Читать книгу Cradock Nowell - R. D. Blackmore - Страница 22

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Meanwhile Sir Cradock Nowell had found, at the peaceful Rectory, a tumult nearly as bad as that which he had left in his own household. In a room which was called by others the book–room, by herself “the library”, Miss Eudoxia sat half choked, in a violent fit of hysterics, Amy and fat Jemima doing their utmost to console her and bring her round. Sir Cradock had little experience of women, and did the worst thing he could have done—that is to say, he stood gazing.

“Amy”, groaned Miss Eudoxia—“Amy, if you donʼt want to kill me, get him out of the room, my child”.

“Go, go, go”! cried Amy, in desperation. “Canʼt you see, godpapa, that we shall do better without you; oh, ever, ever so much”?

Sir Cradock Nowell felt a longing to box pretty Amyʼs ears; he had always loved his godchild, Amy, and chastened her accordingly. He now loved Amy best in the world, next to his pet son, Clayton. To tell the truth, he had bathed himself in the sunset–glow of match–making, all the way down the chase. Clayton, proclaimed the heir and all that, should marry Amy Rosedew; what could it matter to him about money, and where else would he find such a maiden? Then, in the course of a few more years—so soon as ever there were five, or, say at the most six children—he, Sir Cradock, would make over the management of the property; that is, if he felt tired of it, and they were both very steady. And what of Cradock, you planning father, what of your other son, Cradock? In faith, he must do for a parson.

Sir Cradock retired in no small flurry, and went to the garden to look for Jem. Miss Eudoxia became at once unconscious, as she ought to have been long ago; and thenceforth she would never acknowledge that she had seen the intruder at all; or, indeed, that there had been one. However, it cured her, for a very long time, of those sad attacks of hysteria.

This present attack was the natural result of a violent conflict with Amy, who was not going to be trampled upon, even by Aunt Doxy. It appears that, early in the afternoon, the good aunt began to wonder what on earth was become of her niece. Of course she could not be at the school, because Wednesday was a half–holiday; she was not in the library, nor in the back–kitchen, nor even out at Pincherʼs kennel. No, nor even in the garden, although she had a magnificent lot of bulbs to plant, for which she had saved up ever so much of her little pocket–money. “Well”, said Miss Eudoxia, who was thirsting for her gossip, which she always held after lunch—“well, I must say this is most inconsiderate of her. And I promised John to take her to the park, and how am I to get ready? Girls are not what they used to be, though Amy is such a good girl. They read all sorts of trashy books, and then they go eloping”.

That last idea sent the good aunt in hot haste to Amyʼs bedroom; and who should be there, sitting by the window, with a small book in her hand, but beautiful Amy herself.

“Well”! cried Miss Eudoxia, heavily offended; “indeed, I am surprised. So this is what you prefer, is it, to your own auntʼs conversation? And, I declare, what a colour you have! And panting, as if you had asthma! Let me see that book this moment, miss”!

“To be sure, Aunt Eudoxia”, said Amy, rather indignantly; “but you need not be in a pet, you know”.

“Oh, neednʼt I, indeed, when you read such books as this! Oh, what will your poor father say? And you to have a class in the Sunday–school”!

Of all the grisly horrors produced to make the travellerʼs hair creep, one of the most repulsive and glaring was in Amyʼs delicate hand. A hideous ape, with an open razor, was about to cut a young ladyʼs throat. Chuckling, he drew her fair neck to the blade by her dishevelled hair. At her feet lay an elderly woman, dead; while a man with a red cap was gazing complacently in at the window. The back of the volume was relieved by a ghost, a deathʼs head, and a pair of cross–bones.

“Well”! said Miss Eudoxia. Her breath was gone for a long while, and she could say nothing more.

“I know the cover is ugly, aunt, but the inside is so beautiful. Oh, and so very wonderful! I canʼt think how any one ever could imagine such splendid horrible things. Oh, so clever, Aunt Doxy; and full of things that make me tingle, as if my brain were gone to sleep. And I want to ask papa particularly about galvanizing the mummy”.

“Indeed; yes, galvanizing! and pray does your father know of your having this horrible book”?

“No; but I mean to tell him, the moment I have got to the end of it”.

“Good child, and most dutiful! When you have swallowed the poison, youʼll tell us”.

“Poison indeed, Aunt Eudoxia! How dare you talk to me like that? Do you dare to suppose that I would read a thing that was unfit for me”?

“No, I donʼt think you would, knowingly. But you are not the proper judge. Why did you not ask your father or me, before you began this book”?

“Because I thought you wouldnʼt let me read it”.

“Well, that does beat everything. Candid impudence, I call that, perfectly candid insolence”! Aunt Doxyʼs throat began to swell; there was weak gorge in the family. Meanwhile, Miss Amy, who all the time had been jerking her shoulders and standing upright, in a manner peculiarly her own—Amy felt that her last words required some explanation. She had her fatherʼs strong sense of justice, though often pulled crooked by womanhood.

“You know well enough what I mean, aunt, though you love to misrepresent me so. I mean that you would not let me read it, not because it was wrong (which it isnʼt), but for fear of making me nervous. And upon that subject, at least, I think I have a right to judge for myself”.

“Oh, I dare say; you, indeed! And pray who lent you that book? Unless, indeed, in your self–assertion, you went to a railway and bought it”.

“That is just the sort of thing I would rather die than tell, after all the fuss you have made about it”.

“Thank you; I quite perceive. A young gentleman—not to be betrayed—scamp, whoever he is”. It was Clayton Nowell who had lent the book.

“Is he indeed? I wish you were only half as upright and honourable”.

Hereupon Miss Eudoxia, who had dragged her niece down to the book–room, with dialogue all down the stairs, muttered something about her will, that she had a little to leave, though not much, but honestly her own—God knew—and down she went upon the chair, with both hands to her side. At the sequel, as we have seen, Sir Cradock Nowell assisted, and took little for his pains.

After this, of course, there was a great reconciliation. For they loved each other thoroughly; and each was sure to be wild with herself for having been harsh to the other. They agreed that their eyes were much too red now to go and see the nascent fireworks.

“A gentlemanʼs party to–night; my own sweet love, how glad I am! I ought to know better, Amy dearest; and they have never sent the goulard. I ought to know, my own lovey pet, that we can trust you in everything”.

“No, aunty dear, you oughtnʼt. I am as obstinate as a pig sometimes; and I wish you would box my ears, aunt. I hope my hair wonʼt be right for a month, dearest aunt, where you pulled it; and as for the book, I have thrown it into the kitchen–fire long ago, though I do wish, darling aunt, you could have read about the descent into the Mäelstrom. I declare my head goes round ever since! What amazing command of language! And he knows a great deal about cooking”.

James Pottles, groom and gardener, who even aspired to the hand, or at any rate, to the lips, of the plump and gaudy Jemima, was not at all the sort of fellow you would appreciate at the first interview. His wits were slow and mild, and had never yet been hurried, for his parents were unambitious. It took him a long time to consider, and a long time again to express himself, which he did with a roll of his tongue. None the less for that, Jem Pottles was quoted all over the village as a sayer of good things. No conclusion was thought quite safe, at least by the orthodox women, until it had been asked with a knowing look—“And what do Jem Pottles say of it”? Feeling thus his responsibility, and the gravity of his opinion, Jem grew slower than ever, and had lately contracted a habit of shutting one eye as he cogitated. As cause and effect always act and react, this added enormously to his repute, until Mark Stote the gamekeeper, and Reuben Cuff the constable, ached and itched with jealousy of that “cock–eyed, cock–headed boy”.

Sir Cradock found Jem quite at his leisure, sweeping up some of the leaves in the shrubbery, and pleasantly cracking the filberts which he discovered among them. These he peeled very carefully, and put them in the pocket of his stable waistcoat, ready for Jemima by–and–by. He swished away very hard with the broom the moment he saw the old gentleman, and touched his hat in a way that showed he could scarcely spare time to do it.

“What way, my lad, do you think it likely your master will come home to–day”?

This was just the sort of question upon which Jem might commit himself, and lose a deal of prestige; so he pretended not to hear it, and brushed the very ground up. These tactics, however, availed him not, for Sir Cradock repeated his inquiry in a tone of irritation. Jem leaned his chin on the broom–handle, and closed one eye deliberately.

“Well, he maight perhaps come the haigher road, and again a maight come the lower wai, and Iʼve a knowed him crass the chase, sir, same as might be fram alongside of Meester Garnetʼs house. There never be no telling the wai, any more than the time of un. But itʼs never no odds to me”.

“And which way do you think the most likely now”?

“Not to say ‘now’, but bumbai laike. If so be a cooms arly, a maight come long of the haigher road as goes to the ‘Jolly Foresters;’ and if a comʼth middlin’ arly, you maight rackon may be on the town wai; but if he cometh unoosial late, and a heap of folks be sickenin’ or hisself hath pulled a book out, a maight goo round by Westacot, and come home by Squire Garnetʼs wai”. Rich in alternatives, Jem Pottles opened the closed eye, and shut the open one.

“What a fool the fellow is”! said Sir Cradock to himself; “Iʼll try the first way, at any rate. For if John is so late, I could not stop for him, with all those people coming. How I wish we were free from strangers to–night, with all these events in the family! But perhaps, if we manage it well, it will carry it off all the better”.

Sir Cradock Nowell was in high spirits as he started leisurely for a saunter along the higher road. This was the road which ran eastward, both from the Hall and the Rectory, into the depth of the forest. In all England there is no lovelier lane, if there be one to compare with it. Many of the forest roads are in fault, because they are too open. You see too far, you see too much, and you are not truly embowered. In a forest we do not want long views, except to rejoice in the amplitude. And a few of those, just here and there, enlarge the great enjoyment. What we want, as the main thing of all, as the staple feeling, is the deep, mysterious, wondering sense of being swallowed up, and knowing it: swallowed up, not as we are in catacombs, or wine–vaults, or any railway tunnel; but in our own motherʼs love, with God around us everywhere. To many of us, perhaps to most, so placed at fall of evening, there is a certain awe, a dread which overshades enjoyment. If so, it springs in part at least from our unnatural nature; that is to say, the education which teaches us so very little of the things around us.

How the arches spring overhead, and the brown leaves flutter among them! In and out, and through and through, across and across, with delicacy, veining the very shadows. For miles we may wander beneath them, and see no two alike. How, for fear of wearying us, after infinite twists and turns—but none of them contortions—after playing across the heavens, and sweeping away the sunshine, now in this evening light they hover, and rustle like the skirts of death. Is there one of them with its lichen–mantle copied from its neighbourʼs? Is there one that has borrowed a line, a character, even a cast of complexion from its own brother rubbing against it? Their arms bend over us as we walk, we are in their odour and influence, we know that, like the Magi of old, they adore only God and His sun; and, when we come out from under them, we never ask why we are sad.