by Ellen Wood
George Godolphin meanwhile had gone home, and was sitting with his wife and child. The room was bright with light and fire, and George’s spirits were bright in accordance with it. He had been enlarging upon the prospect offered to him, describing a life in India in vivid colours; had drawn some imaginative pen-and-ink sketches of Miss Meta on a camel’s back; in a gorgeous palanquin; in an open terrace gallery, being fanned by about fifty slaves: the young lady herself looking on at the pictures in a high state of excitement, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks flushed. Maria seemed to partake of the general hilarity. Whether she was really better, or the unexpected return of her husband had infused into her artificial strength, unwonted excitement, certain it is that she was not looking very ill that night: her cheeks had borrowed some of Meta’s colour, and her lips were parted with a smile. The child’s chatter never ceased; it was papa this, papa the other, incessantly. Margery felt rather cross, and when she came in to add some dainty to the substantial tea she had prepared for her master, told him she hoped he would not be for carrying Miss Meta out to the wretched foreign places that were only good for convicts. India and Botany Bay ranked precisely alike in Margery’s estimation.
But tea was done with and removed, and the evening went on, and Margery came again to escort Miss Meta to bed. Miss Meta was not in a hurry to be escorted. Her nimble feet were flying everywhere: from papa at the table, to mamma who sat on the sofa near the fire: from mamma to Margery, standing silent and grim, scarcely deigning to look at the pen-and-ink sketches that Meta exhibited to her.
“I don’t see no sense in ‘em, for my part,” slightingly spoke Margery, regarding with dubious eyes one somewhat indistinct representation held up to her. “Those things bain’t like Christian animals. An elephant, d’ye call it? Which is its head and which is its tail?”
Meta whisked off to her papa, elephant in hand. “Papa, which is its head, and which is its tail?”
“That’s its tail,” said George. “You’ll know its head from its tail when you come to ride one, Margery,” cried he, throwing his laughing glance at the woman.
“Me ride an elephant! me mount one o’ them animals!” was the indignant response. “I should like to see myself at it! It might be just as well, sir, if you didn’t talk about them to the child: I shall have her starting out of her sleep screaming to-night, fancying that a score of them’s eating her up.”
George laughed. Meta’s busy brain was at work; very busy, very blithesome just then.
“Papa, do we have swings in India?”
“Lots of them,” responded George.
“Do they go up to the trees? Are they as good as the one Mrs. Pain made for me at the Folly?”
“Ten times better than that,” said George slightingly. “That was a muff of a swing, compared with what the others will be.”
Meta considered. “You didn’t see it, papa. It went up — up — oh, ever so high.”
“Did it?” said George. “We’ll send the others higher.”
“Who’ll swing me?” continued Meta. “Mrs. Pain? She used to swing me before. Will she go to India with us?”
“Not she,” said George. “What should she go for? Look here. Here’s Meta on an elephant, and Margery on another, in attendance behind.”
He had been mischievously sketching it off: Meta sitting at her ease on the elephant, her dainty little legs astride, boy fashion, was rather a pretty sight: but poor Margery grasping the animal’s head, her face one picture of horror in her fear of falling, and some half-dozen natives propping her up on either side, was only a ludicrous one.
Margery looked daggers, but nothing could exceed Meta’s delight. “Draw mamma upon one, papa; make her elephant alongside mine.”
“Draw mamma upon one?” repeated George. “I think we’ll have mamma in a palanquin; the elephants shall be reserved for you and Margery.”
“Is she coming to bed to-night, or isn’t she?” demanded Margery, in uncommonly sharp tones, speaking for the benefit of the company generally, not to any one in particular.
Meta paid little attention; George appeared to pay less. In taking his knife from his waistcoat-pocket to cut the pencil, preparatory to “drawing mamma and the palanquin,” he happened to bring forth a ring. Those quick little eyes saw it: they saw most things. “That’s Uncle Thomas’s!” cried the child.
In his somewhat hasty attempt to return it to his pocket, George let the ring fall to the ground, and it rolled towards Margery. She picked it up, wonderingly — almost fearfully. She had believed that Mr. Godolphin would not part with his signet-ring during life: the ring which he had offered to the bankruptcy commissioners, and they, with every token of respect, had returned to him.
“Oh, sir! Surely he is not dead?”
“Dead!” echoed George, looking at her in surprise. “I left him better than usual, Margery, when I came away.”
Margery said no more. Meta was not so scrupulous. “Uncle Thomas always has that on his finger: he seals his letters with it. Why have you brought it away, papa?”
“He does not want it to seal letters with any longer, Meta,” George answered, speaking gravely now, and stroking her golden curls. “I shall use it in future for sealing mine.”
“Who’ll wear it?” asked Meta. “You, or Uncle Thomas?”
“I shall — some time. But it is quite time Meta was in bed; and Margery looks as if she thought so. There! just a few of mamma’s grapes, and away to dream of elephants.”
Some fine white grapes were heaped on a plate upon the table; they were what George had brought from London for his wife. He broke some off for Meta, and that spoiled young damsel climbed on his knee, while she ate them, chattering incessantly.
“Will there be parrots in India? Red ones?”
“Plenty. Red and green and blue and yellow,” returned George, who was rather magnificent in his promises. “There’ll be monkeys as well — as Margery’s fond of them.”
Margery flung off in a temper. But the words had brought a recollection to Meta. She bustled up on her knees, neglecting her grapes, gazing at her papa in consternation.
“Uncle Reginald was to bring me home some monkeys and some parrots and a Chinese dog that won’t bite. How shall I have them, papa, if I have gone to Cal — what is it?” She spoke better than she did, and could sound the “th” now; but the name of the place was difficult to be remembered.
“Calcutta. We’ll write word to Regy’s ship to come round there and leave them,” replied ready George.
It satisfied the child. She finished her grapes, and then George took her in his arms to Maria to be kissed, and afterwards put her down outside the door to offended Margery, after kissing lovingly her pretty lips and her golden curls.
His manner had changed when he returned. He stood by the fire, near Maria, grave and earnest, and began talking more seriously to her on this new project than he had done in the presence of his child.
“I think I should do wrong were I to refuse it: do not you, Maria? It is an offer that is not often met with.”
“Yes, I think you would do wrong to refuse it. It is far better than anything I had hoped for.”
“And can you be ready to start by New Year’s Day?”
“I — I could be ready, of course,” she answered. “But I — I — don’t know whether — —”
She came to a final stop. George looked at her in surprise: in addition to her hesitation, he detected considerable emotion.
She stood up by him and leaned her arm on the mantel-piece. She strove to speak quietly, to choke down the rebellious rising in her throat: her breath went and came, her bosom heaved. “George, I am not sure whether I shall be able to undertake the voyage. I am not sure that I shall live to go out.”
Did his heart beat a shade quicker? He looked at her more in surprise still than in any other feeling. He had not in the least realized this faint suggestion of the future.
“My darling, what do you mean?”
He passed hi
s arm round her waist, and drew her to him. Maria let her head fall upon his shoulder, and the tears began to trickle down her wasted cheeks.
“I cannot get strong, George. I grow weaker instead of stronger; and I begin to think I shall never be well again. I begin to know I shall never be well again!” she added, amending the words. “I have thought it for some time.”
“How do you feel?” he asked, breaking the silence that had ensued. “Are you in any pain?”
“I have had a pain in my throat ever since the — ever since the summer: and I have a constant inward pain here” — touching her chest. “Mr. Snow says both arise from the same cause — nervousness! but I don’t know.”
“Maria,” he said, his voice quite trembling with its tenderness, “shall I tell you what it is? The worry of the past summer has had a bad effect upon you, and brought you into this weak state. Mr. Snow is right: it is nervousness: and you must have change of scene ere you can recover. Is he attending you?”
“He calls every other day or so, and he sends me medicine of different kinds; tonics, I fancy. I wish I could get strong! I might — perhaps — get a little better, that is, I might feel a trifle better, if I were not always so entirely alone. I wish,” she more timidly added, “that you could be more with me than you are.”
“You cannot wish it as heartily as I,” returned George. “A little while, my darling, and things will be bright again. I have been earnestly and constantly seeking for something to do in London; I was obliged to be there. Now that I have this place given me, I must be there still, chiefly, until we sail, making my preparations. You can come to me if you like, until we do go,” he added, “if you would rather be there than here. I can change my bachelor lodgings, and get a place large enough for you and Meta.”
She felt that she was not equal to the removal, and she felt that if she really were to leave Europe she must remain this short intervening time near her father and mother. But — even as she thought it — the conviction came upon her, firm and strong, that she never should leave it; should not live to leave it. George’s voice, eager and hopeful, interrupted.
“We shall begin life anew in India, Maria: with the old country we shall leave old sores behind us. As to Margery — I don’t know what’s to be done about her. It would half break her heart to drag her to a new land, and quite break it to carry off Meta from her. Perhaps we had better not attempt to influence her either way, but let the decision rest entirely with her.”
“She will never face the live elephants,” said Maria, her lips smiling at the joke, as she endeavoured to be gay and hopeful as George was. But the effort entirely failed. A vision came over her of George there alone; herself in the cold grave, whither she believed she was surely hastening; Meta — ay — what of Meta?
“Oh, George! if I might but get strong! if I might but live to go with you!” she cried in a wail of agony.
“Hush, hush! Maria, hush! I must not scold you: but indeed it is not right to give way to these low spirits. That of itself will keep you back. Shall I take you to town with me when I return to-morrow, just for a week’s change? I know it would partially bring you round, and we would make shift in my rooms for the time. Margery will take care of Meta here.”
She knew how worse than useless was the thought of attempting it; she saw that George could not be brought to understand her excessive weakness. A faint hope came across her that, now that the uncertainty of his future prospects was removed, she might grow better. That uncertainty had been distressing her sick heart for months.
She subdued her emotion and sat down in the chair quietly, saying that she was not strong enough to go up with him this time: it would be a change in one sense for her, she added, thinking of the new life; and then she began to talk of other things.
“Did you see Reginald before he sailed?”
“Not immediately before it, I think.”
“You are aware that he has gone as a common seaman?”
“Yes. By the way, there’s no knowing what I may be able to do for Regy out there, and for Isaac too, perhaps. Once I am in a good position I shall be able to assist them — and I’ll do it. Regy hates the sea: I’ll get him something more to his taste in Calcutta.”
Maria’s face flushed with hope, and she clasped her nervous hands together. “If you could, George! how thankful I should be! I think of poor Regy and his hard life night and day.”
“Which is not good for you by any means, young lady. I wish you’d get out of that habit of thinking and fretting about others. It has been just poor Thomas’s fault.”
She answered by a faint smile. “Has Thomas given you his ring?” she asked.
“He gave it me this afternoon,” replied George, taking it from his pocket. It was a ring with a bright green stone, on which was engraved the arms of the Godolphins. Sir George had worn it always, and it came to Thomas at his death: now it had come to George.
“You do not wear it, George.”
“Not yet. I cannot bear to put it on my finger while Thomas lives. In point of fact, I have no right to do so — at least to use the signet: it belongs exclusively to the head of the Godolphins.”
“Do you see Mrs. Pain often?” Maria presently said, with apparent indifference. But George little knew the fluttering emotion that had been working within, or the effort it had taken to subdue that emotion ere the question could be put.
“I see her sometimes; not often. She gets me to ride with her in the Park now and then.”
“Does she continue to reside with the Verralls?”
“I suppose so. I have not heard her mention anything about it.”
“George, I have wondered where Mrs. Pain’s money comes from,” Maria resumed in a dreamy tone. “It was said in the old days, you know, that the report of her having thirty thousand pounds was false; that she had nothing.”
“I don’t believe she had a penny,” returned George. “As to her income, I fancy it is drawn from Verrall. Mrs. Pain’s husband was connected in some business way with Verrall, and I suppose she still benefits by it. I know nothing whatever, but I have thought it must be so. Listen!”
George raised his hand as he abruptly spoke, for a distinct sound had broken upon his ear. Springing to the window he threw it open. The death-bell of All Souls’ was booming out over Prior’s Ash.
Before a word was spoken by him or by his wife; before George could still the emotion that was thumping at his heart, Margery came in with a scared face. In her flurry, her sudden grief, she addressed him as she had been accustomed to address him in his boyhood.
“Do you hear it, Master George? That’s the passing-bell! It is for him. There’s nobody else within ten miles they would trouble to have the bell tolled for at nigh ten o’clock at night. The Master of Ashlydyat’s gone.”
She sat down on a chair, regardless of the presence of her master and mistress, and, flinging her apron up to her face, burst into a storm of sobs.
A voice in the passage aroused her, for she recognized it as Bexley’s. George opened the room door, and the old man came in.
“It is all over, sir,” he said, his manner strangely still, his voice unnaturally calm and low, as is sometimes the case where emotion is striven to be suppressed. “Miss Janet bade me come to you with the tidings.”
George’s bearing was suspiciously quiet too. “It is very sudden, Bexley,” he presently rejoined.
Maria had risen and stood with one hand leaning on the table, her eyes strained on Bexley, her white face turned to him. Margery never moved.
“Very sudden, sir: and yet my mistress did not seem unprepared for it. He took his tea with her, and was so cheerful and well over it that I declare I began to hope he had taken a fresh turn. Soon afterwards Miss Bessy came back, and I heard her laughing in the room as she told them some story that had been related to her by Lady Godolphin. Presently my mistress called me in, to give me directions about a little matter she wanted done to-morrow, and while she was speaking to me, Miss Bessy
cried out. We turned round and saw her leaning over my master. He had slipped back in his chair powerless, and I hastened to raise and support him. Death was in his face, sir; there was no mistaking it; but he was quite conscious, quite sensible, and smiled at us. ‘I must say farewell to you,’ he said, and Miss Bessy burst into a fit of sobs; but my mistress kneeled down quietly before him, and took his hands in hers, and said, ‘Thomas, is the moment come?’ ‘Yes, it is come,’ he answered, and he tried to look round at Miss Bessy, who stood a little behind his chair. ‘Don’t grieve,’ he said; ‘I am going on first’ but she only sobbed the more. ‘Good-bye, my dear ones,’ he continued; ‘good-bye, Bexley. I shall wait for you all, as I know I am being waited for. Fear?’ he went on, for Miss Bessy sobbed out something that sounded like the word: ‘fear, when I am going to God! — when Jesus — —’”
Bexley fairly broke down with a great burst, and the tears were rolling silently over Maria’s cheeks. George wheeled round to the window and stood there with his back to them. Presently Bexley mastered himself and resumed: Margery had come forward then and taken her apron from her eyes.
“It was the last word he spoke— ‘Jesus.’ His voice ceased, his hands fell, and the eyelids dropped. There was no struggle; nothing but a long gentle breath; and he died with the smile upon his lips.”
“He had cause to smile,” interjected Margery, the words coming from her brokenly. “If ever a man has gone to his rest in heaven, it is Mr. Godolphin. He had more than his share of sorrow in this world, and God has taken him to a better.”
Every feeling in George’s heart echoed to the words, every pulse beat in wild sorrow for the death of his good brother, — every sting that remorse could bring pricked him with the consciousness of his own share in it. He thrust his burning face beyond the window into the cool night; he raised his eyes to the blue canopy of heaven, serene and fair in the moonlight, almost as if he saw in imagination the redeemed soul winging its flight thither. He pressed his hands upon his throbbing breast to still its emotion; but for the greatest exercise of self-control he would have burst into sobs, as Bexley had done; and it may be that he — he, careless George Godolphin — breathed forth a yearning cry to heaven to be pardoned his share of the past. If Thomas, in his changed condition, could look down upon him, now, with his loving eyes, his ever-forgiving spirit, he would know how bitter and genuine, how full of anguish were these regrets!