CHAPTER XXVII.

A BROKEN IDOL.

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 shivered round him."

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.

_She_ had stood by him. When he first returned to Prior's Ash, she had

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 emotion

Throb, 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 that chaffling and 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 part of 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."

_There_ lay 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 account for 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: that is,

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 into

bed 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--she was

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 it _was_ kind: 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, _she_

should 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 objection to 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. What _has_ brought

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, _I_ hear," 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 suppose _you_ don'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! It _is_ as

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."

"Good night to you, Mrs. Pain," came the next words, haughtily and

abruptly, and Mr. Crosse turned to continue his way.

Leaving Charlotte standing there. No other passengers came down from the

station: there were none to come: and she turned to retrace her steps to

the town. She walked slowly and moved her head from side to side, as if

she would take in all the familiar features of the landscape by way of

farewell in anticipation of the morrow; the day that was to close her

residence at Prior's Ash for ever.

* * * * *

PART THE THIRD.

* * * * *

CHAPTER I.

A MORNING CALL.

Time elapsed. Autumn weather had come; and things were going on in their

progression at Prior's Ash as things always must go on. Be it slow or

fast, marked or unmarked, the stream of life must glide forward;

onwards, onwards; never turning from its appointed course that bears us

straight towards eternity.

In the events that concern us nothing had been very marked. At least,

not outwardly. There were no startling changes to be recorded--unless,

indeed, it was that noted change in the heart of the town. The Bank of

which you have heard so much was no more; but in its stead flourished an

extensive ironmongery establishment--which, it was to be hoped, would

not come to the same ignoble end. The house had been divided into two

dwellings: the one, accessible by the former private entrance, was let

to a quiet widow lady and her son, a young man reading for the Church;

the other had been opened in all the grandeur and glory of

highly-polished steel and iron. Not one of the Godolphins could pass it

without a keen heart-pang, but the general public were content to

congregate and admire as long as the novelty lasted.

The great crash, which had so upset the equanimity of Prior's Ash, was

beginning to be forgotten as a thing of the past. The bankruptcy was at

an end--excepting some remaining formal proceedings which did not at all

concern the general public, and not much the creditors. Compassion for

those who had been injured by the calamity was dying out: many a home

had been rendered needy--many desolate; but outside people do not make

these uncomfortable facts any lasting concern of theirs. There were only

two who did make them so, in regard to Prior's Ash; and they would make

them so as long as their lives should last.

George Godolphin's wife was lying in her poor lodgings, and Thomas was

dying at Ashlydyat. Dying so slowly and imperceptibly that the passage

to the grave was smoothed, and the town began to say that he might yet

recover. The wrong inflicted upon others, however unwillingly on his own

part, the distress rife in many a house around, was ever present to him.

It was ever present to Maria. Some of those who had lost were able to

bear it; but there were others upon whom it had brought privation,

poverty, utter ruin. It was for these last that the sting was felt.

A little boy had been born to Maria, and had died at the end of a few

days. He was baptized Thomas. "Name him Thomas: it will be a remembrance

of my brother," George Godolphin had said. But the young Thomas died

before the elder one. The same disorder which had taken off two of

Maria's other infants took him off--convulsions. "Best that it should be

so," said Maria, with closed eyes and folded hands.

Somehow she could not grow strong again. Lying in bed, sick and weak,

she had time to ruminate upon the misfortunes which had befallen them:

the bitter, hopeless reminiscence of the past, the trouble and care of

the present, the uncertainty of the future. To dwell upon such themes is

not good for the strongest frame; but for the weak it is worse than can

be described. Whether it was that, or whether it was a tendency to keep

ill, which might have arisen without any mental trouble at all, Maria

did not grow strong. Mr. Snow sent her no end of tonics; he ordered her

all kinds of dainties; he sat and chatted and joked with her by the

half-hour together: and it availed not. She was about again, as the

saying runs, but she remained lamentably weak. "You don't make an effort

to rouse yourself," Mr. Snow would say, rapping his stick in displeasure

upon the floor as he spoke. Well, perhaps she did not: the simple fact

was, that there was neither health nor spirit within her to make the

effort.

Circumstances were cruelly against her. She might have battled with the

bankruptcy--with the shock and the disgrace; she might have battled with

the discomforts of their fallen position, with the painful consciousness

of the distress cast upon many a home, with the humiliation dealt out to

herself as her own special portion by the pious pharisees around; she

might have battled with the vague prospects of the future, hopeless

though they looked: women equally sensitive, good, refined as Maria,

have had to contend with all this, and have survived it. But what Maria

could not battle with; what had told upon her heart and her spirit more

than all the rest, was that dreadful shock touching her husband. She had

loved him passionately, she had trusted him wholly; in her blind faith

she had never cast as much as a thought to the _possibility_ that he

could be untrue to his allegiance: and she had been obliged to learn

that--infidelity forms part of a man's frail nature. It had dashed to

the ground the faith and love of years; it had outraged every feeling of

her heart; it seemed to have destroyed her trust in all mankind.

Implicit faith! pure love! trust that she had deemed stronger than

death!--all had been rent in one moment, and the shock had been greater

than was her strength to endure. It was just as when one cuts a cord

asunder. Anything, anything but this! She could have borne with George

in his crime and disgrace, and clung to him when the world shunned him;

had he been sent out to Van Diemen's Land, the felon that he might have

been, she could have crept by his side and loved him still. But this was

different. To a woman of refined feeling, as was Maria, loving

trustingly, it was as the very sharpest point of human agony. It must be

so. She had reposed calmly in the belief that she was all in all to him:

and she awoke to find that she was no more to him than were others. They

had lived, as she fondly thought, in a world of their own, a world of

tenderness, of love, of unity; she and he alone; and now she learnt that

his world at least had not been so exclusive. Apart from more sacred

feelings that were outraged, it brought to her the most bitter

humiliation. She seemed to have sunk down to a level she scarcely knew

with what. It was not the broad and bare infidelity: at that a

gentlewoman scarcely likes to glance; but it was the fading away of all

the purity and romance which had enshrined them round, as with a halo,

they alone, apart from the world. In one unexpected moment, as a flash

of lightning will blast a forest tree and strip it of its foliage,

leaving it bare--withered--helpless--so had that blow rent the heart's

life of Maria Godolphin. And she did not grow strong.

Yes. Thomas Godolphin was dying at Ashlydyat, Maria was breaking her

heart in her lonely lodgings, Prior's Ash was suffering in its homes;

but where was the cause of it all--Mr. George? Mr. George was in London.

Looking after something to do, he told Maria. Probably he was. He knew

that he had his wife and child upon his hands, and that something must

be done, and speedily, or the wolf would come to the door. Lord Averil,

good and forgiving as was Thomas Godolphin, had promised George to try

and get him some post abroad--for George had confessed to him that he

did not care to remain in England. But the prospect was a remote one at

best: and it was necessary that George should exert himself while it

came. So he was in town looking after the something, and meanwhile not

by any means breaking _his_ heart in regrets, or living as an anchorite

up in a garret. Maria heard from him, and of him. Once a week, at least,

he wrote to her, sometimes oftener; affectionate and gay letters. Loving

words to herself, kisses and stories for Meta, teasings and jokes for

Margery. He was friendly with the Verralls--which Prior's Ash wondered

at; and would now and then be seen riding in the Park with Mrs.

Charlotte Pain--the gossip of which was duly chronicled to Maria by her

gossiping acquaintance. Maria was silent on the one subject, but she did

write a word of remonstrance to him about his friendship with Mr.

Verrall. It was scarcely seemly, she intimated, after what people had

said. George wrote her word back that she knew nothing about it; that

people had taken up a false notion altogether. Verrall was a good fellow

at heart; what had happened was not his fault, but the fault of certain

men with whom he, Verrall, had been connected; and Verrall was showing

himself a good friend now, and he did not know what he should do without

him.

"A warm bright day like this, and I find you moping and stewing on that

sofa! I'll tell you what it is, Mrs. George Godolphin, you are trying to

make yourself into a chronic invalid."

Mr. Snow's voice, in its serio-comic accent, might be heard at the top

of the house as he spoke. It was his way.

"I am better than I was," answered Maria. "I shall get well some time."

"Some time! It's to be hoped you will. But you are not doing much

yourself towards it. Have the French left you a cloak and bonnet, pray?"

Maria smiled at his joke. She knew he alluded to the bankruptcy

commissioners. When Mr. Snow was a boy, the English and French were at

war, and he generally used the word French in a jesting way to designate

enemies.

"They left me all," she said.

"Then be so good as to put them on. I don't terminate this visit until I

have seen you out of doors."

To contend would be more trouble than to obey. She wrapped herself up

and went out with Mr. Snow. Her steps were almost too feeble to walk

alone.

"See the lovely day it is! And you, an invalid, suffering from nothing

but dumps, not to be out in it! It's nearly as warm as September.

Halloa, young lady! are you planting cabbages?"

They had turned an angle and come upon Miss Meta. She was digging away

with a child's spade, scattering mould over the path; her woollen shawl,

put on for warmth, had turned round, and her hat had fallen back, with

the ardour of her labours. David Jekyl, who was digging to more purpose

close by, was grumbling at the scattered mould on his clean paths.

"I'll sweep it up, David: I'll sweep it up!" the young lady said.

"Fine sweeping it 'ud be!" grunted David.

"I declare it's as warm as summer in this path!" cried Mr. Snow. "Now

mind, Mrs. George, you shall stay here for half an hour; and if you grow

tired there's a bench to sit upon. Little damsel, if mamma goes indoors,

you tell me the next time I come. She is to stay out."

"I'll not tell of mamma," said Meta, throwing down her spade and turning

her earnest eyes, her rosy cheeks, full on Mr. Snow.

He laughed as he walked away. "You are to stay out for the half-hour,

mind you, Mrs. George. I insist upon it."

Direct disobedience would not have been expedient, if only in the light

of example to Meta; but Maria had rather been out on any other day, or

been ordered to any other path. This was the first time she had seen

David Jekyl since the Bank had failed, and his father's loss was very

present to her.

"How are you, David?" she inquired.

"I'm among the middlins," shortly answered David.

"And your father? I heard he was ill."

"So he is ill. He couldn't be worser."

"I suppose the coming winter is against him?"

"Other things are again him as well as the coming winter," returned

David. "Fretting, for one."

Ah, how bitter it all was! But David did not mean to allude in any

offensive manner to the past, or to hurt the feelings of George

Godolphin's wife. It was his way.

"Is Jonathan better?" she asked.

"He isn't of much account, since he got that hurt," was David's answer.

"Doing about three days' work in a week! It's to be hoped times 'll

mend."

Maria walked slowly to and fro in the sunny path, saying a word or two

to David now and then, but choosing safer subjects; the weather, the

flowers under his charge, the vegetables already nipped with frost. She

looked very ill. Her face thin and white, her soft sweet eyes larger and

darker than was natural. Her hands were wrapped in the cloak for warmth,

and her steps were unequal. Crusty David actually ventured on a little

bit of civility.

"_You_ don't seem to get about over quick, ma'am."

"Not very, David. But I feel better than I did."

She sat down on the bench, and Meta came flying to her, spade in hand.

Might she plant a gooseberry-tree, and have all the gooseberries off it

next year for herself?

Maria stroked the child's hair from her flushed face as she answered.

Meta flew off to find the "tree;" and Maria sat on, plunged in a train

of thought which the question had led to. Where should they be at the

gooseberry season next year? In that same dwelling? Would George's

prospects have become more certain then?

"Now then! Is that the way you dig?"

The sharp words came from Margery, who had looked out at the kitchen

window and caught sight of Miss Meta rolling in the mould. The child

jumped up laughing, and ran into the house for her skipping-rope.

"Have I been out half an hour, do you think, David?" Maria asked

by-and-by.

"Near upon 't," said David, without lifting his eyes.

She rose to pursue her way slowly indoors. She was so fatigued--and

there had been, so to say, no exertion--that she felt as if she could

never stir out again. Merely putting on and taking off her cloak was

almost beyond her. She let it fall from her shoulders, took off her

bonnet, and sank into an easy-chair.

From this she was aroused by hearing the gate hastily opened. Quick

footsteps came up the path, and a manly voice said something to David

Jekyl in a free, joking tone. She bounded up, her cheek flushing to

hectic, her heart beating. Could it be George?

No; it was her brother, Reginald Hastings. He came in with a great deal

of unnecessary noise and clatter. He had arrived from London only that

morning, he proceeded to tell Maria, and was going up again by the night

train.

"I say, Maria, how ill you look!"

Very ill indeed just then. The excitement of sudden expectation had

faded, leaving her whiter than before. Dark circles were round her eyes,

and her delicate hands, more feeble, more slender than of yore, moved

restlessly on her lap.

"I have been very feverish the last few weeks," she said. "I think I am

stronger. But I have been out for a walk and am tired."

"What did the little shaver die of?" asked Reginald.

"Of convulsions," she answered, her bodily weariness too great to speak

in anything but tones of apathy. "Why are you going up again so soon?

Have you a ship?"

Reginald nodded. "We have orders to join to-morrow at twelve. The

_Mary_, bound for China, six hundred tons. I know the mother would never

forgive me if I didn't come to say good-bye, so I thought I would have

two nights of it in the train."

"Are you going as second officer, Reginald?"

"Second officer!--no. I have not passed."

"Regy!"

"They are a confounded lot, that board!" broke out Mr. Reginald,

explosively. "I don't believe they know their own business. And as to

passing any one without once turning him, they won't do it. I should

like to know who has the money! You pay your guinea, and you don't pass.

Come up again next Monday, they say. Well, you do go up again, as you

want to pass; and you pay another half-guinea. I did so; and they turned

me again; said I didn't know seamanship. The owls! not know seamanship!

I! They took me, I expect, for one of those dainty middies in Green's

service who walk the deck in kid gloves all day. If there's one thing I

have at my fingers' ends it is seamanship. I could navigate a vessel all

over the world--and be hanged to the idiots! You can come again next

Monday, they said to me. I wish the _Times_ would show them up!"

"Did you go again?"

"Did I!--no," fumed Reginald. "Just to add to their pockets by another

half-guinea! I hadn't it to give, Maria. I just flung the whole lot

over, and went down to the first ship in the docks and engaged myself."

"As what?" she asked.

"As A. B."

"A. B.?" repeated Maria, puzzled. "You don't mean--surely you don't mean

before the mast?"

"Yes I do."

"Oh, Reginald!"

"It doesn't make much difference," cried Reginald in slighting tones.

"The second mates in some of those ships are not much better off than

the seamen. You must work, and the food's pretty much the same, except

at the skipper's table. Let a fellow rise to be first mate, and he is in

tolerably smooth water; but until then he must rough it. After this

voyage I'll go up again."

"But you might have shipped as third mate."

"I might--if I had taken my time to find a berth. But who was to keep me

the while? It takes fifteen shillings a week at the Sailors' Home,

besides odds and ends for yourself that you can't do without--smoke and

things. I couldn't bear to ask them for more at home. Only think how

long I've been on shore this time, Maria. I was knocking about London

for weeks over my navigation, preparing to pass.--And for the mummies to

turn me at last!"

Maria sighed. Poor Reginald's gloomy prospects were bringing her pain.

"There's another thing, Maria," he resumed. "If I had passed for second

mate, I don't see how I could go out as such. Where was my outfit to

come from? An officer--if he is on anything of a ship--must look spruce,

and have proper toggery. I am quite certain that to go out as second

mate on a good ship would have cost me twenty pounds, for additional

things that I couldn't do without. You can't get a sextant under three

pounds, second-hand, if it's worth having. You know I never could have

come upon them for twenty pounds at home, under their altered

circumstances."

Maria made no reply. Every word was going to her heart.

"Whereas, in shipping as a common seaman, I don't want to take much more

than you might tie up in a handkerchief. A fo'castle fellow can shift

any way aboard. And there's one advantage," ingenuously added Reginald;

"if I take no traps out with me, I can't lose them."

"But the discomfort?" breathed Maria.

"There's enough of that in any way, at sea. A little more or less is not

of much account in the long-run. It's all in the voyage. I wish I had

never been such a fool as to choose the sea. But I did choose it; so

it's of no use kicking against it now."

"I wish you were not going as you are!" said Maria earnestly. "I wish

you had shipped as third mate!"

"When a sailor can't afford the time to ship as he would, he must ship

as he can. Many a hundred has done the same before me. To one third mate

wanted in the port of London, there are scores and scores of able

seamen."

"What does mamma say to it?"

"Well, you know she can't afford to be fastidious now. She cried a bit,

but I told her I should be all right. Hard work and fo'castle living

won't break bones. The parson told me----"

"Don't, Reginald!"

"Papa, then. He told me it was a move in the right direction, and if I

would only go on so, I might make up for past shortcomings. I say, Isaac

told me to give you his love."

"Did you see much of him?"

"No. On a Sunday now and then. He doesn't much like his new post. They

are dreadfully over-worked, he says. It's quite a different thing from

what the Bank was down here."

"Will he stop in it?"

"Oh, he'll stop in it. Glad, too. It won't answer for him to be doing

nothing, when they can hardly keep themselves at home with the little

money screwed out from what's put aside for the Chisholms."

Reginald never meant to hurt her. He only spoke so in his

thoughtlessness. He rattled on.

"I saw George Godolphin last week. It was on the Monday, the day that

swindling board first turned me back. I flung the books anywhere, and

went out miles, to walk my passion off. I got into the Park, to Rotten

Row. It's precious empty at this season, not more than a dozen horses in

it; but who should be coming along but George Godolphin and Mrs. Pain

with a groom behind them. She was riding that beautiful horse of hers

that she used to cut a dash with here in the summer; the one that folks

said George gave----" Incautious Reginald coughed down the conclusion of

his sentence, whistled a bar or two of a sea-song, and then resumed:

"George was well mounted, too."

"Did you speak to them?" asked Maria.

"Of course I did," replied Reginald, with some surprise. "And Mrs. Pain

began scolding me for not having been to see her and the Verralls. She

made me promise to go the next evening. They live at a pretty place on

the banks of the Thames. You take the rail at Waterloo Station."

"Did you go?"

"Well, I did, as I had promised. But I didn't care much about it. I had

been at my books all day again, and in the evening, quite late, I

started. When I got there I found it was a tea-fight."

"A tea-fight!" echoed Maria, rather uncertain what the expression might

mean.

"A regular tea-fight," repeated Reginald. "A dozen folks, mostly ladies,

dressed up to the nines: and there was I in my worn-out sailor's jacket.

Charlotte began blowing me up for not coming to dinner, and she made me

go into the dining-room and had it brought up for me. Lots of good

things! I haven't tasted such a dinner since I've been on shore. Verrall

gave me some champagne."

"Was George there?" inquired Maria, putting the question with apparent

indifference.

"No, George wasn't there. Charlotte said if she had thought of it she'd

have invited Isaac to meet me: but Isaac was shy of them, she added, and

had never been down once, though she asked him several times. She's a

good-natured one, Maria, is that Charlotte Pain."

"Yes," quietly responded Maria.

"She told me she knew how young sailors get out of money in London, and

she shouldn't think of my standing the cost of responding to her

invitation; and she gave me a sovereign."

Maria's cheeks burnt. "You did not take it, Reginald?"

"Didn't I! it was quite a godsend. You don't know how scarce money has

been with me. Things have altered, you know, Maria. And Mrs. Pain knows

it too, and she has no stuck-up nonsense about her. She made me promise

to go and see them when I had passed.--But I have not passed," added

Reginald, by way of parenthesis. "And she said if I was at fault for a

home the next time I was looking out for a ship, she'd give me one, and

be happy to see me. And I thought it was very kind of her; for I am sure

she meant it. Oh--by the way--she said she thought you'd let her have

Meta up for a few weeks."

Maria involuntarily stretched out her hand--as if Meta were there, and

she would clasp her and withhold her from some threatened danger.

Reginald rose.

"You are not going yet, Regy?"

"I must. I only ran in for a few minutes. There's Grace to see and fifty

more folks, and they'll expect me home to dinner. I'll say good-bye to

Meta as I go through the garden. I saw she was there; but she did not

see me."

He bent to kiss her. Maria held his hand in hers. "I shall be thinking

of you always, Reginald. If you were only going under happier

circumstances!"

"Never mind me, Maria. It will be uphill work with most of us, I

suppose, for a time. I thought it the best thing I could do. I couldn't

bear to come upon them for more money at home."

"Yours will be a hard life."

"A sailor's is that, at best. Don't worry about me. I shall make it out

somehow. You make haste, Maria, and get strong. I'm sure you look ill

enough to frighten people."

She pressed his hands between hers, and the tears were filling her eyes

as she raised them--their expression one wild yearning. "Reginald, try

and do your duty," she whispered in an imploring tone. "Think always of

heaven, and try and work for it. It may be very near. I have learned to

think of it a great deal now."

"It's all right, Maria," was the careless and characteristic answer.

"It's a religious ship I'm going in this time. We have had to sign

articles for divine service on board at half-past ten every Sunday

morning."

He kissed her several times, and the door closed upon him. As Maria lay

back in her chair, she heard his voice outside for some time afterwards

laughing and talking with Meta, largely promising her a ship-load of

monkeys, parrots, and various other live wonders.

In this way or that, she was continually being reminded of the unhappy

past and their share in it; she was perpetually having brought before

her its disastrous effects upon others. Poor Reginald! entering upon his

hard life! This need not have been, had means not grown scarce at home.

Maria loved him best of all her brothers, and her very soul seemed to

ache with its remorse. And by some means or other, she was, as you see,

frequently learning that Mr. George was not breaking _his_ heart with

remorse. The suffering in all ways fell upon her.

And the time went on, and Maria Godolphin grew no stronger. It went on,

and instead of growing stronger she grew weaker. Mr. Snow could do

nothing more than he had done; he sent her tonic medicines still, and

called upon her now and then, as a friend more than as a doctor. The

strain was on the mind, he concluded, and time alone would heal it.

But Maria was worse than Mr. Snow or any one else thought. She had been

always so delicate-looking, so gentle, that her wan face, her sunken

spirits, attracted less attention than they would have done in one of a

more robust nature. No one glanced at the possibility of danger.

Margery's expressed opinion, "My mistress only wants rousing," was the

one universally adopted: and there may have been truth in it.

All question of Maria's going out of doors was over now. She was really

not equal to it. She would lie for hours together on her sofa, the

little child Meta gathered in her arms. Meta appeared to have changed

her very nature. Instead of dancing about incessantly, running into

every mischief, she was content to nestle to her mother's bosom and

listen to her whispered words, as if some foreshadowing were on her

spirit that she might not long have a mother to nestle to.

You must not think that Maria conformed to the usages of an invalid. She

was up before breakfast in the morning, she did not go to bed until the

usual hour at night, and she sat down to the customary meals with Meta.

She has risen from the breakfast-table now, on this fine morning, not at

all cold for late autumn, and Margery has carried away the

breakfast-things, and has told Miss Meta that if she will come out as

soon as her mamma has read to her, and have her things put on, she may

go and play in the garden.

But when the little Bible story was over, her mamma lay down on the

sofa, and Meta appeared inclined to do the same. She nestled on to it,

and lay down too, and kissed her mamma's face, so pretty still, and

began to chatter. It was a charming day, the sun shining on the few late

flowers, the sky blue and bright.

"Did you hear Margery say you might go out and play, darling? See how

fine it is."

"There's nothing to play with," said Meta.

"There are many things, dear. Your skipping-rope and hoop, and----"

"I'm tired of them," interposed Meta. "Mamma, I wish you'd come out and

play at something with me."

"I couldn't run, dear. I am not strong enough."

"When shall you be strong enough? How long will it be before you get

well?"

Maria did not answer. She lay with her eyes fixed upon the far-off sky,

her arm clasped round the child. "Meta, darling, I--I--am not sure that

I shall get well. I begin to think that I shall never go out with you

again."

Meta did not answer. She was looking out also, her eyes staring straight

at the blue sky.

"Meta, darling," resumed Maria in low tones, "you had two little sisters

once, and I cried when they died, but I am glad now that they went. They

are in heaven."

Meta looked up more fixedly, and pointed with her finger. "Up in the

blue sky?"

"Yes, up in heaven. Meta, I think I am going to them. It is a better

world than this."

"And me too," quickly cried Meta.

Maria laid her hand upon her bosom to press down the rising emotion.

"Meta, Meta, if I might only take you with me!" she breathed, straining

the child to her in an agony. The prospect of parting, which Maria had

begun to look at, was indeed hard to bear.

"You can't go and leave me," cried Meta in alarm. "Who'd take care of

me, mamma? Mamma, do you mean that you are going to die?"

Meta burst into tears. Maria cried with her. Oh reader, reader! do you

know what it is, this parting between mother and child? To lay a child

in the grave is bitter grief; but to leave it to the mercy of the

world!--there is nothing like unto it in human anguish.

Maria's arms were entwined around the little girl, clasping her

nervously, as if that might prevent the future parting; the soft rounded

cheek was pressed to hers, the golden curls lay around.

"Only for a little while, Meta. If I go first, it will be only for a

little while. You----" Maria stopped; her emotion had to be choked down.

"It is a happier world than this, Meta," she resumed, mastering it.

"There will be no pain there; no sickness, no sorrow. This world seems

made up of sorrow, Meta. Oh, child! but for God's love in holding out to

our view that other one, we could never bear this, when trouble comes.

God took your little sisters and brothers from it: and--I think--He is

taking me."

Meta turned her face downwards, and held her mother with a frightened

movement, her little fingers clasping the thin arms to pain.

"The winter is coming on here, my child, and the trees will soon be

bare; the snow will cover the earth, and we must wrap ourselves up from

it. But in that other world there will be no winter; no cold to chill

us; no summer heat to exhaust us. It will be a pleasant world, Meta; and

God will love us."

Meta was crying silently. "Let me go too, mamma."

"In a little while, darling. If God calls me first, it is His will," she

continued, the sobs breaking from her aching heart. "I shall ask Him to

take care of you after I am gone, and to bring you to me in time; I am

asking Him always."

"Who'll be my mamma then?" cried Meta, lifting her head in a bustle, as

the thought occurred to her.

More pain. Maria choked it down, and stroked the golden curls.

"You will have no mamma, then, in this world. Only papa."

Meta paused. "Will he take me to London, to Mrs. Pain?"

The startled shock that these simple words brought to Maria cannot well

be pictured: her breath stood still, her heart beat wildly. "Why do you

ask that?" she said, her tears suddenly dried.

Meta had to collect her childish thoughts to tell why. "When you were in

bed ill, and Mrs. Pain wrote me that pretty letter, she said if papa

would take me up to London she'd be my mamma for a little while, in

place of you."

The spell was broken. The happy visions of heaven, of love, had been

displaced for Maria. She lay quite silent, and in the stillness the

bells of All Souls' Church were heard ringing out a joyous peal on the

morning air. Meta clapped her hands and lifted her face, radiant now

with glee. Moods require not time to change in childhood: now sunshine,

now rain. Margery opened the door.

"Do you hear them, ma'am? The bells for Miss Cecil. They're as joyous as

the day. I said she'd have it fine, last night, when I found the wind

had changed. I can't bear to hear wedding-bells ring out on a wet day:

the two don't agree. Eh me! Why, here's Miss Rose coming in!"

Rose Hastings was walking up the path with a quick step, nodding at Meta

as she came along. That young lady slipped off the sofa, and ran out to

meet her, and Maria rose up from her sick position, and strove to look

her best.

"I have come for Meta," said Rose, as she entered. "Mamma thinks she

would like to see the wedding.--Will you let her come, Maria?"

Maria hesitated. "To the church, do you mean? Suppose she should not be

good?"

"I will be good," said Meta, in a high state of delight at the prospect.

"Mamma, I'll be very good."

She went with Margery to be dressed. Rose turned to her sister. "Are you

pretty well this morning, Maria?"

"Pretty well, Rose. I cannot boast of much strength yet."

"I wish you would return with me and Meta. Mamma told me to try and

bring you. To spend the day with us will be a change, and you need not

go near the church."

"I don't feel equal to it, Rose. I should not have strength to walk.

Tell mamma so, with my dear love."

"Only fancy!--she is to be married in a bonnet!" exclaimed Rose with

indignation. "A bonnet and a grey dress. I wonder Lord Averil consented

to it! I should hardly call it a wedding. A bonnet!--and no

breakfast!--and Bessy Godolphin and Lord Averil's sister, who is older

if anything than Bessy, for bridesmaids!"

"And only one clergyman," added Maria, her lips parting with a smile.

"Do you think the marriage will stand good, Rose?"

Rose felt inclined to resent the joke, for Maria was laughing at her.

But Meta came in, full of bustling excitement, eager to be gone. She

kissed her mamma in careless haste, and was impatient because Rose

lingered to say a word. Maria watched her down the path; her face and

eyes sparkling, her feet dancing with eagerness, her laughter ringing on

the air.

"She has forgotten already her tears for the parting that must come,"

murmured Maria. "How soon, I wonder, after I shall be gone, will she

forget me?"

She laid her temples lightly against the window-frame, as she looked

dreamily at the blue sky; as she listened dreamily to the sweet bells

that rang out so merrily in the ears of Prior's Ash.

CHAPTER II.

NEARER AND NEARER.

Prior's Ash lingered at its doors and windows, curious to witness the

outer signs of Cecilia Godolphin's wedding. The arrangements for it were

to them more a matter of speculation than of certainty, since various

rumours had gone afloat, and were eagerly caught up, although of the

most contradictory character. All that appeared certain as yet was--that

the day was charming and the bells were ringing.

How the beadle kept the gates that day, he alone knew. That staff of his

was brought a great deal more into requisition than was liked by the sea

of heads collected there. And when the first carriage came, the

excitement in the street was great.

The _first_ carriage! There were only two; that and another. Prior's Ash

turned up its disappointed nose, and wondered, with Rose Hastings, what

the world was coming to.

It was a chariot drawn by four horses. The livery of the postillions and

the coronet on the panels proclaimed it to be Lord Averil's. He sat

within it with Thomas Godolphin. The carriage following it was Lady

Godolphin's; it appeared to contain only ladies, all wearing bonnets and

coloured gowns. The exasperated gazers, who had bargained for something

very different, set up a half-groan.

They set up a whole one, those round the gates, when Lord Averil and his

friend alighted. But the groan was not one of exasperation, or of anger.

It was a low murmur of sorrow and sympathy, and it was called forth by

the appearance of Thomas Godolphin. It was some little time now since

Thomas Godolphin had been seen in public, and the change in him was

startling. He walked forward, leaning on the arm of Lord Averil, lifting

his hat to the greeting that was breathed around; a greeting of sorrow

meant, as he knew, not for the peer, but for him and his fading life.

The few scanty hairs stood out to their view as he uncovered his head,

and the ravages of the disease that was killing him were all too

conspicuous on his wasted features.

"God bless him! He's very nigh the grave."

Who said it, of the crowd, Thomas Godolphin could not tell, but the

words and their accent, full of rude sympathy, came distinctly upon his

ear. He quitted the viscount's arm, turned to them, and raised his hands

with a solemn meaning.

"God bless you all, my friends. I am indeed near the grave. Should there

be any here who have suffered injury through me, let them forgive me for

it. It was not intentionally done, and I may almost say that I am

expiating it with my life. May God bless you all, here and hereafter!"

Something like a sob burst from the astonished crowd. But that he had

hastened on with Lord Averil, they might have fallen on their knees and

clung to him in their flood-tide of respect and love.

The Reverend Mr. Hastings stood in his surplice at the altar. He, too,

was changed. The keen, vigorous, healthy man had now a grey, worn look.

He could not forgive the blow; minister though he was, he could not

forgive George Godolphin. He was not quite sure that he forgave Thomas

for not having looked more closely after his brother and the Bank

generally: had he done so, the calamity might never have occurred. Every

hour of the day reminded Mr. Hastings of his loss, in the discomforts

which had necessarily fallen upon his home, in the position of his

daughter Maria. George Godolphin had never been a favourite of his: he

had tried to like him in vain. The Rector of All Souls' was a man of

severe judgment, and rumour had made free with gay George's name.

Lord Averil was the first to enter. Cecilia Godolphin came next with

Thomas. She wore a light-grey silk robe, and a plain white bonnet,

trimmed with orange-blossoms. The Honourable Miss Averil and Bessy

Godolphin followed; their silk gowns of a darker shade of grey, and

their white bonnets without orange-blossoms. Lady Godolphin came next,

more resplendent than any, in a lemon brocaded silk, that stood on end

with richness.

Did the recollection of the last wedding service he had performed for a

Godolphin cause the Rector of All Souls' voice to be subdued now, as he

read? Seven years ago he had stood there as he was standing to-day,

George and Maria before him. How had that promising union ended? And for

the keeping of his sworn vows?--George best knew what he had kept and

what he had broken. The Rector was thinking of that past ceremony now.

This one was soon over. The promises were made, the register signed, and

Lord Averil was leading Cecilia from the church, when the Rector stepped

before them and took her hand.

"I pray God that your union may be more happy than some other unions

have been," he said. "That, in a great degree, rests with you, Lord

Averil. Take care of her."

Her eyes filled with tears, but the viscount grasped his hand warmly. "I

will; I will."

The beadle was rapping his stick on sundry heads with great effect, and

the excited crowd pushed and danced round that travelling carriage, but

they made their way to it. To hand in Cecil and take his place beside

her seemed to be but the work of a moment, so quickly did it pass, and

Lord Averil, a pleasant smile upon his face, bowed to the shouts on

either side as the carriage threaded its way through the throng. The

three ladies next stepped into their carriage, and Thomas Godolphin

turned into the Rectory. Mrs. Hastings, grey, worn, old--ten years older

than she had been six months before--came forward to greet him,

commiseration in every line of her countenance.

"I thought I would say good-bye to you," he said, as he held her hands

in his. "It will be my only opportunity. I expect this is my last

quitting of Ashlydyat."

"Say good-bye?" she faltered. "Are you--are you--so near----"

"Look at me," quietly said Thomas, answering her unfinished sentence.

But there was an interruption. Bustling little feet and a busy little

tongue came upon them. Miss Meta had broken from Rose and run in alone,

throwing her straw hat aside as she entered.

"Uncle Thomas! Uncle Thomas! I saw you at the wedding, Uncle Thomas."

He sat down and took the child upon his knee. "And I saw Meta," he

answered. "How is mamma? I am going to see her presently."

"Mamma's not well," said Meta, shaking her head. "Mamma cries often. She

was crying this morning. Uncle Thomas"--lowering her voice and speaking

slowly--"mamma says she's going to heaven."

There was a startled pause. Thomas broke it by laying his hand upon the

golden-haired head.

"I trust we are all going there, Meta. A little earlier or a little

later, as God shall will. It will not much matter which."

A few minutes' conversation, and Thomas Godolphin went out to the fly

which had been brought for him. Bexley, who was with it, helped him in.

"To Mrs. George Godolphin's."

The attentive old retainer--older by twenty years than Thomas, but

younger in health and vigour--carefully assisted his master up the path.

Maria saw the approach from the window. Why it was she knew not, but she

was feeling unusually ill that day: scarcely able to rise to a sitting

position on the sofa. Thomas was shocked at the alteration in her, and

involuntarily thought of the child's words, "Mamma says she's going to

heaven."

"I thought I should like to say farewell to you, Maria," he said, as he

drew a chair near her. "I did not expect to find you looking so ill."

She had burst into tears. Whether it was the unusual depression of her

own spirits, or his wan face, emotion overcame her.

"It has been too much for both of us," he murmured, holding her hands.

"We must forgive him, Maria. It was done in carelessness, perhaps, but

not wilfulness. Why do you not come to Ashlydyat sometimes? You know we

should be glad to see you."

She shook her head. "I cannot go out, Thomas. Indeed, I am not strong

enough for it now."

"But Maria, you should not give way to this grief; this weakness. You

are young; you have no incurable complaint, as I have."

"I don't know," she sighed. "At times I feel as though I should never be

well again. I--I--have been so reproached, Thomas; so much blame has

been cast on me by all people; it has been as if _I_ had made away with

their money; and you know that I was as innocent as they were. And there

have been other things. If--if----"

"If what?" asked Thomas, leaning over her.

She was sitting back upon the sofa, her fair young face wan and

colourless, her delicate hands clasped together, as in apathy. "If it

were not for leaving Meta, I should be glad to die!"

"Hush, Maria! Rather say you are glad to live for her sake. George may

by some means or other become prosperous again, and you may once more

have a happy home. You are young, I say; you must bear up against this

weakness."

"If I could only pay all we owe; our personal debts!" she whispered,

unconsciously giving utterance to the vain longing that was ever working

in her heart. "Papa's nine thousand pounds--and Mrs. Bond's ten

pounds--and the Jekyls--and the tradespeople!"

"If _I_ could only have paid!" he rejoined in a voice broken by emotion.

"If I could--if I could--I should have gone easier to the grave. Maria,

we have a God, remember, who sees all our pangs, all our bitter sorrow:

but for Him, and my trust in Him, I should have died long ago of the

pain."

Maria covered her face with her hand. Thomas rose.

"You are not going?" she exclaimed.

"Yes, for I must hasten home. This has been a morning of exertion, and I

find there's no strength left in me. God bless you, Maria!"

"Are we never to meet again?" she asked, as he held her thin hands in

his, and she looked up at him through her blinding tears.

"I hope we shall meet again, Maria, and be together for ever and for

ever. The threshold of the next world is opening to me: this is closing.

Fare you well, child; fare you well."

Bexley came to him as he opened the parlour door. Thomas asked for

Margery: he would have said a kind word to her. But Margery had gone

out.

Maria stood at the window, and watched him through her tears as he

walked down the path to the fly, supported by Bexley. The old man closed

the door on his master and took his seat by the driver. Thomas looked

forth as they drove away, and smiled a last farewell.

A farewell in the deepest sense of the word. It was the last look, the

last smile, that Maria would receive in this life, from Thomas

Godolphin.

CHAPTER III.

FOR THE LAST TIME.

In the old porch at Ashlydyat, of which you have heard so much, sat

Thomas Godolphin. An invalid chair had been placed there, and he lay

back on its pillows in the sun of the late autumn afternoon. A warm,

sunny autumn had it been; a real "Eté de St. Martin." He was feeling

wondrously well; almost, but for his ever-present sensation of weakness,

quite well. His fatigue of the previous day--that of Cecil's

wedding--had left no permanent effects upon him, and had he not known

thoroughly his own hopeless state, he might have fancied this afternoon

that he was about to get well all one way.

Not in looks. Pale, wan, ghastly were they; the shadow of the grim,

implacable visitor that was so soon to come was already on them; but the

face in its stillness told of ineffable peace: the brunt of the storm

had passed.

The white walls of Lady Godolphin's Folly glittered brightly in the

distance; the dark-blue sky was seen through the branches of the trees,

growing bare and more bare against the coming winter; the warm sun rays

fell on Thomas Godolphin. Margery came up, and he held out his hand.

"My mistress told me you'd have said good-bye to me yesterday, Mr.

Thomas, and it was just my ill-luck to be out. I had gone to take the

child's shoes to be mended--she wears them out fast. But you are not

going to leave us yet, sir?"

"I know not how soon it may be, Margery: very long it cannot be. Sit

down."

She stood yet, however, looking at him, disregarding the bench to which

he had pointed; stood with a saddened expression and compressed lips.

Margery's was an experienced eye, and it may be that she saw the shadow

which had taken up its abode on his face.

"You are going to see my old master and mistress, sir," she burst forth,

dashing some rebellious moisture from her eyes. "Mr. Thomas, do you

recollect it?--my poor mistress sat here in this porch the very day she

died."

"I remember it well, Margery. I am dying quietly, thank God, as my

mother died."

"And what a blessing it is when folks can die quietly, with their

conscience and all about 'em at peace!" ejaculated Margery. "I wonder

how Mr. George would have took it, if _he'd_ been called instead of you,

sir?"

There was considerable acidity, not to say sarcasm, in the remark;

perhaps not altogether suited to the scene and interview. Good Thomas

Godolphin would not see it or appear to notice it. He took Margery's

hands in his.

"I never thought once that I should die leaving you in debt, Margery,"

he said, his earnest tone bearing its own emotion. "It was always my

intention to bequeath you an annuity that would have kept you from want

in your old age. But it has been decreed otherwise; and it is of no use

to speak of what might have been. Miss Janet will refund to you by

degrees what you have lost in the Bank; and so long as you live you will

be welcome to a home with her. She has not much, but----"

"Now never fash yourself about me, Mr. Thomas," interrupted Margery. "I

shall do well, I dare say; I'm young enough yet for work, I hope; I

shan't starve. Ah, this world's nothing but a pack o' troubles," she

added, with a loud sigh. "It has brought its share to you, sir."

"I am on the threshold of a better, Margery," was his quiet answer; "one

where troubles cannot enter."

Margery sat for some time on the bench, talking to him. At length she

rose to depart, declining the invitation to enter the house or to see

the ladies, and Thomas said to her his last farewell.

"My late missis, I remember, looked once or twice during her illness as

grey as he does," she cogitated within herself as she went along. "But

it strikes me that with him it's death. I've a great mind to ask old

Snow what he thinks. If it is so, Mr. George ought to be telegraphed

for; they _are_ brothers, after all."

Margery's way led her past the turning to the railway station. A train

was just in. She cast an eye on the passengers coming from it, and in

one of them she saw her master, Mr. George Godolphin.

Margery halted and rubbed her eyes, and almost wondered whether it was a

vision. Her mind had been busy with the question, ought he, or ought he

not to be telegraphed for? and there he was, before her. Gay, handsome

George! with his ever-distinguished _entourage_--I don't know a better

word for it in English: his bearing, his attire, his person so

essentially the gentleman; his pleasant face and his winning smile.

That smile was directed to Margery as he came up. He bore in his hand a

small wicker-work basket, covered with delicate tissue paper. But for

the bent of Margery's thoughts at the time, she would not have been

particularly surprised at the sight, for Mr. George's visits to Prior's

Ash were generally impromptu ones, paid without warning. She met him

rather eagerly: speaking of the impulse that had been in her mind--to

send a message for him, on account of the state of his brother.

"Is he worse?" asked George eagerly.

"If ever I saw death written in a face, it's written in his, sir,"

returned Margery.

George considered a moment. "I think I will go up to Ashlydyat without

loss of time, then," he said, turning back. But he stopped to give the

basket into Margery's hands.

"It is for your mistress, Margery. How is she?"

"_She's_ nothing to boast of," replied Margery, in tones and with a

stress that might have awakened George's suspicions, had any fears with

reference to his wife's state yet penetrated his mind. But they had not.

"I wish she could get a little of life into her, and then health might

be the next thing to come," concluded Margery.

"Tell her I shall soon be home." And George Godolphin proceeded to

Ashlydyat.

It may be that he had not the faculty for distinguishing the different

indications that a countenance gives forth, or it may be that to find

his brother sitting in the porch disarmed his doubts, but certainly

George saw no reason to endorse the fears expressed by Margery. She had

entered into no details, and George had pictured Thomas as in bed. To

see him therefore sitting out of doors, quietly reading, certainly

lulled all George's present fears.

Not that the ravages in the worn form, the grey look in the pale face,

did not strike him as that face was lifted to his; struck him almost

with awe. For a few minutes their hands were locked together in silence.

Generous Thomas Godolphin! Never since the proceedings had terminated,

the daily details were over, had he breathed a word of the bankruptcy

and its unhappiness to George.

"George, I am glad to see you. I have been wishing for you all day. I

think you must have been sent here purposely."

"Margery sent me. I met her as I was coming from the train."

It was not to _Margery_ that Thomas Godolphin had alluded--but he let it

pass. "Sent purposely," he repeated aloud. "George, I think the end is

very near."

"But you are surely better?" returned George, speaking in impulse.

"Unless you were better, would you be sitting here?"

"Do you remember, George, my mother sat here in the afternoon of the day

she died? A feeling came over me to-day that I should enjoy a breath of

the open air; but it was not until after they had brought my chair out

and I was installed in it, that I thought of my mother. It struck me as

being a curious coincidence; almost an omen. Margery recollected the

circumstance, and spoke of it."

The words imparted a strange sensation to George, a shivering dread.

"Are you in much pain, Thomas?" he asked.

"Not much; a little, at times; but the great agony that used to come

upon me has quite passed. As it did with my mother, you know."

Could George Godolphin help the feeling of bitter contrition that came

over him? He had been less than man, lower than human, had he helped it.

Perhaps the full self-reproach of his conduct never came home to him as

it came now. With all his faults, his lightness, he loved his brother:

and it seemed that it was he--he--who had made the face wan, the hair

grey, who had broken the already sufficiently stricken heart, and had

sent him to his grave before his time.

"It is my fault," he spoke in his emotion. "But for me, Thomas, you

might have been with us, at any rate, another year or two. The trouble

has told upon you."

"Yes, it has told upon me," Thomas quietly answered. There was nothing

else that he could answer.

"Don't think of it, Thomas," was the imploring prayer. "It cannot be

helped now."

"No, it cannot be helped," Thomas rejoined. But he did not add that,

even now, it was disturbing his death-bed. "George," he said, pressing

his brother's hands, "but that it seems so great an improbability, I

would ask you to repay to our poor neighbours and friends what they have

lost, should it ever be in your power. Who knows but you may be rich

some time? You are young and capable, and the world is before you. If

so, think of them; it is my last request to you."

"It would be my own wish to do it," gravely answered George. "But do not

think of it now, Thomas; do not let it trouble you."

"It does not trouble me much now. The thought of the wrong inflicted on

them is ever present with me, but I am content to leave that, and all

else, in the care of the all-powerful, ever-merciful God. He can

recompense better than I could, even had I my energies and life left to

me."

There was a pause. George loosed his brother's hands and took the seat

on the bench where Margery had sat; the very seat where he had once sat

with his two sticks, in his weakness, years before, when the stranger,

Mr. Appleby, came up and inquired for Mr. Verrall. Why or wherefore it

should have come, George could not tell, but that day flashed over his

memory now. Oh, the bitter remembrance! He had been a lightsome man

then, without care, free from that depressing incubus that must, or that

ought to, weigh down the soul--cruel wrong inflicted on his

fellow-toilers in the great journey of life. And now? He had brought the

evil of poverty upon himself, the taint of disgrace upon his name; he

had driven his sisters from their home; had sent that fair and proud

inheritance of the Godolphins, Ashlydyat, into the market; and had

hastened the passage of his brother to the grave. Ay! dash your bright

hair from your brow as you will, George Godolphin!--pass your cambric

handkerchief over your heated face!--you cannot dash away remembrance.

You have done all this, and the consciousness is very present with you.

Thomas Godolphin interrupted his reflections, bending towards George his

wasted features. "George, what are your prospects?"

"I have tried to get into something or other in London, but my trying

has been useless. All places that are worth having are so soon snapped

up. I have been offered a post in Calcutta, and I think I shall accept

it. If I find that Maria has no objection to go out, I shall: I came

down to-day to talk it over with her."

"Is it through Lord Averil?"

"Yes. He wrote to me yesterday morning before he went to church with

Cecil. I received the letter by the evening mail, and came off this

morning."

"And what is the appointment? Is it in the civil service?"

"Nothing so grand--in sound, at any rate. It's only mercantile. The

situation is at an indigo merchant's, or planter's; I am not sure which.

But it's a good appointment; one that a gentleman may accept; and the

pay is liberal. Lord Averil urges it upon me. These merchants--they are

brothers--are friends of his. If I decline it, he will try for a civil

appointment for me; but to obtain one might take a considerable time:

and there might be other difficulties in the way."

"Yes," said Thomas shortly. "By the little I can judge, this appears to

me to be just what will suit you."

"I think so. If I accept it, I shall have to start with the new year. I

saw the agents of the house in town this morning, and they tell me it is

quite a first-class appointment for a mercantile one. I hope Maria will

not dislike to go."

They sat there conversing until the sun had set. George pointed out to

his brother's notice that the air was growing cold, but Thomas only

smiled in answer: it was not the night air, hot or cold, that could any

longer affect Thomas Godolphin. But he said that he might as well go in,

and took George's arm to support his feeble steps.

"Is no one at home?" inquired George, finding the usual sitting-room

empty.

"They are at Lady Godolphin's," replied Thomas, alluding to his sisters.

"Bessy goes there for good next week, and certain arrangements have to

be made, so they walked over this afternoon just before you came up."

George sat down. To find his sisters absent was a relief. Since the

unhappy explosion, George had always felt as a guilty schoolboy in the

presence of Janet. He remained a short time, and then rose to depart.

"I'll come up and see you in the morning, Thomas."

Was there any prevision of what the night would bring forth in the mind

of Thomas Godolphin? It might be. He entwined in his the hands held out

to him.

"God bless you, George! God bless you, and keep you always!" And a lump,

not at all familiar to George Godolphin's throat, rose in it as he went

out from the presence of his brother.

It was one of those charmingly clear evenings that bring a sensation of

tranquillity to the senses. Daylight could not be said to have quite

faded, but the moon was up, its rays shining brighter and brighter with

every departing moment of day. As George passed Lady Godolphin's Folly,

Janet was coming from it.

He could not avoid her. I do not say that he wished to do so, but he

could not if he had wished it. They stood talking together for some

time; of Thomas's state; of this Calcutta prospect of George's, for

Janet had heard something of it from Lord Averil; and she questioned him

closely on other subjects. It was growing quite night when Janet made a

movement homewards, and George could do no less than attend her.

"I thought Bessy was with you," he remarked, as they walked along.

"She is remaining an hour or two longer with Lady Godolphin; but it was

time I came home to Thomas. When do you say you must sail, George?"

"The beginning of the year. My salary will commence with the first of

January, and I ought to be off that day. I don't know whether that will

give Maria sufficient time for preparation."

"Sufficient time!" repeated Miss Godolphin. "Will she want to take out a

ship's cargo? I should think she might be ready in a tithe of it. Shall

you take the child?"

"Oh yes," he hastily answered; "I could not go without Meta. And I am

sure Maria would not consent to be separated from her. I hope Maria will

not object to going on her own score."

"Nonsense!" returned Janet. "She will have the sense to see that it is a

remarkable piece of good fortune, far better than you had any right to

expect. Let me recommend you to put by half your salary, George. It is a

very handsome one, and you may do it if you will. Take a lesson from the

past."

"Yes," replied George, with a twitch of conscience. "I wonder if the

climate will try Maria?"

"I trust that the change will be good for her in all ways," said Janet

emphatically. "Depend upon it she will be only too thankful to turn her

back on Prior's Ash. She will not get strong as long as she stops in it,

or so long as your prospects are uncertain, doing nothing, as you are

now. _I_ can't make out, for my part, how you live."

"You might easily guess that I have been helped a little, Janet."

"By one that _I_ would not be helped by if I were starving," severely

rejoined Janet. "You allude, I presume, to Mr. Verrall?"

George did allude to Mr. Verrall; but he avoided a direct answer. "All

that I borrow I shall return," he said, "as soon as it is in my power to

do so. It is not much: and it is given and received as a loan only. What

do you think of Thomas?" he asked, willing to change the subject.

"I think----" Janet stopped. Her voice died away to a whisper, and

finally ceased. They had taken the path home round by the ash-trees. The

Dark Plain lay stretched before them in the moonlight. In the brightest

night the gorse-bushes gave the place a shadowy, weird-like appearance,

but never had the moonlight on the plain been clearer, whiter, brighter

than it was now. And the Shadow?

The ominous Shadow of Ashlydyat lay there: the Shadow which had clung to

the fortunes of the Godolphins, as tradition said, in past ages; which

had certainly followed the present race. But the blackness that had

characterized it was absent from it now: the Shadow was undoubtedly

there, but had eyes been looking on it less accustomed to its form than

were Miss Godolphin's, they might have failed to make out distinctly its

outlines. It was of a light, faint hue; more as the reflection of the

Shadow, if it may be so expressed.

"George! do you notice?" she breathed.

"I see it," he answered.

"But do you notice its peculiarity--its faint appearance? I should

say--I should say that it is indeed going from us; that it must be about

the last time it will follow the Godolphins. With the wresting from them

of Ashlydyat the curse was to die out."

She sat down on the bench under the ash-trees, and was speaking in low,

dreamy tones: but George heard every word, and the topic was not

particularly palatable to him. He could only remember that it was he and

no other who had caused them to lose Ashlydyat.

"Your brother will not be here long," murmured Janet. "That warning is

for the last chief of the Godolphins."

"Oh, Janet! I wish you were not so superstitious! Of course we know--it

is patent to us all--that Thomas cannot last long: a few days, a few

hours even, may close his life. Why should you connect with him that

wretched Shadow?"

"I know what I know, and I have seen what I have seen," was the reply of

Janet, spoken slowly; nay, solemnly. "It is no wonder that _you_ wish to

ignore it, to affect to disbelieve in it; but you can do neither the one

nor the other, George Godolphin."

George gave no answering argument. It may be that he had felt he had

forfeited the right to argue with Janet. She again broke the silence.

"I have watched and watched; but never once, since the day that those

horrible misfortunes fell, has that Shadow appeared. I thought it had

gone for good; I thought that our ruin, the passing of Ashlydyat into

the possession of strangers, was the working out of the curse. But it

seems it has come again; for the last time, as I believe. And it is only

in accordance with the past, that the type of the curse should come to

shadow forth the death of the last Godolphin."

"You are complimentary to me, Janet," cried George good-humouredly.

"When poor Thomas shall have gone, I shall be here still, the last of

the Godolphins."

"_You!_" returned Janet, and her tone of scornful contempt, unconscious

as she might herself be of it, brought a sting to George's mind, a flush

to his brow. "You might be worthy of the name of Godolphin once, laddie,

but that's over. The last true Godolphin dies out with Thomas."

"How long are you going to sit here?" asked George, after a time, as she

gave no signs of moving.