A few days went on. Nash Caromel lay in the greatest danger. Nave was at
the farm day and night. A physician was called in from a distance to aid
young Bluck; but it was understood that there remained very little hope
of recovery. We began to feel sorry for Nash and to excuse his offences,
the Squire especially. It was all that strong-minded young woman's
doings, said he; she had drawn him into her toils, and he had not had
the pluck, first or last, to escape from them.
But a change for the better took place; Nash passed the crisis, and
would probably, with care, recover. I think every one felt glad; one
does not wish a fellow quite to die, though he has misinterpreted the
laws on the ticklish subject of matrimony. And the Squire felt vexed
later when he learned that his lawyer had disregarded his countermanding
letter and sent a peremptory threat to Nash of enforcing instant
proceedings, unless the money was repaid forthwith. That was not the
only threat conveyed to Caromel's Farm. Harry Tinkle returned; and,
despite his sister's protestations, took the matter into his own hands,
and applied for the warrant that had been so much talked about. As
soon as Nash Caromel could leave his bed, he would be taken before the
magistrates.
Soon a morning came that we did not forget in a hurry. While dressing
with the window open to the white flowers of the trailing jessamine and
the sweet perfume of the roses, blooming in the warm September air, Tod
came in, fastening his braces.
"I say, Johnny, here's the jolliest lark! The pater----"
And what the lark was, I don't know to this day. At that moment the
passing-bell tolled out--three times three; its succession of quick
strokes following it. The wind blew in our direction from the church,
and it sounded almost as though it were in the room.
"Who can be dead?" cried Tod, stretching his neck out at the window to
listen. "Was any one ill, Jenkins?" he called to the head-gardener, then
coming up the path with a barrow; "do you know who that bell's tolling
for?"
"It's for Mr. Caromel," answered Jenkins.
"What?" shouted Tod.
"It's tolling for Mr. Caromel, sir. He died in the night."
It was a shock to us all. The Squire, pocketing his indignation against
madam and the Nave family in general, went over to the farm after
breakfast, and saw Miss Gwendolen Nave, who was staying with her sister.
They called her Gwinny.
"We heard that he was better--going on so well," gasped the Squire.
"So he was until a day or two ago," said Miss Gwinny, holding her
handkerchief to her eyes. "Very well indeed until then--when it turned
to typhus."
"Goodness bless me!" cried the Squire, an unpleasant feeling running
through him. "Typhus!"
"Yes, I am sorry to say."
"Is it safe to be here? Safe for you all?"
"Of course it is a risk. We try not to be afraid, and have sent as many
out of the house as we could. I and the old servant Grizzel alone remain
with Mrs. Caromel. The baby has gone to papa's."
"Dear me, dear me! I was intending to ask to look at poor Nash; we have
known each other always, you see. But, perhaps it would not be prudent."
"It would be very imprudent, Mr. Todhetley. The sickness was of the
worst type; it might involve not only your own death, but that of
others to whom you might in turn carry it. You have a wife and children,
sir."
"Yes, yes, quite right," rejoined the Squire. "Poor Nash! How is--your
sister?" He would not, even at that trying moment for them, call her
Mrs. Caromel.
"Oh, she is very ill; shocked and grieved almost to death. For all we
know, she has taken the fever and may follow her husband; she attended
upon him to the last. I hope that woman, who came here to disturb the
peace of a happy family, that Charlotte Tinkle, will reap the fruit of
what she has sown, for it is all owing to her."
"People do mostly reap the fruit of their own actions, whether they are
good or bad," observed the Squire to this, as he got up to leave. But he
would not add what he thought--that it was another Charlotte who ought
to reap what she had sown. And who appeared to be doing it.
"Did the poor fellow suffer much?"
"Not at the last," said Miss Gwinny. "His strength was gone, and he lay
for many hours insensible. Up to yesterday evening we thought he might
recover. Oh, it is a dreadful calamity!"
Indeed it was. The Squire came away echoing the words in his heart.
Three days later the funeral took place: it would not do to delay it
longer. The Squire went to it: when a man was dead, he thought animosity
should cease. Harry Tinkle would not go. Caromel, he said, had escaped
him and the law, to which he had rendered himself amenable, and nobody
might grumble at it, for it was the good pleasure of Heaven, but he
would not show Caromel respect, dead or living.
All the parish seemed to have been bidden to the funeral. Some went,
some did not go. It looked a regular crowd, winding down the lawn and
down the avenue. Few ventured indoors; they preferred to assemble
outside: for an exaggerated fear of Caromel's Farm and what might be
caught in it, ran through the community. So, when the men came out of
the house, staggering under the black velvet pall with its deep white
border, followed by Lawyer Nave, the company fell up into line behind.
Little Dun would have been the legal heir to the property had there been
no Charlotte the First. That complication stood in his way, and he could
no more inherit it than I could. Under the peculiar circumstances _there
was no male heir living_, and Nash Caromel, the last of his name, had
the power to make a will. Whether he had done so, or not, was not known;
but the question was set at rest after the return from the funeral. Nave
had gone strutting next the coffin as chief mourner, and he now produced
the will. Half-a-dozen gentlemen had entered, the Squire one of them.
It was executed, the will, all in due form, having been drawn up by a
lawyer from a distance; not by Nave, who may have thought it as well to
keep his fingers out of the pie. A few days after the return of
Charlotte the First, when Nash first became ill, the strange lawyer was
called in, and the will was made.
Caromel's Farm and every stick and stone upon it, and all other
properties possessed by Nash, were bequeathed to the little boy, Duncan
Nave (as it was worded), otherwise Duncan Nave Caromel. Not to him
unconditionally, but to be placed in the hands of trustees for his
ultimate benefit. The child's mother (called in the will Charlotte Nave,
otherwise Charlotte Caromel) was to remain at the farm if she pleased,
and to receive the yearly income derived from it for the mutual
maintenance of herself and child. When the child should be twenty-one,
he was to assume full possession, but his mother was at liberty to
continue to have her home with him. In short, they took all; Charlotte
Tinkle, nothing.
"It is a wicked will," cried one of the hearers when they came out from
listening to it.
"And it won't prosper them; you see if it does," added the Squire. "She
stands in the place of Charlotte Tinkle. The least Caromel could have
done, was to divide the property between them."
So that was the apparent ending of the Caromel business, which had
caused the scandal in our quiet place, and a very unjust ending it was.
Charlotte Tinkle, who had not a sixpence of her own in the world,
remained on with her mother. She would come to church in her widow's
mourning, a grievous look of sorrow upon her meek face; people said she
would never get over the cruelty of not having been sent for to say
farewell to her husband when he was dying.
As for Charlotte Nave, she stayed on at the farm without let or
hindrance, calling herself, as before, Mrs. Nash Caromel. She appeared
at church once in a way; not often. Her widow's veil was deeper than the
other widow's, and her goffered cap larger. Nobody took the fever: and
Nave the lawyer sent back the Squire's twelve hundred pounds within
a month of Nash's death. And that, I say, was the ending, as we all
supposed, of the affair at Caromel's Farm.
But curious complications were destined to crop up yet.