Johnny Ludlow, Third Series

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.”

Nash looked up. “False!—was it?”

“Why, of course it was,” repeated the Squire. “I say you might have known Harry Tinkle better.”

Nash sighed. “Well, I suppose you think he might give me trouble now. But he would hardly care to apprehend a dying man.”

“We’ll see about it,” they said. Duffham undertook this expedition—if you can call it one. He found it easier than he anticipated. That same evening, upon quitting Caromel’s Farm, Duffham went mooning along, deep in thought, as to how he should make the disclosure to Charlotte, when he overtook her near his home. Her crape veil was thrown back; her face looked pale and quiet in the starlight.

“You are abroad late,” said Duffham.

“I went to see old Miss Pinner this afternoon, and stayed tea with her,” answered Charlotte. “And now I am going to run home.”

“Would you mind coming in for a few minutes, Mrs. Caromel?” he asked, as they reached his door. “I have something to say to you.”

“Can you say it another time? It is nine o’clock, and my mother will be wondering.”

“No; another time may not do,” said Duffham. “Come in. I won’t detain you long.”

And being just one of those yielding people that never assert a will of their own, in she went.

Shut up in Duffham’s surgery, which was more remote from Nomy’s ears than the parlour, Duffham disclosed to her by degrees the truth. Whether he had to get out his sal-volatile over it, or to recover her from fits, we did not hear. One thing was certain: that when Mrs. Nash Caromel recommenced her walk homewards, she was too bewildered to know whether she went on her feet or her head. By that time on the following evening she would have seen her husband.

At least, such was the programme Duffham carved out. But to that bargain, as he found the next day, there might be two words.

Eleven was striking in the morning by the kitchen clock at Caromel’s Farm, when Grizzel saw Miss Gwinny driving in. The damaged gig had been mended, and she now drove backwards and forwards herself.

“How’s the master?” asked she, when she entered the kitchen.

“Very ill,” answered Grizzel. “He won’t be with us long, now, ma’am.”

And when Miss Gwinny saw Nash, and saw how greatly he was altered in the last two days, she thought as Grizzel did—that death was close at hand. Under these circumstances, she sat down to reflect on what she ought to do: whether to remain herself in the house, or whether to go back to the Rill and report to her father and sister. For the latter had come out of her insensibility; the doctors said there was no permanent injury, and she could soon be removed home if she wished to be.

“What do you think, Grizzel?” she inquired, condescending to ask counsel. “It does not seem right to leave him—and you won’t like to be left alone, either, at the last. And I don’t see that any end will be gained by my hastening back to tell them. They’ll know it soon enough: and they cannot come to him.”

“As you please, Miss Gwinny,” replied Grizzel, trembling lest she should remain and complicate matters, but not daring to urge her departure; Gwinny Nave being given, as a great many more ladies are, to act by the rules of contrary in the matter of advice. “It seems hardly right, though, not to let the mistress know he is dying. And I am glad the child’s well: dear little thing!”

Gwinny Nave sat pulling at her one straw ringlet, her brow knitted in abstraction. Various reflections, suggesting certain unpleasant facts, passed rapidly through her mind. That Nash would not be here many days longer, perhaps not many hours, was a grave fact: and then, what of the after-necessities that would arise? A sham funeral had gone out of that house not very long ago: but how was the real funeral to go out, and who was to make the arrangements for it? The truth of Nash Caromel’s being alive, and of the trick which had been played, would have to be disclosed then. And Mr. Nave was incapacitated; he could do nothing, and her sister could do as little; and it seemed to be all falling upon herself, Gwinny; and who was to know but she might be punished for letting Nash lie and die without calling in a doctor to him?

With every fresh moment of thought, some darker complication presented itself. Miss Gwinny began to see that she had better get away, and leave old Grizzel to it. The case must be laid before her father. He might invent some scheme to avoid exposure: for though Lawyer Nave was deprived for the present of action, his mind was not less keen and fertile than usual.

“I think, Grizzel, that the mistress ought to be told how ill he is,” said she, at length. “I shall go back to the Rill. Do all you can for the master: I dare say he will rally.”

“That he never will,” spoke Grizzel, on impulse.

“Now don’t you be obstinate,” returned Miss Gwinny.

Gwendolen Nave drove back to the Rill. Leaving, as she thought, all responsibility upon old Grizzel. And, that evening, the coast being clear again, Charlotte Tinkle, piloted by Duffham, came to Caromel’s Farm and had an interview with her once recreant husband. It lasted longer than Duffham had bargained for; every five minutes he felt inclined to go and knock at the door. Her sobs and his dying voice, which seemed to be sobbing too, might be heard by all who chose to listen. At last Duffham went in and said that it must end: the emotion was bad for Nash. She was kneeling before the sofa on which he lay, her tears dropping.

“Good-bye, good-bye, Charlotte,” he whispered. “I have never cared for any one as I cared for you. Believe that. God bless you, my dear—and forgive me!”

And the next to go in was Harry Tinkle—to clasp Caromel’s hand, and to say how little he had needed to fear him. And the next was the Reverend Mr. Holland; Nash had asked for the parson to be sent for.

Grizzel had a surprise the next day. She had just taken some beef-tea up to the master, which Duffham had called out for—for the end was now so near that the doctor had not chosen to defer his visit till dark—when a closed fly drove up, out of which stepped Miss Gwinny and her sister. Old Grizzel dropped the waiter, thinking it must be her mistress’s ghost.

But it was Charlotte herself. Upon hearing Gwinny’s report she had insisted upon coming home—and Nave supported her views. That stupid old Grizzel, left to her own devices, might be for getting frightened and call in half the parish. The doctor in attendance at the Rill had said Mrs. Caromel might go home if she had any urgent reason for wishing it—and here she was. And really she seemed tolerably well again; quite herself.

Passing Grizzel with a nod, she went straight upstairs, opened Nash’s door, and then—drew back with a scream. For there she saw two strangers. Mr. Duffham was leaning over the bed, trying to feed Nash with spoonfuls of beef-tea; Parson Holland (who had stayed with Nash all night) sat by the fire. Poor Nash himself lay without motion: the hours were very limited now.

Well, there ensued a commotion. Charlotte Nave went down to blow up Grizzel; and she did it well, in spite of her recent illness. Grizzel answered that she was not to blame; it was not she who had betrayed him: Dobbs the blacksmith and Squire Todhetley had found him out, and the Squire had called in Duffham. Charlotte the Second had to make the best of a bad case; but she did not suspect half the treachery that had been at work.

There is no space to enlarge upon the day. Nash died that night; without having been able to speak a word to Charlotte the Second; he was past that when she came; though he shook hands with her.

And the other funeral, which Miss Nave had foreseen a difficulty over, took place without any difficulty. Unless it might be said that the crowd made one. Nash Caromel dead a second time! Church Dykely had never been astounded like this.

But the one dire act of treachery had to come out yet. Nash Caromel had made a fresh will. Crow the lawyer brought it in his pocket when he came from Evesham to attend the funeral, and he read it aloud afterwards. Mrs. Nash the Second sat biting her lips as she listened.

Caromel’s Farm and everything upon it, every stick and stone possessed by Nash, was directed to be sold without delay. Of the money this should realize, the one half was devised to “my dear wife Charlotte, formerly Charlotte Tinkle;” the other half was to be invested by trustees and settled upon “my child, Duncan Nave.” His mother, Charlotte Nave, was to receive a stated portion of the interest for life, or until she should marry again; and that was all the will said about Charlotte the Second.

There’s not much more to tell. As soon as might be, the changes were carried out. Before Lawyer Nave’s leg was fit to go again, Caromel’s Farm had been purchased by the Squire, and Harry Tinkle had taken it from him on a long lease. Just after Harry got into it with his little girl, Mrs. Tinkle died; and Charlotte, well off now, came to live in it with him. The other Charlotte proclaimed herself to be in bad health, and went off to stay at the sea-side. And Nave, when he came out again to rejoice the eyes of Church Dykely (walking lame), was fit to swallow us up with rage. He considered ladies’ parasols an infamous institution, and wished they were all sunk in the sea; especially that particular blue one of Charlotte’s which had led to the accident that unlucky afternoon.

It seemed strange that, after all the chances and changes, it should be a Mrs. Nash Caromel (she was always given her true name now) to inhabit Caromel’s Farm. She, forgiving and loving, made friends with little Dun for poor Nash’s sake, inviting him often to spend the day with her, and picking him choice fruit off the trees.

A DAY IN BRIAR WOOD

That day, and its events, can never go out of my memory. There are epochs in life that lie upon the heart for ever, marking the past like stones placed for retrospect. They may be of pleasure, or they may be of pain; but there they are, in that great store-field locked up within us, to be recalled at will as long as life shall last.

It was in August, and one of the hottest days of that hot month. A brilliant day: the sun shining with never a cloud to soften it, the sky intensely blue. Just the day for a picnic, provided you had shade.

Shade we had. Briar Wood abounds in it. For the towering trees are dark, and their foliage thick. Here and there the wood opens, and you come upon the sweetest little bits of meadow-land scenery that a painter’s eye could desire. Patches of green glade, smooth enough for fairy revels; undulating banks, draped with ferns and fragrant with sweet wild-flowers; dells dark, and dim, to roam in and fancy yourself out of the world.

Briar Wood belonged to Sir John Whitney. It was of a good length but narrow, terminating at one end in the tangled coppice which we had dashed through that long-past day when we played at hare and hounds, and poor Charles Van Rheyn had died, in that same coppice, of the running. The other and best end, up where these lonely glades lie sheltered, extends itself nearly to the lands belonging to Vale Farm—if you have not forgotten that place. The wood was a rare resort for poachers and gipsies, as well as picnic parties, and every now and again Sir John would declare that it should be rooted up.

We were staying at Whitney Hall. Miss Deveen was there on a visit (Cattledon included, of course), and Sir John wrote over to invite us for a few days to meet her: the Squire and Mrs. Todhetley, I and Tod. And, there we were, enjoying ourselves like anything.

It was Sir John himself who proposed the picnic. He called it a gipsy-party: indeed, the word “picnic” had hardly come in then, for this happened many a year ago. The weather was so hot indoors that Sir John thought it might be an agreeable change to live a day in the open air; and lie in the shade and look up at the blue sky through the flickering trees. So the cook was told to provide fowls and ham and pigeon pies, with apple puffs, salads, and creams.

“The large carriage and the four-wheeled chaise shall take the ladies,” observed Sir John, “and I dare say they can make room for me and the Squire amongst them; it’s a short distance, and we shan’t mind a little crowding. You young men can walk.”

So it was ordained. The carriages started, and we after them, William and Henry Whitney disputing as to which was the best route to take: Bill holding out for that by Goose Brook, Harry for that by the river. It ended in our dividing: I went with Bill his way; the rest of the young Whitneys and Tod the other, with Featherston’s nephew; an overgrown young giant of seventeen, about six feet high, who had been told he might come.

Barring the heat, it was a glorious walk: just as it was a glorious day. Passing Goose Brook (a little stream meandering through the trees, with a rustic bridge across it: though why it should bear that name I never knew), we soon came to the coppice end of the wood.

“Now,” said Bill to me, “shall we plunge into the wood at once, and so onwards right through it; or skirt round by the Granary?”

“The wood will be the shadiest,” I answered.

“And pleasantest. I’m not at all sure, though, Johnny, that I shan’t lose my way in it. It has all kinds of bewildering tricks and turnings.”

“Never mind if you do. We can find it again.”

“We should have been safe to meet some of those Leonards had we gone by the Granary,” observed Bill, as we turned into the wood, where just at present the trees were thin, “and they might have been wanting to join us, pushing fellows that they are! I don’t like them.”

“Who are those Leonards, I wonder? Who were they before they came here?”

“Old Leonard made a mint of money in India, and his sons are spending it for him as fast as they can. One day when he was talking to my father, he hinted that he had taken this remote place, the Granary, and brought them down here, to get them out of the fast lives they were leading in London. He got afraid, he said.”

“Haven’t the sons any professions, Bill?”

“Don’t seem to have. Or anything else that’s good—money excepted?”

“What do they do with their time?”

“Anything. Idle it away. Keep dogs; and shoot, and fish, and lounge, and smoke, and– Halloa! look yonder, Johnny!”

Briar Wood had no straight and direct road through it; but plenty of small paths and byways and turnings and windings, that might bring you, by good luck, to landing at last; or might take you unconsciously back whence you came. Emerging from a part, where the trees grew dark and dense and thick, upon one of those delightful glades I spoke of before, we saw what I took to be a small gipsy encampment. A fire of sticks, with a kettle upon it, smoked upon the ground; beside it sat a young woman and child; a few tin wares, tied together, lay in a corner, and some rabbits’ skins were stretched out to dry on the branches of trees.

Up started the woman, and came swiftly towards us. A regular gipsy, with the purple-black hair, the yellow skin, and the large soft gleaming eyes. It was a beautiful young face, but worn and thin and anxious.

“Do you want your fortunes told, my good young gentlemen? I can–”

“Not a bit of it,” interrupted Bill. “Go back to your fire. We are only passing through.”

“I can read the lines of your hands unerringly, my pretty sirs. I can forewarn you of evil, and prepare you for good.”

“Now, look you here,” cried Bill, turning upon her good-humouredly, as she followed up with a lot of the like stuff, “I can forewarn you of it, unless you are content to leave us alone. This wood belongs to Sir John Whitney, as I dare say all your fraternity know, and his keepers wage war against you when they find you are encamped here, and that I am sure you know. Mind your own affairs, and you may stay here in peace, for me: keep on bothering us, and I go straight to Rednal and give him a hint. I am Sir John’s son.”

He threw her a sixpence, and the woman’s face changed as she caught it. The persuasive smile vanished as if by magic, giving place to a look of anxious pain.

“What’s the matter?” said he.

“Do you know my husband, sir?” she asked. “It’s more than likely that you do.”

“And what if I do?” cried Whitney.

The woman took the words as an affirmative answer. She drew near, and laid her small brown finger on his coat-sleeve.

“Then, if you chance to meet him, sir, persuade him to come back to me, for the love of Heaven. I can read the future: and for some days past, since we first halted here, I have foreseen that evil is in store for him. He won’t believe me; he is not one of us; but I scent it in the air, and it comes nearer and nearer; it is drawing very close now. He may listen to you, sir, for we respect Sir John, who is never hard on us as some great owners of the land are; and oh, send him back here to me and the child! Better that it should fall on him when by our side than when away from us.”