Leaving the son on his narrow hard pallet, to toss and toss, and turn
and turn, and probably get bed–sores, let us see how the father was
speeding.
Sir Cradock Nowell sat all alone in his little breakfast–room, soon
after the funeral of his brother, and before Eoa came to him. For the
simple, hot–hearted girl fell so ill after she heard of her loss, and
recovered from the narcotic, that Biddy OʼGaghan, who got on famously
with the people at the Crown, would not hear of her being moved yet,
and drove Dr. Hutton all down the stairs, “with a word of sinse on the
top of him,” when he claimed his right of attending upon the girl he
had known in India.
That little breakfast–room adjoined Sir Cradockʼs favourite study,
and was as pretty a little room as he could have wished to sit in.
He had made pretence of breakfasting, but perhaps he looked forward
to lunch–time, for not more than an ounce of food had he swallowed
altogether.
There he sat nervously, trying vainly to bring his mind to bear on the
newspaper. Fine gush of irony, serried antithesis, placid assumption
of the point at issue, then logic as terse and tight as the turns of
a three–inch screw–jack, withering indignation at those who wonʼt
think exactly as we do, the sunrise glow of metaphor, the moonlight
gleam of simile, the sparkling stars of wit, and the playful Aurora of
humour—alas, all these are like water on a duckʼs back when the heart
wonʼt let the brain go. If we cannot appreciate their beauty, because
our opinions are different, how can we hope to do so when we donʼt care
what any opinions are?
It is all very well, very easy, to talk about objectivity; but a really
objective man the Creator has never shown us, save once; and even He
rebuked the fig–tree, to show sympathy with our impatience.
And I doubt but it is lest we deify the grand incarnations of
intellect—the Platos and the Aristotles, the Bacons and the
Shakespeares—that it has pleased the Maker of great and small to leave
us small tales of the great ones, mean anecdotes, low traditions;
lest at any time we should be dazzled, and forget that they were but
sparkles from the dross which heaven hammers on. Oh vast and soaring
intellects, was it that your minds flew higher because they had shaken
the soul off; or was it that your souls grew sullen at the mindʼs
preponderance?
Fash we not ourselves about it, though we pay the consequences. If we
have not those great minds in the lump, we have a deal more, taking the
average, and we make it go a deal further, having learned the art of
economy and the division of labour. Nevertheless, Sir Cradock Nowell,
being not at all an objective man, lay deep in the pot of despondency;
and, even worse than that, hung, jerked thereout every now and then, by
the flesh–hook of terror and nervousness. How could he go kindly with
his writer when his breakfast would not so with him?
He was expecting Bull Garnet. Let alone all his other wearing troubles,
he never could be comfortable when he expected Bull Garnet. At every
step in the passage, every bang of a door, the proud old gentleman
trembled and flushed, and was wroth with himself for doing so.
Then Hogstaff came in, and fussed about, and Sir Cradock was fain to
find fault with him.
“How careless you are getting about the letters, Hogstaff. Later and
later every morning! What is the reason that you never now bring me the
bag at the proper time?”
It was very strange, no doubt, of Job Hogstaff, but he could not bear
to be found fault with; and now he saw his way to a little triumph, and
resolved to make the most of it.
“Yes, Sir Cradock; to be sure, Sir Cradock; how my old head is failing
me! Very neglectful of me never to have brought the bag to–day.” Then
he turned round suddenly at the door, to which he had been hobbling.
“Perhaps youʼd look at the date, Sir Cradock, of the paper in your
hand, sir.”
“Yesterdayʼs paper, of course, Hogstaff. What has that to do with it?”
“Oh, nothing, sir, nothing, of course. Only I thought it might have
comed in the letter–bag. Perhaps it never does, Sir Cradock; you knows
best, as you takes it out.” Here old Job gave a quiet chuckle, and
added, as if to himself, “No, of course, it couldnʼt have come in the
letter–bag this morning, or master would never have blowed me up for
not bringing him the bag, as nobody else got a key to it!”
“How stupid of me, to be sure, how excessively stupid!” exclaimed Sir
Cradock, with a sigh; “of course I had the bag, a full hour ago; and
there was nothing in it but this paper. Job, I beg your pardon.”
“And I hope itʼs good news youʼve got there, Sir Cradock, and no cases
of starvation; no one found dead in the streets, I hopes, or drownded
in the Serpentine. Anyhow, thereʼs a many births, I see, and a deal too
many. Children be now such a plenty nobody care about them.”
“Job, you quite forget yourself,” said his master, very grandly; but
there came a long sigh after it, and Job was not daunted easily.
“And, if I do, Sir Cradock Nowell, Iʼd sooner forget myself than my
children.”
Sir Cradock was very angry, or was trying to feel that he ought to be
so, when a heavy tread, quite unmistakable, and yet not so firm as it
used to be, shook the Minton tiles of the passage. That step used to
cry to the echoes, “Make way; a man of vigour and force is coming.” Now
all it said was, “Here I go, and am not in a mood to be meddled with.”
“Come in,” said Sir Cradock, fidgeting, and pretending to be up for
an egg, as Mr. Garnet gave two great thumps on the panel of the door.
Small as the room was, Job Hogstaff managed to be too late to let him
in.
Bull Garnet first flung his great eyes on the butler; he had no idea of
fellows skulking their duty. Old Hogstaff, who looked upon Garnet as no
more than an upper servant, gazed back with especial obtuseness, and
waved his napkin cleverly.
“Please to put that mat straight again, Mr. Garnet. You kicked it
askew, as you came in. And our master canʼt abide things set crooked.”
To Jobʼs disappointment and wonder, Bull Garnet stepped back very
quietly, stooped down, and replaced the sheepskin.
“Hogstaff, leave the room this moment,” shouted Sir Cradock,
wrathfully; and Job hobbled away to brag how he had pulled Muster
Garnet down a peg.
“Now, Garnet, take my easy–chair. Will you have a cup of coffee after
your early walk?”
“No, thank you. I have breakfasted three hours and a half ago. In our
position of life, we must be up early, Sir Cradock Nowell.”
There was something in the tone of that last remark, common–place as it
was, without the key to it, which the hearer disliked particularly.
“I have requested the favour of your attendance here, Mr. Garnet, that
I might have the benefit of your opinion upon a subject which causes me
the very deepest anxiety—at least, I mean, which interests me deeply.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Garnet: he could say “ah!” in such a manner that it
held three volumes uncut.
“Yes. I wish to ask your opinion about my poor son, Cradock.”
Bull Garnet said not a word, but conveyed to the ceiling his
astonishment that the housemaid had left such cobwebs there.
“I fear, Garnet, you cannot sympathize with me. You are so especially
fortunate in your own domestic circumstances.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Garnet, still contemplating the cornice. “_Oh
exclamantis est_,” beautifully observes the Eton grammar.
“Yes, your son is a perfect pattern. So gentle and gentlemanly; so
amiable and poetical. I had no idea he was so brave. Shall I ever see
him to thank him for saving the life of my niece?”
“He is a fine fellow, a noble fellow, Sir Cradock. The dearest and the
best boy in the whole wide world.”
The old man long had known that the flaw in Bull Garnetʼs armour was
the thought of his dear boy, Bob.
“And can you not fancy, Garnet, that my son, whatever he is, may also
be dear to me?”
“I should have said so, I must have thought so, but for the way you
have treated him.”
Bull Garnet knew well enough that he was a hot and hasty man; but he
seldom had felt that truth more sharply than now, when he saw the
result of his words. Nevertheless, he faltered not. He had made up his
mind to deliver its thoughts, and he was not the man to care for faces.
“Sir Cradock Nowell, I am a violent, hot, and passionate man. I have
done many things in my fury which I would give my life to undo; but I
would rather have them all on my soul than such cold–blooded, calm,
unnatural cruelty as you have shown to your only—I mean to your
own—son. I suppose you never cared for him; _suppose!_ I mean of
course you did not.”
He looked at Sir Cradock Nowell, with thunder and hail in his eyes. The
old man could not glance it back; neither did he seem to be greatly
indignant at it.
“Then—then—I suppose you donʼt think—you donʼt believe, I mean,
Garnet—that he did it _on purpose_?”
Mr. Garnet turned pale as a winding–sheet, and could not speak for a
moment. Then he looked away from Sir Cradockʼs eyes, and asked, “Is it
possible that _you_ have ever thought so?”
“I have tried not,” answered Sir Cradock, with his wasted bosom
heaving. “God knows that I have struggled against it. Garnet, have pity
upon me. If you have any of our blood in you, tell me the truth, what
you think.”
“I not only think, but know, that the devil only could have suggested
such an idea to you. Man, for the sake of the God that made you, and
made me as well as your brother, and every one of us brethren, rather
put a pistol to your heart than that damned idea. In cold blood! in
cold blood! And for the sake of gain! A brother to—do away with—a
brother so! Oh, what things have come upon me! Where is my God, and
where is yours?”
“I am sure I donʼt know,” replied the old man, gazing round in
wonderment, as if he expected to see Him—for the scene had quite
unnerved him—“I suppose He is—is somewhere in the usual place, Mr.
Garnet.”
“Then thatʼs not in this neighbourhood,” replied Bull Garnet, heavily;
“He is gone from me, from all of us. And His curse is on my children.
Poor innocents, poor helpless lambs! The curse of God is on them.”
He went away to the window; and, through his tears, and among the
trees, tried to find his cottage–roof.
Sir Cradock Nowell was lost to thought, and heard nothing of those
woeful words, although from the depth of that labouring chest they came
like the distant sea–roar.
Bull Garnet returned with his fierce eyes softened to a womanʼs
fondness, and saw, with pity as well as joy, that his last words had
not been heeded. “Ever hot and ever hasty, until it comes to my own
death,” he muttered, still in recklessness; “perhaps then I shall be
tardy. For my sonʼs sake, for my Bob and Pearl, I must not make such a
child of myself. Nevertheless, I cannot stay here.”
“Garnet,” said Sir Cradock Nowell, slowly recovering from his stupor,
a slight cerebral paralysis, “say nothing of what has passed between
us—nothing, I entreat you; and not another word to me now. I only
understand that you assert emphatically my son Cradockʼs innocence.”
“With every fibre of my heart. With every tissue of my brain.”
“Then I love you very much for it; although you have done it so rudely.”
“Donʼt say that. Never say it again. I canʼt bear it now, Sir Cradock.”
“Very well, then, I wonʼt, Garnet. Though I think you might be proud of
my gratitude; for I never bestow it rashly.”
“I am very thankful to you. Gratitude is an admirable and exceedingly
scarce thing. I am come to give you notice—as well as to answer your
summons—notice of my intention to quit your service shortly.”
“Nonsense!” replied Sir Cradock, gasping; “nonsense, Garnet! You never
mean that—that even you would desert me?”
Bull Garnet was touched by the old manʼs tone—the helplessness, the
misery. “Well,” he answered, “Iʼll try to bear with it for a little
longer, in spite of the daily agony. I owe you everything; all I can
do. Iʼll get things all into first–rate order, and then I hope, most
truly, your son will be back again, sir.”
“It isnʼt only the stewardship, Garnet; it isnʼt only that. You are now
as one of the family, and there are so few of us left. Your daughter
Pearl; I begin to love her as of my own flesh and blood. Who knows
but what, if my Cradock comes back, he may take a liking to her? Amy
Rosedew has not behaved well lately, any more than her father has.”
“Do you mean to say that you, Sir Cradock, with all your prejudices
of birth, legitimacy, and station, would ever sanction—supposing it
possible—any affection of a child of yours for a child of mine?”
“To be sure—if it were a true one. A short time ago I thought very
differently. But oh! what does it matter? I am not what I was, Garnet.”
“Neither am I,” thought Mr. Garnet; “but I might have been, if only I
could ever have dreamed this. God has left me, for ever left me.”
“Why donʼt you answer me, Garnet? Why do you shut your Pearl up so? Let
her come to me soon; she would do me good; and I, as you know, have a
young lady coming, who knows little of English society. Pearl would do
her a great deal of good. Pearl is a thorough specimen of a well–bred
English maiden. I think I like her better than Amy—since Amy has been
so cold to me.”
To Sir Cradockʼs intense astonishment, Bull Garnet, instead of
replying, rushed straight away out of the room, and, not content with
that, he rushed out of the house as well, and strode fiercely away to
the nearest trees, and was lost to sight among them.
“Well,” said the old man, “he always was the oddest fellow I ever did
know; and I suppose he always will be. And yet what a man for business!”
That same forenoon, Mrs. Brownʼs boy and donkey came with a very long
message from a lady who had tucked him on the head because he could not
make out her meaning. He believed her name was Mrs. Jogging, and he was
to say that Miss Oh Ah was fit to come home to–day, please, if theyʼd
please to send the shay for her. And they must please to get ready
Satanʼs room, where the daffodil curtains was, because the young woman
loved to look at the yeast, and to have a good fire burning. And please
they must send the eel–skin cloak, and the foot–tub in the shay,
because the young woman was silly.
“Chilly, you stupid,” replied Mrs. Toaster. “She shall have the
foot–warmer and the seal–skin cloak; but what Satanʼs room with the
daffodil curtains is, only the Lord in heaven knows; and how she is to
see any yeast there! Are you certain that was the message?”
“Sartin, maʼam. I said it to myself ever so many times; more often than
I stuck the Neddy.”
Sir Cradock Nowell, upon appeal, speedily decided that the satin room
was meant—the room with the rose–coloured curtains, and the windows
facing the east; but the boy stuck out for the daffodil; leastways he
was certain it was _some_ flower.
It was nearly dark when the carriage returned; and Sir Cradock came
down to the great entrance–hall to meet his brotherʼs child. He was
trembling with anxiety; for his nerves were rapidly failing him;
and, from Dr. Huttonʼs account, he feared to see in his probable
heiress—for now he had no heir—something very outlandish and savage.
Therefore he was surprised and delighted when a graceful and beautiful
girl, with high birth and elegance in every movement, flung off her
cloak, and skipped up to him with the lightness of a gazelle, and threw
her arms round his neck, and kissed him.
“Oh, uncle, I shall love you so! You are so like my darling—you have
got his nose exactly, and just the same shaped legs. Oh, to think he
should ever have left me!” And she burst into tears then and there
before half a dozen servants. “Oh, Uncle Cradock, you have got a fine
house; but I never shall get over it.”
“Hush, my dear; come with me, my child!” Sir Cradock was always wide
awake upon the subject of proprieties.
“I am not your child; and I wonʼt be your child, if you try to stop me
like that. I must cry when I want to cry, and it is so stupid to stop
me.”
“What a pretty dear you are!” said Sir Cradock, scarcely knowing what
to say, but having trust in feminine vanity.
“Am I indeed? I donʼt think so at all. I was very pretty, I know, until
I began to cry so. But now my cheeks are come out, and my eyes gone in;
but, oh dear! what does it matter, and my father never, never to take
me on his lap again? Hya! Hya! Hya!”
“Faix, thin, me darlinʼ,” cried Mrs. OʼGaghan, stroking her down in
a shampoo manner, “itʼs meself as knows how to dale with you. Lave
her to me; Sir Crayduck; sheʼs pure and parfict, every bit on her. I
knows how to bring her out, and sheʼll come to your room like a lamb,
now jist.—Git out of the way, the lot on you”—to several officious
maidens—“me honey, put your hand in my neck, your blissed leetle dove
of a hand, and fale how me heart goes pat for you. Sir Crayduck, me
duty to you, but you might ‘ave knowed how to git out of the way, and
lave the ladies to the ladies.”
Sir Cradock Nowell marched away, thinking what a blessing it was that
he had not had much to do with women. Then he reproached himself for
the thought, as he remembered his darling Violet, the mother of his
children. But, before he had brooded very long in the only room he
liked to use now, his study just off from the library, a gentle knock
came _to_ the door—as Biddy always expressed it—and Eoa, dressed in
deepest mourning (made at Lymington, from her own frock, while she lay
ill at the Crown), came up to him steadily, and kissed him, and sat on
a stool at his feet.
“Oh, uncle, I am so sorry,” she said, with her glorious hair falling
over his knees, and her deep eyes looking up at him, “I am so sorry,
Uncle Cradock, that I vexed you so, just now.”
“You did not vex me, my pretty. I was only vexed for you. Now, remember
one thing, my darling—for I shall love you as my own daughter—I have
been very harsh and stern where, perhaps, I had no right to be so: if I
am ever unkind to you, my dear, if I ever say anything hard, only say
‘Clayton Nowell’ to me, and I will forgive you directly.”
“You mean I must forgive _you_, uncle. I suppose thatʼs what you mean.
If you are unkind to me, what will you want to forgive me for? But I
couldnʼt do it. I couldnʼt say it, even if I had done any harm. Please
to remember that I either love or I hate people. I know that I shall
love you. But you must not contradict me. I never could endure it, and
I never will.”
“Well,” said Sir Cradock, laughing; “I will try to remember that, my
dear. Though, in that respect, you differ but little from our English
young ladies.”
“If you please, Uncle Cradock, I must go to–night to see where you have
put my father. There, I wonʼt cry any more, because he told me never
to vex you, and I see that my crying vexes you. Did you cry, yourself,
Uncle Cradock, when you heard of it first?”
She looked at him, as she asked this question, with such wild
intensity, as if her entire opinion of him would hang upon his reply,
that the old man felt himself almost compelled to tell “a corker.”
“Well, my dear, I am not ashamed to confess——”
“Ashamed to confess, indeed! I should rather hope not. But you ought to
be ashamed, I know, if you hadnʼt cried, Uncle Crad. But now I shall
love you very much, now I know you did cry. And how much have you got a
year, Uncle Crad?”
“How much what, my dear? What beautiful eyes you have, Eoa; finer than
any of the Nowells!”
“Yes, I know. But that wonʼt do, Uncle Crad; you donʼt want to answer
my question. What I want to know is a very simple thing. How much
money have you got a year? You must have got a good deal. I know,
because everybody says so, and because this is such a great place, as
big as the palaces in Calcutta.”
“Really, Eoa, it is not usual for young people, especially young
ladies, to ask such very point–blank questions.”
“Oh, I did not know that, and I canʼt see any harm in it. I know the
English girls at Calcutta used to think of nothing else. But I am not a
bit like them; it isnʼt that I care for the money a quarter so much as
tamarinds; but I have a particular reason; and Iʼll find out in spite
of you. Just you see if I donʼt, now.”
“A very particular reason, Eoa, for inquiring into my income! Why, what
reason can you have?”
“Is it usual for old people, especially old gentlemen, to ask such very
point–blank questions?”
Sir Cradock would have been very angry with any other person in the
world for such a piece of impertinence; but Eoa gave such a smile of
triumph at having caught him in his own net (as she thought), and
looked so exquisite in her beauty, as she rose, and the firelight
flashed on her; then she tossed her black hair over her shoulders, and
gave him such a kiss (with all the spices of India in it) that the old
man was at her mercy quite, and she could do exactly what she liked
with him.
Oh, Mrs. Nowell Corklemore—so proud of having obtained at last an
invitation to Nowelhurst, so confident that, once let in, you can wedge
out all before you, like Alexanderʼs phalanx—call a halt, and shape
your wiles, and look to belt and buckler, have every lance fresh set
and burnished, every sword like a razor; for verily the fight is hard,
when art does battle with nature.