Thomas was in his arm-chair, bending forward towards the fire, as she entered. His face would have been utterly colourless, save for the bluish tinge which had settled there, a tinge distinguishable even in the red blaze. Janet, keen-sighted as Margery, thought the hue had grown more ominous since she quitted him in the afternoon.
“Have you come back alone?” asked Thomas, turning towards her.
“George accompanied me as far as the ash-trees: I met him. Bessy is staying on for an hour with Lady Godolphin.”
“It’s a fine night,” he observed.
“It is,” replied Janet. “Thomas,” dropping her voice, “the Shadow is abroad.”
“Ah!”
The response was spoken in no tone of dread, or dismay; but calmly, pleasantly, with a smile upon his lips.
“It has changed its tone,” continued Janet, “and may be called grey now instead of black. I thought it had left us for good, Thomas. I suppose it had to come once more.”
“If it cared to keep up its character for consistency,” he said, his voice jesting. “If it has been the advance herald of the death of other Godolphins, why should it not herald in mine?”
“I did not expect to hear you joke about the Shadow,” observed Janet, after a pause of vexation.
“Nay, there’s no harm in it. I have never understood it, you know, Janet; none of us have; so little have we understood, that we have not known whether to believe or disbelieve. A short while, Janet, and things may be made plainer to me.”
“How are you feeling to-night?” somewhat abruptly asked Janet, looking askance at his face.
“Never better of late days. It seems as if ease both of mind and body had come to me. I think,” he added, after a few moments’ reflection, “that what George tells me of a prospect opening for him, has imparted this sense of ease. I have thought of him a great deal, Janet; of his wife and child; of what would become of him and of them. He may live yet to be a comfort to his family; to repair to others some of the injury he has caused. Oh, Janet! I am ready to go.”
Janet turned her eyes from the fire, that the rising tears might not be seen. “The Shadow was very light, Thomas,” she repeated. “Whatever it may herald forth, will not be much of a misfortune.”
“A misfortune!—to be taken to my rest!—to the good God who has so loved and kept me here! No, Janet. A few minutes before you came in, I fell into a doze, and I dreamt that I saw Jesus Christ standing there by the window, waiting for me. He had His hand stretched out to me with a smile. So vivid had been the impression, that whenI awoke I thought it was reality, and was hastening towards the window before I recollected myself.”
Janet rang the bell for lights to be brought in. Thomas, his elbow resting on the arm of his chair, bent his head upon his hand, and became lost in imagination in the glories that might so soon open to him. Bright forms were flitting around a wondrous throne, golden harps in their hands; and in one of them, her harp idle, her radiant face turned as if watching for one who might be coming, he seemed to recognize Ethel.
George Godolphin meanwhile had gone home, and was sitting with his wife and child. The room was bright with light and fire, and George’s spirits were bright in accordance with it. He had been enlarging upon the prospect offered to him, describing a life in India in vivid colours; had drawn some imaginative pen-and-ink sketches of Miss Meta on a camel’s back; in a gorgeous palanquin; in an open terrace gallery, being fanned by about fifty slaves: the young lady herself looking on at the pictures in a high state of excitement, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks flushed. Maria seemed to partake of the general hilarity. Whether she was really better, or the unexpected return of her husband had infused into her artificial strength, unwonted excitement, certain it is that she was not looking very ill that night: her cheeks had borrowed some of Meta’s colour, and her lips were parted with a smile. The child’s chatter never ceased; it was papa this, papa the other, incessantly. Margery felt rather cross, and when she came in to add some dainty to the substantial tea she had prepared for her master, told him she hoped he would not be for carrying Miss Meta out to the wretched foreign places that were only good for convicts. India and Botany Bay ranked precisely alike in Margery’s estimation.
But tea was done with and removed, and the evening went on, and Margery came again to escort Miss Meta to bed. Miss Meta was not in a hurry to be escorted. Her nimble feet were flying everywhere: from papa at the table, to mamma who sat on the sofa near the fire: from mamma to Margery, standing silent and grim, scarcely deigning to look at the pen-and-ink sketches that Meta exhibited to her.
“I don’t see no sense in ’em, for my part,” slightingly spoke Margery, regarding with dubious eyes one somewhat indistinct representation held up to her. “Those things bain’t like Christian animals. An elephant, d’ye call it? Which is its head and which is its tail?”
Meta whisked off to her papa, elephant in hand. “Papa, which is its head, and which is its tail?”
“That’s its tail,” said George. “You’ll know its head from its tail when you come to ride one, Margery,” cried he, throwing his laughing glance at the woman.
“Me ride an elephant! me mount one o’ them animals!” was the indignant response. “I should like to see myself at it! It might be just as well, sir, if you didn’t talk about them to the child: I shall have her starting out of her sleep screaming to-night, fancying that a score of them’s eating her up.”
George laughed. Meta’s busy brain was at work; very busy, very blithesome just then.
“Papa, do we have swings in India?”
“Lots of them,” responded George.
“Do they go up to the trees? Are they as good as the one Mrs. Pain made for me at the Folly?”
“Ten times better than that,” said George slightingly. “That was a muff of a swing, compared with what the others will be.”
Meta considered. “You didn’t see it, papa. It went up—up—oh, ever so high.”
“Did it?” said George. “We’ll send the others higher.”
“Who’ll swing me?” continued Meta. “Mrs. Pain? She used to swing me before. Will she go to India with us?”
“Not she,” said George. “What should she go for? Look here. Here’s Meta on an elephant, and Margery on another, in attendance behind.”
He had been mischievously sketching it off: Meta sitting at her ease on the elephant, her dainty little legs astride, boy fashion, was rather a pretty sight: but poor Margery grasping the animal’s head, her face one picture of horror in her fear of falling, and some half-dozen natives propping her up on either side, was only a ludicrous one.
Margery looked daggers, but nothing could exceed Meta’s delight. “Draw mamma upon one, papa; make her elephant alongside mine.”
“Draw mamma upon one?” repeated George. “I think we’ll have mamma in a palanquin; the elephants shall be reserved for you and Margery.”
“Is she coming to bed to-night, or isn’t she?” demanded Margery, in uncommonly sharp tones, speaking for the benefit of the company generally, not to any one in particular.
Meta paid little attention; George appeared to pay less. In taking his knife from his waistcoat-pocket to cut the pencil, preparatory to “drawing mamma and the palanquin,” he happened to bring forth a ring. Those quick little eyes saw it: they saw most things. “That’s Uncle Thomas’s!” cried the child.
In his somewhat hasty attempt to return it to his pocket, George let the ring fall to the ground, and it rolled towards Margery. She picked it up, wonderingly—almost fearfully. She had believed that Mr. Godolphin would not part with his signet-ring during life: the ring which he had offered to the bankruptcy commissioners, and they, with every token of respect, had returned to him.
“Oh, sir! Surely he is not dead?”
“Dead!” echoed George, looking at her in surprise. “I left him better than usual, Margery, when I came away.”
Margery said no more. Meta was not so scrupulous. “Uncle Thomas always has that on his finger: he seals his letters with it. Why have you brought it away, papa?”
“He does not want it to seal letters with any longer, Meta,” George answered, speaking gravely now, and stroking her golden curls. “I shall use it in future for sealing mine.”
“Who’ll wear it?” asked Meta. “You, or Uncle Thomas?”
“I shall—some time. But it is quite time Meta was in bed; and Margery looks as if she thought so. There! just a few of mamma’s grapes, and away to dream of elephants.”
Some fine white grapes were heaped on a plate upon the table; they were what George had brought from London for his wife. He broke some off for Meta, and that spoiled young damsel climbed on his knee, while she ate them, chattering incessantly.
“Will there be parrots in India? Red ones?”
“Plenty. Red and green and blue and yellow,” returned George, who was rather magnificent in his promises. “There’ll be monkeys as well—as Margery’s fond of them.”
Margery flung off in a temper. But the words had brought a recollection to Meta. She bustled up on her knees, neglecting her grapes, gazing at her papa in consternation.
“Uncle Reginald was to bring me home some monkeys and some parrots and a Chinese dog that won’t bite. How shall I have them, papa, if I have gone to Cal—what is it?” She spoke better than she did, and could sound the “th” now; but the name of the place was difficult to be remembered.
“Calcutta. We’ll write word to Regy’s ship to come round there and leave them,” replied ready George.
It satisfied the child. She finished her grapes, and then George took her in his arms to Maria to be kissed, and afterwards put her down outside the door to offended Margery, after kissing lovingly her pretty lips and her golden curls.
His manner had changed when he returned. He stood by the fire, near Maria, grave and earnest, and began talking more seriously to her on this new project than he had done in the presence of his child.
“I think I should do wrong were I to refuse it: do not you, Maria? It is an offer that is not often met with.”
“Yes, I think you would do wrong to refuse it. It is far better than anything I had hoped for.”
“And can you be ready to start by New Year’s Day?”
“I—I could be ready, of course,” she answered. “But I—I—don’t know whether——”
She came to a final stop. George looked at her in surprise: in addition to her hesitation, he detected considerable emotion.
She stood up by him and leaned her arm on the mantel-piece. She strove to speak quietly, to choke down the rebellious rising in her throat: her breath went and came, her bosom heaved. “George, I am not sure whether I shall be able to undertake the voyage. I am not sure that I shall live to go out.”
Did his heart beat a shade quicker? He looked at her more in surprise still than in any other feeling. He had not in the least realized this faint suggestion of the future.
“My darling, what do you mean?”
He passed his arm round her waist, and drew her to him. Maria let her head fall upon his shoulder, and the tears began to trickle down her wasted cheeks.
“I cannot get strong, George. I grow weaker instead of stronger; and I begin to think I shall never be well again. I begin to know I shall never be well again!” she added, amending the words. “I have thought it for some time.”
“How do you feel?” he asked, breaking the silence that had ensued. “Are you in any pain?”
“I have had a pain in my throat ever since the—ever since the summer: and I have a constant inward pain here”—touching her chest. “Mr. Snow says both arise from the same cause—nervousness! but I don’t know.”
“Maria,” he said, his voice quite trembling with its tenderness, “shall I tell you what it is? The worry of the past summer has had a bad effect upon you, and brought you into this weak state. Mr. Snow is right: it is nervousness: and you must have change of scene ere you can recover. Is he attending you?”
“He calls every other day or so, and he sends me medicine of different kinds; tonics, I fancy. I wish I could get strong! I might—perhaps—get a little better, that is, I might feel a trifle better, if I were not always so entirely alone. I wish,” she more timidly added, “that you could be more with me than you are.”
“You cannot wish it as heartily as I,” returned George. “A little while, my darling, and things will be bright again. I have been earnestly and constantly seeking for something to do in London; I was obliged to be there. Now that I have this place given me, I must be there still, chiefly, until we sail, making my preparations. You can come to me if you like, until we do go,” he added, “if you would rather be there than here. I can change my bachelor lodgings, and get a place large enough for you and Meta.”
She felt that she was not equal to the removal, and she felt that if she really were to leave Europe she must remain this short intervening time near her father and mother. But—even as she thought it—the conviction came upon her, firm and strong, that she never should leave it; should not live to leave it. George’s voice, eager and hopeful, interrupted.
“We shall begin life anew in India, Maria: with the old country we shall leave old sores behind us. As to Margery—I don’t know what’s to be done about her. It would half break her heart to drag her to a new land, and quite break it to carry off Meta from her. Perhaps we had better not attempt to influence her either way, but let the decision rest entirely with her.”
“She will never face the live elephants,” said Maria, her lips smiling at the joke, as she endeavoured to be gay and hopeful as George was. But the effort entirely failed. A vision came over her of George therealone; herself in the cold grave, whither she believed she was surely hastening; Meta—ay—what of Meta?
“Oh, George! if I might but get strong! if I might but live to go with you!” she cried in a wail of agony.
“Hush, hush! Maria, hush! I must not scold you: but indeed it is not right to give way to these low spirits. That of itself will keep you back. Shall I take you to town with me when I return to-morrow, just for a week’s change? I know it would partially bring you round, and we would make shift in my rooms for the time. Margery will take care of Meta here.”
She knew how worse than useless was the thought of attempting it; she saw that George could not be brought to understand her excessiveweakness. A faint hope came across her that, now that the uncertainty of his future prospects was removed, she might grow better. That uncertainty had been distressing her sick heart for months.
She subdued her emotion and sat down in the chair quietly, saying that she was not strong enough to go up with him this time: it would be a change in one sense for her, she added, thinking of the new life; and then she began to talk of other things.
“Did you see Reginald before he sailed?”
“Not immediately before it, I think.”
“You are aware that he has gone as a common seaman?”
“Yes. By the way, there’s no knowing what I may be able to do for Regy out there, and for Isaac too, perhaps. Once I am in a good position I shall be able to assist them—and I’ll do it. Regy hates the sea: I’ll get him something more to his taste in Calcutta.”
Maria’s face flushed with hope, and she clasped her nervous hands together. “If you could, George! how thankful I should be! I think of poor Regy and his hard life night and day.”
“Which is not good for you by any means, young lady. I wish you’d get out of that habit of thinking and fretting about others. It has been just poor Thomas’s fault.”
She answered by a faint smile. “Has Thomas given you his ring?” she asked.
“He gave it me this afternoon,” replied George, taking it from his pocket. It was a ring with a bright green stone, on which was engraved the arms of the Godolphins. Sir George had worn it always, and it came to Thomas at his death: now it had come to George.
“You do not wear it, George.”
“Not yet. I cannot bear to put it on my finger while Thomas lives. In point of fact, I have no right to do so—at least to use the signet: it belongs exclusively to the head of the Godolphins.”
“Do you see Mrs. Pain often?” Maria presently said, with apparent indifference. But George little knew the fluttering emotion that had been working within, or the effort it had taken to subdue that emotion ere the question could be put.
“I see her sometimes; not often. She gets me to ride with her in the Park now and then.”
“Does she continue to reside with the Verralls?”
“I suppose so. I have not heard her mention anything about it.”
“George, I have wondered where Mrs. Pain’s money comes from,” Maria resumed in a dreamy tone. “It was said in the old days, you know, that the report of her having thirty thousand pounds was false; that she had nothing.”
“I don’t believe she had a penny,” returned George. “As to her income, I fancy it is drawn from Verrall. Mrs. Pain’s husband was connected in some business way with Verrall, and I suppose she still benefits by it. I know nothing whatever, but I have thought it must be so. Listen!”
George raised his hand as he abruptly spoke, for a distinct sound had broken upon his ear. Springing to the window he threw it open. The death-bell of All Souls’ was booming out over Prior’s Ash.
Before a word was spoken by him or by his wife; before Georgecould still the emotion that was thumping at his heart, Margery came in with a scared face. In her flurry, her sudden grief, she addressed him as she had been accustomed to address him in his boyhood.
“Do you hear it, Master George? That’s the passing-bell! It is forhim. There’s nobody else within ten miles they would trouble to have the bell tolled for at nigh ten o’clock at night. The Master of Ashlydyat’s gone.”
She sat down on a chair, regardless of the presence of her master and mistress, and, flinging her apron up to her face, burst into a storm of sobs.
A voice in the passage aroused her, for she recognized it as Bexley’s. George opened the room door, and the old man came in.
“It is all over, sir,” he said, his manner strangely still, his voice unnaturally calm and low, as is sometimes the case where emotion is striven to be suppressed. “Miss Janet bade me come to you with the tidings.”
George’s bearing was suspiciously quiet too. “It is very sudden, Bexley,” he presently rejoined.
Maria had risen and stood with one hand leaning on the table, her eyes strained on Bexley, her white face turned to him. Margery never moved.
“Very sudden, sir: and yet my mistress did not seem unprepared for it. He took his tea with her, and was so cheerful and well over it that I declare I began to hope he had taken a fresh turn. Soon afterwards Miss Bessy came back, and I heard her laughing in the room as she told them some story that had been related to her by Lady Godolphin. Presently my mistress called me in, to give me directions about a little matter she wanted done to-morrow, and while she was speaking to me, Miss Bessy cried out. We turned round and saw her leaning over my master. He had slipped back in his chair powerless, and I hastened to raise and support him. Death was in his face, sir; there was no mistaking it; but he was quite conscious, quite sensible, and smiled at us. ‘I must say farewell to you,’ he said, and Miss Bessy burst into a fit of sobs; but my mistress kneeled down quietly before him, and took his hands in hers, and said, ‘Thomas, is the moment come?’ ‘Yes, it is come,’ he answered, and he tried to look round at Miss Bessy, who stood a little behind his chair. ‘Don’t grieve,’ he said; ‘I am going on first’ but she only sobbed the more. ‘Good-bye, my dear ones,’ he continued; ‘good-bye, Bexley. I shall wait for you all, as I know I am being waited for. Fear?’ he went on, for Miss Bessy sobbed out something that sounded like the word: ‘fear, when I am going to God!—when Jesus——’”
Bexley fairly broke down with a great burst, and the tears were rolling silently over Maria’s cheeks. George wheeled round to the window and stood there with his back to them. Presently Bexley mastered himself and resumed: Margery had come forward then and taken her apron from her eyes.
“It was the last word he spoke—‘Jesus.’ His voice ceased, his hands fell, and the eyelids dropped. There was no struggle; nothing but a long gentle breath; and he died with the smile upon his lips.”
“He had cause to smile,” interjected Margery, the words comingfrom her brokenly. “If ever a man has gone to his rest in heaven, it is Mr. Godolphin. He had more than his share of sorrow in this world, and God has taken him to a better.”
Every feeling in George’s heart echoed to the words, every pulse beat in wild sorrow for the death of his good brother,—every sting that remorse could bring pricked him with the consciousness of his own share in it. He thrust his burning face beyond the window into the cool night; he raised his eyes to the blue canopy of heaven, serene and fair in the moonlight, almost as if he saw in imagination the redeemed soul winging its flight thither. He pressed his hands upon his throbbing breast to still its emotion; but for the greatest exercise of self-control he would have burst into sobs, as Bexley had done; and it may be that he—he, careless George Godolphin—breathed forth a yearning cry to heaven to be pardoned his share of the past. If Thomas, in his changed condition, could look down upon him, now, with his loving eyes, his ever-forgiving spirit, he would know how bitter and genuine, how full of anguish were these regrets!
George leaned his head on the side of the window to subdue his emotion, to gather the outward calmness that man likes not to have ruffled before the world; he listened to the strokes of the passing-bell ringing out so sharply in the still night air: and every separate stroke was laden with its weight of pain.
You might have taken it to be Sunday in Prior’s Ash—except that Sundays in ordinary did not look so gloomy. The shops were closed, a drizzling rain fell, and the heavy bell of All Souls’ was booming out at solemn intervals. It was tolling for the funeral of Thomas Godolphin. Morning and night, from eight o’clock to nine, had it so tolled since his death; but on this, the last day, it did not cease with nine o’clock, but tolled on, and would so toll until he should be in his last home. People had closed their shutters with one accord as the clock struck ten; some indeed had never opened them at all: if they had not paid him due respect always in life, they paid it to him in death. Ah, it was only for a time, in the first brunt of the shock, that Prior’s Ash mistook Thomas Godolphin. He had gone to his long home; to his last resting-place: he had gone to the merciful God to whom (it may surely be said!) he had belonged in life; and Prior’s Ash mourned for him.
You will deem this a sad story; perhaps bring a reproach upon me for recording it. That bell has tolled out all too often in its history; and this is not the first funeral you have seen at All Souls’. If I wrote only according to my own experiences of life, my stories would be always sad ones. Life wears different aspects for us, and its cares and its joys are unequally allotted out. At least they so appear to be. One glances up heavily from the burdens heaped upon him, and sees otherswithout care basking in the sunshine. But I often wonder whether those who seem so gay, whose path seems to be cast on the broad, sunny road of pleasure,—whether they have not a skeleton intheircloset. I look, I say, and wonder, marvelling what the reality may be. Nothing but gaiety, nothing but lightness, nothing, to all appearance, but freedom from care. Is it really so? Perhaps; with some—a very few. Is it well for those few? The broad road of pleasure, down which so many seem to travel, is not the safest road to a longer home, or the best preparation for it. Oh, if we could only see the truth when the burden upon us is heavy and long!—could only read how good it is!
But we never can. We are but mortal; born with a mortal’s keen susceptibility to care and pain. We preach to others, that these things are sent for their benefit; we complaisantly say so to ourselves when not actually suffering; but when the fiery trial is upon us, then we groan out in our sore anguish that it is greater than we can bear.
There is no doubt that, with the many, suffering predominates in life, and if we would paint life as it is, that suffering must form a comprehensive view in the picture. Reverses, sickness, death—they seem to follow some people as surely as the shadow follows the sun at noontide. It is probable; nay, it is certain, that minds are so constituted as to receive them differently. Witness, as a case in point, the contrast between Thomas Godolphin and his brother George. Thomas, looking back, could say that nearly the whole course of his life had been marked by sorrow. Some of its sources have been mentioned here; not all. There was the melancholy death of Ethel; there was the long-felt disease which marked him for its early prey; there was the dreadful crash, the disgrace, which nearly broke his heart. It is to those who feel them keenly that sorrows chiefly come.
And George? Look at him. Gay, light, careless, handsome George. What sorrows had markedhispath? None. He had revelled in the world’s favour, he had made a wife of the woman he loved, he had altogether floated gaily down the sunniest part of the stream of life. The worry which his folly had brought upon himself, and which ended in his own ruin and in the ruin of so many others,hehad not felt. No, he had scarcely felt it: and once let him turn his back on England and enter upon new scenes, he will barely remember it.
All Souls’ clock struck eleven, and the beadle came out of the church and threw wide the gates. It was very punctual, for there came the hearse in sight; punctual as he who was borne within it had in life always liked to be. Prior’s Ash peeped through the chinks of its shutters, behind its blinds and its curtains, to see the sight, as it came slowly winding along the street to the sound of the solemn bell. Through the mist of blinding tears, which rolled down many a face, did Prior’s Ash look out. They might have attended him to the grave, following unobtrusively, but that it was known to be the wish of the family that such demonstration should not be made: so they contented themselves with shutting up their houses, and observing the day as one of mourning. “Bury me in the plainest and simplest manner possible,” had been Thomas Godolphin’s directions when the end was drawing near. Under the circumstances, it was only seemly to do so; but soantagonistic were pomp and show of all kinds to the tastes of Thomas Godolphin, in all things that related to himself, that it is more than probable the same orders would have been given had he died as his forefathers had died—the Master of Ashlydyat, the wealthy chief of the Godolphins.
So a hearse and a mourning-coach were all that had been commanded to Ashlydyat. What means, then, this pageantry of carriages that follow? Fine carriages, gay with colours as they file past, one by one, the eyes of Prior’s Ash strained on them, some with coronets on their panels, all with closed blinds, a long line of them. Lady Godolphin’s is first, taking its place next the mourning-coach. They have come from various parts of the county, near and distant, to show their owners’ homage to that good man who had earned their deepest respect during life. Willingly, willingly would those owners have attended and mourned him in person, but for the same reason which kept away the more humble inhabitants of Prior’s Ash. Slowly the procession gained the churchyard, and the hearse and the mourning-coach stopped: the rest of the carriages filed off and turned their horses’ heads to face the churchyard, and waited still and quiet while the hearse was emptied. Out of the mourning-coach stepped two mourners only: George Godolphin and the Viscount Averil.
The Rector of All Souls’ stood at the gate in his surplice, book in hand. He turned, reciting the commencement of the service for the burial of the dead: “I am the resurrection and the life.” While they were in the church, the graveyard filled; by ones, by twos, by threes, they came stealing in, regardless of the weather, to see the last of the Master of Ashlydyat: and the beadle was lenient to-day.
The Rector of All Souls’ took his place at the head of the grave and read the service, as the coffin was lowered. George stood next to him; close to George, Lord Averil; and the other mourners were clustered beyond. Their faces were bent: the drizzling rain beat upon their bare heads. How did George feel as he stood there, between the two men whom he had so wronged? The Rector glanced at him once, and saw that he had difficulty in suppressing his emotion.
“I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so, saith the Spirit: for they rest from their labours.”
So hushed was the silence, that every word, as it fell solemnly from the lips of the minister, might be heard in all parts of the churchyard. If ever that verse could apply to frail humanity, with its unceasing struggle after holiness and its unceasing failurehere, it most surely applied to him over whom it was being spoken. George Godolphin’s head was bowed, his face hidden in his handkerchief; the rain pattered down on his golden hair. He had gone to his grave so early! Bend forward, as so many of those spectators are doing, and read the inscription on the plate. There is a little earth on the coffin, but the plate is visible. “Thomas Godolphin of Ashlydyat: aged forty-five years.”
Only forty-five years! A period at which some men think they are only beginning life. So early a grave!—and George had helped to send him to it!
It was over: and the spectators began to draw unobtrusively away, silently and decently. In the general crowd and bustle, for every one seemed to be on the move, George turned suddenly to the Rector and held out his hand. “Will you shake hands with me, Mr. Hastings?”
There was a perceptible hesitation on the Rector’s part, not in the least sought to be disguised, ere he responded to it, and then he put his own hand into the one held out. It was the first time they had met since the crash. “I cannot do otherwise over the dead body of your brother,” was the answer. “But neither can I be a hypocrite, George Godolphin, and say that I forgive you, for it would not be true. The result of the injury you did me presses daily and hourly upon us in a hundred ways, and my mind as yet has refused to be brought into that charitable frame necessary to entire forgiveness. This is not altogether the fault of my will. I wish to forgive you for your wife’s sake and for my own; I pray night and morning that I may be enabled heartily to forgive you before I die. I would not be your enemy; I wish you well, and there’s my hand in token of it: but to pronounce forgiveness is not yet in my power. Will you call in and see Mrs. Hastings?”
“I have not time to-day. I must go back to London this evening, but I shall be down again very shortly and will see her then. It was a peaceful ending.”
George was gazing down dreamily at the coffin as he spoke the last words. The Rector looked at him.
“A peaceful ending! Yes. It could not be anything else withhim.”
“No, no,” murmured George. “Not anything else with him.”
“May God in His mercy send us all as happy a one, when our time shall come!”
As the words left the Rector’s lips, the heavy bell boomed out again, giving notice to Prior’s Ash that the last rites were over: that the world had closed for ever on Thomas Godolphin.
“Oh, George!can’tyou stay with me?”
The words broke from Maria with a wail of anguish as she rose to bid her husband good-bye. He was hastening away to catch the evening train. It seemed that she had not liked to prefer the request before, had put it off to the last moment. In point of fact, she had seen very little of George all day. After the funeral he had returned in the coach with Lord Averil to Ashlydyat, and only came home late in the afternoon.
Lord and Lady Averil, recalled so suddenly from their wedding tour, had reached Ashlydyat the previous night, and would not leave it again. Janet was to depart from it in a few days; Bessy would be on the morrow with Lady Godolphin.
George would not believe that his wife was in any sort of danger. He had been to Mr. Snow, begged him to take all possible care of her, and asked whether there were really any grounds for alarm. Mr. Snow answered him that he could not say for certain: she was, no doubt, very weak and poorly, but he saw no reason why she should not get out of it; and as for himself, hewastaking of her all the carehe could take. The reply satisfied George, and he became full of the projects and details of his departure, entering into them so warmly with her that Maria caught the spirit of enterprise, and was beguiled into a belief that she might yet go also.
He had come home from the funeral bearing a parcel wrapped in paper for Meta. It had been found amidst Thomas Godolphin’s things, directed to the child. George lifted Meta on to his knee—very grave, very subdued was his face to-day—and opened it. It proved to be a Bible, and on the fly-leaf in his own hand was written, “Uncle Thomas’s last and best gift to Meta,” and it was dated the day he died. Lower down were the words, “My ways are ways of pleasantness, and all my paths are peace.”
And the evening had gone on, and it grew time for George to leave. It was as he bent to kiss his wife that she had burst out with that wailing cry. “Oh, George! can’t you stay with me?”
“My darling, I must go. I shall soon be down again.”
“Only a little while! A little longer!”
The tone in its anguish quite distressed him. “I would stay if it were possible: but it is not so. I came down for a day only, you know, Maria, and I have remained more than a week. It will not be so very long before we sail, and I shall have my hands full with the preparations for our voyage.”
“I have been so much alone,” she sobbed hysterically. “I get thinking and thinking: it does not give me a chance to recover. George, you have been always away from me since the trouble came.”
“I could not help it. Maria, I could not bear Prior’s Ash; Icouldnot stop in it,” he cried with a burst of genuine truth. “But for you and Thomas, I should never have set my foot in the place again, once I was quit of it. Now, however, I am compelled to be in London; there are fifty things to see to. Keep up your courage, my darling! A little while, and we shall be together and happy as we used to be.”
“Sir,” said Margery, putting her head in the door, “do you want to catch the nine train?”
“All right,” answered George.
“It may be all right if you run for it, it won’t be all right else,” grunted Margery.
He flew off, catching up his hand-portmanteau as he went, and waving his adieu to Meta. That young damsel, accustomed to be made a great deal of, could not understand so summary and slight a leave-taking, and she stood quite still in her consternation, staring after her papa: or rather at the door he had gone out of. Margery was right, and George found that he must indeed hasten if he would save the train. Maria, with a storm of hysterical sobs, grievous to witness, caught Meta in her arms, sat down on the sofa, and sobbed over the child, as she strained her to her bosom.
Meta was used to her mamma’s grief now, and she lay quite still, her shoes and white socks peeping out beyond the black frock; nay, a considerable view of the straight little legs peeping out as well. Maria bent her head until her aching forehead rested on the fair plump neck.
“Mamma! Mamma, dear! Mamma’s crying for poor Uncle Thomas!”
“No,” said Maria in the bitterness of her heart. “If we were but where Uncle Thomas is, we should be happy. I cry for us who are left, Meta!”
“Hey-day! and what on earth’s the meaning of this? Do you think this is the way to get strong, Mrs. George Godolphin?”
They had not heard him come in. Meta, always ready for visitors, scuffled off her mamma’s lap gleefully, and Mr. Snow drew a chair in front of Maria and watched her trying to dry away her tears. He moved a little to the right, that the light of the lamp which was behind him might fall upon her face.
“Now just you have the goodness to tell me what it is that’s the matter.”
“I—I am low-spirited, I think,” said Maria, her voice subdued and weak now.
“Low-spirited!” echoed Mr. Snow. “Then I’d get high-spirited, if I were you. I wish there never had been such a thing as spirits invented, for my part! A nice excuse it is for you ladies to sigh away half your time instead of being rational and merry, as you ought to be. A woman of your sense ought to be above it, Mrs. George Godolphin.”
“Mr. Snow,” interrupted a troublesome little voice, “papa’s gone back to London. He went without saying good-bye to Meta!”
“Ah! Miss Meta had been naughty, I expect.”
Meta shook her head very decisively in the negative, but Mr. Snow had turned to Maria.
“And so you were crying after that roving husband of yours! I guessed as much. He nearly ran over me at the gate. ‘Step in and see my wife, will you, Snow?’ said he. ‘She wants tonics, or something.’ You don’t want tonics half as much as you want common sense, Mrs. George Godolphin.”
“I am so weak,” was her feeble excuse. “A little thing upsets me now.”
“Well, and what can you expect? If I sat over my surgery fire all day stewing and fretting, a pretty doctor I should soon become for my patients! I wonder you——”
“Have you looked at my new black frock, Mr. Snow?”
She was a young lady who would be attended to, let who would go without attention. She had lifted up her white pinafore and stood in front of him, waiting for the frock to be admired.
“Very smart indeed!” replied Mr. Snow.
“It’s not smart,” spoke Meta resentfully. “My smart frocks are put away in the drawers. It is for Uncle Thomas, Mr. Snow! Mr. Snow, Uncle Thomas is in heaven now.”
“Ay, child, that he is. And it’s time that Miss Meta Godolphin was in bed.”
That same night Mr. Snow was called up to Mrs. George Godolphin.—Let us call her so to the end; but she is Mrs. Godolphin now. Margery was sleeping quietly, the child in a little bed by her side, when she was aroused by some one standing over her. It was her mistressin her night-dress. Up started the woman, wide awake instantly, crying out to know what was the matter.
“Margery, I shan’t be in time. The ship’s waiting to sail, and none of my things are ready. I can’t go without my things.”
Margery, experienced in illness of many kinds, saw what it was. Her mistress had suddenly awakened from some vivid dream, and in her weak state was unable to shake off the delusion. In fact, that species of half-consciousness, half-delirium was upon her, which is apt in the night-time to attack some patients labouring under long-continued and excessive weakness.
She had come up exactly as she got out of bed. No slippers on her feet, nothing upon her shoulders. As Margery threw a warm woollen shawl over those shoulders, she felt the ominous damp of the night-dress. A pair of list-shoes of her own were at the bedside, and she hastily put them upon her mistress’s feet.
“There’ll be no time, Margery; there’ll be no time to get the things ready: they never could be bought and made, you know. Oh, Margery! the ship must not go without me! What will be done?”
“I’ll telegraph up to that ship to-morrow morning, and get him to put off starting for a week or two,” cried Margery, nodding her head with authority. “Never you trouble yourself, ma’am; it will be all right. You shall go to sleep again comfortably, and we’ll see about the things with morning light.”
Margery talked as she conveyed her mistress back to bed, and remained talking after she was in it. A stock of this should be got in, a stock of the other: as for linen, it could all be bought ready made—and the best way too, now calico was so cheap. Somewhat surprised that she heard no answer, no further expressed fear, Margery looked close at her mistress by the night-lamp, wondering whether she had gone to sleep again. She had not gone to sleep. She was lying still, cold, white, without sense or motion; and Margery, collected Margery, very nearly screamed.
Maria had fainted away. Margery did not understand it at all, or why she should have fainted when she ought to have gone to sleep. Margery liked it as little as she understood it; and she ran upstairs to their landlady, Mrs. James, and got her to despatch her son for Mr. Snow.
But that was only the beginning. Night after night would these attacks of semi-delirium come upon her, though in the day she seemed pretty well. Mr. Snow came and came, and drew an ominous face and doubled the tonics and changed them, and talked and joked and scolded. But it all seemed unavailing: she certainly did not get better. Weary, weary hours! weary, weary days! as she lay there alone, struggling with her malady. And yet no malady, either, that Mr. Snow could discover; nothing but a weakness which he only half believed in.
Janet and Bessy Godolphin were one day sitting with Mrs. George. The time had come for Janet to quit Ashlydyat, and she was paying her farewell visit to Maria. Maria was at the window at work when they arrived; at work with her weak and fevered hands. No very poetical employment, that on which she was engaged, but one whichhas to be done in most families nevertheless—stocking-darning. She was darning socks for Miss Meta. Miss Meta, her sleeves and white pinafore tied up with black ribbon, her golden curls somewhat in disorder, for the young lady had rebelliously broken from Margery and taken a race round the garden in the blowing wintry wind, her smooth cheeks fresh and rosy, was now roasting her face in front of the fire, her doll and a whole collection of dolls’ clothes lying around her on the hearth-rug.
Bessy had come, not so much to accompany Janet, as for a special purpose—to deliver a message from Lady Godolphin. My lady, deeming possibly that her displeasure had lasted long enough, graciously charged Bessy with an invitation to Maria—to spend a day or two at the Folly ere her departure for Calcutta.
Maria gave a sort of sobbing sigh. “She is very kind. Tell Lady Godolphin how kind I think it of her, Bessy, but that I am not strong enough to go from home now.”
Bessy looked at her. “But, Maria, if you are not strong enough to go out on a short visit, how shall you be strong enough to undertake a three or four months’ voyage?”
Maria paused ere she answered the question. She was gazing out straight before her, as if seeing something at a distance—something in the future. “I think of it and of its uncertainty a great deal,” she presently said. “If I can only get away: if I can only keep up sufficiently to get away, I can lie down always in my berth. And if I do die before I reach India, George will be with me.”
“Child!” almost sharply interrupted Janet, “what are you saying?”
She seemed scarcely to hear the interruption. She sat, gazing still, her white and trembling hands lying clasped on her black dress, and she resumed, as if pursuing the train of thought.
“My great dread is, lest I should not keep up to get to London, to be taken on board; lest George should, after all, be obliged to sail without me. It is always on my mind, Janet; it makes me dream constantly that the ship has gone and I am left behind. I wish I did not have those dreams.”
“Come to Lady Godolphin’s Folly, Maria,” persuasively spoke Bessy. “It will be the very best thing to cheat you of those fears. They all arise from weakness.”
“I have no doubt they do. I had a pleasant dream one night,” she added with some animation. “I thought we had arrived in safety, and I and George and Meta were sitting under a tree whose leaves were larger than an umbrella. It was very hot, but these leaves shaded us, and I seemed to be well, for we were all laughing merrily together. Itmaycome true, you know, Janet.”
“Yes,” assented Janet. “Are you preparing much for the voyage?”
“Not yet. Clothes can be had so quickly now. George talked it over with me when he was down, and we decided to send a list to the outfitter’s, just before we sailed, so that the things might not come down here, but be packed in London.”
“And Margery?” asked Janet.
“I do not know what she means to do,” answered Maria, shaking her head. “She protests ten times a day that she will not go; but Isee she is carefully mending up all her cotton gowns, and one day I heard her say to Meta that she supposed nothing but cotton was bearable out there. What I should do without Margery on the voyage I don’t like to think about. George told her to consider of it, and give us her decision when he next came down. And you, Janet? When shall you be back again at Prior’s Ash?”
“I do not suppose I shall ever come back to it,” was Janet’s answer. “Its reminiscences will not be so pleasing to me that I should seek to renew my acquaintance with it.”
“Bexley attends you, I hear.”
“Yes. My aunt’s old servant has got beyond his work—he has been forty-two years in the family, Maria—and Bexley will replace him.”
When Janet rose to leave, she bent over Maria and slipped four sovereigns into her hand. “It is for yourself, my dear,” she whispered.
“Oh, thank you! But indeed I have enough, Janet. George left me five pounds when he was at home, and it is not half gone. You don’t know what a little keeps us. I eat next to nothing, and Margery, I think, lives chiefly upon porridge: there’s only Meta.”
“But you ought to eat, child!”
“I can’t eat,” said Maria. “I have never lost that pain in my throat.”
“What pain?” asked Janet.
“I do not know. It came on with the trouble. I feel—I feel always ill within myself, Janet. I seem to be always shivering inwardly; and the pain in the throat is sometimes better, sometimes worse, but it never quite goes away.”
Janet looked at her searchingly. She heard the meek, resigned tone, she saw the white, wan face, the attenuate hands, the chest rising with every passing emotion, the mournful look in the sweet eyes; and for the first time a suspicion that another life would shortly have to go, took possession of Miss Godolphin.
“What is George at, that he is not here to see after you?” she asked in a strangely severe accent.
“He cannot bear Prior’s Ash, Janet,” whispered Maria. “But for me and Thomas, he never would have come back to it. And I suppose he is busy in London: there must be many arrangements to make.”
Janet stooped and gravely kissed her; kissed her twice. “Take care of yourself, my dear, and do all you can to keep your mind tranquil and to get up your strength. You shall hear from me before your departure.”
Margery stood in the little hall. Miss Bessy Godolphin was in the garden, in full chase after that rebellious damsel, Meta, who had made a second escape through the opened door, passing angry Margery and the outstretched hand that would have made a prisoner of her, with a laugh of defiance. Miss Godolphin stopped to address Margery.
“Shall you go to India or not, Margery?”
“I’m just almost torn in two about it, ma’am,” was the answer, delivered confidentially. “Without me, that child would never reach the other side alive: she’d be clambering up the sides o’ the ship andget drownded ten times over before they got there. Look at her now! And who’d take care of her over there, among those native beasts—those elephants and black people? If I thought she’d ever come to be waited on by a black woman with woolly hair, I should be fit to smother her before she went out. I shall see, Miss Janet.”
“Margery, your mistress appears to want the greatest care.”
“She has wanted that a long while,” was Margery’s composed answer.
“She ought to have everything strengthening. Wine and other necessaries required by the sick.”
“I suppose she ought,” said Margery. “But she won’t take them, Miss Janet; she says she can’t eat and drink. And for the matter of that, we have nothing of that sort for her to take. There were more good things consumed in the Bank in a day than we should see in a month now.”
“Where’s your master?” repeated Janet in an accent not less sharp than the one she had used for the same question to Maria.
“He?” cried wrathful Margery, for the subject was sure to put her out uncommonly, in the strong opinion she was pleased to hold touching her master’s short-comings. “I suppose he’s riding about with his choice friend, Madam Pain. Folks talk of their horses being seen abreast pretty often.”
There was no opportunity for further colloquy. Bessy came in, carrying the laughing truant; and Margery, with a tart word to the young lady, attended the Miss Godolphins down the garden path to throw open the gate for them. In her poor way, in her solitary self, Margery strove to make up for the state they had been accustomed to, when the ladies called from Ashlydyat.
Maria, lying motionless on the sofa, where on being left alone she had thrown herself in weariness, heard Margery’s gratuitous remark about Mrs. Pain, through the unlatched door, and a contraction arose to her brow. In her hand lay the four sovereigns left there by Janet. She looked at them musingly, and then murmured, “I can afford to give her half.” When Margery returned indoors, she called her in, and sent her for Mrs. Bond.
A little while, and Mrs. Bond, on her meekest and civilest behaviour, stood before Maria, her thin shawl and wretched old gown drawn tightly round her, to protect her from the winter’s cold. Maria put two sovereigns into her hand.
“It is the first instalment of my debt to you, Mrs. Bond. If I live, I will pay it you all, but it will be by degrees. And perhaps that is the best way that you could receive it. I wish I could have given you some before.”
Mrs. Bond burst into tears. Not the crocodile’s tears that she was somewhat in the habit of favouring the world with when not quite herself, but real, genuine tears of gratitude. She had given up all hope of the ten pounds, did not expect to see a penny of it; and the joy overcame her. Her conscience pricked her a little also, for she remembered sundry hard words she had at one time liberally regaled her neighbours’ ears with, touching Mrs. George Godolphin. In her grateful repentance she could have knelt at Maria’s feet: hunger and other ills of poverty had tended to subdue her spirit.
“May the good Lord bless and repay you, ma’am!—and send you a safe journey to the far-off place where I hear you be going!”
“Yes, I shall go, if I am well enough,” replied Maria. “It is from thence that I shall send you home some money from time to time if I can do so. Have you been well, lately?”
“As well as pretty nigh clamming will let me be, ma’am. Things has gone hard with me: many a day I’ve not had as much as a crust to eat. But this ’ll set me up again, and, ma’am, I’ll never cease to pray for you.”
“Don’t spend it in—in—you know, Mrs. Bond,” Maria ventured timidly to advise, in a lowered voice.
Mrs. Bond shook her head and turned up her eyes by way of expressing a very powerful negative. Probably she did not feel altogether comfortable on the subject, for she hastened to quit it.
“Have you heard the news about old Jekyl, ma’am?”
“No. What news?”
“He’s dead. He went off at one o’clock this a’ternoon. He fretted continual after his money, folks says, and it wore him to a skeleton. He couldn’t abear to be living upon his sons; and Jonathan don’t earn enough for himself now, and the old ’un felt it.”
Some one else was feeling it. Fretting continually after his money!—that money which might never have been placed in the Bank but for her! Miss Meta came flying in, went straight up to the visitor, and leaned her pretty arm upon the snuffy black gown.
“When shall I come and see the parrot?”
“The parrot! Lawks bless the child! I haven’t got the parrot now, I haven’t had him this many a day. I couldn’t lethimclam,” she continued, turning to Maria. “I was clamming myself, ma’am, and I sold him, cage and all, just as he stood.”
“Where is he?” asked Meta, looking disappointed.
“He’s where he went,” lucidly explained Mrs. Bond. “It were the lady up at t’other end o’ the town, beyond the parson’s, what bought him, ma’am. Leastways her daughter did: sister to her what was once to have married Mr. Godolphin. It’s a white house.”
“Lady Sarah Grame’s,” said Maria. “Did she buy the parrot?”
“Miss did: that cross-looking daughter of her’n. She see him as she was going by my door one day, ma’am, and she stopped and looked at him, and asked me what I’d sell him for. Well, on the spur o’ the moment I said five shilling; for I’d not a halfpenny in the place to buy him food, and for days and days he had had only what the neighbours brought him; but it warn’t half his worth. And miss was all wild to buy him, but her mother wasn’t. She didn’t want screeching birds in her house, she said, and they had a desperate quarrel in my kitchen before they went away. Didn’t she call her mother names! She’s a vixen that daughter, if ever there were one. But she got her will, for an hour or two after that, a young woman come down for the parrot with the five shilling in her hand. And there’s where he is.”
“I shall have twenty parrots when I go to India,” struck in Meta.
“What a sight of food they’ll eat!” ejaculated Mrs. Bond. “That there one o’ mine eats his fill now. I made bold one day to go up andask after him, and the two young women in the kitchen took me to the room to see him, the ladies being out, and he had his tin stuffed full o’ seed. He knowed me again, he did, and screeched out to be heerd a mile off. The young women said that what with his screeching and the two ladies quarrelling, the house weren’t bearable sometimes.”
Meta’s large eyes were open in wondering speculation. “Why do they quarrel?” she asked.
“’Cause it’s their natur’,” returned Mrs. Bond. “The one what had the sweet natur’ was took, and the two fretful ones was left. Them young women said that miss a’most drove my lady mad with her temper, and they expect nothing less but there’d be blows some day. A fine disgraceful thing to say of born ladies, ain’t it, ma’am?”
Maria, in her delicacy of feeling, would not endorse the remark of Dame Bond. But the state of things at Lady Sarah Grame’s was perfectly well known at Prior’s Ash. Sarah Anne Grame had become her mother’s bane, as Mr. Snow had once said she would be. A very terrible bane; to herself, to her mother, to all about her. And the “screeching” parrot had only added a little more noise to an already too noisy house.
Mrs. Bond curtsied herself out. She met Margery in the passage, and stopped to whisper.
“I say! how ill she do look!”
“Who looks ill?” was the ungracious demand.
Mrs. Bond nodded towards the parlour door. “The missis. Her face looks more as if it had death writ in it, than voyage-going.”
“Perhaps you’ll walk on your way, Dame Bond, and keep your opinions till they’re asked for,” was the tart reply of Margery.
But, in point of fact, the words had darted into the faithful servant’s heart, piercing it as a poisoned arrow. It seemed so great a confirmation of her own fears.
A few more days went on, and they wrought a further change in Mrs. George Godolphin. She grew weaker and weaker: she grew—it was apparent now to Mr Snow as it was to Margery—nearer and nearer to that vault in the churchyard of All Souls’. There could no longer be any indecision or uncertainty as to her taking the voyage; the probabilities were, that before the ship was ready to sail, all sailing in this world for Maria would be over. And rumours, faint, doubtful, very much discredited rumours of this state of things, began to circulate in Prior’s Ash.
Discredited because people were so unprepared for it. Mrs. George Godolphin had been delicate since the birth of her baby, as was known to every one, but not a soul, relatives, friends, or strangers, had felt a suspicion of danger. On the contrary, it was supposed that she wasabout to depart on that Indian voyage: and ill-natured spirits tossed their heads and said it was fine to be Mrs. George Godolphin, to be set up again and go out to lead a grand life in India, after ruining half Prior’s Ash. How she was misjudged! how many more unhappy wives have been, and will be again, misjudged by the world!
One dreary afternoon, as dusk was coming on, Margery, not stopping, or perhaps not caring, to put anything upon herself, but having hastily wrapped up Miss Meta, went quickly down the garden path, leading that excitable and chattering demoiselle by the hand. Curious news had reached the ears of Margery. Their landlady’s son had come in, describing the town as being in strange commotion, in consequence of something which had happened at Ashlydyat. Rumour set it down as nothing less than murder; and, according to the boy’s account, all Prior’s Ash was flocking up to the place to see and to hear.
Margery turned wrathful at the news. Murder at Ashlydyat! The young gentleman was too big to be boxed or shaken for saying it, but he persisted in his story, and Margery in her curiosity went out to see with her own eyes. “The people are running past the top of this road in crowds,” he said to her.
For some days past, workmen had been employed digging up the Dark Plain by the orders of Lord Averil. As he had told Cecil weeks before, his intention was to completely renew it; to do away entirely with its past character and send its superstition to the winds. The archway was being taken down, the gorse-bushes were being uprooted, the whole surface, in fact, was being dug up. He intended to build an extensive summer-house where the archway had been, and to make the plain a flower-garden, a playground for children when they should be born to Ashlydyat: and it appeared that in digging that afternoon under the archway, the men had come upon a human skeleton, or rather upon the bones of what had once been a skeleton. This was the whole foundation for the rumour and the “murder.”
As Margery stood, about to turn home again, vexed for having been brought out in the cold for nothing more, and intending to give a few complimentary thanks for it to the young man who had been the means of sending her, she was accosted by Mr. Crosse, who had latterly been laid up in his house with gout. Not the slightest notice had he taken of George Godolphin and his wife since his return home, though he had been often with Thomas.
“How d’ye do, Margery?” he said, taking up Meta at the same time to kiss her. “Are you going to Ashlydyat with the rest?”
“Not I, the simpletons!” was Margery’s free rejoinder. “There’s my poor mistress alone in the house.”
“Is she ill?” asked Mr. Crosse.
“Ill!” returned Margery, not at all pleased at the question. “Yes, sir, she is ill. I thought everybody knew that.”
“When does she start for India?”
“She don’t start at all. She’ll be starting soon for a place a little bit nearer. Here! you run on and open the gate,” added Margery, whisking Meta from Mr. Crosse’s hand and sending her down the lane out of hearing. “She’ll soon be where Mr. Thomas Godolphin is, sir,instead of being marched off in a ship to India,” continued the woman, turning to Mr. Crosse confidentially.
He felt greatly shocked. In his own mind, he, as many others, had associated Maria with her husband, in regard to the summer’s work, in a lofty, scornful sort of way: but it did shock him to hear that she was in fear of death. It is most wonderful how our feelings towards others soften when we find that they and their shortcomings are about to be taken from us to a more merciful Judge.
“But what is the matter with her, Margery?” Mr. Crosse asked; for it happened that he had not heard the ominous rumours that were beginning to circulate in Prior’s Ash.
“Idon’t know what’s the matter with her,” returned Margery. “I don’t believe old Snow knows, either. I suppose the worry and misfortunes have been too much for her; as they were for somebody else. Mr. Godolphin is in his grave, and now she’s going to hers.”
Mr. Crosse walked mechanically by the side of Margery down the lane. It was not his road, and perhaps he was unconscious that he took it; he walked by her side, listening.
“He’ll have to go by himself now—and me to have been getting up all my cotton gowns for the start! Serve him right! for ever thinking of taking out that dear little lamb amid elephants and savages!”
Mr. Crosse was perfectly aware that Margery alluded to her master—his ownbête noiresince the explosion. But he did not choose to descant upon his gracelessness to Margery. “Can nothing be done for Mrs. George Godolphin?” he asked.
“I expect not, sir. There’s nothing the matter with her that can be laid hold of,” resentfully spoke Margery; “no malady to treat. Snow says he can’t do anything, and he brought Dr. Beale in the other day: and it seems he can’t do nothing, either.”
Meta had reached the gate, flung it open in obedience to orders, and now came running back. Mr. Crosse took her hand and went on with her. Was he purposing to pay a visit to George Godolphin’s wife? It seemed so.
It was quite dusk when they entered. Maria was lying on the sofa, with a warm woollen wrapper drawn over her. There was no light in the room except that given out by the fire, but its blaze fell directly on her face. Mr. Crosse stood and looked at it, shocked at its ravages; at the tale it told. All kinds of unpleasant pricks were sending their darts through his conscience. He had been holding himself aloof in his assumed superiority, his haughty condemnation, while she had been going to the grave with her breaking heart.
Had she wanted things that money could procure? had she wantedfood? Mr. Crosse actually began to ask himself the question, as the wan aspect of the white face grew and grew upon him: and in the moment he quite loathed the thought of his well-stored coffers. He remembered what a good, loving gentlewoman this wife of George Godolphin’s had always been, this dutiful daughter of All Souls’ pastor: and for the first time Mr. Crosse began to separate her from her husband’s misdoings, to awaken to the conviction that the burden and sorrow laid upon her had been enough to bear, without the world meting out its harsh measure of blame by way of increase.
He sat down quite humbly, saying “hush” to Meta. Maria had dropped into one of those delirious sleeps: they came on more frequently now, and would visit her at the twilight hour of the evening as well as at night: and the noise of their entrance had failed to arouse her. Margery, however, came bustling in.
“It’s Mr. Crosse, ma’am.”
Maria, a faint hectic of surprise coming into her cheeks, sat up and let him take her hand. “I am glad to have the opportunity of seeing you once again,” she said.
“Why did you not send and tell me how ill you were?” burst forth Mr. Crosse, forgetting how exceedingly ill such a procedure would have accorded with his own line of holding aloof in condemning superiority.
She shook her head. “I might, had things been as they used to be. But people do not care to come near me now.”
“I am going in the ship, Mr. Crosse. I am going to ride upon an elephant and to have parrots.”
He laid his hand kindly upon the chattering child: but he turned to Maria, his voice dropping to a whisper. “What shall you do with her? Shall you send her out without you?”
The question struck upon the one chord of her heart that for the last day or two, since her own hopeless state grew more palpable, had been strung to the utmost tension. What was to become of Meta—of the cherished child whom she must leave behind her? Her face grew moist, her bosom heaved, and she suddenly pressed her hands upon it as if they could still its wild and painful beating. Mr. Crosse, blaming himself for asking it, blaming himself for many other things, took her hands within his, and said he would come and see her in the morning: she seemed so fatigued then.
But, low as the question had been put, Miss Meta heard it; heard it and understood its purport. She entwined her pretty arms within her mamma’s dress as Mr. Crosse went out, and raised her wondering eyes.
“What did he mean? You are coming too, mamma!”
She drew the little upturned face close to hers, she laid her white cheek upon the golden hair. The very excess of pain that was rending her aching heart caused her to speak with unnatural stillness. Not that she could speak at first: a minute or two had to be given to mastering her emotion.
“I am afraid not, Meta. I think God is going to take me.”
The child made no reply. Her earnest eyes were kept wide open with the same wondering stare. “What will papa do?” she presently asked.
Maria hastily passed her hand across her brow, as if that recalled another phase of the pain. Meta’s little heart began to swell, and the tears burst forth.
“Don’t go, mamma! Don’t go away from papa and Meta! I shall be afraid of the elephants without you.”
She pressed the child closer and closer to her beating heart. Oh the pain, the pain!—the pain of the parting that was so soon to come!
They were interrupted by a noise at the gate. A carriage had bowleddown the lane and drawn up at it, almost with the commotion that used to attend the dashing visits to the Bank of Mrs. Charlotte Pain. A more sober equipage this, however, with its mourning appointments, although it bore a coronet on its panels. The footman opened the door, and one lady stepped out of it.
“It is Aunt Cecil,” called out Meta.
She rubbed the tears from her pretty cheeks, her grief forgotten, child-like, in the new excitement, and flew out to meet Lady Averil. Maria, trying to look her best, rose from the sofa and tottered forward to receive her. Meta was pounced upon by Margery and carried off to have her tumbled hair smoothed; and Lady Averil came in alone.