Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “Your walk has tired you?”

  “I suppose it has. Though I thought how well I felt as I came along.”

  “The great honour of entertaining you all by my own self is delegated to me,” cried Charlotte gaily, dropping another curtsey. “I hope we shall not quarrel, as those dogs are doing.”

  “The honour of entertaining me!” he repeated, not grasping her meaning. “Entertaining me for what?”

  “For dinner, sir. Mrs. Verrall has gone to London.”

  “No!” he exclaimed. He did not believe her.

  Charlotte nodded. “She went at midday.”

  “But what took her away so suddenly?” exclaimed George, in surprise. “She had no intention yesterday of going.”

  “A freak. Or, impulse — if you like the word better. Kate rarely acts upon anything else. She has been expecting Verrall home these last three days; but he has neither come nor written: and this morning, after the post was in, she suddenly declared she’d go to town, and see what was keeping him.”

  “They may cross each other on the road.”

  “Of course they may: and Kate have her journey for her pains. That’s nothing to her: she likes travelling. ‘What am I to do with Mr. George Godolphin? Entertain him?’ I said to her. ‘I suppose you can contrive to do it,’ she answered. ‘I suppose I could,’ I said. ‘But, what about its being proper?’ I asked,” added Charlotte, with a demure glance at George. “‘Oh,’ said Kate, ‘it’s proper enough, poor sick fellow: it would never do to disappoint him.’ Therefore, sir, please take care that you behave properly, considering that a young lady is your hostess.”

  She threw a laughing glance at George; and, sitting down at the table, took a pack of beautifully painted cards from an ivory box, and began that delectable game that the French call “Patience.” George watched her from the sofa where he was sitting. A certain thought had darted into his mind. What fit of prudence called it up? Did he think of Charlotte’s good? — or of his own? Did the recollection of what Cecil had whispered actuate him? It cannot be told. It was very far indeed from George Godolphin’s intention to make a wife of Charlotte Pain, and he may have deemed it well to avoid all situations where he might compromise himself by a hasty word. Such words are more easily dropped than taken up again. Or perhaps George, free and careless though he was, reflected that it was not altogether the thing for Charlotte Pain to entertain him alone. With all his faults, George Godolphin was a gentleman: and Charlotte was not altogether fitted for a gentleman’s wife.

  “I am glad of it, Charlotte,” he remarked. “I shall now have to make excuses to one only, instead of to two. I came to ask Mrs. Verrall to allow me to break through my engagement.”

  Charlotte had a knave in her hand, pondering where she could place it. She dropped it in her surprise.

  “I must dine at home to-day, Charlotte. An old friend of my father and mother’s, Mrs. Briscow, is arriving for dinner. I cannot be absent.”

  The flush deepened on Charlotte’s face. “It is unkind of you!” she resentfully said. “But I knew before what your promises are worth.”

  “Unkind? But, Charlotte, I did not know until this morning that Mrs. Briscow was coming to-day. There’s nothing unkind about it.”

  “It is unkind!” flashed Charlotte. “If you were not unkind, you would not leave me here alone, to pass a solitary evening and play at this wretched ‘patience.’”

  “But I am not going to leave you here. I wish to take you back with me to Ashlydyat to dinner. If you will put on your bonnet, we can be walking thither at once.”

  “You did not come intending to ask me.”

  “I did not. I did not know that Mrs. Verrall would be absent. But I ask you now, being alone as you say. And I intend to take you.”

  “What will Miss Godolphin say?”

  “Miss Godolphin will be very happy to see you.” Which little assertion Mr. George knew to contain more politeness than truth. “Will you get ready, Charlotte? I must be returning.”

  Charlotte pushed the cards from her in a heap, and came and stood before George Godolphin, turning herself about for his inspection. “Shall I do without further embellishment?” she asked.

  “Admirably,” was the gallant answer. “Why dress more for Ashlydyat than you would for home?”

  Charlotte marched to the glass and surveyed herself. “Just something in my hair,” she said, ringing the bell.

  A maid came in by her desire, and fastened some blue and silver flowers in her hair. Charlotte Pain wore her hair capriciously: rarely two days alike. To-day it was all strained back from the face, that most trying of all styles, let the features be ever so pretty. A shawl was thrown over her shoulders, and then she turned to George.

  “I am ready now.”

  “But your bonnet?” returned that gentleman, who had looked on with laughing eyes at the mysteries of the hair-dressing.

  “I shall not put on a bonnet,” she said. “They can bring it to me to Ashlydyat, for returning at night. People won’t meet us: the road’s not a public road. And if they should meet us,” she added, laughing, “they will rejoice in the opportunity of seeing me abroad like this. It will be food for Prior’s Ash.”

  So they started. Charlotte would not take his arm: she said he must take hers: he needed support and she did not. That, George would not agree to: and they strolled on, side by side, resting on benches occasionally. George found he had not much to boast of yet, in the way of strength.

  “Who’s this, coming up?” exclaimed Charlotte, when they had almost gained Ashlydyat, and were resting for the last time.

  George followed the direction of her eyes. Advancing towards Ashlydyat was a lady, her grey silk dress gleaming in the sun, a light Cashmere shawl folded round her. There was no mistaking the ladylike figure of Mrs. Hastings.

  “Is she to be one of your dinner-party?”

  “Not that I am aware of.”

  Mrs. Hastings joined them. She sat down on a bench by George’s side, affectionately inquiring into his state of health, speaking kindly and truthfully her pleasure at seeing him, so far, well again. Whatever prejudice may have been taken against George Godolphin by the Rector of All Souls’, it did not extend to his wife. She liked him much.

  “I am getting on famously,” said George, in a merry tone. “I have promoted myself now to one stick: until yesterday I was forced to use two. You are going to Ashlydyat, Mrs. Hastings?”

  “I wish to say a few words to Bessy. We have discovered something unpleasant relating to one of the schools, in which the under-mistress is mixed up. A good deal of deceit has been going on, in fact. Mr. Hastings says Bessy ought to hear of it at once, for she was as much interested in it as we are. So I came up.”

  Mrs. Hastings, in speaking, had taken two or three glances at Charlotte’s head. That young lady set herself to explain. Mr. George Godolphin had given her an impromptu invitation to go back with him to dine at Ashlydyat.

  Then George explained. He had been engaged to dine at the Folly: but found, on arriving, that Mrs. Verrall had departed for London. “My friends are all kind to me, Mrs. Hastings,” he observed. “They insist upon it that a change of a few hours must benefit me, and encumber themselves with the trouble of a fanciful invalid.”

  “I am sure there’s nothing like change and amusement for one growing convalescent,” said Charlotte.

  “Will you let us contribute in some little way to it?” asked Mrs. Hastings of George. “If a few hours’ sojourn in our quiet house would be agreeable to you, you know that we should only be too happy for you to try it.”

  “I should like it of all things,” cried George, impulsively, “I cannot walk far yet without resting, and it is pleasant to sit a few hours at my walk’s end, before I begin to start back again. I shall soon extend my journeys to Prior’s Ash.”

  “Then come to us the first day that you feel able to get as far. You will always find some of us at home. We will dine at any hour you like, and you shall c
hoose your own dinner.”

  “A bargain,” said George.

  They rose to pursue their way to Ashlydyat. Mrs. Hastings offered her arm to George, and he took it with thanks. “He would not take mine!” thought Charlotte, and she flashed an angry glance at him.

  The fact was, that for some considerable time Charlotte Pain had put Maria Hastings almost out of her head, as regarded her relations to George Godolphin. Whatever reason she may have seen at Broomhead to believe he was attached to Maria, the impression had since faded away. In the spring, before his illness, George had been much more with her than with Maria. This was not entirely George’s fault: the Rectory did not court him: Charlotte Pain and the Folly did. A week had now passed since Mr. Verrall’s departure for town, when George and his sticks appeared at the Folly for the first time after his illness; and, not a day of that week since but George and Charlotte had met. Altogether, her hopes of winning the prize had gone up to enthusiastic heat; and Charlotte believed the greatest prize in the world — taking all his advantages collectively — to be George Godolphin. George went at once to his sister Janet’s chamber. She was in it, dressing for dinner, after bringing her aged guest, Mrs. Briscow, from the station. He knocked at the door with his stick, and was told to enter.

  Janet was before the glass in her black silk dress, trimmed heavily with crape still. She was putting on her sober cap, a white one, with black ribbons. Janet Godolphin had taken to wear caps at thirty years of age: her hair, like Thomas’s, was thin; and she was not troubled with cares of making herself appear younger than she was.

  “Come in, George,” she said, turning to him without any appearance of surprise.

  “See how good I am, Janet!” he cried, throwing himself wearily into a chair. “I have come back to dine with you.”

  “I saw you from the window. You have been walking too far!”

  “Only to the Folly and back. But I sauntered about, looking at the flowers, and that tires one far worse than bearing on steadily.”

  “Ay. Lay yourself down on that couch at full length, lad. Mrs. Hastings is here, I see. And — was that other Charlotte Pain?”

  “Yes,” replied George, disregarding the injunction to lie down.

  “Did she come from the Folly in that guise? — Nothing on her head but those flowers? I could see no bonnet even in her hand.”

  “It is to be sent after her. Janet” — passing quickly from the other matter— “she has come to dine with us.”

  Miss Godolphin turned in amazement, and fixed her eyes reproachfully on George. “To dine with us? — to-day? Have you been asking her?”

  “Janet, I could not well help myself. When I got to Lady Godolphin’s Folly, I found Charlotte alone: Mrs. Verrall has departed for town. To break through my engagement there, I proposed that Charlotte should come here.”

  “Nay,” said Janet, “your engagement was already broken, if Mrs. Verrall was away.”

  “Not so. Charlotte expected me to remain.”

  “Herself your sole entertainer?”

  “I suppose so.”

  A severe expression arose to Miss Godolphin’s lips, and remained there. “It is most unsuitable, Charlotte Pain’s being here to-day,” she resumed. “The changes which have taken place render our meeting with Mrs. Briscow a sad one; no stranger ought to be at table. Least of all, Charlotte Pain. Her conversation is at times unfeminine.”

  “How can you say so, Janet?” he involuntarily exclaimed.

  “Should she launch into some of her favourite topics, her horses and her dogs, it will sound unfeminine to Mrs. Briscow’s ears. In her young days — in my days also, George, for the matter of that — these subjects were deemed more suitable to men’s lips than to young women’s. George, had your mother lived, it would have been a sore day to her, the one that brought the news that you had fixed your mind on Charlotte Pain.”

  “It was not so to my father, at any rate,” George could not help saying.

  “And was it possible that you did not see how Charlotte Pain played her cards before your father?” resumed Janet. “Not a word, that could offend his prejudices as a refined gentleman, did she ever suffer herself to utter. I saw; if you did not.”

  “You manage to see a great deal that the rest of us don’t see, Janet. Or you fancy that you do.”

  “It is no fancy, lad. I would not like to discourage a thing that you have set your heart upon; I would rather go a mile out of my way than do it: but I stand next door to a mother to you, and I can but warn you that you will repent it, if you ever suffer Charlotte Pain to be more to you than she now is.”

  George rose. “Set your mind at rest, Janet. It has never been my intention to marry Charlotte Pain: and — so far as I believe at present — it never will be.”

  The dinner went off pleasantly. Mrs. Briscow was a charming old lady, although she was of the “antediluvian” school, and Charlotte was on her best behaviour, and half fascinated Mrs. Briscow. George, like a trespassing child, received several hints from Janet that bed might be desirable for him, but he ingeniously ignored them, and sat on. Charlotte’s bonnet and an attendant arrived, and Thomas Godolphin put on his hat to see her to the Folly.

  “I need not trouble you, Mr. Godolphin. I shall not be run away with.”

  “I think it will be as well that I should see you do not,” said he, smiling.

  It was scarcely dark. The clock had not struck ten, and the night was starlight. Thomas Godolphin gave her his arm, and the maid walked behind them. Arrived at Ashlydyat, he left her. Charlotte stood for a few moments, then turned on her heel and entered the hall. The first thing that caught her notice was a hat; next a travelling coat. They had not been there when she left in the afternoon.

  “Then Verrall’s back!” she mentally exclaimed.

  Hastening into the dining-room, she saw, seated at a table, drinking brandy and water, not Mr. Verrall, but Rodolf Pain.

  “Good gracious!” exclaimed Charlotte, with more surprise in her tone than satisfaction, “have you come?”

  “Come to find an empty house,” rejoined Mr. Pain. “Where’s Mrs. Verrall? They tell me she is gone to London.”

  “She is,” replied Charlotte. “Verrall neither came back nor wrote; she had a restless fit upon her, and started off this morning to him.”

  “Verrall won’t thank her,” observed Mr. Pain. “He is up to his eyes in business.”

  “Good or bad business?” asked Charlotte.

  “Both. We have got into a mess, and Verrall’s not yet out of it.”

  “Through what? Through whom?” she questioned.

  Rodolf Pain gave his shoulders a jerk, as if he had been a Frenchman. “It need not trouble you, Charlotte.”

  “Some one came down here from London a week ago; a Mr. Appleby. Is it through him? Verrall seemed strangely put out at his coming.”

  Mr. Pain nodded his head. “They were such idiots in the office as to give Appleby the address here. I have seen Verrall in a tolerable passion once or twice in my life, but I never saw him in such a one as he went into when he came up. They’ll not forget it in a hurry. He lays the blame on me, remotely; says I must have left a letter about with the address on it. I know I have done nothing of the sort.”

  “But what is it, Rodolf? Anything very bad?”

  “Bad enough. But it can be remedied. Let Verrall alone for getting out of pits, however deep they may be. I wish, though, we had never set eyes on that fellow, Appleby!”

  “Tell me about it, Rodolf.”

  Mr. Rodolf declined. “You could do no good,” said he, “and business is not fitted for ladies’ ears.”

  “I don’t care to know it,” said Charlotte. “It’s no concern of mine: but, somehow, that man Appleby interested me. As to business not being fitted for my ears, I should make a better hand at business than some of you men make.”

  “Upon my word, I think you would, Charlotte. I have often said it. But you are one in a thousand.”

  “Ha
ve you had anything to eat since you came in?”

  “They brought me some supper. It has just gone away.”

  “I had better inquire whether there’s a room ready for you?” she remarked, moving towards the bell.

  “It’s all done, Charlotte. I told them I had come to stay. Just sit down, and let me talk to you.”

  “Shall you stay long?”

  “I can’t tell until I hear from Verrall to-morrow. I may be leaving again to-morrow night, or I may be here for interminable weeks. The office is to be clear of Mr. Verrall just now, do you understand?”

  Charlotte apparently did understand. She took her seat in a chair listlessly enough. Something in her manner would have told an accurate observer that she could very well have dispensed with the company of Rodolf Pain. He, however, saw nothing of that. He took his cigar-case from his pocket, selected a cigar, and then, by way of sport, held the case out to Charlotte.

  “Will you take one?”

  For answer, she dashed it out of his hand half way across the room. And she did it in anger, too.

  “How uncertain you are!” he exclaimed, as he rose to pick up his property. “There are times when you can take a joke pleasantly, and laugh at it.”

  He sat down again, lighted his cigar, and smoked a few minutes in silence. Then he turned to her. “Don’t you think it is time, Charlotte, that you and I brought ourselves to an anchor?”

  “No, I don’t,” she bluntly answered.

  “But I say it is,” he resumed. “And I mean it to be done.”

  “You mean!”

  Something in the tone roused him, and he gazed at her with surprise. “You are not going from your promise, Charlotte?”

  “I don’t remember that I made any distinct promise,” said she.

  Mr. Rodolf Pain grew heated. “You know that you did, Charlotte. You know that you engaged yourself irrevocably to me — —”

  “Irrevocably!” she slightingly interrupted. “How you misapply words!”

  “It was as irrevocable as promise can be. Have you not led me on, this twelvemonth past, believing month after month that you would be my wife the next? And, month after month, you have put me off upon the most frivolous pretexts!”