"And how have things gone during my short absence, Grizzel?" demanded
Miss Gwinny Nave, alighting from the tax-cart the following morning,
upon her return to Caromel's Farm.
"Oh, pretty well," answered Grizzel, who in her heart detested Miss
Gwinny and all the Naves. "The master seems weaker. He have took to his
bed, and got a fire in his room."
"When did he do that?"
"He came down last night after you went, Miss Gwinny, and sat over
this here kitchen fire for ever so long. Then he went up to bed, and I
lighted him a fire and took him up some hot arrowroot with a wine glass
o' brandy in it. Shivering with cold, he was."
"And he has not got up this morning?"
"No; and he says he does not mean to get up. 'I've taken to my bed for
good, Grizzel,' he says to me this morning when I went in to light the
fire again and see what he'd eat for breakfast. And I think he has, Miss
Gwinny."
Which information considerably lightened the doubt which was tormenting
Miss Nave's mind. She wanted, oh how badly, and _was_ wanted, to remain
at the Rill, being sorely needed there; but she had not seen her way
clear to do it. If Nash was indeed confined to his bed, she might
perhaps venture to leave him for a day or two to Grizzel.
But, please don't think old Grizzel mean for keeping in what had taken
place: she was only obeying orders. Duffham and the Squire had laid
their heads together and then talked to Caromel; and it was agreed that
for the present nothing should be disclosed. They gave their orders to
Grizzel, and her master confirmed them.
"And what news have you brought from the Rill, ma'am?" questioned
Grizzel, who was making a custard pudding at the kitchen table. "I hope
you found things better than you feared."
"They could not well be worse," sighed Miss Gwinny, untying her bonnet.
She had not the beauty of Charlotte. Her light complexion was like
brick-dust, and her hair was straw-coloured. Not but that she was proud
of her hair, wearing it in twists, with one ringlet trailing over the
left shoulder. "Your mistress lies unconscious still; it is feared the
brain is injured; and papa's leg is broken in two places."
"Alack a-day?" cried Grizzel, lifting her hands in consternation. "Oh,
but I am sorry to hear it, Miss Gwendolen! And the pretty little boy?"
Miss Gwendolen shook her head. "The croup came on again last night worse
than ever," she said, with a rising sob. "They don't know whether they
will save him."
Grizzel brushed away some tears as she began to beat up her eggs. She
was a tender-hearted old thing, and loved little Dun. Miss Nave put
aside her bonnet and shawl, and turned to the staircase to pay a visit
to Nash. But she looked back to ask a question.
"Then, I am to understand that you had no trouble with the master last
night, Grizzel? He did not want to force himself out?"
"The time for that has gone by, ma'am, I think," answered Grizzel,
evasively; not daring and not wishing to confess that he had forced
himself out, and what the consequences were. "He seems a deal weaker
to-day, Miss Gwinny, than I've ever seen him."
And when Miss Gwinny got into Nash's room she found the words true.
Weak, inert, fading, there lay poor Nash. With the discovery, all
struggle had ceased; and it is well known that to resign one's self to
weakness quietly, makes weakness ten times more apparent. One thing
struck her greatly: the hollow sound in the voice. Had it come on
suddenly? If not, how was it she had never noticed it before? It struck
her with a sort of unpleasant chill: for she believed that peculiar
hollowness is generally the precursor of death.
"You are feeling worse, Nash, Grizzel says," she observed; and she
thought she had never seen him looking half so ill.
"Oh, I am all right, Gwendolen," answered he. "What of Charlotte and the
child?"
Sitting down on the edge of the large bed, Gwendolen told him all there
was to tell. Her papa would get well in time, though he could not be
moved yet awhile; but Charlotte and the child were lying in extreme
danger.
"Dear me! dear me!" he said, and began to cry, as Grizzel had begun.
When a man is reduced, as Nash was, faint in mind and in body, the tears
are apt to lie near the eyes.
"And there's nobody to attend upon them but Mrs. Smith and her
maids--two of the stupidest country wenches you ever saw," said
Gwendolen. "I did not know how to come away this morning. The child is
more than one person's work."
"Why did you come?"
"Because I could not trust you; you know that, Nash. You want to be up
to your tricks too often."
"My tricks!"
"Yes. Going out of doors at night. I'm sure it is a dreadful
responsibility that's thrown upon me. And all for your own sake!"
"You need no longer fear that--if you call my going out the
responsibility. I shall never get out of this bed again, Gwinny."
"What makes you think so?"
"Look at me," answered Nash. "See if you think it likely. I do not."
She shook her head doubtingly. He certainly did look too ill to
stir--but she remembered the trouble there had been with him; the
fierce, wild yearning for exit, that could not be controlled.
"Are you not satisfied? Listen, then: I give you my solemn word of
honour not to go out of doors; not to attempt to do so. You must go back
to Charlotte and the boy."
"I'll see later," decided Gwinny. "I shall stay here till the afternoon,
at any rate."
And when the afternoon came she took her departure for the Rill.
Convinced by Nash's state that he could not quit his bed, and satisfied
at length by his own solemn and repeated assurances that he would not,
Gwinny Nave consigned him to the care of Grizzel, and quitted Caromel's
Farm.
Which left the field open again, you perceive. And the Squire and
Duffham were there that evening as they had been the previous one.
It was a curious time--the few days that ensued. Gwendolen Nave came
over for an hour or two every other day, but otherwise Caromel's Farm
was a free house. Her doubts and fears were gone, for Nash grew worse
very rapidly; and, though he sat up in his room sometimes, he could
hardly have got downstairs though the house were burning--as Grizzel put
it. And he seemed so calm, so tranquil, so entirely passive under his
affliction, so resigned to his enfeebled state, so averse to making
exertion of any kind, that Miss Gwinny could not have felt much easier
had he been in the burial-ground where Church Dykely supposed him to be.
What with his past incarceration, which had endured twelve months, and
what with the approach of death, which he had seen looming for pretty
nearly half that time, Nash Caromel's conscience had come back to him.
It was pricking him in more corners than one. As his love for Charlotte
Nave weakened--and it had been going down a long time, for he saw what
the Naves were now, and what they had done for him--his love for
Charlotte Tinkle came back, and he began to wish he could set wrongs to
rights. That never could be done; he had put it out of his power; but he
meant to make some little reparation, opportunity being allowed him.
"I want to make a will, Todhetley," he said one evening to the Squire,
as he sat by the fire, dressed, a huge carriage-rug thrown on his knees
for warmth. "I wonder if my lawyer could be induced to come to me?"
"Do you mean Nave?" retorted the Squire, who could not for the life of
him help having a fling at Caromel once in a way. "He has been your
lawyer of late years."
"You know I don't mean Nave; and if I did mean him he could not come,"
said poor Nash. "I mean our family lawyer, Crow. Since I discarded him
for Nave he has turned the cold shoulder upon me. When I've met him in
the street at Evesham, he has either passed me with a curt nod or looked
another way. I would rather have Crow than anybody, for he'd be true, I
know, if he could be induced to come."
"I'll see about it," said the Squire.
"And you'll be executor, won't you, Todhetley? you and Duffham."
"No," said the Squire. "And what sort of a will are you going to make?"
"I should like to be just," sighed Nash. "As just as I know how. As
just as I can be under the unfortunate circumstances I am placed in."
"That you have placed yourself in, Caromel."
"True. I think of it night and day. But she ought to be provided for.
And there's the boy!"
"Who ought to be?"
"My second wife."
"I don't say to the contrary. But there is somebody else, who has a
greater and prior claim upon you."
"I know. My heart would be good to leave her all. But that would hardly
be just. Poor Charlotte, how patient she has been!"
"Ah, you threw off a good woman when you threw her off. And when you
made that other infamous will, leaving her name out of it----"
"It was Nave made it," interrupted Nash, as hotly as his wasted
condition allowed him to speak. "He got another lawyer to draw it up,
for look's sake--but he virtually made it. And, Todhetley, I must--I
_must_ get another one made," he added, getting more and more excited;
"and there's no time to be lost. If I die to-night that will would have
to stand."
With the morning light the Squire went off to Evesham, driving Bob and
Blister, and saw the lawyer, Crow--an old gentleman with a bald head.
The two shut themselves up in a private room, and it seemed as if they
never meant to come out again.
First of all, old Crow had to recover his astonishment at hearing Nash
Caromel was living, and that took him some time; next, he had to get
over his disinclination and refusal--to act again for Nash, and that
took him longer.
"Mind," said he at last, "if I do consent to act--to see the man and
make his will--it will be done out of the respect I bore his father and
his brother, and because I don't like to stand in the way of an act of
justice. Mrs. Nash Caromel was here yesterday----"
"Mrs. Nash Caromel!" interrupted the Squire, in a puzzle, for his
thoughts had run over to Charlotte Nave. Which must have been very
foolish, seeing she was in bed with a damaged head.
"I speak of his wife," said the old gentleman, loftily. "I have never
called any other woman Mrs. Nash Caromel. Her uncle, Tinkle, of
Inkberrow, called about the transfer of some of his funded property,
and she was with him. I respect that young woman, Squire Todhetley."
"Ay, to be sure. So do I. Well, now, you will let me drive you back this
afternoon, and you'll take dinner with me, and we'll go to Caromel's
Farm afterwards. We never venture there before night; that Miss Gwinny
Nave makes her appearance sometimes in the daytime."
"It must be late in the afternoon then," said the lawyer, rather
crossly--for he did not enter into the business with a good grace yet.
"All the same to me," acquiesced the pater, pleased at having got his
consent on any terms.
And when the Squire drove in that evening just at the dinner-hour and
brought Lawyer Crow with him, we wondered what was agate. Old Jacobson,
who had called in, and been invited to stay by the mater, was as curious
as anything over it, and asked the Squire aside, what he was up to, that
he must employ Crow instead of his own man.
The will Nash Caromel wished to make was accomplished, signed and
sealed, himself and this said Evesham lawyer being alone privy to its
contents. Dobbs the blacksmith was fetched in, and he and Grizzel
witnessed it.
And, as if Nash Caromel had only lived to make the will, he went
galloping on to death at railroad speed directly it was done. A change
took place in him the same night. His bell rang for Grizzel, and the old
woman thought him dying.
But he rallied a bit the next day: and when the Squire got there in the
evening, he was sitting up by the fire dressed. And terribly uneasy.
"I want to see her," he began, before the Squire had time to say, How
are you, or How are you not. "I can't die in peace unless I see her. And
it will not be long first now. I am a bit better, but I thought I was
dying in the night: has Grizzel told you?"
The Squire nodded in silence. He was struck with the change in Nash.
"Who is it you want to see? Charlotte Tinkle?"
"Ay, you've guessed it. 'Twasn't hard to guess, was it? I want to see
her, Todhetley. I know she'd come."
Little doubt of that. Had Nash wanted her to visit him in the midst of
a fiery furnace, she'd have rushed into it headlong.
But there were difficulties in the way. Charlotte Tinkle was not one
of your strong-minded women who are born without nerves; and to tell
her that Nash Caromel was living, and not dead, might send her into
hysterics for a week. Besides that, Harry Tinkle was Nash Caromel's
bitter enemy: if he learnt the truth he might be for handing him over,
dying or living, to old Jones the constable.
"I don't see how she is to be got here, and that's the truth, Caromel,"
spoke the Squire, awaking from his reverie. "It's not a thing I should
like to undertake. Here comes Duffham."
"I know what you are thinking of--Harry Tinkle," returned Nash, as
Duffham felt his pulse. "When I was supposed to have died, balking him
of his revenge, he grew mad with rage. For a month afterwards he abused
me to everybody in the most atrocious terms: in public rooms, in----"
"Who told you that?" interrupted the Squire. "Nave?"
"Nave. I saw no one else to tell me." Duffham laughed.
"Then it was just as false as Nave is. You might have known Harry Tinkle
better."