CECIL'S ROMANCE.
We must turn to Ashlydyat, and go back to a little earlier in the
evening. Miss Godolphin's note to the Folly had stated that her brother
had been taken ill while dressing for Mr. Verrall's dinner-party. It was
correct. Thomas Godolphin was alone in his room, ready, when he was
attacked by a sharp internal paroxysm of agony. He hastily sat down: a
cry escaped his lips, and drops of water gathered on his brow.
Alone he bore it, calling for no aid. In a few minutes the pain had
partially passed, and he rang for his servant. An old man now, that
servant: he had for years attended on Sir George Godolphin.
"Bexley, I have been ill again," said Thomas, quietly. "Will you ask
Miss Godolphin to write a line to Mr. Verrall, saying that I am unable
to attend."
Bexley cast a strangely yearning look on the pale, suffering face of his
master. He had seen him in these paroxysms once or twice. "I wish you
would have Mr. Snow called in, sir!" he cried.
"I think I shall. He may give me some ease, possibly. Take my message to
your mistress, Bexley."
The effect of the message was to bring Janet to the room. "Taken ill! a
sharp inward pain!" she was repeating, after Bexley. "Thomas, what sort
of a pain is it? It seems to me that you have had the same before
lately."
"Write a few words the first thing, will you, Janet? I should not like
to keep them waiting for me."
Janet, punctilious as Thomas, considerate as he was for others, sat down
and wrote the note, despatching it at once by Andrew, one of the serving
men. Few might have set about and done it so calmly as Janet,
considering that she had a great fear thumping at her heart. A fear
which had never penetrated it until this moment. With something very
like sickness, had flashed into her memory their mother's pain. A sharp,
agonizing pain had occasionally attacked _her_, the symptom of the
inward malady of which she had died. Was the same fatal malady attacking
Thomas? The doctors had expressed their fears then that it might prove
hereditary.
In the corridor, as Janet was going back to Thomas's room, the note
despatched, she encountered Bexley. The sad, apprehensive look in the
old man's face struck her. She touched his arm, and beckoned him into an
empty room.
"What is it that is the matter with your master?"
"I don't know," was the answer: but the words were spoken in a tone
which caused Janet to think that the old man was awake to the same fears
that she was. "Miss Janet, I am afraid to think what it may be."
"Is he often ill like this?"
"I know but of a time or two, ma'am. But that's a time or two too many."
Janet returned to the room. Thomas was leaning back in his chair, his
face ghastly, his hands fallen, prostrate altogether from the effects of
the agony. Things were coming into her mind one by one: how much time
Thomas had spent in his own room of late; how seldom, comparatively
speaking, he went to the Bank; how often he had the brougham, instead of
walking, when he did go to it. Once--why, it was only this very last
Sunday!--he had not gone near church all day long. Janet's fears grew
into certainties.
She took a chair, drawing it nearer to Thomas. Not speaking of her
fears, but asking him in a soothing tone how he felt, and what had
caused his illness. "Have you had the same pain before?" she continued.
"Several times," he answered. "But it has been worse to-night than I
have previously felt it. Janet, I fear it may be the forerunner of my
call. I did not think to leave you so soon."
Except that Janet's face went almost as pale as his, and that her
fingers entwined themselves together so tightly as to cause pain, there
was no outward sign of the grief that laid hold of her heart.
"Thomas, what is the complaint that you are fearing?" she asked, after a
pause. "The same that--that----"
"That my mother had," he quietly answered, speaking the words that Janet
would not speak.
"It may not be so," gasped Janet.
"True. But I think it is."
"Why have you never spoken of this?"
"Because, until to-night, I have doubted whether it was so, or not. A
suspicion, that it might be so, certainly was upon me: but it amounted
to no more than suspicion. At times, when I feel quite well, I argue
that I must be wrong."
"Have you consulted Mr. Snow?"
"I am going to do so now. I have desired Bexley to send for him."
"It should have been done before, Thomas."
"Why? If it is as I suspect, neither Snow nor all his brethren can save
me."
Janet clasped her hands upon her knee, and sat with her head bent. She
was feeling the communication in all its bitter force. It seemed that
the only one left on earth with whom she could sympathize was Thomas:
and now perhaps he was going! Bessy, George, Cecil, all were younger,
all had their own pursuits and interests; George had his new ties; but
she and Thomas seemed to stand alone. With the deep sorrow for him, the
brother whom she dearly loved, came other considerations, impossible not
to occur to a practical, foreseeing mind such as Janet's. With Thomas
they should lose Ashlydyat. George would come into possession: and
George's ways were so different from theirs, that it would seem to be no
longer in the family. What would George make of it? A gay, frequented
place, as the Verralls--when they were at home--made of Lady Godolphin's
Folly? Janet's cheeks flushed at the idea of such degeneracy for stately
Ashlydyat. However it might be, whether George turned it into an
ever-open house, or shut it up as a nunnery, it would be alike lost to
all the rest of them. She and her sisters must turn from it once again
and for ever; George, his wife, and his children, would reign there.
Janet Godolphin did not rebel at this; she would not have had it
otherwise. Failing Thomas, George was the fit and proper representative
of Ashlydyat. But the fact could but strike upon her now with gloom. All
things wore a gloomy hue to her in that unhappy moment.
It would cause changes at the Bank, too. At least, Janet thought it
probable that it might do so. Could George carry on that extensive
concern himself? Would the public be satisfied with gay George for its
sole head?--would they accord him the confidence they had given Thomas?
These old retainers, too! If she and her sisters quitted Ashlydyat, they
must part with them: leave them to serve George.
Such considerations passed rapidly through her imagination. It could not
well be otherwise. Would they really come to pass? She looked at Thomas,
as if seeking in his face the answer to the doubt.
His elbow on the arm of his chair, and his temples pressed upon his
hand, sat Thomas; his mind in as deep a reverie as Janet's. Where was it
straying to? To the remembrance of Ethel?--of the day that he had stood
over her grave when they were placing her in it? Had the time indeed
come, or nearly come, to which he had, from that hour, looked
forward?--the time of his joining her? He had never lost the vision: and
perhaps the fiat, death, could have come to few who would meet it so
serenely as Thomas Godolphin. It would scarcely be right to say
_welcome_ it; but, certain it was that the prospect was one of
pleasantness rather than of pain to him. To one who has lived near to
God on earth, the anticipation of the great change can bring no dismay.
It brought none to Thomas Godolphin.
But Thomas Godolphin had not done with earth and its cares yet.
Bessy Godolphin was away from home that week. She had gone to spend it
with some friends at a few miles' distance. Cecil was alone when Janet
returned to the drawing-room. She had no suspicion of the sorrow that
was overhanging the house. She had not seen Thomas go to the Folly, and
felt surprised at his tardiness.
"How late he will be, Janet!"
"Who? Thomas! He is not going. He is not very well this evening," was
the reply.
Cecil thought nothing of it. How should she? Janet buried her fears
within her, and said no more.
One was to dine at Lady Godolphin's Folly that night, who absorbed all
Cecil's thoughts. Cecil Godolphin had had her romance in life; as so
many have it. It had been partially played out years ago. Not quite. Its
sequel had still to come. She sat there listlessly; her pretty hands
resting inertly on her knee, her beautiful face tinged with the setting
sunlight; sat there thinking of him--Lord Averil.
A romance it had really been. Cecil Godolphin had paid a long visit to
the Honourable Mrs. Averil, some three or four years ago. She, Mrs.
Averil, was in health then, fond of gaiety, and her house had many
visitors. Amidst others, staying there, was Lord Averil: and before he
and Cecil knew well what they were about, they had learned to love each
other. Lord Averil was the first to awake from the pleasant dream: to
know what it meant; and he discreetly withdrew himself out of harm's
way. Harm only to himself, as he supposed: he never suspected that the
same love had won its way to Cecil Godolphin. A strictly honourable man,
he would have been ready to kill himself in self-condemnation had he
suspected that it had. Not until he had gone, did it come out to Cecil
that he was a married man. When only eighteen years of age he had been
drawn into one of those unequal and unhappy alliances that can only
bring a flush to the brow in after-years. Many a hundred times had it
dyed that of Lord Averil. Before he was twenty years of age, he had
separated from his wife; when pretty Cecil was yet a child: and the next
ten years he had spent abroad, striving to outlive its remembrance. His
own family, you may be sure, did not pain him by alluding to it, then,
or after his return. He had no residence now in the neighbourhood of
Prior's Ash: he had sold it years ago. When he visited the spot, it was
chiefly as the guest of Colonel Max, the master of the fox-hounds: and
in that way he had made the acquaintance of Charlotte Pain. Thus it
happened, when Cecil met him at Mrs. Averil's, that she knew nothing of
his being a married man. On Mrs. Averil's part, she never supposed that
Cecil did not know it. Lord Averil supposed she knew it: and little
enough in his own eyes has he looked in her presence, when the thought
would flash over him, "How she must despise me for my mad folly!" He had
learned to love her; to love her passionately: never so much as glancing
at the thought that it could be reciprocated. He, a married man! But
this folly was no less mad than the other had been, and Lord Averil had
the sense to remove himself from it.
A day or two after his departure, Mrs. Averil received a letter from
him. Cecil was in her dressing-room when she read it.
"How strange!" was the comment of Mrs. Averil. "What do you think,
Cecil?" she added, lowering her voice. "When he reached town there was a
communication waiting for him at his house, saying that his wife was
dying, and praying him to go and see her."
"His wife?" echoed Cecil. "Whose wife?"
"Lord Averil's. Have you forgotten that he had a wife? I wish we could
all really forget it. It has been the blight of his life."
Cecil had discretion enough left in that unhappy moment not to betray
that she had been ignorant of the fact. When her burning cheeks had a
little cooled, she turned from the window where she had been hiding
them, and escaped to her own room. The revelation had betrayed to her
the secret of her own feelings for Lord Averil; and in her pride and
rectitude, she thought she should have died.
A day or two more, and Lord Averil was a widower. He suffered some
months to elapse, and then came to Prior's Ash, his object being Cecil
Godolphin. He stayed at an hotel, and was a frequent visitor at
Ashlydyat. Cecil believed that he meant to ask her to be his wife; and
Cecil was not wrong. She could give herself up now to the full joy of
loving him.
Busy tongues, belonging to some young ladies who boasted more wit than
discretion, hinted something of this to Cecil. Cecil, in her vexation at
having her private feelings suspected, spoke slightingly of Lord Averil.
"Did they think _she_ would stoop to a widower; to one who had made
himself so notorious by his first marriage?" she asked. And this, word
for word, was repeated to Lord Averil.
It was repeated to him by those false friends, and Cecil's haughty
manner, as she spoke it, offensively commented upon. Lord Averil fully
believed it. He judged that he had no chance with Cecil Godolphin; and,
without speaking to her of what had been his intentions, he again left.
But now, no suspicion of this conversation having been repeated to him,
ever reached Cecil. She deemed his behaviour very bad. Whatever
restraint he may have placed upon his manner towards her, when at Mrs.
Averil's, he had been open enough since: and Cecil could only believe
his conduct unjustifiable--the result of fickleness. She resolved to
forget him.
But she had not done so yet. All this long time since, nearly three
years, had Cecil been trying to do it, and it was not yet accomplished.
She had received an offer from a young and handsome earl; it would have
been a match in every way desirable: but poor Cecil found that Lord
Averil was too deeply seated in her heart for her to admit thought of
another. And now Lord Averil was back again at Prior's Ash; and, as
Cecil had heard, was to dine that day at Lady Godolphin's Folly. He had
called at Ashlydyat since his return, but she was out.
She sat there, thinking of him: her feeling against him chiefly that of
anger. She believed to this hour that he had used her ill; that his
behaviour had been unbecoming a gentleman.
Her reflections were disturbed by the appearance of Mr. Snow. It was
growing dusk then, and she wondered what brought him there so late: in
fact, what brought him there at all. She turned and asked the question
of Janet.
"He has come to see Thomas," replied Janet. And Cecil noticed that her
sister was sitting in a strangely still attitude, her head bowed down.
But she did not connect it with its true cause. It was nothing unusual
to see Janet lost in deep thought.
"What is the matter with Thomas, that Mr. Snow should come now?"
inquired Cecil.
"He did not feel well, and sent for him."
It was all that Janet answered. And Cecil continued in blissful
ignorance of anything being wrong, and resumed her reflections on Lord
Averil.
Janet saw Mr. Snow before he went away. Afterwards she went to Thomas's
room, and remained in it. Cecil stayed in the drawing-room, buried in
her dream. The room was lighted, but the blinds were not drawn. Cecil
was at the window, looking out into the bright moonlight.
It must have been growing quite late when she discerned some one
approaching Ashlydyat, on the road from Lady Godolphin's Folly. From the
height she fancied at first that it might be George; but as the figure
drew nearer, her heart gave a bound, and she saw that it was he upon
whom her thoughts had been fixed.
Yes, it was Lord Averil. When he mentioned to Charlotte Pain that he had
a visit yet to pay to a sick friend, he had alluded to Thomas Godolphin.
Lord Averil, since his return, had been struck with the change in Thomas
Godolphin. It was more perceptible to him than to those who saw Thomas
habitually. And when the apology came for Mr. Godolphin's absence, Lord
Averil determined to call upon him that night. Though, in talking to
Mrs. Pain, he almost let the time for it slip by.
Cecil rose up when he entered. In broad daylight he might have seen
beyond doubt her changing face, telling of emotion. Was he mistaken, in
fancying that she was agitated? His pulses quickened at the thought: for
Cecil was as dear to him as she had ever been.
"Will you pardon my intrusion at this hour?" he asked, taking her hand,
and bending towards her with his sweet smile. "It is later than I
thought it was"--in truth, ten was striking that moment from the hall
clock. "I was concerned to hear of Mr. Godolphin's illness, and wished
to ascertain how he was, before returning to Prior's Ash."
"He has kept his room this evening," replied Cecil. "My sister is
sitting with him. I do not think it is anything serious. But he has not
appeared very well of late."
"Indeed I trust it is nothing serious," warmly responded Lord Averil.
Cecil fell into silence. She supposed they had told Janet of the visit,
and that she would be coming in. Lord Averil went to the window.
"The same charming scene!" he exclaimed. "I think the moonlight view
from this window most beautiful. The dark trees, and the white walls of
Lady Godolphin's Folly, rising there, remain on my memory as a painted
scene."
He folded his arms and stood there, gazing still. Cecil stole a look up
at him: at his pale, attractive face, with its expression of care. She
had wondered once why that look of care should be conspicuous there; but
not after she became acquainted with his domestic history.
"Have you returned to England to remain, Lord Averil?"
The question awoke him from his reverie. He turned to Cecil, and a
sudden impulse prompted him to stake his fate on the die of the moment.
It was not a lucky throw.
"I would remain if I could induce one to share my name and home. Forgive
me, Cecil, if I anger you by thus hastily speaking. Will you forget the
past, and help _me_ to forget it?--will you let me make you my dear
wife?"
In saying "Will you forget the past," Lord Averil had alluded to his
first marriage. In his extreme sensitiveness upon that point, he doubted
whether Cecil might not object to succeed the dead Lady Averil: he
believed those hasty and ill-natured words, reported to him as having
been spoken by her, bore upon that sore point alone. Cecil, on the
contrary, assumed that her forgetfulness was asked for his own behaviour
to her, in so far as that he had gone away and left her without word or
explanation. She grew quite pale with anger. Lord Averil resumed, his
manner earnest, his voice low and tender.
"I have loved you, Cecil, from the first day that I saw you at Mrs.
Averil's. I dragged myself away from the place, because I loved you,
fearing lest you might come to see my folly. It was worse than folly
then, for I was not a free man. I have gone on loving you more and more,
from that time to this. I went abroad this last time hoping to forget
you; striving to forget you; but I cannot do it, and the love has only
become stronger. Forgive, I say, my urging it upon you in this moment's
impulse."
Poor Cecil was all at sea. "Went abroad, hoping to forget her; striving
to forget her!" It was worse and worse. She flung his hand away.
"Oh, Cecil! can you not love me?" he exclaimed in agitation. "Will you
not give me hope that you will sometime be my wife?"
"No, I cannot love you. I will not give you hope. I would rather marry
any one in the world than you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Lord
Averil!"
Not a very dignified rejoinder. And Cecil, what with anger, what with
_love_, burst into even less dignified tears, and left the room in a
passion. Lord Averil bit his lips to pain.
Janet entered, unsuspicious. He turned from the window, and smoothed his
brow, gathering what equanimity he could, as he proceeded to inquire
after Mr. Godolphin.