When a house is popularly allowed to be haunted, and its inmates grow
thin and white and restless, it is not the best place in the world for
children: and this was supposed by Church Dykely to be the reason why
Mrs. Nash Caromel the Second had never allowed her child to come home
since the death of its father. At first it was said that she would not
risk having him lest he should catch the fever Nash had died of: but,
when the weeks went on, and the months went on, and years (so far as
could be seen) were likely to go on, and still the child was kept away,
people put it down to the other disagreeable fact.
Any way, Mrs. Nash Caromel--or Charlotte Nave, as you please--did not
have the boy home. Little Dun was kept at his grandfather's, Lawyer
Nave; and Miss Harriet Nave took care of him: the other sister, Gwinny,
remaining at Caromel's Farm. Towards the close of spring, the spring
which followed the death of Nash, when Dun was about two years old, he
caught whooping-cough and had it badly. In August he was sent for change
of air to a farm called the Rill, on the other side of Pershore, Miss
Harriet Nave taking the opportunity to go jaunting off elsewhere. The
change of air did the child good, and he was growing strong quickly,
when one night early in September croup attacked him, and he lay in
great danger. News of it was sent to his mother in the morning. It drove
her nearly wild with fear, and she set off for the Rill in a gig, her
father driving it: as already spoken of. So rare was the sight of her
now, for she kept indoors at Caromel's Farm as a snail keeps to its
shell, that no wonder Church Dykely thought it an event, and talked of
it all the day.
Mr. Nave and his daughter reached the Rill--which lay across country,
somewhere between Pershore and Wyre--in the course of the morning, and
found little Dun gasping with croup, and inhaling steam from a kettle.
Moore told us there was nothing half so sweet in life as love's young
dream; but to Charlotte Nave, otherwise Caromel, there was nothing sweet
at all except this little Dun. He was the light of her existence; the
apple of her eye, to put it poetically. She sat down by the bed-side,
her pale face (so pale and thin to what it used to be) bent lovingly
upon him, and wiping away the tears by stealth that came into her eyes.
In the afternoon Dun was better; but the doctor would not say he was out
of danger.
"If I could but stay here for the night! I can't bear to leave him,"
Charlotte snatched an opportunity to say to her father, when their
friends, the farmer and his wife, were momentarily occupied.
"But you can't, you know," returned Lawyer Nave. "You must be home by
sunset."
"By sunset? Nay, an hour after that would do."
"No, it will not do. Better be on the safe side."
"It seems _cruel_ that I should have to leave him," she exclaimed, with
a sob.
"Nonsense, Charlotte! The child will do as well without you as with you.
You may see for yourself how much better he is. The farm cannot be left
to itself at night: remember that. We must start in half-an-hour."
No more was said. Nave went to see about getting ready the gig;
Charlotte, all down in the dumps, stayed with the little lad, and let
him pull about as he would her golden hair, and drank her tea by his
side. Mr. and Mrs. Smith (good hospitable people, who had stood by
Charlotte Nave through good report and ill report, believing no ill of
her) pressed her to stay all night, promising, however, that every care
should be taken of Duncan, if she did not.
"My little darling must be a good child and keep warm in bed, and when
mamma comes in the morning he will be nearly well," breathed Charlotte,
showering tears and kisses upon him when the last moment had come. And,
with that, she tore herself away.
"Such a pity that you should have to go!" said Mrs. Smith, stepping to
the door with her. "I think Gwendolen and old Grizzel might have been
left for one night: they'd not have run away, nor the house neither.
Come over as soon as you can in the morning, my dear; and see if you
can't make arrangements to stay a day or two."
They were starting from the back-door, as being the nearest and
handiest; Nave, already in the gig, seemed in a rare hurry to be off.
Mr. Smith helped Charlotte up: and away the lawyer drove, across the
fold-yard, one of the farm-boys holding the outer gate open for them.
The sun, getting down in the west, shone right in their eyes.
"Oh dear, I have left my parasol!" cried Charlotte, just as they reached
the gate. "I must have it: my blue parasol!" And Nave, giving an angry
growl to parasols in general, pulled the horse up.
"You need not get out, hindering time!" growled he. "Call out for it.
Here, Smith! Mrs. Caromel has forgotten her blue parasol." But the
farmer, then nearing the house, did not hear.
"I'll run for it, ma'am," said the lad. And he set off to do so, leaving
the gate to itself. Charlotte, who had been rising to get out, looked
back to watch him; the lawyer looked back to shout again, in his
impatience, to Mr. Smith. Their faces were both turned from the side
where the gate was, and they did not see what was about to happen.
The gate, swinging slowly and noiselessly forward, touched the horse,
which had been standing sideways, his head turned to see what the
stoppage might be about.
Touched him, and startled him. Bounding upwards, he tore forward down
the narrow lane on which the gate opened; tried to scale a bank, and
pitched the lawyer and Charlotte out of the gig.
The farmer, and as many of his people as could be gathered at the
moment, came running down, some of them armed with pitchforks. Nave was
groaning as he lay; Charlotte was insensible. Just at first they thought
her dead. Both were carried back to the Rill on hurdles, and the doctor
was sent for. After which, Mr. Smith started off a man on horseback to
tell the ill-news of the accident at Caromel Farm.
Ill-news. No doubt a bad and distressing accident. But now, see how
curiously the "power that shapes our ends" brings things about. But for
that accident, the mystery and the wrong being played out at Caromel's
Farm might never have had daylight thrown upon it. The accident, like a
great many other accidents, must have been sent to this wise and good
end. At least, so far as we, poor blind mortals that we all are, down
here, might presume to judge.
The horseman, clattering in at a hard pace to Caromel's Farm, delivered
to Miss Gwendolen Nave, and to Grizzel, the old family servant, the
tidings he was charged with--improving upon them as a thing of course.
Lawyer Nave, he were groaning awful, all a-bleeding, and unable to move
a limb. The young lady, she were dead; leastways, looked like it.
With a scream and a cry, Gwendolen gave orders for her own departure.
Seeking the bailiff, she bade him drive her over in the tax-cart, there
being no second gig.
"Now mind, Grizzel," she said, laying hold of the old woman's arm after
flinging on her bonnet and shawl anyhow, "you will lock all the doors as
soon as I am gone, and take out the keys. Do you hear?"
"I hear, Miss Gwinny. My will's good to do it: you know that."
"Take care that you _do_ do it."
Fine tidings to go flying about Church Dykely in the twilight! Lawyer
Nave half killed, his daughter quite. The news reached us at Dyke
Manor; and Squire Todhetley, though holding Caromel's Farm in little
estimation, thought it only neighbourly to walk over there and inquire
how much was true, how much not. You remember what happened. That in
leaving the farm after interviewing Grizzel, we found ourselves in
contact with Dobbs the blacksmith. Dobbs standing stock-still, like a
marble pillar, outside the gate under the dark, overhanging trees; Dobbs
standing on the watch, in a stealthy, mysterious manner, without his
boots.
"But what on earth are you here for, Dobbs?" reiterated the Squire.
"Where are your boots?"
And all Dobbs did for answer, was to lay his hand respectfully on the
Squire's coat-sleeve to begin with, so as to prevent his running away.
Then he entered upon his whispered tale. Leaning our arms upon the low
gate, we listened to it, and to the curious sound of weeping and wailing
that stole faintly on our ears from amongst the garden trees. The scene
altogether looked weird enough in the moonlight, flickering through the
rustling leaves.
Dobbs, naturally an unbeliever in ghosts, had grown to think that this
ghost, so long talked of, was no ghost at all, but some one got up to
resemble one by Caromel's Farm, for some mysterious purpose of its own.
Remembering his attack of fright, and resenting it excessively, Dobbs
determined if possible to unearth the secret: and this was the third
night he had come upon the watch.
"But why stand without your boots?" whispered the Squire, who could not
get over the shoeless feet.
"That I may make no noise in running to pounce upon him, sir," Dobbs
whispered back. "I take 'em off and hide 'em in the copse behind here.
They be just at your back, Master Johnny."
"Pounce upon whom?" demanded the Squire. "Can't you speak plainly?"
"That's what I'd like to know," breathed Dobbs. "I feel nearly sure,
Squire, that the--the thing looking like Nash Caromel is not Nash
Caromel. Nor his ghost, either."
"I never saw two faces more alike, and I have just seen it now," put in
the Squire. "At least, as much as a shadow can look like a face."
"Ay," assented Dobbs. "I'm as sure, sir, as I am of my own forge, that
it is a likeness got up by Nave to scare us. And I'll _eat_ the forge,"
added Dobbs with emphasis, "if there's not something worse than ghosts
at Caromel's Farm--though I can't guess what it is."
"What a villain he must be: and Nave, too!" cried the Squire, rubbing
his red nose, while Tod simply stared at the man. "But, look here,
Dobbs--how could any man put on the face of Nash Caromel?"
"I don't know how he does it, Squire, or what he does, but I'm good to
find out," returned the blacksmith. "And if--just hark there again,
sirs!"
The same faint sounds of wailing, of entreaty in a woman's voice, rose
again upon the air. Dobbs, with a gesture to ask for silence, went
noiselessly down the dark path in his brown woollen stockings, that
looked thick enough for boots. Tod, eager for any adventure, stole after
him, and I brought up the rear. The Squire remained where he was, and
held the gate open, expecting perhaps that we might want to make a rush
through it as he had just done.
Two minutes more, and the mystery was solved. Near the house, under the
shade of the closely intersecting trees, stood old Grizzel and the
figure people had taken to be the ghost of Nash Caromel. It was
Grizzel's voice we heard, full of piteous entreaty to him not to do
something.
"Just for this night, master, for the love of Heaven! Don't do it, just
this night that I'm left in charge! They've trusted me, you see!"
The words seemed to make no impression. Pushing her hands back, the
figure was turning impatiently away, when Dobbs seized upon it.
But, in sheer astonishment, or perhaps in terror, Dobbs let go again to
step backwards; and the prize might have escaped but for the strong arms
of Tod. It was indeed Nash Caromel. Not his ghost, but himself.
Nash Caromel worn to the veriest shadow mortal eyes ever gazed upon. The
Squire came up; we all went into the house together, and explanation
ensued.
Nash had not died. When the fever, of which it was feared he would die,
reached its crisis, he awoke to life, not to death. But, terrified
at his position--the warrant, applied for by Henry Tinkle, being out
against him--overwhelmed with a sense of shame, he had feigned death as
the only chance of escaping disgrace and punishment. The first thought
perhaps was Nave's; indeed there was no doubt of it--or his and his
daughter's combined. They wanted to keep the income, you see. Any way,
they carried the thought out, and had successfully contrived to deceive
doctors, undertakers, and the world. Nash, weak as a rat, had got out of
bed to watch his own funeral procession wind down the avenue.
And there, in the upper rooms of the house, he had since lived until
now, old Grizzel sharing the secret. But a grievous complaint, partly
brought on by uneasiness of mind, partly inherited from his father, who
had died of it, had speedily attacked Nash, one for which there was no
cure. It had worn him to a shadow.
He had walked in the garden sometimes. He had come out in the twilight
of the evening or at night; he had now and then passed through the gate
and crossed over to the copse; simply because to live entirely without
fresh air, to remain inactive indoors, was intolerable to him. His wife
and her sister did their best to prevent it. Nave came in the daytime
and would blow him up by the hour together; but they could not always
keep him in. At last they grew alarmed. For, when they attempted to use
force, by locking the doors, he told them that unless he was allowed his
way in this, he would declare himself to the world. Life could not have
been a bed of roses for any of them.
To look at him, as he sat there to-night by the kitchen fire, his cheeks
white and hollow, his sunken eyes encased in dark rims, and his thin
lips on the shiver, you'd hardly have given him a week of life. A great
pity sat in the blacksmith's face.
"Don't reproach yourself, Dobbs: it's the best thing that could have
happened to me," spoke Nash Caromel, kindly. "I am not sure but I should
have gone out this very night and declared myself. Grizzel thought it,
and put herself into a paroxysm of fear. Nobody but myself knows the
yearning to do it that has been upon me. You won't go and tell it out in
the market-place, will you, Dobbs?"
"I'll not tell on't to a single soul, sir," said Dobbs, earnestly,
standing straight in his brown stockings. "Nobody shall know on't from
me. And I'm as glad as glad can be that you be alive and did not die in
that fever."
"We are all safe and sure, Caromel; not a hint shall escape us," spoke
the Squire from the midst of his astonishment.
"The first thing must be to get Duffham here."
"Duffham can't do any good; things have gone too far with me," said poor
Nash. "Once this disorder lays regular hold of a man, there's no hope
for him: you know that, Todhetley."
"Stuff!" said the pater. "I don't believe it has gone too far, only
you've got moped here and think so. We'll have Duffham here at once. You
boys can go for him."
"No," dissented Caromel. "Duffham may tell the tale abroad. I'd rather
die in peace, if I can."
"Not he. Duffham! Why, you ought to know him better. Duffham will be as
secret as ourselves. Do you suppose that he, a family doctor, has not
many a weighty secret to keep? Come, be off, lads: and, mind, we trust
_you_."
Nash Caromel sighed, and said no more. He had been wanting badly enough
to see a friend or two, but not to be shown up to the parish. We went
out with Dobbs, who rushed into the copse to find his shoes.
This discovery might never have ensued, I take it, had Charlotte
Nave and the lawyer not been upset in the gig. They would have stood
persistently in his light--perhaps have succeeded in locking him in by
force! As it was, we had it all our own way.
"How could you lend yourself to so infamous a deception?" cried the
Squire to old Grizzel, following her into the pantry to ask it, when she
returned from bolting the door after us. "I'm not at all sure that you
could not be punished for it. It's--it's a conspiracy. And you, of all
people, old Grizzel, to forget the honour of the Caromels! Why, you
lived with his father!--and with his brother. All these years!"
"And how could I tell again him when I was asked not to?" contended
Grizzel, the tears dropping on to a tin saucepan she was rubbing out.
"Master Nash was as dear to me as the others were. Could it be me to
speak up and say he was not in the coffin, but only old things to make
up weight! Could it be me to tell he was alive and hiding up aloft here,
and so get him put in prison? No, sir; the good name of the Caromels was
much to me, but Master Nash was more."
"Now, come, old woman, where's the use of crying like that? Well, yes;
you have been faithful, and it's a great virtue. And--and there's a
shilling or two for you."
"Have you been blowing her up?" asked Nash, as the Squire went back to
him, and sat down on the other side the wide kitchen hearth, the fire
throwing its glow upon the bricks, square and red and shining, and upon
Nash Caromel's wan face, in which it was not very difficult to read
death. He had put his out-of-door coat off, a long brown garment, and
sat in a grey suit. Tho Squire's belief was that he wouldn't have minded
getting into the fire itself; he sat there shivering and shaking, and
seeming to have no warmth left in him. The room was well guarded from
outer observation. The shutters were up, and there was not a chink in
them.
"I have," said the Squire, in answer. "Told her she did not show
much regard for the honour of the family--lending herself to such a
deception!"
"Poor old Grizzel!" sighed Nash, with a half-smile. "She has lived upon
thorns, fearing I should be discovered. As to the family honour,
Todhetley, the less said about that the better."
"How _could_ you do it, Caromel?"
"I don't know," answered Nash, with apathy, bringing his face closer to
the blaze. "I let it be done, more than did it. All I did, or could do,
was just to lie still in my bed. The fever had left me weaker than a
child----"
"Did it really turn to typhus?" interrupted the Squire.
"No, it didn't. They said so to scare people away. I was weaker than
a child," continued Nash, "both in mind and body. And when I grew
stronger--what was done could not be undone. Not that I seek to defend
or excuse myself. Don't think that."
"And, in the name of all that's marvellous, what could have put so
monstrous an idea into their heads?" demanded the Squire, getting up to
face the kitchen.
"Well, I have always fancied that business at Sandstone Torr did,"
replied Nash, who had no idea of reticence now, but spoke out as freely
as you please. "It had come to light, you know, not long before. Stephen
Radcliffe had hidden his brother in the old tower, passing him off to
the world as dead; and so, I suppose, it was thought that I could be
hidden and passed off as dead."
"But Stephen Radcliffe never got up a mock funeral. His tale was that
Frank had died in London. You were bold people. What will Parson Holland
say, when he comes to learn that he read the burial-service over a box
of rubbish?"
"I don't know," was the helpless reiteration of poor Nash. "The trouble
and worry of it altogether, the discomforts of my position, the
constant, never-ceasing dread of discovery have--have been to me what
you cannot realize. But for going out of the house at night and striding
about in the fresh, free air, I should have become mad. It was a _taste_
of freedom. Neither could I always confine myself to the walks in the
garden; whether I would nor not, my feet would carry me beyond it and
into the shaded copse."
"Frightening people who met you!"
"When I heard footsteps approach I hid myself--though not always quite
in time. I was more put out at meeting people than they were at meeting
me."
"I wonder your keepers here ever let you get out!" cried the Squire,
musingly.
"They tried hard to keep me in: and generally succeeded. It was only by
fits and starts I gained my way. They were afraid, you see, that I
should carry out my threat of disclosing myself but for being yielded to
now and then."
But the Squire did not get over the discovery. He strode about the
large kitchen, rubbing his face, giving out sundry Bless my hearts! at
intervals. The return to life of Charlotte Tinkle had been marvellous
enough, but it was nothing to this.
Meanwhile we were on our road to Duffham's. Leaving Dobbs at his own
forge, we rushed on, and found the doctor in his little parlour at
supper; pickled eels and bread-and-cheese: the eels in the wide stone
jar they were baked in--which was Nomy's way of serving pickled fish.
"Will you sit down and take some?" asked Duffham, pointing to the jar:
out of which he took the pieces with a fork as he wanted them.
"I should like to, but there's no time for it," answered Tod, eyeing the
jar wistfully.
Pickled eels are a favourite dish in our parts: and you don't often eat
anything as good.
"Look here, Duffham," he went on: "we want you to go with us and
see--see somebody: and to undertake not to tell tales out of school. The
Squire has answered for it that you will not."
"See who?" asked Duffham, going on with his supper.
"A ghost," said Tod, grimly. "A dead man."
"What good can I do _them_?"
"Well, the man has come to life again. Not for long, though, I should
say, judging by his looks. You are not to go and tell about it, mind."
"Tell what?"
"That he is alive, instead of being, as is supposed, under a gravestone
in yonder churchyard. I am not sure but that you went to his funeral."
Tod's significant tone, half serious, half mocking, attracted Duffham's
curiosity more even than the words. But he still went on with his eels.
"Who is it?"
"Nash Caromel. There. Don't fall off in a faint. Caromel has come to
life."