by Ellen Wood
“Thomas, I charge you, never quit Ashlydyat.”
“I will not,” replied Thomas Godolphin.
“If you bring one home to it, and she would urge you to quit it, urge you until you have no will of your own left, do not yield to it. Do not listen to her. Break with her, let her go forth alone, rather than quit Ashlydyat.”
“Father, I will never, of my own free will, leave Ashlydyat. I promise you that, so far as I can hold control over human events, I will live and die in it.”
Certainly Sir George understood the promise and its meaning. There could be no mistaking that he did so, by the smile of content which from that moment overspread his countenance, lighting up with satisfaction even his dying eye. He lay for a considerable time still, and then suddenly called for Margery.
“You’ll tell your mistress that we can’t root up those bushes,” he said, as she approached. “It’s of no use trying. As fast as they are up from one place they grow in another. They’ll not hurt. Tell her I say so.”
“I’d get some quicklime, Sir George, and see what that would do,” was Margery’s response, and the words brought up a smile from one or two of her listeners, solemn moment though it was. Margery’s maxim was, never to contradict the dying, but to humour their hallucinations. “Obstinate things, those gorses!” she continued. “But, never you trouble about my mistress, sir: she don’t mind them.”
The children, standing round his bed, knew quite well that he was alluding to their mother, his first wife. Indeed, Lady Godolphin appeared to have passed entirely from his mind.
Again he lapsed into silence, and remained to all appearance in a stupor, his eyes closed, his breathing ominously slow. Mr. Crosse took his departure, but the Rector and surgeon stayed on yet. The latter saw that the final moment was at hand, and he whispered to Miss Godolphin that she and her sisters might be better from the room. “At any rate,” he added, for he saw the dissenting, displeased look which overspread her face, “it might be as well to spare the sight to Cecil.”
“No,” briefly responded Miss Godolphin. “Our place is here.” And they watched on.
With an impulse of strength surprising to see, Sir George suddenly rose up in bed, his eyes fixed with a yearning gaze at the opposite end of the room. Not at the cabinet this time, but at some spot, far, far up, beyond the ceiling, as it appeared. His voice, startling in its clearness, rang through the air, and his arms were outstretched as if he were about to fly.
“Janet! — Janet! — Janet! Oh, my dear Janet, I am coming!”
He fell back and died. Did anything really appear to him, not visible to the mortal eyes around? Were his senses, in that moment of the soul’s departure, opened to a glimpse of the world he was about to enter? It cannot be known. Had it been fiction it would not have been written here.
A little later, the bell of All Souls’ Church, booming out over the town on the night air, told that Sir George Godolphin had passed away.
It was somewhat remarkable that another funeral, at which Thomas Godolphin was again chief mourner, should follow so closely upon Ethel’s. A different sort of ceremony, this: a rare pageant. A pageant which was made up of plumes and trappings and decorated horses, and carriages and mutes and batons, and a line of attendants, and all the other insignia of the illustrious dead. Ethel could be interred simply and quietly, but Sir George must be attended to the grave as the Godolphin of Ashlydyat. I don’t suppose poor Sir George rested any the better for it.
Sir George made an equitable will, but it proved a vexatious one to his widow. Thomas had Ashlydyat: George, a fair sum of money; the Miss Godolphins, each her portion; and there were certain bequests to servants. But little was left to Lady Godolphin: indeed, the amount of the bequest was more in accordance with what might be willed to a friend, than to a wife. But, it was not in that that the grievance lay. Lady Godolphin had the Folly, she had Broomhead, and she had an ample income of her own. She was not a particularly covetous woman, and she had never expected or wished that Sir George should greatly take from his family, to add to it. No, it was not that: but the contents of a certain little codicil which was appended to the will. This codicil set forth that every article of furniture or property, which had been removed to the Folly from Ashlydyat, whatever might be its nature, and down to the minutest item, should be returned to Ashlydyat, and become the property of Thomas Godolphin.
It would pretty nearly strip the Folly, and my lady was very wrathful. Not for the value of the things: she sustained no injury there: for the codicil directed that a specified sum of money (their full value) should be handed over to Lady Godolphin to replace them with new at the Folly. But it struck upon her in the light of a slight, and she chose to resent it as one. It was specially enjoined that the things should be placed at Ashlydyat in the old spots where they had formerly stood.
But, be wrathful as she might, grumble as she would, there could be no rebellion to it in action. And Lady Godolphin had to bow to it.
CHAPTER XVII. A ROW ON THE WATER.
The time went on. Three months glided by; nay, four, for April had come in: and positions were changed. Thomas Godolphin was the resident master of Ashlydyat; Janet its acting mistress; Bessy and Cecil lived with them. George had taken up his residence at the bank, with Margery to look after his comforts, never to remove from it, as he supposed, unless Ashlydyat should fall to him. My lady had left the Folly for a permanency (unless any whim should at any time send her back to it), and the Verralls had taken it. It may be said that Lady Godolphin gave up the Folly in a fit of pique. When she found that the things were positively to go out of it, she protested that she would never replace them with others: she would rather throw the money, left for the purpose, into the midst of the sea. She would let it to any one who would take it, and go back to Broomhead for ever. Mr. Verrall heard of this, and made an application for it; and my lady, still smarting, let it to him off-hand, accepting him as a yearly tenant. Whether she repented, or not, when the deed was done, and her anger had cooled down, could not be told: she took her farewell and departed for Scotland without betraying signs of it. Many thought that she would return after a while to the place which she had so eagerly and fondly erected. Perhaps she might: she could get rid of the Verralls at any time by giving them due notice.
Thomas had settled down in his father’s place: head of the bank, head of all things, as Sir George had been; Mr. Godolphin, of Ashlydyat. Mr. George was head of himself alone. No one of very particular note was he: but I can tell you that a great many more anxious palpitations were cast to him from gentle bosoms, than were given to unapproachable Thomas. It seemed to be pretty generally conceded that Thomas Godolphin was wedded to the grave of Ethel. Perhaps his establishing his sisters at Ashlydyat, as their home, helped to further the opinion, and dash all hopes; but, very possible hopes from many quarters were wafted secretly to George. He would be no mean prize: with his good looks, his excellent position, and his presumptive heirdom to Ashlydyat.
April, I say, had come in. A sunny April. And these several changes had taken place, and the respective parties were settled in their new homes. It went forth to the world that the Verralls intended to give a brilliant fête, a sort of house-warming, as they styled it; and invitations were circulated far and wide. Amongst those favoured with one, were Mr. and the Miss Godolphins.
Janet was indignant. She could scarcely bring herself to decline it civilly. Cecil, who was not less fond of fêtes, and other gay inventions for killing time, than are pretty girls in general, would have given her head to go. It appeared that Mrs. Hastings also declined the invitation: and George Godolphin — who had no intention of declining it on his own score — resolved to know the reason why.
Though not a frequent visitor at the Rectory: for he could not go there much, in the teeth of discouragement so evident as had latterly been shown to him by Mr. Hastings, and depended mostly upon chance meetings in the street for keeping in exercise his love-vows to Maria: George resolved to g
o boldly down that evening.
Down he accordingly went. And was shown into an empty room. The Rector and Mrs. Hastings were out, the servant said, and the young ladies were in the study with the boys. She would tell them.
Maria came to him. There was no mistaking her start of surprise when she saw him, or the rush of emotion which overspread her face.
“Who did you think it was?” asked George.
“I thought it was your brother. She said ‘Mr. Godolphin.’ Grace will be down in an instant.”
“Will she?” returned George. “You had better go and tell her it’s Mr. George, and not Mr. Godolphin, and then she won’t hurry herself. I am not a favourite with Miss Grace, I fancy.”
Maria coloured. She had no excuse to offer for the fact, and she could not say that it was untrue. George stood with his elbow on the mantel-piece, looking down at her.
“Maria, I hear that Mrs. Hastings has declined to go to the Folly on Thursday. What’s that for?”
“I don’t know,” replied Maria. “We do not go very much amidst those unusually grand scenes,” she added, laughing. “Mamma says she always feels as much out of place in them as a fish does out of water. And I think, if papa had his own wish, we should never go within a mile of anything of the sort. He likes quiet social visiting, but not such entertainments as the Verralls give. He and mamma were consulting for a few minutes over the invitation, and then she directed Grace to write and decline it.”
“It is an awful shame!” responded George. “I thought I should have had you with me for a few hours that day, at any rate, Maria.”
Maria lifted her eyes. “It had nothing to do with me, George. I was not invited.”
“Not invited!” repeated George Godolphin.
“Only Grace. ‘Mrs. and Miss Hastings.’”
“What was that for?” he exclaimed. “Why were you left out?”
“I do not know,” replied Maria, bending her eyelids and speaking with involuntary hesitation. In her heart of hearts, Maria believed that she did know: but the last person she would have hinted it to, was George Godolphin. “Perhaps,” she added, “it may have been an omission, an oversight? Or, they may have so many to invite that they can only dispense their cards charily.”
“Moonshine!” cried George. “I shall take upon myself to ask Mrs. Verrall why you were left out.”
“Oh, George! pray don’t,” she uttered, feeling an invincible repugnance to have her name brought up in any such way. “Why should you? Had the invitation been sent to me, I should not have gone.”
“It is a slight,” he persisted. “A little later, and let any dare to show slight to you. They shall be taught better. A slight to you will be a slight to me.”
Maria looked at him timidly, and he bent his head with a fond smile. “I shall want somebody to keep house for me at the bank, you know, Maria.”
She coloured even to tears. Mr. George was proceeding to erase them after his own gallant fashion, when he was summarily brought-to by the entrance of Grace Hastings.
There was certainly no love lost between them. Grace did not like George, George did not like Grace. She took her seat demurely in her mother’s chair of state, with every apparent intention of sitting out his visit. So George cut it short.
“What did he come for?” Grace asked of Maria, when the servant had showed him out.
“He came to call.”
“You appeared to be in very close conversation when I came into the room,” pursued Grace, searching Maria with her keen eyes. “May I ask its purport?”
“Its purport was nothing wrong,” said Maria, her cheeks deepening under the inspection. “You question me, Grace, as if I were a child, and you possessed a right over me.”
“Well,” said Grace equably. “What was he talking of?”
Yielding, timid, sensitive Maria was one of the last to resist this sort of importunity. “We had been talking of the Verralls not including me in the invitation. George said it was a slight.”
“As of course it was,” assented Grace. “And, for that fact alone, I am glad mamma sent them a refusal. It was Charlotte Pain’s doings. She does not care that you should be brought too much into contact with George Godolphin, lest her chance should be perilled. Now, Maria, don’t pretend to look at me in that incredulous manner! You know as well as I do that George has a stupid liking for you; or, at least, acts as though he had. And that naturally is not pleasant to Charlotte Pain.”
Maria knew well that Grace had divined the true cause for the slight. She stood for a few minutes looking silent and humble: an intimation, even from Grace, that George “liked her,” jarred upon her refined sensitiveness, when openly alluded to. But that feeling was almost lost in the dull pain which the hint touching Charlotte had called up.
“Charlotte Pain is nothing to George Godolphin,” she resentfully said.
“Charlotte Pain is,” responded Grace. “And if your eyes are not yet opened to it, they ought to be. She is to be his wife.”
“Oh no, she is not,” hastily said Maria.
“Maria, I tell you that she is. I know it.”
Now Grace Hastings rarely made an assertion unless she had good grounds for it. Maria knew that. And the dull pain at her heart grew and grew, until it was beating with a sharp agony. She appeared impassive enough, looking down at her thin gold chain, which her fingers were unconsciously wreathing into knots. “You cannot know it, Grace.”
“I tell you I do. Mind you, I don’t say that they will inevitably be married; only, that they contemplate being so at present. Charlotte does well not to make too sure of him! George Godolphin may see half a dozen yet whom he will prefer to Charlotte Pain, in his roving, butterfly nature.”
Was Grace right? Not ten minutes before, Maria had listened to words from his lips which most surely intimated that it was herself George had chosen. Who was Charlotte? — who was Charlotte Pain, that she should thus thrust herself between them?
April, as we learn by its reputation, and by our own experience, mocks us with its weather: and not a few envious criticisers had prophesied showers, if not snow, for the fête at Lady Godolphin’s Folly. The unusually lovely weather which had marked the month, so far as it had gone, had put it into Mrs. Verrall’s head to give an outdoor entertainment. Mr. Verrall had himself suggested that the weather might change; that there was no dependence, at this season of the year, to be placed on it. But she would not give up her project. If the worst came to the worst at the last moment, she said, they must do the best they could with the people indoors.
But, for once, the weather was not fickle. The day rose warm, calm, beautifully bright, and by three o’clock in the afternoon most of the gay revellers had gathered at the Folly.
The grounds were dotted with them. These grounds, by the way, were chiefly the grounds of Ashlydyat; those belonging to the Folly being exceedingly limited in extent. Janet Godolphin drew down the blinds of Ashlydyat, that the eyesore might be shut out: but Cecil stole away to her room, and made herself a peep-hole — as the young Hastingses had done at Ethel Grame’s funeral — and looked out with covetous eyes. Janet had said something to Thomas about sending a hint to the Folly that the domains of Ashlydyat would not be open to the guests: but Thomas, with his quiet good sense, had negatived it.
Graceless George arrived as large as life, one of the first. He was making himself conspicuous among the many-coloured groups — or, perhaps it was, that they made him so, by gathering round him — when two figures in mourning came gliding up to him, one of whom spoke.
“How do you do, Mr. George Godolphin?”
George turned. And — careless and thoughtless as he was, graceless as he was reported to be — a shock of surprise, not unmixed with indignation, swept over his feelings: for those standing before him were Lady Sarah and Miss Grame.
She — Sarah Anne — looked like a shadow still; peevish, white, discontented. What brought them there? Was it thus that they showed their regret for the dead Ethel? —
Was it seemly that Sarah Anne should appear at a fête of gaiety in her weak, sickly state; not yet recovered from the effects of the fever; not yet out of the first deep mourning worn for Ethel?
“How do you do, Lady Sarah?” very gravely responded George Godolphin.
Lady Sarah may have discerned somewhat of his feeling from the expression of his face. Not that he intentionally suffered it to rise in reproof of her: George Godolphin did not set himself up in judgment against his fellows. He, indeed! Lady Sarah drew him aside with her, after he had shaken hands with Sarah Anne.
“I am sure it must look strange to you to see us here, Mr. George. But, poor child, she continues so weak and poorly, that I scarcely know what to do with her. She set her heart upon coming to this fête. Since Mrs. Verrall’s card arrived, she has talked of nothing else, and I thought it would not do to cross her. Is Mr. Godolphin here?”
“Oh no,” replied George, with more haste than he need have spoken.
“I thought he would not be. I remarked so to Sarah Anne, when she expressed a hope of seeing him: indeed, I think it was that hope which chiefly urged her to come. What have we done to him, Mr. George? He scarcely ever comes near the house.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” returned George. “I can see that my brother still feels his loss deeply. It may be, Lady Sarah, that visits to your house remind him too forcibly of Ethel.”
Lady Sarah lowered her voice to a confidential whisper: “Will he ever marry, think you?”
“At present I should be inclined to say he never would,” answered George, wondering what in the world it could matter to Lady Sarah, and thinking she showed little sorrow or consideration for the memory of Ethel. “But time works surprising changes,” he added: “and time may marry Mr. Godolphin.”
Lady Sarah paused. “How do you think she looks — my poor child?”