“Very well. I see but one way for you to do it. The money must be raised, and how is that to be done? Why, by the means I suggest. It will never be known. A little time, and things can be worked round again.”
“I have been hoping to work things round this long while,” said George. “And they grow worse instead of better.”
“Therefore I say that you should not close your eyes to the prospect of Ashlydyat. Sit down. Be yourself again, and let us talk things over quietly.”
“You see, Verrall, the risk falls wholly upon me.”
“And, upon whom the benefit, for which the risk will be incurred?” pointedly returned Mr. Verrall.
“It seems to me that I don’t get the lion’s share of these benefits,” was George’s remark.
“Sit down, I say. Can’t you be still? Here, take some more wine. There: now let us talk it over.”
And talk it over they did, as may be inferred. For it was a full hour afterwards when George came out. He leaped into the cab, which had waited, telling the man that he must drive as if he were going through fire and water. The man did so: and George arrived at the Paddington station just in time to lose his train.
The clerks were at a stand-still in the banking-house of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin. A certain iron safe had to be opened, and the key was not to be found. There were duplicate keys to it; one of them was kept by Mr. Godolphin, the other by Mr. George. Mr. Hurde, the cashier, appealed to Isaac Hastings.
“Do you think it has not been left with Mrs. George Godolphin?”
“I’ll ask her,” replied Isaac, getting off his stool. “I don’t think it has: or she would have given it to me when she informed me of Mr. George Godolphin’s absence.”
He went into the dining-room: that pleasant room, which it was almost a shame to designate by the name. Maria was listlessly standing against the window-frame, plucking mechanically the fading blossoms of a geranium. She turned her head at the opening of the door, and saw her brother.
“Isaac, what time does the first train come in?”
“From what place?” inquired Isaac.
“Oh—from the Portsmouth direction. It was Portsmouth that Captain St. Aubyn was to embark from, was it not?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” replied Isaac. “Neither can I tell at what hours trains arrive from that direction. Maria, has Mr. George Godolphin left the key of the book-safe with you?”
“No,” was Maria’s answer. “I suppose he must have forgotten to do so. He has left it with me when he has gone away unexpectedly before, after banking-hours.”
Isaac returned to the rest of the clerks. The key was wanted badly, and it was decided that he should go up to Ashlydyat for Mr. Godolphin’s.
He took the nearest road to it. Down Crosse Street, and through the Ash-tree Walk. It was a place, as you have heard, especially shunned at night: it was not much frequented by day. Therefore, it was no surprise to Isaac Hastings that he did not, all through it, meet a single thing, either man or ghost. At the very end, however, on that same broken bench where Thomas Godolphin and his bodily agony had come to an anchor the previous night, sat Charlotte Pain.
She was in deep thought: deep perplexity; there was no mistaking that her countenance betrayed both: some might have fancied in deep pain, either bodily or mental. Pale she was not. Charlotte’s complexion was made up too fashionably for either red or white, born of emotion, to affect it, unless it might be emotion of a most extraordinary nature. Hands clenched, brow knit, lips drawn from her teeth, eyes staring on vacancy—Isaac Hastings could not avoid reading the signs, and he read them with surprise.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pain!”
Charlotte started from the seat with a half scream. “What’s the use of startling one like that!” she fiercely exclaimed.
“I did not startle you intentionally,” replied Isaac. “You might have heard my footsteps had you not been so preoccupied. Did you think it was the ghost arriving?” he added, jestingly.
“Of course I did,” returned Charlotte, laughing, as she made an effort, and a successful one, to recover herself. “What do you do here this morning? Did you come to look after the ghost, or after me?”
“After neither,” replied Isaac, with more truth than gallantry. “Mr. George Godolphin has sent me up here.”
Now, in saying this, what Isaac meant to express was nothing more than that his coming up wascausedby George Godolphin. Alluding of course to George’s forgetfulness in carrying off the key. Charlotte, however, took the words literally, and her eyes opened.
“Did George Godolphin not go last night?”
“Yes, he went. He forgot——”
“Then what can have brought him back so soon?” was her vehement interruption, not allowing Isaac time to conclude. “There’s no day train in from London yet.”
“Is there not?” was Isaac’s rejoinder, looking keenly at her.
“Why, of course there’s not: as you know, or ought to know. Besides, he could not get through the business he has gone upon and be back yet, unless he came by telegraph. He intended to leave by the eleven o’clock train from Paddington.”
She spoke rapidly, thoughtlessly, in her surprise. Her inward thought was, that to have gone to London, and returned again since the hour at which she parted from him the previous night, one way, at least, must have been accomplished on the telegraph wires. Had she taken a moment for reflection, she would not have so spoken. However familiar she might be with the affairs of Mr. George Godolphin, so much the more reason was there for her shunning open allusion to them.
“Who told you Mr. George Godolphin had gone to London, Mrs. Pain?” asked Isaac, after a pause.
“Do you think I did not know it? Better than you, Mr. Isaac, clever and wise as you deem yourself.”
“I pretend to be neither one nor the other with regard to the movements of Mr. George Godolphin,” was the reply of Isaac. “It is not my place to be so. I heard he had only gone a stage or two towards Portsmouth with a sick friend. Of course if you know he has gone to London, that is a different matter. I can’t stay now, Mrs. Pain: I have a message for Mr. Godolphin.”
“Then he is not back again?” cried Charlotte, as Isaac was going through the turnstile.
“Not yet.”
Charlotte looked after him as he went out of sight, and bit her lips. A doubt was flashing over her—called up by Isaac’s last observation—as to whether she had done right to allude to London. When George had been with her, discussing it, he had wondered what excuse he should invent for taking the journey, and Charlotte never supposedbut that it would be known. The bright idea of starting on a benevolent excursion towards Portsmouth, had been an after-thought of Mr. George’s as he journeyed home.
“If I have done mischief,” Charlotte was beginning slowly to murmur. But she threw back her head defiantly. “Oh, nonsense about mischief! What does it matter? George can battle it out.”
Thomas Godolphin was at breakfast in his own room, his face, pale and worn, bearing traces of suffering. Isaac Hastings was admitted, and explained the cause of his appearance. Thomas received the news of George’s absence with considerable surprise.
“He left me late last night—inthe night, I may say—to return home. He said nothing then of his intention to be absent. Where do you say he has gone to?”
“Maria delivered a message to me, sir, from him, to the effect that he had accompanied a sick friend, Captain St. Aubyn, a few miles on the Portsmouth line,” replied Isaac. “But Mrs. Pain, whom I have just met, says it is to London that he has gone: she says she knows it.”
Thomas Godolphin made no further comment. It may not have pleased him to remark upon any information touching his brother furnished by Mrs. Charlotte Pain. He handed the key to Isaac, and said he should speedily follow him to the Bank. It had not been Thomas Godolphin’s intention to go to the Bank that day, but hearing of George’s absence caused him to proceed thither. He ordered his carriage, and got there almost as soon as Isaac, bearing an invitation to Maria from Janet.
A quarter of an hour given to business in the manager’s room, George’s, and then Thomas Godolphin went to Maria. She was seated now near the window, in her pretty morning dress, engaged in some sort of fancy work. In her gentle face, her soft sweet eyes, Thomas would sometimes fancy he read a resemblance to his lost Ethel. Thomas greatly loved and esteemed Maria.
She rose to receive him, holding out her hand that he might take it as she quietly but earnestly made inquiries about his state of health. Not so well as he was yesterday, Thomas answered. He supposed George had given her the account of their meeting the previous night, under the ash-trees, and of his, Thomas’s illness.
Maria had not heard it. “How could George have been near the ash-trees last night?” she, wondering, inquired. “Do you meanlastnight, Thomas?”
“Yes, last night, after I left you. I was taken ill in going home——”
Miss Meta, who had been fluttering about the terrace, fluttered in to see who might be talking to her mamma, and interrupted the conclusion of the sentence. “Uncle Thomas! Uncle Thomas!” cried she, joyously. They were great friends.
Her entrance diverted the channel of their conversation. Thomas took the child on his knee, fondly stroking her golden curls. Thomas remembered to have stroked just such golden curls on the head of his brother George, when he, George, was a little fellow of Meta’s age.
“Janet bade me ask if you would go to Ashlydyat for the day, Maria,” said he. “She——”
“Meta go too,” put in the little quick tongue. “Meta go too, Uncle Thomas.”
“Will Meta be good?—and not run away from Aunt Janet, and lose herself in the passages, as she did last time?” said Thomas, with a smile.
“Meta very good,” was the answer, given with an oracular nod of promise. Thomas turned to Maria.
“Where is it that George has gone?” he asked. “With St. Aubyn? or to London?”
“Not to London,” replied Maria. “He has gone with Captain St. Aubyn. What made you think of London?”
“Isaac said Mrs. Pain thought he had gone to London,” replied Thomas. “It was some mistake, I suppose. But I wonder he should go out to-day for anything less urgent than necessity. The Bank wants him.”
Maria was soon to be convinced that she need not have spoken so surely about George’s having gone with Captain St. Aubyn. When she and Meta, with Margery—who would have thought herself grievously wronged had she not been one of the party to Ashlydyat—were starting, Thomas came out of the Bank parlour and accompanied them to the door. While standing there, the porter of the Bell Inn happened to pass, and Maria stopped him to inquire whether Captain St. Aubyn was better when he left.
“He was not at all well, ma’am,” was the man’s answer: “hardly fit to travel. He had been in a sort of fever all the night.”
“And my master, I suppose, must take and sit up with him!” put in Margery, without ceremony, in a resentful tone.
“No, he didn’t,” said the man, looking at Margery, as if he did not understand her. “It was my turn to be up last night, and I was in and out of his room four or five times: but nobody stayed with him.”
“But Mr. George Godolphin went with Captain St. Aubyn this morning?” said Thomas Godolphin to the man.
“Went where, sir?”
“Started with him. On his journey.”
“No, sir; not that I know of. I did not see him at the station.”
Maria thought the man must be stupid. “Mr. George Godolphin returned to the Bell between eleven and twelve last night,” she explained. “And he intended to accompany Captain St. Aubyn this morning on his journey.”
“Mr. George was at the Bell for a few minutes just after eleven, ma’am. It was me that let him out. He did not come back again. And I don’t think he was at the train this morning. I am sure he was not with Captain St. Aubyn, for I never left the captain till the train started.”
Nothing further was said to the porter. He touched his hat, and went his way. Maria’s face wore an air of bewilderment. Thomas smiled at her.
“I think it is you who must be mistaken, Maria,” said he. “Depend upon it, Mrs. Pain is right: he has gone to London.”
“But why should he go to London without telling me?” debated Maria. “Why say he was going with Captain St. Aubyn?”
Thomas could offer no opinion upon the subject. Miss Meta began to stamp her pretty shoes, and to drag her mamma by the hand. She was impatient to depart.
They chose the way by the lonely Ash-tree Walk. It was pleasant on a sunny day: sunshine scares away ghosts: and it was also the nearest. As they were turning into it, they met Charlotte Pain. Maria, simple-hearted and straightforward, never casting a suspicion to—to anything undesirable—spoke at once of the uncertainty she was in, as to her husband.
“Why do you think he has gone to London?” she asked.
“I know he has,” replied Charlotte. “He told me he was going there.”
“But he told me he was only going with Captain St. Aubyn,” returned Maria, a doubtful sound in her voice.
“Oh, my dear, gentlemen do not find it always convenient to keep their wivesau courantof their little affairs.”
Had it been salvation to her, Charlotte could not have helped launching that shaft at Maria Godolphin. No; not even regard for George’s secrets stopped her. She had done the mischief by speaking to Isaac, and this opportunity was too glorious to be missed, so she braved it out. Had Charlotte dared—for her own sake—she could have sent forth an unlimited number of poisoned arrows daily at George Godolphin’s wife: and she would have relished the sport amazingly. She sailed off: a curiously conspicuous smile of triumph in her eyes as they were bent on Maria, her parting movement being a graciously condescending nod to the child.
Maria was recalled to her senses by Margery. The woman was gazing after Charlotte with a dark, strange look: a look that Maria understood as little as she understood Charlotte’s triumphant one. Margery caught the eye of her mistress upon her, and smoothed her face with a short cough.
“I’m just taking the pattern of her jacket, ma’am. It matches so bravely with the hat. I wonder what the world will come to next? The men will take to women’s clothes, I suppose, now the women have taken to men’s.”
Mr. George—as you may remember—missed his train. And Mr. George debated whether he should order a special. Two reasons withheld him. One was, that his arriving at Prior’s Ash by a special train might excite comment; the other, that a special train was expensive; and of late Mr. George Godolphin had not had any too much ready money to spare. He waited for the next ordinary train, and that deposited him at Prior’s Ash at seven o’clock.
He proceeded home at once. The Bank was closed for the evening. Pierce admitted his master, who went into the dining-room. No sign of dinner; no signs of occupation.
“My mistress is at Ashlydyat, sir. She went up this morning with Miss Meta and Margery. You would like dinner, sir, would you not?”
“I don’t much care for it,” responded George. “Anything will do. Has Mr. Godolphin been at the Bank to-day?”
“Yes, sir. He has been here all day, I think?”
George went into the Bank parlour, then to other of the businessrooms. He was looking about for letters: he was looking at books: altogether he seemed to be busy. Presently he came out and called Pierce.
“I want a light.”
Pierce brought it. “I shall be engaged here for half an hour,” said his master. “Should any one call, I cannot be disturbed: under any pretence, you understand.”
“Very well, sir,” replied Pierce, as he withdrew. And George locked the intervening door between the house and the Bank, and took out the key.
He turned into a passage and went diving down a few stairs, the light in his hand; selected one of several keys which he had brought with him, and opened the door of a dry-vaulted room. It was the strong-room of the Bank, secure and fireproof.
“Safe number three, on right,” he read, consulting a bit of paper on which he had copied down the words in pencil upstairs. “Number three? Then it must be this one.”
Taking another of the keys, he put it into the lock. Turned it, and turned it, and—could not open the lock. George snatched it out, and read the label. “Key of safe number two.”
“What an idiot I am! I have brought the wrong key!”
He went up again, grumbling at his stupidity, opened the cupboard where the keys were kept, and looked for the right one. Number three was the one he wanted. And number three was not there.
George stood transfixed.Hehad custody of the keys. No other person had the power of approaching the place they were guarded in: except his brother. Had the Bank itself disappeared, George Godolphin could not have been much more astonished than at the disappearance of this key. Until this moment, this discovery of its absence, he would have been ready to swear that there it was, before all the judges in the land.
He tossed the keys here; he tossed them there; little heeding how he misplaced them. George became convinced that the Fates were dead against him, in spiriting away, just because he wanted it, this particular key. That no one could have touched it except Thomas, he knew: and why he should have done so, George could not imagine. He could not imagine where it was, or could be, at the present moment. Had Thomas required it to visit the safe, he was far too exact, too methodical, not to return it to its place again.
A quarter of an hour given to hunting, to thinking—and the thinking was not entirely agreeable thinking—and George gave it up in despair.
“I must wait until to-morrow,” was his conclusion. “If Thomas has carried it away with him, through forgetfulness, he will find it out and replace it then.”
He was closing the cupboard door, when something arrested it on its lower shelf, so that it would not close. Bringing the light inside he found—the missing key. George himself must have dropped it there on first opening the cupboard. With a suppressed shout of delight he snatched it up. A shout of delight! Better that George Godolphin had broken into a wail of lamentation! Another moment, and he was going down the stairs to the strong-room, key in hand.
Safe number three, on the right, was unlocked without trouble now. In that safe there were some tin boxes, on one of which was inscribed “Lord Averil.” Selecting another and a smaller key from those he held, George opened this.
It was full of papers. George looked them rapidly over with the quick eye of one accustomed to the work, and drew forth one of them. Rather a bulky parcel, some writing upon it. This he thrust into his pocket, and began putting the rest in order. Had a mirror been held before him at that moment, it would have reflected a face utterly colourless. He returned to the office.
Enclosing the packet in a stout envelope, which he directed, he went out, and dropped it into the post-office at the opposite corner of Crosse Street. Very soon he was on his way to Lady Godolphin’s Folly, bearing with him the small parcel sent by Mrs. Verrall—a sufficient excuse for calling there, had George required an excuse. Which he did not.
It was a light night; as it had been the previous night, though the moon was not yet very high. He gained the turnstile at the end of the Ash-tree Walk—where he had been startled by the apparition of Thomas, and where Isaac Hastings had seen Charlotte Pain that morning—and turned into the open way to the right. A few paces more, and he struck into the narrow pathway which would lead him through the grove of trees, leaving Ashlydyat and its approaches to the left.
Did George Godolphin love the darkness, that he should choose that way? Last night and again to-night he had preferred it. It was most unusual for any one to approach the Folly by that obscure path. A few paces round, and he would have skirted the thicket, would have gone on to the Folly in the bright, open moonlight. Possibly George scarcely noticed that he chose it: full of thought, was he, just then.
He went along with his head down. What were his reflections? Was he wishing that he could undo the deeds of the last hour—replace in that tin case what he had taken from it? Was he wishing that he could undo the deeds of the last fewyears—be again a man without a cloud on his brow, a heavier cloud on his heart? It was too late: he could recall neither the one nor the other. The deed was already on its way to London; the years had rolled into the awful Past, with its doings, bad and good, recorded on high.
What was that? George lifted his head and his ears. A murmur of suppressed voices, angry voices, too, sounded near him, in one of which George thought he recognized the tones of Charlotte Pain. He went through to an intersecting path, so narrow that one person could with difficulty walk down it, just as a scream rang out on the night air.
Panting, scared, breathless, her face distorted with fear or passion, as much as George could see of it in the shaded light, her gauze dress torn by every tree with which it came in contact, flying down the narrow pathway, came Charlotte Pain. And—unless George Godolphin was strangely mistaken—some one else was flying in equal terror in the opposite direction, as if they had just parted.
“Charlotte! What is it? Who has alarmed you?”
In the moment’s first impulse he caught hold of her to protect her;in the second, he loosed his hold, and made after the other fugitive. The impression upon George’s mind was, that some one, perhaps a stranger, had met Charlotte, and frightened her with rude words.
But Charlotte was as swift as he. She flung her hands around George, and held him there. Strong hands they always were: doubly strong in that moment of agitation. George could not unclasp them: unless he had used violence.
“Stay where you are! Stay where you are, for the love of Heaven!” she gasped. “You must not go.”
“What is all this? What is the matter?” he asked in surprise.
She made no other answer. She clung to him with all her weight of strength, her arms and hands straining with the effort, reiterating wildly, “You must not go! you must not go!”
“Nay, I don’t care to go,” replied George: “it was for your sake I was following. Be calm, Charlotte: there’s no necessity for this agitation.”
She went on, down the narrow pathway, drawing him with her. The broader path gained—though that also was but a narrow one—she put her arm within his, and turned towards the house. George could see her white frightened face better now, and all the tricks and cosmetics invented could not hide its ghastliness; he felt her heaving pulses; he heard her beating heart.
Bending down to her, he spoke with a soothing whisper. “Tell me what it was that terrified you.”
She would not answer. She only pressed his arm with a tighter pressure, lest he might break from her again in pursuit; she hurried onwards with a quicker step. Skirting round the trees, which before the house made a half circle, Charlotte came to the end, and then darted rapidly across the lawn to the terrace and into the house by one of the windows. He followed her.
Her first movement was to close the shutters and bar them: her next to sit down on the nearest chair. Ill as she looked, George could scarcely forbear a smile at her gauze dress: the bottom of its skirt was in shreds.
“Will you let me get you something, Charlotte? Or ring for it?”
“I don’t want anything,” she answered. “I shall be all right directly. How could you frighten me so?”
“Ifrighten you!” returned George. “It was not I who frightened you.”
“Indeed it was. You and no one else. Did you not hear me scream?”
“I did.”
“It was at you, rustling through the trees,” persisted Charlotte. “I had gone out to see if the air would relieve this horrid headache, which has been upon me since last night and won’t go away. I strolled into the thicket, thinking all sorts of lonely things, never suspecting that you or any one else could be near me. I wonder I did not faint, as well as scream.”
“Charlotte, what nonsense! You were whispering angrily with some one; some one who escaped in the opposite direction. Who was it?”
“I saw no one; I heard no one. Neither was I whispering.”
He looked at her intently. That she was telling an untruth he believed, for he felt positive that some second personhadbeen there. “Why did you stop me, then, when I would have gone in pursuit?”
“It was your fault for attempting to leave me,” was Charlotte’s answer. “I would not have remained alone for a house full of gold.”
“I suppose it is some secret. I think, whatever it may be, Charlotte, you might trustme.” He spoke significantly, a stress on the last word. Charlotte rose from her seat.
“So I would,” she said, “were there anything to confide. Just look at me! My dress is ruined.”
“You should take it up if you go amidst clumsy trees, whose rough trunks nearly meet.”
“I had it up—until you came,” returned Charlotte, jumping upon a chair that she might survey it in one of the side glasses. “You startled me so that I dropped it. I might have it joined, and a lace flounce put upon it,” she mused. “It cost a great deal of money, did this dress, I can tell you, Mr. George.”
She jumped off the chair again, and George produced the packet confided to him by Mrs. Verrall.
“I promised her that you should have it to-night,” he said. “Hence my unfortunate appearance here, which it seems has so startled you.”
“Oh, that’s over now. When did you get back again?”
“By the seven o’clock train. I saw Verrall.”
“Well?”
“It’s not well. It’s ill. Do you know what I begin to suspect at times?—That Verrall and every one else is playing me false. I am sick of the world.”
“No, he is not, George. If I thought he were, I’d tell you so. I would, on my sacred word of honour. It is not likely that he is. When we are in a bilious mood, everything wears to us a jaundiced tinge. You are in one to-night.”
It is the province of little demoiselles to be naughty: it is their delight to make promises and then break them, all false and fearless—as they may do over other affairs in later life. Miss Meta Godolphin was no exception to the rule. She had gravely promised her uncle Thomas to be a good girl, and not run away to be lost in unfrequented passages; yet no sooner had the young lady arrived at Ashlydyat that morning, and been released of her out-door things by Margery, than with a joyously defiant laugh that would have rejoiced the heart of Charlotte Pain, she flew off to that forbidden spot—the unused passages. Had the little lady’s motive been laid bare, it might have been found toconsist simply in the enjoyment of a thing forbidden. Truth to say, Miss Meta was very prone to be disobedient to all persons, excepting one. That one was her mother. Maria had never spoken a sharp word to the child in her life, or used a sharp tone: but she had contrived to train the little one to obey, as well as to love. George, Margery, Mrs. Hastings, Miss Meta would openly disobey, and laugh in their faces while she did it: her mother, never. Meta remembered a scolding she received on the last visit she had paid to Ashlydyat, touching the remote passages—she had never found them out until then—and apparently the reminiscence of the scolding was so agreeable that she was longing to have it repeated.
“Now,” said Margery, as she concluded the young lady’s toilette, “you’ll not go up to those old rooms and passages to-day, mind, Miss Meta!”
For answer, Miss Meta shook out her golden curls, laughed triumphantly, and started off to the passages then and there. Maria had never said to her, “You must not go near those passages;” and the commands of the rest of the world went for nothing. Margery remained in blissful ignorance of the disobedience. She supposed the child had run to her mother and the Miss Godolphins. The objection to Meta’s being in the passages alone had no mysterious element in it. It proceeded solely from a regard to her personal safety. The staircase leading to the turret was unprotected; the loopholes in the turret were open, and a fall from either might cost the young lady her life. These places, the unfrequented passages at the back of the second storey, and the staircase leading to the square turret above them, were shut in by a door, which separated them from the inhabited part of the house. This door Miss Meta had learned to open; and away she went, as fancy led her.
Maria was in Miss Godolphin’s room, talking to that lady and to Bessy, when a sound overhead caused them to pause.
“Where’s Meta?” cried Janet, hastening from the room. “She cannot have gone upstairs again! Margery! Where’s the child?”
Margery at that moment happened to be putting the finishing touches to her own toilette. She came flying without her cap out of one of the many narrow passages and windings which intersected each other on that floor. “The child went off to you, ma’am, as soon as I had put on her pinafore.”
“Then, Margery, she has gone up into the turret. She never came to us.”
Up to the turret hastened Janet; up to the turret followed Margery. Bessy and Maria traversed the passage leading to the turret-stairs, and stood there, looking upwards. Maria, had she been alone, could not have told which of the passageswouldlead her to the turret-stairs; and she could not understand why so much commotion need be made, although Meta had run up there. Strange as it may seem, Maria Godolphin, though so many years George’s wife, and the presumptive mistress of Ashlydyat, had never passed beyond that separating door. Miss Godolphin had never offered to take her to the unused rooms and the turret; and Maria was of too sensitively refined a nature to ask it of her own accord.
Janet appeared, leading the rebel; Margery, behind, was scolding volubly. “Now,” said Janet, when they reached the foot, “tell me, Meta, how it was that you could behave so disobediently, and go where you had been expressly told not to go?”
Meta shook back her golden curls with a laugh, sprang to Maria, and took refuge in her skirts. “Mamma did not tell me not to go,” said she.
Janet looked at Maria: almost as if she would say, Can it be true that you have not done so?
“It is true,” said Maria, answering the look. “I heard something about her running into the turret the last time she was here: I did not know it was of any consequence.”
“She might fall through the loopholes,” replied Janet. “Nothing could save her from being dashed to pieces.”
Maria caught the child to her with an involuntary movement. “Meta, darling, do you hear? You must never go again.”
Meta looked up fondly, serious now. Maria bent her face down on the little upturned one.
“Never again, darling; do not forget,” she murmured. “Does Meta know that if harm came to her, mamma would never look up again? She would cry always.”
Meta bustled out of her mamma’s arms, and stood before Miss Godolphin, earnest decision on her little face. “Aunt Janet, Meta won’t run away again.”
And when the child voluntarily made a promise, they knew that she would keep it. Margery whirled her away, telling her in high tones of a young lady of her own age who would do something that she was bade not to do: the consequence of which act was, that the next time she went out for a walk, she was run at by a bull with brass tips on his horns.
“Is the turret really dangerous?” inquired Maria.
“It is dangerous for a random child like Meta, who ventures into every hole and corner without reference to dust or danger,” was Miss Godolphin’s answer. “Would you like to go up, Maria?”
“Yes, I should. I have heard George speak of the view from it.”
“Mind, Maria, the stairs are narrow and winding,” interposed Bessy.
Nevertheless, they went up, passing the open loopholes which might be dangerous to Meta. The first thing that Maria’s eyes encountered when they had reached the top was a small bow of violet-coloured ribbon. She stooped to pick it up.
“It is a bow off Janet’s evening dress,” exclaimed Bessy. “Janet”—turning to her sister—“what can have brought it here?”
“I was up here last night,” was the answer of Janet Godolphin, spoken with composure.
“That’s just like you, Janet!” retorted Bessy. “To watch for that foolish Shadow, I suppose.”
“Not to watch for it. To see it.”
Bessy was afflicted with a taint of heresy. They had never been able to imbue her with the superstition pertaining to the Godolphins. Bessy had seen the Shadow more than once with her own eyes; butthey were practical eyes and not imaginative, and could not be made to see anything mysterious in it. “The shadow is thrown by some tree or other,” Bessy would say. And, in spite of its being pointed out to her that there was no tree, whichcouldcast a shadow on the spot, Bessy obstinately held to her own opinion.
Maria gazed from two sides of the turret. The view from both was magnificent. The one side overlooked the charming open country; the other, Prior’s Ash. On the third side rose Lady Godolphin’s Folly, standing out like a white foreground to the lovely expanse of scenery behind it; the fourth side looked upon the Dark Plain.
“There’s Charlotte Pain,” said Bessy.
Charlotte had returned home, it appeared, since Maria met her, and changed her attire. She was pacing the terrace of the Folly in her riding-habit, a whip in hand, and some dogs surrounding her. Maria turned towards the Dark Plain, and gazed upon it.
“Is it true,” she timidly asked, “that the Shadow has been there for the last night or two?”
Janet answered the question by asking another. “Who told you it was there, Maria?”
“I heard Margery say so.”
“Margery?” repeated Janet. “That woman appears to know by instinct when the Shadow comes. She dreams it, I think. It is true, Maria, that it has appeared again,” she continued, in a tone of unnatural composure. “I never saw it so black as it was last night.”
“Do you believe that there can be anything in it—that it foretells ill?” asked Maria.
“I know that it is the tradition handed down with our house: I know that, in my own experience, the Shadow never came but it brought ill,” was the reply of Miss Godolphin.
“What caused the superstition to arise in the first instance?” asked Maria.
“Has George never told you the tale?” replied Janet.
“Never. He says he does not remember it clearly enough. Will you not tell it me, Janet?”
Janet hesitated. “One of the early Godolphins brought a curse upon the house,” she at length began, in a low tone. “It was that evil ancestor whose memory we would bury, were it possible; he who earned for himself the title of the Wicked Godolphin. He killed his wife by a course of gradual and long-continued ill-treatment. He wanted her out of the way that another might fill her place. He pretended to have discovered that she was not worthy: than which assertion nothing could be more false and shameless, for she was one of the best ladies ever created. She was a de Commins, daughter of the warrior Richard de Commins, and was brave as she was good. She died; and the Wicked Godolphin turned her coffin out of the house on to the Dark Plain; there”—pointing to the open space before the archway—“to remain until the day of interment. But he did not wait for that day of interment to bring home his second wife.”
“Not wait!” exclaimed Maria, her eager ears drinking in the story.
“The habits in those early days will scarcely admit of allusion to them in these,” continued Janet: “they savour of what is worse thanbarbarism—sin. The father, Richard de Commins, heard of his child’s death, and hastened to Ashlydyat, arriving by moonlight. The first sounds he encountered were the revels of the celebration of the second marriage; the first sight he saw was the coffin of his daughter on the open plain, covered by a pall, two of her faithful women bending, the one at the head, the other at the foot, mourning the dead. While he halted there, kneeling in prayer, it was told to the Wicked Godolphin that de Commins had arrived. He—that Wicked Godolphin—rushed madly out, and drew his sword upon him as he knelt. De Commins was wounded, but not mortally, and he rose to defend himself. A combat ensued, de Commins having no resource but to fight, and he was killed; murdered. Weary with his journey, enfeebled by age, weakened by grief, his foot slipped, and the Wicked Godolphin, stung to fury by the few words of reproach de Commins had had time to speak, deliberately ran him through as he lay. In the moment of death, de Commins cursed the Godolphins, and prophesied that the shadow of his daughter’s bier, as it appeared then, should remain as a curse upon the Godolphins’ house for ever.”
“But do you believe the story?” cried Maria, breathlessly.
“How much of it may be true, how much of it addition, I cannot decide,” said Janet. “One fact is indisputable: that a shadow, bearing the exact resemblance of a bier, with a mourner at its head and another at its foot, does appear capriciously on that Dark Plain; and that it never yet showed itself, but some grievous ill followed for the Godolphins. It is possible that the Shadow may have partially given rise to the story.”
“Janet!” cried Maria, leaning forward, her own tones hushed, “is itpossiblethat one, in dying, can curse a whole generation, so that the curse shall take effect in the future?”
“Hush, child!” rebuked Janet. “It does not become us to inquire into these things. Controversy about them is utterly useless, worse than profitless; for there will be believers and unbelievers to the end of time. You wished me to tell you the story, Maria, and I have done so. I do no more. I do not tell you it is to be believed, or it is not to be believed. Let every one decide for himself, according as his reason, his instinct, or his judgment shall prompt him. People accuse me of being foolishly superstitious touching this Shadow and these old traditions. I can only say the superstition has been forced upon me by experience. When the Shadow appears, I cannot close my eyes to it and say, ‘It is not there.’ Itisthere: and all I do is to look at it, and speculate. When the evil, whichinvariablyfollows the appearance of the Shadow, falls, I cannot close my heart to it, and say, in the teeth of facts, ‘No evil has happened.’ The Shadow never appeared, Maria, but it brought ill in its wake. It is appearing again now: and I am as certain that some great ill is in store for us, as that I am talking to you at this moment. On this point Iamsuperstitious.”
“It is a long time, is it not, since the Shadow last appeared?”
“It is years. But I have not quite finished the story,” resumed Janet. “The Wicked Godolphin killed Richard de Commins, and buried him that night on the Dark Plain. In his fury and passion he called his servants around him, ordered a grave to be dug, and assistedwith his own hands. De Commins was put into it without the rites of burial. Tradition runs that so long as the bones remain unfound, the place will retain the appearance of a graveyard. They have been often searched for. That tragedy, no doubt, gave its name to the place—‘The Dark Plain.’ It cannot be denied that the place does wear much the appearance of a graveyard: especially by moonlight.”
“It is only the effect of the low gorse bushes,” said Bessy. “They grow in a peculiar form. I know I would have those bushes rooted up, were I master of Ashlydyat!”
“Your father had it done, Bessy, and they sprang up again,” replied Janet. “You must remember it.”
“It could not have been done effectually,” was Bessy’s answer. “Papa must have had lazy men at work, who left the roots in. I would dig it all up and make a ploughed field of it.”
“Did he do any other harm—that Wicked Godolphin?” asked Maria.
“He! Other harm!” reiterated Janet, something like indignation at Maria’s question mingling with surprise in her tone. “Don’t you know that it was he who gambled away Ashlydyat? After that second marriage of his, he took to worse and worse courses. It was said that his second wife proved a match for him, and they lived together like two evil demons. All things considered, it was perhaps a natural sequence that they should so live,” added Janet, severely. “And in the end he cut off the entail and gambled away the estate. Many years elapsed before the Godolphins could recover it.”
Maria was longing to put a question. She had heard that there were other superstitious marvels attaching to Ashlydyat, but she scarcely liked to mention them to the Miss Godolphins. George never would explain anything: he always turned it off, with laughing raillery.
“You—think—that Ashlydyat will pass away from the Godolphins, Janet?”
Janet shook her head. “We have been reared in the belief,” she answered. “That the estate is to pass finally away from them, the Godolphins have been taught to fear ever since that unhappy time. Each generation, as they have come into possession, have accepted it as an uncertain tenure: as a thing that might last them for their time, or might pass away from them ere their earthly sojourn was completed. The belief was; nay, the tradition was; that so long as a reigning Godolphin held by Ashlydyat, Ashlydyat would hold by him and his. My father was the first to break it.”
Janet had taken up her dress, and sat down on a dusty, faded bench, the only article of furniture of any description that the square room contained. That strangely speculative look—it was scarcely an earthly one—had come into her eyes: and though she answered when spoken to, she appeared to be lost in sad, inward thought. Maria, somewhat awed with the turn the conversation had taken, with the words altogether, stood against the opposite window, her delicate hands clasped before her, her face slightly bent forward, pale and grave.
“Then, do you fear that the end for the Godolphins is at hand?”
“I seem toseethat it is,” replied Janet. “I have looked for it eversince my father left Ashlydyat. I might say—but that I should be laughed at more than I am for an idealist—that the strangers to whom he resigned it in his place, would have some bearing upon our fall, would in some way conduce to it. I think of these things ever,” continued Janet, almost as if she would apologize for the wildness of the confession. “They seem to unfold themselves to me, to become clear and more clear: to be no longer fanciful fears darting across the brain, but realities of life.”
Maria’s lips slightly parted as she listened. “But the Verralls have left Ashlydyat a long while?” she presently said.
“I know they have. But they were usurpers here for the time. Better—as I believe—that my father had shut it up: better, far better, that he had never left it! He knew it also: and it preyed upon him on his death-bed.”
“Oh, Janet! the ill may not come in our time!”
“It may not. I am anxious to believe it may not, in defiance of the unalterable conviction that has seated itself within me. Let it pass, Maria; talking of it will not avert it: indeed, I do not know how I came to be betrayed into speaking of it openly.”
“But you have not told me about the sounds in the passages?” urged Maria, as Janet rose from her dusty seat.
“There is nothing more to tell. Peculiar sounds, as if caused by the wind, are heard. Moaning, sighing, rushing—the passages at times seem alive with them. It is said to come as a reminder to the Godolphins of a worse sound that will sometime be heard, when Ashlydyat shall be passing away from them.”
“But you don’t believe that?” uttered Maria.
“Child, I can scarcely tell you what I believe,” was Janet’s answer. “I can only pray that the one-half of what my heart prompts me to fear, may never take place in reality. That the noise does come, and without any apparent cause, is not a matter of belief, or disbelief: it is a fact, patent to all who have inhabited Ashlydyat. The Verralls can tell you so: they have had their rest broken by it.”
“And it is not caused by the wind?”
Janet shook her head in dissent. “It has come on the calmest and stillest night, when there has not been a breath of air to move the leaves of the ash-trees.”
Bessy turned from her pastime of watching Charlotte Pain: she had taken little part in the conversation.
“I wonder at you, Janet. You will be setting Maria against Ashlydyat. She will be frightened to come into it, should it lapse to George.”
Maria looked at her with a smile. “I should have no fear with him, superstitious or otherwise. If George took me to live in the catacombs, I could be brave with him.”
Ever the same blind faith; the unchanged love for her husband. Better, far better, that it should be so!
“For my part, I am content to take life and its good as I find it, and not waste my time in unprofitable dreams,” was the practical remark of Bessy. “If any ill is to come, it must come; but there’s no need to look out for it beforehand.”
“There must be dreamers and there must be workers,” answered Janet, picking her way down the winding stairs. “We were not all born into the world with minds similarly constituted, or to fulfil the same parts in life.”
The day passed on. Thomas Godolphin came home in the evening to dinner, and said George had not returned. Maria wondered. It grew later. Margery went home with Meta: who thought she was very hardly used at having to go home before her mamma.
“I had rather you would stay, Maria,” Thomas said to her. “I particularly wish to say a word to George to-night, on business-matters: if he finds you are here when he returns, he will come up.”
George did find so—as you already know. And when he left Mrs. Charlotte Pain, her torn dress and her other attractions, he bent his steps towards Ashlydyat. But, instead of going the most direct road to it, he took his way through the thicket where he had had the encounter an hour ago with Charlotte. There was a little spice of mystery about it which excited Mr. George’s curiosity. That someone had parted from her he felt convinced, in spite of her denial. And that she was in a state of excitement, of agitation, far beyond anything he had ever witnessed in Charlotte Pain, was indisputable. George’s thoughts went back, naturally, to the previous night: to the figure he had seen, and whom his eyes, his conviction, had told him was Charlotte. She had positively denied it, had said she had not quitted the drawing-room: and George had found her there, apparently composed and stationary. Nevertheless, though he had then yielded to her word, he began now to suspect that his own conviction had been correct: that the dark and partially disguised figure had been no other than Charlotte herself. It is probable that, however powerful was the hold Charlotte’s fascinations may have taken upon the senses of Mr. George Godolphin, histrustin her, in her truth and single-heartedness, was not of the most perfect nature. What mystery was connected with Charlotte, or whom she met in the thicket, or whether she met any one or no one, she best knew. George’s curiosity was sufficiently excited upon the point to induce him to walk with a slow step and searching eyes, lest haply he might come upon some one or something which should explain the puzzle.
How runs the old proverb? “A watched-for visitor never comes.” In vain George halted and listened; in vain he peered into every part of the thicket within view. Not a step was to be heard, not a creature to be seen: and he emerged from the trees ungratified. Crossing the open grass by the turnstile he turned round by the ash-trees, to the Dark Plain.
Turned and started. George Godolphin’s thoughts had been on other things than the Shadow. The Shadow lay there, so pre-eminently dark, so menacing, that George positively started. Somehow—fond as he was of ignoring the superstition—George Godolphin did not like its look to-night.
Upon entering Ashlydyat, his first interview was with Thomas. They remained for a few minutes alone. Thomas had business affairs to speak of: and George—it is more than probable—made some goodexcuse for his day’s absence. That it would be useless to deny he had been to London, he knew. Charlotte had put him on his guard. Janet and Bessy asked innumerable questions of him when he joined them, on the score of his absence; but he treated it in his usual light manner, contriving to tell them nothing. Maria did not say a word then: she left it till they should be alone.
“You will tellme, George, will you not?” she gently said, as they were walking home together.
“Tell you what, Maria?”
“Oh, George, you know what”—and her tone, as Mr. George’s ears detected, bore its sound of pain. “If you were going to London when you left me; why did you deceive me by saying you were going elsewhere?”
“You goose! Do you suppose I said it to deceive you?”
There was a lightness, an untruthfulness in his words, in his whole air and manner, which struck with the utmost pain upon Maria’s heart. “Why did you say it?” was all she answered.
“Maria, I’ll tell you the truth,” said he, becoming serious and confidential. “I wanted to run up to town on a little pressing matter of business, and I did not care that it should become known in the Bank. Had I known that I should be away for the day, of course I should have told Thomas: but I fully intended to be home in the afternoon: therefore I said nothing about it. I missed the train, or I should have been home in due time.”
“You might have told me,” she sighed. “I would have kept your counsel.”
“So I would, had I thought you deemed it of any consequence,” replied George.
Consequence! Maria walked on a few minutes in silence, her arm lying very spiritless within her husband’s. “If you did not tell me,” she resumed, in a low tone, “why did you tell Mrs. Pain?”
“Mrs. Pain’s a donkey,” was George’s rejoinder. And it is probable Mr. George at that moment was thinking her one: for his tone in its vexation, was real enough. “My business was connected with Verrall, and I dropped a hint, in the hearing of Mrs. Pain, that I might probably follow him to town. At any rate, I am safe home again, Maria, so no great harm has come of my visit to London,” he concluded, in a gayer tone.
“What time did you get in?” she asked.
“By the seven o’clock train.”
“The seven o’clock train!” she repeated in surprise. “And have only now come up to Ashlydyat!”
“I found a good many things to do after I got home,” was the rejoinder.
“Did you see Meta? Margery took her home at eight o’clock.”
Mr. George Godolphin had not seen Meta. Mr. George could have answered, had it so pleased him, that before the child reached home, he had departed on his evening visit to Lady Godolphin’s Folly.
Saturday was a busy day at Prior’s Ash; it was a busy day at the banking-house of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin. Country towns and country banks are always more busy on a market-day.
George Godolphin sat in the manager’s room, full of business. Not much more than a week had elapsed since that visit of his to London; and it was now Thomas’s turn to be away. Thomas had gone to town. His errand there was to consult one of the first surgeons of the day, on the subject of his own health. Not so much thathehad hope from the visit, as that it would be a satisfaction to his family to have made it.
George Godolphin was full of business. Full of talking also. A hearty country client, one who farmed a large number of acres, and generally kept a good round sum in the Bank’s coffers, was with him. What little point of business he had had occasion to see one of the partners upon, was concluded, and he and George were making merry together, enjoying a gossip as to the state of affairs in general and in particular, out of doors and in. Never a man more free from care (if appearances might be trusted) than George Godolphin! When that hearty, honest farmer went forth, he would have been willing to testify that, of carking care, George possessed none.
As he went on, George sat down and bent over some account-books. His face had changed. Lines, of what looked worse than care, grew out upon it, and he lifted his hand to his brow with a weary gesture. Another minute, and he was interrupted again. He had very little peace on a market-day.
“Lord Averil wishes to see you, sir,” said one of the clerks. It was Isaac Hastings.
To any other announced name, George Godolphin’s ready answer would have been, “Show him in.” To that of Lord Averil he evidently hesitated, and a sudden flush dyed his face. Isaac, keen in observation as was his father, as was his sister Grace, noticed it. To him, it looked like a flush of shrinking fear.
“Did he ask for me?”
“He asked for Mr. Godolphin, sir. He says it will be the same thing if he sees you. Shall I show him in?”
“Of course,” replied George. “What do you stop for?” he angrily added.
He rose from his seat; he put a chair or two in place; he turned to the table, and laid rapidly some of its papers one upon another—all in a fuss and bustle not in the least characteristic of George Godolphin. Isaac thought he must have lost his usual presence of mind. As to the reproach addressed to himself, “What do you stop for?”—it had never been the custom to show clients into the presence of the partners without first asking for permission.
Lord Averil came in. George, only in that short time, had become himself again. They chatted a minute on passing topics, and Lord Averil mentioned that he had not known, until then, that Mr. Godolphin was in London.
“He went up on Thursday,” observed George. “I expect he will be back early in the week.”
“I intend to be in London myself next week,” said Lord Averil. “Will it be convenient for me to have those bonds of mine to-day?” he continued.
A sudden coursing on of all George’s pulses; a whirling rush in his brain. “Bonds?” he mechanically answered.
“The bonds of that stock which your father bought for me years ago,” explained Lord Averil. “They were deposited here for security. Don’t you know it?”—looking at George’s countenance, which seemed to speak only of perplexity. “Mr. Godolphin would know.”
“Oh yes, yes,” replied George, regaining his breath and his courage. “It is all right: I did not remember for the moment. Of course—the deposited bonds.”
“I am thinking of selling out,” said Lord Averil. “Indeed, I have been for some time thinking of it, but have idly put it off. If it would be quite convenient to give me the bonds, I would take them to town with me. I shall go up on Monday or Tuesday.”
Now, George Godolphin, rally your wits! What are you to answer? George did rally them, in a lame manner. Confused words, which neither he nor Lord Averil precisely understood—to the effect that in Thomas Godolphin’s absence, he, George, did not know exactly where to put his hand upon the securities—came forth. So Lord Averil courteously begged him not to take any trouble about it. He would leave them until another opportunity.
He shook hands cordially with George, and went out with a mental comment, “Not half the man of business that his brother is, and his father was: but wondrously like Cecil!” George watched the door close. He wiped the dewdrops which had gathered on his face; he looked round with the beseeching air of one seeking relief from some intense pain. Had Lord Averil persisted in his demand, what would have remained for him?Thoseare the moments in which man has been tempted to resort to the one irredeemable sin.
The door opened again, and George gave a gasp as one in agony. It was only Isaac Hastings. “Mr. Hurde wishes to know, sir, whether those bills are to go up to Glyn’s to-day or Monday?”
“They had better go to-day,” replied George. “Has Mr. Barnaby been in to-day?” he added, as Isaac was departing.
“Not yet.”
“If he does not come soon, some one must go down to the corn market to him. He is sure to be there. That is, if he is in town to-day.”
“I know he is in town,” replied Isaac. “I saw him as I was coming back from dinner. He was talking to Mr. Verrall.”
“To Mr. Verrall!” almost shouted George, looking up as if electrified into life. “Isheback again?”
“He is back again, sir. I think he had only then arrived. He was coming from towards the railway station.”
“You aresureit was Mr. Verrall?” reiterated George.
Isaac Hastings smiled. What could make Mr. George Godolphin so eager? “I am sure it was Mr. Verrall.”
George felt as if a whole ton weight of care had been lifted from him. He had been so long in the habit of flying to Mr. Verrall in his difficulties, that it seemed to him he would only have to go to him, to remedy the one hanging over him now. Mr. Verrall had generally accomplished the task as men of his profession do accomplish such tasks—by laying up an awful day of reckoning for the future. That day was not now far off for George Godolphin.
The Bank closed later on Saturdays, and George remained at his post to the end. Then he dined. Then, at the dusk-hour—nay, at the hour of darkness, he went out to Lady Godolphin’s Folly. Why was it that he rarely went to the Folly now, except under the covert shades of night? Did he fear people might comment on his intimacy with Mr. Verrall, and seek a clue to its cause? Or did he fear the world’s gossip on another score?
George arrived at Lady Godolphin’s Folly, and was admitted to an empty room. “Mr. Verrall had returned, and had dined with Mrs. Pain, but had gone out after dinner,” the servant said. He had believed Mrs. Pain to be in the drawing-room. Mrs. Pain was evidently not there, in spite of the man’s searching eyes. He looked into the next room, with similar result.
“Perhaps, sir, she has stepped out on the terrace with her dogs?” observed the man.
George—ungallant as he was!—cared not where Mrs. Pain might have stepped at that present moment: his anxiety was for Mr. Verrall. “Have you any idea when your master will be in?” he inquired of the servant.
“I don’t think he’ll be long, sir. I heard him say he was tired, and should go to bed early. He may have gone to Ashlydyat. He told Mrs. Pain that he had met Mr. Godolphin in town yesterday, and he should call and tell Miss Godolphin that he was better in London than he felt here. I don’t know, sir, though, that he meant he should call to-night.”
The man left the room, and George remained alone. He drummed on the table; he tried several seats in succession; he got up and looked at his face in the glass. A haggard face then. Where was Verrall? Where was Charlotte? She might be able to tell him where Verrall had gone, and when he would be in. Altogether George was in a state of restlessness little better than torture.
He impatiently opened the glass doors, which were only closed, not fastened, and stood a few moments looking out upon the night. He gazed in all directions, but could see nothing of Charlotte; and Mr. Verrall did not appear to be coming. “I’ll see,” suddenly exclaimed George, starting off, “whether he is at Ashlydyat.”
He did well. Action is better than inertness at these moments. Standing outside the porch at Ashlydyat, talking to a friend, was Andrew, one of their servants. When he saw George, he drew back to hold open the door for him.
“Are my sisters alone, Andrew?”
“Yes, sir.”
George scarcely expected the answer, and it disappointed him. “Quite alone?” he reiterated. “Has no one called on them to-night?”
The man shook his head, wondering probably who Mr. George might be expecting to call. “They are all alone, sir. Miss Janet has one of her bad headaches.”
George did not want to go in, Mr. Verrall not being there, and this last item afforded him an excuse for retreating without doing so. “Then I’ll not disturb her to-night,” said he. “You need not say that I came up, Andrew.”
“Very well, sir.”
He quitted Andrew, and turned off to the left, deep in thought, striking into a sheltered path. It was by no means the direct road back to the Folly, neither was it to Prior’s Ash. In point of fact, it led to nothing but the Dark Plain and its superstition. Not a woman-servant of Ashlydyat, perhaps not one of its men, would have gone down that path at night: for at the other end it brought them out to the archway, before which the Shadow was wont to show itself.
Why did George take it? He could not have told. Had he been asked why, he might have said that one way, to a man bowed under a sharp weight of trouble, is the same as another. True. But the path led him to no part where he could wish to go; and he would have to make his way to Lady Godolphin’s Folly through the gorse bushes of the Dark Plain, over the very Shadow itself. These apparently chance steps, which seem to be taken without premeditation or guidance of ours, sometimes lead to strange results.
George went along moodily, his hands in his pockets, his footfalls slow and light. But for the latter fact, he might not have had the pleasure of disturbing a certain scene that was taking place under cover of the archway.
Were they ghosts, enacting it? Scarcely. Two forms, ghostly or human, were there. One of them looked like a woman’s. It was dressed in dark clothes, and a dark shawl was folded over the head, not, however, concealing the features—and they were those of Charlotte Pain. She, at any rate, was not ghostly. The other, George took to be Mr. Verrall. He was leaning against the brickwork, in apparently as hopeless a mood as George himself.
They were enjoying a quarrel. Strange that they should leave the house and come to this lonely spot in the grounds of Ashlydyat to hold it! Charlotte was evidently in one of her tempers. She paced to and fro under the archway, something like a restrained tiger, pouring forth a torrent of sharp words and reproaches, all in a suppressed tone.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” were the first distinct words of anger George caught. But her companion interrupted her, his tone one of sadness and humility.
“I’ll tellyouwhat it is, Charlotte——”
The start made by George Godolphin at the tones of the voice, the involuntary sound of utter astonishment that escaped him, disturbed them. Charlotte, with a cry of terror, darted one way, her companion another.
But the latter was not quick enough to elude George Godolphin. Springing forward, George caught him in his powerful grasp, really to assure himself that it was no ghost, but genuine flesh and blood. Then George turned the face to the starlight, and recognized the features of the dead-and-gone Mr. Rodolf Pain.
The return of a husband, popularly supposed to be dead and out of the way for good, may be regarded by the wife as a blessing from some special providence, or as a source of annoying embarrassment, according to the lady’s own feeling on the subject. Undoubtedly, Charlotte Pain looked upon it, and most unmistakably so, in the latter light. Charlotte knew, better than the world, that Mr. Rodolf Pain was not dead; but she had believed him to be as surely out of her way as though death and some safe metropolitan cemetery had irrevocably claimed him. Whatever trifling accident might have happened to put Mr. Rodolf Pain and the British criminal law at issue, Charlotte, at any rate, had assumed it one not to be easily got over, except by the perpetual exile of the gentleman from the British shores. When the little affair had occurred, and Mr. Rodolf had saved himself and his liberty by only a hair’s-breadth, choosing a foreign exile and a false name in preference to some notoriety at a certain court (a court which does not bear a pleasant sound, and rises ominous and dark and gloomy in the heart of the city), it had pleased Charlotte and those connected with her to give out that Mr. Rodolf Pain had died. In Mr. Rodolf Pain’s going out of the world by death, there was certainly no disgrace, provided that he went out naturally; that is, without what may be called malice prepense on his own part. But, for Mr. Rodolf Pain to be compelled to make his exit from London society after another fashion, was quite a different affair—an affair which could never have been quite tolerated by Charlotte: not on his score, but on her own. Any superfluous consideration for him, Charlotte had never been troubled with. Before her marriage she had regarded him in the light of a nonentity; since that ceremony, as an incumbrance. Therefore, on the whole, Charlotte was tolerably pleased to get rid of him, and she played herrôleof widow to perfection. No inconvenient disclosure, as to the facts of his hasty exit, had come out to the public, for it had fortunately happened that the transaction, or transactions, which led to it, had not been done in his own name. To describe Charlotte’s dismay when he returned, and she found her fond assumption of his perpetual exile to have been a false security, would take a cleverer pen than mine. No other misfortune known to earth, could have been looked upon by Charlotte as so dire a calamity. Had Prior’s Ash been blown up, herself included, by some sprung mine, or swallowed down by an earthquake, it would have been little, in comparison.
It certainly was not pleasant to be startled by a faint tap at the unscreened window, while she sat under the chandelier, busy at what she so rarely attempted, some useless fancy-work. Yet that was the unceremonious manner in which her husband made his return known to her. Charlotte was expecting no visitors that night. It was the night of George Godolphin’s dinner-party, at which Mr. Verrall hadnotappeared, having started for London instead. When the tapping came, Charlotte turned her head towards the window in surprise. Noone was in the habit of entering that way, save free-and-easy George Godolphin; he would now and then do so; sometimes Mr. Verrall. But Charlotte knew of George’s dinner party, and Mr. Verrall was away. She could see nothing of the intruder: the room was ablaze with light; outside, it was, comparatively speaking, dark; and the window was also partially shaded by its lace curtains. Charlotte thought she must have been mistaken, and went on unravelling her crochet mat.