by Ellen Wood
“You needn’t have come,” snapped Charlotte.
“And then you would have gone on at me about my bad manners, as you have to Mr. Godolphin! One never knows how to please you, Charlotte.”
George resumed: to break the silence possibly, more than from any other motive. “Have you settled at Shooter’s Hill?”
“Settled!” shrieked Charlotte; “settled at Shooter’s Hill! Where it’s ten miles, good, from a theatre or any other place of amusement! No, thank you. A friend of Verrall’s had this place to let for a few weeks, and Dolf was idiot enough to take it — —”
“You consented first, Charlotte,” interrupted poor Dolf.
“Which I never should have done had I reflected on the bother of getting up to town,” said Charlotte equably. “Settled at Shooter’s Hill! I’d as soon do as you are going to do, Mr. George — bury myself alive in Calcutta. We have taken on lease a charming house in Belgravia, and shall enter on a succession of dinner-parties: one a week we think of giving during the season. We shall not get into it much before February: it takes some time to choose furniture.”
“I hate dinner-parties,” said Dolf ruefully.
“You are not obliged to appear at them,” said Charlotte with much graciousness. “I can get your place filled up at table, I dare say. What is that noise and scuffling?”
“They are weighing anchor,” replied George. “We shall soon be on the move.”
“I hear that great alterations are being made at Ashlydyat,” remarked Charlotte.
“Only on the spot called the Dark Plain. The archway is taken down, and a summer-house is being built on the site. An elaborate sort of summer-house, for it is to contain three or four rooms, I believe. It will have a fine view.”
“And what of those ugly gorse-bushes?”
“They will be cleared away, and the place laid out as a garden.”
“Is my lady starring it at the Folly?”
“Scarcely: just now,” quietly answered George.
“Miss Godolphin has gone to Scotland, I hear.”
“Yes. Bessy will reside with Lady Godolphin.”
“And tart Margery? What has become of her?”
“She remains with Maria at Ashlydyat.”
Charlotte opened her eyes — Charlotte had a habit of opening them when puzzled or surprised. “Maria! Who is Maria?”
“The child. We call her by her proper name now.”
“Oh, by the way, I had nearly forgotten it,” returned Charlotte in the old good-natured tone: for it may be remarked, that during the interview her tone had been what she had just called Margery — tart. “I should like to have the child up on a visit when we get into our house, and astonish her mind with the wonders of London. I suppose Lady Averil will make no objection?”
A very perceptible flush, red and haughty, dyed the face of George Godolphin. “You are very kind to think of it, Mrs. Pain; but I fear Lady Averil would not consent. Indeed, I have desired that the child may not visit, except amidst her immediate relatives.”
“As you please,” said Charlotte resentfully. “Dolf, I think we may as well be moving. I only meant it as a kindness to the child.”
“And I thank you for it,” said George warmly. “For all the kindness you have shown her, Mrs. Pain, I thank you, sincerely and heartily. Take care!”
He interposed to prevent a rope, that was being borne along, from touching her. Charlotte began in earnest to think it was time to move, unless she would be carried down the river in the ship.
“When shall you come back?” she asked him.
He shook his head. He could net tell any more than she could. The future was all uncertain and indistinct.
“Well, you won’t forget to find us out whenever you do come?” returned Charlotte.
“Certainly not. Thank you.”
“Do you know,” cried Charlotte impulsively, “you are strangely different in manner, George Godolphin! You have grown as cold and formal as a block of ice. Hasn’t he, Dolf?”
“If he has, it’s your fault,” was the satisfactory answer of Dolf. “You keep firing off such a heap of personal questions, Charlotte. I see no difference in Mr. Godolphin; but he has had a good deal of trouble, you know.”
“Shall we ever hear of you?” continued Charlotte, pushing back Dolf with her elbow, and completely eclipsing his meek face with her sweeping scarlet feather.
“No doubt you will, Mrs. Pain, from one source or another. Not that I shall be a voluminous correspondent with England, I expect: except, perhaps, with Ashlydyat.”
“Well, fare you well, George,” she said, holding out both her gauntleted hands. “You seem rather cranky this morning, but I forgive you; it is trying to the spirits to leave one’s native place for good and all. I wish you all good luck with my best heart!”
“Thank you,” he said, taking the hands within his own and shaking them: “thank you always. Good-bye. Good-bye, Mr. Pain.”
Mr. Pain shook hands less demonstratively than his wife, and his leave-taking, if quiet, was not less sincere. George piloted them to the gangway, and saw them pulled ashore in the little boat.
They ascended to the carriage, which to all appearance had been keeping up a perpetual commotion since they left it, the fault probably of its horses and dogs; and Charlotte, taking her high seat, dashed away in style; her whip flourishing, the dogs barking, her red feather tossing and gleaming. What she will do when these feathers go out of fashion it’s hard to say: Charlotte could hardly stir out without one.
And by-and-by, the anchor up, the tug attached, the good ship Indus was fairly on her way, being towed smoothly down the river under command of her pilot. The passengers were tormenting themselves still: the sailors seemed to be perpetually hurrying hither and thither, the steward was in a tumult: but George Godolphin, wrapped in his grey plaid, remained in his place, quiet and still, gazing out over the bows of the vessel. What were his reflections, as his native land began to recede from his eyes? Did he regret it? Did he regret the position he had lost; the ruin he had wrought; the death of his wife? Did he, finally, regret the inevitable Past, with all its mistakes and sins? — and think that if it could only come over again, he would act differently? Possibly so. Once he lifted his hat, and pushed the golden hair further from his brow, from his handsome face, not less bright or handsome than of yore — except in its expression. In that, there was an unmistakable look of weary sadness, never before seen on the features of gay George Godolphin.
And when, hours after, the rest of the cabin passengers were summoned to dinner, he never stirred, but kept his place there, looking far into the dusky night, glancing up at the stars that came glittering out in the blue canopy of heaven.
A safe landing to him on the shores of Calcutta! A safe and sure landing on a different shore that must come after it!
And Mr. and Mrs. Pain’s dinner-parties in Belgravia are a great success.
THE END
VERNER’S PRIDE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHA
PTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHAPTER XL.
CHAPTER XLI.
CHAPTER XLII.
CHAPTER XLIII.
CHAPTER XLIV.
CHAPTER XLV.
CHAPTER XLVI.
CHAPTER XLVII.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
CHAPTER XLIX.
CHAPTER L.
CHAPTER LI.
CHAPTER LII.
CHAPTER LIII.
CHAPTER LIV.
CHAPTER LV.
CHAPTER LVI.
CHAPTER LVII.
CHAPTER LVIII.
CHAPTER LIX.
CHAPTER LX.
CHAPTER LXI.
CHAPTER LXII.
CHAPTER LXIII.
CHAPTER LXIV.
CHAPTER LXV.
CHAPTER LXVI.
CHAPTER LXVII.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
CHAPTER LXIX.
CHAPTER LXX.
CHAPTER LXXI.
CHAPTER LXXII.
CHAPTER LXXIII.
CHAPTER LXXIV.
CHAPTER LXXV.
CHAPTER LXXVI.
CHAPTER LXXVII.
CHAPTER LXXVIII.
CHAPTER LXXIX.
CHAPTER LXXX.
CHAPTER LXXXI.
CHAPTER LXXXII.
CHAPTER LXXXIII.
CHAPTER LXXXIV.
CHAPTER LXXXV.
CHAPTER LXXXVI.
CHAPTER LXXXVII.
CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
CHAPTER LXXXIX.
CHAPTER XC.
CHAPTER XCI.
CHAPTER XCII.
CHAPTER XCIII.
CHAPTER XCIV.
CHAPTER XCV.
CHAPTER I.
RACHEL FROST.
The slanting rays of the afternoon sun, drawing towards the horizon, fell on a fair scene of country life; flickering through the young foliage of the oak and lime trees, touching the budding hedges, resting on the growing grass, all so lovely in their early green, and lighting up with flashes of yellow fire the windows of the fine mansion, that, rising on a gentle eminence, looked down on that fair scene as if it were its master, and could boast the ownership of those broad lands, of those gleaming trees.
Not that the house possessed much attraction for those whose taste savoured of the antique. No time-worn turrets were there, or angular gables, or crooked eaves, or mullioned Gothic casements, so chary of glass that modern eyes can scarcely see in or out; neither was the edifice constructed of gray stone, or of bricks gone black and green with age. It was a handsome, well-built white mansion, giving the promise of desirable rooms inside, whose chimneys did not smoke or their windows rattle, and where there was sufficient space to turn in. The lower windows opened on a gravelled terrace, which ran along the front of the house, a flight of steps descending from it in its midst. Gently sloping lawns extended from the terrace, on either side the steps and the broad walks which branched from them; on which lawns shone gay parterres of flowers already scenting the air, and giving promise of the advancing summer. Beyond, were covered walks, affording a shelter from the sultry noontide sun; shrubberies and labyrinths of many turnings and windings, so suggestive of secret meetings, were secret meetings desirable; groves of scented shrubs exhaling their perfume; cascades and rippling fountains; mossy dells, concealing the sweet primrose, the sweeter violet; and verdant, sunny spots open to the country round, to the charming distant scenery. These open spots had their benches, where you might sit and feast the eyes through the live-long summer day.
It was not summer yet — scarcely spring — and the sun, I say, was drawing to its setting, lighting up the large clear panes of the windows as with burnished gold. The house, the ornamental grounds, the estate around, all belonged to Mr. Verner. It had come to him by bequest, not by entailed inheritance. Busybodies were fond of saying that it never ought to have been his; that, if the strict law of right and justice had been observed, it would have gone to his elder brother; or, rather, to that elder brother’s son. Old Mr. Verner, the father of these two brothers, had been a modest country gentleman, until one morning when he awoke to the news that valuable mines had been discovered on his land. The mines brought him in gold, and in his later years he purchased this estate, pulled down the house that was upon it — a high, narrow, old thing, looking like a crazy tower or a capacious belfry — and had erected this one, calling it “Verner’s Pride.”
An appropriate name. For if ever poor human man was proud of a house he has built, old Mr. Verner was proud of that — proud to folly. He laid out money on it in plenty; he made the grounds belonging to it beautiful and seductive as a fabled scene from fairyland; and he wound up by leaving it to the younger of his two sons.
These two sons constituted all his family. The elder of them had gone into the army early, and left for India; the younger had remained always with his father, the helper of his money-making, the sharer of the planning out and building of Verner’s Pride, the joint resident there after it was built. The elder son — Captain Verner then — paid one visit only to England, during which visit he married, and took his wife out with him when he went back. These long-continued separations, however much we may feel inclined to gloss over the fact, do play strange havoc with home affections, wearing them away inch by inch.
The years went on and on. Captain Verner became Colonel Sir Lionel Verner, and a boy of his had been sent home in due course, and was at Eton. Old Mr. Verner grew near to death. News went out to India that his days were numbered, and Sir Lionel Verner was instructed to get leave of absence, if possible, and start for home without a day’s loss, if he would see his father alive. “If possible,” you observe, they put to the request; for the Sikhs were at that time giving trouble in our Indian possessions, and Colonel Verner was one of the experienced officers least likely to be spared.
But there is a mandate that must be obeyed whenever it comes — grim, imperative death. At the very hour when Mr. Verner was summoning his son to his death-bed, at the precise time that military authority in India would have said, if asked, that Colonel Sir Lionel Verner could not be spared, death had marked out that brave officer for his own especial prey. He fell in one of the skirmishes that took place near Moultan, and the two letters — one going to Europe with tidings of his death, the other going to India with news of his father’s illness — crossed each other on the route.
“Steevy,” said old Mr. Verner to his younger son, after giving a passing lament to Sir Lionel, “I shall leave Verner’s Pride to you.”
“Ought it not to go to the lad at Eton, father?” was the reply of Stephen Verner.
“What’s the lad at Eton to me?” cried the old man. “I’d not have left it away from Lionel, as he stood first, but it has always seemed to me that you had the most right to it; that to leave it away from you savoured of injustice. You were at its building, Steevy; it has been your home as much as it has been mine; and I’ll never turn you from it for a stranger, let him be whose child he may. No, no! Verner’s Pride shall be yours. But, look you, Stephen! you have no children; bring up young Lionel as your heir, and let it descend to him after you.”
And that is how Stephen Verner had inherited Verner’s Pride. Neighbouring gossipers, ever fonder of laying down the law for other people’s business than of minding their own, protested against it among themselves as a piece of injustice. Had they cause? Many very just-minded persons would consider that Stephen Verner possessed more fair claim to it than the boy at Eton.
I will tell you of one who did not consider so. And that was the widow of Sir Lionel Verner. When she arrived from India with her other two children, a son and daughter, she found old Mr. Verner dead, and Stephen the inheritor. Deeply annoyed and disappointed, Lady Verner deemed that a crying wrong had been perpetrated upon her and hers. But she had no power to undo it.
Stephen Verner had strictly fulfilled
his father’s injunctions touching young Lionel. He brought up the boy as his heir. During his educational days at Eton and at college, Verner’s Pride was his holiday home, and he subsequently took up his permanent residence at it. Stephen Verner, though long married, had no children. One daughter had been born to him years ago, but had died at three or four years old. His wife had died a very short while subsequent to the death of his father. He afterwards married again, a widow lady of the name of Massingbird, who had two nearly grown-up sons. She had brought her sons home with her to Verner’s Pride, and they had made it their home since.
Mr. Verner kept it no secret that his nephew Lionel was to be his heir; and, as such, Lionel was universally regarded on the estate. “Always provided that you merit it,” Mr. Verner would say to Lionel in private; and so he had said to him from the very first. “Be what you ought to be — what I fondly believe my brother Lionel was: a man of goodness, of honour, of Christian integrity; a gentleman in the highest acceptation of the term — and Verner’s Pride shall undoubtedly be yours. But if I find you forget your fair conduct, and forfeit the esteem of good men, so surely will I leave it away from you.”
And that is the introduction. And now we must go back to the golden light of that spring evening.
Ascending the broad flight of steps and crossing the terrace, the house door is entered. A spacious hall, paved with delicately-grained marble, its windows mellowed by the soft tints of stained glass, whose pervading hues are of rose and violet, gives entrance to reception rooms on either side. Those on the right hand are mostly reserved for state occasions; those on the left are dedicated to common use. All these rooms are just now empty of living occupants, save one. That one is a small room on the right, behind the two grand drawing-rooms, and it looks out on the side of the house towards the south. It is called “Mr. Verner’s study.” And there sits Mr. Verner himself in it, leaning back in his chair and reading. A large fire burns in the grate, and he is close to it: he is always chilly.
Ay, always chilly. For Mr. Verner’s last illness — at least, what will in all probability prove his last, his ending — has already laid hold of him. One generation passes away after another. It seems but the other day that a last illness seized upon his father, and now it is his turn: but several years have elapsed since then. Mr. Verner is not sixty, and he thinks that age is young for the disorder that has fastened on him. It is no hurried disorder; he may live for years yet; but the end, when it does come, will be tolerably sudden: and that he knows. It is water on the chest. He is a little man with light eyes; very much like what his father was before him: but not in the least like his late brother Sir Lionel, who was a very fine and handsome man. He has a mild, pleasing countenance: but there arises a slight scowl to his brow as he turns hastily round at a noisy interruption.