by Ellen Wood
“And you have really walked here all the way by yourself!” she resumed. “I am so glad! You will get well now all one way.”
“I don’t know about getting well ‘all one way,’ Charlotte. The doctors have been ordering me away for the winter.”
“For the winter!” repeated Charlotte, her tone growing sober. “What for? Where to?”
“To some place where the skies are more genial than in this cold climate of ours,” replied George. “If I wish to get thoroughly well, they say, I must start off next month, September, and not return until April.”
“But — should you go alone?”
“There’s the worst of it. We poor bachelors are like stray sheep — nobody owning us, nobody caring for us.”
“Take somebody with you,” suggested Charlotte.
“That’s easier said than done,” said George.
Charlotte threw one of her brilliant glances at him. She had risen, and was standing before him, all her attractions in full play. “There’s an old saying, Mr. George Godolphin, that where there’s a will, there’s a way,” quoth she.
George made a gallant answer, and they were progressing in each other’s good graces to their own content, when an interruption came to it. The same servant who had opened the door to the stranger entered.
“Miss Pain, if you please, my master says will you go up to him.”
“I declare you make me forget everything,” cried Charlotte to George, as she left the room. And picking up her King Charley, she threw it at him. “There! take care of him, Mr. George Godolphin, until I come back again.”
A few minutes after, George saw Mr. Verrall leave the house and cross the lawn. A servant behind him was bearing a small portmanteau and an overcoat, similar to the one the stranger had carried on his arm. Was Mr. Verrall also going to London?
CHAPTER XIX. ONE STICK DISCARDED.
The morning sun shone on the green lawn, on the clustering flowers, rich in many colours, sweet in their perfume, before the breakfast-room at Ashlydyat. The room itself was in shadow: as it is pleasant in summer for a room to be: but the windows stood open to the delights of outdoor life.
Janet presided at the breakfast-table. She always did preside there. Thomas, Bessy, and Cecil were disposed around her; leaving the side next the windows vacant, that nothing might come between them and the view of the summer’s morning. A summer that would soon be on the wane, for September was approaching.
“She ought to be here by four o’clock,” observed Bessy, continuing the conversation. “Otherwise, she cannot be here until seven. No train comes in from Farnley between four o’clock and seven, does it, Thomas?”
“I think not,” replied Thomas Godolphin. “But I really know very little about their branch lines. Stay. Farnley? No: I remember: I am sure that nothing comes in between four and seven.”
“Don’t fash yourselves,” said Janet with composure, who had been occupied with the urn. “When Mrs. Briscow sends me word she will arrive by the afternoon train, I know she can only mean the one that gets here at four o’clock: and I shall be there at four in the carriage to meet her. She is early in her ideas, and she would have called seven the night train.”
Cecil, who appeared to be more engaged in toying with the black ribbons that were flowing from the white sleeves round her pretty wrists, than in taking her breakfast, looked up at her sister. “How long is it since she was here last, Janet?”
“She was here the summer after your mother died.”
“All that time!” exclaimed Cecil. “It is very good of her to leave her home at her age, and come amongst us once again.”
“It is George who is bringing her here; I am sure of that,” returned Janet. “She was so concerned about his illness. She wants to see him now he is getting better. George was always her favourite.”
“How is George this morning?” inquired Thomas Godolphin.
“George is alive and pretty well,” replied a voice from the door, which had opened. There stood George himself.
Alive decidedly; but weak and wan still. He could walk with the help of one stick now.
“If I don’t make an effort — as somebody says, in that bookcase — I may remain a puny invalid for ever, like a woman. I thought I’d try and surprise you.”
They made a place for him, and placed a chair, and set good things before him; all in affectionate eagerness. But George Godolphin could not accomplish much breakfast yet. “My appetite is capricious, Janet,” he observed. “I think to-morrow I will try chocolate and milk.”
“A cup can be made at once, George, if you would like it.”
“No, I don’t care about it now. I suppose the doctors are right that I can’t get into proper order again, without change. A dull time of it, I shall have, whatever place they may exile me to.”
A question had been mooted, bringing somewhat of vexation in its discussion, as to who should accompany George. Whether he should be accompanied at all, in what he was pleased to term his exile: and if so, which of them should be chosen. Janet could not go; or thought she could not; Ashlydyat wanted her. Bessy was deep in her schools, her district-visiting, in parish affairs generally, and openly said she did not care to quit them just now. Cecil was perfectly ready and willing. Had George been going to the wilds of Africa, Cecil would have entered on the journey with enthusiasm: the outer world had attractions for Cecil and her inexperience. But Janet did not deem it expedient to trust pretty Cecil to the sole guardianship of thoughtless George, and that was put down ere Cecil had well spoken of it. George’s private opinion was — and he spoke it publicly — that he should be better without any of them than with them; that they would “only be a trouble.” On one point, he turned restive. Janet’s idea had been to despatch Margery with him; to see after his comforts, his medicines, his well-aired beds, and his beef-tea. Not if he knew it, George answered. Why not set him up at once with a lady’s-maid, and a nurse from the hospitals, in addition to Margery? And he was pleased to indulge in so much ridicule upon the point, as to anger Janet and offend Margery.
“I wish I knew some fellow who was going yachting for the next six months, and would give me boat-room,” observed George, stirring his tea listlessly.
“That would be an improvement!” said Janet, speaking in satire. “Six months’ sea-sickness and sea-drenching would about do for you what the fever has left undone.”
“So it might,” said George. “Only that we get over sea-sickness in a couple of days, and sea-drenchings are wholesome. However, don’t let it disturb your placidity: the yacht is wanting, and I am not likely to have the opportunity of trying it. No, thank you, Janet” — rejecting a plate she was offering him— “I cannot eat anything.”
“Mrs. Briscow comes to-day, George,” observed Bessy. “Janet is going to meet her at the station at four. She is coming purposely to see you.”
“Very amiable of the old lady!” responded George. “It’s a pity I am going out to dinner.”
Thomas looked surprised. George was not yet in precisely dinner-visiting condition.
“I have promised Mrs. Verrall to get as far as the Folly this afternoon, and stay and dine with them. En famille, you know.”
“Mr. Verrall is not at home,” said Bessy.
“But she and Charlotte are,” responded George.
“You know you must not be out in the night air, George.”
“I shall be home by sundown, or thereabouts. Not that the night air would hurt me now.”
“You cannot take rich dishes yet,” urged Bessy again.
“Bien entendu. Mrs. Verrall has ordered an array of invalid ones: mutton-broth à l’eau, and boiled whiting au naturel,” responded George, who appeared to have an answer ready for all dissentient propositions.
Janet interposed, looking and speaking very gravely. “George, it will be a great mark of disrespect to Mrs. Briscow, the lifelong friend of your father and your mother, not to be at home to sit at table with her the first day she is her
e. Only one thing could excuse your absence — urgent business. And, that, you have not to plead.”
George answered tartly. He was weak from his recent illness, and like many others under the same circumstances, did not like being crossed in trifles. “Janet, you are unreasonable. As if it were necessary that I should break a promise, just for the purpose of dining with an old woman! There will be plenty of other days to dine with her. And I shall be at home this evening before you have risen from table.”
“I beg you to speak of Mrs. Briscow with more respect, George. It cannot matter whether you dine at the Verralls’ to-day or another day,” persisted Janet. “I would not say a word against it, were it an engagement of consequence. You can go to the Folly any day.”
“But I choose to go to-day,” said George.
Janet fixed her deep eyes upon him, her gaze full of sad penetration, her voice changed to one of mourning. “Have those women cast a spell upon you, lad?”
It drove away George’s ill-humour. He burst into a laugh, and returned the gaze: openly enough. “Not they, Janet. Mrs. Verrall may have spells to cast, for aught I know: it’s Verrall’s business, not mine: but they have certainly not been directed to me. And Charlotte — —”
“Ay,” put in Janet in a lower tone, “what of Charlotte Pain?”
“This, Janet. That I can steer clear of any spells cast by Charlotte Pain. Not but that I admire Charlotte very much,” he added in a spirit of mischief. “I assure you I am quite a slave to her fascinations.”
“Keep you out of her fascinations, lad,” returned Janet in a tone of solemn meaning. “It is my first and best advice to you.”
“I will, Janet, when I find them growing dangerous.”
Janet said no more. There was that expression on her countenance which they well knew; telling of grievous dissatisfaction.
Rising earlier than his strength was as yet equal to, told upon George Godolphin: and by the middle of the day he felt so full of weariness and lassitude, that he was glad to throw himself on to the sofa in the large drawing-room, quiet and unoccupied then, wheeling the couch first of all with his feeble strength, close to the window, that he might be in the sunshine. Its warmth was grateful to him. He dropped asleep, and only woke considerably later, at the entrance of Cecil.
Cecil was dressed for the day, in a thin, flowing black dress, a jet necklace on her slender neck, jet bracelets on her fair arms. A fair flower was Cecilia Godolphin: none fairer within all the precincts of Prior’s Ash. She knelt down by George and kissed him.
“We have been in to glance at you two or three times, George. Margery has prepared something nice for you, and would have aroused you to take it, only she says sleep will do you as much good as food.”
“What’s the time?” asked George, too indolent to take his own watch from his pocket.
“Half-past three.”
“Nonsense!” cried George, partially starting up. “It can’t be so late as that.”
“It is, indeed. Janet has just driven off to the station. Don’t rise this minute: you are hot.”
“I wonder Janet let me sleep so long!”
“Why should she not? Janet has been very busy all day, and very — —”
“Cross?” put in George.
“I was going to say silent,” replied Cecil. “You vexed her this morning, George.”
“There was nothing that she need have been vexed at,” responded Mr. George.
Cecil remained for a few moments without speaking. “I think Janet is afraid of Charlotte Pain,” she presently said.
“Afraid of Charlotte Pain! In what way?”
“George” — lowering her voice, and running her fingers caressingly through his bright hair as he lay— “I wish you would let me ask you something.”
“Ask away,” replied George.
“Ay, but will you answer me?”
“That depends,” he laughed. “Ask away, Cely.”
“Is there anything between you and Charlotte Pain?”
“Plenty,” returned George in the lightest possible tone. “As there is between me and a dozen more young ladies. Charlotte, happening to be the nearest, gets most of me just now.”
“Plenty of what?”
“Talking and laughing and gossip. That’s about the extent of it, pretty Cely.”
Cecil wished he would be more serious. “Shall you be likely to marry her?” she breathed.
“Just as likely as I shall be to marry you,” and he spoke seriously now.
Cecil drew a sigh of relief. “Then, George, I will tell you what it is that has helped to vex Janet. You know our servants get talking to Mrs. Verrall’s, and her servants to ours. And the news was brought here that Charlotte Pain has said she should probably be going on a journey: a journey abroad, for six months or so: to some place where she should remain the winter. Margery told Janet: and — and — —”
“You construed it, between you, that Charlotte was going to be a partner in my exile! What droll people you must all be!”
“There’s no doubt, George, that Charlotte Pain was heard to say it.”
“I don’t know what she may have been heard to say. It could have borne no reference to my movements. Cecil?”
“Well?”
“Did you ever hear of old Max’s hounds losing their scent?”
“No — I don’t know. What do you mean?”
And while George Godolphin was laughing at her puzzled look, Margery came in. “Are you almost famished, Mr. George? How could you think of dropping off to sleep till you had had something to sustain you?”
“We often do things that we don’t ‘think’ to do, Margery,” quoth he, as he rose from the sofa.
Nothing more true, Mr. George Godolphin.
Ere long he was on his way to Mrs. Verrall’s. Notwithstanding Janet’s displeasure, he had no idea of foregoing his engagement. The society of two attractive women had more charms for listless George than quiet Ashlydyat. It was a lovely afternoon, less hot than it had been of late, and George really enjoyed it. He was beginning to walk so much better. That long sleep had rested and refreshed him, and he believed that he could walk well into Prior’s Ash. “I’ll try it to-morrow,” thought George.
Up the steps, over the terrace, across to the open windows of the Folly. It was the easiest way in, and George was not given to unnecessary ceremony. He supposed he might find the ladies in the drawing-room, and he stepped over the threshold.
Only one was there. Charlotte. She did not see him enter. She was before a pier-glass, holding up her dog, King Charley, that he might snarl and bark at the imaginary King Charley in the glass. That other dog of hers, the ugly Scotch terrier which you have heard of before, and a third, looking something like a bull-dog, were leaping and howling at her feet. It would appear that nothing pleased Charlotte better than putting her dogs into a fury. Charlotte wore a dark blue silk dress with shaded flounces, and a lighter blue silk jacket: the latter, ornamented with braidings and buttons of silver, somewhat after the fashion of her green riding-habit, and fitting as tightly to the shape. A well-formed shape! — and George Godolphin thought so, as she stood with her arms lifted, setting the dogs at the glass.
“Hi, King! Seize him, Charley! Go at him! — hiss! Tear him! bite him! — hiss-ss-ss! — —”
The noisy reception by the other dogs of Mr. George Godolphin, brought the young lady’s words and her pretty employment to a standstill. She released the imprisoned dog from her arms, letting him drop anywhere, and turned to George Godolphin.
“Have you come at last? I had given you up! I expected you an hour and a half ago.”
“And, to while away the time, you set your dogs on to snarl and fight!” returned he, as he took her hand. “I wonder you don’t go distracted with the noise, Charlotte!”
“You don’t like dogs! I often tell you so.”
“Yes, I do — in their proper places.”
Charlotte turned from him with a pout. The terrier jumped upo
n her.
“Down, Pluto, down! A gentleman here thinks I ought to hold you poor dogs at arm’s length.”
“At the yard’s length, if you please, Charlotte,” corrected George, who did not feel inclined to compromise his opinion. “Hark at them! they might be heard at Prior’s Ash.”
“And his name’s George Godolphin, good Pluto!” went on Charlotte, doing all she possibly could, in a quiet way, to excite the dogs. “Down, then, Pluto! down!”
“I should muzzle you, Mr. Pluto, if you were mine,” cried George, as the dog jumped up at him furiously, and then turned to attack his former adversary. “Pluto!” he continued, meaningly: “who gave him that name, Charlotte?”
“I did,” avowed Charlotte. “And I named this other one King Charley, after his species. And this one is Deuce. What have you to say against the names?”
“Nothing,” said George. “I think them very good, appropriate names,” he added, his lips parting.
They were certainly very good dogs — if to make a most excruciating noise constitutes merit. George Godolphin, his nerves still in a shattered condition, lifted his hand wearily to his forehead. It brought Charlotte Pain to her recollection.
“Oh, George, I forgot! I did, really! I forgot you were not as strong yet as the rest of us. Be quiet, then, you three horrid brutes! Be quiet, will you! Go off, and quarrel outside.”
Using her pointed toe rather liberally, Charlotte set herself to scatter the dogs. They were not very obedient. As soon as one was got out another sprang in, the noise never ceasing. Charlotte snatched up a basket of macaroons that happened to be on a side-table, and scattered the cakes on the terrace. “There, quarrel and fight over those!”
She put down the empty basket, closed the window to shut out the noise, and turned to George. Spreading out her dress on either side, after the manner once in vogue in ancient ballrooms she dropped him an elaborate curtsey.
“Mr. George Godolphin, what honour do you suppose is thrust upon me to-day?”
“You must tell me, Charlotte, if it’s one you wish me to know,” he answered. “I can never attempt to guess when I feel tired; as I do now.”