Johnny Ludlow Third Series Part 55

This put the finishing stroke to the Squire's temper. He flung out of the room with a few unorthodox words, and came home in a tantrum.

We had had times of commotion at Church d.y.k.ely before, but this affair capped all. The one Mrs. Nash Caromel waiting to go into her house, and the other Mrs. Nash Caromel refusing to go out of it to make room for her. The Squire was right when saying it was public property: the public made it theirs. Tongues pitched into Nash Caromel in the fields and in the road: but some few of us pitied him, thinking what on earth we could do ourselves in a like position. While old Jones the constable stalked briskly about, expecting to get a warrant for taking up the master of Caromel's Farm.

But the great drawback to inst.i.tuting legal proceedings lay with Mrs.

Nash Caromel the First. She declined to prosecute. Her husband might refuse to receive her; might hold himself aloof from her; might keep his second wife by his side; but she would never hurt a hair of his head.

Heaven might bring things round in its own good time, she said; meanwhile she would submit--and bear.

And she held to this, driving indignant men distracted. They argued, they persuaded, they remonstrated; it was said that one or two strong-minded ones _swore_. All the same. She stayed on at her mother's, and would neither injure her husband herself, nor let her family injure him. Henry Tinkle, her brother, chanced to be from home (as he was when she had run away to be married), or he might have acted in spite of her.

And, when this state of things had continued for two or three weeks, the world began to call it a "crying scandal." As to Nash Caromel, he did not show his face abroad.

"Not a day longer shall the fellow retain my money," said the pater, speaking of the twelve hundred pounds he had lent to Nash: and in fact the term it had been lent for was already up. But it is easier to make such a threat than to enforce it; and it is not everybody who can extract twelve hundred pounds at will from uncertain coffers. Any way the Squire found he could not. He wrote to Nash, demanding its return; and he wrote to Nave.

Nash did not answer him at all. Nave's clerk sent a semi-insolent letter, saying Mr. Caromel should be communicated with when occasion offered. The Squire wrote in a rage to his lawyer at Worcester, bidding him enforce the repayment.

"You two lads can take the letter to the post," said he.

But we had not got many yards from home when we heard the Squire coming after us. We all walked into Church d.y.k.ely together; and close to the post-office, which was at Dame Chad's shop, we met Duffham. Of course the Squire, who could not keep anything in had he been bribed to do it, told Duffham what steps he was about to take.

"Going to enforce payment," nodded Duffham. "The man deserves no quarter. But he is ill."

"Serve him right. What's the matter with him?"

"Nervous fever. Has fretted or frightened himself into it. Report says that he is very ill indeed."

"Don't you attend him?"

"Not I. I did not please madam at the time the boy was born--would not give in to some of her whims and fancies. They have called in that new doctor who has settled in the next parish, young Bluck."

"Why, he is no better than an apothecary's boy, that young Bluck!

Caromel can't be very ill, if they have him."

"So ill, that, as I have just heard, he is in great danger--likely to die," replied Duffham, tapping his cane against the ledge of Dame Chad's window. "Bluck's young, but he is clever."

"Bless my heart! Likely to die! What, Nash Caromel! Here, you lads, if that's it, I won't annoy him just now about the money, so don't post the letter."

"It is posted," said Tod. "I have just put it in."

"Go in and explain to Dame Chad, and get it out again. Or, stay; the letter can go, and I'll write and say it's not to be acted on until he is well again. Nervous fever! I'm afraid his conscience has been p.r.i.c.king him."

"I hope it has," said Duffham.

II.

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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing-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 n.o.body 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 a.s.semble 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 circ.u.mstances _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.