Bradfield

“ I am a rich man, and I was able to do all I could for the son of my old friend.”
“Gilbert Wryde!” assented the young man. Seeing the look of surprise on John Bradfield’s face, he added, “I learnt that from Miss Abercarne.”
“Well,” pursued Mr. Bradfield, “there’s only one thing for you to do now; you must make your way to Melbourne—I will supply the funds—and prosecute your inquiries there. In the meantime, I will draw up a will, which you shall see, making you all the reparation in my power.” ”

“ The fire had died down somewhat, the cheering was more spasmodic and subdued, the time for speeches had come. Every one crowded closer, and the wagon, not the burning pile, became the centre of attention.
"Speech! speech!" cried '98. "A speech, Braddy."
Bradfield was not only the pitcher, but the Captain of the Freshman nine. So they forced him upon the high seat, and yelled for quiet. Braddy looked down upon the densely packed mass, hushed for the moment into something like stillness, and his nerve completely deserted him. ”

“ Chris glanced at his face, and a sudden remembrance of Mr. Bradfield’s unfortunate ward flashed into her mind. Without reason, by a woman’s sensitive instinct, she connected the words he had just uttered, the hard, harsh spirit which they betrayed, with the treatment of the man whom he kept shut up in such a mysterious manner in the east wing. ”

“ A fair, colourless, middle-aged man, under the middle height, and inclined to be stout, he was the most inoffensive-looking person in the world, and, to judge by his demeanour as he stood in the hall, holding his shabby tall hat in his hand, and looking about him with an air of awe-struck astonishment, the humblest and the meekest.
As John Bradfield approached him, with outstretched hand, and a rather forced smile of welcome on his face, Mr. Marrable withdrew his gaze from the objects around him, and fixed it nervously upon his old friend. ”

“ I help ’em to get rid of ’em!” rejoined Mr. Bradfield, tartly. “I hate the poor and needy. I’ve been poor and needy myself, and,” he wound up with a sudden viciousness in his tone, “I know just how they feel towards me, because I remember how I used to feel towards anyone better off than myself.”
Chris was almost frightened. For Mr. Bradfield’s private feelings had, for the moment, run away with him, and he showed the girl, unconsciously, into a dark corner of his mind, which it would have been better for him to have kept hidden while his wooing lasted. ”

“ So far from appearing to be impressed by the gentle rebuke, Mr. Bradfield proceeded to offend more deeply. Merely nodding to the elderly lady, without the formality of a glance in her direction, he kept his eyes fixed upon Chris as he took a step forward, which brought him into the corner by the piano, and in front of the fireplace. Here he stood for a few moments in perfect silence, still looking at the young girl, and rubbing his hands softly, the one over the other, in the warmth of the fire. ”

“ Bradfield. He called to you by name!”
Mr. Bradfield turned in his seat, as if to have another look at the man; but they had turned a corner, and he was out of sight.
“Did he, though?” said he, as if in surprise. “Well, I daresay he’ll find me out, if he wants anything of me. People have a trick of doing that.” Then, as if dismissing the subject from his thoughts, he said, “Well, haven’t I been ‘good?’ Will you come out with me again?”
Chris laughed with some constraint. Mr. Bradfield certainly had behaved well, but she did not want to put his good behaviour to any further tests. ”

“ Rather surprised, and wondering where he was going to lead her to, Chris followed Mr. Bradfield, not along the paths among the trees, but by a more open one, which passed nearer to the walls of the house, between two flower-borders. They turned the corner of the house, and as they did so, Mr. Bradfield looked up at the first-floor windows on the south side.
Mr. Richard was standing at one of them, with his face close to the glass, looking out.
“Mind,” said Mr. Bradfield, as he put one hand as if for protection on her shoulder, “when he sees you he will fall into a paroxysm of fury. ”

“ Bradfield’s humanity in keeping him under his own roof. But when she and her daughter were alone again, safe in their own room, the elderly lady turned the key hastily, and confided her fears to her daughter in a tremulous whisper.
“It’s all very well for Mr. Bradfield to say this lunatic’s harmless,” she said, close to her daughter’s ear, “but I don’t believe it. If he were harmless, why should he be kept in rooms by himself, and be locked in? No, Chris; depend upon it, he’s a dangerous lunatic, and that man who rushed out is his keeper. ”

“ Anything more you want to know?”
“Only this—who are the others?”
“Men you’ve never heard of. Old chums of Wryde’s.”
“Do they live in England?”
“No; out in Australia.”
“Oh!”
This exclamation might be taken as signifying assent, and it was thus that John Bradfield chose to take it; and the subject was dropped out of their talk, if not out of their minds.
The assiduity with which John Bradfield tended his old friend was wonderful. It was remarked that he [Pg 205] scarcely let anybody else go near him; that he slept in Marrable’s room, and even served him with his own hands. ”

“ So, having got a sympathetic ear, as he thought, into which to pour his troubles, he maundered on about the old times to his heart’s content; for John Bradfield, who knew how obstinate his cousin could be, and how maliciously bent he was on encouraging Marrable, dared not bring worse upon himself by active interference.
“Yes,” murmured he, with a mournful sigh, as Mr. Graham-Shute filled his proffered glass for him, “some are born lucky, and some unlucky, there’s no denying that. ”

“ Bradfield was inclined to take everything the young girl said in good part. He even offered to turn the leaves of her music, with apologies for his clumsiness, which was indeed extreme. Chris, who, although not a performer of special excellence, read music well and with spirit, was in an ecstasy of girlish enjoyment, and she communicated the contagion to her older companions. Mr. Bradfield was good humour itself; Mrs. Abercarne was the perfection of graciousness. ”

“ Is it true, Bradfield?"
"I should not say that the feeling at Oxford is as out-and-out Tory as it was, but the young Radical is often a very ridiculous man," The Bradder replied, and took a pear off the dish in front of him and began to peel it. ”

“ And I will let you hear from me again.”
“You won’t stay—to dinner?” asked Mr. Bradfield, feeling tolerably secure of his answer.
“No, thank you. There is a train back to town in about an hour. Good afternoon.”
And he left the room without another word.
Mr. Bradfield followed him out, and saw him go through the iron gate at the end of the drive, then he went back into the study, and passed his hand with a gesture of relief across his forehead.
“Saved!” muttered he. “Safe for a few hours. What must be the next move?” ”

“ Now Chris had nothing to say to this, for she thought the “best people” were very lucky in being taken up by Mr. Bradfield. They were mostly poor and proud, which is not a nice combination, and they showed their poverty in their eagerness to avail themselves of Mr. Bradfield’s invitations, and their pride in their unanimity in not inviting him back.
Mr. Cullingworth, luckily, did not wait for an answer, but resumed, with admiration:
“Why, there’s all the very best society of Wyngham here to-night, there is, indeed. I suppose you know them all, don’t you?” ”

“ Bradfield had not yet come in from the dining-room, so Chris could chatter on at her ease.
“To think of being able to get everything one [Pg 53] wanted, just by sending to town for it. No question whether it costs sixpence or ten pounds. To be able to look into the windows without considering that four and elevenpence three farthings is five shillings. Oh! mother,” and she pounced upon a waltz, and a song, and a gavotte, which she felt sure she should like, “I feel as if I were living in an enchanted palace, and as if Mr. Bradfield were the good fairy.” ”

“ Bradfield at all about him, and, above all, not to let him know that you have seen him anywhere but at the windows of the east wing.”
Chris was much troubled by this request, and after a few moments spent in thought, she said, earnestly:
“But, Stelfox, I think you are doing Mr. Bradfield a great injustice. He is a very kind-hearted man, and if he were once persuaded that it would do his ward good to come out——”
“He would keep him in all the more securely,” said Stelfox, with a dry laugh. ”

“ May there be many such!
4th.—I left Wimpole, and the 9th came to Bradfield after a journey of eight weeks, thanks to the Almighty, in health and safety. There passed a week, staying two Sundays. Mrs. Y. in great health, and when that is the case in too much irritation—God forgive her—life is a scene of worrying, time trifled with, a book never looked in, quarrels and irritation never subsiding. My daughter and daughter-in-law reading cart loads of novels. While at Bradfield I received from Sir J. Banks, confidentially, many enquiries about the means of encouraging the culture of hemp ”

“ As for London, I seem to have lost my old fondness for it somehow. The old folk are dead; my poor mother died there as soon as we got back. I seem to have got disgusted with the bricks and mortar somehow. There’s nothing I should like better than to settle down for the rest of my days in a nice country place, as you have done.”
John Bradfield did not take this hint, as his friend had hoped. But he invited Marrable to come upstairs, and said he would see what he could do for him in the way of evening dress.
Unfortunately this was not much. John Bradfield was slim, Alfred Marrable was stout. ”

“ The first suggestion which came into John Bradfield’s mind was bribery, but the next moment’s reflection told him that this was always a dangerous method, for if he were to make Marrable a handsome money present with the condition that he must take himself back to town immediately, that gentleman, little gifted as he was with intellectual brilliancy, could hardly fail to see that his old friend must have some strong motive for wishing to get rid of him. ”

“ Bradfield?” asked Chris, demurely; “at the door of the barn?”
“Yes, yes,” said he, hastily; “at least, since that, and before that—all the afternoon, I mean?”
“First I worked in the Chinese-room, making the dresses for to-morrow night,” began Chris.
“Oh! that tomfoolery,” interrupted Mr. Bradfield. “I wouldn’t have anything to do with it if I were you. Everything will go wrong, and all the blame will be put on to your shoulders. I know my gushing cousin—and her methods!” ”

“ I think that I am the last man in the world to take offence where none is meant; but at any rate I determined to end the matter by leaving Bradfield at once. It had struck me, during my journey back from Stockwell, that Birchespool would be a good place; so on the very next day I started off, taking my luggage with me, and bidding a final good-bye to Cullingworth and his wife.
“You rely upon me, laddie,” said C. with something of his old geniality, as we shook hands on parting. “You get a good house in a central position, put up your plate and hold on by your toe-nails. ”

“ And when he unlocked the door of Marrable’s room, and went in, he had left the key outside.
Mr. Bradfield softly turned the key in the lock. Then, going quickly to his workshop, which was only a few yards away, he returned with a pair of nippers, and mounting on a chair, he neatly snipped the bell-wire in two.
“Now,” said he to himself, “when they find they’re locked in, they will ring the bell, and nobody will come. And that door will stand a good many kicks.” ”

“ Bradfield was evidently much puzzled. All the golden youth of Wyngham and the neighbourhood [Pg 161] were dancing in his drawing-rooms that night, and who the fortunate young man could be who was considered good-looking by such a connoisseur as Lilith, and whom Chris condescended to meet on the sly, he had not the remotest notion. Certainly a man’s ideas of another man’s good looks differed considerably from those of a girl ”

“ William looked at him incredulously, though he could not go so far as to contradict him.
His wife rushed in to the rescue.
[Pg 89]
“And what are we going to do to pass the time away between this and Friday?” she asked, with a great assumption of buoyancy and good spirits. “We ought to try to ‘get up’ something, ought we not?”
This question almost restored John Bradfield’s good humour. It was so characteristic of his cousin Maude. She was always “getting up” something, always at short notice, and always badly. ”

“ John Bradfield, who had been turning over the situation in his mind, gave his old friend a hint as they went downstairs.
“I say, old chap,” said he, in a confidential tone, “there’s one thing I want you to do to oblige me.”
“Anything, old man, anything.”
“You see, I’m a great man here, not the poor starveling I was when you and I went out in the steerage to Melbourne thirty years ago. I don’t think I’ve grown much of a snob, but still one doesn’t care, when one’s got on, to have all the servants talking about their master having been glad enough to do things for himself once. Do you see?” ”

“ About fourteen miles north-east of Exeter, in the valley of the Culm, stands Bradfield; an avenue of cedars leads up to the house, which is an Elizabethan one in a very perfect condition. The banqueting-hall is panelled throughout, and its fine carved roof is supported by elaborately carved and pierced hammer-beams. High at one end is the minstrels' gallery, and at the other is a latticed window, which opened on to a corridor, and is said to have been used by the lady of the house, who could see from it anything that might be happening in the hall. ”