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

“Neither do I, Garnet; I only know she has made me insult the dearest friend I had on earth.”

“Yes, Mr. Rosedew; I heard of it, and wondered at your weakness. But it did not become me to interfere.”

“Certainly not: most certainly not. You could not expect me to bear it. And the Rosedews never liked you.”

“That has nothing to do with it. Very probably they are right; for I do not like myself. And you will not dislike, but hate me, when you know what I have to say.”

Bull Garnetʼs mind was now made up. For months he had been thinking, forecasting, doubting, wavering – a condition of mind so strange to him, so adrift from all his landmarks, that this alone, without sense of guilt, must have kept him in wretchedness.

Sir Cradock Nowell only said, “Keep it for another time. I cannot bear any more excitement; I have had so much to–day.”

Bull Garnet looked at him sorrowfully. He could not bear to see his brother beaten so by trouble, and to feel his own hard hand in it.

“Donʼt you know what they say of me? Oh, you know what they say of me; and nothing of the kind in the family!” The old man seemed to prove that there was, by the vague flashing of his eyes: “Garnet, you are my brother; after all, you are my brother. And they say I am going mad; and I know they will try to shut me up, without a horse, or a book, or a boy to brush my trousers. Oh, Garnet, you have been bitterly wronged, shamefully wronged, detestably; but you will not let your own brother – brother, who has no sons now to protect him, – be shut up, and made nothing of? Bull Garnet, promise me this, although we have so wronged you.”

Garnet knew not what to do. Even he was taken aback, shocked by this sudden outburst, which partly proved what it denied. And this altogether changed the form of the confession he was come to make – and changed it for the better.

“My brother” – it was the first time he had ever so addressed him; not from diffidence, but from pride – ”my brother, let us look at things, if possible, as God made them. I have been injured no doubt, and so my mother was; blasted, both of us, for life, according to the little ideas of this creeping world. In many cases, the thief is the rogue; in even more, the robbed one is the only villain. Now can you take the large view of things which is forced upon us outsiders when we dare to think at all?”

“I cannot think now of such abstract things. My mind is astray with trouble. Did I ever tell you your motherʼs words, when she came here ten or twelve years ago, and demanded a share of the property? Not for her own sake, but for yours, to get you into some business.”

“No, I never heard of it. How it must have hurt her!” Bull Garnet was astonished; because it had long been understood that his mother should not be spoken of.

“And me as well. I gave her a cheque for a liberal sum, as I thought. She tore it, and threw it at me. What more could I do? Did I deserve her curse, Garnet? Is all this trouble come upon me because I did not obey her?”

“I believe that you meant to do exactly what was right.”

“I hope – I believe, I did. And see how wrong she was in one part of her prediction. She said that I and my father also should be punished through you, through you, her only son. What a mistake that has proved! You, who are my right arm and brain; my only hope and comfort!”

The old man came up, and looked with the deepest trust and admiration at his unacknowledged brother. A few months ago, Bull Garnet would have taken such a look as his truest and best revenge for the cruel wrong to his mother. But now he fell away from it, and muttered something, in a manner quite unlike his own. His mind was made up, he was come to tell all; but how could he do it now, and wrench the old manʼs latest hope away?

Then suddenly he remembered, or knew from his own feelings, that an old manʼs last hope in earthly matters should rest upon no friend or brother, not even upon a wife, but upon his own begotten, his successors in the world. And what he had to say, while tearing all reliance from himself, would replace it where it should be.

Meanwhile Sir Cradock Nowell, thinking that Garnet was too grateful for a few kind words, followed him, and placed his slender tremulous and pure–bred hand in the useful cross–bred palm which had sent Mr. Jupp down the coal–shaft.

“Bull, you are my very best friend. After all, we are brothers. Promise to defend me.”

But Garnet only withdrew his hand, and sighed, and could not look at him.

“Oh, then, even you believe it; I see you do! It must be true. God have mercy upon me!”

“Cradock, it is a cursed lie; you must not dwell upon it. Such thoughts are spawn of madness; turn to another subject. Just tell me what is the greatest thing one man can do to another?”

“To love him, I suppose, Garnet. But I donʼt care much for that sort of thing, since I lost my children.”

“Yes, it is a grand thing to love; but far grander to forgive.”

“Is it? I am glad to hear it. I always could forgive.”

“Little things, you mean, no doubt. Slights and slurs – and so forth?”

“Yes, and great things also. But I am not what I was, Bull. You know what I have been through.”

“Can you forgive as deep a wrong as one man ever did to another?”

“Yes, I dare say. I am sure I donʼt know. What makes you look at me like that?”

“Because I shot your son Clayton; and because I did it on purpose.”

“Viley! my boy Viley! Oh, I had forgotten. What a stupid thing of me! I thought he was dead somehow. Now, I will open the door for him, because his hands are full. And let him put his game on the table – never mind the papers – he always likes me to see it. Oh, Viley, how long you have been away! What a bag you must have made! Come in, my boy; come in.”

Bull Garnetʼs heart cleaved to his side, as the old man opened the door, and looked, with the leaping joy of a fatherʼs love, for his pet, his beloved, his treasured one. But nothing except cold air came in.

“The passage is empty. Perhaps he is waiting, because his boots are dirty. Tell him not to think twice about that. I am fidgety sometimes, I know; and I scolded him last Friday. But now he may come anyhow, if he will only come to me. I am so dull without him.”

“You will never see him more” – Bull Garnet whispered through a flood of tears, like grass waving out of water – ”until it pleases God to take you home, where son and father go alike; sometimes one first, sometimes other, as His holy will is. He came to an unholy end. I tell you again – I shot him.”

“Excuse me; I donʼt quite understand. There was a grey hare, with a nick in her ear, who came to the breakfast–room window all through the hard weather last winter, and he promised me not to shoot her; and I am sure that he cannot have done it, because he is so soft–hearted, and that is why I love him so. Talk of Cradock – talk of Cradock! Perhaps he is cleverer than Viley – though I never will believe it – but is he half so soft and sweet? Will the pigeons sit on his shoulder so, and the dogs nuzzle under his coat–lap? Tell me that – tell me that – Bull Garnet.”

He leaned on the strong arm of his steward, and looked eagerly for his answer; then trembled with an exceeding great fear, to see that he was weeping. That such a man should weep! But Garnet forced himself to speak.

“You cannot listen to me now; I will come again, and talk to you. God knows the agony to me; and worst of all that it is for nothing. Yet all of it not a thousandth part of the anguish I have caused. Perhaps it is wisest so. Perhaps it is for my childrenʼs sake that I, who have killed your pet child, cannot make you know it. Yet it adds to my despair, that I have killed the father too.”

Scarcely knowing voice from silence, dazed himself, and blurred, and giddy – so strong is contagion of the mind – Bull Garnet went to the stables, saddled a horse without calling groom, and rode off at full gallop to Dr. Buller. By the time he got there his business habits and wonted fashion of thought had returned, and he put what he came for in lucid form, tersely, crisply, dryly, as if in the world there were no such thing as ill–regulated emotion – except on the part of other people.

“Not a bit of it,” said Dr. Buller; “his mind is as sound as yours or mine, and his constitution excellent. He has been troubled a good deal; but bless me – I know a man who lost his three children in a month, and could scarcely pay for their coffins, sir. And his wife only six weeks afterwards. That is what I call trouble, sir!”

Bull Garnet knew, from his glistening eyes, and the quivering of his grey locks, that the man he spoke of was himself. Reassured about Sir Cradock, yet fearing to try him further at present, Mr. Garnet went heavily homewards, after begging Dr. Buller to call, as if by chance, at the Hall, observe, and attend to the master.

Heavily and wearily Bull Garnet went to the home which once had been so sweet to him, and was now beloved so painfully. The storms of earth were closing round him, only the stars of heaven were bright. Myriad as the forest leaves, and darkly moving in like manner, fears, and doubts, and miseries sprang and trembled through him.

No young maid at his door to meet him lovingly and gaily. None to say, “Oh, darling father, how hungry you must be, dear!” Only Pearl, so wan and cold, and scared of soft affection. And as she timidly approached, then dropped her eyes before his gaze, and took his hat submissively, as if she had no lips to kiss, no hand to lay on his shoulder, he saw with one quick glance that still some new grief had befallen her, that still another trouble was come to make its home with her.

“What is it, Pearl?” he asked her, sadly; “come in here and tell me.” He never called her his Pearly now, his little native, or pretty pet, as he used to do in the old days. They had dropped those little endearments.

“You will be sorry to hear it – sorry, I mean, that it happened; but I could not have done otherwise.”

“I never hear anything, now, Pearl, but what I am sorry to hear. This will make little difference.”

“So I suppose,” she answered. “Mr. Pell has been here to–day, and – and – oh, father, you know what.”

“Indeed I have not been informed of anything. What do I know of Mr. Pell?”

“More than he does of you, sir. He asked me to be his wife.”

“He is a good man. But of course you said ‘No.’”

“Of course I did. Of course, of course. What else can I ever say?”