"AS FINE AS A QUEEN!"
"Is Mrs. George Godolphin within?"
The inquiry came from Grace Akeman. She put it in a sharp, angry tone,
something like the sharp, angry peal she had just rung at the hall-bell.
Pierce answered in the affirmative, and showed her in.
The house seemed gloomy and still, as one in a state of bankruptcy does
seem. Mrs. Akeman thought so as she crossed the hall. The days had gone
on to the Thursday, the bankruptcy had been declared, and those pleasant
visitors, foretold by Charlotte Pain, had entered on their duties at the
Bank and at Ashlydyat. Fearfully ill looked Maria: dark circles had
formed under her eyes, her face had lost its bloom, and an expression as
of some ever-present dread had seated itself upon her features. When
Pierce opened the door to usher in her sister, she started palpably.
Things, with regard to George Godolphin, remained as they were. He had
not made his appearance at Prior's Ash, and Thomas did not know where to
write to him. _Maria did._ She had heard from him on the Tuesday
morning. His letter was written apparently in the gayest of spirits. The
contrast that was presented between his state of mind (if the tone of
the letter might be trusted) and Maria's was something marvellous. A
curiosity in metaphysics, as pertaining to the spiritual organization of
humanity. He sent gay messages to Meta, he sent teasing ones to Margery,
he never so much as hinted to Maria that he had a knowledge of anything
being wrong. He should soon be home, he said; but meanwhile Maria was to
write him word all news, and address the letter under cover to Mr.
Verrall. But she was not to give that address to any one. George
Godolphin knew he could rely upon the good faith of his wife. He wrote
also to his brother: a letter which Thomas burnt as soon as read.
Probably it was intended for his eye alone. But he expressed no wish to
hear from Thomas; neither did he say how a letter might reach him. He
may have felt himself in the light of a guilty schoolboy, who knows he
merits a lecture, and would escape from it as long as possible. Maria's
suspense was almost unbearable--and Lord Averil had given no sign of
what his intentions might be.
Seeing it was her sister who entered, she turned to her with a sort of
relief. "Oh, Grace!" she said, "I thought I was never going to see any
of you again."
Grace would not meet the offered hand. Never much given to ceremony, she
often came in and went out without giving hers. But this time Grace had
come in anger. She blamed Maria for what had occurred, almost as much as
she blamed George. Not of the highly refined organization that Maria
was, Grace possessed far keener penetration. Had her husband been going
wrong, Grace would inevitably have discovered it; and she could not
believe but that Maria must have suspected George Godolphin. In her
angry feeling against George, whom she had never liked, Grace would have
deemed it right that Maria should denounce him. Whether she had been
wilfully blind, or really blind, Grace alike despised her for it. "I
shall not spare her," Grace said to her husband: and she did not mean to
spare her, now she had come.
"I have intruded here to ask if you will go to the Rectory and see
mamma," Grace began. "She is not well, and cannot come to you."
Grace's manner was strangely cold and stern. And Maria did not like the
word "intruded." "I am glad to see you," she replied in a gentle voice.
"It is very dull here, now. No one has been near me, except Bessy
Godolphin."
"You cannot expect many visitors," said Grace in her hard manner--very
hard to-day.
"I do not think I could see them if they came," was Maria's answer. "I
was not speaking of visitors. Is mamma ill?"
"Yes, she is; and little wonder," replied Grace. "I almost wish I was
not married, now this misfortune has fallen upon us: it would at any
rate be another pair of hands at the Rectory, and I am more capable of
work than mamma or Rose. But I am married; and of course my place must
be my husband's home."
"What do you mean by another pair of hands, Grace?"
"There are going to be changes at the Rectory," returned Grace, staring
at the wall behind Maria, apparently to avoid looking at her. "One
servant only is to be retained, and the two little Chisholm girls are
coming there to be kept and educated. Mamma will have all the care upon
her; she and Rose must both work and teach. Papa will keep the little
boy at school, and have him home in the holidays, to make more trouble
at the Rectory. They, papa and mamma, will have to pinch and screw; they
must deprive themselves of every comfort; bare necessaries alone must be
theirs; and, all that can be saved from their income will be put by
towards paying the trust-money."
"Is this decided?" asked Maria in a low tone.
"It is decided so far as papa can decide anything," sharply rejoined
Grace. "If the law is put in force against him, by his co-trustee, for
the recovery of the money, he does not know what he would do. Possibly
the living would have to be sequestered."
Maria did not speak. What Grace was saying was all too true and
terrible. Grace flung up her hand with a passionate movement.
"Had I been the one to bring this upon my father and mother, Maria, I
should wish I had been out of the world before it had come to pass."
"I did not bring it upon them, Grace," was Maria's scarcely-breathed
answer.
"Yes, you did. Maria, I have come here to speak my mind, and I must
speak it. I may seem hard, but I can't help it. How could you, for
shame, let papa pay in that money, the nine thousand pounds? If you and
George Godolphin must have flaunted your state and your expense in the
eyes of the world, and ruined people to do it, you might have spared
your father and mother."
"Grace, why do you blame _me_?"
Mrs. Akeman rose from her chair, and began pacing the room. She did not
speak in a loud tone; not so much in an angry one, as in a clear, sharp,
decisive one. It was just the tone used by the Rector of All Souls' when
in his cynical moods.
"He has been a respected man all his life; he has kept up his
position----"
"Of whom do you speak?" interrupted Maria, really not sure whether she
was applying the words satirically to George Godolphin.
"Of whom do I speak!" retorted Grace. "Of your father and mine. I say he
has been respected all his life; has maintained his position as a
clergyman and a gentleman, has reared his children suitably, has
exercised moderate hospitality at the Rectory, and yet was putting
something by that we might have a few pounds each, at his death, to help
us on in the world. Not one of his children but wants helping on: except
the grand wife of Mr. George Godolphin."
"Grace! Grace!"
"And what have you brought him to?" continued Grace, lifting her hand in
token that she would have out her say. "To poverty in his old age--he is
getting old, Maria--to trouble, to care, to privation: perhaps to
disgrace as a false trustee. _I_ would have sacrificed my husband,
rather than my father."
Maria lifted her aching head. The reproaches were cruel, and yet they
told home. It _was_ her husband who had ruined her father: and it may be
said, ruined him deliberately. Grace resumed, answering the last thought
almost as if she had divined it.
"If ever a shameless fraud was committed upon another, George Godolphin
wilfully committed it when he took that nine thousand pounds. Prior's
Ash may well be calling him a swindler!"
"Oh, Grace, don't!" she said imploringly. "He could not have known that
it was unsafe to take it."
"Could not have known!" indignantly returned Grace. "You are either a
fool, Maria, or you are deliberately saying what you know to be untrue.
You must be aware that he never entered it in the books--that he
appropriated it to his own use. He is a heartless, bad man! He might
have chosen somebody else to prey upon, rather than his wife's father.
Were I papa, I should prosecute him."
"Grace, you are killing me," wailed Maria. "Don't you think I have
enough to bear?"
"I make no doubt you have. I should be sorry to have to bear the half.
But you have brought it upon yourself, Maria. What though George
Godolphin was your husband, you need not have upheld him in his course.
Look at the ruin that has fallen upon Prior's Ash. I can tell you that
your name and George Godolphin's will be remembered for many a long day.
But it won't be with a blessing!"
"Grace," she said, lifting her streaming eyes, for tears had at length
come to her relief, "have you no pity for me?"
"What pity have you had for others?" was Grace Akeman's retort. "How
many must go down to their graves steeped in poverty, who, but for
George Godolphin's treachery, would have passed the rest of their lives
in comfort! You have been a blind simpleton, and nothing else. George
Godolphin has lavished his money and his attentions broadcast elsewhere,
and you have looked complacently on. Do you think Prior's Ash has had
its eyes closed, if you have?"
"What do you mean, Grace?"
"Never mind what I mean," was Grace's answer. "_I_ am not going to tell
you what you might have seen for yourself. It is all of a piece. If
people will marry gay and attractive men, they must pay for it."
Maria remained silent. Grace also for a time. Then she ceased her
walking, and sat down opposite her sister.
"I came to ask you whether it is not your intention to go down and see
mamma. She is in bed. Suffering from a violent cold, she says. _I_ know;
suffering from anguish of mind. If you would not add ingratitude to what
has passed, you will pay her a visit to-day. She wishes to see you."
"I will go," said Maria. But as she spoke the words, the knowledge that
it would be a fearful trial--showing herself in the streets of the
town--was very present to her. "I will go to-day, Grace."
"Very well," said Grace, rising; "that's all I came for."
"Not quite all, Grace. You came, I think, to make me more unhappy than I
was."
"I cannot gloss over facts; it is not in my nature to do so," was the
reply of Grace. "If black is black, I must call it black; and white,
white. I have not said all I could say, Maria. I have not spoken of our
loss; a very paltry one, but a good deal to us. I have not alluded to
other and worse rumours, touching your husband. I have spoken of the
ruin brought on our father and mother, and I hold you nearly as
responsible for it as George Godolphin. Where's Meta?" she added, after
a short pause.
"At Lady Godolphin's Folly. Mrs. Pain has been very kind----"
Grace turned sharply round. "And you can let her go _there_!"
"Mrs. Pain has been kind, I say, in coming for her. This is a dull house
now for Meta. Margery went out on Monday, and has been detained by her
sister's illness."
"Let Meta come to me, if you want to get rid of her," returned Grace in
a tone more stern than any that had gone before it. "If you knew the
comments indulged in by the public, you would not let a child of yours
be at Lady Godolphin's Folly, while Charlotte Pain inhabits it."
Somehow, Maria had not the courage to inquire more particularly as to
the "comments:" it was a subject that she shrank from, though vague and
uncertain at the best. Mrs. Akeman went out; and Maria, the strings of
her grief loosened, sat down and cried as if her heart would break.
With quite a sick feeling of dread she dressed herself to go to the
Rectory. But not until later in the day. She put it off, and put it off,
with some faint wish, foolish and vain, that dusk would forestall its
usual hour. The western sun, drawing towards its setting, streamed full
on the street of Prior's Ash as she walked down it. Walked down it,
almost as a criminal, a black veil over her face, flushed with its
sensitive dread. No one but herself knew how she shrank from the eyes of
her fellow-creatures.
She might have ordered the close carriage and gone down in it--for the
carriages and horses were yet at her disposal. But that, to Maria, would
have been worse. To go out in state in her carriage, attended by her
men-servants, would have seemed more defiant of public feelings than to
appear on foot. Were these feelings ultra-sensitive? absurd? Not
altogether. At any rate, I am relating the simple truth--the facts as
they occurred--the feelings that actuated her.
"Look at her, walking there! She's as fine as a queen!" The words, in an
insolent, sneering tone, caught her ear as she passed a group of low
people gathered at the corner of a street. They would not be likely to
come from any other. That they were directed to her there was no doubt;
and Maria's ears tingled as she hastened on.
Was she so fine? she could not help asking herself. She had put on the
plainest things she had. A black silk dress and a black mantle, a white
silk bonnet and a black veil. All good things, certainly, but plain, and
not new. She began to feel that reproaches were cast upon her which she
did _not_ deserve: but they were not the less telling upon her heart.
Did she dread going into the Rectory? Did she dread the reproaches she
might be met with there?--the coldness? the slights? If so, she did not
find them. She was met by the most considerate kindness, and perhaps it
wrung her heart all the more.
They had seen her coming, and Rose ran forward to meet her in the hall,
and kissed her; Reginald came boisterously out with a welcome; a chart
in one hand, parallel-rulers and a pair of compasses in the other: he
was making a pretence of work, was pricking off a ship's place in the
chart. The Rector and Isaac were not at home.
"Is mamma in bed?" she asked of Rose.
"Yes. But her cold is better this evening. She will be so glad to see
you."
Maria went up the stairs and entered the room alone. The anxious look of
trouble on Mrs. Hastings's face, its feverish hue, struck her forcibly,
as she advanced with timidity, uncertain of her reception. Uncertain of
the reception of a mother? With an eagerly fond look, a rapid gesture
of love, Mrs. Hastings drew Maria's face down to her for an embrace.
It unhinged Maria. She fell on her knees at the side of the bed, and
gave vent to a passionate flood of tears. "Oh mother, mother, I could
not help it!" she wailed. "It has been no fault of mine."
Mrs. Hastings did not speak. She put her arm round Maria's neck, and let
it rest there. But the sobs were redoubled.
"Don't, child!" she said then. "You will make yourself ill. My poor
child!"
"I am ill, mamma; I think I shall never be well again," sobbed Maria,
losing some of her reticence. "I feel sometimes that it would be a
relief to die."
"Hush, my love! Keep despair from you, whatever you do."
"I could bear it better but for the thought of you and papa. That is
killing me. Indeed, indeed I have not deserved the blame thrown upon me.
I knew nothing of what was happening."
"My dear, we have not blamed _you_."
"Oh yes, every one blames me!" wailed Maria. "And I know how sad it is
for you all--to suffer by us. It breaks my heart to think of it. Mamma,
do you know I dreamt last night that a shower of gold was falling down
to me, faster than I could gather it in my hands. I thought I was going
to pay every one, and I ran away laughing, oh so glad! and held out some
to papa. 'Take them,' I said to him, 'they are slipping through my
fingers.' I fell down when I was near him, and awoke. I
awoke--and--then"--she could scarcely speak for sobbing--"I remembered.
Mamma, but for Meta I _should_ have been glad in that moment to die."
The emotion of both was very great, nearly overpowering Maria. Mrs.
Hastings could not say much to comfort, she was too prostrated herself.
Anxious as she had been to see Maria, for she could not bear the thought
of her being left alone and unnoticed in her distress--she almost
repented having sent for her. Neither was strong enough to bear this
excess of agitation.
Not a word was spoken of George Godolphin. Mrs. Hastings did not mention
him; Maria could not. The rest of the interview was chiefly spent in
silence, Maria holding her mother's hand and giving way to a rising sob
now and then. Into the affairs of the Bank Mrs. Hastings felt that she
could not enter. There must be a wall of silence between them on that
point, as on the subject of George.
At the foot of the stairs, as she went down, she met her father. "Oh, is
it you, Maria?" he said. "How are you?"
His tone was kindly. But Maria's heart was full, and she could not
answer. He turned into the room by which they were standing, and she
went in after him.
"When is your husband coming back? I suppose you don't know?"
"No," she answered, obliged to confess it.
"My opinion is, it would be better for him to face it, than to remain
away," said the Rector. "A more honourable course, at any rate."
Still there was no reply. And Mr. Hastings, looking at his daughter's
face in the twilight of the evening, saw that it was working with
emotion; that she was striving, almost in vain, to repress her feelings.
"It must be very dull for you at the Bank now, Maria," he resumed in a
gentle tone: "dull and unpleasant. Will you come to the Rectory for a
week or two, and bring Meta?"
The tears streamed from her eyes then, unrepressed. "Thank you, papa!
thank you for all your kindness," she answered, striving not to choke.
"But I must stay at home as long as I may."
Reginald put on his cap to see her home, and they departed together,
Reginald talking gaily, as if there were not such a thing as care in the
world; Maria unable to answer him. The pain in her throat was worse than
usual then. In turning out of the Rectory gate, whom should they come
upon but old Jekyl, walking slowly along, nearly bent double with
rheumatism. Reginald accosted him.
"Why, old Jekyl! it's never you! Are you in the land of the living
still?"
"Ay, it is me, sir. Old bones don't get laid so easy; in spite, maybe,
of their wishing it. Ma'am," added the old man, turning to Maria, "I'd
like to make bold to say a word to you. That sixty pound of mine, what
was put in the Bank--you mind it?"
"Yes," said Maria faintly.
"The losing of it'll be just dead ruin to me, ma'am. I lost my bees last
summer, as you heard on, and that bit o' money was all, like, I had to
look to. One must have a crust o' bread and a sup o' tea as long as it
pleases the Almighty to keep one above ground: one can't lie down and
clam. Would you be pleased just to say a word to the gentlemen, that
that trifle o' money mayn't be lost to me? Mr. Godolphin will listen to
_you_."
Maria scarcely knew what to answer. She had not the courage to tell him
the money was lost; she did not like to raise delusive hopes by saying
that it might be saved.
Old Jekyl wrongly interpreted the hesitation. "It was you yourself,
ma'am, as advised my putting it there; for myself, I shouldn't have had
a thought on't: surely you won't object to say a word for me, that I
mayn't lose it now. My two sons, David and Jonathan, come home one day
when they had been working at your house, and telled me, both of 'em,
that you recommended me to take my money to the Bank; it would be safe
and sure. I can't afford to lose it," he added in a pitiful tone; "it's
all my substance on this side the grave."
"Of course she'll speak to them, Jekyl," interposed Reginald, answering
for Maria just as freely and lightly as he would have answered for
himself. "I'll speak to Mr. George Godolphin for you when he comes home;
I don't mind; I can say anything to him. It would be too bad for you to
lose it. Good evening. Don't go pitch-polling over! you haven't your
sea-legs on to-night."
The feeble old man continued his way, a profusion of thanks breaking
from him. They fell on Maria's heart as a knell. Old Jekyl's money had
as surely gone as had the rest! And, but for her, it might never have
been placed with the Godolphins.
When they arrived at the Bank, Reginald gave a loud and flourishing
knock, pulled the bell with a peal that alarmed the servants, and then
made off with a hasty good-night, leaving Maria standing there alone, in
his careless fashion. At the same moment there advanced from the
opposite direction a woman carrying a brown-paper parcel.
It was Margery. Detained where she had gone to meet her sister by that
sister's sudden illness, she had been unable to return until now. It had
put Margery out considerably, and altogether she had come home in
anything but a good humour.
"I knew there'd be no luck in the journey," she cried, in reply to
Maria's salutation. "The night before I started I was in the midst of a
muddy pool all night in my dream, and couldn't get out of it."
"Is your sister better?" asked Maria.
"She's better: and gone on into Wales. But she's the poorest creature I
ever saw. Is all well at home, ma'am?"
"All well," replied Maria, her tone subdued, as she thought how
different it was in one sense from "well."
"And how has Harriet managed with the child?" continued Margery in a
tart tone, meant for the unconscious Harriet.
"Very well indeed," answered Maria. "Quite well."
The door had been opened, and they were then crossing the hall. Maria
turned into the dining-room, and Margery continued her way upstairs,
grumbling as she did so. To believe that Harriet, or any one else,
herself excepted, could do "Quite well" by Meta, was a stretch of
credulity utterly inadmissible to Margery's biased mind. In the nursery
sat Harriet, a damsel in a smart cap with flying pink ribbons.
"What, is it you?" was her welcome to Margery. "We thought you had taken
up your abode yonder for good."
"Did you?" said Margery. "What else did you think?"
"And your sister, poor dear!" continued Harriet, passing over the
retort, and speaking sympathizingly, for she generally found it to her
interest to keep friends with Margery. "Has she got well?"
"As well as she ever will be, I suppose," was Margery's crusty answer.
She sat down, untied her bonnet and threw it off, and unpinned her
shawl. Harriet snuffed the candle and resumed her work, which appeared
to be sewing tapes on a pinafore of Meta's.
"Has she torn 'em off again?" asked Margery, her eyes following the
progress of the needle.
"She's always tearing 'em off," responded Harriet, biting the end of her
thread.
"And how's things going on here?" demanded Margery, her voice assuming a
confidential tone, as she drew her chair nearer to Harriet's. "The
Bank's not opened again, I find, for I asked so much at the station."
"Things couldn't be worse," said Harriet. "It's all a smash together.
The house is bankrupt."
"Lord help us!" ejaculated Margery.
Harriet let her work fall on the table, and leant her head towards
Margery's, her voice dropped to a whisper.
"I say! We have a man in here!"
"In here!" breathlessly rejoined Margery.
Harriet nodded. "Since last Tuesday. There's one stopping here, and
there's another at Ashlydyat. Margery, I declare to you when they were
going through the house, them creatures, I felt that sick, I didn't know
how to bear it. If I had dared I'd have upset a bucket of boiling water
over the lot as they came up the stairs."
Margery sat, revolving the news, a terribly blank look upon her face.
Harriet resumed.
"We shall all have to leave, every soul of us: and soon, too, we expect.
I don't know about you, you know. I am so sorry for my mistress!"
"Well!" burst forth Margery, giving vent to her indignation; "_he_ has
brought matters to a fine pass!"
"Meaning master?" asked Harriet.
"Meaning nobody else," was the tart rejoinder.
"He just has," said Harriet. "Prior's Ash is saying such things that it
raises one's hair to hear them. We don't like to repeat them again, only
just among ourselves."
"What's the drift of 'em?" inquired Margery.
"All sorts of drifts. About his having took and made away with the money
in the tills: and those bonds of my Lord Averil's, that there was so
much looking after--it was he took them. Who'd have believed it,
Margery, of Mr. George Godolphin, with his gay laugh and his handsome
face?"
"Better for him if his laugh had been a bit less gay and his face less
handsome," was the sharp remark of Margery. "He might have been steadier
then."
"Folks talk of the Verralls, and that set, up at Lady Godolphin's
Folly," rejoined Harriet, her voice falling still lower. "Prior's Ash
says he has had too much to do with them, and----"
"I don't want that scandal repeated over to me," angrily reprimanded
Margery. "Perhaps other people know as much about it as Prior's Ash;
they have eyes, I suppose. There's no need for you to bring it up to
one's face."
"But they talk chiefly about Mr. Verrall," persisted Harriet, with a
stress upon the name. "It's said that he and master have had business
dealings together of some sort, and that that's where the money's gone.
I was not going to bring up anything else. The man downstairs--and upon
my word, Margery, he's a decent man enough, if you can only forget who
he is--says that there are thousands and thousands gone into Verrall's
pockets, which ought to be in master's."
"They'd ruin a saint, and I have always said it," was Margery's angry
remark. "See _her_ tearing about with her horses and her carriages, in
her feathers and her brass; and master after her! Many's the time I've
wondered that Mr. Godolphin has put up with it. _I'd_ have given him a
word of a sort, if I had been his brother."
"I should if I'd been his wife----" Harriet was beginning, but Margery
angrily arrested her. Her own tongue might be guilty of many slips in
the heat of argument; but it was high treason for Harriet to lapse into
them.
"Hold your sauce, girl! How dare you bring your mistress's name up in
any such thing? I don't know what you mean, for my part. When she
complains of her husband, it will be time enough then for you to join in
the chorus. Could you wish to see a better husband, pray?"
"He is quite a model husband to her face," replied saucy Harriet. "And
the old saying's a true one: What the eye don't see, the heart won't
grieve. Where's the need for us to quarrel over it?" she added, taking
up her work again. "You have your opinion and I have mine, and if they
were laid side by side, it's likely they'd not be far apart from each
other. But let them be bad or good, it can't change the past. What's
done, is done: and the house is broken up."
Margery flung off her shawl just as Charlotte Pain had flung off hers
the previous Monday morning in the breakfast-room, and a silence ensued.
"Perhaps the house may go on again?" said Margery, presently, in a
dreamy tone.
"Why, how can it?" returned Harriet, looking up from her work at the
pinafore, which she had resumed. "All the money's gone. A bank can't go
on without money."
"What does he say to it?" very sharply asked Margery.
"What does who say to it?"
"Master. Does _he_ say how the money comes to be gone? How does he like
facing the creditors?"
"He is not here," said Harriet. "He has not been home since he left last
Saturday. It's said he is in London."
"And Mr. Godolphin?"
"Mr. Godolphin's here. And a nice task he has of it every day with the
angry creditors. If we have had one of the bank creditors bothering at
the hall-door for Mr. George, we have had fifty. At first, they wouldn't
believe he was away, and wouldn't be got rid of. Creditors of the house,
too, have come, worrying my mistress out of her life. There's a sight of
money owing in the town. Cook says she wouldn't have believed there was
a quarter of the amount only just for household things, till it came to
be summed up. Some of them downstairs are wondering if they will get
their wages. And--I say, Margery, have you heard about Mr. Hastings?"
"What about him?" asked Margery.
"He has lost every shilling he had. It was in the Bank, and----"
"He couldn't have had so very much to lose," interposed Margery, who was
in a humour to contradict everything. "What can a parson save? Not
much."
"But it is not that--not _his_ money. The week before the Bank went, he
had lodged between nine and ten thousand pounds in it for safety. He was
left trustee, you know, to dead Mr. Chisholm's children, and their money
was paid to him, it turns out, and he brought it to the Bank. It's all
gone."
Margery lifted her hands in dismay. "I have heard say that failures are
like nothing but a devouring fire, for the money they swallow up," she
remarked. "It seems to be true."
"My mistress has looked so ill ever since! And she can eat nothing.
Pierce says it would melt the heart of a stone to see her make believe
to eat before him, waiting at dinner, trying to get a morsel down her
throat, and not able to do it. My belief is, that she's thinking of her
father's ruin night and day. Report is, that master took the money from
the Rector, knowing it would never be paid back again, and used it for
himself."
Margery got up with a jerk. "If I stop here I shall be hearing worse and
worse," she remarked. "This will be enough to kill Miss Janet. That
awful Shadow hasn't been on the Dark Plain this year for nothing. We
might well notice that it never was so dark before!"
Perching her bonnet on her head, and throwing her shawl over her arm,
Margery lighted a candle and opened a door leading from the room into a
bed-chamber. Her own bed stood opposite to her, and in a corner at the
opposite end was Miss Meta's little bed. She laid her shawl and bonnet
on the drawers, and advanced on tiptoe, shading the light with her hand.
Intending to take a fond look at her darling. But, like many more of us
who advance confidently on some pleasure, Margery found nothing but
disappointment. The place where Meta ought to have been was empty.
Nothing to be seen but the smooth white bed-clothes, laid ready open for
the young lady's reception. Did a fear dart over Margery's mind that she
must be lost? She certainly flew back as if some such idea occurred to
her.
"Where's the child?" she burst out.
"She has not come home yet," replied Harriet, with composure. "I was
waiting here for her."
"Come home from where? Where is she?"
"At Lady Godolphin's Folly. But Mrs. Pain has never kept her so late as
this before."
"She's _there_! With Mrs. Pain?" shrieked Margery.
"She has been there every day this week. Mrs Pain has either come or
sent for her. Look there," added Harriet, pointing to a collection of
toys in a corner of the nursery. "She has brought home all those things.
Mrs. Pain loads her with them."
Margery answered not a word. She blew out her candle, and went
downstairs to the dining-room. Maria, her things never taken off, was
sitting just as she had come in, apparently lost in thought. She rose up
when Margery entered, and began untying her bonnet.
"Harriet says that the child's at Mrs. Pain's: that she has been there
all the week," began Margery, without circumlocution.
"Yes," replied Maria. "I cannot think why she has not come home. Mrs.
Pain----"
"And you could let her go there, ma'am!" interrupted Margery's indignant
voice, paying little heed or deference to what her mistress might be
saying. "_There!_ If anybody had come and told it to me before this
night, I would not have believed it."
"But, Margery, it has done her no harm. There's a pinafore or two torn,
I believe, and that's the worst. Mrs. Pain has been exceedingly kind.
She has kept her dogs shut up all the week."
Margery's face was working ominously. It bore the sign of an approaching
storm.
"Kind! She!" repeated Margery, almost beside herself. "Why, then, if
it's come to this pass, you had better have your eyes opened, ma'am, if
nothing else will stop the child's going there. Your child at Mrs.
Charlotte Pain's! Prior's Ash will talk more than it has talked before."
"What has Prior's Ash said?" asked Maria, an uncomfortable feeling
stealing over her.
"It has wondered whether Mrs. George Godolphin has been wholly blind or
only partially so; that's what it has done, ma'am" returned Margery,
quite forgetting herself in her irritation. "And the woman coming here
continually with her bold face! I'd rather see Meta----"
Margery's eloquence was brought to a summary end. A noise in the hall
was followed by the boisterous entrance of the ladies in question, Miss
Meta and Mrs. Charlotte Pain. Charlotte--really she was wild at
times--had brought Meta home on horseback. Late as it was, she had
mounted her horse to give the child pleasure, had mounted the child on
the saddle before her, and so they had cantered down, attended by a
groom. Charlotte wore her habit, and held her whip in her hand. She came
in pretending to beat an imaginary horse, for the delectation of Meta.
Meta was furnished with a boy's whip, a whistle at one end, a lash at
the other. She was beating an imaginary horse too, varying the play with
an occasional whistle. What with the noise, the laughing, the lashes,
and the whistle, it was as if Bedlam had broken loose. To crown the
whole, Meta's brown-holland dress was wofully torn, and the brim of her
straw hat was almost separated from the crown.
Meta caught sight of Margery and flew to her. But not before Margery had
made a sort of grab at the child. Clasping her in her arms, she held her
there, as if she would protect her from some infection. To be clasped in
arms, however, and thus deprived of the delights of whip-smacking and
whistling, did not accord with Miss Meta's inclinations, and she
struggled to get free.
"You'd best stop here and hide yourself, poor child!" cried Margery in a
voice excessively pointed.
"It's not much," said Charlotte, supposing the remark applied to the
damages. "The brim is only unsewn, and the blouse is an old one. She did
it in swinging."
"Who's talking of that?" fiercely responded Margery to Mrs. Pain. "If
folks had to hide their faces for nothing worse than torn clothes, it
wouldn't be of much account."
Charlotte did not like the tone. "Perhaps you will wait until your
opinion's asked for," said she, turning haughtily on Margery. There had
been incipient warfare between those two for years: and they both were
innately conscious of it.
A shrill whistle from Meta interrupted the contest. She had escaped and
was standing in the middle of the room, her legs astride, her damaged
hat set rakishly on the side of her head, her attitude altogether not
unlike that of a man standing to see a horse go through his paces. It
was precisely what the young lady was imitating: she had been taken by
Charlotte to the stable-yard that day, to witness the performance.
Clack, clack! "Lift your feet up, you lazy brute!" Clack, clack, clack!
"Mamma, I am making a horse canter."
Charlotte looked on with admiring ecstasy, and clapped her hands. Maria
seemed bewildered: Margery stood with dilating eyes and open mouth.
There was little doubt that Miss Meta, under the able tuition of Mrs.
Pain, might become an exceedingly fast young lady in time.
"You have been teaching her that!" burst forth Margery to Mrs. Pain in
her uncontrollable anger. "What else might you have been teaching her?
It's fit, it is, for you to be let have the companionship of Miss Meta
Godolphin!"
Charlotte laughed in her face defiantly--contemptuously--with a gleeful,
merry accent. Margery, perhaps distrustful of what she might be further
tempted to say herself, put an end to the scene by catching up Meta and
forcibly carrying her off, in spite of rebellious kicks and screams. In
her temper, she flung the whip to the other end of the hall as she
passed through it. "They'd make you into a boy, and worse, if they had
their way. I wish Miss Janet had been here to-night!"
"What an idiotic old maid she is, that Margery!" exclaimed Charlotte,
laughing still. "Good night. I can't stay. I shall come for Meta
to-morrow."
"Not to-morrow," dissented Maria, feeling that the struggle with Margery
would be too formidable. "I thank you very much for your kindness, Mrs.
Pain," she heartily added; "but now that Margery has returned, she will
not like to part with Meta."
"As you will," said Charlotte, with a laugh. "Margery would not let her
come, you think. Good night. Dormez bien."
Before the sound of the closing of the hall-door had ceased its echoes
through the house, Margery was in the dining-room again, her face white
with anger. Her mistress, a thing she very rarely did, ventured on a
reproof.
"You forgot yourself, Margery, when you spoke just now to Mrs. Pain. I
felt inclined to apologize to her for you."
This was the climax. "Forgot myself!" echoed Margery, her face growing
whiter. "No, ma'am, it's because I did not forget myself that she's gone
out of the house without her ears tingling. I should have made 'em
tingle if I had spoke out. Not that some folk's ears can tingle," added
Margery, amending her proposition. "Hers is of the number, so I should
have spent my words for nothing. If Mr. George had spent _his_ words
upon somebody else, it might be the better for us all now."
"Margery!"
"I can't help it, ma'am, I must have my say. Heaven knows I wouldn't
have opened my mouth to you; I'd have kept it closed for ever, though I
died for it--and it's not five minutes ago that I pretty well snapped
Harriet's nose off for daring to give out hints and to bring up your
name--but it's time you did know a little of what has been going on, to
the scandal of Prior's Ash. Meta up at Lady Godolphin's Folly with that
woman!"
"Margery!" again interrupted her mistress. But Margery's words were as a
torrent that bears down all before it.
"It has been the talk of the town; it has been the talk of the servants
here; it has been the talk among the servants at Ashlydyat. If I thought
you'd let the child go out with her in public again, I'd pray that I
might first follow her to the grave in her little coffin."
Maria's face had turned as white as Margery's. She sat as a statue,
gazing at the woman with eyes in which there shone a strange kind of
fear.
"I--don't--know--what--it--is--you--mean," she said, the words coming
out disjointedly.
"It means, ma'am, that you have lived with a mist before your eyes. You
have thought my master a saint and a paragon, and he was neither the one
nor the other. And now I hope you'll pardon me for saying to your face
what others have been long saying behind your back."
She turned sharply off as she concluded, and quitted the room abruptly
as she had entered it, leaving Maria motionless, her breath coming in
gasps, and the dewdrops cold on her brow.
The substance of what Margery had spoken out so broadly had sometimes
passed through her mind as a dim shadow. But never to rest there.