“My dear Mrs. Godolphin,“It has occurred to me since I parted from you, that you may wish to have the subject of our conversation confirmed in writing. I hereby assure you that I shall take no legal proceedings whatever against your husband on account of my lost bonds, and you may tell him from me that he need not, on that score, remain away from Prior’s Ash.“I hope you have reached home without too much fatigue.“Believe me, ever sincerely yours,“Averil.”
“My dear Mrs. Godolphin,
“It has occurred to me since I parted from you, that you may wish to have the subject of our conversation confirmed in writing. I hereby assure you that I shall take no legal proceedings whatever against your husband on account of my lost bonds, and you may tell him from me that he need not, on that score, remain away from Prior’s Ash.
“I hope you have reached home without too much fatigue.
“Believe me, ever sincerely yours,“Averil.”
“How kind he is!” came involuntarily from Maria’s lips.
The words were drowned in a noise outside. Charlotte had contrived to ascend to her seat in spite of the prancing horses. She stood up in the high carriage, as George Godolphin had once done at the same door, and by dint of strength and skill, subdued them to control. Turning their fiery heads, scattering the assembled multitude right and left, nodding pleasantly to the applause vouchsafed her, Mrs. Charlotte Pain and the turn-out disappeared with a clatter, amidst the rolling of wheels, the barking of dogs, and the intense admiration of the gaping populace.
On this same evening, Miss Godolphin sat at a window facing the west in their home at Ashlydyat. Soon to be their home no more. Her cheek rested pensively on her fingers, as she thought—oh, with what bitterness!—of the grievous past. She had been universally ridiculed for giving heed to the superstitious traditions attaching to the house, and yet how strangely they appeared to be working themselves out. It had begun—Janet seemed to think the ruin had begun—with the departure of her father, Sir George, from Ashlydyat: and the traditionwent that when the head of the Godolphins should voluntarily abandon Ashlydyat, the ruin would follow.
Had Sir George’s departure brought on the ruin—been the first link in the chain that led to it?Janet was debating the question in her mind. That she was prone to indulging superstitious fancies to a degree many would pronounce ridiculously absurd cannot be denied: but in striving to solve that particular problem she was relinquishing the by-paths of the supernatural for the broad road of common sense. From the facts that were being brought to light by the bankruptcy, turning up by degrees one after another, it was easy to see that George Godolphin had been seduced into a hornet’s nest, and so been eased of his money. Whether the process had been summary or slow—whether he had walked into it head foremost in blind simplicity—or whether he had only succumbed to it under the most refined Machiavellian craft, it was of no consequence to inquire. It is of no consequence to us. He had fallen into the hands of a company of swindlers, who ensnared their victims and transacted their business under the semblance of bill-discounting: and they had brought George to what he was.
Head and chief of this apparently reputable firm was Verrall: and Verrall, there was not a doubt, had been chief agent in George Godolphin’s undoing. But for Sir George Godolphin’s quitting Ashlydyat and putting it up in the market to let, Verrall might never have come near Prior’s Ash; never have met Mr. George Godolphin. In that case the chances are that Mr. George would have been a flourishing banker still. Gay he would have been; needlessly extravagant; scattering his wild oats by the bushel—but not a man come to ruin and to beggary.
Janet Godolphin was right: itwasthe quitting Ashlydyat by her father, and the consequent tenancy of Mr. Verrall, which had been the first link in the chain, terminating in George’s disgrace, in their ruin.
She sat there, losing herself in regret after regret. “If my father had not left it!—if he had never married Mrs. Campbell!—if my own dear mother had not died!”—she lost herself, I say, in these regrets, bitter as they were vain.
How many of these useless regrets might embitter the lives of us all! How many do embitter them! If I had only done so-and-so!—if I had only taken the left turning when I took the right!—if I had only known what that man was from the first, and shunned his acquaintance!—if I had only chosen that path in life instead of this one!—if I had, in short, only done precisely the opposite to what I did do! Vain, vain repinings!—vain, useless, profitless repinings! The only plan is to keep them as far as possible from our hearts. If we could foresee the end of a thing from its beginning,—if we could buy a stock of experience at the outset of life,—if we could, in point of fact, become endowed with the light of Divine wisdom, what different men and women the world would contain!
But we cannot. We cannot undo the past. It is ours with all its folly, its short-sightedness, perhaps its guilt. Though we stretch out our yearning and pitiful hands to Heaven in their movement of agony—though we wail aloud our bitter cry, Lord, pardon me—heal me—help me!—though we beat on our remorseful bosom and lacerate its flesh inbitter repentance, we cannot undo the past. We cannot undo it. The past remains to us unaltered; and must remain so for ever.
Janet left the room. Thomas, who had been seated opposite to her, was buried in thought, when Bexley appeared, showing in Lord Averil.
He hastened forward to prevent Thomas Godolphin’s rising. Laying one hand upon his shoulder and the other on his hands, he pressed him down and would not let him rise.
“How am I to thank you?” were the first words spoken by Thomas—in reference to the clemency shown to his brother, as promised that day to Maria.
“Hush!” said Lord Averil. “My dear friend, you are allowing these things to affect you more than they ought. I see the greatest change in you, even in this short time.”
The rays of the declining sun were falling on the face of Thomas Godolphin, lighting up its fading vitality. The cheeks were thinner, the weak hair seemed scantier, the truthful grey eyes had acquired an habitual expression of pain. Lord Averil leaned over him and noted it all.
“Sit down,” said Thomas, drawing a chair nearer to him.
Lord Averil accepted the invitation, but did not release the hand. “I understand you have been doubting me,” he said. “You might have known me better. We have been friends a long time.”
Thomas Godolphin only answered by a pressure of the hand he held. Old and familiar friends though they were, understanding each other’s hearts almost, as these close friends should do, it was yet a most painful point to Thomas Godolphin. On the one side there was his brother’s crime: on the other there was the loss of that large sum to Lord Averil. Thomas had to do perpetual battle with pain now: but there were moments when the conflict was nearer and sharper than at others. This was one of them.
They subsided into conversation: its theme, as was natural, the bankruptcy and its attendant details. Lord Averil found that Thomas was blaming himself.
“Why should you?” he asked impulsively. “Is it not enough that the world should do so, without yourself indorsing it?”
A faint smile crossed Thomas Godolphin’s face at the thoughtless admission spoken so openly: but he knew, none better, how great a share of blame was dealt out to him. “It is due,” he observed to Lord Averil. “I ought not to have reposed trust so implicit in George. Things could not have come to this pass if I had not done so.”
“If we cannot place implicit trust in a brother, in whom can we place it?”
“True. But in my position as trustee to others, I ought not to havetrustedthat things were going on right. I ought to haveknownthat they were so.”
They went on to the future. Thomas spoke of the selling up of all things, of their turning out of Ashlydyat. “Is that decree irrevocable?” Lord Averil interrupted. “Must Ashlydyat be sold?”
Thomas was surprised at the question. It was so superfluous a one. “It will be sold very shortly,” he said, “to the highest bidder. Anystranger who bids most will get Ashlydyat. I hope,” he added, with a half start, as if the possibility occurred to him then for the first time, “that the man Verrall will not become a bidder for it—and get it! Lady Godolphin turns him out of the Folly.”
“Never fear,” said Lord Averil. “He will only be too glad to relieve Prior’s Ash of his presence. Thomas, can nothing be done to the man? Your brother may have been a willing tool in his hands, but broad whispers are going about that it is Verrall who has reaped the harvest. Can no legal cognizance be taken of it?”
Thomas shook his head. “We may suspect a great deal—in fact, it is more than suspicion—but we can prove nothing. The man will rise triumphantly from it all, and carry his head higher than ever. I hope, I say, that he will not think of Ashlydyat. They were in it once, you know.”
“Why could not Ashlydyat be disposed of privately?—by valuation? It might be, if the assignees approved.”
“Yes, I suppose it might be.”
“I wish you would sell it to me,” breathed Lord Averil.
“To you!” repeated Thomas Godolphin. “Ay, indeed. Were you to have Ashlydyat I should the less keenly regret its passing from the Godolphins.”
Lord Averil paused. He appeared to want to say something, but to hesitate in doubt.
“Would it please you that one of the Godolphins should still inhabit it?” he asked at length.
“I do not understand you?” replied Thomas. “There is no chance—I had almost said no possibility—of a Godolphin henceforward inhabiting Ashlydyat.”
“I hope and trust there is,” said Lord Averil with emotion. “If Ashlydyat is ever to be mine, I shall not care for it unless a Godolphin shares it with me. I speak of your sister Cecilia.”
Thomas sat in calmness, waiting for more. Nothing could stir him greatly now. Lord Averil gave him the outline of the past. Of his love for Cecilia, and her rejection of him.
“There has been something,” he continued, “in her manner of late, which has renewed hope within me—otherwise I should not say this to you now. Quite of late; since her rejection of me; I have observed that—that—— I cannot describe it, Thomas,” he broke off. “But I have determined to risk my fate once more. And you—loving Cecil as I do—you thought I could prosecute George!”
“But I did not know that you loved Cecil.”
“I suppose not. It has seemed to me, though, that my love must have been patent to the world. You would give her to me, would you not?”
“Ay; thankfully,” was the warm answer. “The thought of leaving Cecil unprotected has been one of my cares. Janet and Bessy are older and more experienced. Let me give you one consolation, Averil: if Cecilia has rejected you, she has rejected others. Janet has fancied she had some secret attachment. Can it have been to yourself?”
“If so, why should she have rejected me?”
“In truth I do not know. Cecil has seemed grievously unhappysince these troubles arose: almost as one who has no further hope in life. George’s peril has told upon her.”
“His peril?”
“From you.”
Lord Averil bit his lip. “Cecil, above all others—unless it were yourself—might have known that he was safe.”
A silence ensued. Lord Averil resumed: “There is one upon whom I fear these troubles are telling all too greatly, Thomas. And that is your brother’s wife.”
“May God comfort her!” was the involuntary answer that broke from the lips of Thomas Godolphin.
“Had I been ever so harshly inclined, I think the sight of her to-day would have disarmed me. No, no: had I never owned friendship for you; had I never loved Cecil, there is certainly enough evil, cruel, unavoidable evil, which must fall with this calamity, without my adding to it.”
“When I brought word home this afternoon that you were well disposed towards George—that he had nothing to fear from you, Cecil burst into tears.”
A glow arose to Lord Averil’s face. He looked out on the setting sun in silence. “Has your brother been sent for?” he presently asked.
“Maria and I have both written for him now. I should think he will come. What is it, Bexley?”
“A message from Mrs. Pain, sir, about some of the fixtures at Lady Godolphin’s Folly. Mrs. Pain wants to know if you have a list of them. She forgets which belong to the house, and which don’t.”
Thomas Godolphin said a word of apology to Lord Averil, and left the room. In the hall he met Cecil crossing to it. She went in, quite unconscious who was its inmate. He rose up to welcome her.
A momentary hesitation in her steps: a doubt whether she should not run away again, and then she recalled her senses and went forward.
She recalled what he had done that day for her brother; she went forward to thank him. But ere the thanks had well begun, they came to an end, for Cecil had burst into tears.
How it went on, and what was exactly said or done, neither of them could remember afterwards. A very few minutes, and Cecil’s head was resting upon his shoulder, all the mistakes of the past cleared up between them.
She might not have confessed to him how long she had loved him—ever since that long past time when they were together at Mrs. Averil’s—but for her dread lest he should fear that she was only accepting him now out of gratitude—gratitude for his noble behaviour to her erring brother. And so she told him the truth: that she had loved him, and only him, all through.
“Cecil, my darling, what long misery might have been spared me had I known this!”
Cecil looked down. Perhaps some might also have been spared to her. “It is not right that you should marry me now,” she said.
“Why?”
“On account of this dreadful disgrace. George must have forgotten how it would fall upon——”
“Hush, Cecil! The disgrace, as I look upon it—as I believe all just people must look upon it—is confined to himself. It is indeed. Not an iota of the respect due to Thomas by the world, of the consideration due to the Miss Godolphins, will be lessened. Rely upon it I am right.”
“But Thomas is being reflected upon daily: personally abused.”
“By a few inconsiderate creditors, smarting just now under their loss. That will all pass away. If you could read my heart and see how happy you have made me, you would know how little cause you have to talk of ‘disgrace,’ Cecil.”
She was happy also, as she rested there against him; too happy.
“Would you like to live at Ashlydyat, Cecil? Thomas would rather we had it than it should lapse to strangers. I should wish to buy it.”
“Oh yes—if it could be.”
“I dare say it can be. Of course it can. Ashlydyat must be sold, and I shall be as welcome a purchaser as any other would be. If it must be put up to auction, I can be its highest bidder; but I dare say they will be glad to avoid the expense of an auction, and let me purchase it privately. I might purchase the furniture also, Cecil; all the old relics that Sir George set so much store by—that Janet does still.”
“If it could be!” she murmured.
“Indeed I think it may be. They will be glad to value it as it stands. And Cecil, we will drive away all the ghostly superstitions, and that ominous Shadow——”
Cecil lifted her face, an eager light upon it. “Janet says that the curse has been worked out with the ruin of the Godolphins. She thinks that the dark Shadow will never come any more.”
“So much the better. We will have the Dark Plain dug up and made into a children’s playground, and a summer-house for them shall be erected on the very spot which the Shadow has made its own. There may be children here some time, Cecil.”
Cecil’s eyelashes were bent on her flushed cheeks. She did not raise them.
“If you liked—if you liked, Cecil, we might ask Janet and Bessy to retain their home here,” resumed Lord Averil, in thoughtful consideration. “Ashlydyat is large enough for all.”
“Their home is decided upon,” said Cecil, shaking her head. “Bessy has promised to make hers at Lady Godolphin’s Folly. Lady Godolphin exacted her promise to that effect, before she decided to return to it. I was to have gone to it also. Janet goes to Scotland. I am quite sure that this place has become too painful for Janet to remain in. She has an annuity, as perhaps you know; it was money left her by mamma’s sister; so that she is independent, and can live where she pleases; but I am sure she will go to Scotland, as soon as—as soon as——”
“I understand you, Cecil. As soon as Thomas shall have passed away.”
The tears were glistening in her eyes. “Do you not see a great change in him?”
“A very great one. Cecil, I should like him to give you to me. Will you waive ceremony, and be mine at once?”
“I will see,” murmured Cecil. “When a little of this bustle, this disgrace shall have passed away. Let it die out first.”
A grave expression arose to Lord Averil’s face. “It must not be very long first, Cecil: if you would be mine while your brother is in life.”
“I will, I will; it shall be as you wish,” she answered, her tears falling. And before Lord Averil could make any rejoinder, she had hastily left him, and was standing against the window, stealthily drying her eyes: for the door had opened to admit Thomas Godolphin.
The summer was drawing towards its close; and so was the bankruptcy of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin.—If we adhere to the style of the old firm, we only do as Prior’s Ash did. Mr. Crosse, you have heard, was out of it actually and officially, but people, in speaking or writing of the firm, forgot to omit his name. One or two maddened sufferers raised a question of his liability, in their desperation; but they gained nothing by the motion: Mr. Crosse was as legally separated from the Godolphins as if he had never been connected with them.—The labour, the confusion, the doubt, attendant upon most bankruptcies, was nearly over, and creditors knew the best and the worst. The dividend would be, to use a common expression, shamefully small, when all was told: it might have been even smaller (not much, though) but that Lord Averil’s claim on the sixteen thousand pounds, the value of the bonds, was not allowed to enter into the accounts. Those bonds and all connected with them were sunk in silence so complete, that at length outsiders began to ask whether they and their reported loss had not been altogether a myth.
Thomas Godolphin had given up everything, even to his watch, and the signet ring upon his finger. The latter was returned to him. The jewellery of the Miss Godolphins was given up. Maria’s jewellery also. In short, there was nothing that was not given up. The fortune of the Miss Godolphins, consisting of money and bank shares, had of course gone with the rest. The money had been in the Bank at interest; the shares were now worthless. Janet alone had an annuity of about a hundred a year, rather more, which nothing could deprive her of: the rest of the Godolphins were reduced to beggary. Worse off were they than any of their clamorous creditors, since for them all had gone: houses, lands, money, furniture, personal belongings. But that Thomas Godolphin would not long be in a land where these things are required, it might have been a question how he was for the future to find sufficient to live upon.
The arrangement hinted at by Lord Averil had been carried out, and that nobleman was now the owner of Ashlydyat and all that it contained.It may have been departing a little from the usual order of things in such cases to dispose of it by private arrangement; but it had been done with the full consent of all parties concerned. Even the creditors, who of course showed themselves ready to cavil at anything, were glad that the expense of a sale by auction should be avoided. A price had been put upon Ashlydyat, and Lord Averil gave it without a dissentient word; and the purchase of the furniture, as it stood, was undoubtedly advantageous to the sellers.
Yes, Ashlydyat had gone from the Godolphins. But Thomas and his sisters remained in it. There had been no battle with Thomas on the score of his remaining. Lord Averil had clasped his friend’s hands within his own, and in a word or two of emotion had given him to understand that his chief satisfaction in its purchase had been the thought that he, Thomas, would remain in his own home, as long—— Thomas Godolphin understood the broken words: as long as he had need of one. “Nothing would induce me to enter upon it until then,” continued Lord Averil. “So be it,” said Thomas quietly, for he fully understood the feeling, and the gratification it brought to him who conferred the obligation. “I shall not keep you out of it long, Averil.” The same words, almost the very same words that Sir George Godolphin had once spoken to his son: “I shall not keep you and Ethel long out of Ashlydyat.”
So Thomas remained at Ashlydyat with his broken health, and the weeks had gone on; and summer was now drawing to an end, and other things also. Thomas Godolphin was beginning to be better understood than he had been at the time of the crash, and people were repenting of the cruel blame they had so freely hurled upon him. The first smart of the blow had faded away, and with it the prejudice which had unjustly, though not unnaturally, distorted their judgment, and buried for the time all kindly impulse. Perhaps there was not a single creditor, whatever might be the extent of the damage he had suffered by the Bank, but would have stretched out his hand, and given him more gold, if by that means he could have saved the life of Thomas Godolphin. They learnt to remember that the fault had not lain with him: they believed that if by the sacrifice of his own life he could have averted the calamity he would have cheerfully laid it down: they knew that his days were as one long mourning, for them individually—and they took shame to themselves for having been so bitter against him, Thomas Godolphin.
Not so in regard to George.Hedid not regain his place in their estimation: and if they could have hoisted Mr. George on a pole in front of the Bank and cast at him a few rotten eggs and other agreeable missiles, it had been a relief to their spleen. Had George been condemned to stand at the bar of a public tribunal by the nobleman he so defrauded, half Prior’s Ash would have gone to gratify their feelings by staring at him during the trial, and have made it a day of jubilee. Harsh epithets, exceedingly unpleasant when taken personally, were freely lavished upon him, and would be for a long while to come. Hehadwronged them: and time alone will suffice to wash out the ever-present remembrance of such wrongs.
He had been at Prior’s Ash. Gay George still. So far as could beseen, the calamity had not much affectedhim. Not a line showed itself on his fair, smooth brow, not a shade less of colour on his bright cheek, not a grey thread in his luxuriant hair, not a cloud in his dark-blue eye. Handsome, fascinating, attractive as ever, was George Godolphin: and he really seemed to be as gay and light of temperament. When any ill-used creditor attacked him outright—as some did, through a casual meeting in the street, or other lucky chance—George was triumphant George still. No shame did he seem to take to himself—but so sunny, so fascinating was he, as he held the hands of the half-reluctant grumbler, and protested it should all come right some time, that the enemy was won over to conciliation for the passing moment. It was impossible to help admiring George Godolphin; it was impossible to avoid liking him: it was impossible, when brought face to face with him, not to be taken with his frank plausibility: the crustiest sufferer of them all was in a degree subdued by it. Prior’s Ash understood that the officers of the bankruptcy “badgered” George a great deal when under examination; but George only seemed to come out of it the more triumphantly. Safe on the score of Lord Averil, all the rest was light in comparison; and easy George never lost his good-humour or his self-possession. He appeared to come scot-free out of everything. Those falsified accounts in the bank-books, that many another might have been held responsible for, and punished, he emerged from harmlessly. It was conjectured that the full extent of these false entries never was discovered by the commissioners: Thomas Godolphin and Mr. Hurde alone could have told it: and Thomas preferred to allow the odium of loosely-kept books, of reckless expenditure of money, to fall upon himself rather than betray George. Were the whole thing laid bare and declared, it could not bring a fraction of good to the creditors, so, from that point of view, it was as well to let it rest. Are these careless, sanguine, gay-tempered men always lucky? It has been so asserted; and I do think there is a great deal of truth in it. Most unequivocally lucky in this instance was George Godolphin.
It was of no earthly use asking him where all the money had gone—to what use this sum had been put, to what use the other—George could not tell. He could not tell any more than they could; he was as much perplexed about it as they were. He ran his white hand unconsciously through his golden hair, hopelessly trying his best to account for a great many items that no one living could have accounted for. All in vain. Heedless, off-handed George Godolphin! He appeared before those inquisitive officials somewhat gayer in attire than was needful. A sober suit, rather of the seedy order, might have been deemed appropriate at such a time; but George Godolphin gave no indication of consulting any such rules of propriety. George Godolphin’s refined taste had kept him from falling into the loose and easy style of dress which some men so strangely favour in the present day, placing a gentleman in outward aspect on a level with the roughs of society. George, though no coxcomb, had always dressed well and expensively; and George appeared inclined to do so still. They could not take him to task on the score of his fine broadcloth or of his neatly-finished boot; but they did bend their eyes meaningly on the massive gold chain which crossed his white waistcoat: on the costly appendageswhich dangled from it; on the handsome repeater which he more than once took out, as if weary of the passing hours. Mr. George received a gentle hint that those articles, however ornamental to himself, must be confiscated to the bankruptcy; and he resigned them with a good grace. The news of this little incident travelled abroad, as an interesting anecdote connected with the proceedings, and the next time George saw Charlotte Pain, she told him he was a fool to walk into the camp of the Philistines with pretty things about him. But George was not wilfully dishonest (if you can by any possibility understand that assertion, after what you know of his past doings), and he replied to Charlotte that it was only right the creditors should make spoil of his watch, and anything else he possessed. The truth, were it defined, being, that George was only dishonest when driven so to be. He had made free with the bonds of Lord Averil, but he could not be guilty of the meanness of concealing his personal trinkets.
Three or four times now had George been at Prior’s Ash. People wondered why he did not remain; what it was that took him again and again to London. The very instant he found that he could be dispensed with at Prior’s Ash, away he flew; not to return to it again until imperatively demanded. The plain fact was that Mr. George didnotlike to face Prior’s Ash. For all the easy self-possession, the gay good-humour he displayed to its inhabitants, the place had become utterly distasteful to him, almost unbearable; he shunned it and hated it as a pious Roman Catholic hates and would shun purgatory. For that reason, and for no other, George did his best to escape from it.
He had seen Lord Averil. And his fair face had betrayed its shame as he said a few words of apology for what he had done—of thanks for the clemency shown him—of promises for the future. “If I live, I’ll make it good to you,” he murmured. “I did not intend tostealthem, Averil; I did not, on my solemn word of honour. I thought I should have replaced them before anything could be known. Your asking for them immediately—that you should do so seemed a very fatality—upset everything. But for that, I might have weathered it all, and the house would not have gone. It was no light pressure that forced me to touch them—Heaven alone knows the need and the temptation.”
And the meeting between the brothers? No eye saw it; no ear heard it. Good Thomas Godolphin was dying from the blow, dying before his time; but not a word of reproach was given to George. How George defended himself—or whether he attempted to defend himself, or whether he let it wholly alone—the outside world never knew.
Lady Godolphin’s Folly was no longer in the occupancy of the Verralls or of Mrs. Pain: Lady Godolphin had returned to it. Not a day aged; not a day altered. Time flitted lightly over Lady Godolphin. Her bloom-tinted complexion was delicately fresh as ever; her dress was as becoming, her flaxen locks were as youthful. She came with her servants and her carriages, and she took up her abode at the Folly, in all the splendour of the old days. Her income was large, and the misfortunes which had recently fallen on the family did not affect it. Lady Godolphin washed her hands of these misfortunes. She washed her hands of George. She told the world that she did so. Shespoke of them openly to the public in general, to her acquaintances in particular, in a slighting, contemptuous sort of manner, as we are all apt to speak of the ill-doings of other people. They don’t concern us, and it’s rather a condescension on our part to blame them at all.—This was no concern of Lady Godolphin’s. She told every one it was not so. George’s disgrace did not reflect itself upon the family, and of him she—washed her hands. No: Lady Godolphin could not see that this break-up caused by George should be any reason whatever why she or the Miss Godolphins should hide their heads and go mourning in sack-cloth and ashes. Many of her old acquaintances in the county agreed with Lady Godolphin in her view of things, and helped by their visits to make the Folly gay again.
To wash her hands of Mr. George, was, equitably speaking, no more than that gentleman deserved: but Lady Godolphin also washed her hands of Maria. On her return to Prior’s Ash she had felt inclined to espouse Maria’s part; to sympathize with and pity her; and she drove down in state one day, and left her carriage with its powdered coachman and footman to pace to and fro in Crosse Street before the Bank, while she went in. She openly avowed to Maria that she considered herself in a remote degree the cause which had led to her union with George Godolphin: she supposed that it was her having had Maria so much at the Folly, and afterwards on the visit at Broomhead, which had led to the attachment. As a matter of course she regretted this, and wished there had been no marriage, now that George had turned out so gracelessly. If she could do anything to repair it she would: and, as a first step, she offered the Folly as a present asylum to Maria. She would be safe there from worry, and—from George.
Maria scarcely at first understood her. And when she did so, her only answer was to thank Lady Godolphin, and to stand out, in her quiet, gentle manner, but untiringly and firmly, for her husband. Not a shade of blame would she acknowledge to be due to him; not a reverence would she render him the less: her place was with him, she said, though the whole world turned against him. It vexed Lady Godolphin.
“Do you know,” she asked, “that you must choose between your husband and the world?”
“In what way?” replied Maria.
“In what way! When a man acts as George Godolphin has acted, he places a barrier between himself and society. But there’s no necessity for the barrier to extend to you, Maria. If you will come to my house for a while, you will find this to be the case—it will not extend to you.”
“You are very kind, Lady Godolphin. My husband is more to me than the world.”
“Do you approve of what he has done?”
“No,” replied Maria. “But it is not my place to show that I blame him.”
“I think it is,” said Lady Godolphin in the hard tone she used when her opinion was questioned.
Maria was silent. She never could contend with any one.
“Then you prefer to hold out against the world,” resumed Lady Godolphin; “to put yourself beyond its pale! It is a bold step, Maria.”
“What can I do?” was Maria’s pleading answer. “If the world throws me over because I will not turn against my husband, I cannot help it. I married him for better or for worse, Lady Godolphin.”
“The fact is, Maria,” retorted my lady sharply, “that you have loved George Godolphin in a ridiculous degree.”
“Perhaps I have,” was Maria’s subdued answer, the colour dyeing her face with various reminiscences. “But surely there was no sin in it, Lady Godolphin: he is my husband.”
“And you cling to him still?”
“Oh yes.”
Lady Godolphin rose. She shrugged her shoulders as she drew her white lace shawl over them, she glanced at her coquettish blue bonnet in the glass as she passed it, at her blush-rose cheeks. “You have chosen your husband, Maria, in preference to me; in preference to the world; and from this moment I wash my hands of you, as I have already done of him.”
It was all the farewell she took: and she went out to her carriage, thinking what a blind, obstinate, hardened woman was Maria Godolphin. She saw not what it had cost that “hardened” woman to bear up before her: that her heart was nigh unto breaking; that the sorrow laid upon her was greater than she well knew how to battle with.
George Godolphin leaned against a pillar of the terrace opening from the dining-room. They had not left the Bank yet as a residence, but this was their last day in it. It was the last day they could remain in it, and why they should have lingered in it so long was food for gossip in Prior’s Ash. On the morrow the house would become public property. Men would walk in and ticket all the things, apportion them their place in the catalogue, their order in the days of sale; and the public would crowd in also, to feast their eyes upon the household gods hitherto sacred to George Godolphin.
How did he feel as he stood there? Was his spirit in heaviness, as was the case under similar misfortune with another man—if the written record he left to us may be trusted—that great poet, ill-fated in death as in life, whose genius has since found no parallel of its kind:—
“It was a trying moment, that which found him,Standing alone beside his desolate hearth,While all his household gods lay shiveredroundhim.”
“It was a trying moment, that which found him,Standing alone beside his desolate hearth,While all his household gods lay shiveredroundhim.”
Did George Godolphin find it trying? Was his hearth desolate? Not desolate in the full sense in which that other spoke, for George Godolphin’s wife was with him still.
Shehad stood by him. When he first returned to Prior’s Ash, shehad greeted him with her kind smile, with words of welcome. She spoke not of what that awful shock had been to her, the discovery of the part he had played in Lord Averil’s bonds; she spoke not of another shock, not less awful. Whatever effect that unpleasant scandal, mentioned by Margery, which it seems had formed a staple dish for Prior’s Ash, may have been taking upon her in secret and silence, she gave no sign of it to George. He never suspected that any such whisper, touching his worthy self, had been breathed to her. Mr. George best knew what grounds there might be for it: whether it bore any foundation, or whether it was but one of those breezy rumours, false as the wind, which have their rise in ill-nature, and in that alone. But however it may have been, whether true or false, he could not divine that such poison would be dropped into his wife’s ear. If he had thought her greeting to him strange, her manner more utterly subdued than there was need for, her grief more violent, he attributed it all to the recent misfortunes: and Maria made no other sign.
The effects had been bought in at Ashlydyat, but these had not: and this was the last day, almost the last hour of his occupancy. One would think his eyes would be cast around in lingering looks of farewell—upon chairs and tables, scattered ornaments, and rich carpets, upon the valuable and familiar pictures. Not a bit of it. George’s eyes were bent on his nails, which he was trimming to his satisfaction, and he was carolling in an undertone a strain of a new English opera.
They were to go out that evening. At dusk. At dusk, you may be sure. They were to go forth from their luxurious home, and enter upon obscure lodgings, and go down in the scale of what the world calls society. Not that the lodgings were obscure, taken in the abstract; but obscure indeed, as compared with their home at the Bank, very obscure beside the home they had sometime thought to remove to—Ashlydyat.
He stood there in his careless beauty, his bright face bent downwards, his tall, fine form noble in its calmness. The sun was playing with his hair, bringing out its golden tints, and a smile illumined his face, as he went on with his song. Whatever may have been George Godolphin’s shortcomings in some points of view, none could reproach him on the score of his personal attractions. All the old terror, the gnawing care, had gone out of him with the easy bankruptcy—easy in its results to him, compared with what might have been—and gay George, graceless George, was himself again. There may have been something deficient in his moral organization, for he really appeared to take no shame to himself for what had occurred. He stood there calmly self-possessed; the perfect gentleman, so far as appearance and manners could make him one: looking as fit to bend his knee at the proud court of St. James’s as ever that stately gentleman his father had looked when her Majesty touched him with the sword-blade and bade him rise up Sir George:
“Once would my heart with the wildest emotionThrob, dearest Eily, when near me wert thou;Now I regard thee with deep——”
“Once would my heart with the wildest emotionThrob, dearest Eily, when near me wert thou;Now I regard thee with deep——”
The strain was interrupted, and George, as he ceased it, glanced up.Meta, looking, it must be confessed, rather black about the hands and pinafore, as if Margery had not had time to attend to her within the last hour, came running in. George shut up his knife and held out his arms.
“Papa, are we to have tea at home, or after we get into the lodgings?”
“Ask mamma,” responded George.
“Mamma told me to ask you. She doesn’t know, she says. She’s too busy to talk to me. She’s getting the great box on to the stand.”
“She’s doing what?” cried George in a quick accent.
“Getting the great box on to the stand,” repeated Meta. “She’s going to pack it. Papa, will the lodgings be better than this? Will there be a big garden? Margery says there’ll be no room for my rocking-horse. Won’t there?”
Something in the child’s questions may have grated on the fine ear of George Godolphin, had he stayed to listen to them. However lightly the bankruptcy might be passing over George’s mind on his own score, he regretted its results most bitterly for his wife and child. To see them turned from their home, condemned to descend to the inconveniences and obscurity of these lodgings, was the worst pill George Godolphin had ever had to swallow. He would have cut off his right arm to retain them in their position; ay, and also his left: he could have struck himself to the earth in his rage for the disgrace he had brought on them.
Hastening up the stairs he entered his bedroom. It was in a litter; boxes and wearing-apparel lying about. Maria, flushed and breathless, was making great efforts to drag a cumbrous trunk on to a stand, or small bench, for the convenience of filling it. No very extensive efforts either; for she knew that such might harm her at present in her feeble strength.
George raised the trunk to its place with one lift of his manly arms, and then forced his wife, with more gentleness, into a chair.
“How could you be so imprudent, Maria?” broke from him in a vexed tone, as he stood before her.
“I was not hurting myself,” she answered. “The things must be packed.”
“Of course they must. But not by you. Where’s Margery?”
“Margery has a great deal to do. She cannot do all.”
“Then where’s Sarah?” resumed George crossly and sharply.
“Sarah’s in the kitchen preparing dinner. We must have some to-day.”
“Show me what the things are, and I will pack them.”
“Nonsense! As if it would hurt me to put the things into the box! You never interfered with me before, George.”
“You never attempted this sort of work before. I won’t have it, Maria. Were you in a state of health to be knocking about, you might do it; but you certainly shall not, as it is.”
It was his self-reproach that was causing his angry tone; very keenly at that moment was it making itself heard. And Maria’s spirits were not that day equal to sharpness of speech. It told upon her, and she burst into tears.
How terribly the signs of distress vexed him, no words could tell. He took them as a tacit reproach to himself. And they were so: however unintentional on her part such reproach might be.
“Maria, I won’t have this; I can’t bear it,” he cried, his voice hoarse with emotion. “If you show this temper, this childish sorrow before me, I shall run away.”
He could have cut his tongue out for so speaking—for his stinging words; for their stinging tone. “Temper! Childish sorrow!” George chafed at himself in his self-condemnation: he chafed—he knew how unjustly—at Maria.
Very, very unjustly. She had not annoyed him with reproaches, with complaints, as some wives would have done; she had not, to him, shown symptoms of the grief that was wearing out her heart. She had been considerate to him, bearing up bravely whenever he was at Prior’s Ash. Even now, as she dried away the rebellious tears, she would not let him think they were being shed for the lost happiness of the past, but murmured some feeble excuse about a headache.
He saw through the fond deceit; he saw all the generosity; and the red shame mantled in his fair face as he bent down to her, and his voice changed to one of the deepest tenderness.
“If I have lost you this home, Maria, I will get you another,” he whispered. “Only give me a little time. Don’t grieve before me if you can help it, my darling: it is as though you ran a knife into my very soul. I can bear the loud abuse of the whole world, better than one silent reproach from you.”
And the sweet words came to her as a precious balm. However bitter had been the shock of that one rude awaking, she loved him fondly still. It may be that she loved him only the more deeply: for the passions of the human heart are wayward and wilful, utterly unamenable to control.
Margery came into the room with her hands and arms full. George may have been glad of the divertisement, and turned upon her, his voice resuming its anger. “What’s the meaning of this, Margery? I come up here and I find your mistress packing and dragging boxes about. Can’t you see to these things?”
Margery was as cross as George that day, and her answer in its sharpness rivalled his. Direct reproof Margery had never presumed to offer her master, though she would have liked to do it amazingly, for not one of those who condemned him held a more exaggerated view of Mr. George’s past delinquencies than she.
“I can’t be in ten places at once. And I can’t do the work of ten people. If you know them that can, sir, you’d better get them here instead of me.”
“Did I not ask you if you should want assistance in packing, and you told me that you should not?” retorted George.
“No more I don’t want it,” was the answer. “I can do all the packing that is to be done here, if I am let alone, and allowed to take my own time, and do it in my own way. In all thatchafflingand changing of houses when my Lady Godolphin chose to move the Ashlydyat things to the Folly, and when they had to be moved back afterwards in accordance with Sir George’s will, who did the best partof the packing and saw to everything, but me? It would be odd if I couldn’t put up a few gowns and shirts, but I must be talked to about help!”
Poor Margery was evidently in a temper. Time back George would have put her down with a haughty word of authority or with joking mockery, as the humour might have taken him. He did not to-day. There had been wrong inflicted upon Margery; and it may be that he was feeling it. She had lost the little savings of years—the Brays had not allowed them to be very great; she had lost the money bequeathed to her by Mrs. Godolphin. All had been in the Bank, and all had gone. In addition to this, there were personal discomforts. Margery found the work of a common servant thrown upon her in her old age: an under girl, Sarah, was her only help now at the Bank, and Margery alone would follow their fallen fortunes to these lodgings.
“Do as you please,” was all George said. “But your mistress shall not meddle with it.”
“If my mistress chooses to set to work behind my back, I can’t stop it. She knows there’s no need to do it. If you’ll be so good, ma’am,” turning to her mistress, “as just let things alone and leave ’em to me, you’ll find they’ll be done. What’s a few clothes to pack?” indignantly repeated Margery. “And there’s nothing else that we may take. If I put up but a pair of sheets or a tin dish-cover, I should be called a thief, I suppose.”
Therelay the great grievance of Margery’s present mood—that everything, except the “few clothes,” must be left behind. Margery, for all her crustiness and her outspoken temper, was a most faithfully attached servant, and it may be questioned if she did not feel the abandonment of their goods more keenly than did even Maria and George. The things were not hers: every article of her own, even to a silver cream-jug which had been the boasted treasure of her life, she had been allowed to retain; even to the little work-box of white satin-wood, with its landscape, the trees of which Miss Meta had been permitted to paint red, and the cottage blue. Not an article of Margery’s that she could remove but was sacred to her: but in her fidelity she did resent bitterly having to leave the property of her master and mistress, that it might all pass into the hands of strangers.
Maria, debarred from assisting, wandered in her restlessness through some of the more familiar rooms. It was well that she should pay them a farewell visit. From the bedroom where the packing was going on, to George’s dressing-room, thence to her own sitting-room, thence to the drawing-room, all on that floor. She lingered in all. A home sanctified by years of happiness cannot be quitted without regret, even when exchanged at pleasure for another; but to turn out of it in humiliation, in poverty, in hopelessness, is a trial of the sharpest and sorest kind. Apart from the pain, the feeling was a strange one. The objects crowding these rooms: the necessary furniture costly and substantial; the elegant ornaments of various shapes and sorts, the chaste works of art, not necessary, but so luxurious and charming, had hitherto been their own—hers in conjunction with her husband’s. They might have done what they pleased with them. Had she broken that Wedgwood vase, there was no one to call her to accountfor it: had she or George chosen to make a present of that rare basket in medallion, with its speaking likenesses of the beauties of the whilom gay French court, there was no one to say them nay; had they felt disposed to change that fine piano for another, the liberty to do so was theirs. They had been the owners of these surroundings, master and mistress of the house and its contents. And now? Not a single article belonged to them: they were but tenants on sufferance: the things remained, but their right in them had passed away. If she dropped and broke only that pretty trifle which her hand was touching now, she must answer for the mishap. The feeling, I say, was a strange one.
She walked through the rooms with dry eyes and a hot brow. Tears seemed long ago to have gone from her. It is true she had been surprised into a few that day, but the lapse was unusual. Why should she make this farewell visit to the rooms, she began asking herself. She needed it not to remember them. Visions of the past came crowding upon her memory; of this or the other happy day spent in them: of the gay meetings when they had received the world; of the sweet home hours when she had sat there alone with him of whom she had well-nigh made an idol—her husband. Mistaken idolatry, Mrs. George Godolphin! mistaken, useless, vain idolatry. Was there ever an earthly idol yet that did not mock its worshipper? I know of none. We make an idol of our child, and the time comes when it will turn and sting us: we make an idol of the god or goddess of our passionate love, and how does it end?
Maria sat down and leaned her head upon her hand, thinking more of the past than of the future. She was getting to have less hope in the future than was good for her. It is a bad sign when a sort of apathy with regard to it steals over us; a proof that the mind is not in the healthy state that it ought to be. A time of trial, of danger, was approaching for Maria, and she seemed to contemplate the possibility of her sinking under if with strange calmness. A few months ago, the bare glance at such a fear would have unhinged her: she would have clung to her husband and Meta, and sobbed out her passionate prayer to God in her dire distress, not to be taken from them. Things had changed: the world in which she had been so happy had lost its charm for her; the idol in whose arms she had sheltered herself turned out not to have been of pure gold: and Maria Godolphin began to realize the truth of the words of the wise king of Jerusalem—that the world and its dearest hopes are but vanity.
Meanwhile Mrs. Charlotte Pain, in her looped-up petticoats and nicely-fitting kid boots, was tripping jauntily through the streets of Prior’s Ash. Mrs. Pain had been somewhat vacillating in regard to her departure from that long-familiar town; she had reconsidered her determination of quitting it so abruptly; and on the day she went out of Lady Godolphin’s Folly, she entered on some stylish lodgings in the heart of Prior’s Ash. Only for a week or two; just to give her time to take proper leave of her friends she said: but the weeks had gone on and on, and Charlotte was still there.
Society had been glad to keep Charlotte. Society of course shuts its lofty ears to the ill-natured tales spread by low-bred people: thatis, when it finds it convenient so to do. Society had been pleased to be deaf to any little obscure tit-bits of scandal which had made vulgarly free with Charlotte’s name: and as to the vague rumours connecting Mr. Verrall with George Godolphin’s ruin, no one knew whether that was not pure scandal too. But if not, why—Mrs. Pain could not be justly reflected on for the faults of Mr. Verrall. So Charlotte was as popular and dashing in her hired rooms as she had been at Lady Godolphin’s Folly, and she had remained in them until now.
But now she was really going. This was the last day of her sojourn at Prior’s Ash, and Charlotte was walking about unceremoniously, bestowing her farewells on any one who would receive them. It almost seemed as if she had only waited to witness the removal from the Bank of Mr. and Mrs. George Godolphin.
She walked along in exuberant spirits, nodding her head to everyone: up at windows, in at doorways, to poor people on foot, to rich ones in carriages; her good-natured smile was everywhere. She rushed into shops and chatted familiarly, and won the shopkeepers’ hearts by asking if they were not sorry to lose her. She was turning out of one when she came upon the Rector of All Souls’. Charlotte’s petticoats went down in a swimming reverence.
“I am paying my farewell visits, Mr. Hastings. Prior’s Ash will be rid of me to-morrow.”
Not an answering smile crossed the Rector’s face: it was cold, impassive, haughtily civil: almost as if he were thinking that Prior’s Ash might have been none the worse had it been rid of Mrs. Charlotte Pain before.
“How is Mrs. Hastings to-day?” asked Charlotte.
“She is not well.”
“No! I must try and get a minute to call in on her. Adieu for the present. I shall see you again, I hope.”
Down sank the skirts once more, and the Rector lifted his hat in silence. In the ultra-politeness, in the spice of sauciness gleaming out from her flashing eyes, the clergyman read incipient defiance. But if Mrs. Pain feared that he might be intending to favour her with a little public clerical censure, she was entirely mistaken. The Rector washed his hands of Mrs. Pain, as Lady Godolphin did of her step-son, Mr. George. He walked on, a flash of scorn lighting his face.
Charlotte walked on: and burst into a laugh as she did so. “Was he afraid to forbid my calling at the Rectory?” she asked herself. “He would have liked to, I know. I’ll go there now.”
She was not long reaching it. But Isaac was the only one of the family she saw. He came to her charged with Mrs. Hastings’s compliments—she felt unequal to seeing Mrs. Pain.
“I hear you are going to London,” said Charlotte. “You have found some situation there, George Godolphin tells me.”
Isaac threw his eyes—they were just like the Rector’s—straight and full into her face. In her present spirit, half mischievous, half defiant, she had expressly paraded the name of George, as her informant, and Isaac thoroughly understood her. Charlotte’s eyes were dancing with a variety of expressions, but the chief one was good-humoured malice.
“I am going into a bank in Lombard-street. Mr. Godolphin got me into it.”
“You won’t like it,” said Charlotte.
“I dare say not. But I think myself lucky to get it.”
“There will be one advantage,” continued Charlotte good-naturedly—“you can come and see us. You know Mrs. Verrall’s address. Come as often as you can; every Sunday, if you like; any week-day evening: I’ll promise you a welcome beforehand.”
“You are very kind,” briefly returned Isaac. They were walking slowly to the gate, and he held it open for her.
“What’s Reginald doing?” she asked. “Have you heard from him lately?”
“Not very lately. You are aware that he is in London, under a master of navigation, preparatory to passing for second officer. As soon as he has passed, he will go to sea again.”
“When you write to him, give him our address, and tell him to come and see me. And now good-bye,” added Charlotte heartily. “And mind you don’t show yourself a muff, Mr. Isaac, but come and see us. Do you hear?”
“I hear,” said Isaac, smiling, as he thawed to her good-humour. “I wish you a pleasant journey, Mrs. Pain.”
“Merci bien. Good-bye.”
The church clock boomed out five as Charlotte passed it, and she came to a standstill of consideration. It was the hour at which she had ordered dinner to be ready.
“Bother dinner!” decided she. “I can’t go home for that. I want to see if they are in their lodgings yet. Is that you, Mrs. Bond?”
Sure enough, Mrs. Bond had come into view, and was halting to bob down to Charlotte. Her face looked pale and pinched. There had been no supply of strong waters to-day.
“I be a’most starving, ma’am. I’m waiting here to catch the parson, for I’ve been to his house, and they say he’s out. I dun know as it’s of any good seeing him, either. ’Tain’t much he has to give away now.”
“I am about to leave, Mrs. Bond,” cried Charlotte in her free and communicative humour.
“More’s the ill-luck, and I have heered on’t,” responded Mrs. Bond. “Everybody as is good to us poor goes away, or dies, or fails, or sum’at. There’ll soon be nought left for us but the work’us. Many’s the odd bit o’ silver you have given me at times, ma’am.”
“So I have,” said Charlotte, laughing. “What if I were to give you this, as a farewell remembrance?”
She took a half-sovereign out of her purse, and held it up. Mrs. Bond gasped: the luck seemed too great to be realized.
“Here, you may have it,” said Charlotte, dropping it into the trembling hand held out. “But you know you are nothing but an old sinner, Mrs. Bond.”
“I knows I be,” humbly acquiesced Mrs. Bond. “’Tain’t of no good denying of it to you, ma’am: you be up to things.”
Charlotte laughed, taking the words, perhaps, rather as a compliment. “You’ll go and change this at the nearest gin-shop, and you’ll reel intobed to-night blindfold. That’s the only good you’ll do with it. There, don’t say I left Prior’s Ash, forgetting you.”
She walked on rapidly, leaving Mrs. Bond in her ecstasy of delight to waste her thanks on the empty air. The lodgings George had taken were at the opposite end of the town, nearer to Ashlydyat, and to them Charlotte was bound. They were not on the high-road, but in a quiet side lane. The house, low and roomy, and built in the cottage style, stood in the midst of a flourishing garden. A small grass-plat and some flowers were before the front windows, but the rest of the ground was filled with fruit and vegetables. Charlotte opened the green gate and walked up the path, which led to the house.
The front door was open to a small hall, and Charlotte went in, finding her way, and turned to a room on the left: a cheerful, good-sized, old-fashioned parlour, with a green carpet, and pink flowers on its walls. There stood Margery, laying out tea-cups and bread and butter. Her eyes opened at the sight of Mrs. Pain.
“Have they come yet, Margery?”
“No,” was Margery’s short answer. “They’ll be here in half an hour, maybe; and that’ll be before I want ’em—with all the rooms and everything to see to, and only me to do it.”
“Is that all you are going to give them for tea?” cried Charlotte, looking contemptuously at the table. “I should surprise them with a dainty dish or two on the table. It would look cheering: and they might soon be cooked.”
“I dare say they might, where there’s time and convenience,” wrathfully returned Margery, who relished Mrs. Pain’s interference as little as she liked her presence. “The kitchen we are to have is about as big as a rat-hole, and my hands are full enough this evening without dancing out to buy meats and dainties.”
“Of course you will light a fire here?” said Charlotte, turning to the grate. “I see it is laid.”
“It’s not cold,” grunted Margery.
“But a fire will be a pleasant welcome. I’ll do it myself.”
She took up a box of matches which stood on the mantel-piece, and set light to the wood under the coal. Margery took no notice one way or the other. The fire in a fair way of burning, Charlotte hastened from the house, and Margery breathed freely again.
Not for very long. A little time, and Charlotte was back again, accompanied by a boy, bearing sundry parcels. There was a renowned comestible shop in Prior’s Ash, and Charlotte had been ransacking it. She had also been home for a small parcel on her own account; but that did not contain eatables.
Taking off her cloak and bonnet, she made herself at home. Critically surveying the bedrooms; visiting the kitchen to see that the kettle boiled; lighting the lamp on the tea-table, for it was dark then; demanding an unlimited supply of plates, and driving Margery nearly wild with her audacity. But Charlotte was doing it all in good feeling; in her desire to render this new asylum bright-looking at the moment of their taking possession of it; to cheat the first entrance of some of its bitterness for Maria. Whatever may have been Mrs. Charlotte Pain’s faults—and Margery, for one, gave her credit for plenty—shewas capable of generous impulses. It is probable that in the days gone by, a feeling of jealousy, of spite, had rankled in her heart against George Godolphin’s wife: but that had worn itself out; had been finally lost in the sorrow felt for Maria since misfortune had fallen. When the fly drove up to the door, and George brought in his wife and Meta, the bright room, the well-laden tea-table greeted their surprised eyes, and Charlotte was advancing with open hands.
“I thought you’d like to see some one here to get things comfortable for you, and I knew that cross-grained Margery would have enough to do between the boxes and her temper,” she cried, taking Maria’s hands. “How are you, Mr. George?”
George found his tongue. “This is kind of you, Mrs. Pain.”
Maria felt that itwaskind: and in her flow of gratitude, as her hand lay in Charlotte’s warm grasp, she almost forgot that cruel calumny. Not quite: it could not be quite forgotten, even momentarily, until earth and its passions should have passed away.
“And mademoiselle?” continued Charlotte. Mademoiselle, little gourmande that she was, was raised on her toes, surveying the table with curious eyes. Charlotte lifted her in her arms, and held up to her view a glass jar, something within it the colour of pale amber. “This is for good children, Meta.”
“That’s me,” responded Meta, smacking her lips. “What is it?”
“It’s—let me read the label—it’s pine-apple jelly. And that’s boned fowl; and that’s galantine de veau; and that’s pâté de lapereaux aux truffes—if you understand what it all means, petite marmotte. And—there—you can look at everything and find out for yourself,” concluded Charlotte. “I am going to show mamma her bedroom.”
It opened from the sitting-room: an excellent arrangement, as Charlotte observed, in case of illness. Maria cast her eyes round it, and saw a sufficiently comfortable chamber. It was not their old luxurious chamber at the Bank; but luxuries and they must part company now.
Charlotte reigned at the head of the table that night, triumphantly gay. Margery waited with a stiffened neck and pursed-up lips. Nothing more: there were no other signs of rebellion. Margery had had her say out with that one memorable communication, and from thenceforth her lips were closed for ever. Did the woman repent of having spoken?—did she now think it better to have let doubt be doubt? It is hard to say. She had made no further objection to Mrs. Pain in words: she intended to make none. If that lady filled Miss Meta to illness to-night with pine-apple jelly and boned fowl, and the other things with unpronounceable names, which Margery regarded as rank poison, when regaling Miss Meta,sheshould not interfere. The sin might lie on her master and mistress’s head.
It was close upon ten when Charlotte rose to depart, which she persisted in doing alone, in spite of George’s remonstrance. Charlotte had no fear of being in the streets alone: she would as soon go through them by night as by day.
As a proof of this, she did not proceed directly homewards, but turned up a road that led to the railway station. She had no objectionto a stroll that moonlight night, and she had a fancy for seeing what passengers the ten-o’clock train brought, which was just in.
It brought none. None that Charlotte could see: and she was preparing to turn back on the dull road, when a solitary figure came looming on her sight in the distance. He was better than no one, regarding him from Charlotte’s sociable point of view: but he appeared to be advanced in years. She could see so much before he came up.
Charlotte strolled on, gratifying her curiosity by a good stare. A tall, portly man, with a fresh colour and snow-white hair. She was passing him, when he lifted his face, which had been bent, and turned it towards her. The recognition was mutual, and she darted up to him, and gave his hand a hearty shake. It was Mr. Crosse.
“Good gracious me! We thought you never meant to come back again!”
“And I would rather not have come back, Mrs. Pain, than come to hear what I am obliged to hear. I went streaming off from Pau, where I was staying, a confounded, senseless tour into Spain, leaving no orders for letters to be sent to me; and so I heard nothing. Whathasbrought about this awful calamity?”
“What calamity?” asked Charlotte—knowing perfectly well all the while.
“What calamity!” repeated Mr. Crosse, who was rapid in speech and hot in temper. “The failure of the Bank—the Godolphins’ ruin. What else?”
“Oh, that!” slightingly returned Charlotte. “That’s stale news now. Folks are forgetting it. Queen Anne’s dead.”
“What brought it about?” reiterated Mr. Crosse, neither words nor tone pleasing him.
“What does bring such things about?” rejoined Charlotte. “Want of money, I suppose. Or bad management.”
“But there was no want of money; there was no bad management in the Godolphins’ house,” raved Mr. Crosse, becoming excited. “I wish you’d not play upon my feelings, Mrs. Pain.”
“Who is playing upon them?” cried Charlotte. “If it was not want of money, if it was not bad management, I don’t know what else it was.”
“I was told in London, as I came through it, that George Godolphin had been playing up old Rosemary with everything, and that Verrall has helped him,” continued Mr. Crosse.
“Folks will talk,” said bold Charlotte. “I was told—it was the current report in Prior’s Ash—that the stoppage had occurred through Mr. Crosse withdrawing his money from the concern.”
“What an unfounded assertion,” exclaimed that gentleman in choler. “Prior’s Ash ought to have known better.”
“So ought those who tell you rubbish about George Godolphin and Verrall,” coolly affirmed Charlotte.
“Where’s Thomas Godolphin?”
“At Ashlydyat. He’s in luck. My Lord Averil has bought it all in as it stands, and Mr. Godolphin remains in it.”
“He is ill, I hear?”
“Pretty near dead,Ihear,” retorted Charlotte. “My lord is to marry Miss Cecilia.”
“And where’s that wicked George?”
“If you call names, I won’t answer you another word, Mr. Crosse.”
“I supposeyoudon’t like to hear it,” he returned in so pointed a manner that Charlotte might have felt it as a lance-shaft. “Well, where is he?”
“Just gone into lodgings with his wife and Margery and Meta. I have been taking tea with them. They left the Bank to-day.”
Mr. Crosse stood, nodding his head in the moonlight, and communing aloud with himself. “And so—and so—it is all a smash together! Itisas bad as was said.”
“It couldn’t be worse,” cried Charlotte. “Prior’s Ash won’t hold up its head for many a day. It’s no longer worth living in. I leave it for good to-morrow.”
“Poor Sir George! It’s a good thing he was in his grave. Lord Averil could have prosecuted George, I hear.”
“Were I to hear to-morrow that I could be prosecuted for standing here and talking to you to-night, it wouldn’t surprise me,” was the answer.
“What on earth did he do with the money? What went with it?”
“Report runs that he founded a cluster of almhouses with it,” said Charlotte demurely. “Ten old women, who were to be found in coals and red cloaks, and half-a-crown a week.”
The words angered him beyond everything. Nothing could have been more serious than his mood; nothing could savour of levity, of mockery, more than hers. “Report runs that he has been giving fabulous prices for horses to make presents of,” angrily retorted Mr. Crosse, in a tone of pointed significance.
“Not a bit of it,” returned undaunted Charlotte. “He only gave bills.”