bailey Kettledrum hit
his breast, and said, “Our little home, sir!”
“Your great home, you mean,” said Rufus; “what a noble situation! You
can see all over the county.”
They had come to meet him down the hill, in the kindest country
fashion, Mr. and Mrs. Kettledrum, like Jack and Jill going for water.
“Not quite that,” replied Kettledrum; “but we saw you with my
binocular, between two and three miles off, and became so anxious about
Mrs. Hutton, that I said to my wife, ‘Put your bonnet on;’ and she
only said, ‘Bailey, put your hat on;’ nothing more, sir, I assure you;
nothing more, sir, upon my honour.”
Rufus could not see exactly why there should have been anything more,
but he could not help thanking them for their kindness, and saying to
himself, “What nice people! Quite an agricultural life, I see, in spite
of that grand mansion.”
“Now,” said Mr. Kettledrum, when Polly had been committed to one of
the stable–boys—but Rufus still wanted to look at her, for he never
grew tired of admiring anything that belonged to him, and he knew
they wouldnʼt do her legs right—“now, Dr. Hutton, you have come most
kindly, according to your promise, so as to give us an hour or two to
spare before the dinner–time. Shall we take a turn with the guns? I can
put my hand on a covey; or shall we walk round the garden, and have the
benefit of your advice?”
Rufus looked in dismay at his “choice black kerseymeres;” he had taken
his “antigropelos” off, and was proud to find not a flake on them. But
to think of going out shooting! He ought not to have dressed before he
left home, but he hated many skinnings. And he could only guess the
distance from the lodge to this place. So he voted very decidedly for a
walk in the kitchen–garden.
Into this he was solemnly instituted, and the beauties all pointed
out to him. What a scene of weeds and rubbish! How different from Bull
Garnetʼs dainty and trim quarters, or from his own new style of work at
Geopharmacy Lodge! Rotten beansticks crackling about, the scum of last
summerʼs cabbages, toad–stools cropping up like warts or arums rubbed
with caustic, a fine smell of potato–disease, and a general sense of
mildew; the wall–trees curled and frizzled up with aphis, coccus, and
honeydew; and the standards scraggy, and full of stubs, canker, and
American blight, sprawling, slouching, hump–backed, and stag–headed,
like the sick ward of a workhouse fighting with tattered umbrellas.
“Ah,” said Rufus, at his wits’ end for anything to praise, “what a
perfect paradise—for the songsters of the grove.”
“Oh,” replied Mr. Kettledrum, “you should hear the Dook admire it.
‘Kettledrum, my boy,’ he said, when he dined with me last Friday,
‘there is one thing I do envy you—no, sir, neither your most lady–like
wife, nor yet your clever children, although I admit that neither of
them can be paralleled in England—but, Kettledrum, it is—forgive
me—it is your kitchen–garden.’ ‘My kitchen–garden, your grace,’ I
replied, for I hate to brag of anything, ‘it is a poor thing, my lord
Dook, compared to your own at Lionshill.’ ‘May I be d—d,’ his grace
replied, for I never shall break him of swearing, ‘if I ever saw
anything like it, dear Kettledrum, and so I told the Duchess.’ And
after all, you know, Dr. Hutton, a man may think too little of what it
has pleased God to give him.”
“Well,” said Rufus to himself, “Iʼm blessed if _you_ do. But I donʼt
like you any the worse for a bit of brag. I have met great brags in
India, and most of them honest fellows. But I must peg him down a bit.
I must, I fear; it is my duty as an enlightened gardener.”
“But you see, now,” said Bailey Kettledrum, smacking his lips, and
gazing into profundity, “you see, my dear sir, there is nothing ‘ab
omni parte beatum;’ perhaps you remember the passage in the heroic
epistles of—ah, Cicero it was, I believe, who wrote all those epistles
to somebody.”
“No doubt of it,” said Rufus Hutton, who knew more of Hindustani than
of Latin and Greek combined; “and yet St. Paul wrote some.”
“Not in Latin, my dear sir; all St. Paulʼs were Greek. ‘Nihil est,’ I
now remember, ‘ab omni parte beatum.’ I donʼt know how it scans, which
I suppose it ought to do, but that isnʼt my look–out. Perhaps, however,
you can tell me?”
“Iʼm blowed if I can,” said Rufus Hutton, in the honesty of his mind;
“and I am not quite sure that it has any right to scan.”
“Well, I canʼt say; but I _think_ it ought,”—he was in the mists
of memory, where most of the trees have sensitive roots, though the
branches are not distinguishable. “However, that canʼt matter at all;
I see you are a classical scholar. And, Hutton, I like a classical
scholar, because he can understand me. But you see that these trees are
rather—ah, what is the expression for it——?”
“Cankered, and scabby, and scrubs.”
“That is to say—yes, I suppose, they would crop the better, if that be
possible, for a little root–pruning.”
“You have gathered the fruit for this year, I presume?”
“Well, no, not quite that. The children have had some, of course. But
we are very particular not to store too early.”
“I really donʼt think you need be.”
“Why, many people say, ‘let well alone;’ but my gardener talks of
making——”
“A jolly good bonfire of them, if he knows anything of his business.
Then drain the ground, trench, and plant new ones.”
Mr. Kettledrum looked quite thunderstruck; he caught hold of a tree to
help him, and a great cake of rotten bark, bearded with moss, came away
like the mask of a mummer. It was slimy on the under side, and two of
his fingers went through it.
“Nice state of things,” said Rufus, laughing. “I suppose the Dook likes
lepers?”
“Why, my dear sir, you donʼt mean to say——”
“That I would leave only one of them, and I would hang the
head–gardener upon it.”
That worthy was just coming round the corner, to obtain the applause
of a gentleman well known to the _Gardenerʼs Chronicle_; but now he
turned round abruptly, and scratched his head, and thought of his
family.
When Rufus came down and entered the drawing–room, he was perfectly
gorgeous; for although he had been in full dress for the main, he knew
better than to ride with his Alumbaggah waistcoat on. There was nothing
in all the three presidencies to come up to that waistcoat. It would
hold Dr. Hutton and Rosa too, for they had stood back to back and tried
it. And Rufus vainly sighed for the day when his front should come out
and exhaust it. He stole it, they say, from a petty rajah, who came to
a great durbar with it, worn like an Oxford hood. At any rate, there it
was, and the back of Cashmere stuff would fit either baby or giant. But
the front, the front—oh, bangles and jiminy! it is miles beyond me to
describe it.
All simple writers, from Job and Hesiod downwards, convey an impression
of some grand marvel, not by direct description of it, which would
be feeble and achromatic, but by the rebound, recoil, and redouble,
from the judgment of some eye–witness. If that eye–witness be
self–possessed, wide–awake, experienced, and undemonstrative, the
effect upon the readerʼs mind is as of a shell which has struck the
granite, burst there, and scattered back on him. So will I, mistrusting
the value of my own impressions, give a faint idea of Rufus his
waistcoat, by the dount of it on that assembly.
The host was away for the moment somewhere, perhaps blowing up
the butler, for his wife was telling her sister how nervous and
even fidgety her beloved Bailey was growing; but Mr. Corklemore was
there, and came forth to salute the great Rufus, when his heavy eyes
settled upon the waistcoat, and all his emotions exploded in a “haw”
of incredulous wonder. Mrs. Kettledrum rose at the same instant, and
introduced her sister.
“My sister, Dr. Hutton, whom I have so earnestly longed to make
acquainted with dear Mrs. Hutton, Mrs. Nowell Corklemore; Mr.
Corklemore, I know, has had the pleasure of meeting you. Georgie, dear,
you will like her so—oh, goodness gracious me!”
“I donʼt wonder you are surprised at me, Anna,” exclaimed Mrs.
Corklemore, with wonderful presence of mind. “How stupid I am, to be
sure! Oh, Nowell, why didnʼt you tell me? How shameful of you! But you
never look at me now, I think.” And she swept from the room in the
cleverest manner, as if something wrong in her own dress had caused her
sisterʼs ejaculation.
“Excuse me one moment,” said Mrs. Kettledrum, taking her cue very
aptly; and she ran out, as if to aid her sister, but in reality to
laugh herself into hysterics.
After all there was nothing absurd, _per se_, in Rufus Huttonʼs
waistcoat, only it is not the fashion, just at present, to wear
pictorial raiment; but the worthy doctor could not perceive any reason
why it should not be. He was pleased with the prospect of creating
a genuine sensation, and possibly leading the mode; and having lost
all chance of realizing these modest hopes at Nowelhurst, why, he
must content himself with a narrower stage for his triumphs. He had
smuggled it from home, however, without his wifeʼs permission: he had
often threatened her with its appearance, but she always thought he
was joking. And truly it required some strength of mind to present it
to modern society, although it was a work of considerable art, and no
little value.
The material of it was Indian silk of the very richest quality. It
had no buttons, but golden eyelets and tags of golden cowries. The
background of the whole was yellow, the foreground of a brilliant
green, portraying the plants of the jungle. On the left bosom leaped
and roared an enormous royal tiger, with two splendid jewels, called
“catʼs–eyes,” flashing, and a pearl for every fang. Upon the right side
a hulking elephant was turning tail ignominiously; while two officers
in the howdah poked their guns at the eyes of the tiger. The eyes of
the officers in their terror had turned to brilliant emeralds, and the
blood of the tramping elephant was represented by seed rubies. The
mahout was cutting away in the distance, looking back with eyes of
diamonds.
Beyond a doubt, it required uncommonly fine breeding, especially in
a lady, to meet that waistcoat at a dinner–party, and be entirely
unconscious of it. And perhaps there are but few women in England who
would not contrive to lead up to the subject, quite accidentally, of
course, before the evening was over.
The ladies came back as grave as judges; and somehow it was managed (as
if by the merest oversight) that Dr. Hutton should lead to dinner, not
the lady of the house, whom, of course, he ought to have taken, but
Mrs. Nowell Corklemore. He felt, as he crossed the hall with her, that
the beauty of his waistcoat had raised some artistic emotion in a bosom
as beautiful as its own. Oh, Rufus, think of Rosa!
Let none be alarmed at those ominous words. The tale of Cradock
Nowellʼs life shall be pure as that life itself was. The historian
may be rough, and blunt, and sometimes too intense, in the opinion
of those who look at life from a different point of view. But be
that as it will, his other defects (I trust and pray) will chiefly
be deficiencies. We will have no poetical seduction, no fascinating
adultery, condemned and yet reprieved by the writer, and infectious
from his sympathy. Georgiana Corklemore was an uncommonly clever woman,
and was never known to go far enough to involve her reputation. She
loved her child, and liked her husband, and had all the respect for
herself which may abide with vanity. Nevertheless she flirted awfully,
and all married women hated her. “Bold thing,” they called her, “sly
good–for–nothing; and did you see how she ogled? Well, if I only
carried on so! Oh, if I were only her husband! But, poor man, he knows
no better. Such a poor dear stick, you know. Perhaps that is what makes
her do it. And nothing in her at all, when you come to think of it. No
taste, no style, no elegance! When _will_ she put her back hair up? And
her child fit to put into long–clothes! Did you observe her odious way
of putting her lips up, as if to be kissed? My dear, I donʼt know how
_you_ felt; but I could scarcely stay in the room with her.”
Nevertheless the ladies did stay, and took good care to watch her, and
used to say to her afterwards, “Oh, if I were only like you, dear! Then
I need not be afraid of you; but you are—now donʼt tell stories—_so_
clever, and _so_ attractive. As if you did not know it, dear! Well, you
_are_ so simple–minded. I am always telling my Looey and Maggie to take
you for their model, dear!”
On the present occasion, “Georgie Corklemore,” as she called herself,
set about flirting with Rufus Hutton, not from her usual love of power,
nor even for the sake of his waistcoat, but because she had an especial
purpose, and a very important one. The Kettledrum–cum–Corklemore
conspiracy was this—to creep in once more at Nowelhurst Hall through
the interest of Dr. Hutton. They all felt perfectly certain that
Cradock Nowell had murdered his brother, and that the crime had been
hushed up through the influence of the family. They believed that the
head of that family, in his passionate sorrow and anger, might be
brought to their view of the subject, if he could only be handled
properly; and who could manage that more adroitly than his first cousin
once removed, the beautiful Mrs. Corklemore? Only let her get once
invited, once inducted there, and the main difficulty after that would
be to apportion the prey between them. They knew well enough that the
old entail expired with the present baronet; and that he (before his
marriage) held in fee pure and simple all that noble property. His
marriage–settlement, and its effects, they could only inkle of; but
their heart was inditing of a good matter, and Mr. Chope would soon
pump Brockwood. Not quite so fast, my Amphictyonics; a solicitor thirty
years admitted (though his original craft may not be equal) is not to
be sucked dry, on the surprise, even by spongy young Chope. However,
that was a question for later consideration; and blood being thicker
than water, and cleaving more fast to the ground, they felt that it
would be a frightful injustice if they were done out of the property.
Only two things need be added: one that Sir Cradock had always
disliked, and invited them but for appearance’ sake; the other, that
they fairly believed in the righteousness of their cause, and that
Rufus Hutton could prove it for them, as the principal witness tampered
with.
Mrs. Corklemore was now, perhaps, twenty–five years old, possibly
turning thirty; for that lustrum of a ladyʼs life is a hard one to beat
the bounds of; at any rate, she had never looked better than she did
at the present moment. She was just at the age to spread open, with
the memory of shyness upon them (like the dew when the sun is up), the
curving petals of beauty. Who understands the magnetic current? Who
can analyze ozone? Is there one of us able to formularize the polarity
of light? Will there ever be an age when chemists metaphysical will
weigh—no more by troy weight, and carat, as now the mode is, but by
subtle heart–gas—our liking for a woman? Let us hope there never will
be.
That soft Georgiana Corklemore, so lively, lovely, and gushing,
focussed all her fascinations upon Rufus Hutton. She knew that she had
to deal with a man of much inborn acuteness, and who must have seen
a hundred ladies quite as fair as Georgie. But had he seen one with
her—well, she knew not what to call it, though she thoroughly knew
how to use it? So she magnetized him with all her skill; and Rufus,
shrewdly suspecting her object, and confiding in a certain triarian
charge, a certain thrust Jarnacian, which he would deliver at the
proper moment, allowed her to smile, and to show her white teeth and
dimples of volatile velvet (so natural, so inevitable, at his playful,
delightful humour), and to loose whole quiverfuls of light shafts from
the arch flash under her eyelids. What sweet simplicity she was, what
innocent desire to learn, what universal charity. “How dreadful, Dr.
Hutton! Oh, please not to tell me of it! How could any ladies do it? I
should have fainted at once, and died half an hour afterwards.” She
turned up her large mild eyes, deeply beaming with centralized light,
in a way that said, “If I died, is there any one who would think it a
very, very great pity?”
Rufus had been describing historically, not dramatically, the trials
of the ladies, when following their regiment during a sudden movement
in the perils of the mutiny. With a manʼs far stiffer identity, he
did not expect or even imagine that his delicate listener would be
there, and go through every hour of it. But so it was, and without
any sham; although she was misusing her strange sympathetic power.
Mrs. Nowell Corklemore would have made a very great actress; she had
so much self–abandonment, such warm introjection, and hot indignant
sympathy; and yet enough of self–reservation to hoop them all in with
judgment. Meanwhile Mrs. Kettledrum, a lady of ordinary sharpness,
like a good pudding–apple—Georgie being a peach of the very finest
quality—she, I say, at the top of the table was watching them very
intently—delighted, amused, indignant; glad that none of her children
were there to store up Auntieʼs doings. As for Mr. Corklemore, he
was quite accustomed to it; and looking down complacently upon the
little doctor, thought to himself, “How beautifully my Georgie will
cold–shoulder him, when we have got all we want out of the conceited
chattering jackanapes.”
When the ladies were gone, Mr. Bailey Kettledrum, who had no idea of
playing dummy even to Mrs. Corklemore, made a trick or two from his own
hand.
“Corklemore, my dear fellow, you think we are all tee–totallers. On
with the port, if you please, ‘cessantem Bibuli Consulis amphoram,’
never shall forget that line. The bibulous consul, eh! Capital idea.
Corklemore, you can construe that?”
“Haw! Perhaps I canʼt. Really donʼt know; they beat a heap of stuff
into me when I was a very small boy; and it was like whipping—ha, haw,
something like whipping——”
“Eggs,” said Rufus Hutton, “all came to bubbles, eh?”
“Not at all, sir, not at all; you entirely misunderstand me. I mean
that it was similar to—to the result produced by the whipping of a
top.”
“Only made your head go round,” said Mr. Kettledrum, winking at Rufus;
and thenceforth had established a community of interest in the baiting
of “long Corklemore.” “Well, at any rate,” he continued, “Hutton is a
scholar—excuse my freedom, my dear sir; we are such rustics here, that
I seldom come across a man who appreciates my quotations. You are a
great acquisition, sir, the very greatest, to this neighbourhood. How
can we have let you remain so long without unearthing you?”
“Because,” said Rufus to himself, “you did not happen to want me; when
are you going to offer to introduce me to ‘the Dook?’”
“And now, gentlemen,” continued Mr. Kettledrum, rising, swelling his
chest out, and thumping it athletically, “it is possible that I may
be wrong; I have never been deaf to conviction; but if I am wrong,
gentlemen, the fault is in yourselves. Mark me now, I am ready, such
is the force of truth, I am ready here at my own board (humble as
it is) once for all to admit that the fault is in yourselves. But
the utterance I swell with, the great thought that is within me, is
strife—no, I beg your pardon—is—is—rife and strongly inditing of
a certain lady, who is an honour to her sex. I rise to the occasion,
friends; I say an honour to her sex, and a blessing to the other
one. Gentlemen, no peroration of mine is equal in any way to the
greatness of the occasion; could I say, with Cicero, ‘Veni, vidi,
vici,’ where would be my self–approval? I mean—you understand me. It
is the privilege of a man in this blessed country, the first gem of
the ocean—no, I donʼt mean that; it applies, I believe, to Scotland,
and the immortal Burns—but this, sir, I will say, and challenge
contradiction, a Briton, sir, a Briton, never, never, never will be
free! And now, sir, in conclusion, is there one of you, let me ask, who
will not charge his eyes, gentlemen, and let his glass run over——”
“Haw,” cried Mr. Corklemore, “charge his glass, come, Kettledrum, and
let his eyes run over—haw—I think that is the way we read it, Dr.
Hutton.”
“Gentlemen, I sit down; finding it impossible to obtain an adequate
bearing, I close my poor attempt at cleansing my bosom of the perilous
stuff, sir—you know the rest—the health of Mrs. Hutton, that most
remarkable children—excuse me, most remarkable woman, whose children,
I am quite convinced, will be an honour to their age and sex. Port of
‘51, gentlemen; a finer vintage than ‘47.”
He had told them that it was ‘34, but both knew better; and now “in
vino veritas.”
At last Mr. Bailey Kettledrum had hit the weak point of Rufus, and,
what was more, he perceived it. Himself you might butter and soap for
a month, and he would take it at all its value; but magnify his Rosa,
exalt the name of his Rosa, and you had him at discretion.
“Remarkable, sir,” he inquired, with a twinkle of fruity port stealing
out from his keen little eyes, “you really do injustice; so many ladies
are remarkable——”
“Haw, well, I never heard——”
“Confound you, Corklemore,” said Kettledrum to him aside, “can you
never hold your tongue? Sir,”—to Rufus—“I beg your pardon, if I
said ‘remarkable;’ I meant to say, sir, ‘_most_ remarkable!’ The most
remarkable lady”—this to Corklemore, in confidence—“I have ever been
privileged to meet. ‘What children,’ I said to my wife, but yesterday,
‘what children they will be blest with!’ Oh, heʼs a lucky dog. The
luckiest dog in the world, my boy.”
However, they were not so very far from the sloping shores of sobriety
when they rejoined the ladies, and made much of the small Misses
Kettledrum, tidy children, rather pretty, and all of the pink ribbon
pattern. After some melting melodies from soft Georgieʼs lips and
fingers, Mrs. Kettledrum said,
“Oh, Dr. Hutton, do you ever play chess? We are such players here; all
except my poor self; I am a great deal too stupid.”
“I used to play a little when I was in India. We are obliged to play
all sorts of games in India.” Dr. Hutton piqued himself not a little
on his skill in the one true game. At a sign from their mother, the
small Kettledrums rushed for the board most zealously, and knocked
their soft heads together. Mrs. Corklemore was declared by all to be
the only antagonist worthy of an Indian player, and she sat down most
gracefully, protesting against her presumption. “Just to take a lesson,
you know; only to take a lesson, dear. Oh, please, donʼt let any one
look at me.” Rufus, however, soon perceived that he had found his
match, if not his superior, in the sweet impulsive artless creature,
who threw away the game so neatly when she was quite sure of it.
“Oh, poor me! Now, I do declare—Isnʼt it most heartbreaking? I am such
a foolish thing. Oh, can you be so cruel?”
Thrilling eyes of the richest grey trembled with dewy radiance, as
Rufus coolly marched off the queen, and planted his knight instead of
her.
“Mrs. Corklemore, can I relent? You are far too good a player.” The
loveliest eyes, the most snowy surge, in the “mare magnum” of ladies,
would never have made that dry Rue Hutton, well content with his Rosa,
give away so much as the right to capture a pawn in passing.
Now observe the contrariety, the want of pure reason, the confusion of
principle—I am sorry and ashamed, but I canʼt express these things
in English, for the language is rich in emotion, but a pauper in
philosophy—the distress upon the premises of the cleverest womanʼs
mind. She had purposely thrown her queen in his way; but she never
forgave him for taking it.
A glance shot from those soft bright eyes, when Rufus could not see
them, as if the gentle evening star, Venus herself, all tremulous,
rushed, like a meteor, up the heavens, and came hissing down on a poor
manʼs head.
She took good care to win the next game, for policy allowed it; and
then, of course, it was too late to try the decisive contest.
“Early hours. Liberty Hall, Liberty Hall at Kettledrum! Gentlemen stay
up, and smoke if they like. But early hours, sir, for the ladies.
We value their complexions. They donʼt. That I know. Do you now, my
dearest? No, of course you donʼt.” This was Mr. Kettledrum.
“Except for your sake, darling,” said Mrs. Kettledrum, curtseying, for
the children were all gone to bed ever so long ago.
“Well,” said Georgie, coming forward, because she knew her figure
would look well with three lamps upon it; such a figure of eight! “my
opinion is never worth having, I know, because I feel so much; but I
pronounce——” here she stood up like Portia, with a very low–necked
dress on—“gentlemen, and ladies, I pronounce that one is quite as bad
as the other.”
“Haw!” said Nowell Corklemore. And so they went to bed. And Rufus
Hutton wondered whether they ever had family prayers.
When all the rest were at breakfast, in came Mrs. Corklemore, looking
as fresh as daybreak.
“Oh, I am so ashamed of myself. What a sluggard you will think me! What
is it in the divine song of that great divine, Dr. Watts? Nowell, dear,
you must not scold me. I cannot bear being scolded, because I never
have tit for tat. Good morning, dearest Anna; how is your headache,
darling? Oh, Dr. Hutton, I forgot! No wonder I overlooked you. I shall
never think much of you again, because I beat you at chess so.”
“Game and game,” said Rufus, solemnly, “and I ought to have won that
last one, Mrs. Corklemore; you know I ought.”
“To be sure, to be sure. Oh, of course I do. But—a little thing
perwented him—his antagonist was too good, sir. Ah, weʼll play the
conqueror some day; and then the tug of war comes. Oh, Anna, I am so
conceited! To think of my beating Dr. Hutton, the best player in all
India.”
“Well, darling, we know all that. And we must not blame you therefore
for lying in bed till ten oʼclock.”
“Oh,” said Rufus, with a groan, “do look at ladies’ logic! Mrs.
Corklemore gained one game out of two—only because I was—ah–hem, I
mean by her very fine play—and now she claims absolute victory; and
Mrs. Kettledrum accepts it as a premise for a negative conclusion,
which has nothing on earth to do with it.”
But Rufus got the worst of that protest. He tilted too hard at the
quintain. All came down upon him at once, till he longed for a cigar.
Then Mrs. Corklemore sympathized with him, arose, their breakfast
being over, and made him a pretty curtsey. She was very proud of her
curtseys; she contrived to show her figure so.
“Confound that woman,” thought Rufus, “I can never tell when she is
acting. I never met her like in India. And thank God for that same.”
She saw that her most bewitching curtsey was entirely thrown away upon
him; for he was thinking of his Rosa, and looking out for the good
mare, Polly.
“Dr. Hutton, I thank you for your condescension, in giving me that
lesson. You let me win that last game out of pure good nature. I shall
always appreciate it. Meanwhile I shall say to every one—ʼOh, do you
know, Dr. Hutton and I play even?’ taking very good care meanwhile
never to play again with you. Shocking morality! Yes, very shocking.
But then I know no better, do I, Nowell, dear?”
“Haw! Well, Georgie, I am not so sure of that. My wife is absolute
nature, sir, simple, absolute—haw—unartificial nature. But
unartificial nature is, in my opinion—haw—yes, a very wise nature,
sometimes.”
“Haw!” said his wife, exactly like him, while everybody laughed. Then
she stood upon tiptoe to kiss him, she was so unartificial, even
before the company. All the pretty airs and graces of a fair Parisian,
combined with all the domestic snugness of an English wife! What a fine
thing it is to have a yoke–mate with a playful, charming manner!
“Good–bye, Dr. Hutton. We are on the wing, as you are. I fear you will
never forgive me for tarnishing your laurels so.”
Tarnishing laurels! What wonderful fellow so ingeniously mixed
metaphors?
“Now or never,” thought Rufus Hutton; “she has beaten me at chess, she
thinks. Now, Iʼll have the change out of her. Only let her lead up to
it.”
“Mrs. Corklemore, we will fight it out, upon some future occasion. I
never played with a lady so very hard to beat.”
“Ah, you mean at Nowelhurst. But we never go there now. There is—I
ought to say, very likely, there are mistakes on both sides—still
there seems to exist some _prejudice_ against us.—Anna, dear, you put
a lump of sugar too much in my tea. I am already too saccharine.”
“Well, dear, I put exactly what you always tell me. And you sent your
cup for more afterwards.”
“Matter of fact animal—how can she be my sister?” Georgie only
muttered this. Rufus Hutton did not catch it. Mr. Garnet would have
done so.
“Now is the time,” thought Rufus again, as she came up to shake hands
with him, not a bit afraid of the morning sun upon her smooth rich
cheeks, where the colour was not laid on in spots, but seemed to
breathe up from below, like a lamp under water. Outside he saw pet
Polly scraping great holes in the gravel, and the groom throwing all
his weight on the curb to prevent her from bolting homewards. “Hang
it, she wonʼt stand that,” he cried; “her mouth is like a sea–anemone.
Take her by the snaffle–rein. Canʼt you see, you fool, that she hasnʼt
seven coats to her mouth, like you? Excuse my opening the window,” he
apologized to Mrs. Corklemore, “and excuse my speaking harshly, for if
I had not stopped him, he would have thrown my horse down, and I value
my Polly enormously.”
“Especially after her behaviour the other night in the forest. It
is the same with all you gentlemen; the worse you are treated, the
more grateful you are. Oh yes, we heard of it; but we wonʼt tell Mrs.
Hutton.”
“No, indeed, I hope you wonʼt. I should be very sorry for her to get
even a hint of it.”
“To be sure,” laughed Georgie, “to be sure we will keep the secret,
for ever so many reasons; one of them being that Dr. Hutton would be
obliged to part with Miss Polly, if her mistress knew of her conduct.
But I must not be so rude. I see you want to be off quite as much as
fair Polly does. Ah, what a thing it is to have a happy home!”
Here Mrs. Corklemore sighed very deeply. If a woman who always has
her own way, and a woman who is always scheming, can be happy, she,
Georgie, must be so; but she wanted to stir compassion.
“Come,” she said, after turning away, for she had such a jacket on—the
most bewitching thing; it was drawn in tight at her round little waist,
and seemed made like a horseʼs body–clothes, on purpose for her to trot
out in,—“come, Dr. Hutton, say good–bye, and forgive me for beating
you.” Simple creature, of course she knew not the “sacra fames” of
chess–players.
“We must have our return–match. I wonʼt say ‘good–bye’ until you have
promised me that. Shall it be at my house?”
“No. There is only one place in the world where I would dare to attack
you again, and that is Nowelhurst Hall.”
“And why there, more than anywhere else?”
“Because there is a set of men there, with which I can beat anybody.
I believe I could beat Morphy, with those men at Nowelhurst. Ah! you
think me, I see, grossly and stupidly superstitious. Well, perhaps I
am. I do sympathise so with everything.”
“I hope we may meet at Nowelhurst,” replied Rufus, preparing his blow
of Jarnac, “when they have recovered a little from their sad distress.”
“Ah, poor Sir Cradock!” exclaimed the lady, with her expressive eyes
tear–laden, “how I have longed to comfort him! It does seem so hard
that he should renounce the sympathy of his relatives at such a time
as this. And all through some little wretched dissensions in the days
when he misunderstood us! Of course we know that you cannot do it;
that you, a comparative stranger, cannot have sufficient influence
where the dearest friends have failed. My husband, too, in his honest
pride, is very, very obstinate, and my sister quite as bad. They fear,
I suppose,—well, it does seem ridiculous, but you know what vulgar
people say in a case of that sort—they actually fear the imputation
of being fortune–hunters!” Georgie looked so arrogant in her stern
consciousness of right, that Rufus said, and for the moment meant it,
“How absurd, to be sure!”
“Yes,” said Georgie, confidentially, and in the sweetest of all
sweet voices, “between you and me, Dr. Hutton, for I speak to
you quite as to an old friend of the family, whom you have known
so long”—(“Holloa,” thought Rufus, “in the last breath I was a
‘comparative stranger!’”)—“I think it below our dignity to care for
such an absurdity; and that now, as good Christians, we are bound to
sink all petty enmities, and comfort the poor bereaved one. If you can
contribute in any way to this act of Christian charity, may I rely upon
your good word? But for the world, donʼt tell my husband; he would be
so angry at the mere idea.”
“I will do my best, Mrs. Corklemore; you may rely upon that.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you! I felt quite sure that you had a generous
heart. I should have been so disappointed—perhaps, after all, we shall
play our next game of chess at Christmas with the men I am so lucky
with. And then, look to yourself, Dr. Hutton.”
“I trust you will find a player there who can give me a pawn and two
moves. If you beat him, you may boast indeed.”
“What player do you mean?” asked Georgie, feeling rather less
triumphant. “Any Indian friend of yours?”
“Yes, one for whom I have the very greatest regard. For whose sake,
indeed, I first renewed my acquaintance with Sir Cradock, because I
bore a message to him; for the Colonel is a bad correspondent.”
“The Colonel! I donʼt understand you.” As she said these words, how
those eyes of hers, those expressive eyes, were changing! And her
lovely jacket, so smart and well cut, began to “draw” over the chest.
“Did you not know,” asked Rufus, watching her in a way that made her
hate him worse than when he took her queen, “is it possible that you
have not heard, that Colonel Nowell, Clayton Nowell, Sir Cradockʼs only
brother, is coming home this month, and brings his darling child with
him?” Now for your acting, Georgie; now for your self–command. We shall
admire, henceforth, or laugh at you, according to your present conduct.
She was equal to the emergency. She commanded her eyes, and her lips,
and bosom, after that one expansion, even her nerves, to the utmost
fibre—everything but her colour. The greatest actor ever seen, when
called on to act in real life, can never command colour if the skin
has proper spiracles. The springs of our heart will come up and go
down, as God orders the human weather. But she turned away, with
that lily–whiteness, because she knew she had it, and rushed up
enthusiastically to her sister at the end of the room.
“Dear Anna, darling Anna, oh, I am so delighted! We have been so
wretched about poor Sir Cradock. And now his brother is coming to mind
him, with such delightful children! We thought he was dead, oh, so many
years! What a gracious providence!”
“Haw!” said Nowell Corklemore.
“The devil!” said Bailey Kettledrum, and Rufus caught the re–echo, but
hoped it might be a mistake.
Then they all came forward, gushing, rushing, rapturous to embrace him.
“Oh, Dr. Hutton, surely this is too good news to be true!”
“I think not,” said Rufus Hutton, mystical and projecting, “I really
trust it is not. But I thought you must have heard it, from your close
affinity, otherwise I should have told you the moment I came in; but
now I hope this new arrival will heal over all—make good, I mean, all
family misunderstandings.”
“Colonel Clayton Nowell,” said Mr. Nowell Corklemore, conclusively,
and with emphasis, “Colonel Clayton Nowell was shot dead outside the
barracks at Mhow, on the 25th day of June, sir, in the year of our Lord
one thousand eight hundred and fifty–six. Correct me, sir, if I am
wrong.”
“Then,” said Rufus, “I venture to correct you at once.”
“Shot, sir,” continued Corklemore, “as I am, I may say—haw,—in a
position to prove, by a man called Abdoollah Manjee, believed to be a
Mussulman. Colonel Clayton Nowell, sir, commanding officer in command
of Her Majestyʼs Companyʼs native regiment, Nº· One hundred and
sixty–three, who was called,—excuse me, sir, designated, the ‘father
of his regiment,’ because he had so many illegitimate—haw, I beg your
pardon, ladies—because of his—ha, yes,—patriarchal manners, sir,
and kindly disposition,—he—haw, where was I?”
“I am sure I canʼt say,” said Rufus.
“No, sir, my memory is more tenacious than that of any man I meet
with. He, Colonel Clayton Nowell, sir, upon that fatal morning, was
remonstrated with by the two—ah, yes, the two executors of his
will—upon his rashness in riding forth to face those carnal, I mean to
say, those incarnate devils, sir. ‘Are you fools enough,’ he replied,
‘to think that _my_ fellows would hurt _me_? Give me a riding–whip, and
be ready with plasters, for I shall thrash them before I let them come
back.’ Now isnʼt every word of that true?”
“Yes, almost every word of it,” replied Rufus, now growing excited.
“Well, sir, he took his favourite half–bred—for he understood
cross–breeding thoroughly—and he rode out at the side–gate, where
the heap of sand was; ‘Coming back,’ he cried to the English sentry,
‘coming back in half an hour, with all my scamps along of me. Keep the
coppers ready.’ And with that he spurred his brown and black mare; and
no man saw him alive thereafter, except the fellows who shot him. Haw!”
“Yes,” said Rufus Hutton, “one man saw him alive, after they shot him
in the throat, and one man saved his life; and he is the man before
you.”
“What you, Dr. Hutton! What you! Oh, how grateful we ought to be to
you.”
“Thank you. Well, I donʼt quite see that,” Rufus replied, most dryly.
Then he corrected himself: “You know I only did my duty.”
“And his son?” inquired Georgie, timidly, and with sympathy, but the
greatest presence of mind. She had stood with her hands clasped, and
every emotion (except the impossible one of selfishness) quivering on
her sweet countenance; and now she was so glad, oh, so glad, she could
never tell you. “His poor illegitimate son, Dr. Hutton? Will he bring
the poor child home with him? How glad we shall be to receive him!”
“The child he brings with him is Eoa, dear natural odd Eoa, his
legitimate daughter.”
“Then you know her, Dr. Hutton; you could depose to her identity?”
A very odd question; but some women have almost the gift of prophecy.
“Oh, yes! I should rather think so. I have known her since she was ten
years old.”
“And now they are coming home. How pleasant! How sweet to receive them,
as it were from the dead! By the overland route, I suppose, and with a
lac of rupees?”
“No,” said the badgered Rufus, “you are wrong in both conjectures.
They come round the Cape, by the clipper–ship _Aliwal_; and with very
few rupees. Colonel Nowell has always been extravagant, a wonderfully
fine–hearted man, but a hand that could never hold anything—except,
indeed, a friendʼs.”
By the moisture in Rue Huttonʼs eyes, Georgie saw that her interests
would fare ill with him, if brought into competition with those of
Colonel Nowell. Meanwhile Polly was raving wild, and it took two
grooms to hold her, and the white froth dribbling down her curb was to
Rufus Hutton as the foam of the sea to a sailor. He did love a tearing
gallop, only not through the thick of the forest.
“Good–bye, good–bye! I shall see you soon. Thank you, I will take a
cheroot. But I only smoke my own. Good–bye! I am so much obliged to
you. You have been so very kind. Mrs. Hutton will be miserable until
you come over to us. Good–bye; once more, good–bye!”
Rufus Hutton, you see, was a man of the world, and could be false
“on occasion.” John Rosedew could never have made that speech on the
back of detected falsehood. Away went Polly, like a gale of wind; and
Rufus (who was no rogue by nature, only by the force of circumstances,
and then could never keep to it), he going along twenty miles an
hour, set his teeth to the breeze, which came down the funnel of his
cigar as down a steamerʼs chimney, stuck his calves well into Pollyʼs
sides, and felt himself a happy man, going at a rocketʼs speed, to
a home of happiness. All of us who have a home (and unless we leave
our heart there, whenever we go away, we have no home at all), all
of us who have a hole in this shifting sandy world—the sand as of
an hour–glass—but whence we have spun such a rope as the devil can
neither make nor break—I mean to say, we, all who love, without any
hems, and haws, and rubbish, those who are only our future tense
(formed from the present by adding “so”)—all of us who are lucky
enough, I believe we may say good enough, to want no temporal augment
from the prefix of society, only to cling upon the tree to the second
aorist of our children, wherein the root of the man lurks, the grand
indefinite so anomalous; all these fellows, if they can anyhow
understand this sentence, will be glad to hear that Rufus Hutton had a
jolly ride.
Rosa waited at the gate; why do his mareʼs shoes linger? Rosa ran in,
and ran out again, and was sure that she heard something pelting down
the hill much too fast, for her sake! but who could blame him when he
knew he was coming home at last? Then Rosa snapped poor Jonahʼs head
off, for being too thick to hear it.
Meanwhile, a mighty senate was held at Kettledrum Hall, Mrs. Corklemore
herself taking the curule chair. After a glimpse of natural life, and
the love of man and woman, we want no love of money; so we lift our
laps (like the Roman envoy) and shake out war with the whole of them.
Fools who think that life needs gilding—life, whose flowing blood
contains every metal but gold and silver—because they clog and poison
it! Blessed is he who earns his money, and spends it all on a Saturday.
He looks forward to it throughout the week; and the beacon of life is
hope, even as God is its pole–star.