by Ellen Wood
As Margery stood, about to turn home again, vexed for having been brought out in the cold for nothing more, and intending to give a few complimentary thanks for it to the young man who had been the means of sending her, she was accosted by Mr. Crosse, who had latterly been laid up in his house with gout. Not the slightest notice had he taken of George Godolphin and his wife since his return home, though he had been often with Thomas.
“How d’ye do, Margery?” he said, taking up Meta at the same time to kiss her. “Are you going to Ashlydyat with the rest?”
“Not I, the simpletons!” was Margery’s free rejoinder. “There’s my poor mistress alone in the house.”
“Is she ill?” asked Mr. Crosse.
“Ill!” returned Margery, not at all pleased at the question. “Yes, sir, she is ill. I thought everybody knew that.”
“When does she start for India?”
“She don’t start at all. She’ll be starting soon for a place a little bit nearer. Here! you run on and open the gate,” added Margery, whisking Meta from Mr. Crosse’s hand and sending her down the lane out of hearing. “She’ll soon be where Mr. Thomas Godolphin is, sir, instead of being marched off in a ship to India,” continued the woman, turning to Mr. Crosse confidentially.
He felt greatly shocked. In his own mind, he, as many others, had associated Maria with her husband, in regard to the summer’s work, in a lofty, scornful sort of way: but it did shock him to hear that she was in fear of death. It is most wonderful how our feelings towards others soften when we find that they and their shortcomings are about to be taken from us to a more merciful Judge.
“But what is the matter with her, Margery?” Mr. Crosse asked; for it happened that he had not heard the ominous rumours that were beginning to circulate in Prior’s Ash.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with her,” returned Margery. “I don’t believe old Snow knows, either. I suppose the worry and misfortunes have been too much for her; as they were for somebody else. Mr. Godolphin is in his grave, and now she’s going to hers.”
Mr. Crosse walked mechanically by the side of Margery down the lane. It was not his road, and perhaps he was unconscious that he took it; he walked by her side, listening.
“He’ll have to go by himself now — and me to have been getting up all my cotton gowns for the start! Serve him right! for ever thinking of taking out that dear little lamb amid elephants and savages!”
Mr. Crosse was perfectly aware that Margery alluded to her master — his own bête noire since the explosion. But he did not choose to descant upon his gracelessness to Margery. “Can nothing be done for Mrs. George Godolphin?” he asked.
“I expect not, sir. There’s nothing the matter with her that can be laid hold of,” resentfully spoke Margery; “no malady to treat. Snow says he can’t do anything, and he brought Dr. Beale in the other day: and it seems he can’t do nothing, either.”
Meta had reached the gate, flung it open in obedience to orders, and now came running back. Mr. Crosse took her hand and went on with her. Was he purposing to pay a visit to George Godolphin’s wife? It seemed so.
It was quite dusk when they entered. Maria was lying on the sofa, with a warm woollen wrapper drawn over her. There was no light in the room except that given out by the fire, but its blaze fell directly on her face. Mr. Crosse stood and looked at it, shocked at its ravages; at the tale it told. All kinds of unpleasant pricks were sending their darts through his conscience. He had been holding himself aloof in his assumed superiority, his haughty condemnation, while she had been going to the grave with her breaking heart.
Had she wanted things that money could procure? had she wanted food? Mr. Crosse actually began to ask himself the question, as the wan aspect of the white face grew and grew upon him: and in the moment he quite loathed the thought of his well-stored coffers. He remembered what a good, loving gentlewoman this wife of George Godolphin’s had always been, this dutiful daughter of All Souls’ pastor: and for the first time Mr. Crosse began to separate her from her husband’s misdoings, to awaken to the conviction that the burden and sorrow laid upon her had been enough to bear, without the world meting out its harsh measure of blame by way of increase.
He sat down quite humbly, saying “hush” to Meta. Maria had dropped into one of those delirious sleeps: they came on more frequently now, and would visit her at the twilight hour of the evening as well as at night: and the noise of their entrance had failed to arouse her. Margery, however, came bustling in.
“It’s Mr. Crosse, ma’am.”
Maria, a faint hectic of surprise coming into her cheeks, sat up and let him take her hand. “I am glad to have the opportunity of seeing you once again,” she said.
“Why did you not send and tell me how ill you were?” burst forth Mr. Crosse, forgetting how exceedingly ill such a procedure would have accorded with his own line of holding aloof in condemning superiority.
She shook her head. “I might, had things been as they used to be. But people do not care to come near me now.”
“I am going in the ship, Mr. Crosse. I am going to ride upon an elephant and to have parrots.”
He laid his hand kindly upon the chattering child: but he turned to Maria, his voice dropping to a whisper. “What shall you do with her? Shall you send her out without you?”
The question struck upon the one chord of her heart that for the last day or two, since her own hopeless state grew more palpable, had been strung to the utmost tension. What was to become of Meta — of the cherished child whom she must leave behind her? Her face grew moist, her bosom heaved, and she suddenly pressed her hands upon it as if they could still its wild and painful beating. Mr. Crosse, blaming himself for asking it, blaming himself for many other things, took her hands within his, and said he would come and see her in the morning: she seemed so fatigued then.
But, low as the question had been put, Miss Meta heard it; heard it and understood its purport. She entwined her pretty arms within her mamma’s dress as Mr. Crosse went out, and raised her wondering eyes.
“What did he mean? You are coming too, mamma!”
She drew the little upturned face close to hers, she laid her white cheek upon the golden hair. The very excess of pain that was rending her aching heart caused her to speak with unnatural stillness. Not that she could speak at first: a minute or two had to be given to mastering her emotion.
“I am afraid not, Meta. I think God is going to take me.”
The child made no reply. Her earnest eyes were kept wide open with the same wondering stare. “What will papa do?” she presently asked.
Maria hastily passed her hand across her brow, as if that recalled another phase of the pain. Meta’s little heart began to swell, and the tears burst forth.
“Don’t go, mamma! Don’t go away from papa and Meta! I shall be afraid of the elephants without you.”
She pressed the child closer and closer to her beating heart. Oh the pain, the pain! — the pain of the parting that was so soon to come!
They were interrupted by a noise at the gate. A carriage had bowled down the lane and drawn up at it, almost with the commotion that used to attend the dashing visits to the Bank of Mrs. Charlotte Pain. A more sober equipage this, however, with its mourning appointments, although it bore a coronet on its panels. The footman opened the door, and one lady stepped out of it.
“It is Aunt Cecil,” called out Meta.
She rubbed the tears from her pretty cheeks, her grief forgotten, child-like, in the new excitement, and flew out to meet Lady Averil. Maria, trying to look her best, rose from the sofa and tottered forward to receive her. Meta was pounced upon by Margery and carried off to have her tumbled hair smoothed; and Lady Averil came in alone.
She threw back her crape veil to kiss Maria. She had come down from Ashlydyat on purpose to tell her the news of the bones being found: there could be little doubt that they were those of the ill-fated Richard de Commins, which had been so fruitlessly searched for: and Lady Averil
was full of excitement. Perhaps it was natural that she should be so, being a Godolphin.
“It is most strange that they should be found just now,” she cried; “at the very time that the Dark Plain is being done away with. You know, Maria, the tradition always ran that so long as the bones remained unfound, the Dark Plain would retain the appearance of a graveyard. Is it not a singular coincidence — that they should be discovered just at the moment that the Plain is being dug up? Were Janet here, she would say how startlingly all the old superstition is being worked out.”
“I think one thing especially strange — that they should not have been found before,” observed Maria. “Have they not been searched for often?”
“I believe so,” replied Cecil. “But they were found under the archway; immediately beneath it: and I fancy they had always been searched for in the Dark Plain. When papa had the gorse-bushes rooted up they were looked for then in all parts of the Dark Plain, but not under the archway.”
“How came Lord Averil to think of looking under the archway?” asked Maria.
“He did not think of it. They have been found unexpectedly, without being searched for. The archway is taken down, and the men were digging the foundation for the new summer-house, when they came upon them. The grounds of Ashlydyat have been like a fair all the afternoon with people coming up to see and hear,” added Cecil. “Lord Averil is going to consult Mr. Hastings about giving them Christian burial.”
“It does seem strange,” murmured Maria. “Have you written to tell Janet?”
“No, I shall write to her to-morrow. I hastened down to you. Bessy came over from the Folly, but Lady Godolphin would not come. She said she had heard enough in her life of the superstition of Ashlydyat. She never liked it, you know, Maria; never believed in it.”
“Yes, I know,” Maria answered. “It used to anger her when it was spoken of. As it angered papa.”
“As George used to pretend that it angered him. I think it was only pretence, though. Poor Thomas, never. If he did not openly accord it belief, he never ridiculed it. How are your preparations getting on Maria?”
Maria was crossing the room with feeble steps to stir the fire into a blaze. As the light burst forth, she turned her face to Lady Averil with a sort of apology.
“I do not know what Margery is about that she does not bring in the lamp. I am receiving you very badly, Cecil.”
Cecil smiled. “I think our topic, the Ashlydyat superstition, is better discussed in such light as this, than in the full glare of lamp-light.”
But as Lady Averil spoke she was looking earnestly at Maria. The blaze had lighted up her wan face, and Cecil was struck aghast at its aspect. Was it real? — or was it only the effect of the firelight? Lady Averil had not heard of the ominous fears that were ripening, and hoped it was the latter.
“Maria! are you looking worse this evening? Or is the light deceiving me?”
“I dare say I am looking worse. I am worse. I am very ill, Cecil.”
“You do not look fit to embark on this voyage.”
Maria simply shook her head. She was sitting now in an old-fashioned arm-chair, one white hand lying on her black dress, the other supporting her chin, while the firelight played on her wasted features.
“Would the little change to Ashlydyat benefit you, Maria? If so, if it would help to give you strength for your voyage, come to us at once. Now don’t refuse! It will give us so much pleasure. You do not know how Lord Averil loves and respects you. I think there is no one he respects as he respects you. Let me take you home with me now.”
Maria’s eyelashes were wet as she turned them on her. “Thank you, Cecil, for your kindness: and Lord Averil — will you tell him so for me — I am always thanking in my heart. I wish I could go home with you; I wish I could go with any prospect of it doing me good; but that is over. I shall soon be in a narrower home than this.”
Lady Averil’s heart stood still and then bounded on again. “No, no! Surely you are mistaken! It cannot be.”
“I have suspected it long, Cecil! but since the last day or two it has become certainty, and even Mr. Snow acknowledges it. About this time yesterday, he was sitting here in the twilight, and I bade him not conceal the truth from me. I told him that I knew it, and did not shrink from it; and therefore it was the height of folly for him to pretend ignorance to me.”
“Oh, Maria! And have you no regret at leaving us? I should think it a dreadful thing if I were going to die.”
“I have been battling with my regrets a long while,” said Maria, bending her head and speaking in low, subdued tones. “Leaving Meta is the worst. I know not who will take her, who will protect her: she cannot go with George, without — without a mother!”
“Give her to me,” feverishly broke from the lips of Lady Averil. “You don’t know how dearly I have ever loved that child Maria, she shall never know the want of the good mother she has lost, as far as I can supply your place, if you will let her come to me. It is well that the only child of the Godolphins — and she is the only one — should be reared at Ashlydyat.”
Of all the world, Maria could best have wished Lady Averil to have Meta: and perhaps there had been moments when in her troubled imagination she had hoped it would be so. But she could not close her eyes to its improbabilities.
“You will be having children of your own, Cecil. And there’s Lord Averil to be considered!”
“Lord Averil is more than indulgent to me. I believe if I wished to adopt half a dozen children, he would only smile and tell me to prepare a nursery for them. I am quite sure he would like to have Meta.”
“Then — if he will — oh, Cecil, I should die with less regret.”
“Yes, yes, that is settled. He shall call and tell you so. But — Maria — is your own state so certain? Can nothing be done for you? — nothing be tried?”
“Nothing, as I believe. Mr. Snow cannot find out what is the matter with me. The trouble has been breaking my heart, Cecil: I know of nothing else. And since I grew alarmed about my own state, there has been the thought of Meta. Many a time have I been tempted to wish that I could have her with me in my coffin.”
“Aunt Cecil! Aunt Cecil! How many summer-houses are there to be, Aunt Cecil?”
You need not ask whose interrupting voice it was. Lady Averil lifted the child to her knee, and asked whether she would come and pay her a long, long visit at Ashlydyat. Meta replied by inquiring into the prospect of swings and dolls’ houses, and Cecil plunged into promises as munificently as George could have done.
“Should George not be with you?” she whispered, as she bent over Maria before leaving.
“Yes, I am beginning to think he ought to be now. I intend to write to him to-night; but I did not like to disturb him in his preparations. It will be a blow to him.”
“What! does he not know of it?”
“Not yet. He thinks I am getting ready to go out. I wish I could have done so!”
No, not until the unhappy fact was placed beyond all doubt, would Maria disturb her husband. And she did it gently at last. “I have been unwilling to alarm you, George, and I would not do so now, but that I believe it is all too certain. Will you come down and see what you think of me? Even Mr. Snow fears there is no hope for me now. Oh, if I could but have gone with you! have gone with you to be your ever-loving wife still in that new land!”
Lord Averil came in while she was addressing the letter. Greatly shocked, greatly grieved at what his wife told him, he rose from his dinner-table and walked down. Her husband excepted, there was no one whom Maria would have been so pleased to see as Lord Averil. He had not come so much to tell her that he heartily concurred in his wife’s offer with regard to the child, though he did say it — say that she should be done by entirely as though she were his own, and his honest honourable nature shone out of his eyes as he spoke it — as to see whether nothing could be done for herself, to entreat her to have further advice called in.
“Dr. Beale has been here twi
ce,” was her answer. “He says there is no hope.”
Lord Averil held her hand in his, as he had taken it in greeting; his grave eyes of sympathy were bent with deep concern on her face.
“Cecil thinks the trouble has been too much for you,” he whispered. “Is it so?”
A streak of hectic came into her cheek. “Yes, I suppose it is that. Turn to which side I would, there was no comfort, no hope. Throughout it all, I never had a friend, save you, Lord Averil: and you know, and God knows, what you did for us. I have not recompensed you: I don’t see how I could have recompensed you had I lived: but when I am gone, you will be happy in knowing that you took the greatest weight from one who was stricken by the world.”
“You have been writing to George?” he observed, seeing the letter on the table. “But it will not go to-night: it is too late.”
“It can go up by to-morrow’s day mail, and he will receive it in the evening. Perhaps you will post it for me as you walk home: it will save Margery’s going out.”
Lord Averil put the letter into his pocket. He stood looking at her as she lay a little back in her easy-chair, his arm resting on the mantelpiece, curious thoughts passing through his mind. Could he do nothing for her? — to avert the fate that was threatening her? He, rich in wealth, happy now in the world’s favour; she, going to the grave in sorrow, it might be in privation — what could he do to help her?
There are moments when we speak out of our true heart, when the conventionality that surrounds the best of us is thrown aside, all deceit, all form forgotten. Lord Averil was a good and true man, but never better, never truer than now, when he took a step forward and bent to Maria.