Ankle-deep before the banking-house of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin, and for some distance on either side; ankle-deep down Crosse Street as far as you could see, lay masses of straw. As carriages came up to traverse it, their drivers checked their horses and drove them at a foot-pace, raising their own heads to look up at the windows of the dwelling; for they knew that one was lying there hovering between life and death.
It was George Godolphin. Imprudent George! Healthy and strong as he might be, sound as his constitution was, that little episode of the fête-day had told upon him. Few men can do such things with impunity, and come out of them unscathed. “What was a bit of a ducking; and that only a partial one? Nothing.” As George himself said to some remonstrator on the following day. It is not much, certainly, to those who are used to it: but taken in conjunction with a white heat, and with an hour or two’s cooling upon the grass afterwards, in the airy undress of shirt-sleeves, it is a great deal.
It had proved a great deal for George Godolphin. An attack of rheumatic fever supervened, dangerous and violent, and neither Dr. Beale nor Mr. Snow could give a guess as to whether he would live ordie. Miss Godolphin had removed to the bank to share with Margery the task of nursing him. Knockers were muffled; bells were tied up; straw, as you hear, was laid in the streets; people passed in and out, even at the swing doors, when they went to transact business, with a softened tread: and as they counted the cash for their cheques, leaned over the counter, and asked the clerks in a whisper whether Mr. George was yet alive. Yes, he was alive, the clerks could always answer, but it was as much as they could say.
It continued to be “as much as they could say” for nearly a month, and then George Godolphin began to improve. But so slowly! day after day seemed to pass without visible sign.
How bore up Maria Hastings? None could know the dread, the grief, that was at work within her, or the deep love she felt for George Godolphin. Her nights were sleepless, her days were restless; she lost her appetite, her energy, almost her health. Mrs. Hastings wondered what was wrong with her, and hoped Maria was not going to be one of those sickly ones who always seem to fade in the spring.
Maria could speak out her sorrow to none. Grace would not have sympathized with any feeling so strong, whose object was George Godolphin. And had Grace sympathized ever so, Maria would not have spoken it. She possessed that shrinking reticence of feeling, that refined sensitiveness, to which betraying its own emotions to another would be little less than death. Maria could not trust her voice to ask after him: when Mr. Hastings or her brothers would come in and say (as they had more than once), “There’s a report in the town that George Godolphin’s dead,” she could not press upon them her eager questions, and ask, “Is it likely to be true? Are there any signs that it is true?” Once, when this rumour came in, Maria made an excuse to go out: some trifle to be purchased in the town, she said to Mrs. Hastings: and went down the street inwardly shivering, too agitated to notice acquaintances whom she met. Opposite the bank, she stole glances up at its private windows, and saw that the blinds were down. In point of fact, this told nothing, for the blinds had been kept down much since George’s illness, the servants not troubling themselves to draw them up: but to the fears of Maria Hastings, it spoke volumes. Sick, trembling, she continued her way mechanically: she did not dare to stop, even for a moment, or to show, in her timidity, as much as the anxiety of an indifferent friend. At that moment Mr. Snow came out of the house, and crossed over.
Maria stopped then. Surely she might halt to speak to the surgeon without being suspected of undue interest in Mr. George Godolphin. She even brought out the words, as Mr. Snow shook hands with her: “You have been to the bank?”
“Yes, poor fellow; he is in a critical state,” was Mr. Snow’s answer. “But I think there’s a faint indication of improvement, this afternoon.”
In the revulsion of feeling which the words gave, Maria forgot her caution. “He is not dead, then?” she exclaimed, all too eagerly, her face turning to a glowing crimson, her lips apart with emotion.
Mr. Snow gathered in the signs, and a grave expression stole over his lips. But the next minute he was smiling openly. “No, he is not dead yet, Miss Maria; and we must see what we can do towardskeeping him alive.” Maria turned home again with a beating and a thankful heart.
A weary, weary summer for George Godolphin—a weary, weary illness. It was more than two months before he rose from his bed at all, and it was nearly two more before he went down the stairs of the dwelling-house. A fine, balmy day it was, that one in June, when George left his bed for the first time, and was put in the easy-chair, wrapped up in blankets. The sky was blue, the sun was warm, and bees and butterflies sported in the summer air. George turned his weary eyes, weary with pain and weakness, towards the cheering signs of outdoor life, and wondered whether he should ever be abroad again.
It was August before that time came. Early in that month the close carriage of Ashlydyat waited at the door, to give Mr. George his first airing. A shadowy object he looked, Mr. Snow on one side of him, Margery on the other; Janet, who would be his companion in the drive, following. They got him downstairs between them, and into the carriage. From that time his recovery, though slow, was progressive, and in another week he was removed for change to Ashlydyat. He could walk abroad then with two sticks, or with a stick and somebody’s arm. George, who was getting up his spirits wonderfully, declared that he and his sticks should be made into a picture and sent to the next exhibition of native artists.
One morning, he and his sticks were sunning themselves in the porch at Ashlydyat, when a stranger approached and accosted him. A gentlemanly-looking man, in a straw hat, with a light travelling overcoat thrown upon his arm. George looked a gentleman also, in spite of his dilapidated health and his sticks, and the stranger raised his hat with something of foreign urbanity.
“Does Mr. Verrall reside here?”
“No,” replied George.
A hard, defiant sort of expression rose immediately to the stranger’s face. It almost seemed to imply that George was deceiving him: and his next words bore out the impression. “I have been informed that he does reside here,” he said, with a stress upon the “does.”
“He did reside here,” replied George Godolphin: “but he does so no longer. That is where Mr. Verrall lives,” he added, pointing one of his sticks at the white walls of Lady Godolphin’s Folly.
The stranger wheeled round on his heel, took a survey of it, and then lifted his hat again, apparently satisfied. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “The mistake was mine. Good morning.”
George watched him away as he strode with a firm, quick, elastic step towards the Folly. George wondered when he should walk again with the same step. Perhaps the idea, or the desire to do so, impelled him to try it then. He rose from his seat and went tottering out, drawing his sticks with him. It was a tempting morning, and George strolled on in its brightness, resting now on one bench, now on another, and then bearing on again.
“I might get as far as the Folly, if I took my time,” he said to himself. “Would it not be a surprise to them!”
So he bore onwards to the Folly, as the stranger had done. He wasdrawing very near to it, was seated, in fact, on the last bench that he intended to rest on, when Mr. Verrall passed him.
“Have you had a gentleman inquiring for you?” George asked him.
“What gentleman?” demanded Mr. Verrall.
“A stranger. He came to Ashlydyat, supposing you lived there. I sent him to the Folly.”
“Describe him, will you?” said Mr. Verrall.
“I noticed nothing much to describe,” replied George. “He wore a straw hat, and had a thin tweed coat over his arm. I should fancy he had just come off a journey.”
Mr. Verrall left George where he was, and went back to the Folly. George rose and followed more slowly. But when he got beyond the trees, he saw that Mr. Verrall must have plunged into them: as if he would go into the Folly by the servants’ entrance. George crossed the lawn, and made straight for the drawing-room windows, which stood open.
Scarcely had he entered, and flung himself into the first easy-chair, when he saw the same stranger approach the house. Wherehadhe been, not to have found it before? But George immediately divined that he had taken the wrong turning near the ash-trees, and so had had the pleasure of a round to Prior’s Ash and back again. The room was empty, and George sat recovering breath and enjoying the luxury of a rest, when the stranger’s knock resounded at the hall-door.
A servant, as he could hear, came forth to open it; but, before that was effected, flying footsteps followed the man across the hall, and he was called, in the voice of Charlotte Pain.
“James,” said she, in a half-whisper, which came distinctly to the ear of George Godolphin, “should that be any one for Mr. Verrall, say nothing, but show him in here.”
A second room, a smaller one, stood between the one George had entered, and the hall. It opened both to the drawing-room and the hall; in fact, it served as a sort of anteroom to the drawing-room. It was into this room that the stranger was shown.
Charlotte, who had taken a seat, and was toying with some embroidery-work, making believe to be busy over it, rose at his entrance, with the prettiest air of surprise imaginable. He could have staked his life, had he been required to do it, that she knew nothing whatever of his approach until that identical moment, when James threw open the door, and announced, “A gentleman, ma’am.” James had been unable to announce him in more definite terms. Upon his asking the stranger for a name, the curt answer had been, “Never mind the name. Mr. Verrall knows me.”
Charlotte rose. And the gentleman’s abruptness changed to courtesy at the sight of her. “I wish to see Mr. Verrall,” he said.
“Mr. Verrall is in town,” replied Charlotte.
“In town!” was the answer, delivered in an accent of excessive surprise. “Do you mean in London, madam?”
“Certainly,” rejoined Charlotte. “In London.”
“But he only left London last night to come here!” was the stranger’s answer.
It brought Charlotte to a pause. Self-possessed as she was, she hadto think a moment before hazarding another assertion. “May I inquire how you know that he left London last night for this?” she asked.
“Because, madam, I had business yesterday of the very last importance with Mr. Verrall. He made the appointment himself, for three o’clock. I went at three: and could not find him. I went at four, and waited an hour, with a like result. I went again at seven, and then I was told that Mr. Verrall had been telegraphed for to his country seat, and had started. I had some difficulty in finding out where his country seat was situated, but I succeeded in doing that: and I followed him in the course of the night.”
“How very unfortunate!” exclaimed Charlotte, who had obtained her clue. “He was telegraphed for yesterday, and arrived in answer to it, getting here very late last night. But he could not stay. He said he had business to attend to in London, and he left here this morning by an early train. Will you oblige me with your name?” she added.
“My name, madam, is Appleby. It is possible that you may have heard Mr. Verrall mention it, if, as I presume, I have the honour of speaking to Mrs. Verrall.”
Charlotte did not undeceive him. “When did you see Mr. Verrall last?” she suddenly inquired, as if the thought had just struck her.
“The day before yesterday. I saw him three times that day, and he made the appointment for the following one.”
“I am so sorry you should have had a useless journey,” said Charlotte, with much sympathy.
“I am sorry also,” said the stranger. “Sorry for the delay this causes in certain arrangements; a delay I can ill afford. I will wish you good morning, madam, and start back by the first train.”
Charlotte touched the bell, and curtsied her adieu. The stranger had the door open, when he turned round, and spoke again.
“I presume I may entirely rely upon what you tell me—that Verrallhasgone back?”
“Oh, certainly,” answered Charlotte.
Now, every syllable of this colloquy had reached the ears of George Godolphin. It puzzled him not a little. Were theretwoVerralls? The Verrall of the Folly, with whom he had so recently exchanged words, had certainly not been in London for a fortnight past, or anywhere else but in that neighbourhood. And what did Charlotte mean, by saying he had gone to town that morning?
Charlotte came in, singing a scrap of a song. She started when she saw George, and then flew to him in a glow of delight, holding out her hands.
What could he do, but take them? What could he do, but draw Charlotte down beside him on the sofa, holding them still? “How pleased I am to see you!” exclaimed Charlotte. “I shall think the dear old times are coming round again.”
“Charlotte mia, do you know what I have been obliged to hear? That interesting colloquy you have been taking part in in the next room.”
Charlotte burst into a laugh. From the moment when she first caught a glimpse of George, seated there, she had felt sure that he must have heard it. “Did I do it well?” she cried, triumphantly.
“How could you invent such fibs?”
“Verrall came upstairs to me and Kate,” said Charlotte, laughing more merrily than before. “He said there was somebody going to call here, he thought with a begging petition, and he did not care to see him. Would I go and put the man off? I asked him how I should put him off, and he answered, ‘Any way. Say he had gone to London, if I liked.’”
Was Charlotte telling truth or falsehood? That there was more in all this than met the eye was evident. It was no business, however, of George Godolphin’s, neither did he make it his.
“And you have really walked here all the way by yourself!” she resumed. “I am so glad! You will get well now all one way.”
“I don’t know about getting well ‘all one way,’ Charlotte. The doctors have been ordering me away for the winter.”
“For the winter!” repeated Charlotte, her tone growing sober. “What for? Where to?”
“To some place where the skies are more genial than in this cold climate of ours,” replied George. “If I wish to get thoroughly well, they say, I must start off next month, September, and not return until April.”
“But—should you go alone?”
“There’s the worst of it. We poor bachelors are like stray sheep—nobody owning us, nobody caring for us.”
“Take somebody with you,” suggested Charlotte.
“That’s easier said than done,” said George.
Charlotte threw one of her brilliant glances at him. She had risen, and was standing before him, all her attractions in full play. “There’s an old saying, Mr. George Godolphin, that where there’s a will, there’s a way,” quoth she.
George made a gallant answer, and they were progressing in each other’s good graces to their own content, when an interruption came to it. The same servant who had opened the door to the stranger entered.
“Miss Pain, if you please, my master says will you go up to him.”
“I declare you make me forget everything,” cried Charlotte to George, as she left the room. And picking up her King Charley, she threw it at him. “There! take care of him, Mr. George Godolphin, until I come back again.”
A few minutes after, George saw Mr. Verrall leave the house and cross the lawn. A servant behind him was bearing a small portmanteau and an overcoat, similar to the one the stranger had carried on his arm. Was Mr. Verrall also going to London?
The morning sun shone on the green lawn, on the clustering flowers, rich in many colours, sweet in their perfume, before the breakfast-room at Ashlydyat. The room itself was in shadow: as it is pleasant in summer for a room to be: but the windows stood open to the delights of outdoor life.
Janet presided at the breakfast-table. She always did preside there. Thomas, Bessy, and Cecil were disposed around her; leaving the side next the windows vacant, that nothing might come between them and the view of the summer’s morning. A summer that would soon be on the wane, for September was approaching.
“She ought to be here by four o’clock,” observed Bessy, continuing the conversation. “Otherwise, she cannot be here until seven. No train comes in from Farnley between four o’clock and seven, does it, Thomas?”
“I think not,” replied Thomas Godolphin. “But I really know very little about their branch lines. Stay. Farnley? No: I remember: I am sure that nothing comes in between four and seven.”
“Don’t fash yourselves,” said Janet with composure, who had been occupied with the urn. “When Mrs. Briscow sends me word she will arrive by the afternoon train, I know she can only mean the one that gets here at four o’clock: and I shall be there at four in the carriage to meet her. She is early in her ideas, and she would have called seven the night train.”
Cecil, who appeared to be more engaged in toying with the black ribbons that were flowing from the white sleeves round her pretty wrists, than in taking her breakfast, looked up at her sister. “How long is it since she was here last, Janet?”
“She was here the summer after your mother died.”
“All that time!” exclaimed Cecil. “It is very good of her to leave her home at her age, and come amongst us once again.”
“It is George who is bringing her here; I am sure of that,” returned Janet. “She was so concerned about his illness. She wants to see him now he is getting better. George was always her favourite.”
“How is George this morning?” inquired Thomas Godolphin.
“George is alive and pretty well,” replied a voice from the door, which had opened. There stood George himself.
Alive decidedly; but weak and wan still. He could walk with the help of one stick now.
“If I don’t make an effort—as somebody says, in that bookcase—I may remain a puny invalid for ever, like a woman. I thought I’d try and surprise you.”
They made a place for him, and placed a chair, and set good things before him; all in affectionate eagerness. But George Godolphin could not accomplish much breakfast yet. “My appetite is capricious,Janet,” he observed. “I think to-morrow I will try chocolate and milk.”
“A cup can be made at once, George, if you would like it.”
“No, I don’t care about it now. I suppose the doctors are right that I can’t get into proper order again, without change. A dull time of it, I shall have, whatever place they may exile me to.”
A question had been mooted, bringing somewhat of vexation in its discussion, as to who should accompany George. Whether he should be accompanied at all, in what he was pleased to term his exile: and if so, which of them should be chosen. Janet could not go; or thought she could not; Ashlydyat wanted her. Bessy was deep in her schools, her district-visiting, in parish affairs generally, and openly said she did not care to quit them just now. Cecil was perfectly ready and willing. Had George been going to the wilds of Africa, Cecil would have entered on the journey with enthusiasm: the outer world had attractions for Cecil and her inexperience. But Janet did not deem it expedient to trust pretty Cecil to the sole guardianship of thoughtless George, and that was put down ere Cecil had well spoken of it. George’s private opinion was—and he spoke it publicly—that he should be better without any of them than with them; that they would “only be a trouble.” On one point, he turned restive. Janet’s idea had been to despatch Margery with him; to see after his comforts, his medicines, his well-aired beds, and his beef-tea. Not if he knew it, George answered. Why not set him up at once with a lady’s-maid, and a nurse from the hospitals, in addition to Margery? And he was pleased to indulge in so much ridicule upon the point, as to anger Janet and offend Margery.
“I wish I knew some fellow who was going yachting for the next six months, and would give me boat-room,” observed George, stirring his tea listlessly.
“Thatwouldbe an improvement!” said Janet, speaking in satire. “Six months’ sea-sickness and sea-drenching would about do for you what the fever has left undone.”
“So it might,” said George. “Only that we get over sea-sickness in a couple of days, and sea-drenchings are wholesome. However, don’t let it disturb your placidity: the yacht is wanting, and I am not likely to have the opportunity of trying it. No, thank you, Janet”—rejecting a plate she was offering him—“I cannot eat anything.”
“Mrs. Briscow comes to-day, George,” observed Bessy. “Janet is going to meet her at the station at four. She is coming purposely to see you.”
“Very amiable of the old lady!” responded George. “It’s a pity I am going out to dinner.”
Thomas looked surprised. George was not yet in precisely dinner-visiting condition.
“I have promised Mrs. Verrall to get as far as the Folly this afternoon, and stay and dine with them.En famille, you know.”
“Mr. Verrall is not at home,” said Bessy.
“But she and Charlotte are,” responded George.
“You know you must not be out in the night air, George.”
“I shall be home by sundown, or thereabouts. Not that the night air would hurt me now.”
“You cannot take rich dishes yet,” urged Bessy again.
“Bien entendu. Mrs. Verrall has ordered an array of invalid ones: mutton-broth à l’eau, and boiled whiting au naturel,” responded George, who appeared to have an answer ready for all dissentient propositions.
Janet interposed, looking and speaking very gravely. “George, it will be a great mark of disrespect to Mrs. Briscow, the lifelong friend of your father and your mother, not to be at home to sit at table with her the first day she is here. Only one thing could excuse your absence—urgent business. And, that, you have not to plead.”
George answered tartly. He was weak from his recent illness, and like many others under the same circumstances, did not like being crossed in trifles. “Janet, you are unreasonable. As if it were necessary that I should break a promise, just for the purpose of dining with an old woman! There will be plenty of other days to dine with her. And I shall be at home this evening before you have risen from table.”
“I beg you to speak of Mrs. Briscow with more respect, George. It cannot matter whether you dine at the Verralls’ to-day or another day,” persisted Janet. “I would not say a word against it, were it an engagement of consequence. You can go to the Folly any day.”
“But I choose to go to-day,” said George.
Janet fixed her deep eyes upon him, her gaze full of sad penetration, her voice changed to one of mourning. “Have those women cast a spell upon you, lad?”
It drove away George’s ill-humour. He burst into a laugh, and returned the gaze: openly enough. “Not they, Janet. Mrs. Verrall may have spells to cast, for aught I know: it’s Verrall’s business, not mine: but they have certainly not been directed to me. And Charlotte——”
“Ay,” put in Janet in a lower tone, “what of Charlotte Pain?”
“This, Janet. That I can steer clear of any spells cast by Charlotte Pain. Not but that I admire Charlotte very much,” he added in a spirit of mischief. “I assure you I am quite a slave to her fascinations.”
“Keep you out of her fascinations, lad,” returned Janet in a tone of solemn meaning. “It is my first and best advice to you.”
“I will, Janet, when I find them growing dangerous.”
Janet said no more. There was that expression on her countenance which they well knew; telling of grievous dissatisfaction.
Rising earlier than his strength was as yet equal to, told upon George Godolphin: and by the middle of the day he felt so full of weariness and lassitude, that he was glad to throw himself on to the sofa in the large drawing-room, quiet and unoccupied then, wheeling the couch first of all with his feeble strength, close to the window, that he might be in the sunshine. Its warmth was grateful to him. He dropped asleep, and only woke considerably later, at the entrance of Cecil.
Cecil was dressed for the day, in a thin, flowing black dress, a jet necklace on her slender neck, jet bracelets on her fair arms. A fair flower was Cecilia Godolphin: none fairer within all the precincts of Prior’s Ash. She knelt down by George and kissed him.
“We have been in to glance at you two or three times, George. Margery has prepared something nice for you, and would have aroused you to take it, only she says sleep will do you as much good as food.”
“What’s the time?” asked George, too indolent to take his own watch from his pocket.
“Half-past three.”
“Nonsense!” cried George, partially starting up. “It can’t be so late as that.”
“It is, indeed. Janet has just driven off to the station. Don’t rise this minute: you are hot.”
“I wonder Janet let me sleep so long!”
“Why should she not? Janet has been very busy all day, and very——”
“Cross?” put in George.
“I was going to say silent,” replied Cecil. “You vexed her this morning, George.”
“There was nothing that she need have been vexed at,” responded Mr. George.
Cecil remained for a few moments without speaking. “I think Janet is afraid of Charlotte Pain,” she presently said.
“Afraid of Charlotte Pain! In what way?”
“George”—lowering her voice, and running her fingers caressingly through his bright hair as he lay—“I wish you would let me ask you something.”
“Ask away,” replied George.
“Ay, but will you answer me?”
“That depends,” he laughed. “Ask away, Cely.”
“Isthere anything between you and Charlotte Pain?”
“Plenty,” returned George in the lightest possible tone. “As there is between me and a dozen more young ladies. Charlotte, happening to be the nearest, gets most of me just now.”
“Plenty of what?”
“Talking and laughing and gossip. That’s about the extent of it, pretty Cely.”
Cecil wished he would be more serious. “Shall you be likely to marry her?” she breathed.
“Just as likely as I shall be to marry you,” and he spoke seriously now.
Cecil drew a sigh of relief. “Then, George, I will tell you what it is that has helped to vex Janet. You know our servants get talking to Mrs. Verrall’s, and her servants to ours. And the news was brought here that Charlotte Pain has said she should probably be going on a journey: a journey abroad, for six months or so: to some place where she should remain the winter. Margery told Janet: and—and——”
“You construed it, between you, that Charlotte was going to be a partner in my exile! What droll people you must all be!”
“There’s no doubt, George, that Charlotte Pain was heard to say it.”
“I don’t know what she may have been heard to say. It could have borne no reference to my movements. Cecil?”
“Well?”
“Did you ever hear of old Max’s hounds losing their scent?”
“No—I don’t know. What do you mean?”
And while George Godolphin was laughing at her puzzled look, Margery came in. “Are you almost famished, Mr. George? How could you think of dropping off to sleep till you had had something to sustain you?”
“We often do things that we don’t ‘think’ to do, Margery,” quoth he, as he rose from the sofa.
Nothing more true, Mr. George Godolphin.
Ere long he was on his way to Mrs. Verrall’s. Notwithstanding Janet’s displeasure, he had no idea of foregoing his engagement. The society of two attractive women had more charms for listless George than quiet Ashlydyat. It was a lovely afternoon, less hot than it had been of late, and George really enjoyed it. He was beginning to walk so much better. That long sleep had rested and refreshed him, and he believed that he could walk well into Prior’s Ash. “I’ll try it to-morrow,” thought George.
Up the steps, over the terrace, across to the open windows of the Folly. It was the easiest way in, and George was not given to unnecessary ceremony. He supposed he might find the ladies in the drawing-room, and he stepped over the threshold.
Only one was there. Charlotte. She did not see him enter. She was before a pier-glass, holding up her dog, King Charley, that he might snarl and bark at the imaginary King Charley in the glass. That other dog of hers, the ugly Scotch terrier which you have heard of before, and a third, looking something like a bull-dog, were leaping and howling at her feet. It would appear that nothing pleased Charlotte better than putting her dogs into a fury. Charlotte wore a dark blue silk dress with shaded flounces, and a lighter blue silk jacket: the latter, ornamented with braidings and buttons of silver, somewhat after the fashion of her green riding-habit, and fitting as tightly to the shape. A well-formed shape!—and George Godolphin thought so, as she stood with her arms lifted, setting the dogs at the glass.
“Hi, King! Seize him, Charley! Go at him!—hiss! Tear him! bite him!—hiss-ss-ss!——”
The noisy reception by the other dogs of Mr. George Godolphin, brought the young lady’s words and her pretty employment to a standstill. She released the imprisoned dog from her arms, letting him drop anywhere, and turned to George Godolphin.
“Have you come at last? I had given you up! I expected you an hour and a half ago.”
“And, to while away the time, you set your dogs on to snarl and fight!” returned he, as he took her hand. “I wonder you don’t go distracted with the noise, Charlotte!”
“You don’t like dogs! I often tell you so.”
“Yes, I do—in their proper places.”
Charlotte turned from him with a pout. The terrier jumped upon her.
“Down, Pluto, down! A gentleman here thinks I ought to hold you poor dogs at arm’s length.”
“At the yard’s length, if you please, Charlotte,” corrected George, who did not feel inclined to compromise his opinion. “Hark at them! they might be heard at Prior’s Ash.”
“And his name’s George Godolphin, good Pluto!” went on Charlotte, doing all she possibly could, in a quiet way, to excite the dogs. “Down, then, Pluto! down!”
“I should muzzle you, Mr. Pluto, if you were mine,” cried George, as the dog jumped up at him furiously, and then turned to attack his former adversary. “Pluto!” he continued, meaningly: “who gave him that name, Charlotte?”
“I did,” avowed Charlotte. “And I named this other one King Charley, after his species. And this one is Deuce. What have you to say against the names?”
“Nothing,” said George. “I think them very good, appropriate names,” he added, his lips parting.
They were certainly very good dogs—if to make a most excruciating noise constitutes merit. George Godolphin, his nerves still in a shattered condition, lifted his hand wearily to his forehead. It brought Charlotte Pain to her recollection.
“Oh, George, I forgot! I did, really! I forgot you were not as strong yet as the rest of us. Be quiet, then, you three horrid brutes! Be quiet, will you! Go off, and quarrel outside.”
Using her pointed toe rather liberally, Charlotte set herself to scatter the dogs. They were not very obedient. As soon as one was got out another sprang in, the noise never ceasing. Charlotte snatched up a basket of macaroons that happened to be on a side-table, and scattered the cakes on the terrace. “There, quarrel and fight over those!”
She put down the empty basket, closed the window to shut out the noise, and turned to George. Spreading out her dress on either side, after the manner once in vogue in ancient ballrooms she dropped him an elaborate curtsey.
“Mr. George Godolphin, what honour do you suppose is thrust upon me to-day?”
“You must tell me, Charlotte, if it’s one you wish me to know,” he answered. “I can never attempt to guess when I feel tired; as I do now.”
“Your walk has tired you?”
“I suppose it has. Though I thought how well I felt as I came along.”
“The great honour of entertaining you all by my own self is delegated to me,” cried Charlotte gaily, dropping another curtsey. “I hope we shall not quarrel, as those dogs are doing.”
“The honour of entertaining me!” he repeated, not grasping her meaning. “Entertaining me for what?”
“For dinner, sir. Mrs. Verrall has gone to London.”
“No!” he exclaimed. He did not believe her.
Charlotte nodded. “She went at midday.”
“But what took her away so suddenly?” exclaimed George, in surprise. “She had no intention yesterday of going.”
“A freak. Or, impulse—if you like the word better. Kate rarely acts upon anything else. She has been expecting Verrall home theselast three days; but he has neither come nor written: and this morning, after the post was in, she suddenly declared she’d go to town, and see what was keeping him.”
“They may cross each other on the road.”
“Of course they may: and Kate have her journey for her pains. That’s nothing to her: she likes travelling. ‘What am I to do with Mr. George Godolphin? Entertain him?’ I said to her. ‘I suppose you can contrive to do it,’ she answered. ‘I suppose I could,’ I said. ‘But, what about its being proper?’ I asked,” added Charlotte, with a demure glance at George. “‘Oh,’ said Kate, ‘it’s proper enough, poor sick fellow: it would never do to disappoint him.’ Therefore, sir, please take care that you behave properly, considering that a young lady is your hostess.”
She threw a laughing glance at George; and, sitting down at the table, took a pack of beautifully painted cards from an ivory box, and began that delectable game that the French call “Patience.” George watched her from the sofa where he was sitting. A certain thought had darted into his mind. What fit of prudence called it up? Did he think of Charlotte’s good?—or of his own? Did the recollection of what Cecil had whispered actuate him? It cannot be told. It was very far indeed from George Godolphin’s intention to make a wife of Charlotte Pain, and he may have deemed it well to avoid all situations where he might compromise himself by a hasty word. Such words are more easily dropped than taken up again. Or perhaps George, free and careless though he was, reflected that it was not altogether the thing for Charlotte Pain to entertain him alone. With all his faults, George Godolphin was a gentleman: and Charlotte was not altogether fitted for a gentleman’s wife.
“I am glad of it, Charlotte,” he remarked. “I shall now have to make excuses to one only, instead of to two. I came to ask Mrs. Verrall to allow me to break through my engagement.”
Charlotte had a knave in her hand, pondering where she could place it. She dropped it in her surprise.
“I must dine at home to-day, Charlotte. An old friend of my father and mother’s, Mrs. Briscow, is arriving for dinner. I cannot be absent.”
The flush deepened on Charlotte’s face. “It is unkind of you!” she resentfully said. “But I knew before what your promises are worth.”
“Unkind? But, Charlotte, I did not know until this morning that Mrs. Briscow was coming to-day. There’s nothing unkind about it.”
“Itisunkind!” flashed Charlotte. “If you were not unkind, you would not leave me here alone, to pass a solitary evening and play at this wretched ‘patience.’”
“But I am not going to leave you here. I wish to take you back with me to Ashlydyat to dinner. If you will put on your bonnet, we can be walking thither at once.”
“You did not come intending to ask me.”
“I did not. I did not know that Mrs. Verrall would be absent. But I ask you now, being alone as you say. And I intend to take you.”
“What will Miss Godolphin say?”
“Miss Godolphin will be very happy to see you.” Which little assertion Mr. George knew to contain more politeness than truth. “Will you get ready, Charlotte? I must be returning.”
Charlotte pushed the cards from her in a heap, and came and stood before George Godolphin, turning herself about for his inspection. “Shall I do without further embellishment?” she asked.
“Admirably,” was the gallant answer. “Why dress more for Ashlydyat than you would for home?”
Charlotte marched to the glass and surveyed herself. “Just something in my hair,” she said, ringing the bell.
A maid came in by her desire, and fastened some blue and silver flowers in her hair. Charlotte Pain wore her hair capriciously: rarely two days alike. To-day it was all strained back from the face, that most trying of all styles, let the features be ever so pretty. A shawl was thrown over her shoulders, and then she turned to George.
“I am ready now.”
“But your bonnet?” returned that gentleman, who had looked on with laughing eyes at the mysteries of the hair-dressing.
“I shall not put on a bonnet,” she said. “They can bring it to me to Ashlydyat, for returning at night. People won’t meet us: the road’s not a public road. And if they should meet us,” she added, laughing, “they will rejoice in the opportunity of seeing me abroad like this. It will be food for Prior’s Ash.”
So they started. Charlotte would not take his arm: she said he must take hers: he needed support and she did not. That, George would not agree to: and they strolled on, side by side, resting on benches occasionally. George found he had not much to boast of yet, in the way of strength.
“Who’s this, coming up?” exclaimed Charlotte, when they had almost gained Ashlydyat, and were resting for the last time.
George followed the direction of her eyes. Advancing towards Ashlydyat was a lady, her grey silk dress gleaming in the sun, a light Cashmere shawl folded round her. There was no mistaking the ladylike figure of Mrs. Hastings.
“Is she to be one of your dinner-party?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
Mrs. Hastings joined them. She sat down on a bench by George’s side, affectionately inquiring into his state of health, speaking kindly and truthfully her pleasure at seeing him, so far, well again. Whatever prejudice may have been taken against George Godolphin by the Rector of All Souls’, it did not extend to his wife. She liked him much.
“I am getting on famously,” said George, in a merry tone. “I have promoted myself now to one stick: until yesterday I was forced to use two. You are going to Ashlydyat, Mrs. Hastings?”
“I wish to say a few words to Bessy. We have discovered something unpleasant relating to one of the schools, in which the under-mistress is mixed up. A good deal of deceit has been going on, in fact. Mr. Hastings says Bessy ought to hear of it at once, for she was as much interested in it as we are. So I came up.”
Mrs. Hastings, in speaking, had taken two or three glances at Charlotte’s head. That young lady set herself to explain. Mr. George Godolphin had given her an impromptu invitation to go back with him to dine at Ashlydyat.
Then George explained. He had been engaged to dine at the Folly: but found, on arriving, that Mrs. Verrall had departed for London. “My friends are all kind to me, Mrs. Hastings,” he observed. “They insist upon it that a change of a few hours must benefit me, and encumber themselves with the trouble of a fanciful invalid.”
“I am sure there’s nothing like change and amusement for one growing convalescent,” said Charlotte.
“Will you let us contribute in some little way to it?” asked Mrs. Hastings of George. “If a few hours’ sojourn in our quiet house would be agreeable to you, you know that we should only be too happy for you to try it.”
“I should like it of all things,” cried George, impulsively, “I cannot walk far yet without resting, and it is pleasant to sit a few hours at my walk’s end, before I begin to start back again. I shall soon extend my journeys to Prior’s Ash.”
“Then come to us the first day that you feel able to get as far. You will always find some of us at home. We will dine at any hour you like, and you shall choose your own dinner.”
“A bargain,” said George.
They rose to pursue their way to Ashlydyat. Mrs. Hastings offered her arm to George, and he took it with thanks. “He would not take mine!” thought Charlotte, and she flashed an angry glance at him.
The fact was, that for some considerable time Charlotte Pain had put Maria Hastings almost out of her head, as regarded her relations to George Godolphin. Whatever reason she may have seen at Broomhead to believe he was attached to Maria, the impression had since faded away. In the spring, before his illness, George had been much more with her than with Maria. This was not entirely George’s fault: the Rectory did not court him: Charlotte Pain and the Folly did. A week had now passed since Mr. Verrall’s departure for town, when George and his sticks appeared at the Folly for the first time after his illness; and, not a day of that week since but George and Charlotte had met. Altogether, her hopes of winning the prize had gone up to enthusiastic heat; and Charlotte believed the greatest prize in the world—taking all his advantages collectively—to be George Godolphin. George went at once to his sister Janet’s chamber. She was in it, dressing for dinner, after bringing her aged guest, Mrs. Briscow, from the station. He knocked at the door with his stick, and was told to enter.
Janet was before the glass in her black silk dress, trimmed heavily with crape still. She was putting on her sober cap, a white one, with black ribbons. Janet Godolphin had taken to wear caps at thirty years of age: her hair, like Thomas’s, was thin; and she was not troubled with cares of making herself appear younger than she was.
“Come in, George,” she said, turning to him without any appearance of surprise.
“See how good I am, Janet!” he cried, throwing himself wearily into a chair. “I have come back to dine with you.”
“I saw you from the window. You have been walking too far!”
“Only to the Folly and back. But I sauntered about, looking at the flowers, and that tires one far worse than bearing on steadily.”
“Ay. Lay yourself down on that couch at full length, lad. Mrs. Hastings is here, I see. And—was that other Charlotte Pain?”
“Yes,” replied George, disregarding the injunction to lie down.
“Did she come from the Folly in that guise?—Nothing on her head but those flowers? I could see no bonnet even in her hand.”
“It is to be sent after her. Janet”—passing quickly from the other matter—“she has come to dine with us.”
Miss Godolphin turned in amazement, and fixed her eyes reproachfully on George. “To dine with us?—to-day? Have you been asking her?”
“Janet, I could not well help myself. When I got to Lady Godolphin’s Folly, I found Charlotte alone: Mrs. Verrall has departed for town. To break through my engagement there, I proposed that Charlotte should come here.”
“Nay,” said Janet, “your engagement was already broken, if Mrs. Verrall was away.”
“Not so. Charlotte expected me to remain.”
“Herself your sole entertainer?”
“I suppose so.”
A severe expression arose to Miss Godolphin’s lips, and remained there. “It is most unsuitable, Charlotte Pain’s being here to-day,” she resumed. “The changes which have taken place render our meeting with Mrs. Briscow a sad one; no stranger ought to be at table. Least of all, Charlotte Pain. Her conversation is at times unfeminine.”
“How can you say so, Janet?” he involuntarily exclaimed.
“Should she launch into some of her favourite topics, her horses and her dogs, it will sound unfeminine to Mrs. Briscow’s ears. In her young days—inmydays also, George, for the matter of that—these subjects were deemed more suitable to men’s lips than to young women’s. George, had your mother lived, it would have been a sore day to her, the one that brought the news that you had fixed your mind on Charlotte Pain.”
“It was not so to my father, at any rate,” George could not help saying.
“And was it possible that you did not see how Charlotte Pain played her cards before your father?” resumed Janet. “Not a word, that could offend his prejudices as a refined gentleman, did she ever suffer herself to utter. I saw; if you did not.”
“You manage to see a great deal that the rest of us don’t see, Janet. Or you fancy that you do.”
“It is no fancy, lad. I would not like to discourage a thing that you have set your heart upon; I would rather go a mile out of my way than do it: but I stand next door to a mother to you, and I can but warn you that you will repent it, if you ever suffer Charlotte Pain to be more to you than she now is.”
George rose. “Set your mind at rest, Janet. It has never been my intention to marry Charlotte Pain: and—so far as I believe at present—it never will be.”
The dinner went off pleasantly. Mrs. Briscow was a charming old lady, although she was of the “antediluvian” school, and Charlotte was on her best behaviour, and half fascinated Mrs. Briscow. George, like a trespassing child, received several hints from Janet that bed might be desirable for him, but he ingeniously ignored them, and sat on. Charlotte’s bonnet and an attendant arrived, and Thomas Godolphin put on his hat to see her to the Folly.
“I need not trouble you, Mr. Godolphin. I shall not be run away with.”
“I think it will be as well that I should see you do not,” said he, smiling.
It was scarcely dark. The clock had not struck ten, and the night was starlight. Thomas Godolphin gave her his arm, and the maid walked behind them. Arrived at Ashlydyat, he left her. Charlotte stood for a few moments, then turned on her heel and entered the hall. The first thing that caught her notice was a hat; next a travelling coat. They had not been there when she left in the afternoon.
“Then Verrall’s back!” she mentally exclaimed.
Hastening into the dining-room, she saw, seated at a table, drinking brandy and water, not Mr. Verrall, but Rodolf Pain.
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Charlotte, with more surprise in her tone than satisfaction, “haveyoucome?”
“Come to find an empty house,” rejoined Mr. Pain. “Where’s Mrs. Verrall? They tell me she is gone to London.”
“She is,” replied Charlotte. “Verrall neither came back nor wrote; she had a restless fit upon her, and started off this morning to him.”
“Verrall won’t thank her,” observed Mr. Pain. “He is up to his eyes in business.”
“Good or bad business?” asked Charlotte.
“Both. We have got into a mess, and Verrall’s not yet out of it.”
“Through what? Through whom?” she questioned.
Rodolf Pain gave his shoulders a jerk, as if he had been a Frenchman. “It need not trouble you, Charlotte.”
“Some one came down here from London a week ago; a Mr. Appleby. Is it through him? Verrall seemed strangely put out at his coming.”
Mr. Pain nodded his head. “They were such idiots in the office as to give Appleby the address here. I have seen Verrall in a tolerable passion once or twice in my life, but I never saw him in such a one as he went into when he came up. They’ll not forget it in a hurry. He lays the blame on me, remotely; says I must have left a letter about with the address on it. I know I have done nothing of the sort.”
“But what is it, Rodolf? Anything very bad?”
“Bad enough. But it can be remedied. Let Verrall alone for getting out of pits, however deep they may be. I wish, though, we had never set eyes on that fellow, Appleby!”
“Tell me about it, Rodolf.”
Mr. Rodolf declined. “You could do no good,” said he, “and business is not fitted for ladies’ ears.”
“I don’t care to know it,” said Charlotte. “It’s no concern of mine: but, somehow, that man Appleby interested me. As to business notbeing fitted for my ears, I should make a better hand at business than some of you men make.”
“Upon my word, I think you would, Charlotte. I have often said it. But you are one in a thousand.”
“Have you had anything to eat since you came in?”
“They brought me some supper. It has just gone away.”
“I had better inquire whether there’s a room ready for you?” she remarked, moving towards the bell.
“It’s all done, Charlotte. I told them I had come to stay. Just sit down, and let me talk to you.”
“Shall you stay long?”
“I can’t tell until I hear from Verrall to-morrow. I may be leaving again to-morrow night, or I may be here for interminable weeks. The office is to be clear of Mr. Verrall just now, do you understand?”
Charlotte apparently did understand. She took her seat in a chair listlessly enough. Something in her manner would have told an accurate observer that she could very well have dispensed with the company of Rodolf Pain. He, however, saw nothing of that. He took his cigar-case from his pocket, selected a cigar, and then, by way of sport, held the case out to Charlotte.
“Will you take one?”
For answer, she dashed it out of his hand half way across the room. And she did it in anger, too.
“How uncertain you are!” he exclaimed, as he rose to pick up his property. “There are times when you can take a joke pleasantly, and laugh at it.”
He sat down again, lighted his cigar, and smoked a few minutes in silence. Then he turned to her. “Don’t you think it is time, Charlotte, that you and I brought ourselves to an anchor?”
“No, I don’t,” she bluntly answered.
“But I say it is,” he resumed. “And I mean it to be done.”
“Youmean!”
Something in the tone roused him, and he gazed at her with surprise. “You are not going from your promise, Charlotte?”
“I don’t remember that I made any distinct promise,” said she.
Mr. Rodolf Pain grew heated. “You know that you did, Charlotte. You know that you engaged yourself irrevocably to me——”
“Irrevocably!” she slightingly interrupted. “How you misapply words!”
“It was as irrevocable as promise can be. Have you not led me on, this twelvemonth past, believing month after month that you would be my wife the next? And, month after month, you have put me off upon the most frivolous pretexts!”
He rose as he spoke, drew up his little figure to its utmost height in his excitement, and pushed back his light hair from his small, insignificant face. A face that betrayed not too much strength of any sort, physical, moral, or intellectual; but a good-natured face withal. Charlotte retained unbroken calmness.
“Rodolf, I don’t think it would do,” she said, with an air of candid reasoning. “I have thought it over and over, and that’s why I have put you off. It is not well that we should all be so closely connectedtogether. Better get new ties, that will shelter us, in case a—a——”
“A what?” asked Rodolf Pain, his eyes strained on Charlotte through their very light lashes.
“In case a smash comes. That—if we are all in the same boat—would ruin the lot. Better that you and I should form other connections.”
“You are talking great nonsense,” he angrily said. “A smash!—to us! Can’t you trust Verrall better than that?”
“Why, you say that, even at this present moment——”
“You are wrong, Charlotte,” he vehemently interrupted; “you entirely misunderstand me. Things go wrong in business temporarily; they must do so in business of all sorts; but they right themselves again. Why! do you know what Verrall made last year?”
“A great deal.”
“My little petty share was two thousand pounds: and that is as a drop of water to the ocean compared with his. What has put you upon these foolish fancies?”
“Prudence,” returned Charlotte.
“I don’t believe it,” was the plain answer. “You are trying to blind me. You are laying yourself out for higher game; and to shut my eyes, and gain time to see if you can play it out, you concoct a story of ‘prudence’ to me. It’s one or the other of those Godolphins.”
“The Godolphins!” mockingly repeated Charlotte. “You are clever! The one will never marry as long as the world lasts; the other’s dead.”
“Dead!” echoed Rodolf Pain.
“As good as dead. He’s like a ghost, and he is being sent off for an everlasting period to some warmer climate. How ridiculous you are, Rodolf!”
“Charlotte, I’ll take care of ways and means. I’ll take care of you and your interests. Only fix the time when you will be mine.”
“Then I won’t, Rodolf. I don’t care to marry yet awhile. I’ll see about it when the next hunting season shall be over.”
Rodolf Pain opened his eyes. “The hunting season!” he cried. “What has that to do with it?”
“Were you my husband, you would be forbidding me to hunt; you don’t like my doing it now. So for the present I’ll remain mistress of my own actions.”
“Another lame excuse,” he said, knitting his brow. “You will take very good care always to remain mistress of your own actions, whether married or single.”
Charlotte laughed, a ringing laugh of power. It spoke significantly enough to Mr. Rodolf Pain. He would have renewed the discussion, but she peremptorily declined, and shaking hands with him, wished him good night.
George Godolphin was not long at availing himself of the invitation to All Souls’ Rectory. The very day after it was given, he was on his way to it. He started with his stick: made one halt at a shop on his road, and arrived about twelve o’clock.
Not a soul was at home but Maria. Mrs. Hastings, who had not expected him for some days, for she did not suppose his strength would allow him to get so far yet, had gone out with Grace. Mr. Hastings was in the church, and Maria was alone.
She sat in that one pleasant room of the house, the long room looking to the lawn and the flower-beds. She looked so pretty, so refined, so quiet in her simple dress of white muslin, as she pursued her employment, that of drawing, never suspecting how she was going to be interrupted.
The door of the porch stood open, as it often did in summer, and George Godolphin entered without the ceremony of knocking. The hall was well matted, and Maria did not hear him cross it. A slight tap at the room door.
“Come in,” said Maria, supposing it to be one of the servants.
He came in and stood in the doorway, smiling down upon her. So shadowy, so thin! his face utterly pale, his dark blue eyes unnaturally large, his wavy hair damp with the exertion of walking. Maria’s heart stood still. She rose from her seat, unable to speak, the colour going and coming in her transparent skin; and when she quietly moved forward to welcome him, her heart found its action again, and bounded on in tumultuous beats. The very intensity of her emotion caused her demeanour to be almost unnaturally still.
“Are you glad to see me, Maria?”
It was the first time they had met since his illness; the first time for more than four months. All that time separated; all that time fearing he was about to be removed by death! As he approached Maria, her emotion broke forth—she burst into tears; and surely it may be excused her.
He was scarcely less agitated. He clasped her tenderly to him, and kissed the tears from her face, his own eyelashes glistening. There was no great harm in it after all; for that each looked forward to the hope of being bound together at no great distance of time by nearer and dearer ties, was indisputable. At least no harm would have come of it, if—— Look at the window.
Theydid. And there they saw the awful face of the Rector glaring in upon them, and by its side, the more awful of the two, that of Charlotte Pain.
Why had she followed George Godolphin to the Rectory? Was she determined not to allow him a singlechanceof escaping her? She, bearing in remembrance the compact with Mrs. Hastings, had watchedGeorge Godolphin’s movements that morning from the windows of the Folly; had watched the by-road leading to the Rectory. She saw George and his stick go tottering down it: and by-and-by she put on her things and went out too, imperatively declining the escort of Mr. Rodolf Pain.
Her intention was to make a call at the Rectory—all unconscious of course that she should find Mr. George Godolphin there. By dint of a little by-play with Mrs. Hastings—who was too thoroughly a lady to be given to suspicion—she might receive an invitation to remain also for the day. With these very laudable intentions Charlotte arrived opposite All Souls’ Church, where she caught sight of the Reverend Mr. Hastings emerging from the door. She crossed the churchyard, and accosted him.
“Is Mrs. Hastings at home, do you know? I am going to call upon her?”
Now Charlotte was no great favourite of that gentleman’s: nevertheless, being a gentleman, he answered her courteously as he shook hands. He believed Mrs. Hastings and Grace were out, he said, but Maria was at home.
“I am moped to death!” exclaimed Charlotte, as she and Mr. Hastings entered the private gate to the Rectory garden. “Mrs. Verrall is gone to London, and there am I! I came out intending to go the round of the town until I could find some good Samaritan or other who would take compassion on me, and let me stay an hour or two with them.”
Mr. Hastings gave no particular reply. He did not make for the side door of the house, his usual entrance from the church, but turned towards the front, that he might usher in Charlotte in state. This took them by the windows of the drawing-room: and there they saw—what has been recorded. Mr. Hastings, in his astonishment, halted: Charlotte halted also, as you may be very sure.
George was the first to see them, and a word of anger broke from his lips. Maria hastily raised her head from its resting-place—and felt almost as if she should die. To be seen thus by Charlotte Pain was bad enough: but by her strict father! Her face grew white.
George Godolphin saw the signs. “My darling, only be calm! Leave all to me.”
That an explanation was forced upon him somewhat prematurely, was undoubted. But it was no unwelcome explanation. Nay, in the second moment, he was deeming it the very best thing that could have happened: for certain visions of taking Maria with him into exile had crossed his brain lately. He would try hard now to get them realized. It is true he would have preferred, all things considered, not to speak before Miss Charlotte Pain: but necessity, as you know, has no law.
The Rector came in at the door: Charlotte following. “Mr. George Godolphin!” he frigidly began; but George interrupted what he would have further said.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, taking a step forward; “allow me one word of explanation before you cast blame on me. I was asking your daughter to be my wife. Will you give her to me?”
Mr. Hastings looked as a man confounded. That he was intenselysurprised at the words was evident: perhaps he half doubted whether Mr. George Godolphin was playing with him. He cast a severe glance at Maria. George had taken her on his arm, and she stood there shrinking, her head drooping; her eyelashes resting on her white cheek. As for Charlotte Pain? well, you should have seen her.
Ah no, there was no deception. George was in true earnest, and Mr. Hastings saw that he was. His eyes were fixed beseechingly on those of Mr. Hastings, and emotion had brought the hectic to his wasted cheek.
“Do not blame Maria, sir,” he resumed. “She is innocent of all offence, and dutiful as innocent. Were you to interpose your veto between us, and deny her to me, I know that she would obey you, even though the struggle killed her. Mr. Hastings, we have loved each other for some time past: and I should have spoken to you before, but for my illness intervening. Will you give her to me at once, and let her share my exile!”
Mr. Hastings had no insuperable objection to George Godolphin. That report had given Mr. George credit for bushels and bushels of wild oats, which he would have to sow, was certain: but in this respect he was no worse than many others, and marriage is supposed to be a cure for youthful follies. Mr. Hastings had once suspected that Maria was acquiring more liking for George than was good for her: hence his repulsion of George, for he believed that he was destined for Charlotte Pain. Even now he could not comprehend how it was, and the prominent feeling in his mind was surprised perplexity.
“I love her as my own life, sir. I will strive to render her happy.”
“I cannot understand it,” said Mr. Hastings, dropping his tone of anger. “I was under the impression—I beg your pardon, Miss Pain,” turning to her, “but I was under the impression that you were engaged to Mr. George Godolphin!”
If ever Charlotte Pain had need to fight for composure, she had dire need then. Her hopes were suddenly hurled to the ground, and she had the cruel mortification of hearing him, whom she best loved, reject and spurn her for a long-hated rival. If her love for George Godolphin was not very deep or refined—and it was neither the one nor the other—she did love him after a fashion; better, at any rate, than she loved any one else. Thepositionshe would take as George Godolphin’s wife was hurled from her; and perhaps Miss Charlotte cared for that more than she did for George himself. The Verralls and their appearance of wealth were all very well in their places—as George had said by the dogs—but what were they, compared with the ancient Godolphins? There are moments which drive a woman to the verge of madness, and Charlotte was so driven now. Anything like control of temper was quite beyond her: and malevolence entered her heart.
“I engaged to Mr. George Godolphin!” she echoed, taking up the Rector’s words in a shrieking tone, which she could not have helped had her life depended on it. “Engaged to a married man? Thank you, Mr. Hastings.”
“A married man!” repeated the puzzled Rector. Whilst George turned his questioning eyes upon her.
“Yes, a married man,” she continued, her throat working, her breathpanting. “They may have chosen to hoodwink you, to blind you, Mr. Hastings, but I saw what I saw. When your daughter—innocent Miss Maria there—came home from Scotland, she had been married to George Godolphin. A false priest, a sort of Gretna Green man, had married them: and I saw it done.Iengaged to George Godolphin!”
Charlotte Pain knew that the words were false: called up to gratify her rage in that angry moment. Scarcely anything else that she could conjure up would so have told upon the Rector. In his straightforward right-doing, to his practical mind, a clandestine marriage appeared one of the cardinal sins. His face turned pale, and his eye flashed as he grasped Maria’s shoulder.
“Girl! is this so?”
“Oh, papa, no!” returned Maria, with streaming eyes. “It is a wicked untruth. Charlotte! to tell such an untruthiswicked. Papa, I affirm to you——”
“Hush, Maria,” interposed George, “let me deal with this. Mr. Hastings, it is a thing that you need scarcelyaskof your daughter—whether it is true, or untrue. Is she one, think you, to enter into a clandestine marriage? You know better, sir. Nothing has ever passed between myself and Maria more than has passed before you this day. Were I thoughtless enough to solicit her to enter into one—and you need not think ofmea whit better than you choose—Maria would only repulse me. Miss Pain, will you unsay your words?”
For answer, Miss Pain entered into a scornful account of Sandy Bray and his doings. She reiterated her assertion. She declared that she saw Maria and George standing before him, their hands clasped together in the attitude of a couple being married, when she entered suddenly with a message from Lady Godolphin, and she finished up by saying she had always believed since that they were married, only it had been no business of hers to proclaim it. The Rector’s brow grew moist again, and George Godolphin looked significantly at Charlotte. He spoke significantly, too.