Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Volume 3 of 3

“Well, I always try to be nice. But how can I, out butterfly–hunting?”

“Now, you wonʼt understand me. You are as bad as a weevil that wonʼt take chloroform. What I mean is, very pretty.”

“I donʼt know anything about that,” said Eoa, drawing back; “and I donʼt see that you have any right even to talk about it. Oh, there goes a lovely butterfly!”

“Where, where? What eyes you have got! I do wish I was married to you. What a collection we would have! And you would never let my traps off. I am sure that you are a great deal better and prettier than Amy. And I like you more than anybody I have ever seen.”

“Do you, Bob? Are you sure of that?”

She fixed her large eyes upon his; and in one moment her beauty went to the bottom of his heart. It changed him from a boy to a man, from play to passion, from dreams to thought. And happy for him that it was so, with the trouble impending over him.

She saw the change; herself too young, too pure (in spite of all the evil that ever had drifted by her) to know or ask what it meant. She only felt that Bob liked her now better than he liked Amy. She had no idea of the deep anticipation of her eyes.

“Eoa, wonʼt you answer me?” He had been talking some nonsense. “Why are you crying so dreadfully? Do you hate me so much as all that?”

“Oh no, no, Bob. I am sure I donʼt hate you at all. I only wish I did. No, I donʼt, Bob. I am so glad that I donʼt. I donʼt care a quarter so much, Bob, for all the rest of the world put together.”

“Then only look up at me, Eoa. I canʼt tell what I am saying. Only look up. You are so nice. And you have got such eyes.”

“Have I?” said Eoa, throwing all their splendour on him; “oh, I am so glad you like them.”

“Do you think that you could give me just a sort of a kiss, Eoa? People always do, you know. And, indeed, I feel that you ought.”

“I scarcely know what is right, Bob, after all the things they have told me. But now, you know, you must guide me.”

“Then, Iʼll tell you what. Just let me give you one. The leaves are coming out so.”

“Well, thatʼs a different thing,” said Eoa. “Amy canʼt see us, can she?”

Sir Cradock Nowell was very angry when his niece came home, and told him, with an air of triumph, all that Bob had said to her.

“That butterfly–hunting boy, Eoa! To think of his presuming so! A mere boy! A boy like that!”

“Thatʼs the very thing, uncle. Perhaps if he had been a girl, you know, I should not have liked him half so much. And as for his hunting butterflies, I like him all the better for that. And weʼll hunt them all day long.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Uncle Cradock, smiling at the young girlʼs earnestness in spite of all his wrath; “that is your idea of married life then, is it? But I never will allow it, Eoa: he is not your equal.”

“Of course not, uncle. He is my superior in every possible way.”

“Scarcely so, in the matter of birth; nor yet, my child, I fear, in a pecuniary sense.”

“For both of those I donʼt care two pice. You know it is all very nice, Uncle Cradock, to live in large rooms, where you can put three chairs together, and jump over them all without knocking your head, and to have beautiful books, and prawns for breakfast, and flowers all the year round; and to be able to scold people without their daring to answer. But I could do without all that very well, but I never could do without Bob.”

“I fear you must, indeed, my dear. As other people have had to do.”

“Well, I donʼt see why, unless God takes him; and then He should take me too. And, indeed, I had better tell you once for all, Uncle Cradock, that I do not mean to try. It would be so shabby of me, after what I told him just now, and after his saving my life; and you yourself said yesterday that no Nowell had ever been shabby. You have been very kind to me and good, and I love you very much, I am sure. But in spite of all that, I wish you clearly to understand, Uncle Cradock, that if you try any nonsense with me, I shall get my darling fatherʼs money, and go and live away from you.”

“My dear,” said the old man, smiling at the manner and tone of her menace, which she delivered as if her departure must at least annihilate him, “you are laying your plans too rapidly. You are not seventeen until next July; and you cannot touch your poor fatherʼs money until you are twenty–one.”

“I donʼt care,” she replied; “he is sure to have been right about it. But I will tell you another thing. Everybody says that I could earn ten thousand a year as an opera–dancer in London. And I should like it very much, – that is to say, if Bob did. And I would not think of changing my name, as I have heard that most of them do. I should be ‘Miss Eoa Nowell, the celebrated dancer.’”

“God forbid!” said Sir Cradock. “My only brotherʼs only child! I will not trouble you about him, dear. Only I beg you to consider.”

“To be sure I will, Uncle Cradock, I have been considering ever since how long it must be till I marry him. Now give me a kiss, dear, and I wonʼt dance, except for your amusement. And I donʼt think I can dance for a long time, after what I have been told about poor Cousin Cradock. I am sure he was very nice, uncle, from what everybody says of him, and I am almost certain that you behaved very badly to him.”

“My dear, you are allowed to say what you like, because nobody can stop you. But your own good feeling should make you spare me the pain of that sad subject.”

“Not if you deserve the pain for having been hard–hearted. And much you cared for my pain, when you spoke of Bob so. Besides, you are quite sure to hear of it; and it had better come from me, dear uncle, who am so considerate.”

“Something new? What is it, my child? I can bear almost anything now.”

“It is that some vile wretches are trying to get what they call a warrant against him, and so to put him in jail.”

“Put him in jail? My unfortunate son! What more has he been doing?”

“Nothing at all. And I donʼt believe that he ever did any harm. But what the brutes say is that he did that terrible thing on purpose. Oh, uncle, donʼt look at me like that. How I wish I had never told you!”

Poor Sir Cradockʼs mind was not so clear and strong as it had been, although the rumours scattered by Georgie were shameful exaggerations. The habit of brooding over his grief, whenever he was alone – a habit more and more indulged, as it became a morbid pleasure – the loss moreover of his accustomed exercise, for he never would go out riding now, having no son to ride with him; these, and the ever–present dread of some inevitable inquiry, began to disturb, though not destroy, the delicate fibres of reason, which had not too much room in his brain.

He fell into the depths of an easy–chair, and wondered what it was he had heard. The lids of his mindʼs eye had taken a blink, as will happen sometimes to old people, and to young ones too for that matter; neither was it the first time this thing had befallen him.

Then Eoa told him again what it was, because he made her tell it; and again it shocked him dreadfully; but that time he remembered it.

“And I have no doubt,” continued his niece, with bright tears on her cheeks, “that Mrs. Corklemore herself is at the bottom of it.”

“Georgie! What, my niece Georgie!”

“She is not your niece, Uncle Cradock. I am your niece, and nobody else; and you had better not think of wronging me. If you call her your niece any more, I know I will never call you my uncle. Nasty limy slimy thing! If you would only give me leave to choke her!”

“My darling child,” cried her uncle, who loved her the more (though he knew it not) for siding with his son so, “you are so very hot and hasty. I am sure Mrs. Corklemore speaks of you with the warmest pity and affection.”

“Shall I tell you why she does, Uncle Crad? Shall I tell you in plain English? Most likely you will be shocked, you know.”

“My dear, I am so used to you, that I am never shocked now at anything.”

“Then it is because she is such a jolly liar.”

“Eoa, I really must send you to a ‘nice institution for young ladies.’ You get worse and worse.”

“If you do, Iʼll jump over the wall the first night, and Bob shall come to catch me. But now without any nonsense, uncle, for you do talk a good deal of nonsense, will you promise me one thing?”

“A dozen, if you like, my darling. Anything in reason. You did look so like your poor father then.”

“Oh, I am so glad of that. But it is not a thing of reason, uncle; it is simply a thing of justice. Now will you promise solemnly to send away Mrs. Corklemore, and never speak to her again, if she vows that she knows nothing of this, and if I prove from her own handwriting that it is her plot altogether, and also another plot against us, every bit as bad, if not worse?”

“Of course, Eoa, I will promise you that, as solemnly as you please. What a deluded child you are!”

“Am I? Now let her come in, and deny it. Thatʼs the first part of the business.”