CHAPTER IV

What is lovelier, just when Autumn throws her lace around us, and begs us not to begin to think of any spiteful winter, because she has not yet unfolded half the wealth of her bosom, and will not look over her shoulder – when we take that rich one gaily for her gifts of beauty; what among her clustered hair, freshened with the hoar–frost in imitation of the Spring (all fashions do recur so), tell us what can be more pretty, pearly, light, and elegant, more memoried of maidenhood, than a jolly spiderʼs web?

See how the diamonds quiver and sparkle in the September morning; what jeweller could have set them so? All of graduated light and metrical proportion, every third pre–eminent, strung on soft aerial tension, as of woven hoar–frost, and every carrying thread encrusted with the breath of fairies, then crossed and latticed at just angles, with narrowing interstices, to a radiated octagon – the more we look, the more we wonder at the perfect tracery. Then, if we gently breathe upon it, or a leaf of the bramble shivers, how from the open centre a whiff of waving motion flows down every vibrant radius, every weft accepts the waft slowly and lulling vibration, every stay–rope jerks and quivers, and all the fleeting subtilty expands, contracts, and undulates.

Yet if an elegant spider glide out, exquisite, many–dappled, pellucid like a Scotch pebble or a calceolaria, with a dozen dimples upon his back, and eight fierce eyes all up for business, the moment he slips from the blackberry–leaf all sense of beauty is lost to the gazer, because he thinks of rapacity.

And so, I fear, John Rosedewʼs hat described in the air a flourish of more courtesy than cordiality, when he saw Mrs. Corklemore gliding forth from the bend of the road in front of him. Although she had left the house after him, by the help of a short cut through the gardens, where the rector would no longer take the liberty of trespassing, she contrived to meet him as if herself returning from the village.

“Oh, Mr. Rosedew, I am so glad to see you,” cried Georgie, as he tried to escape with his bow: “what a fortunate accident!”

“Indeed!” said John, not meaning to be rude, but unwittingly suggesting a modified view of the bliss.

“Ah, I am so sorry; but you are prejudiced against me, I fear, because my simple convictions incline me to the Low Church view.”

That hit was a very clever one. No other bolt she could have shot would have brought the parson to bay so, upon his homeward road, with the important news he bore.

“I assure you, Mrs. Corklemore, I beg to assure you most distinctly, that you are quite wrong in thinking that. Most truly I hope that I have allowed no prejudice, upon such grounds, to dwell for a moment with me.”

“Then you are not a ritualist? And you think, so far as I understand you, that the Low Church people are quite as good as the High Church?”

“I hope they are as good; still I doubt their being as right. But charity is greater even than faith and hope. And, for the sake of charity, I would wash all rubrics white. If the living are rebuked for lagging to bury their dead, how shall they be praised for battling over the Burial Service?”

Mrs. Corklemore, quick as she was, did not understand the allusion. Mr. Rosedew referred to a paltry dissension over a corpse in Oxfordshire, which had created strong disgust, far and near, among believers; while infidels gloried in it. It cannot be too soon forgotten and forgiven.

“Oh, Mr. Rosedew, I am so glad that your sentiments are so liberal. I had always feared that liberal sentiments proceeded from, or at least were associated with, weak faith.”

“I hope not, madam. The most liberal One I have ever read of was God as well as man. But I cannot speak of such matters casually, as I would talk of the weather. If your mind is uneasy, and I can in any way help you, it is my duty to do so.”

“Oh, thank you. No; I donʼt think I could do that. We are such Protestants at Coo Nest. Forgive me, I see I have hurt you.”

“You misunderstand me purposely,” said John Rosedew, with that crack of perception which comes (like a chapped lip) suddenly to folks who are too charitable, “or else you take a strangely intensified view of the simplest matters. All I intended was – ”

“Oh yes, oh yes, I am always misunderstanding everybody. I am so dreadfully stupid and simple. But you will relieve my mind, Mr. Rosedew?”

Here Georgie held out the most beautiful hand that ever darned a dish–cloth, so white, and warm, and dainty, from her glove and pink muff–lining. Mr. Rosedew, of course, was compelled to take it, and she left it a long time with him.

“To be sure I will, if it is in my power, and you will only tell me how.”

“It is simply this,” she answered, meekly, dropping her eyes, and sighing; “I do so long to do good works, and never can tell how to set about it. Unhappily, I am brought so much more into contact with the worldly–minded, than with those who would improve me, and I feel the lack of something, something sadly deficient in my spiritual state. Could you assign me a district anywhere? I am sadly ignorant, but I might do some little ministering, feeling as I do for every one. If it were only ten cottages, with an interesting sheep–stealer! Oh, that would be so charming. Can I have a sheep–stealer?”

“I fear I cannot accommodate you” – the parson was smiling in spite of himself, she looked so beautifully earnest; “we have no felons here, and scarcely even a hen–stealer. Though I must not take any credit for that. Every house in the village is Sir Cradock Nowellʼs, and Mr. Garnet is not long in ousting the evil–doers.”

“Oh, Sir Cradock; poor Sir Cradock!” Here she came to the real object of her expedition. “Oh, Mr. Rosedew, tell me kindly, as a Christian minister; I am in so difficult a position, – have you noticed in poor Sir Cradock anything strange of late, anything odd and lamentable?”

Mr. Rosedew hated to be called a “minister,” – the Dissenters love the word so, and even the great John had his weaknesses.

“I trust I should tell you the truth, Mrs. Corklemore, whether invoked as a minister, or asked simply as a man.”

“No doubt you would – of course you would. I am always making such mistakes. I am so unused to clever people. But do tell me, in any capacity which may suit you best” – it was foolish of her not to forego that little repartee – ”whether you have observed of late anything odd and deplorable, anything we who love him so – ” Here she hesitated, and wiped her eyes.

“Though Sir Cradock Nowell,” replied Mr. Rosedew, slowly, and buttoning up his coat at the risk of spoiling his cockʼs–comb frill, “is no longer my dearest friend, as he was for nearly fifty years, it does not become me to speak about him confidentially and disparagingly to a lady whom I have not had the honour of seeing more than four times, including therein the celebration of Divine service, at which a district–visitor should attend with some regularity, if only for the sake of example. Mrs. Corklemore, I have the honour of wishing you good morning.”

Although the parson had neither desire nor power to pierce the ladyʼs schemes, he felt, by that peculiar instinct which truly honest men have (though they do not always use it), that the lady was dishonest, and dishonestly seeking something. Else had he never uttered a speech so unlike his usual courtesy. As for poor simple Georgie, she was rolled over too completely to do anything but gasp. Then she went to the gorse to recover herself; and presently she laughed, not spitefully, but with real amusement at her own discomfiture.

Being quite a young woman still, and therefore not spe longa, and feeling a want of sympathy in waiting for dead menʼs shoes, Mrs. Corklemore, who had some genius – if creative power prove it; if gignere, not gigni, be taken as the test, though perhaps it requires both of them, – that sweet mother of a sweeter child (if so much of the saccharine be admitted by Chancellors of the Exchequer, themselves men of more alcohol), what did she do but devise a scheme to wear the shoes, ipso vivo, and put the old gentleman into the slippers.

How very desirable it was that Nowelhurst Hall, and those vast estates, should be in the possession of some one who knew how to enjoy them, and make a proper use of them! Poor Sir Cradock never could do so; it was painfully evident that he never more could discharge his duties to society, that he was listless, passive, somnolent, – somnambulant perhaps she ought to say, a man walking in a dream. She had heard of cases, – more than that, she had actually known them, – sad cases in which that pressure on the brain, which so frequently accompanies the slow reaction from sudden and terrible trials, had crushed the reason altogether, especially after a “certain age.” What a pity! And it might be twenty years yet before it pleased God to remove him. He had a tough and wiry look about him. In common kindness and humanity, something surely ought to be done to relieve him, to make him happier.

Nothing rough, of course; nothing harsh or coercive. No personal restraint whatever, for the poor old dear was not dangerous; only to make him what she believed was called a “Committee in Chancery” – there she was wrong, for the guardian is the Committee – and then Mr. Corklemore, of course, and Mr. Kettledrum would act for him. At least she should think so, unless there was some obnoxious trustee, under his marriage–settlement. That settlement must be got at; so much depended upon it. Probably young Cradock would succeed thereunder to all the settled estate upon his fatherʼs death. If so, there was nothing for it, except to make him incapable, by convicting him of felony. Poor fellow! She had no wish to hang him. She would not have done it for the world; and she had heard he was so good–looking. But there was no fear of his being hanged, like the son of a tradesman or peasant.