"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 n.o.body 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 a.s.surances 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 pa.s.sive 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 d.y.k.ely 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 p.r.i.c.king 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances 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.