The tapping came again. “Very odd!” thought Charlotte. “Come in,” she called out.
No one came in. There was no response at all for a minute or two. Then there came another timid tapping.
Charlotte’s dress was half covered with cotton. She rose, shook it, let the cotton and the mat (what remained of it) fall to the ground, walked to the window, and opened it.
At the first moment she could see nothing. It was bright moonlight, and she had come from the blazing light within, beside which that outer light was so cold and pure. Not for that reason could she see nothing, but because there appeared to be nothing to see. She ranged her eyes in vain over the terrace, over the still landscape beyond.
“Charlotte!”
It was the faintest possible voice, and close to her. Faint as it was though, there was that in its tone which struck on every fibre of Charlotte’s frame with dismay. Gathered against the walls of the Folly, making a pretence to shelter himself beyond a brilliant cape-jessamine which was trained there, was the slight figure of a man. A mere shred of a man, with a shrinking, attenuated frame: the frame of one who has lived in some long agony, bodily or mental: and a white face that shivered as he stood.
Not more white, not more shivering than Charlotte’s. Her complexion—well, you have heard of it, as one too much studied to allow vulgar changes to come upon it, in a general way. But there are moments in a lifetime when Nature asserts herself, and Art retires before her. Charlotte’s face turned to the hue of the dead, and Charlotte’s dismay broke forth in a low passionate wail. It was Rodolf Pain.
A moment of terrified bewilderment; a torrent of rapid words; not of sympathy, or greeting, but of anger; and Charlotte was pushing him away with her hands, she neither knew nor cared whither. It was dangerous for him to be there, she said. He must go.
“I’ll go into the thicket, Charlotte,” he answered, pointing to the trees on the left. “Come to me there.”
He glided off as he spoke, under cover of the walls. Charlotte, feeling that she should like to decline the invitation had she dared, enveloped her head and shoulders in a black shawl, and followed him. Nothing satisfactory came of the interview—except recrimination. Charlotte was in a towering passion that he should have ventured back at all; Rodolf complained that between them all he had been made the scapegoat. In returning home, she caught sight of George Godolphin approaching the house, just as she was about to steal across the lawn. Keeping under cover of the trees, she got in by a back entrance, and sat down to her work in the drawing-room, protesting to George,when he was admitted, that she had not been out. No wonder her face looked strange in spite of its embellishments!
Her interviews with Rodolf Pain appeared to be ill chosen. On the following night she met him in the same place: he had insisted upon it, and she did not dare refuse. More recrimination, more anger; in the midst of which George Godolphin again broke upon them. Charlotte screamed aloud in her terror, and Rodolf ran away. But that Charlotte laid detaining hands upon George, the returned man might have been discovered then, and that would not have suited Charlotte.
A few more days and that climax was to arrive. The plantation appearing unsafe, Rodolf Pain proposed the archway. There they should surely be unmolested: the ghostly fears of the neighbourhood and of Ashlydyat kept every one away from the spot. And there, two or three times, had Charlotte met him, quarrelling always, when they were again intruded upon, and again by George. This time to some purpose.
George Godolphin’s astonishment was excessive. In his wildest flights of fancy he had never given a thought to the suspicion that Rodolf Pain could be alive. Charlotte had not been more confidential with George than with the rest of the world. Making a merit of what could not well be avoided, she now gave him a few particulars.
For when she looked back in her flight and saw that Rodolf Pain was fairly caught, that there was no further possibility of the farce of his death being kept up to George, she deemed it well to turn back again. Better bringhermanaging brains to the explanation, than leave it to that simple calf, whom she had the honour of calling husband. The fact was, Rodolf Pain had never been half cunning enough, half rogue enough, for the work assigned him by Mr. Verrall. He—Mr. Verrall—had always said that Rodolf had brought the trouble upon himself, in consequence of trying to exercise a little honesty. Charlotte agreed with the opinion: and every contemptuous epithet cast by Mr. Verrall on the unfortunate exile, Charlotte had fully echoed.
George was some little time before he could understand as much as was vouchsafed him of the explanation. They stood in the shadow of the archway, Charlotte keeping her black shawl well over her head and round her face; Rodolf, his arms folded, leaning against the inner circle of the stonework.
“What, do you say? sent you abroad?” questioned George, somewhat bewildered.
“It was that wretched business of Appleby’s,” replied Rodolf Pain. “You must have heard of it. The world heard enough of it.”
“Appleby—Appleby? Yes, I remember,” remarked George. “A nice swindle it was. But what had you to do with it?”
“In point of fact, I only had to do with it at second-hand,” said Rodolf Pain, his tone one of bitter meaning. “It was Verrall’s affair—as everything else is. I only executed his orders.”
“But surely neither you nor Verrall had anything to do with that swindling business of Appleby’s?” cried George, his voice as full of amazement as the other’s was of bitterness.
Charlotte interposed, her manner so eager, so flurried, as to impart the suspicion that she must have some personal interest in it. “Rodolf,hold your tongue! Where’s the use of bringing up this old speculative nonsense to Mr. George Godolphin? He does not care to hear about it.”
“I would bring it up to all the world if I could,” was Rodolf’s answer, ringing with its own sense of injury. “Verrall told me in the most solemn manner that if things ever cleared, through Appleby’s death, or in any other way, so as to make it safe for me to return, that that hour he would send for me. Well: Appleby has been dead these six months; and yet he leaves me on, on, on, in the New World, without so much as a notice of it. Now, it’s of no use growing fierce again, Charlotte! I’ll tell Mr. George Godolphin if I please. I am not the patient slave you helped to drive abroad: the trodden worm turns at last. Do you happen to know, sir, that Appleby’s dead?”
“I don’t know anything about Appleby,” replied George. “I remember the name, as being owned by a gentleman who was subjected to some bad treatment in the shape of swindling, by one Rustin. But what had you or Verrall to do with it?”
“Psha!” said Rodolf Pain. “Verrall was Rustin.”
George Godolphin opened his eyes to their utmost width. “N—o!” he said, very slowly, certain curious ideas beginning to crowd into his mind. Certain remembrances also.
“He was.—Charlotte, I tell you it is of no use: Iwillspeak. What does it matter, Mr. George Godolphin’s knowing it? Verrall was the real principal—Rustin, in fact; I, the ostensible one. And I had to suffer.”
“Did Appleby think you were Rustin?” inquired George, thoroughly bewildered.
“Appleby at one time thought I was Verrall. Oh, I assure you there were wheels within wheels at work there. Of course there had to be, to carry on such a concern as that. It is so still. Verrall, you know, could not be made the scapegoat, he takes care of that—besides, it would blow the whole thing to pieces, if any evil fell upon him. It fell upon me, and I had to suffer for it, and abroad I went. I did not grumble; it would have been of no use: had I stayed at home and braved it out, I should have beensentabroad, I suppose, at her Majesty’s cost——”
Charlotte interrupted, in a terrible passion. “Have you no sense of humiliation, Rodolf Pain, that you tell these strange stories? Mr. George Godolphin, I pray you do not listen to him!”
“I am safe,” replied George. “Pain can say what he pleases. It is safe with me.”
“As to humiliation, that does not fall so much to my share as it does to another’s, in the light I look at it. I was not the principal; I was only the scapegoat; principals rarely are made the scapegoats in that sort of business. Let it go, I say. I took the punishment without a word. But, now that the man’s dead, and I can come home with safety, I want to know why I was not sent for?”
“I don’t believe the man’s dead,” observed Charlotte.
“I am quite sure that he is dead,” said Rodolf Pain. “I was told it from a sure and certain source, some one who came out there, and who used to know Appleby. He said the death was in theTimes, and he knew it for a fact besides.”
“Appleby? Appleby?” mused George, his thoughts going back to a long-past morning, when he had been an unseen witness to Charlotte’s interview with a gentleman giving that name—who had previously accosted him in the porch at Ashlydyat, mistaking it for the residence of Mr. Verrall. “I remember his coming down here once.”
“I remember it too,” said Rodolf Pain, significantly, “and the passion it put Verrall into. Verrall thought his address, down here, had oozed out through my carelessness. The trouble that we had with that Appleby, first and last! It went on for years. The bother was patched up at times, but only to break out again; and to send me into exile at last.”
“Does Verrall know of his death?” inquired George of Rodolf.
“There’s not a doubt that he must know of it. And Charlotte says she won’t ask Verrall, and won’t tell him I am here! My belief is that she knows Appleby’s dead.”
Charlotte had resumed her walk under the archway: pacing there—as was remarked before—like a restrained tiger. She took no notice of Rodolf’s last speech.
“Why not tell Verrall yourself that you are here?” was George’s sensible question.
“Well—you see, Mr. George Godolphin, I’d rather not, as long as there’s the least doubt as to Appleby’s death.Ifeel none myself: but if it should turn out to be a mistake, my appearance here would do good neither to me nor to Verrall. And Verrall’s a dangerous man to cross. He might kill me in his passion. It takes a good deal to put him into one, but when it does come, it’s like a tornado.”
“You acknowledge that there is a doubt as to Appleby’s death, then!” sarcastically cried Charlotte.
“I say that it’s just possible. It was not being fully certain that brought me back in this clandestine way. What I want you to do is to ask Verrall if Appleby’s dead. I believe he will answer ‘Yes.’ ‘Very well,’ then you can say, ‘Rodolf Pain’s home again.’ And if——”
“And if he says, ‘No, he is not dead,’ what then?” fiercely interrupted Charlotte.
“Then you can tell me privately, and I must depart the way I came. But I don’t depart without beingsatisfiedof the fact,” pointedly added Mr. Pain, as if he had not entire and implicit reliance upon Charlotte’s word. “My firm belief is that he is dead, and that Verrall will tell you he is dead. In that case I am a free man to-morrow.”
Charlotte turned her head towards him, terrible anger in her tone, and in her face. “And how is your reappearance to be accounted for to those who look uponyouas dead?”
“I don’t care how,” indifferently answered Rodolf. “I did not spread the report of my own death. If you did, you can contradict it.”
“If I did do it, it was to save your reputation,” returned Charlotte, scarcely able to speak in her passion.
“Iknow,” said Rodolf Pain. “You feared something or other might come out about your husband, and so you thought you’d kill me off-hand. Two for yourself and one for me, Charlotte.”
She did not answer.
“If my coming back is so annoying to you, we can live apart,” he resumed. “You pretty well gave me a sickener before I went away. As you know.”
“This must be an amusing dialogue to Mr. George Godolphin!” fumed Charlotte.
“May-be,” replied Rodolf Pain, his tone sad and weary. “I have been so hardly treated between you and Verrall, Charlotte, that I don’t care who knows it.”
“Where are you staying?” asked George, wondering whether the shady spots about Ashlydyat sheltered him by day as well as by night.
“Not far away, sir: at a roadside inn,” was the answer. “No one knew me much, about here, in the old days; but, to make assurance doubly sure, I only come out in the evening. Look here, Charlotte. If you refuse to ask Verrall, or to help me, I shall go to London, and obtain the information there. I am not quite without friends in the great city: they would receive me better than you have received me.”
“I wonder you did not go there at once,” said Charlotte, sharply.
“It was natural that I should go first where my wife was,” returned Rodolf Pain; “even though she had not been the most affectionate of wives to me.”
Charlotte was certainly not showing herself particularly affectionate then, whether she had, or had not, in the past days. Truth to say, whatever may have been her personal predilection or the opposite for the gentleman, his return had brought all her fears to the surface. His personal safety was imperilled; and, with that, disgrace loomed in ominous attendance; a disgrace which would be reflected upon Charlotte. Could she have sent Rodolf Pain flying on electric wires to the remotest region of the known or unknown globe, she would have done it then.
Leaving them to battle out their dispute alone, George Godolphin bent his steps to Lady Godolphin’s Folly, walking over the very Shadow, black as jet, treading in and out amid the dwarf bushes, which, when regarded from a distance, looked so like graves. He gained the Folly, and rang.
The servant admitted him to the drawing-room. It was empty as before. “Has Mr. Verrall not come in?” asked George.
“He has come in, sir. I thought he was here. I will look for him.”
George sat on alone. Presently the man returned. “My master has retired for the night, sir.”
“What! Gone to bed?” cried George.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you tell him I had been here when he came in?”
“I told him you had been here, sir. In fact, I thought you were here still. I did not know you had left.”
“Did Mr. Verrall tell you now that he could see me?”
“He told me to say that he had retired for the night, sir.”
“Is he in bed?” questioned George.
The servant hesitated. “He spoke to me through the door, sir. He did not open it.”
George caught up his hat, the very movement of his hand showing displeasure. “Tell your master that I shall be here the first thing in the morning. I want to see him.”
He passed out, a conviction upon his mind—though he could scarcely tell why it should have arisen—that Mr. Verrall had not retired for the night, but that he had gone upstairs merely to avoid him. The thought angered him excessively. When he had gone some little distance beyond the terrace, he turned and looked at the upper windows of the house. There shone a light in Mr. Verrall’s chamber. “Not in bed, at any rate,” thought George. “He might have seen me if he would. I shall tell him——”
A touch upon George’s arm. Some one had glided silently up. He turned and saw Charlotte.
“You will not betray the secret that you have learnt to-night?” she passionately whispered.
“Is it likely?” he asked.
“He is only a fool, you know, at the best,” was her next complimentary remark. “But fools give more trouble sometimes than wise people.”
“You may depend upon me,” was George’s rejoinder. “Where is he?”
“Got rid of for the night,” said Charlotte, in a terrible tone. “Are you going in to see Verrall?”
“No. Verrall declines to see me. I am going home. Good night.”
“Declines to see you? He is tired, I suppose. Good night, George!”
George Godolphin walked away at a sober pace, reflecting on the events of the day—of the evening. That he had been intensely surprised by the resuscitation of Rodolf Pain was indisputable; but George had too much care upon him to give it more than a passing thought, now that the surprise was over. Rodolf Pain occupied a very small space in the estimation of George Godolphin. Charlotte had just said he was a fool: probably George shared in the opinion.
But, however much he felt inclined to dismiss the gentleman from his mind, he could not so readily dismiss a certain revelation made by him. That Rustin was Verrall. Whoever “Rustin” may have been, or what had been his influence on the fortunes, good or ill, of Mr. George Godolphin, it concerns us not very closely to inquire. That George had had dealings with this “Rustin”—dealings which did not bear for him any pleasant reminiscence—and that George had never in his life got to see this Rustin, are sufficient facts for us to know. Rustin was one of those who had contrived to ease George of a good deal of superfluous money at odd times, leaving only trouble in its place. Many a time had George prayed Verrall’s good offices with his friend Rustin, to hold over this bill; to renew that acceptance. Verrall had never refused, and his sympathy with George and abuse of Rustin were great, when his mediation proved—as was sometimes the case—unsuccessful. To hear that this Rustin was Verrall himself, opened out a whole field of suggestive speculation to George. Not pleasant speculation, you may be sure.
He sat himself down, in his deep thought, on that same spot whereThomas Godolphin had sat the evening of George’s dinner-party; the broken bench, near the turnstile. Should he be able to weather the storm that was gathering so ominously above his head? Was that demand of Lord Averil’s to-day the first rain-drop of the darkening clouds? In sanguine moments—and most moments are sanguine to men of the light temperament of George Godolphin—he felt not a doubt that he should weather it. There are some men who systematically fling care and gloom from them. They cannot look trouble steadily in the face: they glance aside from it; they do not see it if it comes: they clothe it with the rose-hues of hope: but look at it, they do not. Shallow and careless by nature, they cannot feel deep sorrow themselves, or be too cautious of any wrong they inflict on others. They may bring ruin upon the world, but they go jauntily on their way. George had gone on in his way, in an easy, gentlemanly sort of manner, denying himself no gratification, and giving little heed to the day of reckoning that might come.
But on this night his mood had changed. Affairs generally were wearing to him an aspect of gloom: of gloom so preternaturally dark and hopeless, that his spirits were weighed down by it. For one thing, this doubt of Verrall irritated him. If the man had played him false, had been holding the cards of a double game, why, what an utter fool he, George, had been! How long he sat on that lonely seat he never knew: as long as his brother had, that past night. The one had been ruminating on his forthcoming fate—death; the other was lost in the anticipation of a worse fate—disgrace and ruin. As he rose to pursue his way down the narrow and ghostly Ash-tree Walk, a low cry burst from his lips, sharp as the one that had been wrung from Thomas in his physical agony.
A short time elapsed. Summer weather began to show itself in Prior’s Ash, and all things, so far as any one saw or suspected, were going on smoothly. Not a breath of wind had yet stirred up the dangerous current; not the faintest cloud had yet come in the fair sky, to indicate that a storm might be gathering. One rumour however had gone forth, and Prior’s Ash mourned sincerely and trusted it was not true—the state of health of Thomas Godolphin.Heattacked with an incurable complaint, as his mother had been? Prior’s Ash believed it not.
He had returned from his visit to town with all his own suspicions confirmed. But the medical men had seemed to think that the fatal result might not overtake him, yet; probably not for years. They enjoined tranquillity upon him, both of mind and body, and recommended him to leave the cares of business, so far as was practicable, to other people. Thomas smiled when he recited this piece of advice to George. “I had better retire upon my fortune,” he laughed.
“Do so,” cried George, impulsively. “That is”—for a disagreeable consciousness came upon him, as he spoke, that Thomas’s “fortune,” if looked into, might be found more easy to talk of than to realize—“you can virtually retire, by remaining quietly at Ashlydyat. Don’t come down to the Bank. I can manage quite well without you.”
Thomas shook his head. “So long as I am at all capable, George, I shall not give up. I believe it is my duty not to do so. If what the doctors say is correct—that I may live on in my present state, or nearly in my present state, for years—you may be an older and a wiser man by the time you are left alone. When you shall have gained grey hair, George, and a stoop in the shoulders, Prior’s Ash will be thinking you a stronger and a better man than I have ever been.”
George made no reply. He knew which had been the better man, himself or his brother.
Everything, I say, seemed to go on in its old routine. Thomas Godolphin came to business; not every day, but frequently. George gave his dinner-parties, and rode as much as ever with Charlotte Pain. What Charlotte had done with her husband, was her affair. He no longer disturbed the night stillness of the Dark Plain, or of Lady Godolphin’s Folly; and not a suspicion of his unwelcome revival from the dead had transpired beyond George Godolphin. Charlotte casually said one day to George that Rodolf was in London. Perhaps he was.
Yes, gay as ever, in the day, was George Godolphin. If he had care, he kept it to himself, and no one saw or suspected it. George was persuadable as a child; seeing little farther than his own nose; and Mr. Verrall had contrived to lull the suspicions awakened by the words of Rodolf Pain. Mr. Verrall had not remained long at Lady Godolphin’s Folly: he was soon away again, and Charlotte had it to herself, queen regnant. George had not forgotten to pay his evening visits there. There or elsewhere, he was out most evenings. And when he came in, he would go into the Bank, and remain alone in the manager’s room, often for hours.
One evening—it was the greatest wonder in the world—he had not gone out. At eight o’clock he had gone into the Bank and shut himself in. An hour afterwards Maria knocked, and he admitted her.
George was at a large table; it was covered with account-books. Hard at work he appeared to be, making entries with his pen, by the light of his shaded lamp. “How busy you are, George!” she cried.
“Ay,” said he, pleasantly. “Let no one call me idle again.”
“But why need you do it, George? You used not to work at night.”
“More work falls to my score, now Thomas does not take his full share of it,” observed George.
“Does it? I fancied neither you nor Thomas had much actual work to do. I thought you left it to the clerks. Isaac laughed at me one day, a long time ago, when I said something about your keeping the bank accounts. He asked me what I thought clerks were paid for.”
“Never mind Isaac. What have you come in for? To tell me you are dull?—as you did last night.”
“No. But I do get to feel very dull in an evening. You are scarcely ever with me now, George.”
“Business must be attended to,” responded George. “You should get some visitors in.”
“They would not be you,” was Maria’s answer, simply spoken. “I came to tell you now that papa is here. Have you time to come and see him?”
George knitted his brow. The prospect of entertaining the Reverend Mr. Hastings did not appear to have charms for him. Not that he allowed Maria to see the frown. She continued:
“Papa has been talking about the Chisholm property. The money is paid over, and he has brought it here for safety.”
“Brought it to-night?” echoed George.
“Yes. He said it might be an unprofessional mode of doing business, but he supposed you would receive it,” she added, laughing.
“How much is it?” cried George—all too eagerly, had Maria not been unsuspicious.
“Nine—let me see—yes, I think he said nine thousand pounds.”
George Godolphin closed the books before him, more than one of which was open, locked them up, put out the lamp, and accompanied his wife to the dining-room.
“Will you let me lodge some money here to-night?” asked Mr. Hastings, as he shook hands.
“As much as you like,” replied George, gaily. “We can accommodate an unlimited amount.”
The Rector took out a large pocket-book, and counted down some bank-notes upon the table. “Brierly, the agent, brought it to me an hour ago,” he observed, “and I had rather your Bank had charge of it than my house. Nine thousand and forty-five pounds, Mr. George.”
George counted the notes after Mr. Hastings. “I wonder Brierly did not give a cheque for it,” he observed. “Did he bring the money over from Binham?”
“He came over in his gig. He said it had been paid to him in money, and he brought it just as it was. I’ll trouble you for a receipt, George.”
George carried the money away and came back with the receipt. “It must be placed to your account, I suppose, sir?” he observed.
“Of course,” answered Mr. Hastings. “You can’t place it to the credit of the little Chisholms. It is the first time I was ever left trustee,” he remarked, “and I hope it will be the last.”
“Why so?” asked George.
“Why so? Because I like neither the trouble nor the responsibility. As soon as my co-trustee returns, the money is to be placed out on approved security: until then, you must take charge of it. It is a small sum after all, compared with what was expected.”
“Very small,” assented George. “Is it all that the property has realized?”
“Every shilling—except the expenses. And lawyers, and agents, and auctioneers, take care that they shall never be slight,” added Mr. Hastings, his lip curling with the cynical expression that was sometimes seen on it.
“It’s their trade, sir.”
“Ay. What a cutting up of property it is, this forced selling of anestate, through death!” he exclaimed. “Many a time has poor Chisholm said to me, in his last illness: ‘There’ll be hard upon twenty thousand to divide amongst them, when it’s all sold.’ And there is not ten!”
“I suppose everything was sold?” said George.
“Everything. House, land, ricks as they stood, farming stock, cattle, and furniture: everything, even to the plate and the books. The will so expressed it. I suppose Chisholm thought it best.”
“Where are the children, papa?” asked Maria.
“The two girls are at school, the little boy is with his grandmother. I saw the girls last week when I was at Binham.”
“The boy is to be a clergyman, is he not, papa?”
The Rector answered the question in a tone of rebuke. “When he shall be of an age to choose, should he evince liking and fitness for the Church, then he is to be allowed to enter it. Not otherwise, Maria.”
“How is the property left?” asked George.
“It is to be invested, and the interest devoted to the education and maintenance of the three, the boy being allowed a larger share of the interest than the girls. When the youngest, the boy, shall be of age, the principal is to be divided equally between them. Such are the terms of the will.”
“What is it to be invested in?”
“The funds, I suppose. It is left to the discretion of myself and Mr. Harknar. I shall let him decide: he is more of a man of business than I am.”
So they talked on. When Mr. Hastings, a short while before, had found himself left guardian and co-trustee to the children of a friend just deceased, his first impulse had been to decline the trust. Eventually he had accepted it. The other gentleman named, Mr. Harknar, had gone on business to one of the Ionian Islands, but he was now shortly expected home.
An hour the Rector sat with them, talking of the orphaned Chisholms, and of other matters. When he took his departure, George went again into the Bank, and sat down to work at his books by the light of the shaded lamp. He was certainly more attentive to business by night than by day.
Once more—it was the afternoon of the day following that evening visit of All Souls’ Rector to the Bank—Isaac Hastings entered the manager’s room to announce a visitor to Mr. George Godolphin. Lord Averil.
George looked up: a startled expression crossing his face. It was instantly suppressed: but, not for his very life could he have helped its appearance in the first moment.
“When didhecome to Prior’s Ash?”
“I don’t know,” replied Isaac. “I told him I was not sure but you were engaged, sir. I had thought Mr. Arkwright was with you. Lord Averil asked me to come and see: he particularly wishes to see you, he says.”
“I am engaged,” replied George, catching at the excuse as a drowning man catching at a straw. “That is”—taking out his watch—“I have not time now to see him. Tell Lord Averil I am particularly engaged.”
“Very well, sir.”
Isaac went out with the message, and Lord Averil departed, merely saying that he would call again. The reappearance of Charlotte Pain’s husband could not have brought more dire dismay to that lady, than did this reappearance of Lord Averil’s at Prior’s Ash, bring to George Godolphin.
Did he think Lord Averil would never favour Prior’s Ash with his presence again? It is hard to say what foolish thing he thought. Lord Averil had been in town for the last month. Once during that time, he had written to have those deposited deeds sent up to him, about which he had spoken to Mr. George Godolphin. George had answered the letter with some well-framed excuse. But now here was Lord Averil again at Prior’s Ash—and at the Bank! Doubtless once more in quest of his deeds.
George Godolphin put his hand to his weary brow. His ever-constant belief was, that he should get straight in time. In time. To his sanguine temperament, time would prove the panacea for all his ills. If he could only avert present difficulties, time would do the rest. That terrible difficulties were upon him, none knew better than he: but the worst difficulty of all would be this of Lord Averil’s, should exposure come. Short as George was of ready cash—it may seem a paradox to say it of a banker, but so it was—he would have scraped together every shilling from every available corner and parted with it, to have ensured the absence of Lord Averil from Prior’s Ash for an indefinite period.
He pressed his hand upon his weary brow, his brain within working tumultuously. If he must see Lord Averil—and there could be no escape—what should be his plea for the non-production of those deeds? It must be a plausible one. His thoughts were interrupted by a rap at the door.
“Come in,” cried George, in a sadly hopeless tone. Was it Lord Averil again?
It was only a note. A three-cornered miniature thing fastened with a silver wafer. No business communication that. George knew the writing well.
“Dear Mr. George,“Will you ride with me to-day at half-past three instead of four? I will tell you my reason then. Lord A. is back again.“Yours,“C. P.”
“Dear Mr. George,
“Will you ride with me to-day at half-past three instead of four? I will tell you my reason then. Lord A. is back again.
“Yours,“C. P.”
George tore the note into fragments and flung them into the paper-basket. It was ten minutes past three. Glad of any excuse to be out of business and its cares, he hastened things away in his room, and left it. There were moments when George was tempted heartily to wish himself out of it for good, safe in some unapproachable island, too remote from civilization to be visited by the world. But he did not see his way clear to get there.
Look at him as he rides through the town, Charlotte by his side, and the two grooms behind them! Look at his fine bay horse, his gentlemanly figure!—look at his laughing blue eyes, his wavy golden hair, at the gay smiles on his lips as he turns to Charlotte! Can you fancycarean inmate of that man’s breast? Prior’s Ash did not. They were only content to admire and to envy their handsome and most attractive banker, George Godolphin.
They rode by the Bank. It was not often—indeed it was very rarely—that they passed it in their rides. There were plenty of other ways, without choosing that one. George never would have chosen it: perhaps he had the grace to think that his frequent rides with Mrs. Charlotte Pain need not be paraded so conspicuously before the windows of his wife. Charlotte, however, had a will of her own, and sometimes she chose to exercise it.
As good luck had it, or ill luck, or no luck at all, Maria happened to be at the drawing-room window to-day. Some ladies were paying her a visit, and Meta—who was sometimes indulged, as an only child is indulged—made one in the drawing-room. She caught sight of her papa, forthwith climbed upon a chair to see him better, and leaned from the open window, clapping her hands. “Papa! papa!”
Maria sprang to hold her in. She was a child who had little sense of danger. Had George held out his arms then, and said, “Jump out to me, Meta,” she would have taken the leap fearlessly. Maria caught her round the waist, and the visitors came forward to see.
Charlotte threw up a triumphant glance. One of those curiously triumphant glances that she was rather fond of giving Mrs. George Godolphin. Maria bowed gravely. An idea—a faint idea, glancing at no ill—had been growing over her lately that her husband passed more time with Charlotte Pain than was absolutely necessary. George smiled at his wife, lifted his hat to the ladies at her side, and waved a kiss to Meta.
The red blood had mantled to his cheek. At what? At Charlotte’s triumphantly saucy look—which he had not failed to catch—or at his wife’s grave one? Or at the sight of a gentleman who stood on the pavement, saluting them as they passed? It was the Viscount Averil. George saluted again, and rode on with a smooth brow and a face bright as day.
Considerably later; just before five, in fact, when the Bank closed, Lord Averil presented himself at it again. Had Mr. George Godolphin returned? If so, could he see him?
Mr. George had not come in. Mr. Hurde came forward and inquired if it was anything that he could do for his lordship.
Lord Averil had known Mr. Hurde a long while. He had seen him in his place there as long as he had banked with Godolphin, Crosse,and Godolphin. He supposed he was a confidential clerk: and, in point of fact, Mr. Hurde was so to a great extent.
“You hold some bonds of mine,” said Lord Averil. “Bonds of some stock which Sir George Godolphin purchased for me. Did you know anything of it?”
“I remember the transaction quite well, my lord,” replied Mr. Hurde.
“I want the bonds delivered up to me. Can I have them?”
“Certainly. Your lordship can have them whenever you please. They are in your case, in the strong-room.”
“I should have liked them to-day, if possible,” replied Lord Averil.
“There will be no difficulty at all, my lord. Mr. George Godolphin can deliver them to you as soon as he comes in.”
“Will he be in soon, think you?”
“He is sure not to be very long, my lord. I have to see him before I leave.”
“Then I think I’ll wait,” said Lord Averil.
He was shown into the Bank parlour, and left there. At five the clerks quitted the Bank: it was usual for them to do so. Mr. Hurde waited. In about a quarter of an hour George entered.
A few minutes given to the business for which Mr. Hurde had remained, and then he spoke. “Lord Averil is waiting to see you, sir.”
“Lord Averil?” cried George, in a hasty tone. “Waiting now?”
“He is in the parlour, sir. He asked if he could have his bonds given up to him. I said I thought he could, and he replied that he would wait.”
“Then you had no business to say anything of the sort,” burst forth George, in so vehement a tone as to astonish the sober cashier. “It may not be convenient to lay one’s hands upon the bonds at a minute’s notice, Hurde,” he more quietly added, as if he would soothe down or atone for his anger.
“They are in Lord Averil’s box in the strong-room, sir,” said the old clerk, supposing his master must have temporarily forgotten where the said bonds were placed. “Mr. Godolphin was speaking to me about those bonds the other day.”
“What about them?” inquired George, striving to put the question easily.
“It was nothing particular, sir. He was only mentioning their increased value: how they had gone up in the market.”
George said no more. He turned from the office and halted before the door of the parlour. Halted to collect his brains. One hand was on the handle of the door, the other on his brow. Lord Averil rose, and shook hands cordially.
“I have come to bother you again about my bonds, Mr. George. I don’t care to keep that stock, and the present is a most favourable opportunity to sell.”
“They’ll go higher yet,” observed George.
“Will they? They tell me differently in London. The opinion there is, that they will begin to fall.”
“All rubbish,” said George. “Acanardgot up on the Stock Exchange.”
“Well, I have made up my mind to sell,” observed Lord Averil. “I wrote to you from London to send me the shares up; but you did not seem to be in a hurry to do it. So I have come down for them.”
George laughed. “Come down for nothing but the shares? But you will make some stay here?”
“No. I go up again to-morrow. I am not sure whether I shall return here for the summer or not. Some friends of mine are going over to Canada for three or four months. Perhaps I may accompany them.”
George devoutly wished his lordship could be off, there and then; and that the sojourn might last years instead of months. “I wishIhad the time to go there!” cried he, aloud: “I’d start to-morrow.”
“Will it be troubling you to give me the bonds, Mr. George?”
George sat a few moments, his head bent as if in thought. “The bonds?” he slowly said. “Your bonds? They were sent—yes, certainly, your bonds were sent to our agents in London.”
“My bonds sent to your agents in London!” repeated Lord Averil, in surprise. “What for?”
George coughed. “Some of our deposited deeds are kept there. Let me see?” he continued, again plunging into thought. “Yes—yours were amongst those that went up, I remember.”
“But why not have told me this before?” asked Lord Averil. “Had you written me word, it would have saved me the journey down.”
“To be sure,” acquiesced George. “To tell you the truth, I never thought much about it, or where they were, until now.”
“Mr. Hurde told me they were here,” said Lord Averil.
“No doubt he thought so. They were here until recently.”
“I shall have my journey back again, then!” cried his lordship. “Will the town bankers give them up to me on my simple demand, or must they have your authority?”
“I will write to them,” responded George.
The viscount rose. Not a shade of suspicion had crossed his mind. But he could not help thinking that he should have made a better man of business than handsome George. “I wish you had told me!” he involuntarily repeated. “But I suppose,” he good-naturedly added, “that my poor bonds are too insignificant to have much place in the thoughts of a man surrounded by hundreds of thousands.”
George laughed. He was walking with Lord Averil to the front door. They stood together when it was reached, the street before them. Lord Averil asked after Mr. Godolphin.
“He seems a little better,” replied George. “Certainly no worse.”
“I am glad to hear it. Very glad indeed. You will not forget to write to town, Mr. George?”
“All right,” replied George Godolphin.
The light of the setting sun streamed upon the fair hair of Cecil Godolphin. She had strolled out from the dining-room to enjoy the beauty of the late spring evening, or to indulge her own thoughts, as might be. To the confines of the grounds strayed she, as far as those surrounding Lady Godolphin’s Folly; and there she sat down on a garden bench.
Not to remain long alone. She was interrupted by the very man upon whom—if the disclosure must be made—her evening thoughts had centred. He was coming up with a quick step on the road from Prior’s Ash. Seeing Cecil, he turned off to accost her, his heart beating.
Beating with the slight ascent, or with the sight of Cecil? He best knew. Many a man’s heart has beaten at a less lovely vision. She wore her favourite attire, white, set off with blue ribbons, and her golden hair gleamed in the sunlight. She almost exclaimed with surprise. She had been thinking of him, it is true, but as one who was miles and miles away. In spite of his stormy and not long-past rejection, Lord Averil went straight up to her and held out his hand. Did he notice that her blue eyes dropped beneath his, as she rose to answer his greeting; that the soft colour on her cheeks changed to a glowing damask?
“I fear I have surprised you,” said Lord Averil.
“A little,” acknowledged Cecil. “I did not know you were at Prior’s Ash. Thomas will be glad to see you.”
She turned to walk with him to the house, as in courtesy bound. Lord Averil offered her his arm, and Cecil condescended to put the tips of her fingers within it. Neither broke the silence; perhaps neither could break it; and they reached the large porch of Ashlydyat. Cecil spoke then.
“Are you going to make a long stay in the country?”
“A very short one. A party of friends are departing for Canada, and they wish me to make one of them. I think I shall do so.”
“To Canada!” echoed Cecil. “So far away!”
Lord Averil smiled. “It sounds farther than it really is. I am an old traveller, you know.”
Cecil opened the dining-room door. Thomas was alone. He had left the table, and was seated in his armchair at the window. A glad smile illumined his face when he saw Lord Averil. Lord Averil was one of the very few of whom Thomas Godolphin could make a close friend. These close friends! Not above one, or two, can we meet with in a lifetime. Acquaintances many; but friends—those to whom the heart can speak out its inmost thoughts, who may be as our own soul—how few!
Cecil left them alone. She ran off to tell Janet that Lord Averilhad come, and would perhaps take tea with them, were he invited to do so. Thomas, with more hospitable ideas, was pressing dinner upon him. It could be brought back at once.
“I have dined at the Bell,” replied Lord Averil. “Not any, thank you,” he added, as Thomas was turning to the wine. “I have taken all I require.”
“Have you come to make a long stay?” inquired Thomas—as Cecil had done.
“I shall go back to town to-morrow. Having nothing to do with myself this evening, I thought I could not spend it better than with you. I am pleased to see that you are looking yourself.”
“The warm weather seems to be doing me good,” was Thomas Godolphin’s reply, a consciousness within him how little better he really was. “Why are you making so short a stay?”
“Well, as it turns out, my journey has been a superfluous one. Those bonds that you hold of mine brought me down,” continued Lord Averil, little thinking that he was doing mischief by mentioning the subject to Mr. Godolphin. “I am going to sell out, and came down to get them.”
“Why did you not write?” said Thomas. “We could have sent them to you.”
“I did write, a week or ten days ago, and your brother wrote me word in answer that the bonds should be sent—or something to that effect. But they never came. Having nothing much to do, I thought I would run down for them. I also wanted to see Max. But he is away.”
“I believe he is,” replied Thomas. “Have you got the bonds?”
“It has proved a useless journey, I say,” replied Lord Averil. “The bonds, I find, are in town, at your agents’.”
Thomas Godolphin looked up with surprise. “They are not in town,” he said. “What should bring them in town? Who told you that?”
“Your brother George.”
“George told you the bonds were in town?” repeated Thomas, as if he could not believe his ears.
“He did indeed: not three hours ago. Why? Are they not in town?”
“Most certainly not. The bonds are in our strong-room, where they were first deposited. They have never been moved from it. What could George have been thinking of?”
“To tell you the truth, I did not fancy he appeared over-certain himself, where they were, whether here or in town,” said Lord Averil. “At length he remembered that they were in town: he said they had gone up with other deeds.”
“He makes a mistake,” said Thomas. “He must be confounding your bonds with some that we sent up the other day of Lord Cavemore’s. And yet, I wonder that he should do so! Lord Cavemore’s went up for a particular purpose, and George himself took the instructions. Lord Cavemore consulted him upon the business altogether.”
“Then—if my bonds are here—can I have them at once?” asked Lord Averil.
“You can have them the instant the Bank opens to-morrow morning. In fact, you might have them to-night if George should happen to be at home. I am sorry you should have had any trouble about it.”
Lord Averil smiled. “Speaking frankly, I do not fancy George is so much a man of business as you are. When I first asked for the bonds, nearly a month ago, he appeared to be quite at sea about them; not to know what I meant, or to remember that you held bonds of mine.”
“Did you ask for the bonds a month ago?” exclaimed Thomas.
“About that time. It was when you were in London. George at last remembered.”
“Did he not give them to you?”
“No. He said—— I almost forget what he said. That he did not know where to put his hands upon them, I think, in your absence.”
Thomas felt vexed. He wondered what could have possessed George to behave in so unbusiness-like a way: or how it was possible for him to have blundered so about the bonds. But he would not blame his brother to Lord Averil. “You shall have the bonds the first thing in the morning,” he said. “I will drop a note to George, reminding him where they are, in case I am not at the Bank early enough for you.”
Unusually well felt Thomas Godolphin that evening. He proceeded with Lord Averil to the drawing-room to his sisters; and a very pleasant hour or two they all spent together. Bessy laughed at Lord Averil a great deal about his proposed Canadian expedition, telling him she did not believe he seriously entertained it.
It was a genial night, soft, warm, and lovely, the moon bright again. The church clocks at Prior’s Ash were striking ten when Lord Averil rose to leave Ashlydyat. “If you will wait two minutes for me, I will go a little way with you,” said Thomas Godolphin.
He withdrew to another room, penned a line, and despatched it by a servant to the Bank. Then he rejoined Lord Averil, passed his arm within his lordship’s, and went out with him.
“Is this Canada project a joke?” asked he.
“Indeed, no. I have not quite made up my mind to go. I think I shall do so. If so, I shall be away in a week from this. Why should I not go? I have no settled home, no ties.”
“Should you not—I beg your pardon, Averil—be the happier for a settled home? You might form ties. I think a roving life must be the least desirable one of all.”
“It is one I was never fitted for. My inclination would lead me to home, to domestic happiness. But, as you know, I put that out of my power.”
“For a time. But that is over. You might marry again.”
“I do not suppose I ever shall,” returned Lord Averil, feeling half prompted to tell his unsuspicious friend that his own sister was the barrier to his doing so. “Youhave never married,” he resumed, allowing the impulse to die away.
Thomas Godolphin shook his head. “The cases are different,” he said. “In your wife you lost one whom you could not regret——”
“Don’t call her by that name, Godolphin!” burst forth Lord Averil.
“And in Ethel I lost one who was all the world to me; who could never be replaced,” Thomas went on, after a pause. “The cases are widely different.”
“Ay, widely different,” assented Lord Averil.
They walked on in silence, each buried in his own thoughts. At the commencement of the road, Lord Averil stopped and took Thomas Godolphin’s hand in his.
“You shall not come any farther with me.”
Thomas stopped also. He had not intended to go farther. “You will really start for Canada?”
“I believe I shall.”
“Take my blessing with you then, Averil. We may never meet again in this world.”
“What?” exclaimed Lord Averil.
“The medical men entertain hopes that my life may not be terminated so speedily:Ibelieve that a few months will end it. I may not live to welcome you home.”
It was the first intimation Lord Averil had received of Thomas Godolphin’s fatal malady. Thomas explained it to him. He was overwhelmed.
“Oh, my friend! my friend! Cannot death be defied, or coaxed to spare you?” he called out in his pain. How many have vainly echoed the same cry!
A few more words, a long grasp of the lingering hands, and they parted. Thomas with a God-speed; Lord Averil with a different prayer—a God-save—upon his lips. The peer turned to Prior’s Ash; Thomas Godolphin towards home.
Not by the path he had come. He had brought Lord Averil down the broad entrance to Ashlydyat: he turned to go round the path by the ash-trees in front of the Dark Plain. Possibly he had a mind to see whether the Shadow was abroad to-night.
Before he had well turned the corner of the trees, or had given more than a glance to the black Shadow—for there it was—he heard hasty footsteps behind him. Looking round, he beheld Lord Averil. Softened by the parting, by the tidings he had heard, an impulse had taken Lord Averil that he would speak of Cecil: and he turned back to do so.
“Godolphin, I—— What’s that?”
The great black Shadow, stretching out there in the distance, had attracted the attention of Lord Averil. He stood with his forefinger extended, pointed towards it.
“That is what they call the Shadow of Ashlydyat,” quietly replied Thomas Godolphin.
Lord Averil had never before seen it. He had heard enough of it. Attentively regarding it, he did not for some time speak.
“Do you believe in it?” he asked at length.
“Believe in it?” repeated Thomas Godolphin. “I believe that a Shadow does appear there on occasions. I cannot believe otherwise, with that ocular demonstration before me.”
“And how do you account for it?” asked Lord Averil.
“I have been all my life trying to do so. And have come to the conclusion that it is not to be accounted for.”
“But I have always treated the report as the most perfect folly,” rejoined Lord Averil.
“Ay. No doubt. As I should do but forthat”—and Thomas Godolphin nodded towards the Shadow, on which the peer’s eyes were fixed with an intense gaze. “You and I are rational beings, Averil, not likely to be led away by superstitious folly; we live in an enlightened age, little tolerant of such things. And yet, here we stand, gazing with dispassionate eyes on that Shadow, in full possession of our sober judgment. It is there; we see it: and that is all we can tell about it. The Shadow of Ashlydyat is ridiculed from one end of the county to the other: spoken of—when spoken of at all—as an absurd superstition of the Godolphins. But there the Shadow is: and not all the ridicule extant can do away with the plain fact. I see it: but I cannot explain it.”
“What do you do about it?”
Lord Averil asked the question in his bewilderment. A smile crossed Thomas Godolphin’s lips as he answered.
“We do nothing. We can do nothing. We cannot prevent its coming; we cannot send it away when it comes; we cannot bring it if it does not come of its own accord. If I reason about it for a month, Averil, I could give you no better explanation than this.”
Lord Averil drew a deep breath, as one awaking from a reverie. As Thomas Godolphin said:therewas the Shadow, visible to his eyes, his senses: but of explanation as to its cause, there was none. The little episode had driven away the impulse to speak of Cecil: and, after another hand pressure, he finally turned away, and pursued his walk to Prior’s Ash.
Another was also pursuing his walk to Prior’s Ash; indeed, had nearly gained it; and that was Thomas Godolphin’s messenger. Approaching the Bank residence, he distinguished some one standing at the entrance, and found that it was Mr. George Godolphin.
“What’s this?” asked George. “A letter?”
“My master sent me down with it, sir.”
George turned it about in his hand. “Does it require an answer, do you know, Andrew?”
“No, sir. My master said I need not wait.”
The man departed, and George carried the note into the dining-room. Maria sat there reading, underneath the chandelier. She looked pleased to see her husband, and closed the book. George had been out all the evening. He stood opposite to Maria, and tore the note open.